#gonna let you decide whether his feelings are legitimate or not

[thatgirlonstage]

Okay spitballing this theory just bc if I’m right I’m gonna feel really smart and bc I am unable to stop feverishly Jamesposting

[please forgive character name spellings, I am listening to this in audiobook, there’s no wiki, and I don’t want to go tag searching in case of spoilers, so I am just taking my best guess here, please let me know how they’re actually spelled]

What if the collar, at least initially, was not about stripping Anharion of his agency but about giving him an out?

If you posit that Sarsean may have had legitimate reasons to rebel against the Sun King (ffs his moniker is THE SUN KING) then you’re suddenly raising a lot more questions about why someone would or wouldn’t side with him. In addition to which, Will’s line of speculation about whether he and Anharion faced each other across the battlefield, especially coming RIGHT BEFORE That Fucking Collar Scene, tickled my brain a bit—I’m wondering if Anharion volunteered to let Sarsean put the collar on the first time, too.

If you’re the Sun King’s Golden General, bound by loyalty + who knows what ancient, potentially magical oaths, and you decide maybe that your Good Friend Sarsean has a point and you would like to turn on the king you initially swore allegiance to, actually, well—if your will wasn’t your own anymore, you can’t be breaking your oath, can you?

Obviously “you can make me do whatever you want for the rest of my life” is an insane amount of your agency to hand over, but if you thought you could trust someone not to abuse it, or you thought you had safeguards/a way to undo it, and you didn’t see another way to escape a different, more immediately harmful imposition on your free will…

[hannah-h-pleb]

Ahh…so I failed at putting out two pieces of writing PLUS, this is later than I anticipated

BUT, I still present you with some brand new Cartman content 😛

I believe someone already wrote about this, but I’m gonna give my interpretation as well because why not. Harley, this one’s for you dear 😘😚 @h-harleybaby

Mad Scientist! Cartman x Assistant Fem! Reader: NSFW Headcanons

Content Advisory: Smut (18+) minors DNI, mentions of blood, hints of dumbification and BDSM, aged up characters

So you’ve gone and fallen for the mad scientist have you? How unfortunate for you, even more so the fact that you’re his assistant. You’re the one who’s there to witness all of his experiments, and provide him with the tools he needs to successfully complete said experiments

This isn’t just any mad scientist however. This mad scientist is none other than Eric Cartman

Mad Scientist Cartman is not what you would expect in all honesty. One would expect someone as cocky as Cartman to barrel into things without a single thought. Incorrect

Mad Scientist Cartman is, actually legitimately scary. Why? Because his experiments are highly calculated and well thought out. When he’s busy conducting or planning his experiments, he gets eerily quiet, and it’s wise not to interrupt his thought process unless you really want to see him angry. The only time he speaks is when he needs you to grab a tool for him, or if he needs you to bring him a bag of his beloved cheesy poofs. Y’know, brain food

Despite how intimidating he is, you admire his work. Day by day you sit in on his experiment sessions and watch as he carefully plans everything out to a tee, and how well he carries himself during the experiments. He really is smarter than what people give him credit for. That and he always keeps a clean work space, even if it gets messy with blood or chemicals

Yes, you admire the man, but you can’t bring yourself to tell him out of fear of changing the dynamic between you two. What you don’t know, is he’s admiring you too. Oh yes, he admires his faithful assistant who always does as she’s told without question, and god you look cute while you do so. His assistant who is always at his beck and call whenever he needs her. He often wonders, what else could he make you do?

Then…he starts getting ideas..

So one day during an experiment on some poor unfortunate soul (please god someone get the reference), he pushes his chair back. You assume he’s simply going to ask you for another tool or maybe something to drink, until you hear him say “You. On your knees. Now.”

The authority behind his voices makes you shiver. You assume he’s joking until you look into his eyes and see that he’s dead serious. You drop to your knees immediately. Chuckling, he stands over you and unbuckles his belt

The scientist lets out a series of moans and groans as he shoves his cock as far down your throat as he can, not caring whether you can breathe or not. Despite being overwhelmed with pleasure, this does not stop Cartman from calling you names, reminding you that you’re just his pathetic little assistant who’s been so desperate to feel his cock down your throat. He’s interested in how much you can take, and his cock throbs in your mouth as he ponders what his next move will be

Once he’s done having his way with your face, he decides to switch things up, and next thing you know he’s got you bent over his desk with his dick deep inside of you and a fistful of your hair. Best believe this man shows no mercy on you either

He wants you to cry and beg him to slow down because “it’s too much”. The mad scientist doesn’t seem to care how rough he’s being or how hard he’s fucking you. Right now, he’s conducting a more personal experiment: How much can you take before you go dumb on his cock?

Cartman only laughs at you when he hears you start to sob. His grip on your hair tightens as he pulls your head back towards him. “Why’re you crying, hm? C’mon, I thought you wanted this. If you’re crying now, you’re in for a long night doll~”

In the spirit of seeing how far he can push you, he really likes to fuck you in the ass and finger your pussy at the same time. Double the stimulation, double the pleasure for the both of you

Can imagine that he’s left you tied up with a vibrator on your clit and left you like that while he resumes his experiments. As much as he hates to admit, the sound of your whiny little moans makes his cock twitch in his pants, it’s almost painful for him, but he refuses to give in because he doesn’t want you to think you have any power over him at all

Mad Scientist Cartman is more than likely into knife play. Think of all the sharp tools he owns. He’s definitely held one of those tools up to your neck and told you not to make a sound or he’d cut your neck open. He’s drawn blood more than once. He wants to know how easily he can make you bleed, and watching the blood drip down your neck is a huge turn on for him

Not only does this man own tools, he owns PLENTY of toys. And he’s using as many as he can on you, from vibrators to dildos to handcuffs. He’s definitely tied you down and laid you on his desk, just so he could pour candle wax on your body just to see how much pain you could take

Oh yes…Mad Scientist Cartman is a huge sadist all the way. But soooome times, and only sometimes, he doesn’t hate when the roles are reversed and he’s the one taking the pain and getting overstimulated, but that’s a subject for another time 😉

Just as a good scientist conducts good experiments, Cartman is very good at what he does to his partner. Having experimented on live bodies, he has a good idea of which buttons to push to make someone tick. He’s interested in how far he can push things with you so that he can feed his sadistic side. You may be his assistant by day, but you’re his whiny little painslut by night

Ngl I feel like I could’ve done better than this but it ain’t too shabby! Might write a little blurb for Kenny tomorrow we’ll see

Love you sillies 🫶🫶

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Going Trick or Treating with Ted Logan would include~

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(This is super late but it was in my drafts and finished so here~)

- Ted spent a lot of his childhood being “the older brother” so even though Halloween is arguably his favorite holiday, he’s very lax about how he wants to spend it. He’s down for whatever you want to do and sort of just tags along; happy to be there and spending time with you. 

- Don’t expect a ton of input when you ask what he wants to be/dress up as. You’ll get a very excited and adamant “for sure” when you question him on whether or not he wants to dress up; and probably if he wants to be in a couples costume with you, but he’ll always respond with an enthusiastic “I don’t know” whenever you ask for any specifics. 

- So yeah, it’s more or less your decision to make. You probably choose to be something like a Rockstar and his girlfriend; since it’s a fairly fitting costume all thing considered, but if you’re more of a “this is my one chance a year to dress like an idiot” kind of person, he’ll gladly wear one of those silly foam outfits as well. 

- Whatever you guys choose; he’s not embarrassed in the slightest. It’s Halloween, you’re supposed to dress up and look silly. And what’s silly anyways? He’s having fun so who cares.

- But, speaking of costumes: he has absolutely zero focus while browsing the aisles of the Halloween store. He’s bouncing from image to image and getting distracted from/forgetting about the ones he’s already considering because he’s immediately focused on another one. You’ll probably not even wind up buying any of them either, you’ll go home empty handed and just choose something from your closet at the very last minute. 

- I don’t think Ted is capable of getting embarrassed: like he legitimately can’t feel shame; at least 90% of the time. He’d happily go trick or treating with you and wouldn’t even bat an eye at the prospect of people your age seeing and making fun of you. He’s simply here to have a good time, and honestly? Good for him. 

 - As much as he loves trick or treating, he loves sitting on the curb and talking with you even more. The longer the night drags on and the more you decide to “stop for a second” the better; especially when you shiver and he gets to scoot in extra close to “keep you warm”. 

- He’s constantly touching: holding your hand, leaning on you, hugging you from behind, rubbing his hands on your arms to warm you up, etc. He’s affectionate and considerate, thank you very much. 

- He insists on carrying your candy when he see’s that you’re struggling; even if you insist that you’re fine. How he manages to carry both your bags, along with you on his back a majority of the time, never ceases to confuse and amaze you.

- On that note: piggyback rides; especially if you were dumb and decided to wear uncomfortable shoes.  

- The two of you probably cross paths with his brother during the night and the two of them have a stand off in the middle of the street. He almost runs after and tackles him when he makes a comment about how good you look. 

- If he was wearing a big latex mask or let you put makeup on him, you’d have to lift it up to kiss him or would wind up with lipstick/face paint all over your face from him kissing you everywhere. I don’t know, it’s just a cute thought. 

- He wreaks havoc on his bag of candy. He leaves the night with half of what he collected because of just how much he snacks on his stash. How he doesn’t throw up before morning is genuinely beyond you. 

- He would be conflicted but he’d wind up giving you the last/only piece of candy that he has that the two of you mutually love. Like if you had one snickers bar in both your bags combined, he’d really want to have it but he’d know that it’s your favorite so he’d drop it into your bag instead. 

- Speaking of: he knows what you love and hate so he swaps stuff out without even saying anything, or grabs something to eat from your pile without asking because he knows you’re gonna give them to him by the end of the night anyway. 

- Bill would probably tease the two of you for going out and trick or treating but he’d definitely feel a bit conflicted about whether or not he should have gone afterwards. 

- By the end of the night you’re an itchy costume, makeup covered pile of limbs and you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

[forgottenroderick]

OOC | Varmonts & Staffords

ok so this is...smth absolutely no one ever asked for but im trya work out my thoughts. so in the comment i just wrote, arthur wanted to address aria and i realized i had no idea what her title would be in his eyes bc, of course, it'd be whatever his dad told him it was skldjfskldjfdsf roderick out here having a stranglehold on everything he touches aksjdfksf but anyway!!!!

so!!!!! in general, when roderick conquers a nation, he executes their royalty and declares that ~he is now king/lord/prince/ruler of that place (i feel like atp all his titles listed would put even daenerys targaryen to shame ;D) and overall emperor of everything within his vast dominion etc

BUT!! astaira is both the largest and most rebellious land he's conquered so far and so he's treading a bit more carefully than usual. fortunately for him, its ruled by a woman, so his idea is to marry her and thus rule both by conquest and by marriage (and in future potentially by blood should their children succeed him) in order to help keep the ppl happy. this would mean ~not stripping the royals of their titles.

HOWEVER, while he's cool w letting the marriage further consolidate his claim to role, he doesn't wish it to be seen as LEGITIMIZING it. he wants it clear he rules in his own right and, out of his big hearted ways to his ppl or whatever, he chose to take the former ruler to wife so that her line may continue etc etc etc.

SO!! im thinking that what his plan is, is to remove eilia's title as queen, making her simply a princess of a royal line, and then when they marry re-crown her queen as well as empress and the lady wife vers of all of his various titles. so yeah!!! i think his initial plan was that all the staffords maintain their rank as princesses.

HOWEVER!! there is a fly in the ointment and her name is siobhan!!!! there's a missing princess out there and, having still her full royal titles isn't smth he wants out there if HE can't control it

SO!! nd this is NUTS!! but i think he's officially launched an investigation into the legitimacy of their parents' union to last however long it takes to bring in siobhan either dead or alive laksjdfkjlsdfkjsjfdsf so for the moment their legitimacy is in question and, therefore, whether or not they have any royal rights and dignities, legally speaking

i imagine their marriage was indeed legal hahaha and i doubt there's anything besides trumped up evidence against it, but its smth to keep things at least a lil off-kilter while there's a rogue princess out there doubtless stirring up the ppl and while eilia is refusing his hand

once siobhan is found and eilia agrees to marry him, the courts will rule in favor of a legitimate marriage having taken place, and the trumped up evidence will be found to have been fabricated, with those who forged these lies and falsehoods duly punished. now, what will be complicated is if eilia agrees to marry him before siobhan is found!!!! i think in that case, he'd produce 'evidence' that she died of some evidence w/o his superior doctors there to save her or whatever, while secretly continuing to search but ANYWAY atm he's banking on the idea that his v experienced bounty hunters will produce her, one way or the other, any moment now!!!! lakjsdfkjdsf

should siobhan appear and he prove unable to seize her, the court will rule their illegimacy but it'll be ok in the end bc his true love (lol) for eilionora his bride will trump these scandalous findings and he will showcase his goodness by marrying her anyway and STILL crowning her despite her being baseborn lakjsdfkjldsf so there you have it. obv, if she doesn't marry him, she'll remain a blasted bastard etc

as to my initial question of what their titles are while the court is pending, that's sort of...up to the individual. arthur will, of course, go w 'my lady' bc if his dad is choosing to question their legitimacy, he's not gonna question ~that hahaha but yeah nothing's been decided one way or another so there's neither a correct nor an incorrect way to do it in that respect since its all up in the air. 'lady' would, i'm guessing, be their title if they were found to be bastards bc they are, of course, still of royal blood and therefore noble, since in history that's usually how it went -- when elizabeth i was declared a bastrad she was still known as 'the lady elizabeth' etc, but idk how this world handles things like that, lizzy? but yeah as a result i went w 'my lady' in the comment but can def change it!!!!

TL;DR: roderick is worried about siobhan's royal authority being out in the world, so to help counter that im thinking he's launching a public investigation going as to whether or not the stafford girls are illegitimate, and therefore have any right to royal dignities and powers at all slkajfklsjfjd he also has a plan to deal w the fallout of this once things, inevitably, go entirely his way, one way or another ;D

EDIT:

omggggggg im thinking about it and realizing that he might even -- while everyone's gathered for the celebration of his daughter's bday but after that's all kinda done with -- have some astairan-born court official (whose family will be immediately after released from prison after the charges against them are weirdly found to have just...vanished huh but def don't think abt that) run in and breathlessly announce:

'OMG WE JUST FOUND THESE TROUBLING DOCS THAT PROVE THE LATE SO-CALLED QUEEN WASNT THE LATE KING OF ASTAIRA'S LEGIT WIFE AT ALL BC THE KING WAS ALREADY MARRIED (to some woman who either was still alive then but is now convneintly v dead, or else just got a v mysterious landfall out of nowhere and can somehow now afford jewels and palaces she never could before which isn't at all suspicious and we def shouldn't question that), AND OBV THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN PULL OFF POLYGAMY IS OUR LORD AND SAVIOR THE GOD-GIVEN GREAT EMPEROR'

and roderick will ofc be duly shocked and aPPaLLeD and proceed to harshly judge a man who (supposedly) took multiple brides ;D as he calls for a full formal investigation of the issue that'll drag on as long as he wants it to alksdfjkjsdf the announcement will b VERY dramatic lakjsdfakljdsj ;D

(in which case i'll go back and change arthur's mode of address to your highness bc she's not considered potentially illegitimate ~yet kajdfjklsdjf)

[iwritesickfic]

Any of your OCs terribly sick with a nasty stomach bug and after recovering spreads it to their caretaker partner so the roles get reversed

thanks for the prompt! I took "terribly sick" very seriously, lol

Theo’s very uncomfortable, and for once it isn’t because he’s sick. It’s because Seamus is. It’s a rare occurrence - it happens maybe once or twice a year, and it almost never last more than a day or two. Rarer still is something that legitimately makes him feel awful. And something Theo’s seen only once or twice before is an actual fever. 

It just so happens that they’ve hit the jackpot with whatever stomach bug he has, because he’s been vomiting for the last two days and they're going strong into day three. And he's miserable. And he's running a fever. 

Since he spiked the fever yesterday he's quarantined himself in the studio. It's on their third floor, and he's told Theo to not come up under any circumstances. Sure, there's a nice couch up there and a bathroom and everything, but it makes Theo feel like shit that Seamus is all alone. Especially because whenever he's sick, Seamus makes sure he's never all alone. Still, every time he's even suggested coming up, Seamus has shot him down vehemently.

Theo's been standing on the landing between the second and third floor for about five minutes, holding a mug of tea, debating whether to go up. Finally, he decides he will.

The minute Seamus sees him he sighs.

"Baby," he says, and he sounds so exhausted and sick that Theo's regretting that he didn't come up sooner. But he's not just exhausted, he sounds exasperated.

"I'm just supposed to leave you up here by yourself?" He asks, leaning on the stair railing.

"Yes," he says. He looks like he hasn't slept, his eyes rimmed in purple behind his glasses. He's shivering in his sweatshirt. He's so pale too, all the usual color in his face totally washed out. Theo takes a few steps closer and Seamus sighs. "You do not wanna catch this, love."

"What if I do?"

"You don't," he says, voice clipped and short. He's lying on the couch that's against the back wall of the studio, his laptop resting on an apple box, another apple box next to it holding an empty mug and a few different bottles of medication. His massive gallon water bottle is there too. There's a wastebasket sitting next to the whole setup, presumably for when Seamus can't make it to the bathroom. Theo keeps walking and Seamus actually groans. "Please, T, I can't do this right now. My head kills. Just go back downstairs."

"No." Theo crosses his arms. "You don't want me up here?" Seamus sighs and rubs his eyes. 

"I…" he trails off, swallowing hard. "It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, ok?"

"Well what if I wanna sacrifice too?"

"It's different." Seamus sounds so fed up, but Theo doesn't want to drop this.

"How?"

"Because I already feel really fucking bad and I know if you get it it's gonna be ten times worse." He has a point, but Theo can't make himself care enough to go back downstairs.

"Whatever." Theo crouches down so they're face to face, and lays his hand on Seamus's forehead. Seamus's eyes fall closed and he moans softly, low in the back of his throat. The heat of his skin is shocking. "You're on fire, Shay."

"I know," he mumbles, eyes still closed.

"Well I know you probably took Tylenol already, so-" Seamus shakes his head. "What? You're kidding." Usually Seamus is extremely on top of that kind of thing.

"Can't keep it down," he says, and Theo feels a pang of worry. "I told you baby, it's bad." His voice is hoarse.

"We should get you in a real bed," he says, and starts to run his hand through Seamus's hair. 

"It's not worth it to walk all the way there." It’s only a flight of stairs and a hallway, but Seamus is shaking just lying here.

"Sit up for a second," Theo says, and Seamus does. Theo settles himself down and when Seamus lays back, his head is in his lap. He sighs and curls closer to him, sighing when Theo strokes his hair. “Just let me be here,” he says softly, and Seamus sighs again, heavily, but nods.

Four days later, when Seamus is completely over his illness, Theo isn't surprised when he wakes up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach cramps. He curls closer into Seamus’s body. He's freezing, even under their heavy comforter.

Seamus stirs, his eyes cracking open.

"Mm?" He murmurs, and Theo buries his face in Seamus's t-shirt. "Shh, it's ok. You're ok," he mumbles, wrapping his arms around him and pressing a sleepy kiss to his head. He must think it's a nightmare. Theo gets them pretty regularly.

His whole body tenses and shivers when his stomach flips particularly harshly, and Seamus seems to wake up a little bit more. 

"Shh. Hey," he says, voice still quiet. When a moan slips out of Theo's mouth, he starts to rub his back. "What is it?"

"Stomach," he whispers back, and Seamus sighs. 

"Do you need me to get a bucket?" He asks, and Theo shakes his head. He doesn't want to throw up, even though part of him knows it's inevitable. But most of all he doesn't want Seamus to leave him. The only thing he ever wants when he's sick is Seamus's touch, Seamus's presence. He wonders if Seamus feels the same way. He should be regretting taking care of him, but it's only convincing him even more he made the right decision.

"I love you so much," he whispers, and Seamus keeps rubbing his back.

"I love you too."

He ends up needing the bucket. Multiple times. He hasn't been this sick to his stomach in years. The fever is bad too, hovering around 102 even after ice and the extra strength ibuprofen he may or may not have fully absorbed before throwing up again. They're up the rest of the night, then all through the next morning and afternoon.

He feels like death. His whole body is aching, he’s exhausted, and he’s so drained from the fever he can’t even stand. Even Seamus seems a little panicked, which is unusual considering that he’s seen Theo at his absolute worst. His instincts were right that Theo would be destroyed whatever virus this is, but still, Theo doesn’t regret it. 

Even if Seamus only felt a fraction of what he’s feeling right now, it would still be hell. And Theo wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let him go through that by himself. 

Still, he’s so fucking sick. He clings to Seamus like a little kid, curled up almost all the way in his lap, shaking so hard that Seamus’s arms are the only thing keeping him from falling over. 

He doesn’t feel like he’s sleeping, but he must be, because he’s having fever dreams. Nightmares, more like. He’ll wake up sobbing into Seamus’s t-shirt, cloaked in cold sweat. Once, he wakes up in the bath, shivering in water that feels like ice with a thermometer under his tongue and Seamus stroking his hair. 

And of course, he’s vomiting. A lot. Anything that goes into his mouth is coming back out within the hour. Usually sooner. And it won’t stop once that mouthful of water or couple of pills is up. He’ll keep heaving until he has absolutely nothing left in his stomach. His cheeks are blotchy pink from burst blood vessels and all the muscles in his back and sides are sore.

They talk about it when he’s in the tub. It’s day two. Or three. It all runs together. 

“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” Seamus whispers, and Theo shakes his head. “I am. It’s my fault. I should’ve gone to Zeke’s or gotten a hotel room or just-” His voice breaks and he stops. Theo can’t tell if there are tears in his eyes or if he’s just imagining it. “I don’t know. I should’ve…We should’ve just had a fight and maybe you wouldn’t be speaking to me but at least you wouldn’t…” He trails off.

“Don’t be sorry,” Theo says, even though his voice is so hoarse it’s more of a whisper. “I’ve gotten you sick a bunch of times.”

“Not 104-fever sick. Not…vomit-until-you-pass-out sick.”

“It’s temporary, Shay. It was worth it.”

“Don’t lie to make me feel better.”

“I’m not. I swear. You deserve…” a wave of lightheadedness washes over him and he stops, closing his eyes. “You deserve to be taken care of.” Seamus nods, but he doesn’t look convinced. “What if it was flipped? Would you just leave me?” Seamus bites his lip.

“No,” he says, voice clipped.

“Right. So shut up,” he whispers, and Seamus chokes out a laugh.

[alfiely-art]

I’ll go ahead and do it.

Makoto Kagutsuchi. Tell me all your thoughts about our silly little goof.

You have unleashed the beast AAAARGH

I'm gonna follow the number prompts but. Be prepared. This is gonna be long.

Okay before I talk about my first impression, you all need to understand. I went into this game almost entirely blind. The only characters I had seen were Yuma and Shinigami (of course), along with the train detectives, Swank, and the NDA (except Yakou). I also skipped the intro. I had no idea that Makoto existed. So. Imagine. I'm playing the game, all concerned about the NDA, and I(Yuma) wake up in this fancy ass bed. Immediately, I think, "is this some wattpad fanfiction? I've been sold to Raincode BTS....". I walk out of the bedroom. The cutscene starts. This skinny, naked little twink with a funky ass mask takes up my screen, giggles, does a bow, and Immediately my heart is stolen. This funky little guy has taken the top spot of my favorites. And he just continues getting better. He's SO eccentric and SO silly. He's ominous and I've decided he is best boy. Then there's the rest of the middest chapter in the game, and I'm feeling bored, then he takes a good scene with Yomi and makes it EVEN BETTER. Teasing what I thought was the big bad, immediately making all the other characters tense- he just. Commanded everyone's attention, in and out of the game. It's very rare for a character to be able to do that, and he just... does it consistently.

I have so many headcanons guys. Can you believe it. Alfie having headcanons about Makoto. Anyways! I think part of the massive walk-in closet he definitely has is dedicated to masks. The masks on his page in the art book and countless others. He also bleaches his hair. Also, I've talked about this before, but I think he had a similar relationship with the previous CEO that Yuma has with Yakou. A mentor of sorts, but definitely not just a boss and his employee dynamic. Oh, and I think he's got cool fangs. What's the point of being a homunculus if you don't get cool animalistic features. Also he is schizospec. Why? Because he's just like me fr. He's got the schizoid dilemma built into him from the ground up

Legitimately I don't think I have any complaints about Makoto. Like. There was never any point where I wasn't absolutely invested in what he was doing and fawning over him. Okay well actually I do have one complaint. Why don't I get to have gumshoe gabs with him, huh? Let me interact more with him. Maybe Yuma was feverish and shit after Makoto rescued him, so he forgot about their interactions. Please. I need it.

MAKOYUMA RAHHHHHH. Okay sorry I'll be normal. Anyway, I really like makoyuma. Sue me. My very first ship was selfcest, I guess I'm returning to my roots. I shipped them from the very moment Makoto showed up because there was just... so much he was hinting at. Of course, my initial theory was that Yuma was a homunculus and Makoto was either number one or closely related to Number One. But it was clear to me that Yuma and Makoto had SOME sort of connection, and I was right. Chapter five made me jaw drop. DESPITE ME GETTING SPOILED FOR MAKOTOS FACE. thanks Google. I still didn't realize what it meant when I saw it while trying to find a picture of Makoto to send to my friend... so it still shocked me. Anyway, Makoyuma just... has so much to it. Whether you're focusing on fluff or angst or hell, even dead dove shit. They can do it all. They're so complicated and I love them for that. They're very close to my heart. Other Makoto ships I enjoy are Makoyomi and, woah rarepairs, makoto + vivia and makoto + desuhiko. Makoyomi is a looney toons ass toxic yaoi and I think makoto and vivia would have a very interesting dynamic (not necessarily romantic), especially since... Makoto orchestrated Yakou's death. And with Makoto and Desuhiko I just like the idea of these goofballs being wacky.

Overall opinion: I have. Not been this obsessed with a character since Kiibo Danganronpa and Scaramouche Genshin. You know hyperfixations? Its like that. But I'm not autistic so it's not a hyperfixation. And mine involves adopting him into my identity. Permanently. Makoto is exactly the type of character I like and I enjoy him immensely. Stan Makoto!!!!

[iboatedhere]

I just read Tim's comment, and – meh. It's one thing to read his ideas for this storyline, but a lot of what he's saying just didn't translate well onto screen, and we can only judge the finished product. Also not really a fan of the "if you don't like it, you can fuck off" attitude. If you put something out there, guess what, people are going to have feelings about it and comment on it. Especially if it's something we used to like very much and that suddenly feels different.

It's a swiss cheese plotline.

This gets long so:

He spent the first 90% of that comment justifying what happened in the past---which is not the part that anyone I've seen has a problem with and then follows it up with this doesn't have anything to do with TK which, I'm sorry, yes it does. It does when you decided to have Carlos be married when he accepted TK's proposal and only tell TK when his hand was forced. He's married, which is now stopping him and TK from being married. It has to do with TK when you have her walk out without signing the divorce papers, and leave him wondering if she will in time for him and Carlos to get married. When you send him to the shelter to talk to her. When you have Carlos blaming him for her going missing and then have Carlos being a dick to him all episode long. "Can't let go of bad relationship"....what does that even mean? Shooting daggers at him while he worked on Iris? Dude, c'mon.

He could have removed TK from this story. He could've dropped the marriage thing. He could've started with Iris going missing--Carlos found out about it at work or saw it on the news. That could've spurred the guilt plotline of him never checking up on her since she was found at the end of season 1. I could've bought that they were best friends all those years ago and now he's on a hunt to find her again. I could buy this kind of guilt and single minded focus as he throws everything he can into this investigation. I could see him pulling away from TK and the wedding planning because this is important to him, and TK doesn't know her and he doesn't understand what it's like to have someone you care about go missing, twice. He could still find her in that house, she could be okay, the detective still wouldn't believe her and Carlos would and he would go back out and get snatched by that serial killer and we'd be right where we are now without the slights to TK.

But to say that TK isn't involved in this, when his fiancé is married to someone else---whether it was legitimate or not--is just untrue.

To say that Carlos never thought about marrying TK until TK proposed.....They moved in together, they almost died together, he bought the loft for them---for their future--he sat there at TK's bedside after they were broken up for months, he listened to his mother call him the love of TK's life. And he never thought of marriage once? Except he had to have thought of something because Tim even said the only time he thought he could have more was when he first saw TK in the honky tonk that night....what more is he talking about?

Also to say that they just got engaged? After they've been touring venues? He said he thought he had more time, he thought he had 18 months, so clearly he'd been thinking of this. Suddenly it was cut to 8 weeks so he had to make a move. Even Andrea was surprised he hadn't told TK yet so this has been cooking for awhile.

I would honestly be okay with this plot---with Carlos having flaws--because he's human and of course he's not perfect--we saw in 3x13 that he's not perfect---if they were being viewed as flaws but they're not. By the end of 3x13 we saw some serious growth when he put aside his pride and his need to control and called Cooper because that's what TK needed. Currently, Tim has heaped on a mountain of questionable backstory with zero growth. Maybe it'll still happen. Maybe he'll have a dream conversation with Andrea like TK had with Gwyn last season and he'll see the light. I'm not gonna hold my breath, but I'm still hoping this will be resolved in a way that makes sense.

At the end of the day, he's holding onto this idea he had in season 1, cut for time, and then is expecting us all to roll with it two seasons later. There's no there-there. There's nothing on the show that we can look at and go oh yeah that makes sense. You threw this random plot in because he couldn't just kill his darling and move on. He could have had a successful variation of this. He still could have made this work. But he was stubborn and needed to have it this way, and he can do that. It is his show, they are his characters, but when the fans, the people that have watched this show from the start and care about it and the characters have some questions about it, I think that's legit.

But I'm also a big fan of never talking to the actors or creators about it. Talk shit in your own time, in your own space. You would never catch me dead leaving Tim a comment on Facebook of all places.

[martianbugsbunny]

More OUAT S4 Salt (Still Constructively) (Still With An Alternate Solution)

I have taken umbrage. I took it, it’s in a jar on my shelf, the jar has a pretty glittery ribbon on it, and I’m gonna be buried with it someday. The contents of this particular umbrage jar is the writing of Rumple, and to some extent Belle, but mostly Rumple, in season 4, because I could do better than the actual writers did. This post is maybe a little bit scrambly-bambly than my Snowing-Maleficent post, but the points are (you know, in my humble opinion) pretty decent, so go ahead. Give the umbrage jar a shake and read on.

The writing behind Rumple during the Sorcerer’s Hat arc was bogus. He was trying to separate himself from the dagger, and what did the writers pick as his reason? ‘Oh, he just wants power—’ Girl no. He isn’t given a proper motivation. He doesn’t even have a frickin plan for what to do with the real world. Like, at least show me why the hell I should buy that Rumple wants to rule over our world. What could he possibly want with it? How is he planning to take it over?

He was basically fresh from being locked in Zelena’s basement at that point. As a motivation, it makes sense. It connects with a previous storyline. And it’s not half so flimsy as the canon approach. They should’ve leaned hard into that.

Now, I think I can understand why they didn’t want to. If Rumple had actually needed to process that trauma for plot reasons, it would’ve dethroned him from the weird pedestal the writers tend to keep him on, where he gets tiny bits of emotion every now and then but nothing that really affects him. Nothing that really sticks with him and simmers in his brain and makes him vulnerable. Because if it’s vulnerable and sympathetic, then it’s really hard to just keep him in the writers’ back pocket for when they need a bridge villain between other storylines.

Also, if he was trying to ditch the dagger because he didn’t want anyone to ever have the kind of power Zelena had over him again, then that bit with Belle at the end of the episode doesn’t play quite the same. If we know that Rumple is freshly scarred and in pain, doing the wrong thing for a legitimate reason, then we might be a bit angry at Belle.

But, see, I think that would really have worked. Rumple being Rumple, he still probably would not have explained to other people the reasons behind what he was doing, as he would’ve been sneaking around regardless, but he also wouldn’t have explained the mental/emotional trauma that led to his decision. So Belle wouldn’t have known why Rumple was trying to kill Hook and detach himself from the dagger, and she would’ve assumed it was for a selfish reason. At the town line, she would shut him down if he tried to explain, not believing that she could trust anything he said, and he still would’ve been forced out of Storybrooke. Then we see Rumple feeling betrayed, beaten down, and even though we’re glad he didn’t kill Hook, we understand that he was desperate and mentally unhealthy and trying to do the only thing he thought could keep him safe from another person’s control.

Also, in this angle, Rumple’s trauma from the Zelena stuff is played into early, maybe in the form of nightmares or comments to other people that, separately and to those people make no sense, but us with all the information connect to show us his mental state. He still swaps the daggers when he marries Belle, but it’s clear that he does it because he’s having trust issues because of what Zelena did to him. He has some doubts about whether or not he should really go through with his plan, because married life is the kind of good he never thought he could have, and he doesn’t want to hurt Belle, but then she uses the dagger on him when she searches the Snow Queen’s cave, and even though it’s not the real dagger, he decides that he was right and even Belle shouldn’t have that kind of power over him. (Bc let’s be real, Rumple was probably thanking his lucky stars he’d swapped the daggers in canon right then, because Belle is the one person he trusted to never use it on him. That’s like a core idea behind his giving it to her, it’s the main thing he tells her to get her to not use it, and there’s no way he wasn’t reeling a bit at the idea that she would’ve used the dagger’s power on him if it were the real thing.)

Then he tries to take Emma’s power, and does take the fairies’ power, and instead of being like “Rumple you sh*thead,” we’re watching him fall into this spiral of darkness because he’s terrified and he’s not dealing with his issues, and we’re still mad at him for the murder/attempted murder, but we also see that he feels trapped and we feel for him a little bit. Maybe in a moment of overload, he snaps at Hook and tells him more than he planned to, and he kind of just sits down with his head in his hands and Hook almost convinces him not to give in to the darkness. Then Rumple goes all steely-eyed and commands Hook not to say a single word about what he heard, and bc he’s got Hook’s heart he has to obey. But there’s a new sort of push-and-pull in their following interactions, where Hook is both desperately terrified for his own life and trying to talk Rumple down from his proverbial ledge.

This also makes Rumple’s run-in with Zelena in New York a bit more impactful. Yes, in the canon he’s furious that she survived, and he wants to kill her, but it means more if her disgusting behavior towards him while she had the dagger is really acknowledged. If it’s at the forefront of the Sorcerer’s Hat arc, then it’s more present in this interaction, too, and we’re mad as hell that Rumple has to make a deal with the person who used him so deplorably in order to survive.

Then, when he’s dying because there’s so much darkness in his heart, maybe it’s Hook who advocates for trying to save him. I like that idea because it would show off very neatly the growth Hook has gone through, if we see him being obsessed with nothing but killing Rumple, and then later being able to forgive him and even empathize with him. That would just encapsulate the amount of work he’s done on himself. (Although, disclaimer, it also works fine if he’s fighting for Rumple incredibly reluctantly, maybe bc he wants the heroes to do the right thing for their own sakes, because there is something to be said for the fact that his distrust of Rumple never quite goes away in canon.) Also, when he wakes up, Rumple is all irritated that Hook is the one responsible for saving him, but he’s grateful and there’s probably a scene where Rumple reluctantly thanks him for it.

So the main point is, I think it’s a bit peculiar of the writers to have made Rumple regress so hard that shortly after he swore an oath at the grave of his Most Important Person™ to not do that? And also, largely ignoring the profound impact of being resurrected from the dead, losing his son, and being controlled by Zelena was ridiculous. Multiple times throughout the Zelena arc, she commanded him to attack the heroes and he said “I don’t want to do this” to show us explicitly how much he was suffering. Just in case there was anybody who was tempted to go “Yeah, she has the dagger, but he’s probably enjoying being evil/using her control of the dagger as an excuse to be evil and not deal with the consequences.” And Belle was the only one of our heroes who seemed to give a damn about rescuing him from Zelena, never mind the fact that as far as they remembered, Rumple had literally just sacrificed himself to save them all. How could that not make him bitter? How could that not have some lasting effect on his psyche? How could that not be the reason he wanted to split himself from the dagger?

....Maybe I’m the one who’s bitter :|....

BUT ALSO this would have the nifty-galifty effect of shifting the balance in Rumple and Belle��s relationship. Referring back to my earlier points, her banishing Rumple because she misunderstood his motivations and didn’t listen to his explanation is an interesting tactic. Belle isn’t just banishing him to be a jerk; she has reasons for not trusting him, but also as his wife and as the one person who’s always seen good in him, maybe she should’ve at least listened. Rumple shouldn’t have tried murder, but also he has some valid reasons for wanting to ditch the dagger, but he also should’ve talked to Belle about it. (Or Archie. He could’ve gone to talk to Archie, I like it when he does that. That was one of my top ten scenes from the whole show, I swear.) The best part is that  they’re both at fault to some degree within their relationship. It’s no longer “The Dark One x The Golden Girl.” It would level the playing field slightly, and it would also make things a bit more interesting because then it wouldn’t just be sunshiny, lovely, beautiful Belle putting up with more than she should for love’s sake, which is not hexactly the dynamic I prefer. It would also make it harder for her to get on her high horse, which I will admit she does every now and then, which is strange to me because she fell in love with Rumple at his darkest. It would tip the scales just far enough towards Rumple that their relationship would be a little bit more reasonable, and a little bit easier to root for in the rocky patches. And it doesn’t attack Belle’s character, because it’s an understandable misunderstanding, but it also has us legitimately on Rumple’s side—not against Belle, but just in general.

So in conclusion, I should turn this part of the show into a fic, because I adore a lot of the ideas I’ve come up with, but if you like parts of this and not the others, feel free to ignore what you dislike and adopt what you do.

[antvnger]

Blood Brothers AU - Luis and the Starks Boys

Plus some Scott Stark prison headcanons

((Ohhhhhhh good question!! So I took this and ran with it and made up a whole headcanon list. Shocking right? Lol))

By the time Scott got to San Quentin, everybody knew a Stark would be among their ranks.

As per usual when it came to the Stark name, anonymity didn’t really exist, and there was none of that here where Scott wanted it most.

A lot of the other inmates gave him a hard time about it just because they could the first month he was there.

Luis wasn’t there at the time yet, and Scott’s first cellmate made him not want to sleep at night out of self-preservation.

It really didn’t help when Scott’s very first visitor at San Quentin was a divorce lawyer either.

Scott kept his head down and kept to himself and just did what he could just to get by.

Ten months into his sentence, things are a little better for Scott. Most of the inmates are bored of picking on the Stark inmate, and a lot of them found him to be someone worth knowing.

And someone worth being kind to.

Word has spread that Scott’s one of the kinder inmates there, and he is really handy at fixing things. If you’re kind to him, he’ll repay your kindness.

And Scott’s kindness reaches pretty far.

And it was probably the only thing that kept his cellmate from causing him any harm because the guy went absolutely ham on another inmate who accidentally made him trip.

So he was transferred elsewhere just in time for Luis to show up and be assigned as Scott’s cellmate.

While Scott is praying his new cellmate will be chill enough to let him sleep, he’s introduced to this dude with curly hair down to his shoulders and eyes as big as golf balls when he meets Scott Stark.

“Woooooooah! Dude! You’re - you’re a Stark! OhmyGod bro, you’re Scott Stark! Dude that Vistacorp job was insane bro, like that was one of the most badass, stickittotheman things I’ve ever heard! Dude is it true you ran your boss’s Bentley into his own pool? Because that is dope! Did the Bentley ride smooth? Because those look smooth as hell, but I gotta say give me a roadster with a sick paint job anyday. My cousin got one of those Velosters once and gave it one of the stupidest paint jobs I ever saw bro, and I do mean stupid in the dumb sense and not like the ohmyGod that’s awesome sense because I was like dude you gotta respect the car better than that bro like you need a real paintjob like with flames involved or something you know what I’m saying?”

Scott decides right then and there that he likes this guy, and they become fast BFFs.

They survive prison together, and life doesn’t feel too bad for Scott now that he has a friend in there with him who is legitimately a really good person.

Sure there were other pretty decent people in prison along with the rough ones, a lot of them either didn’t bother him or wanted something because he was a Stark.

Luis was a genuinely good guy who - even though he totally freaked out over having a Stark as his celly - didn't give a crap whether Scott was a Stark or anybody else.

And that was refreshing.

Luis was released from prison first, and Scott dreaded that day and the days to follow. He had some other friends there, but none of them were his best friend.

No. No, Luis wasn’t just his best friend. He was a brother to Scott.

Once Scott finally gets out, Luis is the one to get him and the events of Ant-Man play out like normal.

Luis adores Cassie, and Cassie thinks Luis is one of the neatest people she’s ever met.

They become pretty tight too.

Luis: “Hey Scotty uh don’t be jealous or nothing but uh…yeah bro I’ve totally got a new best friend.”

Scott: “Oh yeah? Who?”

Cassie: “Me of course. I know more soccer stuff than you do for one thing.”

Luis: “It’s true bro. She’s a soccer wizard. She’s gonna be my soccer protege, I know it man.”

When Tony comes back into the picture, Luis is really protective of Scott, and he is not okay with the fact that Tony never came to see his baby bro in prison, never mind anything else.

Tony explained that no one would even let him in to see Scott and San Quentin people kept giving excuses as to why he couldn’t see Scott, but he did try.

It took even more time for Tony to get into Luis’ good graces than it did to get back into Scott’s. But it did help his case that he did get back into Scott’s good graces at all.

Plus when Tony started talking cars with Cassie, she told him that Luis loved cars too, and so Tony used that to his advantage.

Luis to Scott: “OhmyGod bro I totally talked shop with Tony Stark and like he showed me the cars he’s got in his garage and duuuuuuuude. Those are some crazy stupid fine rides bro. Like ohmyGod Scotty I dream about cars like that! Bet those ride smooth as silk. Think he’ll let me keep one drive one? I’m practically part of the family anyway you know what I’m saying?”

Scott: “Damn right.”

When Luis’ birthday rolls around, he gets a birthday card in the mail that reads Thank you for taking care of my kid brother, especially when I couldn’t be there. When that van of yours finally calls it quits call me - TS

Along with the card is an IOU for one “crazy stupid fine ride”

While Scott’s on house arrest, Tony brings Peter down with him to visit, and Luis meets Peter, and Luis is like floored by the kid.

Luis: “HOLY SHIT SCOTTY THERE’S A KID ON THE CEILING WHAT THE HELL BRO HOW DID YOU GET UP THERE WHY ARE YOU UP THERE”

Scott: “Luis! Luis! I told you about him! Remember? He crawled around my helmet?”

Tony: “Did you also tell Luis how Pete may or may not have webbed your legs together and we knocked you down?”

Peter (still on the ceiling): “Empire Strikes Back style.”

Luis: “Woahwoahwoahwoahwoah hold up hold up hold up what?”

Scott: *sighs* “That won’t go away any time soon, will it?”

Tony and Peter: “Nope.”

Luis: “Yeah no bro, that’s gonna follow you forever bro.”

When Scott and Luis start their security business, Luis suggests they call it something along the lines of The More Dope Stark Industries.

When Scott suggests Luis be the one who meets with customers and talks with them to bring them in and be the spokesperson for their business, Luis was surprised. “But Scotty, you’re the one everybody will know and recognize. You’re like a Stark and an Avenger! They’ll want to talk to you.”

Scott: “Until they get to know you. You’re the perfect person to interact with our customers.”

[sapphireclawe]

I just want to say that the more people go "if you cared about [insert cause here] you'd donate to it/do whatever actions you legitimately don't have the time or energy for/completely wipe out part of your life or childhood for little more than brownie points on the internet", the more depressing life looks in general, and the more I start wondering if anyone else is feeling this way and not saying anything.

This combined with mass amounts of both misinformation (see the "Gaza Bot" situation where people are debating whether these are scams or not) and changes for the worse (see GoFundMe canceling Gaza evacuation campaigns and refunding the people who donated or PayPal stopping Palestinian people from using the service to get the money to get out) just wears me out day after day here.

Oh, and the fact that I'm following people (and because I legitimately don't know which is the "correct" option I haven't blocked people over this) who are either going "If you think that there's any answer to this beyond removing Israel as a nation or a people in all ways possible, you're wanting Palestine to be genocided" or "hey ignoring the millenia of history that Israel existed, either as a nation or as a people, is kinda fucking racist and rude but Palestinians deserve their home too" is ALSO wearing me down, because I KNOW that the second I actually pick a side in this argument on who deserves to be bullied out of their land and who's got the right answer, I'm gonna start getting hate messages from people on this issue. Which is only gonna get me to start legitimately contemplating suicide or something.

So this is a vent post where I point out that amongst the burnout from the life I have away from the screen is the fact that these issues are pressing the hot forks further into my psyche by going "oh look at the undecided person who doesn't want to lose 90% of her feed over people either being accelerationist about the genocide or trying to beat a point into people's heads that trying to rewrite history to make the bad guys look like they don't deserve what they already have is a fucking stupid idea, clearly she doesn't care" even though I care, but I'm burnt out.

So here's MY understanding of the situation:

WW1 ends, and the Allies create the Treaty of Versailles. This lets Austria and Serbia off the hook for the war and places the ENTIRE blame on Germany to get it fixed via reparations. Also Germany is NOT allowed an army at all.

Reparations put Germany into economic hell where a loaf of bread requires millions of euros to buy due to them trying to get the money via printing it. Austrian guy gets rejected from art school and figures "shit, now I have to work for more or less pennies to get bread. Or I'll go complaining with a bunch of people about how I'd save the world while blaming certain people."

Hitler gains popularity, despite a couple of arrests. He starts building political power and gets sworn in as Chancellor under the promise of a better life for German people. Y'know, not the Israeli people who have spent generations in Germany and are part of the people by now.

Hitler starts building an army, which scares the Allies, so they decide to LET HIM BUILD THE ARMY. Y'know, because they'd rather let the leopard be happy than deal with him due to how the last war went.

Hitler convinces the common people that they should have the right to wipe out the Jewish people in Germany, and invades Poland for a place to dump the "lesser citizens" for now.

Does this sound familiar?

The Allies hem and haw because the leopard ate Mr. Tibbles the cat and is now looking at Lassie the puppy. But they don't want to be eaten, even though Little Francis mentioned that the leopard licked him in his sleep.

By now you probably know the rest.

After WW2, the Allies look at the Jewish survivors and go "shit, where do we put you?" One of them mentions that Israel exists, so they go

"Yeah, we'll send you there. You can come back, but this area, and we'll throw in Palestine too for good measure, is yours."

Palestine, understandably, isn't happy with this. But the Allies are REALLY good at not thinking through their actions after cleaning up a mess.

Over the next 80 years, Israel has been trying to annex different areas around it (usually led by different governments) because the people in charge saw that as long as they don't pick on an Ally, they don't get in trouble for it.

Leading us to now, where very few people in office want to interfere with Israel, simply because they don't want to be the ones breaking a treaty and causing WW3.

Where do I see this going? Either war is gonna break out again or SOMEHOW someone tells the various Allied nations to get their heads out of their asses and intervene before shit gets worse. Even if it's an operation like taking out Bin Laden. But I also feel like despite everyone trying, chances are that not many people are gonna make it out. And a lot of survivors are going to be pissy at the people in the Allied nations for not doing more to help, despite everyone who wanted to help having no real ability to help.

Or someone does a skit where they gentle parent the Prime Minister of Israel and embarrass him enough to get him to take back everything he's done and start reparations. Y'know, Steven Universe that shit.

That being said, my official stance is that this will keep happening until the Allies stop making treaties that just delay the problem.

Yes, Palestine should be free. Israel existing should also be allowed without people going "but it's a lie and shouldn't exist because nobody ever told me it did in school waaahhhh". Stop using this to be antisemitic.

[themadlostgirl]

Peter Pan Won’t Fail (2/2)

*Finally got part two!*

Prompt: Modern Reader ends up on the Neverland from her favorite tv show Once Upon A Time and proves to be very helpful. (Part 1)

Requested by: anon

Warnings: language

---

Months passed since I first showed up on Neverland. While most of my time was spent with me cataloging everything I knew from Once Upon A Time the show I did get some other hobbies. I got to learn how to fight, an endeavor that resulted in many bruises and a dislocated shoulder. I explored the island and got closer to the Lost Boys. I met Tinkerbell but Peter forbid me from telling her anything about what I know. He was rightfully pissed that Tink betrays him in the future.

Speaking of the future I was still on the fence about my involvement in it. I tried to rationalize it away. Convince myself that these people weren’t necessarily real and so had no actual input on anything. Most days I could ignore it. Other days not so much. I hate debating my choices in morally compromising situations.

During the night Peter straightened and fell quiet suddenly. I waited to see what he was doing when he smiled. “New souls entered the island. Could it be the boy?”

“How many?”

“Three.”

“Should be.” I took a deep breath, “The games begin.”

Peter called Felix and some of the other boys and sent them off to find Henry and the two adults he came with. This is happening. This is actually happening now. I’m in the plot of the show.

“Y/N--” A hand dropped onto my shoulder and I jumped a foot in the air.

“Nervous are we?” Peter teased, “If your information is correct then there is nothing to worry about.”

“I know, I know.” I shrugged his hand off, “I guess a part of me didn’t believe in all of this deep down. I mean, for years I watched these characters and wanted them to get their happily ever afters. I loved you as a villain and stuff but if they hadn’t defeated you then everything would have been for nothing. All the people I cheered for...gone. Now that it’s happening for real I--I guess I feel guilty.”

“Is that so?” his eyes narrowed. “Losing our nerve are we? I thought you wanted us to win. To change the story.”

“Yeah…”

He towered over me, that once teasing glint now a cold stare. “Are you going to be a problem? I would hate to have to go back on my word and lock you in a cage until after I have the heart.”

“No! I promise! I’m fine!” I tried in vain to stop my shaking hands, “I’m on your side. I want you to win. I want you to live.”

“Good.” he wrapped an arm around me and started ushering me deeper into the jungle, “Then you won’t mind taking on a special role in the proceedings. Won’t you?”

“Of course not.” I relaxed at his touch, “What did you have in mind?”

“Deliver this,” he produced a straw doll and placed it in my hands, “to Rumple for me when he gets here.”

I tucked the doll away. “Not a problem.”

“There’s my Lost Girl.” he traced a finger across my cheek, “Now you say I need to keep my shadow confined to the island?”

“Not unless you want Baelfire running around and teaming up with Rumple to get Henry back. It’ll make things easier without another person to interfere but I think our real worry is Regina. She’ll go to hell and back for her son and was labeled the Evil Queen for a reason. Murder isn’t something she’ll abstain from.”

“Good thing we don’t either.” 

I waited in the camp while Peter and the boys collected Henry. When they returned Peter nodded to me and I went out on my own mission to find Rumple. I really hope that this goes like with Felix and that he doesn’t just immediately try to kill me.

I wandered around until I saw a figure in a clearing. Okay. I can do this. I walked closer and he turned to me, his calm demeanor shifting into confusion when he saw me. “You’re not who I was expecting to see.”

“I know.” I kept my hands clasped behind my back so he couldn’t see them shaking. “I’m just here to deliver a message of welcome. Seeing as how you’re here for Henry though that makes you Peter’s enemy so not really a welcome I suppose.”

“Who are you?” he scanned me from head to toe, “You’re not from here. A strange magic swirls around you. You’re not meant to be here, are you?”

“I shouldn’t be here but it isn’t going to stop the fact that I am.” I pulled out the straw doll and tossed it to him, “You can’t see the future here but I do. Spoiler alert, you don’t win.”

Rumple picked up the doll with tears in his eyes. It might have been sad if I wasn’t simultaneously terrified of the man and the power he wields before me.

“Who are you?” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Who are you!”

“I’m the tipping point.” I grinned as a new feeling started to emerge. Sadism that I had never known before. That delight in seeing him crumpled on the ground trying in vain to cover the sobs escaping from him. Pain that I caused just by handing him a little doll.

When I got back to camp I found Peter immediately and told him about my meeting with Rumple. “Sounds like you did very well, my Lost Girl.” he pulled me closer, “You’re having fun now, aren’t you?”

“So much fun.” my heart fluttered wildly in my chest.

“And the fun will only continue. But it is getting rather late so we’ll return to the game in the morning.” Peter took one of my hands and brought it up to his lips to kiss and wink at me. “Goodnight, Lost Girl.” he said and walked off towards his tent leaving me dumbfounded and gaping like a fool in the middle of the camp.

The pleasant buzz clouding my mind started to abate. That boy is slowly dissolving my moral compass and I can’t find myself to be upset about it. Not when he did such things like that.

What good were ethics when you lived here anyways? How could guilt help me survive? Why save one boy I do not know from Adam when I needed to save someone who meant something to me?

Over the months I’ve spent here Peter Pan has come to mean something to me. He means survival. He means adventure. He means laughter. He means...he means happiness. He may even mean something more that I daren’t believe possible. Maybe I’m just being stupid. Maybe I’m letting all the damn fanfiction I read obscure what is true. Maybe all I am is a means to an end and once he is cured then every promise he made will be forfeit. This time next week I may very well even be dead.

Right now though...right in this moment I am alive. I am here. I am a Lost Girl and when Peter Pan looks at me my heart skips a beat. Even if it is all just an act or an illusion I want to be happy. I want to pretend that this is where I am meant to be.

With that dream in my head I went to my own tent and fell asleep to await the rest of the events of this week.

And so it was a strange couple of days. With my advice and foresight things were going much smoother. Maybe not as fun as Peter would have liked but in this case he wouldn’t die. That’s all that matters in the end really.

If things remain as they are then there will be nothing to worry about. Wendy was confined and kept on high guard so that none of the others could intercept what she knew. I didn’t like the idea of keeping her prisoner still and negotiated to have her returned to her brothers in Storybrooke after we had won. My one good deed amongst all my other rather abhorrent dealings since coming here.

Neal wasn’t on the island. Rumple had been duped by Peter’s shadow disguised as Belle and had been returned to Storybrooke. Peter had taken Tinkerbell’s heart and forbade her from helping heroes. We found Baelfire’s old hideaway and taken everything of use out. A group of Lost Boys had found the Jolly Roger per my instructions and sailed it far off into the ocean. There was only one single row boat on the island and it was with Peter. He should be heading to Skull Rock right about now with Henry.

It’ll all be over soon.

I was taking a walk through the jungle singing softly. The only loose end was Emma, Regina, Snow, David, and Hook. I had yet to see any of them and was hoping to keep it that way. If I did run into them then I had a very specific job that Peter entrusted to me.

“The King and his men stole the Queen from her bed and bound her in her bones.” I sung, “The seas be ours and by the powers where we will we'll roam.”

“Yo ho, all hands hoist the colors high.” a voice answered from the darkness, “Heave ho, thieves and beggars. Never shall we die.”

A gust of wind pushed me down to the ground and held me there. “What do we have here?”

“Damn,” I hissed in pain. A bunch of people started to gather around me. “I should have stayed in the camp.”

“Where is Henry?” One of them demanded but in the dark it was hard to tell who.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you are the adults looking for Henry? Emma? Regina? Hook?”

“You know her?” A feminine voiced asked.

“Never seen her before. Outside of Tinkerbell and the mermaids I had never met another girl on the island.” Definitely Captain Hook.

“If you let me up I will take questions.” I told them. The invisible weight pinning me down lessened and I stood up. Sure enough it was the heroes that had found me. It is so weird seeing them and knowing that they aren’t just actors right now.

“Who are you? Where is my son?” Emma demanded.

“My name is Y/N.” I told them. It is now time to put my encyclopedic knowledge of Once Upon a Time and ability to lie out of my ass to the test. “Your son is no longer on the island.”

“What? What do you mean?” I had multiple weapons pointed at me. “Where is Henry?”

“Storybrooke.” I fished the magic bean Peter had given me out of my pocket, “I snagged these off of Pan. Gave one to Henry to go home.”

“Why should we believe you? You could be lying.”

“But I’m not. I came here to save him since in my world you lot fail.”

“What are you talking about?” Regina edged closer with a fireball.

“Okay, long story short I come from a land where all of this,” I gestured to the jungle, “And all of you are part of a TV show. This is the Neverland arc. People argue it was one of the last good ones before things started going off the rails.”

“I’ve been through a lot but even that doesn’t sound real.” Emma rolled her eyes.

“Henry’s father is a man named Neal, Rumplestiltskin’s son, previously known as Baelfire. He was tricked into an engagement with a woman named Tamara whom you suspected. When you went to search their room you had Henry stand guard outside and to bump against the door if anyone came.” I said and she backed off. “Too specific an instance?”

“Henry could have told you that--”

“Snow here had a one night stand with Doctor Frankenstein and Charming punched him in the face after the curse was broken when he found out. Do you think Henry knows that one?” I cocked an eyebrow at them. It was really hard not to laugh in that instance since Snow and David looked extremely uncomfortable with the reminder.

The others started to back off but Hook kept his sword trained on me, “And you...what can I say to you? You and Pan are well informed but I know something that not even he does.”

“What, pray tell, is that?” he snarled.

“You know lullabies. One at least. Your mother used to sing it. Her name was Alice.” I answered. If the Hyperion Heights arc did anything right it was giving us Colin O’Donoghue dressed as Captain Hook singing lullabies to a squishy little baby.

“How did--”

“Now do you all believe me? I know how this story goes and I am changing how it ends. That way you idiots can win and not let your son die this time.”

“We...we fail?” Snow looked heartbroken.

“Not this time.” I held out the bean to them, “Henry is already home. He’s waiting for you. Why do you think I’m out here singing sea shanties? I was hoping one of you would hear me so I could pass this on.”

“And what do you get out of this?” Regina asked.

“I get to watch a happy ending instead of a sad one. I mean, there is a bunch of bull that the show goes through to bring Henry back like two episodes later but this is much faster and hopefully not as convoluted.” It was actually kind of amazing how effortlessly the lies were flowing out of me.

“Great, if we can just get back to the ship then--”

“The ship isn’t there anymore.” I sighed, “Like immediately after you all got here Pan finds the ship and sets it on fire.”

“WHAT!” Hook shouted, “My--my ship!”

“Yeah...sorry, couldn’t do anything about that one.”

“What about, Gold? Can we just leave without him?”

“He’s currently in a magical fight to the death with Pan on Skull Rock where they will most likely kill each other. Considering all the crap he’s pulled in the past against all of you I say we leave them to it. Yeah?”

The adults exchanged uneasy glances before nodding. “Great. Now off you go. Say hi to Henry for me.” I dropped the bean on the ground and they all fell through back to Storybrooke.

“Oh thank god!” I breathed out in relief. “That was a lot more work than it should have been. I could have just as easily thrown it at their feet the second I was up but no. I had to go on a Once Upon a Time trivia binger. At least they’re gone and can’t intervene anymore.”

I looked around at the empty jungle and sighed, “And the talking to myself has increased by double. Nice. I’m gonna get out of here.”

I stood over the cliff looking over Skull Rock to wait. Hopefully my advice didn’t work against Henry’s belief in Peter. If things go wrong then we are all screwed. Time ticked by at a torturous pace. I was starting to think that we had failed again when I saw something fly out from Skull Rock.

Peter! He did it! We won! We won!

As if sensing my excitement he flew straight to where I was waiting and landed in front of me. Before I could react he scooped me up in his arms and spun me around. “Hello, Lost Girl,” Peter was smiling like a madman, “I did it.”

“I noticed.” I chuckled as he set me down once more, “No trouble on your end?’

“None whatsoever. Henry was only to eager to hand over his heart to me. Now I am all powerful.” Peter floated off the ground a few inches to prove his point, “No loose ends on your front?”

“None. The heroes are trapped in their world and you have the heart. There’s nothing they can do.” I was practically bouncing from excitement.

He settled back on the ground. His excitement was mellowing out and I could see the gears turning in his head. “What happens now?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. Some of my fear started to creep back in but I squashed it down. “This is an alternate timeline now, we’ll just have to write our own story from here on out.”

“Our?” Peter cast his eyes to me once more. I let myself believe there may have been fondness in them.

“Yes. What good is an all powerful king of Neverland without a queen to tell him he’s doing it wrong?” I smirked at him.

“I knew I was gonna like you.” he pulled me flush against him, “Say it.”

“Say what?”

“You know what.”

“Peter Pan never fails.” I whispered, our faces a breath apart.

He kissed me so intensely I felt the earth shudder around me. “Damn right.”

[theomnicode]

Your posts on Saitama and food made me really sad. But it makes more sense that he is drawn like this now. I thought it was just a shift in style. Because even Genos looked babyish in the first chapters. But buff characters were always buff and were drawn buff. Saitama though... He looked like a baby but really slender. Lean but thin. Imagine what can eating good food do to you in two months. No wonder he started looking so bodacious

Ofc I am not discounting art style change from the picture, which is honestly more likely that Murata-sensei has just gotten better at drawing Saitama and the style in drawing Sai has shifted and that's all there is to. He might've just gotten a new reference body style to draw from. We've seen Saitama drawn really buff and detailed before, when they took the hero test, so it's nothing new. It's more apparent in the anime when he's drawn with even more bulging muscles.

Whether there is anything to this is up for speculation, but I would not discount proper nutrition from the equation. Nutrition is important and will always be important. But it might not be in the exact way we think it is. Something that I also thought about after making that one particular post.

Whether or not this post invalidates my previous post about Saitama not getting his fill when eating because his body physioque demands is up to you. I'm going to go fairly off-tangent (or not) here if you'll allow me haha. This gonna be a long post.

About Saitama and his self-image and how it's possibly portrayed in the manga and anime.

Imo, the real change between this Saitama and the Saitama we saw on the moon of I.O seems to be in how Saitama appears to see HIMSELF, when he actually gets serious. Or, how OTHER people are able to perceive him.

It is a shift in the mindset of his self-image.

Residual self-image is the concept that individuals tend to think of themselves as projecting a certain physical appearance or certain position of social entitlement, or lack thereof. The term was used at least as early as 1968, but was popularized in fiction by the Matrix series, where persons who existed in a digitally created world would subconsciously maintain the physical appearance that they had become accustomed to projecting.

"Show me no mercy."

That is, when he does not hold himself back. He's drawn the same when he's just there, being goofy, not very serious and holding himself back from going all-out. You can almost overlap the images with below manga panel.

There is a subtle difference though. His hero suit is more form-fitting. Because suits in this universe answer to the bearer's feelings. So he seems to be more heroic, instead of comedic.

Art style change or not? You decide.

Yes, he was messing with you Garou. Because you too, were just playing around being a monster.

However when Garou became a true monster, Saitama stopped playing around and holding himself back. And upon doing that, became morally dubious when he tried to punch Garou and destroyed moon and jupiter.

Even Garou wonders what the hell is this monster at the end. Speculation can be made whether Saitama is simply letting his innate monster side show because he legitimately wanted to kill Garou. The egoism and superiority complex would be that monster side, when he assumes that mindset of superiority. Something that he seems to be hiding well. More on this later.

The point I am trying to make here though is that it is quite possibly that the beefiest Saitama's physical appearance is not even a product of his physical conditioning. He appears just the same as ever...except when he is exerting his power. Then he gets the bodacious body.

One could say he's just exerting his muscles and that is also true, but tbh it doesn't seem to be all that. That's just appearances.

And technically, does he even need to exert his physical muscles if he's going to punch with divine power? I mean, it would explain why he doesn't get physically tired. His mental stamina is just sky high.

But not actually endless, because when he was running around all day, visualizing and looking for any bad guys in the anime episode, at the end of the day he had to take an actual breather. Which lines up with what we know about current Saitama and his exponentially growing power.

(a close look at the fist of god in that last panel, his divine power, I love small anime details like this)

I think Genos says it he best.

"You are so...full of shit!" "That's just standard strenght training! And it's not even that intense! Anyone could do it!" "I have to get stronger. I didn't ask to study under you so I could listen to your jokes!"

"Saitama-sensei, your power...is clearly beyond what you can achieve by just training your body!

And he's right, anybody could do it. Saitama's standard strenght training. Other people do far more. Garou has been training for years upon years of intense martial arts like Bang to get that body of his. What Saitama thinks is strenght training is an actual joke, the punchline if you will.

We arrive to the heart of the issue. Saitama's strenght was never anything that could be achieved by training his body.

Ergo, it means that by further strenght training, he could still not achieve a better body via just doing his strenght training, even with better nutrition. He already hit his peak body via that strenght training alone.

Ain't nobody gonna get biceps, pecs and sixpack like that with Saitama's strenght training lmao. Even if he ate well and nutritious food. Who are we even kidding? xd

But he hasn't trained differently either, just added punching monsters to his list and doing his training instantaneously. At least, I don't think he could achieve it like that with normal power.

Instead, I believe it's all just his cognitive power at play. Chances are, by altering his self-image, he has unconsciously also altered his body to match. If it's just appearance or actual physicality, not entirely sure. Which is a positive outcome but...

The depiction of Saitama in Jupiter is basically how Saitama saw himself and how he is able to be perceived. It's the power of his cognitive levels rising exponentially, the whirlpool of heaven stripped bare with the catalyst of emotional surge (as Murata-sensei tweeted) and let loose. (The depiction of Jupiter's red spot swirling around Saitama's head is a really nice artistic touch tbh.)

But it also wasn't a very nice Saitama was it? That superiority complex.

As the fight progresses, so does Saitama become more and more buff, but he's dissociating hard at the same time too and then back to his dopey self and not feeling or caring about a thing.

People with low self-esteem have a tendency to fixate on their body image. And Saitama is self-conscious, we know that from all the times when he gets self-conscious about his bald head. But since Saitama has...interesting powers, he fixates and alters his body quite literally in accordance to his self-image.

Aside from having low self-esteem, sufferers typically fixate on altering their physical appearances. Such behavior creates body dissatisfaction and higher risks of eating disorders, isolation, and mental illnesses in the long term.[2] In Eating Disorders, a negative body image may also lead to body image disturbance, an altered perception of the whole one's body. Body dissatisfaction also characterizes body dysmorphic disorder, an obsessive-compulsive disorder defined by concerns about some specific aspect of one's body (usually face, skin or hair), which is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix. Often, people who have a low body image will try to alter their bodies in some way, such as by dieting or by undergoing cosmetic surgery. On the other hand, positive body image consists of perceiving one's figure clearly and correctly, celebrating and appreciating one's body, and understanding that one's appearance does not reflect one's character or worth.

Speculation can be made whether Saitama also subconsciously hides his true face behind that goofy face of his, because his lack of hair has become a complex. And why there seems to be such few witnesses to how he really looks and other people attempting to perceive his true self, will find themselves stumped and confused (or what appears to be his true self or Wounded Healer archetype).

(I've never heard Genos sound as confused as this lol, his brain is doing that apple loading screen)

(Can we get more of this Saitama look because the King panel is one of my fav Saitama faces by far, he looks sooooo goood)

Within Shinto it is believed that the nature of life is sacred because the kami began human life. Yet people cannot perceive this divine nature, which the kami created, on their own; therefore, magokoro (真心), or purification, is necessary in order to see the divine nature. This purification can only be granted by the kami. In order to please the kami and earn magokoro, Shinto followers are taught to uphold the four affirmations of Shinto.

By purification, it means with tears, since in Japan, salt water acts as purifier. Then they can perceive the true nature of Saitama.

Saitama's view on self-image is also probably the reason he doesn't scar, when other people did during their training. The only other reason would be that he can actually regenerate like monsters can, but it can definitely contribute to his poor self-image if he thinks it as monster-like quality he just happens to possess and associates it with being evil and monster-like. It might just be metabolism. But we can also speculate upon that. Other people perceive him with "eyes of a dead fish"-look and mostly negatively.

Saitama is the only character in the series who seems to flip-flop between actual looks when it's not for a comedic reason. Even between same page. Nobody else's facial features or musculature change so drastically, besides like Tatsumaki for caricatyre reasons.

Comedy is one thing, but Saitama changes in inverse to that, when he gets serious. So it's probably a serious reason.

You may notice how buff his arm seems to be on upper panel, but then we're back to slim arm. Then the panel with Genos where he looks at Saitama's profile and next Saitama panel we're back to dopey.

I've honestly gone very off tangent and idk if it's interesting or not... but here is where the proper nutrition and new lifestyle changes comes into play.

Evolution wise, our brain size started to increase once humans managed to acquire calorie-rich and difficult to acquire food and behavioural and social changes.

The temporal lobes, which contain centers for language processing, have increased disproportionately, as has the prefrontal cortex, which has been related to complex decision-making and moderating social behavior. Encephalization has been tied to increased starches and meat in the diet, however a 2022 meta study called into question the role of meat. Other factors are the development of cooking, and it has been proposed that intelligence increased as a response to an increased necessity for solving social problems as human society became more complex. Changes in skull morphology, such as smaller mandibles and mandible muscle attachments, allowed more room for the brain to grow. The increase in volume of the neocortex also included a rapid increase in size of the cerebellum. Its function has traditionally been associated with balance and fine motor control, but more recently with speech and cognition. The great apes, including hominids, had a more pronounced cerebellum relative to the neocortex than other primates. It has been suggested that because of its function of sensory-motor control and learning complex muscular actions, the cerebellum may have underpinned human technological adaptations, including the preconditions of speech.

It has been suggested that the changes were mainly social and behavioural, including increased empathic abilities, increases in size of social groups, and increased behavioral plasticity. Humans are unique in the ability to acquire information through social transmission and adapt that information. The emerging field of cultural evolution studies human sociocultural change from an evolutionary perspective.

Once he got proper nutrition of meat, starch and vegetables to actually supplement his overall training, it is not just his physioque that grew, it was the cognitive levels too. Possibly the sensory-motor control that is developed in infancy that is referenced to as the Inner child in omake, his ability to understand causality, time and space. Big brain time basically. Mind expansion.

Intelligence is present; motor activity but no symbols; knowledge is developing yet limited; knowledge is based on experiences/ interactions; mobility allows the child to learn new things; some language skills are developed at the end of this stage. The goal is to develop object permanence, achieving a basic understanding of causality, time, and space.

But chances are, other concepts that cognition develops as it matures apply.

Concrete operational stage Elementary and Early Adolescence (7–12 years) Logical and systematic form of intelligence; manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects; thinking is now characterized by reversibility and the ability to take the role of another; grasps concepts of the conservation of mass, length, weight, and volume; predominantly operational thinking; nonreversible and egocentric thinking

But it wasn't just that. It was the increase in pleasurable social stimulation that allowed him to reach the height of his cognitive levels and actually gain the self-image to match. Or able to showcase the self-image that actually physically matches his real body physioque.

However, when it comes to nutrition and Saitama's powers, it was even more vitally important that he get the proper nutrition and social requirements to sustain himself. He was training hard not just physically, but mentally. It was so taxing he went bald. That kind of stress on the brain can't have been healthy.

This guy looks like death warmed over him. Pig God also has ability that turns his body fat into source of fuel for his powers and what might be his life-energy. Giving that up to Tank-top master made his entire physioque shrink.

Body needs some kind of fuel as energy to continue metabolizing and working normally. When Saitama was just eating banana in the morning and something like idek rice on eggs for supper? It's not enough. Maybe he could be able to persevere on such a diet if he was normal human and just not have any gains on physioque, but he's nowhere near being normal. He just plain forced himself to change.

He has divine power that was also constantly stressing his brain, his cognition and when he was doing hero work, if he was to expend all that emotional energy in cathexis and blow up stuff, it would also require him to produce same amount of energy to match. Equivalent exchange, Full Metal Alchemist style.

My hypothesis is that his body had started to cannibalize itself because it simply did not have enough resources to use as fuel. Not from food nor from socialization.

By draining his emotions and possibly other cognitive skills as fuel for his divine power instead and causing his apathy. Yikes.

Because he always expells his serious punches in anger and he always feels less stressed or even no emotions at all after serious punch. By forcing himself to change and using his divine power, he rapidly sped up his metabolism and cognitive thought processing and suffered because he was poor financially and poor socially to give himself enough water and sunlight to grow like the Cactus metaphor.

It was worse when he had no energy for the Garou fight, after walking all day in dark caves with zero food and he was irritable and exploded immediately and uncontrollably when he saw his entire social circle had been killed.

Chances are, Saitama might just wither away eventually if he actually lost that social circle...that's how one can defeat Saitama, by striking a dead blow to his heart. If they can get past Saitama's powers, that is.

If the beefy Saitama is his current true image? Body image wise, that's great. It means that he has stopped cannibalizing himself from the inside out and he's now getting enough nutrients and meeting his energy requirements sufficiently enough that his self-image is now relatively normal. And has stopped having a "mostly" negative view of himself.

But there's still a reason why he tries to hide it so much and why it only seemingly comes out when he becomes serious. And even then, in only few rare scenarios.

He deems his abnormal strenght, his full power and divine powers, as something monstrous. Because of the scenarios where he has to use it.

The times when he realises that he cannot show mercy to an individual and is forced to possibly kill them.

"Bla bla bla. Are you done? With this fight?"

Saitama is not trying to taunt Boros, at least not in the way we think. He's trying to dissuade him from continuing the fight, so he would not have to kill him. Because he empathised heavily.

But Saitama does not kill people, it's against his morals. He only kills things he deems as monsters. Evil things who have turned their beings against humanity. But he may not truly feel like monsters deserve killing either and he feels he's forced to do it if he's to continue to be a hero and protect humanity and he's become desentized to killing monsters, though this is speculation.

It is the look of a person who is world-weary. A thousand yard stare. When heroism didn't turn out to be like he thought it would be.

Possibly the reason he never seems to feel fully like a Hero and why he's envious of people like King and even Garou to extent. And why he feels weird for trying to pretend to be a Hero. The loneliness he feels because he seems alone in his dilemmas. Being and feeling monstrous while doing something you're passionate about.

There is nobody he can relate with. When he finds someone he can relate with, he really wants nothing more than to spare them.

There is a quote from Deadpool that seems fitting, which I found from youtube comments when watching Totally not Mark's video how Saitama redefines heroism. I recommend watching btw, its a great video.

"Four or five moments, that’s all it takes. To be a hero. Everyone thinks it’s a full-time job. Wake up a hero. Brush your teeth a hero. Go to work a hero. Not true.

Over a lifetime, there are only 4 or 5 moments that really matter. Moments when you’re offered a choice. To make a sacrifice, conquer a flaw, save a friend… spare an enemy. In these moments, everything else falls away."

Which feels very poignant, considering how Deadpool also looks under the mask. Appearing as Hero on the outside, but a monster on the inside.

Another point of view is that the reason for Saitama's apathy and losing his humanity is because of how Saitama started to view himself as; a person with less humanity because he felt monstrous doing his hero work and less emotions when he was constantly locking up his emotions behind a facade of apathy just to deal with his conflicting feelings. So it started to became part of his self-image and the person he views himself as. If you believe in it hard enough, it must be true right? Which is honestly just as bad as your own body eating itself out on the inside. Both can be true interpretations.

We've not even arrived to the debate about what makes monsters evil and deserving of the death blow. Who's to decide whether or not Manako for instance, deserves to die? Saitama or Amai-mask? Is Manako evil enough monster that she would have to die or good enough to live? We will probably discuss this come Amai-mask arc.

Saitama sees the world as black and white more often than not. People, monsters and himself. At least when he is losing his touch with humanity.

Psychoanalytic theory posits that an individual unable to integrate difficult feelings mobilizes specific defenses to overcome these feelings, which the individual perceives to be unbearable. The defense that effects (brings about) this process is called splitting. Splitting is the tendency to view events or people as either all bad or all good.[1] When viewing people as all good, the individual is said to be using the defense mechanism idealization: a mental mechanism in which the person attributes exaggeratedly positive qualities to the self or others. When viewing people as all bad, the individual employs devaluation: attributing exaggeratedly negative qualities to the self or others

He gave that same thousand yard stare look at Garou that he gave to Boros, multiple times even. Feeling like a monster because all he wanted to do is kill Garou to revenge Genos and dissociating from his feelings entire so he wouldn't be able to feel the pain. So he clung to the last vestige of humanity on his palm.

When he lets out a less than ideal side of himself loose on the opponent to do what he feels passionate about, acting out in justice, but struggles with feelings of shame and guilt over his actions because he also feels like a monster while doing so against a person who he can't box neatly into what he depicts as morally evil. And feelings of guilt and shame for in this instance, trying to carry out justice by serious punching Garou to smithereens despite Tareo asking him not to and the end result almost destroying earth. And lastly, feelings of guilt and shame over enjoying his hero work to alleviate his boredom.

If Garou wanted to become absolute evil by transforming from human to a monster, Saitama parallels that by wanting to become to the opposite; absolute good by transforming from monster into a human. Something essential in humanity he feels like he has lost. He never felt like he fit into society anyway and he feels let down like Hammerhead and one foot away from becoming like one.

And it has become a self-perpetuating cycle; alleviating his emotional pain by engaging in impulsive behaviour to relieve it and then feeling shame and guilt. Then it becomes automatic response.

Because being passionate about Hero work also saved him and gave him means to vent out his negative feelings like anger, emptyness and depression so he did not succumb entirely and he could connect with his passions again. It gave him a sense of purpose and means to change himself.

In all honesty, Saitama seems to suffer from Borderline Personality-disorder, and more than likely ADHD and all of this undiagnosed but that's another topic entirely. Speculation can be made again whether it's related to when he first gained his powers as infant, related to his powers in general which causes similar symptoms to arise or if he always had these qualities, but we'll need more information about his past to be sure.

(that impatient foot tapping can point to symptoms of adhd yeap, same as his inability to focus on long speeches)

Combat service...

Question: Has Saitama ever enlisted in the military? Which is extremely common if one is poor plus male. And military exists in OPM.

Men raised in poverty had greater odds of draft and all-volunteer military service. Early-life experiences, independent of military service, appear associated with greater odds of MD. Assessing childhood poverty in service members may identify risk for depression in later life.

Because in all honesty, the metaphor here when Manako, one eye'd monster, is sitting on the toilet and hiding her face from Saitama seems kind of...fitting. In OPM game, Toilet-dwelling monster is metaphor for God, the source of monsters and evil. And Saitama locks himself in the toilet, like he locks his emotions away.

If Saitama has some kind of trauma from his time in the military that causes him to dissociate, it would explain the stare he gets when he feels like he has to take a life to do his hero work, to preserve the needs of the many. Like he did when he killed Boros and when he felt like he failed everyone he knew and wanted to kill Garou.

(Reincarnation anybody? I heard first era in OPM was about war and stuff)

When recounting his arrival in Vietnam in 1965, then-Corporal Joe Houle (director of the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas in 2002) said he saw no emotion in the eyes of his new squad: "The look in their eyes was like the life was sucked out of them," later learning that the term for their condition was "the 1,000-yard stare". "After I lost my first friend, I felt it was best to be detached," he explained.

The parallels in these two panels are pretty astounding. But in the bottom one, Saitama has also suffered a psychological wound and it depicts the wounded healer archetype very well.

Wounded healer is a term created by psychologist Carl Jung. The idea states that an analyst is compelled to treat patients because the analyst himself is "wounded." The idea may have Greek mythology origins. Victor et al. (2021), a pre-print study, found that 82% of applied psychology graduate students and faculty members in the United States and Canada experienced mental health conditions at some point in their lives.

As an example, of the "wounded healer phenomenon" between an analyst and their analyzed:

The analyst is consciously aware of his own personal wounds. These wounds may be activated in certain situations especially if the analyzed wounds are similar to his own. The analyzed wounds affect the wounds of the analyst. The analyst either consciously or unconsciously passes this awareness back to his analyzed, causing an unconscious relationship to take place between analyst and analyzed.

Humanity has made contact with a threat of this scale and has known true Fear, but as long as Saitama's combat service remains a secret, nobody will know.

I wonder if this'll relate to time travel in some way.

Side note, Saitama also taunted both Boros and Garou just to draw their attention intentionally as means of protecting other people with self-sacrifice and classic thinking process of a wounded healer archetype, but also that BPD self-harm shining through. Intentionally using himself being impervious to draw fire.

It's not a healthy outlook, no matter even if he's impervious to harm. He's just found he can do it and it works when he does hero work. He did not care much about being careful about getting harmed before he got impervious either.

Anyways, less about nutrition, more about how Saitama is drawn and how it relates to the plot, his self-image and his mental state.

But regardless of how you see it, I believe current Saitama IS a depiction that he is slowly getting better. And getting the nourishment and help he needs to actually grow and heal. Which is the general takeaway.

[innuendostudios]

I was invited to give a talk on GamerGate over Zoom in early 2021. I've long been frustrated that there isn't a good timeline of GG and its origins on YouTube. When people ask "what the hell was GG anyway?" they often get referred to my or Dan Olson's videos on the subject, but both of them were made while GG was ongoing, and presumed a degree of familiarity on the part of the audience. There was just too much to say about what was already happening to spend time getting the audience up to speed, and it was safe to assume our audiences had enough context to follow along. But time moves fast on the internet, and many people who now care about such things weren't there while it was happening, and are lacking the necessary context to follow the better videos. For a long time, I've only been able to direct them to RationalWiki's timeline, which is excellent but so exhaustively comprehensive that it's likely to scare off first-timers.

I realize an hourlong lecture isn't necessarily helping matters, but the first 20-or-so minutes of this video are my attempt at streamlining the timeline such that people can be up to speed on the most important stuff fairly quickly. The rest is talking about what it all meant, how it prefigured the Alt-Right, and using it to better understand digital radicalization.

This video was made with the help of Magdalen Rose, who edited the slides to the audio while I was laid up with a back injury. Go sub to her channel! And please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

FUCKING VIDEO GAMES? FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THEY MADE DOZENS OF PEOPLE MISERABLE FOR YEARS OVER VIDEO GAMES! NOT EVEN FUCKING VIDEO GAMES, FUCKING ARTICLES ABOUT FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT??

Hi! My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, please like share and subscribe.

I’m here to talk to you about GamerGate, and I needed to get all that out of the way. I’m going to talk about what GamerGate was and how it prefigured The Alt-Right, and there are gonna be moments where you’re nodding along with me, going, “yeah, yeah I get it,” and then the sun’s gonna break through a crack in the wall and you’ll suddenly remember that all this is happening because some folks - mostly ladies - said some stuff - provably true stuff, I might add - about video games and a bunch of guys didn’t like it, and you’re gonna want to rip your hair out. By the end of this, you will have a better understanding of what happened, but it will never not be bullshit.

Also, oh my god, content warning. Racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, rape threats, threats of violence, domestic abuse - I’m not going to depict or describe at length any of the worst stuff, but it’s all in the mix. So if at any point you need to switch me off or mute me, you have my blessing.

Brace yourselves.

Some quick prehistory:

In 2012, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian ran a Kickstarter campaign for a YouTube series on sexist tropes in video games. And, partway through the campaign, 4chan found it and said “let’s ruin her life.” And a lot of the male general gaming public joined in. And by “ruin her life” I’m not talking 150 angry tweets including dozens of rape and death threats per week, though that was a thing. I’m talking bomb threats. I’m talking canceled speaking engagements because someone threatened to shoot up a school. I’m talking FBI investigation. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

And in 2013, Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest, a free text game about living with depression. They received harassment off and on for the next year, most pointedly from an incel forum called Wizardchan that doxxed their phone number and made harassing phone calls telling them to kill themself. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

(Also, quick note: Zoe Quinn is nonbinary and has come out since the events in question. When I call Zoe’s harassment misogynist, understand I am not calling Zoe a woman, but they were attacked by people who hate women because that’s how they were perceived. Had they been out at the time things probably would’ve gone down similarly, but on top of misogyny I’d be talking about nonbinary erasure and transphobia.)

Okay. Our story begins in August 2014. The August that never ended.

Depression Quest, after a prolonged period on Greenlight, finally releases on Steam as a free download with the option to pay what you want. In the days that follow, Zoe’s ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, writes a nearly 10,000-word blog called The Zoe Post, in which he claims Quinn had been a shitty and unfaithful partner. (For reference, 10,000 words is long enough that the Hugos would consider it a novelette.) This is posted to forums on Penny Arcade and Something Awful, both of which immediately take it down, finding it, at best, a lot of toxic hearsay and, at worse, an invitation to harassment. So Gjoni workshops the post, adds a bunch of edgelord humor (and I am using the word “humor” very generously), and reposts it to three different subforums on 4chan.

We’re not going to litigate whether Zoe Quinn was a good partner. I don’t know or care. I don’t think anyone on this call is trying to date them so I’m not sure that’s our business. What is known is that the relationship lasted five months, and, after it ended, Gjoni began stalking Quinn. Gjoni has, in fact, laid out how he stalked Quinn in meticulous detail to interviewers and why he feels it was justified. It’s also been corroborated by a friend that Quinn briefly considered taking him back at a games conference in San Francisco, but he became violent during sex and Quinn left the apartment in the middle of the night with visible bruises.

Off of the abusive ex-boyfriend’s post, 4chan decides it’s going to make Zoe Quinn one of their next targets, and starts a private IRC channel to plan the campaign. The channel is called #BurgersAndFries, a reference to Gjoni claiming Quinn had cheated on him with five guys. A couple sentences in The Zoe Post - which Gjoni would later claim were a typo - imply that one of the five guys was games journalist Nathan Grayson and that Quinn had slept with him in exchange for a good review of Depression Quest. Given the anger that they’d seen drummed up against women in games with the previous Anita Sarkeesian hate mob, #BurgersAndFries decides to focus on this breach of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover story, many of them howling with laughter at the thought that male gamers would probably buy it. This way, destroying Quinn’s life and career and turning their community against them would appear an unfortunate byproduct of a legitimate consumer revolt; criticism of the harassment could even be framed as a distraction from the bigger issue. Gjoni himself is in the IRC channel telling them that this was the best hand to play.

The stated aim of many on #BurgersAndFries was to convince Quinn to commit suicide.

Two regulars in the IRC, YouTubers MundaneMatt and Internet Aristocrat, make videos about The Zoe Post. Incidentally, both these men had already made a lot of money off videos about Anita Sarkeesian. Matt’s is swiftly taken down with a DMCA claim, and he says that Quinn filed the claim themself. (For the record, in those days, YouTube didn’t tell you who filed DMCA claims against you.) Members of the IRC also reach out to YouTuber TotalBiscuit, who had been critical of Sarkeesian and dismissive of her harassment, and he tweets the story to his 350,000 followers, saying a game developer trading sex for a good review might not prove true, but was certainly plausible.

This is where GamerGate begins to get public traction.

Zoe Quinn is very swiftly doxxed, with their phone number, home address, nudes, and names and numbers of their family collected. Gjoni himself leaks their birth name. The Zoe Post, and the movement against Quinn - now dubbed “The Quinnspiracy” - make it to The Escapist and Reddit, which mods will have little luck removing. The Quinnspiracy declares war on any site that does take their threads down, most vehemently NeoGAF. People who defend Zoe against the harassment start getting doxxed themselves - Fez developer Phil Fish is doxxed so thoroughly, hackers get access to the root folder of his website.

In what I’m going to call This Should Have Been The End, Part 1, Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief at Kotaku where Nathan Grayson worked, in response to pressure not just from The Quinnspiracy but an increasing number of angry gamers buying The Quinnspiracy’s narrative, publishes a story. In it he verifies that Quinn and Grayson did date for several months, and that not only is there no review of Depression Quest anywhere on Kotaku, not by Grayson nor anyone else, but that Grayson did not write a single word about Quinn the entire time they were dating.

In response, The Quinnspiracy declares war on Kotaku. r/KotakuinAction is formed, which will become the primary site of organization outside of chanboards. The fact that their entire “movement” is based on a review that does not exist changes next to nothing.

Some people start to see The Quinnspiracy as potentially profitable. The Fine Young Capitalists get involved, a group ostensibly working to get women into video games but who have a Byzantine plan to do so wherein they crowdfund the budget and the woman who wins a competition gets to storyboard a game, but another company will make and she will get 8% of the profits, the rest going to a charity chosen by the top donor. 4chan becomes the top donor. They like TFYC because the head of the company has a vendetta against Zoe Quinn, who had previously called them out for their transphobic submission policy, and he falsely accused Quinn of having once doxxed him. 4chan feels backing an ostensibly feminist effort will be good PR, but can’t resist selecting a colon cancer charity because, they say, feminism is cancer and they want to be the cure to butthurt. They also get to design a character for the game, and so they create Vivian James, who will become the GamerGate mascot.

Manosphere YouTubers Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini launch a Patreon campaign for their antifeminist documentary The Sarkeesian Effect and come to The Quinnspiracy looking for $15,000 a month for an indefinite period to make it, which they get.

In what will prove genuinely awful timing, Anita Sarkeesian releases the second episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and, despite not being a games journalist and having nothing to do with Quinn or Grayson, she is immediately roped into the narrative about how feminists are ruining games culture and becomes the second major target of harassment. Both she and Quinn soon have to leave their houses after having receiving dozens and dozens of death threats that include their home addresses.

After being courted by members of the IRC channel, Firefly star Adam Baldwin tweets a link to one of the Quinnspiracy videos and coins the hashtag #GamerGate. This is swiftly adopted by all involved.

In response to all this, Leigh Alexander writes a piece for Gamasutra arguing that the identity that these men are flocking to the “ethics in games journalism” narrative to defend no longer matters as a marketing demographic. Gaming and games culture is so large and so varied, and the “core gamer” audience of 18-34 white bros growing smaller and septic, that there was no reason, neither morally nor financially, to treat them as the primary audience anymore. Love of gaming is eternal, but, she declared, “gamers,” as an identity, “are over.” Eight more articles contextualizing GamerGate alongside misogyny and the gatekeeping of games culture come out across several websites in the following days. GamerGate frames these as a clear sign of [deep sigh] collusion to oppress gamers, proving that ethics in games journalism is, indeed, broken, and Leigh Alexander becomes the third major target of harassment. These become known as the “gamers are dead” articles - a phrase not one of them uses - and they make “get Leigh Alexander fired from Gamasutra” one of their primary goals.

Something I need you to understand is that it has, at this point, been two weeks.

Highlights from the next little bit: Alex Macris, a higher up at The Escapist’s parent company, expresses support for GamerGate; he will go on to write the first positive coverage at a major publication and cement The Escapist as GamerGate-friendly. Mike Cernovich, aka “Based Lawyer,” gets GamerGate’s attention by mocking Anita Sarkeesian; he will go on to hire a private investigator to stalk Zoe Quinn. GamerGate launches Operation Disrespectful Nod, an email campaign pressuring companies to pull advertising from websites that have criticized them. They leverage their POC members, getting them, any time someone points out the rampant racism and antisemitism among GamerGaters, to say “I am a person of color and I am #NotYourShield”; most of these “POC members” are fake accounts left over from a previous, racist disinformation campaign. Milo Yiannapoulos gets involved, writing positive coverage of GG despite having mocked gamers for precisely this behavior in the past, and gets so much traffic it pulls Breitbart News out of obscurity and makes it a significant player in modern conservative news media.

[Hey! Ian from the future here. This talk mostly addresses how GamerGate prefigured the Alt-Right strategically and philosophically, but if you want a more explicit, material connection: Breitbart News took its newfound notoriety to become, as its Executive Chair phrased it in 2016, "a platform for the Alt-Right." That Executive Chair was Steve Bannon, who threw the website's weight behind The Future President Who Shall Not Be Named, and, upon getting his attention, would then go on to become his campaign strategist and work in his Administration. So, if you're wondering how one of the central figures of the Alt-Right ended up in the White House, the answer is literally "GamerGate." Back to you, Ian from the past!]

In what I’m calling This Should Have Been The End, Part 2, Zoe Quinn announces that they have been lurking the #BurgersAndFries IRC channel since the beginning and releases dozens of screenshots showing harassment being planned and the selection of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover. #BurgersAndFries has a meltdown, everyone turns on each other, and the channel is abandoned. And they then start another IRC and things proceed.

It goes on like this. I’m not gonna cover everything. This is just the first month. It should be clear by now that this thing is kind of unkillable. And I worry I haven’t made it obvious that this is not just a chanboard and an IRC. Thousands of regular, every day gamers were buying the story and joining in. They were angry, and no amount of evidence that their anger was unfounded was going to change that. You could not mention or even allude to GamerGate and not get flooded with dozens, even hundreds of furious replies. These replies always included the hashtag so everyone monitoring it could join in, so all attempts at real conversation devolved into a hundred forking threads where some people expected you to talk to them while others hurled insults and slurs. And always the possibility that, if any one of them didn’t like what you said, you’d be the next target.

To combat this, some progressives offered up the hashtag #GameEthics to the people getting swept up in GamerGate, saying, “look, we get that you’re angry, and if you want to talk about ethics in games journalism, we can totally do that, but using your hashtag is literally putting us in danger; they calling the police on people saying there’s a hostage situation at their home addresses so they get sent armed SWAT teams, and if you’ll just use this other hashtag we can have the conversation you say you want to have in safety.” And I will ever stop being salty about what happened.

They refused. They wouldn’t cede any ground to what they saw as their opposition. It was so important to have the conversation on their terms that not only did they refuse to use #GameEthics, they spammed it with furry porn so no one could use it.

A few major events on the timeline before we move on: Christina Hoff Sommers, the Republican Party’s resident “feminist,” comes out criticizing Anita Sarkeesian and becomes a major GG figurehead, earning the title Based Mom. Zoe Quinn gets a restraining order against Eron Gjoni, which he repeatedly violates, to no consequence; GG will later crowdfund his legal fees. There’s this listserv called GameJournoPros where game journalists would talk about their jobs, and many are discussing their concerns over GamerGate, so Milo Yiannopoulos leaks it and this is framed as further “proof of collusion.” 4chan finally starts enforcing its “no dox” rules and shuts GamerGate threads down, so they migrate to 8chan, a site famous for hosting like a lot of child porn. Indie game developer Brianna Wu makes a passing joke about GamerGate on Twitter and they decide, seemingly on a whim, to make her one of the biggest targets in the entire movement; she soon has to leave her home as well. GamerGate gets endorsements from WikiLeaks, Infowars, white nationalist sites Stormfront and The Daily Stormer, and professional rapist RooshV. And hundreds of people get doxxed; an 8chan subforum called Baphomet is created primarily to host dox of GamerGate’s critics.

But by November, GamerGate popularity was cresting, as more and more mainstream media covered it negatively. Their last, big spike in popularity came when Anita Sarkeesian went on The Colbert Report and Stephen made fun of the movement. Their numbers never recovered after that.

Which is not to say GamerGate ended. It slowed down. The period of confusion where the mainstream world couldn’t tell whether it was a legitimate movement or not passed. But, again, most harassers faced no meaningful repercussions. Gamers who bought the lie about “ethics in games journalism” stayed mad that no one had ever taken them seriously, and harassers continued to grief their targets for years. The full timeline of GamerGate is an constant cycle of lies, harassment, operations, grift, and doxxing. Dead-enders are to this day still using the hashtag. And remember how Anita had nothing to do with ethics in games journalism or Zoe Quinn, and they just roped her in because they’d enjoyed harassing her before so why not? Every one of GamerGate’s targets knows that they may get dragged into some future harassment campaign just because. It’s already happened to several of them. They’re marked.

(sigh) Let’s take a breath.

Now that we know what GamerGate was, let’s talk about why it worked.

In the thick of GamerGate, I started compiling a list of tactics I saw them using. I wanted to make a video essay that was one part discussion of antifeminist backlash, and one part list of techniques these people use so we can better recognize and anticipate their behavior. That first part became six parts and the second part went on a back burner. It would eventually become my series, The Alt-Right Playbook. GamerGate is illustrative because most of what would become The Alt-Right Playbook was in use.

Two foundational principles of The Alt-Right Playbook are Control the Conversation and Never Play Defense. Make sure people are talking about what you want them to talk about, and take an aggressive posture so you look dominant even when you’re not making sense. For instance: once Zoe leaked the IRC chatlogs, a reasonable person could tell the average gater, “the originators of GamerGate were planning harassment from the very beginning.” But the gater would say, “you’re cherry-picking; not everyone was a harasser.”

Now, this is a bad argument - that’s not how you use “cherry-picking” - and it’s being framed as an accusation - you’re not just wrong, you’re dishonest - which makes you wanna defend yourself. But, if you do - if you tell them why that argument is crap - you’ve let the conversation move from “did the IRC plan harassment?” - a question of fact - to “are the harassers representative of the movement?” - a question of ethics. Like, yes, they are, but only within a certain moral framework. An ethics question has no provable answer, especially if people are willing to make a lot of terrible arguments. It is their goal to move any question with a definitive answer to a question of philosophy, to turn an argument they can’t win into an argument nobody can win.

The trick is to treat the question you asked like it’s already been answered and bait you into addressing the next question. By arguing about whether you’re cherry-picking, you’re accepting the premise that whether you’re cherry-picking is even relevant. Any time this happens, it’s good to pause and ask, “what did we just skip over?” Because that will tell you a lot.

What you skipped over is their admission that, yes, the IRC did plan harassment, but that’s only on them if most of the movement was in on it. Which is a load of crap - the rest of the IRC saw it happening, let it happen, it’s not like anybody warned Zoe, and shit, I’m having the cherry-picking argument! They got me! You see how tempting it is? But presumably the reason you brought the harassment up is because you want them to do something about it. At the very least, leave the movement, but ideally try and stop it. They don’t, strictly speaking, need to feel personally responsible to do that. And you might be thinking, well, maybe if I can get them take responsibility then they’ll do something, but you’d be falling for a different technique I call I Hate Mondays.

This is where people will acknowledge a terrible thing is happening, maybe even agree it’s bad, but they don’t believe anything can be done about it. They also don’t believe you believe anything can be done about it. Mondays suck, but they come around every week. This is never stated outright, but it’s why you’re arguing past each other. To them, the only reason to talk about the bad thing is to assign blame. Whose turn is it to get shit on for the unsolvable problem? Their argument about cherry-picking amounts to “1-2-3 not it.” And they are furious with you for trying to make them responsible for harassment they didn’t participate in.

The unspoken argument is that harassment is part of being on the internet. Every public figure deals with it. This ignores any concept of scale - why does one person get harassed more than another? - but you can’t argue with someone who views it as a binary: harassment either happens or it doesn’t, and, if it does, it’s a fact of life, and, if it happens to everyone, it’s not gendered. And this is not a strongly-held belief they’ve come to after years of soul-searching - this is what they’ve just decided they believe. They want to participate in GamerGate despite knowing its purpose, and this is what would need to be true for that to be ok.

Or maybe they’re just fucking with you! Maybe you can’t tell. Maybe they can’t tell, either. I call this one The Card Says Moops, where people say whatever they feel will score points in an argument and are so irony-poisoned they have no idea whether they actually believe it. A very useful trick if the thing you appear to believe is unconscionable. You can’t take what people like that say at face value; you can only intuit their beliefs from their actions. They say they believe this one minute and that another, but their behavior is always in accordance with that, not this.

In the negative space, their belief is, “The harassment of these women is okay. My anger about video games is more important. I may not be harassing them myself, but they do kind of deserve it.” They will never say this out loud in a serious conversation, though many will say it in an anonymous or irreverent space where they can later deny they meant it. But, whatever they say they believe, this is the worldview they are operating under.

Obscuring this means flipping through a lot of contradictory arguments. The harassment is being faked, or it’s not being faked but it’s being exaggerated, or it’s not being exaggerated but the target is provoking it to get attention, which means GamerGate harassers simultaneously don’t exist, exist in small numbers, and exist in such large numbers someone can build a career out of relying on them! It can be kind of fun to take all these arguments made in isolation and try to string together an actual position. Like, GamerGate would argue that Nathan Grayson having previously mentioned Zoe Quinn in an article about a canceled reality show counts as positive coverage, and since Grayson reached out to Quinn for comment it’s reasonable to assume they started dating before the article was published (which is earlier than they claim), and positive coverage did lead to greater popularity for Depression Quest. But if you untangle that, it’s like… okay, you’re saying Zoe Quinn slept with a journalist in exchange for four nonconsecutive sentences that said no more than “Zoe Quinn exists and made a game,” and the price of those four sentences was to date the journalist for months, all to get rich off a game that didn’t cost any money. That’s your movement?

And some, if cornered, would say, “yes, we believe women are just that shitty, that one would fuck a guy for months if it made them the tiniest bit more famous.” But they won’t lead with that. Because they know it won’t convince the normies, even the ones who want to be convinced. So they use a process I call The Ship of Theseus to, piece by piece, turn that sentence into “slept with a journalist in exchange for a good review” and argue that each part of the sentence is technically accurate. It’s trying to lie without lying. And, provided all the pieces of this sentence are discussed separately, and only in the context of how they justify this sentence, you can trick yourself into believing this sentence is mostly true.

So, like, why? This is clearly motivated reasoning; what’s the motivation? What was this going to accomplish?

The answer is nothing. Nothing, by design. GamerGate’s “official” channels - the subreddit and the handful of forums that didn’t shut them down - were rigidly opposed to any action more organized than an email campaign. They had a tiny handful of tangible demands - they wanted gaming websites to post public ethics policies and had a list of people they wanted fired - but their larger aim was the sea change in how games journalism operated, which nothing they were asking for could possibly give them. The kind of anger that convinces you this is a true statement is not going to be addressed by a few paragraphs about ethics and Leigh Alexander getting a new job. They wanted gaming sites to stop catering to women and “SJWs” - who were a sizable and growing source of traffic - and to get out of the pockets of companies that advertised on their websites - which was their primary source of income. So all Kotaku had to do to make them happy was solve capitalism!

Meanwhile, the unofficial channels, like 8chan and Baphomet, were planning op after op to get private information, spread lies with fake accounts, get disinformation trending, make people quit jobs, cancel gigs, and flee their homes. Concrete goals with clear results. All you had to do to feel productive was go rogue. In my video,

How to Radicalize a Normie, I describe how the Alt-Right encourages lone wolf behavior by whipping people up into a rage and then refusing to give them anything to do, while surrounding them with examples of people taking matters into their own hands. The same mechanism is in play here: the public-facing channels don’t condone harassment but also refuse to fight it, the private channels commit it under cover of anonymity, and there is a free flow of traffic between them for when the official channels’ impotence becomes unbearable.

What I hope I’m illustrating is how these techniques play off of each other, how they create a closed ecosystem that rational thought cannot enter. There’s a phrase we use on the internet that got thrown around a lot at the time:

you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.

Now, there are a few other big topics I think are relevant here, so I want to go through them one by one.

MEMEIFICATION

So a lot of interactions with GamerGate would involve a very insular knowledge base.

Like, you’d say something benign but progressive on Twitter.

A gater would show up in your mentions and say something aggressive and false.

You’d correct them. But then they’d come back and hit you with -

ah shit, sorry, this is a Loss meme.

If I were in front of a classroom I’d ask, show of hands, how many of you got that? I had to ask Twitter recently, does Gen Z know about Loss?!

If you don’t know what Loss is I’m not sure I can explain it to you. It’s this old, bad webcomic that was parodied so, so, so many times

that it was reduced to its barest essentials, to the point where any four panels with shapes in this arrangement is a Loss meme. For those of you in the know, you will recognize this anywhere, but have you ever tried to explain to someone who wasn’t in the know why this is really fuckin’ funny?

So, now… by the same process that this is a comics joke,

this is a rape joke.

I’m not gonna show the original image, but, once upon a time, someone made an animated GIF of the character Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z graphically raping Vegeta. 4chan loved it so much that it got posted daily, became known as the “daily dose,” until mods started deleting every incident of it. So they uploaded slightly edited version of it. Then they started uploading other images that had been edited with Piccolo’s color scheme. It got so abstracted that eventually any collection of purple and green pixels would be recognized as Piccolo Dick.

Apropos of nothing, GamerGate is a movement that insists it is not sexist in nature and it does not condone threats of rape against the women they don’t like. And this is their logo. This is their mascot.

If you’re familiar with the Daily Dose, the idea that GamerGate would never support Eron Gjoni if they believed he was a sexual abuser is so blatantly insincere it’s insulting… but imagine trying to explain to someone who’s not on 4chan how this sweater is a rape joke. Imagine having to explain it to a journalist. Imagine having to explain it to the judge enforcing your abuser’s restraining order.

Reactionaries use meme culture not just because they’re terminally online but also because it makes their behavior seem either benign or just confusing to outsiders. They find it hilarious that they can be really explicit and still fly under the radar. The Alt-Right did this with Pepe the Frog, the OK sign, even the milk glass emoji for a hot minute. The more inexplicable the meme, the better. You get the point where Stephen Miller is flashing Nazi signs from the White House and the Presidential re-eletion campaign is releasing 88 ads of exactly 14 words and there’s still a debate about whether the administration is racist. Because journalists aren’t going to get their heads around that. You tell them “1488 is a Nazi number,” it’s gonna seem a lot more plausible that you’re making shit up.

MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS

Online movements like GamerGate move at a speed and mutation rate too high for the mainstream world to keep up. And not just that they don’t understand the memes - they don’t understand the infrastructure.

In an attempt to cover GamerGate evenhandedly, George Wiedman of Super Bunnyhop interviewed a lawyer who specializes in journalistic ethics. He meant well; I really wish he hadn’t. You can see him trying to fit something like GamerGate into terms this silver-haired man who works in copyright law can understand. At one point he asks if it’s okay to fund the creative project of a potential journalistic source, to which the guy understandably says “no.”

What he’s alluding to here is the harassment of Jenn Frank. A few weeks into GamerGate, Jenn Frank writes a piece in The Guardian about sexism in tech that mentions Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. In another case of “here’s a strongly-held belief I just decided I have,” GamerGate says this is a breach of journalistic ethics because Frank backs Quinn on Patreon. They harass her so intensely she not only has to quit her job at The Guardian, for several months she quits journalism entirely.

Off the bat, calling a public figure central to a major event in the field a “journalistic source” is flatly wrong-headed. Quinn was not interviewed or even contacted for the article, they were in no way a “source”; they were a subject. But I want to talk about this phrase, “fund a creative project.” Patreon is functionally a subscription; it’s a way of buying things. It’s technically accurate that Frank is funding Quinn’s creative project, but only in the sense that you are funding Bob Dylan’s creative project if you listen to his music. And saying Frank therefore can’t write about Quinn is like saying a music journalist can’t cover a Bob Dylan concert if they’ve ever bought his albums.

And we could talk about the ways that Patreon, as compared with other funding models, can create a greater sense of intimacy, and we also could comment that, well, that’s how an increasing number of people consume media now, so that perspective should be present in journalism. But maybe it means we should cover that perspective differently? I don’t know. It’s an interesting subject. But none of that’s going on in this conversation because this guy doesn’t know what Patreon is. It was only a year old at this point. Patreon’s been a primary source of my income for 5 years and my parents still don’t know what it is. (I think they think I’m a freelancer?) This guy hears “funding a creative project” and he’s thinking an investor, someone who makes a profit off the source’s success.

The language of straight society hasn’t caught up with what’s happening, and that works in GamerGate’s favor.

In the years since GamerGate we have dozens of stories of people trying to explain Twitter harassment to a legal system that’s never heard of Twitter. People trying to explain death threats to cops whose only relationship to the internet is checking email, confusedly asking, “Why don’t you just not go online?” Like, yeah, release your text game about depression at GameStop for the PS3 and get it reviewed in the Boston Globe, problem solved.

You see this in the slowness of mainstream journalists to condemn the harassment - hell, even games journalists at first. Because what if it is a legitimate movement? What if the harassers are just a fringe element? What if there was misconduct? The people in a position to stop GamerGate don’t have to be convinced of their legitimacy, they just have to hesitate. They just have to be unsure. Remember how much happened in just the first two weeks, how it took only a month to become unkillable.

It’s the same hesitance that makes mainstream media, online platforms, and law enforcement underestimate The Alt-Right. They’re terrified of condemning a group as white nationalist terrorists because they’re confused, and what if they’re wrong? Or, in most cases, not even afraid they’re wrong, but afraid of the PR disaster if too much of the world thinks they’re wrong.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONTROL

A thing I’ve talked about in The Alt-Right Playbook is how these decentralized, ostensibly leaderless movements insulate themselves from responsibility. Harassment is never the movement’s fault because they never told anyone to harass and you can’t prove the harassers are legitimate members of the movement. The Alt-Right does this too - one of their catchphrases is “I disavow.” Since there are no formalized rules for membership, they can redraw boundaries on the fly; they can take credit for any successes and deny responsibility for any wrongdoing. Public membership is granted or revoked based on a person’s moment-to-moment utility.

It’s almost like… they’re cherry-picking.

The flipside of this is a lack of control. Since they never officially tell anyone to do anything but write emails, they have no means of stopping anyone from behaving counterproductively. The harassment of Jenn Frank was the first time GamerGate’s originators thought, “maybe we should ease off just to avoid bad publicity,” and they found they couldn’t. GamerGate had gotten too big, and too many people were clearly there for precisely this reason.

They also couldn’t control the infighting. When your goal is to harass women and you have all these contradictory justifications for why, you end up with a lot of competing beliefs. And, you know what? Angry white men who like harassing people don’t form healthy relationships! Several prominent members of GamerGate - including Internet Aristocrat - got driven out by factionalism; they were doxxed by their own people! Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini parted ways hating each other, with Aurini releasing chatlogs of him gaslighting Owen about accepting an endorsement from Roosh, and they released two competing edits of The Sarkeesian Effect.

I say this because it’s useful to know that these are alliances of convenience. If you know where the sore spots are, you can apply pressure to them.

LEADERS WITHOUT LEADERSHIP

One way movements like GamerGate deflect responsibility is by declaring, “We are a leaderless movement! We have no means to stop harassment.”

Which… any anarchist will tell you collective action is entirely possible without leaders. But they’ll also tell you, absent a system of distributing power equitably, you’re gonna have leaders, just not ones you elected.

A few months into GamerGate, Randi Lee Harper created the ggautoblocker. Here’s what it did: it took five prominent GamerGate figures - Adam Baldwin, Mike Cernovich, Christina Hoff Sommers, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Nick Monroe, formerly known as [sigh] PressFartToContinue - and generated a block list of everyone who followed at least two of them on Twitter. Now, this became something of an arms race; once GamerGate found out about it they made secondary accounts that followed different people, and more and more prominent figures appeared and had to get added to the list. But, when it first launched, the list generated from just these five people comprised an estimated 90-95% of GamerGate.

Hate to break it to you, guys, but if 90+ percent of your movement is following at least two of the same five people, those are your leaders. The attention economy has produced them. Power pools when left on its own.

This is another case where you have to ignore what people claim and look at what they do. The Alt-Right loves to say “we disavow Richard Spencer” and “Andrew Anglin doesn’t speak for us.”

But no matter what they say, pay attention to whom they’re taking cues from.

AD CAMPAIGN

George Lakoff has observed that one way the Left fails in opposition to the Right is that most liberal politicians and campaigners have degrees in things like law and political science, where conservative campaigners more often have degrees in advertising and communications. Liberals and leftists may have a better product to sell, but conservatives know how to sell products.

GamerGate less resembles a boots-on-the-ground political movement than an ad campaign. First they decide what their messaging strategy is going to be. Then the media arm starts publicizing it. They seek out celebrity endorsements. They get their own hashtag and mascot. They donate to charity and literally call it “public relations.” You can even see the move from The Quinnspiracy to GamerGate as a rebranding effort - when one name got too closely associated with harassment, they started insisting GamerGate was an entirely separate movement from The Quinnspiracy. I learned that trick from Stringer Bell’s economics class.

Now, we could stand to learn a thing or two from this. But I also wouldn’t want us to adopt this strategy whole hog; you should view moves like these as red flags. If you’re hesitating to condemn a movement because what if it’s legitimate, take a look at whether they’re selling ideology like it’s Pepsi.

PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING

One reason to insist you’re a consumer revolt rather than a harassment campaign is most people who want to harass need someone to give them permission, and need someone to tell them it’s normal.

Bob Altemeyer has this survey he uses to study authoritarianism. He divides respondents into people with low, average, and high authoritarian sentiments, and then tells them what the survey has measured and asks, “what score do you think is best to have: low, average, or high?”

People with low authoritarian sentiments say it’s best to be low. People with average authoritarian sentiments also say it’s best to be low. But people with high authoritarian sentiments? They say it’s best to be average. Altemeyer finds, across all his research, that reactionaries want to aggress, but only if it is socially acceptable. They want to know they are the in-group and be told who the out-group is. They don’t particularly care who the out-group is, Altemeyer finds they’ll aggress against any group an authority figure points to, even, if they don’t notice it, a group that contains them. They just have to believe the in-group is the norm.

This is why they have to believe games journalism is corrupt because of a handful of feminist media critics with outsized influence. Legitimate failures of journalism cannot be systemic problems rooted in how digital media is funded and consumed; there cannot be a legitimate market for social justice-y media. It has to be manipulation by the few. Because, if these things are common, then, even if you don’t like them, they’re normal. They’re part of the in-group. Reactionary politics is rebellion against things they dislike getting normalized, because they know, if they are normalized, they will have to accept them. Because the thing they care about most is being normal.

This is why the echo chamber, this is why Fox News, this is why the Far Right insists they are the “silent majority.” This is why they artificially inflate their numbers. This is why they insist facts are “biased.” They have to maintain the image that what are, in material terms, fringe beliefs are, in fact, held by the majority. This is why getting mocked by Stephen Colbert was such a blow to GamerGate. It makes it harder to believe the world at large agrees with them.

This is why, if you’re trying to change the world for the better, it’s pointless to ask their permission. Because, if you change the world around them, they will adapt even faster than you will.

THE ARGUMENT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO END

Casey Explosion has this really great Twitter thread comparing the Alt-Right to Scary Terry from Rick and Morty. His catchphrase is “you can run but you can’t hide, bitch.” And Rick and Morty finally escape him by hiding. And Morty’s all, “but he said we can’t hide,” and Rick is like, “why are we taking his word on this? if we could hide, he certainly wouldn’t tell us.”

The reason to argue with a GamerGater is on the implied agreement that, if you can convince them they’re part of a hate mob, they will leave. But look at the incentives here: they want to be in GamerGate, and you want them not to be. But they’re already in GamerGate. They’re not waiting on the outcome of this argument to participate. They’ve already got what they want; they don’t need to convince you GamerGate isn’t a hate mob.

This is why all their logic and rationalizations are shit, because they don’t need to be good. They’re not trying to win an argument. They’re trying to keep the argument going.

This has been a precept of conservative political strategy for decades. “You haven’t convinced us climate change is real and man-made, you need to do more studies.” They’re not pausing the use of fossil fuels until the results come in. “You haven’t convinced us there are no WMDs in Iraq, you need to collect more evidence.” They’re not suspending the war until you get back to them. “You haven’t convinced us that Reaganomic tax policy causes recessions, let’s just do it for another forty years and see what happens.” And when the proof comes in, they send us out for more, and we keep going.

The biggest indicator you can’t win a debate with a reactionary is they keep telling you you can. The biggest indicator protest and deplatforming works is they keep telling you in plays into their hands. The biggest indicator that you shouldn’t compromise with Republicans is they keep saying doing otherwise is stooping to their level. They’re not going to walk into the room and say, “Hi, my one weakness is reasoned argument, let’s pick a time and place to hash this out.”

And we fall for it because we’re trying to be decent people. Because we want to believe the truth always wins. We want to bargain in good faith, and they are weaponizing our good faith against us. Always dangling the carrot that the reason they’re like this is no one’s given them the right argument not to be. It’s all just a misunderstanding, and, really, it’s on us for not trying hard enough.

But they have no motivation to agree with us. Most of the people asking for debates have staked their careers on disagreeing with us. Conceding any point to the Left could cost them their livelihood.

WHY GAMES?

Let’s close with the big question: why games? And, honestly, the short answer is:

why not games?

Games culture has always presented itself as a hobby for young, white, middle class boys. It’s always been bigger and more diverse than that, but that’s how it was marketed, and that’s who most felt they belonged. As gaming grows bigger, there is suddenly room for those marginal voices that have always been there to make themselves heard. And, as gaming becomes more mainstream, it’s having its first brushes with serious critical analysis.

This makes the people who have long felt gaming was theirs and theirs alone anxious and a little angry. They’ve invested a lot of their identity in it and they don’t want it to change.

And what the Far Right sees in a sizable collection of aggrieved young men is an untapped market. This is why sites like Stormfront and Breitbart flocked to them. These are not liberals they have to convert, these people are, up til now, not politically engaged. The Right can be their first entry to politics.

The world was changing. Nerd properties were exploding into popular culture in tandem with media representation diversifying. And we were living with the first Black President. Any time an out-group looks like it might join the in-group, there is a self-protective backlash from the existing in-group. This had been brewing for a while, and, honestly, if it hadn’t boiled over in games, it would have boiled over somewhere else.

And, in the years since GamerGate, it has. The Far Right has tapped the comics, Star Wars, and sci-fi fandoms; they tried to get in with the furry community but failed spectacularly. They’re all over YouTube and, frankly, the atheist community was already in their pocket. Basically, if you’re in community with a bunch of young white guys who think they own the place, you might wanna have some talks with them sooner than later.

Anyway, if you want to know more about any of this stuff, RationalWiki’s timeline on GamerGate is pretty thorough. You can also watch my or Dan Olson’s videos on the subject. I’ll be putting the audio of this talk on YouTube and will put as many resources as I can in the show notes. The channel, again, is Innuendo Studios.

Sorry this was such a bummer.

Thank you for your time.

[redrobin-detective]

because I could not stop for death

because I could not stop for death / he kindly stopped for me / the carriage held but just ourselves / and immortality ~ Emily Dickinson

Danny Fenton was dying, properly this time.

Somehow, in the back of his head and in his worst nightmares, he knew it would end this way: bleeding on the floor of his parents’ lab where it had all began. He was so hot he felt like his skin was on fire, blood and ectoplasm were dripping all over him and his lungs and heart were working overtime to try in vain to keep him alive a moment longer. He’d imagined at the time that there would be more screaming but death, in the end, was turning out to be a quiet little affair. A lonely table set for one.

“Danny, Danny come on, you-you gotta slow down your breathing, just relax, for me, please,” Sam moaned, more than making up for his lack of noise. She was shaking and touching him all over, his chest, his face, his hair. Normally she jumped right into action but she had to know, deep down, that there was nothing she could do. All that was left was to watch her panic and cry, it wasn’t his favorite image. 

“Vlad!” He heard Tucker scream cry into the phone, “please it’s Tucker, Danny’s dying I think. The Fentons had some new invention, something about his core, please we don’t know what to do!” 

Ugh Vlad, he was probably going to be so happy Danny was on his way out. He wasn’t looking much forward to his last images being his archenemy gloating. Tucker hung up and reached down to grasp Danny’s hand so hard it hurt. “Don’t worry dude, Vlad’s coming. He knows so much about you half ghosts that you’ll be fixed up on no time.” Right, Danny was already dead. If calling Vlad, feeling like he did something, helped Tucker move on then he’d deal with it.

Danny tilted his head to the side where Sam’s fingernails were carding through his hair. It was getting harder to see with the blood pouring out of his eyes but he looked at her, and tried to memorize her face. He’d never been able to tell her how much he loved her, that any day spent with her was a blessing. Tucker too, his best bro and a part of his soul. His best friends in the whole wide world, through thick and thin. God, he was going to miss them.

“Glurk,” he said, trying to convey those feeling but the fluids in his mouth and airway made it impossible. “Blerh.”

“Shh shh shh,” Sam soothed, “it’s okay, don’t try to talk.”

“Daniel!” He heard Vlad’s voice shriek as he materialized in front of the portal. Sam and Tucker were violently pushed out the way. Danny wanted to be angry at his loved ones being taken away in his final moments but anger was for the living, he barely had the energy to breathe. This death was too long and too short all at once. He made eye contact with Vlad who all at once lost the frantic edge to his tone and and instead knelt on the floor. “Oh my dear boy. What did they do to you?”

“What is going on?” Sam demanded, shoving her way back in. Danny was glad, he could see again like this. “Why aren’t you doing something!”

“There’s nothing to be done,” Vlad said in a flat, monotone, he picked up one of Danny’s hands and patted it gently. “His core is dying, it’s like a ghost’s heart. It contains their very essence, it is from which everything they are comes from. If Jack and Maddie somehow disrupted it then there’s nothing anyone can do to save him.”

“But he’s human too,” Tucker defended, grabbing Danny’s other hand. His human warm skin burned but the contact felt so good, he twitched his fingers closer to his friend’s. “He-he doesn’t need a core, he’s already got a heart. So, so he doesn’t have powers, we can do normal again.”

“You-” Vlad hissed before taking a calming breath. “The accident that made Daniel like this irreparably altered him. His core was as much a part of keeping him alive as his other organs, without it, his body is shutting down.” Vlad turned down to look Danny in the eye and saw true, genuine grief in those hateful red eyes. 

“I cannot imagine the agony you are going through, I’m so sorry. I’d say it will be over soon but,” a hitch that sounded almost like a sob if it was coming from anyone other than Vlad. “But you’ve hovered on the edge of death for years, son, and you’ve always been such a fighter. You have minutes at most but those minutes are an eternity when you’re suffering.”

Sam and Tucker’s sobbing blended together in the background, Vlad was saying something with a miserable, stunned expression. The swirling of the portal in the background seemed louder than anything, louder than his heart beat pounding and pounding as it ran it’s last race. 

“Daniel, Danny,” he focused his eyes back on Vlad who had a stubborn, unhappy set to his brow. “Do you want me to make the pain stop? An ectoblast to your chest will end your life instantly.”

“Don’t you dare touch him,” Sam shrieked, coming back into view and looking like she was trying to fight Vlad off. “You do anything to him and I’ll kill you!” Tucker just sat and stared at him, like he too was trying memorize Danny’s face.

“It’s a mercy, Samantha or do you want his last moments on earth to be drowning on the blood in his lungs.”

“Sam, he has a point. I don’t- I don’t think we can fix this.”

“No! No we always fix things, I’ll do it myself if I have to!”

Danny’s vision was starting to go, more black than anything else. He closed his eyes and readied himself for the inevitable. 

“Time Out,” Danny opened his eyes and found he was no longer in pain. He was standing up and apart from where he’d previously been lying. Sam had her hands in Vlad’s face and the older hybrid was snarling something at her. Tucker was midmotion trying to stand up, presumably to get Sam but the three of them were frozen in the moment. Danny turned and found Clockwork floating, looking very out of place in his parents lab. “Good evening, Danny.”

“You that short on cash that you work part time as a grim reaper?” Danny quipped out of habit. He looked down at his body and grimaced a bit, that wasn’t a pretty sight. No doubt traumatizing for Tucker and Sam. God how were they going to explain this to his parents? “Gonna ferry me across the River Styx? I don’t have two pennies but I think I have a bloodied $10 on me.”

“You’re core is dying and you have 17 seconds left in this world before all your organs give out and finish the process you began when you turned on your parent’s ghost portal,” Clockwork explained as he changed into child form. 

“O-okay,” Danny said shakily, trying to be brave even when he was so, so scared. He was going out whether he wanted it or not but he refused to leave crying. “Nice of you to come say goodbye then but, uh but unless you have something to say then you should let me go back. No one knows better than me that you can’t outrun death. Thanks but I’m uh I’m ready.”

Clockwork stared at him for a bit, not sure how long, time was weird like this but he changed forms a few times. “You’re quite the remarkable young man, Danny Fenton.”

“Uh thanks,” Danny added, once more looking at his body which had, according to Clockwork, a 17 second expiration date. “What’s going to happen? Am I going to become a ghost? Does heaven or hell exist for someone like me?”

“I don’t get to decide what happens, I merely see options,” Clockwork stated easily, taking his time. “If you die naturally you’ll become ghost, a mere shadow of who you are now and one who would fade fairly quickly. You don’t have strong enough anger or regrets to tie you in the real world for long.” Not great but okay he supposed, hell for his friends and family though. “You could let Plasmius deliver his mercy kill, destroying what’s left of your ghost core and ensuring you do not come back.” Better, probably won’t help the Fruitloop’s instability but he can’t save everyone.

“That one comes with it’s own caveat but I’ll get to that in a moment,” Clockwork explained. “There is a third option where you get up off the floor and walk away.” Danny blinked then looked back at his body which certainly wasn’t walking anywhere but into a plush casket. Clockwork opened his hands and the Ghost King’s Crown materialized in his hands. “If you accept your claim to the King’s Cown, it will revitalize your core and your life would be saved.”

Danny blinked.

“By sealing Pariah Dark, you won by proxy and established a legitimate claim to the throne. The Zone has been without a king for millennia, most have forgotten the old rules. Those who remembered were not too keen on a half-ghost child assuming leadership and kept you in the dark. If Plasmius ends your life then your claim transfers over to him, which he is aware of. It had been his plan all along to trick you into defeating Pariah so he could steal the Crown from you at a later date, a much easier opponent.”

Danny’s mind was overloaded with information, he didn’t know what to focus on first. He stared at his 17 seconds from death face and tried to process it all. Crown? Claim? Vlad?

“Of course,” Clockwork tutted, “he didn’t plan on your dying and in such a gruesome fashion. If he kills you and takes your claim, he would spend his remaining years ruling the Ghost Zone in a just, controlled fashion for your memory. He destroys all the stable portals and keeps the ghost and human worlds separate.” Clockwork became and old man and titled his head, “it’s not a bad timeline, all things considered.”

“And if I take it?” Danny asked quietly.

“You’re compassionate, brave and motivated, you have all the makings of a revolutionary king,” Clockwork smiled. “The Zone would experience and unprecedented era of peace, there would be positive interactions between human and ghosts for the first time since life and death split into two. Your name would spoken with reverence for the rest of time.”

“But I don’t want to be king,” Danny frowned.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Clockwork stated. “Which is why I am giving you the choice. If you pass peacefully there will be no one to claim the Crown and life will continue on, ghost attacks and all. If Plasmius kills you, he becomes an effective but unmemorable king. If you take the Crown, you can get the chance to tell Sam and Tucker how much you love them.”

Danny rubbed at his face, he didn’t want to die but he’d be sealing away his entire future with a move like this. He didn’t even know if the Crown would let him go with death, maybe he’d die and be stuck as the Ghost King until his core finally gave out lord in who knows how long. Eternity was an awful long time to carry such a responsibility. He couldn’t bring himself to ask, too afraid of the answer.

“Is there ever a timeline I became an astronaut?” He asked instead. Clockwork hummed, seemingly unsurprised by Danny’s non-sequitur. 

“Yes, in one of the few universes where you never walked into the portal. You never go into space what with human politics putting a halt on the programs but you work for NASA. You leave Amity Park at 17 and don’t come back save for your parents’ dual funeral.” He paused and Danny felt read down to his very bones, “from the moment you became half ghost you were always heading for this moment. The circumstances varied but it always came down to you and the Crown. Time is straining to continue, to see how this drama plays out. Will you accept it and all the joy and grief that comes with it?”

Danny looked over at Vlad, still mid-sneer but there was a scared desperation in his face. He and Vlad sniped at each other all the time but Danny didn’t really hate him and he didn’t think Vlad did either. Leaving him alone, plus making him be king was a heavy burden to put on his enemy. 

Sam and Tuck probably wouldn’t recover from this, he’d put them through so much already but he just knew that they’d never be the same. Could he do that to them? Take the easy way out and leave them to suffer? Mom and Dad didn’t deserve to come home to a dead son, the truth would come out and they’d never forgive themselves. Jazz certainly wouldn’t, she was 2 states over at University but he could already hear her angry, grief-stricken screams. 

Death, death was quiet. It was quiet and merciful and sad, but it was also easy. And Danny Fenton had never once taken the easy route. He reached out and took and the crown before shakily placing it on his head. He gasped, throwing his head back as his core swelled, taking up residence once more right next to his heart. Clockwork smiled, looking like the cat who ate the canary. 

“The Crown of Fire, pardon me the Crown changes with each core, the Crown of Ice is now yours as is the Zone. Your reign begins now but so too does the rest of your life. People are waiting for you. Time in.” Danny slammed back into awareness on the floor of his parents’ lab, the floor he’d almost died on twice. 

He sat up as cold radiated off his body, causing frost to crawl down his arms and along the floor. Sam, Tucker and Vlad, who’d been frozen up until now, jumped back to life. There was a new, familiar weight on his head that he didn’t dare acknowledge. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and said a silent goodbye to a quiet, normal life. It wouldn’t be all bad, he could be happy like this but the Crown still felt like a iron manacle around his neck. But he got used to the ghost powers, he could get used to this too. Maybe one day he won’t look at the stars and say ‘what if?’

“Danny!” Sam shouted, throwing herself into his arms soon followed by Tucker. Their warm weight, their relieved sobs, their shaky breaths in his air, now this was something worth living for. He squeezed them tightly.

“But how dude, you were at death’s door!” Tucker asked, still not letting go.

“You accepted the Crown,” Vlad said evenly, “I wasn’t aware you even knew about your claim. Who told you?”

“You don’t know everything, Vlad,” Danny sighed, sitting himself upright. Ugh his shirt was covered in blood and ectoplasm. He needed to trash these clothes before his parents freaked. And find a way to hide the floating ice crown on his head. 

“Even an old man can be surprised every now and again,” Vlad said wearily. He stood up to his full height before startling Danny by dipping down to one knee. “Then allow me to be the first to welcome my new king and wish him well.”

“I thought you wanted this,” Danny questioned.

“I do, I did,” Vlad said, unusually off balance. “To be quite honest, I’m not sure how to feel about it but, right now, I’m just immeasurably happy you’re alive, little badger. Now I best be off, enjoy your kingdom, my liege, I’ll be sure to come bother you some time soon.” Vlad disappeared in a swirl of pink leaving just him, Sam and Tucker still clinging to him.

Danny may have a kingdom, a job he didn’t want and his whole life decided in a spur of the moment choice, but he also had something very important. He squeezed his friends tightly.

“I love you guys, thank you for being my friends even though I have the worst ideas for activities. Dying? On a Sunday night? How lame is that?” Sam laughed, a bit hysterical but it was real and it made Danny feel weightless. 

“Don’t do that again, buddy,” Tucker breathed into his shoulder. “So you gonna explain what just happened and why you’re apparently the Ghost King or something?”

“Yeah, yeah I will but let’s get changed first. Mom and Dad will be home soon and I think I’m going to need to have a conversation with them about my new job.” 

[mandareeboo]

SU Music Rankings

Bc I can and I wanna start some Disk Horse rip. These are all in order of preference, with explanations, etc. It’s a long bitch. That said, I’m not counting little short jingles or small joke songs like Little Butler. This is the meat and potatoes of SU music- just under 30 songs. I might do the rest if people like my takes lol.

I scored it mostly on three bases- how dear it was to my heart, how much/often I relisten to it, and also what it means to the plot. That said, little fun songs don’t automatically go farther down than big, plot-heavy songs either! It’s a strange little balance.

Special Note: I don’t dislike any of this music! I love SU and that includes its bumps and glitches. I just pick favorite children lol.

1.) Change

Was there ever a more Steven moment than when he wiped the blood off his face and kissed it into sparkles? I think not. 

If “Be Wherever You Are” is an ode to young Steven, then this is teen Steven’s. Talking about change, and how much and how little it can do. How he holds his arms up for Spinel to hug him, so trusting. How he seems able to just. Break into soft tears at will, and not to be manipulative- it’s just his kind nature. The warmth in his voice. Fuck yesssss.

2.) Change Your Mind

This song is only fifty five seconds and it’s EVERYTHING to me. It really felt like someone was speaking the words I’d always held deep inside of me, unsure of how to say. It feels like a goodbye to someone who never really loved me. 

As much as I enjoyed Future, if this was the finale of SU, I would’ve been perfectly okay with that.

3.) Drift Away

This song gave me legitimate shivers the first time I heard it, and it still haunts me to this day. Spinel stayed, and waited, and all she got was a transmission thousands of years later. Fuck.

4.) Here We Are In The Future

THE MOVIE IS SU AS ITS BEST AND I WON’T BE SWAYED ON IT. Steven being a teen who loves his weird family but is growing just a bit sarcastic to their drama. The adorable love he and Connie share. His slow realization that he will always be working, always have things to do, is both somber and real. The Crystal Gems won’t be safe with one epic battle. They’ll be safe with years of hard work and love. HIS LITTLE HANDSHAKE WITH AMETHYST.

This is a helluva bop and a great way to summarize the main character’s backstories.

5.) Let’s Only Think About Love

Did ya’ll know that Zach Callison killed his throat with that last note? He gave his all for this performance in a vocal range he no longer comfortably do and by god did it SHINE. The FLAIR. The FORESHADOWING. All of the Gems all being awkward about Rose and Steven trying to bring them to the present. Peridot having a mini-existential crisis in a cute yellow dress. I love Zach Callison’s normal singing voice but man is that a fucking bop. Nothing will ever beat it.

6.) Here Comes A Thought

This bad boy helped me out a LOT with some mental issues I was dealing with in high school. I was unmedicated, unsupervised, and full of anxiety. I’d have break downs when I tried to speak about certain things. I couldn’t function. This song inspired me. It helped me feel okay with my intrusive thoughts.

And the episode! -chef’s kiss-. Once again bringing up the morally gray area of training child soldiers. Connie expanding her social group. Steven’s trauma hauling ass in that second half. The ANIMATION. Stevonnie’s gorgeous singing voice. GOD yes.

7.) It’s Over Isn’t It?

Just barely squeaking above Stronger Than You, this ballad is everything gorgeous. The whole episode is. I think Mr. Greg stands in the top five of my episodes for the entire show. It even got nominated!

There’s just so much about this song that I love. The gentle melancholy of Pearl’s voice. How the crew had to redo the shots for this bit bc Deedee went so fucking hard. The hard cuts between Pearl, remembering the love of her life, and Steven, who has begun to feel like he took her away. I’d recommend this song to anyone, regardless of what they do or don’t know about SU, simply bc it tugs so many heartstrings of love, loss, and responsibility.

8.) Stronger Than You

Did you realize this episode aired SEVEN years ago? This bitch was what got me into SU! Hearing about Ruby and Sapphire made my little gay heart so happy inside, and then getting a whole song confirming that they were a couple, that their love powered the strongest Gem on the team? Aaaaaaaaa

To this DAY I get excited when I hear Estelle start singing. This song is timeless. This song will live in media history. God I fucking love this song.

9.) Other Friends

I’m not the biggest musical person, so I hadn’t heard of Sarah Stiles before her casting as Spinel, but JESUS CHRIST the lady went hard. She went SO fucking hard. Sarah Stiles started on 100 and somehow just kept CLIMBING. You can just hear the sheer manic energy building in her voice, the anger and resentment. 10/10 Sarah Stiles is a queen.

10.) Independent Together

This made the list entirely bc the crew was like “you’re gonna get a himbo ass Steven-Greg fusion singing with Opal while Garnet flies across the moon on Lion while floating” and I am forever thankful to them for it

11.) Who We Are

Bismuth deserved more songs. ‘Nuff said.

12.) Peace and Love (On the Planet Earth)

It Could’ve been Great is EASILY one of my favorite s2 episodes. I love the entire concept of this song. Of Steven making music to reflect how much Earth means to him and his family. Of him teaching Peridot some self-care. Also Peridot’s singing voice is really cute and squeaky. 

I know it’s silly, but I would’ve really enjoyed a flip around of this in Future! Like Peridot reminding Steven how much he loves music, that he needs to take time to relax for himself, maybe with a new verse or just a remix of the original song!

13.) Something Entirely New

I watched this episode as it aired, and I legitimately almost cried. I love Charlyne Yi’s voice so much ya’ll- her raspy, not perfect singing voice against Sapphire’s deep soothing lull is great.

And to have Ruby and Sapphire’s meeting be the way it was- for Ruby to bemoan Sapphire losing Homeworld, to being stuck with a single Ruby, while Sapphire is a noble who has always been taught everyone in her “caste” is vitally important (and has, in her own mind, taken that to mean every Gem, as she should) and how they come together and make each other happy. Good shit good shit.

14.) I’m Just a Comet

The fact that Greg’s music career never really blasted off pisses me off to this day bc Tom Scharpling’s voice is fucking BUTTER. Also the song really feels like a jab at his parents now that we know the kind of dynamic he had growing up. “This life in the stars if all I’ve ever known” is definitely him wiping away their existence after reminding them (and himself) the things they used to say about him.

15.) Do It For Her

This episode. This fucking episode. This episode got me permanently hooked on SU. I’d just binged season 1 and was kinda meh about it overall after the bop of Stronger Than You. “Oh,” I thought to myself, foolishly, “I’ll probably just casually watch this from time to time.”

Like three days later Sworn to the Sword aired and that was it. I was hooked! Pearl’s gentle training song turning darker and darker, Connie’s accompaniment from nervous to determined to fully into such a toxic mindset. The fact that SU had the BALLS to discuss the repercussions of training child soldiers, now and later. This episode was everything to me, STILL is everything to me.

Six years and well over 100 fanfics written later, I think it’s safe to say this show swallowed me whole and never let go.

16.) System/Boot.pearl_final(3)

I debated putting this on the list because it’s not anything crazy important, just a way to show things are Wrong, but I had to do it entirely bc Pearl is so damn SALTY.

Like telling us about the Gems makes sense, she felt like she was given a duty, but she went so damn petty. WHY is that Ruby alone. Gross. This Amethyst is a trash dump. Wtf are you people.

17.) Full Disclosure

This episode really feels like a turning point for SU. Before, the show had its dark moments- but now we’re in the thick of it, and it’s not going away. Full Disclosure felt like an rebuff to the idea of returning to any normal we’d established in season 1. Gems are actually a giant species now. Gems tried to kill us now. There’s this Yellow Diamond bitch who got namedropped. Something about a Cluster. 

The song itself is BALLER, with its ingenious use of Steven’s ringtone and photos as he tries to decide whether to clue in Connie on all this nonsense. Meanwhile we, the audience, already know damn well Connie about to yeet some common sense into him.

18.) What’s the Use of Feeling Blue?

I’mma admit it- I’m a Yellow Diamond stan. I’ve always loved her- her anger, her poise, her hardworking nature. I actively argued against the “Yellow Shattered Pink” theories back in the day. But, man, when this arc leaked? I got so overexcited I was too jittery to watch it for like two days. It’s easily my favorite arc of the series. The sheer alien nature of the zoo, the Famethyst, and absolutely Patti Lupone’s beautiful ballad. Goddamn. Yellow singing to Blue to try and help her regain her old status, the warble in her voice as she reminds Blue she misses Pink too, the movement of the bubbles as she talks about attack. It gives me shivers to this day. FUCK.

19.) Tower of Mistakes

This is, fun fact, that only SU song I have completely memorized. The story itself is kinda funny! See, we lost internet at my house for a solid 5 to 6 months when these episodes aired, so I only got a very brief window to view them all. But this was the first Amethyst song in a long while, and I didn’t want to forget it! So I keep replaying it in my head for ages. And that’s still definitely a thing.

Anyway will never not be sad that this entire song was about making it up to Garnet for Amethyst’s perceived slights with Sugilite (which was a two-way road), only for Garnet to pressure her into fusion later when pissed and never discuss it again bc Garnet probably never thought twice about it and Amethyst has the emotional openness of a clam that’s just been told its ugly. Helluva way to make someone feel like shit, G. Helluva way to bottle that shit, Ames.

20.) On the Run

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Amethyst! Needed! More! Songs! 

The dichotomy between Steven’s play and Amethyst’s honest desire to run away from home is so well-done, especially when you consider a lot of Steven and Amethyst’s actions are playing together. The song is also near and dear to me simply bc it’s my favorite Amethyst episode to exist (well, maybe second to What’s Your Problem, but not by much). Moments like these are all the proof I need that they were right to fuse first.

21.) Be Wherever You Are

This tune really just feels like an ode to who Steven was as a kid. Trapped on an island with no way home, and he’s just happy to be with his friends. The stars are beautiful and not oppressive. Also that one animatic with Lars and the Off Colors playing in the Homeworld Kindergarten to this music was iconic and made this song get stuck in my head for a solid month.

22.) Familiar

I ADORE how the crew use bright neon colors to show how alien Homeworld can be. And Steven recognizing that the Diamonds treat him how the CGs used to, and how prepared he is to “fix” a broken family. It’s a soft, gentle tune about melancholy. Also the Pebbles are beautiful.

23.) Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart

Such a cute little love ballad, but every time I listen to it now I just imagine the heart attack Rose must’ve had at the line “And if we look out of place/Well, baby, that's okay/I'll drive us into outer space.” like there’s a Vietnam war flashback if I ever heard one

24.) What Can I Do?

I’m kind of neutral on this one? Rose and Greg both have great voices, but the song itself lacks many lyrics. I think it was definitely a good way to show Rose’s flaws in thinking.

Also, I’m shocked they managed cram that much vaguely sexual innuendo into two minutes, followed by how Not Hetereo that dance between Rose and Pearl was, and not get their asses chewed by it. You go guys.

25.) Cookie Cat

I love a lot of the vibes this song has. The lyrics are so damn prophetic, but they also sound like the kind of weird 90s commercials I grew up on. It’s been like two decades since I saw the Shirley Temple commercial but I’ll be damned if I don’t remember “Animals crackers in my soup! Monkey and rabbits loop-de-loop.”

26.) Giant Woman

I am. NOT the biggest fan of Steven’s original singing voice. I feel bad saying that, since it was just Zach Callison as a kid, but he never jived well with me for some reason. So I wouldn’t listen to this on the fly. 

The song itself is still really good though, with all sorts of fun animation of Amethyst and Pearl being bitchy to each other. It’s a bit sad in hindsight to see tiny Steven trying to get his moms to get along. Ahh, season 1.

27.) Strong in the Real Way

This song has SUCH a strong start. Pearl reflecting on Sugilite’s problems, but the show making sure to show us that Pearl’s lack of enthusiasm towards her also lends itself to jealousy as well as just general malaise. How much she cares about Steven, and wants him to grow up strong. 

And then Steven just kinda. Ruins it? I appreciate his enthusiasm for tryna bulk up but to take what was starting as such a rich, personal song and broadcasting it to random strangers just makes me a bit sad. Almost a bit angry on her behalf?

28.) That Distant Shore

I KNOW this is gonna create some discourse, but I’m just not the biggest Lapis stan. I love her voice. I love the visuals of the song. And I get why she felt afraid and needed to flee.

But Lapis never got to take responsibility for her own actions. And, in the end, the song feels hollow to me- because we all know she’ll never talk to anyone about it, know she’ll burst back in and destroy the barn, and no one will ever question it. I like Lapis a lot, but I feel like her arc never was fully finished. She never got help. She never learned to feel safe.

29.) Dear Old Dad

I’ve yet to meet a single human being who likes this episode tbh. There’s some great discussion about what kind of parent Greg is from it, and what kind of dynamic he has with the Gems that he felt he had to fake an injury to hang out with his son. Honestly the first half was fine and dandy. It’s just that then they Greg just went out of his way to drag Steven away from missions and such. It never jived well with his character before or after.

Also, is it just me, or does Zach himself sound like he hates the song as he sings it? There’s no passion or heart in his voice. It sounds like they told him to read off cue cards and he did. Tom Scharpling’s best attempts didn’t save this one for being a skipper. But the episode, unfortunately, isn’t, so it gets a spot on here.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Jin Guangyao isn't cruel because he is nice sometimes! No... no... just no. He pretends to be a nice, sweet person to get what he wants, it is exactly why he got away with the killings and plannings for the Yin Hu Fu, YEARS AFTER JIN GUANGSHAN IS OUT OF THE PICTURE. He's the only legitimate Jin left old enough to take over the Sect, who the hell was gonna argue that when all relevant Jins were dead and Nie Mingjue was killed by the happy smiling pretty boy?

First example, he was actively friends with Xue Yang, there is no saying he was coerced into that one since he recommended him as a guest disciple and made creepy little jokes with him.

Jin GuangYao sighed, “I only turned around for a second and you stirred up so much trouble for me. I only had to pay for a bowl of dumplings in the beginning, and now I have to pay for his table, chairs, pots and pans, and even bowls.”

Xue Yang, “You’ll miss the couple of coins?”

Jin GuangYao, “No.”

Xue Yang, “Then why are you sighing?”

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t think you’ll miss the couple of coins either. Why can’t you try being a normal customer once in a while?”

Xue Yang, “Back in Kuizhou I never paid for anything I wanted. Just like this.” As he spoke, he casually plucked off a stick of sugared haws off a vendor’s pole. It might be the first time the vendor saw such a shameless person. As he stared open-mouthed, Xue Yang took a bite, “Besides, you can deal with the trouble of me wrecking a tiny stall, can’t you?”

Jin GuangYao smiled, “You little delinquent. Wreck stalls however you want. I wouldn’t even care if you burned down the entire street. Just one thing—don’t wear the Stars Amidst Snow robes and cover up your face. Don’t let anyone know who did it, or it’d be trouble for me.”

He tossed the money to the vendor

A.K.A: haha you're funny and I don't care who you fuck over but be sly and

Next example:

And so, Jin GuangShan sought after all those who imitated Wei WuXian in cultivating the ghostly path and gathered them under his rule. He spent a great amount of money and resources on these people, ordering them to study and analyze the structure of the Tiger Seal in secrecy so that they could replicate and restore it. Among them, not many achieved anything, while the one who walked the furthest was the youngest Xue Yang, recommended by Jin GuangYao alone.

Jin GuangYao was overjoyed. He accepted him as a guest cultivator and gave him high rights and freedom. The corpse training ground was an area of land Jin GuangYao specially requested for Xue Yang for him to research in secrecy, which meant for him to fool around however he wanted to.

He gave a whole torture playground for Xue Yang to use, he specifically asked for this from his own mouth, for Xue Yang to use and he would check in on progress. As for his morals:

Jin GuangYao’s tone was somewhat reproachful, “He Su gongzi is a respected cultivator, after all. How could you refer to him in such a disrespectful way?”

The cultivator laughed coldly, “I’ve already fallen in your hands. What are you keeping up the pretense for?”

Jin GuangYao responded with a kind expression, “You don’t have to look at me like that. I also had no choice. To elect a chief cultivator is an irresistible trend. What was the use of stirring up trouble and seeking arguments everywhere? I’ve already warned you again and again, yet you were determined not to listen to me. Under these circumstances, things are already beyond redemption. From the bottom of my heart, I, too, feel utmost pain and regret.”

He Su, “What was the irresistible trend? What was stirring up trouble? Jin GuangShan wanted to establish the position of chief cultivator only to imitate the QishanWen Sect in being the only one at the top. Do you think all the world is ignorant? You frame me like this only because I spoke the truth!”

Jin GuangYao smiled, saying nothing. He Su continued, “When you really succeed, all of the world of cultivation would see the true face of the LanlingJin Sect. Do you think killing me alone would put you eternally at ease? How wrong you are! We, the TingshanHe Sect, teem with talent. From now on, we’ll unite and never surrender to you Wen-dogs of another skin!”

Hearing this, Jin GuangYao squinted slightly, the corners of his lips curving up. It was the usual kind, gentle expression. Seeing this, He Su felt his heart skip a beat. At the same time, commotion sounded outside the corpse training ground, among it the cries of women and children.

He Su spun around, only to see a group of LanlingJin Sect cultivators drag inside sixty or seventy people all wearing the same uniform. There were men and women, old and young. Every one of them was a cross between shock and fear, while some were already crying. Both tied up, a girl and a boy kneeled on the ground as they wailed at He Su, “Ge!”

He Su was shocked speechless, his face instantly as white as paper, “Jin GuangYao! What are you doing?! It’s enough if you kill me—why drag my entire sect along?!”

Jin GuangYao looked down and fixed his sleeves, still grinning, “Weren’t you yourself the one who reminded me just now? Even if I killed you, I wouldn’t be put eternally at ease. The TingshanHe Sect teems with talent, and from now on, you’d unite and never surrender—I was quite frightened. After much thought, this was the only thing I could come up with.”

Among the group are children. That he did see and stare at gleefully as he lets Xue Yang decide to use all of them for corpse experiments. What does that mean??? Maybe that Jin Guangyao is also not in fact best uncle as he similarly was willing to kill Jin Ling who he "loved" as bait to try running away and is more than willing to use his "friends" for his own rise to power or to run away.

Examples of him enjoying emotionally torturing others as much as Xue Yang as a tactic:

Example 1:

“That’s not the way to go about things, is it? The TingshanHe Sect rebelled and schemed to assassinate Sect Leader Jin with all its forces before it was caught red-handed. How could that be called without a reason?”

The ones overhead cried, “Ge! He’s lying! We didn’t, we didn’t!”

He Su, “Utter nonsense! Open your eyes and fucking look! There are nine-year-old children here! Old men who can’t even walk! How could they rebel against anything?! Why would they assassinate your dad out of nowhere?!”

Jin GuangYao, “Because you made a mistake and committed murder, Young Master He Su, while they refused to accept Koi Tower’s conviction of you, of course.”

He Su finally remembered the accusation for which he was transferred to such a creepy place, “It’s all made up! I never killed a cultivator of the LanlingJin Sect! I’ve never even seen the person who died! I don’t even know if he was really a cultivator from your sect! I… I…”

He stammered for a while before eventually caving in, “I… I don’t even know what happened, I don’t even know!”

Yet, at such a place, nobody would listen to his protests.

Example 2:

Just as he was about to move, Jin GuangYao smiled, “HanGuang-Jun, it’s best if you take five steps back.”

Wei WuXian suddenly felt a small, sharp sting come from his neck. Lan XiChen lowered his voice, “Be careful. Do not move!”

Lan WangJi’s gaze landed on Wei WuXian’s neck. His face paled slightly.

An almost invisible guqin string, light and golden, was tied around Wei WuXian’s neck.

The guqin string was extremely thin. It was covered in special paint as well, making it almost invisible to the eye. Along with how disoriented Wei WuXian was, unable to pay attention to anything else, he didn’t notice it when it wrapped around his throat.

“Lan Zhan, don’t! Don’t back away!”

But Lan WangJi immediately walked five steps back without any hesitation.

Jin GuangYao, “Wonderful. Now, please sheathe Bichen.”

With a clank, Lan WangJi obeyed again. Wei WuXian raged, “Don’t ask for too much!”

Jin GuangYao quipped, “This is already asking for too much? Next, I’m even going to ask HanGuang-Jun to seal away his spiritual powers. What would that be called?”

Wei WuXian seethed, “You…”

Before he could finish, the sharp pain of flesh being lacerated came from his throat. Something dripped down his neck. Lan WangJi’s face was pale. Jin GuangYao said, “How could he not listen to me? Just think about it, Wei gongzi, his life is in my hands.”

Lan WangJi spoke one word at a time, “Do. Not. Touch. Him.”

“Then you know what to do, HanGuang-Jun.”

A moment later, Lan WangJi responded, “Yes.”

Lan XiChen sighed. Lan WangJi raised his hands. With two strong taps, he locked his own spiritual powers.

Jin GuangYao smiled, his voice soft, “This really is…”

Lan WangJi’s eyes were locked on them, “Let him go.”

Example 3:

Wei WuXian wouldn’t have had to be responsible for a life as heavy as Jin ZiXuan’s, and the things that happened later wouldn’t have had to happen.

Yet now, he finally realized even the reason behind culprit’s curse wasn’t to frame him. Even the cause didn’t have anything to do with him!

Such a fact was truly difficult to accept.

As he laughed, Wei WuXian’s eyes reddened. He mocked, whether at himself or otherwise, “I can’t believe it’s because of someone like you… because of such a ridiculous reason!”

But Jin GuangYao seemed like he knew what he thought, “Wei gongzi, you really shouldn’t think like this.”

Wei WuXian, “Oh? You know what I think?”

Jin GuangYao, “Of course. It’s quite easy. You’re definitely thinking about how unfortunate you are. In reality, you’re not. Even if Su She didn’t curse Jin ZiXun, Mr. Wei, you’d receive a siege sooner or later, because of some other reason.” He smiled, “Because that’s what kind of a person you are. At best, you’re the untamed hero; at worst, you offend people wherever you go. Unless all those whom you’ve offended lived their lives safely, as soon as something happened to them or someone did something to them, the first person they suspect would be you and the first person they seek revenge on would also you. And this is something you have no control over.”

Somehow, Wei WuXian smiled, “What should I do? For some reason, I think you make a lot of sense.”

Jin GuangYao, “And even if you didn’t lose control at the Qiongqi Path, could you guarantee you didn’t lose control sometime in the rest of your life? Thus, someone like you is destined to have a short life. You see? Doesn’t it feel a lot better if you think about it this way?”

He takes little time in using others hurt or their protective instincts against them, and is just as gleeful to see others in powerless situations in comparison to him as it still gives him a form of control to worm his way out of everything that has caught up to him.

Jin GuangYao, “Ge, every word of what I say is true.”

His tone was more than earnest. Ever since he captured Lan XiChen, he’d indeed been treating him with respect. At this point, Lan XiChen wasn’t able to turn against him yet. He could only sigh, “Sect Leader Jin, I have already said, when you went your own way to scheme such havoc at Burial Mound, that there was no longer any need to call me ‘Brother.’”

Jin GuangYao, “What happened at Burial Mound was an accident, a mistake. But, I can’t go back anymore.”

Lan XiChen, “What do you mean you cannot go back?”

Lan WangJi frowned slightly, his voice cold, “Xiongzhang, do not engage in excessive conversation with him.”

Wei WuXian reminded him as well, “Sect Leader Lan, do you remember what you said to Sect Leader Jiang? Don’t spend too long talking to him.”

Jin GuangYao, “Ge, listen to me. I don’t deny that I did those things…”

Lan XiChen, “How could you deny them? There are both witnesses and proof!”

Jin GuangYao, “And so I said I don’t deny them! But to have killed my father, my wife, my son, ge—if not because I had no other choice, why would I have done those things? Could it be that I’m really so out of my mind in your eyes?!”

"Your… wife…” As though he couldn’t say it, he immediately changed his phrasing, "Your sister, Qin Su, did you really marry her while knowing what blood relationship you had with her?”

Jin GuangYao stared blankly at him. Suddenly, tears rolled down his eyes. He answered with pain, “… Yes.” Lan XiChen took in a deep breath. His face was almost ashen. Jin GuangYao whispered, "But I really had no choice.”

With a sigh, Lan XiChen continued, “Third, do not try to avoid it and answer me—did you plan the death of Jin ZiXuan on purpose?!”

Hearing his father’s name, Jin Ling, who’d been holding Jiang Cheng, widened his eyes.

Lan WangJi raised his voice somewhat, “Xiongzhang, you believe him?”

Lan XiChen’s expression was complicated, “Of course I do not believe that Jin ZiXuan ran into the attack at Qiongqi Path by accident, but… let him speak first.”

Jin GuangYao knew he wouldn’t be believed if he denied it no matter what. He clenched his teeth, “… I indeed didn’t run into Jin ZiXuan by accident.”

Jin Ling immediately clenched his fists.

Jin GuangYao continued, “But I’ve never thought of planning everything that happened afterward either. You don’t have to think of me as so clever and faultless. Many things can’t be controlled at all. How could I have known that he’d definitely die by Wei WuXian’s hands together with Jin ZiXun? How could I have predicted that Wei WuXian would definitely lose control and the Ghost General would definitely run a riot?”

Wei WuXian’s voice was harsh, “And you said you didn’t run into him by accident? Isn’t that self-contradiction?!”

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t deny that I told him about the attack at Qiongqi Path on purpose, but I only thought that he’d encounter some difficulties if he ran into you when you were being troubled by his cousin since he’d never been on good terms with you. How could I have known that you would simply kill everyone present, Wei gongzi?”

“Why was a sect leader who spent money like water unwilling to do the smallest favor and buy my mother’s freedom? Simple—it was too much trouble. My mother waited for so many years, weaving together so many difficult circumstances when she talked to me, imagining for his sake so many hardships. And the real reason was only a single word: trouble.

“This is what he said, ‘It’s especially women who’ve read some books who think they’re a level higher than other women. They’re the most troublesome, with so many demands and unrealistic thoughts. If I bought her freedom and took her back to Lanling, who knows how much fuss she’d make. It was best that I let her stay where she was just like that. With her conditions, she’d probably be popular for a few more years. She wouldn’t have to worry about her spendings for the rest of her life.’

“‘Son? Oh, forget it.’”

Jin GuangYao’s memory was extraordinary. With such a word-by-word repetition, one could even imagine that drunk expression of Jin GuangShan’s when he said these words, “Ge, look, those three words were all that I was worth to my father, ‘Oh, forget it.’ Hahahaha…”

Pain flashed before Lan XiChen’s face, “Even if your father… you…” He still couldn’t find an appropriate comment and gave up, sighing instead, “What is the use of saying all this now?”

Jin GuangYao shrugged as he smiled, “I can’t help it. To seek pity even after doing all these terrible things—that’s the kind of person I am.”

At the word ‘pity’, he suddenly flipped his wrist. A red guqin string wrapped around Jin Ling’s neck.

Tears still hung at the corners of Jin GuangYao’s eyes as he spoke, voice low, “Don’t move!”

"I had no choice", "I couldn't predict anyone would be killed" "He mocked and forgot my mother and I". He uses all of this as a try to convince a kind Lan Xichen to let him go. However,he contradicts his own defenses as he had said Wei Wuxian was always fated to die for his actions and lack of being to keep things under control. This empathy is faked on his end while he makes excuses all while he never extended the same courtesy to those he killed, innocent or not, and underhandedly still tries to get those sympathetic under his manipulations. When they are not working he resorts again to threatening lives. He uses his mother also as a reason for revenge, however his grab for power alone after Jin Guangshan and Nie Mingjue are killed was solely based on his own obsession of status at that point. His mother was no longer a goal to accomplish anything and his continued lies dragged in more than one innocent party to get what he wanted.

He never saw Jin Ling, Lan Xichen, Lan Wangji, or Wei Wuxian as anything but pawns despite his soft words to them that are really just a mockery within Guanyin Temple at that point. He has placed none of them before himself in terms of what he cares for and never had.

TL:DR: Jin Guangyao's "kindness" was always a mask and Nie Mingjue was right that he was irredeemable, genuinely unkind and cruel as a person.

(Edit: Jin Guangyao stans don't even try, I will block you if you dare to reply to this)