#good for you if you can do a whole analysis on this book. my brain just does not work like that

[malewifehenrycooldown]

yeah yeah i got recommended that Henry Cooldown analysis video whatever. i am still not over people comparing Henry to a medieval knight, NOT even taking the time to unpack that said mental image of a knight is 'mostly' associated with the British Monarchy*, an extension of its Empire that *checks notes* did a long list of atrocities like imperialism and colonialism, and also (multiple) genocides.

Henry is NOT British, he is Irish. Although considering the history of Ireland and how poorly the British Empire has treated them (amongst SO MANY OTHER COUNTRIES AND DIASPORAS), yeah it's NOT surprising that an Irish man like Henry is essentially forced to adopt quote on quote 'British sensibilities' to 'survive'. <- intentional imagery or not, the implications are not lost on me.

Like okay, calling out the comparison is cool but it sure would be nice if people went further to unpack what that means and implies in the long term. you know, like ACTUAL CRITICAL ANALYSIS?!

[battle-subway-ghost]

Decided I’d finally cave and try reading The Metamorphosis. Fucked up how he just gets turned into a Kadabra like that (i have not gotten past the first chapter)

[one-squash-one-end]

I wrote a giant Raven Cycle analysis

Hi! Over the last year or so I've been working on a sort of essay about various themes in the raven cycle series, and I finally finished it a few weeks ago.

It is titled: "Why I love The Raven Cycle - An excessive analysis of the themes of friendship, queerness and growing up".

And since tumblr loves its meta (and bc I love peer validation) I've decided to start uploading it bit by bit here, making this the masterpost (if I can figure out the logistics of the linking lmao, bear with me)

(beware of spoilers up to greywaren starting at like 3b!)

Introduction

What even is the Raven Cycle?

Trust me, the characters are queer as fuck and I can prove it a) Blue Sargent b) Gansey c) Adam Parrish d) Ronan Lynch e) Noah f) Henry Cheng g) Honorary mentions

The Gangsey is a polycule

Analyzing the reoccurring themes a) Friendship b) Being a teen/growing up c) (Found) Family d) Magic (as a metaphor) e) Further themes I appreciate

Drawing a conclusion

Click here to start with the introductory parts!

1. Introduction

So here’s the thing: I love fiction almost as much as I love my friends. There’s something deeply comforting about the escapism, even if the book actually makes me want to scream and throw it on the floor (only one book has been thrown so far, I promise!).  Fiction is a healthy thing to occupy my thoughts with: headcanons! Quotes being on loop in my brain! Just fandoms!

And for me, if I am hooked on a book (series), it does not even need a good plot where a lot of things happen. In fact, I would say that my enjoyment of a book is made up of 30% plot and about 70% characters and vibes. If the characters are bland, if they do not make me feel much emotion, it likely won’t be more than 4 stars (additional info: I am way too nice rating books!). I really, really need to love the characters, to be able to relate to some aspects of them, or it just won’t become an obsession.

Since I have already started explaining that a bit, let’s look at this question: What is important to make a book special to me? 1. I need to cry reading it. 2. I have to think about it often, even weeks to months after having read it. 3. Obviously, I need to love the characters. 4. I need to be in the fandom! This can be hard with some books, but the internet is a whimsical space allowing you to find at least a small number of people who are obsessed with a work of fiction to a similar extent as you are.

Now, why am I elaborating on this so much? It’s because The Raven Cycle did all that for me. It is my favorite comfort book series at the moment, for all those aspects mentioned, but of course I cannot just leave it at that. No, I wrote a whole-ass analysis on headcanons and some of its themes. You’re welcome.

2. What even is The Raven Cycle?

The Raven Cycle is all I adore and live for (next to my friends). So, naturally, it’s a book series, specifically a four book young adult contemporary fantasy series by American author Maggie Stiefvater. The books in question are: The Raven Boys (2012), The Dream Thieves (2013), Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014) and The Raven King (2016), and yes I will admit that the publishing dates are a bit of a red flag. There is also the very relevant follow-up series called The Dreamer Trilogy (Call Down The Hawk, Mister Impossible, Greywaren), but it’s a lot less easy to get into that here as I do not know these entire books by heart, so I’ll stick to the original tetralogy here.

To stick to red flags, the books are set in the fictional Henrietta, a rural town in non-fictional Virginia, US, in the 2010s. However, that doesn’t really say *that* much about the plot, so let me summarize that really quick, because I can do better than the official synopsis! (Or let’s pretend I can.)

Blue Sargent comes from a family of psychics, yet she does not have any powers of her own. Even worse, she is a bit of an amplifier for the others, meaning she is always somehow but never directly involved in the business. As if that isn’t enough for an identity crisis, every psychic she has ever met has told her that her kiss would kill her true love. Yikes.

But because she is that amplifier, she comes to a church watch on St. Mark’s Eve, where psychics see the spirits of those to die within the following year. It’s important business, but to her it’s really just staring into the dark. Until she does actually see a spirit: That of Gansey. Of course this is not a coincidence. No, to add to this teen’s mount of problems, there are only two reasons why a non-seer would see someone’s spirit: They are their true love, or they killed them. Or, in Blue’s case, maybe both.

The aforementioned Gansey is Henrietta’s Golden Boy, the son of politicians (read: he’s fucking loaded). He does not run with the Republicans though, he runs with dead Welsh kings, meaning he has been searching for the probably dead, presumably sleeping Welsh king Glendower (*1350; †1416; yikes) for the past like seven years. Why the fuck would he do that? Well, legend says that he will grant a wish to whoever wakes him, and our favorite PTSD-ridden guy really wants that favor.

Aiding him are fellow Aglionby students Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch and Noah Czerny, plus Henry Cheng, though only a lot later in the series, but I really did not want to leave out that menace (affectionately) here. The paths of Blue and the boys cross because of Gansey’s search for Glendower, plus the fact that Blue works at a popular pizza place, but that’s a lot less whimsical. And, well, there’s the implication that Gansey might also be her true love, but perhaps she just kills him because of his bad fashion sense, it would be justified. Anyway, in true Famous Five fashion (Ronan is the dog; I won’t elaborate, the girls that get it, get it) they are of course not the only ones searching for the king, so it’s not completely a wholesome friend bonding activity all the way through.

Be prepared for: friendship and growing up, lots of treasure hunting, family mysteries, magical forests, illegal and slightly distasteful activities (our favorite of course), but most of all, heavily queer-coded (or even canonically queer) characters. Be Gay, Do Crime.

[lovelyrotter]

okay but i actually kinda wanna know ur take on stridercest being canon compliant O_O <- autism stare

oh hey i am also hitting you with the autism stare. ill try to get my thoughts down in a way that makes sense to more than just me hahaha

bear in mind that im an epilogue lover and i think Meat/Candy are really valuable pieces that further all of the characters and are also hard canon in the sense that we're looking at just 2 post-game universe outcomes out of an uncountable number (the book in the picnic basket representing post-canon fanfic). i think the characters actions in the epilogues make sense and are satisfying to me. yes even jane (i love alpha jane and i will not do her the disservice of 'cleaning her up' w/o showing her work for it. thats not how you depict a character who grew up with fascist programming). i could totally go on a whole tangent about this specifically but thats another post lol we'd be here forever and its also not stridercest

but okay. canon stridercest. under the cut cause it got kinda long

basically it has to do with the cherubs and how their relationships and mating rituals are pretty obviously incestuous leaning even though cherubs dont have the human concept of Siblings or blood family. the cherub who predominates will search across paradox space to mate with another cherub who closely resembles the cherub they predominated which is like textbook Freudian sexuality. theres a lot of Freud and Jungian stuff in HS imo even if im kinda [wobbly hand gesture] at the validity of these theories applied to real life and real people. but theyre super fun tools and lenses to use in fiction and i mean. gestures at all of dave

so the incest aliens cherubs. the whole reason why im talkin about them is bc Caliborn is so incredibly interested and invested in the Striders in particular. caliborn as both Lord English and Lil Cal shapes earth NOT OVERTLY but more so embeds himself in earth society, but again, the Striders lives in particular. dave is full of incest jokes. hes even apparently got a list of his friends arranged in order of how likely theyd incest-elope with each other (thank you epilogues for this amazing factoid). he seems to think about it often enough to, yknow, Do That. have a good solid think about that and construct an organized list about it. bearing in mind dave makes jokes about stuff thats a) bothering him, or b) generally camping out in his brain. hes not even really aware of it most of the time (as we see in one of the openbounds where hes all 'why am i thinking about puppets???' after seeing dirk for the first time in that dream bubble. he is thinking nonstop about dirk at that point and going off his only frame of reference for ANY dirk, which is his bro. his bro who was most likely deeply warped by Lil Cal)

sorry for the long blocky paragraph lol. but now onto the next thing

Caliborn as Lil Cal is the centerpiece in the beta strider apartment. dave cant escape him and beta dirk grew up with him. what the fuck do you do when youre childhood comfort item is also the most evil creature across all of paradox space? if youre a dirk you try to fight it. but how long can you keep fighting something like that. its safe to say that bro was affected by Caliborns particular brand of perversion and sfw kink. i dont think i have to say how insidious abusive and toxic he is about those things. and looking at the truth of beta bro (16yo alpha dirk) you can start to see just how warped beta bro became. beta bro is a false dirk (still a very Real dirk but not the Truth of dirk. beta bro has been toxified and made infinitely worse by an absolute evil influence over decades of life. in 80s fuckin texas. presumably in the system. anyone would be fucked up after that)

so for this analysis/theory im stating beta bro as a false persona. using jungian terms he is apha dirk's shadow

both dave and dirk live with a fake, carefully manicured version of their bros. they live with personas (or shadows of their guardians on the walls. hello platos allegory of the cave). they dont actually know e/o and they dont until the striunion

alpha dirk especially grows up embedded in the Public Persona Of Dave Strider 400 years post mortem and completely alone with unlimited internet access. hes a self admitted expert on his bro and we dont get to see a lot if any of his early childhood but i can hazard a guess at how much he clung to that persona of his bro. he fuckin idolizes dave. he LOVES dave. right off the bat he is in some kind of love with dave and i think if you try to argue against that then thats you slippin. i think youre a fool and have to reread homestuck because i wholeheartedly believe the striders loving eachother is part of the win state

once again this is speculation cause we get barely anything about alpha dave, but from what we already know about him im guessing this bro-persona is

achingly effortlessly cool

oozing masculinity (toxic or not, not really interested in categorizing that although toxic coolboy masculinity IS something the striders contend with & is an important facet in their lives)

a skilled fighter

a dedicated moviegoer (hes a director need i say more. this one is probably the only genuine thing about his on-screen persona)

and now lets look at jake. someone whos grown up on pretty much nothing but movies, whos doubtlessly been influenced by hollywood and its idea of gritty 'main character' masculinity through that, and who also clings to more old-school ideas of manliness (think victorian/edwardian era gentlemanly-but-loves-a-good-scrum kinda manly. moustache twirly with a monocle kinda manly. basically everything that grandpa harley is)

but okay lets look at what jake wants to be. lets take a look at his teenager persona

achingly effortlessly cool (his own 'hollywood star' kind of cool also def influenced by his favourite characters like lara croft who is indeed achingly cool. you see him succeed in inhabiting this hollywood star persona on earth c)

oozing masculinity (the old school manly mans-man kind)

a skilled fighter (two pistoles always. harder to aim cause you cant use a free hand to make up for kickback. that takes skill)

a dedicated moviegoer (again one of the only genuine parts about his persona. his questionable-to-wretched tastes aside. but bearing in mind that the SBaHJ movies are intentionally bad which is what makes them loop around to good. such is the nature of intentionally 'bad' art. jake fuckin lives in this perpetual bad-good art loop. okay enough with the art tangent keep focused man cmon)

because dirk has obviously way more contact with jake i dont doubt he sees through jakes own (admittedly way more flimsy) coolboy persona but the point still stands i think. different flavours but the same kinda guy. dirk has a type and i dont think its a stretch to say that hes looking for aspects of the bro-persona he grew up looking at in other boys, much like the winning cherub looking for the one they lost in the cherub theyll mate with

also wtf is with dirks obvious boner for dave chasing him across paradox space to decapitate him huh?? the last few sentences in Meat are about that very thing. he wants to fuc fight dave sooo bad. haha remember how the cherubic mating ritual is one of the most violent and long running spectacles in paradox space? i sure do

[thegorydamnreaper]

Darrow vs Lysander - symbolism and favored weapons

Okay this I a bit of analysis that has been turning around in my brain since I finished Light Bringer. There will be major spoilers for all of the books, so read on at your own discretion.

And of course if anyone has points to add please do! This is by no means exhaustive, just a compilation of my main thoughts on the whole thing!

Darrow basically grew up with a weapon in his hand, since he started mining at age thirteen. It becomes part of his identity, an extension of himself. It’s also a symbol of his people, as all Red miners are given one. So as a Red, he already closely identifies with the slingBlade as a weapon, as a cultural symbol, and as a means of protection.

“I wonder what Eo wants of me. Does she want me to take my slingBlade and start a rebellion? I would die. My family would die. She would die, and nothing would make me risk her. She knows that.”

(RR Ch 4)

“This is your slingBlade, son. It will scrape the earth’s veins for you. It will kill pitvipers. Keep it sharp and if you get stuck in the drills, it will save your life for the price of a limb.” So said my uncle.”

(RR part III intro)

Lysander, on the other hand, is trained by his grandmother from childhood to use his mind as his weapon. He is capable of using a razor after spending a decade with Cassius, but his mind was his first weapon. It’s also a callback to the Jackal losing his hand and being mostly unaffected - because all Golds are taught that their mind is their first and greatest weapon.

“He sighs. “I told you. I am something different than you. A hand is a peasant’s tool. A Gold’s tool is his mind. Were you of better breeding, you may have realized this sacrifice means so very little to me”

(RR Ch 41)

“Skipping supper. No wonder you’re a little twig,” Cassius says, pinching my arm. “I daresay you don’t even weigh a hundred ten kilos, my goodman.”

“It’s usable weight,” I protest. “In any matter, I was reading.” He looks at me blankly. “You have your priorities. I have mine, muscly creature. So piss off.”

(IG Ch 8/ Lysander 1)

“My memory is a formidable thing. In many ways it is my grandmother’s great legacy, her teachings preserved in me.”

(IG Ch 8/ Lysander 1)

But the mind isn’t a symbol on its own, there’s no cultural gravitas to it. So to him physical weapons are tools that are an extension of his intellect. In that world view, a gun is the most practical choice of tool. Firearms are the great equalizer - you can be smaller, weaker, less trained than your opponent and there’s still a VERY good chance that you will win any fight.

This leads into another similar understanding that he and Darrow share: their rise must be meteoric. Darrow accomplishes this the hard way, through pain and training and failures. He builds himself as a symbol because he knows that’s the only way to start the chain reaction of bringing Gold down. He is a symbol, and so are his tools. The slingBlade becomes a symbols of liberation when once (as just a razor) it was a tool of the enemy.

Lysander? He cuts corners, because the tools don’t matter only the endgame does. He’s not trying to build something new, or inspire his followers to fight for something they never thought possible. He is fighting to reestablish the status quo as swiftly as he can. He doesn’t need to fight from the ground up to become a symbol - as a Lune, he already is a living breathing symbol of Gold, and that’s enough.

“Dancer would want me to accept the offer. It would guarantee my survival. Guarantee my meteoric rise. I would be inside the halls of the ArchGovernor’s mansion. I would be near the man who killed Eo. Oh, I want to accept. But then I would have to let the Proctors beat me. I’d have to let this little whorefart win and let his father smile and feel pride. I’d have to watch that smug smile spread across his bloodydamn face. Slag that. They’ll feel pain.”

(RR Ch 41)

“He sneers at the gun. “No honor.”

“No time.”

I shoot Alexandar in the head”

(DA Ch 81)

He studies those who came before him, flipping their symbols and methods against them instead of doing anything new. He quotes poems like Roque, uses Darrow’s Morningstar as his flagship, claims to be honorable like Cassius - but it’s hollow because these aren’t his achievements. He doesn’t subvert the paradigm like Darrow does constantly, he just borrows and steals to get his way.

Darrow sees himself as the sword of his people, but he’s more than that because he put in the work to be more. He questions if he’s a good man, but the we see the weight his decisions have on him. But because he built himself up, he has a community that loves him, friends and family that are truly loyal and will check his worst impulses. He is the symbol, but he’s anchored by those he represent. It’s real and has meaning because of all the sacrifices he has had to make.

Lysander can’t even unite the Golds because he is built upon lies. His parents and their deaths, a lie. His grandmother’s teachings, all lies and propaganda. The Golden lies of the Society he so desperately wants to restore. He is built upon lies and hollow promises, of course he collapses into Gold dogma at the first sign of pressure. He has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s sacrificing everything and everyone to prop up this dying system, because that’s where he feels safe. He has no symbols to look up to, no culture to give him strength and community. Anything that could have grounded him is gone (often because of his own actions). Pytha and Cassius were his only family left and he rejected them and their teachings. More than ever before there’s nothing holding him back. He has his mind and it is telling him the only way to be safe is to double down and become the worst of Gold.

[mxtxfanatic]

I'm not very active online socially, so I find your takes on the whole JC stans situation very helpful and interesting. It does a lot to contextualize what I see reading a lot of fanfiction, wherein I've found much MDZS fanfiction to be very divorced from the reality of the source material, both due to cultural insensitivity towards the Chinese source material, the CQL problem, and of course the ubiquitous JC apologia. I've been in equally, if not more, contentious fandoms before (the Sherlock fandom comes to mind) but, if I can be frank, to me the difference between those experiences and now is that MDZS is an actually good book! I feel like a lot of the fandom inclinations toward sanding down conflicts or exacerbating them, inventing personalities for background characters, turning all the characters into dolls and the setting into your dollhouse (which no one else may touch!) were codified for the current userbase in Superwholock, whether people realize or not. Those fandom instincts were helpful when working with source material that was shallow, inconsistent, and from the english-speaking world, but it did not equip fandom to deal with a book from a foreign culture that didn't need "fixing" for lack of a better term. It also reminds me a lot of early otaku culture in the USA, with the botched translations, weird cultural takes, and... odd characterization in fanfiction (why does Naruto need a harem???). Which, one may hope, could indicate that things will get better over time. That's just my spaghetti thrown at the wall, though.

I think it's a combination of both the quality of the book (Western fandoms are unused to having source materials with such tight storytelling where they don't have to fill in major parts of the plot with their own imaginations) and racism (Western fandoms feeling so entitled to Asian works while also not respecting their creators enough to even pretend to attempt to understand what the creators are trying to say, instead, choosing to fall back onto the orientalist "those Asians are just an enigma" stereotypes to justify superimposing their own ideas onto the text and calling it "basically the same thing").

I also believe that the sheer volume of unchallenging art that the Western world mass-produces, paired with disdain towards literary pursuits like critique and analysis, has led to a generation of "fans" who believe that the only "right" way to engage in your favorite media is to turn your brain off. "If you joined fandom to share quotes from the book and not just follow the 'incorrect-quotes-blog' and laugh at out-of-context excerpts, then what's your problem???" seems to be the consensus nowadays.

Here's to hoping one day people get over themselves and realize that just because their usual interests are careless drivel written to make money doesn't mean that everyone is writing trash stories they could care less about outside of how much money it makes them. Mxtx writes amazing stories, but you don't actually care about the story like you claim you do if everything you "love" about it can be easily just summarized in a recycled fandom trope meme.

[bitethedevil]

Your character analysis’s are such a fun read! How do you go about analysing a character and what are your favourite posts?

How do I analyze characters (with Raphael as an example)

Cool question! I think my brain is automatically wired to analyze media and finding patterns at this point from studying English too long, and especially when I get really interested in a particular piece of media or character. It just sort of happens, though there is some process to it and stuff I look for when I’ve found an ‘angle’.

A starting point

Those are nice, aren’t they? For me, it’s mostly just finding some small thing and going ‘huh…that’s sort of interesting’ and then go from there. Other times it’s finding some kind of broad thing and see how that fits that character. I’ve made a whole analysis about why Raphael is a cat. I just took that small thing, looked for patterns that supported my claim, and put those together. It could also be some defining characteristic of the character or literally whatever you want as long as you can find proof and support it.

With Raphael it could be his ambition as an example.

When do we see it? When do we see it most? How does he express it? Do we see ambition elsewhere in the story? Oh yes. How is his expression of ambition different or similar from, let’s say Gale’s ambition for godhood or Astarion’s ambition for ascending? Gale and Astarion, to an extent, both think it would be for the better for the greater good if they reached their goal. Does Raphael think the same? Well, yes, it seems so. It might not be a correct statement, but he thinks so. Though we know from Gale and Astarion that such power corrupts (which is a huuuge theme in the work in general). Do we see the same flaw in Raphael? We don’t entirely know all that much about it (except for what he tells us in the ending) but what could we guess would happen after he has gotten the crown, from what we know happens to those other characters?

Patterns, comparisons, similarities, differences, proof, conclusion. That’s the gist of it.

Think about the writer’s intent but maybe not for too long.

It seems super stupid but stay with me. The way the writers have set up the narrative and the character’s place in it are obviously useful and crucial things to consider when analyzing things. I definitely won’t discredit it. However, when doing character analysis, I do sometimes throw it slightly out the window. I can make my own conclusions.

Did you have that experience in school where your English teacher points out that the ‘choice of the color green in that particular section of the book symbolizes hope’ and some kid went: “the author probably just thought green was a neat color” but your teacher keeps claiming that it doesn’t matter and that it’s still important? I’m going to be that English teacher right now. The confines of what we can analyze are not dependent on what the writer wants us to look at. God, all media would be terribly boring if that was the case.

I want to say that all the writers of BG3 have done an absolutely phenomenal job. There is no doubt about it. However, when it comes to a character like Raphael, there are stuff where I completely disregard the writer’s intent (in the final analysis. I still consider it). It has been said before by many others that he is for some reason written to be absolutely pathetic in the third act. That is the writer’s intent, and there is no doubt about it. It’s reverting expectations, I get it. I get the point loud and clear. I just wish it was more subtle and not so much handholding from the writer to tell me “he’s not all that. He is not what he says he is and btw he is also really evil”.

From the infamous shit-bucket, to his house being a mess, to it being hinted that he’s a bottom (nothing wrong with that by the way and shitty that it’s portrayed as being embarrassing for him), submissive (same point), shit in bed (once again) and only likes to sleep with himself. He keeps an innocent cleric in his basement that he tortures (in case we hadn’t gotten the point that he is bad). Sooo much handholding. I’m sure what happened was that he was supposed to play a different role in the narrative and when that got cut the writers were like “shit, what now?”.

That doesn’t mean I will discredit it or won’t analyze it though. I just won’t mindlessly eat up the intent served to me because I like to think myself. I can still take those things and make my own conclusions about it, such as the idea that Haarlep might be (and probably is) an unreliable source.

Character and Discourse Analysis

When doing character analyses, I look at the character as a whole person that exists both in and out of the narrative. We can only conclude things from what happens in the narrative though. What they do, how they do it, why they do it the way that they do, and what their motivations are. It’s important to consider all of it. They might act or react in a specific way to one thing, but does that mean that they would always do so? Are they perhaps under pressure or act differently because they want something?

An example with Raphael would be how he shows us who he is right from the get-go and presents himself as the devil you know. Seems a bit counterintuitive to reveal that you are a devil immediately if you are trying to lure someone into trusting you, right? If you know about Gortash, you also know that he seemed to be a lot more subtle when usually dealing with other people (a warlock came to his parents that might or might not have been Raphael himself). So perhaps this isn’t usual for his character, but why does he do it then?

Another thing I use occasionally is discourse analysis. Not discourse in the way that people might write or talk about a character, but the discourse of the character. How they speak, the specific words they use, and the way the character communicates with others. Discourse analysis is complicated as fuck, so I won’t go super into depth.

It’s particularly useful characters like Raphael who uses such colorful language. I’ve talked about before that he keeps using words and phrases that all boil down to us being small and him being bigger and better. It’s essentially not what he says, it’s how he says it and the way that he says it with the words he chooses. It can tell a lot about a character.

In conclusion

Here I go yapping again. For me, it’s pretty much just making claims and finding a way to support it. It doesn’t make that claim necessarily correct, but it’s about presenting an interpretation in a compelling way. It’s all about proof. With BG3 there is the wonderful thing that it’s a whole world outside the game as well so there is endless knowledge to gain from outside sources to support the things you have found in the game as well. It’s all about how nerdy one wants to be about it.

I’m not really sure if you mean analyses done by me or others when you say favorites. I think I might have linked a few that has inspired some of my own in their respective posts. I also recently read this one about Raphael and sex by @firlionemoontav that I really liked. When it comes to my own analyses, I like to write some of the more far-fetched almost conspiratorial ones like my theory on why Raphael could definitely rule the Hells and the sillier ones like the Cambion Cum Post

(Thank you for the ask <3)

[askthisfishprince]

✨Official Disclaimer/FAQ Master Post✨

I'm going to be pinning this one, just in case anyone has questions or hopefully make some things easier to find! Will also add things as I need to.

Questions Regarding Timelines or “Canon”

I don't have an exact timeline in my head for this blog. In my imagination, Eridan and the other trolls are just alive again and in the present, and all the previous storylines still exist within it. The difference is that it takes place after the comic, so everyone is an adult just going along for the ride lol I guess that's what I'm going for 🤷‍♀️

I apologize if I stray away from the "canon"... I try to stay as true to the characters and their dynamics as I can. But sometimes it's just fun to be a bit silly and go off book for the sake of adding some humor. Also….it is an ask blog of a character that died pretty early on and did not get much in the “character development” department lol So again, I do my best to write him as “canon” to his true attitude and behavior as I can. But it can get very hard to give nuance to a guy who overall was pretty shitty, didn’t have much dialogue in the first place while also giving him a fake timeline that takes place a couple years down the line and allow him to have a crumb of self improvement without it coming off as too ooc. So if you see behavior that you don't think is accurate to him…..i promise I do my best…….i have google docs and PowerPoints on this guy lol so I promise the brain rot runs deep

Why I Haven’t Answered Your Question

If you notice that I have not answered your question there are multiple factors.

I couldn’t come up with decent enough dialogue that I felt was good enough to respond with. I am extremely stubborn

I work a full time job and just couldn’t find the time to :(

It was a very strange question and I have no idea what to say lol usually sexual, creepy, violent etc

I have gotten multiple of the same question and I am currently working on a reply.

I waited too long and I feel too bad to respond now ❤️

I can tell if you are spamming me with the same question even if you are anonymous lol And I'm sorry but I won't answer those lol

My inbox is actually insane at times and I genuinely can’t get to everyone :(

I promise I read every single question and I appreciate all of them!! Even the creepy ones.

But I am one person running this blog on my own time with a full time job with only so much time during the day 😔 I also have rampant adhd that can make it very hard to complete certain things

“Will I be making more content of Eridan and *insert character*”

I try to avoid having strict shipping content on here. I don't want this blog to become limited in my responses because I inadvertently turned it into a shipping blog. I do enjoy dropping hints, but for the most part, I prefer to keep things open so that I don't unintentionally limit myself. I also don't want fans who ship other things to feel like they can't ask questions about different characters or scenarios.

I do not have any “headcannons” that I am against or a ride or die for…but….please do not send me any Cronus and Eridan shipping questions. It is very yucky to me. I outright ignore the ministrife….i pretend to not see it 🥰

Am I An Eridan “Defender”?

No lmao

I’m not gonna write down my whole pathetic analysis on him. But I’m not gonna be here at my old age defending a fictional fish guy who boasted about the aspects of eugenics and harass people who disagree?? What is this?? 2013? lol

If you hate him and think he is awful. That is 100000% A-okay! You are allowed to! And I understand lmao

If you ever want to actually talk about Eridan openly, and discuss him as a character or anything. Just dm me! :)

Also just a reminder to clarify that my writing for Eridan does not necessarily reflect my personal feelings. If you ask “Eridan” about certain characters and my response seems mean or nasty, please note that it doesn't mean I dislike the ship or character. Eridan is not particularly friendly, even towards people he likes, so I try not to insert too much of my own feelings into his responses.

(Erisol, EriRox, eridan and literally everybody lmao….except maybe Karkat…..thats his bro…)

Tags

All of my Eridan responses will always be tagged under my url “askthisfishprince”

Any questions directed at me that I post responses for will be under

“NotEridanAsks”

How To View The Post Properly

Whenever I make a response, I try to keep things as clear as possible! Any text in the description or in the tags that does NOT have (()) around it, means thats Eridan talking.

Anything besides that is ✨me✨ lol

Always check the tags for extra dialogue! :) and also always check for “read more” because sometimes I add extra silly doodles lol

Also sometimes I give my two cents as to why I did something a certain way in the tags. So if you care to hear me Yap, check the tags.

Also if you ever want to send an ask to me, either state in the ask that its for op or just put (()) around it! :)

[paperclipbean]

I love stories. I joke that books are my best friends, but it's not entirely a joke. When GO first triggered such a deep emotional response from me, my husband noticed and couldn't understand. In my own effort to understand and explain it, I've looked back, looked up, looked around. I've spent so much time unearthing things in myself that I'd buried. I've brushed off the dirt, looked closely, and felt things awaken that hurt but need to be allowed to hurt to properly heal. These things have echoed the raw emotion of my first response, but I can tell they are not the whole answer. I've rewatched the TV series (a *few times), read the book, joined Tumblr to read other people's ideas, and kept notebooks full of analysis, ideas, questions. I've recommited to my writing because I can feel that part of me waking up again -- stirring and sitting up in a deep pit of despair where rejection had left it to wither. It's not just that the trigger was painful- it was also awakening. So much about myself that had just laid down and accepted "this is life" is waking up and it's angry, and hopeful, and confused. After all my searching, I think that part of the reason is how I relate personally to this story based on my past and my dreams. But, also, I absolutely love Aziraphale and Crowley. I love their story. It's touched me deeply and I'll never be the same. And really really good stories do that. I also think that so many of us feel like this because we are all Aziraphale and Crowley. They are in each of us. Personally, I'm much more Aziraphale- in so many beautiful and, also, unhealthy ways. And, I've followed the rules all my life. Full of love but at the detriment to myself, never allowed to even really ask what I want. When I think back to my young adult self, I remember knowing I really wanted children. But, also knowing I really did not want to be married. At that time, being married meant a man and a woman. That's all. And, if you wanted children, that was your only choice. I remember the deep shame of my thoughts about other girls, and the shame was so strong that I never even admitted those "temptations" to anyone. I thought, it's bad enough being tempted by lustful thoughts about boys, having these thoughts about girls, too, was some twisted act of the devil and if I even admitted to being tempted in that way, I'd be ... well, at the time, it didn't even bear thinking about. Let's just say, it would not have gone over well. With anyone. There were no allies. There was no one telling me to be myself. There were a lot of people telling me to follow the rules and be "good." Can you imagine Aziraphale if he'd never met Crowley? Imagine all those questions slowly pecking at his brain with no one to encourage him to explore the answers, helping him to look at things differently, showing him that love can exist and good can manifest-- outside the "rules." Imagine never tasting food because you were told it's unhealthy and wrong- all the while knowing you want to taste the food. But, never allowing yourself. Never allowing yourself to even ask if that's what you really want. Over the years, I've developed some beautiful friendships that have given me the space to question and to be myself. I'm so very thankful for those friendships. But, it's not the same as what I see when I look at Aziraphale and Crowley. And that's what I want. And that want is what is waking up inside, yawning and stretching, and it hurts, and it's bittersweet. But I refuse to try and put it back to sleep. Have you ever felt a deep sense of missing someone, but you can't place who? Or feeling homesick when you're home? I've felt that way before. It always puzzled me. I think that even though I like the analogy that we are all part Aziraphale and part Crowley, I admit that I'm much more Aziraphale. And, I think I'm searching for Crowley. I want that. I want what they have with my whole heart. But, like Aziraphale, I can't bring myself to hurt anyone else in order to find it.

Update: I left an abusive relationship. (Yes, I'm in therapy.) I came out to my mom after fearing that conversation for years. It was beautiful. I moved to the city. I was terrified at the time; but, I love it. I am writing. It makes me feel alive and whole. I am acting for the first time. It's something I've always wanted to do and I love it. I'm making new friends and I'm so very thankful for all the friends who have supported me on this journey. I wouldn't say I've met my Crowley. But, I'm learning how to ask for what I want. I'm learning not to be afraid of making mistakes. (Yes, and. Go improv!) I hope that anyone else who has read this and identified with my story is encouraged to stand up for yourself and have the courage to seek a happy, healthy life. I welcome any asks or DMs.

[ryuichirou]

What do you like about Book 5? I feel like reading one of your analysis

Anon! Thank you so much for this ask and for enjoying my analysis. I’ve been waiting for someone to ask about Book 5 lol It’s one of my favourites. Unfortunately, I also made you wait for ages, as I always do, but I hope this time helped me to collect my thoughts better lol

I really really love and resonate with the main themes of the Book 5: self-doubt, self-improvement, dedication to your crafts and knowing your strengths, but also enjoying what you do. I’ve said it tons of times, but I’ll repeat myself: I strongly believe that this is the beauty that Rook is talking about in his little rants, and this is why in that particular crucial moment Neige ended up being more “beautiful” in his eyes. Neige did what he wanted and enjoyed every moment of it, and Vil was so focused on the win that he couldn’t enjoy himself, thus losing the spark… well, you know how I feel about the whole Rook’s betrayal thing: I’ve talked about this in the past.

God I love a lot of aspects of this book, but I’ll mention as many as I can without this post getting obnoxiously long lol

I love Vil and Epel’s conflict a lot! I talked about them in this post, so I won’t dive too deep into it, but: it’s so amazing to see a piece of media where a boy teachers another boy that cuteness and beauty is a strength in its own, and he does it not in a campy way; in fact, he does it with brute force lol Vil isn’t gentle at all, on the contrary, he is very stubborn and tyrannical at times, but this is what makes the dynamic more interesting. I really love imagining how awkward it was for everyone to just stand there and watch these two yelling at each other and slamming the doors and physically fighting, and how at the end of the book they grew so closer and more understanding of each other.

Now let me yap about Deuce a lot! I really love that Deuce kind of ended up being one of the main stars of this book! It’s so satisfying watching him win and get rewarded for his hard work, and by hard work I mostly mean his self-reflection, self-discovery and willingness to grow. One of my favourite aspects of ADeuce dynamic is that Ace is that guy who is smart but doesn’t care so he gets a C and Deuce is that guy who tries his best and grinds as much as he can but still gets a C. Both of them get a C, but the situations are so different, and I am glad we got to see Deuce being so frustrated about it. It feels so unfair, and this is one of the things that caused him to be a delinquent in the past: if he can’t succeed even if he tries his best, why should he even bother?

But Deuce isn’t the same Deuce he used to be: he is mature enough not to give up and he wants to improve very badly. This is why instead of flipping everyone off and leaving he listens to Vil’s critique, he volunteers to get extra ballet lessons, and he only snaps when Ace pokes him at the worst possible moment. If we apply that Utena-ass chicks-in-the-egg analogy that Rook and Kalim brought up when talking to Deuce, this is a symbol of Deuce-the-chick already trying to break the egg.

BUT. At the same time, not every single thing would be fixed if you just “try harder”, and despite the fact that Vil expresses this in frustration, he is kind of right. Isn’t it a bit ironic that Vil has pretty much the same inner conflict as Deuce? He always tries his best, and yet he can’t reach the thing he wants so badly?

Anyways, this is where the real act of breaking the egg begins: you have to accept your own strengths even if you dislike them. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have a choice: Epel doesn’t HAVE TO be cute, Deuce doesn’t HAVE TO do his act-first-think-second thing, but being aware of what you are good at and how your brain, body and soul operates is important.

Deuce has always felt that he has to be someone different, and he is still struggling, but Book 5 gave him such a huge moment of growth that peaked in him unlocking his Unique Magic, I love it so much it’s insane….

I also love all the snippets of Kalim and Jamil that we got in this book, even though they didn’t play as big of a role as they could have. Still, Kalim got slapped in the face with the first ever objective evaluation in his life, and seeing him trying to comprehend his feelings was so good. I want to see more of this side of Kalim, I want to see more of him processing how others actually see him and that sometimes others will be picked instead of him, and that’s totally fine. And he gets it, but getting it and accepting it are two different things, and Kalim has a lot of maturing to do.

Even though he was quite mature when caring for the kohais, and especially during Vil’s overblot. The poor guy got so traumatised by Jamil’s overblot that he clocked that something was wrong with Vil, and I love it a lot.

(Also, Jamil is hot. No notes; just thought I’d mention that)

Speaking of overblots! God, Vil’s entire overblot section is *chef’s kiss*

I love how even in his design he still has this ominous but motherly (not in a caring way, more like a step-mother) nun/queen-like  vibe. But what I love even more is how Vil’s overblot happened.

The fact that he almost killed a person? Yeah I know that we don’t know if he actually wanted to kill Neige or just poison/curse him, but let’s think for a moment: he was willing to cause harm that is pretty serious, and I don’t think we should downplay it because Vil himself doesn’t. The stakes of this overblot are pretty high… Even though technically Leona caused a lot of harm and seriously injured Ruggie, even though Jamil yeeted Kalim+the boys to possibly die also; I guess Vil’s act feels so impactful because of his reaction.

I really love how Vil got so extremely disappointed in himself and so afraid of others looking at him with disgust that THIS made him snap. I love how Kalim kept repeating that Vil didn’t harm anyone and shouldn’t feel this way because this didn’t matter anymore: even if Vil didn’t end up causing harm to Neige, he himself already learned how disgusting of a person he was.

Vil is very complex, Vil has high standards for himself, and this is simultaneously his blessing and his curse :” )

I really love his backstory, I really love how gently Rook called him back as he was awaking after the flashback sengment… I barely mentioned Rook in this post woah, but I feel like I talked about how much I loved their relationship in this book quite a lot! So I’ll just say it again: I think Rook’s support and Rook’s betrayal both are crucial to understanding the message of this book and Vil’s character as well. Also, they’re an amazing ship.

Another thing I love is how likeable Neige is lol It would’ve been so easy to do a “you know, Snow White is also a bitch!” thing, but Twst never does it with its characters: the “good guys” are genuinely good, likeable people, but this doesn’t make the villains’ perspective any less relatable or badly written. Neige isn’t pretentious or righteous about being good, he is just naturally sweet and wants to have fun and take care of people around him: you can’t hate this guy, well you can, but also you can’t. And Vil knows that his grudge is petty and one-sided.

But at the same time? THE FRUSTRATION YOU FEEL WHEN YOU WATCH NEIGE AND HIS LITTLE FRIENDS DANCE AND SING IS INSANE. I feel like I know this book so well but I still get mad every time I hear that song LOL THIS IS SUCH A TRUE TO LIFE SITUATION AAAAH-

Yelling aside, I really do think it’s pretty real for a lot of people, especially those who create something that other people evaluate (i.e. posting what you create on social media). Even if you know in your head that numbers don’t mean anything, even if you know how algorithms work, even if you keep in mind all the factors that go into the reasons behind the feedback one receives, you’ll still inevitably end up comparing your numbers to some other person and feeling like this is unfair. Everyone suffers from this thing, everyone ends up feeling like the numbers express their worth and how others see them. Everyone feels stupid when something they worked hard on doesn’t get as many numbers as a quick nostalgia-bait that isn’t even good but ultimately is more engaging to people for other reasons.

I think this is the first time I’ve seen this exact conflict shown in media in this particular way, so I really appreciate it.

So, to sum up, even though it may seem like Ch5 is way too long and focuses on a lot of things at once, I think all of these things tie into one thematic narrative very nicely. Despite the fact that Vil’s “sin” would probably be vanity, I how much he talks about physical appearance, diets and cosmetics, the majority of his inner turmoil boils down to him feeling like a misunderstood artist and caring too much about how others envision him. Epel, Deuce, Kalim – all of them struggle with how others evaluate them, in their own different ways.

This book also had a lot of tasty dialogue (a lot of shippy ones too) and a lot of very good conflicts that made characters understand a lot about each other and themselves.

Speaking of ships? Rook/Vil and Neige/Vil aside, we had such a fun Azul/Jamil moment at the beginning of the book, and also Kalim/Jamil, Ace/Deuce, also some food for those who enjoy ships that we don’t really like. It was fruitful.

Also this is the book where Idia got called a brocon, and this gives it the additional +100 beauté points.

[crazylittlejester]

I started typing and it got out of control...

I don't know if you've watched Ever After High or not, but I've been re-watching the entire show on account of not having much to do and I've come to the conclusion that an LU crossover with EAH would be absolutely awesome. The general idea is that characters from fairytales grow up and have kids that re-enact their parents' stories and this happens over and over again to the point that their entire society is built around this. Since they have a magic book that kind of seals your fate if you sign it, this is where the conflict of the show comes from.

Obviously there are a few different ways a person could go about setting this up but I'm just going to pick out fairy tale parents and backstories for them because I think that's the most fun.

Warriors: I'm thinking that he'd be best as Helen of Troy. Greek mythology is canon in EAH because of Cupid, so it works. The same themes of lust and infatuation are present. Also war.

Wild: He fits Sleeping Beauty's story the most, but that's already taken so the next best thing is Rip Van Winkle. It's only 20 years compared to 100, but I think it's the closest I'm getting for now, and the point is that he wakes up as an old man.

Sky: I think he should be the guy from the jabberwocky poem that uses the vorpal sword to defeat it. The jabberwocky is supposed to be the most powerful monster in EAH last I checked, so it would be the closest equivalent to Demise other than the Evil Queen.

Legend: Given that wizards are supposed to live a long time, Merlin would be a good fit for Legend because he'd have a few centuries to finish growing up into a mature wizard. He could still be a veteran of adventures this way without sacrificing his magical abilities.

Twilight: Unfortunately there aren't really any stories about wolves that aren't villains so he's tragically stuck being a non-descript farmer. I'm so sorry. Under other circumstances he'd get to be one the guy from "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" except that guy is a bear and not a wolf.

Wind: I'm torn between picking an infamous pirate or a story from mythology. Either one would probably work, to be honest, but it would probably work better if Tetra was a pirate's daughter and he's related to a deity in charge of ocean storms.

Hyrule: Ended up picking Jack the Giant Killer for him because that story's about surviving because you're clever, and Hyrule's games are supposed to be ridiculously hard. Also there's a magic sword involved.

Four: With the Minish he could totally fit into the story about the little elves that help the tailor/cobbler. But there's a story called "The Four Skillful Brothers" and I can't say no because it literally ends with them rescuing the princess via teamwork and splitting the reward.

Time: I feel like he'd fit in best as some kind of forest spirit or changeling, but as the Hero's Shade he could also be Godfather Death. I've been thinking about it and I really can't come up with a good placement for him.

Spirit Tracks Link gets an honorary mention because he is canon in my heart. Since New Hyrule is in the middle of the industrial revolution he's probably more of an urban legend. Either the ghost of a train conductor's kid or a guy cursed to see ghosts like his Zelda.

I know nothing about ever after high but im obsessed with what you’ve just said to me oh my god

first of all anytime someone draws the connection between Wars and Helen of Troy I loose my mind a bit, one day when I have the proper brain capacity and time I’m going to write a whole ass analysis paper on the comparison between the two of them because its so important to me

ALSO JABBERWOCKY MENTION??? I’M OBSESSED. AND JACK THE GIANT KILLER FOR HYRULE?? dude I can see you spent sooo much time thinking about this and oh my god I am so obsessed this is really cool, you ate

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

every single book I read in 2022. all 129 of them.

jesus christ

let's start with the best of the best; everything else will get listed beneath the read more because I'm not an animal. even just picking out my favorites is honestly probably going to get pretty lengthy, even though I'm trying to keep the synopses short.

batmanisagatewaydrug's noteworthy books of 2022

Complaint! (Sara Ahmed, 2021) - necessary for anyone doing diversity work in higher education, tbh

America is Not the Heart (Elaine Castillo, 2018) - achingly gorgeous novel of heartbreak and healing.

The School for Good Mothers (Jessamine Chan, 2022) - honestly? I feel very good calling this my favorite book of the entire year. sensitive, smart, chilling.

Black Feminist Thought (Patricia Hill Collins, 1990) - truly ashamed to say I didn't read this sooner. Collins' clear-eyed analysis remains crazily spot-on 30+ years later.

Hurts So Good: The Science and Pleasure of Pain on Purpose (Leigh Cowart, 2021) - I read this book so early in 2022 and literally have not stopped thinking about it since.

Batman: King Tut's Tomb (Nunzio DeFillippis, Christina Weir, José Luis García-López, and Kevin Nowlan, 2009) - dare I say the most fun I had with a comic all year.

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty (Akwaeke Emezi, 2022) - a romance unlike any other. queer, fun, sexy, bold as hell, and joyfully life-affirming.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell, 2021) - DELICIOUSLY creepy short stories that will lurk in your brain forever.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century (Kim Fu, 2022) - if a more perfect short story collection exists I am yet to find it.

The World We Make (N.K. Jemisin, 2022) - I normally hesitate to include sequels on a list like this, but god DAMN Jemisin is the queen of modern spec fic for a reason.

We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Mariame Kaba, edited by Tamara K. Nopper, 2021) - excellent collection of Kaba's abolitionist writings, drawing on years of organizing experience and wisdom.

Jade City (Fonda Lee, 2017) - look out! new favorite doorstopper fantasy series alert!

Priestdaddy (Patricia Lockwood, 2017) - about the best damn memoir I've ever read. heartbreaking and hysterical in turns, poetry the whole way through.

Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory (Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, 1996 and 1999) - it's always so exciting when something much-hyped lives up to the hype in every way. Batman at his grim and moody Batmaniest with a Gotham that’s deliciously bleak.

Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel, 2014) - I didn't think I'd like this book much at all, then ended up proposing on the second date. oops!

I'm Glad My Mom Died (Jennette McCurdy, 2022) - you will also be glad McCurdy's mom died, and also experience every other known human emotion along the way.

Kaikeyi (Vaishnavi Patel, 2022) - SPLENDID mythology retelling + political fantasy.

My Body (Emily Ratajkowski, 2022) - haunting haunting haunting personal essays about Ratajkowski's life as a model and subsequent alienation from her own body.

Batman: Bruce Wayne, Murderer? (Greg Rucka et al, 2002) - genuinely what can I say I'm a messy bitch and I love when the Bats are having a terrible time.

The Batman Adventures Vol. 2 #1-17 (created by Dan Slott, Ty Templeton, Rick Burchett, Terry Beatty, and Bruce Timm, 2003) - a continuation of the Batman: The Animated Series universe that frankly just fucking rules.

Little Rabbit (Alyssa Songsiridej, 2022) - a potent and erotic adult coming of age story.

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century (Amia Srinivasan, 2021) - thorny, difficult, vital essays.

Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (Sabrina Strings, 2019) - jaw-droppingly thorough research into the role of fatpobia played and plays in the project of race-making.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong, 2019) - yeah so it turns out no one was REMOTELY exaggerating. Vuong really is That Good.

Hench (Natalie Zina Walschots, 2020) - wild fun with a ruthless protagonist and her sex villainous beetle man boss; what more could you ask for?

Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles (Eric C. Wat, 2021) - learning about queer history makes me feel like I’m holding something so vibrant and fragile and precious right in my little queer hand. this book is an emotional journey in such a shining way.

Never Have I Ever (Isabel Yap, 2021) - EXCITING short story collection centered on girls having Just The Weirdest Time.

and everybody else:

fiction:

Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki, 2021)

Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield, 2022)

A Tiny Upward Shove (Melissa Chadburn, 2022)

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Becky Chambers, 2022)

Disorientation (Elaine Hsieh Chou, 2022)

The Laws of the Skies (Grégoire Courtois, trans. Rhonda Mullins, 2019)

The Monster Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson, 2018)

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson, 2020)

Greenland (David Santos Donaldson, 2022)

Dead Collections (Isaac Fellman, 2022)

The Halloween Moon (Joseph Fink, 2021)

A Dowry of Blood (S.T. Gibson)

Nightmare Alley (William Lindsay Gresham, 1946)

The Vegetarian (Han Kang, trans. Deborah Smith, 2015)

The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, trans. William Aaltonen, 1915)

Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi, trans. Geoffrey Trousselot, 2019)

Woman, Eating (Claire Kohda, 2022)

Long Division (Kiese Laymon, 2014)

Jade War (Fonda Lee, 2019)

No One is Talking About This (Patricia Lockwood, 2021)

Portrait of a Thief (Grace D. Li, 2022)

Elatsoe (Darcie Little Badger, 2020)

A Snake Falls to Earth (Darcie Little Badger, 2021)

Glitterati (Oliver K. Longmead)

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir, 2019)

Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir, 2020)

Nona the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir, 2022)

The Memory Police (Yoko Ogawa, trans. Stephen Snyder, 2019)

Even Though I Knew the End (C.L. Polk, 2022)

100 Boyfriends (Brontez Purnell, 2021)

Flowers for the Sea (Zin E. Rocklyn, 2021)

Any Way the Wind Blows (Rainbow Rowell, 2021)

Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice, 1976)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2012)

Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World (Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2022)

Into the Riverlands (Nghi Vo, 2022)

Siren Queen (Nghi Vo, 2022)

Strange Beasts of China (Yan Ge, trans. Jeremy Tiang, 2020)

short story collections:

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer (Janelle Monáe, Yohanco Delgado, Eva L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas, 2022)

Walking on Cowrie Shells (Nana Nkweti, 2021)

Terminal Boredom (Izumi Suzuki, trans. Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O’Horan, 2021)

nonfiction:

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Judith Butler, 1990)

How to Read Now (Elaine Castillo, 2022)

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Melissa Gira Grant, 2014)

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat (Aubrey Gordon, 2020)

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color (Ruby Hamad, 2020)

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness (Da'Shaun L. Harrison, 2021)

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service (Tajja Isen, 2022)

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter (Scaachi Koul, 2017)

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (Revised Edition) (Kiese Laymon, 2020)

Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde, 1984)

Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Lessons I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers (Dylan Marron, 2022)

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (Amanda Montell, 2021)

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments (Aimee Nezhukumatathil)

Histories of the Transgender Child (Jules Gill-Peterson, published as Julian Gill-Peterson, 2018)

Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance (Jessamyn Stanley, 2021)

A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk (edited by Valerie Steele, 2013)

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Revised Edition) (Susan Stryker, 2008)

The End of Policing (Alex S. Vitale, 2017)

The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (Michael Warner, 1999)

Read My Lips: Sexual Subversions and the End of Gender (Riki Wilchins, published as Riki Anne Wilchins, 1997)

poetry:

Short Talks (Anne Carson, 1992)

Content Warning: Everything (Akwaeke Emezi, 2022)

Prelude to Bruise (Saeed Jones, 2014)

Alive at the End of the World (Saeed Jones, 2022)

Bright Dead Things (Ada Limón, 2015)

Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Patricia Lockwood, 2014)

Nature Poem (Tommy Pico, 2017)

Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Ocean Vuong, 2016)

Time Is a Mother (Ocean Vuong, 2022)

comics:

Batman: One Bad Day - Mr. Freeze (Gerry Duggan, Matteo Scalera, and Dave Stewart, 2022)

Spandex - Fast and Hard (Martin Eden, 2012)

Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour (Tee Franklin, Max Sarin, and Marissa Louise, 2022)

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? (Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert, 2009)

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes (Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcom Jones III, 1988)

The Sandman: In the Doll's House (Neil Gaiman, Michael Zulli, Mike Dringenberg, Chris Bachalo, Malcolm Jones III, and Steve Parkhouse, 1989)

The Sandman: Dream Country (Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Malcolm Jones III, Colleen Doran, and Charles Vess, 1991)

The Sandman: Season of Mists (Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Malcom Jones III, Mike Dringenberg, Matt Wagner, P. Craig Russell, George Pratt, and Dick Giordano, 1992)

The Sandman: A Game of You (Neil Gaiman, Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot, Stan Woch, and George Pratt, 1993)

Run, Riddler, Run (Gerard Jones and Mark Badger, 1992)

Catwoman: When in Rome (Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, 2005)

Batman: Year One (Frank Miller and David Mazzicchello, 1986)

Batman: One Bad Day - Penguin (John Ridley, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, and Arif Prianto, 2022)

Batman: Bruce Wayne - Fugitive (Greg Rucka et al, 2002)

Batman: One Bad Day - Two-Face (Mariko Tamaki, Jaiver Fernandez, and Jordie Bellaire, 2022)

Batman & Robin Eternal Vol 1 & Vol 2 (James Tynion IV and Scott Snyder, 2015 and 2016)

Batman: Their Dark Designs (James Tynion IV, Guillem March, and Tomeu Morey, 2020)

The Joker War Saga (James Tynion IV and Jorge Jiménez, 2021)

Papergirls Vol. 1-6 (Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, 2016-2019)

Real Hero Shit (Kendra Wells, 2022)

Poison Ivy #1-6 (G. Willow Wilson and Marcio Takara, 2022)

and some gaming guides!

Monster of the Week (Michael Sands, 2012) - great game. so cool. cannot wait to actually play it someday.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians (April Kit Walsh, 2021)

special shame zone because I want you to know how bad this sucked, do not read this:

Rethinking Sex: A Provocation (Christine Emba, 2022). patronizing, puritanical, reductive, painfully cisheteronormative. weirdly afraid of group sex. not actually that provocative, just aggressively Catholic.

and last but most certainly least, a comic that I want to remind you all fucking sucked just one more time before the year is done.

Batman: One Bad Day - The Riddler (Tom King and Mitch Gerads, 2022)

Tom King, go fuck yourself. Mitch is cool though, the art slapped.

[vilnmelling]

Figured I'd do a little intro!

'Sup! My name's Vil N. Melling, and I go by she/her pronouns. I'm 19 years old, I'm from quaint little Sweden, I'm a rare species of Hatchetfield fan that's cishet (I was brought here by a couple of lesbians: my sister and her girlfriend), and while I'm not officially diagnosed, if I'm not neurodivergent there's just something unrelated that's terribly wrong with my brain.

I'm a writer currently swept up in a Hatchetfield hyperfixation. While I'm nerding out about Hatchetfield, I'm also writing my second book and editing my debut novel. NPMD also managed to suck me back into fanfiction writing after only writing original works for two years!

Hatchetfield favorites

Characters: Richie's in first place, closely followed by Paul. After that it's a big ol' tie between Ruth, Emma, Miss Holloway, Wiggly and for some reason, Trevor.

Musical: Nerdy Prudes Must Die easily takes the cake for me.

Songs: High School Is Killing Me, The Summoning, Let It Out, Bully the Bully, Literal Monster, What If Tomorrow Comes, Time Bastard and Virginity Rocks

StarKid actor: Jon Matteson, if you couldn't guess from that list of favorite characters (and from a whole bunch of my posts)

Hatchetfield ships

Ships I ship: Paulkins (Paul Matthews + Emma Perkins) (favorite) Lautski (Stephanie Lauter + Pete Spankoffski) Flipschitz (Ruth Fleming + Richie Lipschitz) Lexthan (Lex Foster + Ethan Green) Barneston (Tom Houston + Becky Barnes) Holloduke/Holloweane (Miss Holloway + Duke Keane) Swedish Barbecue (Trevor Lipschitz + Rudolph) I can see Tedlotte (Ted Spankoffski + Charlotte Sweetly) Legally Blonde (Gary Goldstein + Linda Monroe) in a "they have a regular affair" kinda way Alice and Deb if they work a bit on trust and boundaries And of course, Henry Hidgens and his six boyfriends

Ships I'll gladly stay away from, please and thank you: Max and Richie ANY Human x Lord in Black Paul and Emma with anyone but each other (they are fucking meant to be)

Any ship that wasn't mentioned in either, assume I'm neutral about it.

Other fandoms

Arcane. Arcane's undoubtedly the best story I've ever seen. It's the main inspiration behind my steampunk fantasy trilogy, and I fucking adore it.

Newsies. The first musical I liked! (The only other musical I actually care about-). It was my 2021 hyperfixation, as evidenced by the fact that I have an (now inactive) Instagram fan page with 700+ posts. If you wanna check it out, it's newsies_square.

While I'm not really active in any other fandoms, I do really like The Umbrella Academy, the Grishaverse (more specifically Six of Crows), The Good Place, Encanto, Gravity Falls, Modern Family and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Other platforms

I'm all over the place, baby B)

Instagram: vil.n.melling_cant.write (writing tips + writing memes + incorrect quotes + occasional content about my books) vil.n.melling_cant.draw (where I post my drawings) vil.n.melling_stealfromtherich (a page just for stuff about my book (titled Steal From The Rich)

YouTube Vil N. Melling. I've published one NPMD analysis (as well as a couple of other analysis and writing tip videos), and I'm planning on making a good few more of them!

TikTok vil.n.melling_cant.write (mostly book marketing, but also a few writing/reading memes)

I'll soon have my first Hatchetfield fanfic up on AO3, at which point this will be updated to feature my handle there!

[sukirichi]

OH MY GODDDDDD CANON OMIYN KISS OMIYN KISS OMIYN KISSS, WE DID IN LIKE HALF A YEAR WHAT IRIS COULDNT DO IN FIVE YEARS IR WHATEVER 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️ she can keep suna - or well… not suna :v

that chapter was insane tho, i hope iris develops a pregnancy ick to vanilla and projectile vomits every time she enters the room. i also know that rintarou’s little act is gonna bite his ass sooooooo hard, like brother pls you’ve never made a single good decision in your life and i know his ass can’t stand iris rn so 😗😗😗 i think no matter how in love yn was before this, it’s not gonna matter anymore, cuz there’s genuinely only so much someone can take before they mentally just cannot handle the heartbreak and disappointment anymore, going forward i think rintarou and yn are gonna work as a team to fight back against the queen, but they’ll never be lovers again me thinks.

that’s okay tho, cuz omi exists and he’s hot and he loves us and the rings mean nothing anymore!!! like genuinely, yn needs to realise morality and ethics are tossed aside when both parties essentially agree on a partner swap 😭 kissing a married man doesn’t matter when his wife is carrying YOUR HUSBANDS BABY LIKEEEE??? stand up yn…. babygirl you’re better than this…. omi’s a good man….. 😔😔😔 it’s time to move on from rinta, he wouldn’t milk a cow for you like omi would 😔

but i do understand, rintarou’s manipulation is harder to shake since despite his words, he genuinely was in love with her and his actions reflected that. it’s hard to rationalise that you need to leave and put yourself first, when the man you vowed to love for eternity through thick and thin and better or worse is like…. a total walking “woe is me” pity party. rintarou’s fatal flaw is that he believes he’s smart, but he’s honestly the most naive character in the story - and we can see him slowly learning, but he’s constantly on the offence when he should really be defence. the queen is good at attacking because she’s got years of experience on how to pick and choose her battles and fight (metaphorically) quick and aggressively, rintarou doesn’t have that.

anyways, banger chapter suki, i’m gonna reread it for the omiyn moments again, need to hear that man whimpering atp 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

(also you don’t have to answer my long ass multi chapter analysis ask if it’s overwhelming, i know it’s like a massive chunk of text, so it would also clog up the dash 😭)

- shhh anon

(ask sent before ch18)

HELL YEAH we managed to do what iris couldn’t in five years lmao 😭 GASP. not you calling him not suna LMFAO. you’re so right though, it’d be nearly impossible for them to work out as lovers after everything that happened between them but it is very likely they will team up together when they have a mutual enemy!

he wouldn’t milk a cow for you like omi would AGDKQLPQ honestly tho omi would do ANYTHING for us! he’s a good man, savannah 😭 and oh god yes that’s like the whole point of rintaro’s character and why he’s so hard to like but also difficult to completely turn away from. i read in some psychology books before that when actions are paired with sweet words, there’s a bigger chance that it leaves quite an impact and right now, rin is half half like he is genuinely in love now but just not... doing and saying the right things so it makes you wonder that like!! what could he be hiding!! why can’t he just be genuine!! and yes so correct, he IS the most naive character in the story like even atsumu has more guts and brains than him bcos we literally saw him pull shady shit just to keep his image good 😭 yes he SHOULD be on the defence ugh i love that, this is why he was never gonna win against the queen because the queen is experienced and knows and controls EVERYTHING in the kingdom. the only reason iris was ever able to one-up the queen is because her mother gave her evidence that the queen was the one who wanted the king gone 😭 also shhh anon thank you SO MUCH for always taking the time to send me your thoughts and theories, i appreciate you so much!! 💓🌷💫

[flanpucci]

An ASD oriented analysis of the character of Enrico Pucci

Okay guys after letting this draft cook in my notes for months, here it is!!!

I have decided to embark on the journey of listing the reasons why I think Pucci is autistic coded and if he isn’t, he’s written with a pretty good idea of what an autistic person is! Since I'm pinning this, the analysis will be under the cut ↓

I can’t guarantee that my analysis won’t come with a whole lot of general delusion or projecting on my side, so don't hesitate to tell me if you feel some type of way about this. I understand that many of the traits or behaviors i’m gonna talk about are mostly explained by the events happening in canon, but they give him a general super autistic vibe. Disclaimer that I’ve also decided to ignore most acts of murder type violence for this analysis as I think those are more relevant in the context of the story than the character building.

Although not on purpose this analysis is organized almost like diagnosis criteria, so we're going to look into repetitive behavior and interests, communication, aversion to unpredictability and sensory processing etc...! Before we start, I'd like to say once more that I am autistic, my analysis is mine and reflects my opinion only, it's my headcanon and comes with a lot of projecting, so proceed with caution.

Anxiety and counting prime numbers, Repetitive behavior

Counting numbers is a well known technique to stop panic attacks. The reason is that when you panic, your brain’s logical part doesn’t activate. Counting numbers will help you get the logical part of your brain back ‘on’. Simply counting numbers in order or in a simple pattern is too natural, and may not work, so some people will count numbers backwards from 100, count numbers in a non-patterned, random way, or even count prime numbers.

In Pucci’s case he counts primes because they can’t be divided other than by 1 or themselves and are “lonely numbers”. The prime numbers remind him of his own loneliness against adversity, and give him courage. I don’t think a lot of neurotypical people feel personal closeness to something unemotional like a mathematical concept, but I might be wrong. I think what’s interesting to note is that prime numbers are a fixed series of numbers, never changing, offering a great deal of familiarity in repeating them (and also by doing so out loud, in the sound of repeating them). He has also memorized them up to the hundreds, (maybe even thousands iirc?), which shows he has an amazing memory skill, but also that he’s probably counted them a LOT. (Funny anecdote, Oliver Sacks mentions in one of his psychology books a pair of autistic twins that would figure out prime numbers together, and use it as means of communicating and bonding. They were able to produce huge prime numbers without a table!)

It is just something I wanted to point out, but I think it’s funny that a priest wouldn’t recite prayers as a calming mantra, but something very cartesian like mathematics. This furthers the idea that he has a lot of interest and finds a peculiar comfort and understanding of the world in science.

Oh and I think resetting the entire universe for everyone to gain precognition of events COULD be considered as a liking for repetitive things… ! /j

His interests and the random trivia at unexpected times

Pucci seems to be a man of many interests but primarily these are science (especially biology, animals, maths/geometry and physics), Dio’s plan/heaven, christianism, art (paintings). At least that’s what I got from the manga. There aren’t a lot of characters for which you can easily lay out the interests in that manner. The reason for that is that he talks about those all the time! And he always uses metaphors related to what he knows about to explain the world, his intentions, or situations.

• The corridor scene where he meets Jolyne, it’s not like it’s random or out of the blue, but it feels a bit peculiar to bring up this subject in this manner, and Jolyne seems dumbfounded at what he said to her.

• When handcuffed to Jolyne, he starts explaining about the swallows that are prone to accidents to make a parallel between the birds and her own situation.

• References both a politician’s use of subliminal sex and a painting (the “Domine Quo Vadis”) in a dramatic moment where he’s literally ending his brother’s life.

• Seems to be particularly interested in art as shown by the book he was reading when he met Dio (about Fra Filippo Lippi, a painter) and the conversations he has with Dio (once again using art as a metaphor to understand other concepts such as stands, and souls.).

• Of course bringing up the subject of the man eating a mushroom for the first time at the most unstable point of the battle against Jolyne, feels very out of the blue, (but not out of context.)

• When talking to Miraschon, he does a whole bunch of inappropriated stuff lol, doesn’t pay attention to what she says, and starts talking about his own interests/ideas.

This happens again when talking to Donatello Versace, where he's bouncing off questions, not acknowledging the answer right away and coming back to it a little bit later. His train of thought seems to come first, and his communication is not centered around making the other feel like they've been listened to.

Overall he often makes a great point, but sometimes it feels like the context is lacking, like he has had many thoughts before saying the things he says, but we don’t get to hear them, so the conversation topics are a bit unnatural. Plus he generally has a very self-important way to talk and explain things.

Other than that I think his exceptional focus on the same goal and obsessive idea of fate, from childhood and up into late adulthood can be the sign of a truly one track mind, which can be often found in ASD. Could also be noted that a lot of his behavior and actions is copied/referencing Dio, which could be because of Dio’s literal influence (being absorbed by green baby), or an overall tendency to use direct references in speech/behavior.

Self importance and the desire of previsibility

As I just mentioned a little while ago, the Miraschon scene is a scene where he’s info dumping her for at least three pages, on two different subjects, but also not paying attention at what she’s saying. This is not very nice behavior, but it’s very frequent in autistic people too. Being centered on one’s self, and unable to put yourself in another person’s shoes is very characteristic of ASD.

Pucci’s motivation and his ideal of heaven makes a lot of sense from an autistic viewpoint for a number of reasons. The first one being the discomfort caused by the unknown, or at least the fact that he thinks the world would be a better place without unknown events. The desire to know everything in advance and be able to have the time to be prepared for it will resonate with a lot of autistic people, because our brains have so much trouble adjusting to unknown outcomes and situations. I can’t explain it much better, it’s just wiring.

Second reason is Pucci’s overall sense of self importance throughout the part. There are many situations in which he will put himself first, expecting better treatment, straight up explaining that he’s different than other people.

The frog scene is interesting because he tries to weigh logically why his situation is objectively worse than the guard’s, without acknowledging the slightest the guard’s panic when assessing such a stressful situation.

(Pucci thinks the guard takes decision based on logic and not panic, gets frustrated that the guard isn't calm and rational.)

His inability to see things from outside his viewpoint is ultimately what will lead him to try to push his own ideal onto the whole world, always sure inside himself that he’s doing that out of altruism and for the greater good. Of course I think there is a slight disconnect from his inner emotions about what has led him to this point. But for me, this is the truest sign of being unable to understand that other people might see things any other way than he does, but he’s just sure that people don’t understand that it’s for their own good. In a way, his self-centeredness is mostly intellectual and not of intentions. This is something that is often present in people with ASD, because of a lack of (or misplaced/altered) cognitive empathy. People with ASD can have trouble mentalizing other people’s emotions or point of view. It doesn’t mean that they don’t care, don’t respect it, or can’t show support, but they just can’t really understand that another person has another mental space.

Cognitive empathy is described as such :

Identifying and labeling the emotions, connecting feeling to cause, and reading the thoughts and perspective of others. Ability to read nonverbal communication and social context. Ability to read the mental experiences of others.

Pucci will often justify his lack of mind theory by « you just can’t understand it. » : from his view point, being opposed by other people is not due to divergence of opinion (which would mean to accept that other people understand the situation but are in a different mindset), but due to lack of intellectual comprehension. This is why even though very intelligent, it can seem like he’s confused.

Young Pucci and the scenes with Dio

An important thing to note about young Pucci is his inability to break the rule that priests can’t talk about what has been said in confession. He’s not even a priest at that time and the confession was forced on him. These are perfectly good excuses to break the rule, or at least bend it a little, to confront the Weather and then Weather/Perla situation. Hesitation or inability to break the rules, irreasonable attachment to morals and taking irrational decisions because of those despite having great intelligence is a trait that can be found in a lot of autistic people. However, we see that he’s flexible enough to permit that Dio stays in the church basement until the sun sets. In my opinion, he’s quick to give his trust to such a suspicious person as Dio, even when Dio hints that he might be lying. This could be the sign of a little bit of naivety but it's still pretty much normal at a young age.

In the chapters with Dio, we can extract quite a lot of information on Pucci’s communication because it’s the almost only scenes where he’s not in scheming mode, in a pinch, or fighting. Pucci has a very different reaction to meeting Dio, even at a young age, compared to how Avdol or the hunchmen describe their reaction to Dio for example. He’s not shocked or in awe, but not hostile either, which is unusual. Even when he talks about Dio in narration, he has a detached way of calling him beautiful and mysterious, which shows it’s obviously how he feels even though he stays calm at all times in front of Dio, even in dangerous situations.

Dio makes numerous observations about Pucci’s behavior, expression and communication. He seems relaxed and expressive, very different from the rest of what we see of him.

(Pucci 'making a face.')

Another important thing to note is the unusual way he communicates his love to Dio, using very profound words, with a lot of sincerity, without flinching. This genuine confession of a difficult emotion to confess even sets Dio aback.

(Probably having the most fun he’s had in his life here, and is that a smile!?)

Also, parallel play!! They’re shown having bonded profoundly, at the point of hanging out in bed together, but apart from chatting, they don’t really do things together like for example Hermes and Jolyne throw the ball with F.F., they’re doing stuff next to each other (Pucci watches Dio build his boat, and they read lying next to each other.).

(generally also seems kinda bad at picking up subtext)

Two words on sensory perception

(Pucci wondering about how pretty the green baby is, he really wants to know if it's not ugly fr.)

About sensory perception, it’s actually one of the first things I noted when watching the anime especially, he’s very curious about the green baby, and talks to F.F. about it, but as he says himself, he can’t get the “feeling” from a memory disc, and he wants to know how the green baby feels in a sensory kind of way. (Is it soft? is it beautiful?). Of course the many scenes where he purposely mutilates himself without even flinching could indicate that he has a very low perception of physical pain. Both these traits would indicate a very peculiar kind of sensory relationship to the world.

In this scene with Donatello he does state that he has an acute sense of taste, in response to Donatello describing with great precision ingredients in a dish.

(Having a little solo party and dropping trivia again.)

He also seems to feel the music strongly, even though the scene is meant to be comedic, he’s really into it and seems to have some sensory associations (visual/auditory) (also trivia dumping).

Although not directly a sign, the way he asks Dona to test his food because of allergy may also remind of many autistic people who have food allergies and aversions and get people to test food for them before eating.

Body language and facial expression

Pucci has a very specific kind of body posture, especially in the wrists, they’re always limp or twisted in some kind of way, similar to what autistic people might call “T-rex arms”. Araki is very talented at showing detail about characters in the strictly visual part of his drawings, so I think that’s important to note. In terms of facial expression, apart from with Dio, he seems pretty stoic and stern in most situations where he’s not under a lot of stress, almost never laughs or smiles, even in power high situations where other villains usually at least evil laugh for a couple seconds .

(Cute snapped wrist picture collection.)

End note about Weather Report

I just wanted to add a quick word on Weather. Weather Report without his memory disc is also extremely autistic coded. Walking on tip toes, talking in a very low volume not respecting personal space, when he is introduced, he seems super autistic. The reason is the lack of memory disc and consequences of being hung, but I personally think this adds to the overall neurodivergent feel of the manga. I’m also not sure of how much of his backstory was planned at first, and if or not Araki had planned his behavior because of his backstory or not at the point of his introduction scene :3

And there we have it!! I tried not to be too lengthy so I hope you understand my point. I don't think I've seen him being analyzed/hc as autistic a lot, especially compared to characters like Jotaro, but I think he shares some similarities with Kakyoin who is very ND coded too! I would also like to point out that I don't think Araki purposely created a character that reads as autistic, but that he has a very realistic vision of personalities and identities that can lead to this kind of analysis. Also, fun note, Pucci is often typed as INFJ/INTJ and these are prominent personality types in autistic people :3. Anyways, hope you enjoyed, feel free to share your reactions, I'd be glad to hear your thoughts.

NB:

I felt like adding a few to this post so here it is. I would like to say that I think overall Pucci is the most multifaceted, complex character in the series, he has often been described as such, and that’s what makes him the exceptional last boss of the first Jojo era. Many people have had trouble understanding him and Made in Heaven, as can be seen by the numerous amounts of questions on the internet « what did Pucci want to do? » « what is Made in Heaven? » etc. Araki himself said it was very tiring writing such a nuanced villain. I think many of Pucci’s actions and behavior can be attributed to elements in the story narrative, his almost impossible circumstances, and I don’t want to oversimplify, or kick him into a box that might not have been intended at all by Araki. I would also like to add that ASD is a spectrum and one may or may not relate with every trait exposed here, or may find others that I haven’t listed. And it’s always a bit hard categorizing villains as ND because of their reprehensible actions. However I think he is nuanced enough to be considered good rep anyway. But maybe that’s just me fangirling a little too much. In any case, I hope you enjoyed.

Flan, out!!

[blackbird-brewster]

hiiii!! i'm sorry to hear you're not doing well right now, but you're definitely an appreciated face on my home page

1) i haven't watched much of the criminal minds reboot. i think i watched the first two episodes? but i don't like it. i think the reboot lays into the things i don't like about the show (gory deaths, really unhinged murderers, poor representations of people with mental health issues) while ignoring things i do like about the show (steady character development and family time, morgan, hotch, and reid being there >:( and an interesting analysis into what makes normal people do bad things, not what makes people run multi-level marketing murder schemes[???]). but i also have not seen enough of it to justify any stronger opinion than "i don't like reboots and this will not be an exception"

2) not really a headcanon, as much as an analysis of the show that my friend and i were talking about. but we both genuinely think that garcia and morgan would have ended up together if garcia was skinny...which is garbage because i absolutely LOVE their relationship, and i feel like it did not get any solidity or closure. also reid is bisexual and prentiss is a lesbian and jj is "good luck, babe" chappell roan-coded

3) a femme penelope garcia icon would be...kinda awesome 👉👈🥺

4) again, prentiss + jj = good luck, babe. idk what else to tell you

5) reid x morgan college au rivals to lovers shenanigans would make a great fic

6) comet and koshi (two of my five cats)

7) read any good books recently? i'm reading who's afriad of gender? by judith butler right now, and i'm really enjoying it

hope all of this keeps you busy and makes you happy! feel better soon <3

Let me start by saying this was such a great message to read when I was very sick and very sad. THANK YOU!!! I finally have recovered enough to have half a brain cell so I can reply. <3

1) Tell me what you think of the reboot

I am RIGHT THERE with you friend. I think the reboot has really destroyed a lot of the characters (namely Garcia who is unrecognizable in terms of characterisation in CME) and especially in regards to this season, they made an unsub a main cast member?! So we have SOOOOO much of Elias Voit and so LITTLE of the characters we're here to see. I would trade all of his screentime for one look into what Luke and Emily do outside of the office tbrh (yes, the promo for this week has Emily at home for the first time in the whole reboot, but that's beside the point). I'm def not a fan of CME and I wish the show would have just ended in 2020 and that was that. But since it didn't and because my soul is eternally bound to this fandom, here we are. Thank god for fanfic.

2) Tell me your CM headcanons

"we both genuinely think that garcia and morgan would have ended up together if garcia was skinny…which is garbage because i absolutely LOVE their relationship"

YOU ARE SO RIGHT! They had so much potential and I'll forever ship Morcia and I agree the fact they would be an interracial couple with a fat babe involved was probably part of the reason they never dated. -- That being said, I DO appreciate that they never dated. Because I think it's quite rare to see loving, supportive, flirty, PLATONIC friendships between men and women on TV. Not every m/f duo needs to end up together, I think we definitely need more representation of m/f best friends.

"also reid is bisexual and prentiss is a lesbian and jj is "good luck, babe" chappell roan-coded"

100% correct on all accounts. The way I HOWLED with laughter at "JJ is good luck babe coded" lmaaaaaaaaaooooooooo

3) Request pride icons

When you say 'femme Garcia' which flag are you meaning? Happy to make the icon just wanna get the pride flag right (bc I know there's tons of different flags!).

4) Tell me songs that remind you of your ships

"again, prentiss + jj = good luck, babe. idk what else to tell you"

They are so many songs on that album. Jemily is also very 'Casual' and 'Coffee' too.

5) Give me fic prompts

"reid x morgan college au rivals to lovers shenanigans would make a great fic"

Fun fact, while Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) focuses mainly on JJ/Tara/Emily -- Derek and Reid are important side characters. And they were college acquaintances (established in Part 2)! And they both have dated the same guy (Luke) anddddd they are navigating polyamory together in Part 3. So you may enjoy that series.

6) Tell me about your pets

I love your cats!! I had 5 cats at one point. That's the dream! Tell them all they're so good and fluffy and I love them.

7) Ask personal questions

"read any good books recently? i'm reading who's afriad of gender? by judith butler right now, and i'm really enjoying it"

I've been reading my book copies of Fooled Around! I'm on the final book (I split the series into 4 books) and I'm trying to make it last as long as possible. I only have a couple of chapters left but having physical copies of something I wrote is SO cool. It's brought me a lot of joy and has helped me take pride in what I write!