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its-a-hil · 1 year

Note

ok. random question. literally from the random question generator at randomwordgenerator dot cahm: What's your go-to funny story now, but was horrendous at that moment?

(i think it gave me a question i already know but eh shoot)

hm.

alright i think this is actually more of the reverse than the forward direction, but sure

when i was in middle school, i was such a horrible procrastinator (note: i am still one of those) that i often wrote rough drafts of essays during lunch

(the one year in middle school i didnt do this was when i had english 1st period. tbh i wish my schedule had worked out like that all 3 years, but alas)

but i got so comfortable just throwing out words with a pencil that i kept doing it and now i almost never edit anything bc i need to write it all in one go or it's wrong

but final drafts still had to be typed & printed, so it was only my rough drafts that were like this

fast forward to high school, and rough drafts became less of a thing

my compulsion to procrastinate did not.

oh also relevant here is that i was emotionally incapable of asking for an extension or submitting online after class or anything

so.

senior year of high school. we had an essay to write on Twelfth Night, where we had to pick a word that was repeated a few times and discuss its effect on the story

i picked 'fancy' and used it to argue the absolute bullshit point that it meant the whole thing was a dream, because i had no other ideas and my brain refused to set aside time to do something more reasonable

except.

i did not begin writing until lunch of that day.

i did not have access to the computer lab i had planned to write the essay in.

i pleaded with a friend to lend me his laptop, on which i did the most frantic writing of my life. i dont remember if i ate any food during that lunch period.

(according to my diary i also said something shitty to that friend even as he was doing me a massive favor, which. god.)

looking at the document now (ty google drive), it seems that i didnt actually finish the essay, just wrote notes on the different uses of the word

im not sure if it was just a rough draft or notes kind of thing that was due, or if i lucked out and the essay was extended or something? unclear

but what is clear is that i wrote 440 words in just over an hour, and that's not counting the quotes i had to transcribe (which also made up over 400 words)

the following night i turned it into an actual 750ish word essay in also about an hour, bc. yeah. (i still didn't write an intro until i printed it out during study hall the next day lmao)

so anyway the essay was shit, the teacher was genuinely confused and pulled me aside after the class where she handed the essays back

note: she was also the theater teacher & that semester i was doing the play afterschool, and i think she knew i was better than what i handed in

in my defense i was fairly depressed that couple of months, partially due to an responsibility that i did not realize i could easily say no to. the only consequence that refusing that responsibility would have had is that i would have hated myself less and possibly liked engineering more

oh also looking at my diary apparently that was also the week that i taught precalc bc the teacher's partner was suddenly out for paternity leave and i had an essentially free period during the precalc class

so yeah that's probably the third most interesting week of my senior after the week that we had the play performances and the week i was out in the hospital when my lungs spontaneously collapsed

the funniest part of that story is that it took me another 3ish years to realize that i wanted to be a teacher, and another 2 years after that to act on that desire. lmao

anyway bc im sure you freaks want to see it, im putting the essay under the cut

Actual essay:

Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s most fantastical plays. Even without the use of magic, the supposedly realistic events are completely improbable. There is evidence that the play was intended to be a fantasy, and throughout the play, the word “fancy” is used to suggest to the audience that the events of the play are little more than a fanciful construction of Orsino’s mind.

Orsino speaks four of the six instances of “fancy” or “fantasy.” Two of these instances come in his first monologue, right at the beginning of the play. He claims that “so full of shapes is fancy that it alone is high fantastical” (1.1.14-15). As Adams says, in this passage Orsino claims “that his own imagination is so fertile that it is supremely capricious and whimsical.” (Adams 58). It is odd that the play would start with this double mention of fancy, especially when the word is not mentioned again until the end of Act two. It is even stranger that the plot concludes with Orsino making Viola/Cesario his “fancy’s queen” (5.1.415). Although Feste finishes the play with his final song, this line is the last spoken by any other character, and is a natural conclusion to the play nonetheless. There must be a reason why the play both begins and ends with a word only used six times throughout. This is the most direct clue that the play does not merely describe events in Shakespeare’s mind, but instead describes events in Orsino’s mind.

More clues can be found by examining the other uses of fancy in the play. Sebastian remarks “Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep” after encountering a smitten, and unfamiliar Olivia (4.1.65). This line comes in one of the more fantastical scenes in the play, where Sebastian enters Illyria and is mistaken by everyone for Cesario. Sebastian can only conclude “this is a dream,” and calls upon fancy - imagination - to keep him from waking up. Sebastian addresses fancy as a powerful being, that has the ability to manipulate the world he sees. If the play does take place in Orsino’s imagination, fancy would have this power. Another thing to note about Sebastian’s mention of fancy is that it is in reference to Olivia. Her love for him, and reproach of the men who were dueling him, is the only reason he would want to continue living in this dream.

Olivia is a common subject of fancy, as used in its alternate definition of love. Malvolio, just before seeing Maria’s letter, thinks aloud that “should [Olivia] fancy, it should be one of my complexion” (2.5.24-25). Almost all references to fancy are directly related to Olivia. In fact, every major male character, except her uncle, is in love with Olivia. It is difficult for Orsino to conceive of a character who is not enamored when in the presence of the beautiful lady Olivia. To him, when Olivia enters, “heaven walks on earth” (5.1.99).

Regarding the rest of Malvolio’s scene, it is no less strange than Sebastian’s. The dour puritan begins with a statement of love for his lady, and then follows the insane directions of a letter that apparently describes her love for him, while the pranksters hide and watch in a nearby bush. Orsino’s mentions of “fancy” also take place in strange scenes. Without touching on the chaotic mess that is 5.1, 1.1 regards a Duke, who has been laid low grieving over his unrequited love for Olivia. She, in turn, decides not to admit any suitors until she has spent seven entire years mourning her dead brother. This scene feels almost surreal, setting the stage for the play that is to follow. Since almost every instance of the word fancy comes during a surreal scene, it can be inferred that the word is an indicator - a message to the audience that this play is a fantasy in the mind of Orsino.

There is one more use of “fancy,” however. During the argument between Orsino and Viola, Orsino speaks of men’s fancies as “more longing, wavering… than women’s are” (2.4.41-42). Twelfth Night is certainly long, spanning three months in Illyria, and the play constantly wavers from uplifting to demeaning, from reasonable to insane. The play as a whole fits so well with Orsino’s description of his “fancies” that one must wonder why that particular description was used. Interpreting Twelfth Night as a fancy conjured up by Orsino’s stricken mind makes a good deal more sense than attempting to reconcile the events with the real world.

Work Cited:Adams, B. (1978). Orsino and the Spirit of Love: Text, Syntax, and Sense In Twelfth Night, I. i. 1-15. Shakespeare Quarterly,29(1), 52-59. doi:10.2307/2869169

The notes i wrote during the lunch period:

The first appearance of the word comes during Orsino’s monologue. The grief-stricken man describes his lovesickness by referring to his imagining of fantasies involving Olivia. Fancy is “full of shapes” to hear him tell it, filled with all kinds of images (1.1.14). This implies an interesting idea of the plot; it may be nothing more than a lovesick dream conjured by Orsino’s mind. After all, the plot is as “high fantastical” as something a distressed lover might imagine. (1.1.15).

Malvolio’s mention of fancy is also about love and imagining it. He talks about “her [Olivia’s] fancy,” but the context of the scene and the rest of his dialogue imply that he is the one who fancies Olivia (2.5.24).. Malvolio claims that Olivia has said she would fancy “one of my complexion,” indicating that Malvolio has, through confirmation bias and imagination, convinced himself that Olivia was in love with him even before reading Maria’s letter (2.5.25). The fact that Malvolio, the outwardly stalwart Puritan, is as fanciful and in love as Orsino is a strong device for making fun of the Puritans as Shakespeare was wont to do.

Sebastian has his reference to fancy when he meets Olivia and finds that he is the object of her fancy.

[Discussing of the other two quotes]

In Twelfth Night, characters mention fancy when in fantastical scenes. Orsino had neglected his duties as a Duke to be lovesick over Olivia, Malvolio convinced himself that Olivia was in love with him moments before happening upon a letter regarding Olivia’s love, Sebastian came to a foreign city and found that a woman he had never seen was madly in love with him, and the final scene is perhaps the most fanciful of them all. Everything comes together in a hilarious, satisfying, and utterly unrealistic way. The use of the word fancy indicates that a scene either was or will be fanciful. This implies that Shakespeare is breaking the fourth wall, drawing attention to works of the imagination when the audience may be considering the play as imagination. In that way, Shakespeare implies that this comedy, however nice it may seem, is just a lovesick fantasy in the mind of Duke Orsino.

Note also that almost every mention of the word is in reference to Olivia. The only exception is when Orsino calls Viola his “fancy’s queen,” but Orsino could just be (Inception-style) trying to prove to himself that he can love another. That is why the timeline does not make sense; Orsino needed to believe that his mind was not so changeable, that he would need three months with another woman to move past his love for Olivia.

Quotes:

1.1.14-15:

Orsino: “So full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.”

Context: These lines conclude Orsino’s opening monologue about his lovesickness and passion for Olivia. The monologue is discordant throughout, and this line sounds very arrogant, that nobody but a lover could have an extreme imagination.

This quote illustrates Orsino’s arrogance about his position (which is expanded upon in his later argument with Viola) and tells the audience that Orsino has spent some time cooped up in his mansion thinking of Olivia.

2.5.23-25

Malvolio: “I have heard herself come

thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one

of my complexion.“

Context: This comes just before Malvolio finds Maria’s letter, when he is fancying that Olivia might be in love with him. He has almost convinced himself of her love even before he sees Maria’s letter, which would be a strange coincidence if Twelfth Night was not a comedy.

This quote describes Malvolio’s desperation to be loved by Olivia. He uses a few choice words and actions of Olivia as a justification for her love, indicating confirmation bias and lack of perspective.

4.1.63-66

Sebastian: “What relish is in this? how runs the stream?

Or I am mad, or else this is a dream:

Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;

If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!”

Context: This comes just after Sebastian enters Illyria and finds a beautiful woman suddenly wish to marry him. It is so illogical that he believes he must be dreaming, and he wishes for fancy to keep him from waking up.

This quote tells us that Sebastian is wondrous at his entrance to Illyria. He forgets about Antonio as soon as strange men wish to duel and a strange beautiful woman claims to be in love with him. Sebastian is far more relaxed than most people would be in this context, especially if they could not find Antonio, the only person he was close with for the past three months.

5.1.412-415

Orsino: “Cesario, come;

For so you shall be, while you are a man;

But when in other habits you are seen,

Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen.”

Context: This is the last line spoken by any character except Feste. It comes after Orsino learns of Viola’s true identity and gives up his love for Olivia.

This quote implies that Orsino still thinks of Viola as Cesario, at least while she is in men’s clothing.

#lifeblogging #sorry for it being so long #but i also fact-checked myself on a lot of details thanks to having the edit history and thanks to writing everything in my diary #so ty past sahil dont know what we'd do without your need to write for us

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urdadthinksimfine · 11 months

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day one after a break from the bread

i feel so worthless. i feel so worthless, that i dont want to be percieved at all. i want to withdraw from everything and everyone that i know.

it got even clearer when i thought of meeting my grandparents, thinking of how consumed and paralyzed and hard it is for me to write this one essay. thinking about doing something big, bigger than i did until now, something... valuable. the thought is haunting, being percieved by the people that know me.

i cant do good, i cant do good enough, just meeting them i wont do good enough, so i want to withdraw from them completely. its better they dont have me anymore in there life than with what i am - not good enough.

i am not good enough and i disappoint everyone. i am alone with all of this, because its a burden to everyone, how incapable i am, how bad..

writing now whatever comes to my mind with what ive read so far about the topic, of course having choi read it at some point, it pains me to the core.

when i realized my thoughts on my walk, i felt like pierce the veil and now i listen to it, while writing. nothing soothing will soothe me like something that resonates with my pain. no funny movie, no relaxing music.

my pain hurts less when its surrounded by pain. my misery is less paralyzing when i can let it engulf me completely.

because i feel lonely. and nothing can take that away. at least i can stay with me and mirror this pain.

i want to write and just write, mark where i need a source, where i need fitting words.

i just want to write, like i usally dont, i realize. i wonder if thats connected to me, right now, accepting that i am just incapable, that what i produce is shame provoking. that im no good?

it seems so me that sthis is something i never do. write things down that i think. i do it all the time, but only concerning me, so very personal. i never do it for school, for stories that might be read by other people. always scared they see or think of me as incapable.

i dont want to be that and i think that is the problem. if i am so, i want to just accept. i want to be okay with being a dame ningen, i want to fuck the expectations of other people... i want to stop trying, "its such a relief" and just ... be okay with it. give up, not having this pressure.

even though it feels like it will push people away. even though it feels like this whole trying things that wont come easily to me, is what pushes other people away in the first place. that makes me keep that distance. like i dont want to see behind the façade. dont percieve me. dont see the real me.

what happenes. if i dont try to hide whats there anymore? what happenes if i dont make things up, to be filled anymore?

what will happen, when i reach that state of freedom?

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seeingteacupsindragons · 3 years

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In unrelated-to-chapter-60 news,

I made a whole entire forum post on TVTropes today because you have to get characters approved for the Magnificent Bastard trope and William needs it next to his name, thanks very much.

So here is my long-ass essay to convince people to approve it. The biggest problem I had writing it was not adding "And I love him" at the end of every sentence.

The Work

Moriarty the Patriot is a (very loose) retelling of the Sherlock Holmes stories and James Bond set in the late 1800s, focused on Professor James Moriarty and exploring his motivations.

The Character

This post is specifically for Professor William James Moriarty, the Villain Protagonist of the series. He teaches mathematics at Durham University by day, and plans crimes and commits murders by night in service to his Ultimate Plan.

Why is He a Bastard?

Any professor who intentionally gives his students an unsolvable problem so no one can get a perfect score on his exam, just to see how they approach the problem, is automatically a bastard.

But anyway.

William is a serial killer, a mass murderer, and a spree killer. He was eleven when he committed his first murders, an entire household of eleven people, and then stole one of their identities to further his own ends, and he was already planning thefts before that. When he was ten, he threatened to kill someone in court until they offered him half his entire property, and William refused to relent until the man gave him every penny he owned. He is ruthless and unforgiving.

He's also a liar and a cheat. When competing with Sherlock Holmes to solve a murder, he planted his own evidence on the man he realized committed the crime to provoke a confession as the actual evidence had been done away with. When called on his bluff, he denies he has any idea what Sherlock is talking about.

When Sherlock lets on he knows about a criminal mastermind, William politely listens, then goes home and frames him for murder as a Secret Test of Character, which William is fond of.

But Not that Bad?

William is a Pay Evil unto Evil sort and many of his victims are certified Complete Monsters. His motivation is to bring class equality to the British Empire. He also goes out of his way to avoid hurting people in the wrong place at the wrong time or who work for his victims, and to rescue their victims when possible. He acknowledges his actions are evil and hopes to pay for his crimes. He has a good heart under all the scheming and murder.

Is He Charming and Magnificent?

William won first place in a Japanese reader popularity poll by a landslide, despite being the protagonist. Like, nearly doubling second place's votes landslide. English fans do not like him any less.

William is nearly always calm and collected. When Sherlock first meets him and deduces his profession immediately, William responds in kind and even notes Sherlock's drug addiction, which is apparently the most delightful thing to ever happen to Sherlock, because he responds to William's, "It's obvious," with, "Man, I like ya!"

When Sherlock calls him the Lord of Crime to his face, William's response, while his younger brother panics about discovery, is to deflect and say, "I can't prove I'm not, but isn't it your job to prove that I am?"

And when Sherlock says he wishes it was William, his response is, "Catch me if you can, Mr. Holmes," with a grin.

This is man who murders someone in front of the Parliament House, then uses trick ropes to jump on top of the building, declare himself the Lord of Crime, and drag the entire police force on a rooftop chase. This is a man who as a child discovered someone trying to scam his orphanage using a hackneyed contract from a Shakespeare play and took on the role of the villain in the play to overturn the ending of the play, at least partially out of spite that the guy didn't think he’d know any Shakespeare, which he starts quoting in the courtroom.

He is completely incapable of doing anything in less than the single most dramatic way possible. All the world is a stage, and William is the playwright, director, and star actor.

In fact, all of the characters in the series like him. He has the undying loyalty of all his subordinates, he has people offer him their lives, and even Sherlock Holmes, his antagonist, likes him. The man rolled a solid 18 on Charisma.

But is he Brilliant?

Well, he's a university professor at 24, but more to the point, he's the mastermind behind The Lord of Crime terrorizing London. He strings Sherlock Holmes around like a puppet as he wishes for most of the series.

While William rarely has to think on his feet because he has so many backup plans that any hitches are accounted for, on the occasions he does, he handles it well. In fact, his entire crew is expected to be able to think for themselves and find ways to accomplish their goal within their limitations on their own, and they all see him as the best at it.

When his plans need to be completely reformulated in light of Sherlock's murder of Milverton, William calmly keeps his gun on Sherlock until it’s safe to escape, and then immediately begins chessmastering a new plan.

When Sherlock doesn't hate him enough to carry out the final stage of William's plan (also known as "Murdering William"), William reacts very quickly to try to save Sherlock and salvage his plan.

What About His Competition?

William's competition in the series comes in two forms: Milverton and Sherlock.

Milverton likes to think of himself as brilliant and manipulative and incapable of losing. He thinks he managed to corner William and Sherlock to neatly take out both problems. However, he completely misreads both of their personalities, goals, and motivations. When it became clear that his pages of evil gloating were...completely incorrect, he has no time to course-correct because he already has two guns on him. His desperate attempt to escape in a panic went awry, he got shot in the back, and his plan failed.

Sherlock is led around by William on puppet strings for the bulk of the series. He knows what William wants him to know and nothing more, and even comments himself on how he's dancing in William’s palm.

While Sherlock does eventually manage to upset William's plan, what really happens is that Sherlock becomes his accomplice and helps his ultimate plan to destroy the class system in Britain succeed. While Sherlock also managed to save William's life against William's will, William is, after all, the villain. It to be expected he would eventually lose to the hero.

Verdict:

100% yes

#Yuukoku no Moriarty #Moriarty the Patriot #William James Moriarty #long post

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guardianspirits13 · 4 years

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if you feel like answering, why is natsuo your favorite character? like what do you like most about him? what made you connect to him/what made him stand out to you?

Ohhh boy better buckle up because this is gonna be a long one.

First off, thank you so much for the ask, and sorry it took so long to strap down and answer you! Naturally, I have a lot to say and I'm always looking for opportunities to rant about my favorite character 👀

The chapter that first opened my eyes to Natsuo as a character was chapter 252. I was caught up with the manga at this point so I read it right when it was released and it really touched me. From then on I became invested in his character, particularly his relationship with Touya which I really dug into and channeled into my Brother animatic. He's been my favorit from then on, and there are many reasons for this.

I think the main reason his character resonated with me so deeply is because I've never encountered a character who hits nearly as close to home as he does. I didn't have the best relationship with my father growing up, and despite it being a different and much less serious situation than what Natsuo lived through, I can relate to and understand a lot of his resentment on a personal level. Many of his one-liners are things that I have said or thought before almost verbatim, so needless to say Horikoshi definitely knows what he's doing.

It is very important to me how Horikoshi goes out of his way to give this seemingly minor character so much development. Every scene he is in, every word he says has so much thought behind it and contributes to his character tremendously, and some of the best examples of this are in the latest chapters with him.

He has significantly more developent than most of the minor characters in 1a, despite them obviously appearing much more often. This is because whenever Natsuo does appear, he's very outspoken and the scene normally ends up revolving around him in some way.

I also want to talk about his relationship with his family as a whole- one thing about his character that I don't think anyone else has really mentioned before is how humble he is. He grew up in a household where he was neglected and essentially seen as worthless (regardless of his quirk or lack thereof but I have a whole nother essay for that alone), and even Touya wasn't exactly the kindest to him from what we've seen. Despite this, Natsuo was able to forge his own path and become the person he wanted to be. He got through highschool with good enough grades to get into a pre-med program which in Japan is a very hard thing to do considering national standards, not to mention how different the medical field must be with the variety of mutation quirks that exist.

As for humility, I think the fact that he can be proud of Shouto for forging his own path as a hero despite his personal distaste for hero society, and is immediately thankful when he’s saved from a villain by a group of high schoolers. He doesn’t act like he’s better than anyone else because he’s older, or because he won’t forgive Endeavor (quite the contrary, he seems to view his distaste of Endeavor as a shortcoming on his part).

Another thing that I really just adore about his character is how kind and gentle he is, regardless of (or perhaps in spite of) his upbringing. Considering that he's a male character in a shounen manga, this is particularly interesting to me. Out of his brothers he is physically the most similar to Endeavor, but personality-wise the most different. A huge component of this is that he was raised mostly by Fuyumi and continues to be incredibly close to her. Natsuo is a social person and an emotionally driven character, and he is certainly not afraid to speak his mind- if nothing else, he is honest. Compare this to Shouto, who is definitely an introvert and prefers to keep to himself, kind of blunt about things and definitely lacking in emotional awareness. It’s hard to separate Shouto’s personality from lack of socialization as a kid, but even Endeavor shares many of the same traits. Touya is also an emotionally-driven character but in a completely different way, he’s self-serving and angry and driven for revenge. Perhaps if he had a normal childhood Natsuo and Touya would have been much more similar, but Touya’s early signs of mental illness as a kid festered with lack of treatment. Back to Natsuo, he also is very caring and thoughtful, and we really see this most in the 5th light novel, (official translations aren’t out but here’s a link).

We consistently see just how much he cares about the rest of his family (other than Endeavor, obviously). I think this is seen really clearly through his attempts to connect with Shouto. He knows nothing about his little brother but still tries to connect with him in any way he can think of- playing soccer, eating soba, talking with him about his friends and just generally showing interest in his life.

Another interesting point here is that he almost seems to look up to his siblings as being better than him, especially Shouto. This is not in a jealous way, but more self-deprecating as he sees Fuyumi and Shouto letting Endeavor back into their lives and feels guilty and unkind because he is unable to do the same. He is proud of Shouto, but they are different in so many ways that it’s hard to find a middle ground. Shouto is mature in that he is already halfway to a lifelong career and has experienced many dangerous situations, while Natsuo is a college student and years away from helping people on the same level that Shouto does in high school. Inversely, Natsuo is more socially competent and outgoing, while Shouto is sheltered, and has a unique innocence to him. Natsuo is more familiar with their family situation and thus has a more complex understanding and much stronger stance than Shouto, especially because he knew Touya.

He also goes out of his way to try and help Fuyumi and re-iterate how much she means to him (even if it fails, it’s the thought that counts, amirite?). He consistently comes to dinner when Fuyumi invites him, knowingly exposing himself to his pervasive trauma upon seeing Endeavor to allow her to entertain the fantasy of having a happy, normal family.

I really want to re-iterate here how much of his own pain he puts to the side in just agreeing to show up for dinner. Both times he is visibly uncomfortable and almost upset by Endeavor’s presence as if it makes him anxious (which is understandable), and he is mentally incapable of staying in said situation without freaking out, which he does whenever he can’t escape; the first time when Endeavor puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him from leaving, and the second time mere minutes after an incredibly traumatic near-death experience. (Side note: Endeavor should not be getting up into his personal space like he does, knowing full well how uncomfortable Natsuo is with his mere presence).

He puts his own trauma to the side to help his siblings ,and if that isn’t selfless I don’t know what is.

With all of this deliberate development and the advent of the Dabi reveal, I am confident that Natsuo is going to play a larger role in the future and will contribute in some major way to bringing Dabi down. If there's one thing I trust Horikishi for it's that he doesn't develop his characters for nothing. There's always a payoff at the end that puts everything in place, even though he plays a slow burn. I'm always scared that whenever Natsuo shows up he's gonna do/say something that's inconsistent with his character so far and disprove one of my theories/assumptions/headcanons about him and every time I am proven wrong.

In conclusion: I love my salty son.

If you want to read even more of my thoughts on him, here's a link to a rediculously long meta about his trauma and emotions:

Thank you again for the ask. I very much enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it as well!!!

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loveisneurotic · 3 years

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Kaguya-sama Blind Reaction/Analysis: S1E1

Hello everyone, this is my blog which I am currently using to react to and analyze Kaguya-sama: Love Is War much more seriously than I should analyze any romcom.

I have only seen the first episode of the anime, which this post shall explore using far too many words. If I'm feeling particularly motivated, I may read the manga as well.

My analysis will contain spoilers. If you're thinking of watching this show and haven't seen it yet, I recommend you at least go check out the first episode yourself before reading any further. I don't know what the rest of the show is like, but what I've seen so far has been both entertaining and thought-provoking.

I'm going in mostly blind, but not entirely blind. There are a few images of the anime and manga that I have been exposed to, although without the attached context. Due to cultural osmosis and the sheer popularity of this work, perhaps that was almost inevitable.

Figure 1.1.1: Why did this guy write an essay about a single episode of an ongoing romcom?

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

Season 1 Episode 1

I Will Make You Invite Me to a Movie / Kaguya Wants to Be Stopped / Kaguya Wants It

Power dynamics in relationships

Figure 1.1.2: Immediately, the mangaka's tastes become clear.

I heard a saying once that really stuck with me: "The partner who cares the least has all of the power."

In the world of dating, I often sincerely believed this saying. You may yearn for someone's affection, but the other person need not give it to you until they are willing and ready. No matter how much you want it, you can't make someone more interested in you, unless you resort to being roundabout, such as adding some mystery and intrigue to your courtship. But is that excessive?

I once felt a potential lover slipping through my grasp, and before I knew it, I found myself chasing after them. As I was yearning for their attention, I felt as if I'd lost my dignity. It was humiliating. Painful. Was it just that they weren't the right person for me? Or was I not funny enough? Not charismatic enough? Not interesting enough? Too clingy? Too talkative? Should I have been more distant and given them more space? Did I seem too weak? Too eager? How should I have maximized my desirability? Regardless, I had surely lost. Perhaps they wanted the satisfaction and validation of conquering me. Playing me for a fool and asserting their superiority by being so distant. Isn't that right? Or is that just insecurity speaking? At what point is it ideal to cut one's losses and walk away?

If someone desperately wants the object of their affection to desire them, does that make them pathetic? Does it make them a loser? If you show more vulnerability and desire than the other person, does that truly make you the weak one in a relationship?

These questions plague our two protagonists and seem to be a driving force behind the main conflict. Since I have also grappled with how much to reveal my own feelings of desire, I find Kaguya-sama: Love Is War to be a particularly fascinating show.

Desire without action

Figure 1.1.3: Our protagonists are gifted with impressively high academic intelligence paired with impressively low emotional intelligence.

The show wastes no time in introducing us to our two main protagonists. Kaguya was born into a family of high stature (and says "ara ara" frequently enough to power a small country of weebs), whereas Shirogane is a "commoner" (Kaguya's word, not mine) who worked hard to reach the pinnacle of the student body. Like timid schoolchildren, they're crushing on each other, and yet they refuse to admit it due to their pride. Instead, they focus on getting their "opponent" to confess their love first.

What stuck out to me immediately is how they both have different ideas of what their relationship would be like. Shirogane envisions Kaguya as blushing, shy, and conventionally cute, whereas Kaguya (thankfully) envisions herself taking absolute dominance over Shirogane (which plenty of people should see coming as a character trait after the anime's very first scene). The bad news about this is that their two fantasies are at odds. The good news about this is that the mangaka has fantastic taste -- you can learn a lot about a storyteller based on the characterization of a love interest or lead character of the author's preferred gender.

In the event that the two of them become an actual couple, I wonder how on Earth they'll reach a compromise as to how they'll treat each other. Perhaps they will have to figure that out before they can even get that intimate.

I appreciate that we get to see both of their perspectives. It hammers home how everyone has a different truth in regards to what they desire and what they experience, and the show does not hold back when it comes to showing just how different these truths can be -- such as a certain lunch-themed sequence that I will talk about later. This works to great dramatic and comedic effect.

That said, when you spend your time fantasizing about what could happen instead of actually taking action, time is not so friendly to you.

Half a year passes.

Figure 1.1.4: Two geniuses dedicate their pride to wasting their life and energy.

Immediately, I got the impression that whoever wrote this segment of the story knows what they're doing. This is too real. And by "too real", I mean I very much appreciate the realism. How many of us have waited for ages (or for eternity) to confess our feelings to a specific someone?

This is the curse of having a crush and being incapable of acting on it. It's also why I hate having crushes.

Manufacturing affection in others, AKA the extraction of vulnerability

Figure 1.1.5: A plan is devised to weaponize jealousy in the name of affection.

To express your truest feelings means being vulnerable. That implies taking a risk and feeling responsible for any potential consequences of rejection, as well as putting our dignity on the line. It would be so much easier for the object of our affection to make themselves vulnerable instead. So instead of being direct and honest, we act indirect. We drop hints. We act suggestively, but not explicitly. We may even place them in situations where we think they are more likely to confess. If they don't pick up on it, we can pretend we didn't mean anything by it. That way, we don't have to risk our dignity. We can just wait for them to make the move.

It sucks.

Incidentally, it sucks even more when both you and your love interest are thinking that way.

It sucks infinitely more when both you and your love interest are COMMITTED to thinking that way.

Someone has to break the deadlock, whether that's immediately or eventually.

If this show isn't one of those romcoms where the status quo never changes ever (judging by the quality of writing, I have faith that it isn't), then at some point, either Shirogane or Kaguya is going to have to be explicit about how they really feel. And it's going to feel scarier to them than anything else they've ever done.

It's gonna be great.

If we could all grow up and live in environments where it's safe and encouraged for all of us to be honest about how we feel and what we want, surely love would be much less painful for so many people.

Chaos theory

Figure 1.1.6: If your prospective lover won't protect you, then your friend definitely will.

Chika is the ideal wild card and agent of chaos in this arena of love.

From a writing perspective, Chika is immensely useful. The mangaka probably could have gotten by without a third character in the mix, but she serves as a catalyst and an unknown element, able to create unpredictability and subversion of expectations. For a comedy-oriented story, this is invaluable.

Blissfully unaware of the mental turmoil that plagues our two lovesick dorks, she is able to unintentionally invalidate whatever schemes that Kaguya or Shirogane spent so much mental energy on, which adds extra comedy and tension for the audience. She is also an effective vehicle for Kaguya's jealousy and projection, as seen in the lunchbox scene which I have so graciously foreshadowed.

Figure 1.1.7: We have confirmed visual on an unidentified fourth person. Chekhov would love this. From their posture, I wonder if they'll be a gloomy character?

Misunderstandings and assumptions

I've heard that most interpersonal conflicts in life emerge from misunderstandings. In the absence of communication, assumptions are born and give rise to misunderstandings.

You may know where I'm going with this. Let's talk about the lunchbox sequence.

Figure 1.1.8 (not pictured because tumblr wishes to deny me of my image spam): Kaguya is too prideful to admit she thinks that a couple is doing something cute.

Figure 1.1.9: Pride is considered a sin for a reason.

From a writing perspective, I was impressed by the lack of romantic intentions in Shirogane in this whole sequence. Not once did he try to get Kaguya to show vulnerability to him. Instead, Kaguya is the only one spinning the situation in a romantic way, while Shirogane's driving force is the misunderstanding that Kaguya is looking down on him for what he eats. Because of this misunderstanding, Shirogane doubles down and makes his food even better, making the situation even more complicated and more stressful for Kaguya. This was definitely my favorite comedy sequence from the first episode.

I appreciate that the show has demonstrated the ability to create these scenarios where one of the characters doesn't even have love on their mind, but there are still romantic thoughts coming from the other character which drives the drama. It gives me a lot of faith in the variety this show will have to offer, and makes me excited to watch more.

When it comes to comedy rooted in misunderstandings, it is important to have miscommunication or lack of communication. In order to resolve a misunderstanding, you need to talk about it. For a pairing as dysfunctional as Kaguya and Shirogane, expecting healthy communication sounds highly unreasonable, which makes them prime material for a whole world of misunderstandings.

Misunderstandings are rooted in assumptions about what the other person meant when they said something or made a certain gesture or expression. When Kaguya glared at Shirogane and his food, he didn't even think to ask "What's the matter?" He just made an assumption about how she felt. I wonder if trying to understand Kaguya's feelings would be considered a sign of weakness by Shirogane?

A prerequisite to initiating an emotional conversation is the desire to understand or be understood by the other person -- assuming that your assumptions haven't already built a narrative for you. It is far easier to make assumptions than it is to attempt any sort of understanding.

In the end, Shirogane fled, unwilling to confront or attempt to understand the intense and passive-aggressive Kaguya. Kaguya feels that she cannot directly ask to try his lunch, so perhaps this is the closest she can get to initiating such a conversation with him at this time. Despite their mind games where they imagine the reactions of their opponent, they still have a lot of difficulty understanding each other.

I am curious to see if this prospective couple's communication skills and emotional intelligence will improve over the course of the story.

The burden of potential romance

Figure 1.1.10: Even the infallible genius Kaguya succumbs to superficial jealousy. It's "mind over matter" versus "matter over mind". That's how the saying goes, right?

Chika is a free spirit, able to ask Shirogane for whatever she wants without being neurotic. That is the power of not being bounded by a crush. Kaguya, who lacks that degree of freedom, briefly loathes her for experiencing something that Kaguya cannot ask for. It's amazing how much someone's feelings for a friend can change without a single word being spoken between them. All it takes is an action, unintentional or not, combined with the raw strength of insecurity. Just as quickly, the status quo can return back to normal too, with the act of properly making up.

To Chika, asking for food from someone doesn't mean anything at all, whereas with Kaguya, it is an admission of defeat. In that sense, a relationship that will only ever be platonic brings peace of mind, whereas a relationship that can be potentially romantic brings leagues upon leagues of anxiety if the outcome is of great concern.

Love is neurotic.

Is love worth the pain? For some people, it is not. For others, the reward is immense -- but only if you can make sure your relationship with this person doesn't end up being a nightmare for your emotional health.

Love and self-identity

The final scene of the episode surprised me in a good way. It's a brief departure from the comedy, and reveals a more heartfelt side of the show.

Kaguya's servant asks her an insightful question. It is substantially more insightful than I would expect from any romcom: "If you fell in love some day, would you wait for that person to confess their love, like now? Or would you confess your love?" I found myself immediately curious to hear Kaguya's answer, since I knew it would be highly informative about her character.

"If that time comes, I would consider the risk of someone stealing him first and come to the one rational conclusion." Even in the realm of love, Kaguya seems precise and calculating. It's as if she hesitates to give a straight answer, but then she confirms: "Of course I would go."

Figure 1.1.11: "Please understand."

It is not embarrassment or rejection that Kaguya fears; it is the absolute destruction of her identity and sense of self. Kaguya is the daughter of a family that practically runs the country. In her mind, everyone yearns for her and wishes to serve her. Turning that around and reaching out to another person to express her own desire would be a direct contradiction of that. It is probably a similar situation for Shirogane, where the infallible self-image he has built up is being put at risk during his romantic duels against Kaguya.

Kaguya clearly feels trapped. She and Shirogane see each other as threats to be conquered, but in reality, they both share a mutual enemy that is much more imposing and insidious: their own simultaneous disgust at the idea of vulnerability.

Their freedom is dominated by their insecurities, and so, even despite their impressive stature, they are still very human. Their upbringing that has lead them to become so accomplished may be more of a curse than a blessing, due to the resulting pride and self-image they likely feel pressured to uphold.

It is hard to cast aside a lie that you have bought into for your whole life.

If our two protagonists wish to have a chance of establishing a healthy romantic relationship, they have a lot of their own demons to overcome first. If they cannot set aside their pride and reach mutual understanding, they have no hope.

Until then, they will both remain trapped in a hell of their own design, however tragically comedic it may be.

My hopes for this story's future

I can tell that the mangaka, unlike far too many writers all over the world, actually seems to have a solid understanding of romance and the conflict that arises within. I've watched too many anime that place huge focus on the "will they or won't they" crap which never runs any deeper than one or both of the characters being too embarrassed to just say what they're thinking, without any sort of convincing mental blocker. In that case, it's clearly just manufactured drama which is designed to pad out the story and waste your time rather than pose interesting questions and themes. In the case of Kaguya and Shirogane, the two of them have substantial communication issues which are depicted in a comedic yet mature way, which I have found engaging.

I very much hope that the show will more deeply explore the themes and questions surrounding the ideas of vulnerability, emotional intelligence, and superiority within relationships. Kaguya and Shirogane have been set up to be great vehicles for such exploration, and I hope the mangaka can capitalize on that, especially if our protagonists can confront these issues directly.

My impression is that the ending will make or break this story. If the mangaka can pull it off well, I can already believe the payoff will be hugely satisfying.

Of course, in order to get to that point, we'll have to see a certain something. It has to do with the most sacred word amongst romcom enthusiasts: "progress". Indeed, after spending chapters upon chapters watching two characters bumble around amidst the same exact status quo, those little signs of advancements in a relationship are highly rewarding.

Underneath all of their aggression, if we can see Kaguya and Shirogane slowly open up to each other and realize the benefits of vulnerability, I think we could witness something really beautiful and really emotionally cathartic.

I've still only seen one episode, but I believe the mangaka has laid a fantastic groundwork for a series and can do a great job developing upon what I've seen so far. On that note, I will surpass our prideful protagonists by opening my heart to this story and entrusting it with my vulnerability, believing it can deliver satisfying development and resolution. You can do it!

Closing thoughts

I did not expect to write so much about a single episode of an ANIME of all things, but here we are. If only I could conjure this kind of power back when I actually needed it in high school English class!

The first episode alone is already so rich with characterization and themes that I managed to find quite a lot to talk about. Given how much I found myself relating to the characters and some of their situations, it's clear to me how this show became so popular. Not only are the animation, direction, and writing excellent, but also many people can probably relate to love feeling like a battlefield.

I do not want to believe in the idea of winners and losers in relationships. That idea creeps into my head whenever I'm having trouble keeping the interest of a new date, and I find myself wondering where those thoughts even come from. Lately, I have been reflecting on the way I relate to other people. Perhaps I've started experiencing this show at a time in my life when I most needed it, and that's why I felt driven to write such a large analysis.

This show poses some very interesting questions about romance that I do not actually know the answer to at the time of writing. I do not know yet how much the show is actually going to explore these themes. Regardless, I appreciate how this show is helping me reflect, and I am curious to see if and how the mangaka will answer some of the questions brought about by the story's themes.

This is a show that I'll most likely have to pace myself with. There was so much to process in this first episode alone. If I went any faster, I'm not sure if I'd even catch all of the details and character moments. I'm excited to move onto the second episode soon.

A highly subjective footnote about my cultured tastes

I'm glad that Kaguya is a sadistic dom with a gentle and vulnerable side, solely on the basis of that being my favorite personality type in a love interest. It also helps that it makes Kaguya's fantasies that much funnier with Shirogane acting so out of character. I feel like this show was made for me.

What was I writing about again? Oh yeah, writing a gigantic wall of text about an anime romcom. Somehow, I spent an entire day on this essay. Hopefully someone got a kick out of it.

#kaguya sama: love is war #analysis #long post #reactions

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dannyphantom-rewrite · 4 years

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Character ref for; Jack, Maddie and Jazz,

Art by @gally-hin / @gally-hin-phantom

Okay so first off; in terms of Actual redesign, I didn't change a whole lot. I'm actually very fond of Jack and Maddie's design's, my only real issue was with their proportions. Like...look as a lady person who is also thiCC I do not have a fucking wasp thin waist and I'm sure I'm not the only one, lmao. As for Jack? Godamnit he looked like a brick on toothpicks. Just Let him be a fucking Bara man! Anyway of course I asked Gally to do this one bc they're fucking great at drawing different body types

I also cannot and will not take credit for Jazz's outfit. I didn't have any issue with her canon clothes aside from them being a bit plain, so what she's wearing here was literally pulled straight off of her original concept art, which I will link here.

Anyway, getting to the Actual character lore now, let's start with

Maddie Fenton

-Full name is Madeline (I haven't decided on a maiden name yet)

-Born and raised on a farm in Arkansas, had a southern accent that she trained herself out of in college bc it was just one more reason for people not to take her seriously. Still sometimes uses "y'all" completely unironically bc old habits die hard.

-She has a really big family, and they're proud of her accomplishments but feel like she's wasting her talent studying ghosts, because really, up until the Fenton portal was up and running there wasn't even any solid proof they existed. Her sister Alicia is the one outlier there, and even if she doesn't understand, it she completely supports her.

-She majored in engineering and minored in psychology at Wisconsin EDU. Her, Jack and Vlad were all in the same engineering class, and that's where they met.

-Maddie is particularly interested in how ghosts think, analysing their behavior, their motives. Not only that, but they aren't just dead people with unfinished business, they've built an entire culture in the Ghost Zone that is completely seperate from humanity, and she wants to understand all of it.

-skilled marksman and 9th degree black belt, (which is. The highest fucking level there is holy shit? I looked it up after I saw it on her wiki page.)

Jack Fenton

-He's from Minnesota (Amity park is in Illinois and him and Maddie didn't move there until after they got married)

-okay, "but why minnesota specifically" you ask? Because. I crave. Foot ball discourse.

-minnesota vikings vs green bay packers guys do you UNDERSTAND WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS

-The funny thing is that Jack only watches football casually while Vlad is a fucking die hard so when these two got together to see a game it was like....

-Jack: Here to chill and have a good time.

-Vlad: Primed and ready to start a fist fight at any given moment.

-I am never not going to be salty about how Canon Jack was portrayed like a complete moron 99% percent of the time. Like no...theres a difference between Actual Stupid and ADHD induced dumbass-ery.

-Am I saying Jack Fenton has ADHD? Yes. why? Because I also have ADHD and I have always vibed So Hard with his Character.

-Jack is loud and easily excited about things that interest him. He's impulsive and fidgety and yeah, a bit absent minded. He has a mouth that clearly runs so much faster than his head. His train of thought doesn't get derailed so much as it stops and takes several different detours on the way to it's final destination.

-and that's only the tip of the iceberg, really, I'd need an entire essay to get into this completely, but I just really relate.

-Jacks skill-set / interests regarding ghosts vary a bit from Maddie's, most notably in the sense that he doesn't believe that they're static entities already set in their ways, completely incapable of change.

-Jack majored in engineering and minored in Biology at Wisconsin EDU.

-Jack's work with tech is a bit hit or miss. He definitely HAS the engineering skills, but the intrest isn't always there and he's constantly jumping back and forth between different projects. He tends to focus on the concept work and schematics and leave most of the assembly to Maddie as a result. It's an arrangement that works well for them, and has drastically decreased the number of unintentional explosions in the lab.

-A lot of Jack's work tends to revolve around ghostly biology and Ectoplasm, figuring out how ghosts are made, what makes them tick, what the hell Ectoplasm Actually Is, how it's used as an energy source, ect.

-and yes, that does also mean he handles the dissections.

-See that facial scar? Yeah, that's not actually there at the start of the series rewrite but it's very important for plot reasons so I had to include it. Can't say much more on the subject because SPOILERs owo.

Jasmine Fenton

-Jazz is a 18 years old, and a senior at Casper high.

-Which means she prepping to go away to college and won't be around to keep an eye on Danny.

-Obviously that doesn't mean I'm just writing her out of the story, oh no. Know why? Because she's also gonna go to Wisconsin EDU. ya know who else is in Wisconsin? Fuckin' Vlad.

-Jazz is autistic, Although she passes for neurotypical in part due to symptoms being completely over looked in girls due to gender stereotyping and also the fact that she doesn't have any special interests that are considered " "too weird.""

- Her hyperfixation with psychology started at a young age in an effort to better understand people, and social/emotional cues and all that.

-Jazz is well liked at school but she's not popular or apart of any specific group or clique. She's very kind and compassionate to people, and just about everyone knows her, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually Considered her a friend. Except maybe Spike.

-I'm gonna have to give spike his own Character ref at some point, but he's this scary looking goth kid that's been held back twice. He's actually super sweet, just really fuckin' quiet and anxious. Him and jazz kinda ended up gravitating towards each other. She might do most of the talking, but they look out for each other.

-its not like jazz doesn't try to socialize, but it's difficult and she's found it much easier and less stressful to just. Keep to herself and let her interactions with her peers stay shallow and superficial. Sure, it's lonely sometimes but it's better than constantly worrying about saying the wrong thing or making some other misstep.

-One of Jazz's other special interests is football, and it's not so much the players or the game as it is the strategy of it? Started out as one of those things you do to bond with your dad, and she ended up getting really into it.

-She absolutley winds up getting into stupidly intense discussions with Vlad about it, too, lmao.

-Her and Danny probably bonded over SBNation bc that shit has both sentient satellites and ridiculously complex football mechanics.

-She's completely oblivious to the fact, but Dash has a massive crush on her bc holy shit this girl understands football (hey bud your toxic masculinity is showing put that shit away)

-I mentioned that Danny was in Cheer for a bit in middle school so it makes sense that she'd also be pushed into doing some kind of extracurricular activity.....so.....she was in a martial arts class for a bit thanks to Maddie and has a good grasp on self defense.

I think that's everything? I feel like I'm leaving things out tho? Idk if I did I'll come back and add on to this later and also pls don't hesitate to ask questions bc it really helps me flesh things out better.

#danny phantom #art #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton #ref

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natsubeatsrock · 3 years

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Should Hiro Mashima die?

My answer is no.

Though, this isn't about actually killing Hiro Mashima. Kinda got you with the title, though, huh? (This was originally going to be titled “Is Hiro Mashima dead?” and released on his birthday. You’re welcome.)

This post is about a widely debated topic of analysis known as the "death of the author." I've talked about this a few different times in passing in a few posts over the years. You could argue that this belongs in my series rewriting Fairy Tail and I considered placing it there. However, I feel that it's better that I keep this detached from that series. This topic concerns criticism of any series. Naturally, being a Fairy Tail blog, I plan on engaging this with the context of Fairy Tail's author being dead or not, hence the title. Still, this is helpful to think about for analysis of plenty of other series.

Again, though, my answer is still no.

Let's start with the origin of this term. The term comes from an essay by Roland Barthes called "La mort de l'auteur". Use your best guess as to what that translates to. I highly encourage you to read the essay as it's pretty short. It's about six or seven pages, depending on the version. There are three main points to his essay.

Creative works are products of the culture they come from and less original than people expect.

The idea of the author as the sole creator and authority of creative works is fairly modern.

The author's interpretation of a work shouldn't be considered the main or only interpretation of a work.

Of these three points, I'm sure you recognize the last point. But first, I want to talk about the other points. I believe it is important to understand the arguments being made as a whole.

The first point should be fairly uncontroversial. The vast majority of creative works use established language, tropes, and elements to create a new thing. I wouldn't go as far as Barthes does in this regard. Not to mention, this is somewhat weird to know considering his third point. However, I agree that creative works should be considered products of the culture and genre they come from.

The second point is a bit trickier for me. To be clear, the point is true. You only have to look at various cultural mythologies as an example. There isn't a single version of the Greek myths. There are several versions and interpretations of the various stories and myths.

Even recent popular fictional characters have had several different interpretations. This is especially true with comics. There have been multiple different Batman interpretations, Spiderman runs, and X-Men teams that fans love. Fans even love and appreciate numerous forms of established characters like Frankenstein's monster and Sherlock Holmes. So, as a consumer and critic of art, I can understand this.

My problem is as a creator of art. I understand this being contentious when it comes to something like religious myths. But, if I create something, I want to get the credit for it. I want people to love my music or writing. But I also want people to recognize me for my skill in crafting it.

This is true even if you hold to the first point Barthes made. Even if you believe that no art is truly unique, isn't the skill of synthesizing the various tropes and influences around a person worthy of credit in and of itself?

Then again, I am not without bias in this. Barthes says that the modern interpretation of the author is a product of the Protestant Reformation. As a Protestant myself, I get that my background plays no part in my view of this. Barthes also blames English empiricism and French rationalism, but personal faith is the biggest influence on me that Barthes lists.

That being said, there's also something Barthes completely misses in his essay. In the past, stories were passed down by oral tradition. As the stories were passed down from generation to generation, they slowly evolved and became what they are known today. Scholars today can gather a general consensus of what a story was meant to be and some traditions were more faithful about passing traditions down than others. However, you can't always tell the original author of a mythological story the same way we know who gave us stuff like the Quran or the Bible.

As time passed, stories were written down. With this, it was easy to share single versions of a story and identify its creator. We know who made certain writing of works even before the 1500s. For example, we have the Travels of Marco Polo and Dante's Inferno and know their authors. We could tell the authors of works were before the Protestant Reformation.

By the way, the Reformation happened to coincide with one of the most important inventions in human history: the printing press. Now you can easily make copies of an individual's works and you don't have to rely on word of mouth to share stories.

I can't stress how important an omission this is. The printing press changed the way we interact with media as a whole and might be the most important invention on this side of the wheel. And yet Barthes doesn't even mention as even a potential factor in "the modern concept of the author"? In his essay about understanding written media? That’s like ignoring Jim Crow in your essay about Birth of a Nation bringing back the KKK.

Now, we get to the final point. The author's original intentions of their works are not the main interpretation. This is understood as being the case after they create the series. Once the work is written and sent into the public, they cease to be an authority on it.

It's worth recognizing how this flows from the other two points. Barthes argued that works of fiction are products of their culture and our current understanding of an author is fairly modern. Therefore, the interpretation of the reader is just as valuable as that of the author. As Barthes himself wrote, "the birth of the reader must be at cost of the death of the author."

At best, this means that a reader can come away with an interpretation of a work that isn't the one intended. With Fairy Tail, my mind goes to the final moments of the Grand Magic Games. My view of Gray's line "I've got to smile for her sake" has to do with romantic feelings for Ultear. I don't know of a single person who agrees with this. Mashima certainly hasn't come out and affirmed this as the right view.

It's good to recognize that a work can have more meanings behind it than the ones intended by its creator. Part of the performing process is coming to a personal interpretation of a work. In many cases, two different performances will have different interpretations of the same work, neither of which went through the creator's mind. At the same time, both work and are valid.

That being said, there is an obvious problem with this: readers are idiots. Not all readers are necessarily idiots. But enough of them are idiots. The views of idiots should have as much weight as that of the creator. Full stop. Frankly, I maintain that idiots are the worst possible sources to gauge anything of note. (At the very least, policy decisions.)

I know this as a reader who has not been alone in misunderstanding a work. I know this as an analyst who has had to sift through all kinds of cold takes on Fairy Tail. (Takes that are proven wrong simply by going through it a second time. Or a first.) And I definitely know this as a creator who has to see people butcher my works through nonsensical "interpretations."

At the same time, the argument Barthes made comes with an important caveat. He also argued that works are the products of the culture and surroundings of the author. Barthes isn’t making the argument that author’s arguments don’t matter.

As far as I can tell, Barthes doesn't take this to mean that those influences are worth analyzing. Doing so would be giving life to the author. However, there should be some recognition that a creative work didn't come to exist out of nowhere. There's a sense in which Fairy Tail didn't just wash up on the shore chapter by chapter or episode by episode. It came to be as part of the culture it came from.

Now, you'll never guess what happened. Over the years, the concept of "death of the author" lost its original intent. Nowadays, people usually only care about the third point. "Death of the author" is only brought up to dismiss "word of God" explanations of work, after its release. I'd venture to guess that most people using the term casually don't know anything about its roots. I honestly don't know how Barthes would feel about this.

I can understand what might fuel this view. A writer should do their best to write their intended meanings in a work. It would be wrong of a writer to make up for their poor writing after the fact. I don't love Mashima's "Lucy's dreams" explanation for omakes. I know Harry Potter fans don't love the stuff J.K. Rowling has said over the years.

At the same time, my (admittedly Protestant) understanding of "word of God" and "canon" is that they have the same authority. After all, the canon IS the word of God. It is a small section of what God has said, but it isn't less than that.

Of course, it's worth recognizing that nearly every writer we're talking about isn't even remotely divinely inspired or incapable of contradiction. This understanding should cut two ways. An author should never contradict their work in talking about it. Write what you want and make clear what you want to. On the other hand, writers can't fit everything they want to in a work. I'll get to this soon, but their interpretation should be treated with some value.

By the way, people will do this while throwing out the other arguments made by Barthes in the same essay. People will outright ignore the culture and context that a work comes from in order to justify their views. Creators are worshiped and praised for their works or seen as the sole problem for the bad views on works.

What worries me most about this modern interpretation of "the death of the author" is its use in fan analysis. People seem to outright not care about the author's intent in writing a story. They only care about their own interpretation of the work. Worse still, people will insist that any explanation an author gives is them covering up their mistakes. Naturally, this often leads to negative views of the work in question.

This is just something I'll never fully understand. It's one thing if you don't like something. If you don't get why something happened, shouldn't your first move be to figure out what the author was thinking? Instead, people move to the idea that it makes no sense and the writer's a hack.

If all of this seems too heady, let's try to bring this down to earth. Should Hiro Mashima die so that his readers can be born?

Hiro Mashima is one of many mangakas who were influenced by Akira and Dragon Ball. He considers J.R.R. Tolkien to be one of his favorite writers. Monster Hunter is one of his favorite game series. He's even written a manga series with the world in mind.

It would make sense to look at Fairy Tail purely through this lens. You could see Fairy Tail as a shonen action guild story. Rather than seeing the guild as a hub for its members, Fairy Tail's members treat those within it as family. Rather than focusing on one overarching quest, the story is about how various smaller quests relating to its main characters threaten their guild. Adopting this view wouldn't necessarily be an incorrect way to engage with the series. (Mind you, I haven’t seen this view shared by many people who “kill Mashima”.)

Though, there's more to Fairy Tail than the various tropes that make it up. If you were to divorce Fairy Tail entirely from its creator, you'd miss out on understanding them. There are ways Mashima has written bits of himself into the series. Things that go farther than Rave Master cameos and references.

My favorite example is motion sickness. I often think back to Craftsdwarf mocking motion sickness as a useless quirk Dragon Slayers have. It turns out that its origin comes from his personal life. Apparently, one of his friends gets motion sickness. He decided to write this as part of his world.

This gets to the biggest reason I don't love "death of the author" as a framework for analysis. I believe the biggest question analysts should answer is why. Why did an author make certain decisions? You can't do this kind of thing well if you shut out the author's interpretation of their own work. Maybe that can work for some things, but not everything.

I've had tons of fun going through Fairy Tail and talking about it over the past seven years. More recently, I've been going through the series with the intent to rewrite the series. I've made it clear multiple times in that series that I'm trying to understand and explain Mashima's decisions in the series. I don't always agree with what I find. However, trying to understand what happened in Fairy Tail is very important to me.

It's gotten to the point that I love interacting with Mashima's writing. I talk about EZ on my main blog. I can't tell you how much fun I've been having. I'll see things and go "man, that's so Mashima" or "wow, I didn't expect that from him." HERO'S was one of my favorite things of last year and I regularly revisit it for fun. It's the simplest microcosm of what makes each series which Mashima has made both similar and distinct.

Barthes was on to something with his essay. I think there should be a sense where people should feel that their views of the media they consume are valid. This should be true even if we disagree with the author's views on the series. But I don't know that the solution is to treat the author's word on their own work as irrelevant.

There's a sense where I think we should mesh the understandings of media engagement. We recognize that Mashima wrote Fairy Tail. There are reasons that he wrote the series as we got it and they're worth knowing and understanding. However, our own interpretation of the series doesn't have to be exactly what Mashima intended. We can even disagree with how Mashima did things.

I know fans who do this all the time. They love whatever series they follow, but wish things happened differently. Fans of Your Lie in April will joke about [situation redacted] as well as write stories where it never happens. You love a series, warts and all, but wish for the series to get cosmetic surgery, or take matters into your own hands.

And who knows? It's not as if fans haven't affected an author's writing of a series. Mashima's the perfect example. I've said this a few times before, but Fairy Tail has gone well past its original end at Phantom Lord (or Daphne for the anime fans). Levy rose to importance as fans wanted to see more of her.

Could Mashima have done that if we killed him?

Before the conclusion, I should mention another way “death of the author“ comes up. People will invoke “death of the author“ to encourage people to enjoy works they love made by messed up people. Given everything we’ve said up to this point, that’s obviously not what should be intended by its use. For now, though, I do think that we can admit that we like the works of someone even if we don’t agree with everything they did as a person. (Another rant for another day.)

In Conclusion:

“Death of the Author” is an imperfect concept, but it’s not without its points. I don’t think we should throw out the author’s intent behind a work. However, we should be able to have our disagreements with the author’s views without killing them.

#fairy tail #hiro mashima #death of the author #i'm back #and what a way to return #i've been meaning to do this forever #fav

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tamamatango · 4 years

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Let’s talk about Kururu, again

Apparently the fandom is growing all of a sudden so I feel like talking about Kururu again cuz that’s all I know how to do and it’s been a while

First off disclaimer that fandom is fandom and anybody can interpret any character any way they want and if you like to portray a character a certain way for whatever reason go for it, more power to you (unless you put them in pedo/incest relationships that are displayed as good in which case fuck you). But in my personal Kirbpinion(TM) the Funimation dub was a fucking mistake because so many fan content creators write a way different Kururu than what he is in canon cuz the dub never got to his best episodes and also upped the sadism to ridiculous levels. Listen I know it’s funny to joke that he’s the kind of guy that has 3 medieval torture chambers but hear me out. Kururu is by no means a perfect person, he’s genuinely pretty rude/blunt (though sometimes his straightforwardness is justified :P), has an ego, sometimes acts pretty gross around others and likes extreme and elaborate pranks way way way too much BUT.

Assuming you’ve watched far enough into the series (like 100+ eps) I do not really understand the interpretation that he doesn’t care about anyone and that friendship and love are things he is totally incapable of. He says that yes but if you pay enough attention to his dialogue it becomes pretty apparent that he displays this attitude for multiple reasons. One is that he does genuinely have a hard time expressing the emotions he feels and often has awkward/guarded ways of doing so. But also he says many times over the course of the series that he has a “reputation” to keep up and wants people to call him a jerk; he wants to look cool and rebellious all the time and he thinks a nasty apathetic attitude is what earns him that status (not claiming that’s a healthy mindset, mind you). He wants to have full control over the way people see him and he gets super frustrated and humiliated when he can’t. This is probably why he gets so upset when people talk about how unpopular he is, because he’s spent so much time honing his image to a T and is like why the fuck isn’t this working?! In other words even though sometimes he is just an actual pain in the neck a lot of his asshole antics are part of a carefully manufactured persona, and he will do anything down to labeling his own memories to prevent other people from seeing through his facade and discovering the parts of him that are vulnerable.

And God forbid anyone does figure out that he does care quite a bit for the people around him, or at least if he didn’t at first he does now. Early on in the series he was commonly referred to as “depressing” and while the meta reason is probably just the anime writers just didn’t know how to adapt the character yet (he started out a little differently in the manga), in canon I believe he was just even more inclined to push everybody away from him, and as he began to get used to working in a group he gradually opened up. He commentates on how “soft” he’s gotten since he came to Earth a couple times, and the fact that he’s surprisingly one of the most loyal to Keroro out of the whole team (in many episodes where everyone abandons Keroro for being dumb he leaves last) and goes out of his way to help when he thinks it’s warranted (he asks for money when things aren’t dire yeah but hey labor deserves compensation :V) shows that he is dedicated to his team. There’s even episodes where he doles out some kind of moral lesson to the squad in his own Kururu-y way, especially to Keroro and Tamama. Even the Hinatas he’ll pitch in to protect when he has to, and we all know he’ll pretty much drop everything if Saburo needs him.

Speaking of which. I think the unspoken reason why he’s best friends with Saburo (besides the surface-level stuff like they’re smart and nerdy and seen as enigmas by everybody else) is because Saburo is the only other person in the cast who understands Kururu’s particular struggle of putting on airs as a means of self-defense all the time. He basically has a carefully managed celebrity life (that he has to constantly work to hide in anime canon), a somewhat formal/reserved public life, and the more quirky enthusiastic side of himself he only shows when alone and to the few people he’s close to and god damn that just sounds like the most exhausting juggling act ever. He has an outlet to free himself through his art but he still has to live with nobody quite knowing what he goes through on a daily basis, which is probably why we see him off on his own for most of the series (until he gets to warm up to everybody better...wonder who that sounds like) and occasionally have his bouts of frustration and insecurity like in 229 where he says “fuck it I’m gonna fight the apocalypse alone because I need something to do,” 354(? I think that’s the number) where he talks about just dropping everything and starting over, and I think one of the Christmas eps where Giroro has to like beg him to go to the Hinatas’ party cuz he says he’s “busy” even though he’s just sitting around pretty much (UPDATE: it’s 294 the implication is probably that he has his show or something but cmon that’s only like an hour lol). I am going off on a tangent now but anyway the point is he and Kururu are the most complicated communicators of the cast and they share feelings only they understand which is why they can more or less read each other’s minds and know exactly what to do when the other is in trouble.

Back to Kururu. Keroro, from what I can tell, is the closest to him out of the Platoon; Keroro gets freaked out by Kururu’s pranks sometimes yeah but they have a lot of common interests as the fun-lovers of the group and Kururu’s also kinda been interested in Keroro enough time follow him around for almost his entire life up to this point so there’s that. He also gets along with the other people he‘s around; we know he and Aki get along from the beginning because of how dynamic their personalities are but later on he gets close to Fuyuki to the point where they just hang out for the heck of it sometimes, and even though Natsumi is very justified in generally disliking him (many of Kururu’s more Eugh moments tend to involve her) even she seems to rely on him often, and in the cursed puppy episode she knows all his favorite foods by heart so she must care in some fashion lol. Dororo and he aren’t evidently super close but I think they get each other on some level as the (in-universe) least popular of the platoon and Dororo at least respects his abilities, and has clearly come to figure out his subtleties based on 229. Giroro and Mois...things get complicated. Just putting on record that I’m not a fan of either ship between Kururu and them. I’ve said this before but I think Giroro and Kururu are in a turbulent sibling-adjacent relationship in that they have completely opposing attitudes but they have a begrudging sense of respect for each other and, ultimately, they’re teammates, so they’ll defend each other when someone they don’t know tries to mess with them. I really don’t think the flirty stuff on Kururu’s end goes beyond teasing and I got kinda sick of that running gag if I’m being honest. (You can probably tell which frog I ship Kururu with by now :P) Mois went from something of a rival to Kururu to his lab partner, which is probably why he goes easier on her than he used to and even strikes up something of a friendship because the only other person he knows that might be capable of handling his technology is an Earthling who’s still against the invasion despite his lax attitude so. She helps :V

Now the question is why Kururu acts like he does if his relationships really aren’t all that bad and I think there’s two components to this. I’ve made it clear by now I think he’s autistic but your mileage may vary there. I think personally his childhood did something to the way he processes things as well. In Secret of the Kero Ball, he’s got a bandage on his head which may imply he got hurt somewhere and then he almost drowned which canonically definitely did something to him lol, was mostly seen alone so who knows if he has a family he still talks to, and then he got drafted into the army and placed into a high-ranking position of great responsibility at a very young age; it’s kind of a no-brainer why he rebeled and got demoted eventually. I’ve got plenty of headcanons about what his early days in the Military did to him but that’s for another day because good God this post went on too long.

In short: Kururu is possibly the most complicated character in the show and the F in Flanderization stands for “Funimation.” That’s it I’m never writing another essay about pee-color frog again I will make real content again at some point I promise

#keroro gunso #sgt frog #kururu #kululu #long post #i sure spent 2 hours on this #imo kururu is a more compelling tsundere than giroro there I said it

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jacksnwangs · 4 years

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i know all of y’all follow me for kpop fic and i don’t really write that anymore (though i did post some good omens fanfic a few months ago if anyone’s a fan of that) but i have been thinking about publishing a series of personal essays somewhere so i thought i would share a rough draft here if anyone is interested!

it is about mental health (sort of) and self-esteem and my bad parents so cw for all of that!

I recently turned twenty-three, which is not very old, and I don’t know that much, but I have had a lot of experiences, and I’m trying my best.

I won’t tell you about all those experiences. They are part of this story – they are a part of all my stories, because they are a part of me. Those experiences are important, and maybe one day I’ll tell you about them all too.

During my last year of college, I had a therapist. She was not my first therapist, not even my first therapist from the university, but she was a very good one. One of the first times we talked, she gave me a metaphor: it’s like going to the hardware store for bread. You can go again and again and ask for bread, but it’s never going to be there.

My dad is not a good person. He is racist, and homophobic, and he thinks women are worth less (including his ex-wife and three daughters, maybe especially them) and he is the kind of funny that is actually just mean-spirited and always followed up with a “god, can’t you just learn to take a joke.” My dad is also a drug addict, and an alcoholic, which does not make him a bad person but it does make him unreliable and impossible to trust. Even when his intentions aren’t bad, he is not a good person. He would demean and insult and call it motivational. When he was proud, it was not because he was proud of us, it was because he was proud of himself for creating us. Perhaps it is a bias, a blindness, but when I think back, I cannot remember a single happy moment with my dad.

My dad is not a good person, and he is not a kind person, and he is not reliable or trustworthy, but he is my dad.

My dad is my dad, and whether it is nature or nurture, I have believed for my whole life that he should love me. We’re hardwired for that, aren’t we? Our parents are our means of survival for years. We’re taught that our parents should love us and care for us and protect us. I believed whole heartedly, for so many years, that my dad was supposed to love me. I desperately wanted, for even longer, for him to choose to love me.

A different therapist, my current therapist, another very good one, asked me why I believe I am incapable of being loved. I said, well, I could list some things I think are bad about me, that make me difficult to have a relationship with. We could talk more about how I react to intimacy, how little I understand about vulnerability, about how sometimes when my partner looked at me or touched me it felt unbearable even if minutes before I was hoping for the attention.

It isn’t really about me, though. It is, of course, because I am the thing that is unlovable. But the belief isn’t about me as a person.

I explained to her, when I was little, the two people who were supposed to love me and care for me and protect me above all else didn’t. And when I was little, and I realized my dad did not love me even though dads are supposed to love their children, I decided this was because of me. He did not love me because I did not deserve love.

My old therapist, the one with the metaphor, shared it when I said something similar. I told her that I did not feel worthy of love, because if I was, my dad would have loved me all along. He would have loved me from the start, or he would’ve started in the years I spent trying so hard to be a good child, trying to earn it. And she gave me the metaphor: you are going to the hardware store to buy bread. You are looking for something somewhere it can not exist.

When I was very little, I was told I should go to the store for bread. But the store was a hardware store, and the hardware store does not sell bread, and no matter how I ask the hardware store for bread, it is not going to be there.

When I was very little, I was told that dads love their children. But my dad is not a good person, and he is not a good dad, and he just did not have that love to give. No matter how badly I wanted his love, I was not going to get it.

I do know children are not to blame when their parents are not good parents. I would never tell any child except for the one that I once was that if they had just been smarter or cuter or more well behaved that they would’ve been loved and cared for and protected. But, I told my therapist, I have to believe that. I have to believe that it was my fault, because if it was my fault, that means I deserved it. If it wasn’t my fault, that means that someone wronged me, and that is unfair, and that is more painful than believing I am worthless is.

I told my therapist that if it was my fault, that means there’s hope. If it was because I did something wrong, then I can fix it, and fix myself, and eventually, I will become deserving, and become loved.

I stopped talking to my dad the summer before my senior year of college. My brother stopped talking to our dad when he graduated high school. Most of our conversations in the seven years between were about my brother, and my dad asking about my brother’s life, and my dad trying to get me to talk to my brother for him, and my dad complaining about my brother not talking to him, because my brother is smart and funny and kind and because my dad felt threatened by my brother who is smarter and funnier and kinder than him.

In our last two conversations, I said things like, it hurts me when you only talk to me about my brother because I’m your child too, and I want you to care for me. I said things like, you did bad things that hurt us so you do not have a right to a relationship with him. I told him, I still have nightmares about finding you when you overdosed when I was eight years old. I told him, I am an adult now, and I do not owe you anything, but I love you, so I want you to treat me with respect so that I can continue to talk to you.

In our last two conversations, my dad said things to me like, you are a bitch, and you were your mother’s mistake, so take it up with her if you have issues with your childhood. My dad said things to me like, I did nothing wrong, you are the one who got your feelings hurt, so don’t blame me when you can’t get over it. My dad said to me, you are a child, and you do not deserve respect, and you will need me, and you will regret this.

On my twenty-third birthday, my dad messaged me and left me voicemails and liked half of my facebook posts before I could block him. He told me he saw that I graduated university, that he was proud. He told me that he missed me, and wanted a relationship with me, wanted to do something for me. He offered me money, he offered me anything I asked for. He asked my older sister to talk to me for him, to ask me what he could give me to fix it.

And I didn’t respond, because I don’t need his money. I make my own money. And for the longest time, I wanted his love. But maybe I don’t need that either. Maybe I can make my own love too.

#my writing #not fic

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velvetv0nblack · 4 years

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An open letter;

(Possible trigger warning)

I’m not even sure why I’m writing this, maybe because this theme of abuse has be something I’ve been experiencing as a third party, the person removing the victim this time, you know the role many of my friends filled within our tumultuous relationship... maybe it’s because my friends abuser is now threatening and harassing me for helpingher leave... maybe it’s because I’ve finally found my therapeutic dosage of lithium, am in a clear mind and are therefore able to reflect properly for the first time in my life... or maybe it’s because this is not an apology, I mean maybe it is if you had only been a serial cheat, but the truth is you fractured my skull and cut me open with a knife, so this is not a fucking apology. Also I’d rather rip my own eyes out of my skull, smash them with a hammer, and then inject the liquid into my ass than actually engage you in any kind of conversation, so knowing that this is the one platform you can still check for me on, I’m going to post this here... Its about time I had my say without putting myself in physical danger.

You would think I wouldn’t have an essay to correct your 3 lines of a nothing apology, but here we are I guess.

This kind of self deprecating “I wasn’t good enough for you” narrative is truly infuriating, and not because you were actually good enough for me but because of the very reasons you proved yourself not be “not good enough”. You weren’t undeserving of me because you didn’t work, I am physically incapable of doing so myself and I didn’t fall in love with you because you came across mad motivated. You weren’t undeserving of me because you took drugs, drank like a fish or smoked like a chimney, we were both purposefully killing our selves in the same way. You weren’t undeserving of me at all, until you fucked my best friend in the bathroom and collectively gaslit me into wondering if I was imagining the whole thing, and slowly but systematically broke down my confidence and support network away from me. I want this to be very clear; the reason you do not deserve me or any other decent human being is because, you are an abuser, you abuse people.

I was barely a whole person when I met you. I was barely an adult. I had lived through so much already, and had been abused in every area of my existence. I was easy pickings to you. The issue was you were not a pawn to me, a player in any game, or any of that. To me you were this fascinating, beautiful soul, to me you were someone who needed my love who needed someone to support you and I couldn’t believe that you chose me to fill that role. I was freshly 18 that month, and I had just had a flat mate steal £3k and kill my kitten.

I weighed all of 63lbs that night you lost the plot on me because I didn’t want to go to Big Red to watch that actual cunt of a waitress smile at me as she gave you lap dances, it’s not even a dance joint it was a fucking bar. You allowed other people to emotionally abuse me with you for months up until this point and I just didn’t want to go, all I wanted was the keys and I would of gone home alone and gone to bed. Why you feel the need to publicly humiliate me again instead of just leaving it? You couldn’t just go be adulterous without me watching and hurting, so you followed me home, screaming at me the whole time. You told me I was pathetic, you hated me, I should just kill myself- on a bus on a Saturday night, from the bar I worked in, in soho, back to our place near Caledonian Road. I was so unstable anyway, undiagnosed autism, misdiagnosed mental health issues, on the wrong if any medication, deep within the throws of an addiction and eating disorder... you. I couldn’t take you verbally ripping my heart out anymore when I decided that throwing myself from our 3rd story window would hurt less. The fact I could of died isn’t what made you grab me and stop me jumping, no in fact you told me you don’t care if I kill my self as long as it’s not in the flat, you were much more concerned with the amount of drugs in the flat and the prison opposite our window. At that point you threw me full pelt across the other side of the room, all 63lbs of me flew through the air like a paper aeroplane and smashed directly into your guitar. You know your beloved custom Les Paul? The headstock came off, and at that very moment despite the fact you were the one who threw me, my life was the one in danger. You started strangling me and threatening to have men come down to London to gang rape my then 14 year old sister. It gets a little fuzzy, that’s what your brain does when you experience potentially life ending trauma. I do know I ended up with stitches in my lips and hands, that you fractured my right eye socket- that I still suffer issues with to this day- and had black bruising covering my entire body like a bus had hit me.

For a couple of years there my brain completely blocked out important details of that night, and a lot of our relationship. Don’t worry though periodically I have the real type of flashback where I relive these events and I come back to reality remembering more than I ever wanted to. I’m yet to even touch on the fact that whilst I may of been able to escape you in waking life, my dreams are perpetually stuck in this horrific PTSD dream land, a town that is a mash up of all the places I’ve been traumatised in my life, the place you eternally reside inside my head to traumatise me whilst I desperately need to rest. You haven’t really left my life despite the efforts I have made to avoid you (I think I’ve seen you once, from a distance once at Download 2 years ago, my heart fell out my ass, and I dragged Camilla in another direction) I have only 2 dreams in 6 years that haven’t included you chasing me down to finish what you started and kill me or keep me captive. But that’s what trauma does, and oh how you traumatised me.

I really loved you though, that’s why I stayed, and those couple times I tried to leave before I came back. I loved you so unconditionally that it took me realising that everyone else around us was so complicit that they’d help you hide by body. To this very day I cannot believe a man, a male roommate, walked in on you pinning me into a sofa by my neck, with both your planted knees on top of my chest, full weight suffocating me, biting the end of my nose until it was blackened and he had the audacity me I needed to calm down. I have to label the guy the world biggest pussy in my head so I don’t get wound up about it.

I wasn’t perfect, I can never be perfect, I have more imperfections than most. I am severely mentally and physically unwell- I sure as hell am a pain in the ass to love- however I cannot actually think of a damn thing I did to deserve constant unending emotional abuse, threatens and follow through of physical abuse and then after I left stalking and harassment. I am difficult but I am not deserving of abuse and that’s all you gave me in the end... unless of course you “needed your baby girl to suck your dick” - that was the only time you were ever nice to me, and I know because I recently read back a bunch of our texts and you flipped between “I hate you, I’m gonna kill you/kill your self” to “I need my beautiful girl to come and suck my dick I love you so much” is actually fucking insane. - Should I bring up the fact you would bang pathetic girls on the scene and then dicknotise them into stalking and harassing me with you? Because... what I had the audacity to leave a man, of over 6ft tall, who would become violent to my 5ft 63lbs self?

So yeah, you didn’t deserve me, but not because of any self deprecating attention seeking reason but because you’re a sociopath, who seems to take pleasure in fucking with vulnerable women.

Am I happy? Now that’s a fucking difficult one to answer.

I ended up homeless on and off for a year. Despite the homelessness I had suffered before this was worse because of the place I was in mentally.

You caused me to develop complex PTSD.

You caused me to have a 3 year long psychotic break.

You caused me to live in secure supported housing, where I was prayed upon by other residents.

You caused me to fall victim to abuse within the system

Not sure if you know this but our mental health services sucks ass, after leaving you I had a delightful therapist that would text me telling to kill my self and would tell me you were right to abuse me.

But I got one thing from our relationship, I fine tuned my “four Fs” ...I no longer freeze or fight in the face of difficulty... I developed an ability to fawn.

Dead ends are no longer in my eyeline, I will metaphorically straight on walk through someone else’s house to get where I need to be, I will jump the fence, break the locks and out run any guard dog. I may fall down but I’m never out.

When I was diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and essentially lived in hospital for 3 years, even when I thought to end my life it was weighed out by the thought of “how do I get to a place we’re I can do even 5% of what I want? What do I have to change, manifest?”.

You see if you could only temporarily break me but not stop me then why the hell would I let my own mind and body do that? That ability to fawn came with an ability to find a middle path, to be diplomatic. That ability to fawn gave me the patience to understand medical text and use that to access the right care. ~ I am actually thinking of starting a medical degree just to prove I can ~ I am now 98lbs and healthy for my size and stature, I now have a home with a housing association who like me so much they have me a lifetime partner agreement, meaning I will never be homeless again. I have been clean 7 whole goddamn years and 2 months. I have the most beautiful empathic cat, 2 foster dogs and an incredibly patient partner, who has known me before you had ever entered my life. I am as healthy as someone in my position can be, I still struggle with the anorexic thoughts but I eat everyday of the fucking week now.

I am not “happy” as happy is an emotion and emotions are fleeting but I am content in living for the simple life I have fought ever so hard for. I am strong, and determined and constantly fucking working on making more for myself. I’m proud of myself.

All I have to say is get therapy. If you’re really sorry work on yourself enough to be able to apologise properly before you fuck my day up by rising your head again for this weakness. I can’t say I don’t have morbid curiosity, because that’s me all over, however I’m much more determined to keep all that I have work for mentally, emotionally, and physically safe. For that reason I would never in my right medicated mind talk it out with you, email you back or seek you out. I’m sorry, it is what it is.

You can not damage someone irreparably both mentally and physically and think “I’m sorry for being a cunt” even close to cuts it. You are mentally unbalanced, in a way not even I can relate to.

#what was the point #open letter to my abuser #its not 2014 anymore buddy

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threelivesthreeworlds · 4 years

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Anonymous asked: Hello sorry if I was unclear. What I meant to say is that most people have a superficial view on intimacy of any sort, and so while I love Tang Qi's portrayal of romance, I hate most people's physicality-obsessed interpretations. Dunno if it's a western thing, but fanfiction is so out of alignment with canon romance themes that the characters are barely recognisable anymore. (1/4)

Secondly, Most readers/viewers do not give characters like Yehua or Lian Song a chance before making stereotypical assumptions about them. I love their real personalities, flaws and all, but I hate the sheer hyperexaggeration the fandom makes out of it (e.g. hating on Ji Heng). People just cannot see a character as a whole but put them into one category or the other. (2/4)

Thirdly, I just added that I relate to Lian Song(depression etc) because I kinda share his views on romance/love and don't really care for physical aspects that much. I'm aware he's a playboy, but he's also not a stereotypical one (which is unfortunately how most people interpret him) so it's a relief that your blog instead backs up my interpretation of him with facts. (3/4)

Lastly, I'm so sorry for ranting in the Q & A section. Making several points with a word limit really compromises what I'm trying to say 😆. But the bottom line was that fandoms' misinterpretations of your favourite characters makes it hard to see them in an objective light again. (4/4)

(this 4th one came in after most of our answers were done, so we apologize if it comes off a little ??? we weren’t aware of the end goal for the anons received. We mean no ill-will in how we come across, just elaborating on things and we hope that’s alright with you. <3)

(Admin Lin): Hey! Thanks for sharing your opinions, though these anons are starting to get a little haughty for our own comfort to continue addressing. Both admins have our own grievances with the fandom / how it views particular characters (Ji Heng being a prime example here), however the fandom still offers plenty of good things from it. This is not only a western fandom “issue” (I say as this physicality isn’t necessarily an issue), it can be found in the eastern fandom as well for not only this series but others as well. Both admins are in fact western fandom despite Admin Ro being Asian.

As for when it comes down to interpretations - Peach Blossoms is written in first person and hard to find on the western side of the internet; Yehua has an extra from his perspective but that’s the only direct contact we get with him that isn’t through Bai Qian’s eyes. Qian isn’t a romantic person nor does she necessarily find what he does romantic, she’s been engaged to him for so long she kind of considered their engagement troublesome due to her past experience with his Uncle Sang Ji. When it comes to the drama’s take of Yehua, we get a clearer idea of him but at the same time it’s easy to see where others can’t grasp him in his entirety or simplify things when in a fanfiction. Or, for the likes of me, knows what he’s like but can’t formulate a more articulate summary or introspective version of him because of his extensive complexities and in some ways, the knowledge of a Chinese household of some fashion to express the intricacies of his upbringing. It’s merely harder.

In the case of Lian Song - the Western fandom doesn’t have access to the information that can be found on this blog as easily because Lotus Step is in the middle of a hiatus but will continue serializing by next year. So, it’s no one’s fault for misunderstanding what kind of playboy he is since that was only addressed in the fall of last year and the dramas both make it clear he’s a playboy / amorous person but never elaborates on it. So it’s an easy assumption to make that he may be a typical playboy by fans of the other available media because he’s not featured beyond Yehua’s uncle or Donghua’s best friend with touches here and there of his connection to Cheng Yu. It’s only in his novel that we get to see a different side of him that will ultimately have a shift at some point to what we see 50,000 years down the line. So, I’m not actually bothered by this myself, personally. It is bound to happen because no one on the western side of the fandom has as much access or want to read an untranslated novel.

With TQ’s stance on romance writing, I will say the concept of eternal love or a love that lasts 3,000 lifetimes is a very Chinese one that unless one digs through it with patience and interest in Buddhism / other Eastern religions, that it can be a harder nuance to grasp for those unfamiliar.

(Admin Ro): We’re sorry you’ve had bad experiences with “fanon” material. We’re thankful that you like the content on this blog enough to comment on it! These are my opinions on the whole affair: as a Chinese woman who reads Chinese novels, from a perspective of writing tropes, hyper-exaggeration is already frequently utilized...in canon. And - from a personal standpoint, when the tropes hit right, I - don’t necessarily mind. Depth can be dug out of the text, but it’s understandable for people to simplify when they’re simply writing or analyzing for their enjoyment.

I’m ace, so maybe I understand, Nonny, when you say that you don’t care for the physical aspects of love. I personally, in my life, don’t necessarily want or need that kind of intimacy, and I don’t find myself straying into the smut tag too often to read about it as it stretches my comfort limits. Granted, I am not sex-repulsed, and it takes a great deal to upset me - however, if everything is in layers and someone enjoys writing smut, then they simply enjoy that layer. Romance isn’t less good and interpretations aren’t less good if there’s a degree of physicality in it. Heck, Admin Lins and I have discussed extensively the physicality of these books - we keep it off the blog 80% of the time because tagging, but it’s a present theme. And, all of us enjoy different things. At the end of the day I think we can’t say the tropes aren’t good when the tropes are the lead-ins that drew us into the more extensive stories.

Furthermore, a lot of what is on this blog is “read,”and I will never say my read of a character or a part of canon is “right” - or that it's “right”-er than someone else’s. Yes, there’s room for passionate debate as evidenced by many, many essays, but I’m not upset when I can’t change anyone’s mind. People are not automatically wrong when they disagree with me - even if there’s textual evidence, there is difference in interpretation of that textual evidence. I understand why fandom thinks the way it does - though, you’ll have to forgive me, my brain is 90% of the time focused on Pillow Book. Regardless, whether you walk out of a book thinking “this character has this much depth and this many flaws” or “this character is just a flat out antagonist” is very much dependent on you. Yes, we as a blog synthesize textual evidence to make that synthesis easier, but ultimately we are no better judges of anyone’s personality than anyone else out in the fandom.

Rather, I think sometimes for the sake of finding reasons or understanding, or when we look for evidence fitting our own assumptions about characters sometimes we lean into a softer read, maybe entirely without realizing it. This is a big no in the world of analytical writing for the sake of, ironically “objectivity” - but this is for enjoyment and not academia. There are times when textual evidence is untouched by the author's tone in terms of connotation and so when we take it for our reading and we have our pre-formed opinions we fall a little more between the lines. Admin Lins and I obviously differ in where this happens as we each have our own, minutely different vibes for characters in question. We know where our confirmation biases in interpretation might lie. Everyone has those.

Up till about February or March this year, I, like a lot of the rest of this fandom, wanted to roast Ji Heng on a spitfire. That is my bias. We are humans, and I think we are perhaps incapable of reading something and staying entirely objective to each character. I clawed my way out of my bias (I say ‘clawed’ because it was difficult), however, by looking at the book, looking at my own opinions, looking at other people’s opinions and asking myself: which parts of this is most likely to be true? I think the only way of striving toward objectivity in terms of portrayal is to consider other people’s portrayals, even if you don’t like them - and see if there’s any truth you can see past your bias. And to accept that truth, even if it’s a hard pill to swallow.

I guess what I have been trying to say, for this entire time, is that we are not the authority on what is and isn’t objective, on what is and isn’t right in these characters, interpretations, and this blog. We are glad to be an interpretation you enjoy - but that doesn’t mean the rest of the fandom who have different opinions are wrong or misinterpretations. I realize we can come across like that sometimes because we make salty memes and because we write long paragraph essays when we have opinions, but ultimately, no one is wrong. Our bubble of enjoyment is our bubble, and no one has to agree with us.

#three lives three worlds ten miles of peach blossoms #three lives three worlds the lotus step #Yehua #Lian Song #admin lin answers #admin ro answers

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copperhawks · 4 years

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Dee’s asleep and not checking this blog much anymore so Imma write another essay cuz I wanna and I’m so excited for the next chapter of The Lost Mage, maybe she’ll backread through this during the next hiatus lol.

Anyway. To no one’s surprise, I also absolutely adore The Lord of the Rings series. I’m sure a lot of Pierce fans are probably simultaneously Lord of the Rings fans, they’re similar genres after all.

My favorite character was always Faramir. In both books and movies, Faramir was my boy. I didn’t care about Legolas much, the pretty boy of so many a young girl’s eye, or Aragorn, the gritty honorable hero who also caught many a young girl’s eye.

In the books, Faramir is flawless, practically. He is another Aragorn, in many ways, though perhaps just SLIGHTLY more scholarly. Both of them don’t want to really fight or lead but take on these roles because it is necessary and it’s what’s best for their people. They both are very grounded in terms of who they are, neither of them thinks themselves above anyone else, they don’t really seek power ever. This is why neither Aragorn nor Faramir is truly ever tempted by the Ring in the books, at all. Faramir is patient and kind and compassionate and has a very quiet sort of strength that hides in darkness until someone shines a light on it. He is the opposite of his brother, a foil to him the way Aragorn is, just slightly less flashy than Aragorn tends to be.

In the films, Faramir ends up somewhere in-between his brother and his king. He IS still tempted by the Ring, for similar reasons to Boromir, but he is able to eventually fight off the temptation and let Frodo go. He has flaws, he has insecurities that nearly cause his ruin, but he has a strength that allows him to overcome them. He still has that compassion and the patience from the books, though it’s shown less simply due to a lack of time, but it’s there. And he has his quiet strength still, too. He’s not flashy, he’s not seeking glory ever. Most of the time, what he’s seeking is acceptance, love.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this lil mini essay is going to be about which of the Lost Mage’s characters reminds me most of Faramir. And you’d be forgiven for being surprised that this essay actually starts with his brother.

So let’s talk about Don.

Poor Don. Poor irresponsible, jealous, weak Don.

Don the Deadbeat, Don the Defective, Don the Deficient, Don the Discriminatory.

If you’re been in the Lord of the Rings fandom for any significant length of time, you’ve probably seen and read at least one essay about why Boromir is not a villain. Why his failure to resist the Ring is not a sign of irredeemable weakness. Why he was actually the most relatable character of all of them, aside from perhaps Sam.

If The Lost Mage were Lord of the Rings, Don would probably be seen as a villain, too. At least, for a while.

Boromir fails a lot, too, but this doesn’t mean he doesn’t TRY to do good. He tries to protect Faramir from his father. And fails. He tries to save Merry and Pippin from the orcs and dies for it. And still fails. He tries to resist the Ring and protect Frodo as best he can. And he fails.

But he’s trying, above everything else, to protect his people, to be a good leader, to do what he believes needs to be done to defeat the darkness in the world. And he is led astray, yes, but not out of personal desire for power ever. He’s trying his best to accomplish multiple tasks and please multiple people in a situation where not everyone can be appeased. Boromir wants to help, but feels as though his contributions and opinions are being brushed aside unfairly. The people he came all this way to try to protect are being dismissed as unworthy and untrustworthy, despite everything he has seen them do to keep the darkness at bay and away from the rest of the world. Boromir has had to lead his people to their deaths too many times to not take this personally.

Boromir fails. But his death provides an example of honor and leadership that Aragorn ends up following later on. Boromir’s sacrifice does not end up being in vain at all, as both Merry and Pippin live on and are rescued and are instrumental in helping defeat Sauron. Pippin in particular in instrumental in protecting Boromir’s own brother. And Aragorn goes on to take up the mantle of King, leading the kingdom of Gondor and Men in general into a new age of peace and prosperity. Boromir fails.

But he succeeds, too.

King Donatien is fighting similar darkness. Both internal and external.

Don is, at heart, a good man. A kind man. A man who wants little else but to make life better for his people, human and animal. A man who will take in injured otters who won’t survive in the wild, a man who sees his mother murdered in front of him and has to find a way to move forward after that while answering calls for vengeance from everyone around him. A man whose personal beliefs are now at war with the needs of the nobility which are at war with the needs of the common people. Don needed to appease the nobility whose families were being massacred one by one but in doing so managed to unravel the only way of life many common people knew.

Don fails.

But does this make him a villain?

No, of course not.

Don was an 18 year old placed in a position of leadership during a time of crisis and who had much of his support slowly whittled away, placing him at the mercy of his own personal One Ring of Power.

Could Don have been a good leader in other circumstances? Maybe. Probably, even. Don would have been an excellent peace-time leader. He could even have been a decent leader during a crisis had the crisis not included a bunch of people working to chip away at any support he might have and tear down his mental stability.

Sadly, that’s not the circumstances we find Don in. The circumstances Don finds himself in put him in a position of always having to fail someone. Whether it’s Sav, the mages, the nobility, or even his own cats. Don fails.

But this arguably makes him one of the most relatable characters in the whole story. Because a lot of us can probably empathize with that feeling of having way too much responsibility thrown on you in the middle of a major crisis and just wanting to put your head down and sleep for a few months but being unable to.

Numair is, arguably, our Aragorn. He has flaws, yes. But he is the epitome of goodness so far. He’s the one who’s got things together the most, the most stable of the main characters, the kind and compassionate and patient hero who is there to support everyone else as they stumble and fall. He is big and flashy and powerful and capable. He is quite the opposite of Don in so many ways. But Numair, like Aragorn, is able to recognize that just because someone seems to be nothing but a failure doesn’t mean they aren’t TRYING to be better and doesn’t mean they don’t just need a little help.

Daine, I think, would be the Faramir. Sav’s too flashy for Faramir, I’m not sure where he’d be placed on the Lord of the Rings spectrum of heroic characters here. Maybe Sav’s Legolas. Or Eowyn. Oh gosh Sav’s Eowyn isn’t he. Regardless, Daine is our Faramir. Quietly strong, compassionate, somewhat broken down, loving, caring, patient and understanding. Someone who doesn’t really fall to temptation, either, and is able to fight through the darkness for someone else’s sake, no matter how far into the dark she is herself. Someone who refuses to lose belief in anyone, but won’t stand by and let bad things happen, either.

Don is TRYING, we’ve seen that. He’s not a villain. He’s perceptive and can be kind and compassionate in the right moments. He falls victim to certain vices and is incapable of pleasing everyone who wants something from him. But he’s trying. So so hard. He’s trying to let go of the man he loves and let him be happy with someone else. He’s trying to keep the peace between the nobility and the commoners, as impossible as they are making it. He is TRYING to work past his own trauma surrounding magic for the sake of his own people. He is trying. And that’s important. That’s SO important.

Don is perhaps not my favorite character. Boromir wasn’t, either, still isn’t. I’m a Faramir girl through and through, that’s just part of who I am at this point.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not ROOTING for Don. I want Don to get better, to BE better, because we’ve seen glimpses of the kind of man he can be, the kind of leader he can be. Don can be exceptional. Don can be inspirational.

Don the Dauntless. Don the Dedicated. Don the Dependable.

#tamora pierce #tortall #the immortals #the immortals quartet #daine au lb #king donatien

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fandom-queenliness · 5 years

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*Spoilers* Oni-Chan

Why just why. I have so many issues with this so I’m doing it how anyone would. A full-length essay dissecting everything I can from the subtitles.

Be aware, I am not very pro-Love Square, and have a large number of problems with the shows writing/Adrien and his Nice Guy/Passive behaviour in general.

Essay/salt incoming, you have been warned. Read at your own peril.

For context, in previous episodes, Adrien has had little to no problem with Lila lying and has even gone out of his way so that she may continue lying. Kagami had about zero romantic interest in Adrien upon her first appearance in Riposte, which is, in my opinion, her truest representation. Marinette has been told to not be so jealous of Adrien multiple times, but the narrative has made it clear she has no control of her feelings when it comes to him. All of Adrien’s love interests (Chloe, Kagami, Lila, Marinette) generally all hate each other, are vindictive, cruel, petty and jealous. Adrien does literally nothing to stop them.

First of all, they expect us to believe that Kagami is in love with the limp noddle that is Adrien? Get out. Just get out. In Riposte, I believe she had about no interest in him. She came here to fence and by gods was she going to fence. But Nooooooooo, Adrien just had to have another love interest, and no girl can be without someone to make her complete. What utter bullshit. I am so mad right now.

Second, I’m glad that he’s finally taking a stand against Lila (though, still in a passive way. I’ll take what I can get). He’s cut her off, he’s yelled at her, scolded her. Now we just need him helping Mari taking her down, acknowledging his flaws, trying to improve himself, all while learning about boundaries and taking no for an answer. What a wonderful development of his character, Adrien salt is non-existent, the show is saved, the love square is trending. Oh wait, it is physically impossible for the writers to have Adrien improve because “he’s already perfect”. Ugh.

Third, what a shitty reason to get akumatised. (I love Kagami btw). I mean, yeah, she can be mad, but really, over a guy. A guy who has already stated he likes another girl. (Chat had a good point, Lila and Kagami should have had Adrien’s input on his feelings instead of a game of tag around the city, but honestly does Chat even think of LB’s feelings? Does anyone, ever? A post for another day). But really a better reason could have been Kagami learning of Lila’s lying and Adrien’s passive-fucking-ness and how poorly it has affected Marinette, who Kagami was open to building a friendship with in Riposte. She could have learned what happened and felt betrayed because Adrien was not who she thought he was, and she becomes akumatised to seek revenge for Marinette and to confront Adrien without him being pulled away by his schedule. Bam we have character development and Adrien getting called out on his flaws, plus Marinette has someone standing up for her. So much better immediately. (Sidenote: Kagami’s whole speech about Adrien sucked ass I can’t believe a word of it. Just more of Astruc pushing perfect sunshine boy upon us.)

Fourth, honestly fuck how Marinette behaved in the first half. I love my girl, she is awesome, but I am tired of her being so over the top and possessive of Adrien. Like, we get it, she likes him, but no girl - especially no girl who is as mature as the narrative is portraying her as - is going to stalk her crush and a girl all the way to his house. She has been told/told herself to stop being jealous in multiple episodes, but it’s undone by the next. Fuck that. Also, let her have some character outside of Adrien because honestly, I am sick and tired of him and how Marinette is made to act around him. So much of her development is around him and it’s not a good message for the age demographic this show is targeted at. It’s just terrible honestly.

Fifth, KAGAMI CUT DOWN A TREE AND IT WAS AWESOME. SHE’S SO STRONG, I LOVE HER. *Swoons*

Sixth, Lila had some good lies. Fucking finally. It was about time. I was worried she was incapable. And some back story on her? Wonderful, personally I can’t find an absent mother as a good excuse because the mother clearly loves her dearly but it’s nice, nonetheless. And Lila manipulating Oni-Chan? Great, just so glad that I can actually start seeing her as a threat to something other than the Love Square in canon. And that bit where Gabriel was clearly seeing her as a weapon/ally was like water in a desert, the plot is moving, hussah. God it was refreshing but we all know it won’t last. C’est la vie.

Seventh, loved the fireman thing. Him helping Mari and LB? Adorable. Hated the reason why he helped Marinette, but it was cute how he comforted her. (Honestly I kinda wanted him to tell Mari if this guy was bothering her so much maybe she should let him go. Idk I’m just so fucking tired man). He can be added to the Marinette protection squad I love how he’s all about the safety.

Eight, notice how Chat was whining about how no one fights over him. Are we really going there? Really. I just, Jesus. The boy is a model, famous, rich, and has girls and guys fawning over him as Adrien enough, which he clearly does not appreciate. Does he really want that as Chat, or does he just girls he can use to make Ladybug jealous, like dolls to be discarded when he is done? A question for another day.

Ninth, Tikki finally gives Marinette some good advice but it’s too late and I’m already cringing over the whole trash bin thing. I just—*sigh*

Tenth, Kagami’s costume? Hurts my eyes. The potential was there but it was wasted. I’m so sorry that Hawkbitch forced my girl to wear that. My poor sword lesbian.

Eleventh, Adrien continues to be a passive bitch, letting Lila sneak around him room, ignoring Plagg’s warnings, and only getting truly upset when Lila manipulated him into leaving LB. I’m mad about that too, because like, sure he thought she was hurt, but couldn’t he have just set her down on a rooftop somewhere safe instead of the whole hospital bit? Btw, I love fireman guy seeing through Lila’s shit. “This is what you get for now wearing kneepads”. He is so concerned for safety. My boy.

Twelfth, LB using Oni-Chan’s powers against her was beautiful. We stan a queen. So smart, so brave, I love her.

Thirteenth, they really made Kagami idolise that fucking rose Adrien gave her. The rose Adrien originally gave LB, the rose he gave her before asking her out on a terrible date. The terrible date where he invited another girl, payed more attention to said other girl, and then made it clear to Kagami that he was using her as a rebound and he was still not over the girl who rejected him. They are really trying to make us believe Kagami the Queen loves this guy? Really?

Fourteenth, the horn was hilarious. I wish she was stuck with it. Or at least LB video Lila lying and her horn growing. It was a beautiful thing.

Fifteen I don’t get the whole “Chat ignores the Bien-Joué from LB to help Kagami up is Bad and Terrible”. Like, I hate the implications and subtext behind it. And the way LB deflated over it. It was unnecessary and jsut there to stir up trouble. Just… fuck that.

Sixteenth, LB abandoning Lila to walk home was wonderful. I wish Mari was allowed to be like that outside of the mask and not get demonised for it.

Seventeenth, Alya asking Mari why she’s not “keeping an eye” on Adrien and Lila and Marinette saying she “trusts” Adrien with Lila is weird for me. Cause it’s like she was saying it like she was Adrien’s girlfriend and was trusting him not to cheat. It was like she was already laying claim to a guy that she can barely talk to. In fact, they didn’t talk at all in this ep. Mari and Juleka had more exchanges than her and Adrien. Pshh.

Eighteenth, Gabriel is a piece of shit. Not letting his son have friends. No wonder he’s like this. Plus making a deal with the bitch who feels so entitled to Adrien is a dick move. Fuck Gabriel and his candy cane tie.

Nineteenth, Lila manipulated Natalie. What the shit. I’m impressed. I’m loving this whole thing. I’m really excited for Lila working with Hawkbitch. It’s going to be either really good or bad as shit. I am worried for Adrien. Just because I don’t like how he’s being portrayed doesn’t mean he should suffer at the hands of Lila. Also her mirroring Gabriel’s want to shield his son is kinda creepy and possessive. Ew.

Twenty, Adrien: “Lila, you can count on me, unless you hurt the people I love”. Um, how about Marinette? I get you don’t love her romantically but what about your good friend??? Or do you just not care about her?? Throwback to Chameleon where Adrien decided keeping Lila from being akumatised mattered less than the truth and Marinette’s feelings. Yeah, he’s such a great role model and such a wise choice for a love interest.

As you can see from the evidence, this episode sucked. Kagami and Marinette deserve better (preferably each other) and not the limp blond pasta sucker that is Adrien Agreste. Very sorry if you’re feeling offended by this post, feel free to rant and complain about it and me.

#mlb spoilders #miraculous ladybug #mlb #oni chan #adrien salt #mlb salt #oni chan salt #kagaminette #marigami #kaganette #salt #feel free to @ me #i sleep now #Marinette deserves better #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #lila rossi #gabriel agreste

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