#i love how inconsistent canon information is

[ftmsimonriley]

i personally hc ghost to have been born in 1990, and i just realized that it'd make him the same age as in the original timeline, since the comics imply ghost to have enlisted around 2001 and he dies in 2016, so assuming he enlisted at 18 or 19, he would've been 33 or 34.

[alizarintea]

@ahubofreadersandmagicians:

Why would Daniel hate Marius? He’s already read the “forced prostitution” and “Marius de Romanus” folders from the Talamasca’s Armand file, we’ve seen them. His only response was to shame Armand for talking abt the Arun/Amadeo days and imply he was lying. Even knowing Armand was telling the truth. Daniel’s bad w/abuse victims generally and hates Armand. Sadly, I think he’ll be ok with Marius.

This got stupid long and also needs to broken into parts to try to minimize how all over the place I am so let's gooo. Friendly disclaimer that this is my opinion but I am literally trained in media analysis like this so I promise I am coming from a place of knowledge. I'm gonna start with my interpretation of Daniel's character and go from there.

RE; Daniel is bad with abuse victims

I'm assuming you are saying this because of how Daniel talks to Luis about his abuse. The way Daniel approaches this topic is, frankly, awful. Daniel is not good at it. However, he is not supportive of it. He calls Lestat out on how badly he was treating Luis, the racial dynamic (again, said in a really bad way but later we do see Lestat minimizing Luis's feelings about how he is treated as a black man so he wasn't wrong). I also think about the rent boy line, which to me was more directed as a snide remark at Luis and his assumption of what their relationship is. Not saying it wasn't also supposed to be a jab at Fake Rashid (by this point he is suspicious and annoyed and staring all the time and in general does not know what to make of him, which Daniel doesn't like), but Daniel was in active conversation with Luis and not Fake Rashid. Daniel is mean, this is not in contention. He is not a good person. But he does not ignore or get down with abuse and instead calls it out into the room, both explicitly and implied.

RE; Daniel's Past & Hating Armand

Now, what informs the fact that Daniel is such a bitch, especially when he is chasing the high of bringing out the truth? Working under the assumption of my previous post, Devil's Minion has happened. The evidence of such is, in my opinion, scattered throughout both seasons and would be a whole other post to detail. This, in my opinion, is supported by comments made by the actors and show runners that imply they have purposefully planted seeds. All I have to work with in terms of analysis right now is the book and these seeds and my last post stated that we are treating the Devil's Minion chapter as canon up until Daniel's turning, at which point Armand would have erased his memories. This implies that from 1973 until 1985, the ages of 20 and 35, Daniel's memories are incomplete. Imagine your most developmental years as an adult are now so full of holes that you wrote a memoir about how inconsistent your memory is. Your first love, your first heartbreak, the first time you debased yourself for someone's love, the first time you really fucked up with someone, countless mistakes now altered. Any self-actualization that would have made Daniel a better person is now incomplete. This includes the memory of Daniel fucking a girl with a bag on her head. It is a shameful memory, that's why Armand brings it out, but as a twenty year-old shitty kid from Modesto, Daniel might not have fully conceptualized how ashamed he is of it until it is used as weapon against him. Assuming the memories begin to return next season, either in partial or in full, this would mean that Daniel would suddenly have a much fuller context of his trauma and why he does what he does. Eric Bogosian mentioned in an interview that both he and Daniel have forgotten trauma and I do not believe San Francisco is the end of that trauma. A relationship as volatile as Armand and Daniel's, influenced by drugs and blood and danger, would hold just as much trauma if not more than the six days spent in that apartment. Bogosian went on to say that those traumas influence how someone acts and interacts without even being aware of it. I believe a lot of the development we're gonna see in Daniel is him reconciling the mean, tear-it-all-down journalist with the man he was at the height of his affair with Armand. We've already seen heightened emotion from his Paris memory (another tangent but I do not believe Alice is Armand but rather that this specific memory was altered. Daniel cares a lot less about the memory of Alice telling him she's pregnant so the inconsistency is odd).  Daniel is going to need character development moving forward. Does this mean he's going to stop being an asshole? No. He's still an asshole. I just think he'll be a different kind of asshole.

RE; Daniel Shaming Armand

I don't interpret that Arun/Amadeo line as shaming him, exactly. Asking where the lies start, implying the Arun dynamic was something of a sham (master when it's hot and convenient, etc), yeah. He's in the throes of bringing down the castle of lies, he's gotten his hit, he's basically high on exposing the truth. To me, especially given how he looks at Armand while he's on the floor, I don't think Daniel hates Armand. In book canon, it's said that he could only feel ravening desire and it is my opinion that that remains true. Daniel was gloating until the high wore off and then he was at the very least incredibly shook and definitely not making a move to rub it in Armand's face that he won.

RE; Daniel hating Marius

The show has set Marius up to be a pedophilic groomer. I don't even know if grooming was a widely-used term in the seventies but they dropped it in there and modern sensibilities make that very purposeful writing. Daniel, as stated before, does call out abusive behavior. Is he doing it in a way that reduces harm? Fuck no. Is he hurting everyone in the way he does it? Absolutely. But he has shown no evidence of being supportive of abusers and Marius has been set up explicitly as an abuser.

RE; Conclusion

Daniel Molloy is not a good person but he is not an abuser and there is no evidence that suggests he would love Marius or be in any way supportive of his actions. This is true in particular with Armand, since it is now well-established that they will have a romantic relationship in the future.

[aloesarchives]

Love and Tenacity (Tokyo Revenger One-shot)

Warning: Blood, Spoiler Warning, Angst, Swearing, Violence, Alternative Canon Divergence, Details of injuries, Mentions of Character Deaths, Lots of crying, The author(me) being an annoying narrator, Truck-kun obliterating Kisaki, Inaccurate medical information, Plot armor, super long fic, Mentions of starting a family

Series: Tokyo Revengers

Word Count: 7.2k words

Pairing: Manjiro “Mikey” Sano x Fem!Reader(Romantic), Takamichi x Fem!Reader(Platonic/Best Friends)

Pronouns: She/Her (Mikey call reader Baby and Princess)

Summary: Instead of Emma getting hit by Kisaki, you take the fall for her.

(A/N: This fic could’ve been way shorter then it needs to be but I had to word vomit a lot. Will edit this later. I actually have been planning to write this type of fic for a year now but never started it until like a weeks ago. Sorry for the inconsistent updates!)

[Not proofread! 7:19pmCST 11/29/2023]

As always, please enjoy!

The slight ringing in your ears had dulled out everything around you.

Your eyes were fixated on the sky, not a single cloud could be seen above. Like the gates were wide open for you to enter. No obstacles, no stairs, nothing between you and the endless cerulean sea that never failed to look beautiful every time.

The faint ringing created this humming effect, drowning out all and any noise. It was strange, it was almost comforting in a way you felt a sense of peace.

Your consciousness becomes like the ocean’s tide, rising and falling as time slows down. With your breathing becoming shallow with each passing second, you wondered if what you did would really change anything. What you did could really make a difference that changes everything forever. Takamichi is the only one that can time leap back and forth. Only he knows what you did affected the future. Yet were you able to live and see that reality yourself? Be alive and Takamichi telling you yourself?

Who knows, you wonder.

Face remained parallel with the sky and consciousness became faint, you were completely fazed out of reality. So out of it that you see two figures hovering over you. You can faintly hear bits and pieces of what they are saying, their voices muffled because your consciousness started to slide down the slope.

With blurry vision, you can make out the silhouettes of Emma and Takamichi. Emma, with big beads of tears in her eyes, has her hands covering her mouth to suppress her sobs. Her body shakes as she continues to cry, continuously shouting out your name. Takamichi isn’t any different. Panic and desperation was written all over him with his endless waterfall of tears. As he is hunched over your body, Takamichi continuously pleads for you to stay awake. 

To stay with them. 

You didn’t want to go, you wanted to stay with them. But your head throbbed and the aching feeling taking over your body, forming a response was something your body couldn’t do. Even blinking was hard because closing your eyes was tempting to enter eternal darkness forever.

As your two friends were desperate to save you and keep you leaving forever, your thoughts drift to Mikey and how he was dealing with all of this. Mikey has been through a lot. He lost so much and you have been there for him all the time.

Maybe Mikey was able to sort things out with Izana, or at least get some things across. You only hoped it wouldn’t be the start of leading him down a dark path.

[~~Flashback~~]

The cold winter air nipped at your lips as you made your way to meet Takamichi at the nearby park.

After the events of Bloody Halloween and Christmas Showdown, you wanted to know everything about Takamichi’s plan. You knew there was no way a junior high kid could have that much knowledge. 

There was something about him that made you want to know more about him. Prior to this, you have never met Hangaki Takamichi nor heard of him. You only ran into him when you accompanied Draken and Mikey when Kiyomasa was beating him up. Afterwards, Takamichi became this constant presence everywhere. He fought with the Toman gang when he wasn’t even a member, even saving them multiple times in the gang brawls.

This kid didn’t grow up with any of you guys yet he’s fighting for them like he’s known them for years. He was so persistent and had this conviction unlike any other person you have seen before in your life. You have to admit, Takamitchy wasn’t the strongest, smartest, or a good fighter for that matter. Yet he still goes in no matter what. He knows he’s going to lose but he still fights anyway.

Why?

You wanted that question answered by the boy himself so you asked him to meet up. He didn’t mind but he was concerned about what Mikey would think.

“Trust me, don’t worry about it. Mikey isn’t like that type of person. As long as I tell him the who, where, when, he won’t make a big deal out of it. Plus he’s not worried about you, Takamitchy.”

Is what you said to him on Friday before going home. It’s Saturday and Takamitchy was waiting for you on one of the swingsets. The anxiety was gnawing at him. Should he tell you why he’s really doing all of this? How would you react to it? 

Would you even believe him?

The chains from the swings clinked at his grip. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t know you had already arrived. Takamitchy jerked his head up at the sound of your footsteps. You greeted him and sat on the empty swing next to him. There was a small silence that fell upon the two of you. You couldn’t blame Takamitchy for being reluctant to talk. I mean, you literally pried at him to tell you his real intentions. And to be honest, the way you did it almost made Takamitchy piss his pants. 

It was like that for a moment before Takamitchy stops moving his swing and looks at you.

“Would you believe even if what I’m telling you is true?”

Caught off guard, you looked at Takamitchy with wide eyes before your signature smile made an appearance on your lips.

“I mean, I have to at this point. I’ve never seen anyone so devoted to fight and save even though they’re not powerful. You never purposely lied to them so you wouldn’t lie to me, right Takamitchy?”

Shaking his head, he looks at you with absolute seriousness.

“No, I don’t want to. The things I’m doing aren’t even for me really but they ended up involving everyone. I need to do this because I have to!”

“ *hums* Then tell me about it, Takamitchy.” 

With that, Takamitchy tells you everything about what he’s doing. How, in the future, the consistent deaths of Hana and his friends have haunted him relentlessly. That he has the ability to travel back in time to certain years depending on how much time has passed. The only reason why he got himself involved with Toman was because Hana’s death was linked to the gang. That there were futures where Draken was either dead or on death row, how some of the other members were dead in one. That one person was behind everything that kept creating such bleak futures: Kisaki Tetta.

As you listened and asked for clarification with what Takamitchy was saying, you couldn’t help but feel sympathetic, astonished, and even heartbroken. Astonished in Takamitchy doing all of this and having the willpower to keep going. But you also felt heartbroken and sympathetic because he had to witness the people his friends and the love of his life die right in front of him. You don’t blame him at all for doing what he had to do, and frankly you would do the same if it meant saving the ones you care about.

“And that’s pretty much it, (Y/N). I know it sounds crazy but it’s all true.”

“Isn’t there anyone else, Takamitchy?”

He looked at you quizzically, legitimately not understanding your lack of disbelief of what he was telling you. Instead, you were still questioning him like it was normal.

“What do you mean by that, (Y/N)?”

“As in, who else did you not see in your future timelines? You said that in other timelines, Ken-chin was dead or on death row. Other timelines, everyone else was dead. I feel like we’re missing something here. Like there has to be someone else that plays a role in the downward spiral of Mikey.”

“(Y/N), I don’t see what you’re trying to get at.”

“Takamitchy, think about it. From what you have told me, Mikey goes down this dark path because he loses the people closest in life. Shinichiro, Baji, Draken, what if there’s someone else we are not including. Like what about Emma? Do you know if she’s in the future?”

It took a few seconds to process what you just said, more so the last part. He would have retorted if it weren’t for the realization to hit him.

“(Y-Y/N), you’re not saying Emma dies, are you?”

“Takamitchy, look, I’m no detective. But think about it. If you said everyone is somewhat dead in the future, wouldn’t that include her too? Only you have been to the future, but how come you didn’t question it? You didn’t see her around when you went back to the future at all?”

“I-I…(Y/N)...”

Even though he didn’t give you an answer, his reaction and the fact his eyes are filled with slight panic gave you one. But with this revelation, it meant that Mikey was inevitably going to lose another loved one, specifically his sister. Once that fact settled in for you, your heart sank to the bottom of your soul. Heartache and agony took over your body, if Takamitchy couldn’t save Emma this time, it would guarantee that Mikey would fall into depravity. 

‘Mikey…’

You couldn’t let that happen. No, you just can’t. You loved Mikey so much that you don’t know what to do if you lost him. Just thinking about the future versions of Mikey from Takamichi’s recounts made you nauseous and break out into a cold sweat.

You know that Takamichi can’t do this all on his own. His mission will need all the help that he can get, and you were on board with it. Fuck, you do anything for Mikey and your friends.

“Then we gotta do this, Takamitchy. I may not be strong or anything but I wanna help you with this. You have my full support.”

Takamichi nods his head with his classic determined look that you’ve grown to admire. Though this meeting happened before Izana was added into the picture. Takamichi’s resolve to continue on grew more since you gave him reassurance of your help. And perhaps, this meeting only made your friendship stronger.

[~~Flashback Ends~~]

You knew you had to protect and save Emma of a fate that would lead to her premature death. You were well aware how much Emma meant to Mikey, and her dying meant Mikey losing the last family member that cared for him. 

Plus Emma didn’t deserve such a fate. She wasn’t involved in the gang at all other than being the little sister of Mikey. But even then, this wasn’t outspoken knowledge and kept hidden except for those in their close circle. To get her caught up in all of these was wrong and scumbag-level. So it was no surprise when Mikey opened up to you about Izana and their shared history together. 

But to know that Izana was trying to get Mikey to fight him by any means necessary, you expected foul play to happen. Yet, not where they were going to target someone and get them killed. It was sickening and cruel for this to happen, even in gangs filled with teenagers who were too chicken to even attempt this. But what happened to Pah’s friend and his girlfriend, it could happen.

All the more reasons to keep a close eye on Emma. But there was another reason why you couldn’t let her die. One time, Mikey took you out on his motorcycle through the city. He took you by the ocean as he zoomed and weaved through the streets of Tokyo. As he stopped and parked his bike, you and Mikey were chilling under the night sky while snacking on freshly made Taiyaki. As the two of you were talking, he mentions how he wants Emma to have a nice domestic life with Draken. You question him further and he just states:

“They care about each other. Emma loves Draken, and Draken cares deeply for Emma. It would make sense, and I would be fine with it.”

You never expected Mikey to say something like that. It’s not like he doesn’t have a way with words, it’s more of he never put much thought into it unless it was serious. So for him to say something like this really changed your perspective. Mikey does seem like a selfish and childish person, but in reality he does care for his friends and siblings. He doesn’t like being publicly vulnerable about these things. Even though Emma is his half-sister, he still loves her regardless. Since Shinichiro is gone, it’s just the two of them. So they have a very close sibling relationship.

All the more reason why Emma shouldn’t be endangered, she was a nice girl that deserves to live her life.

She was the reason why you and Mikey are together. So her dying would impossibly crush your heart and soul. You didn’t know how to live with that, more so with trying to be there for Mikey because he tends to push people away.  But you opt to sacrifice yourself in place of Emma. While not a part of the gang, you have been at their meetings and helped them with some of their brawls. So your hands are dirty compared to Emma’s.

Gosh, you’re not just doing this for a dear friend. But you’re also doing this for the boy you loved so dearly and for years. You just hoped the outcome would guarantee a better future for everyone that’s still alive.

You didn’t regret this at all because all you wished for was Mikey to be happy too.

—————————————————————————

It just happened so fast.

Takamichi, Emma, and you were exiting out of the cemetery to grab some drinks in a nearby machine. As the three of you were waiting for Mikey and Inupi to be done talking to Izana, a small humming sound could be heard in the distance. At first, you guys thought it was just the buildings and paid no attention to it. However, it suddenly got louder and the three of you turned your heads towards the street. Out of nowhere, there was a motorcycle speeding and b-lining it down the street towards you three. However, you noticed someone holding a baseball bat while riding the cycle. 

Perhaps it was pure instinct or intuition, but seeing someone holding a bat in the air while being a passenger of a vehicle isn’t a good sign. Suddenly, you shouted for Takamichi to duck while you immediately pulled Emma in front of you and used yourself as a shield. Unfortunately, your body didn’t take the hit but your head certainly did. The metallic ring of the bat and the silence followed by that was absolutely sickening. 

It was barely thirty seconds and so many things had happened. Once the motorcycle had zoomed off, Takamichi turned around and looked horrified. Though Emma was alive, she was hunched over you as she was shaking your body and calling your name. Once the brief shock wore off, Takamichi dashed over and kneeled over you as Emma stood up. She stared frightened as one of her hands had your blood on it. The comotion had caused Mikey and Inupi to come out of the cemetery to find out what was going on. As Izana left quietly, Inupi and Mikey were in a state of shock with the scene in front of them. Emma and Takamichi were crying as Takamichi kept shaking your unmoving body which laid on the asphalt.

Takamichi was trying to explain to Mikey that Kisaki did this to you but his hiccups from his sobs blocked his words. But honestly, even if Takamichi told him, he probably wouldn’t listen because all he cared about was you going to the hospital and being alive. Mikey wasted no time, he told Takamichi to place you on his back so he can run to the hospital with you. Emma wanted to go with them too but Mikey told her only he and Takamichi should go because they would be faster. Plus he told Emma that her shoes wouldn’t allow her to run and she could get hurt while running. Inupi butts in and says he’ll take care of Emma while the two of them take care of you.

The two took off as Mikey and Takamichi sprinted towards the hospital. As they take the side streets and alleyways, the rapid movement causes you to wake up for a bit. Your vision was blurry and your whole body ached, but you recognized that it was Mikey that was carrying you.

“M-Mikey… Is that you?”

Mikey doesn’t pause for a moment but he instantly softens up when he hears you speak.

“Yeah… It’s me, Baby… Don’t worry, you’re going to be okay… Takamitchy is also with us too…”

You shifted your head on Mikey’s shoulder to face Takamichi who’s running alongside him. He doesn’t smile when he sees your eyes on him but you could see the hopefulness in his. You slowly smile at Takamichi as you shift your head once more so your forehead rests on top of Mikey’s shoulder blade.

“Mikey… I don’t think my eyes are working… And my body is hurting all over that it’s hard to move around…”

“I know I know, (Y/N)-chan… Just a little longer… Please… We’re almost there… Just hang on a little more…”

Because of your injury, you couldn’t register what Mikey was saying to you but you just kept smiling. Something that made Takamichi afraid. With your forehead still pressed against him, you still try to talk the best you can.

“Mikey… Tell Emma it’s not her fault… I did this to myself… Tell Draken and the rest they have been great friends, I l-love them like brothers… And Takamichi-kun, please tell Hana that… that she’s a wonderful friend and I appreciate her a lot. Please take… good care… of her… I think you did it right t-this time… It’s up to you now…”

As you kept talking, Mikey involuntarily picked up his pace causing Takamichi to fall behind for a bit. They were so close to the hospital. If you would hold out a little longer, you would be okay.

You would be, right?

Because of the running, Takamichi wouldn’t see it but you felt it from your spaced out consciousness. Mikey was shaking, his whole body was shaking uncontrollably. It was something Mikey couldn’t admit but he was terrified. Terrified that you, the love of his love, the moon to his stars in the night sky, his best friend, would die and be lost from him forever. No, this can’t happen. You’re strong, stronger than most people. You’re one of the strongest people Mikey knows. You couldn’t go down without a fight. Though your will was strong, Mikey’s denial delusions were stronger. He keeps telling himself that you will be okay and make it out alive. That if he gets you to the hospital, it’s fine. But from what you said, the fear of your death grew stronger in him every step he took to save you. There was nothing more terrifying than for someone to see their beloved die right in front of their eyes. Takamichi knew this all too well seeing Hana die right in front of him.

For him to see Mikey go through the same thing was heartbreaking because he was supposed to prevent this from happening. Yet he indirectly caused it to happen by telling you of his time travel ability and the future timelines he witnessed. He becomes guilt-ridden as he played a role in your death, and he’ll suffer the consequences. Takamichi notices the side street that they were on and they were five minutes away from the hospital. As Takamichi caught up with Mikey, your voice became more hoarse and quiet. This wasn’t good. Mikey wished you kept quiet so you could save your strength.

“M-Mikey… You need to start to take… better care of yourself… You can’t just rely on Kenny and Em to do it…”

“(Y/N), princess, what are you talking about? What about you, you take care of me too, don’t you?”

“Yy-yeah… But I think not anymore…”

“(Y-Y/N)-chan, please… You know… I had a dream where it’s just you and me… We have our own place with our own little family… Once you put the little ones to sleep… We hangout with Ken-chin, Takamitchy-kun, Mitsuya, and everyone at our home… We get to eat and drink all the sake we want as you scold me to quiet down because I would wake up the kids… And everyone would be laughing and having a good time as you punk me around…”

You don’t respond right away, which scared Mikey for a bit, but you hummed and spoke up once more.

“That’s such… a nice dream… Mikey…”

“Yeah, baby, I think about it often. I could only imagine that life with you, I wouldn’t know what to do if it wasn’t with you… So (Y/N), please…”

“Manjiro-kun…?”

Oh god, please don’t…

“Yes, (Y/N)...?”

“I love you…”

They were legitimately right in front of the hospital when your body goes slack against Mikey's body. They were right there, if only they were faster.

After that, everything was a blur. Inupi dropped off Emma at the hospital before driving back to Toman’s meeting spot. Not long after, Draken then Hana arrived. The doctor that had his staff take you in didn’t come back out yet. As Takamichi filled them in, the minutes felt like hours. Wondering what condition you’re in, or whether or not you’re still with them or not. Hana was trying to comfort Emma who was sobbing, clearly traumatized from what had happened. Draken stands and stares at the closed ICU doors, and Takamichi stands by the chairs waiting for your news. Meanwhile, Mikey’s seating and is just a shell of himself. His eyes were void of any light and his head hung low to hide his depressive face. He was numb, he doesn’t feel anything nor couldn’t even if he wanted to. The thought of losing you never occurred to him. He always reassured you that he was the strongest, that he could protect you from anyone and anything that dared to harm you. He found out the hard way what happens when he can’t. This is what will happen to you when he’s not careful with you. 

After a few hours, the doctor came out and everyone but Mikey stood up and went over to hear your condition. Are you okay? Are you even still alive? They needed to know.

“ The surgery was a success. Your friend is alive because you brought her in within 15 minutes of what I assume was the accident that caused it.”

The friends wanted to cheer and celebrate making it out alive. But with the weight of the doctor’s eyes, it tells a different story. So all they can do is release a sigh of relief.

“However, her injury did cause some bleeding. I don’t know what object hit her, the force of the object caused her skull to have a depression fracture. That fracture created small fragments where some stabbed her outer brain layer that caused the bleeding. Though her skull will heal naturally, the force of the blunt trauma caused her to have a severe concussion. With that, after the operation, she was placed in a medically-induced coma. We believe this is the best choice for her recovery.”

“Do you know when she will wake up?” Takamichi hesitantly asked.

“I can’t say for sure. The coma is meant to help her body recover and reset her body from what has happened. Even though we placed her under, it’s not strong and she can wake up if her brain allows her to. It could be at least 12 hours or more when she wakes up though.”

The doctor excuses himself as a nurse tells them that only two people at a time can see you. Hana and Emma were the first to go. Draken decided while the girls were seeing you, to ask Mikey to come outside to have a little talk.

But it was anything but one.

There, Draken was laying it on Mikey, whaling him in the face each time. And while Mikey was allowing the blows to come. No flinching or wincing whatsoever. It was like Mikey had shut down completely. Takemitchi was trying to hold back Draken but got shocked in the face in doing so. It was a chaotic scene in the parking lot. Draken was beating the daylights out of Mikey while Takamichi was trying to split them up and ended up bowing his head on the floor. Takamichi apologized profusely to Draken because he was technically there when you got hit so he was responsible for your condition. He hadn’t realized it but Draken was crying as he raised his fist to punch Mikey again. Yet the punch never connected. He stood there, letting his tears freely fall with his lip slightly quivering to keep his sobbing from spilling out. 

“We created Toman to protect our friends, Mikey! But Pah is in jail! Kazutora is in Jail! Baji’s now dead! And (Y/N)–! She’s… She’s in a coma! Who knows when she will wake up! Or if she will wake up… What the hell is the point of creating this gang if we can't protect our family!!!”

Draken was beyond frustrated and terrified. Frustrated as within a year their friends are getting hurt or being sent away to jail. Frustrated that he couldn’t be there to protect his friends when things like this happened. He was also terrified that he was losing them so fast. Being plucked away like they were petals on a flower. The girls were done and were going to retrieve the boys for their turn. When they didn't see them in the waiting room, however, they searched around to come out to the parking lot after hearing Draken’s yelling. They only saw the aftermath but from the bruises on Mikey’s face, Takamichi’s tears, and Draken heaving, they pieced it together. Draken made way to where you were with Takamichi hot on his tail.

It was strange to see you like this. There you laid, on the hospital bed hooked onto a heart monitor and multiple IV drips. You looked so peaceful and serene where you slept, unaware of the chaos that will ensue soon. Maybe it was a good thing that you were like this, of what is to come in the showdown between Tenjuku and Toman. But reality was always uncertain, Takamichi knew this. Things may not go his plan but he’s damn sure that he will try his best.

Draken had a blank expression but his tears kept coming. He has known you as long as he has known Mikey. You and him were practically siblings, always butting heads but backing each other when the other needed help. He always looked out for you in ways you were unaware of because you always had the tendency to care for them before yourself. And now he has seen how your kind and loving heart can be seen as a weakness, people taking advantage of it because they knew you would fight for everyone before you could save yourself.

Draken kept staring while Takamichi knew he had to do it. It was up to him now to lead Toman against Tenjuku as both their commander and vice-commander are currently out of commission. Takamichi had talked with Hana and Emma before leaving. He now had a new motive to keep fight on as this battle wasn’t just for Toman:

This fight is for you too.

—————————————————————————

After rallying any of the remaining Toman members, Takamichi faces off against Tenjuku that night. 

Fuck, it was hard.

Not only being outnumbered by many, but they were down their strongest members. With Mitsuya and Smiley injured and Mikey and Draken not showing up, it seemed like the fight was already decided. But with Takamichi leading, Toman still kept on fighting, being powered by his dauntless spirit. Angry unlocked his sleeping blue orge powers and knocked down three of Tenjuku’s executives with two of them being the Hataini Brothers. Yet they still had one challenge to face.

Izana Kurokawa, the leader of Tenjuku himself.

Like any last boss fight, he was strong. He knocked down all of Toman’s best members, and he seemed unstoppable. Takamichi was getting absolutely rocked by Kakucho. Blood sept out of his mouth and nose, he was hurting all over and knew he had some broken bones, but he didn’t care. Chifuyuu tried to convince him that Toman would never win this fight, they are outnumbered and too injured to carry on. But Takamichi didn’t care about that. His conviction shone brighter than ever that night. His determination, his tenacity, was unwavering when Kisaki aimed his gun point blank at Takamichi’s face. He knew if Toman loses tonight, Tenjuku and Kisaki would win. He would never give it to them no matter what because he was so close to fixing the timeline, he would be able to save everyone. He is not letting that chance slip through, not when he can do it right now.

In the face of Kisaki aiming straight at his forehead, Takamichi wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid of him, nor of Tenjuku, nor of anyone. He wasn’t afraid of you dying anymore because you wouldn’t die on him, die on your friends when they needed you.

That you wouldn’t die on Mikey because you knew he would be lost and devastated without you.

You may not be a leader or one of their strongest, but you were still a part of Toman for a reason. You were a fighter. Fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves, fighting to protect and save your friends, to keep on fighting with such conviction for your family, the Toman gang. Takamichi fully understands why you did what you did and it helped him be fearless against Tenjuku. Provoking and taunting Kisaki in every way he can, even with the gunshot wound to his foot. Takamichi smirked at Kisaki seeing him lose his composure and stood toe to toe with him. In that moment, Toman was fueled by his determination and ignited the spirit of Toman once more. Kisaki trying to save his pride looked down upon Toman for their stupid antics, thinking he’s still on top as the kingpin of everything. That only for Takamichi to give him a well-deserved punch right across his face.

Then Takamichi suddenly stood proudly with his fist up in the air, claiming that he would never give up. Everyone was confused until they followed Takamichi’s line of sight and saw Mikey. Not only that, Draken arrived too with Hina and Emma right behind him. Everyone was beyond shock, Toman for seeing their leaders and Tenjuku seeing Emma alive. They thought Kisaki killed Emma but they guessed wrong since she was standing with them alive and well. It was only then Kisaki realized his mistake, he got you instead of her. Now he knows why Toman is a pain in his side and won’t stay down.

Hina explained to Takamichi that she had to tell them about his time-leaping ability. His mission for a future where all of them lived. How she will die in twelve years time and Takamichi is doing everything he can to save her and everyone else. What she was saying sounded straight out of a movie but it was all true when his desperation and determination was right in front of them. That it was your choice to save Emma from an early death because you knew how much she meant to Draken and Mikey. You wanted to help Takamichi achieve a future where everyone is alive and okay because you loved them so much. 

After Hina told them, Mikey snapped out of his hollow state and walked to where your room was. As the nurse was checking your vitals, she saw him walking towards your window and called him over. Since your condition stabilized, one guest is allowed to see you in your room. As the nurse opened the door for him, Mikey quietly strides to your bedside and stares at you. It may not be an appropriate time but Mikey always thought you looked so beautiful and enthralling no matter what was going on. He just stares a bit more before bending over and placing a small kiss on your forehead.

‘(Y/N), I have to go help Takamichi out. Please wait for me until I help them win. Hold on just a little longer for me.’

He squeezes your hand gently but reassuringly. It was mostly for him to know that you would make it out and wake up for them. As he leaves your room and goes back to Draken, he didn’t see the slight twitch your hand gave when he let go.

Now here he is, with Draken and Toman to aid them in their fight against Tenjuku. Mikey shouldn’t be here but he knew that you would have wanted him here to help Toman then staying with you. As Izana and Mikey battle it out, Takamichi could only watch as they were evenly matched. But as the fight kept going on, Izana started to falter and grew weaker. Mikey was beating him and Izana was slowly losing his mind because of it. In a moment of desperation, Izana snatched Kisaki’s gun and pointed it straight at him. Just like Takamichi, Mikey provoked Izana to shoot him only for Kakucho to smack the gun out of his hand. They argued until a shot was fired and Izana’s face splattered with a bit of blood.

Kisaki had shot Kakucho.

Kisaki was getting annoyed that his master plan was crumbling apart like a sand castle. If he couldn’t use Mikey then he would use Izana. In a fit of rage, Kakucho charges right at Kisaki. Kisaki shot again, this time hitting Izana. But when he tried pulling the trigger again, the gun was jammed and couldn’t fire another shot. Since the gun was useless, Kisaki fell to the ground from the adrenaline rush. The chaos continued to thrive as Tenjuku’s king and his servant laid on the ground, bleeding out. Mucho shouted for an ambulance as everyone remained stunned at what had happened. As the cops and ambulance were coming, everyone was pulling out except for Tenjuku’s executives. As Mikey stares deadly at Kisaki, he looks down at him with such disappointment and disgust for causing all of this… for putting in the hospital.

Before he and Takamichi could approach the bastard, Hanma grabbed Kisaki on his motorcycle and sped off. Takamichi hitches a ride with Draken while Mikey stays with the girls. After crashing, Kisaki was being chased by a determined Takamichi. After duking it out, Kisaki points his gun again at Takamichi. The manipulator was starting to cry out of frustration as Takamichi hit him on the money for why he kept killing Hina in the future. But as always, Takamichi had the upper hand and was able to get Kisaki’s gun and point right back at him. He was so tempted to shoot if it weren’t for Mikey and Hina.

Kisaki used this little distraction to get away but Takamichi was hot on his tail.

“My plan would have been perfect if it wasn't (Y/N) and her virtue signaling! She had what was coming to her instead of letting Emma take the hit! I could have had it all!”

He continues to spout nonsense until he stops in the middle of the crosswalk. He turned back at Takamichi and told him that he was leading him on this whole time; he wasn’t a time leaper.

As Takamichi revels in this new found information, Kisaki gives his shit-eating grin to him before getting slammed by a delivery truck. In a blink of an eye, Kisaki was fatally mangled as he was trying to get back up but his legs were twisted backwards and kneecaps out of place. 

In a flash, Kisaki was dead and that was the end of the battle with Tenjuku. There was only one casualty and that was Kisaki Tetta.

—————————————————————————

It had been two days since you were placed into a coma. Takamichi and everyone came to visit you to see how you were doing. Though you weren’t in any danger, you had not shown any progress of consciousness. While it worried the others, Takamichi and Mikey never lost hope that they would wake up again and come back.

And they were right.

On the third day, Hina and Emma were going to visit you when they were told you were placed in a different room outside of the ICU. Quickly, they made their way to your new room where they found you wide awake. Sipping a capri-sun as you sat up on the bed, turning your head to smile at the teary eyed girls. Emma ran over to you and hugged you tightly, still trying to be careful of your injuries, while Hina grabbed her phone to tell Takamichi the news. Their tears were soon joyed by everyone else as they made their way to the hospital. As Mikey, Takamichi, and Draken practically spirited to your room. As they slid the door open, they were greeted by a crying Emma that was being comforted by you as Hina stands on the other side of your bed talking to you. You didn’t notice them until Mikey whispered out your name, turning your head to smile at them while still holding Emma.

Draken and Takamichi had tears in their eyes. For Draken, you survived and are up back again. For Takamichi, it means that he didn’t fuck it this time. That he was able to save you, Emma, Draken, and Izana from a bleak future. That he finally accomplished what he sought out to do in the very beginning. The closest timeline for Takamichi to give everyone a happy ending. 

He finally did it.

As Hina ushered Emma, Draken, and Takamichi out of the room, it was now just you and Mikey. You can tell he was tired, probably losing sleep on wondering if your condition would get better. As you held out your arms to him, he made haste and hugged you tightly. It was Mikey’s turn to cry as he held you for the first time in three days. His face was buried in your head as his hand held it close to him while his other arm held your upper back. You were rubbing his back and hair softly so he could bask in the reality that you were okay. 

“I was… so scared that I was going to lose you, (Y/N)... That you were going to end up like Shin-ni and Baji…”

“Oh Mikey…”

“ *holds you tighter* I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to protect you… I was supposed to be there with you… I just… Couldn’t imagine my life if you were gone…”

You soften at how vulnerable Mikey was becoming. But you didn’t know the depth of seriousness he had for you until now.

“Well, I’m alive and awake, Mikey. I’m here with you, I’m going anywhere without.”

Mikey sighs, kissing your forehead before placing his on yours with his eyes closed.

“I’m serious about you, princess. I want to be with you forever, I want to have a future with you. A future for us… I need you, (Y/N)... I love you…”

“Oh, I love you too, Majiro-kun… I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

With that, you two sealed the promise with a gentle but loving kiss. You love Mikey and he loves you as well. As you pull away, you hug him again before asking him to let Takamichi talk to you. He goes to get him, not before placing a kiss on your cheek. Takamichi enters the room and you grin ear to ear seeing him as he is happy to see you awake.

“Come on, Takamitchy. You can relax for a bit! You saved everyone!”

“Yeah, but you gave me a heart attack, (Y/N)!! I get why you did what you did but it still doesn’t help that I was constantly thinking about how you were doing!”

“Oh, Takamitchy. I thought I told you to have faith in me! I’m not going down so easily like that! Trust!”

“(Y/N)...”

You drop the peppy and light act and shift towards a solemn one.

“So I heard Kisaki is dead…”

Takamichi nods to confirm your question.

“How did he die? Did you kill him, Takamitchy?”

“I… I actually didn’t…”

You straightened up your posture and stared at him in surprise.

“You didn’t?! Then how—”

“He was struck by a truck at a crosswalk. He died not too long after…”

“Hmmm, I see. At least you didn’t have to get your hands dirty, Takamitchy. I couldn’t imagine you going to jail for his death. I guess even God wanted him dead too so he decided to add some divine intervention into our mix and give us a boost.” You chuckled at the last part. It was a little humorous that Kisaki didn’t die at the hands of either Takamichi or Mikey.  But rather, he died due to being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe God was tired of Kisaki’s shit and decided to help Takamichi out. Who knows? 

But what matters is you’re alive, Takamichi is alive, everyone is alive. You were able to help him save everyone and now everyone can have a future to look forward to.

“I guess your work is done here then. So are you going back to the future after this visit?”

“Most likely…”

“I understand… Thank you for all your hard work, Takamichi… I appreciate all you have done and look forward to this new future that you have set…”

“Yeah… We’ll see (Y/N)...”

As you and Takamichi hug it out and high five each other, you tell him to bring the rest inside to join you two. Draken was salty that he didn’t get a personal moment like the rest did but you told him it will happen soon enough. After visiting you, Takamichi went back to the future that night. As he shook Naoto’s hand one last time, he firmly believed that he created a better future and timeline this time. 

And he was more than correct.

In this timeline, he is getting married to Hina. Draken and Emma are married and already have a baby. You and Mikey already had your wedding and were planning your next decisions for your two’s future. As Takamichi saw how happy and bright Mikey was towards you, he knew he finally stopped the cycle. With everyone alive, he could be happy and rest with the fact that he achieved the future he wanted. Hina is alive, Draken is alive, Emma is alive, and you and Mikey are alive too. Though he wished he could save Baji and Shinichiro, this still was a good outcome from what happened.

Against all odds, Takamichi was able to accomplish his goal in saving Hina and his friends. Though it may not be perfect, it was enough that his sacrifices weren’t in vain as everyone was alive and happy. All thanks to your help and his efforts. 

Now he can fully rest and live in this future as everything is going to be okay from now on.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(A/N: I probably edit this later this week because I still don't know how to make good endings for my fics, lol. Sorry again if this was too long to read!)

Thank you for reading!

[5ummit]

Permanent Blacklists for AO3

Would you like to permanently remove fics with your squicks, triggers, and dislikes from all AO3 searches by default so that you never have to think about or encounter them again? Well now you can!

The ability to do this has actually been around for a little while but it relies on some new CSS functionality that wasn't supported on all major browsers until fairly recently (though you may still have to enable it manually on some). I'm not going to explain how this method works or how to code AO3 skins in general, as I've only dabbled in it a little and there are already some very good tutorials out there. If you want all of the details, check out these guides:

Skins and Archive Interface FAQ – The official skins guide created by AO3. Lots of good information but might be overwhelming and confusing for a beginner.

A Non-Extensive Guide on How to Start Creating a Skin for AO3 by ao3skin – Some good, fairly easy to understand, beginner info on CSS and specifically how it applies to AO3 skins.

Permablocking Specific Tags - Site Skin by Eli0t – Everything you need to know to create permablock lists. If your blacklist doesn't seem to be working as expected, check this for troubleshooting tips.

What I can offer though are some handy pre-made blacklists that you can use as-is or as a starting point to create your own so that you don't have to go to the trouble of figuring out how any of this works or hunting down relevant tags. Just copy the code, open AO3, go to My Preferences > Skins > Create Site Skin, paste it in the box, title it, and click Submit!

Note: The following lists are very specific to me and my own personal tastes. Absolutely no judgement if you love any of the things that I choose to blacklist. You do you. I just happen to like my fics fucked up and relatively canonical.

★ No Reader Fic – Hides all self-insert and reader fic.

★ No Alternate Universes – Hides anything tagged with the most common AU tags. There are so many incredibly specific AUs there's no way to list all of them and AU tagging is also extremely inconsistent from fic to fic so this blacklist may only catch 80% of AUs, but that's better than nothing. You could always exclude the entire alternate universe tag, rather than trying to list specific ones, but unfortunately canon divergence and other less extreme AUs would get caught in the crossfire, which is not worth it for me.

★ No Fluff – Hides anything tagged with the most common fluff and romance tags. I specifically left out "fluff and angst" though because sometimes that's used for things that are mostly angst with only a bit of fluff and I do love angst.

★ Bonus: No Dead Dove – This list is not mine (for obvious reasons) but I know some people may find it useful. Hides anything with the main archive warnings and many common problematic, taboo, or controversial tags. Some of these I wouldn't even classify as dead dove, they're literally just kinks, so I'd suggest reviewing the list carefully and removing any that don't apply to you.

Additional Notes:

This system doesn't work exactly the same as AO3's exclusion filters because you can't use top-level wrangled tags to block all subtags. It only blocks exact matches.

Once the blacklist is implemented you'll see no indication that anything was blocked (except for fewer fics listed on each search page); the entire blurb will be hidden. The tags and fic counts listed in the filter bar will remain unchanged. If you want more advanced features like whitelisting or adding something to indicate when a fic was removed, check out the permablocking guide by Eli0t.

Here's a link with info on which browsers currently support the new "has()" element, which this blacklist system relies on. As of right now Firefox for desktop still has to be manually enabled (for instructions see the section on flag enabling in the permablocking guide). Firefox for iOS isn't listed on this website but it seems to work fine for me.

There are other browser-specific extensions that let you permablock tags, such as this one and this one, that may be more a little more user friendly, but I've never tried them so I can't vouch for them and they may not work consistently between different devices. The good thing about doing blacklists via skins is that, after setting it up once, it should work automatically on pretty much any device (as long as you're logged in to your AO3 account).

[mwolf0epsilon]

Sometimes being in the SW Fandom is about diving into the annals of the internet researching the most obscure tidbit of batshit insane Canon or EU Lore imaginable to man (which is honestly my favorite thing to do because people have done some pretty insanely funny things with this universe and characters). But for the majority of the time, being in the SW Fandom is also watching people repeat a cycle of asinine arguments that make an absolute ass out of them for the worst possible reasons.

So here's a quick reminder of past arguments to be mindful of and always consider, when you see something in the tags that makes you wrinkle your nose at:

Everyone has something they like or dislike about the overall universe and story. Be it the Original Trilogy, the Prequels, the Sequels, the Animated series, the Live-Action series, EU stuff, Novels, etc. No one is above or below anyone else just because they don't love the entirety of the universe and/or the direction the current writers are taking it.

Canon can be a good baseline for your own creative purposes. You don't have to love it (because yes the whole thing can be inconsistent as hell), but don't get to a point in your fanfic/AU world-building where you vehemently deny that canon is an actual thing. This goes hand in hand with your personal depiction of characters vs someone else's depictions. Reading comprehension and the creative process depend on perspective and how you process the information you're given, so it's only normal that no two person's idea of a character is the same. But saying that your headcanons are how the characters should be written by everyone is not gonna do you any favors in the long run, because it's not up to you to decide on that. Don't forget Blorbo's actual roots and what it took to get him where you took him, but don't try to force someone else to accept the journey you orchestrated for them!

No one's OC should be put on a pedestal. It's good that people feel comfortable enough to play Barbies with each other's OCs in roleplay sessions, or even add a cameo in a fic to a character of a friend and/or artist/writer they admire from a distance. Hell, the fact many people are passionate about someone else's little fella/s is great! But the moment someone's OC becomes an object of obsession within a Fandom community, things can go a little wrong... It stops being fun to be in that kind of space that goes from welcoming OC discussions to suddenly shunning new people in favor of someone's Ultimate Blorbo who now has a Cult Following and should be written into every fanfic ever.

No one is evil for lacking knowledge or self-awareness of certain grievances that people rightfully have with the source material. The SW Fandom has always had a long-standing issue with racial stereotyping, whitewashing, cultural appropriation, sexism and many other equally serious topics that have been more eloquently explained in posts made by people much more eloquent and qualified than I am or ever will be. However, one must recognize that not everyone who joins the Fandom is immediately aware of these things. Especially the younger generations that have either not been exposed to these concepts due to one reason or another (upbringing, biased educational curriculum, etc), or because they were simply never in a position where they could delve into these topics with someone knowledgeable on them (some experiences simply aren't universal, especially if you come from a more privileged family). For the most part, SW is just a silly sci-fi universe that is nothing more than a simple means of escapism or dumb fun. Not everyone is going to study it under a microscope or go through it with a fine comb. That said, another important thing to remember is to listen to those who know their stuff and that have had personal grievances with any of the topics above. You can be excused for lack of knowledge, but you cannot be excused for purposefully ignoring the voices of those who provide you said knowledge for free if you go searching.

This is kinda returning to the second and previous topics, but I really need to put emphasis on this: If you're going to cling to certain design choices with an iron first and incorporate them into your personal ideas/headcanons, please always consider how it SOUNDS when you say characters that are written with basis on real POC people/communities are much better/superior if they have phenotypical trait expressions that are not present (or considered rare/atypical) in their real world basis. This is a CONSISTENT problem I have seen crop up specifically within the Clone Wars and Bad Batch sides of the fandom, especially when talking about Rex (who is a blond) and Clone Force 99 (who do not look like standard clones). Always remember: The problem isn't that Rex can't be naturally blond (genetics can be unpredictable and we really don't have an extensive look into the cloning process), the problem is the way some people think he'd be inferior in some way if he were a bottle blond who chose to distinguish himself (almost as if having darker skin, darker hair and darker eyes is somehow worse than having lighter skin, lighter hair or lighter eyes.. How curious isn't it?). Needless to say, I don't think I need to elaborate further on why CF99's "desirable mutations" giving them considerably lighter skin and less ethnic features, while also making their most POC presenting member look and sometimes act like a moronic brute (something which this Fandom pushes further by infantilizing him relentlessly), is a bit of a red flag...

Star Wars has always been political. It is literally in the name and in the meat of the writing. The entire thing is basically a political and social critique presented in a sci-fi/fantasy wrapper, with colorful plasma swords, cool spaceships, and kickass explosion bow on top. You cannot separate the political conversation from the universe's overall lore, and trying to do so makes you look foolish. Disney may have taken creative liberties with some of its shows, but at the end of the day they can't ever eliminate what the Original Trilogies and even the Prequels tried to tell us about. With that said, complaining about how some of the new shows are "too Woke" or PC is the equivalent of saying you read Romeo and Juliet and that the story is relationship goals. You might need to revisit the original material.

For the love of god if you don't like something, don't go after someone who does, it's not worth it. Sometimes the best thing you can do is either filter something you actively dislike/that makes you feel uncomfortable, or simply unfollow/block whoever is repeatedly bringing it onto your doorstep. And you also have no real obligation to explain your decision to block someone, especially if they hound you for questions. Rule of thumb: Don't like something? That's perfectly fine and valid. Take the steps to make yourself comfortable then, but don't go out of your way to be a royal asshole to someone else just because they themselves enjoy it. This encompasses things from anti-jedi demonization, actual ethnic cleansing in canon, siding with personifications of alt-right extremists, proshipping apologism, etc. The block button was added to this hellsite for a reason. Use it.

Sometimes you can't change someone else's opinions on a matter and that is perfectly fine. Just don't start a feud. People come and go, and their opinions vary (we're all individuals with out own perspectives and unique experiences after all), but getting up in arms every time someone either refuses to yield in a long-winded argument, or continuously tries to shove their unsolicited opinions/advice onto you, or even makes incredibly uncomfortable/forward/gross comments that they definitely shouldn't be saying to a complete stranger on the internet, is kind of pointless and will drain you of energy faster than you can say Death Star. You're not the lesser person for walking away from a lost cause. It's ultimately not your job or responsibility to fix/better someone else. Especially if they don't want to change.

[descendant-of-truth]

So, these two pages from chapter 88 have been causing a lot of confusion due to inconsistent translations, and I've decided to set the record straight as best I can with the knowledge at my disposal.

Starting with the first page, this is where Mitsuki says that he and Eida are similar. In the next panel, he says: 「どうしてカワキを好きなのか。。。その理由が自分で分からない」

This is the first point where fan translations and the official VIZ translation differ. Fans generally seemed to agree that he's saying he doesn't understand why Eida loves Kawaki, while the official version has him say that he doesn't understand why he himself loves Kawaki.

And unfortunately, both of those are understandable translations. The first part of the sentence contains no indication of whether he's talking about himself or Eida; the most literal translation I can do is "Why is Kawaki loved... that reason, [I/you] don't understand."

The reason it's "I/you" is because he uses the word 自分 (jibun), which depending on context, can be equivalent to either "my" or "your." It's not really the same deal as 僕 (boku), Mitsuki's primary first-person indicator, which makes it extremely annoying to translate.

So, which is it? Well, as vague as it is, my best guess is actually based on the dialogue of the second page.

Thankfully, this one is much easier to answer. In the largest panel, Eida says: 「あたし達。。。超恋バナしてるね」

The conversation around this line seemed to be, "she clearly said they're talking about romantic love!" "No, she's just using a slang term akin to 'girl talk,' so she only means that they're bonding!" And guess what? They're both right!

I consulted a friend of mine who speaks Japanese natively on Eida's word choice, and he said that while "girl talk" is closer on the basis of it being a casual/slang term, it's gender-neutral and is more about people "talking about their love."

In other words, "we're both chatting about love" or "we're having a love talk" would probably be the most accurate ways to translate it.

At this point, I want to bring attention to Daemon and Mitsuki's reactions to what Eida just said:

Daemon is flabbergasted, only able to say "Huh...?" while Mitsuki blushes for a second, then turns away and says "Well... I guess it didn't matter."

What exactly would Daemon be surprised about, if not the implication that Mitsuki loves someone who isn't Eida (and a guy, no less)? Why would he be showing that surprise now, instead of when Mitsuki allegedly announced that he loved Kawaki a few pages ago?

Likewise, while Mitsuki blushing around Eida isn't unusual, he actually spent the vast majority of this conversation remarkably composed. He only blushed for a single panel when he first noticed Eida was in the area, so having it come back after he's basically called out for being in love (real love, as it was already established that they both knew his feelings for Eida are fabricated) is a very deliberate choice.

While Mitsuki doesn't always emote very much, we can assume he was taken a little off-guard here - and again, if he was already confident enough in his love for Kawaki, why this reaction? Why all the talk before now about how he wasn't sure he'd know what romance felt like without Eida's ability?

The only conclusion I can make is that, in the first page, he's not saying "I don't know why I love Kawaki" like in the VIZ translation. It's much more likely that he's saying "I don't know why you love Kawaki." That's the only way that Mitsuki's feelings for Kawaki can be treated as a reveal, to both Daemon and himself.

And given that his love for Kawaki stems from his love for Boruto, due to the memory swap... yeah, if his side of Mitsuboru wasn't canon before, I think it's safe to say that it is now. Now excuse me while I go be extremely sane and normal about this information

[qsmp-yaoi-island]

I'll say the admins' decision that purgatory 2 is as canon "as the ccs want it to be" is awful and going to cause so many problems.

I think it's perfectly fine to have CCs choose to be out of character for their own lore because then they don't have to commit to rp all the time, but you absolutely cannot do this with the MAIN plot of the story. One of the main reasons is that not everyone will pick and choose what's the same as canon.

A perfect example is just a few days ago, Phil was involved in a main story point of protecting Luffy who escaped. Luffy told Phil that he was looking for Tubbo/Bagi, and of course, because Phil was not informed of anything going on, he told them that they went back to purgatory. Even though Bagi and Tubbo said their purgatory isn't canon. So now imagine Phil is panicking about Luffy not finding the people he's looking for only for tubbo or bagi to show up randomly and confuse the plot even more.

I will say that I don't really care about how the story should be perfectly consistent because I know that's impossible, but it's more about how it's ruining the rp choices of others. Phil did such incredible rp stressing over how everyone left for purgatory again, but for them to show back up without a care or explanation? Undermines all of his emotions and effort into making it feel real.

Another point is how it's effecting the CCs efforts for consistency. Tubbo gets kidnapped IN FRONT OF HIS FRIENDS EYES, but logs in the next day and gets attacked by a code. So now you face the confusion of either believing he was taken and how that effected the characters rp around him, or believe that the code is back as a main story element. You can't believe both because they directly contradict eachother, so you end up wasting a good plot point for another. For example, Fit has canon separation anxiety and seeing tubbo go missing in front of him could have made for good character development.

Baghera was asked to stay off the server for the past few weeks because the admins had lore planned out for her. She expressed that she missed being on and seeing her friends but trusted in the admins that her return would be worth it to wait for. So some characters are allowed back and immediately cause inconsistenties but some people have to wait? It sucks for CCs like Baghera, Slime, and Pol who express how they want to get back on but are committed to their lore. But I also can't entirely blame the people who came back from purg2, even though I do think its a bad rp choice on their part, because the admins specifically told them they could.

Finally, the worst part is how it demeans the story being told. Imagine after purgatory 2 ends all the people coming back could talk about the hell they went through, the people they met, the fate of Cellbit and Baghera. But instead Bad's "1/4" came back and immediately told Pomme he saw Baghera. Isn't that lame? Doesn't that feel like a waste of good exposition? Hell even Foolish was there and just chose to ignore it because, hey, there's no canon reason he should know that!

That's the problem now is that no one knows what to tell eachother anymore, because it will only be inconsistent with what others are saying or doing. The stories is slowly losing its integrity because it's doesn't know what is important to take seriously anymore. Should you worry about the code attacks? I don't know, it happened to someone who wasn't even technically there. Hey I saw this missing person but I'm also supposed to be missing too, so should you even believe me?

It's confusing, it messy, and it will absolutely ruin story lines down the road.

I love the story of the QSMP. It's what drew me into the server and made me love it ever since, and to see it get pushed aside for a competitive event really sucks. With the way the server has been so rp and lore dependent for the last nine months, it just feels so strange for it to not be the focus anymore. Purgatory was fun, Purgatory 2 looks even better, but I would not trade them for the fandom toxicity, story inconsistency, or divided attention on gameplay it created.

I know with time the story will pick up again, people will return, and it'll be well throught out and planned again. I just think it's important to be critical of these decisions now so they don't get repeated in the future. If there ever is a Purgatory 3 or some other event, all I would hope for is that it has a clear and defined plot revelvancy so you don't have to scramble to tie up all the loose ends later.

[showtoonzfan]

I love how when it comes to the awful world building of Helluva, fans get defensive and always respond with “well I think” or “maybe it’s”- or “I have the feeling”- ect, and that’s the issue right there, everyone is always ASSUMING things but isn’t 100% sure. I really don’t think that Helluva fans are aware that that’s not a good thing and a red flag. They shouldn’t HAVE to guess and fill in the gaps of the plot-holes or confusing/unexplained aspects of the show, all because the creator can’t tell us herself through actual good storytelling.

It doesn’t help that Viv constantly likes tweets of fans attempting to explain said inconsistencies when she won’t, causing them think that what they said is now canon when in reality she’s letting her fans do HER job for her, and there’s a huge difference between that and an actual GOOD creator letting their fans think for themselves and not spoon feed everything to them. Certain shows will do exactly that, tell you things but also let you theorize and leave things to interpretation or imagination.

Helluva meanwhile tells you nothing and the fans do the world building themselves, and what LITTLE world building the show has, it never follows through with the rules it sets up and either breaks them or forgets about them later, like the Imp’s being at the bottom and having human disguises, Hellhounds being bodyguards/labor, or Hell’s class system and how royal demons could get in trouble. Aside from Hell itself being earth with everything functioning mostly the same, there’s also no other extra information on how this world works beyond that, and yet fans get so defensive when you criticize it for being empty/messy. Like bro…how you ganna get defensive when you yourself aren’t sure either LOL.

[acotarfrustrations]

An ongoing list of acowar grievances I'm keeping track of while I read (because there's too many to make a post about all of them)

1) Feyre's constant edginess. It's such a bizarre and ham-fisted shift in the voice of the character from the previous book. Too much tell, not enough show

2) "that they thought Rhysand could ever force someone . . . I added that to the long list of things to repay them for.".........lol OK girl

3) Feyre all of a sudden knowing how to use every power she has despite her very limited "training"

4) constant mention of Lucien and Elain's mating bond. Not only do I not give a damn, I REALLY wish it wasn't a thing all together

5) CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MORTAL QUEENS TO ME? WHO TF EVEN ARE THEY?? It's so stupid that they don't get brought up until feyre is a fae like we have no clue the humans even have an overarching government until she's not human anymore. Why are they turning them Fae? What possible advantages can they grant the fae that they don't have already? How tf are there so many queens when the human territory is so small? For that matter, why tf is Hybern going to war over a tiny handful of humans? Why involve this convoluted plot with turning the mortal queens into Fae when it seems like the humans don't even know of their existence so they wouldn't listen to or follow them in the first place

6) this should be dual pov. I would LOVE tamlin's perspective or even lucien's

7) I need WAY more information about the cauldron because it makes no sense

8) this isn't a gripe but I just have to mention how bad I feel for lucien

9) somehow ianthe became 10x MORE boring as a villain. Like you could replace her woth Regina George and the book would be more interesting

10) WHY IS THERE SO MUCH SEXUAL ASSAULT, OH MY FUCKING GOD

11) this whole spying on the spring court thing is stupid, inefficient, and childish. The NC is risking the lives of all the courts doing this shit when they could easily just ACTUALLY TELL THE OTHER COURTS WHATS GOING ON TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO RALLY TOGEYHER AND DEFEND THEMSELVES, form an alliance, and reason with tamlin or attack him if he refuses to listen to reason. Most information they stand to gain from what they're doing is useless in light of how many fae and human lives stand to be lost or displaced

12) WE FUCKING GET IT FEYRE! THERE ARE TWO WOLVES INSIDE YOU! BENEATH YOUR SKIN YOU ARE A WOLF, A MOUNTAIN LION, A PANTHER, A COBRA, A TARANTULA, A BALD EAGLE, AND EVERY OTHER KIND OF PREDATOR UNDER THE SUN!!!!! JFC I GET SYMBOLISM BUT ITS GETTING CRINGE IN HERE

13) that entire ridiculous summer solstice scene in chapter 4

14) FEYRE COMPARING TAMLIN TO ARAMANTHA?! HELLO???????

15) the whole situation with using Lucien to make tamlin jealous is just....icky, idk

16) I almost regret wanting more political intrigue In these novels as it is by far Sarah Janet's weakest suit

17) framing jurian a villain is one of the dumbest decisions ever. Wish he had more screen time though

18) feyre's badass scene w/ the children of the blessed makes me wish that after she became fae, she returned to the human lands, killed/overthrew the mortal queens, said fuck you to tamlin and rhys, and just became queen of the mortal realms, having to earn her people's trust as a fae, protect and defend them, and come to terms w/ her loss of humanity. That would have been so EPIC

19) the entirety of chapter 8

20) the fact that acotar was written. If the series started w/ acomaf I would have a lot less problems. All the constant retconning and inconsistencies in canon and worldbuilding just keep pissing me off, idk I can't look past it

21) I'm losing count and I'm only on chapter 9 so I'm just going to keep reading for now. Might make a part 2 idk

[bluedalahorse]

Here's a random YR ask for you:

As a writer, what would you say are some of Sara, August and Felice's core characteristics/essential building blocks? (Feel free to do Wilhelm and Simon's as well if you'd like!) From a canon perspective, but also from the perspective of a fic writer?

What a wonderful ask! Thank you for sending it. This made me think a lot about what I do to develop characters in a story more generally. Then I had to put those techniques into distinct categories. So what I’m going to do is explain the categories first, then move on to how I think about these categories for each character.

I just did Felice, Sara, and August, but I could do additional characters upon request if other people wanted. My askbox is still open!

On to answering the ask. Here’s some things I try to keep in mind more generally when writing any character in a fic…

Desire lines: a story is driven by what a character wants. This want often comes into conflict with what a character fears, or what they believe to be true about themself that isn’t quite true. What a character wants will determine what they do over the course of the story and the different scenes that will transpire as they try to get it. One of the trickiest things about desire lines is that you have to think about them on both the abstract and the concrete level, which determines how those desires show up internally and externally.

Bodily and sensory experiences: every character has a different body and a different experience in that body. Part of these experiences are going to be external—how other people respond to them because of their race, gender expression, perceived ability, etc. These experiences will also be internal. An important part of making a story gripping is sitting close to your viewpoint character’s perspective, and you can bring a reader closer to a character by bringing them into that character’s body. It’s also a good way to reinforce how a character is feeling their emotions.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: This is a fun one! I think sometimes we fall into the trap of trying to make characters too logical, because we hear that characters should be consistent. The reality is though that people tend to run on their own internal logic, and that sometimes internal logic is inconsistent or hypocritical or complicated, and we spend a lot of life trying to process all that. Leaning into the weirdest parts of a character’s internal logic, instead of trying resolve everything or smooth it over right away, is part of how you make a character unique. You can also deepen your understanding of a character’s internal conflict by doing this.

Mentor texts: My writing life changed dramatically when my writing teachers encouraged me to start looking at stories I liked and studying their craft techniques so I can experiment with using them in my own work. In fanfiction, this will mean studying the source text you’re making fanfiction about, but I don’t think you *only* have to study the source text. Like if a book you read reminds you of a particular character in YR and you love that book, you can study that book’s pacing or voice or POV or whatever to get an idea of how you’d tell their story.

On to each of the three characters…

Felice

Desire lines: Canon tends to be somewhat vague about Felice’s desire lines, but if I had to pick, I’d say her desires line up with living an authentic life that is true to herself, and secondarily, achieving justice through discovery of the truth. Felice concretely goes after these desires by pursuing a friendship with Sara, trying to figure out who releases the video, changing how she wears her hair, telling the school inspectors what really happens at Hillerska, etc. I don’t think she has to stick with these desires in a fanfic, but they can inform a new desire I might assign her. For instance, if I was writing a fic where Felice wants to fall in love and get into a long-term romantic relationship, I think I’d build upon her canon journey by having her grapple with who she becomes in dating situations, and what kind of relationship feels authentic to her. Her interest in justice and the truth might also lend itself to a storyline where she learns to advocate for herself in a partnership.

Bodily and sensory experiences: Felice knows she is going to stand out in most situations and be noticed for things that others aren’t. Whenever we’ve seen her in canon, she’s one of the few brown faces in a room full of white ones. (Side thought: I’d love to read a fic where Felice is in a predominantly Black environment, so we can see how her thought patterns would shift.) She’s also rich, and has been raised by her mother to pay attention to physical appearance and brands of clothing and so on. As such, Felice is probably going to be constantly monitoring her body language and how she occupies space. She’s going to be thinking about how her clothes fit and her makeup and the messages they send. Because of the comments her mother makes about her weight, she’ll probably be self-conscious about her figure. We can also consider how Felice takes in information through her senses. Because she’s interested in cooking, she’ll probably be fairly attuned to the taste, smell, and texture of food, and pick up subtleties that others might not.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: In canon we see Felice breaking away from the world of Hillerska and its values, and it’s actually a process. Her parents don’t show up much in the show, but one headcanon I have is that they aren’t just doing the things they do to make Felice’s life miserable. I think on some level they believe they’re protecting her and providing her with the best possible life. Felice’s mother thinks Felice can marry Wilhelm not only because she wants her family to be related to royalty, but because she thinks it’s what’s going to make Felice happy and powerful. Similarly, Felice’s girl squad looks up to her and thinks she’s wonderful, and they have fun together, but they also microaggress her. I think a lot of cognitive dissonance Felice will have to push through surrounds these situations. I think she might tell herself “it could be worse” a lot. Like, sure her mom’s being a nightmare, but it could be worse, right? Felice’s friends sometimes say weird stuff about race, but it’d be worse in public school or if she lived elsewhere, right? I think Felice might have to push past this supposed safety of being a rich popular girl at Hillerska, to really articulate what she needs in life.

Mentor texts: My two favorite books that pair with my understanding of Felice are When You Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk and The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed. Both are focused on Black teen girl protagonists coming to understand their friendships, their families, and their relationship to power structures in the world.

Bonus Felice note: Felice can be a little messy sometimes! I think there’s this pressure to portray her as thoroughly wonderful, but we also know her closet’s a mess and she lies to get out of gym class and had a shoplifting phase. Next time I write her, I’m challenging myself to lean into a moment where she might be selfish or impatient or dishonest or a bad friend, because she can be even more wonderful when we can embrace her flawed moments too.

Sara and August go below the cut, because this is already very long.

Sara

Desire lines: In canon, Sara wants to be seen as independent and capable of handling things without Simon. She also wants to feel connected to other people, having grown up quite lonely and bullied by other children. Sara pursues these desires concretely by pursuing a friendship with Felice and a romance with August, trying to live on campus at Hillerska, etc. Again, we see her achieve these desires in canon, but we can evolve them and use them as a springboard for new stories. Like, we’ve seen what independence looks like at Sara’s current age, but what does it look like in university? Or at a job? What would it mean for Sara to seek out not just friendship but a community of fellow neurodivergent people? It’d be fascinating to take her newfound confidence and put it to the test in new situations.

Bodily and sensory experiences: Sara is small, and we see the way her smallness interacts with her being an observer or witness. Some people might perceive her as younger than she is because of her height. She has to look up at almost all of her other classmates and the people around her. Any romantic interaction between Sara and August is going to start as a negotiation between his tallness and her smallness—you can say a lot in a scene based on whether she stands on tip toes to reach him, or he bends down or picks her up to kiss her. Sara’s autism and ADHD are also going to play a role in how she experiences her body. She’ll need to take meds in the morning, and as her meds wear off over the course of the day, she might feel different stimuli pulling her attention and/or need to move her body more. Her meds might work differently when she’s on her period. She may also struggle with interoception, and not register signals from her body right away. Sensory sensitivities might come up for Sara, especially when she’s distressed. Smell and sound might get to her especially, since we see her using headphones to concentrate in school, and since her dad mentions fragrance-free laundry detergent. Because she’s a high masking autistic, she may have an internal monologue going in high stakes social situations—checking to see if she made the right amount of eye contact, wondering if her tone of voice was right for a situation, wondering why she can never smile the right amount for other people. Based on season 3, shame changes the way Sara carries her body. She’ll be feeling that internally, too.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: Sara’s living so many of them! Everyone else calls her authentic and praises her for being uniquely herself, but like any other teenager, she’s still figuring out who she is. She loves people who let her down and wonders why the love persists anyway. One of the reasons I enjoy Sara’s overall arc so much is she has to come to terms with the way life and one’s emotions are messy, and then she takes action without sweeping the emotions under the rug completely or disavowing them. To me, I think leaning into that beautiful mess instead of trying to make Sara’s emotions neat and tidy and fandom-approved is an important part of doing her justice. I’d say more, but I worry about triggering another round of Sara Discourse, and the sad thing is that there are still people out there who will read anything she does in bad faith. Sigh.

Mentor texts: When I write Sara, I find myself turning to 19th and early 20th century classics. Jane Eyre, the March sisters, and LM Montgomery’s protagonists go well with Sara’s balance of pragmatism and romanticism, as well as her outsider status. I also find Sara in Joy McCullough’s Enter the Body, a verse novel where Shakespeare’s tragic heroines retell their stories, and in the Into the Woods musical soundtrack. All of these mentor texts help me get at what’s going on with Sara internally.

Bonus Sara note: After receiving my AuDHD diagnosis, I created a guide of resources that fanfiction writers can use for approaching Sara. I’m linking it again in case anyone needs it!

August

Desire lines: Okay this is wild but… what if I told you August’s more abstract desire is a fulfilled sense of belonging and the opportunity to create a sense of belonging for others? August is notoriously bad at understanding his own desires, and even worse at figuring out how to go after them concretely and in ways that don’t bother or harm people, and at the end of the series he is perhaps just realizing he may have miscalculated when he’s in line to be crown prince. But I think one of the things I see as being core to his character is that he’s lonely and traumatized, and he’ll do anything to feel like he belongs with people and is safe somewhere, and part of that shows up in also trying to be a leader within the Hillerska community. Because if you’re running all the traditions, no one’s going to question if you belong, right? Hence his working so hard to be prefect and captain of the rowing team and de facto leader of the Society and planner of all the parties. He knows those things matter to him and to others. At the beginning of the series, August’s idea of how to create a sense of belonging for himself is deeply flawed. It rests more on the exclusion of many so that an elite few can feel included. Over the course of the series, we see him reevaluate that idea, and I would argue that his understanding of belonging is now changing. I think I’ve gone on a tangent here, so let me try to bring this to some sort of satisfying conclusion. I think any portrayal of August that tries to simplify him down to wanting power or status or the ability to make Wilhelm and Simon’s lives miserable… just isn’t going to hit as hard as an August with a deeply buried earnest need for belonging and love and safety at his core. Even when I wrote him as more of a villain with a deeply tragic ending, this was true.

Bodily and sensory experiences: August’s relationship to his body is so fraught! He’s tall and imposing and looks quite grown up, but this is a fairly recent development, and it wasn’t long ago that he likely looked like a sweet little kid and then an awkward gangly boy in his early to mid-teens. This is all happening very fast, and I think there’s a stark contrast between August’s internal little boyishness (and all the fear and earnestness that goes with that) and his apparent adult maturity. August is probably always physically coming up against stuff that reminds him how fast his life changed—it’s not just that his father died, it’s that he can now wear his father’s old clothes, and his mother is now smaller than he is and hugs from her probably feel different. Moreover, August seems to need to move his body to self-regulate. If you’re a writing a fic from his perspective, think about where he’ll feel his restlessness, and whether he’ll be tapping a pen or pulling his hair or trying to for a run to process it all. I think it’s worth considering all this history of August’s body alongside more obvious things like August’s disordered eating and exercising, and whatever he feels after standing naked in front of the third years. As someone carrying a lot of complex trauma, he’s probably hypervigilant, with sensory sensitivities to go with that.

Contradictions, rationalizations, and sources of cognitive dissonance: We could be here all day, couldn’t we? Like Felice, August is supposed to be benefitting from the system he’s in, but he’s not. He tends to assume he’s failing the system instead of the system failing him, and doubles down on trying to meet this elite idea that will only make him miserable. At the same time, August has an impulsive streak, so he sometimes acts first and rationalizes his more impulsive decisions after the fact. He does an initial round of harm when he acts impulsively, but then doles out additional harm through what he does when he’s rationalizing. In addition, August is trapped in a well of traumatic grief for both his father and Erik, both of whom gave him some sense of identity and belonging, but who also harmed him in their own particular ways. He’s sitting in the emotional dissonance of that every minute of the series. While August and Wilhelm have begun to grieve Erik together, August still doesn’t have anyone he can discuss his father with yet.

Mentor texts: Tana French is my go-to for all things August. She’s great with unpleasant but compelling characters, writing about social class, and unearthing buried traumas. Her settings often act as extensions of the characters and themes, and I feel like August-centered fics can develop and lean on emotionally resonant settings (Årnäs, Hillerska, the palace) as an extension of his internal landscape. I also want to mention the soundtrack to Fun Home as another inspiration, because of the way it handles grief and dysfunctional families.

Bonus August note: As fun as it is to write August doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, he can’t be that way all the time. I also write him doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, the right thing for the wrong reasons, and even the right thing for the right reasons. I also do not write him as a cold master manipulator or as someone with a high opinion of himself—internally August loathes himself to the point of self-destructive behaviors. Any story that acknowledges these things really captures the flavor of August, in my opinion.

[prototypelq]

The Most Unreliable Narrator I Have Ever Seen

soooooo I had a Cyberpunk-obsessed phase pass recently, and this time Johhny Silverhand's character caught my eye. His story, more specifically, and how... inconsistent he seems, depending on each source.

In the game, Johhny acts like a bastard for most of the game. He panic-rages on his first meeting with V, throws many threats around, but is later beaten into the background with the blocker pills Misty gave to V. Even Johnny's friends' are well, they react Loudly to his return. Y'know, make it known his presence alone provokes a lot of anger from them.

Even during his first appearance, when V gets thrown into Silverhand's memories of his SAMURAI concert, the only real thing V recalls is the all-consuming rage that he felt, which he tried to shout out through the microphone, but it never felt like enough.

And doesn't this sound weird then, that the only thing Johnny does throughout the game after that first meeting is help V out? He learns about the Smasher guy hideout at the docks (he does that through dubious means but that's Johnny for you), he helps V out when the seizures become worse, he calmly agrees to Any decision V makes, despite V clearly Not being in any real state to oppose him in the finale of the game, he plans the whole thing with "Alt" so V can get his body back at Johnny's own expense, from the beginning, and he doubles down on that claim at the end of the game.

Do you see the dissonance? The egoist rockerboy that admitted to using his friends to getting what he wants, and the downright self-sacrificing hero and a friend that is Johnny at the end of the game? People change, sure, but this divide is very massive and too sudden, so I wanted to dig into that. And what I've stumbled upon, with the help of canon Cyberpunk materials like the Red sourcebook (or, more specifically, LayedBackGamers' reading of the canon books and his lore videos on different topics), is that

Johhny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077 is the Most Unreliable Narrator I've Ever Seen.

Count with me here:

Johhny's personality in general. No matter what your interpretation of him his, it's impossible to ignore that Johhny is very much a people person and he exploits that knowledge and charisma to suit his own goals. If you choose to trust him, then you might have already been played.

2) Johhny has been alone, only his lovely self for 50+ years inside the Arasaka chip. Don't ask me how he is still even remotely sane, I haven't got a clue (hopefully the time as a construct without outside stimulation flies differently and he hasn't felt those 50 years in real time). The thing to mention here, however, is that, being alone with your thoughts and emotions for a long time, having nothing else for entertainment, is a great opportunity to rewrite your own memory of events or emotions you've felt.

3) Lack of a body. The aforementioned constant rage, that was the dominant emotion is Johnny's life (before Alt, at least, if Never Fade Away is anything to go by, and I mean, that's literally a love ballad), is a symptom of his PTSD from his too-young years serving in the corpo war, same as his signature silver hand. I'm not a specialist here, but I do know PTSD, especially for war veterans, is a physiological illness just as much as it is a mental one. Johnny's body literally had trouble living normally after that experience, and knowing this bastard - he never managed to treat that. Existing as a personality construct frees him from the many bonuses of being corporeal, but it also free him from the physiological side of PTSD. His day-to-day existence is fundamentally different from that of the Johnny Silverhand that the world knew 50 years ago, so yes, as a 'time traveler' or a source of information and comparison about the 70's and 20's of cyberpunk world Johhny is not a good source.

4) The chip with Johnny is literary inside the head of another person. The characters in game question, multiple times, just which decisions is V making on his own, and which of them might be Johnny's doing. Not consciously, no, but V and Johnny are clearly not your simple neighbours. They are not your 'close friends that start subconsciously copying each other' too. It is quite possible that the chip with Johhny is adapting to the 'hardware' it is running on, so it is specifically implementing parts of V's personality into Johnny, to minimize the 'friction' between the personality and the body it is supposed to inhabit. Everyone say hi to existential horror)

5) How does Soulkiller ever work? Is there data on how much the resulting engram actually resembles the person it tried to copy? How did the process of copying Johnny go? I can answer the last one - very badly.

Death of Johnny is told in excruciating detail in the Cyberpunk sourcebooks. Johnny died on the floor of Arasaka tower, torn in two by a shotgun blast from Smasher. There is no information on how much time it takes Soulkiller to create the engram from the brain, but it better have finished doing that before Johnny's brain started dying from a lack of blood and oxygen, and he clearly didn't have much time either, considering bisection is not the best for bodily fluid preservation, so it's a wonder the engram even works properly. Plus, during the initial heist to steal the chip with Johnny, the chip was damaged further before the idiots decided to stick an unknown harddrive into their heads to preserve it. Basically, it's nothing short of a miracle, that engram-Johnny is actually a whole damn person, that he can function, think and feel properly (well, as much as Johnny can do those things)

It is very sad that V can't talk to Johnny about this, as the man does blame himself over things he hasn't even done, and he had done enough emotional damage to himself and people around him without that kind of burden on top of it.

6) Johnny's memories are literally false. The attentive reader had to pick this up in my previous point - didn't Johnny die in the hands of Arasaka after they interrogated him? Nope. Nope, and I can say that confidently because,

(drumroll please)

Cyberpunk tabletop sourcebooks! Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk universe and the TTRP series of games, has worked closely with CDPR writers during the production of the 2077. He oversaw everything, and he says that 2077 is in the same cyberpunk universe too, it's not an 'alternate reality' or anything.

Johnny Silverhand died while trying to buy time for his friends to escape, from a shotgun shot from Adam Smasher. That's it, he died on that floor, there was noone to interrogate, no rooftop helicopter he ran for.

The sequence of 'memories' we see from Johnny's POV in the game is a mishmash of two different assaults on the Arasaka towers, yes towers there were two of them. There is a great video explaining all the small and Major details Johnny's version of events got wrong, because we have the sourcebooks and the text inside. You may accuse me of holding a 'holy canon' argument ... and well, yeah, this is kind of holy knowledge, as it was written for gamemasters.

Still, some of the things in Johnny's version are Major, and while the media certainly covered the whole story extensively with corpo propaganda (oh, btw, Johnny didn't bomb anything, he probably didn't even know there was a nuke involved, he is literally just a scapegoat), there are some holes that a citizen of this world might know and wish to poke. The aforementioned Two Arasaka towers, or the absence of the legendary solo Morgan Blackhand from Johnny's story. Interestingly enough, there is a radiostation of Maximum Mike in-game, who is actually just pretty much Mike Pondsmith, and he does propose a couple of questions the 'official' version of the attack doesn't cover (like, where would a rockerboy even get a nuke, he might have been popular, but that's not just something you find without military contracts, and that means corporations). Another thing is that since Arasaka owns Soulkiller and has had the engram for a couple of decades, it is quite possible they are the ones responsible for messing with Johnny's memories.

So uh, yeah, Johnny is the Most Unrealible Narrator I have ever seen. Johnny of 2077 is most certainly not the Johnny of 2020's, but this might be a good thing. Maybe the 'real' 2020's Silverhand could never have made the progress the engram did, or become such a good friend and companion for V, or maybe he could have done those things too. We'll never know. I really love this story anyway.

[lesbx]

kinda love how wildly inconsistent bethesda was with draugr, all in one game. they could not figure out what they are. Are they just generic undead? no, they have specific lore. That lore could be that they are undead because they’re cursed/blessed by the Dragon Cult in prehistory, with substantial implications considering that’s pretty much the most powerful and unbreakable form of necromancy on display in the franchise.

But they’re also… just regular zombies it seems, in some cases, as draugr appear in halls of the dead in Skyrim’s cities, implying that those ones are much more recent dead nords, but also, wait, are they dead, or are they cursed? there’s conflicting in-fiction information on whether or not they’re even corpses or if they’re still technically living humans, just in an obviously warped state. but also, bethesda even made a fairly sweeping retcon when they reintroduced draugr into the series because yes, they were actually in morrowind’s bloodmoon dlc first, as specifically a group of nords who were stranded on solstheim and turned to cannibalism to survive and thus were punished by the gods and transformed into monsters.

The gods did that to them, not the dragon cult. and this was actually double retconned since dragonborn put the dragon cult onto solstheim, and only introduced the unique hulking draugrs as little more than a nod to the original draugr. a version of draugr that’s not even limited to solstheim, so it only furthers the inconsistencies. instead of there canonically having been a cannibal group of draugr, instead, SOME and i mean VERY FEW bc they’re pretty rare spawns, some of them eat people.

also there’s hillgrund’s tomb. golldir says it’s his ancestral tomb, but it’s infested with draugr, and he tells you theyre his ancestors, and that it’s okay you’re killing them bc it’s “helping them back to sovngarde”. draugr aren’t ever at sovngarde. undead or not, they’re clearly not souls that are passed onto to anywhere, let alone the resting place for honorable warriors, something Dragon Cultists would not be considered. also, his ancestors can NOT BE dragon cult. if golldir was able to definitively trace his family line back to the days of the dragon cult, that would make his family among the oldest and long lived in tamriel. which isn’t really the case for what is just a random ass npc who doesn’t even actually live in a town and whose only family is a pre-dead npc. i’m nitpicking. but its funny to me ok

[fraudulent-cheese]

For the ramble prompts, 1. And 7

You're very lucky as i actually have access to my computer currently!!!

I'll pick 7, as i've already seen some people point out the differences between the twins but NO Staci analysis posts!

So. Staci. What the fuck is up with her. Why did she think lying about her family on a consistent basis and not helping in challenges would work? How exactly did that make her think it was the best she could do, to the point she thought she "was doing so well" (quoting her at her own elimination) after that first day?

I think Staci's goal while on the show was to win via social game - or at least, make friends on the show. Her lying could be due to either 1. wanting attention from them, so she started making shit up to make herself look more important or 2. she actually believes what she says and just wants to impress people with her family history. I don't think i can conclusively say which one canon's leaning into? Realistically, her exaggerating her family's achievements is the more likely option, but her actually believing them would be more tragic.

HOWEVER. Just looking at her one episode of content + her audition tape isn't enough. We need to look at her contestant biography.

YEAH IM GOING THERE! If you weren't aware, for the first 5 (6?) seasons of TD as well as TDRR, there were official biographies for every contestant depending on the season, all of which were available on the official (now defunct) Total Drama Website. I'd consider the information featured in all but two of these biographies canon, as they either came from the official website (ROTI + WT), the Teletoon site (TDAS + TDPI) or from Total Drama: Totally Interactive! Im unsure about the canonicity of the Action bios and the TDRR blurbs (because yeah. they're just blurbs. sad.) as they were released only on Cartoon Network's site and the Action bios have... inconsistencies with other sources, let's say.

Thankfully, Staci was lucky enough to be a gen 2 contestant, so she gets the most detailed contestant answers biography model, so i can get alooot more info out of them.

I'll get the smaller observations out first:

In her last answer, she mentions her great-great-aunt Mildred and how she "told the first lie." I could look into how this could be Staci's least favorite relative (as she does seem to value truth/honesty), but also what if that's Blaineley? Her legal name's Mildred after all! It would be really funny! We need more "Staci and her great aunt Mildred" content STAT

She seems to really like pop music

The only answer not related to lying or to her family is the First Job question, instead it's foreshadowing to her elimination

Now, for a larger one: She barely talks about herself in these answers. Sure, she answers the questions, but she spends the vast majority of her time talking about her family instead. She manages to link the fucking Favorite Color and Food question to them! Her love of her family is made very clear here. Knowing about them is literally what she picks out as her Best Quality!

...but only her distant relatives. No mention of closer grandparents, sisters, nephews/nieces, aunts/uncles, and only a single indirect mention of a mother. Only distant, mostly older family members and cousins. And she had to have met some of them! Her Craziest Dream answer describes a dream where her great-great-uncle Charlie was telling her lies, implying they've met and talked before! So where's the mention of her closer family members?

I'd say it's because if those family members are further away, or if they're dead, it's harder to fact-check what she's saying so her peers wouldn't find out it's at best an exaggeration and at worst an outright lie.

I think the answers that show this the most well are the Best Memory and Most Embarrassing School Moment, her presentation on an older family member and realizing the topic was a lie.

This feels like something that would happen earlier in life to me? Maybe primary school level, or even earlier. If she made her entire class project on it, she had to believe in it, right? Despite how absurd that notion is! This indicates to me that Staci was/is very naive, and her love for her family started in childhood. She seems very interested in her own family's history, to the point of exaggerating their accomplishments; maybe her great-great-aunt Lois created a plate design patent or her Great-great-uncle Jason simply looked into the history of the letter E, so either Staci exaggerated them to seem more interesting, or her family members would exaggerate these achievements at family reunions as jokes or something and little Staci just believed them.

Im also unsure on her family being good or not... her Dream Date answer is apparently Richard Nixon because she'd want to learn more about his life, specifically citing that he "reminds [her] of [her] third cousin once removed, Andrew." If you know anything about recent US political history, that is not a good thing. This also shows she has some interest in politics/recent history/other people's lives! This girl does have interests!!!

And this is where i bring up the Favorite Movie answer. The movie it's based on, according to the wiki, is "The Invention of Lying", a 2009 movie. skimming the Wikipedia article, it's a romantic comedy film about a guy with the ability to lie in a world where people can only tell the truth. He first abuses this power for selfish gain but in the romantic resolution decides to not lie to benefit himself and lets his love interest actually choose to be with him.

I think the reason why Staci likes this movie so much is the romantic resolution; this is what she'd want to happen if/when she'd reveal how her family's achievements are either fake or exaggerated to her friends, and they would stay. That she'd get people interested in her with those lies, before actually being honest with them when they're closer... But it never happened with anyone on the show.

TLDR, i need this girl to realise she doesn't need to lie so much about her family for others to like her, as hiding behind masks won't get you any real friends. Something that applies to the majority of the roti girls, actually.

[xbomboi]

Hi, hello, you’re stuff is absolutely amazing and all the praises.

(Seriously everything eah you’ve made so far feels so canon plausible it’s hard to believe, are you planning to make a career out of these skills/have one? You’d do amazing)

Onto a very generic question I would not be surprised might already be sitting in your inbox.

I am aware that your current project is to continue on ever after high with all the cannon (mostly the cartoon I think, but I can assume the books count too? And maybe doll boxes/diaries? It’s a lot).

If there was one subject you would want to rewrite or remove from canon entirely, what would it be (challenge would be to not name the disaster that is epic winter).

And on a lighter note, favorite/stuck-on-repeat part of the series (I’m sorry this ask is so long, Idnk how to shorten things)?

omg no this isn’t too long at all i’m actually so thrilled to be given something this long to look at!

for starters, in terms of continuing ever after high, my thing is that i want to follow the show canon above all, but i do want to conclude a lot of the stuff touched on in external media such as books and dairies etc. though in doing so i’m not going to treat anything that doesn’t come straight from the show as something to abide by completely. because the show and the books and what not have inconsistencies in numerous ways, such as defining what a royal/rebel is, or characterization, or even the novelizations of the specials having alternate tellings of the stories. i don’t even want to really necessarily change anything mentioned in the books when adapting it so much as ADD to the information provided in ways that aid the story in which i aim to tell.

i.e. the evil queen turning raven’s puppy Prince into a bone rat. what about Nevermore? where was she? WHEN was she? well i think the evil queen could have perhaps, upon feeling remorse, secretly gone and sought out a dragon for raven, and brought Nevermore home without telling raven it was her doing, so that she would have a new pet companion.

anywho, as for your actual questions, for the first one, i’m probably gonna have to go with the whole sequence in Way Too Wonderland when they’re going from class to class. see, when i first watched it, i got this feeling they were going to go from class to class and in each one a different girl in the group would demonstrate their strong point in solving how to pass the class.

if not that, i think i’d change who got to go and do the whole storybook page thing in Thronecoming. i think it should have just been the core four + ashlynn there, really. and less of them could have opened the door for more time getting to see briar seeing what raven’s point of view is like when faced with the reality of her story.

on a more basic note i’d just go back and make sure everyone were not introduced to from the start is actually there. at least, there for Legacy Day. they don’t have to talk or do anything, it would just be nice to know they were THERE.

anywho, in regards to your other question, that’s a tough one. i mean, i have a few. basic answer is raven’s Legacy Day declaration. it’s just iconic and a real powerful moment that shapes the narrative. i love it. there’s also pretty much all of briar’s scenes in Thronecoming. (and obviously her snapping at apple moment. that shit’s too funny.)

BUT also when raven signs the real book in Way Too Wonderland and gets that dark magic power up. i’m a sucker for fight scenes and especially ones with extra narrative weight, so i always appreciated that one + the aftermath of it. and when apple declares raven as a hero. it’s great.

thanks for the ask!

[cer-rata]

A (long) review of the first 5 issues of Wonder Woman (2023) *Full Spoilers*

So I'm a bit of a lapsed comic fan. I grew up on my dad's collection of 90's comics and kept up on and off until the new 52 which did a lot that really put me off. And frankly Marvel wasn't doing much better so I kind of moved onto different fandoms and some smaller runs. Recently however I've decided to try to get back into the hobby more seriously, and while there have been some books that I've really enjoyed, there's been a lot of meh plots and inconsistent characterization pretty much everywhere across the major publishers.

But I was nonetheless excited to see a new Wonder Woman ongoing. Out of the trinity, Diana was always my favorite (a fact that I, as a little closeted boy, kept secret for years. More on that later) and I was aware of some of Tom King's works and was pretty impressed with his "Vision" run, so I was cautiously optimistic about the prospect of a popular modern writer giving Diana some love, and was hoping for a story with some modern nuance and uplifting fun.

The bag has been...mixed at best.

So I'm going to try to be fair about this, because writing genuinely good and transformative comics isn't easy, especially when your editorial is completely unhinged. That being said I do have some serious concerns that I think are really important to talk about.

I'm also lapsed so I haven't read everything religiously the past couple years, so if I get something about canon wrong please correct me in the notes.

I'm going to break this down into a couple of sections to help organize my thoughts. The art is gorgeous generally so I'm not going to spend too much time on that. Let's start with:

Plot

The name of this arc is Wonder Woman: Outlaw, and the first issue is devoted to setting up that premise. The action kicks off when an amazon gets into a bar fight with a group of sexist men, and ends up slaughtering every man in the establishment. The government reacts to this development poorly and ends up ordering the forced deportation of the Amazons that had settled in the states. We're given narration by a mysterious figure, detailing how Diana and her friends lobbied and fought against this obvious injustice but failed, laid over images of an Amazon resisting her deportation with violence, and being gunned down in front of her wife and daughter.

But how, you ask, was the government able to rush through this bizarre reactionary stunt?

Well you see, this is all a part of a scheme by the Sovereign, the CEO of sexism and an American "king" whose family has used the "Lasso of Lies" to control the country for it's entire existence. He showed up in WW #800 with Trinity seeking him out for information, which explains why he's narrating this story. A Wonder Woman book where she isn't the POV character? I'll get more into that later.

Anyway the Sovereign wants to run all of the amazons out of the country or kill them, whatever works, as he believes they're a threat to his rule and masculinity as a whole.

So he's in the background. The foreground antagonist is Sargent Steel, who's been tasked with leading the Amazon deportation and is actively hunting Diana, who he eventually corners as she's paying her respects to the men that the rogue amazon killed. He tries to assassinate her, obviously fails, and Diana extracts some information from him and begins her investigation. See it turns out that after running out of other options, she's trying to hunt down the rogue amazon and figure out what's going on in the hopes that she solve the tensions.

So that's the basic premise of the arc, Diana is trying to solve a murder mystery while being actively hunted by the government. It's not a bad premise on its own honestly, so I was intrigued. The first issue is pretty, well laid out and interesting. The problem is that the following issues don't really deliver on that premise.

Instead of detective!Diana, we spent issue #2 on a (gorgeous) fight with the actual US army, intercut with a flashback of Diana's trial by combat in order to leave Themyscira in the first place. It really is a beautiful issue that really drives home how much of a badass she is, especially since she ends up not killing anyone in the process. Somehow. She did throw tanks at people so...I'm not sure how she...anyway.

Issue #3 is Diana walking into Steel's base, bulldozing through all the security and then bullying him to get some more information about the case, where she finds out that the Amazon is pregnant. Intriguing right? Meanwhile we see the Sovereign showing a young soldier around his house, which is filled with old American historical artifacts. See he wants this kid to push the narrative that Wonder Woman emasculated him and took away his pride, but the soldier doesn't really care? He's actually excited to have fought a superhero and live, and he thinks she's cool. So that won't do, and we're shown the capabilities of the Lasso of Lies, as the Sovereign uses it to implant feelings of discontent and depression into the young soldier, while also ordering him to write a manifesto about Wonder Woman taking his manliness and then to...kill himself. The idea being to create some bad press and push public support away from Diana.

Issue #4 is my favorite in the run so far, devoting most of it's time to watching Diana give a terminally ill kid who idolizes her the best day of his life. I'll get into it when I talk about dialogue later but I think it's the truest depiction of Diana so far, you get to see her kindness, generosity and wisdom. There is a nice moment where she comforts the kid about destiny and soothes his feelings of otherness in the face of the expectation that he should be drawn to a male hero. It's really nice. But also kind of a strange decision in the scope of the plot. As much as I love this moment, I think her taking a day away from her mission of stopping this political disaster and being on the run to just hang out with a kid is...odd from a pacing standpoint. With the lack of effort she's shown so far in dealing with Steel and the machinations of the Sovereign, and the threat to the Amazons happening mostly off screen and with very limited access how Diana's feeling about it all because she's not the narrator, it all wraps up in not feeling very urgent. It's mentioned that she's trying to control her emotions and that makes sense in theory, but with the way she's drawn and written she just seems unbothered.

Meanwhile, Amanda Waller tells Steel that they're just going to throw all of Diana's villains at her and call it a day.

Issue #5 Deals with the Wonder Girls, Cassie, Donna and Yara trying to convince Diana to accept some help. She challenges them to trials where if they can beat her she'll allow them to assist. It's kind of a neat concept, but it highlights a strange piece of this characterization of Wonder Woman: her desire to work alone.

It's...very Batman of her in ways that don't make much sense in the narrative and in the broader scope of her characterization. And it would be more understandable if the conflict was more focused, Diana hunting down Cheetah to try to reform her, a more personal mission. But this literally involves all of her people and could lead to actual war between the states and Themysicra. It seems weirdly shortsighted for her to shun help from adult Women who she's trained and worked with in the past. The rationalization that she doesn't want to endanger them falls completely flat because they're already in danger.

Also what is Yara referring to here? She acts like there's history of them working together and it not working out. Why do they insist on trying to make her a Wonder Girl in the first place?

Anyway they all lose but then ignore the terms of the wager and show up in her apartment in their costumes, not taking no for an answer. And like that they ignored that foolishness, but then I'm bothered that we spent almost an entire issue on this pointless conflict that didn't really teach us anything useful.

But I did say almost, and the rest of the issue is devoted to Steel and the Sovereign convincing some of Diana's greatest foes to join up on a squad to take her down.

Which is...a choice. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool sequence, and It's not an unusual conceit in comics to collect a bunch of villains to take down their nemesis, but as far as I was aware, in this continuity:

Giganta and Silver Swan had buried the hatchet

Circe also helped Diana defeat the upside down man, and seemingly dropped her animosity (and...I...I thought she was trapped in a mirror. How did they get her out?) But regardless, why on earth would Circe agree to work for anyone, especially the US gov?

Grail was never that focused on Diana in the first place, but I could see her wanting to kill her for kicks, but again, why would she agree to work with lesser beings and take orders from mortals?

Angle man is nuts, so, sure

And Dr. Psycho does hate Wonder Woman with a passion so sure.

But this doesn't take into account that if they were to be written correctly, Circe or Grail on their own are justice league threats, and even with the Wonder Girls helping that would be an uphill battle. And then you add all the others, and factor in the dubious choices here in relation to established canon and it leaves me concerned that none of these villains are going to be used properly to their potential, or written in character. The idea that they were convinced to do this in the first place is hand-waved away, likely because there are no real persuasive arguments to get someone like Grail or Circe to job like this.

But enough of that tangent. This upcoming slug fest raises the question: What happened to the investigation into this rogue Amazon? 5 issues in and all we know is her name and that she's pregnant. Diana doesn't even know her name though, because if she did she'd realize that she actually knew the woman. So 5 issues in and the main plot has taken a backseat to watching Wonder Woman be a badass and including a bunch of villains. And don't get me wrong, I love a badass Wonder Woman. I was absolutely thrilled watching her go to work on people. But if you strip away those exciting set pieces and try to follow the plot and themes, there's not much substance there.

And you know, now that we've got an overview of what's happening, let's talk about the greater ideas here.

Themes

So King clearly wants to investigate misogyny in this book, with his villain Johnny Sexism. Uh. I mean, The Sovereign, an old white man who hates women and believes in the divine right of kings and wields the literal Lasso of Lies. And his unwitting sidekick, Military Industrial Complex Man, AKA Sargent Steel.

So it's not inherently bad to personify an social issue. Comics often work in shorthand like that. The issue I have here is that when you have a mastermind character who has manipulated everything behind the scenes, who is ALSO a caricature of a social problem, instead of providing interesting analysis of a systemic problem and its sources and methods, you instead attribute it all to One Evil Man. Which is painfully reductive and misguided. Sexism is complicated, much more complicated that one evil wizard deciding that women are the problem. It's like if you created a vampire slave owner who had been manipulating the country from the shadows and created the system of racism. It's bizarre and not really analysis to suggest that you can just solve social issues by stopping individual bad actors.

The bit with the soldier really crystalized this for me. We are given a kind man who has no misogynistic tendencies, and then the CEO of sexism forcibly implants it into his mind. He's shown personally bullying the president into submission, manipulating Steel, most overt examples of sexism can be tied directly to the Sovereign, which is a bizarre choice that really flattens the narrative weight. Couple that with the fact that the Sovereign is shown to be completely ill-equipped to actually stop Diana. She literally walks through all of his roadblocks, doesn't seem like she's out of control of the situation outside of the opening explanation that she wasn't able to save her sisters. The only real threat so far is the team of villains, and that's framed as Amanda Waller's plan. Why isn't she the villain of this book? And he's the narrator. In a book about sexism, immigration and tribalism, the voice we hear the most is that of the Sovereign. And he doesn't have anything particularity interesting to say. He's not scary, he doesn't seem particularly competent and he provides no interesting analysis so I'm left wondering, why are we centering his perspective over Diana's? In a book lead by a feminist icon, about the evils of sexism, we are completely locked out of her head. She barely gets a chance to speak, and when she does it's clipped and robotic. There's no personality, and certainly no continuity to her popular depictions. I'm all for writers reaching for topics, trying to make social commentary. Some of the best arcs we've ever gotten deal with real issues. But you have to A: Know what you're talking about and B: Actually talk about it. Sexism bad, men bad--it's not enough, it's not analysis, it's not revelatory and by creating such ridiculous caricatures of hyper masculinity, you make it very easy for the average male reader, who I assume you're trying to engage with, to separate themselves from the equation. It's thematic window dressing, and frustrating to see in a Wonder Woman book of all places. I don't think that only woman can write women, that's ridiculous and removes the responsibility to be better from male writers. But, if you're going to talk about social issues that apply to a group you're not a part of, you'd better know what you're talking about. Hell even if you're in that group you still have to know what you're talking about. This is feminism that starts and ends with "Sexism bad" and it's 2024, we have to be smarter about this.

That being said, I think issue #4 has bits of the right idea. Seeing Diana representing something greater than the sexist division that the world perpetuates is great. I felt incredibly seen as a little boy who loved Wonder Woman, and that moment of kindness meant a lot. We're given believable symptoms of sexism, from Jack's dad being uncomfortable with his son idolizing Diana. and Jack having internalized that judgement. It's handled gently and instead of just beating us over the head with obvious allegory, it shows us a taste of what Wonder Woman stands for: a better, more loving world. And it's mostly because it's the most insight that we get from her about how she thinks. The best part of the book about Wonder Woman is, shockingly, the part about Wonder Woman. Why can't we get more of that?

Dialogue

Man it's weird. King is clearly snappy, with a decent sense of humor. There's lots of fun exchanges in this book, particularly the backups, which I'll get to soon. He's pretty good at dialogue, which makes the way he writes Diana so bizarre. Awkward sentence structure, aloof characterization, the grating repeated use of "No thank you" as some sort of catch phrase. What? king has taken the warm beating heart of the trinity and made her distant and robotic. It's kind of impressive. And some of the rationale is that she's in emotional turmoil and trying to maintain appearances. But that's not reflected in the art at all, even when she's alone. We're told that she's conflicted and angry but almost never shown it. She feels like a side character in her own book most of the time. Speaking of side characters:

The Backups

So the running plot here is Damian Wayne and Jon Kent...babysitting? raising? Diana's daughter Lizzie Prince, who is eventually known as the hero Trinity in the future. And it's cute, particularly when they're all younger. King really gets Damian and Jon's characterization and writes some really fun exchanges.

Issue #4 and #5's backups are a little weaker but still really fun.

So my question is...why is the best characterization in this Wonder Woman book the backups starring the Supersons? I love the Supersons! Why are they here? Why would Diana choose them to watch her daughter? Why isn't she on Themyscira or being watched by any of her adult friends, especially those who have actual experience with children? It's fun but feels shoehorned and poorly reasoned. Honestly? I get the feeling that king wants to write this more than he does the main book, and it's mind boggling, because I wouldn't hate him writing supersons, and his version of Jon is the most Jon we've gotten in a while. So why is he writing Wonder Woman?

Conclusion

I think I'll keep reading, mostly to fuel my desire to see what they do with her actual villains, but it's not the smart book I was hoping for. It takes pretty big liberties with characterization and recent canon and there's not much actual commentary to find here. The art and the action are incredible, but the story that should be supporting it is pretty anemic and frustrating, with moments of genuine quality that makes the rest of the book even more disappointing.

Honestly? Just read Amazons Attack instead. Better dialogue, better pacing, better characterization, just more fun.

[kyuuuu]

Finally saw the GGGNK movie

Just an unhinged train of thoughts about the film. Spoilers and stuff. And additional spoilers for Exhuma (2024)

First off, the theme of the movie was hugely satisfying. Instead of brushing over the imperialism of Japan the movie says "there were no glory days, it wasn't an honorable death, this is just a bunch of creepy old men hungry for power"

It's heartwarming that this movie is a story about how Mizuki and Gegero met when this is for the 100th anniversary of the author's birth (who is also named Shigeru Mizuki). Clearly a heartfelt homage, I can feel it from the quality of the film- the story beats, the themes, and the designs all seem inspired by him.

The animation was so smooth and the style was consistent. The Gegero vs Osada scene has good sakuga and the stylistic choice of shaky lines was *French kiss*

Character designs are an odd mix of old school and modern anime, but toned down to fit the setting and mood. I'd rather have the designs align with the old school style, but the modern style is worth it with the crispiness

Sometimes the line art did seem inconsistent with some parts being thicker than the rest but it didn't show up much

Tbh I came to the theaters just to simp for Mizuki and he didn't disappoint. Quite charming lad.

His character arc was slightly unsatisfying but since this is a prequel I know parts need to be cut off to keep his character consistent...

Also he's canonically a pretty boy?? The movie mentions he looks like Sada Keiji and

Damn

He's gives so much openings for asexual interpretations. When Gegero says 'one day you'll find someone who you'll love more than yourself', he does! He finds Kitaro. It's a nice non romantic version of the 'you'll understand love someday' trope

Thank god there's no forced romance between him and Sayo. The movie acknowledges a. the age gap and b. realistically no one would fall for each other in a few days. The 'romance' is mostly a desperate attempt by Sayo to get out of her nightmare while Mizuki is half heartedly playing along. In the end even Mizuki betrayed her by only seeing her as a means for information instead of a person. However, the only thing, and the most important point that differentiates him from the rest of her abusers is that he genuinely apologizes and tries to make amends.

He's usually at his hottest when he's holding a weapon. The gun and axe did something to me. Legit I wouldn't have bothered to go see the movie if it weren't for pictures of him splattered in blood.

Sayo deserved better! I overheard some girls say "they seriously fridged her?" when the movie ended and while I disagree that she's just a fridged woman, she was neglected by the writers

I was bracing for her backstory when the family was introduced. Big, powerful clan in an isolated area? Definitely incest here. I'm not quite sure how to evaluate the handling of CSA but one point I'd give credit for is that they didn't fall into the trap of showing trauma graphically

Her story reminds me a lot of Tezuka Osamu's Ayako. Even the two works' setting (Showa era), a lot of the character roles (monstrous head of the clan, the mad man/woman, the twit sister, callous men in a power struggle) and the themes (conservative values vs new generation) match so I don't think it's a simple coincidence

What a bummer that Mizuki gets over her death so quickly. It feels unnatural how he collects himself so fast after literally having her rage on him for using her feelings and attempt to kill him, then to die in a horrific manner. At least get him a pep talk from Gegero to be able to get a grip again.

And why is there no mention of her when he confronts the head of the clan? The lack of acknowledgement of how Mizuki and the rest of the adults failed her makes the final act feel rather disconnected, to be harsher, weak.

The biggest bummer is that the perspective of other characters are lacking when they all have interesting stories

Osada was one of the characters I was curious before I saw the movie and I was surprised by how little screentime he got compared to the fanart. I was expecting him to be a main antagonist but no, he was a faithful red herring

He's the father of the head in line yet that aspect of him is underutilized. His relationship with Tokiya and Toshiko is virtually unknown, to the point I suspect he wasn't originally supposed to be Toshiko's husband during production and they quickly changed his role. Based on fanart I genuinely thought that he was going to murder Toshiko lmao

And his role as mayor would have been much more of a threat than as an exorcist. I know Mizuki is meant to be the trump card bc he's an unexpected factor, but he could have been a formidable enemy to the duo, pressuring Mizuki psychologically by turning the entire village against him while exchanging blows with Gegero

Overall the experience wasn't bad but I feel like I would have enjoyed it as equally I did in the theater as on my laptop.

It was a lot more consistent than Exhuma but fumbled the execution by an angle of three degrees to fully satisfy me- superior in the drama and mystery aspect but Exhuma's horror and occultism was more intriguing.

That being said it's an unfair comparison since GGGNK has a younger target audience so I imagine if the directors went all out it could have been really, really terrifying. The age restriction was already pushing it when they thought scenes of eyes getting gouged out were okay for children above the age of 12

Hilariously, both are occult horror mysteries that have "Fuck Japanese Imperialism" as their message, despite one being the A-list actor movie and the other being an anime movie for a series obscure outside of Japan. (I could probably make an essay of comparing and contrasting the two's criticism of imperialism, one being from an outsider/victim's perspective and the other being from an insider/perpetuator's perspective.)

Capping off this with a subjective score of 8/10 and an impersonal score of 7.5/10 ig