#i mean i realize in retrospect but not while its happening

[trashcreatyre]

I need to emotionally throw up rn, minecraft and podcasts for 12 hours didnt help

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

wibta if i keep having sex with my friends dad? nsfw warning

i (20s cismale) got invited by my friend (20s nonbinary) to try out some new edibles they made last thursday. this isnt too weird because both of us are unemployed (they get disability, i get money from unemployment, and we both live with our parents) and usually during the day their dad (50s cismale) is at work so we get the house to ourselves. well last thursday was different because i came over late in the night when their dad was home, and he offered to make me some dinner too. i get the munchies really bad so i was immediately like yes please and thank you while i fucked off to my friends room. we played some smash bros while we waited for the cookies to kick in, and when it started to hit his dad called us both out for dinner. dinner was great, and his dad is super chill — so he let us raid his alcohol cabinet. i dont think he knew either of us were stoned for the record (im naturally really quiet/dont make eye contact, my friend sounds high 24/7 naturally) so i dont think he was like trying to get anyone drunk or anything. my tolerance is pretty good but my friends is shit so it didnt take long until they were like blackout drunk and passing out on the couch, while their dad and i were both drunk too (not blackout but pretty drunk, and i was still high) and sitting on the opposite side of the couch next to eachother

important fact about me - i crossdress like femboys or whatever theyre called. i like looking really feminine and cute and confusing people. im not trans or anything like that gender is just a game and i am winning it. but i do tend to dress up in very egirl/goth gf clothes if you know what i mean, and i look pretty convincing ive been told (friend tells me i would pass for ciswoman with the makeup on). i think their dad maybe forgot that i was me (he usually sees me in boy clothes) and he started hitting on me? i didnt think i was gay or bi either until he started doing it and i got really flustered but i didnt stop him? again i was fucked up so the attention felt really nice despite it being my friends dad. but anyways he kept getting closer until he kissed me, and it felt nice so i let it keep going? which was probably super fucked up in retrospect. but anyways stuff gets hot and steamy, their dad doesnt bother lifting up my skirt, one thing leads to another and we have sex. he definitely noticed im not a girl during that (its pretty hard to miss lol) but he didnt stop so we kept going for a while

after we were done he and i passed out on the couch in a kind of awkward position, we both woke up in the morning and i think thats when he realized im me, but he didnt seem to freak out even though hes straight?? or at least i thought he was straight. but we had sex again in the morning and then when my friend woke up we all had breakfast and i went back to my friends room and we hung out more and got high again. while we were though i accidentally spilled the beans to my friend, and they FREAKED out on me and said that i was so gross for doing that, and they cant believe that it happened, stuff like that. they kicked me out of their room and their dad had to drive me home because i was shaking bad from it. but while their dad drove me home i was super pissed and mad and not thinking straight (haha) and so i tried to convince their dad to take a detour so we could fuck again. and he was like, okay sure, so we did?? but now i feel horrible for doing it knowing that it grossed my friend out so much, but i really like their dad and he seems to like me too, and i want to keep banging him :(

What are these acronyms?

[fairydares]

loook i get why the idea of riding the "anti/pro" fandom disk horse makes people gag a little in their mouth and try to opt out entirely, but here's why i went from feeling exactly the same way to taking a firm profiction stance. I've been meaning to make this post for a while.

~10 years ago, I posted a fic for the first time and it got its own harassment campaign. The fic wasn't even sexual, and wasn't going to be (it remains incomplete). It was accurately rated T on fanfiction.net. Anyone in the Fairy Tail fandom will understand this: I literally got harassed for writing a "Lucy leaves the guild" fic💀.

After many nice comments, someone left a pretty nasty one. Hurt, I messaged them back. They acted super attacked that I'd responded (lmao) and after we argued, threatened to "rip my shitty story apart in the comments section" if I responded again. I told them "go ahead lol."

They went ahead.

Now know that it was a relatively small harassment campaign, but at the time, it was devastating. Right around then, I wound up in the hospital. After I got out, I went to excitedly check my fic, and found several reviews saying things I wouldn't repeat to my worst enemy. I was suicide-baited more than once, told "thank fuck you finally abandoned this shitty story, dumb cunt," stuff like that.

There were several accounts involved, and I can't say for sure, but I suspect at least a couple different people were involved, though probably at least half of it was one person.

All the other comments were screeching about how I hadn't updated, mostly. "NO UPDAAATEE WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO MEEEE??!!!" was one that stood out after I'd been miserable in a hospital for an extended period of time.

Idk what people think is going on when FT fic authors write this trope, and frankly I don't give a fuck. Because while I was partly writing the story out of some young, cringe feminist rage, I also did genuinely have a real story I was compelled to tell. I was inspired by another, popular fic I loved which used the trope to talk about how trying to shoulder our burdens alone really just hurts both ourselves and everyone who cares about us.

My own story was ultimately going to have similar themes, with more focus on strength, what it means, and in what contexts earning and having it actually matters. In retrospect, no wonder I wound up in hot water, because at the time "Lucy vs. Strength vs. Misogyny" was the FT fandom's Designated Nonsensically Activist Debate™. But that's partly why i wanted to write about it; engaging with the fandom had gotten me thinking about it 🤷‍♂️

Not too long after that, FFNet oh-so-benevolently granted us the ability to delete comments from our own stories (they never took my reports seriously at all, afaik). I deleted all or most of the harassers' comments (may still be a one or two up, and i'm fairly sure there's a couple comments defending my fic from the harassment) without saving screenshots, which I really regret now. I was just so mortified and full of self-loathing about the whole thing that i wanted to forget it completely. Something that had brought me joy at a very lonely, vulnerable period of my life had turned so negative, and i couldn't even tell the people closest to me about it without being made fun of for writing anime fan fiction.

I didn't understand why this happened at the time, but--after a period of trying to forget/bid out of it all with a slight anti lean (a common approach I see people use, and one which I'm not proud of adopting)--I just had to figure out What the Fuck Even Happened There. And I'm telling you, after years of reflecting, wrestling with both sides, and educating myself, that this "status quo of harassment" culture which pervades fandom goes way deeper than you think and comes out of a way darker well than you probably realize. An astonishing amount of this is, quite literally, TERF shit and evangelical shit.

Trying to be in fandom and take a stance of, "Anti/Pro shit? Ew, I'm Not Touching that," is like swimming in a heavily polluted river and being like, "Poison? Cringe. Not me lol."

You might be lucky enough to be in a less-polluted part of the river (AKA a relatively non-toxic fandom, in which case good for you!)...but tbh this rhetoric and peer-signalling will still seep in.

I can't stress enough that pro-fiction, AKA "proship", is the normal, leftist-about-art-and-sex opinion. Pro-ship is against all the horrible things you're against; in fact, pro-ship isn't trivializing real trauma by equating it with fictional trauma, or trying to apply literal evangelical/radfem solutions--which are proven not to prevent or help. Profiction/proship is literally just saying, "Fiction is fiction, reality is reality, and the two don't have a 1:1 relationship. And historically, trying to censor just things we've decided are bad has done nothing but get LGBTQ+ and POCs censored. Therefore, depictions of illegal things shouldn't be censored." That's it. "Proshippers all ship problematic ships," is a brazen lie. Many of them share other fans' disgust for those ships, they just don't believe in censoring fic authors over it.

It is also taking a stand against harassment because--and I hope my own story has helped drive this home--as with all groups who adopt ingroup/outgroup thinking, antis are defined by their tactics, not actual stances on real, serious issues. What happened to me was absolutely a result of anti, "it's okay to 'bully out' anything I just don't like" mindset pervading fandom. In a way, this was the mindset's final form. They didn't even feel the need to cite a reason the trope was "bad" or "wrong"; it annoyed them, and they viewed their own feelings as a valid enough pathway for policing to go right ahead and do so.

In the interest of offering solutions instead of just bitching about problems, I might make a "how to know if you've bought into these types of views"-type post sometime. Also might come back to this and provide some sources/citation.

[rex101111]

Ratchet and Clank size matters got added to the PSN store and I got a a major nostalgia pang so I went "eh, why not" and quickly played through it. And I do mean quickly, I know it was a PSP title but dang, last time I finished a R&C game this quick i played Nexus. Anyway, the thing that struck me about this game is that Ratchet is...a bit of an asshole here. And that struck me as odd because for the last few entries...he isn't.

Like this is still early series Ratchet, still on the PS2/PSP, released just before the first PS3 title, which was in retrospect a bit of an incredibly soft reboot. In the newer games, Ratchet is a fairly straight forward protag, nice, willing to help, only a little bit sarcastic if he's really strapped for time or dealing with someone especially annoying. Early Ratchet? Early Ratchet was a jackass, a dick, a selfish, quick tempered loner that only went on this quest because there was a tangible, direct benefit to him specifically. Seriously, in the first game Ratchet couldn't go two sentences without insulting somebody, and that's when he's in a good mood. In act 2 he's even worse, gnashing his teeth at everyone he talks to and threatening to sell Clank for scrap. It takes hours of in game time and half a dozen levels before Ratchet finally chills out, and a few more levels before he actually resolves to act like any sort of hero, and even that only happens after something he personally cares about gets threatened. Ratchet could give a damn, he can be convinced to help people, but he's still a selfish person who needs the situation rubbed in his nose before he realizes how dire it is. Clank having faith in him, throughout the entire game, even when he's being a dick, even when Clank himself is furious with him, meant something. When in the penultimate level he says "that's the Ratchet I always knew was there" and Ratchet brushes him off, you buy it, that beneath this sharp outside there's someone with the capacity to be a hero, an actual hero, a hero who isn't selfless, but one capable of overcoming his selfishness when it matters most.

Back when the first game came out, people complained about this, about their platformer mascot protag being a huge dick, and even the very next game addressed this by toning him down a smidge, but Ratchet in the PS2 trilogy is still very much not a perfect sunshine person. He's very sarcastic, pretty cynical, is very quick to call other people on their bullshit, and still has a very short temper. (Plasma city, anyone?) Ratchet had texture to him, he bounced off the much more straightforwardly nice Clank in a lot of ways, their friendship felt like it had weight and meant something because these two had so many differences between them that the fact they did get along so well and cared about each other so much showed that their friendship was genuine. I like the newer Ratchet and Clank games, played every one of them, but I've never been really happy with the direction they took with Ratchet. Each game made him nicer, friendlier, smoothing down his edges. And the reboot game had it the worst, they retold the first story, where Ratchet was at his worst and a major thread of the plot was him learning to get over his bullshit, but had the sanded down kitty cat of the later games instead of having confidence in their early work. Dickhead Ratchet worked, he had a place and it gave him a place to grow, while still maintaining his inherit sharpness. Ratchet should get to be an asshole again, just for a bit, let him get angry, properly. Sure, he's a hero who's saved two galaxies three times over and then some, but he did that while being a sarcastic little shit who made a joke about a plumber's ass crack showing and fired rockets at people while complaining about how high the prices are everywhere he went.

I dunno, maybe its a bit too late in the game to say this, but something got lost in the shuffle a while back, and getting a reminder of what was simply put it into perspective for me.

[randomgirlyoudontknow]

No one will probably read this, but as a long-time fan of ATLA (as in, I literally watched the show as it aired in 2005-2008), I wanted to share my thoughts on the live action. Let it be known that I am far from an ATLA purist––the original certainly had its own flaws and aspects that didn't age well, in retrospect. Despite the generally negative reviews I've seen from the fandom, I was actually very satisfied with this adaptation! But I’ve seen people saying that the characters were butchered, that it’s a soulless and superficial reproduction, and those who liked the live action aren’t capable of thinking/watching critically, which I wanted to push back against (I mean, I’m working on a doctorate in literature…I am quite literally incapable of watching anything uncritically).

The shift in tone to a darker, more mature one was a positive change, imo. It is definitely a much angrier show than the original, even if some of the characters were not as fiery as they should have been (*cough* Katara *cough*). Overall, while there were certainly decisions made that I didn't agree with (mainly related to pacing and narrative), I thought the cast and crew really captured the spirit of the original, and even added depth and nuance to parts I felt were initially lacking.

In general, I really appreciated the added emphasis on the cost and suffering of war and imperialism, as well as the depiction of the physical effects of bending. Now, I realize this is largely a matter of personal preference––for example, I'm very interested in depictions of war in fiction (I mean, my dissertation partially covers the impact of WWI on avant-garde art & literature, so...). But I've seen several claims that the live action glorifies war and violence in a way that is meant to traumatize the viewer, and I simply don't think that's true? While the original handled war, genocide, trauma, etc. in a phenomenal way for a kid's show in the early 2000s, it was also still sanitized when it comes to death and injury, to an extent that I feel like we, the viewers, almost lose sight of the fact that bending KILLS. Sure, we were exposed to its after effects, like the death of Katara and Sokka's mother or Zuko's scar, but there's something to be said actually seeing and acknowledging the very palpable danger that something like firebending presents.

I've even seen someone say that the show's depiction of "gratuitous violence" constitutes a "profound misunderstanding" of the source text, which I think is frankly a bad faith take. The death and violence, though more realistic, is still not a major focus of the show, nor is it glorified in any way. A glorification of violence would look like indiscriminate killing and maiming for the sake of edginess (looking at you GOT). We would see graphic depictions of death and injuries, which simply does not happen in this show (they even joke about the fact that we never see anyone die in Ember Island Players). War and fighting are still treated with the same depth and gravity as the original, only this time, the severity of its consequences isn't obscured from the viewer.

I also thought the show's handling of trauma (especially Katara's) was excellent. The choice to have Katara's mom's death revealed in flashbacks (specifically when around firebending) was something that really stood out to me. And the new characterization of Bumi, which I realize was quite unpopular, was another change I quite appreciated. His bitterness and cynicism seemed more in-line with someone who had endured 100 years of war and the suffering of his people at the hands of a brutal imperial force. Lastly, I was pleased to see the narrative attempt to address the role Iroh played in the Siege of Ba Sing Se (something that was absolutely missing from the original). The Earth Kingdom soldier confronting him and calling him a butcher was a powerful moment, for me. I truly hope the show continues to dive into this aspect of his character in future seasons.

Speaking of characters, I loved that we got extra background and insight into several of the characters. Zhao, for example, was unexpectedly quite funny, and his actor really did a phenomenal job of fleshing him out and making him feel like a real person (as slimy and smarmy as he was) rather than a stock, cartoon villain. And I have to give kudos to the actors who played Sokka and Zuko––they both did an incredible job of embodying their respective characters, in a way that felt highly reminiscent of the original. In particular, I thought the handling of Zuko's backstory was truly outstanding––perhaps even better than the original.

All in all, I felt the live action did a really nice job of balancing the darker sides with the light. While I've seen fans complaining that the show doesn't have the same goofiness and lightheartedness, I actually thought the humor worked really well––it was one of the few times I felt the overly ironic, Joss Whedonesque one-liners actually fit. Sure, the humor was a lot drier and more toned down than the original, but I nonetheless thought it carried the show's spirit well (loved that they let Sokka say “ass” not once, but twice). There were moments when I genuinely laughed out loud! I also appreciated how, despite the more mature tone, hope, friendship, and harmony still remained the most important aspect at the end of each episode.

There's a lot of room for improvement, but I was overall very satisfied with the live action, and I'm very glad that the series has been renewed. I'm very excited to see what the cast and crew does with the rest of the show!

[cosmicpines]

There are a lot of things I'm thinking after watching the Alex Hirsch interview but a lot of it really is how much I appreciate how much I have learned about storytelling and emotion and how much of that was through GF. I'm sure most of the people who were around back in the day aren't here anymore, but there was a theory called Grunk4Gramp that arose in the hiatus after NWHS and before ATOTS. It was essentially that, since we knew Stan had stolen Ford, (god, he was still Stanley at the time)'s identity, that Grunkle Stan was the twins' grandfather. And I don't remember my exact opinion at the time but then when the "Shermie's grandkids" line and the fandom exploded again. I don't remember exactly when I realized that, yeah, that is a bit of a sloppy solution, but emotionally, yeah. It can't be Stan or Ford because that would retroactively make one or both of them really, really bad. It would be heavy and super complicated to cover in half a season. And then hearing Alex literally say that, practically word for word, just makes me really happy.

It makes me think more about just the prevailing attitude of "oh they're geniuses they must have had a plan for everything!" level of deep scrutiny. Which like, honestly? Fair. Most of us were in high school or younger. GF was a show like no other. It encouraged this kind of behavior. In retrospect, the moment that started falling apart for me was when a lot of people were so deeply insistent on the slit pupil maybe-still-possessed-Bipper thing after NWHS that I just... It's like Grunk4Gramp. What kind of storytelling would it be if Dipper wasn't making any of his own decisions? What would we even gain from the story then?

Being a creator is very difficult. Even as creators, we often forget that people who make things are still human and make mistakes. We sometimes forget that things can't be perfect and shiny and are just going to be good enough. We fight for those emotional beats and sometimes it'll make something inconsistent. Or sometimes something will fall a little flat. Or sometimes something will fall really flat. And that it happens to everyone, even creators we really love and respect. The best we can do as people is fight for the story we want to tell, not filling every plot hole and demanding an answer for every little thing. It's fun to be the second -- god, don't I know it. It is SO MUCH FUN overanalyzing things, ask literally any of my friends -- but knowing that something being complicated and intricate doesn't mean its good and vice versa.

Anyway I just really respect the GF crew and how much they put into this show, even now, 12 fucking years later. I really respect and love the fandom and all the wild shit that came out of it. My main creative project right now wouldn't exist if it wasn't for an offshoot fandom of the GF fandom, which is really a weird thing to say out of context. I just miss it.

oh also I found this on my blog while trying to find grunk4gramp things and lmao

8 years ago...

[kiingfluffybuns]

in another episode of Burns talking about TGED without reading the novel and only focusing on the webtoon as source material

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can we talk for a moment about Kim Suho and his Best Friend whose name I do not know (if it was mentioned before, pls lemme know)??

Now, I tend to focus a lot on the imagery of the narrative, like I mentioned before, since in the webtoon we do not have literal text to describe actual scenes, it has pushed to take its liberties on how it develops.

We have seen it on the mayor differences between N!Javier and W!Javier. (I was told.)

With that being said, my current theory in the matter is that Kim Suho is NOT a reliable narrator.

What do I mean with that?

SPOILERS,

(I will not post screenshots bc of spoilers)

In today's CH, we begin with a flashback of Kim Suho meeting w his rich Best Friend who he invites to the bath-house.

Now, Suho mentioned before on a previous flashback that his Best Friend invites him to eat out a lot just for the mere satisfaction of showing off his money. And while it's absolutely hilarious to think so, I do believe it wasn't the case.

In this new memory, Best Friend offers him the service for free, shaking Suho a lot, he questions him and the replies he gets are pretty simple, 'my mom owns the place', 'I'm helping her today', but all of that while he's making a very wicked smile.

This gave me the realization that all of this sequence is strictly within Suho's POV, which we can interpret the whole interaction was actually twisted to fit his narrative.

There's a high chance that Best Friend is doing all of these things out of real kindness and bc he does care for Suho.

But bc he refuses to believe ppl does things out of nowhere (like himself), he is convinced that he's being mocked.

For Suho, it has to be that way, he can only receive any kind of help as long as there's a 'catch', just the same way he gives help.

It also makes him upset to understand that his Best Friend knows his schedule well enough to show up at the proper time to ask him to hang out. Which in retrospect, is not that weird.

With time we all get to know when friends/family get off and on to work. It's not rocket science. But bc Suho is not making that same effort for his Best Friend, he assumes that that's the norm.

Why is he doing all of these things? Why does he know when he's free? How does he know he needs to relax?

Bc those are normal things to know of ppl one's close to.

But for Suho, he doesn't take that as relevant to give effort to. So much that he doesn't understand the simpler answers to those questions because he, himself, wouldn't answer them normally. They have to be negative.

Now, this made me believe that he's not being properly truthful with these memories, since he's convinced that all of these 'kind' actions were made w the idea of being mocked by.

After all, regardless of what was the memory, it's extremely normal that ppl will retell a story to fit their narrative.

In this case, that Best Friend just wanted to be entertained with Suho's struggles.

Now, this doesn't seems to happen when it comes to Javier, and the answer I came up for that might be a bit painful. Unconsciously, Suho probably still sees Javier as a fictional character and not a real person. So to give him effort doesn't seems wasteful since he's not 'real'

After all, this story falls into the same gender as Isekai, 'escapism'. So Suho wouldn't have a problem to blend and care for the new ppl around him bc they are not real. They are part of his escapism. Ofc I'm sure that is changing bc he's now seeing the family and home as his. It's just matter of time when he understands that he's actually building proper interpersonal relationships.

That's all I have for now, good night.

ps, if you don't agree, just block me and move on LMFAO.

[cosmicjoke]

You know, one of the issues I have with AMC's "Interview with the Vampire" series at this point is how hard they're leaning into the "memory is a monster" theme. I get it. We're supposed to be questioning everything we see happen on screen and wonder whether it's accurate or not, or even if it's an outright lie, and we're supposed to patiently wait until following seasons (which we don't even know if we'll get) to see "the truth" revealed. My issue with this kind of storytelling is that it makes it hard to become invested. It's so baked into the shows DNA at this point, that even when we get "the truth" later on, are we supposed to question that too? If we're meant to be questioning every, little detail of what's being shown to us, then why should we take any of it seriously at all? It's like they've taken Louis' unreliable narration from the first book and expanded it out to become the series defining characteristic. But Louis' unreliable narration wasn't so much based in him being a liar (which it seems like Armand just flatly is in the show), but just on his own, bitter feelings coloring his perception of Lestat, and also him simply lacking certain information about why Lestat acted in the ways that he did.

Armand's characterization of Lestat in episode 3 was so completely contradictory to who Lestat actually is, and the order of events and Lestat's role in those events so completely altered or outright changed, that if he's not just flat out lying, then, again, it's a case of butchering Lestat's character.

I assume Armand is lying. But are we really going to have to wait until season 3 to find out? It just makes it hard to become invested in what's happening on screen when you have to assume everything you're seeing is either an outright lie or so distorted by who's telling it, that you can't trust any of it to be true. How am I supposed to care when we're being told that none of this is how it really happened? I feel like they're just spinning their wheels then in telling this story, instead of actually telling the story. Like this is all build-up until we get to the real story.

That's the difficulty with them taking the unreliable narrator trope to such a far extreme.

I would feel much more invested if they just, you know, followed the linear course the books took, with Louis' first interview, and then with "The Vampire Lestat", getting to see why Louis was wrong about Lestat and the entire situation with him, rather than this mixing up of all the books together and confusing the issue further by having Armand further paint Lestat into the role of villain. I mean, even by the latter half of "Interview with the Vampire", we saw glimpses of Lestat's real character, when Louis saw him again at the trial, and saw what a desperate, pathetic state Lestat was in, and how desperately he wanted Louis to come with him. It didn't feel so much like you couldn't trust Louis in "IWTV",or that he was misremembering things, but just that, in retrospect, with later books, you realized Louis just didn't know everything and Lestat's actions seemed villainous as a result. This just feels like the show is going out of its way to make Lestat seem like the bad guy, while telling you "well, but not really, because none of this is even actually how it happened". It's not really a mystery. It's just the show telling the audience that everything you're watching is fake, and you should keep watching so that, eventually, you'll get to learn the real truth. But if it's all fake, anyway, then why should I care about what I'm seeing right now?

[goombasa]

SLARPG and Writing Good Relationships

So originally this was an idea I was going to try and make a video about not long after Super Lesbian Animal RPG came out. Due to a number of factors, that obviously never happened, but it's a topic that I do want to at least talk about, both because I think it's a fun discussion to have, and because I just love this game so much. It's like… it's really, really good, guys.

Super Lesbian Animal RPG (heretoafter referred to as ‘SLARPG’ for simplicity) is a turn-based RPG released in December of 2022. It was created and published by Ponett, largely a one-person development team headed by Bobby Schroeder, someone who I was already familiar with via their blog “Thanks, Ken Penders”, an analysis and retrospective of the various Sonic the Hedgehog comics published by Archie and written by Ken Penders.

The game boasts a banger soundtrack, and beautifully realized world that combines magic and technology together in interesting ways, fun and colorful character designs and a simple combat system that makes you think about what sort of moves you have the resources for in the moment, with a difficulty curve that is just right. Even at the peak of your power by the end of the game, you can't just steamroll everything, and the game wants you to keep paying attention from the start of the game all the way to the end.

But at its heart, the real driving force in its narrative, at least to me, is the relationship between our main character, Melody, and her best friend, now girlfriend, Allison. Their relationship is beautiful in how its portrayed, mostly because it doesn't try to present their romance as anything special. They goof off, they joke with one another, they speak casually, but they aren't dramatic about their own relationship, it feels completely natural. You are very aware of the fact that these two were very close friends before they started dating, just from listening to the two of them chat with one another. It's not only very cute, but it also grounds the two of them as a very normal, relatable couple, despite being adventurers for hire in a world where they regularly fight off slimes and minor nuisances around their own.

Watching their relationship grow as the game goes on, with the stress of an invading, reality-warping force coming after their world, is fascinating, because despite the adventure, a lot of what happens with them is very mundane. We see the two of them confront their personal hang ups, we see the two of them eventually have a full communication breakdown that actually really hurts their relationship for a while, but despite the situation that causes it, the way that they work around it, and how they handle it, it all feels so real. Their observation that they felt like they were tiptoing around each other, worried about upsetting one another before their first big argument was such a massive moment for me especially, that I felt myself kind of deflate in relief in my chair after witnessing it.

(I'd give more context, but I really want anyone who hasn't already to play this game, so please, please, if you want more context for what I'm talking about, go and play this wonderful game!)

Melody and Allison's relationship is also contrasted well with their other party members. Jodie, who is the most experienced adventurer in the group, was already in a relationship pre-game with the Guardian (leader of the paladins), Faith. Her relationship is stable, but the workload placed on faith, and her own job as an adventurer does mean that their professional lives often lead to separation between them, and while they love each other, they do realize that finding a good work/life balance is something they need to adjust to, even after being in a relationship for a while. But because their relationship is more mature, the two of them are pretty good at handling their rockier challenges in their relationship, at least for what we're shown of it.

Then there's Claire, who definitely has one of the bigger character arcs in the game, with her journey being just as much centralized on finding value in herself before she actually ends up in a relationship, which is another good contrast because it relates back to Melody's struggles with her own self image as well. These relationships and stories could have easily just been their own standalone stories with no real bearing on the main plot, but the relationships, both romantic and platonic, are woven into both the main conflict and each other's relationships so well that it feels as though they grow as a group as well as individuals.

Relationships are also woven into gameplay as well. Not so much that they are the major focal point of combat, but in smaller ways that are meant to reinforce the relationships between characters. Characters that are in a relationship for example, can choose to take a turn to smooch their significant other, which gives a temporary buff to the participants' stats. There's even a counter in the pause menu that keeps track of the number of smooches you've given. It doesn't affect anything, but it's a cute addition. This gives certain events in the story more weight when you temporarily lose access to the ability to smooch. It is integration between story and gameplay that I love to see in my RPGs.

The game is really a romance disguised as a traditional, adventurous RPG. It's main focus is on its characters and their building relationships. That is the main focus, and because of that, the romance and everything related to it feels front and center, but not separate from the main plot. The two are woven together wonderfully in their themes and experiences, and that, to me, makes this one of the best written romance games I have played, and I'm counting games where getting into a relationship is the main focus.

If you're looking for some wonderfully written characters, a nostalgic feeling RPG systems from the 16-bit era, some clever writing, and a colorful adventure, Super Lesbian Animal RPG is absolutely something you should play. It is absolutely worth its asking price and I am wondering if we'll see more of this world and these characters down the line. I sure hope so. You can visit the game's steam page HERE (#NotSponsored).

I love these girls.

[tokiro07]

In a recent interview, Eiichiro Oda said that he probably won't do any more manga after One Piece (or at least nothing huge) because the world he constructed for One Piece inadvertently allowed him to explore pretty much every type of story he wanted to: Mock Town was a Western, Egghead is both a sci-fi and a murder mystery, Thriller Bark was a horror, etc. He never did it, but Oda probably could have found a way to work in a high school drama or romantic comedy if he'd really wanted to. I would argue that's how the Hungry Days promotion came about, he probably wanted to see it explored at least a little bit but couldn't quite find a good excuse for it

Undead Unluck, as I think at least one of us has mentioned before, is very similar: it can be whatever it wants to be whenever it wants to be. A sci-fi horror against the emotion-eating aliens on the space station, a zombie apocalypse Western against Spoil, a wuxia against Feng, competitive gaming against Spring, sports against Void, and now of course the high school AU centered around Chikara; Undead Unluck can do it all! If we end up going into Lucy's mind and it becomes a swords and sorcery fantasy with Lucy captive in a castle by a dragonified Ruin, would any of you really be surprised? Would any of you even complain? I wouldn't, and in fact I hope it happens now. That'd be such a funny way to get both Ruin and Lucy back into the main story

I don't know if I've ever really talked about it before, but there are certain niches that Jump manga fill. I don't mean in the sense of genre like sports or gag manga, I mean more thematically. When My Hero Academia started, the consensus was that it was the "new Naruto," with its plucky underdog protagonist competing with a cruel and prodigious rival and a society that discredits him for the circumstances of his birth. Black Clover draws inspiration from a ton of big name manga, but Bleach is probably the one that it best resembles in the structure of its world (the Clover Kingdom resembles Soul Society, the Magic Knight squads resemble the Thirteen Court Squads, and the Grimoires are basically simplified Zanpakutou)

Over the years, I've seen many things take major inspiration from Naruto, Bleach, Dragon Ball, etc., but shockingly, there was a long stretch where I never saw anything try to emulate One Piece, at least not in a way that was particularly obvious. The closest was Toriko, creating wild and imaginative animals, plants, etc. the same way that One Piece creates its islands, but nothing had a cast that felt reminiscent to me

Interestingly, the first one that I noticed that felt like what I was looking for was Dr. Stone, and that only sunk in for me when Senku had his group build a boat and put up a sail with their own unique symbol. I realized in that moment that where Toriko had covered the spirit of adventure that One Piece had, Dr. Stone covered the spirit of friendship and togetherness: every time a dilemma came up, the solution was almost always finding a new ally and awakening their talents, applying them in a way that they'd never thought to before, or reconciling with an old enemy for the sake of progress. "My friends are here to do the things I can't, and I'm here to do what they can't." This is one of the core tenets of One Piece, and while it took me a while to notice, it was equally a part of Dr. Stone's core as well

Undead Unluck does something pretty similar, though not as overtly, since the cast don't really have neat roles like "navigator" or "doctor" or "chef;" instead, everyone has their areas of expertise that can be used in multiple situations, so the individuals best suited for each situation are carefully selected, and if none are available, the hunt begins for someone who is. I think this didn't sink in because it didn't become nearly as prevalent until after the timeloop, but in retrospect, the first half of the story was like the pre-timeskip Straw Hats', unprepared and unable to reach the world's ceiling when finally faced with it, only to come back stronger and wiser in their journey to come back together

Coupled with its ability to be (Chucky voice) genre-fluid, Undead Unluck has unexpectedly become in my opinion a more than worthy successor to One Piece's particular niche in Jump. I've had this thought for a while now, but I think that Undead Unluck might actually be a good glimpse into what One Piece would have been like if Oda had been able to stick to his original five-year plan. It isn't able to take nearly as much time to flesh out its world, but its streamlined approach elegantly allows us to get to know enough about the cast to be invested while still allowing attentive viewers to pick up on fine details. Where One Piece ballooned to be a 30-year venture because Oda kept having more ideas he wanted to share and angles he wanted to analyze, Undead Unluck seems to have a stronger clarity to its vision and commitment to ensuring that vision is realized ASAP without sacrificing any of the essentials. Neither approach is wrong, it's just good to see that there is in fact a world that exists where One Piece would have been able to be just as solidly executed even without entertaining every whim and flight of fancy that its author could dream of

Of course, One Piece is still going, and likely will be when Undead Unluck naturally concludes, so calling UU its successor is definitely a bit of an overstatement, but my main point is that I'm glad that we're starting to see authors who aren't afraid of sharing One Piece's niche, and more importantly are doing it in a way that's fairly subtle, but identifiable. It's an extremely comforting sign for the rapidly approaching post-One Piece world, and I can't wait to see what fills the coming power vacuum

[cross-my-heartt]

Crosshair’s ‘rise and fall’ in the Empire

Episode one: Aftermath

I’ve been seeing some takes in the fandom regarding Crosshair’s time in the Empire and considering it’s been a while since season one, I wanted to do a little retrospective analysis and compare it to his situation in season two. Because the two are very very different.

The takes in question are that Crosshair was naive or foolish to trust the Empire and I think that way of seeing things doesn’t do his character justice. And by this I mean it disregards the fact that his perspective is limited and doesn’t take his personal experience into account. So let’s delve into that for a bit…

(Bear in mind, this isn’t an analysis of Crosshair’s morality but rather of the practical motives behind his decisions.)

As this is going to be an episode by episode analysis, we’re of course starting with Aftermath. Aftermath is an episode that doesn’t shed much light on what the batch stands to gain from siding with the Empire but is more about the risks they face in going against it.

That being said, even though the episode shows us why the Empire is worse than the Republic and has the characters acknowledge that, we are also given some clues that it’s not all too different from its predecessor, at least from the batch’s pov.

Later on in its run, the show makes a point of showing us the derisive attitude the ‘nat borns’ and some officers have towards the clones. But Aftermath indicates that this isn’t an attitude the batch are unfamiliar with. The mess hall scene aside (it being the most self-explanatory), there are other smaller moments sprinkled throughout.

And it’s an attitude that we’re given to understand extends to the officers as well:

A mission’s a mission. The batch are used to facing unfavorable odds (in TCW Hunter asks Cody what ‘suicide mission’ he has for them) while serving under officers with a less than kind disposition. The Empire is worse than the Republic but its attitude is not entirely unfamiliar.

What the batch does object to is the Empire’s distinct disregard of morality but if there’s anything we learn about Crosshair down the line, it’s that morality often takes a backseat to his batch’s safety.

Another thing Aftermath emphasizes is that the Empire seems stronger and more dangerous than the Republic.

But even more important than that, is that we witness what happens when the batch fail to achieve their objective.

As we all know the consequences of that are immediate and severe and something that Crosshair will personally make a point of reminding Hunter of, not just in this episode but in others to come.

Keep in mind that his violent reaction, though it could be in part explained by the chip, is also understandable when you realize that the batch are an experimental unit that has never once failed in achieving their objective before. Even if they didn’t always follow orders in getting there, we know that they had a 100% success rate until Onderon (or technically, until Kaller).

They’ve never faced the consequences of failure before because they’ve never had to – completing their objectives in order to survive as a squad, whatever that may mean or whatever they take that to mean, has always been a fact of their existence and it’s the same thing the Empire is offering now.

To cut a long story short, the batch’s situation after the Empire takes over is not entirely uncharted territory. It’s somewhat familiar and navigable terrain. The Empire is worse in many regards but it is also stronger and disobeying it has dire consequences.

The observations Crosshair makes in Aftermath (because we know that clones retain their memories from the time their chips are active, regardless of whether their perception of events is skewed at the time) will later lead him to the conclusion that the risk that comes with obeying the Empire is lesser than that of opposing it.

We also see the Empire make promises in this episode. And at the very end we even get a glimpse of what fulfilling that contract looks like. The first glimpse of Crosshair’s ‘rise’ if you will – Crosshair with his newly enhanced chip is released from custody and decked out in new gear (which, since we’re given to understand the Empire’s inventory is new and improved and we later learn that Crosshair’s squad is considered elite, is probably new and improved as well).

In conclusion, Aftermath sets the stage and introduces us to an environment where success, and by extension survival, is difficult but not impossible to achieve. This is the situation Crosshair will navigate seemingly successfully until the very end of season one where his circumstances will start changing for the worse.

Until then however? Crosshair has plenty of reason to believe that taking their chances with this new regime are better than what’s in store for them if they don’t.

And remember: we’re limiting ourselves to Crosshair’s perspective here. As the audience we have both hindsight and additional insight on our side – something that characters shouldn’t be faulted for for lacking.

But anyway I hope you enjoyed and welcome any and all feedback! The next episode we’ll be looking at is episode three and I’m quite excited for that one.

(Also anyone who wants to be added to a taglist for this series, please let me know!)

[kanguin]

On my way to work today, I spent some time reflecting on my experience with autism growing up after listening to a video talking about neurodivergence in general. And it really hit me just how frustrated I am with the limitations that are placed upon me with autism. While my stunted social capabilities is frustrating in its own right, the thing that makes me feel the most helpless and aimless is my flat affect and muted emotional spectrum. I used to think that I'm just not really very emotionally impacted by things that happen to me, but in reality I feel the feelings, but just, cannot express them in a way that I or others understand. And because some feelings like fear, anger, sadness, and joy, are self-feeding emotions that react to your own expression of them, the fact that I often don't express an emotion or am even aware it is affecting me until I assess the symptoms afterwards, means that my emotional reactions rarely "bloom" for lack of a better word. This also means that a lot of my emotional reactions to things that happen to me go completely unnoticed by myself and others around me, meaning my emotional needs often go by the wayside and get buried as more things happen. I should point out this does apply to all emotions; I've been questioned on my level of interest in the past when the idea of going to Disney World was discussed as a kid, despite the fact that heck yeah I was excited! But it came out as "Yeah I'd love to!" in a flat pleasant voice that reads to allistics as meager enthusiasm.

My emotions do get loud and pronounced sometimes, but I've found usually only when overwhelmed, or when the circumstances are JUST right for me to express Big Joy (genuine excitement). Hell I still to this day have trouble relating to people defined by big emotions. Anger is one I definitely struggle to relate to, because it's a lot easier to keep a cap on your anger when you don't always notice frustration at first, so things rarely have a chance to boil because the fire isn't fed. Even for things I really SHOULD get angry about, I get mildly indignant or frustrated, and I sometimes feel like voicing my frustrations then make me sound impotent and pathetic. Probably because I was bullied in a way where people tried getting a rise out of me to see my reaction, but yeah. People who explode with righteous fury scare the living daylights out of me, even though I know they're right. It's just so alien, to me. I honestly feel weak-willed sometimes, and get frustrated with the fact that I don't pursue my interests or dreams with any more than moderate passion. I'm pretty sure if I put my mind to it I could gather my finances, find the right, well paying job, and move out within a year, but because my mental disress at being confined to my mother's home simmers barely above lukewarm until it errupts so big that I can't think clearly, before going back to tepid… I just make no progress.

The fact that it took me so long to realize that I'm not cis, and then when I realized that, it took me so many years to accept that I wasn't just "neutral" but wanted to start HRT and wanted to be outwardly perceived as a girl, is all entirely due to how muted my experience of my emotions is. I've debated for a while on whether or not I experience dysphoria about my appearance, and I've come to the conclusion "yeah, I do and I have for a long time going back to early high school". It's kind of obvious in retrospect that not wanting to dress out around boys and starting to prefer to wear a swim shirt with the convenient excuse of being pale/fat, were forms of not wanting to be perceived by others for how my body was. It's so painfully obvious now that the disress that my voice dropping brought me was not just because it was sudden, but because it was dysphoric, not me. But it took so long to even realize that because my emotions are so muted that extreme discomfort is hard to tell apart from mild discomfort unless analyzed in retrospect.

The school psychologist for the early college entrance program I attended my junior year of high school once told me that the thing that sets me apart from my peers is that while most of them had strong dissatisfactions with their life as it was, I was just extraordinarily content with whatever life gave me. And for years, I believed that, becasue yeah, I generally just accept whatever happens to me without much fuss, I don't fight for anything, even if I want it. But hindsight has proven her so, so very wrong about that. And I don't really blame her, she was making the best of what I presented with her and the accounts I gave. I didn't have an official diagnosis of Autism or anything so there was nothing really signalling that my mild, placid demeanor was the combined effort of severely stunted emotional expression and complexity and the early signs of depression. So now I just have to look back, and wonder how differently I would have developed as a kid were my convictions just a little stronger, were my emotions just a little louder. It's not much use looking back and wondering, but it's hard not to when you feel that a defect in your brain has basically held you back from achieving what you want for most of your life.

I'm extremely thankful to the friends I have in my life today. I've learned so much about recognizing my own emotions and my emotional needs from people around me that care so deeply for me. I don't talk to my friends as much as I should, but the past week I've been putting in a concerted effort to talk more, about anything. Just more time with these people who mean so much to me but I give so little of myself to. And I haven't gotten to prioritizing all of the people I consider the most important to me just yet; I have about two or three friends I still want to make sure I set aside time and energy for, but I'll get there in time. My mental health hasn't been great for a long while, for a combined number of reasons, but I want so badly to have quality time with my favorite people, and I think it's finally spurring me into doing something about it. I can only hope that from here on I get better at recognizing the things I want, need, and feel on a daily basis, and not just write everything off as being mildly interested.

[dyketubbo]

deleted a few posts mostly because after thinking about it some more i do still think that theres a focus from many of these creators on having a sort of clapback response where they denounce wilbur but dont actively support shubble (i dont know if shubble is fine with people who arent her friends using her actual name so im just saying shubble) and while its good to denounce wilbur i dont think they should be praised when they havent put in the effort to publically show support to shubble.

at the same time, shubble is clearly touched by the responses and they clearly feel supported by their friends who had also, on a surface level to us, seemed to just be responding to wilbur without uplifting shubble. i do think theres a need to stay critical. some of these creators do very likely care more about dunking on the abuser than they do actively supporting the victim and making sure you dont fall into blindly supporting anyone who can make a snappy comeback is good

at the same time being critical means realizing theres a lot more to this than "anyone who waited for wilbur to say something must not have believed shubble and mustve been complicit" considering responses like billzos and sophies, as well as shubble themself saying that "not wanting to" is not why she didnt name wilbur. billzo admits to being scared of wilbur. sophie said wilbur made her feel small. theres clips of wilbur hurting and scaring his friends and making light of how he does so

a part of what sophie talked about was how wilbur would make light of how he abused her. he wasnt worried that he was hurting her, and he even pointed out that it looked like abuse. shubbles incredibly brave for speaking up. but that doesnt mean anyone else who didnt until now was complicit.

a lot of wilburs "jokes" look worse in retrospect because.. thats what happens when you go through abuse, or when you have a shitty friend. you start to realize more and more how they were hurting you and got away with it because they shrugged it off either as a joke or just as part of who they are (shubble actively pointed out that wilbur would dismiss his behavior as "just who he is")

those who just want to get a dunk in shouldnt be praised. those who really do stay quiet or do the bare minimum should be scrutinized. always keep an eye out for suspicious behavior no matter where you go. lexie talked about her own abuse within that circle of creators and the very fact that there were two people being abused within the same circle is horrible. but keep an eye out for any creator. keep an eye out within any community, even your own. its not just the men in brighton. its not just minecraft creators. abusers and toxic friends are everywhere, and silence can be complacency but it can also be fear

dont blame yourself if you didnt see the signs before. but take it as a sign to keep an eye out. and remember we cant see everything behind the scenes. you never really know everything going on. its getting increasingly clear that wilbur mistreated a lot of people in his life and like. idk im making an emotional post because this shit sucks a lot and like weve said before this is a topic very personal to us as an abuse victim and one whose had many toxic friends

shubble feels supported. she has a community and ultimately it is still amazing to see how many people are denouncing wilbur and its amazing to see the people who do show support to shubble herself. support for lexie is slowly but surely getting there as well. i think this is a sign that while horrible things will always happen that the community is slowly but surely getting better at responding. and i hope anyone else who was scared of or mistreated by wilbur is able to think back on that and realize it was awful and find their peace as well.

i think its good to be critical to anyone who may have genuinely been complacent, especially those like phil and tommy and even quackity who have been extremely close to wilbur and as of writing from what i know have yet to publically respond. but i dont think there should be a place for outright cynicism and accusing everyone who didnt speak until now of secretly being complicit. theres more to it than that. theres always more to it than that

[minalblood]

Ok so my brain decided to deepen its own damage last night as I was rewatching The Winchesters (season 1) finale so buckle up it’s a long one fellas.

So I was listening and when I heard Keep on Rambling come on during the bar scene with Joan, my mind went huh, I wonder where this is placed in the album. So I went and checked. Mainly I was curious cuz usually an album tells a story and Jensen made it pretty clear that unlike the previous two albums where they were just trying shit out, this one was meant to be more consistent and have a clear throughline. So as I said, I checked.

It’s the 6th song btw, the 1st of the 2nd half of the album. I kind lost it after that tbh. Let me explain why ok:

So if we go by the logic that the album tells a story and we tie it to Dean (and destiel cuz duh tbh) we have this shit happening: Right Kind of Trouble - you can tie this to SPN directly, this is Dean realizing that Cas is basically it for him despite the constant fights they’ve been having and more so allowing himself to acknowledge that. Basically this is the Purgatory apology. Like legit this song is to me what Dean really wanted to tell Cas, that Cas didn’t allow him to. This is a love confession itself, one that says I know I fucked up, but If you give me a chance again I will do so much better cuz you’re it for me, we match. Like look at this shit guys:

Like this is pure divorce era Deancas and you can’t tell me otherwise, but more specifically, Dean thoughts as he eventually apologized in 15x09 The Trap.

Then we got Forever ain’t Long. This for me can of course still be about the divorce era, sure, but more so it feels like 15x18 Despair and regretting having gotten to this point and now it being too late to change anything cuz Cas is dead. Like how much clearer can it be? Like it’s literally a plea for time to turn back and for the relationship to go back to being as it was before all the mess Chuck and just the divorce era caused, but cannot since Cas is dead (Take me forever/forever ain’t long). And also, just this song screams Despair to me, it’s one of the saddest ones on the whole album, it reeks of grief. And it’s a direct call for Cas with the heaven line off the bat:

Also this part? This is mindspace for sobbing on the floor and 15x19 vibes for me.

Next is Every Light, the ultimate Dean song right? Well specifically this ties into 15x19 - telling Chuck he can just have his ending, just bring Cas back - and more importantly, and it’s also something I think we all heard, it’s about what shall not be named, the fucking 15x20 finale. I don’t need to bang on too much here but like, it’s even more than that. Because with TW 1x13 we find out he decided to stray from heaven while we were still mid ep 15x20 which means these are him going, hey I need to do sth about this, I need to figure out what’s wrong here, make sense of it and make it right cuz fuck this, I ain’t just taking this shit hand I’ve been given. Like I could literally put the whole song here but like imma put just some:

This is pure intergenerational trauma banging around in his head.

Ain’t no telling is next on the list and this is now heading into Winchester territory a bit, but not quite fully there. I see it as a continuation of the above aka I don’t want to go, but now that I’m gone and it’s not good, why is it not good, who am I after all, does anyone really know and does it really matter? And by anyone I do mean Cas tbh cuz like yea, it would make sense. The song literally says hey, you love me through all of it, despite me not always being sure who tf I am or how far away from each other we are, but we are still going to take advantage of every second we have. Basically this to me feels like a retrospective of the divorce arc put into context by the confession and this restlessness and need to find something Dean gets while in heaven. Like the 1st verse if soooo Dean I just can’t.

Ok now we get into shady waters a bit because You make me Blue is a bit of an outlier tbh, which considering I think this was written just by Steve, it makes sense, buuut I can still fit it in here seamlessly like this: this is sung to Chuck. This is the realization or resolution to the question posed by Ain’t no telling essentially. This unsureness of self isn’t lying with Dean alone, this was brought on by Chuck and his machinations so the anger in the song matches perfectly. Again, all of this til now has been gearing up to leave heaven but still on the road so to speak, still matching the 15x20 set of events, but his mind is running and trying to make sense of things. And what do we get with this song? We get “I’m finally happy being free/me”. We get a concretised sense of self once it’s been made clear in Dean’s mind just how much Chuck fucked with him (and if you’re a Chuck Won truther like me, how much Chuck is still doing, has the realisation that maybe Jack isn’t quite Jack here cuz sth is clearly wrong, but it doesn’t matter anymore, he knows who he is so Chuck/Jack’s influence can’t affect him anymore). And again this is the one song that matches least, but if we take it to be Dean having trusted Chuck to not be the villain (see him going to shoot Jack for that and promising to bring Mary back), then this still fits for me.

And now that we close this chapter we get to our 1st offender again: Keen on Rambling and the 1st one that is without any doubt taking place during The Winchesters. Like the whole song states everything that we’ve just been told happened throughout season 1. Like ok, verse 1 is deciding to leave heaven even though heaven is meant to be a place to rest (find peace whatever). Then verse 2 is giving the AU he finds himself in with the Akrida a nudge in the right direction (I’m sorry with the calvary in tow??, headed southbound for the season???)  And finally we get to the last one which to me is meeting the Core 4 but especially Mary and John and giving them the journal (I have a story to tell — do tell). So yea, but he’s not done tho. The song is constantly saying to keep on rambling so there’s more to do to get to where he needs to be, he’s still restless. But it is the beginning of this next chapter and the beginning of the second half of the album like I said. It matches soo fuckign well tbh and I’m going a bit insane here so take all this with a grain of salt tbh.

Ok so now that we’ve reached the current point in the Dean story we have 4 more songs. Which to me is basically where Dean needs to get to. 

And honestly a bit of Sweet Escape still fits into the finale for season 1 of TW so let’s get to it. This one is very much saying I’ve been caught red handed and people are trying to keep me contained but I refuse to stay put cuz there’s still shit I need to do/find. Like this is where my Chuck Won truthing hits worst tbh, but it could just be the Jack’s non interference thing too as well tbh, but the other voices that need to be drowned out are def Jack here, who took him back to heaven at the end of 1x13 of TW so this is basically saying you may have gotten me back here, but I’ll break outta the inclosure anyways, you can’t stop me, I’m not done. And with the 1st verse’ ending it feels like not only is he not done, but there’s a plan in motion here. Also I CANNOT overstate how much the 2nd verse makes me think of the Empty.

Return to Me is self explanatory tbh, but I’ll ramble a bit here too. This one answers the question of what he’s searching for, why he can’t stop moving, what’s missing for him to be happy. And what’s missing is a person that he lost aka Cas. Like I really don’t even need to say much here, this song is literally Dean going hey this is what I need to be happy, this is how that can happen. It fucking has the lakeside and raincoat mentions, it’s blatant tbh. And moreso, the last verse is just a reiteration of what we all lost our shit about with Watching over Me aka how did I not know you loved me back, how did I miss that until it was literally too late. 

Restless Man is a prayer to me basically and also the song I relate to the most tbh. So I’ll try not to get lost in the meanings here. But basically it’s Dean asking Cas to give him the space and reason to slow down. Not stop, because it’s still Dean and he can’t do that, but to give him a place or person where he can feel safe to take a break, where he can just be, where he can learn how to just be instead of constantly needing to do everything for everyone else. To have a place where he can just focus on himself a bit and what he needs and wants and how to embrace being happy. And more than just that, it’s saying that he’s finally ready to allow someone to take care of him for a bit, to have a place where he doesn’t need to be constantly on guard.

And it wraps up with Velvet Sky which in this case is the happy ending. Happy not because there’s “peace when you are done” like Jack says, but because now they have a place of their own to go to whenever they are weary of the road. The 1st verse to me is referring to Dean travels through the multiverse - literally seen all the land, every beach and grain of sand  because he literally went and saw all the possibilities for things, saw the wide expanse of the multiverse in search for this place and this person that he can now be with. And it’s not peace here, the sea is angry still, but it’s what works for them. It’ll never be perfect and it doesn’t need to be, Dean just needs this place and person to be free to just be himself and that no one else can reach or affect again, have his story be his own. 

So yea, this is the insanity my brain concocted last night after rewatching The Winchesters season 1 finale and having a random thought about Radio Company. And like I could’ve left it be and not traced any connections, but they fucking used the song in the show and then used Ramble On as the song to send the episode off. I couldn’t just ignore the relevance of that. 

But anyway, none of this could be accurate at the end of the day, but I had to get it out cuz it was stuck on repeat all night. Let me know what you guys think.

[raayllum]

One thing I love about TDP is that while it can be genre subversive (i.e. Ezran going home at the end of S2 for example) it doesn’t break its own narrative promises / set up and payoff. 

For example: despite Soren being more of an outward dick in S1 (step-prince, dumb jock, etc) and Claudia being relatively much nicer (Callum’s crush on her, hasn’t done anything as bad as Soren yet on an emotional level), the show makes it pretty clear that their moralities are very skewed in a few key ways. Moments after Claudia sent smoke wolves after the boys, Soren is saving Callum’s life. 

Soren intends to kill Runaan (upon the assassin’s own request), while Claudia believes that it’s worth keeping Runaan alive for “more practical uses.” She also doesn’t see anything wrong with the switching spell and thought of it herself, while even Viren can at least understand some of Harrow’s reservations. Soren is ultimately always a crownguard and Claudia is decidedly a dark mage. These are some of the reasons why I always figured that if either of them did break away from their father, Soren would be the one while Claudia would spiral further, and I know S2 cemented this for a lot of us going into S3. 

Which is to say: the show isn’t interested in yanking the rug out from under our feet to subvert expectations. If something is repeatedly alluded to in a negative light, it will follow through on it (even if it may reveal more depth later). Even things where we are purposefully misled are very brief and the clues are obvious (i.e. Ava’s moonstone collar, but we didn’t know moon magic was primarily about illusions until then) in retrospect. A perfect example of this is when Claudia kills the deer in 2x09; although it’s an act that is far easier to swallow and understand, it’s still very symptomatic of what sorts of mindsets will continually be her undoing in S3 and S4. 

Which is to say anyone that knows me knows I adore the Game Motif in the show, largely surrounding the Key of Aaravos in S1-S3 and then extended more explicitly to Aaravos himself in S4.

The Key is immediately connected to Callum’s arc as a mage and a sense of compulsion, but also as something that stirs up trouble. He gets them to go to the Banther Lodge for it believing it will be safe, but it’s too late to back out when humans like Amaya show up. Callum forgets about the cube entirely, surprised that Rayla has it by the end of the episode, and cites that “We should’ve never come here.” Moreover, the cube often foreshadows things that will cause problems for the group: the giant fish that makes the Ocean rune glow almost eats them; the Moon rune glowing as they walk up the Caldera and Callum’s notice of it foreshadows that Lujanne will not be the miracle healer they hope for. 

The one big exception in terms of the cube being legitimately, plot relevantly useful is in 3x08 when it helps Callum realize his necklace from Rayla is a moon opal, and thus can be used to help find the truth of what happened to her family (and hopefully mean she won’t think she has to, y’know, die and stuff). 

More than four seasons later, we see his attitude toward it has soured again.

And it would be one thing if it was just foreshadowing from the other characters (which, Rayla and Soren tend to foreshadow the most, mouthpiece wise, I think) or in Callum’s mind

But we also have 2x08 called The Book of Destiny in which Callum’s tormented by the dark magic cube (as opposed to Claudia’s literal book) and his father in chains, asking for him to reject the very gift Harrow gave him just two episodes ago, muddling the Key’s few positive associations further. Rayla calls it a glow toy in 1x05 and we see from the 4x04 intro that’s precisely what it is. And even more than that, the 4x04 intro that exists within the story’s narrative but outside the main cast’s conception of events.

If the cube had no negative affect in store for Callum, it would not be here in the intro because it doesn’t need to be. It’s here for sorely symbolic / foreshadowing purposes, like the way a book cover operates. It’s a direct clue to the audience, and the audience online, that more than the Key is a piece of Aaravos’ games, and that the two are intrinsically linked: a loaded die, a smoking gun. A game that Callum already unknowingly lost - a long time ago. 

[misspickman]

moss might i please have some trans tim headcanons. or trans kon if you’re feeling it.

Hii blink thank you blink i always have those<3

Kon is nonbinary and transfem to me and i do have a more specific way this happens in mind which is he starts questioning his gender after already figuring out hes not straight, and this is a few years down the line post sb 2011, so hes getting comfortable living on the farm and having a group of friends there, being a part of the kent family (hes never had a family before!!) and its because of that new personal comfort and safety that he can think more about himself as a person and not just. An icon with a role.

I read his tt03 era as his big Repression Period (along with cassie) where he figures he has to be a Normal Real Boy so he ditches the 90s superboy charm for a more traditionally masculine look, which maybe works for his secret identity but isnt what he actually enjoys. So later he starts growing out his hair and tiptoes around more flashy costumes which are daunting now, because kon has a lot of hate for his younger self for being foolish and a try hard, and this all reminds him of himself back then.

Its a slow process but he will get there eventually and i think living with ma helps a lot. Being away from the public eye and with someone who wouldn't judge him for not wanting to look as masculine would do kon wonders. Also he hangs out a lot with the yj girls, and i imagine cissie would eventually she starts putting makeup on him for funsies (and bc cassie doesnt let her) which kon has many feelings about. No worries! Anita braids his hair like she did cissies so many times and kon goes haha does this mean im one of the girls now as a joke and then has many feelings about that too bc what if he Wants to be one of the girls? Uh oh

I have less of a specific timeline for tim so some scattered ones are:

It would take her a long time to make peace with being trans and to come out, bc imo tim would not be a fan of the Coming Out Process. Would hate to do it. Would only do it once its the last feasible option bc shes sick of lying (again) and being seen so wrongly by everyone. I think she just writes cassie a note or something like it would be funny.

Jack having been so obsessed with tim being his perfect masculine son would make all of this especially hard but also make certain stuff make more sense in retrospect. Its impossible to think about tim being queer in any way without thinking back on jacks behavior.

Theres a v sweet image in my head of helena braiding tims hair bc once she lets it grow out tim does not know what to do with it and helena has to do something about that (set in a future where helena knows tims identity. The cowl doesn't really show hair. But boy it must be sweaty gross in there).

While i think kon would be big into makeup and all sorts of fun clothes and shoes i dont imagine tim being That much into it, is not as much of a makeup girlie, loves a nice dress but mostly for occasions and such.

One of the reasons why itd take her so long to figure herself out is she mostly didnt get body dysphoria until she thought of the possibility of Not Being A Man and then started noticing little things that bothered her, bc tim would be very aware of which traditional standards for being a woman she is not fulfilling. Very aware of and held back by the Issue Of Bodies And How They Are Perceived, as you do.

The initial realization would probably be something sudden that she refuses to think about for a while bc tim v much lives by that post thats like i may be trans but i have a job so idc about that rn. Its in the back of her mind and she is Not examining it when there are bad guys to punch out there.