#i see a character that is a loser and is also unreasonably hated and i just lose all control

[mouseship]

erm :/ okay I made that post defending clint because I thought the hate he got was dumb and NOT cuz I had a crush on him, so please tell me why I actually have a crush on him now 🤨

[seavoice]

okay i’ve been ruminating over why succession was so gripping and thrilling to me even if i hundred per cent am rooting for each and every person to fail explosively in the show, every time all the time. i hate cringe comedy usually but the cringe really is comedying this time i gotta say. and i think i finally got what’s most appealing to me about the characterization and story work, which is that...it’s really uninterested in rescuing these losers further than strictly necessitated by like. general humanity. 

the show i was watching before succession was this is us, which is of course very different sauce (even leaving aside the whole thing of the pearsons being about complicated but so clearly loving and painfully kind, non-billionaire people and the roys being. well. not that obviously). this is us is kind of known for its massive scope; the way it shows how lives stretch out and ripple in all ways and into all years, how you may know a person for an hour and still irrevocably change them, how a stranger carves your destiny, how every moment is hard-fought proof that you exist and have moved the lives of the people you love and all that good dramatic stuff that’s going to make you bawl your eyes out for an hour straight. so coming off that, one of the things i thought succession might do (early on, before i realized what they were doing) was sort of. pull the camera away for an episode (or even just a cold open), and show it from the perspective of the waystar employees or just normal people going about nyc, a quick sort of perspective correcting shift and back, just to drive home the utter ridiculousness of the roys. and even if not that specific this is us-inspired scenario, just a general store-bought Awfulness Mitigation ToolTM. heart of golder billionaire son. a beloved nanny. a single play in which greed loses out. anything that would re-contextualize the ridiculousness of the roys.

because over all it IS ridiculous right! it’s a power play. it’s a gambling addiction. it’s futile and stupid and greedy and inescapable in the way it’s this abusive family, but also in the way that. it’s an obscene amount of money! it’s status and birthright and entitlement and self-importance and it only ever ever can be taken even half-seriously by the people wholly entrenched in it. you pull back even a little from this cesspool of power hungry billionaires and are left with motives that are unreasonable and unrelatable for real people. but it strikes INCREDIBLY TRUE for these characters nonetheless, because they are not real people. and you see that, you see the disconnect in real time. you see why they would not make any other choice. why they are incapable of making another choice. they are not real people!  logan thinks his children don’t get it, don’t really understand the stakes, always seeing it for too big or too small, that they never have, but he is just as ridiculous as them now, even more so. he is as not-real a person as them.

and i say real people specifically because it’s such a big theme in the show, the nrpi and how “you’re not a real person” is levied as an insult over and over again, and just the out-of-touch meanness and smallness of their big grand lives. they are not real people! they use it as an insult, a negative marker, but they are never truly bothered by that disconnect in a way you’d expect from (let’s say) a lesser tv show about bad billionaires. 

they never really aim for even a parody of that ideal. like, you could make a case for kendall in his anti-dad era maybe, maybe shiv wrt personal politics, but in a more real sense...not really even then, let’s be honest. you see it in every interaction they have with people who are not the roys or the rich fucked up folks that play the roys’ games. just the tightness of this noose. it’s about the inescapability of a family, and thus it’s so rooted in the now and here. we never indulge in flashbacks. we never get a deeper look into the past than a quick glance over your shoulder, just as relevant as it has to be to get from point a to b.

logan says the past is fake and that’s true to how the show is envisioned. it’s never preoccupied in making you sympathize with the characters beyond what you’d sympathize with as a human seeing another go through a bad time. it doesn’t show you some hidden humane-ness or overemphasis  past tragedies or dig for saving graces. because it might be relevant to the family drama, but it isn’t as relevant to their company. and above all nothing is as relevant to the family as the company. the roys and their dirty empire probably irrevocably touch more lives than any other show dealing in multi episode epics about the kind stranger who brought you from the firestation, but it is never going to matter to them. they are not real people. it’s a show that tells you, okay, so we aren’t going to give you any tools to sympathize with these bad people other than a glimpse at their lives from their perspective, whole and sole. a mile in their shoes. do you relate to them now? that’s what usually works. and beyond all storytelling odds, it’s kind of...a no! and that’s a massive win for succession’s writing imo.

you don’t necessarily get to see them as sympathetic characters from their perspective, but you do get to see them briefly, as real people. but unlike other shows, them being real people doesn’t mean real people like your neighbour or your sister or the cd guy. they are as real as the actual failsons and faildaughters of greedy stupid billionaires and you are faced with the feeling of. wow they are just as ridiculous and stupid and hateful as they would be if they existed in real life. that’s the only time they are real people. writing!

[gayspock]

OK SOMEEEE gripes

im ACTUALLY extremely conflicted on some of the present day stuff and i think its mostly down to the characters

like im very happy with jeff, and i think he's fine as is - brilliant, even, bc hes a genuinely refreshing take imo as opposed to what they could have easily done (i.e unlikable, distant from it all husband). not that he would be CRAZY or unreasonable to resent shauna, but like... its just fucking so much funnier + more interesting to me to see a character kind of just go with it, rather than to have them stew in angst. like i think its more interesting and allows for them to explore different beats than what you'd assume they would if you'd just known the basics of what shauna was up to. imo

similarly i was happy with adam as a character, too, and i think they developed him well enough for who he was and how he functions in this story. im glad he didnt turn out to be javi (if he was, i guess, bc he still could be technically that kinda suck wway more now tbh booo) and whilst there was nooo way he was gonna survive if he was just some guy which he was

theres also guys like kevyn. my jokes aside abt how scary he is im kinda fine with him, and i do actually makes some kinda sense that hes a cop + that he's now so straight-laced. some loser divorced dad. and it'd be a good comparison to natalie, and the lifestyle she lives now and how their paths diverged. however i kind of wish they'd... just let him go? like i wish he'd been at the reunion, and they'dhad that exchanged and then he'd just walked away to his wife and kids and her back to the yellowjackets no return no return no return huh what was that YEHA. my point is. i feel like there's no true resolution between them two thats organic and it just kinda feels weird to keep him around past that. i know they need a cop character for whats happening with shauna now but it just feels kinda ... bizarre to have him playing that role with that creep dude. bc whilst i do prefer limited characters in a show like this and to keep it tight and clean it just feels weird for it to be him and for it to be THAT insular AND, again, for him to keep sticking around when i dont feel like theres anywhere for him to go.... like its kinda DIFFERENT with the other cop dude, bc he isnt pre-established and he does kinda just function moreso as just. a fucking yuckhead fuckhead but instead its just this weird uhhhh. and kevyn is back! um. he will continue serving this purpose and we will never touch on him and natalie again. bc we shouldnt ofc but it also feels weird to have him there without ever mentioning it LOL

who else. fuck. like i am also very conflicted abt tai's wife and son like.... they do just feel a bit like- theyre just there? and i think that DEFINITELY makes some sort of narrative sense with tai, and with her whole deal- she has it all, she has everything but she has nothinnggg but... IDK KINDA SAD MAN. bc its weird i'll go back to this with jeff and callie, but it does make SENSE that the non-yellowjackets characters are always gonna be secondary with the story theyre telling in more ways than them just being secondary characters but with how fucking impossible it is to reconnect with fucking ANYONE after everything they did/went through BUT ITS LIKE... like i said i kinda like jeff and ironically his absolute lack of personality became a personality, whereas with simone&sammy i feel like theyre just kinda... SUPER functioning and that does kinda make me worry because whilst i know a lot of ppl are yelling for tai/van endgame... i dont know it feels weird to write them off fuckin completely which is what i feel like the show might kinda lean into at some point...😭like i want more for them, and from them. and i also sorry i also hate fucking "scary child who sees the supernatural" trope SORRYYYY its so tired to me and so lazy . give this kid some proper fucking development

and i think its also another issue im having with the present day stuff. theres too many characters rn and its being misspent. like do not get me wrong im not against quirky elijah wood BUT i feel like misty's ENTIRE. FUCKING. ARC. RIGHT. NOW. would be so much more fucking effective if she was alone and tracking down natalie by herself and kinda struggling with that. OR if they kept up her rapport with jessica- like have her tag along, whether it'd be under the guise of a fixer or not, and maybe have her cause some tension bc again if eel like.. ITS SO MUCH WEIRDER just having jessica's entire stint just come to an end in the way it did and it would have been a much more solid throughline into s2 than to bring in elijah wood whos just genderbent misty and its like . ok its just nott.... INTERESTING TO ME... SO WHAT. SHES FOUND A GUY LIKE HER? WHO CARES MAN. IM SAYING THIS AS A LITTLE FREAK WHO CANT CONNECT WITH OTHERS & YEARNS FOR KINSHIP, LIKE... I JUST FEEL LIKE ITS KINDA BACKWARDS AND REGRESSIVE AND NOTHINGGGG. jessica was a much weirder fucking dynamic and i think could have been interesting and i do think theres ways they could have had them both pursue natalie but now its just... ehhhhhh like

and i also feel like elijah wood is kinda bringing up the comedic parts of misty's story and dont get me wrong i LOVED a lot of the dark humour bits from her in s1 but i feel likw now its kinda getting too close to just. that. kinda like just oh funny joke funny dark humour. and losing a lot of the substance it should have, which is kinda necessary to the humour itself....AND he's sort of stealing her limelight like WHO CARES. GO AWAY DUUDE. have confidence in misty to be able to CARRY this shit, cmon, bc no offence elijah but SHE WAS WAY BETTER AT IT! bc thats whats so GOOD ABOUT THE SHOW OTHERWISE- you have the confidence to let all these girlies to carry their plotlines by themselves, so dont slip!!! GET BACK UP. and again im saying with the too many characters thing- its just... ehrhh. who cares to spend so much time on him??? whos just out of nowhere when its like.. again i'd prefer it if you spent that time with taissa or with .....

CALLIE. SHHES PROBABLY THE PERSON IM THE MOST CONFLICTED ON IN THE WORLD. bc in so many ways again i feel like we cant focus on her too much in shauna's little life that shes made for herself but I JUST... I CANT HELP BUT FEEL LIKE WE'RE IN THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE SPOT IMAGINABLE WITH CALLIE, wherein we dont get enough of her and her side to really empathise with her but we get too much of her to find her on the wrong side of irritating-AND THAT. SUCKS. THATS THE WORST. EVER. BECAUSE SHES LITERALLY A TEENAGE GIRL. I FEEL LIKE THERES SO MUCH MORE THEY COULD DO WITH THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SHAUNA/CALLIE IF THEY PUSHED FOR IT MORE, BUT ITS JUST... again its in this such an awkwwaarddd position where they only bring her in to be difficult it feels like. and the thing is? shes being reasonable. MORE than. shes totally justified in all the shit shes doing. but bc of the unfortunate way its framed she comes off as...... sadly.... unlikable which . again AGAIN IT SUCKS. BECAUSE SHES A TEENAGE GIRL AND THIS FEELS LIKE THE FIRST SHOW IN A LONG TIME TO HAVE A CAST FULL OF UNLIKABLE FUCKING TEENAGE GIRLS BE THE BEST EVERRRRRR AND SHE COULD BE SO GOOD MAN SHE COULD BE SUCH A GOOD WAY FOR SHAUNA TO LOOK INTO THE PAST BUTEE..... they kinda just write her off too and bring her up to cause complications obly. thats all it is. and i dont know i do get it i dooo get it bc again it makes SENSE with shauna and who she is and where her life is that the presentation would thereforebe kinda more her perspective but also... i do just feel... ITCHES. LIKE IM CLAWING AT THE WALL

ok last thing maybe idk. idk how i feel about lottie at all. its strange. i felt like she..... was kinda not present enough in s1. does that make sense ever at all. i wish we had more from her and her whole visions thing, and she had as much focus in the past as the others did from the very beginning. bc i feel like in s1... we didnt see enough of her in that regard? like we got her- we got bits of her. but not enough of her-her. bc im fine with her kinda story on paper (ish) and how its playing out but i t does feel weirdly unba;anced across s1 / s2. and its throwing me a bit there

[screemnch]

I have… Probably over a hundred different little stories that I come up with as someone who definitely isn’t a maladaptive daydreamer… most of them are indulgent wish fulfillment that will never see the light of day and don’t actually go into the same categories as the stories that I plan on turning into books so…

On subjecting myself and my characters to the mortifying ordeal of being known I shall start with these casual little stories, and not my proper ones, starting with the most recent thing that my brain has been occupied with, namely…

These losers.

Read about them if you want, I guess. Though uh… Do be forewarned that this story touches upon things like transphobia and homophobia. Because we can’t have nice things.

In my head this is a bit of a… Coming of age story? The main focus would be on the characters on the right - Luke and Jade, who are siblings growing up in an… extremely conservative family. Their regular normal people life becomes a bit more complicated as Jade comes out as a tans girl. In the illustration I decided to draw her a bit later on in the story, once she is a little further along her transition, but as you could expect in the beginning it… Doesn’t really go over well. Her parents even consider sending her off to a conversion camp, though fortunately are convinced not to.

Luke is Jade’s older brother who, aside from taking after his parents, is also very easily influenced by his friends (who, unfortunately, aren’t very good people). He’s a textbook jock, with most people thinking his only possible future lies in a sports career. The only person unaware of this opinion is Luke himself, who is still invested in his studies, even when his teachers don’t have high hopes for him. Jade coming out was quite literally his first time putting any actual thought into his parents’ and his own biases. He… Doesn’t react well, at first. Eventually he does come around and makes up for the damage he’s caused.

Jade is about two years younger than the rest of the gang. There are… A few obvious things that she’s going through. At first she is quite literally alone against everyone and really really scared, but throughout the story she finds her confidence and learns to strike a balance between prioritizing her safety and genuine self expression. She comes across as shy to most people, but that’s only because she is under a lot of mental strain. In a comfortable environment she is a little goofball.

Hemlock and Colin are Luke’s classmates (the three of them are seniors at the start of the story), though they hardly ever spoke before the inciting incident. That incident being Colin breaking the nose of one of Luke’s friends and everyone having to go to the principal’s office.

Hemlock is a relatively chill person, though they participate quite regularly in activism. Them and Colin have been friends since middle school, which was partially thanks to that. As with many calm and sweet looking individuals, Hemlock is particularly terrifying when they get angry - not because they’re violent, but because they are willing to go to unreasonable extremes to do what they think is right. Being intersex (which is something I’d have to do a lot of research on if I wanted to make it into a story) they’ve had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and are eager to help others in need of support. When they hear about Jade’s transition, they immediately insert themselves into the situation.

Colin is the overly intense and angry counterpart to Hemlock’s chill and sweet personality. He also has a much shorter fuse than them and is quite a bit more violent. The kind of person that looks like they hate you even if they don’t. He grew up raised by a single mother and one of his big aspirations is to look like she did in her teenage years. He also does martial arts, though I’ve still yet to decide what kind. Despite his aggressive and hostile character, he gets along surprisingly well with Jade (through mostly making fun of her brother).

The story essentially kicks off a couple of days after Jade comes out and her parents are still contemplating sending her off to a conversion camp. Luke and his friends get into a bit of an altercation with Hemlock and Colin, which ends with said friend having his nose broken. While waiting at the principal’s office, through a bunch of shenanigans, Hemlock and Colin catch wind of what’s happening with Jade and decide that this is absolutely their business. The rest of the story is basically the four of these goofs clashing, goofing around and eventually becoming good friends. And maybe some found family. As a treat.

That’s… Extremely long for a short summary, but I’ve… Always wanted to share some of my oc concepts and stories, even if they’re a bit watery in terms of substance. I do intend to draw more of these characters, as well as potentially the characters from other stories and/or the dnd campaign I’m in. So yeah.

[belliesandburps]

Tips in Writing - Internal Conflict

Taking a break from kink stuff to share some general writing tips as someone who’s been “in the game” for a bit.  XD

This first one is about writing organic conflict among your protagonists.  Why it’s important, what to avoid, and what to zero in on.

There’s a tricky thing in writing a lot of people get wrong; conflict.

See, conflict is essential.  It doesn’t just mean conflict with a villain or an overarching threat, but conflict within.  Without it, you have no story and no growth.  It’s through conflict that your characters grow.  In screenwriting, it tends to happen in the “rock bottom” of any script, when things are at their lowest and your heroes are all in disarray before they learn something about themselves, grow, become better, and unite for the finale.

The problem is, all too often, conflict becomes contrived or forced.  Like it happens because you EXPECT that beat to happen.  My favorite example was IT - Chapter 1, because for as fun as that movie was, my god, the Loser Club all snapping at each other after their big showdown with Pennywise...only to IMMEDIATELY get back together after he goes after Bev was forced as sin. 

Conflict has be organic.  It has to feel natural, and growth can come through revelation, but it has to be something that occurs overtime.  Keeping things spoiler free, I said for a while that a big part of why I actually quite liked the dark arc of MHA despite it running contrary to the show / manga is because it felt 100% organic, and was completely in-line with Midoriya as a character.  More importantly, it was in line with Midoriya’s biggest character flaws which have existed since day 1.  This arc is the culmination of those flaws kind of reaching a full boiling point.  Which made the payoff so much more cathartic and meaningful.

In my HISS series, three of the main supporting characters are Nara, Lev and John.  They’re all three mercenaries part of a larger gang of mercenaries that Nara runs.  She’s the boss and she don’t eff around despite being bombastic and very cocky.  But there’s a lot more to her beneath the surface and a lot more fueling why she does what she does.  That same thing bleeds over to Lev and John, but manifests itself differently with each one.  John is decidedly “unliked” among the group.  He doesn’t cause arguments or stir shit up for the hell of it, but he and Nara very clearly dislike each other, or more accurately, Nara dislikes him and he’s mostly indifferent.  He’s not a likeable person, but he’s also not an asshole either.  The conflict comes from the fact that, not only are their personalities night’n day, but both wanna run things in very different ways.  And neither side is necessarily wrong.  Nara’s the boss so what she says goes, but John’s alternatives aren’t unreasonable and could work too.  It’s an instance where she kind of despises John but has him as her number two because of seniority and because he’s very good at what he does.  So part of her hates him, but a bigger part of her NEEDS him.

Lev, meanwhile, is stuck between the middle because he’s incredibly loyal to Nara and is with her through thick-n-thin.  But at the same time, he doesn’t hate John the way Nara seems like she does half the times.  Lev’s probably the closest thing John has to a friend among the entire gang.  And while John doesn’t admit he cares for Lev or ever hang out with him or even act like much of a friend, he’s the first to always have Lev’s back.  The two are teamed up most of the time, and both work really well together.  It’s a conflict brought on by a trio of mercenaries who all want the same thing and are often on the same side, but the resentment between two means there’s always an air of tension, made worse by the man in the middle just wanting everyone to get along, but knowing that it’s impossible because of things that occurred between the two.

Aidan, in massive contrast to Hakari, is a cocky dickhead who thinks he’s better than everyone, and doesn’t need help.  Except his journey is one that kind of REQUIRES him to get help because he literally won’t survive without it.  And in his case, the conflict comes from him just being an asshole who is stuck with mages he believes are lesser than he is, and are only dragging him down.  It’s learning to lean on others; recognizing that no one can truly be an Ace of all Spades and that, for as great as you may be at something, there are plenty MORE things others will be infinitely better at.  And instead of trying to be the best, Aidan has to learn to lean on those strengths and build people up instead of constantly pushing them down.

Conflict and character flaws go hand-n-glove together because its those flaws that lead to conflict.  Understand your characters and their biggest weaknesses.  Find out what they need to learn and how they can become better people over the entirety of their journeys, and use that to inform on conflict. 

Just don’t ever make conflict arise “because it has to.”  It DOES have to, but it also has to be the natural boiling point (that just happens to coincide with the rock bottom of your story).  Because your readers / audience will know if something feels contrived or manufactured, and that will, inevitably, take them out of the moment. 

And now, back to your regularly scheduled kinky goodness.  :P

[evertriedsoywithyourpopcorn]

5 Reasons Roman Is Infuriating (And Why I DO NOT have a crush on him)

Chapter 5: To A Land Of Our Imagination

Read on AO3 

Chapter 1

Word count: 3471

Tw: Wounds, food, swearing

~~~

Logan planned the second date two days after the first. A picnic in the imagination, that Roman insisted on helping out with.

It took them quite a while to prepare everything. A red gingham print blanket in a field of many flowers on a hill, the sight of a rather giant disney-inspired castle in the far distance, mountains enveloping the horizons; very picturesque, certainly. He even offered to set up an orchestra off the side for them, but Logan declined. Logan was worried that they would get sunburnt due to the realistic touch that he brings, but Roman insisted that wouldn’t happen. And then Logan insisted that he didn’t know that it wouldn’t.

The banter was probably what took the longest time. It started with the back and forth about the likelihood of a sunburn, and then whether Thomas would typically tan or burn, and then it spiralled into nothingness. Obviously Roman made zero sense, but Logan was still determined to prove his point.

“No, Thomas should not get a surgical beauty mark. It’s pointless and expensive when you could have the same results with the smallest amounts of makeup.”

“But it adds character! All of the glamor girls have beauty marks! And besides, why put in the effort of putting on the beauty mark every day when you can just wake up that way?” Roman rebuttals, and Logan cannot begin to express just how stupid that argument is.

“A few seconds of a makeup pencil and maybe some powder isn’t that much effort. What would be an effort is spending a ridiculous sum of money on something he might regret and want gone. It would be a waste of resources for something thought of on a whim. That money would also go into the beauty industry, the industry that profits off of one’s self-hatred.” He argues, because yes, in a world where hating oneself is so common and so profitable, the most rebellious thing one can do is to learn to love themself.

“Makeup is also a part of the beauty industry.”

“It’s nowhere near as harmful and expensive though. It’s not just about insecurities, but also accentuating features that you enjoy in yourself. It also happens to be an art form, so I’m surprised that you’d even try that useless fact.”

Roman huffs. He’s probably not that interested in the beauty mark, but sometimes impulse can make you do stupid things. He does however look upset, and Logan hesitates.

“You know what you can do with makeup?” Logan asks, and they look at each other.

“What?” He asks, still pouting.

“Make many beauty marks. And change their locations when you feel like it.” He offers, and Roman lights up like that very dangerous chemical reaction Remus and himself attempted on bonding day.

“By the fourth musketeer, you’re right!” Roman touches his own face, lost in thought. “You could switch it up daily!”

It took a while longer for him to acknowledge what they were supposed to be doing, and then they were touching up the flowers (which is when Logan notices Bells of Ireland, sticking out amongst the other flowers, and assisting in integrating them into the green fields, like the flowers just popped up amongst nature. He believes Roman had summoned them around for him, and he can’t help but smile.) and then heading to the exit so Logan could get the ‘object of his affections’.

“Are you going to be in the imagination?” Logan asks him.

“Well, duh. I’ll obviously be out of earshot, but duty calls, and I have quests to attend to! Can’t have a realm without it’s heroes, right?”

“I guess not.” Logan nods. Roman’s going to play immersive make-belief then. Very well. That does usually help with Thomas’s motivation. Logan thinks of asking to join him sometime, and then decides that would most likely end horribly. Maybe Dungeons & Dragons would be a better solution.

He leaves Roman at the doorway, going to retrieve Patton. It isn’t very hard; he finds him in the living room holding a picnic basket and smiling brightly.

“That really, isn’t necessary.” He points to the basket. “We have food at the location.”

“What’s a little more? Besides, I have a little surprise to help with the planning.” He leans in and fake whispers.

Logan blinks. “A planner?”

“No, even better. But don’t guess. You know your old Patton-ership Person can’t keep a secret for very long.”

Logan groans at the pun, and they head back through Roman’s door to the imagination. It isn’t long before they reach the flowery hills (Logan wanted it to be accessible, to avoid an awkwardly long walk), and he sits down on the large blanket. Patton coos at the view, and the enchanting flower fields.

“Is Roman here?” He asks, looking around. He sets the basket down.

“He said he wouldn’t be nearby, and I trust his word, but he is in the imagination.”

Patton lets out a sigh in relief and sits down. “Okay. I just know he’d be mad if he found out, buuut…” He opens the petite basket’s lid, and like the objects from Mary Poppins bag sprouts Janus, arms held out dramatically.

“What is up losers? I’m here to foil all of your plans.” He lightly steps out of the basket, and plops down so they’re all facing each other in a triangle. “By making them better. You’ll thank me later.”

Although Logan is surprised, he isn’t really bothered. He’s quite similar to Roman in the theatrics, so perhaps he’ll prove to add ideas that would give life and a charming flair to his own.

“Very well.” Logan pulls out a notepad from god-knows-where. “Welcome to the ‘date’.” He does quotation marks with his fingers, and Patton leans excitedly to Janus.

“I think that’s what we’re calling it now. ‘Date’, but you have to do the thing with your fingers.” He does the finger quotations.

“What a lame concept. I love it.” Janus smiles. “I’m absolutely dreading spectating this ‘date’.” He does the finger quotations, and adds a little more emphasis on the word. At least he seems to be having fun.

“So. First step: The goal.”

“Find out if Roman really does have legs.” Janus answers at the same time Patton exclaims “Marry a pretty prince!”

“That was not supposed to be a guessable statement. And both of you are wrong. Patton, we do not have legal documents and cannot legally marry. The goal is to ‘woo’ Roman.”

“There may be or may not be a very easy solution for this.” Janus suggests, lounging back and checking his nails despite his gloves.

“What would be that solution?” Logan narrows his eyes at him.

“Oh I don’t know… Tell him how you feel.” He looks at him face-on, dead-serious.

“But… He most likely does not feel the same way. Besides, he wouldn’t like something so… Insignificant. He’s embodied himself after a prince, for Newton’s sake.” Logan argues, heart clutching painfully (metaphorically, obviously. If someone’s heart clutches painfully in real life, he recommends they go to a doctor and get it checked), and looking off into the distance, calculating the odds of rejection. He so far has not detected any signs or repercussions in the romance, and with Roman’s celebrity crushes being people like Adam Driver and Orville Peck, how is he supposed to compare? He can make a schedule planner less important than a social engagement.

“Oh come on, cheer up champ! I’m sure he’ll love it no matter what you do!” Patton encourages, giving him thumbs up. Logan looks at him, unimpressed.

“But will he really? These… Unnecessary feelings have rendered me even less functioning around him, so psychologically speaking, I’ve been even less perfect around him. He lives off the idea of a perfect, film-like life. Disney prince… Disney Relationship, Disney prince partner. Why would he like me? I look like a teacher.” As Logan continues his rant, now up and pacing, Janus shoots Patton a knowing look, and Patton eventually looks at him with an unknowing look.

“What?” Patton asks quietly, as Logan rambles.

“You don’t know?” Janus looks surprised.

“Know what?”

“Roman hasn’t told you about… You know…”

Patton looks at him, attempting to decipher what he means. Eventually, he quizzically does a limp wrist.

“No!” Janus whisper-shouts, exasperated. “Of course he’s gay. I’m talking about something else.”

“I’m lost.” He admits.

Janus leans in and whispers into his ear.

“Oh yeah! He has.” Patton gives him a thumbs up.

“I need a new style!” Logan turns and points at them, and they both display their shock easily.

“Dear god no. You’d look more out of place than Remus during the cosplay phase.” Janus jerks back, appalled. (Besting Remus in being out of place while he was in Thomas’s cosplay phase is nothing to roll your eyes at. Stripper Kermit is only one of many horrendous ideas that Janus has had the pleasure of being scarred by.)

“But think about it. You often see someone in a new light when they go through a big style change, whether they’ve changed as a person or not. When we altered our outfits for the first time, it was like a fresh new start. We were new, and more impressive models of our past selves of just three seconds before.”

“I see your point kiddo, but that just isn’t you! It’ll work against you in the long run if you try to be someone that you’re not.”

“Agreed. Seriously. Not to mention you’d be boring no matter what you wear; might as well be more comfortable doing it.”

Logan considers it. He nods, and sits down. “Alright. Thank you for your encouragement. I’m still not going to tell him outright.”

Patton raises his hand. “I have an idea.”

“Alright, hit us.” Janus looks at him.

“If you are to hit us, do it gently please. And preferably on the arm. I quite like these glasses.” Logan nods, accepting his fate.

“It’s an expression.” Janus side-eyes him, and gestures for Patton to start.

“How about… We leave the idea of telling him directly as an option, but also make a plan? That way, you have many options to pick from!” He encourages, looking like a parent bargaining with their toddler.

“That wouldn't be unreasonable.” Logan takes out a pen, and clicks it on. “Now, why don’t we start?”

By the time they leave the imagination, Logan has notes full of ideas. It’s a little bit difficult to have the best brainstorms without a literal embodiment of creativity, but both of them are bad ideas to invite for different reasons, and not being in charge of creativity doesn’t stop the rest of them from coming up with creative thoughts. (If that were the case, the same concept could be applied to himself, and it would have probably killed him by now if he were the only one with an ounce of logic.)

He steps into Roman’s room. Nice as always, if not looking slightly blank. Maybe he’s just used to the disorder now.

He rips out a separate paper, and leaves it on Roman’s cluttered desk, to notify him in the future that he is no longer in his realm. He catches a glimpse of other papers on his desk, and is that-

“Poetry?” Obviously, Logan does not want to disrespect his privacy, but he does read the line he has seen. It was quite good. It seemed to be about jealousy, but he’s not the best at deciphering emotions, so he isn’t completely sure. He also catches a few typos.

He stands straight again, paces a little bit and just as he's about to sink out, he hears the imagination door open.

Roman stumbles in, heaving and drenched in sweat. He looks dull and lifeless, until he looks at Logan. It’s like a switch goes off, and he looks like his usual self again.

“Heading out?”

“That’s right. The date just ended.”

“That’s wonderful! How did it go?” He asks, strutting over, trying hard but failing to hide a limp.

“Are you alright?” Logan looks at him, and the standard first aid courses that Thomas has taken in his lifetime start kicking in.

"I'm-" And a poorly concealed wince. "Okay. Just a scrape from the dragon witch. Nothing a happy pappy prince can't handle."

"That's not something you usually say." Logan squints at him, taking a step closer. "Did you hit your head? You're starting to sound like Patton. I'm not leaving here until you let me help you."

"Ugh, fine." He flails out his arms, and then jerks them back in pain. "But seriously, how did it go?"

"It went well. Thank you for the Irish bells. We discussed things that one would do in a romantic setting, and then we dispersed. There will be another date fairly soon. I just stayed to drop off a note on your desk to inform you of our departure."

His eyes go wide. "My desk? Did you read any of my writing?" He asks, sounding panicked, with a hint of defensive nature.

"I did, actually. Not on purpose, I'm sorry. It was a poem that I believe is about jealousy. I read the third paragraph. It was quite well done." Logan bashfully admits.

"Oh. Thank you." He offers a small smile.

Logan suddenly remembers the wounds. "Now. Let's get to fixing you up. Do you have any cuts? Scrapes? Open wounds?" As he sits Roman down and checks over his injuries, he can't help but hurt a little bit on the inside. Roman's self preservation seems to have left him a long time ago, and he always gets reckless. He can't seem to let anyone see his weakness, and that's perhaps what he and Logan have most in common; although, Logan hasn't been injured physically in quite a while.

He finds a first aid kit (in Roman's nightstand. How concerning.) and helps patch up his wounds. Thankfully, Roman wasn't fully lying, as his injuries mainly consisted of bruises and mild cuts, but Logan made sure to take care of them all the same.

"I just realized." Roman whispers, eyes closed as Logan puts a band-aid on his arm.

"That's a new concept."

Roman ignores that. "You've done so much for me over the last while. To be fair, you always do things for me, but this week... Teaching me how to bake, leaving out cookies for me, which were heavenly by the way, thank you, helping with nail polish even though it was on your bed, this... It's quite a lot. I feel like I haven't done enough for you."

"Oh come on, don't metaphorically sell yourself short. This whole time, you've helped me set up my dates with Patton. Many of them, in fact. I had been nervous to tell him, and you helped me the whole way along. I am quite grateful for your contributions, Roman." Logan chuckles a little bit, because although expressing your gratitude for something that you don't care about may seem pointless, Roman still put in all of the effort. He did the planning, the setup and design, and wherever he was needed, he'd be. Logan had heard that he even managed to convince Remus to keep the funky business away from the 'dates'. That's quite a lot of work, and Logan appreciates every second of it.

"Nooo but that isn't enough! I want to take you somewhere special to thank you."

"Really Roman, that isn't necessary-"

"Thomas!" Roman screams into his ceiling. "You know how you're free in three weekends!? Yeah, well you're going to a planetarium now! Bring friends so you don't look like a loser." And sure enough, he can feel that Thomas has got the idea.

Logan's heart metaphorically explodes out of his chest with how strong it's beating. Thomas hasn't been to a planetarium in ages. It isn't really Logan's role to suggest activities on the fun side, so he's kept to himself, silently hoping for another side to bring it up. They have spare money for it. And here it is. In three weeks from now.

"That's... I don't know what to say. Thank you." He clutches the first aid kit to his chest.

"Well duh thank me, but it's okay. It's payback." Roman gives him two band-aid speckled thumbs up. "Consider it a date."

Uh-

Hm. Well, there goes Logan. On the floor. Dead.

~~~

"More sophisticated and logical word for fuck."

Logan slams open Virgil's door, just as he's putting the last details on his embroidered spider web jacket.

"Dude, what?" Vrigil turns to him, only to see Logan laying on the floor, malfunctioning.

He goes over to the lifeless form. “Logan… You, like, never come to me with your emotional problems. I can’t help people. Do you want me to tease you? Because I can totally tease you.” He pokes him, and Logan rolls over to face the ceiling.

“It’s because I never have emotional problems, Virgil. I believe in you to keep a secret however.”

“Is this about the planetarium Thomas just planned? Because I can totally see why he shouldn’t go, with all those people around, judging his every step, and the chance of being separated from his friends, or seeing someone familiar and it’s just awkward..”

“No, I agreed to the idea. I had wanted to go for quite a while.”

“Does it… Have to do with Roman?”

“Of course it has to do with Roman. Even now, he is still the largest thorn in my side.”

“Apparently you’re a masochist then. So, what’s up with him and the planetarium?” Virgil circles him, seeming bored but willing to hear the story.

“He was the one who suggested it. In fact he said to  ‘a date’.”

“Ahh. So you are here for emotional issues.”

“It’s not an emotional issue. I simply wanted to tell you that I think it is an optimal time to tell Roman about my newfound fondness for him.” He sits up, and Virgil gives him a hand to stand.

Virgil chuckles. “It’s not bad to ask for help, Logan. But that does sound like a good idea, or whatever.”

“Of course it’s a good idea.” Logan says, hand bouncing up and down at a rapid pace. He looks like he’s sweating. Virgil squints.

“But you’re nervous.” He observes. “And you want to talk about it with someone.” He holds up a hand before Logan can protest. “Ah-ah. Don’t lie to me on this one. Sit down.” He takes out a chair, and then looks at Logan. “You know what, maybe not in my room.”

So they go to Logan’s room, and he explains his plans, and some worries, and Virgil nods along and agrees.

“By the way, have you been seeing the way Roman’s been acting lately?” After Logan seems to have finished with ideas, and they were just sitting together, Virgil speaks up.

“No? Perhaps. He did want to make cookies, which is odd for him, and he called me kiddo, if I remember correctly.” Logan recounts the last few days. He’s not completely sure. Roman has always been a slight enigma to him.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. A few days ago, he came into the living room, and he was wearing a polo! If it weren’t for the colors, I would’ve thought he was Patton. And then.” Virgil stares at Logan, who looks impassively back at him. “Just yesterday, Remus told me that he dumped some of his posters into the trash.”

“Ah, perhaps he’s finally taking advantage of his wall space.” Logan says quite proudly, in a room where there are many cork boards on every left-over piece of wall he has open.

“No, you don’t get it. When’s the last time you’ve seen his room without posters?”

“To be honest, I don’t remember.” Logan admits. Virgil nods along, his eyes staring at him intensely. “Because I barely ever go into his room.” Virgil slumps. “Listen, Virgil, the concern is appreciated, and I support you continuing to collect evidence on this matter, however, it sounds like he’s trying something new out. I have no reason yet to be concerned.”

“Okay, whatever.” He gets up from his chair. “I hope you feel better, nerd. Catch you later.” He salutes, and just sinks out.

Logan continues to stare at where Virgil once was, thoughts jittering. Is Roman really acting that strange? He almost sounds like he’s trying to become Patton. Maybe he’s looking to renew his look for Thomas? He had been rather heart-broken when he misinterpreted Thomas calling him his hero. He also likes costume changes. Maybe he’s preparing something.

Logan hopes that Roman will be alright in the end. And that he himself will be as well. He takes a deep breath. He can do this.

~~~

Taglist: @crossiantgay 

[lesbianrobin]

hey guys it's me again back on my bullshit <3 wanna hear my theory about how tommy created king steve? warning it’s like 2800 words long okay let's go!

So, at first glance in S1, the Steve and Tommy dynamic seems somewhat obvious: King Steve and his loyal sidekick. This post is me arguing that the only reason we really have this perception is because Steve is the more attractive of the pair (no hate to Chester Rushing, he’s very cute, but. Joe Keery) and because Tommy himself encouraged it. Tommy was actually the more “dominant” partner in the duo. I believe that it was Tommy who encouraged Steve to lean into the “King Steve” persona and who encouraged belief in this persona among their classmates, all for his own benefit.

Before we can really get into it, I have to establish something about Steve’s character, specifically that he bases his self-worth and self-image almost entirely on what others say and think about him. I’m basing this assumption off of a few key moments in the series, but I don’t want this to be insanely long so I’ll try to focus on season two where this trait is most evident.

At the Halloween party, Nancy tells Steve that they killed Barb and that their “love” is bullshit, and then later outside of the gym she insists that he isn’t being fair or reasonable in his anger with her. The next day Steve shows up to her house with roses, rehearsing an apology (”I’m sorry... what am I sorry for?) even though he doesn’t feel that he’s done anything wrong. That’s important: apologizing even though he doesn’t actually believe or understand his feelings and actions to be wrong. He’s trusting Nancy’s perception that he’s been unreasonable above his own hurt feelings and his own perception that he’s done nothing he needs to apologize for. Then, at the end of the season, he tells Nancy that he may have been a shitty boyfriend, but he’s a pretty damn good babysitter. 

Sometime between going to the Wheelers’ house with flowers to apologize and talking to Nancy at the Byers’, Steve did a pretty serious 180 from “What the hell am I sorry for, what did I even do wrong” to “I was a shitty boyfriend and you should go be with Jonathan.” The last time he interacted with Nancy was prior to the flower incident, so what happened to cause this shift in perspective? I’d like to suggest... that nothing happened! 

See, Steve is on a pretty linear emotional path in S2 after the Halloween party. At first, he’s so upset that he can’t even look at Nancy, asking Jonathan to take her home. The next day he avoids her until she confronts him, at which point he’s rather confident in his own feelings that Nancy has hurt him and doesn’t love him like she should. As time goes on, though, he loses confidence in his feelings. He buys her flowers to apologize. He isn’t remotely angry with Nancy or Jonathan once they show up together and it’s pretty clear that something’s going on between them. Finally, he calls himself a shitty boyfriend. I think that the more time passes, the less Steve believes in himself, and the more he tends to default to believing others despite his own feelings. As the anger fades, he questions himself, and since he loves and trusts Nancy, he’s inclined to believe her! Since she doesn’t love him, he must have done something wrong. Because Nancy doesn’t love him, because she wants Jonathan, because their relationship was “bullshit,” he now believes he must have been a shitty boyfriend.

Sidenote, in S3 he says a lot of shit about how he’s a loser with no future, and the way he says it indicates (to me) that it’s something he hears quite often, likely from his father. Even though it’s pretty normal to be working minimum wage the summer after you graduate high school and not have things figured out yet, even though he’s literally helped save his friends’ lives, perhaps even helped save the whole town, Steve has internalized the idea that he’s a total failure at the ripe old age of 18 (19?) and I can’t help but think that it’s because his father has told him. So. Also in S3, he says his hair is his greatest feature, and apparently people literally call him Steve “the Hair” Harrington so like, maybe he just knows he has really good hair, but he ALSO might be responding to the nickname by saying like, “Oh, okay, the hair is Objectively my best feature, okay.” Just a little bit of speculation!

I know this is a lot of my own personal opinions and speculation, but if you can get behind it, let’s keep going! If Steve is someone whose every belief about himself is a direct response to the words and feelings of those around him, if he places the opinions of others above his own feelings, it would logically follow that he might be easily emotionally manipulated.

So, let’s apply this lens to his friendship with Tommy!

Let’s run down the list. Steve cleans up after Tommy, making excuses for his shitty behavior, even wordlessly giving Carol his own food at lunch after Tommy ruined hers. He allows Tommy and Carol to have sex in his mom’s bed, and as indicated by their familiarity with the bedroom and knowledge of where the spare sheets are, this is a regular occurrence. He’s also always seen driving the two of them around. 

Neither Tommy nor Carol is ever really seen doing anything kind for Steve. They tease his girlfriend, then later use his heartbreak as an excuse to graffiti some shit and make cruel jokes about Nancy and Jonathan. That’s just not the behavior of a couple hangers-on to the most popular kid in school! Neither of them ever even pretend to give a shit about Steve. It seems that Tommy and Carol were very comfortable using Steve for his big empty house and his nice car and his popularity at school because they’d been using him for years at that point, and they thought there was no way he’d ever ditch them.

I think it’s generally accepted among fans that Steve and Tommy have been close friends for years. Tommy’s familiar with Steve’s father’s infidelity, and is comfortable enough to joke and laugh about it with Steve. The two of them just... operate like people who’ve existed around each other for a long time. So, if we accept that Steve and Tommy have been friends for awhile, we can then accept three things: the two of them know each other very well, Tommy is used to having fun at Steve’s expense, and Steve is used to allowing it.

When Steve does finally stand up to Tommy and Carol, Tommy turns on him immediately. It’s an incredibly fast turn. He shoves Steve up against his car, physically threatens him, and proceeds to taunt him angrily even as he’s driving away. Specifically he yells, “That’s it, run away Stevie boy, run away! Just like you always do,” and continues to shout variations on this phrase even after Steve’s driven far enough that Tommy’s only yelling to himself. The fact that Tommy keeps shouting after Steve can’t hear him indicates that he is genuinely very upset by Steve’s standing up against him and Carol. His fury, however, as indicated by the speed with which he turned on Steve, seems to be less like that of one who feels betrayed by a friend and more like one angry at some perceived loss or threat. 

Now, let me just state the obvious: that was a really weird thing for Tommy to be yelling!

There’s no real precedent at this point (or any time) in the show for Steve “running away,” unless you count him running from the cops, which... Tommy also did, and which also happened, like, ten minutes ago, which I don’t think would really qualify for the wording “like you always do.” Tommy also suddenly calls him “Stevie boy,” which (correct me if I’m wrong) nobody has called Steve thus far. Maybe he’s just trying to mock and belittle Steve in any way he can think of, but it’s just... weirdly specific. The whole thing is a bit of a non-sequitur.

But! Remember how we established that Steve and Tommy, by virtue of having been friends for a significant period of time, know each other pretty well? Remember how Tommy is knowledgeable about Steve’s father’s infidelity, so familiar that he’s comfortable joking about it? Keep that in mind.

This phrase that Tommy shouts at Steve only makes sense in the context of some offscreen information that we the viewer are not privy to, but which Tommy and Steve are. What might that information be? Nothing in the show indicates that Steve has a history of picking fights prior to the incident with Jonathan. He’s a fairly respectable suburban kid, what is Tommy accusing him of running from? It’s my opinion that the only logical answer is that Tommy’s referencing a specific event with Steve’s “asshole” father, or a specific phrase that Steve has perhaps often heard from his father. I’m gonna ask you to sit on this assumption for a minute, and I’ll come back and support it soon.

Okay, so that’s S1 out of the way. At this point, a few things are clear: Steve has issues with his dad. Tommy knows about those issues. Steve allowed himself to be used by Tommy and Carol for some indeterminate yet significant amount of time before finally snapping and dumping them completely, something which infuriates Tommy.

Tommy is also in S2! And... all he does is tell Steve that Nancy and Jonathan are skipping school together. He never actually interacts with Nancy or Jonathan; he shows up in S2 entirely to mock Steve, to use his deepest fears and insecurities against him. 

First thing: in the S2 shower scene after basketball practice, Tommy makes it a point to shove Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship in Steve’s face. Billy doesn’t know Steve, so he attacks his basketball skills and his keg stand record, but Tommy? Tommy knows about Steve’s dad cheating on his mom, he was there for the S1 fistfight, he knows how monumental infidelity is to Steve, especially in the case of Nancy and Jonathan, and so that is what he chooses to torment Steve with, and it clearly strikes a nerve. 

Now’s where I circle back to my assertion that Tommy was referencing/quoting Steve’s father while yelling at him back in S1. S2 makes it clear that Tommy  knows Steve’s biggest insecurities, and he intentionally exploits them for his own purposes. This, combined with the way Tommy demonstrates intimate knowledge of Steve’s family situation and the fact that his words just don’t quite make sense in context, the fact that “Stevie boy” sounds like something a father may call his young son, makes me believe that at some point, Steve told Tommy about something his dad said that hurt him, and Tommy remembered that to use against him later. 

This paragraph is just speculation on what Tommy might be referring to, so skip if you want, it’s entirely my own opinion. We know that Steve’s parents sleep in separate bedrooms and his father can’t be trusted not to cheat, and thus we might assume that they argue a lot. Maybe his parents get into lots of arguments, and whenever Steve chooses to remove himself from the situation, he’s accused of running away. Maybe Steve runs off whenever he gets in trouble with his father. There’s a lot of possibilities, but either way, “run away, Stevie boy, run away just like you always do” just... sounds too personal and specific to be something random and meaningless that Tommy came up with on the spot.

Now, in S2, Tommy also appears to have latched onto Billy rather quickly after Billy’s arrival in town. Coincidentally, Billy is kind of obsessed with Steve and taking him down, despite the fact that Steve never sought him out or challenged him in any way. Steve has been minding his own business! When they later end up in a fistfight, Billy says that he’s “been dying to meet this King Steve” that people have been telling him about, and I can’t help but think... who would make it their priority to talk to Billy about Steve Harrington? Like, new guy from California moves to my small Indiana town, I don’t want to tell him about some popular guy at school who’s gotten kinda lame and quiet lately, I want to ask him about himself, or tell him what we do for fun around here, right? So who might be incentivized to talk Steve up to a guy who’s clearly itching for a fight, a guy dying to prove that he’s top dog? Who did we see hanging out with Billy a couple of times?

Did you say Tommy? Because it’s Tommy! It certainly seems to me as though Tommy saw an opportunity in Billy. The opportunity to befriend someone with a certain social power (much like with Steve), but also the opportunity to torment or get back at Steve in some way. I think that Tommy intentionally inflated the character of “King Steve” to Billy in the hopes that Billy would pick a fight with Steve and Steve would get his ass kicked without Tommy having to get his hands dirty.

Which makes me wonder... what if Tommy played up that King Steve image to people besides Billy? Other kids at Hawkins High... or perhaps Steve himself. Remember how Steve internalizes things? Believes that he must be whatever others see in him? Yeah.

Let’s say you’re an asshole teenage boy who wants it all. You want to be popular. You want to have a spot to hang out with your girlfriend with no parents around. You want to feel strong and powerful. You meet a kid who could give you all of that, and all he wants in return is friendship. He doesn’t even seem to care if that friendship is genuine or not! All you have to do is hang around and make him feel like a cool kid. Convince him to throw a small party, you and your girlfriend get free reign of his nice big house. Make sure he knows that he’s got Prom King potential, that he’s the top dog, and you get to be one of the popular guys, too. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you can recognize the opportunity for what it is.

One last thing: Actual Steve is nothing like he seems around Tommy and Carol in the start of S1. Making friends with Dustin and coming up with a goofy handshake, singing to cheer Robin up in S3, singing into the bat to try and cheer Nancy up in S1, holding her hand during their first time, unabashedly telling her she’s beautiful and that he missed her even if only an hour had passed... Steve is a very emotional, dorky guy, and we never really got to see that side of him when he was around Tommy. I just find that interesting in light of the fact that Steve and Tommy seem to be otherwise rather close. Steve was clearly playing a part to some degree while around them, and in S3 he explicitly says that he behaved the way he did in high school because he was concerned about what others would think of him, about losing his popularity. Even prior to their argument, Steve was wary around Tommy, concerned about losing his friendship despite the fact that Tommy was a pretty objectively shitty friend.

So, here’s what we know. Tommy knows a lot about Steve, including his private family issues, and he isn’t above using that knowledge to hurt or manipulate Steve. In fact, he seems to be really good at it. Tommy benefitted from Steve’s popularity, from him throwing parties and living up to the “King Steve” image. Steve followed Tommy’s lead in their friendship, cleaned up after him, made excuses for him, and let him get away with just about anything. He masked aspects of his personality that didn’t fit the image that he and Tommy aimed for. He was desperate to retain Tommy’s friendship and afraid of letting the mask fall. Tommy was furious when Steve rejected him, taunted Steve with deeply personal jabs, and a year later he latched onto the new “top dog” in town with record speed. Steve is a completely different person when he’s around Tommy versus when he’s around Nancy, Robin, and the kids. Most importantly, we know that Steve has a tendency to construct himself in the image provided by others. 

Taking all of this into account, I think that Tommy Hagan met sad, rich, handsome little Steve Harrington, saw just how lonely and desperate he was to feel a sense of belonging, and used that to nudge Steve into striving to be the person that Tommy wanted him to be: King Steve. 

[loveisneurotic]

Kaguya-sama Blind Reaction/Analysis: S1E1

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

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

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

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

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

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

Season 1 Episode 1

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

Power dynamics in relationships

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

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

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

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

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

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

Desire without action

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

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

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

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

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

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

Half a year passes.

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

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

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

Manufacturing affection in others, AKA the extraction of vulnerability

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

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

It sucks.

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

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

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

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

It's gonna be great.

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

Chaos theory

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

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

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

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

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

Misunderstandings and assumptions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The burden of potential romance

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

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

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

Love is neurotic.

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

Love and self-identity

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

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

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

Figure 1.1.11: "Please understand."

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

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

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

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

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

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

My hopes for this story's future

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

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

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

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

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

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

Closing thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

A highly subjective footnote about my cultured tastes

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

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

[dotthings]

Since Misha made his tweet about Destiel being the #1 of all time ship on AO3 as of the year 2021 the antis of twitter standom, predictably, have waxed wroth in anger and they are tagging Misha in it. This is the same subgroup/corner/lane who swears they never tag hate and they just mind their own business and everything that goes wrong in fandom is all the Misha/Destiel or Jensen fans fault, over and over. I'm surprised their hair doesn't spontaneously catch on fire every time they tweet their lies.

They're also hilaribad. So here's a quick recap of their antics tagged to Misha:

One particularly infamous anti tried to cheat by searching "Sam/Dean" on AO3 to claim W-ncest is the bigger ship with more fics. They're bad at math and they don't even know how to cheat the right way. Searching "Sam/Dean" rather than using the relationship tag will pull up every fic that has a character named Sam or Dean in it. That includes Destiel fics (Sam is in those too! A lot!) and various other fandoms.

"Unemployed actor"

Tagging Misha in w-ncest images. Misha, no wilting flower, and likely will not even see it, and if he does will be amused, but it shows how they tag their non-canon, fanon, imaginary, and very triggering subject matter ship to an actor who isn't even involved in it...with a motive of sending him hate. And these same stan accounts are the ones who will stomp around about how they're innocent and only the Misha/Destiel/Jensen fans are evil.

A "nice bibro" with hearts and "ship and let ship" on their profile tagged him to put down Destiel by comparing it to krill, the countless tiny crustaceans that live in the oceans, because nobody thinks about krill, but they love cat videos. Once again they have played themselves hilariously. Krill are essential in the oceans, and whales, penguins, and other sea life depend on them. There are entire eco-systems that would collapse without krill. Destiel is essential to the canon story (in S15 it was even *the* turning point) and essential to the fandom. Deal with it antis.

Tagging Misha in tweets about Jensen, using his now antiquated foot in mouth gif, and ranting how "disrespectful to Jensen" it is that Misha talk about a ship he is one half of and portrayed for 12 seasons and has every right to acknowledge (unless the cee dub sniper gets him). Once again these moldly wank bisquits ignore every supportive thing Jensen has said about Destiel, let alone acknowledge he protects fan readings (therefore, queer readings are valid) only care about using Jensen as a blunt instrument to beat up on a fictional ship they hate with unreasonable fervor. They don't care how they're normalizing falsely depicting Jensen as being against he ship he isn't against, or how that reflects on him. Losers.

Yanking the whole thing--which was about fanfic and the ship being loved in fandom--into how there's no Destiel is canon, tagged to Misha. First of all, no. Their ignorance of canon, media literacy, queer literary theory, and oh, the actual canon f*cking story, is again showing and it's all so they can claim their fanon incest ship exists in the story more than a valid LGBTQ+ ship that writers coded into scripts, put into the story, eventually made textual, and at worst, had to leave it partly ambiguous but not non-existent, only to suit corporate restrictions.

I hope these antis lie awake at night, tossing and turning over what a powerful love story Dean and Cas have, over how loved Destiel is, I hope it fills them with rage this ship won’t go away to suit their temper tantrums, and that tagging Misha in their ceaseless hate makes the milk in their coffee go sour. They must rock back and forth in the darkness, whispering that Destiel has no basis in canon to themselves over and over, to comfort themselves. I hope the next time they eat a bag of m&m's the blue and green m&m's give them an eye-twitch.

[tossertozier]

So, I’ve seen a lot going around about Eddie and Myra and what people are and aren’t saying and this is my meta and my full take as my tags were quoted in the post I believe what started it all.

The original post is by kaymcalls, who I, in my personal opinion, believe is getting unfair hate and backlash on their blog. This is my personal opinion. This is a link to the post with comments by dear-wormwoods

Because we respect people’s right to their own opinion and analysis, there is a rebuttal post I feel it important to link by wondefuleds, displaying a different view point. 

I’m going to argue my point in this meta. Overall, I urge people to remember that this is a literary analysis and nothing greater. People have their rights to their own perspective above all else, and you have a right to yours, even if you greatly disagree with me. Please respect everyone’s right to see the world, read books, and understand relationships the way they do.

My point is neither Eddie nor Myra is abusive. There is no power imbalance present in their relationship. They are trapped in an emotionally manipulative, loveless, toxic marriage.

We open on Eddie fastidiously looking over his medicine cabinet, and packing a bag. There is a lot of discussion on the medications he takes, which are, for reference, a lot of sedatives.

Myra comes up the steps and demands to know what he’s doing. I don’t think this is an unreasonable request.

“‘Myra Kaspbrak was huge. She had only been big when Eddie married her five years ago, but he sometimes thought his subconscious had seen the potential for hugeness in her; God knew his own mother had been a whopper. And she looked somehow more huge than ever as she reached the second-floor landing.” There is a lot of fatphobia in our first description of Myra, which is in Eddie’s point of view. He is demeaning her based on her physical appearance in his mind.

“I have to go away for a while,” Eddie said.

“What do you mean, you have to go away? What was that telephone call?”

“Nothing,” he said, fleeing abruptly down the hall to their walk-in closet. 

And then:

“What’s this about, Eddie? Where are you going? You tell me!”

“I can’t tell you.” 

Eddie is being completely unreasonable. This is not how a married adult behaves. There’s independence, and there’s disregarding your partner entirely. 

Myra’s POV tells us: “she stood there, watching him, trying to decide what to say next, or what to do. The thought of dumpling bundling him into the closet and then standing there with her back against the door until this madness had passed crosses her mind, but she was unable to bring herself to do it;”

This is a fire vs fire fight. This is a lack of communication skills vs a lack of communication skills. Neither of them know how to talk to each other, at all. Myra tells us she has no idea what to do because this behavior is so unlike him, like she walked in on her furniture levitating. Does it justify her thoughts? 

No.

Instead, she makes up an excuse as to why he can’t go, for Al Pacino’s autograph, and he tells her she’ll have to get it herself. This isn’t an unreasonable request, but they are dancing around the topic at hand, they are not talking about where Eddie is going and why, they’re talking nonsense. Because they can’t communicate. Because they’re toxic for each other.

Let’s be realistic: eddie hasn’t even specified if he’s coming back. Myra has a right to be terrified. Eddie has a right to not want to dispel all of the childhood trauma that’s coming up for him at the moment. Neither of them communicate this to the other.

“Her face full of perplexity and terror, and he might have felt sorry for her if his heart had not already been so filled with terror for himself.”

He’s not scared of Myra. He’s scared of Pennywise, and returning to Derry. He’s failing to recognize, understand, and validate her emotions because he is so focused on his own. 

His wife is sobbing, and he completely ignores her and walks by. He doesn’t say anything. Not where he’s going. Not if he’ll come back. He doesn’t answer her questions, which are: are you in trouble and who was that on the phone? This is emotional manipulation. It is being a bad partner. 

Eddie realized he has more than enough time to make his train, and only then, does he think “Nine twenty. Plenty of time to talk to her, plenty of time to be kind.”

Eddie thinks he’s going off to die, and he is only considering being kind, in his own words, to his wife when it’s convenient. He thinks about the sound system he bought for her, criticizing her, and then thinks to himself “that wasn’t fair, and he damn well knew it.”

I think it’s a good metaphor for their entire relationship. He pulls these false equivalency for her… he blames her for his deep unhappiness which permeates every page of this chapter. He rhapsodizes about the similarities between his mother and Myra “they could have been sisters. The resemblance was that close.” He talks about only the physical resemblances for the longest time.He talks about how he fantasizes about breaking it off. 

But then he talks about their psychological resemblance:

“It was Myra herself who had ended up tripping the scales away from independence. Myra had condemned him with solicitude, nailed him with concern and chained him with sweetness. Myra, like his mother had reached that final, final insight into his character: Eddie was all the more delicate because he sometimes suspected he was not delicate at all. Eddie needed to be protected from his own dim intimations of bravery.”

Here’s the difference between Myra and Sonia in this passage to me:

Eddie is an adult. Eddie has free will, and he damn well knows it. He isn’t saying Myra won’t allow him to leave his house. He is saying he is addicted to her care over him. That he, personally believes, needs that level of care. It isn’t her words that have power over him, it’s her actions. Things she does like

taking out his rainboots when it’s raining

buying healthy cereals

These are normal things to do for your significant other. The reason they are not normal is because Eddie, yes Eddie, has been convinced  he is incapable of functioning without someone to care for him. This is, in large, not his fault, as the victim of childhood trauma. It’s also not Myra’s.

He goes on to say: “a hog she was, but she was a sweet hog, and he loved her, and there had really been no chance for him at all. She had drawn him to her with the fatal, hypnotizing snake’s eye of understanding.” He does not love this woman. He loves the care she takes of him. That’s a horrible marriage to enter yourself into. 

And he knows he’s wrong. He says he’s wrong. He knows he has built himself this cage and it’s based on the fact that he never faced down his childhood head on. That is his cross to bear. 

“Maybe this isn’t home, nor ever was- maybe home is where I have to go tonight. Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.” He knows he has never had a true home because he has not found it within himself.

Now: is Myra wholly innocent? 

No. 

Absolutely not. 

To know there is trauma in someone’s past that makes them vulnerable to a certain behavior, and to exploit that? Is emotional manipulation. They are both using the other to get what they want out of the relationship. Hence, it is mutually toxic.

“Tears has been more than a defense for his mother, they had been a weapon. Myra had rarely used her own tears so cynically… but, cynically or not, he realizes she was trying to use them that way now… and she was succeeding.” 

Eddie says Myra doesn’t have a particular track record for using tears as manipulation, and thinks that, regardless of whether she is cognizant of it, she is doing so now. Again: Eddie has not even said where he is going. She doesn’t even know if she is coming back. Again, I think this is Eddie, because of his trauma, which again: not his fault, but this is Eddie being unfair to Myra because of how he regards her. She has a right to cry at that moment. He can’t see her tears for anything other than the direct impact they are having on him, because he is used to emotions being a currency, because he is used to performative behavior. He is putting these things on Myra, and he knows that she probably isn’t being intentionally malicious, but cannot manage to make himself fully make that distinction. 

He holds his promise to the losers club of greater importance than his promises to her. That is his decision to make, but I think the least he could do is explain himself.

He then does not answer the questions she keeps repeating, but instead, tells her what she is going to do. They’re not addressing the question, they’re not addressing the problem, Myra is still sobbing. This is some of the worst communication skills I’ve seen in a relationship.

(Wailing)“there could be an accident… there probably will be an accident… Eddie… Eddie, you have to stay home…” this whole, there probably will be an accident, thing is textbook manipulation. She’s not getting what she wants from him, so she resorts to disaster scenarios. Because they’re not communicating what they want and need from each other.

However, Eddie replies: “For God’s sakes! Stop it!”

“I hate it when you shout at me, Eddie,” she whispered.

“Myra, I hate it when I have to,” he said and she winced.

Holy SHIT: no. I shouldn’t have to tell y’all why this is bad. This is BAD. Like I said… this is a fire vs fire fight. He is taking out his fear, his personal need for vindication in this fight against the dark, out on her. In response to her trying to manipulate him. They are BOTH toxic.

I’m gonna repeat: He holds this promise to the losers club as greater than any promise he made to her.

He thinks:

“Dear God, if You are there, please believe me when I say I don’t want to hurt Myra. I don’t want to cut her, don’t even want to bruise her. But I promised, we all promised, we swore in blood, please help me God because I have to do this… there you go, Eddie, you hurt her again. Why don’t you punch her around the room a few times? That would probably be kinder. And quicker.”

I can’t even with this passage. He knows. He knows how badly he is emotionally hurting her. He does not love this woman. He would resort to violence if he had to. There is no love in that.

They are so upset with each other, because they married someone to fill a purpose in their life, and not because they loved them. 

He gives her instructions on driving, and does not give her any information. His cab arrives.

He, again, refuses to give her any information. Again, she resorts to similar tactics to his mother, to try and manipulate him into staying. “‘You’ll get sick,’ she said desperately.” This is so bad. She tugs on him to make him stay. This is very bad. However, she doesn’t know where he’s going or if he’s even coming back.

For all she knows, her husband could be leaving her.

For all Eddie knows, he could be leaving her.

And then finally: finally, Eddie tells her something. He communicates! And you know what else he does? He lies to her.

‘“I’m going, but I’ll be coming back.’ Oh but that felt like a lie.” 

Eddie then, as she screams over the length of the trip, only then: considers her emotions as real, considers her emotions not only to the effect they play on his.

“Not angry at him, only terrified for him, and coincidentally, for herself.” 

And then:

“Was that what he meant? That he had finally decided it was all right to love her? That it was all right even though she looked like his mother…” 

this is a loveless marriage. Eddie never even considered her okay to love. I don’t think anyone is disputing that. But they’re both perpetrators of this emotional web that keeps them tangled in each other. They’re both responsible. there is not a power imbalance between them, just horrendous toxicity they both simultaneously feed into and rely on. 

Eddie, again, tells Myra to stop having her emotions, and asks her for a kiss. He tells her not to be afraid, tells her he’ll call if he can, and he leaves her. Forever. Eddie never comes home.

They never say goodbye or I love you, because Myra didn’t know it was goodbye, and they didn’t love each other. 

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 122 Review

Finally the Marleyan and Eldian versions of history are reconciled. We see the real history for ourselves and what we learn is that the Marleyans were basically right.

You can all kiss my ass!

Look, I’m not going to mince words here: the official Marleyan history is that Ymir had a working relationship with “the devil” and together they subjugated the Marleyans.

That is exactly what happened. 

According to Eren’s grandfather, the relationship was more mutual; he described it as a contract. According to Kruger, the relationship was more one-sided; he describes Ymir in the Marleyan history as a pawn of the devil.

In any event, the devil was a real, albeit mythologized figure and Ymir worked with/under them. Is it unreasonable for the Marleyans for say this dude was the devil and leave it at that? 

Yeah, kind of, and they probably did it for propaganda reasons. But it’s not as unreasonable as you would think.

You’ve all heard of Jesus, right?

Jesus was a real person and we know that because he is mentioned in the Bible, which is in fact a historical document. Yes, the Bible says Jesus had magical powers (and that the world was created 7000 years ago) but so what? Ancient historical documents mix reality with mythology all the time. That’s the challenge of being a historian of antiquity, separating the facts from the myth.

That the Marleyan’s historical record claims this dude was the devil is not that out there.

Meanwhile, the official Eldian history is that Eldian rule was orgasmic.

It completely leaves out the raping and pillaging and other atrocities. It’s an incomplete picture. The Marleyan history is essentially the whole story.

Yes, Ymir really did cultivate the land, but this was only to the Eldian’s benefit. The Marleyan history does not contradict that. It emphasizes the atrocities, but it is implicit in the Marleyan account of history that the Eldians benefited from their dominance.

‘Cause, ya know, that’s how racism works. It’s not just a detriment to the oppressed, it benefits the oppressors.

It’s not even unreasonable to emphasize the atrocities, since they are, not to put too fine a point on it, atrocities. Building roads and bridges, by itself, is just not noteworthy. 

Why would any impartial history book mention that Ymir built roads outside of a few sentences, and even then, just to lay the ground work to explain how the Eldian Empire grew to be able to expand and conquer. 

The history of the world of SNK is first and foremost a story about a racist empire that murdered many people. 

Building roads and bridges? That’s not important. 

And as for the 1700 years of genocide, that is yet to be settled. That happened after Ymir’s death, and while we see that the Eldians conquered the world, we don’t see the details.

One thing that’s great about this chapter: many apologists for imperialism turn to excuses like how the colonialists built infrastructure and cultivated the land to justify imperialism. What SNK gets right is that the benefits of that cultivation were only enjoyed by the oppressors.

Yes, in the course of colonizing Africa, the Europeans built roads and crap, but that is a non-factor in the rightfulness of the imperialist project because those roads benefited the colonialists. And no one else.

Likewise, the benefits of Ymir’s work were only enjoyed by Eldians, which is why they remember her so fondly. Meanwhile, the Marleyans were victimized by Ymir, so they hate her.

What’s even better is that this could, maybe, hopefully, be read as a repudiation of Kruger’s dumbass line about the nature of truth.

There is truth in this world.

The Marleyan truth.

You hate to see it.

Frieda in this chapter is something of a tragic figure. She means well and just wants to give Historia some good advice, but she’s too drunk on the kool-aid to say anything helpful.

It’s true that we should all be thinking about others, but what’s been forgotten is love for ourselves in addition to love for others. A healthy relationship involves both of these things. You help people out, but always make sure to help yourself.

Ymir is literally the property of her master and is the equivalent of a tool to be used until it breaks. Her life is all about serving others. She bears the king’s children, fights the king’s enemies, and builds up the king’s empire. She was never allowed to love others, and she doesn’t even seem to have had any friends.

There’s no room for her to love herself, which is why this is a bad relationship.

You know, just to say the obvious.

One thing that’s great about SNK is that one of its morals is how bad it is to care too much about others. Caring too much, to the point you subordinate your own needs to someone else, is a kind of metaphorical enslavement.

Historia is the best example of that. Her whole character starting out was about self-sacrifice and caring about others. Her girlfriend thought she was a total idiot, and she was right.

There are other examples, though, like Mikasa gradually becoming less obsessive over Eren as the story goes on, or like the way the warriors serve Marley, which is a lot like a kind of slavery.

The series is characteristically blunt about it here, what with Ymir literally being a slave, but it’s a good moral and not an intuitive one.

The emptiness behind Frieda’s advice couldn’t be made more obvious here. As she expounds on how we need to be people who are helpful to others, we see are shown how her example, Ymir, is a literal slave. And towards the end of Frieda’s monologue, Ymir looks on at two lovers making out.

The contrast is clear. Give yourself over to others and being “loved” by them is not real love.

So this is Ymir Fritz, huh?

Another theme of this series is how lacking freedom limits your potential. Historia, once again, is a good example. Her over-caring was a burden on herself, and it kept her from truly becoming her own person. She’s in a much better place now that she’s move past that.

Eren is also kind of another example, but he’s like the incel version of it. Eren is “free” because he got swole and can just kick the ass of anyone who disagrees with him. Eren is what incel losers on Reddit dream of becoming. A chad.

He went from being a social loser to singlehandedly saving the world. From commonplace to world’s strongest. He's like the main character of an isekai anime. Pure vicarious pleasure for the stereotypical anime nerd.

Ymir is the encapsulation of this theme. She is basically a god, with incredible power. The only limit on her power is her imagination. Tragically, her imagination was so limited.

She has all this power, and she never thought to use it for herself. She used it for the king because she is his slave and that is her place in the world. She never thought otherwise.

Now Eren’s broken though to her and it looks like she and him are going to be partners in crime. Yay?

The themes of this series can be good, but there are still problems.

One theme is the inherent value of life. People deserve to live and it’s not because they possess any certain quality. People deserve to live because they are. They were born and they exist now.

Maybe their birth was mistake, but that’s ok, because people can give their own lives meaning. The meaning of life, according to SNK, is completely internal. It comes from within you.

Throughout the story, characters have devoted themselves to various things. Not all of them were bad things. Levi is devoted to Erwin. Mikasa is (was?) devoted to Eren. Armin was devoted to his dream of seeing the ocean. Rod was devoted to his belief in god.

They all tried to give meaning to their lives through external means.

But people like Historia, and, in kind of a bad way, Eren, are special because they try to find meaning through internal means.

That’s fine and all, but the problem is that Eren is the main character and his values and his example is what the series upholds.

Eren is a fighter and it’s clear he sees that as carte blanche to do whatever he thinks is right.

Killing children?

MORE LIKE FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM!!1

Insubordination?

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM!!1

Pissing over his friends?

FREEDOM!!1

So, is human life inherently valuable or not?

The series tries to be about how lives matter, but also seemingly upholds this really stupid moral code where defending your own life can justify anything.

This isn’t even really a form of consequentialism. Consequentialists define goodness in terms of an action’s consequences. But, like, it’s the consequences for the world as a whole. Goodness is about what’s good for the world overall, not what’s good for me personally.

You can kill in self-defense, but there are limits. Violence should be proportionate and reasonable. And the killing itself should not be the point.

Killing most of the world is obviously not a net good for the world. Yes, the series makes humanity out to be depraved, but that’s bullshit because it is not true. People can be made to do awful or just plain stupid things by their environment, but the solution isn’t to just kill everyone.

They were born into this world, you see.

This is why there is a ten billion percent chance Eren will repudiate his way of thinking by the end of the series. Maybe as early as the next chapter. For the series to not do that would be hypocrisy.

There is no way the story is going to go with an ironic ending where Eren kills everyone and declares himself free while standing atop a pile of rubble.

SNK has employed dramatic irony before, but it has always been straightforward with its main themes. It would not resort to irony here; that would just muddle the message even more.

At this point the series is just mocking Historia fans. Ymir Fritz is also forced into pregnancy and even sits in a wooden chair just like Historia.

But I think this is actually a reason to be hopeful. This is an implicit acknowledgement of how fucking shitty Historia’s nominal situation is.

Ymir is forced to bear children and that is a manifestation of her enslavement. Historia is therefore also a slave by the story’s logic. And since this is a story about breaking free from your enslavement, Historia can only do just that and rain hellfire on the world like how Ymir Fritz seems poised to do here.

…Please?

I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but I love how they throw in a radical feminist take on Ymir Fritz’s life.

Ymir was always thinking about others, and that made her girlish, ie is an obedient slave.

Respect.

[blcksirxs-blog]

matthew daddario; 22; he/him —— is that really sirius black? it’s been so long! did you hear he is studying to be an auror? from what i remember, he was energetic and infectious, but also pretty impatient and arrogant, who knows after all this time. word on the street is, they’re with the order in the war, but that doesn’t define them.

character inspiration: han solo (star wars), sawyer (lost), jake peralta (b99), nathan young (misfits), mike wheeler (stranger things)

pinterest here

sirius is a sassmaster and the worst™

maybe a little bit self destructive. much more concerned about getting the things that he wants instead of what he actually needs. his moral compass is pretty stalwart and he struggles with a lot of guilt for even the things beyond his control.

but he’s just too good at being  contrary.  if you need sirius for something, the best thing to do is to not ask him to do it. subverting expectations is his hobby. but that also means he can surprise people by a sudden change of heart or an unexpectedly sweet gesture. usually after a moment of reflection, his knee jerk reaction can be selfish. he’s still first and foremost a good person, even at his most irritating.

living meme. actually the most dramatic piece of shit. LITERALLY??? he wants and loves attention he’s great at monopolizing a room and putting himself in the center of things. still pretty immature but he’s getting there? he’s a good time so he puts most people at ease, but there are people that he could annoy with his devil-may-care attitude. he just ain’t serious man. can’t do it. yet another thing is parents got wrong

before he got to school, sirius was very lonely in his parent’s house. he was the first son but nothing else he was supposed to be. silver-tongued and crass, he couldn’t have fit in even if he tried. he did try in the beginning, tried to adopt a steely cruelty like his father and self-righteous sting of his mother. he succeeded somewhat, if it weren’t for the guilt. the parts of himself he hates the most now are the parts he can see are most undeniably like his old family. as dreadfully as they treated him and his younger brother, sirius no longer has interest in changing himself for other people. he’d rather been hard to swallow then back where he was. he was strong enough to come out with his confidence mostly in tact, and only a mild, almost unavoidable dislike of himself. his morality comes from a place of wanting fix what he feels they and others like them have done. 

but real talk he is a broKen sad boi?? his family was sucking the life out of him and he jUST RESISTED TAHT SHIT??? proud tbh

he doesn’t allow himself to think about regulus. his soft brother, whose resentment had grown to include him after his founding of a new family in the marauders. the question of whether he actually had done enough to help his brother has mixed in with his usual guilt. he prefers not to think or talk about it. far more healthy.

he gave up too quickly on his lil bro and while i don’t think he’d want to spend time dwelling on it or thinking he should fix his mistake he just??? hakuna matata that shit man. put that past behind ya. too bad hE HAS TO SEE HIM EVERY DAY FUCKING IDIOPT KLJSDFJK

his family is a sore topic.

boi smart. well-- common sense smart? his grades were never great but they weren’t bad either. his performance stemmed more from a lack of effort and the wonderful feeling of spite towards his ever disappointed parents.

 hell if he’s not ruled by the big ol’ heart he pretends not to have. he’s pretty emotional and passionate and surprisingly empathetic. he gets charged up about the blood purity thing since he’s seen so much of the worst that that side has to offer

he attac but he also protec. sirius is prone to loud arguments and the occasional scuffle. keeping his mouth shut has never been an option

p impulsive. will lash out when he’s mad/frustrated. childish af. lit ran away from home w zERO PLAN it just happened and yet he doesn’t regret his choices and is proud of where he’s at

channeling that sweet dog energy dude because he has a v natural presence that is hard to resist.

speaking offffff  he is a rebel bOI. leather jackets and death stick cigarettes and all the muggle rock and roll. rockstar lifestyle without the talent dAMN. someone help this loser.

he’s obsessed with his motorcycle. it was the first thing with uncle alphard’s inheritance. he spends half the time fixing up the clunky machine, he’s on the verge of getting it to fly and sprucing the piece of junk up. he enjoys it so much, he ought to have done something with the hobby, but he followed his friends to university to become an auror. the war hangs over his head, he has inexplicable and unreasonable survivor’s guilt and feels the need to against everything

fun time guy.. down to clown. all that jazz

actually loves his brothers. he sees that remus and james and peter are his true family. he would die for them. meeting them changed everything for him and??? wow im actually crying. 

you’d think he would be better at telling them how much they mean to him

ya boi is arrogant as fuck. he’s woke but damn those black genes sure have some ego. he gets some pleasure out of hearing how great he is. hATE HIM PLS. i know. it’s hard.

IDK MAN. IT’S SIRIUS??? LOVE THAT LITTLE DOG BOY lmk if you have anything you’d like to plot!

[thesffcorner]

The Foxhole Court

You know that feeling, when you’re watching your favorite team play their rival, and they are neck in neck, and you’re on the edge of your seat, biting your nails? That’s what it feels like reading this book. The Foxhole Court is the first book in the All for the Gametrilogy written by Nora Sakavic. It follows Neil Josten, who has spent the last 8 years of his life running. When he gets scouted and forcibly recruited for the Foxes, Palmetto State’s Division I exy team, exy being the only thing he truly wants in life, he has to make a decision: stay and put up with his hostile, and dangerous teammates, or keep running and lose the only thing he’s even cared about. I don’t remember the last time I’ve had such strong, conflicting emotions about a book. This book made me angry, it made me emotional, it kept me on edge, and I loved it and hated it in equal measure. I have so much to say, so buckle up: this is going to be a long one. 

Let’s start with the basics, namely: The Plot: Most of the major issues this book has, revolve around the plot. In theory, it’s rather simple: Neil is a new player on a team of underdogs and losers, with the additional adage that the Foxes are literary a type of halfway house for troubled teens. Everyone on the team seems to come from some kind of difficult background: runaways, abusive households, drug abuse, or criminal records. There is a rival school, King’s Row, which is the reigning champion, and their disgraced former champion comes to the Foxes, to help them improve enough to where they could potentially win the championship. The positive to this type of tournament arc, is that it naturally lends itself to some great character building and tension, and Sakavic takes advantage of both. The tension in this book is top notch; every major thing has excellent build up an payoff, from Neil joining the team, to him meeting the rest of the team, to their season starting, and the highlight, which is their season opener. I was invested in what happened, I wanted to know what opponents the Foxes would have, and just the tension during their season opener alone was worth the asking price for this novel. I also have to commend the pacing; this is possibly one of the best paced books I’ve ever read. Sakavic knows exactly how much time to spend on and off the court, and in between set pieces, to make the tension and intrigue last. There is tension and unease in every part of this novel, even slower lulls in between practice and matches. It’s possibly one of the best executed tournament arcs I’ve read, and we are only at the start of the season. The craft that Sakavic has over the structure and characters of this novel is truly to be commended, especially for debut author. However, there are problems, and the most obvious is: Exy: The absolute most infuriating and stupid thing about this book, is the sport it revolves around. I have so many problems with this, I don’t even know where to start. First off, exy is just intrinsically, a dumb sport. It’s basically lacrosse mixed with rugby, as if lacrosse needed to be even more violent. I remember reading somewhere online that the author invented exy because she didn’t want to learn the rules of existing sports, and she wanted the sport’s creation to be tied to crime, which… crime is present in every sport everywhere on earth. You don’t need to invent a sport for it. Second, she didn’t really invent a new sport, she just took lacrosse and tweaked some of the rules and way of play, so it has more checking. So why not just… use lacrosse? It’s already one of the most popular college sports in the US, and the pro leagues in lacrosse are already so insular. Why go through the trouble of inventing a whole new set of rules, and then having to seamlessly explain those rules, when you can just… use the rules of lacrosse? It’s not to say you can’t invent a new sport, or exy is badly made sport, just that the way it’s written on the page is so similar to the way lacrosse, that I just don’t understand the need to make it a new thing. To make matters more confusing, since we are firmly set in present day, and Sakavis has set this plot in the world of collegiate sports, we are constrained by the actual modern day rules and regulations of the NCAA, and as someone who has first hand experience with the NCAA, this drove me mad. Yes, the game is well written, and the match is exciting, but it’s very existence was such a hard pill for me to swallow, that all the positives failed short, when I couldn’t buy into the premise. In-universe, exy was invented in Japan, by two people, the main one being Coach Moriyama, a legend in the sport. How am I supposed to buy, that in the span of about 30 years, exy goes from an experiment, to a street sport, to local leagues, to a professional league, to a world league, to a college NCAA, Division I sport, and an Olympic sport? This would NEVER happen in the real world! Karate still isn’t an Olympic sport! Yes, new sports get invented, (just take a look at quidditch), and some of these sports become popular enough to have professional or semi-professional leagues. But they don’t become Olympic or NCAA sports, and certainly not in the span of a generation! Moreover, this is a co-ed sport. Let me repeat that. Exy is a FULL-CONTACT, CO-ED sport. Again, quidditch is also a full-contact, co-ed sport, but it’s also a not a D1 competitive sport. There are no professional or collegiate league in the real world that would allow for a full-contact co-ed sport, it’s just too dangerous. Can you imagine being a girl and having a 250 pound, six foot athlete do a bodycheck to you at the speed at which lacrosse or rugby players move? This wouldn’t be such a problem, if Sakavic hadn’t written in the real life NCAA, an organization so mired in controversy over its rules and regulations, and so worried about being sued, that the chance of this happening is ludicrous. I played for the NCAA; I was Division 3, but I still had to go through all the same tests, rules and guidelines. Sure, non-contact co-ed sports like mixed doubles tennis, mixed relays in swimming and athletics exist, but that’s about it; I was reading the match line up and I could not for a second suspend my disbelief. The other issue, is that there’s a really easy way around this, that would even make more in-universe sense if Sakavic wanted it to. Just make exy semi-professional/professional private league! Kind of like quidditch already is. You could still set it in college, and it being a cover for shady crime-related activities would make a lot more sense, when there’s not already a real world organization like the NCAA to govern it. Why would the Moriyamas want the NCAA involved anyway? It would be much easier and more profitable for them to run their private league where they’d have a tighter grip on all the players, coaches and teams, and then all this is significantly less insane. The Conference Switch: This is a specific plot point that drove me mad. For anyone who doesn’t know, the NCAA controls the collegiate sports in the US. The way it’s set up, is with various Conferences, most of which are region based; I played for the Skyline D3 conference, fox example. It is possible for a school to switch Conferences, but again, it’s based on region, and it’s not a swift process. West Virginia and North Carolina being in the same district? Fine. Kings Row doing a massive switch, where it switches from being undefeated in a higher tier Conference, to dropping to a weaker Conference in a matter of weeks, without any protest from any of the other schools? Bullshit. I don’t buy it for a second. Again, this could have easily been solved by just NOT USING THE NCAA AS THE SETTING FOR YOUR FAKE SPORT. Characters: Before you all yell at me, I think the characters are excellent. They are what sold this book to me, seeing as the sport itself just made me angry. I already said that Sakavic’s grip on her characters is excellent; she excels at crafting these really complex people, with lots of internal and external conflict that feels motivated and understandable, even though none of them are likable characters. However, even taking this into account, a lot of the decisions the characters make, seem completely unreasonable given their goals and the stakes involved, and it made me at various points yell in disbelief. The Foxes have 10 players, but I mostly want to focus on Andrew’s squad, or the team’s main group. It consists of Andrew, the goalie, his twin brother Aaron, their cousin Nicky, and Kevin Day, the former King’s Row player, and now this team’s star striker. Neil, our protagonist comes into conflict with this group the most, and the person I want to start with is Andrew himself. Andrew: Andrew is the most interesting character in the book, and my favorite. He’s also the worst. Let’s start with his backstory. Nicky, being Andrew’s cousin and also the only openly gay character in this book, gets attacked at a bar. Andrew beats up the attackers so severely, that he is facing jail time for a violent crime. In order to avoid that and continue playing exy, the court mandates that he is under constant sedation for 3 years. There’s… so much to unpack here. First off, even if I could believe that the court would be willing to switch out prison for medication, the likelihood of it being outpatient care is ludicrous. The way Andrew’s condition is described, seems to imply that he’s given antidepressants therapy to suppress his psychopathic tendencies, which a) is largely ineffective and b) would require more than just weekly meetings with the college psychiatrist. He would have to see a parole officer, a social worker, get a tag, or at least have some type of constant supervision, which he at no point has. Most importantly, there is no way he would be allowed to continue to play a violent, full-contact sport for the college’s D1 team! Andrew isn’t a superstar quarterback with Kardashian as his lawyer; he’s been in foster care for years, and he’s a college student who could grievously injure someone even under constant sedation! I refuse to believe, that the NCAA, the same NCAA which makes you sit through needless mandatory lectures on concussions, would ever allow a person like Andrew anywhere near the court! To make matters worse, the fact that Coach Wymack knows what Andrew’s condition is, and lets him play UNMEDICATED, is beyond irresponsible and crosses the line into outright negligent! Even sedated Andrew is violent; at various points in the book he: slams a racket into Neil, punches people when they touch him, pulls a knife on Nicky, shows no sympathy or remorse for his actions, and he does most of this, while medicated. No coach would EVER allow Andrew to play unmedicated (let alone be on the team, even if he was a master player) if he cared even a little about his players, and let me remind you, Coach Wymack is presented as a tough but caring, positive adult! Outside of this, there are other issues with Andrew. His violence is understandable, but it doesn’t excuse the horrible shit he does to the other characters, and he never faces any consequences. It’s heavily implied he bullied the former striker sub into attempting suicide; his little ‘weekend party’ leaves a teammate under psychiatric care for weeks; he forcibly drugs and assaults Neil into revealing things to him, and kidnaps him and isolates him from the rest of the team. And Coach Wymack knows all this, and looks the other way! There’s also a lot of weird subtext with lots of the characters, but again, Andrew is the most overt example. There’s a lot of talk of Nicky and Kevin belonging to him, he owns Kevin, he wants to own Neil. Kevin to asks Neil to give himself to Kevin, Coach Wymack owns Neil and Kevin… it’s just a really strange thing to focus on, because… it’s just sports. With Andrew, his ownership is never contradicted, never stopped; he is left completely unchecked, and unhinged, and the destruction he does on his path, in any other book would make him an outright villain. While I don’t like that Neil constantly refers to him as “a psychotic midget”, at least half of that statement is entirely correct; Andrew is psychotic, and he gets away with things villains in other books don’t. Neil: I don’t want you to think that I was only annoyed by Andrew; Neil makes more than his fair share of bad decisions and enables a lot of Andrew’s behavior. First though, I have to say that Neil is an excellent character. He is one of the most spirited, distinct and proactive protagonists I’ve read from. Very often authors will say that a character is ‘observant’ or ‘smart’, but often these end up being informed traits. Neil is a survivor, and truly observant and clever; he immediately sees through Andrew’s deception at the airport, he immediately realizes when someone breaks into his room and guesses who, he knows how to read people, who to win over and who to avoid. He acts like someone who has had his life would; there’s so much attention to detail with him, from the clothes he wears, to his haircut, to the way he acts around adult men. I really liked the half-lie he tells Andrew to placate him, and how proactive he was. He doesn’t wait for things; he makes a plan and executes it. He is the only one to stand up to Andrew, he even stands up to Riko on national television. That whole talk show scene was utterly ridiculous, but I enjoyed that Neil didn’t back down, even though he had both the chance and every reason to do so. He’s a contradiction that makes sense; who he is as a person actively clashes with who he has to pretend to be in order to survive, and that was very well presented. He still does some dumb shit, though. I know that Neil has to stay on the team; otherwise we wouldn’t have a book. But his decision to stay makes no sense given his backstory. He may want exy, but he literary can’t have it, if he wants to survive. Picking a fight with Riko Moriyama on national television makes no sense; it’s actively making surviving harder for him, to put himself in the limelight. Trusting Andrew with his life is a dubious decision at best; why does everyone think Andrew can protect them? He’s still a LITERAL child. Even if he had a black belt in 4 fighting styles, he’s still just one person. Also if Andrew put me through anything remotely like what he does to Neil, trusting him would be the last thing I do, sexual tension and exy be damned. Some Scattered Thoughts: I really loved the chapter where Neil and Kevin go through the inner court at the start of their season opener. The way the atmosphere and the court is described was so well done, it reminded me of being at live matches. It was such a well done part. I also loved the scene we get between Matt, Seth and Neil; I thought this simple humanizing moment for Seth was exactly what we needed, considering what happens later, and it was just a really good scene. I related to a lot to Seth’s conflicting jealousy and hatred for Kevin and his love for the game and knowledge that Kevin is just that good as a player. Unpopular opinion, but in that brief moment I found him a more interesting character than Kevin in all of this book. Kevin was kind of a dull presence. His genuine panic at seeing Riko and his reticence to tell Andrew about the Conference change were fine, but there’s just not enough personality for me to grasp on and care. He’s almost like a mcguffin that everyone wants/wants to possess, but he has no real character. He’s dedicated to the game, cruel to his teammates, twice as hard on himself, a prodigy, but these are things that have to do with exy. Outside of that, I don’t know who Kevin Day is, and if this book is going where I think it’s going, then he’s not the romance I’m rooting for. Also I have never heard of D1 athletes staying in college for 5 years. I don’t think that was an accurate thing, but given everything else that’s wrong with the exy plot, it’s a minor minor pet peeve in comparison. Conclusion: I think it’s pretty clear I’m conflicted on this book. There is lots of good here, but there is so, so much bad. If you can swallow the premise, and you are not as well versed in the American collegiate sports scene as I am, I feel like you will like this book a lot more. I heard it described as a CW drama in book form, and that’s exactly what it is; needless to say, I will be reading the rest of the series.

goodreads

[strangebedfellows-blog]

Miscellaneous and chill little establishing headcanon dump for some of my l.oz people, because they’re delightful and since I’ve never actually interacted with this fandom I’m not sure what’s commonly accepted and what’s coming purely out of my own head, so here’s some kind of framework. Ones involving other characters or the world at large are just there to give myself context, and obviously nobody else is beholden to ‘em.

Also because I’m too lazy to get to bio pages left and they deserve something.

Cool edit: hey personals, don’t interact with this post. Don’t like it, definitely don’t fucking reblog it. Oh my god. Basic etiquette. It’s not tagged with their general tags for a reason.

VAATI

It’s indulgent of me, but for the record, I like to think he won the swordfighting competition largely of his own merit. I like to think he’s smart enough to know he could have just...magic’d his way past it altogether if he wanted, but it sounds like he actually competed. 

I HAVE MORE BUT I’M JUST GOING TO EDIT THEM IN SOMETIME LATER WHEN I REBLOG THIS I’m typing at like four in the morning why must I dedicate this time to angry wind maus

ZANT

Comin’ in out of the gate: it’s silly personal headcanon but I generally peg the Twili as ancient Sheikah counterparts - part of the same community that split and cut ties firmly enough that by the time they were banished most people had forgotten, and the differences great enough that the latter was never in any jeopardy. They do have deific ties to Majora and the Fierce Deity, though it’s been so long there’s no telling if active worship...exists.

Is actually competent, and intelligent. Midna notes that he didn’t end up ruling the realm because people could pick up on his power lust, but no mention is made of the fact the dude is...a lunatic, and Midna seems to register it as something unfamiliar when he flies off the handle toward the end of the game. I think he kept an incredibly tight rein on himself at absolutely all times in the specific hopes of seeming collected and controlled enough to rule, and his outbursts only really started after he was passed over. They clearly kept him around for awhile despite knowing they wouldn’t be crowning him, so it stands to reason Zant is genuinely good at whatever his precise role was, and a magic user of some significant finesse. Not raw power, not until Ganondorf, but incredible dexterity when applied to delicate tasks. 

In the same vein as viewing the normal Hyrulean royal family as one certainly responsible for performing or enabling some heinous things, I assume the same could be said of the Twili royals. While I believe Zant’s “served and endured in that depraved household” is an embellishment he’s making spitefully because he’s narcissistic and falling apart, there’s a kernel of important truth. There likely were goings-on that would seem shady to us. I can’t imagine specifics, but it’s worth mentioning that Zant was not the only of the Twili who wanted to return to the real world, and while he had violence on the mind, one could certainly guess there were others who would have been more than content just negotiating a return, and to share it. It’s nevertheless treated entirely as some unreasonable desire, despite...the fact...they were ejected from their home and left to their realm so long they’re markedly different, so much so their previous environment kills them. ( One can only imagine adapting to the Twilight Realm was unpleasant, for the first over. )

50% of the reason he loses is because he’s a moron and an indulgent moron, who just can’t sate himself with winning; he has to win and having a living loser to point at and laugh. He has to have someone he can personally lord over, living testaments to the power of his wrath. If he smartened up enough to just kill people, I...really don’t think he’d have lost that one. 

The other 50% is that he’s so utterly unused to Ganondorf’s power, which is overwhelming in both volume and intensity. Zant can warp reality with it. He is, in some important sense, something of a god. And that’s so much that he, who is incredibly well practiced with making more efficient use of less magic, has no goddamn clue what to do with it. It’s difficult to channel and control, and the result are broad sweeps that are chosen for dramatic effect or specifically because they eat up enough to keep him comfortable, rather than practicality.

I’m not sure where I’m going with it, but it’s fascinating to me that most Twili seem to be pretty skin-baring whereas he doesn’t even show his neck under the helmet, and places such a clear focus on fabricating bulk that just isn’t there. I like to think parts of his outfit have weights, and it was partially an effort to physically restrain himself from any reactive-contorting at work. Sometimes you wanna break your spine but that would look most uncouth. 

Not a physical fighter. Hit hard, hit fast, hit erratic, then collapse because you can’t breathe. Twili are in general much more inclined toward magic than traditional fisticuffs, but Zant’s exceptionally physically weak among even them. Reedy ‘n Dweeby.

SIDON

Incurably shy kid, believe it or not. The complete lack of dialogue of his in Mipha’s memory was actually entirely because Zelda was there; he would have been sheepish enough had it been any outside figure, but especially someone he understood to be so important - how could he speak? So small. Sheepish. A lot less confident in himself than he’d eventually become, and Mipha’s gentle encouragement ( and its legacy ) was definitely the biggest factor in changing that.

Really really really worried, constantly, that he’s a drain on people. It’s something of a holdover from his shy youth, but also backed up by a lot of what he can observe. He places a great deal more pressure on himself after Mipha’s death as the new heir ( he was never supposed to be, and would honestly be a much more sincerely at ease adult had it not come down to him ), more than, frankly, anyone around him has. As clearly beloved as he is, and with the fairly warm and encouraging person we can surmise his father to be, there’s some demanding little tug he feels toward inadequacy at all times. He’s incredibly empathetic and not being able to assist everyone all the time, despite the impossibility, hurts him. 

He’s a little too warm-hearted and emotional, he feels, to be the ideal ruler. He’s far too dedicated to proving to others and himself that he could be, however, to fully indulge his personable and down to earth side. He’s caught teetering quite awkwardly on the edge where he can’t reap the benefits of his charming personality OR dedicated focus and work ethic. 

His father never told him Mipha was dead, as he refused to believe it himself. Most zora were split, but eventually enough people seemed defeated enough while murmuring about the matter, the statue went up, and Sidon was first forced to put it together for himself that she really, truly wasn’t coming back. The single most devastating day of his life, and to think it was years after the fact. He hurts more for it, and it’s part of the reason his night visitations are so constant.

On a happier note, he absolutely does tiny swimming drills with little zora kids whenever he can find the time and get a gaggle together. Much whistle blowing, big exaggerated gestures, so much encouragement, it’s a great time all around. 

Seeing Zelda and Link makes him regress, just the faintest touch; he certainly idolized Zelda as a child, and despite having some sister-stealing-related animosity towards Link, had spent the remainder of his youth looking up to him as well. It’s two childhood heroes perfectly preserved and dropped back in front of him, which is quite a happy and confusing shock. It brings a lot of Mipha back to mind, which is bittersweet, but he’s also...doggedly determined to try and prove himself to them, despite their approval meaning nothing at all for him beyond sentiment. 

No you really don’t understand how cool he thought Zelda was

Definitely....accidentally....got more than a handful of Hylians killed, trying to run them through what Link did. This is actually why he has to stop and check on you every leg of the way -- he really is concerned, and it’s a self-reassurance as much as he hopes it’s just normal reassurance for Link.  

REVALI

Doesn’t hate Link. Really. It would need to be coming from a much more intense, much more personal place to truly register as hate. He does, however, IMMENSELY DISLIKE him. It isn’t any kind of confused expression of affection -- I can’t stress enough, the antagonism is pure and genuine. Revali feels incredibly real bitterness toward Link, and to an extent that ever getting past it would be an entire arc in itself. An arc that’d literally be longer than his life, mind you.

I see it crop up a lot so it might be wide fanon? I wouldn’t know - I do generally believe he was an orphan, and Hyrule is so packed with ways to die I couldn’t begin to pin down a cause yet. That said I don’t imagine Revali himself would know, having lost his parents quite early in life and refusing information initially because it hurt, and after that because he convinced himself he was better not knowing. He was for the most part a fairly serious child, simultaneously aggressive and clingy. I imagine he was raised in a foster sort of setting, with an older guardian who passed naturally and with little fanfare when he was a young adult. They got on well enough, and they likely encouraged his at-first-shot adoration for archery ( as is Rito custom, but also Revali’s interest in its own right ) and let him have what space he wanted. Which was a lot. Solitary, even back then. He didn’t take many pains to involve himself with the community and was typically given a lukewarm reception. 

A completely unimpressive shot, initially, but he took to flying at a little more impressive a pace. Not exceptional at either for a long while. He got exceptional by working at it on a daily basis for...honestly, the entirety of his life after he first picked it up. No exaggeration. Minimal breaks taken, and only to make sure he had minimal time to heal or rest his muscles when sorely needed, and never more. He had some small reserve of natural affinity, but by and large his success came entirely because he worked his ass of for it. He took it seriously, kept at it, stayed passionate about getting better; not for a particular reason, even. He had most of the village’s best archers thoroughly outclassed* in his late teens ( or Rito equivalent ) and though he was a ways from even conceptualizing the Gale, was a thoroughly adept flier. He didn’t care particularly much about warrior-ing as a career but assumed it was where he would end up, and in the meantime supported himself comfortably enough through inheritance and some horribly tedious job nobody recalls because he glared them into taking it to their graves. This was eventually swapped with competition winnings as his star ascended. 

*  I’d like to note I generally don’t think the Rito are actually renowned archers, and it’s more of a cultural thing than one of skill. Revali asked for a practice range to practice at more elevations, which sounds like the sort of thing they’d have to begin with if they were putting intense focus on archery in combat. Revali’s skill wasn’t notable or locally renowned as some kind of curiosity, it was because he was outperforming actual warriors and taking an icon of theirs to new heights, and at a relatively young age. Note that no one else can make physical use of his bow, after his death. It’s not just that he’s good, it’s that he actually IS better at it than anyone else in the area. And this is before he invents the Gale. Additionally, he was entirely self-taught beyond the rudimentary tips to help him start flying as a young’un. It was difficult, but he isn’t broken up about it. On the contrary, it freed him to go at everything at his own overintense pace, and work on outdoing everything rather than necessarily polishing his grasp of basics before he absolutely had to. He really values self-reliance in others, for reasons like this.

It’s small, but his ‘I...could get used to this’ is enough to convince me in addition to being more stoic in his youth, he was something approaching humble. It’s not entirely that the sudden onslaught of praise overinflated his ego - it did, but that’s not all of it - but also that he felt the amount of praise was proportionate to the blood, sweat, and tears he had put into getting so good. He had no friends, mind you, no family, and beyond the one mention of Rito children looking up to him and the general legacy he left behind as a visionary in his craft, he didn’t have much of a life. He certainly enjoys it in an annoying way, but I think there’s some merit to the zeal.

I get the vague impression Rito are fairly removed, and while not unfriendly are a little closed off from other cultures. Revali reflects this, partially in his implied low opinion of Hylians.

Of the champions, Mipha and Zelda are his favorites by a ridiculous margin. Not that it shows all that often. The Mipha smile though? Significant. She’s Theeeeee favorite. ( Not that this means he didn’t probably pick on young Sidon, just a touch. )

Died because...I mean, the plot, but also because he was tired ( the distance he had to travel to get to Medoh, and in one go, isn’t ideal ), more shaken than he would admit on pain of a hundred deaths ( at what he’d seen on the way there, surely more chaos than he was accustomed to ), and the corruption of Medoh hit him especially hard as he had REALLY bonded with it. The ‘winging it’ line is partially true; after all of that, he...panicked, a little. 

The lack of living people that remember him? Eats at him way way way way way way way way way way way more than he’ll ever let anyone know. He’s a real sad bird, inside.

GHIRAHIM

His baseline ‘personality’ / set of functions is, at the core, largely a mirror of Fi. He is the version of himself that we know only because he refused to linger in his sword state -- ambition and initiative were things he had much more of than she did, and largely lacking in the tactful patience that’s more or less served her well. Being crafted rather than born and manifesting himself on his own, he at no point had anything resembling a guiding figure or much by way of...normal socialization. The lack of anything resembling a traditional foundation coupled with the RIDICULOUS amount of time he spent in incredibly mixed company seeking out whatever might help him locate his master, and the frustration that comes with such immense and ongoing failure, contribute as much to the end result as anything he was made / ‘born’ with. 

He actually isn’t an astonishing combatant against someone intelligent who knows what they’re up against; he is himself aware of this, and takes what other advantages he can get. I typically view Link defeating him as fair integration of gameplay and story and not something that had to happen for the plot - it ultimately came down to the sword Link was using. Ghirahim isn’t at his most powerful unless he’s in sword form, as that’s what he was designed to be, and some substantial portion of his energy is likely wasted on manifesting physically at all, any magic he performs, teleportation, so on and so forth. He can read people, he has his magical origins on his side, and he’s certainly strong, and all of those things are enough to fell whatever unfortunate people or monsters initially tried to attack him, but up against non-laymen and in the name of cutting down needless-but-numerous future challengers it’s in his interest to blow himself out of proportion. He’s a fantastic talker, good at making an impression, and once the first crop is afraid of him, it just snowballs until he doesn’t need to do much of anything - I imagine ‘Lord Ghirahim’ was something he didn’t actually come up with himself, but heard once and liked it so much he went out and made everyone do it. 

There’s some level of discontent with his ultimate fate, but it’s buried under his own resolute refusal to acknowledge or explore it consciously because he was made to serve and to serve one purpose, and was not intended for any higher aspirations, and because even on an unconscious level, his very being can’t accept it for long. During his impressive span of relative isolation and lording over scant surface-folk / monsters, he grew just a touch beyond his programming. Make no mistake, this doesn’t make him less of a threat -- has to or not, he is nothing short of a fanatic and would still do anything at all for Demise or to spite Hylia -- it’s merely that he briefly lets his mind wander, and suffers a somewhat human need to justify himself, which he has. ( In fact it makes him worse, because he’s gone from something of a mindless tool of cruelty to someone actively seeking it out, having convinced themselves quite firmly of its necessity and value. ) A general Thing I run with re: this whole series is that Hyrule’s actually a horrible place to live if you squint, and basically all the goddesses are horrible to the poor mortals below. Ghira’s owed a little frustration with his lot.

Related to the above? As delightful as it is to joke about, he’s not a sincerely sexual entity. Any and all weird tongue-waggling is done specifically because he knows it throws people off, and that’s what he wants out of a fight. He’s not socialized enough to know much of the nuance behind similar action, he just knows it gets a large reaction out of people, and typically that makes intimidation or murder even easier.

[akatokuro]

The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episodes 31-35

YES, I AM STILL MAD ABOUT SHUN!!!!!

- Even though Saori isn't a fighter, I'm glad she feels like part of the team in scenes like this! Shun telling her to watch over Seiya and her "understood" response, hnngggg.

- Recent events must be wild from Saga's POV (uncluttered with confused early filler and misunderstood lore.) There's no way for him to even be sure if Aiolos is really dead at this point, is there? I think you could easily swing a similar setup to the anime with Saga recently becoming paranoid and more brutal ever since the Galaxian Wars aired on TV, even taking out the "oh no everything changed when the pope's evil brother attacked!"

- It's not a big deal, but every time stuff like the steel ball-wielding Saint or the frisbee Saint pop up, I'm just like... WHAT HAPPENED TO ATHENA FORBIDDING WEAPONS, GUYS? has anyone told dohko that these jerks are stepping on his territory?

- hyouga and shun sure are married. in other news, water wet, sky blue, etc etc

- Hi again, Ikki! Nice to see you back and at least 80% more in character? Still a little too specifically protective of Saori but a big improvement from the last time you were here, at least!

- I MEAN, HANGING OFF EITHER ENDS OF A CHAIN ON A TREE BRANCH CAN BE A LEGIT DATE, TOO, HYOSHUN!

- "Oi, Shun! Oi!" hnnnngggggg, and then telling Shun to go up first, hnnnnggggg. swan may be a dumbass but he is a very sweet boyfriend

- Something about these two as a duo, even - or maybe even especially - lurking in the background together is so fucking charming. I think part of what makes the HyoShun feel oddly real even at this stage is Hyouga's weird insistence on saying Shun's name at every opportunity...? But they really do have this natural chemistry where they feel especially, quietly fond of each other.

- headless ikki is hilarious

- "Heh, if Shun and Hyouga can't survive getting thrown off a cliff on their own, they're losers anyway. Let's beat it" ah yes now there's the ikki i know and love!

- saori nooooooo!

- By the time she officially assumes her role at Sanctuary, Saori definitely hates herself. It's pretty painful seeing that process really get going in these past few eps.

- Once again, as always, Hyouga comes across as really attentive to Shun. Something about the emphasis on the shot of Hyouga lifting his eyes to him before turning to Shun and addressing him directly when he didn't really need to. The charming thing about Hyouga is that yes, he puffs himself up, but he's also 100% earnest all the time - he doesn't feel self-conscious or defensive about his attentiveness or concern for Shun, either.

- Oh right, the Ikki backstory that for some reason they kicked to the present while cutting Shaka's role. That is a shame. This is one of those things in my grotesque Frankenstein-like personal Saint Seiya canon where the manga version does win out.

- I'M PRETTY SURE THE SETTING WITH ESMERALDA'S DEATH WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IN THE ORIGINAL FLASHBACK...? I MEAN, OKAY, BUT...

- I feel like ordinarily I would be really annoyed by what a flat "I solely exist to make sad doe eyes and then be fridged" female character Esmeralda is, but the whole thing with "teehee, did you mistake me for your little brother again!" "Yeah, you look exactly like him!" "Teeheehee!" is so fucking weird it just drains me of all capacity to be potentially outraged...

- I ENJOY HYOUGA JUST CASUALLY INCLUDING HIMSELF AS ACCOMPANYING SHUN ON HIS IKKI INVESTIGATION LIKE IT'S THE MOST OBVIOUS THING.

- Between this and his boyfriend's complex about his dead mom......... Shun sure has a hard life..........

- And now we're into Shiryuu's filler arc! Considering how weird the manga-anime relationship in StS is and how both fed into and revised each other, is it unreasonable to assume that Kurumada saw this set of episodes and went: "Tiger-themed character to contrast Shiryuu's dragon... Ohko... Ohko... Ohko........... d......ohko...? DOHKO......? WHOA YES NAILED IT"

- I do like the contrast in this episode between Shiryuu presenting a calm facade and "it'll be okay, any one of us would have done it" to the other Bronzies, but here in private he's having violent nightmares and obviously struggling with what's happened to him.

- I feel so sorry for Shunrei. Her body language and expressions here tell you a lot about the quiet frustration and anguish that she keeps pinned down under that gentle, supportive face. Hm, you and your future husband do have that in common, I suppose, Shunrei...

- It's still hard to see Shiryuu taking his frustrations out on Shunrei, though. Uncool, my dude.

- It's also hard to see Shunrei implicitly devaluing herself and "accepting" that her concern isn't enough to move Shiryuu on its own by bringing up Seiya and the others in order to motivate him - and then catching herself for letting an edge get into her voice.

- Seiya, his weird early entry from the filler is over. Ikki gonna Ik. Best to just accept it, the way his younger brother mostly does...

- Hey, is this the first time Seiya belts out his "Saori-san"? An exciting occassion!

- I do think it's interesting and nice in the wider context that Saori comes to Ikki's defense here - both understanding that Saori is privately blaming herself for what happened to Shiryuu and Seiya, and knowing that Ikki is also incredibly damaged for things that she and her grandfather was responsible for. Ikki is fucked up and can't communicate well because of things Saori was complicit in, so yes, it's appropriate that she at least urge others to be understanding of him.

- kurumada flying bythe seat of his pants jokes aside ohko is a bad character sorry

- Seiya/Shiryuu fans must have been veeeeeery happy about this setup with Seiya searching for the magic water...

- It must have taken a ton of courage and frustration for Shunrei to finally "snap" a bit and be honest about what she wants like this. Shunrei is in a painful position where she can't hate Sainthood and what it does to her loved ones, per se - because she was raised by Dohko and owes everything to Saints and has been basically indoctrinated into the SAINTS = NOBLE AND GOOD worldview as well - but it still tears her apart to see Shiryuu volunteer himself to get ripped to shreds, and hate himself and see himself as lesser if he can't do that. So she mostly just locks everything inside.

- I like her including "Seiya and the others will understand!" too, because it reflects her desperation and how much thought she’s quietly put into this.

- She's right, by the way, Shiryuu. You could be so happy with her. You are sort of unique amongst most of the Saints in that you really do have the capacity to find a good life outside of the Sainthood and be happy. RETIRE, GODDAMMIT. (Next Dimension made me a little bit upset, can you tell?)

- Considering Shunrei's courage in putting herself out there in a way she almost never dares to, it really sucks to see Shiryuu just totally reject her in a pretty cruel way. I get that he's hurting, but VERY uncool, man.

- And then Shunrei begging Dohko for help, and just getting "LOL THIS IS THE DESTINY OF SOMEONE WHO LIVES AS A SAINT!" Like, I think Shiryuu is a good guy, but really, Shunrei probably deserves a lot better than a Saint, period.

- And then Ohko and Shiryuu have a shounen fight where Shiryuu regains his self-confidence and Ohko finally grasps the meaning of true strength blah blah blah. Wow, Shunrei really was the most interesting part of this arc, huh?

- All the mumbling Dohko does in these eps about "I must return to my task" is weirdly hilarious to me, though. Like... what, did you take a break from watching the seal for a while? DID YOU LET RHADAMANTHYS SLIP OUT FROM UNDER THE WATERFALL TO OBSERVE THIS DUEL OR

- and then aiolos randomly decides that he wants to take a bath, trolling both graude and sanctuary alike. sure.jpg

- Shiryuu, you stupid fuck. You absolute dumbass. You moron. You could be so, so, so happy. Goddammit, Shiryuu.

- JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, MU

- KIKI IS FUCKING EIGHT YEARS OLD. you didn't leave him a note? did you leave him out food? i love the implication that mu disappeared because he's laying low since sanctuary's mooks are probably after him. YOU DIDN'T THINK IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO WARN KIKI ABOUT THIS?

- ESPECIALLY SINCE A SANCTUARY MOOK DOES ACTUALLY SHOW UP LOOKING FOR MU WHEN KIKI IS THERE AND SEIYA HAS TO SAVE HIM?

- and then we spent an entire filler episode watching seiya climb a mountain and punch birds.

- next episode: HE HAS ARRIVED AT LAST. IT'S MILO TIME MOTHERFUCKERS

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED: Final Fantasy VII Remake

The task is done. FF7R is finished. And I hate it. Not in a “Why did I waste my money on this trash” way, but a “What have you done to one of my top 10 games” way. I feel like I read the book and am now watching the HBO show going, “well that’s not right…” If this were a review and I was grading the game, I’d give it a 7/10. Graphically, the character models are beautiful, but the repetitive and narrow environments can be shockingly low quality at times. The gameplay is pretty good. It’s definitely an evolution of Crisis Core, but when you’re in red health, and your best chance to cast heal is to go put yourself face-to-face with a towering monster...eh, it needed work. I liked the side quests, but they could be awkwardly placed. The characters are not what I remembered. That’s not necessarily bad, but at times I had a hard time understanding their motivations. The added sections and elongated sequences were a major pain point, which also affected the story. Ultimately, I think Final Fantasy VII Remake’s development team had an impossible task, and they did their best...mostly.

So, last we left off, we’re all hanging in Aerith’s old room. Super weird, since in the original the Turks capture the team and Avalanche faces President Shinra, face-to-face. This was a great moment in the original: “good try losers, but we got you!” Shinra...I don’t remember what he says, but it pisses off Barret. We’re then taken to prison cells where Cloud talks to different groups through the prison walls. You get some character development plus the awkward conversation of Aerith saying he promised one date to Cloud. Tifa overhears and is like “Well excuse me”.  It’s a good scene of the team coming together and much of the interpersonal drama coming out in the open. This is where the team truly coalesces. 

Remake, though...it’s awkward. We see more hooded ghosts and then freely walk out. Speaking of the ghosts, looks like I was almost right. They’re “Destiny” trying to make sure things play out. And they’re stupid. Probably gonna give them their own post. We then go to the Jenova container. Here, Hojo is using Jenova-juice to make monsters and shit. I didn’t hate this sequence, but it’s a whole new chapter and I was done. Like, we’re supposed to leave the cells and see a dead Shinra--not spend an hour plus wandering more hallways. It was neat how they took some of the weird monsters from the original and made them meaningful here as Hojo experiments. And I liked seeing Tifa and Aerith work as a team, developing a friendship, instead of a rivalry over Cloud’s affections. I’d almost prefer they had left romance out of it, just focus on everyone being friends. It’s fun having Red XIII around, and it was probably wise to include this new Hojo section so that he becomes a part of the team--since the game is about to end. But he wasn’t super defined as a character. He’s just kinda mopey. How did he get here, what did Hojo want with him? President Shinra is hanging off the side of the building. Barret talks to him, saves him, and then makes a few odd requests. Shinra grabs a gun and kinda challenges Barret on his ideals. This is all awkward. Barret’s past with Shinra is very personal. He’s not wrong to want to save the planet, but at this moment, Barret is much more “make Shinra hurt”. And since the remake doesn’t explain why Barret is this way, or show Barret as an unreasonable hothead, it’s just...awkward. Then we see Sephiroth kill the President. I get why they did this: very cinematic. But there was something startling about finding Shinra’s body in the original. Your main enemy/antagonist is already dead. Who killed him? Why? Are they a friend? All great and terrifying questions that are answered at the right times in the original. But since this is a partial-remake, we don’t have time for all that: so, stabby-stabby. Then they do the smartest change they’ve made in this game: you fight Jenova. It was always quite confusing in the original. Jenova was having to be transported by “Sephiroth”--so it always seemed weird to me that you fight Jenova. But then...Sephiroth was Jenova...kinda...need to check the wiki on that.

Then we have the boss fight with Rufus. The original handled this transition better. After finding a dead Shinra with the Sephiroth’s sword, Rufus’s helicopter lands. The gang does one of my favorite things and introduces themselves from their diverse backgrounds: Ex-Soldier, Flower Girl, Avalanche, Science experiment. Rufus is unimpressed and gives a speech about how he’s gonna be a bigger ass than his dad. It was a good intro to a new villain. Remake...it’s awkward. BUT I love how Tifa comes to Cloud’s rescue at the end of the boss fight. FINALLY the game recognizes how badass Tifa is. Cloud, ex-soldier, still needs saving. He can’t survive as a loner. And this moment beautifully illustrates that. Good move.

Before that, we do see Sephiroth carry Jenova out of the tower. But then there’s a flash, revealing a hooded figure with a tattoo. Think we saw this before. They’re really showing their hand here, but given the limited scope of the remake, I get why they had to. I’m mostly annoyed they didn’t do more set up. I know they showed Cloud’s neighbor being hooded, but I think they could have done more with this. I’m also curious if Cloud is going to have a tattoo under his shoulder armor??   Soo, I couldn’t wait to do the motorcycle event and end this thing. But we had to do a bunch of cut scenes...took forever. Then boom--we’re off. Similar to how the first sequence went, but the helicopter was a nice addition. I was impressed they did the boss fight purefly on the motorcycle. It kinda kicked my ass, I almost died. Luckily, I survived. Good fun. We get to the end of the highway and I’m ready to put down the controller and pat myself on the back. But then I’m allowed to move. As I walk forward, I see a “rest bench” to refill my HP/MP. Umm...this is concerning. I think we get a hint of Sephiroth--and so I imagine he will be the final boss fight. I’m ok with this, as it’s probably what needs to happen for the story. Instead, there’s this long BS about the Destiny ghosts and how they’re shaping the future and, for some reason I didn’t quite pick up on, we have to literally fight destiny. ...like...why?

So, huge interdimensional boss fight with an almost formless creature and its minions. Reminds me a lot of SIN from Final Fantasy 10. I didn’t like Final Fantasy 10. So I’m not liking this. I don’t get why we’re fighting Destiny, I don’t get how we can fight Destiny--like this is some bullshit I don’t need right now. While as intriguing as the debris-hopping is (reminiscent of Advent Children), I hated this stupid, tacked-on boss fight. I don’t see the point of Destiny being involved (gonna have a separate post about this). Then we defeat the stupid Destiny monster and still have to fight Sephiroth. Like, skip Destiny and just do an exciting interdimensional Sephiroth fight!!! I defeat Sephiroth...or a Sephiroth...and end up in an interdimensional space that reminds me of the final boss from the original. I imagine this is intentional. Sephiroth invites Cloud to join him against Destiny (very Vader/Luke) and Cloud says, “never”. Which is a little confusing, because Cloud literally just finished killing Destiny. And then the game closes with a cinematic I half paid attention to.

From what I can tell, Destiny Whispers killed Wedge for some reason, and Briggs is left alive. To hell with Jessie I guess? I did like Wedge coming back to help out. I love their choice of voice actor. But his inclusion has been an awkward ride.

As the game was ending, I was feeling...not great. I wasn’t really happy with it. But then they offered the Chapter Select. This changes things a bit. I can “control” my experience on a replay, and I imagine I can kinda punch my way through quite easily since I get to keep my equipment and levels. I may actually replay this game, but I still favor the original. A friend expressed a desire for them to truly remake the original--but I was on board for improvements. I recant that now. I wish they had stayed truer to the original and not tried to give me such an epic chunk.