#i still have issues initiating convos

[campingwiththecharmings]

i wish i knew how to talk to people

[8aji]

reading a letter to his father by franz kafka felt cathartic, for various reasons you can probably infer, but after i finished it and inevitably logging onto tumblr for some needed serotonin yes I cried, i couldn’t help but think about megumi, and how he’d absolutely hate it. and this is not because he cannot relate to kafka’s struggle, i’m sure he can deeply empathize but only to a certain extent because behinds kafka’s apathy there’s love coming from a broken child, love that was birth from a built relationship, and i think he’d hate it because he’s got “nothing” to compare it to.

the closest thing he’s got to compare kafka’s father to is “nothing” because the only concept/idea/relationship with his dad is non-existent—nothing—because he left, and a part of me thinks he’d hate or maybe like reading this book because it could be the closest he can get to a conversation with his father.

[ripplestitchskein]

Today I wanna rant talk about this

Versus

This

A lot, and I mean A LOT of people use these two moments as a way to compare Stolas and Blitzø with Fizz and Asmodeus. Specifically, Asmodeus with Stolas. And I get it, both Tiny Clown Imp with Giant Bird Aristocracy. Both dealing in different ways with the social hierarchy of hell. People keep using it as a “well Stolas HID while Asmodeus declared” and yes, that’s true but I don’t actually think we’re meant to be comparing Stolas and Asmodeus, at least not about this specific thing.

Blitzo doesn’t need someone to declare their love for him, he needs to declare his love for someone else.

People put the “Stolas is ashamed of Blitzo because of his station” on Stolas a lot and it is shown multiple times that it is not a factor for Stolas. He even like…sings about how it’s not an issue? Explicitly. The different stations was an issue for Asmodeus for awhile based on thier convos and the hiding. And it was for Fizz, though for different reasons I’ll get into in another post cause this is already going to be long as fuck. But this social hierarchy, famous person conflict is 100% Blitzo.

Blitzø is the only person who should be interpreting Stolas hiding his face as being because of the social disparity because that is a hangup of his. We, the audience, should know better because we’ve been shown the truth, or the reality of the situation in the scope of the show, MULTIPLE times. Blitzø is the one who harps on the class disparity, he’s the one who has the perception that Stolas is only looking for a fetishcentric fuck with the common rabble. The audience is supposed to see Blitzø’s reaction and know he is wrong, that this interpretation is because of one of his character flaws of feeling not good enough, and being compared to people, not because of the reality, because we have proof otherwise. Including the canon song where Stolas fucking says it outright.

There is a lot of talk about the “solution to Stolitz” being Stolas loudly and publicly declaring their relationship ala Asmodeus. But…Stolas already did his big public declaration at the BEGINNING way BEFORE Asmodeus. Stolas did it in The Circus flashback. He reinforced it at the Harvest Moon festival. He reinforced it at Ozzie’s.

His initial public declaration was following up a Imp leaving his bedroom in front of the Ars Goetia yelling “Sorry I fucked your husband” after a big aristocratic party by coming out well fucked and loudly screaming he was getting a FUCKing DIVORCE and ripping a banner in front of some of the most socially influential people in Hell. He then publicly thirsts over Blitzø at the Harvest Moon festival, multiple times and by name AND species. He takes Blitzo’s hand, and goes on a public romantic date with him, even reminding the doorman of who he was and who he was with and THEN when all eyes are still on them after the song at Ozzie’s, despite everything said, reaches out to him across the table and then gets up and leaves with him even taking his car home when he has the ability to just portal. No one who converses with him about Blitzø is left with any ambiguity that they are involved, not Stella, not Striker, not Octavia, he loudly declares he is into the imp to anyone who will listen, often in front of Blitzø, which he cringes away from and insists is just a transactional fucking.

The contrast to be drawn between Asmodeus making a public declaration shouldn’t be on Stolas but BLITZØ. He’s the one who needs to declare it, Stolas already has, repeatedly and out loud, and in public already.

Blitzø is the one who can’t say it out loud. He’s the one who shies away from conversations about it and dismisses it when anyone brings it up. He uses the excuses of social class and it being only for sex to justify his own inability to own it. There’s a reason all his exes are massively famous people who got famous after he destroyed the relationship. With Verosika it’s pretty clear she was super into him and he dipped. It’s not clear if it was because she was getting famous, that might be revealed, but the hints we have (her tattoo, his stealing her credit cards and disappearing) is that the end of that relationship was all Blitzø. When people find out he was in a relationship with her he is uncomfortable with the fact that she is famous, he goes out of his way to separate himself from her fame. Because people react exactly as he expected them to, incredulous someone famous could be into nobody Blitzø.

Somewhat ditto with Fizz, at least at first. Fizz was shown to be already pretty well known by the end of their friendship. Because of Blitzø’s self worth issues he doesn’t believe someone like Fizz could reciprocate his feelings, he sees him surrounded by people and doesn’t feel worthy to be one of them so he turns away and accidentally burns down a circus doing so. While a confession from Fizz first, if he felt the same way, might have prevented the catastrophe we have no way of knowing if Blitzø would have done the same thing to Fizz he did to Verosika and let his self worth issues eventually destroy their relationship too, especially after he signs on with Mammon. A big theme of their comments to each other before their reconciliation are about the disparity in fame, Fizz is also an imp so it’s not social class, but that Fizz is a beloved, famous figure and Blitzø failed at becoming one.

The Circus illustrates this so well, Blitzø is the failure who keeps trying his hardest and Fizz is the one who steps in and just kind of naturally does it. Blitzø’s dad makes no secret of the fact that Fizz is the more desired one. We also see Stolas appreciating Blitzø for who he is. Laughing against the crowd, just like during the sitcom taping, he doesn’t care about the public’s reaction to Blitzø, it doesn’t lessen Blitzø in his eyes at all.

We have also seen Blitzø be told very publicly a person loved him already as well and it STILL wasn’t what he needed. Verosika has it literally tattooed in a prominent place on her body, out there for everyone to see.

He doesn’t want a public declaration, he fears making one of his own and being compared to the one he declared for. “That guy is with THEM?!” It happens when Verosika steals his parking space and everyone realizes they dated, and it happens when the crazy fan goes after Fizz. People dismiss Blitzø in favor of the famous person he is with.

Hearing that, again, would invite the scrutiny that would just further validate that he’s not good enough, that he’s lesser and lower. That’s been his experience so far. Stolas declaring it would just put the spotlight on him once more, and I think it would actually make things worse for him mentally and emotionally. His reaction to Ozzie outing Stolas as his date to the crowd shows us this. I believe it’s why he split up with Verosika, the more famous she got the more eyes on him that could find him lacking. He’d be in the spotlight and his act wouldn’t be able to measure up to hers.

Just like at the circus with Fizz when they were kids, or during the sitcom, when eyes are on Blitzø he fails. Stolas gave him a bit more confidence each time. Not by loudly yelling “Hey, I like him!”to sway the audience, but just by quietly and genuinely laughing at his jokes and appreciating Blitzø for who he is. Stolas I think realizes this consciously, he sings it in Look My Way that the realm doesn’t appreciate what Blitzø is and because of this Blitzø built up walls around himself to protect from that lack of appreciation. Stolas tries to hype Blitzø up, he does so in the Harvest Moon Festival early on in their relationship but it makes Blitzø uncomfortable because the public declarations bring eyes to him. He has like….relationship stage fright in a sense. Imo the last thing Blitzø needs is another loud declaration.

Stolas though, he does NEED it. He has had one romantic partner publicly declare they don’t love him to all who will listen for like well over a decade, and now he needs a partner who will make it really really clear they do and I think preferably out loud where others can hear.

Stolas’s conflict and flaw is his family and his desire for reciprocal love. The shame of being an adulterer, of destroying the idealized family he strived for and the image he projected for so many years. And especially, the loneliness of his “romances” being one sided. With the exception of Octavia all of Stolas’s surrounding family and “friends” don’t give a fuck about him and he knows it. Why would Blitzø be any different? He also needs someone to choose him outside of a business or familial relationship. Stella was an arranged marriage to produce a heir. Blitzø was a sexual transaction for the grimoire. Octavia is his daughter. His relationship with his father shows that he isn’t special to him either. Paimon doesn’t even know his name. Stolas has no one declaring for him.

There’s a reason most of Stolas’s issues are told though “images”. The family portraits, the Sinstagram posts of Blitzø appearing annoyed or disinterested while Stolas does not see the picture Blitzø took, because that is his primary issue, he destroyed the image of himself he was trying to project for a chance at a reciprocal relationship. That image maintenance has nothing to do with Blitzø’s imp status, but more the public lack of perceived reciprocity in his romantic dealings.

He knows he looks like a fool, putting himself out there and not getting a confirmation back. This is why every problem Stolas had with his marriage seemed to come down not to attraction or status but mutual feeling. He doesn’t feel bad for cheating because Stella made it clear she didn’t care about him for him. Stella tells everyone loudly and publicly, even before Stolas cheated, how she feels about him. So as soon as Stolas can he jumps at the chance to say “HEY EVERYONE SOMEONE DOES LIKE ME! HE HAD SEX WITH ME AND EVERYTHING”and yelling out “THE ONLY MAN WHO CAN FUCK ME”. Flirting with Blitzø in front a crowd of people. He desperately wants to be publicly desired, to know he’s loved and for others to know he’s loved too.

I don’t think it matters to Stolas at all that who he cheated with was below him in terms of social hierarchy, or that people know about it, and he hasn’t ever indicated visually or with words that Blitzø being an imp was the root of those issues for him. Stella brings it up because she’s obsessed with status and EVERYONE KNOWS that her husband fucked an imp and is now divorcing her. Asmodeus brings it up because the entire Lust song at Ozzie’s is to distract the audience from his very real love affair with Fizz and maintain the public fiction that what he and Fizz have is just physical.

The whole social hierarchy issue is a deflection, and a misdirection.

This is further emphasized by the fact that Fizz and Asmodeus fucking isn’t even really an issue? People seemed to know they were fucking, like them being walked in on at breakfast and loudly declaring “ we are just banging, we are not in love”. The social hierarchy conflict as an external factor kind of falls apart on that alone but let’s move on. It’s not 100% clear if people outside of the household knew about Fizz and Asmodeus so we can maybe assume the public at large did not. But higher level demons being in a relationship with lower level ones doesn’t appear to be an issue? Like most of the powerful demons we see are actually in relationships with someone from a lower class. Even Mammon surrounds himself with imps and relies on one for his business.

Blitzø sure as fuck brings it up as a justification for why he’s not good enough. But Stolas doesn’t.

He’s even been shown visually and deliberately as forgetting that it’s even a factor, starting with his bowing to Blitzø as a baby owl and then again as an adult. So the comparison of these two moments as being about shame regarding social status for Stolas doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t think it’s about social status at all really. I think that’s the excuse Blitzø uses to push people away and that’s just as much about social status as it is their fame. I’m not saying it’s not a larger theme of the show, but I think in this instance and for Stolitz it’s a distraction from the larger issues Blitzø has.

Stolas doesn’t need to publicly declare their relationship for an audience to solve their relationship issues because he already did, and I think we’ll see that the reason it’s such a huge plot point for Asmodeus and Fizz (beyond it being tied to their specific roles in Hell as the King of Lust and a public figure) is that it needled to be removed as an obstacle in BLITZØ’S mind.

Blitzø was the one present to witness the public declaration between Asmodeus and Fizz at the competition, not Stolas. If the comparison was between Stolas’s behavior and Asmodeus’s he would BE there, we, the audience, would have him there to connect that conflict in our mind as being rooted in Stolas. But he isn’t, because that conflict is 100% Blitzø. He won’t be able to use the imp versus demon thing as an excuse anymore as there is a very public example of someone even higher than Stolas loving an imp that he personally knows. Not only that but we see no indication in the episodes after Ozzie’s that there was ANY fallout for Stolas or Blitzø having their relationship outted so publicly. We see a big press todo about Stolas going to the hospital but not a single scene of like press asking Blitzø or Stolas about their relationship or the scene at Ozzie’s. Because no one but Blitzø actually cares? Scenes in media show us what’s important and if it was actually important to the larger world of Helluva Boss we’d have scenes to show that. There is no press coverage after the Not Divorced party, none after the Harvest Festival and none after Stolas officially makes moves to divorce Stella. He has assassins follow him around but not press. We DO get those press scenes when Fizzarolli and Asmodeus come out as being in love, because they are big public figures, but the only people who even mention Stolas and Blitzø are contained to Ozzie’s alone, and really it’s just Wally, Fizz and Asmodeus. The rest of the club is just interested in the spectacle.

The point of the hiding Stolas’s face behind the menu was not to tell audience he was ashamed of Blitzø, or that his being with Blitzø is a problem for him socially, but to reinforce Blitzø’s excuses to himself that it is, and highlight Blitzø’s self worth issues. This is further confirmed when Stolas reaches out to him across the table even though they are still in public and then later when he verbally expresses to Blitzø that he’d like to spend time with him without sex, tells him he enjoyed spending time with him outside of the arrangement, makes himself physically uncomfortable in the van just to spend more time with him. All of which Blitzø refuses to believe and dismisses. All of their interactions are shown as Stolas being the one to put himself out there, sometimes to a desperate cringe inducing degree, and Blitzø shutting it down and only expressing that his external protestations are not his true feelings by his avoidant looks, stumbling over his words and excuses, and his “protesting too much”. We as the audience see he’s full of shit through the reactions of others, Millie and Moxxie and Fizz specifically calling Stolas his boyfriend or being skeptical of the bullshit Blitzø spews to diminish the relationship.

For Stolas the song at Ozzie’s was a reminder that he had done something that fucked up his family and frankly his life as he knew it, tarnishing his image as a husband and father, and that fuck up has nothing to do with Blitzø being an imp, everyone knew that already for the most part from the very first time they had sex, but because Blitzø was the catalyst for the risk he took. He used to have the image of his family and his Princely appearance to hide behind and now we’ve shone a spotlight on who he really is, a lonely, soon to be divorcee, on a date with a demon who has acted completely dismissive of him, even outright ignoring him and ghosting at times.

A good way to highlight this issue with image is when Stolas nervously giggles and tries to over the top declare “we are having a perfectly normal date!” to the waitress by playing it off as being okay and trying desperately to get Blitzø to participate. He’s being publicly humiliated again and he tries to play it off and cover it up.

We see it again in his text messages from after Ozzie’s, he is so desperately trying to show Blitzø that it didn’t bother him, but that if it bothered Blitzø he’d like to talk about it. He tries to front it as “I don’t mind jokes about myself, it was pretty funny hahaha” but we as the audience see it for the pathetic attempt at faking it is. Laughing it off and pretending it doesn’t bother him is what Stolas does but he still made an attempt, he still tried. Stolas is from what we see extremely comfortable expressing his feelings, loudly and at length. It when he gets rejected for them that he pretends it’s not how he feels. And once again, he reaches out to Blitzø, gets shut down after putting himself out there and then acts as if everything is fine.

During the song at Ozzie’s , when the spotlight comes to Stolas, Asmodeus starts reminding him he “destroyed” his life, his family, and his image for a dude who does not outwardly appear to return his feelings, who is in fact just fucking him, and not even because he is interested in Stolas, but because he is using Stolas for the book. Every time Stolas tries for more he gets slapped back. He threw everything away for more of what he already had, a loveless business arrangement. He’s not shamed by the fact that Blitzø is an imp but that he ripped apart his picture perfect life for a guy who was acting distracted and ignoring him, who at times is completely turned away from him, and who is sitting across from him visibly uncomfortable at being called out as being on a date with him, and who he cannot get to agree to anything more despite his desperately trying.

Stolas’s part of the Ozzie’s episode opens with Gabriela yelling “Why won’t you LOVE ME ALEJANDRO” and then the man puts a streak in his hair to call back to it and people are still thinking it’s about status for him?

He just watched Blitzø stand up for Moxxie and Millie but when the focus turns to Stolas Blitzø cringes and makes himself small.

Lets break down what actually happens on screen because it is ALL in the visual choices made by the artists and what the song is actually about, lust being more acceptable than love because love is embarrassing and Blitzø hates to be embarrassed:

Moxxie starts singing, and after he sings “I loooove you” the shot jumps to Blitzø who CRINGES and shrinks a bit behind his menu. Publicly declaring your love for someone in public like that? Fucking Yikes. Bro.

Blitzø stands up and defends Moxxie and Millie but not necessarily to support their love, but their sexual relationship. This says a lot about which one Blitzø thinks of as being publicly acceptable.

Fizz turns his attention to Blitzø and the entire call out is about his bad love life, not his social status, and not even necessarily his level of fame but his failures as a romantic partner and the state of his relationships. It’s interesting that the song turns to this lack of love since just a few verses previously they act as though a romantic relationship is anthema to what they are all about. As soon as Fizz starts talking about his LOVE life Blitzø looks nervously at Stolas out of the corner of his eye.

Stolas is shocked as the song starts in on Blitzø but he doesn’t leave or shrink away immediately, he makes this absolutely hysterical face when Verosika is singing.

Blitzø does NOT like that Verosika is singing about their relationship. He crosses his arms and gets very sour pussed.

Then when Verosika starts getting more predatory, and going in on Blitzø physically, Stolas STANDS UP and looks as though he’s going to intervene.

The Wally Whackford yells “Are you sleeping with an Imp?” And Stolas remains standing, in the spotlight for several seconds. He doesn’t even start to move away to get out of it until Asmodeus comes up into his space and the scrutiny is all on him. He still doesn’t hide his face nor does it look necessarily shamed, it looks surprised and scared with where this is going and to have the attention on him but he does not look shamed. In fact, he doesn’t react to the imp comment at all, he is just as shocked and surprised as before Wally yelled as he is after. He keeps making this same shocked and scared face the whole time. We continue to see the crowd throughout all this and the scene is from a wide shot. It’s from the main POV, which is largely Blitzø’s.

The POV then switches to ONLY Stolas’s, we are seeing THROUGH his eyes and what HE sees is his family turning away from him and then they shove Blitzø in a chair, make him the center of Stolas’s vision and he’s left with Blitzø’s embarrassed, cringing face. The crowd, the club, everything else is painted out. From Stolas’s POV he doesn’t see or register the public, he sees and registers his family and Blitzø. They are center of his vision and the club and its patrons aren’t even present in the shot. If the issue was the social status we would have no need to remind the audience of Stella and Octavia by projecting their images and then having a sequence where they turn, walk away and burst into flames. Wally’s comment would be enough to establish it. The crowd would be visible because they would be what matters to Stolas. But it isn’t, we have to dive into Stolas’s POV, get a visual reminder of his family and see how Blitzo looks from Stolas’s POV.

We pull back to the outside POV and Stolas sits and stares for an entire beat after the POV shift (a technique used to tell the audience THIS was how Stolas saw the situation, now we’re back to the main POV), Blitzø is still shrinking away from him and THEN after Asmodeus says “you sold your life for a thrust” is when he hides his face. Yes, I did slow down the animation to actually see the sequence shot for shot and yes, it is a sign I have lost my mind.

But it’s important! This technique is really common in literature and media, you introduce one character’s conflict or flaw and then, to show that it contrasts with another character’s situation you jump into their POV, this is to remind the audience that there is a difference between them, that they are seeing this situation from two different places. The shots are wide for the social status implication that speaks to Blitzø’s issues with public declarations and his own self worth and we jump into Stolas’s just to remind the audience HEY, THIS IS ISNT WHAT STOLAS IS THINKING IN CASE YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE MAIN REASON THEY ARE NOT ON THE SAME PAGE, and then we just jump back to wide shots and bringing Blitzø back as the character whose flaw is being depicted.

The rest of the shots are from main POV and show Blitzo reacting to that. A deliberate contrast is set between what Stolas perceived and what Blitzø did. They present this direct visual contrast using a POV switch to show it. From Stolas’s POV he is being shamed not by the public, who didn’t factor into his POV at all, but by the loss or strain of his familial relationships and by Blitzø presenting himself completely differently when the focus is on HIS relationship with Stolas versus how he reacted to Moxxie/Millie and even Verosika.

From Stolas’s perspective and the audiences Blitzø was relatively okay up until Verosika pushed him, then we see Stolas’s reaction to that. That’s when Blitzø’s entire demeanor changes. He wilts, he shrinks, he makes himself small. Before that he winced a little but mostly he seemed annoyed. Until it gets turned on his date with Stolas. And we see this confirmed through Stolas’s POV, that we are seeing Blitzø how Stolas is seeing him looking sheepish and unhappy right in the center of the shot.

You sold your life for a thrust” is so important in this sequence, Blitzo just basically confirmed from his contrasting reactions and body language throughout the song that what they have is just sex, and we know from Stolas asking Asmodeus about the crystal and following up on it that he is really focusing on the transactional aspect of it and the situation he put an unwilling (at least in his mind) Blitzø in. This is just another bad arrangement like his marriage.

We don’t have onscreen confirmation, so this is more speculation but I imagine Stolas is probably comparing himself to Paimon a bit. His father purchased an unwilling imp to play with him as a child, the imp pretended to be into him to use him for the family treasure and now he’s essentially purchasing the same imp and that same imp appears to once again just be tolerating him for material gain.

Anyway, enough thoughts that depress the fuck out of me.

When we switch back to Blitzø after M&M finish their song we see the public again through their clapping and see his reaction. Now the issue at large is firmly back to the inferiority complex. Blitzø started shrinking and cringing away as soon as the famousness of his date was revealed, as soon as the crowd does exactly what he fears, comparing him to his partner and finding him lacking. Then we have Stolas reaching out, with no regard for the crowd who is back around them in the shots until the hand close up, and Blitzø shuts him down. Again. Once more we have Stolas visibly reaching out and trying to give Blitzø what Blitzø is outwardly projecting he wants (just like Stolas does with the dirty talk), and Blitzø being the one to say something annoyed or dismiss it. There is literally nothing Stolas can do to resolve this, because it’s an internal issue for Blitzø. Stolas externally declaring to every realm in hell won’t fix Blitzø needing to believe it and declare it for himself.

The conversation at Stolas’s house after reinforces everything, that Stolas is trying to do what Blitzø is projecting he wants. Blitzø appears to have an issue with their relationship being just about sex, the same person who goes out of his way to force all his non-familial relationships to be just about sex (even Moxxie and Millie, and when he turns a heartfelt reconciliation sexual with Fizz by asking to make out) and Stolas offers him multiple options for more of a romantic or comforting evening, because it’s what he wants as well, and Blitzø ignores that entirely, just outright refuses to acknowledge it. In the hospital we see Stolas tried AGAIN after Ozzie’s via text to work it out, and talk it out, but when Blitzø shuts it down again and when his initial approach didn’t work, Stolas tries just brushing it off and putting up that happy EVERYTHING IS OKAY image again.

So all this billion words and unhinged analysis to say that Stolas is not Asmodeus, he isn’t the one who needs to make the declaration, that won’t actually solve Blitzø’s problem and he already has put himself out there multiple times. Stolas is Fizz, obsessed with putting on a show.

Blitzø’s issues are internal and multiple people have tried to show him in external ways they love him and he either relates it back to sex, dismisses it entirely or physically removes himself from their lives. This is understandable considering when he does put himself out there he gets rejected, (circus audience, Barbie, his various gigs before I.M.P, Loona sometimes) or people act incredulous that someone could be with him. So the only way for him to complete this character journey is to internally reconcile and externally express.

Stolas is much more external about his issues, he tries putting on a happy face, laughing things off, trying to have a perfect day at LooLoo Land with a disinterested daughter, flirting outrageously with a disinterested partner, he wants the external situation to reflect what he feels inside but those around him don’t give that to him. He tries to have a perfect marriage, he gets a partner who throws obnoxious parties for what appears to be the chance to ridicule him publicly. He tries to have a perfect day at LooLoo Land to recapture happier times and accidentally alienates his daughter. He talks about how much he wants to bone Blitzø because that’s how Blitzø approached him and what he seems to be into in his relationships and is the only way he allows Stolas into his life at all, and in return he gets annoyed looks and insults.

“Or Is it Me?” In Look My Way makes me tear up every goddamn time because Stolas believes there is some internal problem within himself, that he cannot give Blitzø what he needs because he’s BEEN TRYING to be what Blitzø seems to want and gets nothing back no matter what approach he takes. No one will externally acknowledge him. Stolas doesn’t have an internal problem accepting his feelings and who they are for, regardless of status or consequences, he clearly says this in Look My Way and shows it before that with his over the top behavior, he needs someone from outside himself to acknowledge and reciprocate it.

So yeah, I disagree with the idea that Blitzø is the one who needs a public declaration. He might need a private one to take away his excuses but I don’t think he needs Stolas to do what Asmodeus did. What Blitzø seems to need is to be brave enough to declare his feelings for once and not shy away from the attention that comes with that. To accept himself as he is, like Stolas accepts him, and that realize he is just as worthy of love as the other people in his life. Stolas needs a declaration to validate his internal feelings, ease some of his loneliness with confirmed reciprocity and to have outwardly what he wants inwardly.

Thanks for reading if you did. I am sorry for being the way I am.

[luna-rainbow]

RE: People giving Bucky a hard time over his "I'm invisble, I'm turning into you.." line being "selfish" That whole scene is Bucky displaying behaviour consistent with depression or traumatic stress. He's drinking by himself in an isolated area, isolating himself from social situations by not sitting with the ohers - he doesn't initiate the convo with Steve and he's apparently smoking. Although a lot of people did that then we didn't see any sign of him smoking before? Not that I recall anyway. And I don't believe he was jealous of a woman paying attention to Steve instead of him or "taking" Steve from him. Bucky's a true friend (I'm not a shipper full stop): and true friends aren't possessive nor do they take issue with you spending time with others or flirting with the same person as them.

I think Bucky was simply testing himself. He wanted to see if he could still muster the confidence and charm to convince a lady to dance with him which he'd probably never had any problems doing before. Its the first time he initiates a conversation the entire scene.

When it didn't work was when he knew there was something wrong. I don't think it was just the super-soldier serum. It's interesting that after that Steve is really the only person he interacts/talks to having been very sociable and outgoing before. Some people have also noted that his tone of voice chances as well, he seems to speak less often, more softly and his tone is quieter. So maybe "I'm turning into you" is actually a kind of role-reversal. Bucky is now the quiet, less confident, introverted one and the one who has been victimized (and is about to be again by HYDRA). Kind of interesting as well that the serum now means Steve is taller than him too.

Poor Bucky. Cut him a break and give that man a hug. And a cookie. A cookie can't hurt.

Hey nonnie, I'm not sure who's been giving Bucky a hard time over the "I'm invisible" speech but I'm glad I haven't seen it XD

I had a meta a while ago about that particular line. It's not a fixed headcanon by any means, I was just running with the flow of Bucky's thoughts to see how he might have ended up in that moment.

And yeah, I agree, I think he was in a very vulnerable place at that time. Not just what he went through during imprisonment, but he's also traumatised by what he's seen so far in the war, and now someone who matters very much to him is in danger (Steve) and he can't do anything about it. I'm basing my projections on what Sebastian had said about Bucky in the "let's hear it for Captain America" scene -- that no, he wasn't jealous of Steve in that moment, he was just horrified he wouldn't be able to protect him anymore. He's torn between admiring Steve for the courage, and the very realistic fears of seeing Steve come to harm, but he also knows Steve too well to talk him out of it. So he's not in the best headspace in that moment.

I do want to gently disagree in that jealousy in a friendship doesn't make it less pure or less good, it's simply a very human response to what is at its heart a fear of abandonment. Even if you logically understand that you need to let your friend have other relationships, you can still feel jealous if that eats up time you'd normally have with your friend, and apprehensive about what else you might lose. It's what you do with those emotions that defines your morality. This is why a lot of fans say that Bucky has had a villain origin story but has come out the other end a hero -- he's gone through an arc of loss and fear and jealousy, but come out the other side still staunchly Steve's friend, and that's a heroic arc.

As always I think Sebastian did a fantastic job with Bucky. The change in Bucky pre-war and post-war is considerable.

His voice is lower and coarser, his mannerisms are much more "schooled" rather than boyish, it screams less bravado and more of a quiet assurance, and that frown never lifts from his brows. But yeah, a lot of that is battle-hardened professionalism, but I think a lot of that is also Sebastian factoring in Bucky's mental health. And his eyes are on Steve a lot more even when they're not conversing -- shipping angle aside, Steve is his commanding officer, and my other thought is that...his eyes are always on Steve because the danger to Steve is much higher now, and he's always made it his personal mission to make sure Steve's going to be okay.

(I mean there's also a lot we can say, or has been said, about that particular scene in terms of male writers writing female love interest badly, but that's an entirely different topic)

[eatingfireflies]

2.2 is coming and if I don't write this now, how can I get jossed later?

This is the moment when I started to wonder if their 2.0 conversation was a role play.

Like, we know this issue is a sore point for Ratio. The fact that this guy he called a loud peacock in 2.0 made a joke about his failure to get into the Genius Society and all he said was 'I was being sarcastic'?? Babe, is something wrong? You barely touched your sharp and witty comeback.

(Btw I checked both Cn and Jp, he says 'It was just a joke.')

And I don't want to bring up the voice acting because the way voices sound is subjective and what I hear might not be what you hear, but the Double Indemnity scenes with Ratio are probably the most relaxed we ever see Aventurine ever. (I'm talking about the Cn version, but I played in Jp audio and I could hear it there too.) He's playful and his voice is higher pitched, so different from what we've seen of him so far.

It sounds like Ratio and Aventurine have known each other longer than they want us to believe in their 2.0 convo.

I mean, the implication here is Ratio did some research on Aventurine's background recently and that's how he found out about Aventurine's past. So we make the assumption that they haven't been working together for long.

Look, they even did a Penacony remix of their Final Victor conversation

But honestly, you'd think Ratio would have figured out if he trusted Aventurine or not at this point, considering he came back for more after Final Victor (lmao??)

Also, we know Aventurine had been planning for Penacony since his call to Topaz, where he asked for her help. It's hard to believe that he went through all the trouble of asking two different Stonehearts to lend him their cornerstones and then went to Penacony and the Dreamscape with Ratio, whom he barely knows. That's too much gambling, Aventurine!

We know the Family won't let anyone from the IPC to enter the Dreamscape and Aventurine only gets a pass because of the Watchmaker's invite

But Himeko is wrong here: Aventurine didn't go inside the Dreamscape alone and he does have someone backing him up. It just happened that almost no one else saw Ratio in Penacony and the one scene where we did see him talking to Aventurine was 2.0, where he got angry and left Aventurine babbling to himself.

But now that we're here, what did Ratio do in Penacony aside from bicker and betray?

His initial job is to gather intel, afaik. Aventurine tells him to go look into things in 2.0 before he left. And he does give Aventurine updates in 2.1 (Aventurine finds out about Firefly from Ratio) so good for you, professor!

Ratio is Aventurine's connection to his colleagues outside. Once Aventurine's plans enter the Dead phase, Ratio is the only one left to tell Topaz and Jade if the plan had been a success or not. (Aventurine also makes a joke about the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites offering to be his undertaker. In the Jp version, he says 'So the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites wants to claim my corpse? What an honour.' So there's also that... Uh. Idk how dead dead Aventurine really is, but at least we know someone's looking after his body while he's gone lmao??)

But also he's Aventurine's bait to Sunday, the (fake) weak link in Aventurine's plans that Sunday thought he could exploit.

And the 3rd one is a bit complicated, because it is a gamble. Remember Aventurine's E1? Prisoner's Dilemma? Yeah, it's kinda like that. I talked about it before, but let's copy paste it here for easier reading (and because this post totally needs to be a wall of text)

Let's zoom out a bit again and remember that Aventurine was sent to Penacony because Diamond thinks this whole affair could still have a peaceful resolution. Meaning: Aventurine is the kind option. The IPC could have sent Opal instead, but it sounds like that means there would be a body count.

And I think that's why Ratio is here and why he agreed to cooperate. Because if Aventurine's plan works out, only Aventurine's life will ever be in real danger. (And we know from Ratio's note that he also took steps to increase the chances of Aventurine coming back.)

Ratio being there is important to the plan because

Him being from the Intelligentsia Guild removes some of the heat from the Family. If Ratio is coming in as a plus one, the IPC (in this case, I'm assuming it's Aventurine because he's the guy in charge of the operation) chose the best person for the job. It makes the Family happier knowing there are not two IPC envoys walking around the Dreamscape and Aventurine has a buddy who can move around more freely than another IPC employee could

But because Ratio is an outsider, he's also the weak link in Aventurine's plans. Another IPC employee will probably not betray Aventurine, but the Guild has no particular horse in this race. We were also led to believe from their 2.0 conversation that Ratio doesn't like Aventurine very much. This is what I meant when I said Ratio is a bait: Aventurine was pretty much dangling him in front of Sunday, making Sunday think he could use Ratio to ruin Aventurine's plans. The important thing of course is the trust the two of them have for each other (yay, Prisoner's Dilemma). Ratio could ruin Aventurine's plan if he wants to (very bad for all involved because I'm guessing Opal is the next step) and Aventurine could fail (not as bad for everyone involved after 2.1 because the IPC has already won regardless. There's still a Phase 2 in Aventurine's plan and Ratio seems to want him back after that, so I guess he'd consider it a failure if Aventurine doesn't return?), but trusting each other means they win.

Tl;dr Ratio's presence in Penacony is a bit of a gamble on Aventurine's part but it worked well for him so far. Ratio is here to make sure everyone stays alive. (And maybe the Phase Flame? I honestly don't know if the Annihilation Gang will ever come back again, but for now I'm going with the obvious and assuming Ratio is here because he thinks Aventurine's plan will work and work with the least amount of pain for everyone.)

Thank you for getting this far. Why do we think they deserve Oscars?

Aside from the movie references (we'll get to that), we have 3 different instances where Aventurine mentions acting / the 'script'.

The most direct is the conversation with future!Aventurine in the garden maze: future!Aventurine praises Ratio's acting while Aventurine says 'Or he might not be acting at all' (the inability of these two to admit they are friends, but more importantly they don't think the other person thinks highly of them, is2g).

The next one is hidden in the mission description

And the other one got lost in translation. This was translated to 'You catch on quickly' in En. In Jp he says something like 'You have a good sense for drama, professor' (Sorry Idk what this is in the og Cn)

Finally, Double Indemnity. I haven't seen the movie, but it seems to be about an insurance salesman who gets seduced by a hot wife femme fatale into helping her get rid of her husband so she could claim his insurance. Double Indemnity refers to this clause where the insurance gets doubled if the person suddenly dies of an accident.

I've thought about this so hard, let me tell you. What could this possibly have to do with Aventurine and the mission? (For example, 'Hot wife Sunday seduces Ratio the insurance salesman into helping him get rid of Aventurine' etc.) And I honestly still don't know but one detail does help my theory so I'm pulling it out:

The relationship between the insurance salesman and the hot wife femme fatale was known only to the two of them. To the insurance claims adjuster, who was investigating the case and trying to prove the husband's death wasn't an accident, those two are unrelated people who might have seen each other once or twice. The claims adjuster suspected the wife, but had no idea of the insurance salesman's involvement. The truth is, they actually knew each other a full year before the plan was set in motion. Hey, doesn't it actually fit nicely now?

(Spellbound otoh, I still don't know. I have a Sunday and Gallagher reading of it, but Hvy keeps telling me no and making it gay instead so Idk.)

[myunghology]

!! kazuha and freminet general boyfriend head canons

gender neutral reader, fluff, maybe crack?

a/n : freminet is so babygirl i want him. i will download genshin again just for him. (i am very normal about him), also i heard he's a minor, about bennett/chongyuns age, i think!

!! pairings : kazuha and freminet x reader (seperated)

!! KAZUHA

the most caring boyfriend ever!! actually it depends

brings you back random things that reminded him of you when he goes out on adventures. i mean this guy is literally everywhere let's bfr.

also this is for the people who have younger siblings who are still children, he absolutely adores them. he chases them around while they're giggling and it's adorableee! he doesn't mind that they're being annoying and says that "they're just kids!" when you scold them. (clearly he has never had an annoying younger sibling)

tomo's cat is obviously your child now if i never said that before

ALSO random headcanon he has one of those girly screams if yk what i mean😭

has a soft spot for old people, so he offers to take care of your elders because he likes taking care of people, he's that type of boyfriend to impress your family even though he did nothing at all, talking about asian standards btw..

everyone in your family loves him, they immediately gave him their blessing when he asked to marry you.

he isn't scared of ANYTHING, except you when your mad, especially if you have anger issues, he is definitely shaking in his boots bro

!! FREMINET

you're his number 1 annoyer, if that word even is a word man

i have a feeling he gets annoyed easily, but also easily cracks. he's like one of those people who are shy, but not like those shy uwu boys, more like a shy annoyed guy who's annoyed by anything or anyone. at least that's was my first impression of him, don't judge me if it's wrong, he wasn't out yet when i wrote this, alr?

this guy. definitely side-eyes people.

"[name] please stop calling me 'dude' i will kill you" — freminet, probably.

can you tell he doesn't like it when you call him 'dude'

it takes all his manpower for him not to swear at you

a smile creeps onto his lips sometimes when you don't notice, but as soon as you look at him, it definitely fades away

has probably hit you on the head with a book once

possibly the only person he actually talks to (initiating a convo) besides his siblings

lynette and lyney love u bro

they think you're perfect for him fr

they're your biggest shippers actually

[islandoforder]

My thing re: Porter was only that he wasn't praising Fig for what he disapproved of with Gorgug. Like, Fig was doing things differently than Gorgug was, and it didn't have anything to do with protecting one's friends or anything like that, it was a matter of embracing fury in order to do so. He's still not a great teacher, though I do think Zac meant "I go into a worry" to be a flaw and that he wasn't looking for someone to just say "that's valid".

brace for a reply that's at least twice as long as intended haha

okay i think we do actually agree on more than we don't - i do think that 'i go into a worry' is a sign of gorgug not being raised to be comfortable with negative emotions, and the ramifications of that (love the thistlesprings, no hate to them, but their hardwon earnest positivity is probably a lot harder to recognise and appreciate as a teenager who has literally the weight of the world on his shoulders a bunch).

the point i was trying to make was about this exchange from porter to gorgug: "Most of what I see from you in class is, your rage is a place that you go to to put your body on the line for your friends. It's very selfless, very noble. Do I see you actually capable of wielding the destructive power of rage, when the chips are really down?"

to me, this reads as porter saying that his rage stemming from his protection of his friends, that selflessness, that loyalty, is not a good enough motivation, that his rage HAS to be destructive to be valued in porter's eyes, even though he has literally established in this conversation that gorgug is v good at the basic tenets of being a barbarian. he's not saying that gorgug isn't using his rage at all, he's explicitly saying that it's not the right flavour of rage for him. this exchange bugs me so much just because his little speech to fig about her paladin powers being inspired by her friends is very explicitly praising the exact same type of selfless nobility and loyalty. it feels even more hypocritical as this is the same convo with gorgug where he says he feels "heartbroken" and the same convo with fig where he says lucilla was too emotionally involved in fig's decisions in an inappropriate way.

i think it's also a bit tricky bc since emily has decided to engage with/agree with porter (and possibly with bts convos with zac there's no way to tell) brennan has (rightfully!) pivoted. it's a good move as a dm of a campaign to react to your players and how they interact with your npcs, but it does lead to a sort of retconning over the points porter was initially making. like on a mechanics of roleplaying level i get it, but if we just look at the character, it makes him inconsistent and hypocritical more than anything.

it's also hard to know where exactly i'm bringing my own feelings about teaching into it, but in this specific scenario, where gorgug is struggling to articulate his rage and negative emotions, i think not only is porter's behaviour to gorgug not helpful but is actively unhelpful, let alone how he acts with and what he says to fig, knowing they're close friends and gorgug will inevitably hear these double standards. i know it worked in the show, but i think that's bc the players chose to have it work, rather than it being a good or healthy method for a teacher to take. i've honestly got other issues with him too, but not on the point you were making so i'm not gonna keep ranting haha

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for cutting off a friend due to immature behavior and not saying why?

Some context here. I (21, they/them) cut off my friend (22 they/them) due to some repeated, childish actions in a shared discord server. Initially, the server was just for some of our friends because we all had some similar interests and ran in the same social circles on Twitter. It had been a thing for a couple of years, and as social circles tend to do online, activity would fluctuate depending on who was online and had the energy. Here's where the problem starts.

I work a full-time job and have been for our entire friendship. Early 2023, I switched jobs and had to get some licenses to keep it (and for perspective, these are some of the most difficult exams I've ever taken and are comparable to the bar exam for lawyers in my industry), and spent most of the summer studying. I also had a very heavy loss in my family irl late in the summer, then broke up with my girlfriend a couple months later. It had been a really heavy series of months and I wasn't really talking to anyone but my girlfriend (pre breakup) and my irls. The server had gotten inactive other than my friend who would consistently send their art and writings in, but no one really responded. I and 1-2 other people would occasionally have chats in other channels, but nothing beyond "x happened" "damn, that's crazy." But after a while, they'd consistently try to push to get attention on their works— which is fair, I understand wanting your friends to see things you made! After a couple weeks of barely anyone talking, they started getting increasingly passive-aggressive as the days went by, and it became more and more awkward to talk in the server or comment on what they were sending because it was less telling your friend you liked their stuff and more of an obligation. It didn't feel like it would be genuine, so I never said anything.

They left after a dramatic announcement that they didn't want their works being ignored while people chatted in other channels (again, very brief convos). I didn't reach out to them after that, but I started slowly but surely soft blocking them on other platforms. We were never particularly close, more of casual internet friends, and I'd had mild hangups about them and we didn't agree on a lot of points (but it was nothing worth ending a friendship over before that point). Then I get a message a couple weeks later of them asking what they did and why I blocked them, which again— valid! But they asked if I'd said anything to anyone about them because no one else had been talking to them either. I hadn't. I was so overwhelmed I literally didn't want to talk to anyone. But I was so bothered by the fact that they'd think I'd try to poison our other friends' opinions of them because I had a problem. It was just an issue I had with them personally. I mentioned some prior sticking points I'd had because I didn't want to bring up their behavior in the server and let them know I'd seen it because it felt like it was encouraging it? Like how sometimes you need to let a baby cry it out before it gets to sleep. I feel like I did the wrong thing, and it's still bothering me.

AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[coolchulainn]

Hey, so in your recent DRK art tags you mentioned German Sidguru being extremely different from the English, and I'm Intrigued, can you spare any details?

HI IF YOU'RE FINDING THIS OLD POST IN THE TAGS OR SOMETHING GO CHECK OUT THIS SITE https://germanffxiv.neocities.org/

the thing is actually that german sidurgu isn't all that different from the english one, the german one is just (in my opinion) a way better execution of the same concept. fray and myste are completely different characters between languages so their english versions have their own appeal going for them but sidurgu is just The Better Sidurgu in german lol

the biggest point for me is that sidurgu is primarily driven by his trauma over having to watch his family be murdered as a child yeah? from which the german writers concluded that hey, I don't think this guy would be an asshole to myste actually (which is a name customarily given to orphans in the brume). he's still clearly not good with kids and struggling to keep his patience with myste, but he makes the effort to not be cruel to a child, because he's very aware of how much you can fuck up a child forever. it's just a so much more compassionate and nuanced take. his interactions with myste are more entertaining for it too, because instead of a gruff guy being mean to a child you have a gruff guy trying really really hard to not be mean to a child and then two quests later trying to pretend he's still sternly keeping an eye on this child and definitely doesn't have signed adoption papers in his back pocket.

another thing with sidurgu is that he claims to be fighting to protect rielle, but he's really just using her situation as an excuse to act on his violent hatred of the temple knights and lash out in response to his own issues, and doesn't actually listen to what rielle wants or needs. in german it's emphasised much more that he attached himself to rielle because she's effectively orphaned too and he recognised himself in that but it's precisely because her situation hits so close to home for him that he's getting caught up in his own desire to avenge what he lost and fails to see what he still has.

after rielle and the moogles rip into him for this he actually admits using the capital T trauma word that yeah, he's been so caught up in his own trauma that he failed to do right by her, because the german script isn't embarrassed to have the tall broody dark knight say he's traumatised and begin to heal from it. the real kicker on this part for me is that after this convo in english sidurgu is like, let's go back to ishgard, and in german he additionally says they can talk things over on the way back (because he does care for rielle and does want to do right by her and he's going to make active effort to listen to her), like it's such a small thing that makes such a big difference.

in english when it turns out the person hunting down rielle is her own mother, sidurgu gets mad at her for keeping this a secret when he and fray bled and died for her. in german he rages at her mother, because he's been so fucked up from having to grow up without his parents after they were violently taken from him that he can't even begin to comprehend a parent willingly withholding love from their child. when he initially spares rielle's mother he explicitly says it's because no child should have to watch their parents die, and rielle tells him to kill her anyway by saying it's her turn to get vengeance. it's the same general plotline but it feels much more internally consistent in german.

in the english 70 quest fray and sidurgu barely acknowledge each other. in german sidurgu calls fray by name, and fray says somewhat apologetically that they're just a painful memory from a corner of the wol's heart. sidurgu responds to this by throwing his sword at fray and saying "here, this way you can't complain the issue was a blunt weapon again", clearly referencing a memory he shared with fray because the memory of fray is just as important to him as the "real" thing was. when you ask sidurgu about fray after completing all the quests he wonders why you'd bring up fray of all people now, but then adds "fine, I do like remembering him". it's much more tangible that the two of them meant a lot to each other within the very few snapshots you get of their relationship.

overall when put next to each other it just feels to me like the english script was scared of ruining the image of dark knight being so cool stomping around in your spiky armor with your bigass sword, while the german script says with its whole chest that dark knight is about traumatised people banding together to hopefully spare others some of the same pain. both scripts tell you that being a dark knight is about love, but english feels embarrassed to say it while the german quest is permeated with it at every point, in so many ways that if i wanted to list them all it'd be more efficient to just translate the whole thing directly. in being so focused on sidurgu's image of edgy brooding knight the english script ends up being way less compassionate to him.

ironically german sidurgu as a character more purposely cultivates his brooding edgy image as an extension of how much it means to him to be a dark knight, which leaves him open to other characters poking fun at him for it to humanize him and he's way funnier in german because of that. english rielle calls him a chocobo's arse and german rielle jokes that his short temper seems to be an occupational disease among dark knights. he feels more like a complete person rather than a character archetype because they actually let him have a full range of emotions. in english he loudly complains about having to help myste because idk its uncool for dark knights to actually help people or whatever. in german he says helping myste is all well and good but he's not exactly a good therapist so he really hopes some of the people they'll be trying to help have problems that can be solved with violence (and is openly excited when you encounter that girl who poisoned you at falcons nest and he realizes helping her will involve beating the shit out of her prison guard).

i'll be real i think the german team are just straight up better writers than the english team. I've been replaying the msq in german and it's a consistent pattern that the german script has more elegance, is more thematically consistent, and above all isn't afraid to let characters be motivated by emotion. i'm getting off track but you know how in castrum meridianum livia says she's going to kill you because gaius is hers and you can't have him? in german she's mad at you for killing her friend rihtahtyn (yknow, from cape westwind) and she's going to kill you and avenge him before you can take gaius from her too, which just makes way more sense as a character motivation without compromising her possessiveness. in english cid left the empire over moral disagreements in german he's additionally motivated by the complicated resentment he feels over losing his father to project meteor (which in english doesn't come up until three expansions later in bozja) and having gaius fill that paternal role for a while only to lose him to a mad search for power too. it just really doesn't compare. highly recommend anyone who can to start playing the game in a language other than english.

[thatgirl4815]

Incoming essay - apologies!

Rewatching the pool scene and two things struck me: Sand's really not a natural at this whole sneaky, aloof thing - his face while he's watching Ray listen to the recording actually looks quite serious and almost like he's already having doubts, but the second Ray looks back up at him he assumes a fake, couldn't care less expression, which solidifies my opinion that his behaviour here is out of character for him (I don't mean the writing is out of character, but that he's acting in a way that goes against who he really is). Boston's mindfuckery and Nick's...privacy issues come fairly easily to them, and even Mew pulled off a very cold-blooded gotcha that entirely relied on him convincing Top everything was okay, but Sand couldn't even manage that one convo with Ray without it being totally obvious he was pissed and petty and had an agenda. I think swinging a baseball bat probably comes way more naturally to him than subterfuge and manipulation.

The other thing is Sand's expression after Ray asks if he's not okay about him liking Mew - he's sort of speechless for a second, has to take a breath, and it occurred to me that this is the first time he's actually hearing Ray confirm that it's true. Previously it was all just coming from Boston, who Ray said he shouldn't listen to anyway, but here is Ray himself admitting it, saying it out loud, and quite casually at that. Ouch!

(Something else I've been pondering is if Sand isn't (perhaps unconsciously) a little pissed at Nick and that's why he can screw him over so easily - after all, it was Nick who brought Boston into their home, and Nick who, even after witnessing all the damage Boston did - and not to random strangers, but to Sand - still sticks with him, acting all lovey dovey and taking cute couple pics... Not passing judgement one way or another, but it wouldn't surprise me if Sand's a little bit bitter about that as well!)

Ooh yes, I agree with all of this 100%! I like how you can see Sand almost reckoning with himself as he does it. I can see him thinking “Well, if Ray likes someone else and has just been using me, why can’t I play the same game?” Also interesting your point about how Sand likely defaults to direct action as opposed to subtle schemes and manipulation; it would certainly align with how straightforward Sand is about everything (I’m thinking of a lot of scenes but especially that last one where he chases after Ray—he’s undoubtedly still angry, but he cares more about keeping Ray safe than letting Ray see that he’s hurt…that might be part of the reason why the crew decided to use the take where he looks shocked as opposed to heartbroken just before Ray drives off.)

Your analysis also confirms that Sand certainly does care about Ray in the pool scene, even if he’s trying to ignore it in pursuit of his own revenge on Top. Ray’s direct confirmation that he does, in fact, like Mew is just more cause for Sand to be bitter. I can imagine just how broken up Sand has been since the night Boston ruined everything, thinking and rethinking his relationship with Ray.

Sand is making a very pointed effort to make Ray feel his apathy. Beyond Sand simply being hurt and dejected, he wants Ray to feel bad—I just don’t think he ever meant for his schemes to initiate the blow up Ray has at the end.

Lastly, about Nick, I’d be surprised if Sand wasn’t bitter! Nick even tells Boston that he was an asshole and he still acts all lovey dovey with him? Nick comes across as very immature to me and very much a pushover. Hopefully we’ll see Sand address his own anger over this in this trailer clip:

Anywaysss, rant over. Thanks for sharing these observations! You all always make my viewing experience 100x more enjoyable :)

[mageknight14]

Nagi and Beat: What it Means to be Empathetic

One thing I really appreciate about Nagi and Beat's characterizations and dynamic in NEO TWEWY is how the game portrays them as the two of the most emotionally mature and empathetic party members in the game and how they express that maturity in distinct but equally important ways.

Let's start this analysis off with Nagi. The game makes a point to show off multiple times that she’s in-tune when it comes to others’ emotions. Take the side quest with Buddy Rapids on Week 2 Day 4, for example.

When he flips out over not receiving a glass of water from Ken Doi and everyone is flabbergasted by how he reacted, Nagi actually takes the time to empathize with and explain why he would feel that way, that he probably felt unwelcome or deliberately provoked.  She literally absorbs emotions of others like a sponge, to her own detriment. She has this ability, knows it, knows how to work with it, but she can’t exactly turn it off. It gets to the point that an overwhelming burst of negative emotion from the people around her can cause her to emotionally break down, as we see from when she reacts to how the citizens are suffering from Shibuya Syndrome.

She analyses people and feels them whether she wants it or not, and due to being a combination of simultaneously open minded and very direct, those not true to themselves strike her as very wrong, in the wrong, or plain bizarre, as we can see from how coldly she treats Motoi and Fret at first. She’s true to herself, and to others, and someone not reciprocating on the same level is a bad thing in her book.

She suffers from hyperempathy and easily 'taps in' to what people are feeling, but she can struggle with finding the appropriate channel through which to express her feelings, such as her initial coldness towards Fret. Because of this, besides her infatuation with Sho, she’s fairly passive towards the group dynamic and synergy at first, instead to either gush about her beloved Lord Tomononami, EleStra, or both. This is especially notable when tensions start to rise between Rindo and Fret at the beginning of Week 2 and she can do nothing but weakly comment at the tense atmosphere in the air. 

However, as we get to see throughout the game, she begins to lighten up towards Fret and if you look closely at how she interacts with him, she progressively becomes less outright insulting towards him and more distant and hesitant once she puts together than he might actually have a reason to be putting up a front. By the time week 3 rolls around she's not insulting him at all, actually engaging in convos with him because she's realized that Fret is a genuinely good person who acts fake as a coping mechanism. Most of this realization starts showing up during week 2 because Fret gets stressed enough by the situation they're in to let the "mask" slip on multiple occasions— you can see that Nagi's expression changes when her portrait is present during these instances because she starts to put it together. 

While her arc isn’t as pronounced as the others, it’s still there nonetheless and revolves around her learning that she does not need to dismiss people right away and look past the surface, exploring in learning how to nuance so to speak. To cap it off, by the time week 3 comes around, she actively steps up to the plate more than once to help the others sort out their issues and integrates more into the group, truly embracing her role as the team mom, as seen as when she helps the other characters cope with their own issues on Week 3 Day 5. 

Now, let’s contrast this with Beat. While he isn’t as academically intelligent as Nagi, can be slow on the uptake, and not really keen on using his head, he still gets a few good hits in and has a cutting-the-knot way of problem solving that is as much a positive as a negative quality. 

In the first game, he calls out Konishi, who is presented as very smart, on her "unforeseen circumstances", and for someone mixing words a lot, he used those surprisingly straight and deliberately angers her so that she can focus on him while Neku snags Rhyme underneath her notice. He feels that the game is "whack" in NEO and is the first to call out Kubo against it and be suspicious of him while the others just found him sleazy and hatable ("might ask gramps some questions"), fairly quickly discerns that Fret and Rindo were at odds concerning the decision of trusting Kanon or not and that they needed to sort it out, and even recognizes Fret’s grief concerning Kanon herself and opts to let him have one last moment of hope and get some closure on the whole thing rather than just letting him bottle up these feelings in a negative manner forever.

I’d say that while Beat may not be academically smart, can often takes things at face value and can be considered dense at times, he is emotionally incredibly intelligent, even if not in the same way as Nagi: both are highly receptive to others’ moods and feelings, but while Nagi processes them with her heart and brains, Beat processes them with his heart and guts. 

Conversely, while Nagi suffers from her hyperempathy and can struggle with finding the appropriate channel through which to express her feelings, Beat intuitively 'taps in' to what people are feeling and also intuitively 'taps in' to what he can say to cheer people up or to motivate them to keep moving forward, as shown when he inspires the group to keep going forward even when things get dire at the beginning of Week 3 Day 4. 

Nagi stumbles butt-over-head into people’s psyches and while she has a good grasp on the information and psychology, being excellent at reading people, she doesn’t have the means of transforming that into a pleasant interaction if things are at odds. Beat, however meets people partway, at middle ground, or if he senses that he needs to, goes all the way to drag them out of their shell. He doesn’t embarrass himself with the unnecessary, as he doesn’t like to beat around the bush but also seems to think that people do have their own reasons of acting the way they do. To solve the problem, you address the problem, politeness and other fioritures can wait (which, again, is as much a positive quality as a negative one). Nagi has more tact with it because she can sense when things will go on the fritz, and because she’s more actively trying to get along with people than Beat. Even when giving the cold shoulder, she still has restrains (it takes a breaking point to call someone a "degenerate ape") and at worst ignores what bothers her, or makes it clear. Beat, on the other hand, would directly hop to 'I don’t like you, yo' and show scathing hostility, as he does with Sho and Coco who, in contrast to Kariya, Uzuki, and Shoka, are not at all apologetic when it comes to their actions and still antagonize him, in which he responds back in kind. You wrong him or his friends, you’re on his shit list, period.

This difference is seen most predominantly when the Wicked Twisters meet up with Sho again. Beat is immediately hostile thanks to his previous encounters with Sho in the first game and is ready to assume the worst of him, unaware of the shared history Rindo, Nagi, and Fret have with Sho at this point. And when Sho seemingly validates his concerns by attacking him and his friends, he's ready to write him off entirely. And it's not like Sho even cares about what Beat thinks of him to try and correct him afterwards.

Nagi, on the other hand, immediately notices that something is off about Sho compared to when he allied with the team in the first week and picks up that it may be Noise-related. And sure enough, she turns out to be correct. Sho had been absorbing Rindo's Dissonance Noise while he was away and when he absorbs a whole bunch at once, his mind gets overwhelmed and he goes berserk, attacking the Wicked Twisters in the process. Sure enough, when Neku quite literally beats some sense into him after he was already worn down by the team, Sho doesn't antagonize them at all whatsoever. and even gives them cryptic advice concerning the storm that's coming their way later.

To put it into perspective, Nagi is receiving all channels 100% of the time and as such had to define herself strongly against them to hear her own, affirming her personality and being very direct. It’s a radio always on that she can just tune out somewhat, but not turning it off. And if things get too overwhelming, she can take too much of that negative energy into herself and become severely affected herself if she doesn't have an immediate outlet. It's why she flips out at Rindo when she first meets as she was already unintentionally channeling the emotions of others and was being harassed by the DRS team beforehand and her missing the special EleStra pin was essentially the straw that broke the camel's back.

Beat, in contrast can hop from channel to channel and tune in on people, but only a few of his choosing at a time. Hence why he’s more receptive of a variety of different people, if they are amicable to him. He instantly hits it off with Fret, wholesomely accepts Nagi, even reaches out to Rindo who’s more unsure and shy (seen in the day after recruiting him as he’s the first to come up to him to see if things are okay), wholeheartedly accepts Shoka in the team and develops quite the protective streak for her among the rest (seen when he warns Susukichi about taking her after Ayano’s passing). He’s the big brother all the way. Compare this to how he reacted to Neku and Shiki in TWEWY, where he welcomes the latter at first after apologizing to the duo for mistaking them as Reapers but immediately takes a justified dislike to the former because Neku was kind of being a huge prick at the time. 

I think all of this is incredibly interesting in how the writers go about in portraying that nuances of what it means to be empathetic and emotionally mature and it just goes to show how much the TWEWY team cared about detailing the psychology and mindset of each character in a way that makes them all the more real.

And as a side note, I really appreciate Nagi and Beat’s dynamic. Rather than have them conflict as they could have so easily done (the athletic, skateboarding musclehead and the nerdy educated woman) the game has them genuinely enjoying one another's maturity and working to support the rest of the team, with Nagi even patiently translating anything she needed to of her dialogue for Beat's sake, as well as draw comparisons between the way Nagi treats Beat and Fret to foreshadow her issues with the latter and I think that's just neat.

[racharii]

coming from an enby whos tme (tho i myself am not transmasc), i feel like a lot of transmasc people are doing this "have their cake and eat it too" thing where they want to be perceived as men or men adjacent, in our society a part of the oppressor class, while also still wanting to benefit from structures meant to protect against said class. specifically ones that have been set up in queer spaces. ive met quite a few trans men who were just as vehemently misogynysitic as your average dude bro. and (this is speculation based on convos ive had with trans men im not in every transmascs head) a lot of transmascs have a lot of internalized misogyny that they project onto trans women. ive had an irl ex friend of mine say something that i think encapsulates this particular issue fairly well. this was like 8 years ago, we were talking about trans rep in media (specifically orange is the new black iirc) so im paraphrasing; 'its messed up that we (afabs in this context) are sidelined for people who used to be men, we cant escape the patriarchy.' that was horribly transmisogynistic, so lets unpack it.

it assumes that trans women are just men

it assumes sex essentialism, that they and i were just women. that we were just poor Females having 'our space' encroached on by mean 'former men.'

im not saying that all transmascs think like this ofc. #notallmen. im saying that some do, and enough transmascs have internalized misogyny and not enough self reflection.

just because you are trans doesnt mean you are immune to bigotry and recouping oppressive structures. none of us are free of Sin™️. you as an individual have to make an effort to reflect on your thoughts and actions and how they might affect yourself and others, so that you are not a willing participant of our communities oppression.

for example, ive talked a lot privately about my journey to being a better person, (and pobodies nerfect, its always a learning process, you always will have things you can improve on. and thats okay, were all just human) i initially hated it/its pronouns. 'it' gave me the ick. i was called 'it' as a kid incessantly to make fun of my gender presentation, i couldnt fathom someone else finding peace and even euphoria in using it/its. i bought into the conservative talking points about neopronouns and it/its being detrimental to the trans community. they were "the bad transes" and me? well i use they/them but shakespeare used the singular they so im fine :), im one of the good ones. then one day, i was listening to some video essay idr what or who, but something they said stuck with me, "if it/its makes me happy, why do you care? how does 'it' hurt you really?" my trauma is not everyones trauma, people will find comfort in things that i wont, and thats okay. 'it' hurt me when i was young, by cruel kids and uncaring adults. why am i hurting my community, my fellow transes, by continuing to deny them their autonomy to identify how they like? so i got over 'it.' i saw the real harm was the fucking wedge being driven between us by conservative grifters trying to pick off the weakest in the herd before they go in for the rest of us.

visibility isnt necessarily a good thing for marginalized people. transfemmes are the biggest target of hate in our community atm. they unfortunately serve as the canary. global fascism is on the rise and to be frank, a targeted hate campaign against a trans woman is asking for her to be killed. outed, paraded as a freak, doxxed, swatted, killed. protect trans women, fascism doesnt stop with one group nor will you be saved by being "one of the good ones." trans solidarity, even the people you dont like, even if you think theyre icky or gross or whatever the fuck else you do Not give up trans solidarity. you dont make callout posts, you dont send death threats, you dont send hate mail, if you dont like someone Block Them and move on.

we stand together or we will be eradicated.

[noctvrnal9999]

Okay, so what about when Astarion says, after you break up with him after Ascension that he would've twisted your love and that he respects you for your choice? Because to me that reads clear as day.

Heh, alright, let's talk about this.

You can read this convo in three ways:

1 - you read it as it is, that the moment he ascended his love for Tav immediately turned malicious which is... such a braindead take I cannot even comprehend how people completely miss who Astarion is as a person the moment he ascends. He's not a different person, not fully and not entirely. He's changed, but he's not different.

2 - you can read it as Astarion being genuine and I mean that he still says what he means but with no malice behind his words. That he truly thinks that in the long run - he would've "corrupted" Tav and their love for him because he's self aware for only that conversation and suddenly realizes that he's a horrible person now (lol)

or

3 - you can see him as coping. First he yells at Tav and flaunts his power, telling how he could've turned them against their will, how he's better without them, how he doesn't need them. I have issue with the whole post break-up conversation (when you refuse to be his spawn) and about how one sided it is. You either tell him he's Cazador 2 (which is utterly absurd but I won't go into that here) or you tell him that you miss the boy he was before ascension which not only shows that Tav haven't listened to a single thing when Ritual of Profane Ascension was discussed AND has an unhealthy view of this man in the first place. Not to mention that you call him a boy, you know, something Cazador did to demean his manhood and independence? Yeah, that. And then somehow people are surprised when he doesn't respond positively. He's not Gale, he's not going to cry in the corner, not anymore. He's stronger and more powerful than he ever was and he won't let Tav who just abandoned him see that he's hurting.

So why the responses about ruining Tav's love and respecting them for the choice? Timing. First he lashes out and shows his fangs like an animal, showing that it doesn't phase him. Only some long rests later he will talk to you when he's calmer. Do you think he's hurting any less? I don't think so. He's hurting, badly. The only person he ever trusted, loved and truly wanted in his life just up and left him, citing how he's "not the same person" anymore. Telling him that they love him exclusively just for certain traits and habits, that his worth resides only in certain aspects of his state of being. Tav is telling him that when he's afraid, when he's weak and when he's unsure and lost is what they prefer. Does that sound right to you?

So what does Astarion can even say in this moment? He still loves Tav, elves rarely fall out of love or remarry, no way his love faded in a mere matter of a handful of days. He loves them, dearly and he's in pain. And now that his anger is lesser after being initially dumped - he still tries to do right by Tav. He tells Tav all the things they want to hear: that he's awful, a monster, that he would've twisted their love. He takes on this image that Tav projects onto him and he wears it as a badge because he knows he cannot have them back, that's settled, but the least he can do is not make Tav regret their choices, either now or later. For their sake.

(and sorry if I'm forward but I'd also like to hear your thoughts on this @bananasfosterparent if you don't mind!)

[esther-dot]

If the FF and the northerners start cooperating what’s the need for a King Beyong the Wall?

Well, the FF have a distinct, and in some ways, incompatible culture with the Northerners, I mean, Jon's thoughts are pretty harsh initially

Jon had no answer for that. Small wonder that the Seven Kingdoms thought the free folk scarcely human. They have no laws, no honor, not even simple decency. They steal endlessly from each other, breed like beasts, prefer rape to marriage, and fill the world with baseborn children. Yet he was growing fond of Tormund Giantsbane, great bag of wind and lies though he was. Longspear as well. And Ygritte . . . no, I will not think about Ygritte. (ASOS, Jon II)

so imo, it's a little unrealistic that merely being on this side of the Wall, means all is well. There's a lot of prejudice towards them too, so they'd need, I'll say, an advocate? In ADWD, Jon is already trying to explain their POV, but even post wars, I'd still think it necessary. What if a Northman's daughter runs off with a free man? And vice versa? There's potential to assume the worst about the people they've considered enemies, they may think abduction/rape, that could easily spiral. You need someone who has the respect of the FF and standing in the North to maintain the peace.

This is part of the Jon and Mance convo, and I don't think it's out of nowhere to think huh, this might be the role Jon is specifically prepared for, and I'm sure it's passages like this that contribute to @justleaves theorizing:

Open the gate and let them pass. Easy to say, but what must follow? Giants camping in the ruins of Winterfell? Cannibals in the wolfswood, chariots sweeping across the barrowlands, free folk stealing the daughters of shipwrights and silversmiths from White Harbor and fishwives off the Stony Shore? "Are you a true king?" Jon asked suddenly. "I've never had a crown on my head or sat my arse on a bloody throne, if that's what you're asking," Mance replied. "My birth is as low as a man's can get, no septon's ever smeared my head with oils, I don't own any castles, and my queen wears furs and amber, not silk and sapphires. I am my own champion, my own fool, and my own harpist. You don't become King-beyond-the-Wall because your father was. The free folk won't follow a name, and they don't care which brother was born first. They follow fighters. When I left the Shadow Tower there were five men making noises about how they might be the stuff of kings. Tormund was one, the Magnar another. The other three I slew, when they made it plain they'd sooner fight than follow." "You can kill your enemies," Jon said bluntly, "but can you rule your friends? If we let your people pass, are you strong enough to make them keep the king's peace and obey the laws?" "Whose laws? The laws of Winterfell and King's Landing?" Mance laughed. "When we want laws we'll make our own. You can keep your king's justice too, and your king's taxes. I'm offering you the horn, not our freedom. We will not kneel to you." (ASOS, Jon X)

Not only does Jon go ahead and bring them past the Wall (the thing their king wanted), they swear to him, don't kneel, but they do swear, so the spec in this post and this post about Jon being their leader, a pseudo king / Lord of the Gift, it feels like it could be the followup. So no, not King Beyond the Wall, but a leader/peacekeeper in the North.

Basically, it’s kinda a crossover of the endings people talk about for Jon, incorporates all the king foreshadowing (which truly does puzzle me now), resolves the issue of Sansa marrying/needing to carry on the Stark line...I think it's a fun angle!

[clever-and-unique-name]

Oh. Something in me is snarling and snapping. Okay.

Sorry, most of you aren't going to have a lot of context for this because it would take far too long to explain and these feelings are melting my brain. The short story is I made a discord server 4 years ago for friends with OSDDID and just left it yesterday.

I still have a couple friends there still. So I've been kept abreast of the conversations that happened in the wake of me leaving. Because nothing can ever be discussed openly, to the face of who it's about, right? That's a big part of why I left in the first place.

So, some things, to recap, mostly for my sanity. Sorry, this is going to get extremely long, because I want to say all I need to say.

Initially, I made the server to foster a small, intimate community of people with OSDDID. One of those people is someone who groomed me as a teenager.

Over time, some of the people there helped me realize I was in a toxic relationship with that person. When things finally came to a head and that person left the server (2? years ago?), I was...very not okay. But I had people there supporting me through it, and we got closer through the fallout. I am genuinely thankful for their support through it. It would have been exponentially more rough without them.

Time passed. I went from being unemployed to working full time. I had less time to spend socializing online, partially due to the strict divide between our work-parts and home-parts. I began to neglect my friendships, and though we tried--god, we really did try--we just couldn't figure out how to talk more than maybe once a week, when the right alignment of parts were out to be Home and Social in the way we felt we needed to be. And it just dwindled from there.

At some point around there, I started talking to B. We bonded over our shared love of art and character creation. She was welcoming to all of my parts, insisted on talking to anyone who was present. A novelty for me, to be individually recognized and not have to hide anyone. She got me on my stressful days and rough nights--vulnerable times I didn't feel I could share with people previously. We have talked every day for two years.

Resentment began to grow from the people I'd previously been close to. Obviously...it hurts to be told that someone doesn't have space for you like they used to, while they're clearly engaging in a close and intimate friendship with another person. I tried to reassure that I still cared about people, and tried to reach out when I could, but it kept cropping up with different people in the server: you don't care about me anymore, we're clearly not friends anymore, well you can make room for her so why not me. It was almost like clockwork for a bit, once a month someone new would step forward and I would try to put out the fire again.

(The thing is, every single one of these people expressed that they completely understood and sympathized/empathized with my limited social ability. They insisted that our level of contact was fine, until it apparently wasn't and they confronted me about it. So as I was having a conversation with one person with them saying "No it's totally okay that we don't talk much, I still love and care about you sooo much!", I was fielding a convo from a different person who had said the same thing to me weeks/months ago, talking about how I had actually been horribly neglecting them and that we weren't friends anymore.)

Then around a year ago, that person I mentioned, the one I knew as a teenager, created a new account to bypass my blocks, and reached out to me again. Trying to "apologize" for something, the subject of which had me questioning if someone I knew was tipping them off to things I was processing semi-privately. Right at the crescendo of all the other social issues.

Lit match. Powder keg. Boom.

I withdrew hard. From absolutely everyone but B. I didn't know who to trust with their reassurances of "we're totally okay, love and care about you!" I didn't know who harbored resentments. I knew, from past experiences, that there were people in the server prone to gossiping with each other, and I had stepped on their toes by pulling away from them. I mean. That's how we had bonded in the first place--by us privately talking about the person I knew, among others. You know what they say about bad karma.

I all but disappeared from the server, owner in name only. I fought the urge to delete it, and instead promoted others to mods so I could further remove myself. Every time I attempted to talk there, I was overwhelmed with anxiety to the point of physical illness. I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head, that I was just having attachment trauma, that I could sit with my discomfort and everything would be fine. More and more, it felt like the only person I could truly trust to be emotionally attached to was B. Out of 20-odd people, 6 had heel-turned and told me I hurt them with my distance. I was just waiting on the rest to do the same. And waiting. And waiting.

And suddenly, a couple days ago, another server "friend" (I hesitate to call anyone that because it was impressed upon me, multiple times, that I was not being a friend to people) blocked me. I found out when I went to send them a meme and discovered I couldn't. I thought I was used to it, I thought I couldn't be blindsided anymore. But it had been a while since it had happened; I thought everyone who had a limit with me had reached it.

I checked our convo history. Yet again: us talking about how much we understood each other, how we're both prone to isolation, how we still cared about each other.

Upset, I told B, who was also friends with them. Who immediately found out she was blocked too.

So we both decided to leave the server. We announced it yesterday afternoon, and hung around to talk a bit, wanting to leave as little confusion as possible without outright calling anyone out. We knew there were people there who didn't know about any of this going on (I'm so sorry for all the drama that's been dumped on your feet, guys.) We also knew there were people there who had been talking about all this behind our backs--we just didn't know how many. Again, the suspicion and speculation and "when will it happen again" was really what was eating us alive.

We left amicably. And then as soon as the doors were closed, of course people stepped forward to talk about how I had just stopped caring about them to focus on B instead. As if it was that simple. As if they had stopped at any point to talk to me about it (and the ones who did vehemently denied that it was an issue of comparing our friendship to mine with B.)

Caring was never the issue. I cared about people until they blocked me, or outright told me I wasn't a friend to them anymore. I kept caring about people, against my fears that it would end like that again, because it's just my nature to care. But caring in silence doesn't feel like much of anything, does it? I know that. I'm sorry for the way I've made people feel from that. But connection is a two-way street--where the hell were you? B has talked to me every day for two years. When someone talks, I respond. If you wanted me there, where the hell were you?

[geekgirl101]

Hen Begins and Tommy Meta

Continuing my chronological rewatch of the Begins episodes. I'm also a sucker for characters I dislike initially who I come to love due to learning more about them or character development.

I call this the Logan Echolls effect.

The issue regarding his treatment of Chimney can largely be dismissed as having lost someone and not trusting the new probie. Minus that initial delivery boy comment. No one's here to defend that or excuse it. It's just trying to understand who Tommy is and his characterization across these early episodes. Simiarly no one is here to defend any of the mean comments Tommy has made in these episodes.

We know that Gerard is a lot like Tommy's dad. This can mean a lot of things. And it is also possible that having Sal, or someone like Chim around has had a positive influence on him. BUt there is still the Gerard effect and Tommy's very real issues with his dad.

Hen is different from Chimney for several reasons. Hen is confident, and she's unapologetically herself in a way Tommy is not. In this episode, more so than in Chimney Begins, Tommy takes his cue from Gerard, this is evident in how his first thought is to look at Gerard after a comment or before. In many ways, and we see this later in the episode Hen is exactly what Tommy refuses to be, or at the moment can't be. When Tommy first approaches the balcony he's all smiles, and asks "Who's this." Meaning his initial thought is not one of hate. Tommy's smile immediately falls as he looks at Gerrard. His look is of concern. Not at Hen. But at Gerrard. He has set the tone and despite Chim's attempts to placate and attempt to deal with the captain, it doesn't work. The tone is set. As Captain Dickbag leaves, Tommy is the first to follow, then Gerard. Now, interestingly Sal did not appear in Chimney Begins. That means Sal started sometime between Chim and Hen. He and Tommy seemingly form some kind of friendship.

Sal and Tommy are friends enough for Tommy to ask how his day off went. We then get that Kristen Stewart scene and Tommy making a kissy face at Sal. Tommy is a bit loser here than he was in Chim Begins.

Then we get that weird New York bitchiness comment which I still don't quite understand where it came from. However, Chim sets it up when he says he thought Hen was from the East Coast because she has a vibe. As someone who is on the East Coast, I don't know what that means. Even when I first watched this episode. Tommy's comment here is a bit out of nowhere as there's no setup and she hasn't really exchanged dialogue with anyone except Chim and Smarmy. Maybe Tommy is trying to stay on Gerard's good side, cause as soon as he says it, he looks at Vincent's smarmy cartoon villain face. But the way he looks at Gerard is perhaps indicative of his need for his approval. After the Hen and Dipstick exchange, Gerard walks off, and Tommy stands up, taking his plate and Gerard's with him. Sal follows suit. Because again, we now know Gerard is like his dad, and that's a lot to unpack in an already long post.

Interestingly in Hen's amazing moment, Sal looks impressed. Gerard is cranky, and Tommy looks kind of guilty and tense. Others have pointed out how much he's constantly checking Gerard's reaction. This actually makes sense considering this is Tommy when he's in the closet. Chim is nodding along like the supportive BFF he will become to Hen. He also exchanges a look with Tommy.

Hen then makes peace with Sal and Tommy following her amazing instincts and finding and saving that boy. Interestingly, during Hen's meeting with the other captain and the chief, it is evident that co-workers plural had been filing complaints against Gerard for a while. Chief tells her that more than a few of your co-workers have your back which likely means Chim, Tommy, Sal, and several other firefighters filed complaints against Gerard (which only makes it idiotic that was ever brought back but that's a convo for a dif post). It is also interesting that Sal doesn't have any problems with Hen seemingly, he is portrayed as being part of the boys' club. But he doesn't ever say anything bad to Hen.

I wonder what Tommy's friendship with Sal was actually like and if he ever came out to him.

Not only that, said colleagues, against plural, also had a lot of positive things to say about Hen. IDk how much time passes between the car accident and the following shift. But odds are this had been going on (re complaints) for weeks.