#i'm sure people have noticed these parallels before but anyway

[let-roman-bite-someone]

idk if y'all have noticed but they are silly

bonus:

[erabu-san]

hello! im new here, so my apologies if you have already mentioned things im about to ask. also i don't mean to offend you, just curious

you ship cynilou if im not wrong. do you ship them bc you don't think nilou is underage and cyno isn't or do you ship them knowing it but not finding it a problem? why do you like them as a pair? and what's your opinion on hainilou/haikaveh/cynonari?

Hello ! (First i apologize for my english again hahaha write a lot again)

For me Nilou is a young adult 19 to 23 yrs old. (A bit like Tighnari haha)

I love them as pair because Nilou is like a fresh air for Cyno imo ?? I started to ship them when I learn Cyno's point of view about art, but also how he understands Nilou's passion (in Sumeru society/Akademiya era when art wasn't the best thing).

At first there are their dynamics, cute at the surface : sunshine x unexpressive, sun x moon

Then we learn more ! Cyno can sense Nilou's enthousiasm about dancing. And he understands Nilou pretty well :

Cyno about Nilou : "...It has become integral of her being." // Nilou's Hobbies : "My life is dance or dance is my life ... [....] Anyway, I'll just keep on dancing."

Cyno about Nilou : "I hope she will always be able to use the art she loves to bring happiness to other people." // About Nilou Dance and Wisdom : "... You don't have to understand what you're seeing to enjoy watching it. If I can use my movements to demonstrate the beauty and meaning of dance, then I'm happy."

I would also add that it is pretty cute from Cyno saying that she brings happiness while dancing because Cyno also watched Nilou's performance (in Kaveh's trailer for example). It means that it makes him happy haha !

Nilou (about Cyno) said she doesn't like interacting with people from Akademiya because they don't see art in a kindly way. But by her tone, she was positively surprise to learn that Cyno plays TCG ! There is a parallel between Art and TCG. What a coincidence because Cyno consider TCG like a form of art ! (For Cyno TCG is an art but for other it is just a card game... Nilou's could also understands Cyno's passion, and his point of view about art). Nilou's even did a buffet for Cyno (archon quest, return the post of General Mahamatra).

They were a cute interaction of them i dont remember well but- Nilou's asking Cyno to be more happy. Cyno answered by it is not question of being happy, and he has to work but she asked him to try to smile like her or smth like that and he said he would try. But that was so cute bahaha my cylou's heart was pretty happy 😭 and it is also cute because when you talk to Cyno after this scene when they enjoying all their meal, he said that buffet wasn't bad at all (he was a bit worried before) wHILE MAKING THIS FACE ????

LOOK AT HIM ALL SMILY ENJOYING MEALS WITH NEW FRIENDS HE MADE DURING THE WHOLE ADVENTURE 😢😢😢 And then after Sumeru Archon quest, we can see Cyno being more relaxed, rest, playing more and all. Like.. he is a bit a more accessible ?? I love the idea that, he really tried to be happy like Nilou recommended.

Nilou gives a lot of positive for Cyno, but it is also reciprocate.

In the archon quest, bro showing his biggest green flag : he is SUPPORTIVE. Telling to Nilou's to have more confidence on herself because he knows she has the capacity ! When you read Nilou's voiceline/do her quest, you can easily notice that Nilou is a bit stressed and is not sure about herself. And it is only HC but Cyno understanding how passionate Nilou is, how dedicated she is on her dance, is actually important !

I love seeing Nilou as independant woman (i just love independant woman). I am sure Cyno (also busy as he is) would respect it, but he would also be there for her because this man is caring (he would also assists to all her dance show). Nilou has also positive impact on Cyno, and might help him to improve his social life. Oh gosh I am sure she would gently and genuinely smile and listen Cyno rambling about his hyperfixation bahaha like during the event 😭😭💕

Why I love them as pair, it is because Cyno is my actual comfort character. And him being happy makes me happy ! Cyno can call Cyrus Lisa Tighnari Collei (my HC but Faruzan too) as family, he can call Kaveh Alhaitham Candace Dehya Faruzan Traveler and more as friends, and Nilou as lover sounds romantic in my ears.

About hainilou, it is cute but not appealing for me, I am neutral about it. (If i can add... all Nilou's ship are adorable. Wlw and mlw. Live laugh love Nilou!!!)

About Haikaveh, I enjoy the ship ! (My favorite flavor of haikaveh is a one-sided love alhaitham have for kaveh. Bitter-sweet, miscomprehension, sometime wholesome and funny moments, slow burn)

The romantic ship between Tighnari and Cyno makes me uncomfortable. I would be grateful if people could respect this when I said "don't tag my post as ship". (Thank you for those who are doing it !)

But them being friends/bro-mate is an actual comfort and it helps me to sleep well everyday ! That's why I prefer to use tighnari&cyno than ship name when I am talking about them

Hope it answers your question !! Have a nice day anon, don't forget to drink water ! 💕💕💕

[beanghostprincess]

that pudding card is GORGEOUS i love her so much she doesn't deserve to be a part of op discourse leave my girl alone she just needs love

Pudding is such a complex character! I love her so so much! She really means the world to me. Honestly, her whole story is completely relatable and the fact that it's basically used to parallel Sanji's doesn't help. It just makes everything hurt more. I could talk about her for hours and how misinterpreted her character is due to fandom discourse and the recent wave of "puritanism" within the internet.

I'm not gonna get too into fandom discourse because I hate it and I already have horrible experiences about it in this fandom (with Lawlu, specifically), but... I find it stupid. Her character has so many layers. She's just as complex and traumatized as Sanji. That's... That's quite the whole point? She made mistakes and has mixed feelings and different types of personalities due to her past and trauma responses. She made mistakes. Sanji made mistakes too. The only damn reason why people don't forgive her is because "she hurt our little meow meow <//3 She's so evil!!! Evil woman!!!" as if they wouldn't forgive her character right away if she were a MAN. Like. Misogyny who??

Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious people don't like Pudding because of obvious misogyny and overprotection of Sanji. Which is understandable because I'm also very intense when it comes to him, but damn... He would not like it if he knew y'all hate her for her mistakes.

Also, people only talk about her to say "she's a great character but her age gap with Sanj-" why does it always have to be about Sanji? Let the girl be her own character. Have you hear of the Bechdel test? No? Perhaps you could try it? Her character is obviously created for Sanji, but she's so much more! Let her escape!!! From the hands of patriarchy and men!! That being said, the whole discourse about their age gap is... Just... So fucking stupid.

Don't go cancelling me right away. I'm just saying that when it comes to stuff like age Oda doesn't seem to be very... Consistent? He's made mistakes before. And the Charlottes are a very huge family. I'm sure not even Oda knows the order of these children, lmfao. I think he would only say shit like "Katakuri is one of the oldest and Pudding is one of the youngest idk. Just made her one of the youngest to match Sanji's backstory of being one of the youngest". But leaving that aside-- Maturity never equals age in a show that's... About pirates... Where everyone has different experiences with different social surroundings... It's just like the Lawlu discourse, damn. You have to know the characters before saying crazy stuff like "Law would groom Luffy" because HOW??? HOW WOULD HE DO THAT??? That's basically impossible. And you need to think about the characters before assuming things. And Sanji and Pudding? Leaving aside the age difference, Pudding has more power over Sanji and that's noticeable. Does that even matter tho? They understand each other on the same level after all in the end. Tbh I couldn't tell about the age difference. I thought they were the same age ngl. Only found out bc I saw the discourse going on and my first reaction was "This is fucking dumb". Tbh their relationship is one of the healthiest I've ever seen for Sanji. We see him being himself for once without being extremely creepy. The whole arc about him losing himself is about a girl loving him for who he truly is. And the whole arc about a girl being judged for being different is about a boy loving her for who she truly is. It's so beautiful!!!

Anyway. Not the point. The thing is that people hate Pudding for... Absolutely nothing? Not knowing how to read complex characters? I still don't get it. Perhaps it's just that my mommy issues are too harsh and I can see through her but damn.

Ana also the whole thing about erasing Sanji's memories? People hate her for that and calling her... Selfish??? Did you not... Watch the scene... Of her crying because she lost the only person she has ever truly loved. But whatever. Call her selfish.

[chaikachi]

I HAVE ONE OBJECTION TO YOUR OTHERWISE STELLAR META ON THE DOJO SCENE/RUBY'S BREAKDOWN!

I would say as of recent there is now one other character *besides* Oscar who takes notice of how much Ruby is struggling and breaking, who uplifts and comforts her without placing any expectations on her in the process... That of course being Little.

The only one still with Ruby. (*gestures to Little being framed in Jinxy's jar of hope that Ruby can't fill all the way, because Little is meant to represent the last spark of Ruby's hope and inner child*)

I don't think they'll have the perfect wise or uplifting words to say to Ruby (and I'm not sure she'd want to hear them right now anyway, she just needs to feel what she's feeling and let the rain pour, metaphorically and literally). But I imagine if Ruby asks them why Little is still with her, why don't they just leave her alone, and Little saying that they just want to be there for Ruby because she's sad, and because Ruby is their friend, and they don't know what else they can do for her. And that's all. And then Ruby will cry and I'll cry and we all will cry.

Also this ask may just be an excuse to share a headcanon I have, of if Little returns with Ruby to Remnant, that Oscar makes food for everyone to celebrate their return, and also gifts a tiny picnic basket especially for Little and says something like: "thank you for being Ruby's guide when she was feeling lost" because she was lost physically but also *felt* lost too and just. Little has taken on the purpose to be Ruby's guide, and I think that's going to apply in more ways than just helping her get back home.

YOU ARE SO TRUE!!! i was so caught up in the parallels and RG that I left our little friend behind 😭 Before I do get into it, do want to just acknowledge that what you mentioned about how Little might handle this is absolutely all that Ruby needs right now. I've seen some discussions around about people saying WBY haven't supported Ruby enough (valid, as are their reasons for not being able to) but the counter argument is often that they can't force her to dump about her trauma and it's like... no. Secret hidden third option. Just give her some time to rest, acknowledge how hard this is on her and how much this sucks without sugar coating it, and remind her that you're there to lean on if she needs it. I really hope that she gets that from Little in the coming episode(s).

BUT YES. SPEAKING OF LITTLE. YOU ARE CORRECT. They stuck by Ruby's side in the market when her team ran off and were paying such close attention to her after they first noticed how sad she was in the paper vilage.

It's hard to catch, but I'm also fairly certain Little is the first to call out to her when she starts hallucinating against the walker. It's timed just as Little jumps up and it's just ahhhhh. YOU'RE JUST A MOUSE!!! WHY ARE YOU BEING BRAVE AND PEEKING OUT OF HER HOOD RIGHT NOW!!!

We don't see them for the entire breakdown scene before it ends with a zoom in on this. Which is just... oof...

Also I know that Little is first and foremost supposed to be a symbol for Ruby's remaining spark of hope and inner child, the literal "Little" Riding in her Red Hood... but i can't get the parallels of that mouse to Oscar outta my brain. 💀

Cinder and Nora have both called Oscar 'little'. Little Prince. Oscar paid attention to Ruby back in v6 when she said "Food always makes me feel better" and so after her confrontation with Jaune, he went and made her a freaking casserole about it. And what is one of the first things Little does upon meeting Ruby? Offer to share their food with her when she's upset. And they, just like Oscar, were the only one paying attention enough to how hard of a time she was having.

EDIT: I am currently having a convo with someone else about this and oh my god

Ruby: I've never spoken to a... mouse before. Little: Well... I guess I've never spoken to a you before! - Oscar : I've never really meet huntsman and huntresses before... Ruby: Well, uh... we've never met a person with two souls! So first times all around!

I just!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS.

Lastly, your headcanon is adorable. Little absolutely deserves an entire picnic basket full of food and a very cozy bed after all of this, and both them and Oscar are fist-bumping through dimensions right now over their shared fondness for Ruby. 😤

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

So, after reading this post I noticed that the water motif always seems to pop up in Chuuya's character. The tank from SB, the ocean, him almost drowning, etc. WHAT IF, JUST TO PISS OFF ME SPECIFICALLY, DAZAI FUCKING DROWNED CHUUYA TO TRIGGER CRAZY PTSD FROM THE TUBE TO SNAP HIM OUT OF THE VAMPIRE THING. NOW, I KNOW THAT THIS IS PROBABLY NOT WHAT HAPPENED BUT. WHAT IF. IT WAS. WHAT BETTER WAY TO REMIND HIM OF HIS OWN AUTONOMY THAN TO MAKE HIM REMEMBER WHEN HE WAS HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS ABOUT WHETHER HE'S A HUMAN BEING OR A FUCKING LAB-MADE CLONE. SEEMS LIKE A DAZAI THING TO DO.

Also, water=ocean=fish=mackerel=Dazai. Dazai is the water to Chuuya's fire. Like how he can "douse" Chuuya when his flames get a little too out of control, aka corruption. (Ouhghghghghghhg character foils and parallels.) Wait, since Fyodor is a greasy rat wouldn't he be like oil to Dazai's water?? Constantly at odds and literally impossible to combine??? Sus. Him using Chuuya, who's like fire. Using him to make him "stronger"????? Idk. Do with this what you will.

"WHAT IF, JUST TO PISS OFF ME SPECIFICALLY" <- Do you have ANY IDEA how hard I laughed at this?

Hello again, by the way.

Oh! That's @carrotkicks's Code 01 Stormbringer art! It's so good, huh? The tags on it got to me too.

I had been thinking along similar lines to you when I first read Chapter 101. See, I think I may have mentioned before, but that chapter was actually the first one I read when it came out - up until that point I had been frantically trying to catch up on everything I had missed. I think I had just finished Stormbringer maybe two days before? And then that happened. Yeah. :') (<- face of pain)

So, Stormbringer was still fresh in my memory when I read it and I instantly went "why would you drown him Asagiri??? why the hell would you do that to him?" And then I came to a similar conclusion. The last time Chuuya was entirely submerged was the lab tank, and that memory is distant, vague and associated with the violence of Corruption. So, that's what I seriously thought might happen, especially since Stormbringer all but confirmed Chuuya has PTSD, and trauma tends to activate fight or flight. Even more so because there was no way Dazai would just go "welp see ya Chuuya nice knowing you". Yeah, I really thought he was intentionally trying to piss him off (though I think the water trap was set in advance, before he knew Chuuya would be there).

I went online to see what people were saying and everyone was upset, and I was like "yeah! me too!" but then people were talking about how mad they were at Dazai for killing Chuuya and I was so confused because well. This is why I was upset.

Look at their faces! Both of them! They are both miserable.

Anyways, while I don't think the water was intentional on Dazai's part, I do think that whole "sorry there weren't any" with the big fake smile was done to make Chuuya angry enough to fight back and regain control. I'm pretty sure he's in control of himself now, but I'm not 100% certain how - Was it the water? Was it the words? Had it just finally been long enough for him to snap out of it himself? Had he secretly been in control the whole time (doubt it but don't want to rule out the possibility)? Guess we'll find out. Eventually.

Also WATER-OIL-FIRE galaxy brain! Nice nice nice! Water being our introduction to Dazai, the way it flows and can erode rock and soil, change the course of things. Oil being used to lubricate machinery, and power engines, so that every cog runs smoothly in Fyodor's plans. Wildfire that rages and burns and can go out of control but is also warm and protective for those in the night - the duality of Chuuya. Also with the idea of oil adding fuel to flames - I had just commented on how it seems likely Fyodor has something up his sleeve on the off-chance Chuuya shakes off the brainwashing; could be information on singularities, or skk's bond, or even Chuuya himself. It may even be part of the plan, honestly - he's seen how these two work before. For him to make the "mistake" of gloating to Dazai that he doesn't know how to "use" Chuuya's ability concerns me.

Hm. I will chew on this. Tasty.

[chocolatemilksmoothie]

Labyrinth Runners

Omg I loved this one!! buckle up, there's a lot of little details and a lot to point out

I suspected we might not get an update on Luz and the rest of the owl house members and the suspense there is killing me ngl...

I can already see it, both groups meet and both are like "we have SO much to tell you you're not gonna believe this-"

anyways, baby Willow and baby Gus my beloveds

I love their relationship. they were there for each other before anyone else was, and you can see how deeply they care for one another

Gus is a scary good illusionist, it must be frightening to have that happen

ahh good ol' breathing exercises, always worth a shot

I ADORE that Bump allows more kids to try multi track magic, and Matt got into illusion magic! aww

Among Luz's messages was "don't scare him(them?) away" I think she was referring to Hunter. it's sweet she took the time to write that, but god I hope she's safe

the hearts they are adorable <3

I enjoyed Willow and Amity's plot as well! Amity trying to protect her because he values having her back vs Willow wanting her to see that she is strong and can fight alongside her!

he's been reading about Grimwalkers... oh buddy what have you learned?

it's both sweet and heartbreaking that 1) he thought of hexside as a safe place to hide and 2) he's wearing the Flyer Derby outfit. he really had a good time being a normal kid for a day :')

Adrian. I like his style but I did NOT buy his act. How horrifying that he was tricking students into getting sigils by pretending he was helping them not get sigils. messed up

they really made him a pretentious director. I love it. both he and Terra are scary and full of personality, very fun antagonists to see

Love his design also. Everything about it

Severine... is voiced by Dana right? she was hilarious, go back to the tiny cat coven girl they don't deserve u here

Loved the concept of a trippy labyrinth of familiar places too

throw yourself down the steps to see if they're real, flawless technique

once again Hunter parallels another character. Gus is trusting by nature, which has led to him getting hurt, while Hunter grew up in a competitive, hostile environment where the only person he trusted blindly ended up being a monster. He is being extra cautious. But Gus won't hurt him

God, Belos sent a search party and is pretending like he's all worried. he hasn't told anyone he ran away. but we know what'll happen if he goes back to the castle *shudders*

the acting and animation for the panic attack, the breathing and the hesitation were done with a lot of care. I also like that it's in "Gus' room"

I love Gus I love him lots ok

the banned posters I love my children lmao

HIGH FIVE

I'm so happy Hunter still calls Willow "captain" he respects her a ton

and again, it makes sense he noticed she wasn't the real one. Gus is trusting, and Willow has never taken advantage of his trust, while Hunter is super on edge atm

"put him-" "out of his misery? got it" jesus dude he just kicked you

HIS TEAMMATES SAVED HIM

"dude looks sickly" yeah he's been sleep deprived and mentally abused and probably not eating much it'll do that to ya

oh I love this little ragtag team of rebel witches (+ Gus of course)

Adrien wants to find the Galderstones for Belos. Funny, pretty sure that's an ingredient for a certain thing hmmm ever heard of Grimwalkers?

"in the name of the moon we will kick your ass!"

Gus' ability to make you see traumatic memories is messed up. Dana stop traumatizing the children challenge

Hunter and Gus bonding about how they've been deceived and used. and awww the breathing with whistling ahaha is this because of the tooth gap because same

GUS KEPT THE MIRROR THINGY YES

"what... is... this??" "just go with it" my heart

friends will hug you even if you haven't showered

the Illusion coven head got MESSED UP oh my god

Barcus cracks me up he's so well spoken

and we end with Hunter having a LOT to talk about, but also having a large group of people to support and watch out for him

I suspect they're all gonna start preparing to find Luz and the others and to stop Belos in the Day of Unity ohhhohoho I feel DREAD BABEYYY

this was a dense one, and the first episode without Luz in it. I expect next week we'll catch up with them, especially King, and hopefully by the end of next ep both teams meet up to prepare together...

[lepertamar]

what exactly do you make of the kinda odd title of the šehhinah series, actually? like obviously it’s based on the term shekhinah but does that choice…..reverberate? in your view? (obviously i’m not asking/interested primarily in the Doylism author commentary lol, or i’d just ask the author directly, also there may be a reason why it’s never made explicit or obvious why the name was picked)

yeah obv I don't know what's intent vs legit interpretation vs me making insane person connections but anyway the resonances I've personally noticed might be easier to just kind of list in bullet point form bc it's not like I have any unified thesis of interpretation just various red string connections and overlaps:

jewish stuff at least regarding the shekhinah is about manifestation/presence of g-d as smth that Is G-d but also is sort of a paradox, like Solomon wondering in 1 Kings during the dedication of temple on the paradox of g-d being able to dwell inside the ark but also in the heavens and also like Wherever. afaict theurgy (of any soul) in sehhinah is, idk if 'based on this' or just 'happens to work on this same logic' but either way parallels the framework very closely, and the presumptiveness of applying a logic about g-d's self to other people's selves is probably the Main Feature of the series.

the fact the world is named 'šehhinah' and is the aggregate souls of everyone who has ever manifested, in particular angels, who are entwined with g-d in an embodied way, is a weird sorta backwards gesture at this too I think, but I'm not sure I have an 'answer' about 'how' the connection tracks, just that it's clearly There in some way. I've speculated before (unrelated to the naming) that there's a possibility that g-d has a (affectionate) contaminating, radioactive mutation causing, polluting effect (various minor inconclusive hints throughout the series).

regarding this applied specifically to sehhinah!g-d too, the fact g-d 'is nowhere' (has no body or location) but also 'can be Seen' and 'g-d's soul manifests physically as flame/burning/burnt-ness in that interface/reaction when this happens' parallels this even more than regular theurgy, kjorel even at one point has a thought almost the same as Solomon's;

but even more significantly, another aspect of the shekhinah is that it's conceived of as the aspect of g-d that went into exile with the exiled jews, though the ark and temple 'where' g-d was said to dwell are lost/destroyed, the shekhinah still dwells/is There whenever jews do [various actions]. there's a sort of chronological chiasmus reversal in sehhinah where g-d's exilic state (in prices, angel bodies, discarded dismembered body parts, stars, etc) is the preexisting standard condition and They are cataclysmically spatially condensed in a specific location in an abrupt event during Lives. (reversals or sometimes chiasmuses of chronology and meaning-of-terms between irl and sehhinah is a pretty constantly recurring theme in the series).

I always 'recognized' sehhinah!g-d 'as' mythical jewish g-d (hence the dash) but also with the caveat that not only are there specific differences, Their overall scope is narrower: there's more things sehhinah!g-d is definitely Not, or definitely Not Capable Of, or not in charge of/has not decided to ask for. a lot of the difference here seems to be a sort of, I can imagine sehhinah!g-d resulting from a canon-divergent-AU of antediluvian genesis where g-d was nonverbal and also certain foundational events shook out differently; but also the result, regardless of the causes, is that the more-limited sehhinah!g-d bears significant resemblance to the shekhinah 'aspect' of irl jewish interpretation.

for elaboration on the previous bulletpoint on a very deep and meaningwise/characterwise/selfhood/behavior level I'd point to this paper; but on a more superficial level the fact that in sehhinah g-d seems to 'speak' using an elaborate nonverbal telepathy that seem to use a sort of 'cantillation-marks' type of anchoring via features usually attributed to angels -- eyes, wings, feathers, wheels -- is. well actually I forgot where I was going with this actually but I won't bother backspacing it. I was going to say something about torah. shekhinah as a liminal phenomenon that dwells in the interface of action.

g-d is tesena's whore? subversioned bride. connects dots. sabbath bride. [schizo voice]. uh.

There was more but I forgot. um. (?) anyway

[abybweisse]

Hi there! I recently finished reading the Black Butler manga for the first time and I’m completely blown away!!! One thing I’m curious about and would like to know from a long-time manga reader: When did people start to seriously theorize that Ciel had a brother? I binge read the manga in less than a week and all of the foreshadowing/clues went completely over my head, so I would love to find out what made people start to get suspicious and what kind of theories started to pour in! 👀

Wow, that's a lot of reading in less than a week! I would have missed a bunch of little details, too, if I had tried that! 😯

When did 2CT start?

Well, I didn't join the fandom until sometime in 2015, and some people were already talking about various hints that there was probably a twin brother. @kurotwins and @akumadeenglish who are both not active here anymore (at least not on those blogs) we're talking about it, as well as some others I'm not as sure about. Apparently, the Japanese chunk of the fandom didn't really debate there being a twin; it was sort of accepted very early-on. It might be a matter of translation issues, like "sons" translated to "son", etc.

Anyway, I recall reading a bunch of their posts, and then I started paying more attention to a scene in ch1. Chlaus shows up with the packaging for a game called "Mouse3" by "Ninkyodo". Well, that's a parody of Mother3 by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on April 20, 2006. Unlike the previous two versions of the game, Mother3 never got localized as part of the EarthBound series. Which is why Chlaus tells our earl the "game" was so difficult to find in Italy. Of course, that packaging contains the drug evidence that our earl needed to show Scotland Yard. To put Azzurro Vanel (and potentially the Ferro family) away.

The irises are used in both Victorian flower language and Japanese flower language to mean a few different things, but one meaning they share in common is something along the lines of "I have a message for you." Well, that message is the game packaging shown on the very next page.

Mother3 is about mirror twin boys who deal with tragedy soon after their birthday (9th or 10th). Their mother is killed by a monster, and their father is so distraught about her death that he goes into a rage and end up in jail for a while. Soon after the dad gets out of (escapes from) jail, he finds out the older mirror twin had gone off by himself to kill the monster, but now he has gone missing. Everyone is searching, but no body has been found. However, the player of the game can see Claus' broken body at the bottom of a cliff. It's understood that he's dead. The main characters still don't know, though. Not for another three, almost four, years. After losing his wife and being unable to find his older son, the father becomes kind of useless. Notice that the guy in Kuroshitsuji is Chlaus, and the older twin in Mother3 is Claus.

Three years later, Lucas (younger mirror twin) is about 13 years old, and he sets off on his own quest for revenge, along with the loyal family dog, Boney. The rest of the game takes place during this one year, then it ends just before his next birthday. The last thing Lucas has to do before he can "win" is defeat his own older twin brother, who had died, been turned into a Fascinating Chimera, and had been pitted against him.

So, I started coming up with my Mother3 theory for Kuroshitsuji back in December 2015. Back then, I was already theorizing that not only is there a twin brother, but he's a mirror twin. The missing twin is older, dead, reanimated, and will pop up again as an adversary.

Soooo, idk how long some version or other of 2CT has been around, but a very specific version of it came to me (and became very serious to me) in December 2015. And it's canon now: mirror twin brothers; one lives while the other dies; the dead one is reanimated; they end up having to confront each other.

Even Sebastian gets to parallel the roles of both the loyal family dog, Boney (under contract) and the Dark Dragon who must be given your "heart" to follow your will (as the demon who demands a soul as payment).

That's why I'm so into my Mother3 theory, which started out kind of small and grew and grew... because the similarities don't stop there. Not even close. Numerous characters and plot lines have strong parallels to Mother3 characters and plot lines, while a few are better paralleled in Mother and Mother2. The timelines are essentially the same between Kuroshitsuji and Mother3, too.

Maybe check out my "Why I theorize" post and my "Masterpost 1" for more on that, to get more into it. There are several masterposts and addendums, plus a few more masterposts on the way... eventually. When I first started posting about it, I didn't expect it to be such a big finding, but here I am, still talking about it! 😆

[reallunargift]

cannot believe i'm actively thinking about a ship other than spa/port in the year of our lord 2023 but man fr/uk is simply built a certain way, you know?

i just love the idea of someone who is so intrinsic to european politics and seen as this centre of cultural good taste and ooh aah being interested in someone who in the grand scheme of things was not really... considered all that important for a long time (at least not on the same level, you know?)

arthur having a crush on francis is just par for the course, i doubt there's anyone who's never had a crush on francis at least once in their life. he's gorgeous and fashionable and imitated all over the continent. arthur won't admit it because he's too proud and he's prickly, but no one would really judge him for it.

but francis having a crush on arthur?? EVERYONE will judge him (or so he believes, anyway, and he's not entirely wrong)

and ofc i like the parallels and how it plays with spa/port too.

in the same way that I think Francis was the first one to realise Port liked Toni, I think Port was among the first to realise Francis paid Arthur a little too much attention (negative and positive). Port would definitely figure out Arthur liked Francis too early on, because Arthur was SO obvious about his feelings without wanting to (eventually Arthur got very good at hiding his emotions, of course, but by then Port already knew).

I waver between having Port tease Arthur about it sometimes or not really mentioning it much, because Port knows how much it sucks when you're forced to face awkward feelings (cough Toni cough)

but when Francis was around, Port would make a few jabs that would fly over Arthur's head but that Francis understood perfectly, thus cementing the feeling that if people find out, they'll judge him. And Francis can deal fine with being judged over his actions, but feelings? Something he cannot control? He's not good with that.

(Also it's not that Port would really judge Francis for liking Arthur, it's just that he felt judged by Francis bc of his own feelings for Toni and it's kind of petty revenge)

as for Toni, I think he's very emotionally intelligent but I also think Francis can be very good at hiding his feelings, so I'm not sure if he figured it out early on or if it took some time (or if he was caught off guard by seeing those two suddenly hold hands or something lol). The only reason Port even realised it is because Arthur would often complain about Francis' teasing so much. But Francis is so careful with his words around others, it's hard to know...

But I also think Port is less aware than Toni when it comes to this stuff, so maybe Toni would know about Francis' crush and just never bring it up? Because it doesn't really matter? There are so many possibilities

as for Toni's crush on Port, that guy's never been embarrassed about his feelings once in his life, come on

edit: omg i forgot to say Arthur finally noticed Port liked Toni during the peninsular war. His brain just refused to acknowledge the possibility before that. Port always denied it even in the most obvious of situations and Arthur was like "yeah that checks out" and carried on

[flowercrowngods]

For your fic writer asks:

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about "I'll try. i'll try. (but i couldn't be better)? Answer it now!

(not that I'm half obsessed with that fic or anything)

🌷 the fic: i'll try. i'll try. (but I couldn't be better) 🌷

there have been so many wonderful questions already about this fic in the comments (srsly everyone who asks me questions about it just y'all have my whole entire heart), that's why this ask was buried in my inbox for so long even though I constantly vibrate with the need and urge to talk about this story

one main theme in what people ask me is when they point out something they liked or that has them invested, if that was a conscious choice (either of mine or of steve's). and the answer to that almost all the time is, yes it is. it is debatable as to how ✨conscious✨ steve's decisionmaking is, riddled as he is by trauma, fear, grief and a semi-dissociated and growing compulsive behaviours. but me, I look at Steve allowing el to choose anything from his closet, but still putting what he thinks would work best on the bed, essentially giving her the choice to make a choice. it is, sort of, the first choice el has really made, ever. and there is a symbolism in that, her right to choose beginning and ending surrounded by all things Steve, y'know?

something I wish I would be asked but cannot and will not answer, is a question regarding the title. "I'll try. I'll try. (but I couldn't be better)". is that the title giving us a spoiler for an unhappy ending? is that why there's no tag for that? is the 1st person POV here from steve, as his POV is what makes the story? or is that title just as unreliable as steve's recounts and memories and expectations and predictions and decisions guided by fear and trauma and grief? is trying, and trying again, the theme of this story, next to all the heavy shit? is it a story about hope, first and foremost? does he doubt in his abilities to "be better" but does he try anyway (and repeatedly!)?

I know the ask said to answer that question (but technically that was multiple questions). but I will not. hehe.

you also said to to just ramble about my story, and we all know I never turn down an invitation to that. and when I write, there are many instances of what I feel are parallelisms or symbolism or hidden metaphors, y'now (decision making!!). and I yell at myself in lieu of the readers, like, did you catch that? did you notice? did you see?

do you notice that el comforts Steve by carding her hand through his hair after he did it first in chapter 7, when he cleaned her wounds and made sure she was warm and safe. and then he gave her his clothes and then he made waffles and ruffled her nonexistent buzzed hair, and what she associates with that gesture is: warmth, comfort, understanding first and foremost. for the first time in her life. gentle touch without demands or manipulation.

did you notice that Steve is going more and more nonverbal the more he tries not to think about things, the more happens to him, and the more he has to do it by himself (with el obv)? and how in chapter 8, there is this:

He closes his eyes and looks for words again. It’s less repulsive now, the thought of speaking. Less scary, not as insurmountable a task as before. Not with El, for some reason. Not when she’s the one who makes him human.  He needs to be known to be human. 

and how there is no one who knows him. except for this girl, and he was so hesitant to cling to her in the beginning, but now he quite genuinely has no other option. no other choice.

do you notice that he is losing touch with his humanity in all that unprocessed grief and inconceivable burden of having travelled back in time to save all his friends? he's not only dissociating for the narrative, it's not the fuzzy "stare ahead blankly while the world moves along", he's just so far removed from the world that he can't even put words to it. he doesn't even feel human.

did you notice that chapter 9 and chapter 1 were directly juxtaposed, paralleled. did you notice the forest vs. the upside down? did you notice how there is no light in chapter 9, except for the moonlight, and then the flash of light at the end of it? symbolism.

I could go on and on. I am obsessed with it honestly. someone mentioned in a comment that it broke them, how seamlessly robin's commentary is built in sometimes, like he really still hears her voice, like she really is there, still, like he hasn't processed her death yet.

and it's only been a week.

did you notice. did you notice all of this and more, do you read the story the way I write it, do you find these things, do you connect the dots, do you do you do you?? *vibrates endlessly*

[you-usuratonkachi]

about El's character arc and Mike's monologue

so i went back to rewatch the parts of the show that had Mike and El and El and Brenner, because I had noticed parallels between Mike and Brenner, and I wanted to single those scenes out to make sense of them. I might have gotten what they were trying to do with that...? Maybe. I'm not sure myself because the whole thing is kinda convulted, but hear me out.

The whole issue with Eleven this season is a fundamental insecurity: she does not feel like she's worth it without her powers. She doesn't know how to live as Jane. Not to mention she is having flashbacks/dreams about something she might have done in the past that she forgot.

So before Mike comes to California she's already feeling vulnerable.

She lies to Mike in her letters because she feels like she lost the only interesting part of herself (the part that she feels Mike likes her for) and she tries to make up for it by telling him that everything is fine and dandy and she has lots of fun and she's popular and everything she feels like he might like in a girl (who does not have powers).

When she strikes Angela, she triggers her own trauma.

It's her highest insecurity moment.

She's scared that she might have done something far worse than stricking Angela. Mike is already freaking out over a "small" cut, how would he react if he knew she had murdered children at Hawkins lab instead?

She was hanging onto the hope that none of it was true, that it was just some kind of nightmare, but seeing Mike take it so badly fueled her insecurities: she feels like a monster.

He says he "cares" for her, not love. Not like last season. Because she has no powers anymore? Because now she just strikes bullies in their faces? Because she is not able to make them pee their pants anymore? She's not cool anymore, she's just scary.

So when he says "you're a superhero" she does not believe him. Because she doesn't believe in herself either.

Was the issue truly stemming from Mike?

I think all considered he had a fair reaction. Kinda insensitive towards her feelings but fair. No matter how shitty Angela was, what El did was not cool either. So I know it's not a popular opinion and we all think Angela deserved it, but Mike has quite an adult reaction to it. Insensitive towards El's feelings, but fair. He basically calls her out for her bad behavior at the dinner table (albeit a bit passively aggressively... 😅).

It's not that Mike was scared of her, he was displeased with her behavior (plus the fact that she lied to him the whole time).

What she thinks she saw in him, it's what she saw in herself. She's projecting her insecurities.

(Now, while this is true, it doesn't change the fact that Mike couldn't say ILY when she needed it the most. Would it have solved the problem? Probably not, but perhaps she would have opened up to him about how she truly felt. But he couldn't say it anyway).

Later in the show, she starts training with Brenner and she has a whole conversation about Monsters and Superheros.

He says that people cannot be so easily defined and just by accepting the bad and the good we can become whole. To which she answers "what if I don't want to become whole?"

She does not want to accept the bad in herself, because she wants to be able to stay a superhero.

Later she learns that it wasn't her that killed the other kids in the lab and she realizes that the only reason why she opened the gate at all was because Brenner made her search for One. It wasn't her, it was him. So she rebels against him. Asks him if he even cared about the children.

He says he loved all of them. That he tried to help and understand Harry because...

So Brenner manipulated and abused her to get One back. So she would somehow open the gate. It was not her. It was him. He's the monster.

With this and by leaving Brenner behind, she finally feels like, after all, she might still be that superhero she wanted to be.

So yeah, rethinking the whole situation with El and Benner, I do feel like what Mike told her in the monologue was actually what she wanted to hear.

Because when she argues that she wants to go save her friends, Brenner tells her:

"you came to me broken, but you've learned how to walk again. but if you want to defeat one, you'll have to do more than walk. more than run. you will need to fly"

He's doubting that she can do that.

On the other hand, when Mike calls out to her as she fights Vecna, he says:

"you can fly, you can move mountains."

which is in direct contrast with what Brenner told her. So Brenner didn't believe she could do it. Mike did.

he ends it with "you're my superhero" which is what she wanted to be.

So, in truth, the monologue wasn't THAT bad. There is some sort of continuity with the storyline. While Mike did not evolve at all and told her exactly what he told her the first time (minus the ILY), El did change.

In that moment, coincidentally, it might have been exactly what she wanted to hear.

Except she loses. Max isn't saved (or I guess partially) nor Vecna truly defeated.

Brenner was right. She wasn't ready.

In the last ep, after the time skip, Will asks Mike if she talked to him at all. Mike says no, then corrects himself and says "a little" and right after that Mike and Will sit down and Mike tells him that she told him that Brenner was right, that she hadn't been ready.

So the parallels between Brenner and Mike are basically about one person who didn't believe in her and one person who did. Except the person who didn't believe turned out to be the one in the right.

So right now it doesn't really matter whether Mike loves her or not, the same way it did not matter whether Brenner loved them or not. At the end of the day, Brenner failed them all (which is why she does not acknowledge him as he dies). At the end of the day, whether she is Mike's superhero or not, she failed Max.

"There's more to life than stupid boys" because after all this wasn't about Mike. It was never about Mike. It was her trauma, her insecurities, her feelings projected onto Mike.

This said, while Mike's monologue perhaps had some kind of sense after all, it also failed in so many ways.

1. Yes El was projecting mostly, but the fact that Mike cannot name a single quality of hers that isn't her powers is also very true (bad writing? I guess even the writers forget that she's an actual person and not just their magic caster) so it's not surprising that between Brenner and Mike she doesn't feel like she has any worth without her powers

2. He still couldn't say ILY when she needed it the most and his excuse for it still sucked balls. Truly. Especially because he was never shown to be angsty about losing her for shit. He (the writers?) just pulled that out of his (their?) ass. Bad writing once again? Possible.

3. Mike quoted Will's confession and basically responded to it, thinking that was what she wanted to hear.

Everything else I can shrugg of as partial bad writing, but the parallel about "needing" after Will reminds Mike that he's the heart and therefore about his whole confession and therefore about the fact that El will always need him is not random. It was intentional. The whole thing hurting Will was intentional. They made it a point to show him throughout the monologue because his feelings are important for the plot, I assume.

So yes, I do believe that the monologue could say almost whatever because it wasn't supposed to work. The point of it all, it's that it failed. It's that by the time everything is done and is over, El realizes that it wasn't Mike, it was her all along. It's not Mike that has to believe in her. It's herself.

She has to find herself, accept herself as a whole, with or without powers. Believe that she's the superhero herself.

She doesn't need to hear that from Mike.

She does not need him.

This is where her arc is truly going. Her entire plotline it's about learning that she's sufficient. That she does not need to be validated or pushed by anyone else.

She did not need papa to love her. And she does not NEED Mike to love her either. She needs to love HERSELF.

This is what she's ultimately learning in this last part of the story.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

What she's learning and what Mike wants right now go in opposite directions (he wants her to need him). She's working on herself but he's suck in whatever his issue is. Either inferiority complex or internalized homophobia or general insecurities or all of the above.

What does this say about M*leven and where they are ending up? I'm not sure. It all depends on how Mike develops next season, truly. Will he be able to develop with her or will she ultimately decide that she's better being on her own as she finds herself?

Plus let's not forget that while everything might feel linear and orderly and very sensible written down like this, I have taken out one important piece from the picture, so that I could single out her journey, because that piece is not part of her journey, but is very much part of Mike's. And visually? It's been part of M*leven's journey throughout the season: Will.

After all, Brenner was still El's catalyst for her character development, while Mike was kind of collateral demage.

I think ultimately, Mike's catalyst will be Will (and viceversa). Because it kinda... always has been.

The writers made it a point to hammer Will in our heads throughout the season. Even if El's journey makes sense and so does M*leven, the visuals kept reminding us of Will over and over.

The monologue quoted Will's confession and this will have repercussions.

Lies were told and sooner or later the truth always finds ways to come out.

I think ultimately, Mike being sincere or not is still in question, because despite the whole narrative following through for his monologue, he just so happened to say what he thought she wanted to hear. And he thought so because 1. she said she wanted him to say ILY 2. she told him she was gonna be a superhero again 3. he believed what Will told him

The fact that he was only able to confess to her when she was on the verge of death? Still true. The fact that he thought that she wouldn't "like the truth"? Still true. The fact that he has behaving out of character with Will? Still true.

Even more than before, after analyzing the whole thing, I'm convinced that it's a mediocre confession because it was supposed to be.

Because ultimately what El learns from it, is that she thought she needed it, but she didn't.

[hecckyeah]

1, 10, 17, 32! :)

Heyyy, thanks so much for the ask!! <3

1. What inspired you to start writing fanfiction?

Mainly the Lord of the Rings, actually!! I read the books when I was about 10 or 11, and that was my first exposure to the world of fandom, mostly through tumblr screenshots on Pinterest, and ff.n through the "experimental browser" feature on my kindle, since screen time was highly limited in my house. (Unfortunately some of the first fics I read were blatant Mary Sue self-insert re-writes of the LotR movies on ff.n where the self-insert always ends up falling in love with either Legolas or like. Pippin. or something. Yikes.)

I'd been writing little stories way before that, literally ever since I could hold a pencil or type on a keyboard, and after I discovered the world of fanfiction, writing my own was the logical next step. One of my first fanfics was this weird thing I wrote with my sister, called the Fellowship of Insanity, and yeah. it's as bad as it sounds.

Anyway, those were dark times but I'm grateful that they spurred me to write my own (hopefully better) stories. And we'll leave it at that :)

10. What's your favorite part about the fic writing process?

Honestly, I think the inspiration stage, where all of a sudden I can almost feel a story in its entirety before I even start writing it, and not like I know all the plot points and everything, but more just. the vibes. I don't know, it's hard to explain.

Also that point where I don't even have to think about what I'm writing -- the words are just forming themselves basically, and I'm just trying to keep up with them. That's where some of my favorite (not always the best) parts come from, and even if I have to go back and edit afterwards, I usually end up keeping the general format of what I wrote. I always feel unbeatable and unstoppable when that happens :)))

17. What's the most memorable comment or review you've received on one of your fics?

Oh, probably every single one by @kanerallels @accidental-spice and @redvanillabee !! I love when someone is as enthusiastic as I am about a fic -- they ALWAYS make me smile. All comments do, but there's something about their energy and support that I'm SO grateful for!!

Also, one I keep going back to when I doubt my skills is this one by SilreyRevs on the medic -- they're so thoughtful and notice the parallels I had hoped people would pick up on and they just do a really amazing and kind critique of a writing style I hadn't really posted before and was nervous about sharing, and I'm pretty sure I had tears in my eyes while reading it!!!

32. Have you ever participated in fanfiction contests, challenges/fests?

Oh yeah, I've done a couple of challenges in my time, but nothing big and none that I remember off the top of my head. Mostly right around the Agents of SHIELD season 7 craze, where Dousy challenges and prompts were really big and I wrote an absolutely insane amount of drabbles and one-shots! I would love to do more in the future though, now that I feel like my writing skills are slowly improving! I don't think I would do contests though, honestly. I write for the absolute fun of it, and all that pressure and uncertainty isn't exactly my forte. But we'll see, maybe someday, if the right thing comes along!

---

questions for fic writers

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

I oscillate between "Buggy is going to unintentionally pull something really big off and start an insane chain of events/inspire a bunch of people" and "Buggy is going to die(I front of Shanks and it would be tragic as fuck)" because idk his design similarities to Roger (and Shanks' to Rayleigh) just have to be deliberate in some way (and also because Buggy feels to me like a more important part of the endgame, like an out of nowhere clown ex machina)

you know, i hadn’t ever noticed the shanks-rayleigh outfit similarities before? but in present day they do both wear capes, sandals, and patterned capri pants. that’s interesting—not least because rayleigh didn’t really dress like that in his roger pirates days, he had that black shirt/patterned undershirt and sash look back then. so… did rayleigh style himself after shanks? were they both inspired by a third party? where did the red-haired pirates' thing for capes come from?

(other people have made the comparison between buggy and roger before; the way buggy dresses as an emperor definitely feels inspired by roger’s style.)

anyway, i don’t know that i would draw story role parallels between characters because of outfit parallels. but i am on board with the rest of your ask!

several characters introduced early on in one piece who didn’t go on to join the main cast have developed/advanced in parallel to luffy &co, koby and buggy most notable among them. it makes sense to me that these characters will continue to be part of the story until the endgame, one way or another.

that first possibility feels like a very natural extension of buggy's storyline. the contrast between public perception and reality has always been a theme in one piece, usually in a "government cover-up" way, but with buggy we've been shown a comedic take on the theme. his followers think he's great, the marines think he's a charismatic threat akin to roger, and it's only people who actually know him that know different. it's very easy for me to believe he could accidentally inspire a new era of pirates, once again unintentionally following in roger's footsteps… or he finds an enormous treasure and accidentally gives it away or shares it with the world…

and while buggy dying in front of shanks is obviously… not an ideal outcome, for me, i sure would lose my mind over it. (and then probably write fix-it fic where buggy lives & teases shanks endlessly about the way he reacted to buggy's apparent death, the same way i'm planning to cope if shanks eats it.)

heck, why not both?! buggy dies in such a way to inspire a new pirate religion! he lives on in history and stories, larger than life and never remembered for who he really was… that'd be a real tragicomic ending for a character like buggy.

[vamptastic]

spoilers ahead if you haven't listened to wolf 359 and you like scifi and/or story podcasts (or if you don't wanna read a long analysis post) PLEASE go watch it and ignore the rest of the post. its so so so good i promise.

so ive been re-listening to wolf 359 for probably the fifth time on my weird old outdated patched version of spotify. and spotify does this weird thing where if you play something else, then come back to a podcast ep you're not finished with it goes back a minute or so, presumably to help you remember what was going on. and i usually skip the last few minutes of each ep when the barrage of ads starts. which means that as i go back and listen to it for the nth time, if i forget to manually skip to the next episode, each episode starts by playing the last minute or so of the ep until i find my phone and rewind.

and its actually been a shockingly fun way to relisten, especially as the show goes further and further from silly goofy space hijinks to serious suspenseful drama (with occasional hijinks). i'm just struck by how purposeful each episode is later on in the show (and earlier, but the episodes get more...purposeful as the plot starts reaching its climax). there's exceptions, obviously, but the general structure is half the characters doing something silly, while the other half do something important and serious, and the two contrast each other. and even though the two situations seem disparate and tonally opposite at first, they always end up being more of a parallel than a foil by the end. usually, this kind of dawns me in an "oh, that's what the point of this episode was" moment brought on by the last few minutes of the episode.

one of my favorite episodes, ep 34 "a matter of perspective" is a great example. half the crew is trying to restore the signal for alien transmissions, the other half is playing a terrible board game. this is also in the pivotal part of the show before our evil corporate overlords show up where we're getting to know jacobi, maxwell, and keppler in a relatively short period of time compared to the rest of the cast, and i'm always impressed by how fleshed out they were when they got a lot less screentime.

anyway the contrast here is really interesting. keppler is demanding the impossible from eiffel, and the rest of the crew sans jacobi are trying to win an impossible game (the accursed funzo). at the end of the episode, jacobi explains why keppler is doing what he's doing (side note: the whole military "demand the impossible from your subordinates" thing is so insane), and keppler remembers the end to his joke: the pig, despite its usefulness, despite the fact that it does fucking taxes, is still being eaten. slowly but surely. it's such good insight into kepplers character its such good writing! he is a corporate slave who doesn't realize it, he is a deeply talented man who is letting his entire life be consumed by people who do not care about him and his wants and needs and happiness for a cause he will eventually learn is abjectly evil. meanwhile, maxwell, hera, lovelace, and minkowski finish their game of funzo by collectively losing after playing for 10 hours. they are also pouring time and energy into something pointless! everybody loses!

anyway the reason i even mention the whole spotify rewinding thing is that i never really noticed the point of this episode until i listened to the end of the pig joke first. which is probably on me, the metaphor is really obvious in hindsight, but up until now i just thought of the funzo part of the episode as haha silly board game time. having the thesis of the episode presented first is making me realize how genius the writing was in episodes i previously didn't get. i think the entire show is kinda like this, i could listen to it an endless number of times because each and every episode has some kind of double meaning that isn't always initially obvious, especially when you go in blind not knowing that things are getting serious.

the only other work i've read so far that does something similar is probably house of leaves, which is designed to make you read it over and over and search for meaning and has 3+ plots occurring at any given moment. i'm just really struck by how masterful the writing in wolf 359 is that it can achieve a similar feat without the meta elements, nebulous plot, and multiple narrators that house of leaves has.

short version: i think it's really fucking cool how the end of each wolf 359 episode presents the thesis of the episode in a non-obvious way, and listening to the series while having the last few minutes presented first is helping me understand what episodes i didn't previously appreciate were trying to get across. wolf 359 is really fucking good, basically.

[kitkatopinions]

I'm with the people who say that they definitely don't want a second season of the Ever After as-is and I literally was one of the people going "I'll be happy if they're out of this fairy tale land in two episodes" buuuut with that being said, I can't help but feel like almost everything that's been happening so far would be way better if a lot more time could be spent on it instead of rushing through every plot point even faster it feels like than we did with volume 8.

Like, the girls falling, finding each other, actually talking about what happened on screen and with Ruby not passed out, the auction that takes like five minutes in canon, the chess game, them getting confronted with questions about what they are (which needed to be way better and different anyway,) the attack on the market which they barely seemed to try to fight (seriously they had a harder time fighting the Nevermore in the like fourth ep than they had with the enlarged Jabberwalker,) seeing Jaune for the first time, the punderstorm where only Blake and Yang were forced to work through a problem... I feel like all of these things could've been improved if they'd been given more room to breathe and were treated more seriously as opportunities for all the rwby girls to grow.

But specifically since it's the ep that just came out, I'm thinking about the Paper Pleaser town.

Thinking about how the girls showed like no interest in helping the town and instantly dismissed Jaune as unhinged and unreliable and instantly were just like 'oh guess these little paper stars trying to destroy themselves is fine because Ascension was described as a good thing here,' and then instantly it was revealed to Jaune that they didn't think he was reliable (I will point out, I could be wrong since I only watched the ep once, but Ruby seemed pretty not involved in any of that conversation so it feels less 'the girls did all that' and more like 'wby did all that,' but that's just a side note.) And I don't know, I just feel like this would be way better if we got to see Ruby at least acting kind of relieved to leave the work of finding a way out to Jaune while she throws herself into trying to follow the clearly laid out schedule and WBY are kind of being unhelpful (like they have been almost all season,) and Ruby starts acting a bit more frustrated with them, but maybe starts rethinking the things the Cat said and realizing that the Paper Pleasers are acting unhappy which WBY are realizing too, and they could also be noticing that despite Jaune going out every day looking for a solution, he isn't finding one and while one of the girls (Yang or Blake maybe) could start worrying a bit about how Jaune is doing and trying to reach out to him, one of the other girls (Weiss or Blake maybe) could start kind of pushing Ruby about time running out and how they need to find a solution and one of the other girls (Weiss or Yang maybe) could start actually doubting Jaune and getting a bit suspicious and all four of them could hear the Paper Pleasers take on Ascension. And honestly the Cat could show up again and talk to Ruby and she could get 'answers' out of it concerning ascension and more details about Alyx but still not be sure who to trust and grapple with the emotions of never knowing who to trust anymore and how her friends rely on her and tbh maybe she goes to tell her team about talking to the Cat but they react badly so she keeps it to herself (hello Oz parallels.) Then Jaune could overhear the girls talking about whether or not he's right about ascension or if Ruby should be the one actually looking for a way out because he doesn't seem to be doing much, and then that could actually turn into a real conversation where it's put on Ruby again to find a solution and fix things and talk to Jaune and find a way out and should they try and find the Cat again and what does Ruby think about Alyx and Lewis and how much should they be taking the book into account - but before Ruby can do much more than say 'I don't know' Neo's Jabberwalkers show up.

It could be so much better if we had time to actually TRY and figure things out. If we got more information about Ascension - what happened to the Caterpillar, if the Red King got worse what does that mean, how does the Ever After even work - then it wouldn't feel as questionable or confusing when the Afterans all destroy themselves in their effort to ascend. If the girls (Ruby particularly) did let Jaune try to find a way out for a bit before starting to question his reliability, they wouldn't look like jackwagons who don't want to do tasks they consider menial (WBY particularly.) If the girls had gotten to know the Paper Pleasers a bit more, they'd feel more justified in accepting their words over Jaune's (even though he does seem biased to me.) If at least one of them had tried to reach out to Jaune about his mental health, they'd feel a little less judgmental. If Ruby had tried to find answers and listen to different perspectives, it'd feel like good solid growth to me of her not just accepting anyone's words at random, but instead struggling because she doesn't know what the truth is. If Ruby was given good reason to think that Ascension was better than Jaune makes it out to be it'd make more sense and be less dismissive of her to take a jab at his 'mourning' (though don't get me wrong it'd still be harsh heroes can be flawed.) If Ruby had been shown to be relieved to hand the reins of leadership and responsibility over to someone else only to have her team continue to act like she has to make every choice and must come up with every solution, it would feel a bit more reasonable when she says her 'why are you asking me' piece (although I'll say that I think it would've been better if instead of saying 'why do I have to be the leader' she said 'we're supposed to be a team' because imo Ruby hasn't exactly been open to others outside RWBYJNOR leading and has made a lot of choices that put her where she is but her team has been 100% over-relying on her in very unfair ways.)

Idk, I just feel like some of this stuff needs more time, it can't all be one thing after another all the time in your face. There could be so much more depth to this show if they gave things the proper amount of focus and let their audience sit with things. Idk, maybe they know that the majority of their fandom myself included will just write metas and fanfics that do all that for them so they don't have to actually do more than Thor Ragnarok in terms of depth and emotion.

[nerdypotatoe5]

The Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes SPOILERS (BOOKS AND MOVIES)

ok so I'm sure that by now everyone has seen the posts about how brilliantly Suzanne Collins wove her prequel into the story.

So this will also be such a post. Not a particularly detailed one but hey xD

Anyway - AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

I adore how before Lucy Gray disappears, she tells Snow - I'm going to look for katniss. And then 64 years later, Katniss Everdeen wins the 74th Hunger Games with the meadow song, with a Mockingjay token and by cleverly playing the system (even if it wasn't her intention).

Of course, this reminds Snow of how he played the system in Lucy Gray's favour, he remembers that song from 12 and the Mockingjays that sang after Lucy Gray disappeared.

The parallels are brilliant! And every time that I think about them, I'm once again reminded just how much and why Coriolanus Snow despised Katniss. Not only was she a symbol of rebellion, but she also carried symbols from a past that he wanted to erase. And sure, no one else alive that can hurt him in the capital remembers, but what if someone digs just a little deeper, notices and checks something that appears to be just a little off?

And with so many coincidences surrounding Katniss, is it really a wonder that he assumed that a ghost of his former lover was coming to haunt him from the grave?

There are definitely more parallels out there but I'm currently too tired to think of them xD.

God, I love the world of the Hunger Games. It's so brilliantly written with wonderfully written characters that make me want to continue peeling back their layers just to see what makes them tick. Suzanne Collins truly wrote a masterpiece.

Also I did really enjoy the new movie. I ended up watching it in a language that isn't my native language and was pleased to have understood the majority of what was said xD. The fact that I had read the book previously definitely helped! XD

The sound track was to die for though! Everyone's singing was beautiful. Rachel Zegler's voice really haunted some scenes and gave me chills on more than one occasion. Hearing Can't Catch Me Now during the end credits was great. I've seen some people say that it really explained what happened to Lucy Gray after she disappeared and yeah, I can see where they are coming from. I just really liked how the lyrics tie the end of the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes with what happens in the Hunger Games. Olivia Rodrigo did a brilliant job with the lyrics.

Ok so this rambling has turned into a review. 😅

Anyway, my only complaint is that we did not see a lot of the Covey in the movie and that the connection between Katniss' dad and the Covey wasn't hinted at.

Having said that, the fact that Katniss' dad taught her those songs and how to hunt wasn't something that was mentioned in the Hunger Games movies (from what I remember of them) so it makes sense that that was left out.

Overall, the movie was amazing. Would recommend - 9/10.

The books are of course a very steady 9.5/10 for me xD.

At some point I'll probably need to make a post about the actors that played Sejanus and Dr. Gaul. They were fantastic! Having said that, the whole cast was really well cast and everyone played their role really well. I was very satisfied with the casting and with everyone's performance.