#it only exists via what one says about it... dude

[segretecose]

La dimanche de Bouvines: 27 juillet 1214 (1973), Georges Duby

"I was trying to see how an event is made and unmade, as ultimately it only exists via what one says about it, since it is properly speaking fabricated by those who spread its renown."

[tchaikovskaya]

Thinking about all the times in life u see someone familiar without knowing it’s the last time ur ever going to see them

[beescake]

i am in love with your sollux i think

sollux love party :]

if you’re interested heres some of my personal fondness thoughts on him.. big warning for the mega long read ahead aye

as we alr know sollux's rejection of participation somewhat mirrors dave's rejection of heroism, but even without getting cooked to completion i still find sollux's character v compelling beyond the fourth wall

as someone who doesnt get a pinch of that Protagonist Sparkle to begin with, he can openly say he wants to leave anytime…. and unlike dave, he actually Can leave the scene anytime. but he can never be truly Free from the story via permanent character death like the other trolls.

his irrelevancy is indeed relevant - he’s there so u can point him out.

while his image is intended to be a relic of past internet subculture, his role is not only about hehehaha being a Chad or a 2000s cyberforum 2²chan haxxor ragequit gamebro.

his continued existence also happens to add a Bit to the overarching themes of homestuck! a Bit that gives him longer-lasting thematic relevance compared to the trolls who could’ve had more character potential but didnt get to survive beyond the main story.

the Bit in question:

his defiance contributes to the illusion of agency (treating characters = people with autonomy). he’s “aware” of it, and that recognition is worth noting enough to forcibly keep him alive as both reward and punishment.

considering how his personality & classpect is designed its definitely a very haha thing for hussie to do LOL. he’s made to be op asf so he's resigned to doing dirty work, gradually deteriorating along the way but never truly dying. as fans have mentioned before, him openly rejecting involvement after a while of grim tolerance is like if the sim u were controlling suddenly stopped, looked up and gave u the finger while u were step six into the walkthrough for Every Possible Sim Death Animation.

but since he’s just a sim… the more he hates it, the more you keep him around. if ur sim started complaining abt your whimsical household storyline you’d definitely keep that little fuck.

but yeah i like that sollux is just idling. the significance of his presence being that one dude who's always reliably Somewhere, root core Unchanged, no individual ambitions (possibly due to fear of consequence?), and design-wise: a staple representative product of his time.

compared to dirk's character, who has aged phenomenally well into the present (themes of control + AR + artificial intelligence, clearer exploration around navigating relationships/sexuality, infinite possibilities of self-splinterhood and trait inheritance), sollux's potential is really... contained. bitter. defeatist. limiting and frustrating in the way old tech is.

the world continues moving on to shinier, brighter, more advanced automated things - minimalist and metaverse or whatever but sollux is still here 🧍‍♂️ going woohoo redblue 3d. (tho personally i imagine his vibe similar to what the kids call cassette futurism on pinterest mixed w more grimy grunge insectoid influences eheh)

conceptually-speaking,

at the foundation of it all, the rapid pace of modern development was built off the understanding of ppl like sollux in the past, who were There actively at work while the dough was still beginning to rise

thats one of the cool things abt the idea of trolls preceding humans! the idea that trolls like sollux excelled back when lots of basic shit still needed to be discovered, building structures like networks and codes from scratch, and humans will eventually inherit and reinvent that knowledge in ways that become so optimized it makes the old manual effort seem archaic, slow, and labour-intensive.

but despite information/resources/shortcuts being more accessible now, much of the new highly-anticipated stuff released on trend still end up unfinished, inefficient, or expiring quickly due to cutting corners under severe capitalistic pressures

meanwhile, some of the old stuff frm past generations of thorough, exploratory and perfectionistic development still remains working, complete, and ever so sturdy.

those things continue to exist, just outside our periphery with either:

zero purpose left for modern needs (outdated/obsolete)

or

far too important to replace or destroy, bcs of its surprisingly essential and circumstantial usefulness in one niche specific area.

which are honestly? both points that sum up sollux pree well.

dramatic ending sorry. anw are u still on the fence or are u Sick abt him like me </3

[suzukiblu]

excerpt from the one where Tim Drake goes to an alternate reality and decides to get his other self laid via the local Kon's bisexual awakening:

"Hey, remember when you saved my life earlier?" Tim asks. 

"Yeah, kinda," Kon replies in amusement. "Seeing as it was about two point five seconds after you rigged the evil alien robot army to self-destruct and helped save our entire literal reality's life, so I was definitely paying attention." 

"Flatterer," Tim says with a smirk even as he waves him off. The self-destruct function wasn't even that hard to hack, comparatively. That time he'd downloaded Lex Luthor's active IP files from his personal office while the asshole had been on his damn computer–now that'd been tricky. Interdimensional alien invaders barely compare. And the Brainiac incident still gives him stress migraines when he thinks about it for too long. 

Metropolis sucks and Tim frankly has no idea how his own Kon can stand the place.

But like, getting off-topic here. 

"Well, I was gonna say you should let me pay you back for that," he continues. "But since you bring it up I'll also accept a show of gratitude on behalf of your reality, whichever gets you off harder.” 

Kon laughs, because he is apparently adorable enough to have assumed that was a joke. Precious little moron, Tim thinks fondly. 

"You know, you're a lot less uptight than our version of you is," Kon says, grinning down at Tim before flashing Tim's other self a smirk. "No offense, Rob. Dude's clearly just doing more yoga than you or something. Maybe drinking more tea? Taking the occasional bubble bath?" 

"Silly me, if only I'd invested in more bath bombs in my life," Tim's other self says dryly. 

"It's probably my sex life, actually," Tim himself puts in with an easy shrug. Turns out when you stop pretending you don't have a ridiculously high libido and actually just indulge the thing, a lot of life's little annoyances become a lot easier to handle. Go figure. "Plus my boyfriend Bernard is really great, just his entire existence does wonders for my mood in general and he also makes me eat real food on occasion and monitors my caffeine intake much more reliably than I'm capable of doing on my own. The man is a living antidepressant and I don't even mean that in a fucked-up way, he's just that good." 

"Boyfriend?" Kon blinks at him, then puts on another grin. It takes, Tim cannot help but notice, exactly two beats longer than his real grin would've. "Ohhhhh, okay, so the problem is just that you're not getting laid hard enough?" 

"It is not," Tim's other self says dubiously, watching Kon just a little bit warily and obviously worried about his potential reaction to the word "boyfriend". Well, Tim never claimed to be emotionally intelligent about Kon, so no surprise his other self is also a dumbass there. 

"It kinda is, actually," he tells his other self. "I was tracking my cortisol levels the last time I went on a solo away mission and let's just say they were . . . concerning? Like really concerning. Like by the time I got back I was kiiiiind of convinced I was going to need to go on anti-anxiety meds again. But then I jumped my Kon in the Titans Tower med bay instead and that pretty much solved the problem." 

Kon . . . pauses, sort of. Tilts his head. Tim's other self looks a lot warier.

"'Jumped'," Kon repeats carefully. "Like . . . what, you dragged him to the gym to spar or something?" 

"Like I blew his back out so hard that when he came his TTK fritzed out and disassembled my recovery bed," Tim clarifies helpfully. "It really helped with the cortisol levels issue." 

Kon blinks. Tim's other self looks pained, but also desperately envious. Tim would also be desperately envious if their situations were reversed and so does not blame him for said envy in the slightest. 

"I thought you said you had a boyfriend?" Kon says after a moment, sounding a little odd in a very telling way. Or at least very telling to Tim, anyway. 

As is the way that he's not looking at Tim's other self at all anymore. 

"Open relationship," Tim says. "Also Bernard thinks you're stupidly hot and really likes hearing about the kind of stuff you let me do to you. I've actually been debating inviting you over for his birthday so he can watch us live for once but I haven't asked you yet." 

"What, so your Kon is the side chick?" Kon jokes, awkwardly putting on another just barely belated grin. 

"More like my kept boy, functionally speaking, but he's having a 'weird about commitment' phase right now so I've just been making a lot of sugar baby jokes to soften him up," Tim replies with a shrug. It's only sort of been working, but it has been working, and he's willing to take his time on it. It's not fair to expect Kon to only be easy, after all. "Long-term goal is to marry Bernard and ideally get Kon to 'live-in boyfriend' status somewhere in there, but that would also require him not being weird about commitment and also figuring out how well he and Bernard get along in the same space, so we'll just have to see how that one goes." 

"Uh," Kon says. "Why?" 

"Because you are incredibly important to me and also look like a very horny Renaissance sculptor made you out of calacatta marble," Tim tells him matter-of-factly, gesturing meaningfully at him. "Frankly it's criminal that you ever put clothes on."

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

The Book: Everything We Know So Far and Possible Connections

The Book's lore is driving me crazy and I had to write this. This isn't meant to be a solid cohesive theory on anything but I wanted to compile everything we know about the Book, some rather disturbing implications of what that might mean, and which characters may or may not have a connection to it, as well as what that connection might be.

This is a long post, so I've bolded the key info. You can skim those if you don't want to go through everything. :)

***Major spoilers for BSD and for Beast!***

Main Series Information:

The first mentions of the Book occur in Chapter 28, when Fitzgerald tells Atsushi that the Guild's goal is to locate it. He tells Atsushi that only one copy of this book exists, and that neither flames nor abilities can damage it.

Fitzgerald claims he knows the Book is there because a prophet ability user foresaw that it had been sealed within Yokohama. When Atsushi asks what the relation is between him and the Book, Fitzgerald says that Atsushi is the guide to the Book.

In Chapter 35, Fitzgerald states that his goal is to use the Book to bring his daughter back to life.

The next mention is in Chapter 46, when Dazai talks to Fyodor in the alley. Dazai mentions that since Fyodor and the Rats don't have the firepower to burn down Yokohama, he instead needs to exterminate Yokohama's ability users to get to the Book, hence the cannibalism strategy.

Dazai says the true Book is a single novel with blank pages where anything written becomes the truth. Fyodor wishes to use it to make a world without the sin of ability users. Dazai says basically "good luck with that dude" lol. (Actually the line is "Give that a go, if you can, that is." which... might be significant?)

Chapter 58: Taneda dumps a lot of info on Ranpo. His assailant, who we know to be Sigma, stole a page from him, a single page removed from the Book in order to study it. The page has exactly the same capacity to make anything written become reality, it just has limited space to write. However, the Book has a restriction: it requires karmic/narrative consistency.

In Chapter 58.5, Mykola's speech about cages and the freedom of birds is ironically dictated word for word by a mysterious author. The translator note on the unofficial version I'm reading says the mysterious author is using imperfect Japanese with lots of katakana - I cannot confirm this myself, but it has interesting implications on our mystery author's identity if true. The page is used to position the Agency as the terrorists in the white hoods and frame them.

Chapter 59: Ranpo believes the Book was not made by an ability user but by something far greater than that. His proof is that unlike Mushitarou's ability, which can also alter reality, the people affected by the Book also have new memories to fit the alteration to the events. The Agency members remember committing the crime, even though they know they didn't.

In Chapter 70, Mushitarou reveals the DoA plans to use the other side of the page to eliminate the country at the next full moon. I am curious as to the significance of the full moon, given the moon's frequent recurrence in the series and Atsushi's ability connection to it. Chapter 74.5 establishes that the Sky Casino, with its 13 year history, was created 8 days ago when the page was written on, as a base for the next stage and also to "repay" Sigma for the use of his ability to retrieve it. In Chapter 75, Fyodor claims that Sigma, too, was written into existence via the Book 3 years ago - he has no memories before this point.

Chapter 77: the page was written with a condition that no police or law enforcement would believe in the Agency's innocence. However, Tachihara broke through that condition by reaffirming his identity as a member of the Mafia, which (metaphorically) tears the page.

Later references don't tell us too much more but I'll summarize them regardless. Kamui/Fukuchi has the page, which Atsushi knows from Sigma's info. Ranpo made an appeal to the police, explaining that the Agency was framed and the page preventing them from seeing the truth, and half the force sees the truth for themselves, breaking through the page's condition. Ranpo believed the direct opposition to the page's restrictions might sway Fukuchi into believing them (unfortunately, we don't know if this was right, as Fukuchi was not affected in the first place, being Kamui himself). And that's what we have so far.

Disturbing Implication #1: The Special Division knows/knew the location of the Book.

Taneda mentions that a page from the Book was taken to study. This implies that at one point, the Special Division had the Book or knew of its location. The higher ups may still know where it is. There are a few potential timelines here: the first is that the page was removed many, many years earlier, perhaps during the war, and the second is that the page was removed and tested 3 years ago, and Sigma resulted from these trials.

Disturbing Implication #2: Ranpo says the Book was created by something greater.

Something greater than ability users. I suspect this may be something outside their world. At this stage, it seems very likely this "greater entity" is an author - the author of the world we read about (it's Asagiri omg). An author, to the world they write, is akin to a god. I'm kind of joking about the Asagiri thing, but the "author" of the Book is likely someone/something that exists beyond the scope of the world of BSD.

Contradiction: The Book cannot be damaged by flame or ability, but pages can be torn out of it? How?

Beast Information:

Oh boy. Where to even start?

Beast Dazai states that the Book is the origin of the main universe's world, and it contains an infinite number of parallel worlds within it.

"What you write becomes a reality" is actually a misnomer. Writing in the Book calls a parallel world that aligns with what is written directly from the Book. This parallel world will then trade places with the real world.

There is a single physical reality, and infinite possible worlds. The Beast universe exists within the Book, as a possible world.

A version of the Book exists in the Beast universe. However, this Beast version of the Book is more of a weakness. Orders from the real world can overwrite Beast. And anyone who tries to write in Beast's Book will make Beast cease to exist.

Beast Dazai jumps at the end of Beast. This is because if more than 3 people know the truth about the Book, the world will destabilize - it may even disappear without Beast's Book being written in.

Beast Dazai created a singularity using his ability. It's not explained how he did this, but it has something to do with his nullification. He did this to read the memories of real-world/original Dazai - the Dazai who exists outside the Book. (It seems all but given that this is Dazai from the main timeline.)

Though the above conflicts with some of what we know in the main manga, we can take it as fact, I think. The narration is heavy on emphasizing that Beast Dazai is telling no lies in this scene.

Disturbing Implication #3: Any alterations are not inventions but transferrals, which means these events actually occurred in another universe.

This means that the Agency really were the DoA terrorists in a parallel world and they did carry out the plan. They really did take the hostages in this world. Tanizaki really did push the button. This would explain their memories. The caveat of no one in law enforcement believing them might make sense too - they're actually criminals in that world, so they would have no reason to believe them. "Trading places" also implies that the terrorist Agency universe has the terrorists trying to save the hostages like the Agency originally planned to do (potentially).

Sigma is an interesting case. If he really was written into existence from the Book, then he was called from another parallel world - literally displaced from his home. His amnesia likely occurred in that parallel world too.

Disturbing Implication #4: The parallel worlds are more fragile than the main world of BSD.

There is something different about our main universe. The Book that originates here is the real deal. But Beast's (and all the Books from different parallel worlds) leave them vulnerable. These worlds can be destroyed at any time if anyone tries to write in these Books. Only a select number of people can know how it really works before it starts to destabilize. What's more, at any point, someone could write in the real-world's Book and overwrite it entirely, and there would be nothing that any of the people within that world could do about it. And Beast Akutagawa, thinking back on the events of the story, comes to the conclusion that even though his world is "but a shadow", the desires, feelings and actions of the people within it make those people no less real than those in the original.

Beast is a goddamn existential horror.

Character Connections

Now, onto the characters who are known to have some kind of connection to the Book.

Fitzgerald wanted the Book in the Guild arc to bring back his daughter. While this is the first mention of it, given that he got his info from clearly secondhand sources (the prophet ability user or Fyodor, most likely), I don't think he has any sort of deeper understanding of it, nor a more personal connection. Ranpo seems to be figuring out the Book's logistics rather quickly, but I expect nothing less from the greatest detective, and he doesn't have a strong personal connection I can see as of yet. As for Fukuchi, whatever knowledge he gained 36 years ago might be connected... but again, I have nothing else to say on this front, considering we have little else on this (I'm actually more inclined to think it has to do with the war - which may tie in with the Book, but not necessarily). I would also be very surprised if Mori doesn't know something but I have no real evidence for this other than that the man is suspicious as hell. Then again, there's also Tokoyami Island, which "appeared" seemingly out of nowhere and is where Yosano's backstory took place and Fukuchi headed after his argument with Fukuzawa. It seems possible, if not likely, that it was created with the Book. So, let's go over some characters who we actually can expand on a little.

Taneda

Not much to say here other than what kind of research was being done with the Book? Given that Taneda had the page on him, was he the one responsible for the research being conducted on it, or was he just involved?

What kind of research was being done with the page? How were they testing it? The page was blank, so they must not have created anything with it yet. How then, did Taneda know how it worked and that the page would have the same capacities as the full Book?

Taneda doesn't seem to understand the Book completely - he thinks it was created by an ability user, after all, and like everyone else in the main universe he doesn't know the reason the Book requires narrative consistency (that it is pulling from other worlds, not just making anything written come true).

The Special Division likely had the Book at one point, but by the time Fitzgerald comes to retrieve it, it has been "sealed". Did the Special Division seal it? Why and how?

Atsushi

We know he has a lot to do with it. Atsushi and the Book are incredibly intertwined, and the initial conflict was kicked off by a bounty placed on his head for this connection.

He is called the "guide" to the Book. What does that mean? Is he meant to locate it? Unlock the seal? Or is he a guide on how to use it properly?

6 years ago, Shibusawa found Atsushi at the orphanage when he was just a kid and tortured him to extract his ability. He was a researcher who learned about the tiger from Fyodor, who called Atsushi's ability "one that guides the envy of all ability users". And we know Fyodor has been after the Book for a long time, so it's difficult to imagine this does not have something to do with it.

Atsushi is the only character to directly reference a real-life novel in the series and recall reading it. "The head may err but never the blood" and "I only regret what I haven't done" are from the real Nakajima Atsushi's "Light, Wind, and Dreams", a fictionalized autobiography detailing the last few years of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. While other characters quote their namesakes' fiction on occasion, to my recollection, Atsushi is the only one who explicitly remembers reading the book, but finds himself unable to remember the author's name. Cute reference, or plot significant? You decide.

Atsushi's tiger is heavily associated with the moon, particularly the full moon. For some reason, the other side of the page is to be used at the next full moon and cannot be used sooner. Atsushi's ability crystal, pulled out of him by Shibusawa as a child, is described as "pale and glittering like the moon".

It is entirely unlike the red crystals that form in the Dead Apple separated abilities - including Atsushi's tiger (also red). It is, however, similar to Dazai's, which is white. Atsushi transforms into the tiger to swallow the moon-like crystal - to reiterate, it was outside him when he transformed. What's more, from Beast it's known that this instance was when his ability apparently activated for the first time - how could it do that if it was already removed from him? Later on, Shibusawa tries to take the crystal again and Atsushi's transformation deteriorates, that's true, but bear in mind that Atsushi was convinced that crystal was the tiger, which may have psychologically influenced this. In fact, the moon crystal may not be the tiger at all. It is entirely possible it is something else, and it is likely that which makes Atsushi so sought after. If it is, I refuse to believe this has nothing to do with the Book.

Atsushi's ability is described as the "spark of life that resists all abilities". A reference to his healing factor, perhaps? Or something more meaningful?

He's also referred to as an "angel" by Shibusawa who canonically got his information from Fyodor so... make of that what you will.

Tachihara

This isn't so much about Tachihara having significance in future but more about what his breaking of the page's conditions might mean.

At the crux of this is his split identity - he's a Hunting Dog, but also a mafioso, and his struggle between these identities is his core conflict in the Sky Casino arc.

Eventually, Tachihara, recalling Hirotsu and Gin's words that anyone in the Mafia knows that the Agency is innocent, frantically realizes they have the wrong culprits, thus breaking through the page's caveat that all law enforcement would never believe them, accompanied by a metaphorical tear in the page.

It's intriguing because we don't see this same dramatic depiction later on with the police when Ranpo appeals to them - Tachihara has changed his expected role from police to mafioso. Tachihara is no longer playing the "character" he was meant to play.

He tore out of that restriction in the story. His story line is now on a different path. There are some serious implications of that if a change in character can literally break people free of the Book's reality-altering influence. It is all-powerful so long as everyone plays their expected role in that narrative. Breaking out of that can change the story, even if only minutely.

Sigma

Of course Sigma is connected. He was apparently written into the Book three years ago - which means he came from one of the parallel worlds. (Provided Fyodor is telling the truth about his origins, but I think it would be very strange narratively if this wasn't - at least partially - true.)

I am curious if Sigma will regain some of his memories soon, or if it is even possible for him. If he can regain memories, then they would be from a world within the Book. Or, perhaps his memories don't exist because that world has been overwritten and no longer exists?

Is it possible for Sigma to communicate between worlds using his exchange of information? Maybe this is completely out of left field... I'm just curious what role Sigma is going to play in all this.

It's strange, for someone so obviously connected I... really don't have much to say about him. I just think we don't have enough.

Mykola

There isn't too much to say for certain about him, but I know I was super uncomfortable with his entire speech about birds and cages and freedom being dictated in real-time by the page. That's rough, buddy.

As of this moment, he's supposed to be dead, but somehow defied his fate and is still alive. He decided not to play the role ("character") he was previously meant to, and now he is the cast's biggest wildcard.

Mykola's fixation on freedom at all costs may have some interesting implications for his interactions with the idea of the Book. When his words were written on the page, was the page dictating his speech, or was it merely recording what he was already saying? If the Book is the story, then does the story control the characters, or, as it has been implied by Mykola and Tachihara, can the characters defy the story? When they defy the story, the story changes to accommodate this. Have they really, then, defied anything of significance at all? (For clarity: I don't know if this is where BSD will go with it - in actuality, I'm always confused when people theorize the Book's author is evil and controlling, or that the series will end tragically, given how much BSD loves to emphasize the importance of writing and reading and understanding and living. This is just an example of a few possible questions it may make sense for Mykola to fixate on.)

I don't have a lot to say for certain, but given his need to be free, his connection with Fyodor, and his Dazai-foiling traits, I'd think it very odd if he wasn't involved to some extent.

Dazai

...where to even start.

Dazai clearly knows things about the Book. He appears to know much of what Fyodor does, and it makes me curious as to whether it came up when they first met (whenever that was).

However, main series Dazai doesn't seem to have all the info Beast Dazai does. For one thing, he too echoes that the Book makes all that is written into it become reality. He may know about the parallel worlds within it and could just be lying by omission, but I've seen very little to suggest that this is the case.

Main series Dazai appears to know about certain events long before they occur (not everything though; I need to remind people that he can and has been thrown off/wrong about things before) - notably, most of these planned events revolve around Fyodor. He's been preparing Atsushi and Akutagawa specifically to deal with the upcoming threat posed by Fyodor's pursuit of the Book.

Beast Dazai was somehow able to read the memories of real-world Dazai by creating a singularity with his ability... somehow. It's assumed he must've created it while in contact with the Book (otherwise how else could he have read the memories) but it's actually not elaborated on and we still have little to no details.

If his nullification caused a singularity, then how? Was it a singularity with the Book? Himself? Whatever the Book was sealed with/in? Singularities are still quite mysterious, but they need to involve one of two things - an insurmountable contradiction, or an uncontrollable increase in power with no way to cap it. Given that nullification doesn't lend itself to an increase in anything, it's likely an inherent contradiction.

I think it pretty obvious that Dazai has some special knowledge of the Book; some connection to it. He's been preparing to combat Fyodor for many, many years, and he seems to want to take Fyodor out as quickly as possible. Clearly, his potential use of the Book is a big deal to Dazai and worth putting his full effort into preventing, which is a little odd, honestly, considering he only met him once before the events of Dead Apple. Fyodor must've really made a terrible impression on him.

Where did he come from? There's that post about how Dazai is in everyone else's backstory for some reason, but we don't know his yet. Here's what we do know: He has some kind of connection with the Old Mafia Boss. He wandered around Yokohama for awhile. He's not related to Mori or an orphan he picked up.

While I've seen suggestions that Dazai met Fyodor in the 2 year gap between his leaving the Mafia and joining the ADA, I think there's reason to suggest he may have met Fyodor before he ever joined the Mafia, as a young child. Just bringing it up as a possibility because Beast Dazai's forming of a singularity with it sounded intentional - which means at 16, he would already have known what the Book was. Did he get his knowledge from Fyodor? Someone else?

Why did young Dazai become so listless and unable to find a reason to live? How did he become convinced that he will lose everything he wants so badly to keep when he gets it? Why did he think he could predict everything in advance? Is it just his intelligence and observation? Or is there more to it than that?

While I'm not a huge fan of the "Dazai is the Book" theory (given that it would make him literally inhuman, which I think runs antithetical to his story), on reviewing all this I've come up with a new incredibly deranged and not-at-all-sound theory:

Dazai is the Book's seal. In this essay I will -

Fyodor

First of all, we know hardly anything about him. We don't understand his ability. We don't even know how old he is. He's been with V/the Decay of the Angel for many years apparently... he was involved in Shibusawa's actions... he has some kind of a history with Dazai... he perfected the art of dramatically standing on windy roofs... truly, he's an enigma.

On a more serious note, all we know is that he wants the Book to create a world free of ability users. Free of sin.

This doesn't seem to fully align with Fukuchi's goal. My proof? They have differing concepts of "angels".

Fukuchi's "angels" borrow from the Buddhist concept of Devas and also likely references Mishima Yukio's The Decay of the Angel. Fukuchi tells Tachihara that the angels are the politicians who remain in their lofty seats and send soldiers into war to die. His goal isn't revenge per se, but it does appear to involve dethroning them in a sense. He doesn't mention wiping out ability users nor of having any particular ill-will towards them.

However, Fyodor's concept is closer to the Abrahamic concept of angel, what with the numerous references to original sin, the script for the play in Untold Origins speaking of angels banished by God for their sins, etc. What's interesting is that the play emphasizes ability users as "angels" who have regained some of their prior powers (I find it difficult to believe Fyodor was not involved in the creation of this) - so Fyodor's "sinful angels" are likely ability users. What does this mean for their goals? Are they still aligned? Is the undermining of government necessary for the elimination of ability users? (Also quick note: do not quote me on any religious stuff - I am not religious myself. I do research sometimes but I'm very, very far from an expert ahaha.)

So, now: Cannibalism was part 1 of the DoA's plan, and all the ensuing stages will culminate in the use of the other side of the page.

Firstly, there's the obvious "what will the other side of the page be used for?"

But then there's something else. By the time Cannibalism occurred, the pieces were already in place for the next phase of the plan, where Sigma would steal the page from Taneda. Why then, does Fyodor still claim, on numerous occasions, to be after the Book? The page should be able to accomplish anything the Book can. Either there is something misleading in the information we have been told, or there is something he wants to do with the Book that isn't writing in it. I think the former is more likely but I digress, the latter is still a possibility.

A few more outstanding questions: Why was he spreading info on Atsushi to Shibusawa and presumably Fitzgerald, but not going after Atsushi himself? Wouldn't he want Atsushi as the Book's guide?

What is his connection to the prophet ability user Fitzgerald mentioned - is it him, with his uncanny predictive powers? Is it someone else associated with the DoA? Is it someone in the government? How long ago was this prediction made - was it made long enough ago that this is why V was active in Yokohama?

There's a lot that's very confusing about Fyodor, and I don't think we know nearly enough about him to make proper predictions as to his relation to the Book yet.

Akutagawa

He's only really tangentially related to it through his connection to Atsushi - if any showdown is going to happen involving the Book, you can bet he and Akutagawa will be teaming up for that.

At the same time, Dazai selected Akutagawa as a mentee a long time ago, and he's been planning for them to work together since he met Atsushi, specifically so they can prevent Fyodor from achieving his goals. In Beast, he mentions their abilities form a singularity together - likely that ability to "cut through anything".

I know this may be entirely wild and out of left field but if it can cut through anything... could it damage the impervious Book? Could it even destroy it? Or maybe it could destroy whatever is sealing it? Who knows, but it makes me think they're going to have to destroy something. (Interesting how this runs counter to sskk's need to act as protectors of the Book in Beast... so maybe it will be in defense. It's all so unclear.)

There's also the whole "dragon is the manifestation of the chaos of ability users". Atsushi and Akutagawa are the tiger and the dragon, at odds with each other via rivalry but also in balance. I think it would be very strange if Atsushi's ability were unusual but not Akutagawa's.

In addition to all the above, I am also side-eyeing all the author characters in this series. For one thing, there's very few of them. For another, two of them have died, changing the path of their respective best friends' lives - and in a series that actually... doesn't kill that many named characters off permanently, it's worth taking a look at.

Yokomizo wanted to transcend the boundaries of fiction in his writing to create a mystery that bled into reality - the ultimate mystery. Mushitarou writes to see his friend again, to connect with him through his greatest passion. Poe's ability allows him to take real people and pull them into constructed narratives that can be escaped once they are "solved" - when the story reaches its conclusion. He is also the one who spurs Mushitarou into writing to cope with his loss.

Natsume wrote a few books as well. We don't know completely what they were about (and from my brief research they don't seem to correspond perfectly to his real life novels - might be a reference to Kokoro but the story does not appear to be the same...), but at least one was a series of three novels, with the last featuring an assassin who stopped killing, but Natsume derided these books and said they were not very good. He tore out the last few pages from the third, final book that explained why the assassin changed his path, and gave the book to a young Odasaku with a note "Don't blame me if you regret [reading] it".

Odasaku wanted to complete that novel. It completely changed his perspective on the world and opened his eyes - he re-read it multiple times (if I remember correctly, he also read it over and over to a wounded and exasperated Dazai in TDIPUD lol), and the lack of an ending bothered him immensely, not just because the story was incomplete, but because the scene was necessary to understanding the assassin's character. Odasaku wrote to understand himself and others, because writing novels is writing people. Natsume seemed to think he was uniquely qualified to do so, but Odasaku disagreed, thinking that someone who took lives was in no position to write about them - to understand them.

Odasaku dies. In every universe, and before he gets the chance to write the novel that sits in his mind - except in Beast, where Dazai painstakingly maintained the world to ensure he stayed alive. It seems oddly specific that this one random person should die before having the opportunity to write the story he wished... and I have to wonder if the universe really doesn't want him writing that book for some reason. And if that's the case, then is there any reason (beyond saving Oda from killing) why Natsume encouraged him to do so?

As a bonus, in the anime, Odasaku is the one to title drop "to the stray dogs" as a cheers, which Dazai will later echo. This doesn't happen in the novel... but if you look back at the difference between the anime Book and the manga Book - you'll notice the manga Book's cover is blank. The anime's says "Stray Dogs". Could be something, could be nothing. But it's worth mentioning.

And that's pretty much it for now! As we get more info, I'll continue to update this post. If anything here gives you ideas, please feel free to ramble about it in the tags or comments, or shoot me an ask! I love to read all your thoughts. :)

[sandumilfshou]

still kind of insane to me that people talk shit about jiang cheng without fully understanding what he has been through so lets just understand what his mental state is like BEFORE canon begins:

born via a dysfunctional marriage to be the sect heir

father doesnt care for him, mother expects too much from him/everything he does is not enough

has his three dogs just kicked out randomly with no notice because of some kid he's never heard of by the father who never gave him love and/or attention

said father then favours this kid more than him, to the point that the entire world basically thinks that this kid is biologically your father's son as well, which causes even more family dysfunction

despite this still learns to love this kid as his unofficial brother

works his absolute hardest but is always second-best because his new shixiong is naturally talented

nobody appreciates the hard work he puts in at being second place despite the fact wwx literally doesnt work hard for it

masks his emotions with anger as a coping mechanism to minimise the amount of hurt he feels

ok great so now lets actually take all of the above and apply this mental wellbeing to canon events FROM HIS PERSPECTIVE (keep in mind this is literally what jc is seeing/experiencing because he DOESNT KNOW what the reader knows):

brother is off being the protagonist and getting in trouble and gets their sisters marriage ruined

comes home from a year away and then almost immediately has to go and be a hostage where brother continues his protagonist behaviour

gets trapped and nearly dies in a cave with a 400-year-old monster, is in charge of finding a way out and making sure everyone else escapes

brother and a guy who maybe hates him get stuck behind in the cave so now jiang cheng has to boost it home ON FOOT, without food, to get manpower to rescue them, which takes a minimum of a few days likely without any food or sleep

no appreciation or thanks for doing that since brother was more heroic and killed the 400-year-old monster

gets scolded by his father for being annoyed by this

parents immediately get into another fight about father loving wwx more than jc

because of the above shenanigans their sect is targeted next

tries to defend brother against being whipped to death and/or having his hand cut off by mother

witnesses his entire sect being burned and murdered

loses both his parents

decides to sacrifice himself to save his brother's life, instead of dying he is tortured and has his golden core melted

on top of his inferiority issues, the ONE THING he was expected to do was be the sect leader for the yunmeng jiang. the sect that no longer exists. he is now a sect leader with no sect and no golden core. no shit he wants to mcfuckin die

miraculously gets a new golden core but loses his brother

immediately plunged into a war and he's only like 17

spends 3 months trying to find his brother only for his brother to show up doing the Forbidden Magic and necromancy which is Super Disrespectful in their culture like holy shit what are you doing

brother refuses to use his sword in favour of the Forbidden Magics and kind of keeps undermining jc's orders as sect leader which makes jc look weak in front of all the other sect leaders when he's actively trying to rebuild their sect and be respected as a leader

fights a war for [handwaves] an amount of time, certainly a few years minimum, while watching his brother descend further into Unhealthy Behaviour but brother refuses to do anything or talk about it

ends up lowkey being a war hero

the other three great sects (of which there are now only four) swear brotherhood, leaving out ONLY ymj/jiang cheng, which, what the Fuck dude

is now a teenager who has lost his parents who now has to rebuild his sect from scratch with fuck all money, supplies, and support

brother, who promised to always be at his side helping, is not helping, and in fact is actively just getting drunk and being a nuisance and STILL REFUSING TO SAY WHY

entire cultivation world starts to turn on his brother who is now looking like a loose cannon bc he has Forbidden Magics that are Terrifyingly Powerful and also it has been proven that he does not give a fuck about jc's opinion since he's constantly doing whatever the fuck he wants

literally out of nowhere said brother decides to piss off everyone, start fights, and then KILL JIN GUARDS at a camp and MAKE OFF with like fifty people who are part of the family that he just fought a war against and were responsible for slaughtering his family/sect

go to the terrifying haunted mountain where wwx and the wen remnants are and sees that he's essentially starting a new family with a kid and crops, doesn't seem to care that jiang cheng is still trying to keep the ymj afloat and look like they have any strength

brother is still doing Forbidden Magic and refuses to explain why, and now says he'll secede from the ymj so his bad reputation doesn't reflect on jc like he HASNT BEEN DOING THAT THE WHOLE TIME

so now shixiong wants to just abandon jc completely after jc has lost his parents, had to rebuild everything from scratch, while ignoring the promise he's made their whole life? ok fuck you

jc also can't defend him in public because that would turn the ymj into a target and please keep in mind he is a teenager who was expected to do this ONE THING by his parents and he has poured his heart and soul and blood and tears into rebuilding the ymj and they are So Vulnerable Right Now

uhhh what the fuck suddenly wwx kills their sister's husband ?? bro what the FUCK?

everyone rallies to go and attack wwx for this and again jc literally cant do anything about it and refusing to go will just make everyone assume he's on wwx's side and their sect can't afford to be attacked rn

bro what the fuck now THEIR SISTER IS DEAD?????

oh even better now said brother is DEAD

jiang cheng literally has NO ONE LEFT. no friends. no family. no parents, no siblings, everyone he knew growing up is dead. its literally just him and his infant nephew, who by the way, is living with the sect who are the most powerful and also most likely to be super fucking shady so jc has to tread very carefully

so jc spends over a decade raising his nephew ALONE while trying to make ymj powerful and also hunting/killing demonic cultivators that now p much only exist bc his brother invented/popularised the technique

oh yeah and also this whole time the guy who maybe hated his brother is now like EVEN colder and more antagonistic towards jc like it was HIS FAULT that wwx is dead? get fucked lan wangji you didnt even like the guy (or if this is cql/untamed canon: you literally did nothing either so where do you get off on acting like you're better than jc)

over a decade passes and suddenly his dead brother is alive again and causing more problems and acting like the things he did were not major contributors towards jc's entire family and sect dying

More Political Drama Happens and jc has to manage it

suddenly its revealed that the guy he's been co-raising his nephew with is the major villain who caused the entire world to turn on wwx in the first place oh and also it turns out that the fucking miraculous core jc has IS HIS BROTHER'S, WHO NEVER SAID ANYTHING, AND THIS IS THE REASON HE STARTED THE FORBIDDEN MAGICS AND STOPPED HELPING AROUND THE SECT, but he didnt even BOTHER to tell jiang cheng about it

by the way did i mention this was done via an entirely unconsented experimental surgery

and now the brother of the doctor who did the unconsented experimental surgery is ?? mad at jiang cheng about it ???? like he was supposed to KNOW ABOUT THIS when wwx was KEEPING IT FROM HIM ON PURPOSE???

and now theyre all nearly dying in this dumbass temple - and the ONE family member jc still has is literally being threatened with a garotte

oh cool now jc's brother is saying forget the past let's just leave it all behind !!! as though THAT ISNT JC'S ENTIRE LIFE AND TRAUMA and the ONE THING he EVER wanted was for him, wwx, and jyl to be alive and happy, and now wwx is saying just forget it! like FUCK YOU???? does jc truly mean NOTHING???????

oh and now his brother is off gallivanting with the guy who hated him - who it turns out doesn't hate him - and now they're getting married

and jiang cheng is meant to just. pretend all of this never happened and live his life normally. while wwx is out there. being happy and married.

like... if you can read all of this and still treat jc like he's the bad guy, i'm sorry, but you have literally zero empathy. dude had it probably more rough than any of the other main ensemble cast, and i am including jgy in that, because jgy Made His Choices. jc literally just had to let things happen around him helplessly

[lover-of-mine]

I so agree with everything you said. The difference of reactions when you didn't ship their previous relationship vs when you don't ship B/T is very telling (same with the fact that when some people talked about a cheating storyline, the reactions were always "it would be bad for Buck to do this to Tommy" but apparently it would have been okay if Eddie did this to a woman?? okay lmao)

What I don't understand is how people say that it's Buck's most developed LI/relationship. Like? We don't know that much about him. People have created (themselves and via the actor's cameos) lots of headcanons but that doesn't mean that they are canon.

To me, he really still feels like a love interest device for now. Like with the scene of the kiss in the last episode, they could have include some mentions of another date, whether past or a future one, but they didn't. The kiss was just there to be able to have Buck come out to the rest of the family, but it didn't bring anything more about B/T (we don't know if they saw each other since the coffee date/if it was their second kiss or if there was already more).

Literally. Like, look, I will say one thing, if buddie had hooked up at that bachelor party only one person would be cheating and that's Eddie. Buck and Tommy did not have a we're exclusive talk. They actually had a we can figure things out as we go talk. Personally, I don't think that counts as an we are together conversation, but that's my opinion. But either way no one seemed to care about the Eddie side of it. Eddie who is literally in a relationship serious enough he asked her to move in with him the episode before. But sure, that doesn't count because they hate Edy and forget Marisol exists (I do too, but I spent the whole time saying we shouldn't make the bisexual dude help his best friend cheat because I did not forget Eddie would be cheating and that would be bad no matter what). And to say T is the most developed love interest is a straight up lie. Taylor had a whole season as Buck's friend before they got together. She had a personality, flaws, qualities, she even got her very own tragic background episode. Say what you want about anything, and yes they sucked as a couple, but bucktaylor was developed. On screen. To a point where if the show actually wanted to, which they clearly didn't because they used the s4 Taylor development to stir her away from Buck instead of closer, they could've made bucktaylor work, they just had to make her as intense about Buck as she is with the job, and they could've been a very interesting golden retriever boyfriend/black cat girlfriend dynamic (good god I can't believe this fandom is making me defend fucking bucktaylor). Buck and T had one scene alone before they were kissing. Tommy has no established personality. Pretty much everything about him besides the begins episodes part of him (that dont paint him in the best light) we learned second hand. Through interviews. It's not even things that are being said to the audience in the show. I'm pretty sure the only things we learned from the show are the way he's a pilot, he was in the army, he likes wrestling, cars, and basketball. I could be wrong, fandom annoyed me so much I blackout every time I see him at this point. But he's not developed? He's just a guy? Don't get me wrong, he could be developed. There is space for it. But right now, he is there to serve as a device for Buck to find his bisexuality and that's it. They kissed twice. They went on half a date T left in the middle of. They went out for coffee and decided to figure things out as they went. He was at the hospital after the wedding to work as a way for Buck to come out without making him go around telling everyone. He exists around Buck. And that's it. Personally I don't see the endgame material people keep seeing. I don't see the development either. And anyone can headcanon anything, really go off, have fun with your ship, but people seriously need to stop acting like what Lou is saying in cameos counts as canon. Being in the fandom right now is exhausting because people just decided things about T and BT that are not backed by canon and they get real aggressive if you don't agree. I seriously am dying to see what's gonna happen if canon goes against the idealized version of him fanon created. I don't know if it's gonna happen but by god will I be entertained by it if it does.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

i never noticed the hints towards pale Solfef! in light of that, i think it's interesting that Eridan pursued Feferi in the pale quadrant while desperately wanting her to end up in his flushed one, meanwhile Feferi pursues Sollux in the flushed quadrant, despite them seemingly destined to be pale lol guess seadwellers are used to swimming up current lmao

that said, what are your thoughts on Erifef? do you think Eridan actually wants her flushed? or is that another subconscious tactic of his to keep her(someone he deeply cares about) by his side?

personally, i'm of the opinion that though they do care about eachother, they could never work out flushed. i think Eridan -though very enthusiastic about her and thinks they share the same troubles that comes with being so high on the hemospectrum, as well as isolated via physical location and the requirements to meet seadweller expectations- doesn't actually want redrom with her, but he knows pale isn't 'good enough' plus prefers to go to Karkat for all the traditional pale stuff. dude doesn't realize they can just be friends and she won't abandon him(cue Feferi abandoning him the monent she leaves quadrants with him, further exacerbating that fear lol)

meanwhile, on Feferi's end, it's too much to go into here but i think she has struggles with being present with others. so though i think she also deeply cares about Eridan and was absolutely miffed he was going to Karkat for things that she(being his moirail at the time) should have been talked to about, i think she has a lot of character development to go through before she can really pursue quadrants as something she needs and wants and not something she thinks she should do. i think flipping pale with Sollux could have been that catalyst but alas :' ] it seems Hussie changed his mind

So, personally, I do actually think Eridan's flushed feelings for Feferi are real... kind of. The fact that he has 0 self-awareness really makes talking about his feelings difficult because everything needs to be qualified with "this would change if he were capable of taking a step back."

The "kind of" here is because I don't think it's necessarily Feferi, the PERSON, that Eridan's in love with, but rather, the Feferi that exists in his head. To Eridan, Feferi is a bubbly, adorable, cheerful girl who's nice to everybody and doesn't have a mean bone in her body. He literally says that he thinks she might be too nice to have a pitch relationship with somebody, which is definitely not true, as Feferi can be plenty mean, and there's plenty to find flawed about her.

The first reason for this mistaken belief is that that's definitely the way that Feferi believes herself to be, so it's how she presents herself, and Eridan believes people when they tell him stuff. The second is because, in Eridan's shitty, friendless life, Feferi has been his one constant - the person who's always been there for him, the only person who's consistently nice to him (until he meets Karkat, and even then, Karkat is master of the mixed signals, and Eridan implies that death threats and insults are regular banter between them), and oftentimes the one person who cheers him up when he's at his lowest.

I think a lot of people in the fandom are too hard on Feferi - she's genuinely well-meaning, and most of her bad points come from ignorance and privilege, not manipulativeness or spite. She doesn't consciously realize it when she's treating Eridan poorly, and she makes real efforts to be a good moirail to him, even though he doesn't usually reciprocate those efforts. I think she suffers from the Umbridge Effect, where Eridan's problems - being on such the extreme end of trauma and anxiety - almost feel alien and unreal, while everyone knows a Feferi, so Feferi draws in some undue vitriol.

She has a few outbursts at him when he's egregiously rude for no reason, but given she's been dealing with his severe mental illness for so long, and takes his threats and casteism at least semi-seriously, I don't blame her for being exhausted and snapping from time to time. She's genuinely just not equipped to help him with his problems - lest we forget, she's also 13. Otherwise, everything else she does to harm him is something she just genuinely doesn't consciously realize is a problem, because she's got a hard time seeing past her privilege.

For example, using Eridan for feeding Gl'bgolyb without gratitude - the thing is, societally, it's his job, and HAS always been a violet's job. Not only that, but given his... everything, if she asked him if he's okay with doing it, he'd definitely insist that he is, and in fact, that it's HIS duty and HIS privilege. He also started INCREDIBLY young, so it's genuinely just been like this for their entire lives. It's a bit shitheaded for Feferi to not realize how much she benefitted from this arrangement, but, again, it's a crime of ignorance, not malice.

In a similar vein, I think she stayed in her moirallegiance for as long as she did partially because she got an ego boost out of it. She commiscerates with Kanaya over how burdensome he is, and she gets to say things like "we are not better than anybody," which she absolutely doesn't actually feel, given how she won't shut up about being a royal when talking to Jade. She's elated to break up with him, her narration celebrating with a big "you're FREE!!!" and it's not a coincidence that said break-up happens after Eridan's no longer useful to her - she outright states that he can't threaten their species anymore now that they're in the game and everyone else is dead.

BUT, I think she ALSO means it when she says that she stayed in that moirallegiance because she was genuinely worried for him. Both this statement and the above paragraph can be simultaneously true. There's nothing about Eridan that's actually that offensive to Feferi, and I really do think she means it when she says she wants to stay friends. His constant emotional crises have just left her burnt out in terms of sympathy, and she never really knew how to handle him in the first place, but in their first conversation together, she's still genuinely making an effort to get him to open up about his feelings and to cheer him up about his failed kismesistude.

After the breakup and his failed confession, the thing is, he does accept that rejection! ... Kind of. (Again with the kind ofs.)

He outright tells her he accepts that she doesn't like him like that... BUUUT, is trying to get her to go ashen with him and Sollux, instead. THIS is the "trying to keep her with him" angle you're talking about, IMO; I think his flushed feelings are genuine, even if they're aimed at this idealized version of Feferi moreso than the real deal. Without Feferi in the picture, I think Eridan and Sollux would have a completely lukewarm mutual dislike. The sheer lukewarmness is probably why Erisolsprite is so stable - they're completely mid for each other.

The realness of his flushed feelings for Feferi is, incidentally, part of why I think him and Roxy would work so well together - if this idealized version of Feferi (bubbly, adorabloodthirsty, pink, cute, cheerful, and kind) is his Type... well.

I also think he and Feferi would work pretty well as just normal friends; they might have fallen into that dynamic on their own if they'd met later on in life. In a hypothetical golden ending, I think they do fall into it once EriKar happens, since moirallegiances are stated to have a stabilizing effect on a troll's other relationships.

[somethinginworl]

He would not fucking say that - Kirby franchise edition (Results)

Well! Seems like a lot of people had a lot to say about mischaracterized Kirby characters, as a matter of fact, there were a whooping 57 entries! Well, let’s get going with them, shall we? Just,,, beware that this is a LOOONG post.

Haltmann

The dude 100% did fucked up shit and needs to be held accountable but people seem to so easily forget the degree he was influenced/corrupted by Star Dream. I don't understand why people hate Haltmann and love Star Dream who is arguably the actual reason HWC started colonizing and draining planets. Also the fact that Haltmann isn't conventionally attractive to the majority of the fandom makes him less sympathetic ig?? But the dude is a grieving father who made mistakes that sent him down a spiral into being corrupted and then deleted by a heartless machine. I can't help but pity him

Prince Fluff

Go on ao3. Look in his tag on tumblr. He exists only to be Kirby or Shadow Kirby's love interest most of the time, with no personality of his own.

He barely gets recognized anymore, and if he does, it's usually as a ship Prince Fluff was a big part of my childhood, with Epic Yarn being my first game. To me, he was Kirby's fellow main character, and they had a cool sibling/best friend relationship. But now, a lot of what I see of him is just . . . Kirfluff. Which is cool and all, but man's a prince! He can do more than be a boyfriend! Heck, he runs an entire kingdom by himself! One thing that I want to see more of is Fluff as a stressed but caring ruler, not just a sidekick/boyfriend to the pink puff. Give yarn boy his deserved appreciation!.

Dark Meta Knight

Hello! I am here to spread the good word of a character with no personality. It's the mirror thing. Of course.  Dark Meta Knight has No Personality. Zero. Nada. Zilch. He's Meta Knight but Dark. What does that mean? Your guess. He fights Meta Knight. And wins lmao skill issue blueboy. And fights Kirby. And loses a few times, which isn't surprising. He was dumb enough to split Kirby in four, though. Four times the Kirby is four times the amount your ass is grass. You're practically a forest at that point because you're so grass. So he's violent and has no personality outside of being violent. Woo! Triple Deluxe has him attack Dedede in Dededetour inside the Mirror. This has led people to think he fucked over Sectonia. This makes my heart bleed as much as Taranza probably did when he was punted off of Royal Road via Fuck You Lightning Ball. My man just has no sense of timing,,,, They just wanted to include a Meta Knight battle because Knight Battles are a Kirby standard at this point,,, You think a man that stupid can figure out how to take advantage of a woman's insecurity? I don't even know if he knows women exist. How many female Amazing Mirror characters are there??? Boxy??? Moley mentions having a wife once and Dameta doesn't know what he means. But other than being driven to immense violence and being scapegoated for the stuff his boss probably did, Dameta has other hobbies! Like whatever his motivation in Star Allies is. Something dastardly, I'm sure. People really like to pretend he's not part of the Star Ally club when my man is doodling with toddlers and posing with his less cool less edgy self. Would a villain have a silly little we heart kirby statue? No, didn't think so. Also I cannot imagine him as a dad to Shadkirby either. Do they even interact? I've seen both "Amazing dad" and "Outright abusive" as interpretations and I can't go with either. But I think that's because I don't enjoy Metadad that much. They're like awkward coworkers. He thinks they're student and mentor. They're not even that. Dameta barely knows Shadow exists.

Dark Meta Knight is very popularly characterized as like an abusive parent, usually physically abusive. Mainly to Shadow Kirby, of course. He's an asshole, yeah, but not THAT bad, christ. I've seen multiple fics where Shadow Kirby is some poor little hey what t the fuck hes fighting himself. um. Back to being a hater.

Shadow Kirby

Some folks still think he's shy/cowardly like from the Amazing Mirror Days. Not really true anymore. From what fans have seen from the ending of the game, he does protect the Mirror World. As for the spin off games that include him, he's pretty tough and even creates mischief sometimes.

Shadow Kirby is constantly treated as an "evil" Kirby. Especially bad after Fighters and fighters two. Not to mention "Parallel Kirby". There's also a strangely common trend of making them more sapient than pink Kirby, who tends to be infantilised to hell and back. Shadow Kirby also is often treated as a complete coward who can't do anything right, when they aren't called evil.

He's shown as completely different in several different occasions, not only in personality but in design I like shadow kirby he's purple and then he's not

Dark Taranza

Dark Taranza, gonna be honest what little characterization people give him are actually okay compared to the rest. But I'm still a hater and hang on im watching jerma clips. okay. He's like Sectonia if Sectonia was Taranza if that makes sense.

Shadow Dedede

Shadow Dedede barely gets shit but I'm going to be a little hater anyways. I don't like most characterizations. I see people make him like a dictator like bro he's literally just some guy.

Sectonia

have you seen how often people say that  sectonia and taranza were boyfriend and girlfriend in canon?????? they were never!!! shes the gosh dang final boss but shes only ever used to give taranza angst. she is her own person with a personality!!!! yes their backstories are interconnected but gosh!!!!

This not too prominent but I can't stand it when people portray her as an uwu shy girl pre-corruption. While she gave in her worst aspects, she was probably always a kind of vain, girlboss! I mean she knows how to fight with rapiers c'mon!!!

idk it just feels like lots of people just see her as Taranza's tragic dead wife and like nothing else you know? like she is more than that and I feel like what little content we have of her proves that (like the soul boss descriptions (especially the original japanese text of the 2nd phase!!) and the eternal dream song) - or maybe im reading too much into those because im hyperfixating on my blorbo whoops

Kine

I'm not sure how true this opinion is considering how little people talk about Kine, I feel this is partially the anime's fault, or maybe its because of how he just looks, but Kine is cool and is not some stupid loser fish. Before the days of Crystal Shards, Him, Kirby, Rick & Coo were the dream team at the time, always hanging out going, with various activities long before the days of Meta Knight or even Dedede. Kine is an awesome aquatic rep for the Kirby series not to mention drinking and being a pirate and Kine even has a Wife! Kine has got it! I guess this is a partial compliant of Ship of Theseus which can be applied with Rick & Coo too, but I feel Kine gets the most hate if any because of people who are unfamiliar just see a dopey fish and are unaware of his origins and his past with Kirby. I'm not upset with the current representation of the Kirby cast (I love the RTDL team being the main crew) but I do hope the animal buddies get some more love, Especially Kine.

Dedede

reduced to his significantly less in-depth and compelling characterization from the anime

Anime Dedede.

Magolor

one time i read a series of fanfictions where he called every female character in the story a bitch and was portrayed as the good guy in the story

Is it possible to both be flanderized and woobified at the same time? There is a lot of "removing his responsibility for his actions" but can we get better jokes than "hehe Microtransgolor hehe scammer egg”

Always an uwu soft boy. Like no that is a criminal not a catboy.

Bro would never be intimidated by Magolor

Marx

People either portray him as a edgy sociopath or constantly bored and annoyed. Portraying him as an adult or a teen kinda annoys me as well. I'm very picky about portrayals of Marx so don't get upset if you portray him as one of these I've listed.

Sometimes I see people only joking about the "hungry so he came along" thing with Marx and it's pretty overdone

They took one look at him and said “to the insane asylum bitch”. I don’t think he’s some crazy murder hobo rather a dude with questionable morals and puts his own mischief and fun before others it seems. Though Marx is indeed one of the least “character” characters when I mean he doesn’t have much depth in comparison to other characters. But you could do anything else than have him follow the Jevil path of him being crazy. Make him evil? Sure. Make him a cringefail idiot? Sure. Make him a crybaby bitch? Go ahead. But making him the definition of what a 14 year old white girl in New Jersey that probably is addicted to Instagram and thinks Webtoon comics are the highest level of art and storytelling’s definition of insane doesn’t cut it cuz. Slapping the spaz label without a thought of what’s being done on a character who fits the mark makes the Schizoid peeved who coulda known. As this is all coming from the one person who has likely ruined Marx’s character the most for Kirblur by making him a somewhat empathetic manchild who clings to both pipe dreams of normality and being a monster btw. (Also this doesn’t mean jokes, you can joke about him being a psycho like Jerma it’s when it’s taken 100% seriously is when it’s bad).    Also to add on, Woobification of Marx or any Kirby character period CAN be annoying if taken too far. I take full responsibility in the fact my variant is also woobifed to an extent but that train full of ticking bombs doesn’t bother me as much. Make him sadcry and be gay he deserves both those things. Send him to sad hell with the rest of them.

To the anon above... What?

Making him stupid or reducing him to just Silly Clown. Or just having him act in purely impulsive or spontaneous ways (which sometimes happens when juxtaposed with a more "collected" character like Magolor).

Daroach

this is something i’ve noticed specifically in chatfics, but when daroach is in the ensemble some of them tend to designate him as the Goofy Meme Dumbass for… idk, fandom quota? i really don’t know why it happens because he has a bunch of canon dialogue (and alternate continuity stuff like the novels) that show him to be cool and clever. i’m not saying he can’t have a sense of humor or anything (he’s definitely the type to have a bunch of quips), but it sucks when he’s mischaracterized because the fandom doesn’t give him that much attention as is. if you NEED a silly haha guy, marx is right there!”

Morpho Knight

"Morpho Knight is a creature of mercy. It's a benevolent entity putting tired souls to rest." NO?! I'm going to copy-paste some stuff I put in a post of my own. A while back, SYZekrom on Reddit translated Morpho Knight's entry, and it contains some... interesting information. Allow me to provide some excerpts. "He’s a red knight with butterfly wings, continuing from a pair of white wings like an angel’s, and a pair of azure wings with a bit of an evil feel." This is the first of two instances where Morpho Knight is outright stated to be evil. There's also stuff in the art book that supports my theory that Galacta and Morpho are permanently fused and the former is not dead, but I don't want to get carried away. These are its gacha figure descriptions in Forgotten Land: "The fluttering fiend that casts judgment upon final battles is drawn toward the isolated isles of Forgo Dreams. There, it feasts on the most powerful soul it finds and takes the fearsome form of a scarlet-clad knight… Let the most challenging battle of this new world begin!" –English "One of the dreaming birds, which are said to pass judgement upon decisive battles, drifts towards a forgotten, isolated isle as if summoned. There, it sips upon the strongest Soul and descends as a red knight. Finally, welcome the dusk… of the deadliest battle in this New World!"  –Japanese While at first glance there doesn't seem to be any information of note, the "fluttering fiend" bit in the English version is outright stating Morpho Knight is evil, and the phrase "he deadliest battle in this New World" doesn't sound particularly heroic. But I digress... Morpho is NOT a good person! This is clearly leading up to a villain vs hero confrontation! Which, may I add, implies that reaping Galacta Knight wasn't necessarily a good thing for it to do?!

Elfilis

elfilis is NOT entirely malicious. they would gladly accept hugs and kisses. being in a fucking capsule ALONE and AWARE for likely CENTURIES will DO SOMETHING TO YOU YOU KNOW?? god fucking DAMN dude... and after the ending of the true arena in the game, WILLINGLY GAVE THEMSELF UP TO ELFILIN. also they're not fucking DEAD you PSYCHOPAYHS elfilis is STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE!!!!!!! RUUAAAGGGH!!!!!!!!!!

Susie

Being Evil or being a Sad uwu girl who has had bad things happen to her seems to be the only way most people can portray this character.

Susie isn't a friend. She's selfish and wanted to take over the company. Her "redemption" is pointing Kirby at the world-ending machine, gives him armor, and then stands around. She doesn't even know his name. The closest she does for good is tell Kirby to do something he would've done on his own.

My girl really became the subject of hate thanks to a mistranslation. I mean yeah she likes robots and shit but the fact that people think she is a terrible person and that she's still colonizing planets makes me upset. i blame the translation team for everything.

When people say she has fully redeemed herself and is reduced to cishet, pretty girl??? Like no, star allies mistranslation my ass you fell for her corporate propaganda. The female characters in this franchise, while lovable, is not nearly as popular as a lot of the male ones. HAL literally gave us a morally grey girlboss who we can still sympathise with. She actually feels like a very real character in this fictional world.

You Know How People Are About Her

she's not even my blorbo!!!!!! everyone thinks she's a huge evil bitch who has done terrible genuinely unspeakable things. i read a fic that went on and on abt the horrible things she "did" to meta knight when he was mechanized (things so bad i cant even say) and i was pulling my hair out she did not fucking do any of that!!!! yes the universe can have pretty dark moments but good lord people only use her to woobify meta knight and give fuel to ship him with others and it pisses me off lol. or people go too far the other way and woobify HER to ship with him and aughhhh no one has a shred of media literacy. she's not purely good or purely evil she's such a complex character who did bad things because she was in a bad situation and the best example of a morally grey character who's on no one's side but herself and that will always be more interesting that 100% good or 100% evil. once again she's not even my blorbo but i've never seen a character butchered this badly by a fandom

Because of mistranslation (from what I've heard) Susie's whole mechanizing planets has been the number one thing when it came to susie hate and the only reason as to why people hate this girl so much. Honestly Susie's character has been fucked up immensely and no one has such a divided spread of opinions like she does. Some people brush away her backstory and make her a soulless being with no love whatsoever.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Susie Haltmann. I cannot with the fandom interpretations anymore. It's ridiculous how bad they've gotten. Susie is a two dimensional character. I absolutely despise seeing people portray her as some sort of greedy capitalist bastard and "the one with the braincell". In canon, she's consistently been portrayed as a sweet person (with a knack for violence, but EVERYONE in this series is like that). Everything bad she did in Planet Robobot was FOR WORK and the will of HER FATHER, and even if she did want to do the things she did, she's clearly not doing them any more. The "mechanizing planets and peoples" line in Star Allies is a mistranslation. And the "punishing savages" doesn't have to mean anything bad. It could mean she's punishing evildoers with her money and resources. In fact, I've seen some translations put it like that And Meta Knight... is just the straw that broke the camel's back. Oh lord. Why does everyone insist that he hates her? There's the little scene in Star Allies... but god, that isn't canon, it's clearly a joke. If anything, Susie might have been trying to talk to him and he was just trying to avoid her in a misinterpretation of the situation. It's supposed to be funny. Why are you imposing this onto people like this automatically makes Susie a devil incarnate and anything involving those two characters in problematic? Just shut up.

Meta Knight

Everyone thinks he’s just the ‘edgy character’ or ‘the uncaring mentor figure’ while in actuality he really does care for Kirby (and Bandana Dee) more than anyone gives him credit for!

Everyone either makes him all broody and lonesome, like shadow the hedgehog or batman; or they make him a goofy dad, like Dedede or Hugh Neutron. In reality, he's a weird uncle with unknown motivations, simultaneously selfish and practical. Also, he doesn't hide the fact that he likes sweets, he eats them away from everyone so no one steals them (Dedede and Squeak Squad).

He's not Kirby's fucking dad! He's an irresponsible uncle that hands out swords! And he is definitely in love with dedede, he is the only other dramatic bitch willing to build a skyscraper to beat up kirby (I am using intense anger for comedic effect) 

HES A FUCKING TWINK ASS FRUITY ASS MOTHERFUCKING CRINGEFAIL MAN. HE NEEDS TO HAVE HIS PERSONALITY INTERPRETED AS BOTH THE MANGA AND THE GAMES. YES HE IS MYSTERIOUS BUT HE ALSO WOULD TRIP AND FALL OVER HIMSELF. I NEED STAR ALLIES KICKING SWORD PISSED. I NEED MANGA ROSES BITCHASS META. I NEED THAT PARTICULAR VERSION OF MY BOY meat knight RIGHT NOW. meta knight is cringefail. half of the fandom agrees the other half does not. im explode.

He wants to look cool so bad but he is actually a huge fucking goofy goober. Any representation of Meta Knight being a badass is propaganda made by Meta Knight himself to convince you he’s cool. I mean have you seen his RTDL Deluxe pause screen description? King Dedede’s and Bandana Dee’s are in first person, but his is in third person? He’s literally talking about himself in the third person like hello????? Meta Knight is such a fucking lame goofy little man who thinks he’s the most badass motherfucker on the planet.

To fair this has been less common lately but back during 2014-2016 MK was usually portrayed in fanart/fanfic as either this wise veteran or cold edgelord. He is just an unhindged!!! Silly!!! Guy!!! He can be cool and cringefail!!! But he is also compassionate in his own aloof, awkward way!!! 

i am not a big fan of the metadede ship. i think people are shipping for the sake of having a ship and nothing else. As someone with a severely underrepresented orientation (aromantic and asexual), when I see a character I like, I will project onto said character. This is the case with my interpretation of Meta Knight. I saw a cool character that I liked who a) doesn’t have any canon love interests and b) didn’t really need a whole ton of friends/significant others to be happy with life. Meta Knight always seemed to be perfectly content with the friends he has on Popstar and his crew and everyone in the anime, so I looked to him for hope that I could live the same way. I was open to the metadede ship at first, but as time passed, I felt less and less comfortable with it. It seemed to me that people were so hungry for gay ships that they just pulled this one out of thin air courtesy of Kirby Fighters 2, which is to my knowledge the only piece of media that somewhat supports this. Why can’t people just be happy with MK and Dedede being friends or frenemies? I’m probably starting drama with this bc I know how popular metadede is on Tumblr so I apologize for upsetting you if that is the case.  But I also feel that I shouldn’t apologize just because I have a different opinion.

I dislike how "pathetic" the fandom has made him out to be. I don't like it when he's portrayed as overpowered but... "pathetic, whiny manlet" could not be further from the truth. How did we get to that?

Kirby

Often people make Kirby more dependent on others than he actually is. He's an extremely independent person that literally cannot be stopped by anyone who tries to get in his way

ik its been covered to death but matpat made that video about how kirby is evil and completely ignored the themes of friendship and kindness that are present throughout the entire series

dude hes not a baby. he drinks in the manga adukt kirbies are a fine interp god. and hes not a godkiller or some shit he just fights for his friends hes not some terrifying monster kirby is literally just some friendly guy. strong yeah but just some guy. he fights strong entities incidentally lol

The anime portrays them as a literal infant, and due to its overprevalence (despite not being in the same stream of canon as the games), this is often their characterization in the fandom.  Canonically, they indeed are a child (at most, they'd probably be a teen in the modern games), but they are old enough to talk, and they demonstrate a high amount of emotional and even technical intelligence.

Admittedly, this is one that usually only happens to people outside the fandom, but it bugs me when people portray Kirby as a sort of immoral monster who only does good things on accident. When it’s quite the opposite! He may not be incredibly bright, but he does his best to help people. Oddly enough, there’s not many cases of “he would not say that” in the fandom for me because of how loose Kirby’s story is. It is lore heavy but the actual characters aren’t super concrete save for a few and I think that’s perfectly fine

People forget that their air bullet!! is an attack!! its literally one of their only ways of dealing damage in DL1!!! I’m looking at you Smash Bros!!! Why isn’t it their nair?????????

making them a toddler who cant speak for themself

I swear everyone outside of the fandom sees Kirby as either a braincell infant or  a merciless force of mass destruction

Taranza

WHAT DIDN'T THEY DO!?!?!? Taranza, as we see him in Triple Deluxe, is such a fun villain. He's dramatic, arrogant, a total suck-up to Sectonia, and it's so. Fucking. Good. He's a devious bastard, he monologues!!! His animations in the Clash games are so fucking campy and dramatic it's chefs kiss!!!! Fanon Taranza is as plain as white bread. Sometimes as pale as it, looking at some of the gijinkas. No shade though! As little shade as there is melanin in him lmAO- He is flanderised to hell and back. There are so. Many. Fucking. Taranzas who happen to be nothing but sad and weepy about his evil dead wife. Where's the bite!!! The pizzazz!!! Even in canon, when he is a bit of a wet sack later on, he still hunts for an altar he can bring her back on. My boy's a wannabe necromancer!!! Write that shit in your lost lenore Sectonia fic you fucking cowards Queen's Phantom ain't just for show. The above is also evidence for woobification! The fucker is obviously sad his crush is dead! But can we pleeease focus on anything else. This is definitely not targeted at Hal Labs. Imagine being woobied so hard your creators backtrack your personality I would just die. "Ehehe he's the responsible mage!!" No the fuck he isn't he can't be trusted with anything he tries take control it WILL blow up in his face. He knows magic he's good at magic but is he responsible??? Fuck no my man's strongest attack is "Blow myself the fuck up via a giant burst of magic" and it shreds. Even worse is the "Taranza got mind-controlled by Sectonia" theory in tandem with this. That wasn't confirmed right. Right. God I hope not that would be embarrassing. He can't even have a moment to realise his devotion has gone too far and she doesn't love him or even care for him, and he has to finally make that decision to free himself from her like ain't that cool!!! And then making him all sad over her afterwards it's just a Little Fucked if you're tryna put it all together eh. Eh. And he's not suuuper objectified (That usually goes to Seccy rest in piss girlie) but the way he's treated in some ships is. Eugh. Fucking Magoranza amirite he's basically there to look responsible and cute (I've already explained my issue with this) and to fix the tortured soul who is Magolor (I do not like Magolor. Nor Magoranza.) Tbh Sectaranza does the same he's there to be tragic because his girlie's dead. When you give him less personality than the dead cardboard cutout you know you fucked up. Anyways these ramblings are here to remind you what Hal Labs stole from us: Taranza but not a TOTAL saddo. Theatre kid Taranza. Arrogant prick. He's even British.

For the anon above me, I just wanted to say that this entry is probably my favorite and lives rent free in my mind.

I'm definitely guilty of it and it's all we have to go off of but PLEASE he needs more than to be Sad. Give him hobbies and interests that aren't just gardening, at least. Make stuff up about him, please!

So, SO many people make him an absolute crybaby over Sectonia. Even though, yes, he has grief problems, it's not his whole freaking personality. Pretty sure they're forgetting the fact that he LITERALLY HELPED KILL HER.

Taranza is not just a little pathetic guy!! He’s a bitch— a little schemer if you will !!! He’s smug—he’s formal—he’s a little fucker!!! Taranza needs a new partner and that partner is me

Oddly enough I do think people make him out to be a bit too much of a goody two shoes. Like he has done some mean things in the past and it wasn’t all Sectonia’s fault, he literally *stole* the Dimensional Mirror after all. Don’t get me wrong I think he’s a good person in the end, but cmon. He has committed crimes

Taranza in some corners of the fandom has kinda been turned into this forever crying baby who can never recover from losing Joronia and like, I never see people who do that write about the recovery and being able to move on to the final stage of grief.

HE IS NOT A SIMP, MY GOD

Everyone needs to stop reducing him to pathetic simp. He is allowed to grieve but he's probably one of the more mature characters within the series???

People disregard everything else about his character to make his tragic relationship with sectonia his only character trait. Not sure if this quite counts as woobifying since he does canonically still mourn her (and obviously seeing a close friend/crush go down the path of self destruction and ultimately die from it WOULD NOT be something you'd get over quickly). But I'm so tired of taranza in fanart and the like being an uwu softboy with Crying as his main character trait. Like he's canonically more than that! He goes full cocky villain mode when you confront him near the end of triple deluxe and he can pack a punch in star allies with his magic! If you're going to write about him prove that you don't just know about the guy from twitter artwork!

And here’s a graph!

Anyways, thanks everyone for your submissions! What I’ve learned here is important: We’re all fucking delusional.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 updated early this month, and we're Yiffy now. It's a Valentine's Day miracle!

Yiffy was one of the most interesting characters in HS2, because literally everyone treated her like shit constantly. Jade's giving her daughter a smooch but also Jade sent her off to a boarding school explicitly because she was embarrassing to acknowledge and also Jade named her child Yiffy Longstocking on a joke and never bothered to change it. In the epilogues, Rose acknowledged that nothing in Candy was "real" and she was joining the rebellion basically for the luls, and one some level Jade and Rose don't think Yiffy is a real three-quarters-human person, and I think they think of her more like an OC in a game they like.

Well, that was my read of HS2, lets see how HSBC handles her.

Oh, this visual is great. Kanaya is so pissed off she's turning into the Ancestor art style in real time. She also kind of looks like Batman, here.

No doubt if your POSSE OF PUBESCENT PUNKS back at school could see you now they'd throw up laughing.

I am suddenly way more interested in Yiffy's gang than I am in half the HS1 cast. What kids join a gang led by a dog girl named Yiffy Longstocking?

Engineering that reprieve might be just about the only real solid your no-show non-mom has ever actually bothered to do for you.

Oh thank christ, there was a part of me worried that Yiffy wouldn't resent her parents for being the second-worst parents in HS2. This is the most interesting thing in the sequels, I think.

TAVVY: ,,, And also, everyone knows you exist now,,, instead of just me,,, TAVVY: And our moms

TAVVY: Wow,,,! YIFFY: TAVVY: You know, i was almost kidnapped,,, once,,, TAVVY: My mom removed the window, after that, TAVVY: Which, um, sucked, TAVVY: Though, i guess you'd know, uh, about that,,,

Oh, interesting. Tavvy knew about Yiffy this whole time? Actually, this and Yiffy's description of him via narration earlier imply they grew up together. I guess that makes sense, since he's Jane's kid and Jade inexplicably put Jane in charge of Yiffy, but he never told Vrissy about her secret sister? That's a bit fucked up, dude. Yiffy's not saying anything (and I hope she doesn't for a long time, until she has something meaningful to say), but her text color is Dave's red, even though she's not related to Dave. Or she is and HSBC is going to retcon HS2's most hated plot point somehow.

Pepis

Look at this ARRANT BEAVIS double fisting those cans of pop

"ARRANT BEAVIS" is a great Homestuckism

The Sylph has been slow boiling, you can tell.

Interesting that Yiffy refers to Kanaya as "The Sylph". I don't know what else she'd call her, I suppose, but Yiffy of all people being the one to mention Classpect is odd.

You've only been around this earth for 15 years, but it's a self-evident fact that there are no useful authorities. Gifted with unimaginable power, their concern only stretches so far as to manhandle those dependent on them, and tangles into ineffectual deadlock the instant it meets a challenge worth addressing. Potential killed for the sake of comfort. True kindness is real, but only for those that bare teeth and break skin. Why should these disingenuous, bystanding, spineless, SELFISH adults get anything they want?

Fuck yes, Yiffy hates all the HS1 characters. I've been hoping for this, she has more beef with them all than even Tavros, and it's a bit of Vriska energy this comic has needed that neither actually Vriska really provides.

Yiffy being the best thing about HS2 was maybe a hot take before, but hopefully it isn't now. She's great.

JADE: and of course you arent obligated to ever forgive me but... i dont want to lose you too! JADE: i love you kanaya JADE: youre my family KANAYA: You Fucked My Wife

This is the best update in the entire comic.

KANAYA: And Though That Travesty Of A Name Is Undoubtedly An Incomprehensibly Offensive Piece Of This Particular Puzzle KANAYA: What I See Is Not An Explanation KANAYA: But A Glossing Over Of The Worst Detail ROSE: Jane.

Yeah, HS2 kind of glossed over Rose/Jade putting TrumpHitler in charge of their literal child. I could copy/paste this whole conversation but basically Kanaya is pointing out that there's like fifty plot holes in Yiffy's backstory and it makes no fucking sense at all and are they going to retcon her to being Jade/Dave's ecto-kid?

ROSE: You've managed to exhume the solemn cadaver of my mother's memory and make her the star of another argument. KANAYA: As If You Ever Bothered To Bury Her ROSE: What does this have to do with anything!? KANAYA: What I Am Doing Is Demonstrating That I Have No Intention To Mediate This Situation KANAYA: Or Pacify It KANAYA: Or Even Be A Little Bit Nice Right Now KANAYA: So Perhaps Youll Actually Take Me Seriously For Once

This is the well-earned sass we've been waiting for since Yiffy's reveal.

ROSE: But more than anything else, I took her up on it because it felt oddly ROSE: inevitable. ROSE: Anyways, ROSE: Deep down, I knew it didn’t matter. ROSE: However we handled it. ROSE: Whatever hurt we caused. ROSE: It was never that serious.

Man, I'm glad that I'm live-blogging and put my read of the situation up as I went because I fucking called it. Yes! I am capable of retaining information when I read instead of staring at the screen slack-jawed.

ROSE: I knew you would forgive me. KANAYA: Rose KANAYA: When Did You Stop Trying JADE: yeah rose!!!!! JADE: what the fuck!!!!

Oh shit, Candy Rose is evil?

JADE: b-but i just dont want things to get even worse!!!!!! KANAYA: Then stop pretending that my feelings are top priority KANAYA: AND TRY BEING HONEST FOR ONCE JADE: WHAT DOES IT EVEN MATTER!!!!!!! KANAYA: Excuse Me? JADE: you heard me! JADE: you were wronged kanaya! JADE: the truth cant change that JADE: saying it just fucking hurts more JADE: what does that accomplish? JADE: its so embarrassing, would you even get it if i had?

JADE: you have no idea what its like out there JADE: how traumatizing dating regular citizens was JADE: imagine trying to love someone who already knows every available detail about you JADE: who has *opinions* on what happened to you as a child JADE: who assumes youre indestructible JADE: newsflash it fucking sucks!!!!!!! because no matter how nice they were JADE: they didnt want to know me JADE: they wanted to date the god of space

I have no notes, this is great and I'm thrilled everyone is mad now.

JADE: so everyone could lecture me again on how "bad" my "boundaries" are? ROSE: (I did that one time.) JADE: you want bad boundaries JADE: do you know how many people would be waiting outside public bathrooms to talk to me about their problems? JADE: this one guy randomly started apologizing because they cooked their hamster in the microwave! JADE: and they looked so sad... i had to hug them and say it was ok JADE: but it was not ok! JADE: they murdered their hamster! Rose: Ugh... JADE: and their other hamster killed itself KANAYA: JADE JADE: out of loneliness!!!!!

What the fuck, this is amazing.

The art here is great, by the way.

JADE: millions of people told me they loved me JADE: but i was never a real person to them JADE: i couldn't let that happen to yiffy too KANAYA: What JADE: i had to save her kanaya! JADE: give her the chance to grow up as a normal kid with a normal life

Jade she's half-dog and she's named Yiffy Fucking Longstocking, that ship has sailed. How are people not going to know she's your child?

Oh, okay. She wears a hat. Sure.

This art is so good!

KANAYA: Even If I Didnt Want Her KANAYA: She Was Already Here

*Makes a note in my "ominous foreshadowing lines journal*

What. Why does Jade have a Frankenstein in her inventory? What's that about?

And that was the update. Honestly? Banger, easily the best HSBC update yet. I could, and if I didn't have DnD in five minutes perhaps would (and perhaps still will!) write a whole essay on this. Phenomenal. A+

[maxknightley]

So if gender is a social construct and female beauty standards are oppressive, what does presenting female even mean? Sorry if this sounds in bad faith but I’m genuinely confused.

nah I getcha. this is going to sound a bit circular but my take on the subject basically consists of the following:

a social construct is defined primarily by the society that constructed it

that said, how one engages with a social construct as an individual is going to vary based on one's own philosophy and preferences, how they want others to see them, etc.

even if you think a social construct is dumb, that doesn't mean it holds no sway over your brain

so from that we can gather that there's sort of... different ways one can think of "presenting as female."

this is a bit reductive, but to provide an example, lets use "the wearing of skirts and pants" as a lens.

depending on the time and place, society might say "men wear pants and women wear skirts"; it might say "men wear pants exclusively (unless they're gay or something), women can wear skirts or pants (but if they only ever wear pants they're probably gay or something)"; it might say "only laborers wear pants, everyone else wears skirts"; or people in that society might not wear pants at all.

let's say you were assigned male at birth in a society where skirts are designated Exclusively For Women. there's several different ways you can engage with that.

wear skirts specifically so that people will understand you are presenting as a woman. (whether they're cool about this or decide to abuse you for it depends on the person, of course.)

avoid wearing skirts, at least in public, so that strangers won't think you're presenting as a woman.

reject the "skirts are for women" attitude altogether and wear skirts while still thinking of yourself as a man.

reject the "skirts are for women" attitude altogether; don't wear skirts, but still think of yourself as a woman.

reject the "skirts are for women" attitude, but present as a woman through other means. e.g., if your society associates long hair or makeup with womanhood, you might grow your hair out and wear makeup, but still avoid wearing skirts just because you don't like them.

deliberately cultivate an appearance deemed "androgynous" via opposed signifiers of gender - for example, wearing skirts but cutting your hair very short.

deliberately cultivate an appearance deemed "androgynous" by minimizing signifiers of gender - for example, if your culture is fine with anyone wearing pants, and it's fine with anyone having their hair in a ponytail, then that's what you'll go with.

cultivate an aesthetic that will be recognized as feminine (or even specifically as transgender!) within certain subcultures, but not others - basically a visual shibboleth.

ignore the whole thing and wear skirts Because They Feel Nice, or wear pants Because You Like How Your Ass Looks In Them, or whatever.

now, in reality, this is all a lot more complicated because there's even more social constructs to keep in mind - race and nationality, religion, flagging as gay, subcultural signifiers, professional signifiers, and so on. all of these inform each other in a way that will also be mediated by your personal feelings on all of it! (for example: I consider myself a lesbian, and more specifically, I want people to read me as butch. how do I navigate that without making people go "oh that's just A Dude"?)

the upshot is - and I realize this might sound a bit glib - "presenting as female is whatever people decide counts as 'presenting as female.'" society as a whole sets the base terms, and then individual people interpret them.

in a hypothetical world where gendered beauty standards didn't exist at all, it would probably be more difficult to "obviously" present as male or female. on the other hand, people are less likely to be shitty about people who present "wrong," because that concept loses some of its meaning.

none of that should be taken to mean that being transgender is "fake" or "meaningless," obviously. a lot of the time, society is basically arbitrary... but we still have to live in it. or, you know, actively reject it, but as mentioned above, that too is a specific choice which is related to our relationship with society.

[liskantope]

I think you're very much over estimating how much professionals know about autism. Especially the average professional tasked with making diagnoses. They don't know shit dude

I definitely have the impression that your average run-of-the-mill psychiatrist or neurologist without a very specialized background in autism doesn't actually know that much about it or the intricacies of how to detect it, let alone (say) a therapist. I'm not sure if they're the ones who are even able to give diagnoses in the first place, given that the usual claim (which I've always understood to be correct) given by advocates of autism self-diagnosis is that getting diagnosed for autism requires spending thousands of dollars and many hours of time to be put through very involved tests as specialized autism centers that may be geographically unfeasible. (The only reason I'm entertaining the idea that autism could be diagnosed by non-specialists with far less trouble is that I do hear of various conditions being diagnosed that way despite the existence of rigorous tests in specialized clinics: I took a 15-minute ADHD test at a regular psychiatric clinic for instance*, and the ex I mentioned recently elsewhere got a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis from her therapist by request via what sounds to me like 10 minutes of the therapist asking her questions about herself during their therapy session.)

If we're talking about going to a clinic / testing center specializing in autism and going through a rigorous test evaluating whether the patient conforms to what the American Psychological Association has laid out as an intricate set of criteria for autism, then I have one question, which is probably going to sound naive, and which relates to the "diagnosis criteria is a poor checklist of stereotypes" part of the meme we were arguing over. Which is, isn't this then just tautologically the correct way to diagnose autism? Or in other words, isn't autism just defined according to a scientific model for which psychologists and neurologists have created their most official tests following their most precisely-set-out criteria? Of course, what is deemed "autism" could be modified by said scientists, which after all is the nature of science. Of course, people can argue over whether the current criteria cut autism poorly out of thingspace in ways that are biased due to differences in how autism presents across genders and ethnic/cultural backgrounds. Probably it is. But I would think that deciding that the formal diagnostic criteria for autism doesn't align with what autism Actually Is requires some delicate semantic heavy lifting, no?

And then, arguing that the larger swaths of non-professionals who are trying to determine if they have autism are still not on average even worse placed than the professionals with their perhaps flawed diagnostic criteria, in a world where the most common cultural conception of autism is still probably pretty close to "socially awkward, doesn't feel like they fit in, intense nerdy interests, personality of Sheldon Cooper", is another thing.

(I notice, by the way, that self-diagnosis advocates don't seem to mention whether the faultiness in professional diagnoses include a substantial number of people without autism being diagnosed as having autism, but it seems that should be a thing too if the professionals really "don't know shit"?)

I'm genuinely open to the idea that the dynamics around diagnoses and diagnostic criteria and how they're formed, etc., even on a philosophical level, is something I haven't understood or thought out well enough, though.

*and came out of the experience rather skeptical that the 15-minute test way of determining ADHD isn't BS

[mr-miss-anonymous]

NSFW Delphi medic headcanons:

Please be forewarned that these ALL revolve around sex. With that being said, enjoy 🤲

First Aid:

— Starting this one off strong! He strikes me as someone who’s pretty sex-positive, despite not having had many experiences with other bots.

— I do think he’d probably prefer to develop very close relationships before entering the “bedroom” stage. Like, you don’t have to be dating, but he’s gonna want to know about you and your personality and your kinks before you fuck.

— Probably knows what he likes, and while he isn’t PUSHY about indulging in those things, he doesn’t mind telling his partner what does and doesn’t feel good, what he wants to try, what role he wants to take on (top/bottom, dom/sub, sadist/masochist BUT EXCLUSIVELY MEDICAL PLAY)

— Very, very kinky. Like, damn… You should see his rope collection.

— Doesn’t really have a preference when it comes to spike over valve. Honestly, if his partner feels up to it, he likes to use both, but the bot version of a clitoris is extremely sensitive on him (think oh god I’m gonna orgasm from only a few seconds of light stroking), so he usually tries to keep it to the spike to begin with. When he’s close to climax, though? You KNOW he’s begging them to absolutely pound his valve.

— When he’s bottoming, he exclusively receives via valve. When he’s topping? Fuck, he uses both.

— By far the most romantic and sensual between the three. He loves kinky sex, sure, but he also loves the tender kisses and exploring his partner’s body and climaxing together and snuggling afterwards. Sex is more intimacy than a way to burn off energy for him, and he loves the bonding happens during it.

Ambulon:

— I don’t mean to project on poor Amby, but he strikes me as someone who’s had a very difficult past with sexual encounters.

— Sort of like First Aid, he prefers to make small connections before getting into bed with someone. He doesn’t necessarily need to do so, but he feels much more comfortable that way.

— Probably the least experienced between the three of them. Also super self-conscious about his sex skills… they’re practically non-existent

— Before First Aid (and Pharma, ngl) took him on as a sort of sex mentee, the majority of Ambulon’s understanding of sex was spike-in-valve, just very basic. With that being said, he’s never been able to really enjoy his sexual encounters so much as just grin and bear them, so he doesn’t immediately know what he likes or what “feels good” to him.

— Between the three of them, Ambulon probably has the lowest sex drive. He enjoys a good frag maybe once a week, and it usually doesn’t get super intense. He’s in and out in about 10-15 minutes, and to him, sex is more of a release of pent-up energy and charge than an enjoyable, pleasurable experience.

— He doesn’t mind kinky sex, but it really isn’t his thing. In fact, it sort of makes him uncomfortable, as he eventually discovers, so he’s encouraged by both First Aid and Pharma to just avoid it overall.

— While he doesn’t love sex, he loves the foreplay, and he really likes the aftercare. Being the big spoon to his partner and sloppy, passionate kisses are a guilty pleasure for him.

Pharma:

— Definitely has the highest body count of the three medics, but not because he’s promiscuous (also, we gotta drop terms like this, if someone wants to have multiple partners fucking LET THEM). It’s mostly because he enjoys sex with others over masturbation, and also because like… he’s just the most sexually active.

— Don’t get me wrong though. His toy collection is equivalent to First Aid’s BDSM collection. Dude has toys of all shapes, sizes, textures, tasks, etc.

— Unlike the other two, I’d say Pharma is almost exclusively a valve mech. He likes the way it feels to get filled up by a big, hefty spike, he loves to be fingered, and he looooves it when bots give him oral. Also, his spike just isn’t that sensitive.

— Between the three of them, I’d say Pharma has gotten lots of mods added to his equipment. He likes things nice and lubricated, so he’s gotten extra lubrication producing spores added to the very inside of his valve. He’s got a few other tricks up there, too, like a rhythmic system that causes his inner valve to heat up when touched (and boy does it get HOT), a sort of squeezing mechanism that caused many an unsuspecting partner to overload on impact, and others that he keeps secret until the deed occurs. He loves surprises, and he especially loves pleasure—and pleasing his partners.

— He likes foreplay, and he loves sex, but he’s not much for aftercare. He doesn’t mind giving, but he doesn’t want to receive it. After a good session, he’s ready to get cleaned up and back to his work.

— Fairly kinky, but he likes to be the top/dominant in the room. One of his favorite things is competing for dominance with his partner, however.

— Rough sex. Sex that leaves his valve aching and his frame covered in paint transfers, sex that has him panting for breath several minutes after he’s finished, sex that has him overloading multiple times in a row.

— Speaking of overloads: Pharma likes to reach orgasm at least twice. He’s very energetic in the bedroom, and he’s always got lots of extra charge to burn off. The first orgasm is definitely the best, but sometimes it takes a few extras to get rid of the extra energy. He usually likes to give his partner a bit of service in between, and enjoys drawing out their orgasms until the very end, so they can climax with a great bit of built-up pressure.

[aikoiya]

LoZ - Hylia as a Character

Honestly, I really like the fact that Zelda/Hylia admits, rather openly, in fact, that what she did was wrong. Then, she owns up to it.

They could've gone the route that "this is destiny, you must" or made it seem like something entirely righteous & that the fact that it saves everyone automatically makes it okay, but the writers didn't.

What happened. What Hylia put into place was a necessary evil, but still wrong by its very nature of being a necessary EVIL. She manipulated Link, not because she wanted to, or because she was a bad person, but because it was the ONLY way that she could see things working out for the benefit of as many people involved as possible.

Still doesn't make it right, but it makes it understandable. Which are 2 very different things. And I've seen a lot of people conflating the 2. For whatever reason not realizing that you can understand why someone did something & that that something can still be wrong or morally questionable. And that these are 2 things that can exist at the same time.

Because Zelda said it best, "it was a war." It wasn't like what SS Link had experienced, where he was fighting most enemies one on one & it was really only himself who was in danger at a given moment. There were battles with armies & even the game says that the demons killed without mercy. In situations like that, you might have to do things that compromise your own morals & I just...

It makes Hylia so much more human in a way. She's not like the 3 golden goddesses who you only really interact with individuals who have their names & who may just be people that resemble them. (Minish Cap, Oracle of Seasons, & Oracle of Ages.) SS Zelda actually remembers being Hylia.

Thus meaning that SS Link's interaction with SS Zelda in that scene before putting herself to sleep, was the closest interaction any Link has ever had with an actual higher deity.

You get her actual opinion. Her regrets, her apologies. Seriously, she apologizes repeatedly. While it may be filtered through Zelda, who obviously cares very deeply about Link (yes, I ship zelink here, what of it), as she said, she was both Hylia & Zelda. Specifically, still Link's Zelda.

And I... I can't hate Hylia as a result.

Which causes me to not really understand the Hylia hate that I've seen here & there.

Like, it isn't Hylia's fault that she, Link, & Ganondorf were cursed. That was all The Bringer of Demise & his toddlerish butthurt over losing to not just a mortal, but a mortal teen. He cursed them, not Hylia. And what exactly do people think Hylia could've done?

What were her other options? She wasn't a goddess anymore at the time! And we dont even know the rules regarding the Hyrulean gods! There could be some sort of rule of non-interference or only indirect interference unless you give up your godhood that we don't know about!

And, if she hadn't done something, then think about what could've happened as a result.

According to the information that we currently have, Demise would've taken over & made a wish that we don't even know. Not only that, but he had apparently been killing so many humans that Hylia felt the need to lift pieces of land into the air via nothing but magic to keep Demise away from them! Like putting a toy up too high for a kid to reach.

This suggests that they nearly went extinct!

Also keep in mind that she literally gave up her godhood to keep everyone safe!! That's... that's huge!

Also, I hate that there are fans out there who blame Sky for them being cursed!

Dude just finished a fight with a Daimaō (yōkai general). A battle that involved a LOT of lightning striking the Master Sword, which is known to cause temporary deafness, disorientation, ect.

He likely wasn't even aware that the Bringer of Demise had cursed him & Zelda both.

The only person anyone should be blaming here is Demise.

Though, that does bring into question why Fi didn't notify Link of this fact.

LoZ Cultural Masterlist

[papatundespainknife]

based on the backstory and personalities of the Mikalesons, do you have any headcannons about Mikaelsons + religion?

oh HECKIE YEAH

i think it's honestly SUCH an interesting topic and concept seeing as how their all you know immortals n shit and magics real and etc etc. unlike say, btvs where Willow literally invokes Osiris, tvd doesn't really make any solid references or claims about the whole Deity Situation until apparently legacies but I haven't watched it yet and sounds Kinda Dumb so I'm ignoring that lol. But the rule of thumb with shows like these seems to be that once you say draculas and witches are Super Real then it's open season for Zeus enter stage right like it's an episode of Xena. Which when you look at the Mikaelsons....... Wild.

I think that Freya, Finn and Rebekah are the most unironically straight-forwardly religious and I think they've stuck to the norse/scandinavian beliefs they grew up with. Freya both because of the 1,000 years of Napping Nonsense but also because she's a witch and that's the school she was taught in so she's sticking with it. Finn for similar naptime reasons and also because he doesn't see a reason to change and didn't even when they were in France and hanging out with christians. For Rebekah it's like pure sentimentality. She likes a lot of the aesthetics of mainly catholicism (the swagiest of sects) but at the end of the day she's still out here making offerings to Freya (the goddess not the sister fdjkgdfsdfs) because she's a sappy little sentimental bitch and that's what brings her comfort. I don't think she's particularly religious which I think Freya and Finn are but she enjoys the celebrations and finds comfort in the actions/words/rituals/prayers/etc.

Kol and Elijah are more wiggly in their beliefs. Kol still calls back to his roots a LOT but he's also expanded out over the years since he's still a witch at heart and a curious cat. He's less interested in following any one religion and more in what resonates with him. So his believe system is very eclectic. What he believes in he believes in 10000% and is dead serious about. He's also experimented and educated himself about world religions the most out of all of them. Dude could probably teach a clss tbh.

Elijah is the one who's actually been the closest you can be to an atheist in a world like this. He's had periods of like, religious nihilism and periods were he's a little more hopeful about it. He's just spent so much of his life trying to be the Good Reliable Son and like Niklaus praying for divine intervention both with their father and with Niklaus only to get shit in return that it broke him and he just stopped and abandoned all religion/spirituality and focused only on the tangible. Hope's birth fucking shakes him to the core lol. Generally tho even after her he's still more in the like, "not my scene but i do love a good festivity" camp.

Niklaus is an evangelical's idea of an atheist where it's not "i don't believe in god" but instead "i feel god personally slighted me at my bday party so now i'll hurl rocks at him for the rest of my life out of pure spite". his sense of abandonment, unwantedness and paranoia doesn't stop at the threshold of religion. Ofc, he's old as dirt and literally has his own coven that bitches KEEP FORGETTING HE HAS so he's not in doubt that the divine exists. But Thor didn't protect him from his father's abuse so fuck that guy and jesus didn't fix SHIT for him so equally fuck him.

Wouldn't be shocked tho to see him "ironically" do rites/sacrifices to Odin via shit like the death of an enemy/creatively using old school practices for physical/psychological torture bc he's Like That. Does he also end up carving a mjolnir into Hope's crib and giving her a little one on a necklace? yes but this ain't about that hush.

Kol and Niklaus are also the most likely to have an affinity for gods like Loki and his children for reasons I feel are obvious lol. The holiday arguments this creates between them and Finn are unhinged.

[stray-tori]

link click s2e01+02 eng dub thoughts

waiting for my friends to wake up for new link click ep so i'm watching the dubbed episodes and ??? holy, the death flash segment has such a different vibe.

well not SO different but yknow... I do hope they didn't write themselves into a corner here...

Dub: "I'm sorry… everything is going to be different now. death isn't something even one of us can change. the best we can do is accept it, so please don't let this be another burden for you to carry." Sub: "It seems... everything is changing... If death cannot be avoided, then it might be better to face it now."

"don't let this become another burden" ???? ToT

Dub!LG was rly like "dude, speak faster- thERES SO MUCH MORE PAIN YOU CAN FIT IN HERE" dshjds-

Also I find the "even one of us can change" bit to be a little off-throwing. Maybe the emphasis is slightly wrong but I didn't process what he meant immediately upon first hearing it. Sounded more like "ONE of us" than "one of US" (i.e. ability).

alejandro's slight stutter when answering about the ability UGH GOLD

Little sad that the flow of red-eyes conversation isn't as good. usually the dub did great with convo flow, but here it seems a little jumpy. "if you dont know where to start, let's start with activation" -> "I can't quite figure it out" (then proceeds to explain how much they alr figured out adhsjds-)

Also the "i need to trust you again" depends heavily on the viewer knowing what red-eyes means there (i.e. the lie of no cops/the dark room plan).

ik that this is in the sub too, but the "but she sees right through you" is still a little weird to me and it's more obvious in dub i think. I thought that what this was going for was a sort of "you may be okay with fooling me, but fooling her (while i'm her) will end badly" kinda deal, but maybe I was wrong? In the dub it just directly sounds like they mean they were only able to tell the lie because they're in QL's body and get some of her memories and feelings (like CXS does, maybe?) - but they actively paid attention to his shaking hands and everything, so I kind of don't think they relied purely on QL.

nooo they keep making red-eyes slightly different. from them assuming the photos and then confirming it through the "does he run here or teleport" moment, instead they just try... to stab her?? i guess?? and then they go "ohh i get it now" which... isn't a huge difference but kind of takes away from their smart thinking.

Going from the reaction -> "oh so I was right! How interesting!" (sub) to -> "teleporting with pictures, talk about a convenient power!"

STOP!! REMOVING!! THEIR THOUGHT PROCESS >:(

"why would I wanna hurt lu guang? he's family to me!" dub out here confirming the marriage, good for them good for them why would they do this to me

"you said the girl is innocent" -> "from what we saw it wasn't the girl" WHAT ABOUT THE BLOOD ALL OVER HER MADE YOU CONCLUDE THAT

Changing the part where CXS calls the murderer "the person who calls themselves my friend" (paraphrased) was a good call, bc that... sure was A Move.

Damn, dub just implied CXS wanted to perma-dive via "Two years... that is more than enough time. i could go back and change everything.". afaik we still don't know if the 12h restriction is bc of lu guang's rules or actually a restriction, so that is... certainly A Move, too. In Sub I felt like it was just desperate and he might have tried even with the 12h windows, but here it rly does sound like he'd just dive for longer? Unless I'm reading the dialog wrong...

"Sorry to disappoint" LOL ICONIC, slight adjustment but based.

"what's with the stuffed animal? not for me, i guess?" LMAO HELP ME- "it's for my daughter, wise guy." PFFT

"and he's already a ghost. he doesn't even have social media. some might say he doesn't exist" o... okay? does dub know more than we do dshjds-

"Breathe, damn it!!" pfft Captain Xiao is trying-

"is he the streetfighter master siwen talked about?" DUB WHAT ARE YOU DOING- i'm p sure this is just about the style, not the person ahhh-

"our backup's gonna be here soon" - "how funny, mine just arrived" While not what I've seen people translate this line as, still a good flow for this moment.

Aight. Some stumbles imo, but maybe they know more than we do and it'll all work out!