#it's not really meta but for the sake of linking it to my page there's the tag

[blkkizzat]

ꨄ︎『Toji x TumblrSmutWriter!Reader』ꨄ︎

Toji x TumblrSmutWriter!Reader

18+ Minors - DNI

Summary: You shouldn't have left your phone out in the open bestie because now Toji just discovered his cute lil gf has a big slutty imagination and that means you're really in for it ❤︎ . CW: daddy/dilf kinks, humiliation, backshots, outdoor sex, toys, voyerism, breeding, overstimulation, lots of mentions of various kinks, light spanking, light spit play, meta concepts WK: 4.2k Black fem reader coded but no descriptors.

A/N: Y’all can blame my forgetting to take my adhd meds and my hangover yesterday for this one. I was laying on my bathroom floor regretting life choices, waiting on McDs Doordash and thinking up outlines for kinktober when this popped into my head. I thought it would be a quick drabble like 1k words to help my writers block with the "Bumpy Ride" Geto fic but lord knows I can't write shit under 3k, who am I foolin? I don’t even have a song inspo for how spontaneous and random this shit was lmfao but I still had to do a graphic for this one regardless (editing those notifications were hell). Edit- I lied the song inspo is: Girls Need Love Remix - Summer Walker ft. Drake.

Enjoy!

Imagine you are dating Toji and he finds out you secretly write Tumblr smut fics on the low. 

He comes over to your apartment one night after one of his ‘jobs’ ran late. He has a key, but is wondering where the hell you are as you usually greet him at the door. Going into your bedroom, he finally hears you in adjoining bathroom shower. 

Toji begins to strip down in order to join you but he barely has his shirt off before he notices your phone blowing up. 

Picking your phone up off the bed he sees 206 notifications from an app called “Tumblr”. 

Toji has no fucking clue what the hell a Tumblr is but his jealously starts to soar. He already made your ass go private on Instagram and deleted your Tiktok dances. He got tired of threatening every loser who tried to slide in your DMs or even leave a comment for that matter. 

Imagine his surprise when he unlocks your phone (of course he had made you give him the password) and instead he finds out his new vanilla-as-fuck girlfriend is actually a kinky cockwhore who loves writing character x reader stories about fictional men plugging any n' every one of her holes. Sometimes it was multiple men simultaneously, with their massive cocks bullying your readers until you had them crying. Not to mention them fucking you absolutely stupid in every scenario imaginable, with a huge daddy kink/love of dilfs to top it all off. 

Y/N clearly has type, Toji thought smugly as he saw some art on your page of these animated dilfs that looked similar to him.

But goddamn, some of this shit even he hasn’t considered doing with you yet. Honestly, he’s been holding himself back for your sake as you had been pretty shy at first. His sweet naive little college girl, yet here you were a filthy closeted slut this entire time. 

Tsk, Y/N been holding out on me, eh?

At this point you were probably a bigger freak than he was, he mused with an arched brow as he scrolled through what you called your ‘masterlist’.

It was nothing but a collection of pure unadulterated filth. 

More than anything though while going through your Tumblr, Toji is rather impressed at how popular you are. He reads your intro post where you deem yourself the ‘Self-proclaimed DILF Smut Queen’ and an evil grin appears on his face.

Toji abandons his plans to join you in the shower and he waits for you on your bed while he links-surfs through more of your so-called fics, drabbles and thirsts.

You made your own little pictures to go along with your dirty stories too? Aw, what a sneaky yet talented little whore he had. 

ꨄ

When you finally exit the shower, wrapped only in a big fluffy white towel and your hair pulled back into a ponytail, you are surprised to see Toji sitting shirtless on your bed. 

Toji had promised to be here hours ago. He never even sent a text saying he would be late and you’ve been bored waiting for him all evening so he could give you some of the attention you've been craving. 

Your body is already warm from the shower and your legs rub together as you are already feeling a bit horny just seeing him bare chested.

Walking toward the bed you are eager to go pounce on his lap. That is, until you see it’s your phone he’s scrolling through again without your permission.

You loudly sigh which made his head snap up to look at you.

You’re so ready to tell him off again and remind him your Insta is still private and you only use TikTok to mindlessly scroll, not post dance videos anymore when gives you a dangerous look.

You stop dead in your tracks.

Your eyes grow wide as saucers as you recognize what he’s actually looking at when waves your phone around tauntingly in his hands. 

No.No.No. Not this. Please god, not this!

But your worst fears are confirmed when he starts reading aloud with a huge shit eating grin. 

“You moaned loudly as you threw your head back and bucked against him hungrily. You knew you had to finish quickly unless you wanted his wife to come home to discover the babysitter on top of her husband, making a mess all over his face. His thick tongue lapped into your drenched folds and he spread your puffy pussy lips wider to suck and nip at your swollen clit….” 

Your mouth was agape in shock. You were a deer in headlights.

A million and one thoughts raced through your mind as Toji continued on. He swiped over to the next one, this time a daddy and breeding kink drabble.

“Or how ‘bout… ‘Take it all like the good little slut you are for daddy, Y/N’. ‘N-No daddy, please I can’t cum anymore!’ You babbled as you succumbed to the overstimulation of him ruthlessly breeding your stretched cunt and filling you as you squirted on his dick for the fifth time that night…” 

You could only continue to stand there and gawk at him. This couldn’t actually be happening to you right now.

“Ya really wrote all this nasty shit, Y/N?” Toji teased while still looking at your phone as he found more of your filthy smut to read aloud to you despite the horrified expression on your face.

You of course had written all that ‘nasty shit’ but most of it was before you started dating him, breaking a long dry spell.

You really weren’t one to run the streets and sleep around but you had some kinky ass fantasies and you not getting any action had you needing to express them somehow.

It’s not like you didn’t eventually plan to open up and share a few of your kinks with Toji down the line. But this was a relatively new relationship and Toji was still a bit intimidating to you. Even though Toji treated you with way more care and concern than he did anyone else you’ve seen him interact with, you still had an insecure fear that he would reject you for a few of your kinks. 

Your last boyfriend had called you a weirdo for wanting to call him daddy in bed, so you resolved then to no longer share that part of you.

Hell, not even your IRL friends knew what you got up to. Only the Tumblr followers and moots, who you all shared peaceful anonymity with, were familiar with you and your writing.

Fuck. You had finally found the perfect DILF daddy too, you didn't want to scare him away. 

You cursed yourself for even opening Tumblr earlier. You did so out of restlessness waiting on his ass to come over. You just were going to read a few fics before you realized you had a story in your drafts you never posted that just needed to be proofread.

Wanting to kill time you decided to edit and post it on a whim, not knowing the mess it would be getting you into now. 

“Earth to, Y/N.” Toji snapped his fingers, interrupting your thoughts.

"Where did my perverted baby’s little mind go off to now, huh? So obsessed with being ruined by imaginary cocks you can’t even respond to your own daddy.”

You could have combusted on the spot as you were sure there was more steam coming off you from embarrassment than from the hot shower you had just taken. 

But wait– wtf, your frazzled mind just connected the fact Toji had referred to himself as your daddy. 

Those words sinking in made your entire body tingle. Your pulse quickened as you chewed your bottom lip and fidgeted with the edge of your towel.

Was he also into this?

The fact was Toji was very into this and you were about to find out just how much he was.

Enjoying your reactions fully, Toji stood up and made his way toward you with a crazed look on his face.

“You’ve written 96 pieces of filth Y/N…”

He inched closer and you instinctively moved back. Every fiber of your body sensing the danger in front of you. You wondered if this is how the targets of his ‘jobs’ felt when he approached them. Toji never lied to you about what he did for work but you never felt like you were his prey, until now.

“You’ve been a very naughty girl, have you nothing to say for y’erself, princess?” 

“I-I-I-”, you stumble over your own words. This was all way too much, way too fast, for you to process in order to say anything coherent back to him.

“I-I-I-” Toji mocked your pathetic tone, an evil grin back on his face. 

“Lost your words, Y/N?”

Your body instinctively keeps moving back to keep distance between the two of you as he continues to advance on you.

“But you have so many words to say here, isn’t that right slut?”

Toji toyed with your phone in his hand, spinning it around.

“Slut. That’s what you liked to be called in these stories, eh? The dirty slutty whore with a sloppy cunt just ready to slime all over her daddy’s cock, yeah?”

You gulped as your back hit the glass of your bedroom balcony door with a ‘thud’. You had no more room to run while Toji closes in on you.

He pressed both of his massive hands against the glass as they framed your head, his body hovering over you. You couldn’t help but notice how much bigger than you he was as his frame enveloped you and blocked out the rest of the room. You were trapped.

Too nervous to look him in the eyes, you settled for his chest and Toji’s muscles flexed tantalizingly under your gaze. You lost yourself for a moment as the familiar scent of his heady masculine musk invaded your senses.

Your eyes roamed lower and lower before resting on the bulge beneath his sweats and you softly pant. 

“You’re staring at my dick like you want me to stuff that pretty little throat cunny of yours full. You aren’t making good use of your mouth right now anyway Y/N, might as well see how much of me it can fit.”

You looked away from him completely but that only ignites Toji's flames more.

“Look me in the eyes little girl...” Toji’s hand roughly grabbed your jaw and squished your cheeks together as he brought his face closer to yours.

“This shy act won’t cut it anymore, slut.”

His intensity was overwhelming you. Various emotions threaten to bubble to the surface as you squirm in his grasp and your eyes become glossy with tears.

“You didn’t think you finally had a man who would be into this wild ass shit, now did you?”

You wanted to question him further but you felt your gravity shift as the balcony door whipped open behind you. Toji ripped off the towel covering you as you practically tumbled backwards onto the small landing buttass naked.

The crisp fall night air hits your dampened skin giving you goosebumps. You shiver and immediately drop down in a crouch to cover yourself. 

“T-Toji!! Are you insane?!” You gasped at him in a hushed tone, your silence finally broken. 

Promptly, you scan the seemingly deserted neighborhood streets through the railing for any sign of movement or signal that someone else was outside.

To your relief there was no one in sight.

Thankfully this was a relatively quiet neighborhood and no one was ever really out at this time of night. Nevertheless the shock of it all was sending your nerves into overdrive.

“Toji my ass bitch. It’s daddy to you moving forward–,” he roared jerking you up off the ground, “–and we are going to do every single fucking thing your slutty mind has ever fucking written starting NOW.” 

Your eyes darted as around him if you wanted to run back inside but there was no getting past his brutish build as he quickly slammed the door shut, shaking the frame.

Frankly, you didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified as you had written some depraved ass shit over the past year in the midst of your cockdrought. Some of it you had never even seriously thought of actually doing IRL. 

“Let’s start right ‘ere, eh? Did you think I wouldn’t notice the description of the place in your little balcony story matched your own?” 

Your eyes almost popped out of your skull as you recalled what you wrote in that particular smut fic.

ꨄ 

“A-AH! N-NOOO TOJI, W-WAIIIIIIIT!” You whined through gritted teeth. 

You tried (and failed) not to release any noises from the unrelenting backshots Toji was currently giving you as he folded you over the balcony railing. The tips of your toes barely rested on the cold floor as your ass bounced back into him and had your clit throbbing when his heavy balls smacked against the sensitive nub.

You had previously only fantasized about Toji being this rough with you, but now that it was actually happening for real you couldn’t think straight. Your lungs burned from sucking in the frosty night air and your cunt pulsed from his thick girth stretching you open. 

Shockwaves ran along your body with every cruel thrust of his hips. The force of it reduced your legs to jelly and you were sure you would have collapsed had he not had you suspended like you were, between him and the railing. 

Toji seemed both unfazed by the cold and your cries for mercy as he shushed you with a harsh spank. He enjoyed the way your fat ass rippled under his heavy hand in the moonlight so much he gave you a few more for good measure.

Your tits violently swayed over the edge as one of your hands grasped the railing for stability and the other held your phone in front of you. Toji was making you dictate your story for him as he reenacted the play by play assault on your cunt.  

The bright screen you held was near blinding to your teary eyes. You mentally cringed as you knew it would act as a shiny beacon to view your activities if anyone walked by the small apartment complex or hell, even stepped out on their balcony. 

“T-Toj- Daddy, w-what ‘bout– neigh-h-b-bor-s?”

You managed to croak out over the sloshing of your cunt and slapping sounds of flesh that echoed into the atmosphere everytime he rammed into you. You couldn’t bear to look around to see if any of your neighbors had started to investigate.

“Pshhh, Fuck your neighbors Y/N! They clearly don’t have a cockcrazed baby to please that writes dirty little stories about imaginary men like I do.”

If you didn’t know better you would think he was actually jealous of the DILFs in your stories too from the way he was sadistically fucking into you. 

His thrusts caused your icy tears to run down your face and sent your tits bouncing into the wind. Your cold and neglected nipples hardened in the chill to the point of delicious pain.

“B-but- it's too c-cold out D-Daddy!”

“Mmn, yet your pussy feels warm enough, Y/N. Too hot even. This is for your benefit, you know–,” Toji stated matter-of-factly while he increases the speed his pounding into you, “–So you remember you have your own Daddy who will fuck you anyway you want, anytime you want…just, fuck, tell Daddy what his slutty baby needs.”

The way his hips are driving into your core knocks the wind out of you. Toji tightens the already brutal grip on your hips which assists him in pressing deeper into your cunt. The movement has you almost slipping. You nearly drop your phone off the balcony when your toes stepped in the growing pool of shared juices flowing down your legs and collecting at your feet.

“Hold that shit tight for daddy baby, got it? You drop it and we gotta start over, yeah? I’ll make you walk downstairs ass naked just like this to get it too,” Toji breathed out huskily. 

You realize you’ve never heard him sound this needy before now.

“What’s next, in y’er lil’ story huh?… Speak up so I can hear it over this messy cunt.” 

There was an edge of desperation for you clear in his tone. Although to your dismay it causes your body to gush around him harder meaning you would have to speak up even louder as your pussy squelches grew more vulgar in volume. 

You nearly shouted out the next part groaning and mixing in incoherent babbles throughout the smut filled paragraph as Toji doesn't slow to help you. If anything Toji picks up speed and grows even harder inside of you as he's encouraged by his baby's filthy words.

“...H-he- lifts your leg, r-resting your knee on the edge of the bal-c-cony. T-T-The angle allows h-him, fuck, deeper access to your c-cunt. Ah-h-h-a clear view of his c-cock badgering your core f’er a-anyone who happens to p-pass belowwww-ohmygod. Y-you seeeeee s-stars as he callously s-slams into your c-cervix, shitshitshit, n-nearly fa-fa-fucking you off the balcony if not for his s-strong hold on youuuu–ah. Y-you violently t-tremble as you c-cum s-screamiiiiing, not fuckdaddyfuckkkk, caring if your n-neighbors could s-see or h-hear you any l-longer.”

“HA! Is that so–” Toji lifts your leg just like you wrote in your fic, “–guess I am gonna to have to keep fucking this tight cunt until you no longer give a fuck about anything else but this dick, eh?”

You hear what sounds like a door slide open near you and you begin to whine about your neighbors again before Toji jerks your head back by your ponytail to whisper in your ear. 

“I wouldn’t worry that nasty, pretty little head of yours about these neighbors babydoll…” 

The new angle allows Toji to bury himself deeper into you just like you told in your story and his tip hits your cervix so hard you think he might actually penetrate. 

“...if I were you Y/N... I would think about how daddy’s needy lil whore is gonna make it through an entire day of classes tomorrow with clamps on your nipples and a remote control vibrator up your cunt.”

He licked the side of your face and spit in your mouth before carelessly pushing your head back. You loudly moaned as his bruising grip returned to your meaty hips as his nonstop aggressive assault on your cunt proceeds.

You feel yourself getting close, your eyes rolled back into your head and drool seeped down the corners of your mouth. You cursed your weakness for this shit as you felt yourself give into the pleasure. You surprise even yourself as you never actually thought this kinda sex could be so fucking good you wouldn’t care about shit else for real. 

“Goddamn mamas, squeezing me so hard–” Toji’s hips snapped into you with every syllable, his voice becoming more animalistic, “–you want me to fill this pussy up? Mmm, I fucking know you do the way she’s milking me. Fuck, might even put a baby in you, give ‘gumi a sibling. We won’t be able to do some of that kinky shit you wrote unless I knock a baby up in this cunt, ya know.”

Of course, Toji being the sexy ass DILF straight out of your dreams would love breeding kinks too.

His ramblings cause you to tighten and clench around him even more. You’ve wanted to beg for him like this since you first started dating. Just thinking of the words spilling out of your mouth nearly pushed you over the edge.

You were so close to release.

“I-Inside me D-Daddy pleasepleaseplease!,” you slobbered out, struggling to make sentences from all the pleasure within you.

“F-fill me– fill me D-Daddy, knock this tight little cunt up, w-want it– want it– w-want it–!!!”

Your voice caught in your throat and you nearly choked once you felt your peak hit. Your pussy sent tremors around his dick as you creamed around him. You can't think of anything else but him inside of you.

You just came but Toji allowed you no rest. He still pummeled inside you as he chased his own high and slurred vulgar curses of praise for his pretty lil’ whore's dirty mind, while planning the next debaucherous smut for you both to reenact.

“Ya think it's too late now f’er prime next day delivery for those toys, baby? Fuck, look that up while y’er still holding that phone.”

You didn’t even realize you still had your phone in your hand but were just thankful you didn’t drop yet. You didn't think it would survive the fall.

Groaning you tried to rally the strength to even lift the phone to face unlock when you locked eyes with someone below. You instantly recognized the person as the elderly woman with the flower garden from down the street.

The old lady had always been very kind to you, making pleasant conversation, offering you fresh flowers for your kitchen and praising you for how reminded her of her own sweet young daughter at your age. 

Unfortunately for you both, she was casually walking her two mini poodles when her eyes were affronted with you practically hanging off the balcony. A blissed out expression plastered across your face while Toji held you, battering your slick pussy full of his thick cock.

The old woman’s eyes widened in terror as if she actually witnessed a crime scene as she panicked, yanking her two dogs away swiftly back in the direction of her home. You knew you would have to take the long way home from now on.

Nevertheless Toji, who was none the wiser and wouldn’t give a single fuck regardless, merely continued planning out your next smut fic enactment.

“Nah fuck it, we’re going to the library tomorrow. See how many pages you can read of that dull ass biology book while y’er warming my cock... Tch, or should we do the one where y’er fucking the coach in the men’s locker room, whacha think baby?”

"Hmmmnmmrgh", you could only moan in reply.

You were already near hyperventilating from your own climax, the shame of now having to avoid your neighbor for life and Toji’s fiery body creating a storm of friction clashing with the freezing temperatures.

But your senses were now wholly overloaded once you felt him reach down to pinch and rub at your clit. 

“Cum again with Daddy baby, shit, can ya do that f’er me?” Toji sounded like he was close and he slapped your clit even harder causing you to scream out.

Cockdrunk and overstimulated you could no longer communicate as your entire body felt like it was an extension of your pussy. The thick fluids flowing out of your body increased the sizable puddle already at your feet. You utterly surrendered to the feeling and your body wrecked with pleasure electrifying you. 

You almost blackout as you feel his cock bust hot seed into your tummy melting your insides and causing you to cum all over again.

"Fuck, that’s it, take it all. Can't wait to see this belly and these tits full mama."

The aftershock of your orgasm feels near endless as Toji continues to fuck thick ropes of his cum into you. 

Losing track of time you weren’t sure how long it was before Toji finally pulled out and took you off the railing. Holding on to you so you can balance and turning you to face him he places you down on your unsteady feet. You immediately bury your head into his chest as his heat envelops your cold skin. Your breathing finally starts to calm in his embrace. 

“So good f’er daddy babygirl,” he murmurs into your hair, savoring your scent.

“Warm bath, yeah?”

“Sure, but you gotta carry me daddy.”

You yawned while Toji’s already lifting you princess style in his strong arms. You were exposed still in the night but at the same time you have never felt safer. 

You curl further into his warmth as he kisses your forehead and finally brings you back inside.

Once inside the bathroom Toji sets you down on the edge of the tub while the water runs and he leaves to grab some fresh towels.

You can’t help but feel euphoric as you smiled to yourself. You are too giddy!

You finally have the DILF daddy you always wanted and could be open about your kinks without any judgment. 

However your mood shifts when Toji returns. You give him an incredulous look as you see your pink waterproof vibrator in his hands. 

Toji turns it on and saunters over to you, his scar twisted into a devilish smirk.

“95 more fuckfics to go ma’, we don’t have time to waste…”

Fucking hell, you had entirely forgotten about the overstimulation in the bath drabble. 

You quiver in both anticipation and distress as you aren’t sure how your completely spent and nearly frozen body is gonna be able to cum four more times tonight. 

Could there ever be too much of a good thing?

You weren't sure what those limits were exactly.

“Ya know, Y/N–," Toji started slyly, interrupting your thought.

”If I hit up Shiu and you asked him nicely with that pretty lil' mouth, I’m positive he would be down for some double daddy Eiffel Tower action.”

However from the feral grin on Toji’s face he appeared determined to test those limits with you.

You could thank your Tumblr smut fics for that. 

© ʙʟᴋᴋɪᴢᴢᴀᴛ 2023. ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛꜱ ʀᴇꜱᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ. ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴛᴇᴀʟ, ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛᴇ, ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴏʀ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇꜱ ꜰɪᴄꜱ, ᴅʀᴀʙʙʟᴇꜱ, & ɢʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄꜱ. ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʙʏ ᴍᴇ ᴜɴʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴡɪꜱᴇ ꜱᴛᴀᴛᴇᴅ. ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ.

A/N: I honestly have to say I am a bit impressed with myself as I’ve never finished a story in one day before ever (although it took most of today to proofread and I still think there might be errors soz). Hopefully this is a good sign for powering through those Kinktober fics once classes start up again this Weds. Also If there is any interest possibly a PT 2 after Kinktober featuring a threesome with Shiu at his office.

Edit: errors/grammar fixed as of 9/26.

This one goes out to all of us dilf smut queens who simp Toji ❤︎

Please reblog to have DILF Daddy Toji dick you down, but likes and comments are always appreciated just the same!

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I don't know how relevant this is to your theory but Neil Gaiman answered a tumblr ask about his Riddler comic a bit ago and mentioned that he chose Ed as the one to give meta commentary about the increasing 'darkness' of the other rogues because he hasn't really been relevant or had many appearances at the time of the comic's release and because of the way the character was perceived then. Considering how in that comic Ed mentioned other 60s show characters as villains and an era he misses that's probably further evidence for how stuck in the 60s he and the idea of him as a character still was even at that point? Not real evidence but fun: one of the traits listed in his TV Tropes page is "last of his kind" as one of the few sillyguy villains in Batman's rogues gallery that haven't fallen into complete irrelevance yet

man okay I hate having to talk about When Is A Door but only because it makes me spectacularly emo. listen everyone just. go read it. I'm dropping a link for you and everything.

anyway this absolutely is relevant to the ongoing discussion about what the fuck was going on with the Riddler in the 80s and early 90s. When Is A Door was actually published just three years before the Riddler appearance in the Question #26 that @clay-cuttlefish mentioned (linked), indicating that WIAD was very much coming out in a period where the Riddler was very much seen as a goofy relic best remembered as Frank Gorshin (and boy, you can really see the Gorshin influence in Gaiman's depiction! that old man is off the shits!).

the 80s really were a spectacularly dark period for the character, and the more I learn the more surprised I am that he managed to not only survive into the 21st century but did so with such indisputable prominence in Bat-lore. I'm starting to seriously suspect that appearances in other media, like Batman: The Animated Series and especially Batman Forever, might have had a lot more to do with keeping him afloat than anything happening in the comics during the 90s, but we'll see how that bears out as I continue my comprehensive-ish Batman reading (which is only up to late 1991).

this really does drive home my frustrations with recent efforts to shed the riddle gimmick and make the character darker; there's certainly a time and place for more serious and gruesome stories, especially with Batman, but there's really nothing more boring than homogeneity that demands every villain be a ruthless sociopath. for fucks sake, he's the Riddler.

[firesofdainix]

carrd (that I will have to update again...)

Introductory Post

dainix

19

aroace spec | mirror pronouns

filipino 🇵🇭

undiagnosed ADHD

All of my Tumblrs are tagging archives, but as this blog is the first of many, it's seen tons of Fandoms.

This is my main blog, my 'fandom of the week' kind of blog. Where all my recent fixations are reblogged. The reason why my separate blogs exist is to have a different kind of tagging archive or for me to be insane in alt. accounts

I've had this Tumblr since 2017.

this blog is also a reblog cesspool. I may tag some posts here if I wish to catalog them into different tagging sections. If you want me to tag something please DM/send me an ask.

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#chelbabbles

#loisedraws

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BYF

I do more reblog content here rather than original content, as I think I don't have anything to say in a platform like Tumblr. I also take a long time (or maybe never) to answer asks, so sorry if your ask will forever be stuck in the abyss that is the inbox. I just don't know how to answer them. I barely know how to make meta posts or character analysis, so good luck getting those out of me. I also move on from fandoms easily, so if that's not your kind of thing, you can move on.

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Flag discourse/sexual orientation discourse peeps. no one cares

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[jtprojects]

Snake Game with JavaScript

Blog Post 2 – INTP-362

INTRO

Hello! If you came here after reading my first blog post (not necessary but it would be funny if u wanted to see my struggle) welcome back! It’s nice to see you again! If you diDN’T read the last blog post (the disloyalty smh /lh) hello! Nice to make your acquaintance!

If you aren’t aware what I’m doing here (tbh same life is definitely,,, A Thing™ for sure), I essentially ventured out to learn about game development in JavaScript (a coding language, often paired with HTML and CSS if you weren’t aware which is completely fair). I have previously had experience with JS in terms of website development but never really for game development. For the sake of this post and the catered audience, I’m just gonna assume that you know JS and HTML and CSS and all that jazz. If you don’t, my sincerest apologies (/s,,, kinda).

(The title of the game and display of the current score would be what is controlled by html and css while everything in the black box would be controlled in js)

MAKING DECISIONS

So, first thing I had to figure out which IDE to use. Now this wasn’t too hard of a choice, as I already have multiple different IDEs with options for JS, html, and css (by multiple I mean 2, the accursed netbeans and the modern and sleek vscode). For this project, due to its simplicity and familiarity, I chose vscode (I was gonna give a whole outline as to what vscode is but I’m not getting paid to do that so no thank you).

After getting my IDE decided and figured out, I had to find out what game I wanted to create. Of course, as I am overly ambitious (which I must admit is one of my fatal flaws) My initial idea was “hey, why don’t I make a short, simplified version of pokemon or a fighter game like mortal kombat or smash?” y’know, like a fool. While these goals may have been achievable if I had multiple months to do this and no sense of procrastination, it simply wasn’t possible to pull off unless I wanted to neglect my studies and focus solely on the game.

After hitting that miserable realization, I made up a list of games that I could make in the amount of time given and the amount of motivation I had inside of me (which,,, is not a lot actually). My list eventually came down to these games:

Snake

Pong

That one offline dino game on google

Tetris

and Flappy Bird

Now all these games were doable, however, when it came to applying the things that I already knew, I would have to choose snake. As I had learned previously (not in the last blog post tho) how to control the movement of a shape based from keyboard input and object collision and everything of the sort, snake seemed like the easiest option to me.

HTML

After creating the project, I immediately created all the files and game them appropriate names (tho they deffo could’ve been better but eH ‘twas a lapse in judgment). First thing after creating all the files was to set up the html page.

Just like any html page, I included the basic tags. The DOCTYPE, meta tags, title, a link to the css page and a script to the js page, a header with the extremely (/s) original title and a body with a div to show the current score and a canvas to allow me to draw in (canvas being the only new thing that has anything to actually do with my game).

CSS

Now I won’t bore you with the css details as most of it iS just setting the font, font colour, centering elements, placing elements side by side, and all that jazz hOWEVER, one thing that ig is really cool even though it’s not my original code bc in no way, shape, or form am I this cRACKED at css, would be the title.

(It’s the text colour animation effect on https://alvarotrigo.com/blog/css-text-animations/ )

DISPLAY WINDOW

Now here’s where it gets into the fun bit. The first steps to actually be able to do anything would be create the display and context. (Just for a little bit of unnecessary context, the code being presented is not in order of the actual project it’s just been copied and pasted to show you what I want you to see like those illusionists or something)

First thing we must do is create a grid in our minds. In this imaginary grid, each square is 25 pixels by 25 pixels, which has been assigned to the blockSize. Next we choose the dimensions of the display, I chose 20 blocks x 20 blocks. Then, as I had been taught in the past, we create the variables that are meant to hold the display information which is the width and height of the window and the context of the page just so that we can manipulate the window.

In the update function (the function that reruns every time the setInterval tells it to. This is the thing that I talked about last blog post that allowed for either a higher or lower fps.) we set the background colour as black using fillStyle and we draw the rectangle (square??? a square is a rectangle right?? geometry was rough) using fillRect. The first 2 values are the x and y of the top left corner of the display while the next 2 values are to set the actual size of the window.

Now, you may be like “hey, my guy, respectfully, you talked about display and setting the height and width and context and setInterval and actually drawing the window, but what about all the stuff in the middle? The change direction and foodRando and everything?” and to you, loyal reader, I say hush. It will all be revealed in good time impatient child.

DRAWING THE SNAKE

Next, we draw the snake.

Now just like the display, we get the X and Y of the snake head (obv not hardcoded bc we dO want it to move unlike irl). Next thing we add into the update function (don’t let the screenshot fool you this iS still the same update function as the last one). We also get the colour for the snake (I went fancy for this one and decided to do a hex code instead of just like,,, ‘green’ even though both would’ve produced similar results) and update the x and y of the snake based off of some things that will be talked about later on. We then continue to use fillRect again to draw the head of the snake.

Now the next bit is a bit more complicated then everything else shown previously (but if u know coding then its genuinely not that bad lmAO it just looks a bit spooky). In the for loop, we essentially create the variable i (you’ll see this bad boy a lot) and cycle through all the entries in the snakeBody to draw the rest of the body of the snake that way the snake’s body isn’t a fixed size. And can be increased depending on the entries in snakeBody.

 Next we have the for and if loop that’s placed before the snake display. The for loop is used when the snake is moving. Basically, every time the snake moves (and especially when the snake is turning) it allows the current section of the body to get the placement of the piece in front of it and replace it and moves down to the head which is placed using the if statement right after which is able to move (mostly) freely that way u can get those crisp 90 degree angles when your snake moves.

DRAWING THE FOOD

Finally, the last drawing piece, would be the food.

Just like all the parts before this, we start with initializing the variables that are to be used when finding the placement of the food. In the update function, we do the same thing we did as before, we set the colour using fillStyle and fillRect to place the food somewhere in the window.

Now finally, for the part that I told you guys to wait for, the meaning of foodRando. What foodRando does is that it finds a random place on the window using Math.floor to ensure that the number chosen is rounded down to a while number and Math.random to find that random place. The for loop is to ensure that the x and y coords of the piece of food isn’t inside the snake otherwise it reruns until it lands in an empty space. This is ran every time a piece of food is eaten and when the website first launches.

MOVING THE SNAKE

And now we talk about the other part of displayScreen that you were (or were not idk I can’t tell… or can I? No I can’t don’t worry you’re safe for now).

The next thing after being able to draw all these components to the window was to figure out how to actually move the snake. This is there the changeDirection comes into play. Inside displayScreen, we have an event listener which listens for when the user’s finger lifts off of an arrow on the keyboard, specified with ‘keyup’. Once that action takes place, the event listener runs changeDirection which takes in an event. in this event, we determine which key was pressed and move it according to the key that was pressed by changing vX and vY which is just the velocity. -1 in the Y variable means up while 1 means down. In the X variable, -1 is left and 1 means right. For both, 0 means just not moving.

But what is the && for? If you recall from all those years ago (it’s okay grandparent I get it ‘back in your day’ or whatever) the snake can’t  go from going up from going down immediately, same with left and right. This is because, if the snake were able to do that, it would just eat itself (and break its spine which isn’t really the best but who am I to judge) and immediately end the game. The && is meant to prevent that from happening. It’s a check to basically say “if you wanna do this, first we gotta make sure you ain’t doing the forbidden move”.

SCORING AND GAME END

Lastly (if you’re still here, hOLAY I’m barely even still here lmAO how do you dO it what is the sECRET?), dealing with collisions that cause the game end and keeping and increasing score.

For this last stretch, we state the variables for keeping score and ending the game, score and gameEnd. If you recall from the very beginning in displayScreen and in the html, there was some part with score in it. document.getElementById(“score”) is taking the variable from the js file and displaying it in the html so the reader gets some sort of validation beyond their snake getting longer (firstly, haha innuendo don’t look too deep into it. secondly, talk ab parental problems or something lmAO just like me frfr).

Next in the update function, we have the first if condition. In this condition we’re just specifying that, if gameEnd, the variable used to tell if the user has lost or not, is true, we end the game and restart using history.go (that’s something new that I learned I am but a tiny child) the page to allow the user to play again. The next if we have is to recognize when the snake has become fed and increase it’s size (like chickens to the slaughter) and increase the score. Once we have done that, we rerun foodRando, generating another piece of food.

 Finally, we enter the game end conditions. The first if statement is used to identify whether the head of the snake has hit the wall (like the tiktok sound or something idk). The for statement after that is recognize that if the head of the snake hits another part of the snake, that means it’s game over. For both, it recognizes game end by changing gameEnd to true and then sending an alert to the user (with a kinda mean message I’m sorry but not really) informing the player that they had lost the game.

CONCLUSION

In the end, this game was fun to make! I think if I were to go back and restart the game or add additional features, I would include things that I wanted to but was too overwhelmed to add like a menu where you can choose your display settings or maybe just a whole different project as this one seemed a bit simplistic and easy :P. While coding I realized just how similar this is to java or any coding language really. Truthfully, the only difference would be that of drawing the shapes and figuring out logic behind collisions and the syntax but everything else: the if and for statements, the functions, and logic behind everything is still the same. I think that was why I would’ve appreciated if I took on a harder game or task but, in the end, it was pretty fun to play with.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

Now since you’ve all stuck with me for so long, here’s your reward: a gif demo of the actual game being used :D (if you want access to the full project, I have my github linked :) pls don't judge my abysmal snake skills).

[owletstarlet]

Hi! Could you do devil's food chocolate for natsume and tanuma?? Many thanks 🌸

(From the ice cream flavors headcanon meme.) Devil’s food chocolate was a headcanon about vices.

So I’m not gonna attack either of their more serious deep rooted personal issues this time, let’s go at it from an inconvenient-personal-habits angle. (Which, disclaimer, are not bad or wrong in themselves or make you bad and wrong, especially if it’s a symptom of anxiety like Tanuma’s— but, like I said, inconvenient for the characters themselves.) 

So the Tanuma headcanon is that when he gets really anxious he’ll start subconsciously picking at loose threads, buttons, or hems on his clothes. It’s something he tries really, really hard not to do, because he feels awful about damaging clothes his dad paid for, but I can Absolutely see him having been the sort of little kid who’d get a hole in his jeans by accident and then within half an hour it’s quadruple the size and his whole knee is visible. Or  him at twelve years old coming home shamefaced with all the buttons popped off his uniform sleeves because he’d had a panic spiral over having to give a class presentation. 

So it’s not often so severe now that he’s older, but he’s pretty adept at minor clothing repairs (buttons, hemming, fixing little holes), a skill which Natsume’s very grateful for after he’s been roped into Miscellaneous Youkai Shenanigans. (I’m envisioning more than one occasion where Natsume’s totally exhausted and tucked up in a quilt sipping tea while Tanuma sews half the buttons back onto a very rumpled and grass-stained shirt.) I think it’s a sign Natsume eventually figures out to watch for, if Tanuma starts plucking at his sleeves worrying at his shirt hem, that he’s way more stressed or upset than he’s letting on (or has even noticed himself, like for example if he’s in a noisy crowded place and getting overstimulated).

So the my idea for Natsume is that, especially as he hits college age, he’d fall into the trap of “each can of terrible vending machine coffee I chug is the rough equivalent of one hour’s worth of the sleep I didn’t get, right?” If he’s dealing with youkai bullshit du jour and college classes or a part time job (or, like I like to think, also learning some potentially life-saving skills from a few exorcists at the same time)…vending machine coffee tastes like ass but it’s cheap and it’s always right there. He’s never had it in the manga, but he does when he and Shigeru have their pottery-class-bonding time in the anime so I’d say he at least doesn’t mind the taste. As of canon high-school-era we know he already needs way more sleep than he’s getting, and he also hates letting people down, so once the daily tasks and responsibilities are increased, welp. Caffeine it is.

I’m imagining one day where he’s like. Huh. That’s odd, why do I feel shaky and nauseous and bad for no apparent reason…anyways there’s six different things I need to go do right now. And Tanuma, who doesn’t drink much caffeine at all because his doctor told him to avoid it years ago, is like :| :| :| Sensei takes that as his cue to just sit on Natsume’s chest and refuse to budge until he goes to sleep, which he does, and then he’s dead to the world for fourteen hours straight….

Thanks for the ask, this was a fun one! :) 

[therealvinelle]

Hi, your metas are super interesting, and even if I really enjoy fanon twilight, it's really cool to read opinions based only on canon too!

So my question is about the sexual orientation of the Cullens, do you think they all straight?

For example i saw someone saying that Edward maybe was demisexual and it left me thinking, so i just wanted to know your opinions about it :)

In short, no.

In alphabetical order:

Alice is with a man, but without getting into the mess that is Alice/Jasper here, I don’t think theirs is a particularly physical relationship. I mean, if Alice wanted to get laid, she could just decide to fuck Jasper, enjoy the vision, and bam. Itch scratched. Thanks, Jazz. Alright, I’ll be serious. Alice and Jasper are with each other because the other represents salvation, not so much because of a personal or physical attraction but because of mysticism. So to me that doesn’t really say much about Alice’s preference. All the same I can’t see Alice having a particular preference, she’s too... Alice. Although it is easier to picture her with women. She is also the second half of the Alice/Bella homoerotic extravaganza, which makes heterosexual Alice even more farfetched to me. So, bisexual or lesbian Alice.

Bella shows clear attraction to women as well as men. She’s attracted to Rosalie, Alice, Edward, and Carlisle. I’ll just give you guys quotes: Of the three boys, one was big — muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, and honey blond. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze-colored hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students. The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back. The short girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction. (Twilight, page 9) This is the Cullens’ introduction. I won’t spend much time on it, just notice the difference between Rosalie and the others. Rosalie is highlighted in a way Alice is not, and Edward is at first glance only the boyish one of the guys. Rosalie was the Cullen whose beauty immediately stood out to Bella. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful — maybe the perfect blond girl, or the bronze-haired boy. (sic.) Bella has realized by now that Edward’s a grade A hottie, but she’s still torn between him and Rosalie. Bella then gets to know Alice, and they become friends who take showers together(!). Rosalie may be the most attractive Cullen woman, but Alice is the one Bella gets emotionally close to. We get this in New Moon:  UNNATURALLY STILL AND WHITE, WITH LARGE BLACK EYES intent on my face, my visitor waited perfectly motionless in the center of the halt, beautiful beyond imagining.  (...) I locked my arms around her, gasping to inhale as much of the scent of her skin as possible. It wasn't like anything else—not floral or spice, citrus or musk. No perfume in the world could compare. My memory hadn't done it justice. (New Moon, page 191) Bella never thought she’d never see any of the Cullens again, so for her to be hysterical and ecstatic upon seeing her second favorite is not by itself damning. I’m sure she’d be ecstatic to see Emmett too. It’s that fact that she’d missed Alice’s scent that’s interesting. The scent of her skin was something Bella was aware of before they parted. And while it may be tempting to say “it’s because they’re vampires, Bella’s admiring them like she would a work of art!”, Bella never dwells on Esme, Jasper, or Emmett in this way. Jasper and Emmett especially are not admired beyond the introduction of their characters. We never hear about what any of them smell like, nor does Bella remark upon their beauty after waking up a vampire. Carlisle and Edward, by comparison, are men she keeps noticing. Bella finds Carlisle blindingly beautiful when she first sees him as a vampire, and there’s this from New Moon: Though it erased the sting, it reminded me of the gash, and I watched Carlisle's face carefully to distract me from what his hands were doing. His hair gleamed gold in the bright light as he bent over my arm. (New Moon, page 18) There’s thinking someone is pretty, and then there’s gazing lovingly upon their face instead of pain killers. Bella is bisexual.

Carlisle moved in with a very gay man, had a close relationship with him, lived with him for the sake of his company for decades, and only left because of dietary differences. We don’t know for sure whether they actually had an affair or not, but the fact remains that of all the Cullens, Carlisle is the one who is implied to have had a homosexual relationship in canon. He loses his straight card based on that alone. Also gonna link this clip, because I’m Mac listening to Edward talk about how young Carlisle lived with this sexy Mycenaean Greek for a few decades when he was young. Aro is all the santas. Carlisle is bisexual.

Edward... oh boy. His brain is supposedly seventeen, and yet this very interesting thing happens in his relationship with Bella where he never notices her body. Not ever. By body I mean curves. Edward notices Bella’s skin, her frailty, her humanity. He praises her blushes, her doe-like eyes, her warmth, her softness, her swan-like neck, her delicious scent. The feminine aesthetic. He does not once notice her tits. The only tits he is on record noticing belong to Siobhan, and it’s because she has an impossible to ignore rack: She was profoundly female in shape—aggressively, forcefully female. (Midnight Sun, chapter Probability) It’s one thing for him to be old-fashioned and too quintessentially Edward to even think the word “boob”, but in 700+ pages of Midnight Sun there’s just this absence of this seventeen-year-old noticing her curves. More damningly, when seeing Alice’s vision of vampire!Bella, Edward is horrified at the sight of his love cold and hard. He doesn’t describe vampire!Bella by any of the positives, like “flawless”. Edward is attracted to the human, not the woman. What that means for his sexuality... well, I’m going to go ahead and point out that he is very weird about Carlisle, and it’s damning that the personality he projects onto Bella is so similar to Carlisle. I hesitate to apply a label here, but in my own, personal, headcanon we’re veering towards homosexual. Deeeeeeply closeted homosexual.

Emmett is straight. Straightest guy ever to straight.

Esme is pretty clearly taken with Carlisle. Though if she were to feel attracted towards another woman, I imagine she’d have no idea what to make of that, if she even recognized it for what it was. She’s from a very different time and still living in that time, and she continues to be very sheltered. Still, as per my personal headcanon, I see her as straight.

Jasper, who knows. Though if he’s into guys, he has probably gone for it in the past. I suppose I should write a meta on vampires and sexual norms in general, but in short I don’t think they all live monogamously like the Cullens. STDs and pregnancies are unheard of, as is social ostracizing. Vampires are hedonistic, Twilight vampires more so than any other. Which in turn means I don’t think Maria and Jasper were monogamous. A couple, sure, but I don’t think Maria would say “oh noes, I can’t, I’m with Jasper!” if someone she was attracted to made an overture, and same goes for Jasper. So, if Jasper was into guys, then sure. I can see Jasper/Peter happening, or even Charlotte/Jasper/Peter. Jasper is certainly into women, with the possibility of guys as well. And if so, then it’s probably happened.

Rosalie I’m shocked is with a guy in the first place, everything about her screams lesbian. However, she’s clearly into Emmett, so apparently she’s bisexual.

(I’m not including Renesmée in this, since she’s three months old by the time the series conclude.)

This all being said, several of these people are from very different times and wouldn’t have the same concepts of sexuality internalized as we do, so how they’d identify is a very different matter.

[lostcauses-noregrets]

Hey, I discovered SnK a few weeks ago and binge watched the anime. I have never read the manga, I have never been in the fandom, I have never read a fanfic, I am completely new.

Now I just finished watching all the come out episodes so I finally looked around for some blogs to follow and for some meta to read not afraid of spoilers anymore (that I got anyway because I forgot about the manga, ops).

I jumped on the Eruri train immediately because who wouldn’t? Can’t relate. And I was wondering if you have some advice for a fandom newbie.

Do you have some fic recs? Blog recs? Meta I have probably missed? Is it too late and this fandom is dead or joining in still has a point?

Do you recommend me to read the whole manga? Should I at least read the latter chapters set after the last episode of the anime? I’m lost please enlighten me.

I chose you because I’ve seen you’re quite active and eloquent, at least for what I’ve got in a morning of intense tumblr research (I finished the anime a few hours ago).

Hey Anon, welcome to the fandom and congratulations on choosing such a god tier ship for your first foray into fandom.  The good news is that the Eruri fandom is incredibly generous, creative and friendly.  Unsurprisingly it also tends to attract a lot of older fans, which makes it a really chill place to hang out.  So, in answer to your questions...

Do you have some fic recs? 

Lots! I’ve got a fic rec tag on my blog where you’ll find links to all the fandom classics.  There are so many incredible authors in the Eruri fandom, you’re bound to find a whole range of fics that suit your personal taste.

Blog recs? 

Follow @momtaku for meta, analysis and the @youhearbiggirls podcast.  @tsuki-no-ura for meta and translation. @snknews and @snkmerchandise for official updates. @elivra-fanfiction, @tidal-sehnsucht, @huxandthehound, @project-zorthania, @ladymacbethsspot and @erbeansandravioli for fic, meta and writing. @the-memoirs-of-a and @story-kat for authorised art reposts. @i-heart-danchou for doujin recs. @fallenrazziel and @shadowgale96 for all kinds of Eruri goodness.  

We’re also blessed with more talented artists than I can count.  You can find a rec list of artists that are currently active on tumblr here and I’ve also got lots more artists on my tags page.

Meta I have probably missed?

I’ve got a meta rec post here.  You can find my own meta tagged lostcauses meta / levi meta / erwin meta / eruri relationship and other people’s meta I’ve reblogged tagged amazing meta. There’s also a fun Q&A session with Isayama here which includes all kinds of additional little details about the story and characters.

Is it too late and this fandom is dead or joining in still has a point?

Four and a half years after Erwin’s death, the Eruri fandom is still alive and kicking.  In fact now is a great time to get on board as the end of the series is drawing more people into the fandom.  Several artists and writers who were active way back in the day, but subsequently moved on, have reappeared and there are new fans joining all the time. 

The fandom on tumblr may be smaller than in its heyday, but there’s a big active Eruri fandom on twitter, including lots of amazing Japanese artists.  I’m @losteruri over on twitter and it you look at the accounts I follow you’ll find lots of Eruri fans and artists. There’s also a *huge* SnK fandom on TikTok, but I leave that to the teens :P

Do you recommend me to read the whole manga?

I can highly recommend reading the whole manga, it’s excellent.  Although the anime sticks very closely to the manga it necessarily has to leave out a lot of character nuance for the sake of brevity, so it’s really worth reading the original material.  

I can also recommend reading the official Attack on Titan Character Encyclopedia which has been translated into several languages.  There’s also the official Answers Fanbook which is only available in Japanese but which has been translated by @fuku-shuu here and @ningen-suki here.  Both books include invaluable information about Erwin and Levi’s special relationship.  

The semi-official Smartpass stories are also fun.  You can find a list of them on @momtaku’s blog here snk smartpass content / snk smartpass stories. 

There are also three versions of A Choice With No Regrets, which tells the story of how Erwin and Levi met and how Levi came to join the Survey Corps.  You can read the manga online here and there’s also a visual novel here, both are excellent. The ACNWR anime looks great but it absolutely butchers Erwin’s character and mangles the ending horribly.  If you do watch it, take it with a pinch of salt.

Hopefully that will get you going in the Eruri fandom Anon.  Enjoy! 

[nikosheba]

The Mystery of the Vanishing Elf

First of all, this is not my meta; I’m posting this on behalf of Azh, who wrote it and wanted it on tumblr. (They did say I could take credit for bothering them to write it, and for helping kick around ideas, so I will :D)

Link to the meta on AO3

[all page numbers from the 2007 HarperCollins edition of The Children of Húrin, ISBN 978 0 00 724622 9]

Thanks to starlightwalking for beta-ing!

So I just finished reading the Children of Húrin—which, let’s be honest, I was mostly reading to get the expanded version of the Túrin and Beleg content.  So at first when I started reading the second half — after Beleg’s death — I figured the reason I was less drawn to the text was because, well, Beleg was dead and therefore was less present in the narrative.  After I’d finished the book and put it down, though, I realized it was a little more than that.  Beleg wasn’t just less present. He was completely absent. This is no exaggeration: between the last mention of Beleg’s name in Chapter IX (“The Death of Beleg”) and Túrin’s death, when Gurthang asks to forget the “blood of Beleg my master” there is a single mention of his name, and it’s only a passing description of Gurthang itself as “the Black Sword of Beleg” (pg. 237).

Túrin never says his name again.

What’s going on here?  This is, quite frankly, bizarre. The entire first half of the narrative pivots around the relationship between Túrin and Beleg.  Beleg is the one who finds Túrin when he’s just a child his mother is sending to Thingol in Doriath. Beleg is his friend when’s growing up on Doriath — one of two really mentioned, the other being Nellas — and when Túrin is grown and goes off to be with the marchwardens, “Beleg and Túrin were companions in every peril” (pg 86).  When Thingol and Mablung and everyone else are ready to assume the worst of Túrin, it’s Beleg who shows up with Nellas to tell them what really happened, and it’s notable that this means Beleg didn’t see what happened; he just implicitly trusted Túrin and was the only one to do so.  They care about each other a lot. There is a brief portion of time while Túrin is with the outlaws that they aren’t together (that’s a whole nother post in itself) but Beleg returns to Túrin on Amon Rudh, “in this way, Beleg came back to Túrin, yielding to his love against his wisdom.  Túrin was glad indeed, for he had often regretted his stubbornness; and now the desire of his heart was granted…it seemed to [the outlaws] there had been a tryst between Beleg and their caption.” (pg 139).  These boys are in love. It’s textual.  There’s only one other character Túrin is described as loving in a similar way, and it’s Níniel (Niënor), whom he marries.

In fact, it’s staggering that Níniel is the only other one (pg 218 “Turambar restrained himself no longer, but asked her in marriage”), because there is a very big elephant in the room, and it’s the person whom Níniel is occasionally compared to, Finduilas.  Finduilas is mentioned three times in the text after her death, including twice by Túrin himself in direct quotations:

- “Then Turambar who led the men started back and covered his eyes, and trembled; for it seemed that he saw the wraith of a slain maiden that lay on the grave of Finduilas.” (pg. 214, when Túrin first finds Níniel)

- "But even as he spoke, he wondered, and mused in his mind: 'Or can it be that one so evil and fell shuns the Crossings, even as the Orcs? Haudh-en-Elleth! Does Finduilas lie still between me and my doom?’” (pg. 229, when Túrin is preparing to fight Glaurung for the last time),

- “Therefore he arose and went to the Crossings of Teiglin, and as he passed by Haudh-en-Elleth he cried: 'Bitterly have I paid, O Finduilas! that ever I gave heed to the Dragon. Send me now counsel!’” (pg. 253, after he’s killed Brandir and is desperately trying to deny that Níniel was Niënor, his sister)

This is huge. And it’s huge, because Túrin is not in love with Finduilas. This, again, is explicit, and textual, "In truth Finduilas was torn in mind. For she honoured Gwindor and pitied him, and wished not to add one tear to his suffering; but against her will her love for Turin grew day by day, and she thought of Beren and Luthien. But Turin was not like Beren! He did not scorn her, and was glad in her company; yet she knew that he had no love of the kind she wished. His mind and heart were elsewhere, by rivers in springs long past.” (pg 166, ”Túrin in Nargothrond”). So.  Túrin never falls in love with Finduilas, and, in fact, the reason he doesn’t fall in love with her is that his “mind and heart are elsewhere”.  Hmmmm. I wonder where his heart is?

Okay, so then why is it that Túrin repeatedly refers to Finduilas but not to Beleg?  It’s really obvious based on the quotes I’ve given so far that he was in love with Beleg (and for god’s sake, the man doesn’t talk for a YEAR after Beleg’s death), that he was not in love with Finduilas, and that he was (or thought he was, at least) in love with Níniel, enough to ask her to marry him.  So where the hell is Beleg in his thoughts for all this time when he’s falling for Níniel and thinking back to Finduilas?

For the answer to this, we need to consider the dual nature of Níniel’s relationship to Túrin, and what its source is.

Yes, Túrin loves Níniel, as his wife, but we know he also loved his sister Niënor, as a sister, and part of the reason he kills himself is that he can’t handle that he’s driven his sister to her death via incest (albeit accidental incest).  It’s notable that Túrin loves Finduilas as a sister,

“Then Turin spoke freely to [Finduilas] concerning these things, though he did not name the land of his birth, nor any of his kindred; and on a time he said to her: 'I had a sister, Lalaith, or so I named her; and of her you put me in mind. But Lalaith was a child, a yellow flower in the green grass of spring; and had she lived she would now, maybe, have become dimmed with grief. But you are queenly, and as a golden tree; I would I had a sister so fair.’” (pg. 164, “Túrin in Nargothrond”.)

So these references to Finduilas make a narrative kind of sense — in addition to it mostly happening as Túrin is passing her grave, it’s a textual reminder of a hidden truth: Níniel is not just Túrin’s lover, but also his sister.  He even finds her upon the grave of someone he loved as a sister.  But there’s another truth hidden in the text as well, and it’s related to Níniel’s nature as Túrin’s lover.  Because let’s be real, if he found her on the grave of someone he loved very firmly in a non-romantic way, why does he become romantically interested in her?  She’s his sister—obviously he doesn’t know that, but the narrative is saying it very, very clearly.  Well…there’s a confounding factor.

Here’s how Túrin finds Níniel (pg. 214): “Now it chanced that some of the woodmen of Brethil came by in that hour from a foray against Orcs, hastening over the Crossings of Teiglin to a shelter that was near; and there came a great flash of lightning, so that the Haudh-en-Elleth was lit as with a white flame.”

And here is how Túrin discovers that he has killed Beleg (pg. 155): “But as he stood, finding himself free, and ready to sell his life dearly against imagined foes, there came a great flash of lightning above them, and in its light he looked down on Beleg's face.”

The narrative does draw a parallel between Níniel and Beleg, an extremely strong (if subtle) one.  It uses literally the same phrase to set up the scene: “there came a great flash of lightning”.  So there’s a pretty clear answer as to why Túrin might associate Níniel with romantic love—he doesn’t just find her on his as-it-were sister’s grave, he finds her in a way that hearkens strongly back to the last time he ever saw his lover’s face.

So why doesn’t he think of Beleg now?

Why is the thought of his lover—whose loss cut him so deeply he didn’t speak for a year—so far out of his mind at this moment that his name isn’t even mentioned, even when narratively there’s no way he shouldn’t think of him?

Okay, I’ve drawn this out enough, so let’s cut to the chase: Glaurung. Glaurung, who is responsible for the first hidden truth that I mentioned, the more textually explicit one, that Níniel is Niënor, Túrin’s sister.  He bespells Niënor upon Amon Ethir, “Then he drew her eyes into his, and her will swooned. And it seemed to her that the sun sickened and all became dim about her; and slowly a great darkness drew down on her and in that darkness there was emptiness; she knew nothing, and heard nothing, and remembered nothing,” (pg 209, “The Journey of Morwen and Niënor”) causing her to lose her memories and with her memories her name and therefore any way for Túrin to know who she is.  Glaurung earlier bespells Túrin as well, “Without fear Turin looked in those eyes as he raised up his sword; and straightway he fell under the dreadful spell of the dragon, and was as one turned to stone.” (pg. 178, “the Fall of Nargothrond”)  The first, obvious result of Glaurung’s spell (and the only explicit one) is that he leaves Finduilas and rushes off to try and find Morwen and Niënor.  Now, we’re meant to believe that this is all that the spell does, since in “The Return of Túrin to Dor-Lómin”, pg. 166, the text notes, “And suddenly a black wrath shook him; for his eyes were opened, and the spell of Glaurung loosed its last threads, and he knew the lies with which he had been cheated.”

But I don’t think this makes sense.  I think Tolkien is being poetical here and the “last threads” he’s talking about are specifically the lies about Finduilas.  A number of Túrin’s conversations with Níniel point towards the fact that he’s forgotten something really important and that in that regard the dragon’s spell is still intact.  For example, when Túrin tells Níniel what to call him (pgs 217-218, “Niënor in Brethil”):

“Then she paused as if listening for some echo; but she said: 'And what does that say, or is it just the name for you alone?'

“’It means,' said he, 'Master of the Dark Shadow. For I also, Niniel, had my darkness, in which dear things were lost; but now I have overcome it, I deem.’”

“My darkness” is eerily similar to the repeated motif of Níniel’s darkness, which explicitly refers to the spell cast on her by Glaurung.  

“Behind her lay only an empty darkness” (pg 213, “Niënor in Brethil”); “it seem to her that the darkness that lay behind her was overtaking her again” (pg 214, “Niënor in Brethil”); “it seemed to her that she had found at last something that she had sought in the darkness” (pg. 215, “Niënor in Brethil”); and the two most relevant quotations, “And at that name she looked up, and she shook her head, but said: 'Níniel.' And that was the first word that she spoke after her darkness, and it was her name among the woodmen ever after” (pg 216, ”Niënor in Brethil”); and “when at length she had learned enough to speak with her friends she would say: 'What is the name of this thing? For in my darkness I lost it.’” (pg. 217, “Niënor in Brethil”)

So here it is: Túrin has lost “dear things” in “his darkness” (Glaurung’s spell) and he thinks that Níniel is what he has lost, but she isn’t—or she isn’t the only thing that’s missing. Glaurung has ripped out of Túrin’s mind the memory of the only person he’s ever had romantic feelings for—Beleg—and because he’s confused and trying to find something to fill that gap, Níniel gets cast in a dual role—not just sister (with her ties to Finduilas) but also lover (with her subtler ties to poor, missing Beleg).  

This theory also has significant implications for Túrin’s death, since that’s the only time that Beleg is mentioned again, apart from a tangential sidenote.  When Mablung finally confirms to Túrin what he’s already beginning to fear is the truth, that Níniel was his sister Niënor, he runs up to the Cabed-en-Aras, from which Níniel has thrown herself, and he asks his sword to kill him. His sword is Gurthang, which was Anglachel, made by Eöl, the sword that Thingol gave to Beleg and that Túrin used to accidentally kill him, and the response is somewhat unexpected, since up till now we haven’t had any indication that it’s a talking sword,

“‘And from the blade rang a cold voice in answer: 'Yes, I will drink your blood, that I may forget the blood of Beleg my master…I will slay you swiftly.’” (pg. 256, “The Death of Túrin”)

Interestingly, this is after the sword has been reforged, and there’s no particular reason it should refer to Beleg as its master — after all, Túrin has been wielding it for years, and it was made by someone else entirely.  So then, why?  And why does it ask to forget his blood in particular?

Because Túrin has remembered, finally.  Whether the sword is picking up on the mood, whether it’s a narrative device, or whether it isn’t even really talking and it’s just Túrin’s mind playing tricks on him in his last extremis, I don’t know—though I favor the latter interpretation, particularly because Túrin himself is referred to as “the Black Sword” on numerous occasions.  But the important point here is Túrin has remembered, because Glaurung is dead, and his memory spells die with him, “Then Nienor sat as one stunned, but Glaurung died; and with his death the veil of his malice fell from her, and all her memory grew clearer before her, from day unto day, neither did she forget any of those things that had befallen her since she lay on Haudh-en-Elleth.” (pg. 243, “The Death of Glaurung”)

So Túrin knows by now exactly what he’s done—not only inadvertently marrying his sister but betraying the one great romantic love of his life.  The one he has probably just remembered accidentally killing in great detail.  It’s probably quite present in his mind when, rather than throw himself over the waterfall as Níniel did, he flings himself onto the very same sword that killed the only person he was ever in love with, whose name he has finally, finally been able to bring to mind…

In sum, Glaurung erases Beleg’s memory so thoroughly from Túrin’s mind that only tiny, hidden glimpses remain, even in the text.  This is the solution to the mystery of the vanishing Elf; it explains why Beleg vanishes right up until the very end, and it ties together the sense I had when I was reading the second half of something missing, something hidden, something incomplete.  It is, I imagine, the same way Túrin must have felt after he awoke—as he thought, completely—from the spell that Glaurung laid upon him the first time they fought.

[A/N: I also wrote a fic based on this premise: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980519 ]

[haleigh-sloth]

I'm new to manga and while I'm proficient at analysing other forms of literature, I'm finding it difficult to analyse manga, probably because of the artistic component. Do you have any advice on what to focus on when reading manga in order to analyse it well? If this question is too vague, you can disregard it, I am only asking because I find your analyses to be excellent.

Omg 🥺 It’s not vague! It seems like we’re opposites. I’m not well versed in literature, or writing in general, but I am an artist--which is why I love manga. I’ve been reading manga since I was 11 and I’m 24 now (I’m a nerd), so I’ve gotten pretty decent at knowing which panels the mangaka wants us to pay attention to! I’ll give some of the best examples I can think of off the top of my head. 

So obviously you know by now that manga is all black and white. We do get some colored sheets every now and then that also have meaning (I’ll link to that post later), and I love when the authors give us those, but for the most part it’s all black and white. If you’re going to try to grasp the tones and meanings behind certain scenes in manga, the BEST advice I can give you is to pay extra attention to the shading more than anything else. Let me use the best examples I can think of when it comes to shading.

So look at Hawks here. Hawks is a hero, yes? A good guy, right? 

Well...does he look like a good guy here? I’d say no. This use of shading was absolutely deliberate on Horikoshi’s part. I think we can all agree this was a really dark moment for Hawks (no pun intended). He stooped to a level nobody ever wanted him to, a level Hawks himself never wanted to. This scene being drawn this way tells us that we as readers are NOT supposed to approve of Hawks’s actions here. And NOW, because of the way this scene was drawn for us, all we are left to assume is that something bad is coming for Hawks. Basically, the consequences of his actions have not hit him yet. So even though we haven’t seen those consequences yet (it’s really frustrating waiting ngl), we know that we can expect there to be something dark in Hawks’s future. Many other meta bloggers predict his death, him dying heroically in order to make up for killing Twice. And man, that is very much possible, however I’m still waiting to see what more develops in Hawks’s arc before I make that prediction. Hori hasn’t given me any reason to believe that he’d actually kill off an important hero for the sake of the writing...yet. 

Another example, and probably my favorite panel of Shigaraki so far because it’s gorgeously drawn (and sad as hell):

This panel is supposed to make you feel his despair. He’s surrounded by a black, static background, his figure is drawn with an insane amount of detail. You can tell just by looking at it that Horikoshi put a significant amount of effort into this one panel compared the ones that came right before it:

This is same scene, same chapter as the panel above, but the background and shading is totally different. I’m only showing this panel here to point out how important the panel above it is in comparison. One is a panel that is simply moving the chapter forward, the other is meant to stop you for a moment and make you react to it. Horikoshi made sympathetic villains, and that panel of Shigaraki practically begging people to understand was meant to evoke that sympathy from the readers to prepare them for his redemption. 

There are probably a million examples from BNHA I could use to show you the importance of shading but I’m going to move over to one of my all time favorites: FMA

So this lovely fellow below, Roy Mustang, is a protagonist in Fullmetal Alchemist. Fullmetal Alchemist is a series with similar values to BNHA. It acknowledges the value of the human life. It acknowledges that once someone is dead, you can’t bring them back. It acknowledges that murder is wrong, no matter the reason.

Also, similar to how BNHA punishes the villains for their quest for revenge over and over again, FMA also portrays to readers the dangers of following the paths of revenge. There are two characters in FMA that show us that danger, one of which is Roy.

 This is a big moment for Roy because he just discovered the person responsible for his best friend’s death. And now he’s out for blood. But this panel above tells you that this is a BAD IDEA. Shrouding him in darkness, not showing his entire face, hiding him in the shadows--it tells you that he’s on a dark path now. 

Look here, this is kind of similar to how Hawks was portrayed above. Roy is standing over someone who he clearly has power over, someone he is about to kill out of revenge. Envy is a major antagonist in FMA right until his death, but simply because of the way Roy is drawn here, devoid of human emotion because again, you can’t see his face, Envy is almost sympathetic when he finally does die. (BTW, he does not die at Roy’s hand). Roy is a protagonist in this series, but here he’s drawn looking incredibly evil and scary--for a reason. You’re not supposed to approve of his actions. Roy set out for revenge and his narrative consequences came not too long after this chapter. So basically, just like with any other story: 

character does something we know is supposed to be bad-----> something bad happens to character as a result

I’ll give one more example from a story that is not similar to BNHA or FMA in the slightest, but still uses that dark shroud in the same manner.

Say hi to Shigure from Fruits Basket. Shigure is kind of...an anti hero? He’s a real asshole. Now Fruits Basket is shojo and the stakes aren’t near as high or dramatic as BNHA so the tone is a bit different. But even with one panel here of this guy’s face, you get that dark, cynical vibe from him. And well, he is dark and cynical. If you read the story from the beginning up until here you can tell that he’s a shady dude (no pun intended again I’m so sorry), and low and behold he is one of the more questionable characters in this series. But this one darkly shaded panel is the introduction to that dark side of him as a character.

Basically in manga shading is tell all for how you’re supposed to interpret a situation. But aside from shading, the SIZE of the panels are also important. Those Hawks panels above took up entire pages. That Shigaraki panel took up an entire page. Those panels of Roy took up an entire page. Obviously the author wants you to pay attention to the story those panels are trying to tell. The words of the characters matter too, but sometimes you have characters whose words you can’t take at face value (*cough cough* Dabi *cough*) so you sometimes have to go off of the artwork alone. 

Aside from the manga itself, mangakas also release colored prints along with their series. A lot of times these prints don’t have much to do with the events within the story, but sometimes they do. And I talked here about how Horikoshi really correlated all of his art of Shigaraki with the current place in his arc, and about how now that Shigaraki’s redemption is underway, he’s drawing Shigaraki in such a way that shows him growing closer to his hero counterpart who is currently on his way to save him, and also just portraying him in a less villainous manner than before. This isn’t always the case though. But Horikoshi did it and when that last color spread came out I got so excited I kind of just rambled with excitement lol. 

SO I know it wasn’t much to go on but I really hope this helps you a bit more and what you were looking for! Shading is the most important since it’s all black and white, and then panel size is important too. 

I hope you read more manga and join us in this hell! Lol 

[mittensmorgul]

Still in s2, in this case 2.15, Tall Tales. Is it hilarious or mortifying that this ep now feels like The Beginning of the meta nonsense with Chuck?

I need to start by saying that it was unlikely that the writers were actually planning to make the Trickster secretly the archangel Gabriel from the start. I assume that notion only came to them much later, after the concept of angels was introduced in s4 (meaning even Mystery Spot was still just written as an incredibly powerful but non-angelic trickster). But of course we would eventually learn the truth, and a blueprint for so much of the Chuck Nonsense can therefore be tied directly back to Gabriel’s MO from the start.

For those unfamiliar with my theory that the four archangels are little more than facets of Chuck’s own self, I explain a bit in this post right here but I unfortunately can’t find the original post I mentioned offhandedly in that post that went into more detail about the theory... it’s not rocket science though and hopefully the quick explanation will suffice for the purposes of this post. :’D

(I swear, someday tumblr will have an actually functional search and we will rejoice, but for today, I’ve already spent an hour going through all my angel tags looking for that post and coming up empty... *sigh*)

(I lied, I spent more time diving, and found this re: Changing Channels and it touches on at least Gabriel’s obvious parallel to Chuck-As-Author, as well as the insistence that the only way to defeat the author is to “play the game” the author has laid out for them, which is RIDICULOUS because as we learn in s15, the only way to win is to force the author to play a different game-- which is where free will is supposed to come into play, which falls apart if we consider the series finale to actually be canon as it stands, which I personally cannot...)

Suffice it to say that I have always viewed the four archangels-- with our knowledge that they are “the stuff of pure creation” and among Chuck’s original creations before he branched out and also before natural evolution began running rampant and creating things he could never even have dreamt of, such as humanity and music and love-- as four different faces of Chuck himself. They’re archetypes, basically, of different aspects of the cosmic force that drives creation, and we’ve seen Chuck display aspects of each of them as the narrative progressed. Though of the four, Gabriel is the most Chuck-like. And the parallel is SOLID between 2.15 and 4.18, knowing what we know about both of them from later canon.

Okay back to the point now...

Think of Gabriel’s role in this episode as it compares to Chuck’s entire place in the story going back to where we first met him in 4.18.

Chuck created a story to entertain himself and lure in Sam and Dean, just as Gabriel did in 2.15. It might not seem an obvious motive for The Trickster in that episode, but knowing that he will later be revealed to be Gabriel, who had been keeping an eye on Sam and Dean and knowing their “destiny” from the start, it’s WILD that he just wanted to sort of peek in on them and play with them a bit, test their mettle, much like Chuck in 4.18.

Gabriel pulled his stories right from the pages of the Weekly World News and wrote Sam and Dean into those wacky tales, while Chuck pulled his from the Winchesters’ lives. They both manipulated reality to their convenience, for the sake of the story, and to push Sam and Dean toward making choices. They haven’t overwritten their free will, but both laid out the “hamster wheel,” or the rat maze where their choices were narrowed down to the ones necessitated by the respective “storytellers” in each case.

Like Chuck pulling magical weapons and plot twists out of thin air in late canon, and taking the credit for pretty much every A-Plot in the entire series, Gabriel does the same on a much smaller scale, manipulating the scenarios the Winchesters find themselves in.

Like Chuck masquerading as a schlub in a bathrobe, Gabriel masqueraded as a maintenance man in schlubby coveralls. They could’ve chosen any role for themselves within their own stories, but they chose these guys. Innocuous, harmless, disarming. But within those disguises they both hinted at what they really were, halfway hoping for Sam and Dean to see through the act. Gabriel played up all the “trickster clues” like the candy wrappers, while Chuck literally said at one point “I’m a cruel, capricious god!” to which Sam and Dean informed him he was definitely not god. So...

Gabriel was outed as the trickster by the end of the episode, as Chuck was outed as nothing more than a Prophet, a “mouthpiece” for the divine word without any real control over the situation.

Sam and Dean-- in both 2.15 and 4.18-- walked away feeling as if they’d earned a win. The Trickster was defeated, killed and supposedly gone forever, no longer able to mess with their lives. Chuck’s “prophecies” were shown to have “loopholes” they could exploit to find a way to avoid the worst of the prophecies coming to pass, in hopes there was a way to avoid starting the apocalypse. But in both cases, we’re shown the win wasn’t actually real, and just a manipulation of the larger narrative. Both “wins” are really just tests of the theory that the Winchesters can be manipulated.

The Trickster wasn’t actually killed, it was merely another trick. Gabriel lived to trick them another day, and Sam and Dean were none the wiser.

Chuck’s prophecy wasn’t really anything more than a test, to see how Sam and Dean would react to knowing the full truth about their Destiny-- which they were  about to learn by the end of s4 when Sam unwittingly released Lucifer by doing the ONE THING he believed would prevent the apocalypse. All of s4 had been a long con, leading up to Chuck’s real story starting, and their true destiny coming to light.

No wonder Chuck was pissed with these guys. He couldn’t ever really get them to comply with the story he wanted to tell about them, until after his power to influence their lives was gone (if you believe the finale actually happened just as it appeared on the tin...). If that’s even what actually happened, and it wasn’t just another trick.

(eta: OMG i found a post that links to a bunch of those other posts... thanks popup auto tag that appeared when I typed gabriel in the tag box...

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/185545238900/309-malleus-maleficarum-the-one-where-we

also click the gabriel as mirror of chuck tag for more... this has been going on forever apparently) :’D

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 266: Sad Naruto Flute Music

Previously on BnHA: Tamaki ate a horse; Dark Shadow punched Re-Destro through a wall; Gigantomachia didn’t want to wake up from his nap; Tokoyami climbed inside of Fatgum’s stomach like a little emo joey and mused about Hawks; Hawks was all “am I evil or no? history shall decide!” and sort of kind of maybe tried to kill Twice; and then Dabi showed up and set the two of them on fire before you could say “stop, drop, and roll.” All of this was a real chapter that really happened. Anyway but then Hawks saved Twice by pulling him out of the fire, which I totally didn’t notice during my first readthrough last week, so that’s nice. But then Dabi stepped on Hawks’s face and used his quirk again. So that was not so nice. We’re really having ourselves an arc, here.

Today on BnHA: Well you know the old saying. Save a man from burning and you feed him for a day, stab him while he’s running away and you feed him for life. Oh, the chapter? Right. Well Hawks is perfectly fine aside from getting a sexy scar for his troubles, which I’ll have you know I did predict. Twice however is not so fine, which, fun fact, I did not predict. If you’re just joining us. Yeah. I boofed it. Anyway so Hawks escapes Dabi using the power of mysterious main character logic, and then he stabs Twice, and Twice dies, very slowly and sadly and in Toga’s arms. That’s it that’s the chapter. You’ll love it. It’s full of feels. And death. Lol I’m in a mood right now I’m sorry guys. I’m gonna go write some healing Bakugou essays.

so as mentioned on the “previously” section above, Hawks saved Twice’s life! meanwhile Dabi apparently arrived in time to listen to Hawks’s “here I go... time to kill you... really gonna do it... here it comes...” speech for at least several seconds before he finally decided to make his grand entrance, as evidenced by him quoting Hawks’s “sentiment” line right back in his face before setting him on fire. so basically Hawks is still okay and villains gonna villain. this is my conclusion and 4 out of 5 dentists approve but you can form your own judgements as well and that’s fine!

(ETA: this is all your fault fifth dentist.)

anyway so before we begin, full disclosure, I was warned this chapter would make me cry. so that ominous pronouncement is gonna be weighing on my mind while we embark upon our weekly manga journey today, but alas such is life! at least life in March 2020. did we really expect any good news at this point. I want a refund on this whole year but apparently I should get in line

so here we go. someone is narrating and it’s not quite clear who

but the “you’ve just been unlucky” part is a reference to what Hawks was telling Twice in chapter 264, so unless Dabi was listening in on that part too, I would think this would have to be Twice? even though Dabi’s the one whose face is so prominent here, all handsome and crazy

omg Hawks is holding on to his feather and using his tk to blast away while holding Twice

what a fucking thing to do. is the fucking feather still on fire. and somehow he hasn’t instinctively let go of it?? THIS BOY I SWEAR TO GOD

and so he’s definitely going to have a scar there now it looks like! pretty sure this makes him an honorary Todoroki. aww

and also Twice seems to possibly be unconscious, so I guess that was Dabi’s narration?? you mean to tell me Dabi was basically sitting outside for like a full five minutes. were you fixing your hair. getting ready to livestream?? “hey there villain nation it’s me ya boi, so I’m here in the Hilton Gunga Heights and omg like a shitton of heroes have attacked us out of fucking nowhere, and now the number two hero is getting ready to fucking murder my bro Twice, and he hasn’t even noticed I’m here yet. shit is totally crazy, anyways before we go on just a reminder to click on the link below to check out our official league merch, and if you haven’t already, click on the button to like and subscribe, it really helps us out.” and then boom, just in time to save Twice from Mr. To Stab or Not to Stab

(ETA: now that we know it’s actually Twice what am I gonna do with all these Dabi social media jokes. huh?! Horikoshi you ruined everything!!)

oh this chapter is apparently called “Happy Life.” that’s fun I’m sure we’re going to have a really fun time here

(ETA: so fun the funnest.)

Dabi doesn’t really seem fazed though

yeah he’s fucked we know don’t have to rub it in ffff

(ETA: Dabi. we underestimated him, Dabi.)

so Hawks is all “you nearly murdered your bro just fyi” and Dabi is all “smirk it’s fine cuz I knew you were going to save him cuz ~that’s ~what ~heroes ~do” wow you guys. I just realized that between Dabi and Hawks, this has the potential to be the single snarkiest fight we’ve ever had in this manga. my hype for this chapter just went up 10x

also even though I just summarized these last few panels I’m also going to post them so we can all shamelessly admire hot wounded Hawks

hot damn. you were right, AFO. wounded heroes are the sexiest. I may be paraphrasing a bit

also two things, (1) looks like he called some of his feathers back (so then WHERE WERE THEY??), but it’s not much. and (2) he was wearing gloves this whole time that’s right I forgot. so maybe his hands are okay?? the hell are those made of, damn

oh my freaking lord

this is one attractive chapter I’ll give it that. also raise your hand if you’re surprised that Dabi never actually trusted Hawks. yeah that’s what I thought

well shit looks like we’re finally getting some Hawks thoughts! unsurprisingly, they are all “I’m fucked”

please note that while talking!Hawks is continuing to be all sassy, thinking!Hawks is busy tallying up Jin’s injuries. this is a good sign, maybe. I hope. lol

anyway but speaking of Jin, what is going on

oh lol he’s making a break for it

this is so bad you guys. this is so so bad. if Twice lives that’s all well and good, but if he escapes, Hawks is 100% right about how dangerous he is. they could literally capture 90% of PLF in this raid and it would hardly even matter. also in the meantime the #2 hero is about to be roasted alive so that’s also not great for the hero side all things considered

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh no. I don’t like this. no no no

why did we suddenly cut to outside and someone’s screaming (?) echoing from offscreen. I’m trying to think of not-terrible explanations for this and coming up short. uh

now we’re back to Hawks/Twice/Dabi, only I don’t see Hawks yet. but Twice is just barely dodging the flame blast, and meanwhile Dabi is all

is he talking to Twice?

yep he’s talking to Twice

that’s fine. that’s all I need. for Twice to “go wild” while my nine-year-old son is outside with his batteries all fried and innocently waiting for someone to lead him back to where his other child soldier friends are waiting for him. like. say what you will about Hawks and betrayal, but there was a fucking reason he was trying to take Twice out first

hmm but we’re getting this slow-motion panel now and FUCK ME I SWEAR TO GOD IF A FEATHER PIERCES HIS HEART OUT OF NOWHERE I’M GONNA LOSE IT

WAIT WHAT

EXCUSE ME BUT

? ??????????

well you sure have been made to look the fool now, Dabi. thought you’d won just because you had Hawks cornered in a narrow room and you set him on fire while standing in between him and the only exit. rookie fucking mistake. you scrub. you clod. you halfwit. how could you let this happen. wow I can’t believe Dabi let Hawks escape unscathed except for a sexy scar and that’s the end of the chapter

LMAO

oh my god. well good news everyone this chapter did indeed make me cry

(ETA: listen. I’m going to hell, I know. but it’s still funny as fuck.)

“he went outside with the blast... and flanked me?!” ...sure. sure let’s just go with that. seems reasonable

actually no, sorry, I literally went back two chapters to see if there was another way out of this room, and nope

by the way that last panel is apparently from Dabi’s POV if I’m understanding this right. just standing behind Hawks waiting for youtube live to connect

but anyway. so no exit. meaning Dabi apparently torched a hole right through the wall and Hawks just sat there and was all “okay this hurts like a mother but if I wait it out a few more seconds I think I can... there we go!” you know, logic

so now there is a ton of action happening which I can’t quite understand, but also Dabi is shouting Hawks’s real name for some reason

why do I feel like this is definitely the last page before somebody definitely fucking dies. shit. shit

oh thank god so far so good. and also, lol

BECAUSE HE READ THE DATABOOK, HAWKS. that’s probably how he figured out you were a spy too. we’ve been had

oh snap?!

don’t do this to me Horikoshi. don’t give me hope. don’t act like you’re gonna actually address this topic sometime before the heat death of the universe

AND HE’S OUT

MY BABY OFF TO DESTROY PEOPLE. ;_; shitttt hahaha nervous laughter Ralph Wiggum sitting on the bus etc.

GODDAMN IT HORIKOSHI

I don’t want Twice to kill anyone but it doesn’t mean I want him to die either! just!! can’t I have it both ways?? please stop with this I can’t take it also what is Spinner doing. and also YAY GIRAN SIGHTING hot damn the sex appeal of this chapter is fast approaching critical levels

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT FUCK

fuck me. [eyes post from last week] the real announcer jinx was the metas we made along the way

well we’re cutting away again!! because of course we are!! Horikoshi won’t show violence unless it’s a dog exploding or a little boy accidentally murdering his entire family

[taps megaphone] this thing on. all right then. [clears throat] NO ONE WANTS THIS

FOR FUCK’S SAKE

“I KNOW YOU’RE ALL DYING TO SEE WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN, SO HERE, LET’S CUT TO A RANDOM PAGE OF TOGA AND COMPRESS BEING CAPTURED BY A MAN WITH HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPO ARMS”

oh damn but are they really captured though??

forgive me for being skeptical. not to doubt you, Hungry Hungry Hippo Man. I’m sure you’re absolutely right and your sentence cut off at the end there because you remembered that they changed their name to Pliff, and not because you’re being stabbed or burned or impaled or whatever the fuck

!!!

HE LIVED BITCH

yes he totally lived and this definitely isn’t so that he can get one final scene with Toga before he suddenly keels over and dies. shit. at this point it’s fucking inevitable. you had to go and drag his girlfriend into this. I’m so sad you guys I can’t even deal with these emotions I’m just gonna stubbornly joke about stupid shit until I figure out what the fuck else to do

OH MY GOD!!!!???

HE DIED BITCH!?!??

he’s already dead he’s already fucking dead fucking shit

ohhhhhh it’s pouring down sads now

my bird son really went and fucking killed the sweetest little dumpling in the manga. I wrote like 5 thousands essays defending you, Hawks. we gonna have to get you a damn good lawyer now

why is sad flute music from the Naruto OST playing

he’s not gonna need it where he’s going Toga. because they already have plenty of handkerchiefs on the farm. and lots of room for him to run around and play with other villains too

lmao fuck

I really did this to myself, why did I actually start playing Sadness and Sorrow fuck my life. real actual tears

and it SEEMS TO ME, YOU LIVED YOUR LIFE, LIKE A CANDLE IN THE WIND~~~

[sad makeste noises]

AND I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO KNOW YOU

BUT I WAS JUST A KID~~

...

your candle burned out long before

your legend ever did.

[mellow keyboard tones]

welp. ... 2020 ladies and gentlemen

[linkspooky]

Icarus: The Fall of Hawks

The system also tells him to ignore people he can save if he thinks it will be more beneficial in the long run. But Ultimately, Hawks continues to put his trust in the people that are using him, because he sees no escape and no alternative.

The icarus symbolism surrounding Hawks character is already a common fandom theory, but I decided to give a comprehensive take. The closest thing I could find to an original post on this theory was: this one. 

The winged hero Hawks draws many mythological allusions to the boy Icarus most famous for flying too close to the son causing his wax wings to fall apart. 

Son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman's genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea.

The story is inextricably linked to Hawks’ character, foreshadowing that his two flaws, his admiration of Endeavor (the sun) and his habit of flying too fast will cause him to fall into villainry.

1. Hawks: Set Up by the Hero Commission to take the Fall

Foreshadowing occurs in a literary text when the author gives clues and hints about what is to come in the story. That in itself is pretty well known, but there’s more to it than just giving hints. It has a lot to do with the way stories are structured. Basically, stories are all composed of set up and pay off. 

Foreshadowing is not just for cheeky hints or setting up which characters might die, it’s a sign that the author as a whole has the story planned out. The reason that scenes in stories get an emotional reaction out of us as readers, is because authors set up these characters as somethnig for us to get invested in, build up those emotions, and then eventually pay them off on the expectations we have built up. 

Which is why when reading stories a general good strategy is analyzing What does the author want me to think? What are they trying to lead me to? Ideas are introduced, developed and get paid off more and more as the story progresses. A good story will continue building up these ideas with the intention of leading them somewhere, which makes them purposeful. This goes hand in hand with the concept of chekhov’s gun, that is every idea that the story spends time on will eventually become meaningful in some way.

'Chekhov's Gun' is a concept that describes how every element of a story should contribute to the whole. It comes from Anton Chekhov's famous book writing advice: 'If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.

To wit: The reason why all this icarus symbolism is surrounding Hawks is not just because he’s a cool flashy character that’s popular, he’s actually one of the most important characters in the story right now tied to the flaws and exploitations of the hero system that Horikoshi has been setting up since chapter one in the manga with this line. People are not born equal, that’s the hard truth I learned at age four. 

Here’s a quick example of developing ideas in the story especially tied to Hawks. The first time we here Destro is when Gentle explains about him as one of the legendary villains he aspires to be like, the arc before Hawks is introduced as a character.

The next arc after the school festvial arc, Destro’s book is shown as inspiring one person the same way it did Gentle while hawks is talking with Endeavor. 

After the class A vs B arc, in the My Villain Academia arc not only do we learn that Destro has a son and followers that are still alive, but at the end of the arc Hawks is shown interacting with the liberation followers. Ideas are introduced, developed to give them more depth, and most importantly they always show up linked to Hawks. 

Why does Hawks always up in association with Destro? Esepcially when hawks is not a quirk supremacist like the rest of the MLA. It’s because as a character, Hawks’ deepest desire is liberation, and yet it’s also the thing that he’s furthest from. The character with wings who can freely fly in the sky, is chained down with the most responsibility. 

There are two important pieces of foreshadowing in Hawks’ introduction chapter. First that he shows a dissatisfaction with the current hero system around him, and a tendency to see through others especially when they are putting on airs.

The second is this shot in particular, the spotlight in the background like a sun in the center of the sky with Hawks ascending towards it and losing feathers the same way Icarus would.

The other most important detail from this chapter is how Hawks is described. Not only did he make the top ten in his teens which makes him a young man like Icarus in the story, there’s also the oft repeated phrase with hawks - He goes too fast. Going too fast, flying too high, too quickly, these are all things that come come before Icarus’ fall. Special attention is drawn to how young he became a hero which we will get to later.

In chapter 186 there is a piece of foreshadowing used mainly as a joke, that also ties in with the idea of liberation with Hawks character mentioned earlier. This is a point taken from the meta linked at earlier, but considering what we now know about Hawks’ character that he is a kid raised by the hero system who has to kowtow to the higher ups this internal dialogue could easily resemble Hawks.

They key difference being Hawks never lets himself admit to having these feelings, or acts on them. He is much more concerned with keeping up his carefree facade. 

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve lived my life as a bootlicker. It’s been suffocating.

While the scene itself is a joke, the connection to Destro’s book and the idea of liberation are both themes that connect strongly to Hawks. Another connection is a similiar scene that took place in Vigilantes which directly references Icarus in the same context, a man getting naked as a part of his quirk. Vigilantes is the canon prequel of My Hero Academia and has several plotlines important to the main story, even Aizawa’s canon backstory so this is highly relevant.

Once again this is set up as a gag but my flight is a forbidden one is an idea that could easily relate to Hawks. After all, Hawks has wings and yet cannot use them for himself, and cannot take flight on his own because he is under the thumb of the Hero Commission.

The way Hawks’ powers work is also important. He has feathers that give him wings that can fly, and yet because he is able to autonomously move his individual feathers we see him often giving up his feathers for other people and multitasking for several people at once. Quirks are often a metaphor for their users, Hawks has wings to fly, but his feathers don’t belong to him, the more he gives up for other people the more he loses his wings.

When Hawks uses all of his feathers he is unable to fly anymore and starts to fall, the same way the wax melted and the feathers flew apart the only thing Icarus could do was plummet.

Hawks feathers also become useless to his when they burn up. This, and the cover page featuring Endeavor burning his wings up not only sets up an eventual conflict with Endeavor, but one that Hawks’ quirk will most likely be weak to the flames.

The scene with Dabi.  Hawks is introduced to us with the light backlighting him as he ascends towards it. Now, in the conclusion of this arc, the light in the background of the scene is where Dabi moves towards while Hawks himself covered in shadow walks away from light and descends into the dark foreground.

There are also two more joking points of foreshadowing in this chapter, both setting up an eventual confrontation with Hawks and Endeavor. The first is Endeavor noticing the suspicious timing, and the second is Endeavor threatening to roast him which he has threatened at several times already. Even if it’s a joke it’s a serious threat, Endeavor has been characterized as someone incapable of handling his emotions and lashing out in violence several times in the past.

Not only is Hawks set up to fall however, the hero commission sets him up to fall as well. A one man investigation into the League of Villains as a double agent. The hero commission outlines it for him, he will receive no back up, and nothing in return for his service. There is already a team set up by the commission to fight the league of vision, but they came to Hawks specifically for this reason. He works alone. He cannot say no to them. They knew before asking him he was already going to say yes.

It’s a situation where the Hero’s commission has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Hawks will either fall or fly completely on his own. If the villains kill him, they lose a hero but that’s it. If Hawks messes up his mission and gets caught, the commission can pretend that he really did turn traitor and abandon him. Hawks is completely expendable to them, and yet any information he can grasp is valuable. At the same time, Hawks has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Being a hero is Hawks entire life. He literally has no name outside of his hero name. As stated above he could easily be abandoned by the hero commission if the mission fails, and yet at the same time the only thing Hawks gets out of this is the idea that some people will be saved by his actions. Even though he is specifically instructed not to do anything to save people in front of him if it would jeapordize the mission.

While yes, Heroes working to save people and sacrificing themselves for the sake of others is a good thing, hawks always sacrifices himself all the time. Being a hero not only consumed his whole childhood, but also his life. This is not Hawks volunteering to do it on his own, this is him being given a mission he cannot refuse and going along with it.

The hero commission sets Hawks up to fall in their place. Hawks gives up his wings for them, and because of that he falls instead of flying. 

2. Flaw: His Trust in Endeavor and the System as a Whole

Hawks is a child that was taken in by the hero commission and abused by them. Hence the reason why he was such a young rising star is because he had no childhood to speak of. The only way his family could be uplifted out of poverty was if he followed the track they provided for him. He is treated like a prodigy, but really he spent all of his time as a hero, and was given no other option but to become a hero.

Which is why Hawks admiration of Endeavor is ironic, considering that Endeavor attempted to do the same thing to his own son. Not raise his son with love and care, but rather breed him, train him since he was a child, and raise him not as his own person but as a hero to be used for his father’s ambitions. Hawks,  Shouto, both of them were reduced to the powerful quirks they had and not treated as people. Which reflects the point that the Meta Liberation Army could have had if they were not quirk supremacists, that quirk society being dominated by strong, flashy quirks, and judging people by those quirks ends up limiting the path ways people can take in life.

This contradiction makes sense when you take into account Hawks’ upbringing. Hawks has a complex reaction to his abuse. He genuinely does want to save other people as he works himself to the bone doing it, and yet he’s also aware the hero system is using him. Part of Hawks resents the hero system, and yet Hawks is also a product of that system who still reflects the ideas he was raised on whether he wanted to or not.

This is why Hawks comes off as being such a two-faced person. He’s in a lot of major ways, in denial about his own place in life. He acts casual and friendly, and yet he’s more burdened and more isolated than anyone else. He deflects almost everything other people throw his way with humor, isolating himself even further. He also contradicts himself quite a lot, he calls out Endeavor onstage and then in the next scene he says he was doing that for Endeavor’s sake. Both are probably true, Hawks resents the hero system, but he also has to have the appearance of a friendly, willing to help others hero, because that’s the only way he’s survived so far. He likes to keep himself aloof and unattached to others because that is literally the only freedom he can grasp yet.

When Hawks says he never was a big fan of All Might, it’s most likely because Hawks sees himself in All Might. The idea of someone who as a hero is forced to save absolutely everyone and have the entire peace of the country resting on only their shoulders, only to be used until they break down is a nightmare to Hawks.

Not only does Hawks not want to be shouldered with the responsibility, not because he’s lazy, but because he knows how exploitative it is but he also does not see himself of ever being able to carry that much. The hero system that Hawks was raised on made him believe that a brute firepower quirk like Endeavor’s that is good for defeating villains is what will put people most at ease, not the constant saving of others, or interactions with people, or the creative use of his quirk that Hawks employed.

Not only is Hawks whole life defined by his quirk, but he is also taught that his quirk is not good enough. The only person who will put other people at ease, is a quirk like All Might’s. Only an extremely powerful quirk that’s suited best for fighting villains. 

Hawks even says he does not want to take up the role of All Might, and it’s in part due to his feelings of ineriority, but also his want to escape his life and find some small freedom. Which is when Endeavor, the embodiment of the toxicity of hero society says that he hates guys like Hawks the most. Even though Hawks’ intentions here are pretty clear, instead of trying to step down and let Endeavor take the spotlight and support him from the shadows. Endeavor represents the individualism of hero society, but Hawks is trying to play support. He was raised by hero society, but also Hero Society actively condemns the kind of person that Hawks is.

Once again we see the contradictions in Hawks behavior. He is one of the most selfless heroes in the series as he continually lets himself be used, and yet Hawks pretends that he’s a coward who does not put himself on the line, or fight directly risking his own life.

It’s not just putting on an act, Hawks is also taught to believe that if he stays back adn plays support, if he does not defeat the villain head on with a violent quirk that he is weaker.

Which is why despite representing the exact kind of opposite hero that Endeavor is, he turns out to be a fan of Endeavor. This is because Endeavor is everything Hawks was taught that he was should be, but not. Endeavor fights for number one, he has a powerful quirk, he has the highest villain defeat record. All the things which Endeavor values are the things the hero system values, whereas Hawks believes he’s selfish for wanting a little personal autonomy for himself.

Endeavor is able to be strong in a way that Hawks never will be, because Hawks is not nearly as selfish as Endeavor is. Of course he does not see the victims of Endeavor’s actions quite yet, so he would mistake that for Endeavor able to make his willpower a reality in a way that Hawks cannot and gave up trying to do. 

It’s not just putting on an act, Hawks is also taught to believe that if he stays back adn plays support, if he does not defeat the villain head on with a violent quirk that he is weaker.

Which is why despite representing the exact kind of opposite hero that Endeavor is, he turns out to be a fan of Endeavor. This is because Endeavor is everything Hawks was taught that he was should be, but not. Endeavor fights for number one, he has a powerful quirk, he has the highest villain defeat record. All the things which Endeavor values are the things the hero system values, whereas Hawks believes he’s selfish for wanting a little personal autonomy for himself.

It’s not just putting on an act, Hawks is also taught to believe that if he stays back adn plays support, if he does not defeat the villain head on with a violent quirk that he is weaker.

Which is why despite representing the exact kind of opposite hero that Endeavor is, he turns out to be a fan of Endeavor. This is because Endeavor is everything Hawks was taught that he was should be, but not. Endeavor fights for number one, he has a powerful quirk, he has the highest villain defeat record. All the things which Endeavor values are the things the hero system values, whereas Hawks believes he’s selfish for wanting a little personal autonomy for himself.

Hawks is a victim of the hero system, and even is able to see its flaws, but due to his own taught inferiority, and how much he lets himself be used for the sake of helping others he cannot see himself as a victim or change it from the inside in any meaningful way.

Not only that but he fails to see the important flaws in someone like Endeavor, and isntead chooses to still believe that the hero system is ultimately in the right because they are on the side of saving people. Icarus is a tale of self destruction. Hawks is selfless to a self destructive extent. He keeps letting himself be used by people who see him as nothing more than an asset to them, because he believes it to be for the greater good. However, the current system always utilizes people like Hawks, vulnerable, expendable, Hawks is always the one who has to sacrifice his own personal freedom even though he has given his entire life to the system.

The system also is not as interested in saving people as it is in numbers, look how it talks about giving their all to rescue a kidnapped boy as some kind of failure of priorities. As if it was wrong to immediately try to help a child.

The system also tells him to ignore people he can save if he thinks it will be more beneficial in the long run. But Ultimately, Hawks continues to put his trust in the people that are using him, because he sees no escape and no alternative. 

3. Flaw: The Man Who Flies too Fast Alone

Hawks always contradicts himself, despite the fact that he’s obviously much better as a support and rescue type hero, Hawks always fights alone. His biggest flaw is how much he always takes on himself, the fact that he flies too fast.

Hawks is aware of the fact that he is used by the system. There are several signs that Hawks is actually a manipulative person. Not in the sense that he is a bad person who tries to use others, but rather he developed the ability to manuever and manipulate other people as a way to cope and find what little freedom an security he could. His personality is a big indicator because Hawks almost never shows his true face and is almost always deflecting. He makes it hard for others to get a read on him by being such a two-faced person, which grants them less control over him and him a little bit more freedom.

At the same time Hawks is shown repeatedly to have information then others expect him to have. Endeavor gets surprised when he mentions Shoto, and the Hero’s commisison gets surprised when he is already aware of the team investigating Kurogiri and yet he never reveals his source on either occasion.

Instead once again he falls back on his common strategy of deflection to stop them from pressing on the issue. Hawks is someone who wants to rely on others more because he feels powerless on his own. Yet, at the same time Hawks has been taken advantage of so many times it’s impossible for him to trust others. Not only that, but Hawks has also been taught that he should be strong enough to do everything on his own, that is the individualism hero society promotes.

This is also how Hawks had to be in his early life. The only reason his family got money was because he was of use to the hero commission. He always had to be at the top of his class, always had to be useful, always had to finish on his own. Hawks always does things on its own because it’s a learned habit, he’s never had anybody else to rely on. Not only that but his way of living has always been unstable he might have been dropped back into poverty if he did not continually rise to meet the expectations of others.

Which is where we are presented with yet another contradiction of Hawks character, he is always working all by himself, but he only ever works for the sake of others. His only selfish desire is some time off for goodness sake. He is blessed with tremendous talent but has never been able to use it for himself, because since childhood he has been put to work for the sake of other people.

Hawks also says that he took Tokoyami on as an intern because he wanted information, which once again Hawks is constantly shown to be privvy to information he does not know and trying to collect more. This is because Hawks does not trust, because he cannot trust. He will be used by the other people around him. That is why he tries to seize as much information for himself as possible. Hawks being manipulative is just him trying to control what little he can, because if he does not do that then he ends up being the one who is controlled. The more knowledge he has, the more power he has.

People who feel helpless as a child due to circumstances entirely out of control will try to grasp for control in any way they can. That is why easygoing Hawks always does things on his own, because not having to rely on other people gives him more control. He can control himself, but not others. Easygoing Hawks is a bit of a control freak.

This scene becomes interesting if analyzed from that level. Hawks says he has no interest in training the next generation, it makes sense somebody who was raised from childhood as a hero and nothing else would probably have no interest in raising other children as heroes. His last line becomes much darker as well.

Those who can fly, should! Why keep yourself grounded?

Hawks is someone who keeps himself grounded all the time, always giving up his own freedom for others, and yet we see freedom is the thing he yearns for the most. He is intoxicated with the idea of freedom, the same way Icarus became intoxicated once he gained his wings and looked at the sun.

In his phonecall with Dabi we get a lot on Hawks’ internal monologue. First he admits to the fact that he plays happy-go-lucky idiot and lets people assume that they can use him, in order to control their perceptions of him. His way of manipulating others has always been to try to let them use him, instead of trying to make use of them because that is what Hawks has been taught. His value is that he is useful. He tries to navigate the system from the inside rather than breaking out. He keeps letting himself be used.

However, once again Hawks words to Dabi do not sound entirely like lies, or they could even be lies to himself. Being on this side of the equation helped me realize that we’d be better off without heroes and heroics. How much of that is a lie when Hawks was exploited into becoming a hero, when his deepest wish is to be allowed to be something else other than a hero for a little while?

It’s easy to see how Hawks got to the point where he seriously could consider Killing Best Jeanist. The people who are injured or taking time off are not useful to the system, they need to be sarcificed for the greater good. He was told by the same system to let people die if it would save more people in the long run, that he cannot be the hero he wants to be. That he has to dirty his own hands for the sake of everyone else. Hawks is constantly going against his own wishes to do what is right for other people. 

Hawks says not to let a person’s resolve go to waste, because he believes that all of his determination, that all of his flying too fast is going to lead him somewhere. His determination is indeed a heroic quality, but it’s something that makes him keep sticking with the system rather than giving up on it. It’s something that makes him believe that he can overcome all of this on his own. However, no matter how hard Hawks works for the hero system, the only ones who have something to gain from it in the end is the hero system and not him. His hard work and determinations only guarantees he becomes more useful to them and will be used more.

In this light, Hawks’ belief that he can handle everything on his own is hubris, his determination to become such a good hero that he will get time off is a flaw. The only ersult is that Hawks is used more and more as a cog, and he grinds himself down further and further.

However, just like All Might could not save the entire country of japan all on his own shoulders forever, Hawks’ good boy act is also something that will not last him forever. The more he’s exploited the more he will break down. The ones to catch him when he falls is most likely not going to be the heroes system, because they are exploiting him and forcing him to work on his own because he is expendable that way. If he falls only he falls alone. Hopefully, when Hawks does fall, Dabi and the league will be there to catch him and sympathize with him in a way none of the heroes ever could.

[katyatalks]

Spoon.2di April 2018 - Itou Setsuo’s [Mob] Interview

Here’s the translation of Itou Setsuo’s interview from vol 36 of Spøøn.2di (April 2018), released in promotion of MP100 Season 2, announcement of which happened at the end of the Reigen OVA! Three page interview that I’ve done as a summary for the most part, but the end is full of meta regarding Mob’s relationships that’s incredibly sweet so I’ve typed those up fully.

He is asked how he felt when season 2 was announced. “Naturally, I was incredibly happy. I felt the joy of being able to perform as Mob again, and since I’d read all of the manga, I’d be thinking things like, ‘will this scene show up in season 2?’, and, ‘will I get to perform this scene with everyone?’. The excitement wouldn’t stop…!” Goes on to say he felt excitement as both a fan and as a voice actor.

Q: How were you told about season 2 being greenlit? A: That was… it was before appearing at an event with Director Tachikawa. I recall him saying super casually, ‘uh, you know, right?’ (Laughs)

Q: (Laughs) So, was it during recording for “Reigen: The Miraculous Unknown Psychic” that you truly came to realise that season 2 was going to start? A: That’s right. When I was told that the announcement would come at the end of the film, I thought, ‘we’re really doing season 2…!’

He’s asked how he felt reading the scenario for the OVA for the first time. “I did a double take (laughs). I read through the pages, thinking to myself, ‘this isn’t the Mob Psycho I know.’ (Laughs).” Goes on to say that while it’s a compilation it’s a fresh take on one.

He’s asked about any scene(s) from the OVA that left an impression on him, to which he replies the scene in which Mob has finished writing the book and he’s got Ritsu, Teru, Mezato & the telepathy club gathered around him. “The amount of people Mob has around him has increased so much. It’s a scene that had me realise that anew, so for me personally it’s a scene I love.”

He’s asked the same but from the scenes that have been fabricated, to which he says when Reigen pastes himself over Shou. “That’s a scene in which it’s established how cool a character Shou is, but with Shishou’s fabrication, we get Shishou’s face instead of Shou’s own. That was unbelievably hilarious (laughs). I think that’s probably my favourite out of all the fabricated scenes.”

He goes on to say that another scene that left an impression on him is when Mob and Reigen go to eat ramen together. “I thought to myself, ‘of course it’d finish up with ramen!’. Since S1E1 ends with Shishou and Mob going to eat ramen together, I felt like it suggests that a new story is going to start, so it really left an impression on me.”

[TN: Seko dismisses the above in his interview]

He says he wishes he could’ve been part of the audience not knowing that the S2 announcement would be dropped at the end of the OVA.

He goes on to say that since it’d been a year and a half since recording for S1E1, he wasn’t sure how good a job he’d do with recording for the OVA ("Can I perform in the same way?")

“When Sakurai-san performs, he has this incredible persuasive power (laughs). I was reminded anew of just how skilled Reigen-shishou is at winning over people.”

He’s asked what he’s looking forward to with season 2, and anything he’d like to see. “It appears at the end of the ‘Reigen: The Miraculous Unknown Psychic’... I really want to see ‘that person’s’ press conference.” 

He also mentions the fight with Touichirou, “if it appears in season 2[...]”, and he’s looking forward to BONE’s approach to the action scenes.

He states another scene that he wants to see, though he’s not sure if it’ll be included in season 2, is the part in which Mob gets a girlfriend

[TN: I recall him saying in another interview that he was happy to see the Emi story being in S2E1, so that’s nice]

“It’s a story in which we see Mob’s strengths and weaknesses. You can sympathise. So I’d be glad to perform it.”

He’s asked about the stage play in January and how it influenced him, to which he says that it helped him look at characters from a different perspective and take different interpretations

He’s asked what he means by this; “Rather than Mob not having any emotions, he has a weak way of expressing himself… the stage play reaffirmed that for me.”

He quotes Kawajiri Keita (screenplay/producer for stage play); “This isn’t a play that’s led by the main character. It’s the characters around him that decide the atmosphere, and Mob exists in that atmosphere doing things at his own pace, which is interesting.” Itou says this is true for anime Mob too.

And, the final section;

Q: For Mob, who would you say the other characters in Mob Psycho 100 are? Could you please begin with Reigen?

A: Shishou, rather than teaching Mob the concept of what is ‘correct’, teaches him the ‘choices’ that he needs to live. He teaches him that making the right choice is good, but he doesn’t always have to go for that option. It’s for that reason that he can be called the ‘shishou’ of Mob’s life, but I wouldn’t say that the two of them have a relationship as formal as the word ‘shishou’ suggests… the use of that word suggests a very stiff relationship, but Reigen is more like, ‘a big brother Mob is very close to who lives nearby’ (laughs). They may have no relation by blood, they may not be family, but, they’re as close as family, and Reigen cherishes Mob as such. We’ve seen Mob wonder, “is Shishou really an esper?” before, but regardless of whether or not he has powers, regardless of his shishou’s conman-like behaviour, the two of them support one another. I’d like to keep seeing these two, with that ‘shishou’ and ‘deshi’ relationship.

Q: How about his little brother, Ritsu?

A: Ritsu is a truly important person for Mob-kun. The first time we see Mob-kun genuinely get angry for someone else is when Ritsu gets abducted by Claw. So I always think of that when performing as Mob-kun; Ritsu is that important to him, that he let his emotions lay bare.

Q: It appears in the compilation part of ‘Reigen: The Miraculous Unknown Psychic - even after Ritsu vents the emotions he’s been keeping locked up inside at Mob, we once again see Mob-kun’s big-brother-like-nature.

A: That’s right. Mob-kun performs dogeza for Ritsu’s sake. When I look at that I think, ah, he’s definitely a big brother.

Q: Next, how about Dimple?

A: Dimple is, how should I say, he’s already become a friend (laughs). I suppose friendship is, the closer you get to one another the more sharp tongued you get. To be cold to someone on purpose, turn that into laughter, tamper with someone, be tampered with… I think Mob-kun and Dimple’s relationship has gradually turned into something like that. At first, I think Mob-kun was simply disinterested so he was cold to Dimple, but now they’re on good terms so Mob-kun being cold has turned into a bit of an act, I think!

Q: How about Teru?

A: Teru-kun is the person Mob-kun can sympathise with the most. At first I suppose he was something like a rival, but now, if Mob-kun were to have any troubles regarding his powers, I think the person he’d turn to first would be Teru-kun. Rather than shishou… (laughs)

Q: (Laugh) Now, please give a message to Sakurai Takahiro, voice of Reigen Arataka, who you’ll once again be playing a Shishou-Deshi relationship with!

A: I’ve been a fan of yours since I was in primary school! … which is something I’ve told you before (laughs). I may be inexperienced, but I look forward to performing with you once again!

---

Twitter crosspost here.

Spoon 2di vol36 April 2018 links (interviews in the order they are presented);

Itou Setsuo’s [Mob] interview here.

Sakurai Takahiro’s [Reigen] interview here.

Seko Hiroshi’s [Series Co-ordinator] interview here.

Kameda Yoshimichi’s [Character Designer] interview here.

Tachikawa Yuzuru’s [Director] interview here.

ONE’s [Original Manga Writer] interview here.

[your-turn-to-role]

ayyyyy happy 4/13 have my second list of classpects, vox machina edition! (@lostsometime to add to the homestuck au)

(m9 here)

vex - thief of mind

vax - rogue of blood

percy - witch of light

keyleth - page of breath

scanlan - thief of life

grog - prince of rage

pike - heir of space

tary - witch of mind

first off, there are a couple copies here, and they don’t have a time player, so vox machina on their own could not win the game. but hey, weird plot shit exists, and the alpha kids managed it by combining their session with the beta kids, so who knows how this would go

(explanations under the cut)

1) vex - thief of mind

vex has a lot of ideas about her sense of self. but when you get right down to it, none of them are actually about her sense of self, and rather about how people see her. image is important to mind players, but it’s not really linked with identity. in fact, the canon description of mind players states they have very fluid, shifting concepts of identity, it’s far more important to them that they remain rational and have a logical line of reasoning than sticking to things just because they feel right or wrong. and i think this is very true for vex, she doesn’t often doubt herself, but she doesn’t really know who she is, beyond just what she’s trying to emulate or avoid.

thief bc she’s still one of the stealth twins, it is very her thing, but she’s definitely the louder of the two, the thief demands to be known, the rogue quietly assists. she’s headstrong, stubborn, and the world owes her everything it’s taken from her, which she definitely plans to steal back. and honestly that’s her right and i love her.

2) vax - rogue of blood

god i really love the fact that the twins are a thief/rogue pair, it not only fits who they are as people but vex being the active version of vax’s passive class and vice versa fits so well

(also fun fact, i have something of a personality test/checklist i grade characters on when i’m struggling to figure out their class or feel like i’m being biased towards one particular classpect. there’s 15 possible points per class, most characters will get a highest score of maybe 9 or 10, homestuck characters get something like 12-13. vax, however, does what no one else has ever done, and scored all 15 points in rogue. he is more rogue per rogue than any rogue in homestuck. 100% pure distilled rogue boy.)

personality quizzes aside though, he really is so obviously a rogue. he’s got everything of the thief archetype built into his entire character, but while a homestuck thief steals by their own will and for their own benefit, all of the rogue’s same actions go towards supporting their friends. also, as a passive class, their decisions tend to be less personal drive based and more guided by their aspect, as if the universe was working through them, which is definitely the case for our champion of the raven queen. they’ve been described in canon as the robin hood class, rebellious, but in an altruistic way. true punk. fuck the system, love recklessly

blood players need a family. they draw their strength from the bonds they have with those around them, they’re stubborn as all hell, especially when it seems like there’s no way out of a situation, but it’s in determination to protect their chosen family and keep everyone safe and happy. if they’re leaders, they’re inspirational ones rather than commanding ones. and this is “dramatic speeches about teamwork and morality” vax, “what the fuck do we have in this world except for moments with each other” vax, “how lucky i have been to have had all of you” vax. what else could he be?

3) percy - witch of light

so percy’s an interesting one, because i kinda wanna give him two classpects? like, if you classpect percy before or during the briarwood arc, he’s a prince of light. after that, he becomes way more of a witch. (though, to be fair, light players and witches are both incredibly prone to getting possessed, so, maybe he was a witch all along and just acted really prince-y)

he’s definitely an active class, no doubt about it. percy will fight gods to achieve his own ends. prince, being the most active class, and one designed to cause destruction, definitely suits orthax percy. but then things change, and you realise what he actually is

witches are manipulator classes, like knights, but active manipulator classes. they can’t create things out of nothing like some classes do, but instead bend and twist and transform their aspect (and the world around them, using their aspect) to achieve their goals. percy’s human, and not magic. he doesn’t have any particular special abilities in order to do things, he gets by on ingenuity and reckless bravery. that post that was going around a while ago about how all of vox machina are basically gods and percy’s just a guy with a gun does well to prove the point here, because he keeps up anyway. he’s made mistakes and there are things in the world now that he can’t change, but he does his best to work within those constraints and make as good of a world as he can with what he has

and what he has, usually, is knowledge. which is the main dominion of the light aspect, along with luck (and, you know, taliesin and dice rolling). light players are scholars first and foremost, but very rarely bookish scholars, instead the kind of scholars that think they can make a demon deal and get away with it because they’re clever enough for that, and also they’re extra enough that they’d do it anyway for the aesthetic

4) keyleth - page of breath

this was the easiest of all of these for me to do, it just slots so neatly into place. pages are a slow moving class that have to work their way around all the side quests before they get a lot of their power, but after that they’re powerhouses. they’re easily underestimated, by others and by themselves. keyleth takes a while to come to terms with herself and her power and her effect on the world, most of the plot takes place within her slowly completing her aramente, she often worries she won’t be good enough for anything that’s expected of her, but once she hits level 20 she is a master of the elements, a true leader of her people, and literally unkillable.

breath fits for two reasons. the first is being the aspect of freedom, of acting without being controlled by anyone else’s thoughts or decisions. and keyleth, for all her anxiety and all her bad luck, has never made a choice she didn’t agree with. along with vax she’s the first to speak up when she feels like the group’s moral choices aren’t holding up to her standards, when they’re moving in a direction that isn’t right. the second is that it’s the aspect of air, and the wind, and she’s literally the leader of the air ashari. she can and does in fact do the windy thing

5) scanlan - thief of life

we’ve covered life already in my nott/veth explanation, but it really is so scanlan. look at this excerpt and tell me it’s not written for scanlan shorthalt

[If you're poisoned, chances are the Life-bound have something for what ails ya. This applies to both physical and mental suffering, though it might not be a cure you'll like. They also have the tendency to put other's needs before their own, which never ends well for anyone, because the Life-bound can grow bitter if they feel their own self-care has had to be shunted aside.]

figuring out class was harder? a lot of vox machina classes are pretty difficult to figure out. prince would work to an extent because of scanlan’s self destructive tendencies, bard would work to an extent because he often feels like things are out of his hands, but i think i’m going with thief. scanlan’s more of an active class, despite playing support in dnd, he’s very self motivated and not one to listen much to the guidance of the universe. thief i feel fits with the headstrong attitude, the creative out of the box thinking, and the need for attention in a very specific way (less so having people celebrate you, scanlan enjoys that but can easily shrug it off if it doesn’t happen, it’s more causing things for the sake of knowing and having other people know that you caused them)

6) grog - prince of rage

honestly this is the one i’d be most willing to bend on? it, took me forever to come up with any kind of classpect for grog, he seems to resist being classpected. i know a lot about him as a person, but translating that into either class or aspect was just hard. but i’ve gone with prince because grog’s never stopped for anyone (except maybe pike), because it’s a destruction based class, because it’s the most active on the scale, and grog is definitely one to go do things purely because he wants to do things and wants to do them now.

rage because rage players are about truth at all costs, even if that cost is often destabilizing entire systems and leaving the rubble to pick itself back up. and it makes me think about how grog has never really wanted to disguise himself, and especially about just before the kevdak fight - he knew he would probably get killed if he went back there as himself, but he refused to go in under false pretenses, because that wouldn’t be right

7) pike - heir of space

ashley’s just always drawn to those heirs. i think though with pike it definitely is a consequence of her being in and out a lot, because she’s not just an heir, she’s an heir of space.

heirs tend to stumble into their role rather than creating it or seeking it out. on a meta level, ashley only created pike because the team needed a cleric and she worked it out from there, but as far as pike herself is concerned, she doesn’t really know what she’s supposed to be doing or what her purpose is, but she’s been trying to do her best to follow sarenrae’s teachings, trying to do her best to guide her friends, and hoping that nothing goes wrong along the way.

space, too, is an aspect of patience. it’s about valuing the journey more than the destination, it’s about seeing what the universe has in store for you and trusting that it’s just as likely to turn out good as it is bad - you’ll know when the time comes to step in, at which point space players are pretty fierce fighters. but for now, for pike, it’s trying to help her friends one step at a time

8) tary - witch of mind

tary is like percy but cheating. he has a lot more resources to work with bc he just goes out and buys shit. but the witch reasoning still stands, they are very similar people in that respect, good at working within a set of restraints so well you don’t even notice the restraints are there

mind rather than light because, tary doesn’t quite hunger after knowledge in the same way. instead he’s much more concerned with the application of it, of how to get from point a to point b as efficiently as possible, and how that benefits him. (also because he’s not nearly as extra as light players. have you met light players? like i love them but jesus christ. who let them be Like That)

[lacefuneral]

ok it took a few days but i finally made a directory for my posts, and i’ve put that in my “navigation” bio link.

all my videos are there, my shitposts, my voice acting, my headcanons, and even my meta - as well as the dumb photoshop edits i make

basically i put so much shit in my tags that it doesn’t really make sense to expect people to use them in order to find my posts (i put videos in my TEXT tag, for fucks sake). so the content directory is an alternative to my tag page. each subpage has a “go back” link so you don’t have to do the menu all over each time. i also added these “go back” links to my about, fandom, and url pages.

so i’ve broken it up into categories and subcategories, gave each post a name as well as a designation for which trek it’s about

and i made a page with all of my transparents for easy access! 

[janiedean]

I really, really love your metas! In "Why a Jaime/Brienne Endgame in the Books Makes More Sense Than One Might Think, Based on Previous Works of GRRM's" you wrote, that you have endless reasons to assume that both, J and B, will survive the whole series - can you please name some? Aside from this mentioned meta I've only read an explantion of the weirwood dream, which can be interpreted in both ways. Or can you link a good meta that explains other reasons? Thank you very much!

hey!

first of all thank you so much, glad that you appreciate my rants. ;) that said, sure I can go in-depth. in order (btw @ginmo has written also some excellent meta about this, just check on her blog), and also counting the weirwood dream which I’ve ranted on at length in that specific meta:

now, the first thing is how grrm strategically placed these two in the narrative, in the sense that:

brienne has spent her life being passed for a joke and she desperately wants for someone to see her worth as a person and she’d about kill herself for the people who manage to get as far as to gain her trust/love, jaime has spent his life loving people without getting much in return and with that trust being used/abused/thrown away and everyone taking it for granted... and we’re assuming they’re not set up to be together when as stated grrm has written them as romantic from the first moment?

(also, jaime’s entire first chapter in asos is basically ‘I find brienne attractive but since I never considered that I could be attracted to anyone but cersei I can’t understand I’m attracted to her so I’ll stare at her and think she’s ugly all along even if I really am attracted to her. brienne’s issues are also rooted in the fact that no one sees her as attractive. jaime does. hmmm?)

both of them start from a miserable situation from which they’re finding their own way up, not down - jaime is more obvious but brienne is too because she starts at the point where she’s so starved for recognition she would die for someone who just was nice to her but didn’t really gaf about her and now she’s... well, becoming a knight because sure af that is happening, I’m sticking with the theory that the knighting is book canon too -, and if they both end up miserable or one of them does it doesn’t work;

both of their chapters have heavy foreshadowing concerning possible marriage/having children/finding love - jaime wants to father his kids and at some point resents that other men are husbands and fathers but not him because he was always the warrior and he doesn’t say it happily, brienne is half-glad her first betrothed died because she thinks she’s not suited to typical feminine things/to fit into a woman’s role in society but she’s also sad at thinking she will never have children, these two are going to get together very soon, and I’m supposed to think they’re set up for failure? k but I can respectfully disagree;

also, this goes back to that meta I wrote in which I said that grrm does not do grim for grim’s sake and he’s actually way less cruel than it seems, likes a good love story and has more than once finished his other books with satisfying resolutions to that kind of storyline, but adding to that: in comparison to whatever calvinist crap message hbo wanted to send, I have to inform y’all that grrm is a currently agnostic lapsed catholic and it’s exceedingly clear in the way he explores/deals with redemptive themes.

now, let me break the jb narrative for a moment to inform you of a few things that as an atheist born and raised in a 99% catholic country whose literature’s funding works are heavily based on catholic themes/on stories rooted in catholicism:

the ‘you need to die to be redeemed’ narrative is 100% bullshit according to catholic morals and on top of that it’s opened to anyone at any time;

like, the basic distinction between catholic and calvinist approaches to the topic (and I can’t believe I’m defending catholicism but nvm that) is that calvinism preys on a narrative where your negative qualities define you and you cannot escape them (which is because calvinism accepts predestination ie the idea that seeing your lot in life you can deduce if you’ll go to heaven or hell, so if you’re poor/unsuccessful/you committed mistakes/a crime and so on you’re not redeemable and it’s proof you’re damned) and that meant that in societies with calvinist background the death = redemption narrative is extremely popular because it’s seen as ‘hey this person is wretched and they suck so they couldn’t have lived anyway and they did something good with it for once and it’s the best they could hope for’. catholicism, at the contrary, works on the basis that as we all have free will we can change for the better and if you repent for your sins/past wrongdoings/mistakes then that’s enough to be redeemed and if you do it on your deathbed.... you can still go to heaven, you’ll just have to atone for your wrongdoings (that’s the entire point of purgatory’s existence ie making people who repented near death or too late to gain heaven atone for their sins before they can enter heaven). and the moment you repent then you’re free to start your new life and do better and gain your place in heaven, which you’ll obtain in virtue of having turned a new leaf;

(again: not to be that person, but in luke’s gospel one of the two thieves crucified with him is like ‘can you save us since you’re the son of god’, the other thief is like ‘please he has done nothing and we have sinned we don’t deserve to be saved just please remember us when you go back to your father’ and jesus tells the second thief I won’t need to remember you because you’ll sit at my right. also, in dante’s divine comedy there’s a guy who had been excommunicated in the middle ages waiting to get into purgatory for having repented on his deathbed and in manzoni’s the betrothed ie italy’s funding novel the character who’s objectively better written is a dude so heinous for his crimes that he’s called THE UNNAMED and the moment this guy gets doubts and wonders if there’s any hope for him left the local arcibishop leaves everything saying that the moment someone like that is in need then they’re more important than his own parish, goes to receive unnamed guy, tells him that just wanting to be better is enough as far as god is concerned and he’s saved as far as he cares. like, as much as catholicism sucks for the entire rest of it and for how much the catholic church is the worst ideologically the fact that everyone can be redeemed is the basic staple of the entire thing.)

now, given the ^^^, this is where I tell you that most lapsed catholics/people who left catholicism for whichever reasons usually grew up catholic and if you grow up catholic you spend your first twelve years in church at least and if your parents/people around you are also catholic you will absorb it, good and bad, so if grrm grew up catholic, he grew up with that background. (I could again rant for hours about how atheist writers who grew up catholic differ from atheist writers who grew up protestant/calvinist because if you compare grrm and idk kurt vonnegut it’s glaring but this isn’t the place for it so nvm let’s go on)

now that I’ve told you this, I’ll get back to jaime and brienne’s canon survival chances. I needed to tell you that because...

all of the stories with redemptive themes in asoiaf (jaime, theon, sandor, whoever) are not by nature calvinist. whatever d&d think or hbo thought, none of them are written in a way where death is their best option/their only way to achieve redemption/to finish their story with dignity. theon has gone through hell and back and left and regained his sense of identity, he’s not built to die now, sandor has freaking gone to rehab and I’m 100% sure he survives the series and gets closure, while jaime is exactly a poster child for the above stuff I described. like, jaime is someone who’s fundamentally good who had the misfortune to spend his entire life jumping in different kinds of abusive situation one to the other (tywin’s parentage in general, his relationship with cersei throughout at least from the moment they were *experimenting* and like hell I’m going back on that sorry not sorry, guarding aerys, being with cersei at *her* terms and being forced to relieve his trauma all over and not having his needs met etc., tywin potentially ruining his only healthy relationship [with tyrion] and so on) who in turn has done exceedingly bad things/taken bad decision/committed heinous deeds that he regrets having done out of his bad reaction to all of that, not treating his ptsd and basically deciding to stop giving a fuck and embrace being the horrid person everyone thinks he is... until he meets brienne, remembers who he wanted to be because she’s posing an example of it and decides on his own to try and be better, which is... exactly... the entire fucking point. the moment he decides to try and be better and reclaims his dreams/the person he wanted to be/tries to do good he has automatically achieved a narrative status where he chose to be better and therefore the narrative is giving him a chance to be that, and usually those stories are meant to.... have the message that you can be better than the bad things you did and you can turn back the page at any point. like. jaime is written to show you that it’s not too late to get your shit together and not letting others/your surroundings define who you are;

on the other side, brienne is presented as extremely sympathetic from the beginning. also, grrm is very good at describing how shitty is your life if you grow up a woman who is not standard attractive, that everyone laughs at and who has endless insecurities for it.... and she’s the paragon of knighthood/everything good about chivalry in the goddamned series. brienne is legit one of the best people in these books and it’s not because I stan her - she’s kind, she’s just, she’s brave she’s everything a knight should be, she’s willing to change her mind when she misjudged people, she’s forgiving and life threw her crap all along and she’s still persevering from it. brienne is written in a frankly painfully objective way to eventually succeed at what she wants. if in affc she’s crying because she feels like she’s too much of a freak to be her father’s heir and she’s not woman or man enough for anything, the entire narrative point is that she has to succeed at both being a knight and a lady otherwise grrm can’t plant hints and believe me he can;

this means that jaime is headed on a redemptive path which in that kind of story when written by catholics or former catholics never ends up badly (also, aside: redemption is good for everyone and it can’t be just ONE character having it, you don’t buy it at the supermarket, so saying that if jaime has it then tyrion or theon or sandor or whoever can’t have it is just poor reading, people change all the time irl and in narrative you aren’t obligated to redeem one and kill everyone else) or in death, brienne has been written to succeed in her endeavors after she suffers a shitton and I think stoneheart has to be the worst and the end of it (in the sense that after that situation is resolved the way for her is down, not up). which if I do the math and we have stated they’re headed for romance, means the both of them should have a chance at a future together;

also, I can go and tell you that their asos road trip ending with harrenhal is bursting with symbolism that includes death and rebirth - not going into the weirwood dream and sticking to the basics... guys, jaime starts as a prisoner, then ends up losing a part of herself he thinks define him but in truth only defines what he thinks he is (and he’s not ie cersei’s double, the kingslayer, the person who has to drive himself crazy to protect everyone else), then ends up almost dying and sitting in the middle of his own filth for the entirety of the trip (and even then he does good things ie saving brienne from being raped *cough*) and then ends up in a scalding hot bath where he confesses his most well-kept secret and source of 50% of his trauma to someone he trusts regardless of how much he likes it or not, faints and then wakes up again when everyone thinks he might be dead. symbolically, I think it speaks for itself. thing is, during the entire thing *brienne* is there alongside him and while she’s also getting her own share of trauma/ptsd (I mean brienne has totally bloody mummers related ptsd and I’ll die on that hill) she physically is the reason he survives it - she cleans him up, she gives him enough pep talks to convince him to live, she hears his confession, she changes her mind about him for it (but imvho she had after he saved her from being raped because that’s where she calls him ser for the first time) and she catches him in the bath when he faints which is.... fairly symbolic in itself, and she is the one who puts him back on his feet after. like, while jaime’s choices after are all his own, his symbolic journey through his own physical/mental filth he has to go through during asos succeeds because she helped him even if she didn’t know she was doing it, and like... guys, there’s a reason why in the weirwood dream the brienne in jaime’s head which he has conjured and who is basically what jaime sees brienne as in that moment, not necessarily the real one..... keeps on telling him all the time she’ll keep him safe/protect him and she basically tells that to anyone he feels threatened by (or his subconscious feels threatened by), and as stated before, jaime lannister has never, until that point, assumed that *he* would be in the position where someone else gives a shit about him to the point where they will defend him rather than in the position where *he* is the person that has to protect everyone else regardless of how much appreciation he gets in return. like, excuse me but if I was writing my own book I wouldn’t put this much work and care and this symbolism in these two’s history if I meant to kill one of them off or to not have them be happy in the end.

like, the point is: grrm is an extremely meticulous writer with an astonishing attention to detail and who put in book two shit that made extra sense when reading book FIVE, see theon saying he wouldn’t go to his death wearing dirty clothing in acok which makes you go like ‘....... why’ the moment you read his adwd chapters. no one, unless they have a penchant for sadism, would put that much work with those themes in that specific kind of story if then it doesn’t deliver. or, in different words, using a character I love as well so no one can accuse me of being impartial: when grrm put the same kind of work in catelyn’s chapters from got to asos and then you read them knowing about lady stoneheart and the red wedding, it’s obvious that he built her up for being an extremely tragic character and that she was destined to die regardless of all her efforts to save her family (same for robb but we’re talking pov characters). but catelyn’s storyline doesn’t have redemptive themes. it’s about regret, loss, loving your children but being imperfect/not being able to be there for them, and so on. catelyn’s storyline never promises you a happy ending from the moment ned dies and probably even before then. catelyn’s storyline promises you endless suffering and that’s fine because that’s her point in the narrative.

on the contrary, brienne’s tells you ‘hey there’s this girl who has had it like shit all her life without deserving it and whose worth no one sees because she’s ugly and who at the same time is actually a genuinely good person who’s trying her best and okay, she’s gonna suffer but she’ll come out on top while getting what she wants which is recognition as both a lady and a knight’ and given that brienne is also an extremely rare rep (say what you want, cishet unattractive women with her issues and her backstory are basically only less rare than unicorns in media) that I’m 100% sure grrm knows speaks to a lot of people (because he writes her too well to not know), if brienne doesn’t get that after all that shit, the narrative would not deliver on a fairly huge promise.

even worse, jaime’s tells you ‘hey there’s this guy who has been an abuse victim to at least three different people who doesn’t even realize it and whose life is so fucked up you’d need fifteen psychology textbooks to even start grasping it and that everyone sees as the worst person ever and who has ended up believing he is out of not managing his trauma well and hey look at him going through an insane amount of extra suffering but coming out of it wanting to be better and sort of succeeding and hey he has setbacks but he’s starting to see himself as his own person and he’s out of his #1 worst abusive relationship and he can decide what to do with his life now and you should root for him’, which means that if he dies or worst of all dies like in the show (but that’s not happening) the narrative doesn’t deliver on a huge promise and gives you the message that you can’t escape your mistakes and the abuse you received...... which is not the message grrm likes/wants to pass. like, I’ll die on that damned hill.

and to finish it, that was for them as single characters, but going back to the beginning: love is a fundamental part of both their storylines. as I said in the beginning, brienne suffered because she wasn’t loved enough and would die for anyone she loves herself without even expecting anything in return because she thinks no one will love her like that, jaime suffered because he loved too much without getting anything in return (or better, getting cersei’s abusive crap for his entire life) and he turned it into something toxic that’s not what he thinks it should be (he sees his and c’s relationship as the best thing ever where they’re soulmates because she sold him that narrative, but that’s not the kind of rship where you *turn your partner’s blows into kisses* which is actual text). at this point, the narrative is telling you ‘oh hey here’s two damaged people who actually would be very good together because their personalities match in that sense [as in, brienne would thrive with someone who loves her that much openly and finds her attractive and respects her for all that she is and jaime would thrive with someone who would appreciate that tenfold and who’d love him back just as much and who’d die for him - canon! -, and it wouldn’t be the kind of rship where anyone’s blows turn into kisses unless they were friendly sparring before] and oh hey look at that they’re in a storyline where they both influence each other greatly and oh wait he’s attracted to her and she thinks he looks like half a god and she’d die for him and he was willing to get mauled by a bear for her and they’re obviously meant to hook up’, which automatically promises a resolution where they both get what they want or you basically spent all your time rooting for it.... for nothing. which would not give anyone reading it satisfaction unless you hate jb that much, but I’m 100% sure that most people reading asoiaf casually would not hate it that much and grrm likes that trope that much to not deliver on it.

so, tldr: if one of them dies or if they aren’t endgame with a reasonable happy-ish ending for the both of them, the entire narrative fails to deliver on the promises of their individual storylines and their shared one, and there’s nothing in grrm’s writing that suggests that he would not deliver on it. I mean, if it was stephen king I’d hold my breath because I love steve but imvho his endings suck 85% of the time and he manages to do 180° turnarounds that have no sense whatsoever, but it’s grrm, not stephen king, and everything of his I’ve read that actually had an ending ended in a way that was coherent with the overall storyline and maintained its promises, so here, the above is pretty much the summary. hopefully I haven’t exhausted you. ;)