#like that's MY interpretation i don't expect any of you westerners to understand what i'm talking about

[arabnico]

nico is a tragic gay figure because homosexuality violently ruined his life and doomed him to being eternally nostalgic to the “before” in his existence—which he no longer remembers as it was forcefully ripped from him, further alienating him from his own ideal paradigm of what he believes he should and was meant to be—and to therefore yearn for it. there’s no possible way out for him. the last time you felt free was before, and you’ll never be free again so you’re doomed. you’re stuck forever rolling the boulder up the hill forever trying to redeem yourself. your definition of freedom is no longer something that is materially achievable for you. you were dead from the start.

[max1461]

This has mostly disappeared from my corner of the internet over the last few years, but it used to be the case that every once in a while some story would go around about a corporation or a government doing some fucked up shit in pursuit of their self-interest, and people in the comments and reblogs would act utterly aghast that said government or corporation would do such a thing.

This was always baffling to me, and I have only ever been able to interpret it as a sign of profound naivety. Of course, I too think it is awful, sad, and unjust when people are exploited, killed, abused or so on by the institutions of our society. But "aghastness" is not synonymous with these things, to be aghast is to be (or present yourself as) in some sense surprised. And surprise is wholly unwarranted here.

I suppose this is part of my worldview that feels very fundamental, it feels deeply obvious, and I struggle to figure out how to talk productively with people who did not get the memo: exploitation and abuse of others in pursuit of self-interest is in some sense the natural behavior of agents in any kind of competitive context. It requires a lot of effort and coordination to mitigate this behavior. We do not feel "aghast" when someone is bitten by a dog. Dogs bite people, idiot! And corporations exploit their workers, lie, cheat, and steal, unless you work very hard to prevent them from doing so. And governments exploit and neglect their citizens, and go to war and kill and maim, unless you work very hard to prevent them from doing so. Individual humans, as members of a social species for which cooperation is paramount to survival, have quite a lot of specific programming whose purpose seems to be to discourage us from doing these things (empathy, loyalty, etc. etc.), and yet very often we still do them!

I have relatives who have a hard time believing in US atrocities abroad, on the grounds that "Americans are the good guys, and the US just wouldn't do that". This is very stupid! Do you think the US got where it is today without cracking some eggs? Bullshit. There's never been a government or a military in the history of humanity that "just wouldn't do that". I sometimes see posts on here from tankies, defending Chinese or Soviet atrocities on the grounds that these things must be Western propaganda, a socialist government just wouldn't do that. Again, I find this so obviously false as to be essentially beneath engaging with. We don't live in a just world! Often, a very effective strategy for achieving whatever it is you're trying to achieve will involve treating people like shit. It is what it is.

I'm not trying to play defense for injustice here. Obviously I think we should do as much as we can to prevent these abuses. But I think that doing so must start with basic recognition of the following: it is the nature of institutions—being as competition between them is essentially unavoidable, and being as their decision processes are unavoidably removed from the face-to-face social context which is so load-bearing in motivating respectful treatment between individual humans—to abuse people in pursuit of their (perceived) self-interest. This behavior is mundane and expected. It can be mitigated in various ways, ideological and structural, but it will probably always be with us to some degree. To look at it and express shock in any capacity suggests a completely misguided understanding of how the world works.

This is the first and most important thing I ever learned about politics or society.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Personally, I think that the main characters don't "appreciate" Yuu comes from the "TWST is a dating sim" angle. Like, sure, there are some flirty voicelines, but I feel like the boys don't express any interest in Yuu as a person besides Ace and Deuce since they've been friends since day one? I'm not saying people can't ship Yuu with the main cast or anything, but I feel like there's a real misunderstanding from the fanbase (the western one in particular) about what TWST is to begin with. (Sorry for the random rant, it's been on my mind!)

[Referencing this post!]

I understand where this sentiment may be coming from, but I don’t think wanting Yuu (the audience’s proxy) to be appreciated by the NRC boys necessarily comes from a place of seeing TWST as a dating sim. (Though with the plethora of misinformation being spread by gaming news outlets in the West, I’m not shocked some people still think TWST is one 💀 I literally saw a 2023 Crunchyroll article still claiming TWST has “dateable” Disney villains…)

I think a lot of fans are just so emotionally attached and invested in these characters that they wish they could be friends with them or to be more intimate with them in some other manner. (I, for example, see Kalim and Ortho as my metaphorical little brothers.) The players projecting onto Yuu probably also see themselves in Yuu, so the players, of course, want to be loved and appreciated by the characters they like. It’s part of the reason why I believe the characters are not ever allowed to be “too” mean to Yuu and instead direct most of the vitriol to the other boys; it would potentially offend the players that insert as Yuu and make the characters TWST is trying to market to less appealing.

Because the game itself limits Yuu to predominantly hanging out with Ace, Deuce, and Grim, all those other relationships have to be expanded on in personal interpretations and fan works. The clashing expectations arise when the fans begin mixing their fanon with canon and expecting that the canon reflect their own interpretations. This same problem has occurred before, such as the outcry over Yuuken Enma as the Episode of Heartslabyul manga protagonist (as some interpreted this as “female Yuus aren’t valid”, until the release of Hirasaka Yuuka as the Episode of Savanaclaw protagonist). Another example is the friendship with Malleus; players get value out of the friendship depending on how much they enjoy Malleus, rather than Yuu actually being a super close friend with him in canon. (I could list off more examples, but I don’t want to bog this post down too much.)

As the asker has said, that’s not to say that I’m discouraging self-shipping or shipping OCs with canon characters! I only caution you to be aware of how to differentiate fanon from canon and how to delineate the expectations and the realities of both from one another.

[the-cryptographer]

i do find solas distasteful on an in-character level as well, but i feel engaging any sort of discourse about that is a bit of a dead end for me when the meta foundation for any of it seems to be bedrock for other people when for me it's a pile of sand. mmm, like, with the benefit of hindsight i think a lot of the direction that solas and dai took the lore about elves in these games was foreshadowed as early as origins, but it wasn't until dai that i felt the value i saw in the way velanna and merrill's characters touched themes of cultural genocide, or what i found personally relatable about tabris - an ethnically marginalised a character from a metropolitan ghetto - were perhaps more in the vein of appropriation than representation. (a lot of people saw this earlier than me/had more experience in western speculative fiction fandom than me/weren't so cluelessly standing around wondering how anyone could design a white tabris/mahariel/surana oc without contradicting what i felt were the very obvious racial themes of the character (what did i expect players to do? did i expect them not to use the character creator as they saw fit? did i expect them all to not only have the same understanding i did about these issues, but agree on how to engage them? when bioware itself made the majority of elves in this game white or white-passing by appearances?) i apologise for my naivete, even if i won't apologise for finding meaning where i did and creating fanworks accordingly.) but, yeah, how can i talk about the way solas treats people in-game and my interpretation of his actions when, frankly, his entire character is anathema to what i found engaging and meaningful about the series to start with? that these were not a people hoodwinked by some magical evil pantheon ancient inheritors of the land, but one faction of it struggling in very everyday ways to assert their very modern sensibilities to a world insisting they were already dead - a thing of the past.

idk, i do think the fandom is a bit of a hive of toxic positivity. and all those posts talking about how everyone who doesn't love their favourite blorbo or favourite game in a series (or don't love them so wholly and uncritically) are big dummy meanies, are ultimately as toxic as the posts insisting you are bad wrong morally repugnant if you do love or find meaning in something. But yeah, I'm also not sure there's really much to be gained by levelling in-character critique at a character who has basically shattered the fourth wall for you. like i can say there are a lot of overromanticised ideas about the banality of this character's actions (could say this of most characters even those i love) but the romance is just kind of intrinsically gone once you're talking across a shattered pane of glass at someone who is still engaged by the screen, and at that point you're just ruining the enchantment for them.

[aintgonnatakethis]

SGA Sheppard-gives-Kolya-to-Todd?

his boy's a fucking queer?

I couldn't decide which sounded more interesting

Thanks for the ask, @wyked-ao3! 😄

Sheppard-gives-Kolya-to-Todd now finally has a name and a first chapter posted! bodies in my closet which I added the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat to as a promise to myself to actually follow through on what I want this fic to be: an exploration of Sheppard's dark side. As currently all he wants to do is make out with Todd which, while is an understandable position to hold as well as a nice add-on, isn't what I'm going for overall.

What Sheppard needs to let his darkness out is an enabler. On Atlantis he's surrounded by good people who keep him on the straight and narrow through a mixture of support and pressure (what I mean by 'pressure' is Sheppard feeling pressured to live up to their expectations for what sort of person he should be). I think this is very well shown when he and his team are onboard Todd's hive and he won't give Todd an inch of ground even as Todd is clearly begging for help. If they were alone, I believe Sheppard would be much more willing to provide assistance, but in front of the others he has to 'save face'. Like when he says to Todd "every time we work together I feel like there's a live grenade in my pocket". He would never have said that if there'd been someone else - anyone else, even a stranger - in the room with them, because he's admitting to a weakness: 'I know you're dangerous and I'm going to risk helping you anyway'.

"You're a prize bull, Sheppard. I hope the ride was worth it."

his boy's a fucking queer is inspired by the song the lyric's from: He's So Good by Trash Boat, and is pre-canon SGU, way back when Telford and Young were young men (ages aren't specifically given but mid-to-late twenties, perhaps early thirties at a stretch). Telford stumbles across Young making out with a man. Now, back in those days trading handjobs was common place (yes irl not just in my headcanon lol) because there were so few women on base - if any - and there were often long periods where everyone wasn't even allowed to leave the base at all. So it was viewed by the majority as Not Gay, just something you did to get by.

Kissing, however? Hmm. Telford reacts extremely poorly, and so far it's left open to the interpretation of the reader whether that's because he's jealous, wants Young for himself, and has internalised homophobia about the whole thing, or whether he's just straight up homophobic. But it gets angsty and hate-crimey so it's heavy reading, perhaps even to a more serious degree than the torture in the above Kolya fic, purely because a large section of the people who engage with fandom are queer in some way and therefore will be feel more personal connection to a hate crime over the torture of a "bad guy".

I tried to stop myself from launching off "bad guy" and put this in the tags because it's not strictly tied to the fics, but I couldn't help myself. Sorry. 😂

So. What does 'bad guy' really mean? How has western socialisation affected our views on the subject? Is Kolya a bad guy or someone in a terrible situation? Can you blame any of the 'bad guys' in Pegasus for what they do? They've been subjugated and terrorised for ten thousand plus years. Wouldn't any of us do anything to escape that or even have just a single scrap of safety amongst the horror? Like I don't blame Ronon for never accepting the Wraith in any way shape or form because they slaughtered his entire planet and on the other side of things I don't blame the individual Wraith for killing because the only other option available to them is death, and any species will do incredible things in order to survive. I'll chuck the Iraq-Afghanistan comparison in there too: the Genii as a whole and Kolya as an individual are only the way they are because of Wraith oppression, much like when Western troops roll into places they should not be in and start killing the local populace - they create resistance groups and lend credence to existing ones because people are watching their families die. If someone came into my home and killed my family I'd want to kill them too. I know the eye-for-an-eye viewpoint isn't a healthy one for society and overall I am a prison abolitionist and rehabilitation-focused person, but that's an easy stand to take when I don't have skin in the game, ya know? 🤷‍♂️

Back to the fic! I haven't worked out the ending yet - it's one of those short stories that I get distracted away from halfway through and leave unfinished for a while unless someone expresses interest in the idea - but I don't think it's going to be a happy one.

Everett goes white as a sheet. Telford's never actually seen anyone have the colour drain from their face at such a rate before. He's always imagined it's the response duty-death informers get, calling to the house of some unfortunate serviceman's wife, who knows as soon as she sees a man in uniform who's not her husband at her door.

WIP Name Game

[kafkaoftherubble]

聊237有些群众的反应 // On some of the comments re: CH237

This post touches on Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 237. It also touches on Buddhist philosophy and ideas.

Right. So seeing strawman arguments popping up since CH236 is to be expected.

There's one that pissed me off from the "My Country Mangaka, Right or Wrong" crowd, though. This one:

---

Now. This is the sort of post I actually like reading, even if our opinions differ. I like seeing other people's interpretations of a work. I love meta, especially because it appeals to my compulsively analytical brain.

But one still gotta be aware that they are applying a very specific reading to excuse Gege's execution, right?

One still gotta be aware that this doesn't excuse nor explain glaring storytelling issues, right?

All of that paragraph merely justifies the need to have Gojo out of jujutsu society, which honestly? Most of us already agreed, mai brutha.

I personally predicted Gojo would be out because of his Buddha allegory—if he's enlightened, then he should be the last 6 Eyes user. "This is the last birth; there will be no more re-becoming."

Whether that means the only way for him to go out is death... that's already grounds for reasonable debate. I mean, if Yuki's dream of removing everyone's curse energy comes true, Satoru will still be the last 6 Eyes user. And he'll also get to be just Ken Gojo-Satoru-the Not-Weak-Not-Strong-Mortal-Dude. Hell, it even ties shits up in a neat thematic bow while cementing Yuki's (well-deserved) importance in the story.

Last but not least: "samsara" does NOT mean fate. Gosh, maybe the person who posted this was trying to explain it in ways they believed the "Western audience" would understand, but... that's a tad patronizing, don't you think?

Samsara does not mean fate. Buddhism itself is opposed to fatalism, as seen in its opposition to the Ājīvika school (which is one of the six Śramaṇa schools Buddhists debated way back then). Instead, Buddhists believe in causal determinism.

Ironically, the dude's explanation of "kaisen" as "cyclic" is itself a good proxy for the meaning of samsara. Samsara means "cycles of existence", and it's got nothing to do with fate. Nope, "karma" does not mean fate either. It doesn't even constitute fate in a Buddhist's conception (karma means "action").

---

But this person has more takes, man. When met with a cheeky response saying they are "Gege's alt account", they have this to say:

Here's the part that starts to piss me off.

Do I think Jujutsu Kaisen has a lot of Buddhist motifs, philosophy, religious ideas, etc. baked into its backbone, to the point that some of them fly over non-Buddhists' heads? Yes.

Sure, I'm also not someone who studies Buddhist philosophy for my major (my major was my darling cognitive science). I simply read up on them for no reason beyond curiosity and intrigue. And agreement, sure. I agree with many of its tenets. Ya know, like when people agree with absurdism and Kantian ethics and stoicism and whatnot. It's actually why I'd die on the hill of Satoru being self-less. I simply think the concept of anatta flew over a large group of JJK enjoyers' heads, and that's fine. Those who get it explain them to those who don't. No big deal. Someday I'll talk about anatta and sunyata as concepts exemplified by Satoru, too.

Do I think there are Japanese cultural ideas flying over non-Japanese's heads? Yes, that's likely to be true.

I'm not Japanese. I'm just some person growing up in a Chinese-dominant family in a multicultural Southeast Asian society. Even then I'm quite sure I miss out on a lot of implied Japanese cultural phenomena when I consume their stories.

But how does any of that even translate to justifying shitty execution in this story, including Gojo's death? Are you saying Japanese people will lap this up because, to them, this is "not bad storytelling" but "a Japanese cultural thing lost in translation"?

Are you serious?

And what the hell is with that strawman of "Western audience"? "Killing Gojo is heresy because something something Gojo is God something perfect unkillable flawless"?

Yo, who the hell actually believes Gojo is "god"? All I see are people connecting Gojo with the Buddha himself, which is a legitimate connection anyway. I'm sure those who genuinely see Gojo as a god-in-flesh are a minority who probably, I don't know, take the story sideway to some hardcore fanon territory.

Most of us are not arguing against taking Gojo out because "the audience only knows Judeo-Christian ideas so this is heresy." Most of us are just arguing that the story hasn't been written well lately. Most of us are just pointing out Gege's lackluster-to-subpar execution and other storytelling issues.

Also, if we are supposed to argue this through the this-is-way-too-Buddhist-for-yall defense, then I would have loved it if this person pointed out what this "singularity" concept in Buddhism itself is.

Because as far as I know, there is no such thing as a constant in Buddhist philosophy. One of the Three Marks of Existence is deadass "Anicca" (impermanence). The point is "nothing is constant /permanent. Permanence is an illusion." The cycle of samsara itself changes constantly.

So how does Satoru being "a singularity" actually make sense in an argument hinging on Buddhist ideas?

Also, for someone who rags on others for missing out on Buddhist ideas, dude also made the mistake of taking Satoru's lack of reaction and remorse to Riko's death as "a trait of his sociopathy" much like one not familiar with Buddhism might.

No. It doesn't show sociopathy. Just as "rising above the cycle of hating your enemies" ain't some strange "juxtaposition" to Satoru's sociopathy either. These two traits are from the same source.

What that alludes to, sir/ma'am/dude, is simply "Upekkhā", or equanimity.

Believe it or not, even Buddhists are cautioned against mistaking "equanimity" with "apathy". Apathy is a "near enemy" in the sense that it superficially represents equanimity when it is not; the latter is related to "non-attachment" and "renunciation".

Apathy, meanwhile, occurs when one does not possess Right View.

This is what I meant when I said, yes, sometimes non-Buddhists may miss out or misunderstand. Hell, my best friend was raised in a very ardent East Asian/Chinese/Pure Land Buddhist family, and yet when I talked to her about equanimity, she thought it was the trait of a sociopath too. Really, 'tis not a crime to not get these things.

It is really irritating though if you actually act like what you say is end-all-be-all, okay?

Satoru didn't express anything when Riko died because it already happened—and there was no use being fixated on what had happened. This was fresh off his Awakening period, too, so Satoru was still in that weird state of jhāna or something, I don't know (Gege makes me doubt myself now). He's in an equanimity state, and therefore "hates no one". That's really it.

---

Gosh, the fact that I'm actually quite passionate about debunking this Redditor's statement is surprising. Honestly I never even thought I'd ramble at length about JJK at all, because it's such a large fandom with so many galaxy brains who outclass me by lightyears!

I think I'm just irate when someone touches on something I know, and expresses this weird "I know Japanese. Do you?" superiority while straw-manning anyone who disagrees with them. Like man? Respectfully, fuck off.

Another Redditor did reply to them though:

FOR REAL, SOFT_PAY5834! GET 'EM!

...Anyway, this person's reply to Soft_Pay5834 deadass mixes some Japanese in their reply, because I suppose showing off you can write Japanese or something is a legit reinforcement to your arguments now. Wow. I'm really trying hard not to call them a "w_ _ a b _ _".

So yea. Can some people please stop straw-manning any critic as Gojo dick-riders already? Or use any other strawman, for that matter? Thanks.

---

Thank you for reading my ramble. I know, it's a bit dense with a lot of links.... Hyah?

[itsclydebitches]

Hey Clyde can you elaborate on the “No because…Ted was so deeply traumatized” GIF please?

Of course!

Obviously that's Tomlinfonda's post/argument, so I can only speak to my own interpretation of things, but basically it's acknowledging the tragic implications of our finale. Ted goes back to his son, but far more than that he isolates himself from everything and everyone else. It's all well and good to make headcanoned claims about his life in Kansas --"He's Ted Lasso. Of course he'll make a ton of new friends!" -- but based on what we're shown on screen, AKA the canon, Ted has rejected everything but his role as Henry's father.

He is no longer a premiere league coach, he's a kid's league coach for Henry.

He's no longer keeping some distance from Michelle post-divorce/post-dating Jacob for his own comfort and mental health, he's closely co-parenting with her for Henry.

He's not BFFs with Beard anymore, attending pivotal moments like his wedding, he's spending quality time with Henry.

He's no longer a part of the Richmond community or the Kansas community (we don't see Ted happily chatting with some extra at the game, an easy way to show that he's forming new bonds, nor has the series introduced Kansas friends he's still in contact with) he's a part of the Being Henry's Dad community.

I'm going to talk about this a lot more in the giant-ass meta I'm working on, but the tl;dr is that no one (that I've come across) is upset that Ted went back to Henry, only that the show implied that he gave up EVERYTHING ELSE to do that. Instead of having Henry come to London, or doing the work to make Kansas feel like a place Ted wants to be in for reasons other than this being where Henry currently lives, everything we get implies isolation and discomfort. No one is there to greet Ted at the airport (a sharp contrast to Rebecca tearfully seeing him off, previously begging him to stay). Michelle's house is a dull, sad-looking color pallet compared to the vibrancy of Richmond. She keeps literal distance from Ted, remaining in the doorway while Henry runs to his side and watching him walk in with arms crossed. We know he's not comfortable with her dating Jacob (quite understandably). Ted is not shown to attend ANY of the pivotal moments of his found family: wedding, book signing, giant get-together, despite having the time and financial means to do so. There are no more Diamond Dogs. There's no scene of him baking. No details to remind us of why he once loved his home state, like sunflowers and BBQ sauce. Ted can no longer challenge himself with the complexities coaching a premier team, despite having just come off of a brilliant season that involved re-inventing a whole new strategy. He's back to giving Season One advice of "Be a goldfish" - AKA just ignore what's bothering you, work to literally forget it, rather than engage with it as a means of self-improvement. It's a fine bit of advice for a missed goal, but in the context of his final line of the show? It reinforces the reading that Ted has regressed. Significantly.

"That's not true, Clyde, he's stopped running away from Henry now!" Ehhh has he? I mean yes, he's literally, physically there, but how healthy is that going to be for either of them in the long run if Ted hasn't addressed the root of his anxieties and, as Tomlinfonda's post says, has "killed every part of himself" that's not fatherhood? Ted was happy in London, thriving, right up until his mom unexpectedly arrived and gave him a massive guilt-trip about long-distance parenting. After three seasons of promoting, fighting for, and fully embracing non-traditional relationships, the series end with Ted panicking, going back to where he's "supposed" to be so that he can be the Mid-Western Nuclear Family Father™ that his mother expects. Why? Because Ted lost his own father and he's terrified of doing the same thing to Henry. I've even seen fans talking about how Ted has successfully broken a "cycle" by going home, but what the show and those fans both fail to realize is that living in another country and dying by suicide are not the same thing. Ted never "abandoned" Henry and we sure as hell can't equate him taking a long-distance job/moving permanently to somewhere he loves with his own father's death. If anything, this ending feels like the OPPOSITE of breaking that cycle to me. Moving between parents in two different countries, or moving permanently to London might hold a number of challenges for Henry (even though this is a show where characters frequently make huge life changes without any of the realistic consequences and I don't understand why these challenges are suddenly relevant now... ) but is that really worse than growing up with a father who, based on these last ten minutes, does not come across as happy to me? Who's presented as comparatively isolated? Who isn't shown engaging with anything that's not related to his son? Who may be back here in part due to outside pressure and his own, panicked assumptions? Who, according to what's shown on screen (remember, everything else is a heacanon) he has no identity now outside of his role as a father? I wish someone had ASKED Henry what he wants because despite the clear excitement about Ted coming home, this is a kid who is emotionally intelligent enough to realize what's been making his dad happy. No, you can't put that kind of decision-making pressure on a real child, but a fictional one in a trope-heavy show? Let Henry decide to move/continue long distance because more than wanting his dad beside him 24/7, he wants his dad to be happy.

Because... seriously. If we're worried about Ted potentially repeating the cycle of suicide, I'd say removing him from the support system he's slowly built over three years, denying him major connections with his friends, removing the intellectual challenges he loved, plopping him back in a state he's outgrown, keeping him close to an ex-wife and former marriage counselor now dating said ex-wife and a mother he's harboring a lot of anger towards, plus leaving us on the implication that he's backsliding by trying to ignore his problems instead of tackling them because, you know, he hasn't seen his therapist in months and all the people who know him well enough to challenge him are an ocean away... that's all a bit more concerning than an ending that says, "Ted needs to figure out how to parent Henry from London long-term" or "Ted needs to figure out how to integrate Henry and Michelle into his London life."

Parts of the fandom: Thank god Ted went back to Henry :) All he needs is his son :) He's improved so much in his mental health :) I'm so proud of him :)

Me: I've NEVER been more worried about Ted than I am now :/

It's an ending that says your child is the only thing that matters. Your friends, your career, your hobbies, what you need for your mental health... give all of it up despite, as the rest of the show argues, the fact that you don't have to. The problem is 100000% NOT that Ted ends the series with Henry. I wanted and fully expected them to reunite. But Ted reunites in a way that has him rejecting everything about himself that doesn't directly support his son, all of which is based off of -- imo highly inaccurate -- anxieties about what a "real" father looks like and the presumed fragility of kids. Ted rejects three years of growth and family because he fears that not doing everything that's easiest for Henry -- be there 24/7, don't make him move, don't complicate things with his mom, etc. -- will somehow make him feel the same way Ted feels after the death of his father. In reality, these situations are nothing alike, Ted is feeding the very anxieties he's been working to overcome, Henry has not displayed any significant difficulties with an unconventional family unit, and a happy, supported Ted would ALWAYS be a better father to Henry than one who feels trapped and isolated. The show could have easily given us a reunion while allowing Ted to keep all that he's built -- Rebecca lays out how that can happen right on screen! -- and instead the show chose to have Ted sacrifice everything but Henry when it's oh so clear he never had to.

Which yeah, feels tragic to me. Or at the very least incredibly bittersweet, with a huge emphasis on the bitter. There's nothing wrong with those endings, but it's not a conclusion that I think fit Ted Lasso's genre, or served the rest of the series well.

[kimium]

I know some of your faves…but I’d love if you could list and ramble about your favourite Twisted Wonderland characters! (One per dorm, plus faculty if you want to!!💜💜)

Aw, thanks friend! I'm so excited to answer this! I love Twisted Wonderland and this is a great ask!

My favourites in Twisted Wonderland (one per dorm)

Heartslaybul - Riddle

What I love the most about Riddle is his character arc and backstory. There is something so tragic about a story taking one of the biggest fears parents have for their children, receiving a good education, and twisting it into something tragic.

Overbearing parents who demand perfection from their children academically and thus feel it is their "Right" to dictate every aspect of their child's life sadly exist in real life too. Especially when we look at the country who made Twisted Wonderland: Japan. I think it's fascinating that while Riddle's character is twisted from one of the most beloved western novels, Alice in Wonderland, his core character theme feels like commentary on Japanese culture regarding education.

Savanaclaw - Leona

Again, similar to Riddle, what I'm attracted to in Leona is the commentary his backstory provides. In an opposite fashion to Riddle, Leona's lack of expectations placed upon him are what hurt him in the end. Everyone has experienced a moment where someone who should have supported our endeavours did not because they're too busy comparing us to someone else. For Leona it's because his older brother was always seen as "better" by others, even as a child.

Leona's backstory could almost tether into a conversation about "talent" VS "hard work" but we're not here for me to almost slip back into SDR2 rant territory.

I also like Leona because I'm super attracted to his character design: I love long haired characters with braids, I love Leona's style, and I love his lazy, tsundere attitude.

Octavinelle - Jade

This was a tough choice because I like the OctoTrio equally. However, I picked Jade because I adore characters who have duality to them. On the surface, Jade seems polite, respectful, and calm. He's none of those things and in fact I think in many cases he's more bloodthirsty and ruthless than Flyod. The difference between the two of them is while Floyd does not hide his emotions and is mercurial, Jade is the one putting on the thin porcelain mask, ready to reveal his true nature at any moment.

I also love Jade because I think he's a very honest character and does not care what others think about him.

Scarabia - Kalim

While I like both Kalim and Jamil, I have to give this one to Kalim because I love his relationship dynamic with Jamil as character foils.

Kalim stands out to me because unlike the rest of the cast, I think there is more to his sunny personality than meets the eye. It's easy to dismiss someone's positivity as "foolish" or "naïve" but Kalim represents an ideal I firmly believe in: being positive does not mean you're "ignorant". Trusting others is not a sign of weakness.

This contrasts with Jamil's outlook, which is also not wrong: you need to be cautious of others, you can't always fix things with happy smiles, sometimes you have to consider the negatives in life.

Neither are wrong and neither are right. It's just a shame that we don't see more of their development. I'd love to see how they work out their relationship post Book 4.

Pomefiore - Vil

Is this any surprise? I've talked about Vil before in the past. If someone told me that I would end up loving Vil when I started playing, I wouldn't have believed them.

Now? I'm in love with Vil. I love his view on beauty and how he tries to bring beauty into the world. I love that Vil sees beauty as something anyone can obtain and should strive towards. I love that he doesn't put others down if they truly do not know or understand. Instead, he tries to educate them and bring them up to his standards. It causes conflict, yes, but I prefer this interpretation of striving towards beauty rather than majority of media making it out as something "vapid and vain". As if media isn't the one demanding beauty out of others. Hypocrites.

I also love how Vil represents the pain of being judged at every moment and the fears/pain of being a perfectionist. How cruel is it that Vil has been in the spotlight since day one, been critiqued since he was breathing, and continues to strive towards his goals? I think that's very admirable and I wish we had more of a grey area between Vil ("There is no such thing as natural talent - it's all the result of hard work thus I'm a perfectionist") VS Neige ("Talent is a result of hard work but charisma and natural luck can aid you").

Ignihyde - Ortho

What I love about Ortho is how they took the trope "I want to be a real boy" and turned it around. Ortho never sought humanity or wished for it. He didn't have a crisis over his identity and rebel against Idia midway through Book 6. No, Ortho gained his humanity through love and the desire to protect his most important person, his big brother. I'm such a sucker for family love being a powerful force in fiction and I love that it's also Idia's love (and grief) that resulted in Ortho changing and developing through Book 6.

Diasomnia - Malleus

This is challenging because my favourite dorm is Diasomnia and I love them all. However, I have to pick Malleus.

First, he was the character I was most attracted to before playing Twisted Wonderland. Maleficent is my favourite Disney villain, especially after seeing her role in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

Next, Malleus is both brooding and mysterious but also a huge dork. I love that he's the most powerful mage on campus (and contender for whole world) and physically he looks it. He's tall, dark, and intimidating with his ancient Fae knowledge and age. He's also a dork who love ruins and gargoyles to the point he created a club around gargoyles with just himself present. I cannot stop laughing; that's so cute.

I also love that he's a dragon. I've played enough Fire Emblem to know all dragons have a bit of possessive madness inside them and I cannot wait to see that in Book 7. (Which I am avoiding all spoilers about, thank-you-very-much.)

Bonus Faculty: Crewel

Is that a surprise? The moment I saw his design I was in love. I also love that he is a fashionista who also designs clothing on the side. A great reference to Cruella! I also loved his team up with Vil during the Fairy Tale Gala events!

I wish we knew a bit more about Crewel, but that's what fanfiction is for! My favourite fandom head canon is Crewel was the house warden of Pomefiore.

[bthump]

Excuse me for my ignorance but does being a film studies purist mean you don’t analyze a film with philosophy concepts?

Well it means I personally don't, because I only took philosophy 100 courses and didn't retain much, and I haven't learned much philosophy since uni either lol. But also yeah it's not something you're taught in film studies ime. You learn some analytical lenses that are strongly associated with the history of film analysis - psychoanalytical theory, feminist theory, auteur theory, post-colonial theory, queer theory, etc - but ime philosophy isn't really one of them, beyond maybe the cave allegory as a metaphor for cinema lol, or the usual ways analytical theory often has roots in philosophy, like Marxist theory eg.

And with that comment I was mostly referring to my own preferences wrt a certain type of fandom meta that attempts to understand the story, where I prefer to focus on the text without bringing in specialized knowledge*** the average reader can't be expected to know. As a general rule I assume that any uncommon knowledge required to understand most stories is offered in the story itself, unless it's written for a niche audience or it's a badly written story lol. Applying additional specialized knowledge only makes sense to me in terms of like, understanding a story's cultural context, or creating a more personal interpretation that's only meaningful to a subset of the audience.

But that's not a hard and fast rule either, depending on whether the text invites those more specialized lenses - like eg while Plato's virtues seems kind of random to me when it comes to Berserk, it makes sense to apply a little Nietzsche since the story itself quotes him. I don't think you have to study Nietzsche to understand Berserk, but a little extra knowledge there could make some of the story's themes clearer. (And I mean to be fair I don't know enough about Platonism to know whether Berserk overtly references it as well, or how to even differentiate between direct references to Plato vs anything infuenced by western systems of thought since dude got his fingerprints in everything lol, so take me with a grain of salt. But like, if someone was earnestly writing an analysis of how Plato sheds light on Berserk, they should probably explain why they feel it's relevant to the story first, imo, and that would solve the problem.)

Anyway thanks for asking and giving me the chance to clarify! Hopefully at least lol bc idk how much sense this makes. I may write meta and have opinions on types of analysis but I'm not actually an academic.

***the four cardinal virtues isn't that specialized to be fair lol, and there's obviously no hard and fast rule for deciding what's common knowledge and what's specialized knowledge esp between different cultures and eras etc, but in general I think the best rule of thumb is "can you justify why and how this lens applies to this story based on the text of the story?" And part of that justification will usually relate to how niche the knowledge is.

[04tenno]

Again thank you so much for going out of your way to write up this post, I love the nuanced breakdown on not just language but also the context- especially with Japanese where things feel particularly reliant on that.

BIG help w the 「ちょっと」 part, that was what was massively throwing me the whole time. Also, actually seeing 「辛いじゃん」written out helped me hear it in the clip. I was having a hard time making it out initially.

Speaking of making things out, that unintelligible bit does seem like it can't be helped lol, it gets jumbled for me at the same point it is in your translation too. It's frustrating because one can make out just enough sounds but it's still not identifiable.

Something else I think is interesting is that initially, on viewing the clip I heard:

「そんなに簡単にさ、 やっぱちょっと、んん…」

I had actually interpreted his bit about "winning" as separate thoughts from this, the same way he opened by saying Mine was cool. I had considered the above as the lead into his response to Kson's question of Mine possibly being "out there somewhere" vs connected to the previous thought where he was potentially talking about Mine winning him over.

I think that's actually because I went into the clip with only one thing in mind: MINE LIVED REAL. Therefore that bit, to me, read more of a "to bring him back so easily… (implied can't do it easily)" statement, related to the later mention of the difficulties that bringing him back would involve: Shido, making sure they do it right, etc. So, I think probably all my assumptions were colored by going in looking for Mine lives statements first.

Anyway, I really appreciated your response! My Japanese is almost entirely naturally acquired because it's what we speak at home, but that also means my language is limited to the kinds of discussions my family has haha. So, I don't actually know rules/grammar/all contextual usage or the why behind things. This was really helpful!

Of course, it was my pleasure! Thanks again for writing in! I'm glad I could help clarify those aspects, especially since context informed so much of my understanding. Being as Westernized as I am, I'm also in exactly the same boat with my own native language, so I totally get that. Though, while I never learned any of the "rules" for my native language, I can sort of meet Japanese halfway because it's grammatically very similar and I'm a professional copy editor.

No problem haha, it can be really tricky! As we see with Santo(?)'s line and later kson's. This is exactly why captions are important, and why I'd say getting a second opinion from a transcriptionist was worth it. I think perhaps next time I'll include the original Japanese. Really, there were a lot of things I wanted to do (like include the title of the original stream as a source or, you know, watermark the video) or should've done but which slipped my mind as I was rushing to have the clip out Wednesday, so I'll try to be more mindful in future.

Actually, I would say something along the same lines happened to me in terms of going into it with expectations... Because I originally clipped it because, you know, they're talking about Mine. But the second time I listened to the original full-length clip, I misled myself into thinking Yokoyama and Santo(?) had commented on Mine's romantic attraction/what it'd be like to date him, because my friend had mentioned earlier that they were hoping for further confirmation. So, you know, I'm glad cooler heads prevailed and I got it transcribed before I made a fool of myself lol.

[redxblueihateloveyou]

Hey i really love your blog!!! I just plucked the courage to actually send u an ask fhdjhd but GOSH i love your video edits and your gifs and your meta article posts, you're so articulate and you can explain/describe moments in a way that makes me go "oh wow, i cant believe i haven't seen it that way before!!" Haha ANYWAYS i'm just here to say that i completely agree with what all u said, Free creators might do a lil fanservice here and there for the 25 ships that exists within the fandom's circle, but rinharu's storyline is clearly the most romantic one! And i'd argue it's the one closest to being canon esp after part 1, i mean the fact that they put such an explosive emotional outburst right at the end of the second to the last movie means a lot. It's like reinforcing the fact that this series has always been about them, and everything that has happened only happened either because they met or they grew appart and miss eachother. I kinda feel like maybe.. juust maayyybe there's a chance KA wants to make the ship canon, since it's the last movie and they want to end it on a highnote maybe (bcs honestly i think the only reason they've been holding back is purely bcs of the merch sales, since they don't have a problem showing a wholesome lesbian love story in kobayashi maid dragon) butt i could be wrong, maybe i'm just overly optimistic and delusional, they could somehow ruin it and give an ending that panders to all the ships again 😅🥲, but at least there's a clear-cut guarantee that part 2 would dedicate a large portion of it fixing rin and haru's fight!!! Oohh how can i wait another 6 months now!!😭😭 (sorry for the long ask btw!! 🙏🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️)

OMG thank you so so much!! For watching my vids too! ❤️❤️❤️ It really means a lot to me! Ahhhh wow, thats the longest ask I've ever recieved! 😍 I'm trying to explain myself so hard lol I'm glad its appreciated, bc sometimes I'm like "I don't fucking know how to say this" xD

Well, you know me, I only care for one ship, which is the only one with confirmed info that they're both actually gay and have mutual feelings for each other. There are some other ships in free! I'm fine with (those do not include Rin or Haru in them xD), but I just mostly don't care, bc after reading all the stuff, you can see that in some of those to one the other one is actually like his second option, which I just do not like. Others I just don't even see, bc again to me who witnessed great close male friendships and having two sisters who I'm very close to, I just do not see anything romantic in that.

It's not just Free! tbh, it's like any sports anime these days. They see two guys walking together, it's a ship. And like no one cares if they're just bros. Like I'd get i they did some fanservice fanservice, but like I never saw anyone in Free! crossing the line the way rinharu do. I can without thinking much name you 10 rh moments that no matter how hard you think can't be explain as being bros, but can't name one when it comes to others. I just find some ppl shipping everyone with everyone weird sometimes. It's like western fans see like some eastern actors or singers slap each other ass lovingly and they're like "oh they're fucking" I'm like "yeah, ofc all 500 of them, you're absolutely right". And Free! doesn't do anything even like that, I just do not get sometimes like what moment even brought on some ships. I'm genuinely confused. Albert and Haru? You fucking fell from a sakura tree or smth? I'm...

I'm especially confused when it comes to guys, whose character type is who I call "I only want this one and if I can't have it, then I'm ok" xD. It just always surprised me, when they try to pair up them with someone else, it's like a complete ooc.

I'm also not into this whole "well, if there are gays in this anime, than everyone there is gay". I'm like... huh. It's like with KNB and MDZS I had same feeling. It's like you have already couples there who are canon/borderline canon, why do you need another 10 who don't even interact or just don't even go there? I'm always so confused in those situations. Or like wangxian is married and some are like "no, I actually don't like it, let me write a fic when they're with other ppl". Lan Zhan... being in love or having sex with someone else? Yeah, that's not Lan Zhan, dude, you're writing about someone else. Might as well change the name at this point.

But last time I went to twitter someone had a thread about how if they make s4 of Free! they should mainly explore there Momo's angst (and no, it wasn't a joke), so I'm already like, I'm just.. nothing will surprise me no more. But I'm forever gonna be confused.

Yeah, I eel you about "going there". I mean seeing part of it, it just kinda cemented my confusion, bc I do not get how it can be considered platonic. We were just discussing since yesterday with @freeseafirefly how I now even more perplexed and do not understand how they will resolve it without going into relationship territory. It's just our point here is that like... no one forced them to go there (I mean its not like this whole fandom has some wild expectations or anything already), we were waiting or our usual friendship and swimming and maybe tiny conflict about struggles of pro-careers and some usual rh implications (maybe all the rh gay in dramas as always). Not some pure fanfiction coming to life here haha.

Like why I'm laughing is bc I twice used in my "fics" bringing up him leaving Haru as a force to push the confession, bc there's no way if he adresses this it won't lead to this. And now we not only have this (bc Haru just basically layed it out there), but an actual scene of him playing on their feelings for each other and a literal image of Rin leaving and "taking Haru's heart with him" to the point when he's for the first time in his life openly crying on the ground. And it's not like this scene can be interpreted as anything else, the whole fandom talks same, bc the whole fight was just about them, what Haru said was just about them, there's a literal boom of his heart getting out of his chest, before he falls and now he's heartless.

So our question is like... why go there?

It's like some say that they might still resolve it with "they're special to each other" and swimming, but still like we already knew that, there was no reason to go that far is what I'm saying. And to think that it was planned since forever giving the clues is like... ???

The whole spoon theme also throw me on the loop because like, lets be honest, it's wedding themed. And that part of the interview about part 2 there also made me go...?????? Because I mean, huh?

This is just all in all very interesting turn of events to say the least. I do not see the point of all of this if its not what I think it is, esp after seeing tweets like "even I see a rh wedding and I'm mh T_T". It's just all very unsubtle, that's why we're confused.

Like who knows, maybe we'll really by some magic turn of events get lucky and they really decided that since its the ending, it's okay to go for it. But I also don't wanna to hype myself much, I'm already really happy with it, just bc again, this scene already proves all of my points.

And yeah, I'm sure they'll pander to everyone, bc it's the end and etc and we have to handle everything on the good note and there's a whole line of ppl who's obsessed with us, esp with Haru xD, but like bromance pandering and romance pandering are different things, you know *wiggles eyebrows* and u know who always gets the second one.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

No we do not need to start a notallamericans hashtag. I'm an American and I hate this country it sucks. The world doesn't revolve around The US. Shit on America all you want. Trust me no one hates The US more than Americans. Of course things that are not American should stay that way, such as the word gege should be kept as gege and not big brother. What I'm saying is that fandom seems to dislike westerners who genuinely want to learn about another culture and see things from outside of the American perspective. People who like MZDS and don't want to change it in anyway shape or form. Those people who actively try to learn about the culture and educate themselves seem to be discouraged from doing so. They are told they are not allowed to like MZDS or MXTX and that they should not be allowed to be in participate in the fandom. People who aren't Chinese will never fully understand the culture so maybe it would have been better if MZDS only stayed Chinese and then there wouldn't be so much discourse.

Hi anon,

I'm just assuming you're the same anon from the last ask. I think the discussions that were had today do not touch upon the fandom disliking "westerners who genuinely want to learn about another culture". The latest drama and vagueing has to do with an american translator saying the "fantranslation" (ie the official English translation done by someone who also did fantranslations) was bad because it did not localise everything. So we're in an entirely different ballpark.

I have not come across people who are actively, actually saying that westerners should not like mdzs or participate in the fandom at all. That being said, if some people expressed this opinion, we have to understand it in context. Fans' interpretations and headcanons can verge really easily into the culturally insensitive and racist: from the top of my head I can think very quickly of the incest drama about sect 'siblings' or about the use of 'gege' as an endearment. That's not even talking about when these discussions get into questions of morality and good/bad, or questions of "representation". And this must be put into perspective since fandom micro-aggressions do not happen in isolation; they are added to the micro-aggressions and experiences of racism/colonialism that chinese people and chinese-diasporic people already have to face.

I think the sentiment of "People who aren't Chinese will never fully understand the culture so maybe it would have been better if MZDS only stayed Chinese and then there wouldn't be so much discourse" is, yes, very sweeping and polarising, but also mainly right 🤷‍♂️. I mean, let's not act like the chinese fandom is not full of their own in-fighting and drama. But it is true that, as people who were not the assumed audience, Westerners will miss many of the nuances or references that the author assumed the readership would know, which is not even talking about how much translation impacts our ability to access the original text; all of this contributes to the production of a world of new takes and discourses that would simply not exist if there weren't any Western fans (which is not even talking about how many of the discussions that feel relevant currently in EN-language fandom spaces simply are not in other fandom spaces). It is what it is 🤷‍♂️.

Look, I am a westerner who not only likes mdzs and interacts in the fandom but even writes meta. Obviously I don't feel like I am not allowed to do that, even when I recognise that there are aspects of the novel that are unreachable to me or which require me to rely on other people for context and explanations. But I think there is a level of discomfort that is to be expected in the process, the sort of the feeling of being guests in someone else's house. Imo, the healthy approach is not to become bitter towards people who express justified issues with the western fandom, but to learn to accept this discomfort and position as a guest. That makes it easier not to react in the defensive and to really consider the points underneath the sometimes more salty or sweeping reactions.