#love is everything and nothing at all and everyone has their own individual interpretation of it

[himbybimbybimbo]

.

[antianakin]

MY STANCES ON CONTROVERSIAL CHARACTERS ARE AS FOLLOWS

Anakin Skywalker: This one's fairly obvious, but I'm one of the people who doesn't see Anakin as redeemed by the end of ROTJ just because he saved one person he personally gives a damn about. My definition of redemption is about atoning and making amends, and Anakin has no possible way of actually DOING THAT for most of the things he's done, so there's no real way of acquiring redemption. He can be a better person, he can be forgiven by individual people for things he's done to them, he can keep choosing to be selfless instead of selfish, but none of that necessarily means he has to be considered redeemed. If you think he's redeemed at the end of ROTJ and that's what brings you joy in your interpretation of the story, great, I honestly don't care. But if you choose to come into my notes and get mad at me because I don't think the space fascist is redeemed just because he decides to save his own son, you will now be blocked on sight, I'm done having that conversation with people.

The Jedi As A Whole: Wonderful people with a beautiful culture that never did a single thing to deserve what was done to them. They were not corrupt, they didn't need to reform their culture in a single way. There was nothing more they could've done for Anakin or the Republic that would've stopped what happened. They don't steal children, they adopt them from parents who choose to let their children lead a better life, and become part of the large extended Jedi family. They are intergalactic therapists whose literal way of life IS therapy for those who choose to follow it. They were outplayed, but they did everything they could've possibly done. Sometimes, it is possible to commit no mistakes, and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life. (Side note here: This is an incredibly pro Jedi blog, if you come on my blog and criticize the Jedi in any way, you will be immediately blocked, I am so done with this fandom's anti-Jedi sentiments, consider this your warning.)

Padme Amidala: Deserved better from the Prequels, has such potential and promise and I want so dearly to save her from her toxic ass marriage to a fascist MAGA manchild, but damn am I glad Luke and Leia didn't have to grow up with her as a mother some days.

Bo-Katan Kryze: I wish I could like her, but the writers are making it SO HARD. They don't seem to ever remember that she gleefully set an entire village on fire because they dared ask for their enslaved people back and to not be occupied anymore, but I do.

Satine Kryze: I wish I could like her, but I don't have enough nostalgia for her to overlook how bad the writing is for her. She treats Obi-Wan like garbage, brings out the worst in him, acts very arrogantly about just about everything and never has to take responsibility for her own mistakes so she gets to die a martyr.

Aleksander Kallus: Literally has to have his ENTIRE BACKSTORY retconned so he can be "redeemed" within the span of one episode. Also manages to "All Lives Matter" Zeb into thinking that judging Imperials for their fascist choices is the same as judging an ENTIRE SPECIES on the actions of one individual who was acting in self-defense anyway. Stop saying he's got the best redemption arc in Star Wars, it sucks fucking ass and he's not a fucking Fulcrum, he just stole the title from Ahsoka and didn't earn it and he was a shit spy anyway.

Crosshair: Bigoted dickhead who treats everyone like complete crap and then goes full fascist as a punishment for the world when no one wants to risk their lives to save him. His redemption arc was completely half-assed and he should've had to do a LOT more to gain people's forgiveness and absolutely no one should've been forced to apologize to HIM.

Bode Akuna: Basically just Anakin lite and we all know how I feel about Anakin. No sob story justifies anything he's done and I didn't find him all that interesting or sympathetic, personally.

Rafa and Trace Martez: I actually loved them, I thought they had an interesting relationship with each other and with Ahsoka, I appreciated how different they felt and the arc Ahsoka goes on with them. I don't mind that they used them to showcase the rising anti-Jedi sentiment among the citizens of Coruscant, I just wish their opinions hadn't been presented as though they were right. I love that we see they've joined a rebellion of sorts post-Order 66 and I wish we'd gotten to see more of Trace, Rafa, and Rex working together rather than the absolute trashfire that we're actually getting on TBB.

Ahsoka Tano: Relationship status: It's complicated. I DO like her, generally, but I REALLY dislike the way she's constantly written in later stuff to be better than everyone else and to have basically zero flaws so that she can end up like a messiah or a goddess of light reborn or something. It's boring, it's annoying, and it just isn't any good. I particularly don't care for how she consistently gets utilized to bash the Jedi Order and absolve Anakin for all of his sins. Ahsoka deserves better, but I'm also immensely frustrated with where her story's taken her and the way fandom tends to treat her. We also just straight-up need more main female Jedi characters and as long as Ahsoka's around it feels like it'll never happen. She's completely irrelevant to the story overall and I'm annoyed at how much Felony is trying to make her more significant than she is instead of just letting her stand on her own for once.

Sabine Wren: I love the Rebels version of her, but the Ahsoka show version sucks. I have decided it simply does not exist for Sabine. That isn't the real Sabine and it never will be. That's not Sabine's story, the real Sabine would never try to be a Jedi because quite simply she doesn't NEED to be. And the real Sabine would NEVER disrespect Ezra's sacrifice by undoing it and then leaving him to deal with the fallout. It's stupid, it's ugly, and Sabine deserved better.

Hera Syndulla: Much like Sabine, I love the Rebels version of her, but the Ahsoka version sucks. The Ahsoka version deserves to be kicked out of the army or whatever, she's a terrible mother and an even worse General and quite honestly not that great of a friend. The real Hera would NEVER act like orders didn't matter just because she doesn't like them or refuse to see the logic in letting go of Ezra after he's been missing for 10 years so that those resources can go to people who they can confirm are still alive.

Shin Hati: She's so so so boring. She has the personality of cardboard, it basically consists of "crazy eyes" and that's about it. She is pretty literally just Darth Maul but a girl. Like every single part of her character so far is indistinguishable from Maul aside from the cosmetic stuff. I hope she dies in season 2 and never gets a redemption arc. I'd say Sabine deserves better, but honestly Ahsoka!Sabine deserves her.

Grey Jedi: Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen. Let Grey Jedi stay in fanon where it belongs, none of your faves are Grey Jedi in canon and they never will be.

[moiraineswife]

Moiraine And Lan - The Inability To Communicate Trauma

Hello friends. It has been quite some time. Quite some time since I have: absolutely lost all my fucking shit over my blorbos at great length via a long and quotation filled tumblr meta. Fear not: the status quo of the universe returns, and I am once again: back on my bullshit (literally hours before the next episode airs and this gets drowned/replaced with New Content. Because I’m smart like that). ANYWAY.

Today we’re going to discuss: Mo and Lan and the singular moron-flavoured braincell they share, bond or no bond. More seriously, however: I’ve noticed a few bits of commentary/takes/analysis of the current state of their…well state, let’s be frank here, and realised that my contrary ass has: Different Opinions. So I figured I’d share them. Bc that’s what I do.

(Obligatory disclaimer that there is no right or wrong way to interpret something - that’s why it’s an interpretation, and this is not a call out or a “oh wow you’re wrong and here’s why!!!!” post directed at anyone or anything. Just my observation that I am going against the grain of what I’ve seen and thus throwing out: a new chew toy for us to gnaw on).

Also: please do note that this post will cover, rather extensively/in-depth, the trauma arc that Lan and Moiraine are going through at the moment and will contain trigger warnings for: depression, PTSD, trauma response, rape (in the context of the analogy that Verin presented), suicide, suicidal ideation, suicidal attempt (again: all in the context of the show/previous events), and everything related to the topics that have been raised in the first two episodes for these characters. Be safe and tap out if you need to!

So. Obligatory wiffle aside: what shall we discuss? In a nutshell (bc I’m real good at that) I’m covering how, as I see it/am fascinated by it: the responses that they’re having to each other at the moment are mirrors/insights into the responses that they’re each having to the recent traumas that they’ve both suffered. In more depth/the points where I think I differ from the norm we’re going to cover: 

1)-why Lan is: not an idiot, actually. I see it as him being still perfectly capable of READING/understanding Moiraine without the bond; what he’s having difficulty with is COMMUNICATING with her without the bond

2)- that Moiraine is actually: ALSO failing dismally at communicating with Lan, and that she’s doing: a real fucking bad job of manipulating him. (is she HURTING him? Yes. 100%. Is she MANIPULATING him into doing what she wants? Given that she clearly wants nothing more than for him to: leave her, and that after 5 solid months he has: not left, I’m just going to put out the idea that maybe she’s not quite meeting her all of her targets in this area.

3)- wow they’re both doing incredibly stupid things, and they’re doing them for the same incredibly stupid reasons, and they are, in fact: INCREDIBLY THE SAME. See: singular moron-flavoured brain cell. This manifests slightly differently, due to their own individual traumas influencing the specifics of their actions/thought processes - but the general underlying thesis is the same for both.

The TL;DR here is that: these weirdos still know each other, and love each other, and understand each other without their bond. Can they communicate any of what they want to communicate in any kind of effective way? No. No they cannot. They BOTH suck. (I say that with legitimately all the love in the world).

So. Let’s start with Lan. Purely because I think my takes on him are the most Spicy/differ the most from everyone else’s and, let’s be honest, everything here feeds into everything else and this is going to get complicated where I start SO. Drama first. (I think it’s what they would want).

Okay so first and foremost I want to try and establish/explain what I mentioned at the outset of this thing which is: Lan is not blind, he’s not stupid, and he is not suddenly completely and utterly incapable of understanding a single feel that Moiraine feels if he can’t feel it with her via bond.

The largest and most obvious piece of evidence for this feels like the best one to start with and, for me, this is the fact that: HE DIRECTLY AND COMPLETELY CALLS HER OUT ON HER BULLSHIT, TO HER FACE, TWICE!!! 

“Don’t smile at me. You can shut me out, try to drive me away, but don’t you dare smile at me. As though everything is fine. As though you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”

This is from episode 1, where he finally snaps at her after she gives him that fake ass little smile and is like ‘is an aes sedai not allowed her secrets’ when he tries to talk to her/get her to explain: literally anything to him. And THAT is what pushes him over the edge. 

She has been cold. She has been dismissive. She has flat out ignored him like he’s not even present. He has taken it all. Not happily, and with obvious frustration, but he hasn’t said a peep. Not when she gives him one brusque, dismissive one-word orders (“door”) like a dog. Or when she deliberately turns away from him and refuses to so much as look at them - he endures all of that and just takes it and let’s her do it. Because he understands that this is her current expression of: not being fine. 

If she WAS fine, she would not be doing these things, and he knows that, and I think sees it as something like a storm to weather? It is something that will pass (he hopes) if he has the patience and the strength to wait it out. When she smiles at him? When she tries to make a JOKE out of what she’s doing? Out of the secrets that she’s been keeping from him - secrets like the fact that she was planning on going to the Eye of the World to die without him - THAT is not acceptable. She’s smiling at him and trying to joke with him as though they’re still capable of that - as though they can still tease each other the way they did, as though things are fine, both in herself, and between them, and they are NOT. When she’s treating him like a slave, or a stranger, or an annoyance - that is strangely better - because it’s this unspoken acknowledgement/agreement (the only one they’ve been able to achieve) that this is because things are not fine. She treats him badly because she’s not fine, he KNOWS she’s treating him badly because she’s not fine - is a strange kind of shared truth. Like sarcasm - something said/done where both parties know that the meaning/intent is completely different. Smiling, joking, pretending she’s fine? That is an insult, because he knows damn well she is NOT in that place.

Okay, so let’s look at the second instance of this, which occurs in episode 2 (oh how quaint) and is as follows: 

L: “Then tell me! You and I have walked this path together. Every step, every choice, every sacrifice.”

M: “We have never walked this path together. You have never seen the forest for the trees because I have never shown it to you.”

L: “I know what you’re trying to do. You can’t push me away.”

Again, as with the previous scene, he tries to get her to talk to him, to stop keeping secrets from him, to share this with her and let him help her carry her burdens the way they always have. She puts him walls, she, again, tries to force distance - she tells him that they have never been together as he says. And he calls her out. AGAIN. He knows what she’s trying to do. It hasn’t changed. She’s still just doing the same thing she’s been doing from the start of episode 1 - trying to force him away, because she’s desperate, and she’s suffering, and she doesn’t have anything else but this - even if he knows what she’s doing, even if it hasn’t worked so far. 

Both of them are guilty of this - both of them get one idea stuck in their minds of how to handle this situation/how to fix everything, and they both refuse to change. They both dig their heels in, plant their stakes, pick their hills to die on, and are refuse to budge for love, money, or common sense. For Lan it’s in trying to get her to talk, to open up, to push back on the destructive coping mechanisms she’s got - trying to force her to include him, tying to force her to include herself and come to dinner with them etc. For Mo it’s this: it’s pushing him away, because she is no longer worthy of him (and believes she never was) and protecting him.

(to continue this: unhinged adventure, pls continue under the cut!)

So she commits to this, even if she honestly knows it probably won’t work now, either. (she empties her entire quiver on him in this scene, and the atomic bomb she had in her back pocket too for good measure. These things she’s been holding back in reserve, the last cards to play - that she misled him about Rand’s death, that she has discovered they (and notice that she still says “we” when she talks about this - even though she went to the Eye alone, even though she made that choice alone, even though she rejects the idea that they have been together on this quest, as he says - when she is not actively choosing every word to hurt him, she thinks of them and what they’ve done as an unconscious “we” and a unit) have freed Ishamael/possibly other Forsaken - one after the other, meant to just overwhelm him and be the final coup de grace. And it STILL doesn’t work. She unleashes everything she has on him and he STILL insists that he’s not leaving her. And it’s because he knows - as he just said - what she’s doing, and why. And he will not let her. And he says that to her “I’m not letting you walk away from me again” - because the last time he did: she went to the Eye to get herself killed. And it’s only by some miracle and twist of cruelty that she was left alive to suffer instead.

Also I’m going to take a brief sidebar here, before we move on to Further Evidence/thoughts on this. But I think that it’s really important to consider LAN’S trauma in what he’s doing and why? Like, I think people are doing this for Mo already? They recognise that she wouldn’t be behaving this way if she 1)- wasn’t trying to protect Lan (her intention) and 2)- wasn’t suffering the effects of her trauma/being cut off from the Power at the Eye. Lan is a little less obvious (both in that his trauma is not a single fixed point/event that’s very obvious and easy to refer back to; and that he’s a bit less blunt Lan Mo’s “brick to the face” techniques and motivations) but, as I said at the start: his reactions to Mo are a direct reflection/window into his own trauma responses.

So, as I just mentioned - Lan is SO adamant about not leaving Moiraine, not giving her the opportunity to distance them/push him away - because the last time she did that, in just nudging him, like, an inch to the left, she used that to mask their bond and skip off into the Blight to go get herself killed with Rand. And there is: no doubt, and no question, and no room for wiggling or negotiation on this. They BOTH were FULLY aware that that was a suicide mission. The first thing he says to her when he finds her is “you’re alive” - because he was sure that history was repeating on him.

Because I think that it’s very important to not just consider Mo’s actions here, I think it’s important to remember Lan’s experience with Stepin as well. The two played out very similarly for him/parallel each other almost exactly. They both talked to him about Nynaeve, encouraging him to seek a love and a life with her. They both manipulated him/the circumstances to make it impossible for him to try and protect them - Stepin by drugging him, and Moiraine by masking the bond so he was unable to sense her, so that they could leave him. They both had clear plans and intentions - and both of their ultimate goals was for it to end in their death (obviously the REASONS behind this are very different - Mo was trying to save the world; while Stepin’s had already ended). But in both cases, Lan wakes up alone, realising that they’ve left him, realising, instantly, what they intend to do and in both cases: he was too late and he feels that he failed. Stepin he finds dead - and the only reason that he DOESN’T find that has happened to Mo is not because of something he did, it’s not because he got to her in time, it’s not because he protected her, it’s not because HE did anything at all - it’s just because some whim of cruelty decided to spare her. And these two events happen within, like, a week of each other I want to say? Like that’s…That’s an incredibly damaging and traumatising thing to go through ONCE - but back to back? How guilty must he have felt? How ANGRY with himself? Because how could he not have learned? How could he have let this happen AGAIN?

Of course he’s terrified now. Of course he’s terrified that if he leaves she’s going to die. Of course he refuses - past the point of any sense or reason - to just back down and leave. He is certain that if he does it will mean the death of the person that he loves the most in this world. And it will be HIS fault. She’s being cruel to him, she’s pushing him away, she’s ignoring him, she’s ordering him around, she’s deliberately pushing every button he’s got, and stabbing her knife in every sensitive spot she’s discovered over the last twenty years. And what kind of weak, selfish, useless person would he be to let that be all it takes for him to just say ‘well fine, I’ll just abandon you and let you kill yourself without me’. He cannot fail again. He WILL NOT fail again. He has been here, history is repeating on him again and he will not let it. Whatever she says to him. However she hurts him. Whatever he has to endure to weather this storm with her he will. Because none of this pain even comes CLOSE to what it will be like if he leaves her and she hurts herself and that is entirely his fault.

(Note: I do not actually think that Moiraine is actively suicidal at this point. As Verin notes - she chooses to fight every day. She wakes up, she fills her buckets, she puts one foot in front of the other and she clearly keeps going. It’s wobbly, and it’s messy, and she’s clearly grieving and depressed and traumatised - but she is not suicidal. Does LAN know that? Can Lan, without the bond, and with Stepin, and the Eye, haunting him even begin to scrape together the required rationality to see that? No. Lan sees Moiraine as being in just as much danger as she sees him being in and all he can do, all he has left to do in this world is protect her. And so he will).

To conclude the wrap of: the most painful breakup scene in the history of the world (for me and my present blorbos at this present moment in time, anyway) I want to just talk about the infamous “we were never equals”. And a lot of it has been covered, and I agree with the takes that Moiraine does not believe herself equal to Lan (and never did (SELF ESTEEM ISSUES!? IN MY CODEPENDENT PLATONIC SOULMATE RELATIONSHIP!? NOOOOO!!!!!!! NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)) and that is how she’s able to say this oath wise. I just want to touch on the fact that some people seem to be like ‘bro how can u not see what she’s saying DIRECTLY TO UR FACE, BRO!? COME ON LAN. LISTEN!!!!’ and like. So, to bring up a controversial and possible shocking observation: Lan is, in fact: still a human being! Emotions are messy, and logic is a fine and wonderful thing from a couch, yelling at your tv screen, and with the delightful ability to rewind and replay conversations/moments in time to be able to link them together nicely.

But Moiraine has been cruel to him for months at this point in an effort to drive him away. And, as discussed - he knows what she’s doing. He knows WHY she’s doing it. He is enduring it and putting up with it and stomaching it without throwing things at her because he knows it’s an expression of pain and is a reaction to what she’s been through. But he’s also hurt by it. Not least because: even if she’s only SAYING these things to hurt him/drive him away - she still believes them enough that they’re true for her to be able to actually get them out of her mouth. That HURTS. That’s going to break you down, that’s going to GET to you, that’s going to be thing that keeps him up at night and just echoes in his head over and over again and like - my man’s self-esteem and self-worth wasn’t actually sitting up at the peak of Dragonmount BEFORE 5 months of this, like dear Light people.

To have the person you love the most in this world tell you that “I don’t want my saddle to slip” (I don’t trust you to do this for me), to have her admit that she deliberately misled him, that she has actively kept important, possibly world-changing events from you, that she says, to your face - the thing that you are MOST afraid of, the thing that tormented him via Machin Shin, the thing that torments him still about Stepin - that he FAILED her? For her to believe that so firmly that it’s truth to her? Of course he doesn’t think he’s worthy of her? Of course he’s willing to take what she says at face value. SHE CAN’T FUCKING LIE!!!! And the set-up to this is so important, because she goes right for the jugular in this scene, and she does so repeatedly, in quick succession.

So she hits him with: ‘actually I lied when I said before that WE were going to the Tower - I’m going on my own without you. We yote a forsaken out into the world OOPS. -I refuse to explain anything to you. -We have never been walking this path together. -I have never showed you everything, I have always hidden things from you. -OH also ur lil sheepherder dude is actually: not dead and never was, I #lied to ur face abt that. -I am loyal to the Dragon - and ONLY him. -You can’t protect me anymore without the bond. -No, you’re not my Warder, you failed me, and I would be dead in spite of you if not for the help of people more competent than you. -ALSO here’s our good buddy Alanna and I am going to THREATEN TO HAVE HER TAKE YOUR BOND BY FORCE IF YOU KEEP REFUSING ME and I arranged this ahead of time to make this right. ALL of this gets dumped on his head in the space of LITERALLY AROUND TWO MINUTES. Like damn Mo the bloody Fades were less efficient than that.

He has just had all of that thrown in his face - the things she’s been holding back, keeping in case she needed them - her lying to him, her isolating him, her NEVER walking this path with him or ever showing him all that she saw, telling him that he is not her Warder anymore, that he has FAILED to protect her, that she will have him bonded against his will just to get rid of him. And he stands there on the ground, while she gazes down at him from on top of her horse (which she mounted - for the first time we’ve seen on screen - without his aid (which is a GUTTING little touch, because we see him smoothly and seamlessly help her mount a couple of times in season 1)) and she just says, to his face, the TRUTH, as he asked for: they were never equals.

And she can say that because she believes that he is better than her, and we know that, but can you blame him for not quite catching that in the moment????? She’s just told him that he’s a failure, that she’d be dead and he didn’t do a damn thing to protect her, that she will have someone bond him forcibly - and in this moment she just says what he’s been thinking for months, for YEARS honestly, given what machin shin torments him with “you can’t protect her. You’ll watch her die.” Of course he believes it. He is ALREADY taking an irrational level of responsibility over all of this, over what he perceives as his failures.

Adeleas calls him out for this and tells him he’s taking it too personally (and he IS) - he is assuming responsibility for not preventing something as though that means that he caused it. And again: this is a trauma response. This is an overreaction to a perceived series of circumstances that led to the death of a friend he’s had for possibly decades, to the one person he is supposed to protect, who he let go on a suicide mission alone so that he could get fucking laid, who he let slip away from him AGAIN to get attacked by Fades - where he failed her FOR A THIRD TIME. But like…He starts this little conversation off with her by apologising because he didn’t sense the Fades. He has: absolutely no way, reasonable or other ways, to sense INVISIBLE CREATURES THAT MOVE THROUGH SHADOW without the bond giving him the ability to do so. It’s a ridiculous thing to say. It has no logic to it at all and that’s the POINT. He is not capable of logic about this situation. He is blaming himself for everything - every single thing he can think of, whether it’s reasonable or not, is his fault, and his responsibility - he should have sensed the fades, he should have sensed her leaving, he should have stopped her going to the Eye, he should have stopped her from being cut off. He is trying to assert control, he is trying to assign blame and reason to the things that have happened to him - to the losses he has suffered - so that he can stop suffering them. And he can’t. He can’t. It happens over. And over. And over. AND OVER again. The trolloc blade that hit Moiraine in the Two Rivers and nearly killing her. Logain’s shield exploding and the axe handle piercing her side and nearly killing her. Being drugged by Stepin who killed himself while Lan was absent. Letting himself be distracted by Nynaeve while Mo went to the Eye. Missing Mo leaving AGAIN and her being attacked by the Fades. Actually getting there while the attack was in progress finally at LAST being able to DO something, to STOP something - and he can’t even fucking manage that. Over and over and over he fails people and he loses them and it’s his fault and he can’t stop it. He’s been retraumatised by circumstance, and is now retraumatising HIMSELF by adding even more perceived failings to the existing tally. Of course he believes her. He’s just been waiting for her to say that to him from the day they bonded. NO ONE IN THIS DYNAMIC HAS ANY SELF-ESTEEM. LIKE THEY STARTED WITH ZERO TOTAL AND SOMEHOW IT’S GOTTEN WORSE.

Okay so shifting focus slightly for the last thing I want to say about Lan, but still related, because: the problem (for me) is not that they cannot read/understand each other, it’s that they cannot COMMUNICATE with each other. And there is a distinction here. Lan’s issue is not lack of understanding where Mo is at - he sees her suffering, knows she’s not fine, understands she is reacting to the loss she endured at the Eye, he gets that. He’s known her for twenty years - bond or no bond - he knows what pain looks like when he sees it in her eyes. That’s not it. What he’s struggling with, and what he’s frustrated by is that they are not TALKING. He knows how she’s feeling - he doesn’t know what to do about that. He doesn’t know how to TALK about that with her. He doesn’t know how to fix it because she refuses to engage with it at all - and they’re SO bad at this that they don’t even get to the part where she can ignore him trying to talk abt the actual problem, bc she just nips it in the bud and ignores him/deflects him from the opening bland ‘small-talk’ set-up questions to start making forrays into that. 

Because before all of that would have happened instinctively via the bond - she feels the bad feels, he knows why, he sends the required good feels back/makes her tea/gives her an extra blanket/just responds without having to think about and, and this is the key point: without having to talk. Because, let’s be real here: these idiots BOTH suck at talking about their emotions/needs. Genuinely think they would both just lie on the ground and fucking die rather than say ‘I need a bandage because I’m BLEEDING PROFUSELY FROM EVERY ORIFICE.’ Because they’re deeply repressed, traumatised people who were never given the tools/language/space they needed to be able to safely and healthily learn to express their feels (but that…is a different piece of meta for another day). 

THE POINT IS: we’re now going to turn to my beloved, my man, my favourite, the myth, the legend, the ICON: Tomas and his tomatoes. And by this I do of course mean that we’re doing a deep dive of the scene where Tomas gives Lan some advice after they go out to the (absolutely THRIVING - good job my man) garden to pick some tomatoes for dinner (or at least….Tomas goes out to pick tomatoes for dinner; and Lan goes out to brood in his proximity while he does so. ) But eh. Tomayto, tomahto….) ANYWAY: 

So this scene gives Lan a chance to talk about losing the bond - and I think that is important as well? Likely obviously Moiraine is Going Through It here, and Lan hasn’t been cut off from the Power/isn’t dealing with that experience but WE DON’T PLAY TRAUMA OLYMPICS IN THIS HOUSE!!! PAIN IS PAIN AND IT SHOULD ALL BE VALIDATED AND DEALT WITH IN A CONSTRUCTIVE AND POSITIVE WAY. Ahem. Anyway. It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: QUOTE TIME AGAIN;

“The bond made things easier. It was like a friend walking along with us chatting away so we never had to.”

I think this is a really interesting (and honestly fascinating) way to describe the bond - to personify it and see it as another individual existing between them and making things easier by doing the things that they both struggle to do - use their goddamn words. 

“She’s tired, she’s hungry, she’s angry, she’s afraid. Now silence.”

This part, too, I think is really telling. Because if I had to put money on it and pick out the Top 4 Feelings Moiraine Is Having I think I could do a lot worse than ‘tired, hungry, angry, and afraid’. He KNOWS how she’s feeling. He can read that in her still. He doesn’t need the bond to tell him that. That’s not what he’s missing. He doesn’t need the bond to point out what she’s feeling to him, and he doesn’t miss that aspect, he misses the ‘chatting away’, he misses the noise, he misses the COMMUNICATION, and he is struggling with the silence.

THAT is what the bond used to do for them - it used to ‘chat away so they never had to’. A friend, a helper, who facilitated between them and allowed them to communicate when they couldn’t speak/didn’t have the words. We see this over and over and OVER again in season 1. They have whole ass conversations without making a single peep. Most notably in extremely tense or emotional moments - Kerene’s funeral and the look they share, Lan struggling with Stepin’s grief, coming to Moiraine, kneeling beside her, holding her hand - so much happens in that scene in particular. Without saying a word he communicates an exhaustion, a fatigue, a grief and a sorrow - a need for comfort and support - and she gives it. At Stepin’s funeral - the lookk that he gives her, the way he seeks her in the crowd, again needing her strength, which she gives to him through their bond and across a room. THAT’S what’s gone. That’s what he keeps trying to get back. 

Because he gives her that same look - that same obvious cry for help and look of desperation at the end of ep 1 with the Fade battle. He is WRECKED he is DONE, he’s disarmed, he cannot stand, he can barely crawl - he NEEDS her, he needs her strength, he needs her help. She tries to channel - she reaches for the power, as she would once have reached for him through their bond - and it does not come. It is not there. It cannot help them. And the words that he speaks to her then echo a repeated sentiment he’s had for her throughout: “what aren’t you telling me?”

The bond isn’t there to talk for her anymore. And she refuses. Consistently. Verin and Adeleas comment on Bayle visiting - and Lan notes that she doesn’t tell him any more than she tells them. After Bayle is gone, Lan tries to small talk, he slaps on a casual little smile and he asks a mundane ‘let’s start the ball rolling on that conversation thing’ question, easy to answer, nothing tense, nothing painful, a very common “how did it go?” she ignores him. He presses further - asks who that person was? She gives him the bare minimum (and doesn’t answer the question he’s ACTUALLY asking) and then he tries to push again - what did she want. At which point she hits him with that fake smile and the ‘can an aes sedai not have her secrets?’ - and he’s not even really asking for much. He’s not asking what he actually wants to ask which is: how are you? Are you okay? What can I do? What do you need? What are you thinking? And this idea repeats - in ep 2, when he tries to point out it takes 8 aes sedai to cut someone off, she snaps that he has no conception of the power the forsaken have - so he snaps at her to tell him then. And she refuses. 

They are both FEELING - and their feelings are seen. Lan sees how Mo struggles he sees how she shuts herself away, he sees that she’s not eating, and not sleeping, that she’s frustrated, and she’s frightened. Mo sees that she’s hurting him, she sees that he’s frustrated as well. They know this. But they’re not TALKING. They’re not COMMUNICATING. And at the dinner sequence - this is what Verin, Adeleas and Tomas try to give them advice about - their history is the “common language” that they are; maybe he needs to listen to what she IS saying and not try and demand her to say other things. They don’t know how to talk about things like this - they’re not good at that ANYWAY - but with each other? When they’ve never had to before? When for once, for the first time for both of them, it was effortless to share these things and communicate these deep insecurities and emotions that they struggle to give to others? THAT’S what they’re lacking and that’s what the biggest problem is.

Alright let’s leave poor Lan be for now, I have tormented him enough. On to Momo. This will (hopefully, dear god) be shorter, because people have covered Mo before. We know that she’s traumatised, we know she’s trying to push Lan away to protect him, we know she’s trying to regain control, she feels powerless, she feels helpless, she is trying to deal with something life-altering, something that made her vulnerable and helpless, she’s being reckless with her safety, she’s taking foolish risks etc etc.

The point I want to touch on here is the idea around her ‘manipulating’ Lan, because I usually see this go hand-in-hand with the Lan stuff I talked about already. Largely: how ironic that without the bond Lan doesn’t understand her/cannot read her, but Moiraine is doing it so well with him and i must: respectfully decline to go along with that perspective. And this is (I imagine u know what im going to say now) *inhales deeply* because they SUCK AT COMMUNICATING!!!! 

It doesn’t really MATTER that he is trying to open her up/communicate that he loves her, and he’s there for her, and he wants to support her; while she is trying to communicate the same - she loves him, she cares about him, she wants to protect him. They are both: failing dismally. Lan’s incessant pestering of Mo to talk to him is just making her clam up more and more because she can’t and what’s more: she doesn’t bloody want to. She wants to shove her trauma under a rug in the corner of Verin’s study, and then she wants to drag a bookshelf over the top of it, and then she wants to fill the bookcase with books, and then she wants to put a whole bunch of extra things on top of the bookcase, and then she wants to flee the country and forget that any of that ever exists because she does not want to deal with it. And Lan keeps pushing. He keeps trying to make her talk, because he’s desperate, and he misses the chattering of their friend the bond, and he wants to help, her wants her to let him back in, and it’s just pissing her off. Which is what the cottage squad calls him out for (when will Mo get her ‘come to jesus’ talk?? For Fairness? Like i need this too).

So Lan is coming at this: far too softly, and far too indirectly in a lot of ways. He never asks about what he actually wants to ask about. He talks about the weather, or how shiny Aldieb’s coat is this morning, or how nice and red and juicy Tomas’s tomatoes are. He never actually just says what he wants to say which is: “I love you, and I’m worried about you, and I’m failing you more and more every day and I’m sorry and I need you” he pussyfoots around it and avoids it and lets her shut him down because that hurts and, well, he deserves that hurt so alright then.

And then there’s Mo. Who has managed to somehow twist the logic of the universe so that she can say “I love you” by, uh *checks notes*: Not saying anything at all/ignoring him. Or by saying things like “you failed me” instead. Because she is just THAT powerful. Okay I’m being a bit sarcastic here, clearly, but she has convinced herself (based on how her trauma is affecting her) that she: 1)- does not deserve Lan/is not worthy of him and so he should leave her so he can be happy and 2)- she needs to protect him and so he should leave her and go and be safe.

Maybe she tried to articulate this at some point? Sit him and down and be like ‘okay Allan so I know u have a lot of trauma abt, like, being abandoned/being left behind so ppl u love can go do themselves great harm but…it would REALLY be just swell for me if u left me all by myself while i go through possibly the worst things that’s ever happened to me: alone. Okay? Okay.” However I doubt this. Bc, as previously and repeatedly discussed: these two can’t communicate for SHIT right now.

I think she probably made some sort of roundabout suggestion? Like she didn’t directly say ‘you need to leave me because reasons’ but she probably…asked him to go the White Tower and watch over Nyn and Eggy, or maybe go with Perrin and the Shienarans to help, or even ‘hey remember Mat? The little scrungly one?? I wonder where he is’ and he just told her ‘absolutely fucking not’ (or words to that effect) so she had to try something else instead. Which is: being mean af.

So far so good and I think we’re all (relatively) in agreement to this point. But then people think…She’s being successful here? And she’s reading him well - largely because she knows EXACTLY what to say to hurt him? And yes, she absolutely does, I will 100% give you that. Blade directly to the heart each and every time, she never misses. HOWEVER. This is not the actual point. Causing Lan pain is not her endgame - it’s actually just the painful middle step that’s hurting her too to try and get her to her endgame.

Manipulation essentially involves doing ‘y’ (in this case being deliberately cruel/causing Lan pain) to make the person do ‘x’ (in this case: push Lan away and make him leave her), in theory/if it’s super successful: without the person realising that you’ve orchestrated this/making it seem like it was all their idea/decision. This is, uh, not working too great. It’s been 5 months and Lan is probably less likely to leave her now than he was when she started (because he now has 5 months worth of knowing that she is actively trying to get him to leave so she can do the Light only knows what and if that’s what she wants him to do while she’s in this state then it’s absolutely the last thing that he feels he should do - so in that sense this has actually backfired kinda spectacularly on Mo. Because: SHE’S COMMUNICATING JUST AS BADLY AS HE IS!!!!!!!!!! Just. On the COMPLETE opposite end of the spectrum to him. Because they’re drama and aesthetic that way.

And the added bonus content of this is: she CAN do this. She can (and does) manipulate people spectacularly well. Take Bayle for example (god she needed that little win SO badly, bless her and her buckets). She wanted: to see/examine the broken heartstone - but what is she actually going to DO with it? She doesn’t want to put it in a fancy display case or collect it, she wants to know WHY it broke. So what she ACTUALLY wants from him is information. Information such as: the poem. So she haggles with him on the thing she actually wants - makes him feel like he’s getting a win when he agrees to budge on that, far cheaper, item - but then he counters and says that he won’t move on the heartstone chunk itself - which she has no interest in. So she gets her essential infodump poem for a bargain price, and takes Bayle down like six pegs in the process. 10/10, excellently managed misdirection, making him do all the work and lowering the price of the poem so she didn’t even have to ask for it, and making himself look like a plonker into the bargain. Delicious. She CAN manipulate people - she just cannot manipulate Lan (not in this instance/about this anyway) because she’s as wrongfooted as he is, and is scrambling as much as he is without the bond, to try and find a language she never thought she’d need to try and speak with him.

And so if we now consider BOTH of them: they’re in this very weird space here, where the traumas that they have suffered, and the reactions they’re having are placing them in this fundamental position of opposition. Because their needs/the things they believe/have convinced themselves they have to do put them in direct conflict with one another. They’re like an immovable object meets an unstoppable force, right? And this idea reveals itself in several smaller ways - eg: Lan thinking that Mo needs company and to not isolate herself to get better; while for Mo that just feels completely intolerable and she wants to be alone and in Her Space, her study, where she is in control and can pretend to her visitors/informants that all is well and nothing has changed. But I think the biggest point it revolves around/where it’s most obvious is that, ultimately, their absolute overall goal is to protect the other person?

The difference/tragedy of this is that: Moiraine believes fundamentally that Lan is in danger WITH her, and that she has to make him leave in order to protect him. Lan believes fundamentally that Moiraine will be in danger WITHOUT him and that he has to stay in order to protect her. And this is the hill they’ve both chosen as their last stand/thing to die for. So she is going to push him and push him and push him, and she is going to hurt HERSELF by being crueller and crueller and crueller to him to protect him. And all the while he is going to endure and endure and endure and let himself be hurt to protect her.

AND THEN IT GETS WORSE (or better if ur twisted and u enjoy these kinds of parallels the way i do) because: they are both stubbornly trying to protect the other; but they’re also both feeling like they’re martyring themselves/are hurting themselves more and more to do so. She feels like he is being stubborn and forcing her to hurt him more and more every day - which she does not want to do - when he could just go, just let this end, just leave her the way she clearly wants him to! But this will make her stronger. She will be stronger for this, for having let him go, and for knowing that at least she managed to protect him. So she will just keep going - tomorrow, that will do it, he has to break tomorrow, he has to finally break tomorrow. And this goes on. The next day. Maybe the next day. The next–

And then HE feels like he is enduring, and that the pain she is inflicting on him is his cross to bear, and he has to endure it because he will NOT leave her, no matter what she throws at him. And it’s almost a test of his will and his love and his devotion (even though I think he knows it’s not: but it’s kind of become his own little personal quest. Because yes. Yes he SHOULD suffer this way. She SHOULD hurt him like this. He deserves it after how he failed her. He has to take this pain. He has to prove what he’s willing to go through for her, prove how dedicated he is, how much he will suffer for her, how even she cannot break him). And he too is thinking that next day it will get better. If he can just endure, just survive this onslaught, it will end. It will get better. She will get better. This will pass. He just has to prove his strength and last as long as he needs to in order to see that through.

And, to bring us back to the start of this extremely long and rambling essay I present you my final, deeply insightful, deeply professional, deeply ~meta~ thought which is that: they are BOTH. SO. FUCKING. S T U P I D!!!! (in a genuinely really interesting and complex and  fascinating way, as i have hopefully discussed/explained - the idea that their lost bond/connection makes them mirror/echo each other but now in a destructive way? That instead of seamlessly and instinctively meeting each others’ needs they are both unconsciously and unintentionally triggering the other person’s trauma and making things WORSE? What an absolutely fascinating take/an incredibly subtle but profound way to show the depth of exactly what they’ve lost/how much it has affected them while ALSO rooting the entire thing in their individual traumas, experiences, and characters - like who ever wrote/conceived of this NEEDS A GODDAMN RAISE I SWEAR) But also yes they are: morons. Absolutely. Without a doubt. One singular moron brain cell that ping pongs between the two of them but is, fundamentally: the same. Absolutely fucking delighted. Can’t wait to see where this goes from here. Join me again in the future for me: ‘wow Rowyn that’s a whole lotta thoughts u got there buddy’.

Also I swear I’m friendly and I like engaging/talking with ppl! Pls feel free to comment/reblog/message!!! And do note that if u reblog i WILL read and appreciate ur tags bc im: one of those Old People. 

OKAY BYEEEEEE!!!

[sigmoon]

This is not a request or anything, but I think Fyodor or Jouno would like someone Younger and/or inexperienced than them(not necessarily a minor but yk) so that they can shape their perception of a relationship and what pleases them. Or what do you think? [:

This is probably gonna be long, but I have a lot of thoughts about that (and this isn’t proofread and I just woke up, so I apologize in advance for typos/other errors or my thoughts making no sense).

Fyodor

(First of all, I also have many different versions of Fedya in my own imagination, so I’m not criticizing how other people write him at all! I think everyone views a character a little different and interprets their canon actions and behaviors differently, and that’s okay.)

Fyodor is represented as very dominant, undeniably toxic and controlling in many fics, especially smut, and I can imagine him to be like that, but on the other hand…that description doesn’t suit canon Fyodor’s fully. On the one hand, I can imagine him to like a “sit still, look pretty, do nothing and please me” partner, but he canonically values independence (see: his “super happy chit chat about our problems” with Dazai in Meursault), people with a similar mind to his (see: somewhere in the dead apple guide book), and asagiri said he would give his s/o a country for white day. And I think he likes people he cannot predict and read, anything else would bore him.

So: I personally think he values a partner with an individual personality, who’s on the same wavelength as him, and keep up with him in a way. However, I’m not rejecting the idea of Fyodor liking a partner that he can corrupt and mold, it might not be compatible with my own headcanons, but it just suits him in a way. When it comes to writing my own fics, I like dark content and could even create plotlines where Fyodor would be just as ruthless and doesn’t mind a minor, but canon Fyodor most definitely wouldn’t. a) he’d be terribly bored, and b) he might be a terrorist and do all sorts of evil/immoral things, but grooming or worse seem like thinks he wouldn’t approve of.

To answer your question now, depending on how seriously he loves said partner, and that he would even have one, I can see him liking someone younger he can corrupt and mold, not because he’s evil but because it gives him a sense of control. And he wouldn’t shape his partner to a someone who completely lacks autonomy, has no own opinion and only lives to please him. I think he would still value an intelligent and independent partner, but in some ways (like in bed, or when it comes to serious decisions or his own goals), I believe he would prefer if he doesn’t need to meet them halfway but for them to agree with him and support what he does. In addition to that, I think he would like someone younger because they’re less “tainted” by the world, more innocent and pure, etc. than most adults.

(And now a little smutty “porn without plot” headcanon: yes, he’d like a younger, innocent partner who would likely do anything he’d ask of them, and if they wouldn’t, then it would be easy for him to talk them into doing it and even managing to make them like whatever it is he asked of them. He’d love someone younger than him who doesn’t question what he does and who has no experience with relationships that they can compare theirs to. Everything he does seems normal to his s/o, even if it isn’t, and Fyodor shamelessly takes advantage of that.)

Jouno

Once again, I think Jouno values partners who are on the same wavelength as him, but he also wouldn’t want to make a genuine effort to change for a partner or work on his own behaviors if they bother someone, so it would be so much easier to be with someone who doesn’t question him or make demands— he’d rather have someone he can shape into what he wants to avoid conflict and discussion. And he canonically loves praise, so being with someone younger than him would likely result in his partner to idolize him and put him on a pedestal, which I think he would like a lot.

[septembercfawkes]

(No spoilers) So I wasn’t going to share my thoughts on Barbie, but if you haven’t noticed, it’s really hard for people to NOT share their thoughts on Barbie! It’s like Disney’s Enchanted had a baby with a Will Ferrel movie, but bizarrely thought-provoking. So if you don’t like those films, you will *not* like this one!

But that’s what I went in hoping it was, and for me, it delivered. As my friend said, I smiled through 99% of the thing, and the other 1% was spent trying not to cry.

It’s not perfect—I feel the climax should have been rewritten to prove the themes and complete the characters arcs. Those almost always reach their conclusions during or before that point. Without that, essentially *all* of them had to be completed in the falling action, which made it feel disproportionately long, but honestly, it was all entertaining, so I didn’t care.

It was clear everyone working on this film had a blast—the costume details, sets, and musical numbers were 💯. I wanted to see this since I saw the main trailer, but almost skipped it with all the negative attention it was getting. So glad I didn’t and I went and made up my own mind.

I had heard the film was anti-man, it’s not. You need to understand the framework of the story. Ken is certainly underdeveloped BUT THAT’S THE POINT. In the history of Mattel, Barbie has been everything—president, doctor, athlete, construction worker. She has a dreamhouse, car, bike, pool. Mattel has literally given Ken *nothing*, not even a real vocation! As a result, Barbieland is a complete matriarchy, and whether you live in a full-on matriarchy or patriarchy the opposite sex is left stagnant, underdeveloped, and incapable of reaching individuation. And that was kinda the point.

Like most Hollywood films, I would say it leaned left, yet the film both gave voice to and poked fun at multiple perspectives, without oversimplifying them. Some have said that a sign of good quality art, is that it lends itself to multiple interpretations, each of which can be backed up with supporting evidence. I think it was intended that this film have multiple, justified interpretations. And I think that’s one of the reasons there is so much buzz and even debate—people can watch the SAME scenes and draw different conclusions. I’ve seen comments that Greta Gerwig “accidentally” argued X or Y—I don’t think it was an accident at all. I think she completely intended there be multiple ways to interpret things.

**—-spoilers—-** ⚠️

I super wanted to talk about Barbie’s character arc, and one of the main themes of the story. I love how the first thing that goes wrong with Barbie, is that she starts having thoughts of death, when death is impossible in Barbieland. She doesn’t want to go to the real world, but does with the intention of returning back to her perfect life and perfect, though albeit child-like, state-of-being. She lives in a perfect world that never changes. She goes to the real world, and it’s complicated. She’s not loved by everyone. She has to experience negative emotions. She witnesses complicated relationships and states of being. And what’s terrifying, is that there is always change.

Flash forward to the end. Barbie is visited by the spirit of Ruth, her creator. Ruth explains as a creator why she made Barbie, and also points out how humans all have the same ending: death. But the creations, the ideas and concepts—like Barbie—they get to go on living. And Barbies realizes she would rather cry, would rather go through the turmoil of real life, would rather experience the terror of change, and would rather die, to become a creator and have meaningful real-life relationships. She doesn’t think about a dream house. She doesn’t think about a dream job. She doesn’t think about awards. In her mind, she sees human relationships—friends, family, and mothers and daughters.

The closing scene is of her going to see a gynecologist. Yes, it’s a joke in the sense that Barbies don’t have privates, but I feel like it can be interpreted another way to have a deeper meaning, connecting right back into relationships and creation. I think it’s a great closing scene to book end the prologue opening. One could argue, we’ve come full circle.

Honestly, I’ve thought about it a lot, and to me it has really resonated with the story of Eve and the Garden of Eden (Latter-day Saint interpretation). Some things are worth the cost of death. Even if that means no longer living in a paradise and having to deal with really hard ups and downs and complicated emotions. This is one of the big reasons I loved Barbie.

But again, as I said, I think there is room for plenty of different interpretations. 😊

[mrgaretcarter]

This is going to be long and sort of a bummer, so if you’re enjoying this season of Ted Lasso and are satisfied with Ted and Rebecca’s individual and joint storylines don’t let me ruin it, just scroll past.

Right out the gate I’ll say, this references up to 3x09, maybe the last 3 eps will turn everything around and it’ll all be wonderful once more, I sure hope it, I just gotta to get my right now feelings out of my chest, okay?

So, I’ve been unsatisfied with this season in general for a while, but this is just going to be about Ted and T/R: for the past couple days I’ve been chatting with people a lot trying to figure out what the actual problem with them is, because it’s not just that I haven’t been enjoying it on the show, it’s that I haven’t been able to access them in my own head, not even to daydream, and yesterday I think I finally got it.

At first I thought the problem was the distance, you know, no scenes together, nothing to jolt the imagination, and that’s definitely part of it, but I realized that, at the moment, it’s not just that. The problem, the real problem, is Ted. I just don’t really like him right now, and I know that sounds harsh, but I don’t know what else to say!!

My favorite thing about Ted was the fact that he was nurturing. I know we all say he is such a Dad™️ (and he is), but for real, what he actually is, is motherly. I know that sounds nuts, but even if nobody consciously thinks this, that is how he is interpreted; it’s in the fic, it’s in the art, it’s in the meta, but I’m not gonna get into explaining my reasoning there, cause my point is just that I love that about him!

Straight male characters can be providers and protectors (and Ted is that too, to an extent), but only very rarely are they nurturers, very rarely are they primarily home and hearth (right now the only other popular example I can think of is Peeta Mellark, and sooo many people did not like him for exactly those traits!), so it was interesting and exciting to me that Ted had these characteristics! And I say had because we haven’t seen that from him, as in, we haven’t seen him take care of others in a significant way, in forever.

Mind you, he was isolated for most of s2 as well, but we had a very clear reason for it then, but now? He’s had a couple good coaching moments this season, one good speech, he’s still a leader and a point of reference, but he hasn’t been nurturing (not even with his actual literal son lately).

This’s been the problem with him to me. I feel like this Ted lacks the very thing that made me love him, and who (I thought) he was, was an essential part of me shipping him and Rebecca, because the thing she needed most was that care.

The fact that I thought that he was so hungry to give, while she was so starved is the very thing that was appealing about them, but he hasn’t cared for her since I couldn’t even say when (funeral?), and what’s worse, it’s not just her, it’s everyone. He’s been completely on his own, so I haven’t even been able to imagine him that way anymore, which means I have no recent point of reference to extrapolate from in order to make up my silly little scenarios, so you can see how frustrated I am! (Feels important at this stage to say, to those who don’t know me, that I’m quite attached to canon, I need a foothold to picture things).

The other thing that makes this worse is that Rebecca has remained consistent. She still cares about him. She checks in, she worries, she asks after him, she’s eager to help him and does. She is still pulling her weight, but Ted is nearly a blank. He said “Our run-ins” and then all he did was criticize her about the Rupert stuff, and don’t get me wrong!! I’m not stupid, I know he was right and that her resentment and obsession would only bring her down, I’m glad he held her accountable in that way, but I wish he would’ve also had her back at the same time instead of just offering the moral lesson.

Also, I ship them, obviously, but none of this is even inherently romantic, I just wish they were important to each other again, which I’m sure even people who believe they’re only friends and platonic soulmates would agree with. And if I can’t have that, I’d at least like to have Ted feel like himself.

Anyway, I hope this makes sense, pleeeease don’t be mean to me, and again, maybe the last 3 will make me change my mind completely, I definitely would like to enjoy the final stretch.

[catre33]

There is something infinitely important that has been glossed over far too often.

Personal interpretation.

This concept applies to numerous subjects and fandoms, including some of my other fandoms, *cough*percy jackson*cough*. But I will use Good Omens as the monumental example, as this issue must be addressed.

The overview? Everyone has their version of EVERYTHING. Not just fiction, but reality as well. There are millions of versions of you that you will never know, simply because they are within the confines of another’s mind.

There is constant conflict everywhere I look. ‘This song doesn’t feel like them’, ‘Crowley wouldn’t do that’, ‘I can’t see that headcanon’. Arguments about who would top, who likes which genres, and even the tiniest details about side characters.

Let’s start with the book.

There’s a great possibility that every single time you’ve ever read a book, you imagine the scenes in your mind along with the words on the page. You develop faces, voices, personalities, and everything to fit these characters. They become your own. And so if you go talk to someone else who’s read the book, their interpretation of the character will be different than yours. Drastically different, most likely. There’s nothing you can do about it. Maybe you think the book husbands are both asexual, but your closest friend believes book!Aziraphale is a firm dom.

And it doesn’t just apply to books. Any media includes and lives through this concept.

And this is essential in Good Omens because there is SO MUCH going on that you can’t really get to the nitty-gritty of it all. Neil has illustrated this point in his infinitely annoying ‘wait and see' and other vague and sarcastic responses. His and Terry’s minds were the birthplace of ideas that have become full-fledged characters and plots. But they have let them go to become our own.

This is one reason why fanfiction is also so important. It lets the imagination explore its own versions and illustrate its point of view for the public. So yes, if you go looking you will find a wide variety of fic genres, tags, and everything in between.

Fics will be different, art will be different, theories will be different, headcanons will be different, metas will be different.

Because everyone in this fandom is a unique individual with their own version of these beloved characters. This ultimately means there are thousands and perhaps millions of different Crowleys and Aziraphales running around everywhere, which is a terrifying, yet wondrous thought.

Though opinions may differ, everyone's thoughts are valid and I love everyone in this fandom.

[sylkishagsuperiority]

It’s fascinating how two years after the show so many people still wholeheartedly believe the TVA propaganda of Loki and Sylvie being “the same person” and that Loki “fell in love with himself”.

Neither of those statements is true beyond the most surface-level interpretation, and while it works for the casual audience on some level (since most of them will look at it like “oh how funny, of course Loki would fall for himself”), it’s also been used to justify a hate campaign on a completely harmless ship.

Loki and Sylvie are only considered “the same person” because when HWR isolated the events of the Sacred Timeline (presumably the sequence of events that would lead to his birth and not any of his variants), he needed everything in every enslaved universe to happen the exact same way. That means every universe had to have the exact same people in it, making the exact same choices over and over again. But because every universe is its own reality, it wasn’t possible to make everything perfectly identical, and it only worked as long as the TVA was pruning branches 24/7. The universe wants to break free, after all. People want to make their own choices. But under HWR’s tyrannical rule, everyone was allowed only one singular path, a role to play.

That’s what “a Loki” is, at the end of the day. A role, an archetype, a catalyst to the Avengers. As long as the person assigned that role fulfilled their part, it didn’t matter if they were a white man, a Black man, a woman or an alligator. But at the end of the day, every person saddled with that role was their own individual. They’re not one person in multiple bodies. They’re not clones. They’re all completely separate, autonomous beings that exist independently of each other.

That’s where the accusations of Sylki being “transphobic” fall flat, because Loki and Sylvie are not, and have never been, the same person. Sylvie was never meant to be a fem Tom!Loki. She’s from a separate universe and never met him until they were both adults and probably well over a thousand years old. She led a completely different life and has entirely different memories, experiences and skill sets. People who purposely reduce her to a female version of someone else only do it so they have an “ethical” argument against the ship, but their misogynistic refusal to see Sylvie as her own separate person doesn’t change the fact that she’s exactly that and always has been. At no point in time did she ever exist as Tom!Loki, nor did he ever exist as her.

The TVA propaganda reduced variants to the same person because they only saw them as their assigned role on the Sacred Timeline and nothing else. And a lot of people bought it without giving it even a moment’s thought. But now that the Multiverse is free, the concept of variants doesn’t even exist anymore. Now there are bound to be universes where there is no Loki at all, or where the “God of Mischief” isn’t Asgardian, or where they don’t have powers, or a million different possibilities. And all of those people are only bound together by temporal aura - the only indicator the TVA used to identify variants, since DNA is useless (once again, Loki and Sylvie are not genetically related, which frankly should be obvious given we’ve seen an alligator variant and now also a Skrull Kang variant). Hell, for all we know, the temporal aura thing might not even work anymore either, given that the universe is free to do as it pleases instead of following a single predetermined path.

Tl;dr: Loki and Sylvie are not the same person, it was TVA propaganda meant to justify their 24/7 genocide of realities, and Loki didn’t fall in love with himself; Sylvie being as different from him as it gets is kind of the whole point.

[true-blue-sonic]

I think a lot of people have a hard time grasping Silver's character because he doesn't fit into an easy to describe archetype. I still see people say that he doesn't have a personality outside of comics because his character chemistry and personality type outside of his optimism and determination/mission focus just isn't apparent.

I'd say his personality type is brash, sarcastic and direct but you'll almost never find those qualities listed in official descriptions.

For me, Silver's character is kind of... a juxtaposition between various traits to combine in a very specific way. Overall, I would argue Silver has two main "cores" of his character. You have one that contains his more naive and kind nature, that shows appreciation for minor details like blue skies and people smiling, that values others' happiness dearly, gives him his hopeful and optimistic attitude, and that makes him go back to the past each and every time to ensure his future is safe. And you have his hotheaded, brash, and rude side, that is competitive and impatient, that puts himself as being 100% in the right all the time and everyone who does not agree with him as obstacles to be overcome. And indeed, both of those "cores" can be seen as individual archtypes (e.g. the wide-eyed idealist versus the battle-hardened gruff world-saver), but they're still also both a part of Silver. Sonic '06 is kind of more the first, I would say, Rivals leans wayyyyy more into the second, and I think my own favourite interpretation of Silver is when he's both. Tremendously kind-hearted and willing to give everything for the world, shrewd and always correct in the end, but short-sighted and impatient in the process. And I would say there's also a potential third "core", that contains his more sarcastic side and calmer but battle-loving nature when there are no emergencies happening, like Colours DS.

As for him not having a personality outside the comics... Oof😅 I know people like to joke about how the Rivals games are the games wherein everyone just fights each other all the time over nothing, but there's so much personality for Silver there! He realises that "Eggman" is actually Nega solely because "Eggman's" mannerisms and speech are too similar to Nega's, alongside a slip of "Eggman's" tongue about the future. He all but baby-talks the Chao, and remembers that they live in packs, making him figure there's more than the one he just found. He gets noticeably crass with Knuckles when Knux calls him crazy. He goes out of his way to warn Shadow about "Eggman" potentially not being real, and he ends Rivals 1 with marvelling about Sonic and Shadow being brave. He very directly tells Espio that of course he expects Espio to believe his (honestly entirely unbelievable) story. And so on and so forth: these are just the examples I remember without even looking up the games themselves. In other words: he is shrewd and notices small details, he likes cute things like the Chao, he gets personally offended when someone insults him/his mission, he's very blunt and direct, and he's got a softer and more introspective side to him that he can share with others. And what about Generations, wherein he says that a rematch with Sonic will be fun? Blood knight! Or his suspicion about whether Sonic is the real Sonic or a fake trying to swindle him out of the Chaos Emerald? Being wary is also personality aspect, I would say. Him shooting Infinite's boasting about there being no hope down immediately by outright stating Infinite is lying also shows he's got a hopeful attitude and firm beliefs he doesn't waver from easily. So no, the idea that he "doesn't have a personality" outside of the comics is just outright false to me.

Overall, I think Silver's personality is difficult to get down because it clashes with itself somewhat: it contains traits that perhaps are difficult to really combine, yet they did for Silver and it works (for me lol). But indeed, it's not an easy archtype that can be summed up in just one or two words. That is actually most of the game!Sonic characters, I would say: almost all of them have a lot more underneath the surface than you would say at first glance. But I do wonder if we'll ever get a shift in the perception on Silver that focuses on both "cores" again, instead of only picking a few traits at best and running with those.

[shadowmaat]

The Jedi were evil all along!

I debated replying to the thread I saw condemning the Jedi as "rigid" and implying they weren't that different from the Sith, but I would have been the only voice of dissent and given that one of the replies was from a Red Hat Cultist veering off on a frothy anti-Obama rant, I figured it was safer to just make my own post.

Look, no one is saying the Jedi are perfect, but they sure as fuck aren't evil, either. If you're basing your entire opinion on the thoughts and experiences of one individual then your view is incredibly flawed and you should maybe think outside the narrow hole you've dug for yourself.

From what I can tell, some of the worst critics of the Jedi seem to be fans of Anakin Skywalker. Or at least a carefully curated version of Anakin who was a perpetual victim and never did anything wrong. It seems to boil down to "if the Jedi had just let Anakin be openly married to Padmè, nothing bad would have happened!" Which is... certainly a take.

The one argument I see trumpeted over and over (and over) again is that the Jedi prohibition against "attachment" is terrible and wrong and makes them no better than the Sith. This hinges almost entirely on the idea that "attachment" is the same thing as "love."

It isn't. Fans have spent decades explaining why it isn't only to have their reasoning mostly ignored in favor of the more angsty/tragic idea that the Jedi were forbidden to love. 🙄

"Attachment," IMO, can best be summed up as a literal interpretation of this ever-popular gif:

[img: Rosa from Brooklyn 99. She's holding a small yellow lab puppy as she says, "I've only had Arlo for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself."]

Anakin has, admittedly, "had" Padmè for three years instead of a day and a half, but when he thought she was going to die, he killed everyone in the Temple, then killed her, and then continued on a murderous rampage for the next 19 years or so.

"Attachment" is dangerous for anyone, but especially for someone like Anakin, who has additional powers at his command, rigorous training in how to use them, and three years experience as a war leader.

Personally, I also have questions about whether or not marriage is actually forbidden among the Jedi or if Anakin just assumed it was because "attachment." I can see it not being a common thing, and I can also understand a relationship coming under scrutiny to insure that it's a healthy form of love that won't interfere with a Jedi's ability to do their job, but it wouldn't surprise me if Anakin never looked into it because it would mean "sharing" Padmè with others.

Even if marriage wasn't allowed as a whole formal, legalized thing it doesn't mean Jedi can't form relationships. It would, as usual with the Jedi, be about balance. Can someone balance their personal relationship with their commitments to the Order? Can they set their loved one aside to do what must be done? Or will they drop everything to immediately rush to their loved one's side regardless of the risk to others?

We all know what Anakin would do; we've seen it with our own eyes.

The point is, condemning the entire Jedi Order because they didn't give Anakin everything he wanted, when he wanted it, and without question is a little bit of a stretch. Plus, all jokes about his inability to keep a secret aside, it isn't as if he ever went to them to discuss things.

"Well, he didn't think he could trust them because they hated him!" Uh, no, they decidedly didn't hate him, he just believed they did. It all hinges on his beliefs, not reality. And while you could certainly blame Palpatine for reinforcing his beliefs that the Jedi can't be trusted and that everyone hates/is jealous of him, it isn't as if Palps made that up out of thin air: he built on the seeds already within Anakin.

"That's because the Jedi-" No. Insecurities are rarely rational, and while you can argue that the Jedi "didn't do enough" to help Anakin, there are a few salient points to remember:

Anakin isn't the only Jedi in the Order; they have thousands of people to consider.

You have to know there's a problem in order to help.

The person has to be willing to accept that help in order for things to change.

The last two points also apply to those who would condemn Obi-Wan in particular. He has to KNOW a problem exists and then he has to talk his way around to try and get Anakin to accept his help. I know from personal experience just how heartbreakingly difficult it is to help a loved one when they won't admit there's a problem or they won't listen to your advice.

I can think of a lot of ideas that would be fun to experiment with in terms of making changes to the Jedi Order, but most of them involve adding more distance from the Senate and none of them are about catering to the specific (perceived) needs of one Jedi.

[thana-topsy]

1,6,8,11,17 for the ask thing!

Answered #6 in this post, and #8 in this post!

A fanon characterisation that you love

Oh, this took some thought. I went scrolling through my AO3 bookmarks for this one. But at the end of the day I have to go with my good friend @nientedenada's interpretations of Elenwen and Ondolemar in her Q&A style fic: "The Dominion is Here and They're Answering Your Questions" - her take deeply influenced the way I wrote both of these characters in "Hollow Men" as well as just helped to shape the Thalmor into people in my mind, as opposed to stick man villains.

11. Recommend a fic with an unusual/original headcanon or characterisation that you loved

Accidental Double Thalmor Post, but I'm going to have to recommend "Evil is Made of Us" by LeviathansEyes on AO3 for their masterful interpretation of the Thalmor. It's a purely OC-driven fic that's technically a sequel to a much longer fic, but I think it can be enjoyed on it's own easily enough. I had already finished up my own Thalmor-centric fic (Hollow Men) by the time I was reading their work, but I was still SHOOKETH by the end of that story. It was an unflinching look at how "evil" manifests itself, but also how, at the end of the day, people are just people. "Evil" is a concept within the framework of an institution.

17. Something you love that you don’t often share because you’re worried what others will think

Hmm... well, for the most part I'm pretty shameless with most of the stuff I share. I put myself out there in good faith, and generally expect that my work will be taked in good faith in return.

I think, maybe, if I want to be vulnerable for a minute, I'll admit that I tend to meme on Neloth publicly a lot to cover up just how deeply I've been impacted by writing his character. More below the cut, because this turned into a bit of a ramble...

I write Neloth as a low-empathy individual who arguably has a personality disorder (I won't throw around specific labels, as I don't think there is a specific one that I had in mind when going into his stories). My love for Neloth runs incredibly deep because I've been working with this fatally flawed, deeply damaged character who has built his own defences up so impossibly high over hundreds of years that even he is unsure of where his own walls end and the core of himself begins.

And then, to pair him with Teldryn, (which I think most people who only see the ship art or the memes think I just picked two characters and smashed them together for fun or because Hee Hoo Gay, which... isn't a lie, but it isn't the whole truth either). I write Teldryn as an endlessly compassionate person beneath the armor he's been forced to wear (literally and figuratively) over the years. The Nerevarine Prophecy left him questioning his own place in the world with a terrible case of impostor syndrome, and then the Red Year absolutely ripped out his heart (no pun intended??) and left him feeling that everything he did amounted to nothing. So he's cynical and jaded, he's hiring himself out as a merc, he has every reason to hate the gods and the life that's been thrust upon him. And then, for whatever reason, when I put him and Neloth in a room together for long enough, they somehow managed to crack through each others' shells. And it wasn't pretty at first, and, hell, it wasn't even romantic. But it happened. And sometimes, writing can be magic like that.

So here's Teldryn, a literal hero, giving this (by all accounts) terrible person a chance to show that he's capable of both receiving and giving love, actually. And that love can look a little different in everyone. And augH GOD, I HAVE A FUCKING CHARACTER TYPE, OK???

Anyways, tl;dr -- Neloth is actually more than just my special little meow meow babygirl blorbo, he is my shadow self, my darkest reflection, the opposite of everything I strive to be and everything I fear becoming. And I think, by writing him as still being worthy of love and companionship and joy, I'm writing to let myself know that I am also worthy of such things.

[renthony]

May we see rant you mentioned about art, fandom, and capitalism?

The way I see it, fandom as it exists now is a result of people coping with capitalist alienation from art. It's a way to reclaim what capitalism is trying to take away from us.

There are plenty of critiques of things within fandom, but "fandom" itself, to me, has always felt less like a unified thing and more like...a broad concept. There is no singular "fandom community," even surrounding individual pieces of media. There are endless small communities surrounding countless different things, all curating their own experiences and values, that may have absolutely nothing in common with each other beyond "we all enjoyed something about [x thing]."

I think of "fandom" as a philosophy that nobody can truly "own" art, even the artist, because the artist can't control what people take away from the art.

The legal ownership of stories has been made infinitely complicated due to things like convoluted laws around copyright, public domain, and corporate ownership. Companies can own the rights to someone's art, and even their image, well after they die (see: Marilyn Monroe).

Transformative art, adaptations, reinventions, and organic collaborative storytelling have all been commodified. Even in instances where countless people contribute to a story and a character, to the point where it really should be considered public domain, the "intellectual property" is still "owned" by a corporation.

You can't just put out your own version of a thing because everything is Owned By Someone, and it will always be Owned By Someone even after the original artist is long gone. It takes longer and longer and longer for things to legally enter the public domain, because corporations hoard the copyright as long as humanly possible--even going so far as to lobby for legislation that extends it. Looking at you, Disney.

As an author, I'm forced to monetize my writing because if I don't have an income, I can't eat or pay bills or go to the doctor or do anything I need to do to function in our capitalist society. If I didn't have to reckon with capitalism, I could just drop my stories into the world and say, "here. I made a thing. Play with it however the hell you want. I need no money for it, it's something I want to share for fun. Keep my name on the original, but otherwise, go nuts. Make your own. Rip it apart and redo it. I don't even care."

As an artist, I deserve compensation and credit for my labor, but I don't think I "own" my art. The art is out there for people to engage with however the hell they want, and interpret through their own experiences and worldview, and I don't really get to dictate how they do that.

But in the reality I live in, I gotta protect my intellectual property. If someone took my characters, totally rewrote The Queen of Cups, published it, and started making money on it, that would really fuckin' suck. I gotta eat, and I need compensation for my work so that I can afford the aforementioned ability to eat.

(That said, in case it isn't clear: if at any point you feel the urge to write fanfic based on my work, you have my blanket permission. I love transformative work. Art is meant to be shared and interpreted and reinterpreted and loved!!!! Please just don't take money out of my pocket while you do it. Capitalism is hell for us all.)

To give a broader example: why the hell isn't Superman public domain? There have been more Superman writers and artists and actors than I can count. Everyone knows who Superman is. People write their own Superman stories and make their own Superman art and everyone has their own personal interpretation of Superman, so why the fuck is there a single entity who "owns" Superman? Both of the original creators have been dead for over twenty years.

Why does a faceless, soulless corporation get to decide who and what Superman is, when he's clearly grown beyond being A Single Unified Thing that can be owned by A Single Individual Person? Why is the concept of Superman still something that can be "owned" when he was first created in 1932, and hasn't been the sole creation of the original writers since well before I was born?

Why can't I put out my own Superman story and have it be just as interesting and valuable and legitimate as any of the countless conflicting Superman canons owned by DC? What gives a Superman story legitimacy? What makes it "really" Superman? What makes the DC corporate office the sole right to decide any of that? They didn't make Superman any more than I did! They just own it! Why is that a thing they can own?

There's also an entire discussion around fandom existing as a way to fill in the soul that capitalism strips out of art. That's a big part of it. Capitalism sucks all the heart out of things in order to make it Maximally Profitable, and the end result is a hollow shell that the common people are left to fill in themselves. Even if the original artists had more to say, and wanted to give their art that soul, capitalism allows uninvolved CEOs to step in and say, "nah, I own you and I own your art, and I don't like that part, cut it," and the artists can't do a goddamn thing about it.

There's a ton more to discuss about the topic, and plenty of nuance, and things I haven't even gotten into on this post, but my core belief about fandom is that it exists in direct relation to capitalist commodification of art. You can't have a nuanced conversation about fandom without also talking about capitalism in the arts.

[sergeantsporks]

Gilded Family; Chapter 33 - Part Two!

Auric finally gets to tell his story, nice. Glad that you found a place to work it in. Explains Dagger's actions nicely too.

"both of Dagger’s legs were set in thick plaster, and a myriad of bandages covered his body."

Ouch, poor Dagger! ....Poor Gilded Family too, I bet he's a real bear whenever he's ill/injured.

"“Okay, fine, I’m wrong about everything forever. Geeze.”"

I may have mentioned this before, but Sam continues to be delightfully snarky.

Caleb's not doing too well... Sorry buddy, but you gotta face up to your sins courtesy of your youngest son. It's okay, we all have skeletons in our closets.

"“No, I mean… the real version. Not the easy version. Phillip said you left him—is that true?"

Jason's really not letting him wiggle out of having to tell the truth, is he? Good for him. I think that being briefly separated from his family was good for him, he's matured a lot from the beginning of the story.

I appreciate that you are allowing Belos' side of the story to be told, even if not from Belos' mouth directly. It's easy to cast this whole conflict as a black and white battle of good versus evil, but one of TOH's big themes is that people are complicated! So the shades of gray interpretation holds true to the spirit of the show itself.

:( I do feel sorry for Caleb though, it's... not easy to get called out on the mistakes that you've made, especially by your own family.

Still, rational thought is not the teenage brains' strongpoint, lol. Add in hormones on top of that, and well...

Caleb's right. He was young, dumb and hopelessly in love with someone who his community would never allow him to love. He never could've foreseen the deprived depths his little brother would sink to in order to "get him back".

That being said, however upset and worried for Caleb's safety Philip was, nothing remotely justifies his actions once he did make it to The Demon Realm himself. I mean, man made his first Grimwalker as an adult. An aged adult at that! He doesn't have the grace of just being a kid to fall back on when he started making his biggest mistakes.

Would Caleb having taken Philip with him to The Demon Realm in the first place have changed anything? Whose to say...

Everyone in the Gilded Family owning up to their own individual responsibilities regarding Belos and how they helped him achieve his goals is a wonderfully heartwarming scene.

"“Are we going after him?” they breathed, “Are we finally taking the fight to him? Can I go this time?”"

XD Ah Venari, still as blood thirsty as ever. Never change my friend.

"Sam made a face. “Do we, though? Seems like it would be easier to just—”"

Still holding Petro hurting the twins against him, I see. Lol.

I like that Caleb is still insisting on NOT harming Petro though, man has the patience of a saint.

Sam's lengthy explanation regarding how in the hell does Phoenix's curse work was appreciated. Lol, and I can tell that you worked REALLY hard on finding a way to explain away all the differences and still have it make sense.

XD Viney has basically decided that she wants to be adopted by the Gilded Family, excellent.

"“Well, let’s just say, the few kindergarteners here seem a lot less feral than ours.”"

I, for one, thought that the kindergarteners were one of the highlights of For The Future, lol.

But yeah, agreed that Clara and Ram are awesome kids.

"But they’d gone through so much, and with no one there to help them."

Uh, Phoenix? Did no one mention Camila to you? Granted, seven kids is a lot for any one person to handle, especially seven traumatized kids... But Camila's mothering was beyond admirable given the circumstances.

But hey, at least he realizes that Hunter DOES fit in with his extended family now. Hip hip hooray!

"Well. Except Ghost, who didn’t even know Belos existed at all."

I fully expect that to change.

Phoenix doesn't know this Camila. How does he know he can trust her? What are her combative capabilities? Would she take a bullet for these kids?

Anyway, yeah, lol, the precedent canon set for "Belos Mud" did make it challenging, so I'm glad the explanations came across clearly, if split across several chapters. Sam, my beloved font of exposition.

Sam🤝Venari: currently wishing great amounts of violence on someone

[balemouns]

"those who parade their own virtues often do the most evil. we are not like them."

or: how is mel interpreting what happened in arlecchino's story quest? obvious heavy 4.6 spoilers follow.

have you played arlecchino's story quest and come away with the impression that she's a goodish, surprisingly benevolent harbinger who would never actually harm the children in her organization?

good. that was the judgement you were supposed to leave with.

everything about her story quest, with a few small exceptions, was carefully planned by her to weave a narrative for you and the more loyal children: the anticipation of clervie's interference growing to be disruptive enough to turn a small group against her, the move to poisson to make monitoring this group easier, when to make a point of meeting with neuvilette to request social supports for children who have consumed bottled flames, extending a duel to make children feel they've worked for and earned their mercy, and ultimately making a show of offering it with many witnesses.

there were two wildcards in this that she didn't plan for: the traveler and horrer. both actually wound up being advantageous for weaving together the narrative she wanted her loyal children ( most prominently ) and also the traveler ( conveniently ) to leave with. it's why she never suggests the traveler and paimon leave, even as the conflict within the family grows increasingly dire and undermining of her authority -- having someone your children trust take away the same conclusions they did actually can't hurt.

horrer is an interesting case. he's clearly someone who's consumed bottled flames -- and one of the few "executions" who had someone on the outside that'd likely be willing to catch him and help him build a new life after all his memories were gone ( his love interest ).

but he's the only one we see: all the other people we have seen in the list had vaguer reasons on why they left, and no idea how they are doing now, especially considering arlecchino has just now asked neuvilette and the palais to provide a safety net for former house children with memory loss. would a responsible father just let you leave with no plan, no skills, no identity, no one to catch you?

most likely, prior executions -- all the ones that were all handled privately, individually -- those would've been figured out on a case-by-case basis. children who wanted to leave purely out of resentment to the house and with no one outside to support them may not have been as lucky -- turning those children loose with nothing would've been quite irresponsible.

but you're not supposed to think that. not with an entire group confronting her in the ruins of the old arena, not with her proposal to neuvilette now in place, not with this show of enforcing the rules through loopholes ending with convenient mercy, not with devout house members standing next to those who want to leave and have taken the words of a confused, sentient shadow to justify that sentiment. being confronted by a group in this manner is something arlecchino has planned for over a long period of time with the bottled flames being developed some time ago, something she's always seen as a possibility; this outcome was clearly the first case of extensive use, with heloir just now learning what those dangerous potions were for.

think of the metaphor she provided for neuvilette: water has tension to it, tends to hold together. to cut out the impurities but conserve as much of the clean water as you can, you don't want to disturb it with a violent splash.

which makes this grand gesture of mercy all a show of virtues for a specific purpose: to reinforce the trust that exists with the children who are loyal, to strengthen those bonds and loyalties. sure, everyone knows there's now a way out, but... are these children who'd want to leave by erasing everything about themselves anyway, their skills, their bonds, their memories, their sense of self?

that answer will probably always be no. but the illusion of choice makes people happier with what they have. arlecchino likes it when people have the wrong impression of her: that we can undoubtedly believe.

[bcofl0ve]

So, I have a very gentle, very non-judgmental comment to make about the 'relationship discourse'. I say this with nothing but good vibes and intentions, so please don't interpret it as me coming at you or anyone else!

No matter where you stand, it seems a little odd to be heavily invested in someone else's relationship. I say this as someone who has followed celebrity gossip off and on for a long time, so I get it. It's fun to speculate, but at the end of the day no one really *knows* anything other than the people in the relationship itself. I'm a casual fan, and I was surprised at the strong feelings that this relationship seemed to elicit from so many people. Because (I say with love) no one really knows what goes on in their personal lives, and everything that's discussed (on both sides) is only speculation.

I feel so preachy coming into your inbox with all this, and I know you probably are aware of/have considered most of the points I made. I also know that I used the word 'odd' and I don't feel entirely good about that, because I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else here is odd. I'm also also not trying to act holier-than-thou because I'm a casual fan. I'm just giving my two cents as an observer. I hope that you take this in the spirit I meant it, because I realize this might come off as patronizing through the wrong lens. Long story short? Everyone should take a yoga breath and rewarch Dune before Dune 2 comes out (and not come for me with pitchforks, because I know this is a heated discussion and I fear I may have poured gasoline on the 🔥🫣).

you’re so fine don’t worry. getting Meta about fandom/stan culture etc is actually something i really enjoy- no problems chatting about it when folks are civil like you!

i mean, in the most bare bones terms: i’m invested because i enjoy celebrity culture/hollywood gossip, really like both austin and kaia as creatives and people- and think that the flip side of being so private is that it makes people inherently more nosy about what we don’t see. on both ends, as we see with people taking advantage of all the ‘empty space’ to create wild PR theories, whereas i think the ““shippers”” use the empty space to giggle and kick our feet and lean more towards happier gap fillers like “hm i wonder if they’ll do xyz together!”.

i do consider austin’s fandom my hobby at this point, so i’m invested in him i would be any other hypothetical hobby- not a sports person but maybe that’s a good example? lots of sports fans get really into the people who play on a team they really like- i guess you could see hollywood is my “sport” and two of my favorite players are austin and kaia, haha. i fully acknowledge that’s parasocial, but i do have my own boundaries and try to be an ‘ethical’ a gossiper as possible, even when i know ethical gossip blogger is an oxymoron. the second this is more serious than fun for me is the day i leave- a rule i wish i adopted sooner re: the broadway gossip blog days of yore. fandom is supposed to be fun, and at least right now i’m having a great time!

i will clarify though that re: tumblr specifically, me and that other blog’s issues with each other are deeper than disagreeing about austin and kaia- and so if we seem very heated with *each other* it’s not just. coming from our passionate celebrity opinions lol. i don’t know how closely you follow my blog/how long you’ve been around these parts but that blog has spent a year giving a platform to people personally insulting me as an individual (not just my fandom opinions) and smearing me and at one point got honey potted by someone who decided to see if she’d want to doxx me given the opportunity (someone sent her an anon saying to vague post if she wanted to know where i’m in law school- something i keep very private, i don’t even say what state i live in- and she immediately followed the bait instructions, lol).

i won’t say the tit for tat between us every now and then will ever end because like- it won’t lol. we’re both bitey people and we both have narc followers who send our posts back and forth and we both strongly dislike each other. i think at this rate our occasional sparring is just a staple of the tumblr fandom- god love all of you that put up with it. i hope all of this made sense though, pls feel free to follow up! (:

[twilightmalachite]

MIRAGE - Epilogue 3

Author: Akira

Characters: Yuuta, Hinata

Translator: Mika Enstars

"(…Is this really ok? Will everything be alright? Isn’t everyone watching gonna be taken aback thinking what’s all this all of a sudden?)"

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Season: Winter

Location: Volcano Island Stage

Hinata & Yuuta: “~…♪”

Hinata: “…Alright! We as 2wink are honored to have the privilege to perform Volcano Island’s famous opening song for our second appearance!”

Yuuta: “Peace, peace~!”

Hinata: “Anyhow, allow me to introduce ourselves again! We are 2wink, the twin idols affiliated with Cosmic Production!”

“I’m the older twin, Aoi Hinata!”

Yuuta: “I’m Aoi Yuuta, the younger one.”

Hinata: “Where’s your vigor, Yuuta-kun!?”

Yuuta: “I’m doing what I need to do, aren’t I?”

“Our gimmick may be how nobody can tell who is who, but…”

“Since you’ve already appeared on Volcano Island by yourself, Aniki, it seems we’ve each gotten our own fans now.”

Hinata: “You hear that~? We each have our own fans now! We’re beyond grateful!”

Yuuta: "Though, it’s more that only you have your own fans, thanks to your head start on Volcano Island.”

“At our regular live performances, these fans kept mistaking me as Aniki, and would cheer out “Hinata-kun~! ♪”, even!”

Hinata: “Nobody really wins in cases like that, don’t they? So we’re gonna give playing more distinct characters from each other a try, starting now!”

“The more sunny older brother Hinata, and the gloomy little brother Yuuta-kun!”

Yuuta: “Gloomy gives a bad impression. Can’t you say something more like, I don’t know, cool?”

Hinata: “…As you can see, this is Yuuta-kun, my little brother who does nothing but complain!”

Yuuta: “Oh, come on.”

Hinata: “Yuuta-kun also took the opportunity to switch up his hairstyle a bit! Whaddya think? Now it’s even easier to tell us apart!”

Yuuta: “Of course, it’d be even better if you loved both of us as “2wink”, but I hope that through this, both of us will have more fans from now on!”

Hinata: “Yup! ♪ It’s somethin’ a lil’ bit different than our previous style, however I hope you continue to support us as we hope to shine brighter than ever before!”

“This was the older brother, Hinata!”

Yuuta: “And the little brother, Yuuta. ♪”

Hinata & Yuuta: “And the both of us together makes 2wink~! ☆”

“♪~♪~♪”

Hinata: (…Is this really ok? Will everything be alright? Isn’t everyone watching gonna be taken aback thinking what’s all this all of a sudden?)

Yuuta: (There’s no point in questioning it now! We’re just following what the producer told us to do.)

Hinata: (Right… Though, Oogami-senpai did tell us that this producer might be able to understand how we feel.)

Yuuta: (He wasn’t what I expected at all! Threw me in for a complete loop! And I had totally mustered up all my courage I could, and arrived at the meeting with my heart racing to give him the “Aoi Byakuya” disguise test—)

Hinata: (“So you that’s the direction you guys’ style is going in, huh! Are you hoping to bring out your individuality? Very, very good!”)

(“We staff at Volcano Island will do everything in our power to cooperate!”)

Yuuta: (That’s right! Exactly like that! I wasn’t able to mess with him at all! He just interpreted in a weirdly positive way!)

(…Well, he made a good first impression. He saw right through “Aoi Byakuya” and recognized “Aoi Yuuta but with a different hairstyle” at first glance.)

Hinata: (I don’t think he even suspected a thing. I think he probably really is taking us seriously, and just wants to do a proper job producing us, y’know.)

(That’s what a producer does, right?)

(He’ll do whatever it takes to reach success, and has been ever since the time he was active. He’d never miss out on an opportunity.)

(For idols, that’s just the natural thing to do. That’s even why I appeared on Volcano Island in the first place.)

(If you’re an idol, of course you’re going to want to seize the opportunity…)

(That request really was 100% in good faith, wasn’t it? They had only one slot to invite only one person—nothing more.)

Yuuta: (I dunno… I have a feeling that by doing that, he was testing us. If we were too fixated on appearing as twins, and instead refused to perform on the show that time…)

(Then it’d mean that 2wink wasn’t willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. In other words, he’d decide we were different creatures than him, and would lose interest in us.)

(We’d be deemed unworthy of being produced by him, basically.)

(That’s the feeling I got, y’know? He looked at us with the insight of a professional, the same gaze as the Vice Prez.)

Hinata: (Seems like you really hate being tested like that, Yuuta-kun. Didn’t you end up getting along with him really well?)

Yuuta: (I don’t have any reason to hate it. I’m just pissed that I was gonna test him, but he ended up testing me in the end.)

(That guy’s real serious as a producer, and challenged us to a fight.)

(But y’know, that’s exactly what I’ve been hoping for. I’ve been looking for someone who’d face us properly as equal business partners, someone who’d give it their all.)

(So, I have a feeling that once he recognizes someone, he’ll never desert them by any means. He does what he says he’ll do, and as such he’s giving his all to properly produce us.)

(Calling him a talented producer is no exaggeration. That’s why he’s in great demand; in that sense, we’re lucky to be even spared the time in the first place.)

(That being said, there’s no such thing as a perfect track record. There’s no guarantee that this strategy of differentiating ourselves will succeed.)

(But for now, I’d like to ride this wave.)

(I’m done with shutting myself away, bitterly grumbling and complaining, and making my friends and family worry. I’ll move forward. I’ll dive right in and make my mark on this world.)

(…I listened to the CD you passed on to, Aniki.)

Hinata: (Ah, the song the producer wrote and performed back when he was active? How was it, tell me!)

Yuuta: (It was fucking amazing.)

Hinata: (I know, right~! It was sooo amazing!)

Yuuta: (Yeah. It’s frustrating to admit, but it really was. It was a sparkling and refreshing idol song that blew away all of my grudges.)

(But despite being so good, it got buried and forgotten without anyone taking notice of it. This industry we live in is so cruel.)

(In order to fulfill his wish to be noticed in this heavily competitive idol industry, he relied on other people’s light.)

(So as a result, he comes off as having a reputation as an opportunistic bastard.)

(If people say that, then so be it. What’s so wrong with wanting someone to notice you, to love you?)

(And so, that guy used all that frustration as a springboard to ensure that this time, people will notice what he has to offer… And he produced with all of his might.)

(He brought idols out into the shining sun, to make sure they didn’t get buried like he did.)

(I too want to shine beautifully, and reflect that brilliance.)

(I don’t want to keep feeling depressed every day, whenever I look in the mirror.)

(So, I won’t become someone nobody knows, like Byakuya Aoi—)

Yuuta: (—Instead, I’ll become someone I can be proud of, someone I can love! I’ll become Aoi Yuuta!)

(Whether it’s changing my hairstyle or my character, I’ll do whatever it takes! I refuse to give up, not ‘til I’m dead!)

(For I, Aoi Yuuta, vow to earn a place in all your memories!)

“♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪”

[ ☆ ]

← prev | story directory