#man this does not even scratch the surface of my thoughts about meta narrative but i cannot get into it

[inkbomber]

all these characters suck a little bit. the generals? suck. walters? sucks. sonic? sucks. tom? sucks. robotnik sucks so fucking bad. stone sucks. maddie sucks. every agent sucks. gerald sucks. shadow kind of sucks. maria might be the only character that doesn’t suck frankly, and she’s still rollerblading in the hallways.

this of course comes from a very simplistic/pessimistic and overly critical pov, but like. every g.u.n. associated character is working for the us gov. tom and wade are cops. sonic is self-absorbed. maddie hits her husband. gerald is a misogynist [on top of everything else]. rockwell is anti-alien in a way that is, textually, shitty. g.u.n. as an organization still built the eclipse canon! fucking why? because they suck!

these facts dont keep me from enjoying the characters or story, but they are facts. the jokes are also canon, y’know? the framing of the story is what flavors them, makes them less than human. they are just characters. but if you think about what you’re shown for longer than a week, about the parallels, about them as people, stuff starts clicking into place. none of these characters are perfect, because a perfect person 1: doesn’t exist, and 2: is deeply uninteresting.

turns out the the default state of humanity is just sucking a bit.

[thelooniemoonie]

So I just finished reading House of Leaves...

Here are my thoughts. I will do my best to avoid spoilers, but will mention a thing or two.

Oh man, that was one hell of a ride. While I myself am a huge fan of horror, this was the first horror book I have read, and what a great experience it was!

Going into the book I already somewhat knew of the madness that lurks inside (that being the quarter inch, and the impossibly long hallway) and was surprised that the madness started on very early. Being the book is over 700 pages long, I sure as hell didn't expect it to start about 60 pages in.

What you don't expect however, is the madness that takes it's toll the longer the book goes on. Multiple storylines, narrators and themes start converging together to the point where everything starts falling into place, to the point it becomes nauseating as exploring the house itself. What I can say however, is that the house is only barely scratching the surface of what is truly going on within these pages.

For context the book is cleverly written as a meta-narrative, as an essay analyzing the film The Navidson Record, a fictional film that does not exist in the real world. What the book strangely does however, is reference actual real life sources when dissecting its premise, to the point where reality and fiction start blurring. The book feels as if it's having a conversation with itself, covering countless of different themes and metaphors that overlap with one another. Given this thing has been analyzed and picked apart for decades since its release, I'm gonna leave it to the experts about the secrets within its pages. (Although I will say this: pay attention. The longer the book goes on the more the different puzzle pieces will start clicking together.)

I was curious as to how a book may scare a reader since I'm unfamiliar with the experience of reading horror, but I will say the longer the book went on the worse it got. If I had to make a comparison, it would be the same feeling I experienced when watching Skinamarink: Dread. A long, droning kind of dread that one experiences when you are alone in your house and all the lights are off and everything is black. And you know no one is coming for you. But you swear you saw something from the corner of your eye. It's the feeling of running up the stairs after turning the lights off and praying something isn't running after you. Dread.

Very quickly things will become nauseating. At first I wasn't scared of the premise of the house: it's a haunted house that defies reality. So? But I found myself not dreading the events that unfolded or the "interesting" formatting of the book, but that the reality of the book itself seemed to be imploding on itself. Spoilers, but the one moment I think where I specifically started spiralling was when Exploration #5 was occurring, and Navidson had to stop and rest with only his matches, he pulls out a book to read and it's....the House of Leaves? The book you're reading right now? But how is that possible? How is Navidson reading the real life book that you're reading, when the fictional events that are pertaining to him are happening right now to him?? What are even the Johnny segments?? (Note: don't read them at work like I did) Why does nobody cited in this book know who the Navidsons are, even though they're quoted directly in reviewing the film?? What the hell is going on???

.

I made a joke in an earlier post that Navidson wants to fuck the house. I meant this as a joke. What I soon horrifically realized was that others were correcting me in that it wasn't a joke. Navidson wants to fuck the house. But he also doesn't want to fuck the house. But it is also a secret third thing that's literal to the foundation of this story. (No pun intended.) But oh god it gets so much worse.

At the time of writing this, I just finished the book 1 hour ago. I feel like I just stepped off the worst rollercoaster. And I loved it.

10/10 very spooks

On a less serious note I think the funniest moment in the book was when the Chad's and Daisy's teacher, after noticing their strange behaviour at school due to the effects of the house, reasonably decides to pay their parents a visit to talk about it. What the poor lady doesn't expect however, is that she arrives right after the events of the house unfold and the Navidsons are having the worst week of their life, coming to the screaming and crying family while there is a dead body on the floor.

In essence it can be summed up by this gif, which frankly sums up the vibe of the story overall:

So yeah it's a good book. I recommend it.

[janiedean]

ooh so linked to the Brienne ask re: the kingsguard part. What are your thoughts on Aerys’ kingsguard, especially like Arthur Dayne who Jaime from what I remember has complicated feelings for but pretty much idolises him. And they’re so loved by almost everyone in universe!!! Like idk how to think about them really my feelings for them are also complicated

+ okay good because I honestly don’t see why people love them so much like most of the things we’ve heard about them are like. Objectively bad. And like yeah the idea of them is cool but well that can only go so far. also I’m sorry if these asks are a mess I’m exhausted!! ALSO I think you’re amazing for answering all of us anons with such detail I always love coming on to your blog

(putting both asks in the same place uu)

in order: the fact that they're loved by everyone in-universe and fandom actually likes them (or at least arthur dayne hahahahaha god) is like... some of george's best trolling because guess what the entire point is that they're supposed to look like amazing people/the real deal when instead they're all terrible the end - except again for the poor martell prince whom we don't know enough about and I'll give him a pass bc martell people are usually not stupid af but in order:

as I said george has made a point of stating that knighthood is a rotten institution and the kg especially aerys being like... what should be the highest honor for a knight is equally as rotten as knigthood in general and is made of people who do Not Deserve The Title - I mean again hey it's orders so marital rape is fine, hey we're leaving the 15yo to man an entire castle? WHY NOT, the king is mad? WELL WE SWORE TO SERVE HIM, like not counting martell prince there isn't one single person in the aerys kg except jaime who actually upheld the oaths they swore ie protecting the innocent so make of that what you will

the fact that jaime aka the fifteen year old is literally the only one who gets the job and then goes there like 'hey we're basically covering for marital rape what the fuck' and no one else bats an eyelid should already say everything there is to say about these people's moral standard

the fact that none of them actually stuck up for the fifteen-year old who was obviously not ready for the job nor tried to idk do anything to make it easier on him or whatever also says everything about their moral standard because honestly fuck you

the fact that everyone thinks they're amazing jaime included when they're all pretty much shitty is like... well, same as fandom does, which means that the readers bought what people in-narrative do... except that the moment you scratch the surface it's really damned bad

and I'm saying barristan is on thin ice because from his chapters you can see he's like... not a bad dude but like his reaction to jaime being in there still when he saw aerys is 'ah that fucker who killed the king and was so proud he had to try and get into it at fifteen'? like??? fuck you?? honestly the fact that all of them literally served a dude who put people on fire and was a menace/danger to the realm and then have the gall to think that jaime is the worst or who didn't like try to help him or anything while he was obv struggling with his vows and the fact that he was serving a madman says all about their moral standards, again

and honestly arthur dayne is the literal worst of all of them because like - first of all oh you knight the 15yo who goes along with you slaying bandits and you don't try to dissuade him from joining the kg? what the fucking fuck am I supposed to think - second of all you don't even warn him of what is expecting him when he joins when you've been there for a while? - but third of all which drives me insane and I hate that fandom sleeps on it and goes around happily like ARTHUR/LYANNA THE SHIP OF DREAMS... okay listen like I have literally zero investment in lyanna as a character or in r + l and I don't necessarily think he did everything - I think they had a mutual infatuation and eloped and she sorely regretted it and then it was on r. who shouldn't have like acted on it because he happened to be the 20+ year old with a wife and kids, but there's the whole tower of joy situation - in which sorry but we have arthur fucking off KL with other kg people and leaving all the others in the literal shit bc they'd have to deal with aerys and it'd be less of them than they should be, to go with rhaegar to the tower of joy to help him elope which whatever, and then lyanna was left there after r. had to go back... when her brother and father were burned alive and like if she knew that then I doubt she'd have wanted to stay and if she didn't then they withheld fairly important fucking information, so like he stayed there guarding a pregnant 15-16 yo who most likely did not want to be there and who is pregnant by his best friend whose family oh accidentally murdered half of hers........ and lyanna was there even after rhaegar died so I mean it's not like the moment he happened this dude goes and says 'hey maybe we should actually go back and see if we can solve this mess' no he kept her prisoner there anyway - on top of that... here I'm wildly speculating but: he had to know rhaegar was dead and when ned showed up if we are to believe him and idt he was unreliable on that... ned didn't want to fight him or kill him he just wanted to get his sister and leave and like he was most likely in love with ashara aka arthur's sister so why the fuck would he want to kill him right, and like rhaegar's dead and arthur has nothing to lose by letting ned up especially knowing that lyanna is fucking dying in childbirth like she's dying her brother's there just let him up and solve it later esp when the dude doesn't want to kill you....... but no ned had to kill him because he wouldn't budge and why the fucking fuck wouldn't you budge at that point? your side lost the war, the guy you were friends with that you did all of this for is dead, the girl is about to die at least let her die with her family, why? - only thing I can deduce from it: that rhaegar told him that the baby's survival was the most important thing because third head of the dragon blah blah blah and that if the war was lost to just grab the baby and lyanna if she survived and fuck off to essos until he grew up, except that lyanna didn't survive so the conclusion is that he tried to stop ned from going up there bc he'd have found out about the baby and tried to stop them and at that point who gives a fuck if lyanna died or not but he'd have liked... let her die and kill ned in the process and done that most likely, and sorry but when they knightly vows are, I would like to remind everyone, In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women…. like... what, what exactly has this dude done that would qualify as that? because lyanna would be young and innocent and a woman and he basically is letting her die, that behavior does not qualify as bravery and he'd like... deny the kid a chance of growing up with his family period if he killed ned and he didn't seem to particularly give a fuck las we checked, and that's like not counting the whole 'oh I won't tell the 15yo who idolizes me that he's signing

his life away to trauma nor I will support him for shit when he does' part of it, but the tower of joy stuff is shady whichever way you look at it and honestly the more time passes the more I'm convinced this guy is just a complete pos and the worst of them all except gregor when it comes to like 'people thinking you're a good knight and you're actually a pos instead' and I'm dying on that hill until george proves me wrong

and on that the thing is that... I ranted about it once here but basically jaime idolizes the shit out of him because he never saw that even if his subconscious kinda knows because when he had the weirwood dream his greatest fear was confronting the former kg and everyone was accusing him of stuff he couldn't have physically prevented (more ranting on the weirwood dream here) and he's there like 'ah I wanted to be arthur dayne but I became the smiling knight instead' but like... actually he is more of a true knight than arthur dayne can ever hope to be? because like in the above meta I was talking specifically about how to pia he's like... better than arthur dayne, but like not to be that person but jaime who thinks he's the gregor clegane of his time and not arthur dayne, while arthur dayne was... doing the shady toj thing with lyanna - saved an entire city from aerys blowing it up - risked his neck for brienne even if he didn't even like her as in he got himself kicked in a healing stump when he couldn't even stand up for himself so she wouldn't be raped - risked his neck going back for her at harrenhal and jumped into the bear pit without even knowing how he'd manage it - was actually being a decent person to tommen until c. forced him to leave - the moment he saw what happened with pia he gave her her rapist's head when she's like a commoner no one gaf about and took her into her service - when his squire wanted to bed her he like told him to be kind to her jfc - is per tyrion the only relative who actually loved him/freed him/actually stuck up for him (and tysha is on tywin thank you all very much and jaime feels so great about it he doesn't think about it until he can't anymore) (also he was the one chasing the bandits away in the first place so he was probably there like oH I HELPED A MAIDEN too lmao god fuck tywin) - actually stuck for his cat vow bc he took riverrun without bloodshed - sent brienne after sansa with the magic amazing sword because he wanted to upheld their shared vow to cat going against his own family - the moment brienne shows up like hey wanna blow this joint and leave the army you don't wanna lead to find sansa he didn't even like blink before saying yes and I'm supposed to think that in between him and arthur dayne he isn't the only one who actually stuck to his vows as well as he could/knows anything about them/is actually a trueknight™? because lmao the fact that jaime doesn't fancy himself one because of aerys when everyone fancies arthur dayne one when the latter did absolutely fucking nothing beyond slaying bandits to put his money where his mouth was while jaime didn't even like brand himself like that and still did all of that and half of it was acting on instinct not even like doing the math before and *he* was the one wanting to be knighted at fifteen and took his vows seriously when oh wait knightly vows are basically the epitome of selflessness is like again grrm trolling the hell out of everyone characters included but it's clear from the narrative imvho and I can't wait for the moment he serves the just desserts and a) jaime realizes it b) everyone else in-narrative realizes it c) bran timetravels to the fucking toj and we find out what actually went down there and this saint arthur narrative is burned to the ground because honestly no

there, I think I spat out almost all of my venom XD

[mysterylover123]

My thoughts on Izu/Ocha: Meta

cue frustrated shipper screams

by mysterylover123

At the end of the day, irrespective of any shipping wars, I just want HeroAca to have a good ending. Many manga/anime/franchises have been utterly destroyed by a bad ending, while others are elevated by a great one. And a very consistent element in Bad Endings is poor handling of romantic subplots. Exhibits include: How I Met Your Mother, Naruto, Bleach. Horikoshi has listed both Marvel and Shonen Jump as his major influences, and BNHA is published in the latter. Both companies have a history of terrible Romantic Subplot decisions: Selling Spider-Man’s marriage to Mephisto, the IchiHime vs IchiRuki debate, the awkward Staron and Brutasha subplots in the MCU, and the fiery pit of controversy that is the Naruto ending pairs - all of it ultimately harming the narrative’s integrity and preventing audiences from enjoying the story. While a badly handled romance subplot doesn’t have to tank the ending of an action series, it’s still a thin line to walk.  

On the surface, BNHA’s main pairing of Izuku Midoriya/Ochaco Uraraka, or Izu/Ocha as it’s called, seems to avoid the obvious problems. There’s no More Important Girl in Deku’s life, there’s no coding on his rivalries, and no melodramatic love triangle to annoy people. In fact, I can even say that Izuku and Ochaco’s dynamic is pretty fascinating. But not yet as an endgame pairing. My feelings on Izu/Ocha are complicated. I simultaneously ship it and don’t. I ship it because I enjoy them both as characters, I think they’re good friends, and they seem to like each other; I don’t ship it because the execution so far has been rather awkward, the romance lopsided on Uraraka’s side, and the nature of their relationship struggling to get to the levels of intimacy I’d expect from an endgame pairing. I’m afraid, in short, that Horikoshi will do what other Shonen manga have done: have a supporting female character become defined by her love for the Lead, have the lead spend the whole series ignoring them to obsess over their rivals and villains, and throw the two together at the last minute without properly developing their romance, leaving both fans of the pairing (because of the lack of onscreen development) and non-fans (because of the weak storytelling) alike disappointed and frustrated. 

There are several options for what could happen besides that terrifying prospect. Izu/Ocha could spend lots of time developing their romance, correcting the problems I’ve spotted and outlined in this meta - I’ll mention a few areas where I think they could change these problems as I go along - and become a great Official Couple, like some of the success stories in Shonen romance writing (Ed/Win, Vegeta/Bulma…erm, that’s all I can think of). Alternatively, they could grow away from their crushes on each other and set them aside, ending as friends instead of lovers, possibly with no Official Couples (One Piece, and in the west, Gravity Falls, do something like this). That could work too. They could both end up with other people. They could end up having a tragic falling out and become enemies. At this point, anything’s possible. But what I do know is that they need to change something about their dynamic, and change it fast, or else the story is going to go barreling into the problems of it’s predecessors - the flaws in Shonen manga the series is so well known for avoiding, like pacing issues or Power Scaling. And I don’t want that.

I wrote this meta mostly to contextualize/analyze the Izu/Ocha dynamic for myself. I find their relationship interesting, and most meta on Izu/Ocha barely scratch the surface of their relationship, only going so far as to say either “I don’t like it” or “I like it, and you all are stupid for not liking it”. My feelings on Izu/Ocha are complicated, and I wanted to do a meta on them. Both their relationship, and as two of my fave characters in BNHA. What I want from a storytelling, meta-narrative perspective is a good story. What I want from a character loving POV is for my faves to be happy. If the series shows me they’ll make each other happy, I’m good. It’s just that so far, their relationship doesn’t seem to work that way.

So I’ll go through each arc of the series, and try and detail their interactions from both Deku’s POV and Uraraka’s. I’ll highlight the moments I like and find shippy, and the things they need to work on as a couple. Hopefully this’ll be an enjoyable read (it ended up really, really long), and I’m sorry if Izu/Ocha fans reading it get mad at me - I have nothing against it as a ship, I just want more from the relationship in canon.

Without further ado:

Entrance Exam Arc:

Deku’s POV: Deku’s first impression of Uraraka is great. She’s a cute, kind girl who stops him from tripping over his feet. 

He does, however, think of her as “a girl” (“I just talked to a girl!”), which is a pattern with how he often reacts to her - as “a girl”, rather than “Uraraka”, later on down the line. When Deku shows attraction to Ochaco, it’s to her as an exemplar of the female, rather than as a person. 

Compare Deku’s attraction to her uniform and costume, or responses to talking to ‘a girl’, to say, Naruto saying he likes Sakura’s “large charming forehead” or Darcy in Pride and Prejudice thinking of Elizabeth’s “fine dark eyes”. Big difference in terms of how romantic the attraction comes across. 

Iida stops Deku from talking to Uraraka before the test, saying he’ll just distract her. Take a shot every time someone frames Ochaco’s potential interest in Deku as being a ‘distraction’ that she has to do without.

Deku notices Uraraka pinned under rubble and jumps to save her. He compares this mentally to doing the same for Bakugo in the previous arc, from the sludge villain. But there’s no All Might here to save Deku, and when he jumps he breaks three limbs. His decision gets him into UA, but he thinks he failed. For weeks, Deku feels miserable about this, wallowing in despair because he threw away his chance to get into UA. He gets the news from All Might, and learns that Uraraka went to offer up some of her points for him. Now this is sweet, but let’s look at what we know of Deku’s character now and talk about why I don’t think he appreciates this all that much, and why it wouldn’t have been good for their relationship if that was what got him into UA.

Deku doesn’t believe in himself. He has huge issues with personal security and confidence because of his past. He wants to be there for other people, to be “able to smile, while doing something good for them”. Deku wanted to get into UA on his own merit. So had Uraraka actually been the one to get him in, out of gratitude, it really would have done a number on Deku’s self-esteem. It would have told him that he wasn’t good enough to get in on his own, that someone else had to sabotage themselves to bail him out because of his mistakes. Fortunately, that’s not what happened - he got in because Rescue Points - but from an Izu/Ocha standpoint, it doesn’t seem calculated to cause Deku to fall in love with Uraraka. He doesn’t want someone to take pity on him and sabotage themselves so he can do well. 

That’s why he doesn’t seem all that moved by Uraraka’s gesture here - we could have had many close-ups and reaction bubbles of him thinking about how wonderful she was for doing this, how generous and kind of her it was, but nope, nothing like that happens. Deku is only ecstatic once he learns that he made it in on his own merit. As he should be, of course, but ultimately this first encounter doesn’t do a lot to set up Izu/Ocha.

Ochaco’s POV. Ochaco is a nice girl who saves people in trouble. She’s also very, very insecure. I’ll get into that more later, but despite Uraraka’s cheerful exterior, she’s even more insecure than Deku is. She saves him when they first meet, then walks off after talking at him for a few minutes. 

He doesn’t respond to her at all out loud and she quickly moves on. This is a small microcasm of their entire  dynamic: Ochaco often talks at Deku rather than with Deku, and he rarely talks to her about anything. We’ll get more into that later.

Ochaco gets saved by Deku during the exam, saves him in return, and later on offers him her points. When she brings him up to Mic, she calls him “plain looking” and “didn’t stand out at all”. Lovely first impression. Of course, it’s not impossible for a romance subplot to start with the love interest not finding the hero attractive. The aforementioned Pride and Prejudice, for instance, starts with Darcy calling Eliza “tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.” But within two chapters he’s gushing about her “fine eyes”. 

200+  chapters later, and Ochaco still hasn’t said a word about finding Deku more attractive now. Now, she could, hopefully some day, realize that she no longer finds him plain, and that she’s grown to find him attractive. Say something about those big green eyes or his fearless smile. Something personal, like he has yet to say about her, to express that she finds him appealing. But nothing yet.

Uraraka giving Deku her points, from her POV, is I think motivated just as much by pride as it is by gratitude. She got into that scenario because she was pinned down, and she probably feels like it was her fault. It would be kind of creepy, actually, if she was willing to throw her own chances under the bus for someone she just met because she liked him or was in love with him - Misa Amane levels of love-at-first-sight co-dependency. Uraraka doing this because of her own pride seems more fitting to me, more in line with the character we get to know later on. 

EG:

She feels she messed up, and took someone else down with her, and as such has to make things better. Thankfully, Deku pulled through on his own. This is one of many sweet scenes where Uraraka offers Deku a great deal of love and support. But sadly, it’s a very lopsided bond in that regard. Outside of this moment, Deku never does anything crazy to protect Uraraka again, and rarely shows her the same kind of support. Not because he doesn’t want to, per se, but because she won’t let him (if you want the full details on that imbalance, skip to the Sports Fest arc section).

Quirk Apprehension Test Arc:

Uraraka’s POV: We continue the pattern of Uraraka’s crush on Deku being something she’s told to drop here, with Aizawa telling her if she’s “just here to make friends” she can go home (take a shot). 

She’s happy to see Deku and supportive of him when he does OK, worried for him when he’s hurt, and in general a good friend. At this point in the series, we’re not privy to her inner thoughts, so there’s not as much to say about her feelings here. The only thing of note is the other general pattern of their relationship, wherein Uraraka gets to be supportive of and worried for Deku, but not him for her. Her revising of the name Deku is more important from his POV.

Deku’s POV: Deku shows continuing attraction to Uraraka here, thinking that she “looks good in her uniform” and blushing around her. However, he quickly moves on to overcoming the Quirk App Test and doesn’t think about her much throughout the rest of the arc. 

She comes up to him later and calls him ‘Deku’, like Bakugo did, and reframes the nickname as a positive thing. The setup seems clear: Ochaco is to be the friend to Deku that Bakugo never was, the kind and supportive ally he lacked back in middle school. This scene makes me smile.

Which would be fine if that’s what they went with, but…

Battle Trial Arc:

This arc starts out so well for Izu/Ocha, then goes down hill fast.

Deku on Ochaco here: Deku thinks she looks good in her uniform, blushing around her, and expressing a desire to impress her when they’re put on the same team. 

They’re up against Bakugo, and he’s nervous. When Ochaco asks, he starts talking about how Greatamazingawesomesuperspecialwhatever Bakugo is and how he wants to beat him. 

He then apologizes to Ochaco for getting her caught up in his problems, indicating that he doesn’t see her as being part of them. Even though Ochaco proclaims them to be a team, he doesn’t do much strategizing with her ahead of time. He gets very caught up in his match with Bakugo, and doesn’t bother working with her until Bakugo has him cornered and nearly drops him with the MegaBlast. Then, he calls her and comes up with a plan - but imagine if he’d actually worked together with Ochaco to beat Bakugo.

 If he’d guessed, as he says, that Bakugo was planning to “come at him first”, then why not get Uraraka to grab Bakugo while he’s distracted and zero G him out of the building?

Because Deku wants to beat Bakugo to prove himself, plain and simple. He’s known Bakugo longer, so it’s only natural he’s more interested in beating him than working with Uraraka. But this could have gone so much better for him if he took the time to work with Ochaco instead - if they’d tag-teamed Kacchan, Deku might not have had to break his arm. 

He does salvage this a little by taking the new version of his name Uraraka came up with. But then Deku spends the rest of the arc ignoring her instead of working with her. 

There’s even an oddly placed panel sequence where she blows off a flirtatious Kaminari to worry about Deku, and he then blows her off to go chase after Bakugo and clear up their misunderstanding. It’s probably just a coincidence, but it’s still a weird parallel.

And speaking of this scene, let’s talk about a bigger concern with Izu/Ocha (from Deku’s angle) that I have. Deku has a secret identity. He has a past as a quirkless kid, a history of insecurity, and a secret chosen one destiny that burdens him greatly. He needs his future partner to be someone he can talk to about all this. If I were him, and I had to choose among the kids at UA who I’d tell my troublesome secret ID to, who I’d want to confide in, I’d probably say 1. Uraraka, 2. Iida, 3. Shoto, 4. Literally every single other character Deku is friends with and finally, bottom of the list, Bakugo. Yet Deku chooses to tell Bakugo his secret identity, not Uraraka or anyone nicer who would be presumably more trustworthy. Now, in hindsight (SPOILERS IF YOU’RE NOT CAUGHT UP YET), Deku doing this has paid off. Bakugo knows his secret and he’s kept it. He’s been a supportive friend to him since then, especially post JTA, everything a good secret keeper should be. But Deku - and especially the audience - didn’t know that at the time. (SPOILERS DONE).

And Deku can’t be with Uraraka if she doesn’t know his secret identity. That’s one of the Laws of Superhero Romance Comics. Spider-Man could never be with Gwen or Black  Cat, for instance, because they hated his alter ego. He married MJ because she liked both. And Horikoshi is a big fan of Spidey, so he must know this. Deku has to tell Uraraka about OFA if he’s going to be with her. But he hasn’t, and he hasn’t shown any inclination to. 

The setup is there for him to tell others; Todoroki asked about his powers, Tsuyu compared him to All Might. They could figure it out, they could tell Deku they know, or he could tell them, like he tried to tell Kota his personal stories, to make them feel better. There’s a mechanism in place for him to tell either one of them. But not Uraraka. She’s never asked about it, he’s got no interest in telling her. And as long as she doesn’t know the Secret, she can’t be with Deku. This isn’t, BTW, me making a manifesto for any of those ships over Izuocha. I don’t think for a second that any of those pairings will happen in the series. Only that if Deku is to be with Uraraka, he has to find a reason to tell her about OFA, or their relationship will be all kinds of messed up.

Also, FYI, Tsu, Todoroki, Bakugo, and even Iida have looked at and noticed enough about Deku to guess at least this, the most fundamentally important thing to know about Deku: That he’s close to All Might and his powers are similar. But not Ochaco. Does she honestly know anything important about Deku? Like how he grew up quirkless for so long, how All Might inspired his dream, how he wants to live up to the expectations of others and save people with a smile? No, not yet. He’s never told her anything personal, outside of this one little anecdote in this arc about wanting to beat Bakugo.

Uraraka’s POV:

Uraraka is happy to be working with Deku, but initially not all that excited about winning the fight. She just wants to relax, and is surprised to see how stressed he is.

 Then Deku talks about how he wants to beat Bakugo, and she becomes more proactive. Nonetheless, she still basically just follows his lead this arc. 

She takes no initiative on her own: She doesn’t go to grab Bakugo when he’s attacking Deku, she stands around giggling on the phone while trying to sneak up on Iida, and Momo criticizes her for it. 

She thinks to herself about Deku wanting to win when Iida outfoxes her. She doesn’t seem like she wants to win the Trial for her own sake, just Deku’s. And this is a problem for Uraraka. (take a shot)

Momo criticizes everyone but Iida in this match, and all three characters who messed up did so because they were too fixated on someone else. Deku on beating Bakugo. Bakugo on beating Deku. Uraraka on impressing Deku. Iida, for instance, also admires Midoriya - but he’s able to concentrate on the match and fight Uraraka anyway. That’s why he’s MVP, as Momo and All Might put it.

So we set up Uraraka’s over-fixation on Deku as being a problem she has to overcome, a flaw - like Bakugo’s obsession with beating Deku, Iida’s obsession with killing Stain, Todoroki’s obsession with hurting his father, or Momo’s feelings of inadequacy next to Shoto, it’s framed like a flaw she has to overcome to do better. Of the dynamics here, only Deku’s admiration of/determination to beat Bakugo is not framed as a flaw per se, since he still has it to this day and seems to benefit from it. I’ll elaborate on why I think that is later on in the essay - it has to do with the “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Tragedy” theme - but overall, this doesn’t paint a good picture of Ochaco’s feelings for Midoriya. They’re framed as something she has to put away in order to do well. (take a shot)

Class Rep mini-arc:

This is another score for Izu/Ocha. Ochaco voted for Deku as class Rep. She never tells him about it, though. I’m not sure why. Iida told him. Todoroki tells Momo later on that he voted for her. Ochaco could be gearing up for telling Deku herself, dramatically, later on, but what would that prove? 

Deku already knows she admires him, he turned down the class rep role later anyway. This isn’t like Momo and Shoto, where Momo stayed Deputy Rep and never heard a compliment from Todoroki before he told her he voted for her. In that case, the Class Rep thing showed Momo Shoto believed in her, helping her get her confidence back. But Deku already knows Ochaco believes in him. Iida telling him also helped him out - it showed him he had friends who believed in him. Ochaco’s given reason for keeping her vote to herself is Bakugo’s little temper tantrum about it. But Bakugo wasn’t at the table when Iida told Deku the truth, so why couldn’t she have told Deku then? I really don’t get why she keeps her vote to herself; I don’t see how this will do anything for Deku later on down the line, or for Uraraka. It shows she’s supportive of him and admires him, but we already knew that. I’m just not sure how to parlay this into future developments with them.

USJ Arc

Deku and Ochaco don’t talk to each other at all during this arc. They get separated quickly and don’t reunite. They don’t worry about each others’ safety during the battle. After it’s over Ochaco asks after Deku because he broke his limbs, but during the fight she doesn’t worry about him or look for him. There’s only one moment I find noteworthy for Izu/Ocha during this arc: Deku wondering “What would Kacchan do” before jumping off the boat. This type of remark, like Iida’s “What would by brother or Midoriya do” during the class rep arc, is about a platonic friend (well, rival in this case), not a love interest. So Uraraka’s “what would Deku do” being code for “I like him” doesn’t really add up. I’ll get to that later.

Sports Festival Arc

Deku’s POV: Deku asks Uraraka about her motivation at the beginning of this arc, in Chapter 22. Uraraka admits that it’s for the money, and while Deku mentally thinks that this is admirable, he doesn’t say anything complimentary out loud, or anything other than “it’s surprising”. Contrasted with Iida’s loud, uproarious applause of Ochaco’s motive, this doesn’t come across as all that supportive of his friend, even though he does not, in fact, think the less of her for it. 

On top of that,  Deku at this point in the arc is struggling to get motivated himself. Later on he’ll call Todoroki out for not trying his best, and he’s clearly thinking of people like Uraraka, Shinso, Bakugo and Iida when he does so. But at this point, he does the same thing towards her that he calls Shoto out for.

He doesn’t get inspired by her words, or All Might’s, or anyone’s, until he overhears Bakugo make an offhand comment about ‘aiming for the top’. Then he gets into the  competitive spirit. This kinda creates the impression that Deku is more inspired by his rivals than his love interest. Common issue in Shonen romances, of course; a higher emphasis on the importance of the hero’s main rivalry than his Official Girlfriend.

He’s overjoyed when she joins his team, but not because it’s Uraraka - because it’s anyone.

Deku is the person no one wants to team up with here. He would have teamed up with anyone who asked him. It seems odd, knowing Uraraka’s capabilities and quirk, that he didn’t just go up and ask her himself to join his team (Like he does with Iida, and then Tokoyami). 

(Edit: I’ve recently rereaed this chapter and found I made a mistake: Deku does say he was planning on asking her. I was just reading a weird translation. Sorry for the mistake - good on Deku!)

During the battle, while he mentally thinks that Uraraka is great, he doesn’t say anything out loud to her. He does, however, loudly compliment Hatsume and Tokoyami, in front of her. This hurts Uraraka’s feelings, but I’ll get to that in her section.

Deku gets busy with his rivals for a while until his first match is over. While watching the rest, he mentions to Uraraka that he wrote about her Zero Gravity in his notebook. But he doesn’t say “I think your Zero Gravity is cool too” or anything complimentary, just “I wrote about it” like everyone else’s. 

To Deku’s credit, he seems to realize that he hasn’t been very supportive to Uraraka. The anime cut this from the Manga, but the manga has a scene where Deku notices her leaving, and her pensive expression. This leads to him going to the prep room to offer her his strategy to beat Bakugo. 

I think this is a big deal for Deku, because at the end of the day, this is his entire motivation. Helping people. Being there for others. Deku is a wonderful, supportive friend, used to feeling weak and inadequate and wanting to help others the way they helped him. He needs a partner he can support and compliment, someone he can help, someone who needs saving. 

But Uraraka denies him this. He offers her his help and support, and she rejects him - for her own reasons, but this still leaves Deku feeling lesser. 

“She’s the one supporting me,” he muses before his match with Todoroki. He wanted to be there for her. He wanted to help her break down the wall that is Bakugo - even if she didn’t use his strategy, she could have listened to his knowledge of Bakugo, who he’s known his whole life, to pick up some tips on his weaknesses. 

But she doesn’t. She also refuses to let Deku be there for her when she loses. He can tell that her cheerfulness is just hiding her disappointment. But since she’s refusing to let him in, he can’t be the shoulder for her to cry on. He wanted to. He was willing to be that person for her - to be the friend she can talk to about her issues, to cheer her on when she fought and help her up when she’s feeling down.

But she rejected his support, just like everyone else does. 

Bakugo rejected his helping hand as a kid. Iida rejected working with him earlier that same day, and rejects his support later on with his brother. Todoroki declares he ‘isn’t here to make friends’ and spends most of the sports Fest rejecting Deku’s attempts to help him (“You’re helping your opponent? Now which of us is screwing around”).

 Deku clearly wants to be that friend. He wants to be there for the people in his life and offer his boundless love and emotional support for them. And I think he needs a partner in life who will let him be there for them. If Uraraka is to be that person, she has to let him in. She has to put aside her pride (yes, I think it is pride) and accept Deku supporting her, just as she supported him. She has to open up to him and cry in front of him. The others I mentioned have - Bakugo cried in front of Deku twice, Iida accepted his help during the Hero Killer arc, Todoroki accepts him in the very next episode. Three characters far crustier, prouder and more antagonistic towards Deku have all put aside their pride and let him help them with their issues. It’s Ochaco’s turn.

Speaking of: From Uraraka’s perspective. When Uraraka admits her motivation to Deku and Iida, she’s looking away, scratching her head, and apologizing. She says, in the dub “You two have such admirable motivations. I hope you don’t think less of me now.” Uraraka feels ashamed to admit her motivation to Deku and Iida. 

When the obstacle race ends, she announces “I’m so jealous of you!” to Deku, after he comes in first. And I think she is - jealous of him. 

She teams up with Deku for the  Cavalry Battle, and later admits that she “Might have been relying on (him) to get by”, meaning that she sees Deku as being better than her. 

She gets very jealous of the attentions Deku gives Hatsume - as I noticed before, Deku compliments  everyone but Ochaco. He even found the time to compliment Bakugo in front of her during the Battle Trial arc - but to her face, nothing. And this plays on Uraraka’s insecurities. Deep down, despite her cheerful demeanor, Uraraka isn’t very self-confident (at least, not yet). She doesn’t believe in herself, she doesn’t have faith in herself to succeed. She’s even more insecure than Deku, and often tries too hard to be “just like him” to her own self-detriment. Watching everyone else’s matches, she admits to being ashamed of herself. She realizes she needs to try and succeed on her own, not by relying on Midoriya.  (take a shot)

But at the same time, her goal is still essentially to be “Just like Deku”. What’s the one thing Ochaco knows Deku wants to do, besides be a great hero? Beat Bakugo. No coincidence she was fighting him in this tournament. To be just like Deku, she has to beat his rival, who she’s seen him fight before. Uraraka wants to be good enough, she wants to beat Deku - in a way, her motive and behavior here is not that different from Iida’s, Bakugo’s or Todoroki’s. Deku makes her insecure, so she tries to do better than him. 

She declares herself a rival to him. She refuses his help - seriously, a few pointers on how to beat Bakugo couldn’t hurt, she even thinks about Deku’s earlier moves while fighting him anyway! - and tries to win it all by herself. And although her plan is great, it doesn’t work. 

The minute she thinks “I’ll be just like Deku” is the moment she fails. The moment Bakugo blows up her debris and beats her.

Uraraka is devastated by this. She was crying for so long and so hard that her eyes swelled shut. She could have really used a friend, someone to talk to about her family problems - someone outside of her family drama, a kind and understanding ally like Deku, who can commiserate with her and tell her things’ll be ok. 

But she hides her feelings from Deku and pretends she’s fine. I think she doesn’t want to look weak in front of him - she wants him to think she’s cool, to compliment her like he compliments Hatsume and Bakugo, and she’s deeply insecure about appearing anything other than strong. So she shuts him out and cries on her own, with no supportive friend to help her. If she is to be with him, she needs to be able to let him into her life and her heart. 

She has to cry in front of him, like all three of his other rivals have done despite their immense pride and far less amiable relationships with Deku. Even Tsu has cried in front of Deku and confessed her feelings (to him and the whole Rescue Squad), and she’s not as close to him as Uraraka or Iida. Why doesn’t Uraraka confide in Deku about her feelings? Again, I think the underlying problem is her hero-worship of him. She thinks he’s amazing, she won’t admit to his flaws (she sees him, one ep/chapter later, destroy his body and lose his match helping Todoroki; you’d think she’d cotton on to his lack of utter flawlessness then, but nope), and she’s still essentially insecure about herself. She needs to learn to believe in her own strengths and admit Deku’s weaknesses. Then she’ll be willing to cry in front of him and listen to his ideas.

But until then, she’s just like all of Deku’s other rivals: Too proud and too envious/afraid of him to accept his love or friendship. 

No wonder she was so easily able to spot why Bakugo is insecure about him and guess how he’d feel about being rescued; her complex about Deku is rapidly becoming just as debilitating as his is. 

Difference being, Bakugo had his “Deku vs Kacchan 2” moment ,where he and Deku talk out their feelings and move on, recognizing that Deku isn’t looking down on him and never has been, etc. Ochaco needs that moment too (probably without the big fight scene, though).  

Hero Killer Arc:

From Deku’s perspective, he chooses his hero name based on Ochaco’s advice. This is something we see with other characters too - Eraserhead and Mic, Mirio and Tamaki - who are friends, so it’s all good. It seems to have a nice spin: Ochaco taking Deku’s flaws, the traits Bakugo mocked, and turning them into a positive. Ochaco supporting Deku. Nice. She smiles about it. 

He seems surprised that she took an internship with Gunhead, confused that she’s more into action now (I guess he’ll have to revise his notebook!). 

He talks to her on the phone after the Incident goes down, having texted all his friends for help and worried her. He again (for the last time) get’s excited over her in a sexual/romantic way, and once again it’s “I talked to A GIRL on the phone” instead of “I talked to Uraraka on the phone”. He’s attracted to her as a girl, but not excited about talking to the girl he has a crush on. Following this arc, Deku stops responding to Uraraka romantically, even when CamieRaka loses her clothes. I’ve got a theory about why he stops, I’ll discuss it next arc.

Uraraka, for her part, looks pleased when  Deku takes her name. She interns with Gunhead because of her match with Bakugo, to get stronger, which is good for character development - I like that this isn’t because of Deku, because I don’t want her arc to revolve around him solely.

She calls him, concerned, after the Stain incident, and tells Gunhead that they’re “not like that” when he teases her about it being a boy. This is the first of many people telling Uraraka that she has something going on with Deku, rather than Uraraka figuring it out herself. Uraraka’s denial is not really defensive or Edward Elric Style “She is NOT my girlfriend” levels, so honestly at this point I believe her. Up until this arc, she doesn’t see her feelings for Deku as romantic. She sees him as a friend who she admires and is often jealous of.

Final Exams:

This is where things get weird. So far, Izu/Ocha has been pretty nicely built up - but then the series decided to go for it in a way that I personally find rather strange and confusing.

So first, let’s take this arc from Deku’s POV. The scenes of Izu/Ocha watching the fights are Anime Only, so we’ll skip those. In the Manga they all take place at the same time. After Deku and Kacchan v All Might, Deku goes to watch the other battles, including Uraraka’s. He doesn’t have any onscreen reaction to Ochaco’s fight, even though we get to hear him mentally exclaiming about how awesome Iida is, or Tsuyu is. Ochaco’s his friend too, why can’t he spare a moment to fanboy over her martial arts skills?

 Anyway, later on they’re left alone at the mall, though not by choice. Deku starts making small talk and Uraraka runs away from him, saying “Have to keep the pests away” or something like that. Deku asks “I’m a bug?/“You mean me?”. So from Deku’s POV, Ochaco flat out called him a pest right here. To him, it must have sounded like she was rejecting him, rejecting the idea of hanging out with him one-on-one (which in the Manga they haven’t done before).

 He’s immediately attacked by Shigaraki; when she returns he does his best to prevent her from getting hurt. Nothing really advances, from Deku’s POV, in their dynamic at this point. The only real notable thing is the “I’m a pest” line. Since Deku never reacts romantically to Ochaco after this, I’m assuming that he thinks she’s not interested in him that way. That right here, she shut down the idea of dating him, and he just accepts it.

Of course, it’s Ochaco’s POV that’s important here. As she’s about to get sucked up by 13, she’s thinking “What would Deku do?” 

Now, we’ve heard these lines in a non-romantic context before. Iida wondered what Deku or Tensei would do when he helped disperse the crowd. Deku wondered what Kacchan would do during the USJ arc. He wondered what a “hero” would do when he saved Bakugo from the sludge monster. This sentiment is not exclusive to romance in the show.

 But Aoyama then chooses this moment to ask Ochaco if she ‘likes him’. This is completely out of nowhere. Aoyama is later revealed to have a bit of a friendship-crush on Deku, but why is he asking this of Uraraka, in this situation? It’s not like her girlfriends later on teasing her about liking Deku, it’s a guy she doesn’t know who doesn’t know Deku very well either, all of a sudden asking her if she has feelings for him. I don’t, for the life of me, understand what his purpose was in doing this. How does this help them win? Why is he painted half-in-shadow when he says this? It feels like it happens because we need Ochaco to realize she likes Deku, because the audience needs to be shocked, not because it makes sense for the  characters. Which is so strange, because it’s one of the only times that ever happens in HeroAca. For the most part, the characters always act in ways that make sense, no matter how extreme they are.

Uraraka freaks out, and thinking about liking Deku nearly gets her killed fighting 13 (take a shot). It isn’t until she re-focuses, on something she attained free of Deku’s influence, that she gets to win. Trying too hard to be like Deku, for Uraraka, leads to nothing good. 

Then, at the mall, she runs away from him. She refuses to spend time with him - which seems strange if she’s meant to fall in love with him. If she wants to be with him, why doesn’t she want to, you know, be with him? Well, because she does’t want to be with him. If she did, she could easily ask him out (they are friends, after all), spend time with him, see if there’s something there. But she doesn’t. 

She runs off, almost horrified at the mere thought of having a crush on Deku. Of having a perfectly harmless, cute crush on one of her best friends. That just seems strange to me. Yes, love can be intimidating, but this is so extreme.

Another odd thing about this sequence is that it’s juxtaposed with Shigaraki holding Deku hostage. We flip back and forth between the Big Bad nearly killing the Hero, and the Romantic Subplot.

 Imagine if that scene in Fullmetal Alchemist where Winry realizes she loves Ed was crosscut with scenes of Ed fighting Gluttony or something, and you get the idea. It’s a tonal mishmash. Unless - unless you theorize that the idea of liking Deku is as terrifying to Uraraka as being nearly murdered by Shigaraki is for  Deku. But if that’s the case, I don’t want her to be with him! I don’t want her to be in a relationship that scares her that much. (I also don’t get why it would scare her that much - like, girl, Deku’s a sweetheart, what do you have to be afraid of?). The series could salvage this, but it already kinda tainted their romance in my eyes - and to many readers as well, since it seemed like such an odd way to introduce the love story into the occasion. Instead of a joyous moment of romance, this is what we got.

Training Camp Arc:

There isn’t a lot in this arc between Izu and Ocha. Izuku includes her in his list of classmates he’s worried about, popping up in the anime second after Bakugo (who is immediately in danger because of kidnapping) and along side Todoroki.  

He works with her and Tsu to save Bakugo - or at least try. Other than that, there’s nothing (the scene of them blushing is only in the anime). 

On Ochaco’s side, nothing happens until she fights Toga. Toga starts interrogating her about her crush on Deku, in her Hannibal Lecture style - villain getting into the hero’s head and provoking them with their insecurities. Himiko Toga is Uraraka’s villainous foil - her counterpart, the evil version of her. 

Both do develop a crush on Deku, which is very disturbing if Deku and Ochaco are meant to be a couple, as well as her adoration of Stain. It’s not like Toga is going to marry Stain or whatever; so the comparison of their two brands of love is odd (at least, if Izuocha is meant to be endgame). 

Toga’s words are right on the money: Uraraka admires Deku and wants to be just like him, but to be just like someone you have to do as Toga does - kill and replace. This gets to Uraraka, because it’s true. Her  crush on Deku then, is not being framed as genuine love, but as a similar obsession to Himiko Toga’s - a desire to be just like someone she admires, rather than be together with a good friend she adores. Which is frustrating, because the latter is the kind of relationship I want from Izuocha, not the former. I don’t want Ochaco to get with Deku because she hero-worships him and thinks he’s amazing - I want her to get with him because they’re good friends and she loves him. But that’s not what the series is doing with them, and with the parallels to Toga, it’s starting to really creep me out.

One route they could take with all this foreshadowing, of course, is perhaps one similar to what happened in Gravity Falls, with Dipper and Wendy. In that series, Dipper like Ochaco has an evil villainous counterpart Yandere - Gideon Gleeful. Toga and Gideon both stalk and harass their crush, who clearly says no and means no. Dipper and Ochaco both harbor a crush on someone who’s a close friend, but who seems to be for whatever reason romantically unavailable to them. (Wendy is older, Deku is…I’m not sure why, Ochaco just won’t ask him, it’s frustrating). Dipper eventually reveals his crush on Wendy, who lets him down easy and stays good friends with him. Dipper later uses that understanding of himself, and of Gideon’s obsession, to tell Gideon he can’t make someone like him. This helps Gideon reform. The whole thing is beautifully healthy and positive. 

So if that’s where we’re going with this - an ending where everyone’s just friends, and Ochaco’s crush on Deku is being used to develop her character a bit regardless of romance, then this would make sense. If not then I don’t get it.

Hideout Raid Arc:

There are two interactions between Ochaco and Deku (indirect ones) during the Hideout Raid Arc. One is Kirishima relaying Uraraka’s worries about saving Bakugo, the other is Uraraka getting the Rescue Squad to apologize to Tsuyu. Both of them are really bad warning signs for their future relationship.

The simple reason is: Uraraka thinks Deku and co did the wrong thing, Deku thinks he did the right thing. Deku has never apologized for or expressed any regret for breaking the rules to save Bakugo. Uraraka, however, objected to them doing this. This is very interesting for both of their relationships with Bakugo, and their thoughts on heroism. But let’s talk about why this is a problem for Izuocha. Uraraka didn’t agree with Deku’s decision here. She has her own reasons for it - “Bakugo wouldn’t want to be rescued” -but she doesn’t bring them up in front of Deku. The thing is, Deku was on the fence about going. If Uraraka had brought up her objection, I think Deku might have actually listened to her. It’s the best objection to persuade him, because it takes Bakugo’s needs into consideration. But Uraraka didn’t bring it up to him. She didn’t say anything to Deku. From Uraraka’s POV, that’s a problem for her relationship with him, because it means she doesn’t want to say something that will upset him. She’s never had a serious argument with him, never objected out loud to his choices, even when she disagrees with them, and never had an argument with him where they came to a compromise or understanding about an important issue. Instead, she brings up her objection out of Deku’s hearing, and he hears about it secondhand. Uraraka doesn’t want to upset Deku, even about something important to her.

From Deku’s perspective, even though he knows Uraraka, his love interest, disagrees with what he’s doing, he does it anyway. He doesn’t care. He keeps Uraraka’s objection in mind, but only as it pertains to saving Bakugo. He never thinks about how Uraraka will feel about him going against her wishes, never considers her at all. He does consider his mother’s objections, even Tsuyu’s. But Uraraka’s objection, ultimately, only affects him insofar as it means he thinks of Bakugo’s feelings when saving him. And he never apologizes for doing so. 

Later on, when Uraraka gathers everyone together to apologize to Tsu, Deku is the only one of the five who never actually says sorry (going by the anime here, since the manga is ambiguous about who’s speaking). Uraraka’s speech makes it clear that she didn’t agree with their choice and thinks they screwed up, but just wants to forgive them and go back to normal. But Deku doesn’t apologize for what he did. Iida, Kirishima, Momo, Todoroki - all people Uraraka is less intimate with than Deku - all apologize to Tsuyu, as Ochaco asks. But not Deku. Because Deku doesn’t agree with her. He doesn’t think he was wrong.

The question of whether or not to go charging in, even against the rules, to save someone, is a big one hanging over the heads of all these characters. It’s Captain America Civil War style big. Something that could split people apart permanently if they can’t agree about it. And not only do Deku and Ochaco not agree on this issue, they haven’t had any conversation about it with each other. They need to be able to discuss this and find common ground before they become a couple.

License Exam Arc:

This one is obviously important for Izu/Ocha. It ends with Ochaco deciding to ‘put her feelings away’.

So let’s start with this Arc from Deku’s POV on Ochaco: He talks to her casually at the beginning before Hatsume explodes out of the shop, but focuses entirely on  crafting his ultimate move from there on out. 

We don’t see Uraraka inspiring his move, that’s Hatsume and Iida, or his realization that he’s imitating All Might (that’s All Might himself). 

Deku does, however, recognize TogaChaco as not being Ochaco, showing that he knows her well.

 He rescues TogaChaco because she’s a person in danger, thinking about his inability to rescue Bakugo from the villains and his general motivation, not how much he cares for Ochaco. 

He knows Ochaco well enough to tell the difference, but this is Deku we’re talking about - he’s very attentive to details about others. I fully believe he would be able to tell a TogaIida from the real one, or Todoroki, Bakugo, Tsuyu, Hatsume, All Might��the list goes on, but there are very few characters who Deku doesn’t take  detailed notes on or amass details about, and therefore couldn’t recognize the difference. What I’m saying is that Deku would do the same for any friend; he doesn’t distinguish Ochaco here. 

He works with her and Sero to win the day, and spends the rest of the arc focused on his goals, with no thoughts to spare for Ochaco, and no interest in the cute girl pursuing him (Camie) outside of her quirk for studying. It comes across like Deku has put away any interest in romance in the name of pursuing his goals. He doesn’t distinguish Uraraka at all, as anything more than just another one of his friends. 

From Ochaco’s POV, she becomes jealous of Hatsume once more - but fails to notice, for instance, that Hatsume’s behavior is making Deku uncomfortable. She’s jealous of Hatsume for being more confident, driven, and demonstrative than she is, but if she was paying closer attention to Midoriya, she’d probably notice that he’s freaked out by Hatsume feeling him up; there’s no real reason for her to be jealous of Mei in regards to Deku, because Deku isn’t any closer to Mei than he is to her. But Ochaco, here and many other places, doesn’t really take the time to observe and notice Midoriya, outside of a surface level. That’s why she hero-worship’s him so badly.

I’d recommend any HeroAca fan to check out this fascinating fan essay, “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Tragedey”, (link: https://www.reddit.com/r/BokuNoHeroAcademia/comments/5n21a9/imitation_is_the_sincerest_form_of_tragedy_a_boku/ ) to get a good understanding of what’s going on with Ochaco in relation to Deku, without ship bias getting in the way. It’s an excellent read, touching on many characters and plot points. The key takeaway about Uraraka is that she has a pattern of imitating Deku, and screwing up because of it, without getting that narrative punishment that will act as a kick in the pants to motivate her to stop hero-worshipping him. 

I think that, since we do see Deku imitating Bakugo and Gran Torino’s moves for Full Cowl with no problem, and other smaller instances, the secret is not that you can never admire someone and strive to learn from them - but rather that you can imitate someone, as long as you don’t hero-worship them. Ochaco’s issue, along with Deku’s, Shoto’s, Iida’s, etc, is that she sees the person she wants to be like as perfect and refuses to acknowledge their flaws. Ochaco admires Deku and wants to be like him - even though she’s seen first hand how Deku’s brand of heroism lands him in the hospital more often than not, how Deku can be overly analytical, deeply insecure and makes mistakes like anyone else - but we don’t see her acknowledge this. She thinks Deku’s amazing, perfect, like he admires All Might, Iida Tensei, Shoto his mom, etc. The reason Deku is able to imitate Kacchan and Gran Torino’s moves without being harmed, like every other imitator, is because he thinks Gran Torino is kind of weird, but skilled, and Kacchan is a jerk, but awesome. He can admire their strengths, and acknowledge their flaws. Therefore, he can imitate their moves without striving to be Just Like Them. Uraraka needs to recognize Deku’s flaws, if she wants to imitate his strengths without feeling bad about herself. 

Once again Ochako’s feelings are brought up to her by someone else, and cause her a lot of distress. This time it’s Mina, who acknowledges that she wants to MAKE it be about love.

Just like with Gunhead and Aoyama telling Ochako her feelings for Deku are romantic in nature. Mina admits she’s trying to make a romance happen, rather than just letting one develop on it’s own. Her words cause Uraraka a lot of distress, and Momo and Tsuyu point out that this won’t help her (take a shot).

As she watches Deku from a distance, (the anime adds the Admiring All Might music track to this scene), her feelings for him are paralleled with Midoriya’s admiration of heroes, specifically Iida. Keeping in with the Imitation theme, Ochako’s feelings for Midoriya are once again paralleled with admiration of famous heroes people want to imitate, not romantic love. It’s Mina, Aoyama and Gunhead who are telling Ochako she likes Deku, not Ochako figuring it out for herself. 

Uraraka once again gets jealous of a girl who Deku doesn’t want. Deku gives lots of signs that he’s creeped out by Camie’s attentions - when Kaminari and Mineta ask him about it, he says firmly that he found it creepy. If Uraraka was really paying attention to Deku’s feelings, she’d realize that he’s not interested in Camie. 

 Imagine, for instance, this scene with the genders reversed. Our heroine is getting felt up and creeped on by a male villain. Her fellow superhero boyfriend arrives on the scene; the male villain leaves, speaking ominously about the connection between the two of them. Later on, other girls get jealous about the hot male villain waving at our heroine, and she makes it clear that she’s uncomfortable about it. 

The boyfriend ignores her discomfort and gets jealous and possessive about her being around another man. Doesn’t something seem wrong here? It’s the setup we see from many ‘Nice guy’ narratives, but gender flipped. The guy seems to see the girl like a possession that belongs to him, angry that she’s daring to be touched by another boy, not that another guy is refusing to respect her space. Uraraka’s jealousy is not routed in love for Midoriya, but insecurity about herself. She feels less than, when she sees other girls around him, and doesn’t bother to observe whether she’s actually in danger of losing him to them.

This scene is more than a little weird, since it seems like Camie is setting up her future to prey on the trust between the two to her own advantage. Again, Izuku and Ochako’s bond is being framed in a negative light. 

Uraraka decides, upon seeing Deku psych himself up to win, that she needs to put away her feelings for him. This is part of the pattern in Uraraka’s story. (take a shot) Focusing on Deku leads to her losing. Uraraka says here, that she doesn’t think she can have a relationship with Deku and be a hero. She puts her feelings away, because she feels they don’t help her. Unlike other duos in the series, other romantic parings from other narratives, Uraraka feels that her feelings for Deku don’t benefit her goals. If they’re to be a couple, then, Uraraka needs to feel like she can be a better hero by being with Deku, than by being away from him.

Internship, Culture Fest, Pro Hero arcs:

From the time Ochaco ‘puts her feelings away’, until recently in the JTA, Ochaco’s crush on Deku is not mentioned. The internship arc teams up Tsuyu and Uraraka with Deku and Kiri to save Eri. But instead of letting Deku and Ochaco fight and bond together over this shared experience - we’re given nothing. Deku doesn’t tell her anything about his issues with Mirio and Nighteye. Or even Eri. Ochaco doesn’t talk to Deku, outside of group scenes with exposition, about much of anything. 

The ending of the arc has a good setup for an emotional bonding scene with Izu/Ocha - Ochaco was the one to rescue Nighteye, but he still died, and he’s Izuku’s mentor. We could have had a scene of them bonding over losing this guy, which Ochaco blames herself for and Deku blames himself for. Similar to like, Deku and Bakugo fighting over feeling responsible for All Might’s End, or Iida and Deku bonding over Stain. But, you know, more romantic in nature.

But nope, we get nothing. Ochaco angsts over Nighteye dying, and goes on this emotional journey without Deku’s input. She chooses to confide these feelings in Aizawa and Tsuyu, but not in Midoriya. Deku, at least, has the excuse of being unable to talk about OFA with other people, but Uraraka could have told him about her problems, and he an abbreviated version like he did with Kota about being quirkless. But instead, we get nothing. No bonding between our official couple at all.

The other thing of note in the Internship arc is Toga!Deku. Toga impersonates Deku and decoys Team Ryukyu into the fight. If Toga’s intentions had been harmful, instead of getting revenge on Overhaul, this could have been really bad for the good guys, and for Ochaco in particular. She doesn’t realize that Toga! Deku is not the real Deku, even though Toga does give her a clear ‘tell’ - calling her ‘Uraraka’ and not ‘Uravity’. But unlike Deku, who realized Toga!Chaco wasn’t the real Ochaco, Ochaco can’t tell the difference.

 If I were to read this as deliberate, it seems to be implying that Ochaco can’t tell the difference between her idea or image of Deku, and the real thing. But since they’re supposed to be a couple, it’s just plain weird. It’s a brief moment, but if Toga had been trying to hurt them, Ochaco’s feelings for Deku might have gotten her in trouble - again. (take a shot).  

Then, from the end of the Internship arc to the Joint Training Arc, Deku and Ochaco don’t talk to each other at all. They go to Nighteye’s funeral with the internship kids - and no conversation about their respective issues with him at all. 

They’re in the group hanging with Eri during the Culture Fest - but no one-on-one interaction at all. He hangs with Mirio, she with Tsu and Nejire. No interactions during the Pro-Hero arc. 

At the start of the JTA, one quick reminder that Ochaco is jealous of Mei still, which she punches herself to  get rid of. That’s it.

Joint Training Arc: So Close Yet So Far

Reading this arc, I thought “Finally, we’re finally getting the ball rolling with putting these two together.” It’s such a familiar setup, so common to action romances, straight from the ATLA playbook: The hero’s powers go out of control, the love interest is the only one who can reach them, and with a cute hug they calm the hero down. When Ochaco grabbed on to the out of control Deku, I was expecting something like that in the next chapter: Ochaco saying something like “Come back to me” or “I know you’re in there somewhere” or “I’m with you to the end of the line” or something like that. Ochaco reaching Deku when no one else could, establishing her as his love interest and showcasing their romance.

But that didn’t  happen. Ochaco grabs onto Deku, sure, but then she asks Shinso to snap him out of it. It’s Shinso who grabs Deku’s attention, Shinso who does the ‘important trigger phrase to snap hero out of superpower meltdown mode’ thing. 

Shinso, who has talked to Deku like 3 times before this scene, not Ochaco, his official love interest and close friend. Once snapped out, Deku protects her briefly before they split up and go their separate ways again, to fight on different turfs.

Afterwards, it looked like Deku was blushing at Ochaco holding him, like she was after Mina’s comment. But on closer inspection, I find that nope - he’s not blushing in the panel after this comment, but does go red when Shinso compliments his prowess. And Ochaco doesn’t  get self-conscious about holding him until Mina points it out to her.

 She wasn’t thinking about how much she loves Deku when she held him, she was thinking about her parents and her failure to save Nighteye, and her “Who watches the watchmen” ideas.

So instead of a great big Izuocha ship moment, that finally set the romance in motion, we get…I guess, a Shindeku moment? It’s all very confusing. For Uraraka, this moment does seem to show that she’s now capable of being around Deku in battle, without thinking about him or obsessing. It comes across like Ochaco is trying to put her crush away (Like she said before), like she’s gone on this whole personal journey outside of Deku and changed as a person on her own. We have this recurring idea that Ochaco fights better as a hero without Deku around, or without fixating on him, which isn’t promising for them as a couple. (take a shot) 

Compare with Todoroki and Momo vs Aizawa, for instance, where they work brilliantly, together, to overcome an opponent neither could face alone. Or the insistence on Deku and Kacchan putting away their rivalry and Deku reaching 8% by competing with Bakugo or helping him. Or Ochaco and Tsuyu making a perfect team fighting others. The narrative is angling Uraraka away from Deku, if she wants to be a good hero, not towards him.

Also, once again, her romantic feelings for him are something she’s told she has by someone else, instead of something she figures out on her own - Mina again. 

But earlier this arc, we saw Mina assume that Midnight and All Might were a couple, because they were standing together. Earlier, she said it could be Iida or Deku, because Ochaco hangs around them. I love Ashido, but she’s not the world’s greatest expert on romance, or particularly close to either Uraraka or Deku. So her words, like Aoyama’s, can’t be taken as gospel truth. It really feels like Ochaco is being pushed into feeling romantically for Deku, regardless of her actual feelings towards him, by other people instead of her own heart. I mean, I’m rooting for them, but I want Ochaco to realize she likes Deku because she likes Deku, not because Aoyama and Mina are telling her she does. 

Deku shuts Ochaco out of his personal problems - he won’t confide in anyone but All Might and Bakugo about OFA - and doesn’t explain to her anything about his quirk going out of control. And she doesn’t ask. Even Todoroki asked Deku about his quirk going out of control, as did Aizawa and Bakugo. Todo and Baku are Deku’s rivals, but they both asked about his quirk meltdown. Uraraka didn’t. She’s supposed to be his friend, she’s supposed to be in love with him, so why doesn’t she ask about his problems? 

Same with her personal journey towards becoming a hero who saves people, the Who Watches the Watchmen hero - Deku isn’t privy to this. She only told two people, Aizawa and Tsuyu. Uraraka has also had this whole personal journey, outside of Deku, which she won’t tell him about or confide in him about. And she doesn’t show any inclination to do so. 

Final Review:

The series isn’t over. There’s probably still time to fix all these problems. But the series needs to get started on it right away, because so far we’re just not seeing the elements we need to get Izu/Ocha together.

On Ochaco’s end: We need  her to be attracted to Deku, to let him be as supportive to her as she is to him; to see her crush on him as a motivator to be a better hero instead of detrimental to her success, to stop hero-worshipping him and acknowledge his flaws, to talk to him about her problems and cry with him, let him be there for her; let go of her desire to be just like him, see him romantically on her own unprovoked by other people teasing her, enjoy spending time with him one-on-one, have a fight with him that gets properly resolved, defend him from unwanted attentions from girls instead of getting possessively jealous of him, and show at least some curiosity about his life, his secrets, the real him beyond the Great Hero.

On Deku’s side: He needs to show attraction to Uraraka as Uraraka, not just ‘a girl’; to work together with her as a great team to take down an opponent side by side, to loudly admire her for her skills and capabilities like he does for his other friends and rivals, to tell her about his past with OFA and being quirkless and such, to be inspired by her to do better as a hero, to show the kind of crazy, unconditional concern for her he shows everyone else in his life, to actively seek after a romantic relationship with her, talk to her about his problems, to distinguish her in his life from his other friends.

If all that stuff happens, I’ll be happy. If some of it happens, I’ll be ok, but not thrilled. If they stay in this status quo, they’ll fall apart, because this is not the stuff good romance is made of.

[theorynexus]

We now begin 51, which will likely take us to an entirely different perspective. Thanks, Monty Python!

On a random note, though... 

Man, this is fricking crazy, from a dramatic irony perspective. I do appreciate that Homestuck is written such that that spreads from not only the author’s possession, but to that of the audience via rereads.  As... macabre as this particular example is.

Finally, Dorothy is gone, and all that is left is the Witch (and her little dog too)?

Well, maybe not even that. Certainly, Bec’s powers are muted, and I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if his instincts are too; on the other hand,they could be strongly contributing to this. This sequence strongly reminds me of the sequence wherein Jade’s destiny to become fused with him was first alluded to. “You eat a weird bug, and don’t even care,” and whatnot.  Certainly, 

Words slough from the busy mind like a useless dead membrane as a more visceral sapience takes over. Something simpler is in charge now, a force untouched by the concerns and burdens of the upright, that farcical yoke the bipedal tow. It now drives you through the midnight brush ...  as you and your new friend must claim the night with piercing howls moonward.

seems reminiscent to me of all of her thoughts of her former existence fading as she is beckoned by the call-- not of a moon, but of another reflection of the light of the sun: the Void-y remains that come with its demise. Obviously her “new friend” in this case would seem to refer both to Bec (who is a part of her, now, thus explaining the uniform motion) and through allusion, to the Alt!Calliope that her other version of herself had already befriended, who would be the one beckoning in the first place. It should also be said that shoes could be taken as a symbol of civilization, in this case, beyond just the obvious symbolism that is being pointed out to the viewer.  Regardless, whether this similarity was intended or not doesn’t actually matter. It’s just that this scene vaguely made me think of that.

What irony, considering this is coming from the one who just bewitched the Seer (which, I would just like to say, is honestly some nice narrative symmetry, considering this is almost exactly like what Doc Scratch did before him [not that I don’t still feel disgust toward him, even if this might turn out in Rose’s favor, in the long run]).                    Oh, yes, and by the way... very nice confirmation of the fact that the Green Sun Black Hole is Void-oriented. I appreciate that coming from an in-story source. (Even if you don’t connect emptiness with Void, which you should, the fact that the Ocean is connected with it is almost indisputable. That’s part of the reason why Rose’s quest was to bring life to the dead ocean by Playing the Rain. It was about using her inner Light to counteract her tendencies toward its equal opposite.)

Which is part of the reason why Alt!Calliope and Jade get along so well, and why there’s a connection between them, I’m sure. (Both of their lifestyles/life histories emphasized thematically their inner Space orientation. [This may also be why Kanaya lived in them middle of a desert, with no one but her Virgin Mother Grub to directly keep he company.])

Yes, way to downplay one of the core Aspects of reality just because it doesn’t necessarily always function in the way that perception would suggest it does. This doesn’t make it illusory, nor does it invalidate the continuum aspect of it:  that it is intrinsically relevant to how life persists and interacts with the world itself demonstrates the importance of this part of Time. It’s like suggesting an iceberg is an illusion just because you can’t see the depths hidden away below the surface (Void hides it from your eyes [read: Light is blocked]).   Gah, you are so bloody irksome and pride-projecting in your demeanor just because you managed to pick something up that the Trolls basically illuminated to the Beta Kids way back when they were all 13.  Congratulations.

Fool. (Oh, and I would argue that time continuing to be relevant conceptually, despite its non-linearity, helps to emphasize its importance as a pillar of reality. That it is an existence persisting independent of its consequent internal signifiers [entropy, {temporal} causality, direction] allows for it to play the very important role of acting as a medium for general interaction and consequence; particularly, it allows for the persistence and simultaneous activity of all possible states of being within its domain [e.g.: reality or the meta-narrative Existence within the context of MSPA, or whatever set of other works which would necessarily include all relevantly connected miscellany] which are additionally allowed for via the logical intermingling it has with the other Aspects.            In other words: Time is one of the two necessary present architectonic forces that undergird the Narrative.   Your suggesting that it is given disproportionate attention and that loneliness is therefore an illusion is just the sort of insulting, crass, and perspective-locked claptrap that I’d expect from someone who’s so enthusiastically embraced a departure from humanity, and who thus has lost mooring in the solid, political existence which sapient, physically-connected beings dwell in by nature.   I suspect that your distraction and loss of perspective will eventually come back to haunt you.  ) Yes, I realize that the Ultimate Self is a timeless construct, but this does not mean time is irrelevant to it or the limited forms it girds itself with when connecting to physicality. (On a random note:  I do appreciate his decision to call Aspects ideas.)

Along with the creepiness with regards to Dirk pushing thoughts into Jade’s head (which is honestly par for the course in Homestuck, and at least he’s mostly trying to remind her of something he believes she already knows, so it’s somwhat benevolent), we get this interesting snippet.  Seems he wants to foreshadow difficulties between Dave, Jade, and Karkat in the future.   I suppose the only logical question is whether Jade will break their hearts in turn.   Love is hard. It’s hard and everybody (with actual experience) understands.

Ha ha, “How much of Homestuck was actually illusion seen in the perspective of the characters involved, a la the kids’ rooms before Gamzee’s Chucklevoodoo curses were disrupted,” ha ha. On a more important note:   I very much appreciate Dirk’s well-arranged metaphors relating to time, to Calliope’s Muse-inspired-powered Spatial-influential music. Dirk is indeed quite bad at distracting hyper-focused people with thoughts he thinks they will reasonably find seem similar to thoughts she might have.

Hey, man, don’t give up. Your breaking from the narrative of trying to help her is making it seem like your nervousness is throwing you off, meaning we won’t know if your attempts to help her had any chance to succeed in general! Way to go, “hero!”

“Time is an illusion,” you say?   Yet here’s your narration, there’s Jade.  Oh!  There she goes, persisting to fly off into the dead sun, just as linear time would demand of her!  What’s wrong?  Couldn’t make the time to properly put your thoughts together or try until you got it right?   Gasp!         My word!  It’s almost like Time is pretty fricking important to the narrative and reality of the story!

HEEHEEHAHAHAHA!!!        Serves you right, getting spooked like that, you incompetent, over-confident knave!

... Now, let’s see how the rest of this goes, now that I have a better handle on my humours.

You’re dealing with the Grim Reaper, inspirer of great woe and terror, as well as happy children drawings and stories everywhere.  Obviously, you were overmatched. Perhaps you should have tried focusing on Jade initially, rather than John?  That might have given you a little bit more time.   I am reminded of a group of trolls who didn’t properly think through their attempts to mock and cajole those they perceived to be the artificers of their downfall.  Perhaps this will turn out as well.

Demiourgos, your pride showeth. Your composure runneth down and streaketh thine face like free-flowing ichor. Hubris, doth it become thee?   Thou reflecteth thine flaws, and by thy own hand. Revealeth thou not the weakness of thine breast with Rage-filled uproar?   A lion in thine face we see, but at this flickering of that glamour, a snake in masquerade is spotted. Foul wretch, I pity thee:  for it is truly painful to behold the disheartening of the ambitious, and the glorious in the midst of downfall. What do you fear?  What compels such panic into one normally so serene?

I suppose I should have known. A mechanist always fears uncontrollable variables.    (I do wonder if his fear is truly warranted, though. Certainly, things aren’t as bad as they could be, but there is much to be depressed about in these outcomes as they have emerged so far, you know?)

And thus, a new star was born?   Well, we’ll see.   I certainly do appreciate the physics of black hole mechanics being involved, though I am not 100% sure that this is accurate to how such an ultra-massive construct would actually work. I know super-massive black holes effect objects differently than normal ones, when they approach the event horizon, so it seems rather reasonable to guess that one the mass of multiple universes would behave a bit differently from either.  I do not know, however.  ... All in all, a pretty great page, I guess.  It was nice to see the Narrator lose control so badly.  A bit sad that the consequences of that were as they were, but I knew that this would likely be the case, regardless. I wonder when John and Terezi will be back in focus~ ... P.S.:  I am pretty sure that subtle interference with the narrative is the normal role of a Muse, and that her Mastery over Jade in particular makes a great deal of sense, given who Jade is. I wonder what has compelled her to speak in such a manner that her voice is actually visible in the text, rather than subtly bending it to her will as presumably has been the case over the course of Homestuck, generally.  Could it be that she did this specifically to teach the Narrator a lesson?  Shall we ever find out?

[firesign23]

I would like to read that very angry post and learn the two rules.

Okay, so, I was GOING to be all “Here are my well composed arguments” about this, but… honestly, I’m still digesting the specifics of Brienne’s story in 8x06 and getting caught up on “Soo, we’re going with the shallowest interpretation of her character’s desires and also kinda just making her Jaime 2.0: The Just Edition” (more on this rant LATER, because oh it was so much worse than I thought when I read the leaks), so instead y’all get a slightly edited version of the Angry Screaming I sent a friend a few days ago. Buckle up, I am Riled.

A pre-rant note–my husband woke up this morning, checked his phone, and looked at me like a man who had Seen Some Shit. “The leaks were right.” He has never watched Game of Thrones (he’s been waiting until the show is done, and I’m pretty sure season 8 killed his plans to binge it), but honestly I can think of no better way to sum up this experience.

(Fucking MOOD, Jon.)

So, first off, I do not expect a lot from Game of Thrones. The visuals are amazing, the actors are top notch, but there have always been issues with the plot, with misogyny, etc. What has made me so ANGRY about this season is that it thumbs its nose at storytelling as a craft. I expected it to be dumb. I did not expect it to be “Wow, my nine year old literally has a better grasp on constructing stories” dumb. #subvertedexpectations (As an aside, I could turn this into a series of rants about the different elements of storytelling and how season 8 fucked them up, but honestly I’d rather lose a fucking hand and I still have a spite fic to write to fix what I can. So we’ll have to content ourselves with this rant, and if husband ever DOES binge the show I’ll save the others as a reward for surviving the experience.)

Second of all, I want to make this clear that any writing rule can be broken (some I don’t believe SHOULD be, which is what started this rant, but they CAN), but you must understand the rules you are breaking and why. And you can’t break all of them at once. I have seen exactly zero evidence this is true for D&D, those talentless hacks.

Now, onto the two rules for character arcs that should never be messed with because they are SO structurally important, and they’ve fucked over both repeatedly throughout season 8:

(1) A character must always want something. They absolutely do not need to GET it, but they need to want it. Hell, NOT getting it is basically the definition of tragedy.(2) A character getting what they want should not result in “Guess their story is over, we can kill them or write them off”

This applies to SO MANY of the characters right now, but I’m going to use Jaime as an example of (1) and Brienne as an example of (2) because honestly that’s the only plot I’ve followed with any enthusiasm. (There are definitely better examples of (2) within the show, but I used Brienne as an example in the original rant and I’m carrying that over. Because Brienne. Fight me.)

RULE ONE: A character must always want something.

Jaime’s arc has been about redemption, about listening to his own morals instead of the poisonous family first that has been dripped in his ear for decades. The setup is all there–a brash kid who is forced to make a call between his own morals (not burning half a million innocent people) and the oaths he made (to protect the king), makes it, and is reviled for it because the truth is never revealed. He falls further into this “Family above all else” mindset because he’s been groomed since childhood for this. There’s like a whole meta post from me in the Lannisters and abuse, but people better than I have gone there before. For this post, “Jaime’s arc is about redemption, a redemption he doesn’t always BELIEVE in but has been a core of his character from season 1” suffices.

His death absolutely should have been about this redemption. Whether he succeeds and kills his sister and lives, or kills his sister at the cost of his own life, or he gets there and the decades of brainwashing means that he falters at the final hurdle… THAT doesn’t matter, so much, but the impetus absolutely should have been DRIVEN by that need for redemption. Have him go south because he needs to save innocents, or even the family of choice (THERE IS A FAMILY OF CHOICE SCENE IN THE FUCKING EPISODE!!!) Hell, have him SEE saving Cersei as redemption. (I mean, that would be fucking stupid beyond stupid, but it wouldn’t insult me on a crafting level.) Just… don’t go “He’s happy, guess it’s time for a relapse we lay no groundwork for, and then handwave with forgiveness from a female character because…she’s so good and pure? We want to pretend we are deep?��� There is no tragedy in Jaime’s death because they moved the goalposts at the very last second.

(As an aside, the Very Dear Friend subjected to this rant responded to this portion of my ire with “Why would they do that? It’s so meaningless”, and all I could say was “Because it’s ~*~sHocKinG~*~ that way. NO, YOU BASTARDS. You make it shocking by laying the groundwork and then subverting our hopes at the last second, but THE GROUNDWORK NEEDS TO BE THERE. YOU NEED TO USE OUR CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF STORIES.” This was the toned down version of my actual thoughts, because Very Dear Friend is genuinely dear to me and does not need to know the depths of my creative cursing.)

RULE TWO: A character getting what they want should not be the end of their story.

As for Brienne… she is such an interesting character because she’s SO driven by her own morality. She wants, desperately, to be a knight. Not just BE knighted, but to embody the spirit of knighthood. She gets that knighthood from someone she respects, deeply–she’s one of the few people who truly knows about Jaime’s struggle with morality vs oaths and has utter faith in him–and so she gets what she wants. Great, right? WRONG. We are at Unbreakable Rule #2–a character who gets what they want should not then have nowhere to go.

NB–the original rant here was far more articulate and focused on how this rule is broken, but we might descend into slathering rage instead. Because the ending (oh god, seriously, like I said, I’m still digesting the depth of the shit in this because on a surface level it seems happy but it’s really fucking terrible) puts her in this horrible stagnation that is more focused on title than her actual character. She didn’t necessarily want to be a Kingsguard, she wanted to be a Kingsguard for a king she believed in. And, like, she had a say in electing Bran? (Rereading this rant--that’s a weird phrasing. I’ll deal with it later) But that whole thing makes no sense (“I can’t be lord of Winterfell because I’m the Three Eyed Raven, but I can totally be King” ??? I just… honestly, my brain is not computing this well.) and I just… CAN WE FUCKING TALK ABOUT HOW SHE HAS PREVIOUSLY PLEDGED HERSELF TO PEOPLE WHO ARE IN SOME WAY VULNERABLE??? Seriously, who has she pledged oaths to before now? A gay man and women. Because that was always fucking important to me, and this is just… no.

The ending as it is basically just makes her Replacement Jaime–a highborn heir who instead takes the role of Kingsguard, but don’t worry guys she’s so Noble and Caring that she absolves Jaime of his sins by writing his story in the book. Where’s the fucking vomit emoji? (Don’t get me wrong, that scene is emotional and moving and honestly FUCK YOU GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE FOR BEING SO LOVELY AND TALENTED, but in the wider context of this show I just cannot see it as a good thing.)

I just… look, in my rant a few days ago I’d read the leaks, but I still had some hopes the ending would be better on screen; right now I can’t even articulate the number of levels it bothers me on, so just know that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN FUCKING HAPPY WITH HER ENDING! But I’m not, because it is this surface level understanding of what she desires from knighthood, and there is this… okay, so, I’m articulating this TERRIBLY because the original rant was solid but did not account for fuckery, but you know what Brienne’s ending made me think of? Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s interviews where he would fight for Jaime’s character and basically get told to shut up and follow the script. THAT is what Brienne’s ending feels like to me, and it shouldn’t.  She should have places to GO and GROW from here. Like, there are SO MANY things they could do with these characters that are surprising. Hell, imagine Brienne getting this knighthood and then getting presented with a similar situation to Jaime–does she keep an oath or to her own morals? Make it a smaller scale so that the answer isn’t so simple, have knighthood become shades of grey she never really understood–she gets what she wants, but it’s not simple. Boom, her story will go on after the end credits.

(I also have Capital I Issues with the narrative surrounding her love life and gender and… seriously, this could have been a motherfucking SERIES of rants. I could do a week’s worth just on how they did Brienne dirty)

RULE THREE: If you make me spend over an hour trying to present a coherent explanation for why your writing sucks and I’ve barely scratched the surface, you don’t get to write anything ever again. Sorry, I make the rules and I have decreed it so. All in agreement, raise your hand.

[fortunatelylori]

Rage-kitten Jon time

*this meta includes graphic depictions of violence. Redear discretion is advised

A while back, during a conversation with @kitten1618x, she asked me to talk about the rage-kitten Jon scenes. I’ve been pretty busy the past few weeks so I didn’t manage to get to it earlier but … a tumblr always pays her debts.

Here is the original message:

I would love to hear your take on the rage-kitten jon scenes: especially the one in the crypts, as it really did nothing to further the narrative if Jon is just a “protective big bro” (the audience already knows this) and the beach scene with Theon.

I’ve already discussed the Theon scene in my “Why the romance between Jon/D*ny doesn’t work” series so this time around we will be talking about the crypt scene between Jon and Littlefinger.

However, in addition to that, we will also be taking a trip down memory lane to that most satisfying and heartwarming of moments in season 6 when Jon beat the living crap out of Ramsay Beelzebub Bolton.

That is because these two scenes are inextricably linked in my mind and together set up and support the romantic undertone that permeates all of the Jon/Sansa scenes.

Bear with me … I have receipts.

After the season finale, when I re-watched both season 6 and 7, I came back to these two scenes time and time again. The way Jon walks over to Ramsay, stone faced, murderous anger bubbling beneath the surface, the way his face twitches when LF says he loves Sansa as he loved Catelyn ... I was struck every time by just how certain I was that I had seen this before somewhere and how romantic motivation popped into my head every single time I watched them.

And then, one fine day, it finally dawned on me. I HAD seen this before, hundreds of times. Twice a year, in fact, from the time I was about 12.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you the one … the only … possibly my favorite film of all times …

Now, if you have not seen Goodfellas, what the hell have you been doing with your life? I mean it! Got watch it right now!

For those of you who have seen it … it’s brilliant, right? Now that I’ve mentioned it, don’t you want to go back and watch it again? I know I do. I just looooove watching Joe Pesci violently murder people. What can I say? I’m a romantic, like that …

That being said, I see you all scratching your heads thinking what the hell Goodfellas has to do with rage-kitten Jon. So please indulge me in an experiment and look at the scene where Henry finds out that his girlfriend, Karen, was sexually assaulted by one of her neighbors:

I think you can see the basic gist of what I am talking about but let’s analyze the similarities more in detail. I’ll probably only ever going to get one chance to talk about Goodfellas and Game of thrones in the same meta. You can bet your last dollar I’m going to milk it for what it’s worth!  

The “Jon makes all of our dreams come true” scene:

The first beat that is eerily similar is the slow walk both Henry and Jon do towards their opponent. Even their expression is about the same which is … they have no expression. Their entire focus is on what’s in front of them:

The stone face in cinema is always a telltale of someone going in for the kill. Both Bruce and Ramsay are goners. They just don’t know it yet.

Then there’s the actual fight … I mean, it’s not really a fight … it’s quite frankly a down and dirty whooping that both Jon and Henry dish out, complete with the both of them throwing their opponent to the ground:

This has nothing to do with the meta, but every time I watch this beat I laugh thinking of people saying how shockingly revolutionary violence in GOT is. Scorsese was doing long before them and, quite frankly, doing it better. There’s not one cut in that whole beat. You’re essentially a prisoner of the camera.

The other thing these two scenes have in common is a bit more subtle and requires a larger view of both these characters. Because leaving aside the different time periods, dragons and wardrobes, what both these scenes show us is the violence that these men are capable of.

In Goodfellas, up until this point, the audience has seen Henry as the hero, the good guy. We’ve been lulled into liking him because of his charm, good looks and intelligence and also because he’s always surrounded by psychopaths that kill and hurt people on a whim while he’s stuck being the voice of reason.

So just when we’ve become comfortable with this interpretation of the character, Scorsese gives us 10 veeery loooong and veeery painful seconds of Henry’s unhinged brutality. We can’t hide away from the truth anymore: he’s a thug just like the rest of his “associates”.

The GOT scene is less elegant in its message and perhaps a bit less effective but it essentially tells us the same thing. Jon has been dabbling with violence ever since he left home but we have never seen him be so brutal or so out of control with anyone. Now we know that if you push him hard enough, you’ll find the monster hidden beneath. The fact that it’s Sansa that sparks this revelation, just as Karen does for Henry, is just icing on the cake, really.

The other intriguing thing is that both these scenes end with a relationship set-up between Henry and Karen, as well as Jon and Sansa.

In Goodfellas, this is a patently negative and foreboding event. Henry and Karen have been established as the young, attractive and in love couple, strolling around town and going to the Copacabana for drinks, wearing the latest fashions. But in this scene Henry hands her the gun he’s just used to bash a man’s face in and asks her to hide it. When she accepts, she becomes his accomplice. And that dynamic pays off throughout the rest of the film, as we see Karen smuggle illegal drugs for Henry in prison, accompany him to meet Colombian cartels and flush drugs down toilets as the police descends on their house.

In GOT, the implications of this scene are far more positive. Because Jon does the exact opposite to what Henry does. Far from making Sansa an accomplice to his violent tendencies, he stops himself when she shows up because he doesn’t want her to see him as a monster.

As other Jonsa fans have already mentioned, the creators here employ the “calm to his storm” trope and that’s a very potent storytelling device. Because love is a powerful emotion that can make us behave in extreme ways, both good and bad. But at its best, love compels us to be better, not worse. And that’s what Sansa does for Jon in this scene. She reminds him of his inherent humanity. And that’s pretty damn beautiful.

However, I don’t think we’ve really gotten a proper pay off of this trope and the dynamic that it establishes between these two characters. I suppose you could argue that the battlement scene does that by having Sansa apologize for keeping Jon in the dark about the Knights of the Vale and they end up resolving their trust issues.

Except that season 7 shows us a Jon and Sansa that are still struggling with their relationship, the two of them still sending each other mixed signals and we never get a proper explanation as to what makes them clash as they do.

Add to that the Theon scene where once again the “calm to his storm” trope is brought to the fore and this whole confusing dynamic between them feels like a dangling plot thread that needs to be addressed in season 8.

The “Non-platonic thoughts about Sansa are not allowed in Jon’s presence” scene:

The obvious thing that this scene and the Goodfellas scene have in common is the dialogue. So let’s talk about that. You all know how attached I am to my dialogue:

Henry: I swear on my fucking mother, if you touch her again, you’re dead!

Jon: Touch my sister and I’ll kill you myself.

Now, Henry is a little more verbose and he does take his own mother’s name in vain but you know … he’s half Irish and half Italian. It sort of comes with the territory. But the message is clear: Touch Karen/Sansa and Henry/Jon will kill you.

This phrase of: touch … and I’ll kill you is used a great deal in dialogue for both visual and written storytelling but the important common thread here is the sexual context in which they are both used.

Bruce, Karen’s neighbor, is beaten up by Henry because he tried to rape Karen. So “touch” in that context is unquestioningly sexual in nature.

The Jon/LF is even more loaded because Littlefinger hasn’t actually done anything as terrible to Sansa. Sure, his longing stares, double-entendres and creepy kisses are more than a little problematic, but they’re not in the same league as what Bruce did to Karen. And yet, just the thought that Littlefinger might approach Sansa in that way and that he might touch her in a sexual manner, drives Jon mad.

Also, as others have mentioned, Littlefinger prods and twists Jon for quite some time until he snaps. He talks about his father’s bones, his love for his father’s wife and even brings up Catelyn’s dislike for him, something that probably bothers Jon even more than being called a bastard. And yet, even though it’s clear that Jon doesn’t like LF, he still manages to keep his emotions in check.

The moment he starts losing it this:

Littlefinger: If it weren’t for me, you would have been slaughtered on that battlefield.

Now, people simply take it for granted that Jon dislikes Littlefinger because of what LF has done to his family. But Jon doesn’t know most of what LF has done. He actually doesn’t know much of anything about him. Except this:

Jon: You told me he sold you to the Boltons.

Sansa: He did.

Jon: Do you trust him?

Sansa: Only a fool would trust Littlefinger.

So his sole reason for disliking this man is because of what he did to Sansa. I would suggest that LF bringing up the Battle of the Bastards is yet another reminder for Jon that she had to bring this man there in order to save him.

But then LF, in his desire to find what moves his enemy, ups the ante and boy, does he find out what moves Jon Snow:

And this where that feeling of familiarity strikes me again. I don’t know if Kit Harrington went to the Liotta school of seething rage, but these two facial expressions look very similar to me:

Kit should totally take, at least, the expression class at the Liotta school by the way. No one does crazy, out of my mind psychopathy quite like good ol’ Ray.

The last thing we need to address is the reason why this scene is even included. Unlike the mirror scene in season 1 where Ned chocked LF, where the resolution was LF’s betrayal, there is no direct pay-off to this scene and there never will be. LF is dead and his downfall has nothing to do with Jon.

As @kitten1618x pointed out in her message, it can’t be to show us that Jon is protective of Sansa. That was already established in season 6. We’ve seen him beat Ramsay to a pulp and we’ve also been given this gem:

Jon: I will never let him touch you again. I’ll protect you. I promise!

We’re also going to be given a fresh dose of that in his scene with Tyrion.

There’s just so much of the “Jon is an overprotective older brother who protects his totally platonic but in need of protection sister” shtick we can watch before we start questioning exactly why Jon is so invested in who “touches” Sansa.

I would argue that, considering basic scriptwriting structure as well as the pattern that is established between Jon and the men in Sansa’s life, the pay-off to the Jon/LF scene will come in season 8 and it will have nothing to do with LF and everything to do with the Jon/Sansa dynamic.

PS: I call dibs on red for the wedding. It’s my favorite color, you guys! You have to give me that!

 * none of the GOT gifs belong to me.

[may-shepard]

Doyle’s The Parasite and s4

This little non-Sherlockian, paranormal gem, published in Harper’s Weekly starting in November 1894--that’s right, a little less than a year after Doyle published The Final Problem (November / December 1893)--deserves our attention. When @longsnowsmoon5 pointed it out a week or two ago, a few of us shouted about it a bit, but we didn’t really dig deep with it. Since then, I’ve re-read it twice, and boy howdy. 

In case you’re not familiar, here are some plot elements to whet your interest: 

a skeptical physiologist (Austin Gilroy) who allows himself to become a subject in a mesmerism / mind control experiment

a woman with mind control abilities (Miss Penclosa) who is generally unimpressive and walks with a crutch, but is surprisingly powerful

two people about whom Gilroy cares--his fiancée Agatha and his colleague, Charles Sadler--who are also both mesmerised (to offer some comfort to more tender readers of this meta, I read both Agatha and Charles as Sherlock equivalents when translated into the BBC Sherlock narrative)

obsession--specifically, Miss Penclosa’s desire to seduce Gilroy

supernatural mind control abilities that cause Gilroy to behave erratically, cause missing time, and, eventually, make him do things he would never otherwise do, some of them criminal

narrative bonus feature: the story is told from Gilroy’s perspective, in the form of his journal entries

(I recommend reading it at Gutenberg because there is much more to it of interest than I’ve been able to cover in this meta.)

Sound like it might, maybe, have some relevance to s4? I think it does, especially in terms of figuring out what the fuck is happening to both John and Sherlock. 

Reading s4 through the code of The Parasite may help explain Sherlock’s sudden propensity for intuition / premonition, and John’s erratic behaviour. Ultimately, including The Parasite as one of the many intertexts of s4 offers a great deal of support to readings like @jenna221b‘s theory about Mary manipulating John using TD12, which in turn adds support to the ever growing pile of evidence that Mary is a villain (thanks to @teaandqueerbaiting for that monster post). It also informs readings of Mary as femme fatale and the Woman in Green (femme fatale thread by @inevitably-johnlocked, Woman in Green addition by @deducingbbcsherlock​). Although I’m not sure mofftiss should ever be let off any hooks for s4, this reading might offer John fans (myself included) a much needed opportunity for a more positive reading of John in this series. 

Details under the cut.

Although the fandom as a whole has put its finger on a massive number of movie intertexts for s4, many of which seem to have unduly influenced this series, especially TFP, The Parasite is, to my mind, the standout literary intertext, for two reasons: 

First, it represents one of Doyle’s dips into the “strange tale” / paranormal / horror genre. Given the general bent of s4 away from the detective story genre and toward something uncanny / weird tales-ish / disturbing, The Parasite seems a more likely fit with s4 than the stories from which the series borrows its titles: The Final Problem, The Six Napoleons, and The Dying Detective. With s4′s final revelation of Eurus as the ultimate antagonist of the series (although I read that revelation as hallucinatory), it points very directly to the themes of The Parasite. 

Second, specific features and key plot points of The Parasite are echoed in series 4 character / plot / thematic developments. These serve as an interpretive aid in understanding what the hell, exactly, happened in s4, to very, very interesting effect.

A Study in Genre Hopping

One of the major disappointments / wtferies / cause of mass despair of TFP, and s4 in general, was the apparent sudden switch in genre. Sherlock Holmes, although in this incarnation an astoundingly sensitive fellow, has always been the centre of stories that stuck to a certain rational, materialist, logical ethos. If you can think clearly enough, and know the right facts, you can understand the world around you. Almost sort of comforting, right? 

Well. 

This series offered us a Sherlock transformed--into a really, really, kind, good man, which, YAY!--but also into a sort of intuitive soothsayer. The show even went out of its way to signal the turn away from Sherlock’s deductive methodologies, quite early, in this moment in TST, as Sherlock is deducing this client, and explaining how he’s arrived at his conclusions:

KINGSLEY: Sorry. I-I thought you’d done something clever. (Sherlock’s head turns towards him.) KINGSLEY: No, no. Ah, but now you’ve explained it, it’s dead simple, innit?

Excuse you, Kingsley.

Meanwhile, Sherlock is intuiting stuff all over the place, like in this moment in Mycroft’s office:

SHERLOCK (thoughtfully, looking off to one side): There’s something important about this. (For a few moments, the reflection and sound of dark blue rippling water seems to surround him.) SHERLOCK: I’m sure. Maybe it’s Moriarty. Maybe it’s not. But something’s coming. (The water disappears. Mycroft frowns and leans forward, folding his hands on the desk.) MYCROFT: Are you having a premonition, brother mine? (Sherlock blinks and looks towards Mycroft.) SHERLOCK: The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics.

This series emphasizes, from the beginning, the idea that we’re not in the land of deduction any more. Something else is at play, something that can only be arrived at through following intuition:

JOHN: Now what’s wrong? SHERLOCK: Not sure. I just ... ‘By the pricking of my thumbs.’ JOHN (scoffing sarcastically): Seriously? You?! SHERLOCK: Intuitions are not to be ignored, John. They represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend.

We never quite seem to discover what these intuitions might be trying to say, not really. The Thatcher busts continue to give Sherlock the heebie jeebies. They lead him to AGRA and Ajay, and Mary’s past, a series of events that ends in Mary’s death (“Mary’s” “death”). We never really get a sense of why the Thatcher busts give Sherlock these intuitive hits, or why that water effect happens when he looks at them, or. (They are surely not geniune premonitions. They are something else.)

As beginnings go, I think that it could actually have been an interesting setup to something or other. One of the best things a writer can do to a character is take away their usual method of doing things and plunge them into an unknown territory. And Sherlock is clearly lost. Something is not right with him. He’s in some kind of altered state. But what does it all mean? 

If we follow the throughline offered to us on a textual level in s4, all of this means, apparently, nearly getting murdered in a truly weird hospital room, and ending up on Horror Movie Mashup Island for some hijinks with the plot device secret sister that literally no one cares about. Not exactly the payoff one might hope for, is it? 

In times of textual failure, it pays to follow the subtext, however, and, in this case, the intertext, because this is where The Parasite comes in--at least, I think it does. We are, at least, on the level of the text, in hinky jinky supernatural territory, from the beginning of the series--or at least, things are presented that way. (They are not really that way, but I’ll get to that in due time.) 

A Nefarious Plot

Back to plot of The Parasite. The story starts when the main character, Austin Gilroy, gets roped into attending a party thrown by Wilson, a wacky eccentric academic who is all wrapped up in pursuing the brand spanking new field of human psychology (ahhh...the state of science in the late 19th century). Wilson has decided to start by pursuing the most out there phenomena he can find: specifically, cases of extreme mesmerism. He thinks he’s found the perfect practitioner in Miss Penclosa, who humblebrags her way into Gilroy’s attention, and, essentially, challenges him to pick anyone in the room for her to influence, by way of demonstrating what she can do.

Miss Penclosa claims to have extraordinary powers of exertion over others--powers that depend, she asserts, not on anything known to science, but on her ability to extend her will into whomever she chooses. Gilroy picks his fiancée, Agatha Marden, believing that she’s strong of mind and unlikely to be influenced. Miss Penclosa puts her in a trance, and whispers in her ear--

--oopsie--

--Miss Penclosa whispers in Agatha’s ear, and all is well. 

Until the next morning, when Agatha turns up at Gilroy’s house and tells him their engagement is over. She offers no further explanation, simply assures him that they’re finished, and she leaves. 

Gilroy discovers it’s all part of the demonstration; half an hour later, Agatha doesn’t remember breaking up with him, and the engagement is still on. But, in an excessively creepy moment, Gilroy asks Miss Penclosa if Agatha would have killed him if she’d programmed her to, and Miss Penclosa agrees, yes, she would. 

In fact, Miss Penclosa affirms that she has only scratched the surface of revealing her abilities. She has “further powers.” He, of course, wants to know more. She replies:

"I shall be only too happy to tell you any thing you wish to know. Let me see; what was it you asked me? Oh, about the further powers. Professor Wilson won't believe in them, but they are quite true all the same. For example, it is possible for an operator to gain complete command over his subject— presuming that the latter is a good one. Without any previous suggestion he may make him do whatever he likes."

"Without the subject's knowledge?"

"That depends. If the force were strongly exerted, he would know no more about it than Miss Marden did when she came round and frightened you so. Or, if the influence was less powerful, he might be conscious of what he was doing, but be quite unable to prevent himself from doing it."

"Would he have lost his own will power, then?"

"It would be over-ridden by another stronger one."

"Have you ever exercised this power yourself?"

"Several times."

This sort of wildly successful, wide-ranging mind control, is, of course, familiar from TFP:

GOVERNOR: Everyone we sent in there; it-it’s hard to describe. (John turns as the governor continues.) GOVERNOR: It’s ... it’s like she ...

MYCROFT: ... recruited them.

SO! So far we’ve got mind control powers, people under the influence of mind control powers, and those same people doing things they would never normally do. It’s enough of a connection, especially with Murder Mind Control Island TFP, to argue that The Parasite is at work in s4. BUT GUESS WHAT? IT GETS BETTER, IN THE SENSE OF MUCH MORE SCREAMINGLY RELEVANT.

It gets better because Gilroy’s narration, through his journal entries, in addition to some implications of missing days / time fuckery throughout the story, offers a first person description of what it’s like to be under the influence of Miss Penclosa. He describes not being able to help himself, but, once she decides to use her mojo as a tool of seduction, Gilroy holds hands with her, and spends time talking about how boring Agatha is, in comparison with Miss Penclosa. He tries to resist, and Miss Penclosa’s influence only deepens. He decides that, at all costs, he’ll never go anywhere near her again. And yet, when the evening rolls around and their usual meeting time comes, he finds himself simply and irresistibly drawn to her. 

So, he locks himself in his room and slides the key under the door. When the moment for his standing appointment comes, he finds himself on the floor, trying to reach the key with a quill pen. This is how he describes what he feels:

It was all wonderfully clear, and yet disassociated from the rest of my life, as the incidents of even the most vivid dream might be. A peculiar double consciousness possessed me. There was the predominant alien will, which was bent upon drawing me to the side of its owner, and there was the feebler protesting personality, which I recognized as being myself, tugging feebly at the overmastering impulse as a led terrier might at its chain. 

(Gilroy compares himself to a dog, and others compare him to a dog, so many times, I lost track.)

Most striking of all about The Parasite is what happens when Gilroy confronts Miss Penclosa, telling her that he finds her disgusting:

The very sight of you and the sound of your voice fill me with horror and disgust. The thought of you is repulsive. That is how I feel toward you, and if it pleases you by your tricks to draw me again to your side as you have done tonight, you will at least, I should think, have little satisfaction in trying to make a lover out of a man who has told you his real opinion of you. You may put what words you will into my mouth, but you cannot help remembering--

I stopped, for the woman’s head had fallen back, and she had fainted. 

Mary is no fainter (I mean, idk, maybe faking your death is a type of fainting), but John certainly makes a move toward rejecting her in Morocco:

MARY: I always liked ‘Mary.’

JOHN (smiling): Yeah, me too.

JOHN: I used to.

Gilroy’s repudiation of Miss Penclosa triggers an endgame, in which she causes him to do increasingly terrible (and out of character) things that threaten to ruin his life. She goes after his career first, making him interrupt his own lectures at the university with gibberish. He becomes a laughingstock--people start attending his lectures to see what bizarre things he’s going to say next. 

The university suspends Gilroy’s lectures, deciding that he’s not mentally fit to run classes, effectively taking his career away from him. 

Has something similar happened to John? It’s certainly implied in TLD:

NURSE CORNISH: You involved much? JOHN: Sorry? NURSE CORNISH: Um, with Mr Holmes – Sherlock and all his cases?

JOHN: Uh, yeah. I’m John Watson. NURSE CORNISH (looking as if that means nothing to her): Okay. JOHN: Doctor Watson.

NURSE CORNISH: I love his blog, don’t you? JOHN: His blog?

...

JOHN (interrupting): It’s my blog.

SHERLOCK: It is. He writes the blog. NURSE CORNISH (to John): It’s yours? JOHN: Yes.

NURSE CORNISH: You write Sherlock’s blog? JOHN: Yes.

NURSE CORNISH: It’s ... gone downhill a little bit, hasn’t it?

I can’t think what the hell would fuel this exchange, unless the blog has genuinely gone downhill (you guys, I miss the blog), or Nurse Cornish is in on the whole gaslighting / manipulation / mind control deal (extremely possible, as implied by her position in front of a big hairy grinning yikes worthy head shot of Culverton Smith). Since the blog has stopped, or whatever is actually (”actually”) happening, it’s impossible to check and see if the blog really has gone downhill. If we take The Parasite as an intertext, however, we could certainly imagine John’s writings, and his sense of self, deteriorating as a result of the forces that are manipulating him. 

Things take a turn for the extremely disturbing when Gilroy thinks he has found an ally in Charles Sadler, a friend and colleague. [I’ll just say here that this is the bit that convinced me that Mofftiss are cribbing off The Parasite, and, if anything in this meta has a trigger warning, the next bit should, for physical violence on par with the morgue scene, or, one might say, exactly like the morgue scene.]  Charles Sadler has also been under the influence of Miss Penclosa, albeit to a lesser degree. Gilroy plans to talk to Sadler after they spend an evening together, at a university function, where Gilroy goes to prove that he hasn’t completely lost his sanity. Miss Penclosa is there, watching both of them from the sidelines. She knows that Sadler might support Gilroy. Gilroy narrates:

To-night is the university ball, and I must go. God knows I never felt less in the humor for festivity, but I must not have it said that I am unfit to appear in public. If I am seen there, and have speech with some of the elders of the university it will go a long way toward showing them that it would be unjust to take my chair away from me.

10 P. M. I have been to the ball. Charles Sadler and I went together, but I have come away before him. I shall wait up for him, however, for, indeed, I fear to go to sleep these nights. He is a cheery, practical fellow, and a chat with him will steady my nerves. On the whole, the evening was a great success. I talked to every one who has influence, and I think that I made them realize that my chair is not vacant quite yet. The creature was at the ball—unable to dance, of course, but sitting with Mrs. Wilson. Again and again her eyes rested upon me. They were almost the last things I saw before I left the room. Once, as I sat sideways to her, I watched her, and saw that her gaze was following some one else. It was Sadler, who was dancing at the time with the second Miss Thurston. To judge by her expression, it is well for him that he is not in her grip as I am. He does not know the escape he has had. I think I hear his step in the street now, and I will go down and let him in. If he will—

Gilroy wakes up the next morning, having broken off his journal entry with no memory of doing so, only to find that his hand is “greatly swollen” for some reason he can’t recall.

JOHN: I really hit him, Greg.

JOHN: Hit him hard.

Gilroy goes to Charles Sadler’s rooms, and is shocked by what he finds there:

I went to Sadler and found him, to my surprise, in bed. As I entered he sat up and turned a face toward me which sickened me as I looked at it.

"Why, Sadler, what has happened?" I cried, but my heart turned cold as I said it.

"Gilroy," he answered, mumbling with his swollen lips, "I have for some weeks been under the impression that you are a madman. Now I know it, and that you are a dangerous one as well. If it were not that I am unwilling to make a scandal in the college, you would now be in the hands of the police."

"Do you mean——" I cried.

"I mean that as I opened the door last night you rushed out upon me, struck me with both your fists in the face, knocked me down, kicked me furiously in the side, and left me lying almost unconscious in the street. Look at your own hand bearing witness against you."

I won’t screencap the morgue beating, because it’s traumatised people more than enough, but I was really, really struck by the identical quality of the choreography of what Gilroy does to Sadler, set against what John does to Sherlock. 

John Watson, who wonders why everything is always his fault in HLV, may not in fact be to blame for these terrible actions, if we follow The Parasite intertext. If he is being manipulated, if Mary is in his head the same way that Miss Penclosa is in Gilroy’s, then it may be that John has been in some way compelled to hurt the one person who matters most to him. 

The story of The Parasite progresses quickly from Gilroy’s attack on Charles Sadler. Miss Penclosa takes Gilroy over once more, and tries to force him to throw a bottle of vitriol (sulfuric acid) in Agatha’s face. Gilroy comes awake in Agatha’s room, vitriol in hand, and realises that the influence has lifted. It turns out that Miss Penclosa is dead--having tried to force him to do something so absolutely awful to Gilroy’s beloved, Miss Penclosa has exerted too much of her will / mojo / magical effort-stuff, and it’s killed her. Love conquers all? Ish? In any case, Gilroy and Agatha (and Charles Sadler too, I suppose) are free.

Implications for s4

Some free association style thoughts:

The Mary John sees in his mind may or may not be actual Mary (I really *love* the idea that Mary is still lurking around both John and Sherlock throughout TLD); she is, at least, the trace of an undue and unnatural influence that Mary has on him. 

It’s possible that by the time we get to John’s confession scene in 221B at the end of TLD, he has, somehow, through the power of his will, transformed this mental image into something genuinely benevolent / representative of what he in fact wants--like Gilroy, exerting his own will to drain the spectre of Mary’s influence. However, it’s also possible that there are two Marys--the trace of the Mary that is trying to destroy John (and through him, Sherlock) and the image of Mary that John has made into something better.

This reading is suggested by the appearance of “scary Mary” in the Childrens Ward scene in TLD (balancing the frame behind John with Nurse Cornish--I SEE YOU VILLAIN) 

with “angelic / Jiminy Cricket” Mary, who sits in front of him:

(I will just add, once you become aware of Scary Mary in this scene, it is NOT OKAY to watch it, it’s super creepshow.)

Obviously I wouldn’t argue for a magical mind mojo influence deal in s4. We don’t need to presume anything supernatural, because the narrative gives us a perfectly good mind control mechanism in TD12. Like others have argued, Mary could have been dosing John for as long as the narrative suits. Sherlock may or may not have been dosed by her as well--evidence suggests there may be other people involved. 

I personally have always favoured the idea of Mary as henchwoman (because of her coding as Moran in HLV / The Empty House scene), rather than as main supervillain, although I don’t much care either way--she bad. I like the idea of Eurus as Moriarty sib, orchestrating John’s deterioration through Mary, even as Sherlock is similarly fucked with. The plan is to tear John and Sherlock apart, and it very nearly works, too. 

As for Sherlock himself, he may have been receiving his “treatments” by another hand (Wiggins? I know...say it ain’t so...but Wiggins).

.

WIGGINS: Is ‘cup of tea’ code?

...

SHERLOCK: Stop talking. It makes me aware of your existence. 

(If John talks to not-there / sometimes-there Mary, does Sherlock talk to not-there / sometimes-there Wiggins, who shows up from time to time to assure that Sherlock is fully dosed?)

So. What looks like genre-hopping, a sudden embrace of nonsense, and serious gaps in both plot and storytelling technique from the beginning of TST, may simply be the artifacts of memories erased, replaced, manipulated, and controlled. If Mary can make John hallucinate her, then she or whoever she’s working with can also, presumably, make Sherlock think he’s having a premonition / intuitive hit, when he is, in fact, trying to process memories that have been taken from him, or ideas that have been planted. Since TST is probably Mary’s exit plan--wild speculation here--could it be that she needed to make sure Sherlock found the breadcrumb trail of the Thatcher statues that would lead to her “death,” in order to make her exit plan work? 

Similarly, many of the qualities of TFP could be the legacy of mind control on John’s hallucinating, dying mind after he is shot at the end of TLD. Sister X-Man’s uncanny abilities could be the explanation invented by the dreamer / John for the anomalies he has been encountering in his waking life. Unable to process or understand what has happened, even his own actions, and unable to deal with the idea that Mary is at the root of his personal torment, he ascribes executive function in the prison in his mind to a madwoman who can make people do whatever she wants, and who is a mishmash of his own impulses and desires, and the influence he’s been under. The events of TFP are John’s mind offering a partial explanation of a probable truth that has only barely leaked through the text of s4. 

So, what really happened in s4?

Tentatively, I think that the real plot of s4 concerns Mary's failure to take John away from Sherlock, which was, I would argue, always her assignment. Sherlock is too stalwart, too loyal--he even befriends the woman sent to destroy him. Because of her failure, Mary is now withdrawn from the field via a faked death, leaving maximum carnage in her wake by manipulating John to behave in a totally self- and Sherlock-destructive way. This plan also fails to ruin John and Sherlock, because they do the unexpected--John allows himself to be forgiven, and Sherlock forgives. At the end of TLD, they’re closer than ever.

The only thing left is for John to die. It’s the last in a series of plans to burn the heart out of Sherlock. Enter TFP--the extended Garridebs moment--and the cliffhanger of the century.

Tagging @devoursjohnlock and @shamelessmash because look! I finally posted this.