#my relationship with these books is... complicated

[midasriku]

THE PROPOSAL ᯓ★ (PREVIEW!)

An exclusive first look into the first instalment in the ‘love from the 2000s’ series, coming to a screen near you! stay tuned!

PAIRING • assistant!haechan x boss!reader

SYNOPSIS • When you, a high-powered book editor, face deportation, you somehow convince your mildly annoying and very much attractive assistant Haechan to marry you in a fake green card marriage. To prove the relationship is real, you both go the mile. The two of you visit his family in Jeju, where unexpected complications, pestering relatives, old secrets and real feelings arise. Will you both make it out with a legal marriage? Or will you have to kiss your sweet life, and everyone in it, goodbye? Stay tuned to find out!

The trip to the district office after work to sort out your affairs went a lot worse than you had initially predicted. After cutting the line (which Haechan gave you an earful for, though you know he cuts the line when getting your lattes every morning), you were then escorted into a district officer’s private room, where he proceeded to question you about your legitimate relationship. He was certain you were lying and tried coaxing Haechan to tell him the truth, judging from his blank expression and constant fidgeting he did the entire time you both were in there. 

Questions upon questions were asked. And you, being as calm and collected as you could be, answered each one with a lie so precise, it had Haechan wondering if you were a conwoman in your past life. 

The district officer turned to your assistant, noticing him adjusting his tie every five minutes since entering the room, and told him to be truthful. Never mind that his boss could potentially be deported in doing so, he never liked you anyway. He never liked the way you told him to dress better the first time you met him. He never liked the way you’d give him all the carrots off your plate, despite him hating carrots as well. He never liked the way you’d fall asleep on his shoulder during long car rides, causing his shoulder to get stiff because he couldn’t move. Or didn’t have the heart to, never knowing why. 

“The truth is, Officer,” Haechan started in a timid and gentle voice. He looked like he was about to cry, or maybe blow up. You couldn’t tell. “The truth is…”

You started getting nervous. Sure, you thought Haechan was going to listen to you. But you also had a part of you, the part that still had reason, that worried he would come to realise the gravity of the situation and throw you under the bus. You looked at him, a slightly pleading look evident on your features. 

He felt your gaze and turned to look at you. He noticed the little scar on your left eye when the two of you got in a minor car accident a year ago. Suddenly, he felt his matching one on the right grow warm. 

“The truth is we’re just two people who weren’t supposed to fall in love. But we did,” he said. A breath you didn’t know you were holding escaped you, and you went back to a neutral expression. He had used the line you fed your bosses earlier today, which made you smile. A genuine one you hid behind your hand, feigning a yawn.

The district officer didn’t look at all convinced, but nodded along anyway. “I assume your families know about this?” he asked. 

You started shaking your head. “No, my parents are dead,” you laughed dryly. “His, however, are not,” you pointed to Haechan, and he nodded. “Oh yeah, they are very much alive. Actually, we were gonna tell them over the weekend,” he said. You recall him telling you earlier this morning about his grandmother’s 90th birthday celebration. 

“Yes, it’s Granny’s 90th birthday. The whole shindig. It’ll be great,” you tried adding on, making it as believable as possible. The officer squinted his eyes and leaned forward in question. 

“And where exactly does Granny live?” he asked you. You blundered, not knowing at all where Haechan’s family lived. “They, um,” you faced your assistant, who was holding in a laugh beside you. “They…live,” you threw your hands up in a huff and gestured to the man beside you. “Why am I doing all the talking? This is your family, baby, why don’t you tell him?” 

The pet name that left your mouth had to have been in the top ten most outrageous things you’ve said. And you’ve said a lot of outrageous things in the three years that he’s known you. Haechan blinked at you with pink lips tied with a smile. 

“Jeju,” he said, not looking away from you. 

It was like the air in your lungs was punched out with a single word. Jeju? In all your time living in Seoul, you had never been to Jeju. Had Haechan mentioned he was from there?

He turned back to the officer in front of him, grinning with a Cheshire-cat-like smile. 

“We’re going to Jeju,”

a/n: WE ARE LOCKED TF IN RIGHT NOW BESTIES

ᝰ.ᐟ taglist open!: @ball-312 @luvhaeli @nctubatu @enhalovie @ilovejungwonandhaechan @eumppapasmom @sundamariis @tiazennie @kongjjen

[beemoon17]

@itsachlys I’m responding to your comment in a post because my response got too long for a comment and I thought it was worth it’s own spotlight!

Itsachlys comment: “Sometimes I think this fandom has a twisted sense of mortality that doesn't allow the characters to be human and thus be flawed/act in a way a saint wouldn't”

My response:

I totally agree. People crave complicated characters, and Nora wrote some of the most complicated and complex characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and yet the fandom seems determined to turn them into caricatures or cardboard cutouts of tropes. None of them are perfect, none of them made the right choices every time. They aren’t perfect victims of their situations, who respond in the designated socially acceptable ways to their traumas. And instead of celebrating these facts the fandom picks and chooses who to elevate to angel status and who to demonize.

I find that in these situations we usually find characters like Andrew, Neil, Renee, Jeremy, and Jean lifted to angel status, which destroys their narratives, erases their humanity, and takes away the power and pain behind the hard (sometimes impossible) choices they were forced to make. Meanwhile I see that characters like Kevin, Aaron, Seth, and Nicky are demonized, to the same detriments that occur when certain characters are given angel status listed above, but additionally causing them to be forgotten, abused, berated, and rewritten by the fandom.

Outside of their individual characters, relationships are also harmed by this. You can’t write or generally create anything regarding these characters and leave out their relationships, which are such a central factor to the books. Even characters who aren’t given an incredible amount of direct on page time together, we still see their relationships and how those relationships impact them through bits of dialogue, through their pasts, through other’s perspectives, through their limited actions we do see.

Demonizing Kevin doesn’t only harm his character personally, but harms Andrew, harms Neil, harms Jean, who no matter how complicated their relationships can be, love Kevin and who Kevin loves in turn no matter how he struggles to show it in a “socially acceptable” (neurotypically acceptable) manner. In turn, demonizing Nicky doesn’t only undermine his own character and past, but also undermines the choices he made to show up for his cousins, Andrew and Aaron’s relationships with him, his relationship with Erik and his relationship with the team who he so badly wants to be close to.

We can’t allow our own emotions and biases to completely cloud our view of characters. It takes away from the fandom, making it a more toxic and divisive place. It takes away from the art and writing we create, our ability to tell stories. And most importantly it takes away from the character’s complexity, from the complexity of their relationships.

[shimmerandwrite]

Anytime they have some sort of sister relationship on D20 it hits me right in the heart and takes over my whole brain

Jet and Ruby? OW OW OUCHIE

Adaine and Aelwyn? OW OW MY GIRLS OF ALL TIME AND MY LITERAL SISTERS

Adaine, Kristen and Fig living under the same roof and having the chosen family sister-isms of all time? MY BABIES

I’m just a girl with sisters who feels it all completely and will always be a sucker for complicated sister relationships

If I ever get it together and write a book u better believe there will be some complicated sisters

[sleepyvib-es]

do you have like a turning point beyond which rick's writing became unsalvageable to you? and if you do, what do you think should have happened instead of what happened canonically

hii! <3 this is such a good question omg, ty for sending it!

i had to really sit and think about this one. i don't think that i could really pinpoint one moment where i felt like "yeah this is it im done" because to me, there are a lot of those throughout the riordanverse lmao

but if i really had to pick one? at the risk of sounding basic, i would say blood of olympus. rick's treatment of his main characters and how he handled their arcs all throughout hoo but especially in boo just didn't work for me. i also strongly dislike how some established themes in pjo and the final conclusion to the og series feel so insignificant now.

before i go further though i will say that there are some things i enjoyed in boo, mainly having to do with nico's and reyna's povs. i don't like that 4 out of the 7 main cast were sidelined in the last book of the series (i think rick's excuse for sidelining annabeth and percy was total bs but i'm equally as angry that frank and hazel both received supporting cast member treatment) but i did enjoy their povs and think that rick's writing was strongest writing these two (until the last few pages of nico's chapter).

i genuinely despise how the narrative started blaming percy for things that were out of his control and how rick turned him into a fumbling incompetent idiot, something that has only gotten worse in his newer books (the way he wrote him in tsast, cotg, and wottg has been discussed in great lengths so i won't dive into it here but i'll link some posts if you're curious).

gonna apologize now for my long rant:

i didn't like the final speech he gave to the greek demigods before fighting, especially when you compare it to the speech he gave in TLO. like the difference between the two is just so... disrespectful lmao that is not my percy. and this was supposed to be the last we saw of percy bc rick said he was done writing for this universe when the book came out. like.. no. this is one of those moments that just shows how heavily he started to lean on the fanon interpretation of percy. a literal decade has passed and the fandom is still struggling with this interpretation of his character. i hate it.

i didn't like the "not my type" joke like imo you had to have written both nico and percy in an ooc way just to land that joke. the way rick wrapped up these two and their ~complicated~ relationship (that is only complicated because rick retconned nico's character and redid his arc from pjo, which would explain some inconsistencies like why he was looking to bring bianca back by using the doors of death when he had a mini arc of acceptance that bianca must stay where she is. which, yk, was the whole emotional conclusion to daedalus and his arc. nico will always grieve his dead sister ofc but he had said goodbye to her in pjo already.) it's one of my least favorite things about hoo.

and listen, out of all the things that i could choose to rewrite, this one scene isn't actually on the top of my list considering all of rick's writing offenses. but i just wish that relationship between both these characters and the conclusion to their arcs had been resolved in a much more meaningful way.

Edit: i think this is an excellent breakdown and analysis of one of my least favorite things regarding nico's writing in hoo. op offers suggestions on how the writing could have been improved and i wholeheartedly agree with everything. it's worth the read!

i think he had a lot of interesting concepts and he introduced a lovely cast of new characters that i love to this day but failed to execute his ideas in a way that would have made better sense narratively. there is a lot i wish had been done differently.

also, im aware that it's not only percy's characterization that has suffered. i'm very critical of the way he's been writing annabeth's character as the girlbossified, hyper-competent mom friend. the flanderization of both percy and annabeth's characters is just Not It for me. but there's also:

the way he fumbled leo's arc in hoo (leo's journey of self love and acceptance is something that can be so personal. i forever mourn the potential that could have been leo realizing that he fucking mattered to his friends. platonic friendships matter.)

sidelining hazel and frank (his mars transformation as part of his character development? terrible, awful implications)

questions left unanswered about frank and hazel's characters and their curse and how that was answered in toa, a series where they were not the main characters.

jason. where do i even begin with jason. i liked his arc in hoo and i like the tragedy of jason's character but i'm not a fan of how he was killed outside of his own series. this was poor writing to me.

i also really wish rick had committed to writing a seperate roman series before writing hoo so that new rome/camp jupiter and its cast were properly fleshed out. perhaps the quality of his writing in hoo would have been better if he had already established jason and reyna as characters instead of starting from scratch with 5 new main characters + reyna + octavian (wouldn't have been such a letdown of a villain)

the way he wrote nico and will in tsats. and also all the inconsistencies, the typos, the retcons, the way the plot literally doesn't make sense (why couldn't hades just let bob out? why is making his son relieve his experience in superhell with his bf seen as such a great parenting moment?). it made tartarus seem like Not A Big Deal. the cocomelons.

i love piper but god is it hard to ignore rick's unhidden biases about the way he feels about women. i also think she deserved better. i love that she has a girlfriend but i wish shel was a fleshed out character. and again i just wish we had all this from piper's pov.

the way he handled reyna's character after hoo. other people have discussed this in a much better way that i can on this post but his aroace rep and lesbophobia is very disappointing.

the way he retconned and handled calypso's character. i have never shipped caleo so i dont care if they break up. if it was up to me leo would have been single and gay never been on that island and they would have never gotten together. however, the way he wrote them in toa does not make me feel better about either of their character arcs. there are so many interesting things he could have done with calypso's character post pjo (where she was actually meaningful to the plot and themes of the series) and he took the "snarky love interest" route. it's boring. i also know she's not anyone's favorite but rick has done a huge disservice to her character that's kinda ... not really discussed b/c of how much people dislike her.

the cupid scene

i think that he attempted to rectify a lot of these issues in toa. but even where i find positive things to say about toa, there are still some things that i'm just not really happy about. this isn't me criticising the series, feel free to enjoy it if you do! i have moots that love it. the few complaints i have boil down to rick choosing to resolve character arcs outside of the series where they were the main characters. it just makes the writing in hoo look even worse.

back to why boo was the turning point for me: i remember being so angry that i couldn't bring myself to read the book much less finish it. i'm someone who doesn't like to drop things halfway once i've started (including shows and movies. like i literally force myself to finish a series even when i feel the writing quality has gone down. i have watched every ep of grey's anatomy up to it's current season and yes i know what that says about me lmao.)

sometimes i like media that is mid or trashy and im okay with that! but when it's to the point where i don't even want to finish it? that's how you know you lost me.

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[glassedplanets]

more sketches! zs on the brain

[xbomboi]

now THIS stuff is much more recent

i still have some older stuff i wanna post, but for now, i wanna share my most recent assortment of eah doodles.

[nana-glass-chillhop-radio-hour]

Love this, hard agree. I have lots of thoughts on this. book spoilers under the cut:

This is a great take, especially because imo Gurathin's initial antipathy towards Murder it is much more straightforward in the books. In All Systems Red, Murderbot catalogues it thinks is crushing on who, and Gurathin is described specifically as not having a close relationship with anybody but getting along well with everyone. Volescu is the one who admires Mensah so much that Murderbot suspects him of crushing on her (as does Pin-Lee, who in the books is single, not married to Arada). 2 out of the team of 8 have a thing for Mensah, but Gurathin isn't romantically invested in or even close friends with anybody. In later books, the nature of Gurathin's feelings for Mensah aren't discussed at all. He's loyal to her, but there isn't any indication I can recall that his attachment to her is anything other than professional and political. There's also no indication that Mensah was responsible for getting him away from the Corporation Rim. Gurathin and Murderbot do not like each other, at any point, but you get the vibes they both kind of enjoy their antagonistic relationship. Murderbot actively asks for Gurathin's help in Fugitive Telemetry and Gurathin shows up to help it, even though he complains and nitpicks the whole time. They like disliking each other, and they are often on opposite sides of group debates, but they don't see each other as direct rivals.

in the show, when we meet Gurathin, he's anything but distant with the rest of the PresAux crew. His unrequited crush on Mensah is already a big deal before Murderbot comes on the scene, and his antagonism towards Murderbot is fueled just as much by seeing it as a rival for Mensah's attention and affection as by his informed distrust of anything that comes from the Corporation Rim.

I get why the cast was condensed from Murderbot plus 8 to Murderbot plus 6, but it is super interesting how the intricacies of the relationships is flattened in some ways and heightened in others with the subtraction of Volescu and Overse from the show. Murderbot being directly paralleled to Gurathin as Mensah's latest rescue puppy is a fascinating choice.

One last yap... It's especially interesting how to me how Mensah is also shown in the books and the show as a highly sympathetic, moral, even noble character who nonetheless needs to overcome some flaws stemming from her sincere and commendable desire to rescue people from the horrors of the Corporation Rim. Mensah's first instinct is to buy Murderbot, which frees it from the Company but doesn't legally emancipate it in any real sense. Murderbot has a lot of complicated feelings about this choice but ultimately does not go for this. All Systems Red ends with Murderbot saying nearly verbatim "Mensah, I think highly of you and like you personally, but I'm not willing to lay my freedom and autonomy down at your feet."

In the books, Mensah owns up to her well-intentioned overstepping very directly and concretely in Exit Strategy, and Murderbot continues to hold her in high regard. So far, the show has portrayed Mensah a little less sympathetically than All Systems Red did. I'm very curious to see to what extent the show portrays Mensah's actions in the last act of All Systems Red as misplaced do-gooderism. One of my favorite things about the Murderbot Diaries is that the most altruistic characters are allowed to have genuine flaws alongside genuine virtues. Most of the fiction I've come across in recent years is pretty cynical towards altruists. In that sense, Martha Wells creating a nuanced portrait of Mensah as a flawed altruist, who is ultimately still portrayed as a sympathetic figure who can fuck up and own it, is kinda revolutionary. I'm curious to see if the show maintains that same anti-cynical stance.

really really enjoying gurathin’s arc, because yes he has reasonable fears about secunits but they’re overlying a much deeper, more personal pain caused by seeing murderbot take his place as mensah’s little “i can fix them” project. he wants to be special to her, maybe because he’s in love with her, maybe because it’s the only way he can convince himself he’s deserving of her kindness and empathy, probably a bit of both. but either way seeing someone else get the rehab treatment from her is bringing all those feelings to a head, making him feel insecure about both himself and his relationship with mensah. and it’s all written in a way that’s very sympathetic to gurathin’s feelings while also showing them as a flaw he’s going to have to overcome. it’s good stuff!

[littlebittyhollowbugs]

Really love how the fandom decided that post-canon Hollow is skilled at and enjoys cooking/baking

I see this hc all over the place (I've adopted it myself!) And It's honestly adorable

[lostandbackagain]

valkyrie moodboard part 4 🎉🎉🎉

pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3

[hunxi-after-hours]

"...Andor is a story in which we know exactly what is going to happen, eventually, because we’ve already seen Rogue One, which left many of us with several questions about how exactly Cassian Andor got where he ended up. Wicked, the book, is a story in which we know the ending (the musical, well, that’s a different story). Game of Thrones walked familiar territory for many of us, up to a point. Every retelling, to some degree, is a story in which the reader knows the ending, depending on their familiarity with the original tale (and the liberties the author does or doesn’t take). Arthur dies. Greek gods and goddesses get up to countless shenanigans. The evil queen/stepmother/witch is defeated. Can you spoil those? Is a spoiler different than basic story knowledge? "I don’t actually want to argue about spoilers. Especially not the week after Marvel gleefully spoiled its own movie in a way that implied that if you were a real fan, you would have gone to said movie already and thus not been spoiled. Spoilers exist, but they’re different for everyone, and a detail is not a spoiler. I think my definition of “spoiler” might be something like “a thing that, once you know it, changes how you experience the whole.” Not necessarily a twist, or a reveal, but a thing you can’t shove back out of your brain. Is it always a thing the storyteller presumably didn’t want you to know? Is the element of surprise part of it? Can that thing still be interesting, even without the surprise? "You can only experience a story for the first time once. But maybe there’s too much emphasis on the relative purity of that first time. It comes back to that impossible question of what each reader wants to know about a book before reading it. I’ve had moments where I had no interest in a book until someone told me a specific detail or angle, unmentioned in the cover copy or reviews, that was right up my alley. I know I’ve had this moment. But whatever book that was has just become part of my mental library, the details forgotten. It mattered at the time. It’s irrelevant now. Details are weird like that."

—Molly Templeton, "It’s Okay to Know Where the Story Is Going"

[whattraintracks]

I kinda feel we didn’t much of raph and splinter’s relationship in 03 thoughts?

Hmm, I suppose that's fair. I've heard it said that 03 isn't a very character-driven story, and I agree we don't see as many character dynamics or arcs explored as we could have.

Below the cut are the pieces of Raph and Splinter's relationship I've pieced together for myself.

Splinter's bio on Raph in Tales from the Sewer presents this interesting duality in Splinter's perception of him. He's a difficult child but just a kid. He trains the most but he's a difficult student. He makes poor decisions but Splinter has the utmost faith in his abilities. As both father and teacher, Splinter sometimes struggles to approach his sons and their needs in the appropriate role, especially when it comes to Raph.

For example, his hands-off approach to Raph's rage, or what I usually think of as emotional dysregulation (either as a product of neurodivergence or his young age). When Raph nearly maims Mikey during a rage attack/dissociative episode (see S1E4 "Meet Casey Jones") Splinter doesn't try to stop Raph or separate him and Mikey, although he very well could have. He doesn't step in until after Leo and Donny have broken up the fight. Despite addressing Raph parentally, he comes at the issue like a teacher offering those ninja master-esque nuggets of wisdom about rage being a monster and a true warrior is balanced in all things. I think he wants to come across sympathetically (gentle voice, physical contact, calling Raph "my son") but there is a sense of disappointment and unmet expectations in what he says.

In the aforementioned bio, Splinter notes that of all the turtles, Raph trains the longest and hardest. He likely equates length of training with dedication to ninjutsu and assumes that because Raph exhibits these things he should be something he isn't: more disciplined less angry. Perhaps he compares Raph to Leo who apparently trains less but fits Splinter's prototype of a good ninja. Speaking of Leo, later in the same episode we see Splinter chastise Mikey and Donny for interrupting Leo's practice and tell Leo to keep practicing his split kick without offering any advice on how to get it right.

We see this idea directed to Raph in Splinter's comment about a true warrior finding balance in all things. It's not particularly informative. This is his version of telling Raph to keep practicing but it's not what Raph needs at this moment, hot off such an overwhelming experience. So instead of reading this as the patient, parental advice I think Splinter intends it to be, Raph's body language screams chastised. He doesn't meet Splinter's eyes and he runs away. Raph (like all of the brothers) wants Splinter's approval and he's devastated to have fallen short in this instance. Then Splinter doesn't let Mikey follow after Raph. And yeah, Raph likely needed that space but it's this hands-off approach, again. Another example comes from the one of Raph's diary entries in the Raphael: Collector Book. He talks about Splinter assigning him more meditation exercises to help him control his emotions and temper. Perhaps training, space, meditation, and nuggets of wisdom are effective tools for Splinter to self-regulate his emotions, but Splinter is also an adult. Raph needs more guidance and practical advice at this point in his life that Splinter isn't providing. The tools aren't enough, he needs to be taught how to use them.

So. Raph responds in a couple ways to Splinter's hands-off, more-teacher-than-father approach. The first is to train harder, and longer, and learn everything he can about ninjutsu. If Master Splinter says becoming a true warrior will help him find emotional balance then he's going to try his hardest to become one. When he meets Casey, he shares with him verbatim the true warrior line but confesses to Casey he's not sure how hot-heads like them are supposed to do that. He still takes the advice to heart even if it's not helpful or he doesn't understand it because he wants to please and obey his father. The collector's book shows us that Raph has taken the time to learn aspects of ninjutsu that are confusing, uninteresting, and even inaccessible to him. This book contains a lot of technical information about ninjutsu techniques and teachings. It presents Raph as even more of ninja nerd than Leo! Some of this stuff appeals to his interests, for sure; the different punching techniques for instance. Some of it, he seems to have only learned to gain Splinter's approval. He has a detailed spread on hand signs that he explicitly finds too mystical and confusing, claims it took forever to learn, and he can't even use it as a three-fingered being, but he hopes Splinter will be impressed with him.

Second, he goes behind Splinter's back. If there's something he wants or needs and he thinks Splinter won't approve of it, he'll take it for himself. Such as going to the surface when he needs space or bringing his brothers to the surface when he thinks there's something important they need to do. This feels, to me, like access thievery, which is the concept (typically applied to disabled/neurodivergent folks) of taking what one needs (time, space, resources) without asking for permission or waiting to be offered it (because you likely won't be). Again in the collector's book, Raph exhibits an awareness of his faults and a self-compassionate recognition that he's just a teen. Splinter know this too but has shown that he can't always offer what Raph needs or won't give him it in some cases (forbids them from going to the surface). So Raph has developed a willingness to take what he needs for himself and sneak around Splinter to avoid the disapproval he fears.

All that aside, I think they're very similar in their fierce love and devotion to family and the ways it can drive them to anger, fear, hatred, and vengeance. There are traits Raph inherited from Splinter they bond over, too. They're both competitive. The Battle Nexus Tournament isn't their thing but we see them playing pokey in "Dragons Rising." I love the idea that they play a lot of games together! They have a similar sense of humility. They know they're skilled but they're more likely hang back and play support while their other family members take the spotlight than boast. Unless it's really personal, then they'll take over, like how Splinter's quest for vengeance guides them in Exodus and Raph's desire to help Casey leads the brothers to sneak out with him in "Meet Casey Jones." I think, they have a similar sense of humor, too. Raph has this silly line in the collector's book about Splinter being proud he used his head, that is, like a battering ram, and you cannot tell me Splinter wouldn't chuckle at that.

[svtfoe-archives]

we all become our mother in the end // Star & Moon study

"You can leave it all behind, skip a beat in the bloodline."

-Bloodline / Difficult Things (Orla Gartland)

honeytuesday on tumblr // Kyung-sook Shin, Please Look After Mom // supernatural, s12 ep22 // unknown // Sandy - Alex G // Bloodline / Difficult Things - Orla Gartland // Over your head - Orla Gartland // Venetta Octavia, The Burning // Lidia Yuknavitch, Letter to My Rage // Fairhazel, It Takes Time

[stuck-in-jelly]

Having lots of thoughts about Corvus and the fact that this is the first time we’ve seen him on a promotional poster AND that he has been regaining lost screen-time from season 4 and 5

Corvus has the least stake in the game as far as interpersonal relationships goes he is pretty separated from most of everyone.

Soren’s dad tortured and imprisoned Rayla’s dad and kidnapped Zym, Rayla’s dad killed Ezran’s and Callum’s dad, Zym’s dad killed Aanya’s, Ezran’s, and Callum’s moms in a 3 for one meal, Callum’s and Ezran’s dad lead the mission where Aanya’s mothers were killed, Ezran’s and Callum’s dad killed Zym’s dad, Callum is dating the daughter of his father’s murderer, and it just keeps getting more complicated from there.

But Corvus?

We dont even really know anything about him. He grew up in the woods on the borderlands, he was in the military at a young age and was even considered a veteran at 20 years old, he’s smart, strong, quick on his feet, he’s a bit awkward socially at times, he’s worked espionage, and he’s a really good baker.

But we know next nothing of his personal life, we dont even know if he has parents or any family to speak of aside from Amaya and Gren who have known him the longest. Its implied he met Soren and Claudia in passing in the past but thats as close as it gets.

Corvus is so widely detached from the chaos of everything going on with all the other characters whose past and connections are all so complicated

And now we get a poster where Corvus is quite literally breaking through the title, his weapon pushes past everything as he stares steadily ahead with a clear mind

Corvus is the key to helping break the cycle

[maybeitsalive]

So! To his relative defense, most of Lupin girls look the same: they’re tall, slender ingenues with a sad smile and deep thoughtful eyes, showing off how sensitive and tormented they are and how eager they’d be to be saved by a big strong man who read the script in advance is a bold genius. Most of the time they’re blonde, too.

Can you blame him if he gets confused sometimes? It’s not as if they had a personality*, after all.

(spoilers)

In fact, The Woman with two smiles is about him seducing one blonde before realizing a hundred of pages later there were in fact two, and of course he slept with the wrong one. He loved the other, because she’s pure and stuff, she blushes and says no when she means yes. That's it. That’s the plot of the novel.

Well, most of the plot. It’s also the book where A Meteor Did It.

Did you think it happened only once? Cue The billions of Arsène Lupin. This time, the (blonde) Love interest got kidnapped, oh no! To comfort her after her rescue, he sleeps with her in a remote place. Unfortunately, in the morning she gets mauled by a tiger strolling by (yes, in France). Oh no again! Fortunately, it turns out that he confused the Love interest (a woman he had a crush on and lived with during several weeks) with another. For a whole night. Ooopsie! At least the other was also hot, so that wasn't a complete waste of time. She got killed, but hey, she was evil, so who cares?

The love interest resents this by the way, so he threatens her new pet to force a kiss on her: problem solved.

(/end spoilers)

Because if you believed that Lupin was a smooth elegant gentleman who’s kind to women, I’m terribly sorry. You’ve been lied to. The truth is, he treats women like things and most women* are cardboard figures only there to be saved and kissed. They resist him before falling into his arms during/after the climax, and they all want him after five minutes because he’s that irresistible. (He’s also terrible with men that he treats like inferiors. They’re all here to emphasize how Better he is (stronger, smarter, etc), and he delights in humiliating them, including allies.) He’s a pop man from La Belle Époque, and it turns out his original character hasn’t aged particularly well, even in his lifetime.

Don’t get me wrong, there are good things in the Lupin books! I’ve read nearly most of them for a reason! But characterization isn’t one of them.

*To be fair, there are exceptions, so let me talk about them.

The countess of Cagliostro is a glorious counterexample. She’s a fascinating character, ambiguous, ambitious, and one of the only characters who ever challenged Lupin. Her novel is into the public domain and it’s also one of the best Lupin stories.

I always had a weakness for Véronique d’Hergemont, too. Lupin barely appears in her novel, she’s not a Love interest and is basically the real heroine. Her story verges on horror, and let me assure you: if you’re into Gothic stories/whump, you have to read this. It’s also in the public domain.

Maurice Leblanc was perfectly able to write interesting women, but he chose not to with the Lupin books, to show how much better this guy was than every other human on the planet. It's also possible that he felt he had to stick to the formula that got him read.

Pick a batshit crazy thing that happened in the Arsène Lupin books and I’ll tell you the story behind it:

He stole the Marie-Antoinette’s necklace when he was six

He forced a princess to marry him because he was after her fortune

He escaped 150 policemen and 40 gangsters by riding a tiger

He ordered to crucify a man and let him die like that

He made and conquered an empire in Africa with 60 guys

He mistook his Love Interest with another woman more than once because they all look the same

The German Emperor wanted to make him the chief of his personal guard/police (yes, knowing who he was)

Once discovered that a meteor did it

Nearly all his pseudonyms are anagrams and everyone is shocked by his incredible genius

[thee-morrigan]

currently torturing myself thinking about how Holland, who does not especially *like* her mother, specifically does not let her take her hands in the demo because she *loves* her mother and doesn't want to accidentally hurt her — even knowing that Rebecca will probably read it as yet another spurned opportunity for trust/closeness/whatever and it will therefore probably hurt her feelings.

(I am, in fact, also currently chipping away at the apparently never-ending mommy issues wip 🥲)