#once again baffled by the stupidity and cruelty of humanity

[disneydatass]

Why are you so angry all the time? Why do you lock yourself away from the world? Why are you not living your life they ask?

I answer with my own set of questions. How can I live in a body that doesn’t work? In a house divided? In a mind that constantly races? How can I go out and try to make a living when I know off the back of my labor my money goes to funding genocide? How can I think positively and go out and have fun when children are being gun downed for going to school, the movies, the mall? Is this survivor’s guilt? It can’t be. I don’t feel guilty for surviving. I feel rage and sorrow that I have to survive. I should be living. We should be living. One shouldn’t have to struggle to eat, drink, and have basic healthcare and rights.

[spockandawe]

I’m so unbelievably weak against characters who make terrible choices because they’re hurting and upset. I love the subtler resentful decisions that quietly build up ill will, and I love the big dramatic choices that end with everyone going down in flames. But more than anything, I love love love hurting myself with the emotional flavor of a character struggling with the tension of simultaneously realizing that people hate/mistrust them (or how much people hate/mistrust them, or which people hate/mistrust them), while also realizing that those people just have... no idea where they’re coming from.

I was thinking about this first because of Mu Qing, who is honestly a very low-key version of this scenario (and it’s also quieter since he’s not a lead character and rarely takes the spotlight himself). But the first big tgcf flashback honestly made my heart ache, seeing him trying to walk a line between maintaining his own independence/pride and not belonging to someone he wants to be peers with, but when he tries to be tactful, people decide he’s being shady.  He was picking cherries, to bring a treat to his poor mother (and the poor children around his home), but then got accused of stealing, and then didn’t want to say that it was because his only remaining parent was living in poverty. And it continues through the present day! He knocks out Feng Xin so he can save him from a burning city, because Feng Xin refuses to leave, and people are like ‘>:OOO MU QING ATTACKED FENG XIN??’ In some ways, this character hurts me more than the others, because he rarely does anything wrong, he has a bad attitude, but his most significant “missteps” tend to be like ‘you could have been a little more kind, tbh.’

But also too, I’ve been working my way through the svsss extras again, and... Shen Jiu. God, Shen Jiu. This character is agonizing, and I love him so much. He makes terrible choices! He does terrible things! He tries to set up an actual literal child to die horribly, because he resents that this child had a parent who loved him, and that he found his way to Cang Qiong young enough to reach his full potential! It’s absolutely unforgivable! But nobody except Yue Qingyuan has any clue how much Shen Jiu has been through and how to possibly help him grow or heal or how to support him into better decision making. And Shen Jiu is so hurt by the way Yue Qingyuan left him that he refuses to let Yue Qingyuan help him now. Like! This child was a slave, begging for food on the streets, then was sold to a rich boy who abused him in sexually-flavored ways and planned to marry him to his sister so he could keep him forever, and then his “rescuer” was a scumbag adult who taught him to steal and murder. 

And while Shen Jiu was suffering, he thinks Yue Qingyuan, who came from the same beginning and who promised to come back for him, was living in careless pampered luxury in a prestigious cultivation sect. Shen Jiu’s own self-evaluations are incredibly harsh, from the moment he’s reunited with Yue Qingyuan. He calls himself terrible, he calls himself a thing, and once it’s clear that he’s going to pay the price for his bad decisions, he tries hard to shove away the one person who cares about him and find some way to protect him. Yue Qingyuan never stopped loving him and defending him, but literally nobody else in the world has any sympathy for him whatsoever. How am I not supposed to be heartbroken? Shang Qinghua sighs over how his readers used to hate on Shen Qingqiu for having no motivations, which, sure, that’s understandable from what’s on the “Proud Immortal Demon Way” pages, but seeing the trauma driving his choices in svsss and seeing his own self-awareness and self-loathing and knowing that one (1) person in-universe has any inkling of his internal world (and that person died trying to help him), I’m! In pain!!!

Plus, in svsss proper, I saw a post in passing once that was something like... ‘readers are hard on luo binghe, because he’s the only mxtx protagonist where we see the worst decisions of his life and aren’t in his head to understand why he’s making those decisions.’ Which I still find fascinating, and think about often. It makes sense to me. And as far as my terrible-decision-making children go, he’s very interesting to me because he doesn’t really deal with the widespread distaste/mistrust that mu qing and shen jiu experience, it’s very much targeted on one person. I live for the parts of svsss where all Luo Binghe has to do is breathe, and Shen Qingqiu flinches and bolts. And Luo Binghe is not acting in kind or well-considered ways, a lot of the time! But he was seventeen, and his beloved teacher had told him that ‘humans can be good or evil, demons can be good or evil,’ but the moment Luo Binghe turned out to be half demon, even though he’d just been fighting desperately trying to protect Shen Qingqiu, that teacher he trusted more than anything immediately turned on him, stabbed him in the chest, and threw him into hell.

That’s agonizing!!!! Even without the aftermath, that’s agonizing to read! And when Luo Binghe comes back, years later, he’s upset, he’s hurt, he’s lonely, he’s still stinging from that betrayal, of course he’s not making good decisions. I follow good blogs, because I haven’t seen any terrible Luo Binghe takes on my dash, but I’m kind of :c that these takes apparently exist. Again, it’s not that I think he makes good decisions, but I can see why he makes bad decisions, and I can see other characters missing that context, and I am rolling in terrible, glorious pain. Luo Binghe shows up secretly in Huan Hua Palace and starts taking it over and generally acts shady as heck? Well, Shizun wouldn’t let him beg for forgiveness when he was a disciple, and he’s afraid to face Shen Qingqiu until he can meet him on a semi-equal footing. Luo Binghe gets angry and spiteful when Shen Qingqiu asks if he’s responsible for the sowers? Yes he does! He’d always, always tried to do right by Shen Qingqiu, and trusted Shen Qingqiu when he said demons could be decent people, but the moment he turned out to be half-demon, Shen Qingqiu immediately started expecting the worst from him at every turn. It hurts! I don’t blame him for acting on that hurt! And I am so endlessly compelled by the way that Shen Qingqiu completely fails to recognize the context for where Binghe is coming from.

And like... I cannot leave out Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. Xue Yang is fascinating in his own way, because the steps are... a lot more explicit and clear-cut than some of these other characters. Shen Jiu’s downward spiral is very internal and he curls up tight to hide his weak spots even with the person who values him most in the whole world, but Xue Yang very plainly tries to lay out his reasoning for his most important person. His whole world is crumbling by the time things reach that point, and it was probably beyond salvaging, but god! He tries so hard to explain the position the world placed him in, from childhood onward, helpless and vulnerable, and that nobody was going to defend him except himself. 

But when Xiao Xingchen doesn’t understand what he’s trying to communicate, when he realizes that the person he values most isn’t willing to hear what he’s trying to say, he starts lashing out again and trying to hurt. It’s the same lesson he learned when he was young, in some ways. ‘If I’m stupid enough to trust you, you’re going to use that to hurt me.’ And then the logical next step, ‘If you’re going to hurt me, all I can do is try to hurt you worse.’ You can see the trauma playing out right there on the page, and it’s agonizing. I can understand some people not enjoying reading things that make them hurt that way, but I have trouble Getting it when people don’t at least find that kind of dynamic compelling as hell. I’ll sometimes avoid media that I know is going to make me sad, but if I’m in the mood to Experience Sadness, I know a dynamic like this is going to grab me by the heart and shake me like a ragdoll.

And... Jin Guangyao. He was on my mind too, partly because I’ve seen a few takes on his motivations lately that honestly kind of baffle me? Like, to each their own, especially since mdzs never takes us inside his head. But I see posts that like... he was bullying Nie Mingjue, or what if Lan Xichen could Tell he was never genuine and mistrusted him on some level, and how to put this. It’s not that I agree with the choices he made, though I really don’t want to play fandom purity police in any way, shape, or form (murder is good, actually), but I understand the choices he made enough that those sort of interpretations that skew towards the cruelty-for-the-sake-of-cruelty territory honestly kind of upset me.

There’s some interesting comparisons to be made with Mu Qing, in some ways. They both grew up poor, without a father, in “shameful” single-parent situations (a sex worker mother vs. a father being executed for being a criminal). They were poor boys with ambition, but no matter how they tried to carry themselves with dignity, those poor beginnings were rubbed in their faces, years after the fact. I think it does make a real difference that Mu Qing’s shame is mostly based in his own history (sweeping floors) while Jin Guangyao’s is more external (son of a whore), and that Jin Guangyao’s also insulted a parent who he loved dearly, and that Mu Qing was seeking the respect outside of famiial structures while Jin Guangyao was desperate to be accepted by his father.

There’s so much of Jin Guangyao’s early life that’s like ‘I’m Just Trying To Live My Life, My Dude,’ and it hurts me to watch. He really didn’t have goals that were all that excessive! If his goals were excessive in some way, it’s only by virtue of how highly ranked his father was, which isn’t his fault. His goal: ‘I want my father to accept me into the family.’ What the world saw: “oh my god, this son of a whore SERIOUSLY wants to be brought into this noble family, lmaooooo.’ There are characters who are more compassionate than that, and a lot of that reaction is down to the nature of the setting, but LORD, man! It’s honestly a pretty restrained goal for a kid to have! Especially when his father totally promised to come back for him someday, and he waited patiently for years before setting out on his own.

And even once he gets kicked down the steps of Koi Tower and dials back his ambitions, he gets so little space to breathe. He’s learning cultivation late, he takes a position as a nobody in a different cultivation sect, he’s just trying to live. But no matter how he rolls with the punches, no matter how he smiles and bears it, he’s being constantly, constantly prodded in that old, painful bruise. I’ve been finally working my way through The Untamed, and it was painful to watch, in Gusu, when he’s trying to present the Nie Sect’s gift to Lan QIren, and people just start focking gossiping about him, right there, perfectly audibly. And when we see him back in Qinghe, he’s perfectly polite and deferential, and that one disciple is still like ‘fuck you, ur mom was a whore.’

He makes bad decisions, but even when he makes good decisions, he can’t win. I don’t get anything from him at all that suggests he had Hugely Lofty Ambitions from a young age, he just wanted some kind of decent life, but almost nobody would cut him a break. Nie Mingjue did cut him a break, and Lan Xichen was gentle and kind to him, and that made such an impact on him. But I also think it made it that much worse, when he made later questionable decisions, and Nie Mingjue refused to let him explain himself. Nie Mingjue’s rigidity breaks my heart in lots of ways, but especially when it comes to Jin Guangyao. I don’t want to make this all about personal attachment, but it’s kind of inescapable in this situation. Nie Mingjue sends him a loud, violent message that if he’s not perfectly morally upright, he’s Done. But by now, Jin Guangyao has years of history of people being cruel to him based on a history he never was able to control. Nie Mingjue protected him, but hes made it clear that protection was... conditional. There could be arguments about how conditional, and what the non-murdery limits would have been, but the murder has been done, and it was already clear that Nie Mingjue never had the power to protect him from everything.

I can’t read Jin Guangyao’s later actions without also reading that fear and insecurity into his decisions. He even tries to say it outright, that he’s afraid of everyone and everything, and Nie Mingjue misses the point. Jin Guangyao hurts me a lottle, because he suffers both in terms of the general public’s judgment of him, but also in the judgment of someone he cared deeply about. I can see the reasoning and trauma, but so many other people in the story can’t. Jin Guangyao gets pushed to the edge by how his father holds him at arm’s length from the family, the atrocities he tells Jin Guangyao to commit on his behalf (and then maybe I’ll treat you like my actual son, maybe), but when he tries to express that, Nie Mingjue is like ‘can’t you just endure more, though??’ He builds a temple with a statue with the face of his dead beloved mother, and the public is like ‘omg, he made that statue with his OWN FACE, can you believe it??’

In some ways, the way Lan Xichen determinedly loves and trusts him makes it all hurt even worse. I absolutely believe Jin Guangyao when he says that he never once wanted to act against Lan Xichen. So many of the terrible decisions Jin Guangyao makes tie so directly to him seeking either safety or security. But he works hard in social gatherings to keep the peace and people think he’s two-faced. He endures years of mistreatment before hitting back and people judge him for hitting back at all and say that well, what else could we have respected from someone with that background. Nie Mingjue threatens to kill him multiple times, and he was a very straightforward, honest man, of course Jin Guangyao was frightened of him and decided it was safer to see him dead. I live for the pain of seeing a character I love make decisions I strongly disagree with, understanding why they’re making those decisions, and seeing other characters not understand, and simply hate them for the decisions.

This isn’t exactly new, this is why I’ll never be able to shake my love for Starscream, even if his quality of motivation... varies by continuity. And Pharma and Prowl are two of my favorite characters in all of idw1 for exactly this reason. I’ve got  at least three fics brushing up against Pharma’s resentment over ‘yes, i got ordered to run a hospital on a garbage planet I was sharing the most violent, sadistic decepticons in existence, I SURE WONDER WHY I WAS DRIVEN TO THIS DESPERATE POINT, BUT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE THINKS I’M JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON, SO I GUESS THAT’S THAT.’ 

And in the murderbot books, I genuinely get reduced to tears when murderbot has to deal with people compassionately interpreting its behavior instead of giving it no credit, the way its used to. I find the raksura books intensely, intensely satisfying in how Moon struggles to fit into a highly social, close-knit society after growing up so traumatized and alone, and how his colony gradually adapts to him and gets used to his quirks, instead of driving him out, the way he’s experienced so many times. No real conclusion here, I was just spacing out during a work training call, and got overtaken by how much I love characters who experience this particular flavor of emotional isolation.

[idkwhoiamanymorebutwtf]

People are so quick to blame literally everything that happened in Mapleshade’s Vengeance on Mapleshade and nobody else without even suggesting that any sort of blame could be pinned on literally any of the other characters or even that some of the bad things that happened were tragic accidents while also complaining about how none of the villains ever have any moral complexity or gray area and it’s baffling.

Like.

You even suggest that Darkstar, Oakstar, Frecklewish, Ravenwing, and Appledusk were all shitty and played a significant part in the events of the book, that the general society or even warrior code itself being flawed may have contributed to making Mapleshade a villain, or even suggest that the kits dying wasn’t Mapleshade’s fault and people jump at you. Because they cannot fathom that a villain isn’t always just pure evil for no reason with no question or blame on anyone else. Like. The same people who are annoyed at Tigerstar being such a villain stereotype down to literally being born evil.

That book is incredibly interesting because it shines a light on just how fucked up clan loyalism and biases can be as well as showing a cast of characters who all do awful things and all end up suffering in the end because of the society in which they live.

The warrior code and Starclan in of itself is incredibly flawed and this fact easily lent itself to creating this story. It’s easy to say that Mapleshade was horrible and wrong for lying about the father of her kits, however there’s no doubt in my mind on why she would have seen this as necessary. Clan rivalry was at a high at the moment, the book opening up with Mapleshade noting the blind rage and hostility her clanmates showed towards Riverclan cats after their recent battle, now, very clearly clan rivalry to the extent it’s displayed throughout the books is a flawed thing in of itself, think back to the Dawn Of The Clans books and how Clear Sky was regarded for bringing bloodshed into the forest. Think of that battle, of two siblings laying dead, having murdered one another over borders that aren’t really necessary. Think of warriors letting kits of other clans drown because they don’t see it as their own problem. Even now in present time, think about how a cat can lay dying in Thunderclan camp and be ignored completely because they aren’t one of them. Clan loyalism is incredibly dangerous. It leads to death and hatred. Constantly. Even in times of relative peace there’s so much resentment for other clans so evidently present. And during the time of Mapleshade’s Vengeance, tensions between Riverclan and Thunderclan were particularly high. To pretend that Mapleshade had no reason to be terrified for her own safety and that of her kits is ludicrous given the climate in which clan cats live. Lying was not the moral thing to do, and it’s not as if Mapleshade had nothing to do with her own downfall, but do not pretend for a second that the decision would have been easy or clear cut. Do not even pretend telling the truth from the start would have been the right choice to make. Clan loyalism is dangerous. It’s a terrible thing that’s lead to the deaths of countless cats over the years. Cats who didn’t deserve it. The warrior code and Starclan facilitating this is a terrifying, awful thing. Mapleshade lived in an incredibly flawed system that would have persecuted her for falling in love and hated her kits for who their father is, Mapleshade lying in an act of self preservation and protection over her kits was a direct result of the corrupt system she was raised into forcing her hand. What’s more, Starclan choosing to out the kits to Ravenwing and his subsequent decision to tell Oakstar- because the will of Starclan comes before the lives of warriors, every single time- was a further example of this. That small, innocent kittens be punished for a woman daring to love somebody outside her boarders is ludicrous. And Starclan’s wrath did not come from the lies Mapleshade told, but rather the Riverclan blood in her kits veins. This disdain her culture held for Mapleshade and her “half-breed” kits was exactly what forced her to lie in the first place.

I’m going to handle Frecklewish and Oakstar in a different paragraph to my discussion on how the warrior code, starclan, and clan society in general were to blame, because they did have more personal motivations as well and I would like to address that fact. In the end, they were both incredibly upset that Mapleshade lied (or, well, more like omitted the truth, but same principal) about the father of her kits. This was fair. I do not fully blame Mapleshade for this lie. As I said before, I do not dislike Mapleshade for choosing to lie. Certainly it can be said that her decision was morally wrong, however a mother of three choosing to prioritize her and her children’s safety and security over morals in a society that would see them exiled and left to fend for themselves....well, it’s just human, to be quite frank. She was in a desperate situation and people will never be their best selves when placed in a desperate situation, especially when their children are involved. It’s the same reason I don’t blame Leafpool for giving her kits to her sister, even if it meant lying to Bramblestar and the rest of the clan (honestly mapleshade’s lie may arguably even be more understandable than leafpool’s because she didn’t have nepotism on her side like leafpool, mapleshade lived in a time of war against her mate’s clan unlike leafpool, and, well, mapleshade was going to tell the truth eventually once she was sue her kits wouldn’t be thrown out to fend for themselves...unlike leafpool). Frecklewish and Oakstar’s anger was understandable, but that doesn’t make Mapleshade a bad person for the lie. And, well, to be honest, both Oakstar and Frecklewish cross the line into cruelty. And that line is crossed...where their personal anger against Mapleshade meets their clan biases. Oakstar was quick to throw out a young mother and her three small children with nowhere to go. And he did it because she fell in love with a tom across the boarder. A tom who’s clan Oakstar had a bias against. Yes, his personal rage against Mapleshade fueled this decision, but had the real father of these kits been Thunderclan, she never would have been exiled for her lie alone. And his decision to exile the kits as well. Three innocent children who hadn’t done anything wrong. Who he couldn’t be certain would survive with only Mapleshade to care for them. It was because once it was revealed they were half clan, they became other to him. They weren’t people like him. The clans have an us vs them mentality. Oakstar’s decision to throw out three helpless children was because they stopped being ‘us’ and started being ‘them’ as soon as they were revealed as half clan. Not because of his grudge against Mapleshade. The exile of the kits, even as Mapleshade begged for them to be allowed to stay because they were innocent even if she wasn’t, can easily be traced back to, once again, that dangerous sense of loyalism clans have. And then there’s Frecklewish. A lot of what was said about Oakstar can go for her too, except with the added layer of her standing at that riverside and letting the kits drown. Now, she could have stepped in to try and help them. It’s not like she was incapable. In no place during her confrontation with Mapleshade did she say “I can’t swim, idiot”. No. It was “I assumed the Riverclan cats would help them!” and other such statements to imply it wasn’t her business. There’s no doubt in my mind that if those kits really had been Birchface’s she would have jumped in to help them. There’s no doubt in my mind that if those kits had been any Thunderclan cat’s she would have jumped in to help them weather or not there were other cats nearby. Because the lives of Thunderclan kits are her business. And the lives of other kits...well...aren’t. Especially not half breeds. If they were alone, maybe she would have begrudgingly helped out of obligation to the warrior code, maybe she wouldn’t have. Weather or not she would have done the bare minimum doesn’t change the fact that she was less willing to help these kits than she would have been if they were Thunderclan.

Even the actions of cats like Appledusk and Darkstar are in some way related to the unhealthy clan loyalism and biases. Mapleshade was instantly cast out of Riverclan and not even allowed to take her kits to bury while Appledusk was allowed to stay and given another chance. To be honest, Darkstar was harder on her because she was Thunderclan. You can argue that the choice to cross the river was stupid and risky, but honestly, I completely disagree with blaming her for a natural disaster. She was thrown out. Homeless. She didn’t really have anywhere to go. Her only hope was to make it to Appledusk in Riverclan where she could hopefully be offered refuge. Crossing the river, to her, seemed like the only choice she had. Her only option for the salvation of herself and her kits. I don’t blame her for it. I don’t know how anyone can. She was frantic, she was homeless, she was under threat of attack if she stayed in the wild, she didn’t know how to provide for herself, how to provide for her kits. She needed to get to Riverclan, she was panicked in her attempts to do so. I cannot blame her for it. Had the kits survived or had Mapleshade already been a member of Riverclan, Darkstar would have been compassionate as well. Would have shown empathy. As she did for Appledusk. However Mapleshade was other. She was one of them, not one of us. Her blood, her scent, her posture, Darkstar loathed it in the way any loyalist Riverclan cat loathes a Thunderclan cat. Disdain, contempt, apathy at best, that was how a Riverclan cat regards a Thunderclan cat, and that was how Darkstar regarded this grieving terrified young mother, so easily dismissing her. Even Appledusk was deeply influenced by this attitude that’s always infected clan life. I have no doubt he once cared for Mapleshade. I have no doubt he killed off the part of himself that loved her for the sake of self preservation. That he latched onto his clanmates’ perceptions of Thunderclan cats as inhuman enemies. That he chose to love a she-cat within his own clan instead because love beyond boarders is forbidden in every sense of the word. Appledusk was horrible. He was a cheater, he showed no empathy for Mapleshade, he was just awful.  However it’s clear to me that this, like everybody else’s actions within this book, was a result of the horrifically flawed values of the clans, the warrior code, and Starclan. That Appledusk was able to dehumanize Mapleshade in his mind because clan cats dehumanize those who they see as other. That he was able to justify his behavior to himself and other’s due to clan loyalism and bias. That he would have had a chance to be better had his love not been forbidden in the first place. Had his children not been a sin he felt the need to atone for in order to be deserving of salvation from his ancestors and his leader.

Almost every bad thing within this story was a direct result of clan culture and biases. Everyone did horrible things. Oakstar, Darkstar, Frecklewish, Appledusk, Ravenwing, and Mapleshade herself all did bad things during the first half of this book weather it be out of discrimination against the other or self preservation in a world that sees them as the other. Every other clan cat who watched this happen and Starclan itself who facilitated this were just as bad. Mapleshade’s breakdown and the subsequent deaths of Frecklewish, Ravenwing, and Appledusk can all be blamed on this. Mapleshade, even when she killed, did not act selfishly. She was not a true villain until after her death. Mapleshade suffered from a psychotic break in which she became convinced her kits could not enter Starclan until the cats who caused their deaths were dead. This breakdown was completely the fault of the cats mentioned above who allowed their loyalism and biases to cause the horrific deaths of Patchkit, Petalkit, and Larchkit. Obviously murder isn’t okay, however i’d be lying if I said that within the fictional story it wasn’t thematically satisfying that these cats die. It was also incredibly satisfying that Mapleshade go to the dark forest while the other cats involved went to starclan, not because Mapleshade deserved the dark forest more (usually murder would be much worse than what the others did, however since she was suffering a psychotic break at the time circumstances are different than they’d be if she hadn’t been vividly hallucinating that her children weren’t allowed into heaven). Starclan watched this messy, horrific event unfold. And they picked one person to blame for it. They did not reevaluate their rules and systems, they did not even choose to punish everybody else involved for what they’d done (let three innocent kits die and turn away a desperate terrified grieving young mother in need). Starclan chose one cat, the cat who they decided had committed the worst crime, and they said she is objectively to blame for all of this, punish her and we never speak of this again (which is ironically also what a lot of fans try to do, say mapleshade was to blame, nobody else is, punish her and lets move on). People want to blame everything on a single entity they can fight, not on a complex system of societal biases that can make two clans commit atrocities with Starclan’s full support. And the brilliant part of this is that this didn’t fucking work. Mapleshade came back. Again. And again. And again. Progressively getting worse and worse and worse, more vengeful and more dangerous as time went on. Because that’s what HAPPENS when you ignore the bigger picture and pin everything on one person without trying to give it a second thought. The problem isn’t solved. Things get worse and worse and worse. Mapleshade is a bad person now because she was victimized by society and starclan in life, then swept under the rug. She became more angry, less rational, completely focused on revenge. Not because she was always bad, but because pinning big complex issues on one person isn’t helpful. Because that’s always going to end in disaster. Nobody in the clans were innocent and in the end the corruption of the society in which they live ruined everybody and everything. There were no happy endings, not for anyone, and once it was all over it was all blamed on one person and swept under the rug to be a problem for future generations instead without anything actually being solved.

Don’t believe me? Which big characters were fully innocent in the main plotline of the book, then?

Patchkit, Petalkit, Larchkit, and Mylar. Three exiled half clan kits and a loner. The only fully good, kind, innocent cats weren’t part of the larger clan culture and system of beliefs. 

Stop blaming everything on Mapleshade, i’m almost certain the exact reason this book is so good is that it’s not all her fault and that her future character arc of actually becoming a bad person and becoming dangerous to the clans is actually only farther proof of that. Clan society is fucked up, we’ve known that for a while but this book does such a good job of portraying it. The way the system makes it so that nobody’s hands are ever clean as long as they exist within the main system and how the cruelty or apathy of Starclan, The Warrior Code, and Clan Society will corrupt even those who could have been otherwise innocent.

Mapleshade’s story is impressive and probably the only villain I can think of that’s...actually super complex and is bad for reasons other than “am selfish want power am cartoon villain stereotype”.

[icharchivist]

The only past Lavi's been able to really react to is Lenalee's so that's really the only evidence to form our ideas from on how he'd react. Kanda's past probably won't ever be really revealed to him. At least not on screen maybe. Him hearing about Allen's is interesting because there's still a lot we don't know about Allen. Lavi's also the observer so it's a little strange if he never learns anything in greater detail about Allen. Allen is not only the main character but he's the bookman's-

2 main priority. In Bookman's own words, Allen is the history the bookman must record. So yeah, again it'd be a little strange if Lenalee was the only significant character Lavi got a front row seat to record the most of (past and important moments like her crystal Innocence). Either way I could definitely see Lavi once again wondering how the heck Allen was capable of surviving so much suffering and still being as kind as he is.

Yeah exactly and the thing too is that Lenalee’s past was revealed to him both while he was in front of her abuser, AND while knowing he couldn’t do anything to said abuser because it was also his supperior. So there’s also a tight line there bc Lavi got very very cold and defiant toward Lveille and refused to leave Lenalee alone with him, and you could see it affected him, but he couldn’t exactly let show most of his anger and frustration, not to mention they didn’t exactly have the time to dweel on it with the attack going on and Lenalee brushing it off to run toward the innocence.

So even there it is tricky to me bc we’re missing pieces of how Lavi would react, from the absence of “obligations to not make waves” and absence of “people to lash out onto” (like he could lash onto Tyki for exemple).

I doubt Kanda’s past will ever be revealed too him yeah, it’s not like those two are in the best terms and Kanda had made clear that what happened between Alma and him are between them only when it comes to details, and Allen just... can’t avoid how much he had come to learn already.

Like I said previously i’m almost certain that Lavi would help more explore Past!Allen so those would be the mysteries that are plot important that he would come to learn. 

He does have a begining of understanding some of Allen’s past due to the Cross’s conversation he was forced to witness but it wasn’t nearly as detailled nor explicit (since in the end it was more about the betrayal of Allen’s father figure than about the abuse he had endured before him), and yet we already had a very cold Lavi watching the scene.

So... I don’t know because the way to bring up the topic with Lavi would be very very... weird. I don’t think Allen would genuinely think of Lavi first in a “would be a great listener’ category, even while knowing his Bookman’s duty and it would need some massive reasons for Allen to open up about it to him.  Unless Lavi learns about it in a completely different ways or if the post-torture will influence their dynamic a lot. Even if Lavi would be willing to reccord more of Allen’s past, both as a Bookman, and as a friend (whenever he’s ready to admit this is one of his concerns or not).

Lavi already.... figured a lot of Allen’s unsaid darkness, and had been baffled by the way Allen is trying this hard to never give up and the way he keeps smiling. those are qualities Lavi admires, and that’s the point of the Dazzling Light scene (i could ramble about it for hours bc while Lavi’s monologue itself is touching the whole scene that provoked it is one of my favorite scene of the manga due to how Allen’s philosophy shows up). Because Lavi cannot forget the darkness he had seen Allen overcome, whenever those that were hinted at like how personal he took Krory’s suicide attempt when he walked him through it, or the most tangible facts like the way Tyki tormanted Allen before killing him and how Allen reacted to it both during Tyki’s attack and when Allen came back. 

And he sees beauty in the way Allen does overcome it, he sees it as a shining light, but he is pessimist enough to worry about what darkness had made them appear. and I believe that the fear of losing Allen to the Light is also a sort of “his kindness will be his doom but it is too important to look away”. And for Lavi I think Allen shines so bright because he cannot forget those darkness. It’s not like Lavi can forget anything. (except stuff linked to his innocence apparently but i’m not going to roast him on the public place today. For now.)

Lavi is already beyond baffled by the kindness Allen can show. From the dots he could connect. Allen had already exceeded any expectations Lavi could ever get.

So knowing how further those darkness extends... I am genuinely curious of how Lavi would react. If he values already that light as unmeasurable coming from the few darkness he nows about, what about all the rest? 

It could also be a lesson for Lavi. Lavi had hated humanity for the wars with “purpose” he had seen all those years, but Allen had seen the worst of human’s cruelty and had deliberately decided to be kind, even if it took him some specific events to get there. But Lavi had already learnt a lesson about how just saying “human sucks” to not be emotionally invested in people he would care about is just stupid and neglecting how much this kindness can change people. But taking his “humanity sucks” on the stance of “those humans had been particularly terrible and against all odds Allen went against all of it” would be a whole other lesson alltogether. 

I also think it would have Lavi put in perspective why Allen called onto Mana. The problem was after all that Lavi recently had a friend,a  finder, turn into an Akuma, and he projected hard on Allen. Except that Dug is someone who should have known better, knowing how the Akuma were done, while Allen was just a child calling for his adoptive father. And Lavi at least had a shock seeing the Akuma’s souls making him put a lot of everything in question  and he doesn’t seem to project anymore, but i don’t think, aside from the Cross conversation, that Lavi had to really proceed how much therefore this tiny Allen was so desperate to call onto Mana. Knowing how much Mana was a real ray of light in this nightmare would probably have him reconsider that as well.

But all of those reconsideration are Second Thoughts. Are things when Lavi will have processed the information. Just like the Light scene comes from him processing all that had happened this far. But what about a Raw Emotional Lavi learning the information? The guy who showed coldness and defiance toward Lveille, the guy who broke furnitures unable to express his grief, the man who lashed onto a Noah and requested to take him alone in a fight because of how furious he was of how this person hurt Allen. 

I think that’s why also i’m more curious about Lavi because I can expect Lenalee or Kanda to be true to their first feelings a lot. Even if the feeling is negative they take steps forward from their first feelings and it evolves naturally. But Lavi never had to take that first step unless forced to and his reactions had been a major mess and god knows if he even actually proceed those info willingly at this point.

Idk i’m just rambling, as always with Lavi, but that’s what makes me all the more curious about how he would take in Allen’s backstory. I really wish i could know.

[loose-leaf-teacanons]

Can you do also kikasa for the otp questions please?

1. Who liked the other first?

Kise. XD He’s not even surprised by it initially, because he gets temporary mini-crushes on people who impress him really easily, especially if they give him a hard time. With Kasamatsu, it’s kind of embarrassing, though – the guy is his captain, and a sour-faced hardass, and he’s not that impressive, okay, self??? Just because he ripped you a new one on your first day doesn’t mean he’s worthy of the dokis! You have standards!

He fully expects the stupid mini-crush to fade, and maybe it would, except Kasamatsu-senpai– (what the hell, self?! could you stop getting the dokis from calling somebody “senpai”? Urgh! …okay could you at least stop getting the dokis harder? /Please/?).

Well, except Kasamatsu-senpai keeps doing all those things Kise never even knew he needed (except for the whole throwing-stuff-at-his-head, though okay, if Kise is perfectly, entirely honest, sometimes he needs that, too. But don’t tell Senpai!!!), and he’s so passionate about basketball, and he works so hard, and he looks after everyone, and he’s got kind of a cute smile (one that sits a bit crooked like it’s not sure it should be staying on his face), and he’s actually pretty cool to be around, and he doesn’t talk down to Kise at all even though he’s really big on the senpai-kouhai stuff, and there’s something about his hard-won but earnest praise that makes Kise want to try ten times harder every time he’s on the receiving end of it, and how weird is that?

It doesn’t fully click for Kise until the Interhigh, where he ends up so taken care of and comforted (and he didn’t even know that was possible after failing to win, because at Teiko you just didn’t fail, period), only to then catch a glimpse of all the hurt and disappointment and frustration that Kasamatsu-senpai went off to bear alone, without letting on how he’s feeling to anyone, and that’s… yep, that’s the sound of Kise’s heart breaking.

That’s when he’s hit with something he hasn’t ever felt before, this overwhelming urge to not just bask in somebody’s company, care and attention but to give something back to them, to do even a little bit for them what they do for him.

That’s the moment it kind of starts dawning on him that this is love. He’s always thought of love as this burst-into-song thing with lots of flirting and pursuing and hearts and flowers and dates, that he never even thought it would actually be this, this “I will protect you and your happiness even if I die trying and even if you never know about it (actually it’s better if you don’t or you’d throw a basketball at me >.>) and I can’t imagine anything better than just seeing you proud and victorious and content.”

So yes, suffice it to say, he is so very, very screwed.

Kasamatsu, for his part, has Kise rather firmly in his “kouhai” drawer the entire time. Yeah, Kise’s special to him (special in the head! *eyeroll*), someone he feels responsible for and who is actually a good kid and pretty good company once you get at the passionate, hard-working, sharp personality buried under all that Teikou crap and the celebrity bullshit.

It’s not until he leaves for university that Kise even gets shuffled into the “friend” drawer (though they’ve been friends before that, obviously, it’s just Kasamatsu’s archaic and painfully earnest idea of senpai-kouhai dynamics that stops him from thinking of them as such), and sure, it’s probably a bit weird for Kise to remain so attached to him (seriously, did I clock him on the head too hard or something?), and it’s probably considerably weirder that Kasamatsu remains attached right back, but whatever, right?

And if he calls him rather more than he calls anyone else, if he schedules all his course load and homework so they get the occasional free weekend to meet up, if he shows up to watch all of Kaijou’s championship matches without fail, if he keeps sending Kise music mixes and remembering his birthday when he can’t remember anyone else’s without consulting his phone first (including his own; July… somethingsomething, right? *checks ID card*), well… anyway, that’s just how it’s always been with Kise.

(That sound you’re hearing, btw, is Moriyama and Kobori synchro-smacking their heads against the wall)

So yeah, Kise has his work cut out for him. XD

2. Where is their ‘special spot’?

Where indeed, senp– ow. Mean!

Kidding aside, I don’t think they really have one. Kise is always drawn to new places – he’s like a human Siri for trendy cafés, shops, movie theaters, music venues, etc. Kasamatsu calls it a skill that’s both amazingly useless and uselessly amazing, and Kise just sticks his tongue out because whatever, Senpai, you just admitted I’m amazing~~~! *sidesteps rib jab*

Kasamatsu himself tends to attach more significance to the events/memories than the places they happened in.

3. How do they cheer one another up?

Depends on what’s wrong, tbh. Kise is kind of a melodramatic handful to begin with, and he can bitch endlessly about small things like some kind of workplace rivalry or whatever, though in such cases he’s usually content to fling himself on the couch in an epic fit of pique and complain about it loudly and emphatically.

Kasamatsu will mostly leave him to it and go about whatever it was he was doing before Kise made his dramatic entrance, and then come back a couple of minutes later and be like, “So, you good?” (and Kise will whine for a while about how callous and disinterested Yukio-san is in his terrible plight, you go to get coffee while the light of your life is suffering from the cruelty and injustice of the wo–ow ow ow not my nooooose!!!)

But yeah, it’s easy to tell when Kise is truly upset because his entire being just dims. In those instances, Kasamatsu doesn’t say much, just holds Kise as he attempts to fold up all 189 cm of himself against Kasamatsu’s chest and maybe have a good cry. Kise will usually tell him what’s wrong after he’s all cried out, and Kasamatsu just stays and listens and tries to help him untangle whatever issue it was for as long as it takes.

Kasamatsu’s upsets are really quiet, and tense, and you can just watch the furrow in his brow deepen, and every fiber of his being tightening, and still he doesn’t say anything and keeps it to himself out of some idiotic idea that he has to be strong and work it all out himself. It’s incredibly frustrating for Kise, who knows he’s not nearly as experienced at comforting people or that good with giving advice, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try, dammit!

What usually happens is he human-barnacles himself to Kasamatsu before he can vibrate out of his skin from all the tension, puts his chin on Kasamatsu’s head and tells him to talk, Yukio-san in a tone that brooks no argument, so Kasamatsu eventually deflates and does.

4. What is their favourite movie to watch together?

They like watching action comedies and sports movies together (and man do they love to rant about how inaccurate the latter often are, seriously, that coach should be fired for such an untenable training regimen and that captain is a complete idiot).

Kise also loves cheesy romance movies and tearjerky K-dramas, though those frustrate Kasamatsu endlessly with their idiotic cliché plots and people’s inability to just fucking talk to each other, what the fuck, so he usually goes to do something else while Kise catches up with the 537th episode of Passion Island or whatever.

Though occasionally he can’t help but overhear something or other and comments on it semi-automatically from across two rooms, like telling the crying heroine to “Just dump that guy, he’s a fucker” and he’s not even doing it to be a smart-ass or anything – like for a moment he’s genuinely giving advice to this idiot character he doesn’t even care about, and Kise suddenly can’t with the cute.

5. When did they know that they are each other’s soul mate?

Oh good god, no. I mean, Kise will sometimes jokingly call them soul mates, but as romantic as that concept is in the context of a movie, he much prefers this relationship where they have to compromise and learn to fit around each other’s little quirks and smooth out each other’s edges, and sometimes they fight, too, but that’s all part of what makes working things out together so worthwhile.

Kasamatsu just doesn’t get the concept, not even in a fictional sense, and it continues to baffle him that people like Moriyama can actually go on a hunt for a “soul mate” in real life, honestly, are you an idiot??? He just finds it so unrealistic that people expect to find someone “perfect” for them, and then have a crisis at the first sign of disagreement or whine about actually having to put in an effort. Moro––hmmmfhfhgh! *snogged within an inch of his life by Kise*

6. Where do they primarily kiss one another out in public? Examples forehead, cheek, hand etc.

They usually don’t? Kasamatsu gets easily embarrassed by PDA in general, plus they’re both mindful of the fact that Kise is becoming an increasingly public figure (once his career really takes off), and one thing they can both do without is having their relationship splayed out and picked apart in stupid gossip columns or lived through vicariously by crazy fans or whatever.

That said, Kise is really good at picking moments or places where nobody’s paying attention. Kasamatsu has found himself tugged into alcoves and behind clothes racks, or pecked in the half-second before he gets out of the car, and then he has to spend fifteen minutes getting rid of his flaming face. Urgh.

7. Who goes all out for the other persons birthday?

Nah. They’re both pretty low-key with each other. It’s all small, practical gifts and cake, mostly. Sometimes they’ll organize old team get-togethers for the occasion, but yeah, it’s all pleasantly uncomplicated.

8. Whose clothes is too big for the other, but they wear them anyway?

I’ve said it before, but I will say it again: Kise is simply heart-broken that Kasamatsu refuses to wear any of his clothes, and that he himself is too big to fit any of Kasamatsu’s. Sometimes he’ll steal a sweater to drape over his shoulders and be all pouty because that’s the best he can manage.

9. Who is the one who stays up late baking brownies and dancing in their underwear wearing a baggy shirt, and who is the one who comes down to see the other being all cute?

I’m sorry, I still find the idea kinda creepy in general. XD And they? Are so not the type to do this, even if this were a thing people actually did.

10. Would they cuddle even though it is super hot outside?

Kise tries, peels away ten seconds later to complain about how it’s too hot to do this, tries again half a minute later only to establish that it’s still too hot to do this, and this’ll go on until Kasamatsu threatens to dump his ass on the floor.