#or referenced as being mentally ill in any way. it's literally this one person and he's the most fleshed out out of all of them?

[musical-chick-13]

...That...sure was a reveal wasn’t it.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 145 thoughts!

what even was this chapter, y'all. i'm getting a migraine.

While it certainly wasn't actively bad, it basically hits on enough of the issues I've been having with the Movie Arc that if you've been reading my chapter reviews lately, you could probably write this one yourself. Weird pacing, skipping over interesting parts of the movie, continued framing of AQRB as a shallow gag and failing to follow on any of the implied development from or literally any referenced fallout of the kiss in 143? It's all here, babes. It would ultimately just be boring and redundant for me to go over all that at length again, so I won't.

I will however say that I'm pretty disappointed we're blasting through what had the potential to be some really interesting bits of postmortem characterization for Ai, even filtered through 15YL. I don't mind the manga breezing past scenes we saw firsthand but like… how did Ai react when she realized she was pregnant? How did she feel, especially given that Spica once again emphasized her longing for a family of her own? IDK. The way the story is suddenly jolting forwards in these last few chapters and skipping such huge chunks of Ai's life ultimately feels very strange and I don't know what to make of it yet.

Everyone reacting to Crow Girl's acting was pretty funny though I'm kind of exhausted with Ruby's Gaga-For-Oniichansensei Gag Character flanderization. IDK if my tolerance for it is just decreasing or if it really is amping up, but at least in the 125-137 stretch I at least got the sense that they could be in the same room and have a normal conversation but ever since 139, it feels that bit more relentless. I imagine this would be less irritating if we knew how the aftermath of 143 had played out but it really seems like the manga is going to drag this out until we're all old and grey.

THAT SAID, this chapter does confirm that Aqua's hoshigan stayed white after that chapter and… eh. Who even knows what that means lol. It does at least imply that his talk with Ruby has brought him back to Baseline Aqua but Baseline Aqua is still a guy with every single mental illness on planet earth so I don't know if that's the world's biggest W quite yet. It certainly implies an improvement over double black hoshigan but… again, with Aqua being so totally cut off from the readers this whole arc and no idea of what happened in the aftermath of 143, it's impossible to make a meaningful guess as to wtf is going on with Aqua right now.

Oh yeah, uh. This chapter also I guess constitutes the reveal of how the AQRB reincarnation happened. I guess LMAO. Honestly, I don't have much to say about it other than it feels like a bit of an anticlimax for me? The idea works fine, the execution just left me… idk. Whelmed at best, underwhelmed at most. I feel like this backstory and the implied deep fondness for GRSR -> AQRB it implies doesn't really like up with the personality she displays in the Private arc but like, I kind of feel like she was tossed into the story without Akasaka having a clear idea as to what her role was even going to turn into so maybe that's not a surprise LOL

I will say I'm glad this seems to quash the theory that Aqua and Ruby were secretly capital-G Gods, instead framing it as a Tsuru no Ongaeshi type return of kindness to two otherwise mundane people. There was some fun fan theorizing around the idea, but for me personally, Oshi no Ko is most interesting when it focuses on that aspect of the story Akasaka highlighted in an interview recently, of human relationships being warped by the entertainment industry and I think an explosion of the emotional stakes to the cosmic scale of AQRB (or tbh any of the characters) being Secretly Gods All Along would be a bit of a shark jump for me and would really shift away from what I like about the series most.

That's kind of it for this one…! Not really a lot to say about this chapter, which is why most of this review was me explaining why I didn't have a lot to say about it.

[anarchicarachnid]

"20% are either just using any mention of Vaush to just shit-talk him as a default without any stated reasons" - Vaush has engaged in forms of Holocaust denial, using common nazi dogwhistles and believes the numbers are inflated as propaganda. Vaush said: “If you are not paying for child pornography there is no argument in favour of morally condeming people who view it. Vaush admits to being an informant when he lived in Santa Monica, California. He admits to revealing activist identities to the FBI. Vaush called the LGBT community ‘cancerous as fuck.’ because there’s a “ton of mental illness” and said they should be “excised from the left.” He also called them “less than human” and “fucking disgusting”. Vaush called trans people ‘bitches’ for taking offence when misgendered." - Vaush deserves to be shit-talked, he's less-than-human scum.

For anyone interested, this is a fantastic example of how many people who view themselves as The Most Progressive will join in on internet hate mobs using the shallow guise of criticizing leftist advocates "from the left", while in actuality they're just hate-mongering based on shit they heard second- or third-hand, and which they don't understand, and which is provably false.

It's just too bad it actually takes way more effort to do the research necessary to disprove a list of lies than it does to parrot a bunch of shit you read and immediately believed, or sometimes just lying on purpose. SO: I went to the trouble of doing the research necessary to settle this stupid shit conclusively.

First of all, I respect that you're the one and only person who didn't respond positively to my message on that post but actually provided even a single argument for why you disagree. Unfortunately your intellectual dishonesty immediately ruins that respect.

So with this person's vague allusions to Holocaust revisionism and nazi dog whistles, my first guess would be the debate against Maupin, which was an extremely frustrating experience involving a dishonest cult leader tankie who actively engaged in his own very obvious genocide denial, and after about 40 minutes of taking him to task for actually being reactionary despite posturing as a leftist, Vaush calls out his attempts to deny the Uyghur genocide by listing common ways in which Nazis will similarly attempt to undermine the narrative of the Holocaust. He did this explicitly and obviously as a way to point out how his debate opponent was engaging in denialism, and to draw parallels. If you had actually seen this play out and still believe Vaush was just unironically listing Holocaust revisionist talking points that he agreed with, actually it's impossible, you're JUST a liar. So I don't believe you actually saw this yourself, you heard somebody else tell you what happened.

Another possible but less likely example of nazi talking points being referenced might be when, during the NonCompete debate, Vaush tried to point out that NC had no actual ethical system, and was instead just repeatedly referencing common leftie terminology such as dialectics and sophistry. And he did so by asking several successive rhetorical questions, which utterly reinforced that NC had no ethical system, once he repeatedly confirmed that he believes it to be impossible to objectively determine whether an action is right or wrong, instead deferring to shifting material conditions. Vaush's point, explicitly, was that whether the justifications the Nazis used for their evil actions, such as Jewish people being over-represented in the banking industry at the time, were true or false, the actions of the Nazis were STILL EVIL AND WRONG. But NC literally couldn't say "the Nazis were wrong in their genocidal actions even if their justifications were factual"

As for the idea that he ever said that CP was okay if it wasn't paid for. First of all: ???? Are you fucking stupid? Second of all, he was clear and re-explained later for the uncharitable or stupid people who misinterpreted his point: he was using CP specifically as a point of ethical comparison to point out how we societally tend to ignore other forms of cruelty and exploitation against children, such as child slavery involved in our economy on a massive scale, though it tends to be in the form of global industries that export products to the US and other places that consider themselves above child slavery. There is a really obvious benefit to using highly contentious examples when debating someone, and it's that some people are willing to bite the bullet on something that is unethical, but if you bring up a contentious example of something directly analogous they will hesitate, even though often the latter example is nearly identical in terms of severity.

Now, when it comes to the claim that he admitted to being an informant, I will admit that while he was joking, it wasn't very obvious. It was easy to misinterpret. But after viewing it again, it's really super clear that his point was specifically about how extremist and other types of radical political groups are what they are, and aren't non-radical simply because they tend to contain dishonest actors such as informants, followed by a his joke that absolutely isn't sincere admission of something that obvious never happened. Cause like.. what group could pre-fame Vaush ever have informed on? He was just a 20 year old in college before blowing up on youtube, he wasn't a major actor in any groups whatsoever.

As to where you get the specific claim that he "revealed activist identities to the FBI" the only thing I could find was a 20 second clip in a tweet specifically claiming that he did so as a way to get out of CP possession charges, the claim for which has zero evidence or further context whatsoever, and is a condensed clip of exactly the same video I already viewed again just to see if there was any possible way you could be misinterpreting this unintentionally. Again, you clearly read this shit out of context, were told what to believe, and immediately believed it because it confirmed what you already wanted to believe. Also that tweet is suuuuuuuuuper obviously dishonest hack shit. You should be embarrassed for this one.

He "called trans people bitches" as an extremely obvious joke in a tweet that he immediately added more context to with subsequent tweets, which specifically was about TYPOS, not actual misgendering. Typos get corrected immediately, misgendering is intentional. An explicitly pro-trans advocate who literally lives with two trans people and whose audience is full of at least tens of thousands of trans people who think he advocates for trans rights as well as anyone in his position is capable of, going on to make obvious trans-centric jokes sometimes, is uhhhh not transphobic probably??

Also in the other part of this, which you lumped together as one event, he called out certain parts of the online lgbt community as being toxic wokescolds who were actually really abusive, but hid behind identity politics to make themselves immune to criticism. And this is just objectively true, and further evidenced by the lgbt people who attempt to abuse him endlessly and dishonestly non-stop every single day and over every new incident of him being a progressive advocate but sometimes disagreeing with a fellow lgbt person, which I really shouldn't need to remind you.. He is. He is in the community. People love to erase that.

Furthermore in this instance he was defending Contrapoints, a trans woman, against abusive wokescolds, correctly. And of course later Contra refused to extend the same charitability to him when he was getting sexually harassed and character assassinated by a fellow trans woman content creator who similarly played up the IdPol angle to avoid criticism, and who also leaked DMs and physically mocked him, which is pretty disgusting behavior for a progressive public figure against another progressive public figure she just personally didn't like. And Contra admitted to not even having looked into the context before picking sides against him.

Furthermore, and I know he says it jokingly a lot because he's edgy and I really don't care about that, but your unironic vitriolic way of referring to him as sub-human scum who essentially deserves to have abusive hate mobs forever, because you saw some people on Twitter or whatever saying that he was an imperfect advocate for progressive values, well it's really telling of the way your extremely vitriolic feelings drive your every thought, utterly incapacitating your critical thinking. No doubt the reason why you straight up parrot such obviously dishonest sources of such obvious disprovable lies. And don't get me wrong, if my research into your claims had yielded any proof contrary to my prior knowledge, I'd have looked further into it. It's a good thing he just straight up isn't the caricature you're envisioning. ☺

This is of course all just to say that if someone is a confident and loud advocate for progressive values but reactionary elements of the supposed online left are *constantly* participating in an abusive hate mob against them, there is a good chance that those people are playing a neverending game of internet telephone in order to create confusion around the actual truth regarding various accusations, to the point that it's difficult to even know if someone saw something firsthand when they confidently throw out condemnations.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Hey, just putting this here since I saw this in the child liberation tag: furthering stigma against an also highly oppressed group to prove your point about childism also isn't okay. Don't be ableist to people with NPD and normalize the idea that the single most acceptable form of abuse in society against those that msot adults don't even view as people is a result of mental illness, of "narcissism" and perpetrated by "narcissists". You recognize how prevalent this abuse is, so maybe recognize that no, 99 percent of the population don't have a serious traumagenic mental illness.

Oh and btw if you think colloquial use of the word is okay because you didn't specifically say "NPD", first of all most people do in fact use the two interchangeably, and second of all how would you feel if "autistic" meant "evil inherently abusive monster" but it was "okay" because "I didn't say autism spectrum disorder!!1"

Like come on if you say "that person is so [literal part of a name of a marginalized identity] in a derogatory way you can't claim that you didn't actually mean that marginalized identity because you just meant someone with these super evilbad TRAITS of the disorder that have nothing to do with the (pop psych misinformation about the) disorder you prommy!!!

Also, NPD stigma directly intersects with child liberation. They have raised the minimum suggested age for cluster B disorder diagnosis because ableist psychiatrists were diagnosing perfectly reasonable reactions to extreme abuse and trauma that children were facing as cluster B disorders because they were 'noncompliant' and basically inconvenient reactions for said adult psych professionals. And instead of, y'know, destigmatizing these literal traumagenic disorders that are just similar collections of reasonable trauma reactions that cause distress and dysfunction to the person experiencing them... they said nope children can't have these at all to 'protect' them. And these are the same people that will laugh at children and call it a social contagion and tiktok misinformation if they self-diagnose with a cluster B disorder...

Not receiving my diagnosis much earlier nearly literally killed me. Receiving it any later (and I received it at 23) WOULD HAVE literally killed me. Like maybe in fact diagnoses should never be nonconsensually applied but children should in fact be able to consent to those diagnoses too and receive effective symptom based treatment in a psych system unrecognizable from our current utterly rotting from the inside out one. Maybe in fact the level of control and removal of autonomy over neurodisabled and mentally ill people is almost the exact same coercion over the "disruptive" and "inconvenient" involved in childism and even the infantilizing "protection" via removal of autonomy to further perpetrate said abuse against us.

Maybe in fact child abuse and abuse of vulnerable disabled adults (this does apply to all disabilities, I'm only focusing on psych ones because of the specific ableism addressed at the beginning of this post) are in fact two sides of the same coin.

anyway sleep deprived angry madpunk pro-child-liberation rant over. that person was probably just misinformed or unaware of the ableism behind the term, hence making my own entirely separate post and not naming them. if they see this, this is partially a vent post anyway and not meant to be an attack on them at all. (also obviously don't fucking harass them if you see the post being referenced and don't go looking for it)

I'm hopefully gonna log off now and get some sleep

[nightcolorz]

🌍 and 🔍 obviously for Armand

Fuck yes tysm anon looooove this animal!!!! "Obviously for Armand" is killing me like yes so true he is my brand

🔎: something about the modern era not referenced in the books that you think [insert character] would find upsetting or confusing + why?

This almost feels too obvious but the invasion of Ukraine I imagine would be pretty triggering and upsetting for Armand. For pretty self explanatory grew up in Kiev under invasion slash power of Ghengis Khan subsequent kidnapping and selling trauma.

On a less serious note I think Armand would find combat video games rlly confusing lmao. Ik this is probably a hot take but I have reasoning ! In devil's minion Armand describes to Daniel how he doesn't understand war or violence between men cuz violence to him isn't something he would ever choose, it's not exciting to him and it doesnt like call to him the way he imagines it does to other ppl, he is only so violent because he was born into violence raised to become used to pain and as a vampire violence is inherent + necessary.

So like I imagine if he found out about first person shooters killing games etc he wouldn't understand why they exist 😭 I think he'd really enjoy the technological and mechanic aspects that go into a game and find them really appealing for that reason (I could def see Armand having a gamer phase) but conceptually killing games would confuse him. I imagine while crushing Daniel in call of duty Armand's questioning him the whole time over why it is so overwhelmingly common for mortals to design experiences were they can fantsize about taking life while Daniel is just like oh my god Armand its not that deep ur distracting me 😭

🌍: if [insert character] were human and so was everyone else, what would their life be like? for example: what would their career be? where would they live? what about their relationship to [insert character]?

Oooo don't u dare activate human au brain (excitement). I love human aus cuz it strips away any supernatural justification for the characters being so fucked up and instantly reduces them to guys who r just like that it's so funny.

I could see Armand as an interior designer, smth sort of formulaic but still artistic. Interior design calls to me for him cuz of his passion for designing his loved ones elaborately lavish living spaces as a form of love language (trinity gate, night island). Obvs I have a human au and my Armand live's in New York, so I'm gonna go with that. Interior designer living in New York Lmao whose in the worst ever pseudo polycule with his old friend (derogatory) Lestat, Lestat's husband Armands ex husband (non literal) slash current boyfriend Louis and his bitch he keeps on a leash and does kink with in non consenting public spaces Daniel.

It feels so silly saying this cuz my fic is literally a social media au but I think that in a general human au Armand would not use social media like he'd have accounts and use the Internet but I can not see him blogging tweeting tiktoking etc. having a social media presence requires a certain level of gratification and enjoyment with sharing urself with others and being a public figure that army doesnt have lmao he hates to be perceived + consumed and thats what being online is all about ❤️

Anyways relationship wise I think Daniel is the most interesting to talk about in a human au cuz there relationship is so centrally vampiric like the whole conflict and crazy devotion comes from that, and in my heart and soul a human devil's minion has the same insanity that is justified by Daniel just being very mentally ill and Armand just being very into bdsm and blood play role play shit, love wins. Kidding they r both very mentally ill, I imagine the vampire conflict would translate into daniel being crazy obsessed with Armand and desperately longing for a deeper emotional intimacy and commitment, maybe even marriage, and armand keeps pushing him away cuz for trauma reasons he likes to keep ppl at arms length, so they r just doing bdsm shit but they r in love and army doesn't know what to do with that cuz the vulnerability of being emotionally intimate is scarier then physical esp when u have the power in the sexual dynamic. also Daniel alcoholism plus Armand every disorder and trauma is a formula for big blow out arguments all the time. Maybe they get healthy one day and adopt some fuck ass kid or two (Benji and sybelle wink wink)

Human au Marius wise makes me shudder cuz the most canon accurate stand in would be Marius adopts Armand when he's a kid or takes him in, fosters him, etc which is pretty hashtag disturbing 😭 but if I were to write a human au that's not millennia gate (my fic) that's what I'd do 😊

Armands history with Lestat and Louis I imagine would be pretty similar to canon just to a smaller less vampiric scale cuz queer ppl r just like that they r all exes they r all dating and having casual sex and marrying. I would elaborate more on this but I would just be semi spoiling my plans for my fic Lmao so ig stay tuned

Anyways love u for this anon I love Armand love that animal he is my fav ever shrieks and explodes

[carousel-of-souls]

Metropolis Atlanta Backstory: Lois Lane

Deciding to give Lois her own post instead of being conjoined with Clark, copy and pasted stuff but there’s also a lot of new info.

Warnings: domestic abuse, divorce, referenced torture

Lois’ mother left after Lois’ little sister Lucy was born. Lois hated her for years until she realized her father had been very mentally abusive (Lois experienced that herself). Both her parents were originally from Chicago but Lois has never been there.

Lois grew up in various military bases. Sam Lane being a not so great dad to her and her sister, who is 15 now, has lead to Lois having very strong feelings about the military.

She has gotten a bit of a reputation for stopping to chew out predatory military recruiters around the high schools and impoverished areas.

Lois is currently in a custody battle with her father over Lucy as she doesn’t want her history to repeat on someone else. Going through this ordeal has helped Lois understand why her mother didn’t fight to get them, she doesn’t forgive her but she understands.

Lucy likes the idea of living with Lois but sometimes she gets angry because Sam compares her “failures” to Lois’ success, trying to pit the two against eachother. In the same breath he’ll insult Lois so he only acknowledges any success she has for nefarious purposes.

She and Leslie (later Livewire) were friends since they were about 8. Lois’ mom wanted Lois to have a normal as possible childhood so she let Lois go to summer camp one year and that’s where Lois met Leslie. They stayed pen pals but lost touch around their teen years.

Later they got into a little reporting fued because of Leslie being anti-Superman on her radio show. Lois hadn’t seen her face and didn’t connect the name so she didn’t realize Leslie was her Leslie. When they met in person all the semi-playful animosity they’d built up melted away.

Later Leslie admitted maybe she was so hard on Superman cause she was jealous he got to hold Lois all the time. Lois said she’d rather be held when not in danger so she and Leslie started dating. Clark and Lois weren’t living together at this point.

Leslie and Lois got engaged and had their wedding in Gotham. Usually that would be ill advised but Gotham rogues are way less likely to mess with Superman so they wouldn’t try to snatch Lois to get his attention. There was a significant risk of that happening in Metropolis, it did happen during the rehearsal.

Everything was going perfectly until the reception.

Clark didn’t know what kryptonite was at this time but Lex was figuring it out. He’d put tiny amounts on some of his creations, only enough for Clark to think he was having an off fighting day but enough for Lex to know it had an effect.

Lois and Leslie had worked together on an expose on Lex that got him some bad press and a few months of legal trouble.

He’d planted some staff at the reception and had them leave purposeful clues about some scheme to get Superman’s attention which it did. When Clark went to investigate he was overpowered with kryptonite, encountering a fist sized piece of it for the first time.

With Superman out of the way Lex had a big robot crash the place, literally. Leslie had been on and off working the DJ booth and that’s where she was when the water pipes in the ceiling got exploded by the robot. She got intensely electrocuted and she doesn’t know if it’s spite or just the water in Gotham but she didn’t die. She also developed electricity powers.

She blamed Superman for not being there and it really drove her and Lois apart. Especially because for the next four weeks Superman was gone, being tortured by Lex.

This was before Clark and Bruce knew eachother but Bruce noticed the absence and how Metropolis was going downhill so he tracked Clark down and freed him. He also had to nurse Superman back to health for a day or two, this was definitely the moment Bruce went from being skeptical about the hero to being slightly in love with him.

When Clark came back Lois was inconsolably furious at him for disappearing. He ended up revealing his identity because he felt like she deserved an explanation. Even though it was during an argument it was a very special and moving moment for them. Lois now fully understood that things were out of Clark’s hands so she really couldn’t side with Leslie.

Leslie became Livewire after Superman came back and she kidnapped Lois, forcing her to make a choice. It hurt Lois a lot but she chose Clark because she could see Leslie wasn’t the same person anymore, before the accident she would’ve never purposefully put Lois in danger or distress like that.

◦ Lois went through a very bad depression for a few months. The editor in chief at the Daily Planet, Perry, just told her not to come in if she didn’t feel like it (he was at the wedding and reception so he saw how bad things were). Around this time Lois and Clark got closer and moved in together but they were having a lot of trouble figuring out how they felt about eachother. Especially since Clark was falling for Bruce and Lois was still technically married. They don’t exactly have the dynamic of just friends, but they don’t exactly have romantic feelings for eachother. They settled on saying they’re queerplatonic partners if anyone asked.

Additional Details:

Lois has things like handcuffs, pepper spray, tasers, knives etc. in her purse because she’s been abducted by rogues and such enough to need them.

Lois goes through a lot of heels either breaking them and losing them while running or using them to stab others.

[underworld-cows]

Analysis of the car in TØP's "A Car, a Torch, a Death" Can be an Allegory to Life With a Chronic Illness

For the purpose of this analysis, a "Chronic Illness" can be described as a terminal illness, a disability, a chronic medical condition, and/or mental illness. Twenty One Pilot's "A Car, a Torch, a Death" is about a person struggling to just keep going. This song is generally interpreted to be about life and the inevitability of death, but it has been a comfort to me in my experience with chronic illness since its release, and I want to share why. TW: generally, this post is meant to be a "I understand your pain and we've got this" vibe, but it does discuss emotionally-challenging topics such as depression.

1 "The air begins to feel a little thin As I start the car, and then I begin To add the miles piled up behind me I barely feel a smile deep inside me"

There is a discussion here about the mental state of someone suffering from an illness. While dealing with often invisible symptoms (line 1), it feels very lonely and it's a struggle against yourself (line 2). The driver starts the car alone, feeling numb. They begin to look back in time, thinking of where they came from, and reminiscing (line 3). It feels like "how did it come to this?" "I miss the good old days before I felt this way." Thinking back on the good times, they feel a hint of happiness, but before it can get to the surface, it's shattered by the reality of where they are right now (line 4). They feel the smile deep inside, but the past is just inside, and on the outside, you must move forward. They miss before they got sick, but it's behind them.

5 And I begin to envy the headlights driving south I want to crack the door so I can just fall out

Here, the driver begins to think bitterly about other drivers (line 5). The driver is moving North (in a chronic illness metaphor, it seems North is toward survival), and the headlights driving South are headed towards progress and living the way the driver wishes they were be moving. The driver begins to feel bitter because it's hard to see others make it when you just can't. The driver considers just giving up*. Stop moving forward. Stop moving North. Just open the door, let themself "fall out", and give in. It's just too much. The road to survival is a lonely one.

*I see this less as a metaphor for literal death, but more as a metaphor for giving up with the "survival" routine of self-care, and instead just giving up on the effort of managing a chronic illness and trying to get better.

7 But then I remember when you packed my car You reached in the back and buckled up your heart For me to drive away with

This is when the driver begins to realize that they're not as alone as they believe. They're driving, and though they want to give up, they know that someone trusted them to keep going. The driver at this point realizes that if they can't live for themself, they must live for the people that need them. Sometimes, the people in our lives are the only thing that keeps us going. A person's who's chronically ill doesn't trust their body, their mind, or their perception of the world. They can't trust they'll have a future, that they won't plummet at any moment, or that they will make it to the end of the road. But something about someone else putting trust in them gives them hope that it's okay to trust the road. It's okay to trust the car. Just keep driving. And at least you're not alone.

10 I began to understand why God died

I grew up being taught that God had a lot on his plate, he made sacrifices, but he was always needed. People pray to him as if he can fix everything. I'm not religious anymore, but the metaphor still stands that God is running thin with so many people relying on him. Here, the speaker is referencing the exhaustion, fatigue, and the overwhelming force it takes to drag themself through life. They're spreading thin between their own needs, and what it means to live for someone else. They now understand why God couldn't take it anymore and "died." They would die too, if it wasn't for the fact that despite it all, they just kept moving forward because they aren't God, and they have no other choice.

Conclusion

Living with a chronic illness is exhausting. It's a constant fight around getting up and doing it all over again every day. Sleep, eat, hydrate, take meds, go on a walk, have a conversation with a real human, rest, rest, rest, work, rest, breathe, exhaustion, fatigue, take meds, sleep, repeat. You expected to thrive, but everyday is survival all over again, and you yearn to be in a time where it wasn't that way. But sometimes, people trust you. People trust that even with all you're going through, they can count on you. And you can count on them. And something about that human connection is so exhausting, but is also so energizing. It's a push and pull of forcing yourself to speak and then feeling the high of not being alone, and then you have to force yourself to shut up!

You might be tired, and it's hard to keep driving, but there's someone in the car with you who needs you to keep going. And there's other drivers on the road. And it's exhausting. And it's life.

This is one of my favorite Twenty One Pilots songs. I hope that in some way, this analysis can show what it is like when you wake up from autopilot and realize what it means to be on the road to survival, and mourning your situation all over again. This song has been a mirror for me throughout the years, and it has helped me through a lot of flare-ups.

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

Sorry if this is weird - but can we get The Star Seven and where they fall on the LGBT spectrum? :3 Or physical/mental illness N stuff? (Also you're my favorite fanfic author of all time! Ur so cool <3 )

Oh my GODDDDDDDD FIRST OF ALL!!!

Tysm I’m fucking losing my shit at being someone’s favorite fanfic author!!! And I am ALWAYS down to go stupid abt OrangeJuiceVerse oh my fuck.

Also!!!! There is not a single neurotypical mf in the entire 7!!! These bitches are soooo out here terrorizing any therapist they try to go to. So to start Off.

Kyle. That little I Learned Something Today Ass Bitch is SO fuckin gay!!! Like he realized as a preteen that he he didn’t actually like women like that (no wonder he’s Maidenless smh) and he was like OH! Bc the way he felt abt Stan was soooo homiesexual dear lord he whole ass kept it to himself for way too long. He’s also on the ace spectrum, bc as a demi loser, I feel like he’s demi idc. Like this man fr thought porn was something only referenced in movies and then Kenny showed him some shit and he was like WHAT THE GODDAMN HELL IS THIS rip same Ky. As for mental illnesses and such, aside from being Down Horrendous for the sbf, this poor guy is sooo fucked in the brain. So he’s got awful anxiety, borderline obsessive compulsive tendencies, a fucking eating disorder (for a lil while in hs, he’s mentally fine in that department during most of the ojv), some kinda martyr complex. And physically? Mans a mess. Type 1 diabetes, absolute shit immune system, chronic issues with his left knee, probably anemia, on the verge of developing early onset arthritis when he gets older bc he fucked his body up with the ed, he’s STRUGGLING. He’s also stubborn as fuck and has frequently passed out because he didn’t want to check his levels. He gets in trouble with literally everyone for that.

STAN!!! Jesus this poor boy. My absolute Bi King!!! (Kyle may be the one biking around town bc his road rage is so godawful but Stan is the BI-king) yeah I’m a bi Stan believer bc this man is a HUGE simp!!! Ohhhh my god this boy when he was younger he’d see someone pretty and be SO down bad. But the only person he ever was actually good at being in a relationship with was Kyle. Stanley Down Bad Marsh, since the moment he knew what beauty was, beauty was Kyle. He did have a crush on Wendy in 4th grade, but then he was like kyyyylllleee. (Jail to stan). God his brain is so fucked. First of all RANDY is his father so he’s got trauma out the wazzoo, he’s an alcoholic, and he’s so plagued with adhd and dyslexia like pack it up Percy Jackson (he’s so Percy coded argue w the wall) plus this guy is depressed as hellllll. Oh my fuck Sadsack is real his lows are LOW and Kyle has threatened him with his therapist friends before. He’s doing better later down the timeline, thank you aa, oh yeah there’s the alcoholism too, but he’s the support group KING my darling boy ojv stan!!!

Kenny. Ok man the Kenny Of It All is sooooo bizarre. So he is immortal, but no one knows except for Marj! This takes such a mental toll on him, this guy is out here fully discombobulated bc he just came back from a rebirth and everyone’s like oh hey Ken where’d u go yesterday. His deaths have gotten less frequent as he grows up, but tbh he is still veeeerrry prone to bouts of depression and anxiety because of them, especially when he feels forgotten. I delved into that here and a tiny bit here, his mentality honestly can’t really be put into words. Like his brain doesn’t make sense even to himself. ALSO!!! He is THE Pan Without A Plan he’s so all over the place if you put him in the same room with Stan (his Blood Brother In Desperation, his Ride Or Die Disaster Bi), someone’s comin out in need of an emergency room.

Tweek!!!!! Dude Tweek that poor kid. Addiction, ocd, anxiety, the guys got it all. Also, another bitch on the ace spectrum? Yep. Homoromantic for sure, and closer to the sex-repulsed side of things.

Craig is an enigma dude, like this mf is so nonchalant about everything until he isn’t, the typa man to just casually drop some random piece of lore and you’re just like BRUH TF?!? Smh but anyway so he’s autistic, diagnosed as a kid when his parents were like our son got something goin on, and then everyone in his life was like ohhhh that makes sense. He gets kind of violent in his meltdowns, punching walls and shit, and he’s SCARY!! Not because he’s trying to be, like OrangeJuiceVerse Craig is such a softie, but he’s also scary looking! Like he’s 6’4 and long as hell, resting bitch face, he’s honestly kind of terrifying until you get used to him. He’s got the most absurd dry sense of humor though omg he and Kyle have this stupid “we can be assholes for fun” vibe. He’s a full blown gay ass dude btw.

MARJORINE MY BELOVED! She doesn’t label herself really, she just knows she loves Kenny, and her heart is so big like Love Is Stored In The Marj (unfortunately she’s also the queen of mlms and has had multiple pick me phases smh gullible queen). So she ALSO is autistic, and omg she’s a lot of the reason Kyle switched his major from premed to psych. I’ve mentioned before the m5 living together the first year of college and one time Marj had a bit of a problem at a karaoke bar with Stan and Stan my precious sweetheart IMMEDIATELY brought her to Ky (Kenny had studio hours) and Kyle’s letting her braid his hair and he’s helping her through her meltdown and she’s like “you should really do this as your job”. She was right. Kyle’s fantastic at what he does.

Jesus fuckin Christ Cartman. No one knows what the hell his sexuality is. He won’t tell you. He won’t disclose his pronouns either. (Tbh this mf never fully figures out his sexuality or gender he’s just vibin and also doesn’t care.) Also bruhhhh he’s such a disaster mentally. He’s been on a cocktail of meds since middle school for schizophrenia, sociopathic personality disorder, bpd, poor dudes got too damn much going on. BUT he’s relatively stable from like 6th grade onwards. Just an asshole for fun and out of habit. (OJV Cartman is so much fun to me)

OKAY! Dude you have no idea how excited I was to get this ask I’ve wanted to talk abt what the OJV Star Seven have goin on mentally foreeeevvvver!!!

Any curiosities someone has about OrangeJuiceVerse or ANY of my other stuff PLEASE ask me about whatever! I am super annoying and Weird!!!

[batarangsoundsdumb]

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep22

All of this ‘the culprit’s motives are super shallow and they’re just unhealthily obsessive’ discourse is giving me war flashbacks to . . . . basically every other part of the entire When They Cry franchise, lol.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus spoilers for Umineko]

I feel like at the end of the day we’re all just gonna have to agree to disagree about how we feel about how Ryukishi is handling Satoko as the culprit here, since I don’t really think any amount of social media posts detailing our interpretations of her character are gonna change anyone’s minds, lol. But I’m still gonna give my thoughts on her anyway because it’s fun, even if I’m basically just preaching to the choir.

To be honest, this feels pretty much in line with how Ryukishi already wrote characters like Takano and Beatrice, in terms of them having unhealthy obsessions that lead them to mass-murder. The amount of violence Satoko has caused is arguably worse than either of them, but they’re all pretty awful if you think about the reality of what they all did as villains.

Sorta like with how a lot of the old-school Umineko discourse went, I think people are too focused on the whole idea of Satoko hating studying, and ignoring everything else about her character and her circumstances. Although even then I feel like people are being kinda unfair toward Satoko about how strongly she feels about academics, but maybe I’m just biased because of my own history with schooling and the intense levels of anxiety and self-hatred that can go along with it.

Plus the fact that Satoko already has a long history of sever abandonment issues, and has basically always had HS that amplified her feelings of paranoia and persecution. It’s pretty obvious at this point that she never really got ‘cured’ in the first place, though it’s less important to think about HS as an in-universe fictional disease with it’s own rules, and more important to just think about it as a representation of real-life mental illnesses which aren’t bound by the rules of made-up brain-worm parasites and aliens or whatever.

Also, the Satoko that started all this looping in the first place was one who never dealt with Teppei returning to the village, and thus never went through her whole character arc related to that. The series is kinda ambiguous about how it handles the idea of people’s character development carrying over between loops, but it explains a lot about Satoko’s attitude here if you go with the idea that she never really had to overcome any of her trauma or coping mechanisms in the “good ending timeline”, and this is the consequence of that taken to it’s logical extreme. The idea of her view of the world being skewed by the fact that she only remembers the “good ending timeline” is also kinda lamp-shaded by the part where she hears about Rika’s looping and is like “oh yeah, that’s the month where we had that cool action movie stand-off with the Mountain Dogs :)”. By the time she really got to understand exactly what was going on beyond the specific timeline she had experienced, she was already way over the edge.

I get why people don’t like the idea of Gou ‘tainting’ the VN’s happy ending, but I honestly like the idea that it’s examining the consequences of how Matsuribayashi was such an overly-specific timeline where basically nothing bad happened and everyone just banded together to beat Takano. It kinda glossed over a lot of the personal problems that the main cast had in the rest of the series, and this really goes to show the effects of some of that stuff not getting properly addressed. It also reminds me that Minagoroshi is a timeline that even in the VN, Rika completely lost her memories of, so I can see how even post-Matsuribayashi she might have never let Satoko know about the details of that one timeline where she overcome her abuse.

I also feel like it only really got to this point because of Featherine’s meddling. In the original Matsuribayashi timeline, Satoko just started drifting away from Rika and ended up wandering into the Saiguden and meeting Featherine before anything actually serious happened in that timeline. I think that if she had just been left to her own devices and that timeline had just kept going, Satoko probably would have either found a way to reconnect with Rika, or they would have just slowly drifted apart for good. But then Satoko got given the power to time travel, and only started going off the deep end after going through another five years of identical suffering.

And on that whole note, it reminds me of how in Umineko, Lambda had a whole conversation about the idea of an abused person becoming an abuser themself if they’re given the power to lash out. Which is basically what’s happening here. Satoko is being given the tools to completely detach herself from reality and try as many times as she likes to get what she wants.

Which also reminds me that this episode in particular REALLY lays the Umineko parallels on thick, lol. Particularly the whole ‘Satoko is turning into Lambda’ thing, which feels just about 100% confirmed now. They straight up have Featherine bring up the exact same ‘monkeys using a typewriter’ analogy to explain Rika’s situation that Lambda uses in Umineko to explain Bern’s situation.

I know a lot of people don’t like the increasingly blatant Umineko tie-ins, and that a lot of people still think it might just be misdirection, but considering how much stuff in Gou has been surprisingly straightforward and predictable, I think it’s pretty much exactly what it seems to be.

Though to be more specific, this is probably more about the start of Lambda and Bern’s relationship, and their appearances in Umineko, rather than the very first origins of them as individuals, if that makes sense. Obviously the concept of Bernkastel as an identity has been around since Higurashi itself, and we’ve known for a long time that Lambda was the one who originally gave Takano her blessing of certainty, but we’ve never known the full details of how those two started their relationship, and Featherine’s whole series of name-drops in the last episode makes it seem like Lambda as a meta individual more or less already exists, with Satoko being an iteration of her. So I think they both technically already exist, but this is how the two of them come into contact and start their whole unhealthily obsessive relationship.

I guess it’s still possible that, even if she’s already existed for a long time as a meta individual, she hasn’t actually come up with the name ‘Lambdadelta’ for herself yet, and this might be where she does so. Even with the list of names Featherine referenced, she didn’t technically bring up Lambda’s name directly. So in that sense this might be ‘Lambda’s’ origin story, even if she already exists.

Considering how basically the entire story at this point seems to be acting in service of setting up the whole LambdaBern relationship dynamic no matter what, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this will end with Satoko and Rika fully embracing their codependency and mutually ascending to the meta plane so they can stay together once and for all. There might still be human versions of them that stay behind in the real world and continue living normal lives, though.

At the very least, it feels like that’s the logical outcome of the whole Chekov’s Sword Fragment plot device that’s been hanging in the background for ages now. I think it’ll just be the in-universe explanation they use to show the mechanics of how exactly that process works. It’ll probably be used to ‘sever’ Satoko and Rika’s meta consciousnesses from their physical bodies and allow them to basically become witches.

Mainly I just can’t really see this having a ‘happy ending’ at this point, aside from the whole idea that maybe the severing process leaves behind ‘normal’ versions of the two of them who stay in Hinamizawa and go back to their normal lives. I dunno if that’d make people happy, but it’d at least be a way for Ryukishi to have his cake and eat it too, lol.

I just don’t think that there’s any real chance of this ending with them just talking to each other and agreeing to put an end to all this, though. For one thing that’d just feel kinda anticlimactic and honestly make Gou’s story feel even MORE pointless, if it just ends with literally the exact same ending as the VN with nothing really being changed. But I also feel like Featherine wouldn’t be willing to just let Satoko ‘give up’ without having one of them definitively win their current game. In general I just feel like Ryukishi should just commit to the story he’s setting up at this point, instead of just backing out at the last minute and circling everything back to the same ending we already had like nothing in Gou ever happened. If we’re gonna have this whole new story to begin with, it should at least have some lasting consequences.

Anyway, I think in the next episode we’re finally going to loop back to the Damashi arcs and see how they played out. At this point I don’t care too much about getting answers to the ground-level mysteries of those arcs, and I doubt the story will spend much time on that, but I’m curious to see how it progresses Satoko’s whole development through these loops, since I think she goes through some changes with her motives and methods over the course of them.

Specifically I think that the actual experience of being physically present in her own set of loops and causing so much pain and suffering started to get to her, and she might have almost given up in her own way during Tataridamashi and wanted to just stay in that arc, but things went south anyway. Maybe, if that’s what happened, Featherine basically let her know that she won’t let her give up, and will force her to keep looping until one of them ‘wins’ no matter what. Either way, I think that arc was a turning point for her. Like how she asked Featherine to arrange things so that Satoko can make sure that she and Rika’s loops are synced up, she probably asked Featherine after that arc to change the rules again so that Rika will start remembering the details of her deaths. At this point it’s pretty obvious that the Hanyuu fragment Rika was talking to earlier in Gou was more or less just Featherine putting on an act and manipulating her, so the scene of Hanyuu giving her the power to remember her deaths was probably just Featherine telling her about the rule change.

And going by how the Nekodamashi arc went immediately afterward, I think that rule change was related to Satoko becoming increasingly desperate to put an end to the loops as soon as possible. And considering how she was willing to spend so much time reviewing Rika’s hundred years of looping just to prepare for this, it’d make sense to me if she becomes desperate because she basically gives up, but realizes that she isn’t actually allowed to give up, so she has to try and make Rika give in as fast as possible. Either way it’s pretty obvious that Satoko’s methods start becoming more violent in that arc, and she basically tries to brute-force Rika into submission, leading up to the loop where she just spawn-camps her and straight up starts screaming at her to just stay in the village while tearing out her guts. It’s still possible that her attitude in that loop was just one big act, but I think that was the result of her being genuinely desperate to just have Rika give up once and for all, and her starting to crack under the pressure of doing all of these things with her own hands across so many loops. 

So now we’ll just have to see how the confrontation between them at the end of Nekodamashi plays out once we get back to it. In the long run I just think it’ll lead to the ending I talked about before, with them using the sword on each other. The exact nuances of how that sorta ending might play out are up in the air, though.

Either way, I think there’s probably enough time to wrap up all that in two more episodes, but there’s still reason to believe that there might be some kind of sequel in the works. I don’t really want to bet on it, though, so I’m just gonna assume that there’s two episodes left and base my theories on that. In which case I think the next episode will go over the Damashi arcs and end with Rika and Satoko’s confrontation at the end of Nekodamashi, and then the final episode will wrap everything up. Considering that they both more or less know exactly what’s going on with each other by that point, there isn’t really that much that needs to be wrapped up. I think that will be the final loop we get, so it’ll all just come down to how their confrontation plays out, and what decision they come to about how to handle each other.

I honestly don’t really know how I think a full sequel would go, if it’s at least one cour long. Assuming that it’s not just a new Umineko anime that more or less continues Rika and Satoko’s arc via Lambda and Bern, but is a straight up ‘Higurashi Gou Season 2′. It just feels like there isn’t really that much that needs to be done to wrap things up, now that everything’s being laid out in the open, and Rika and Satoko are both aware of each other’s looping. They might switch it up so that they both end up teaming up to take down Featherine, but I kinda doubt that’ll happen.

I’m still hoping this is leading into some kind of new Umineko anime though, lol. That feels like it’d be the main reason for putting so much effort into this whole elaborate LambdaBern origin story we’re getting here.

I’ve heard rumors that there’s been listings for a 25th episode of Gou, so it’s possible that rather than another full season, there’s just one extra episode at the end. I’m not exactly sure what the point of doing one extra unannounced episode at the end would be, though. It might end up being a bridge between Gou and a new Umineko anime.

At the very least, if it’s just ‘Satokowashi Part 8′, it makes me wonder why they haven’t announced it yet, and why they didn’t just split that arc into two BD volumes with four episodes each, instead of having it be one big volume with seven episodes, and one random episode at the end for some reason. But if it’s more of an epilogue or a bridge of sorts between Gou and something else, with Gou’s story concluding with episode 24, then I guess it’d make some sense to do it that way.

We also know there’s gonna be a panel for Gou at a convention around when ep24 comes out, so if anything gets announced it’ll probably happen there.

Anyway, this whole episode can be summed up as “Satoko does a gay little psychological torture that pisses Rika off”, in the most morbidly entertaining way possible, lmao.

[border-spam]

Does troy really have a split jaw or is that fanon?

It's total fanon!

The design of the split lines across his cheekbones and chin coupled with the cheek clips and v shaped hinge outline next to his ears lead to a lot of people coming to that same outcome, that there is something up with his mouth from a prosthetic/mod standpoint.

So much of his design is never mentioned once or referenced in any way (hightech spinal rig with tattoos under it, neuro connector, mech arm that's much older and doesn't seem related to the spine and neuroport, implants on bicep, face mod etc) that like Tyreen's scars and possible lower body Siren markings, fandom took over when it came to coming up with logical explanations for 'em.

This actually touches ground with some Ao3 comments I wanted to share as they are all Leech Lord compliant, so I'll list them here alongside links to the fics they were related to (note warnings!)

You leave no avenue for characterization unexplored. Troy's facial prostheses finally receiving backstory is amazing

- Maw (Gore/Bodyhorror)

I LOVE the idea of it being not just decorative shit on his face, but my MO for any content I make is always based around asking why, over and over, and trying to make sense of what material I'm using in the first place. The modded mouth is a popular piece of fanon but you know... why? Why would he do that shit to himself. WHY would he want to be grotesque, why would he be chasing the reaction people would have to it when canonically he seems to really not be interested in fan attention the same way Tyreen is, what's the difference to him between being adored as his persona or being lusted after as a monster, etc. I just love deep-diving into the logic behind character and world building? It's what adds meat to the bone for me.

Big 'ol character and worldbuilding / lore responses list under the cut -

He could afford better robots but these ones UNDERSTAND Ty, don't you get it?

- Good night in (tooth rotting fluff)

Hey just because it's mangled and broken, and can't perform its intended function to a degree expected of it by everyone around it... and it's got rusty sharp bits it accidentally hurts you with sometimes... and it's cranky but it doesn't mean it... and sometimes it errors out in a way that's mildly disturbing in a way you can't place.. uh.. doesn't mean you should just GIVE UP ON IT you know? He can fix them :) They will be fine :) No one should just throw away something that's trying so hard just because it's damaged... haha... :')

It's so hard seeing how much they tear each other down when they're the only thing they have left. And what a poor self-image Tyreen has beyond all that glitter and bluster...

- Wolf in sheep's clothing

The twins function well enough as a unit till tensions rise, and I was trying to seed in The Leech's influence on them in earlier work like this too - towards anyone else Ty would become MORE aggressively confident, more assured in her complete and utter dominance of the situation, her flawlessness, but against Troy who see's her for what she is, it turns inwards and eats at her instead of lashing outwards. He switches from relatively submissive around her to almost surgical levels of dissection, he knows exactly how to go for the jugular with words, and doesn't hold back. She's The Leech's mouth but he's its eyes and it's only when they lose control emotionally enough for it to claw to the surface of their psyches that you get an idea of how much it really affects them individually. GB had an absolute goldmine on their hands here of cosmic/body horror and the concept of toxic family when all you have is each other, there's so much to work with, and I figure it's a factor in why some people still really enjoy messing around with Calypso content.

I like how you allow Troy to be a disabled character, how his congenital defects and prosthetics colour his outlook and appear in ways big and small in all these vignettes. It's easy, I think, to see him as largely untroubled by his health apart from when he needs a charge from Tyreen in the game, but you allow him to struggle with his weakness.

- Chronic (Drug use)

I'm really glad to hear that's coming through in the writing because it's something I noticed a lot too. Very often when Troy, or other characters canonically disabled / chronically unwell are written it's "told" and not "shown". Chronic pain, illness, it's not something that is just a little tickbox in a life or some descriptive terms added to a character synopsis, it's something you live and deal with. There are bad days. There are times it is a negative that has to be worked around or faced in ways that aren't pleasant. It doesn't make you lesser or weak to have times where illness does leave you unable to function to a level you want to, it's not a failure for you to be unable to perform tasks when a disability or flair up means it's not viable. I feel personally that by showing scenes like this where his health and body issues do have a very visceral and impossible to ignore the effect on his ability to function, and going through his mental processes of dealing with and managing them, it brings the character across as stronger than if he never seemed to be shown dealing with symptoms or weaknesses. People are more than their disabilities and conditions, those aren't just kinda taglines to add onto a character's description and then never address. I feel like doing that in a way undermines what people deal with who manage chronic illness, pain, and who have disabilities that affect their daily lives negatively. Appreciating the effort it takes to manage them is important.

What I really like about these is that you can really understand as a reader how their dynamic must have evolved. How even before Leda's death Tyreen would have felt demonized while Troy got the attention because of his condition, because he was less willful.

- Starlight, Moonbright

Ah man, absolutely - and that shit stayed with them. It wasn't his fault and he never wanted it, but of course their parents would have had their extremely ill child at the forefront of their thoughts, especially during weeks when he was.. bad. Tyreen by nature even without The Leech's influence is a little attention seeker, she'd be the life of any party and she BLOSSOMS if she's got the spotlight, but as a little kid who's got literally no one but her parents and her brother, and who all three of which can't give her nearly as much time as she deserved? That's rough. That's really unfair. That coupled with The Leech's warping effect on their egos as they grew up and the bitterness and resentment they harbored in different ways created a reverse dynamic. She'd never be out of the Galaxy's attention again, and he'd have no choice but to take his rightful place in her shadow.

I love how you illustrate both how much more, and yet how much less Troy is now. How the blameless child, full of potential, is inextricably linked to the brutal, larger-than-life avatar he fashions.

- DeLeon ( Graphic Violence / Gore / Hallucinations)

He's molded the monster he is now out of the bones of the man he should have been - there's no going back really. There's nothing left to go back to. He broke Troy DeLeon apart to build the persona that acts like an iron lung now, suffocating him breath by breath while forcing him to still take them. That life is over, he killed it before it had a chance, but the idea of it is still there in his subconscious. Somewhere in the absolute trainwreck of Troy's brain is the tiny, flickering belief that maaaaaybe one day this will all be over and he can shuck off the bracer and spines, peel off all the shit he's covered his skin with, and just go back to not being Calypso. DeLeon here isn't some aspect of his mental state or his sins haunting him - it's The Leech, spitting venom at a host it loathes in something that's not sound or comprehensible language. His subconscious has just translated it into something it can understand - his greatest regret.

On if Borderlands Humans originated on Earth -

There's a really tenuous link between BL verse and rEarth, but it's there and can't be ignored. The cultures, accents, terminologies, so many are Earth specific despite these people being spread across galaxies, so hell yes - Earth as an emergence point makes total sense. The next question then, is why is it never mentioned - and you can cover for that with a lot of things like say, tt was so long ago that it's not relevant to anything that would ever be discussed, or it could be a mass evacuation from a catastrophe there is little record of now. I like to go with something along those lines, that the first human Siren host emergence on earth just absolutely decimated the planet. Like, we were doing fine till this random woman somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere develops weird markings overnight, then goes apocalyptic. The first Leech maybe, not understanding her powers and having them rip across continents in a spread of crackling electric death that only left husked shells of plants and animals in its wake, or the first Firehawk who went nuclear and burned the sky, or the first Voidgrasp who lost control and began to collapse the planet's core - some extreme shit that had humans fleeing en masse with barely any preparation and HUGE swathes of history and knowledge left behind. That would cover so many social things surviving into the BL verse, cultures, accents, cooking, that shit comes with us regardless of what we were able to throw into escape ships. Like so much data would be stored on any tech and data arrays within the vessels people would use to leave a dying planet even in an insane rush, but that shit waters down over time - if you're farming barely edible plants on some planet that smells like farts, are you really gonna be that stressed about teaching your kids history from a lost planet when your current concerns are not being eaten by something with 19 legs and 4 buttholes? Don't think so.

On if the other Siren entities are as influential to their hosts as The Leech -

I touch on it a wee bit throughout LL, but the others are FAR more passive and meld more to their host's whims. The Firehawk Siren wouldn't.. like.. care? If the host was burning down a planet or fighting off an evil corporation? They are removed from any nonsense happening on this side, they might not even really be able to tell, it's like asking an amoeba or a collection of sentient atomic particles what its opinion is on Brexit. That's not really its priority. The Leech is so aggressive in its control of the twins and desperation to drive them towards an outcome it desires only cause it's split, broken, removed from the song, and completely lost. We're talking a caged, half-mad animal removed from its natural environment and left totally isolated from its own kind for millennia. It's in pain, it's confused, it wants to find its way back to the song and the others and where it belongs, but it's stopped by a barrier it can't comprehend ( the twins and being ripped between them), so in its impotent rage it feeds back that hatred onto them. It's not really sentient in the way we would describe functional intelligence, but it wants, and craves, and FEELS. And it feels very, very angry.

Big thanks to @undergoingcalibrations for talking through so much of this with me!

Asks are Open!

[everything-laito]

damn the brain be out here going BRRRRRR here’s the Laito and Cordelia Analysis (with a little bit of Karl sprinkled in) Part III

wow my fingers are freezing but my brain sure isn't! 

aaaanyways, iiiiiit’s trauma time!!! Am I a productive member of society by writing these analyses? No. Do I gain anything by writing them? Kinda, my brain gets exercised and they’re fun to research for. But if you haven’t read the first part or the second part for some reason (I recommend reading them in order), there they are. 

Once again, trigger warnings still apply; mainly about trauma, isolation, etc 

I’m gonna talk about the trauma and effects it had on Laito and to attempt to extrapolate why he is the way he is. I have a lot of examples I want to go over and stuff to talk about, so I think the trauma part is going to be split between two (or maybe three) parts. I also have a little bit to say about Karlheinz.

As always, big ass rant under the cut! 

Section 6: Neuroplasticity and Trauma

Oh???? More science vernacular??? You BET! Ok, neuroplasticity. I know I’ve talked about it on this blog. But, I seriously doubt that there is a madlad who has read all of my analyses (speaking of which, I should update the master list lmao) and I don’t expect anyone to do that LOL! Anyways, this neurological concept is the ability of neurons to adapt to certain circumstances or stimuli by creating new neurological pathways (through synapses). This basically relates to memory and learning. It’s why we don’t stay the same person as we grow and develop. It’s responsible from mindset changes to response to traumatic events. It plays a huge part in trauma, which is why “repressed memories” occur as well. 

Trauma, taken from Psychology Today, is defined as: 

...the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event. Sufferers may develop emotional disturbances such as extreme anxiety, anger, sadness, survivor’s guilt, or PTSD.

It’s a basic definition. And although I’d assume people would know what trauma is already, but knowing the lexical definition of something can be good to know before going into it. 

Obviously, Laito has trauma, there’s literally no refuting that. But, the point I’m getting at, is the reason why he is the way he is today is because of neuroplasticity. As previously stated, we are going to assume the DL vampire brain works similarly or the same as a human brain. So, because of the stress put upon the brain (Cordelia’s actions and Laito’s general upbringing in a stress filled household), Laito’s brain was rewired (neuroplasticity). This section doesn’t really have much new information, but I wanted to give a baseline since there’s many people who don’t know what neuroplasticity is.

Laito’s definitely different than what he was as a kid. He still kind of had his smarts, and might have been  but as we’ve deducted from the first part of this series, he might have been groomed. On top of that, the brain is easily moldable when you’re a child (which is why grooming makes sense for Laito’s case), and continues to snip brain cells off and form new connections. 

Section 7: Little intermission about Karlheinz 

I know I haven’t really talked about Karlheinz yet. So this will be the section that I do it in. I know this part is about Laito’s trauma, but it’s so hard to not just weave other characters into it. Nothing is stand-alone, which is why it was so hard for me to plan this out. I was debating about saving this for another analysis, but I feel like it fits. 

I referenced this in Part II, Section 5 of this analysis series. Basically, Karlheinz throws Laito into the dungeon and locks him up. Not Karlheinz personally, but he ordered someone to do it. We don’t explicitly know why, but there’s several implications. A huge one is that it was part of Karlheinz’ experiment. Before Dark Fate, I was like “wait, so did Karl find out about Laito/Cordelia? And got like jealous or was like ‘nah this shit fucked up no thanks’?” I was really scratching my head on that. But in Dark Fate, you find that Karlheinz knew about Cordelia and Laito, and even really wanted it to happen. Which is all sorts of fucked up. This really put Laito in for a loop. Here’s a scene from Dark Fate: 

Laito: That woman always, always believed in Karlheinz. Laito: She believed he married her because he loved her, wanted her. That’s why she was sure that one day... he will give his love only to her.  Laito: But she was tricked. She wasn’t loved from the start... Laito: -And I’m a victim of this unbelievable mistake... That’s how it is. Laito: I was treated as a vent for her feelings. Yui: ...Laito-kun... Laito: I’m sure he knew that something like this will happen... He is a god after all... Laito: I was hoping that... He just overlooked it up until now... Laito: But... I was naive.  Laito: I was only planned a scapegoat. 

God, when I played this, that just freaking struck me to my core. That’s so awful. Ironically... Karlheinz probably has some high level of emotional intelligence. I don’t believe he could be labeled as a sociopath, considering he has this high level understanding of pathos. He’s not god in a sense that he controls everyone individually himself. He’s so good at manipulation that he basically creates fate itself (whether you believe in it or not). He’s generally intelligent and cunning, and it also just helps with the fact that he’s immortal and can time travel. He knows cause and effect by now, and I believe Lost Eden said something about how he’s done so many different “timelines.” 

The definition of a god in a philosophical sense can be broken down into three words: omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. More wicked cool jargon! Yay! Here’s what they mean for extra clarification:

Omniscient: All knowing Omnipresent: All seeing Omnipotent: All doing

Sure Karlheinz doesn’t absolutely know everything, nor can see everything, and he definitely has limits to his power, but he has gained knowledge through living for so many years and time traveling; he has familiars which add to the whole “all seeing” part; and he has a lot of power. So basically, in the most semi-”realistic” sense, it would definitely be the closest being to any kind of god.

Karlheinz is probably the reason why Laito himself has such contempt towards religion, and the existence of a god in general. Sure, the boys are like “that shit’s made up by humans” in general, but it would make sense for Laito himself to have that specific hatred. It makes sense that these vampires would be like “oh that’s made up by humans” when they’ve been around forever and have seen multiple religions come and go. (I’m mainly talking about in DL’s lore case, not starting a religious argument; please don’t take it as such––just to clarify)

Section 8: Isolation

Originally, the previous part was going to be about Laito’s isolation being locked up. However, I went off the rails and it turned into that little intermission. This is going to be a shorter section, but I still wanted to talk about, and it will weave into the next section. 

There is no implications about how long Laito was locked up (and tortured) in the dungeon. There’s also no implications about why he was tortured. But torture and isolation puts such stress on the brain that there’s definitely going to be some kind of outcome if persisting for a good period of time. So let’s take a look at what that does to a person. 

Once again, taking this with a grain of salt. I imagine vampires don’t need to rely on social interaction as much as humans do, considering they live forever. But we don’t know. However, throwing Laito into a state of isolation implies that it would be some type of torture or harsh punishment for a vampire, which therefore implies that social interaction is a necessity for emotional function. It’s just sound, inductive logic. 

So now, as for isolation, I’m using this article as reference. It’s a pretty interesting one to read. Here’s another extensive article as well. Basically isolation can cause:

Depression/anxiety

Immune system deficiencies (basically more likely to get physically ill)

Sleep cycle changes (if put underground or with limited natural light)

Hallucinations

Paranoia

Issues with processing information and more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation

We have no clue if Laito’s experience fits all of these. Also, the second one can be crossed out because vampires in DL can’t get physically sick in the way we can. Also, unsure about the sleep cycle stuff considering they are used to being in the dark. Hallucinations and paranoia can’t be crossed off nor proven. 

Being isolated physically and mentally exhausts the mind, which is why it’s also a way of torture. Laito implies that he was tortured with physical devices, but regardless, it’s still stress on the mind. This type of stress definitely goes along with what was mentioned with neuroplasticity and trauma, which also supports the last bullet point: issues processing information and being more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation. Take this flashback from Maniac Prologue in HDB that I used in Part II section 5 (but here’s even more context):

Laito: ーー Let me go!! Let me out of here! Butler: I can’t, young lord. We’ve received strict orders from your father. I am deeply sorry, but please stay put for a while. Laito: What’s the point in having me chained up in here!? Butler: ーーI am very sorry. Laito: Hahahaha…You stupid old man! Do you think that this will make repent!? How foolish! That demon! Has his brain finally rotten from spending too much time with humans!? ー Cordelia appears Cordelia: ー Oh? Laito: …!? Have you come to save me? Cordelia: Oh dear. Ufufu…I’m sorry Laito, that isn’t it. Laito: Eh? Richter: ー Why are you here? Laito: …That’s my line. Cordelia: Okay, okay. No fighting! More importantly, Richter…Come here. Laito: …!? Cordelia: Nnn…Hey, Laito. You are a good boy. Laito: …!! Cordelia: Right, Laito? Laito: Yeah, that’s right. I’m…I’m a good boy after all.  ーー Besides, I’m the type of person who only get more aroused from this kind of thing.

Although I also use this to support the whole Stockholm syndrome point, this could also be supported with the trauma isolation also holds. His mind is being re-molded into the facade he holds. Also, note the whole “do you think this will make me repent?!” part. Just a very interesting thing. The word “repent” implies that there’s something to feel guilty about or the person knows that what they’ve done is bad. It just goes to show that Laito has some part of guilt or moral compass still in tact. 

You can also argue that this scene was when Laito just got locked up, or he’s been here for a while. Either way, he could have also been socially isolated before this too, just hanging around Cordelia like it’s implied when he was a child. Remember the whole not being in bed 9/10 times when he was a child? Yeah, controlled social isolation. We also rarely see Laito with other characters in his flashbacks. I don’t believe we see him with his brothers in any of his flashbacks from what I can recall; he’s usually with Cordelia. Just implies (to me) that he’s around her a lot. And being locked up is also a more extreme case of that, which would mold the brain even more. 

I know that was a LOT to process and read. I sure hope this still is cohesive for you all. I’m pretty bad at organizing this kind of stuff; it’s a bit difficult since it all just goes together. Which, kudos on the writers of DL, because that’s just good writing. I was going to put something about gaslighting in this part, but that might be too long, so I’m going to make that a separate part or include it in the next part. 

If you have any questions, feel free to just put it in the inbox. I’m planning on making the last part of this series answering all the Laito/Cordelia questions I’ve received, or just general questions pertaining to this analysis in general, whether it be tangential questions or clarifying questions. 

Hope you all are still enjoying this ride as much as I am!  -Corn

[giantroboticplatypusbutt218]

I finished watching Loonatics Unleashed and I have Some Thoughts. I guess this is like a part 2 to the other post I made about the show so yeah.

I swear I don’t intend for everything I write to be an essay but whatever. It’s all under the cut. No massive story spoilers, but I will talk about episodes and will warn accordingly. (But who actually cares about being spoiled on the plot of Loonatics Unleashed?)

Alright so I finally figured out why Ace has laser vision. ...It’s kinda dumb but it’s because rabbits eat carrots(in cartoons). It’s... a reason at least. Still kinda sucks that it’s his only power when everyone else got 2 and some change. Kickass swords don’t count, even if they are magic. Seriously; Transformation. Duplication. Imitation. Tons of other “ation”s. They could’ve leaned into his trickster side but no. He eats carrots... so he got laser vision. Also he only ate carrots like three times in the show so wtf...

Okay so the pacing... improved somewhat in season 2. Don’t get me wrong there were still problems in some episodes but at least they learned how to build the stakes until the climax. They still sometimes went from zero to eighty after the opening credits, but at least it wasn’t zero to a hundred. Much less whiplash was had is what I’m saying. 

I don’t think I really mentioned the villains before but they’re uh... generally not very good. They’ve got cool gimmicks but most of the time they’re just two stereotypes and a cliche in a trench coat. Season 2 brought back classic anthro characters to be villains a few times, and while they still weren’t well written and just referenced old bits half the time... at least they weren’t dehumanized humans. 

I also don’t think I mentioned the animation so... it’s fine. It’s got cut corners but all cartoons do. Sometimes fight scenes look cool, sometimes they’re stiff. Sometimes the slapstick is well timed, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the facial expressions match the voice acting, sometimes they don’t. Speaking of voice acting, it’s good. There’s not really anything stand out to perform in the first place but everyone does a good job with what they have. 

Okay random note before getting deeper into things... the intro themes were... not good. I swear the first song ended on a note that it wasn’t supposed to. The second song fixed that but added people announcing the characters which... is just worse to me. Not much else to say because I skipped them after the first few times. 

(Very mild spoilers for the general plots of episodes past this point.)

Ace and Lexi improved a little in the second season, but I still find them kinda bland. Ace still just feels like zero calorie Bugs Bunny. His wit is confined to being the leader, snarky comebacks, and some decent sleuthing skills... and that’s really it. He doesn’t really play around with the villains the way Bugs would. Ace was also supposed to have an arc learning to use his magic sword which... didn’t really happen. Lexi’s defining trait outside of her powers is still that she’s “the girl” which... sucks... Uh... she upgraded to Gamer Girl in the second season which while neat, amounted to nothing outside that one episode. At the very least she was never kidnapped for more than 5 seconds?(That “honor” goes to Zadavia) They also never really brought up their backstories in a meaningful way again, which sucks. 

I still like the rest of the team. Slam got an episode about wrestling that built on his backstory and was fun to watch. Duck discovered that his egg powers work differently in water which was neat and matched him being a waterfowl.(Lexi’s powers work differently in water too but it’s never brought up again). Rev is still Rev and I still love him. He got an episode about his family and struggle to impress them(specifically his parents) despite his career choice which was also neat, but I will be coming back to this episode later. Tech is also still Tech and I also still love him. But uh, every character and also me wanted to see him get out of the lab more, and then he got like a nibble of an episode to get out of the lab, and then the show was over. Oof.

Speaking of Tech, it might be for the best he hardly ever left the lab because his powers are... possibly way too effective against all the robots and machines the team fights. Now, him being “overpowered” could’ve been used as a fun writing challenge. Robot goons aren’t a good option for villains anymore. Fighting against him in a city filled with metal is harder. Villains can’t rely on simply killing him thanks to his regeneration. Fight scenes including Tech would have to be handled in a fun and interesting way. But... no. In a team with two tech guys, the one with super speed and flight comes with while the one who can control metal and literally can’t die stays behind. Oh well. Doubt they could’ve added him into more fights without accidentally dumbing him down anyway. 

Oh crap I forgot to talk about Zadavia! Uh... she exists. She’s the team’s boss who sends them out on missions. Uh... I can’t talk too much about her without spoiling what little overarching plot this show has, but just know that she’s neat, but affected by the usual sexism going on in the show’s writing.

(Character and episode spoilers past this point.)

You know, for being The Loonatics the main cast wasn’t very loony. You know who were though? Basically all the villains. Yeah I don’t wanna go there but oops here I go anyway. It’s pretty messed up that all the main characters’ zany traits were dialed down, while the defining feature of practically every villain (besides their stereotypes)is that they’re insane. I mean, if you’re looking for good mental illness rep in The Looney Tunes you’re gonna be disappointed, but at least in the shorts almost every character was a little unhinged and a bit of an asshole, making none of them stand out for those traits specifically. 

Also messed up is that a lot of the villains are disfigured and made fun of for it by the main cast. Hot take of the century, but I think making fun of people for having a big head or only one eye is... bad. Oh and if they’re a woman then they’re also judged on how hot they are. Actually all women in the show are subjected to sexist writing. I remember like one episode where women were treated with a sliver of respect for a split second and that was in the obligatory “the cast comes across an island of amazon women” episode. However since most of the time was spent painting them as villains until the “actually sexism is bad” ending, there was hardly a moment of reprieve from the bullshit if a woman was on screen. 

I’m not the best person to speak on this but uh... it’s fucked up that since literally every notable human is a villain, all the people of color are bad guys, right? Like, obviously it’s not as bad as some of the shit the old shorts pulled, but that’s like saying getting punched is not as bad as getting stabbed. It’s true... but I’m sure most people would prefer neither. 

And here’s where I bring up that Rev episode I mentioned earlier. Rev’s parents are racist against coyotes (cartoons sure love to make carnivores allegories for black people don’t they?) and obviously with Tech E. Coyote being his close friend, that causes trouble. ...Right? Uh, no. They say some racist crap to Tech, and that’s it. There is not even an attempt to correct their behavior from anyone. It’s just treated as some unfortunate quirk. In fact the episode’s conflict actually revolves around Rev’s brother, Rip. Honestly, I doubt that they could’ve handled a decent “racism is bad” episode anyway. But they could’ve also... just not brought up racism if they couldn’t handle it? I’m sure having no racism topic at all would be better than having Tech just take the parents’ racist bull crap lying down and then help Rev impress them with an invention he doesn’t get credit for. Also at one point Rev says if Tech wasn’t a coyote and a guy he’d kiss him, which has two uncomfortable implications, but this section is already too long. 

(Spoilers end here.)

Overall... yeah the show’s not very good. Of course it wasn’t. It was always going to be a little garbage. And no not because of the darker style or strange setting or any of that superficial crap. Team dynamic shows are popular and with Teen Titans doing so well WB probably thought they might as well shove out a 2 season Looney Tunes version to grab a little more cash, probably minimizing the budget to squeeze out as much profit as possible. If anyone working on the show was passionate about it, I doubt they had the budget or time to act on most their ideas. 

Still, there were things to like. There are some funny jokes throughout the show, a few of which even managed to come out of Ace’s mouth. Danger Duck was literally just Daffy and he’s always great. Ironically, Rev and Tech were the most fun to listen to, and also to watch interacting in general. Slam didn’t do much but was a sweetheart who deserves success. There managed to be some decently twisty twist villains, if only because Disney ruined my brain with their ceaseless and lazy attempts at them, and I wasn’t looking out for them in this show. And, while almost nothing was properly developed, at least the concepts and characters are fun to think about?

I can’t say I’d recommend this show to everybody, but uh... if you’re a Furry with low standards and too much free time like me, maybe you’ll like it? Just go in with low expectations so when nice things happen you’re decently surprised. 

[leomitchellart]

So… about this latest Inktober controversy….

Time to begrudgingly chuck in my two penneth… (Remeber you can always press “J” to skip this post altogether)

As most of you may or may not know, Alphonso Dunn released a Youtube video wherein he publicly accused Jake Parker, and creator of the Inktober challenge, of plagiarising his book. Both of these men are public figures, artists specialising in pen & ink. In the video Dunn looks at the preview pages and flip through footage of Parker’s “Inktober All Year Round” and says they draw many similarities in the illustrations, language and layout that he used in his own book, “Pen & Ink Drawing”. Parker’s book was set to this month. Hense why Dunn only used footage and not a physical copy.

Since the video’s release, the art community has been very spilt down the middle. The book’s publisher has halted the launch of Parker’s book until the matter can be investigated. Even DeviantArt cancelled their own Inktober event thing (I’ll admit I don’t keep up with these things DA keeps doing). Parker has since released a statement in the matter. Now it’s up to the courts to decide what’s happening next. The video itself is an hour long, but it’s crucial to see it yourself. 

People are, understandably, outraged after seeing it. This seems like a shitty thing to rip-off Dunn - not to mention stupid. Since Dunn is the more popular pen & ink artist with more social media followers and name recognition. Many have called to boycott inktober and condemn Parker. I’ll admit, I was right alongside them at first, at least for feeling outraged. The similarities are there. But if YMS’s Kimba video has taught me anything, it’s that, even if an accusation of plagiarism may be obvious at a cursory glance, sometimes it’s important to take a more critical eye and do more research to learn that things aren’t as cut and dry as they first seem. If there’s a lesson I can take away from the internet as a whole, it’s that no one thinks about the consequences of mob mentality.

The most common defence of Parker is that because they’re both books about pen and ink drawing, then they’re inevitably going to be similar. I’ll admit that, when you pick-up so many art books, a lot of them will cover the same basic grounds of materials, tutorials, strokes, techniques etc. The parts about rendering textures on spheres and cubes isnt new. Look up “texture study” and you’ll see so many examples of artists rendering these kinds of things digitally. I’ve also noticed a common theme of people more formally educated in art pointing out how none of these are original. Everything down to the steps and illustrations are things they’ve learned from years ago. Since I'm a pen & ink artist, inspired by my love of comics, I have quite a few books about inking: Dunn’s included. I own both his books and still highly recommend them. I didn't even preorder Parker’s book. Ironically because I didn't think it could offer anything new that my other books hadn’t already.

While Ethan Becker took the time to cross-examine Dunn and Parker’s books with several others, there weren’t many of the ones I actually owned. So I looked to my shelves to see what I could find. Books like:

“The Art of Comic Book Inking” by Gary Martin & Steve Rude

“How Comics Work” by Dave Gibbons & Tim Pilcher

“The DC Comics guide to Inking Comics” by Klaus Janson

“Making Comics” by Scott McCloud

“Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics”

I’m sure there’s plenty more examples out there. I was planning to go through all of these and take pictures. But ultimately that’s not the core point of these post. Plus it would’ve taken WAY too long and this post itself, is long enough.

Of course, none of the them are 100% close to Dunn’s in the way they’re displayed. Not as close as Parker’s could be considered. That being said, I know Dunn is trying to claim that he invented these techniques. The nucleus of the issue is how similar they are in terms of order and how these pages are displayed. Some I can chock-up to standard practice, while others seem more coincidental.

If there’s one thing I’m adamant about, it’s that I think that Dunn should’ve messaged Parker first before making the accusation public. Some try to dispute that this would've made it easier for Dunn to be “silenced”, whatever that means; but that sounds a bit conspiratorial to me. Ideally, you confront him about it in private, if he makes any threats or blows you off, get your lawyer on the phone and then make the video. Not only is it the more civil thing to do - but it’s the smarter thing to do. This is a serious legal matter, not just internet drama. While I’m sure Dunn had no intention of tearing Parker down or getting a mob onto him, that’s unfortunately what’s happened. A backlash both from the general artisan community and several companies. Wherein it was left to Parker himself to make this an official legal matter. If Parker’s found not guilty, then this could easily leave the gate open for him to sue Dunn for damages, loss of revenue, defamation of character or whatever else, should he see fit. As could the publishers, given how this affected their sales. Companies responded to the accusation of the video alone, before an investigation could be launched. Sure, it wouldn't be “acting the bigger man” but he’d be well within his right to do it. Dunn showed that Jake has mentioned him before, shown admiration for his career and referenced him in other posts. If it comes to light in court, that Dunn is even cited as an inspiration or source in the book itself, then it’s case closed. 

Then there’s the other possibility that Parker might not have done this on his own, but that he has a team behind the book. If that’s the case, the most I can accuse Parker of is being a hack. I worry Dunn has kneecapped himself for just how badly he’s handled this situation. Made worse by him not having an actual physical copy to assess and just had footage of preview pages to go on. So far, the circumstances don’t seem on his favour. 

I don’t think ill of Dunn. I do think he believes he’s been wronged and no malice in his intentions. I just think he’s made some critical errors on how to handled this. As for Parker himself, I couldn't give a donkey’s doo-dah about him. I’m sure you could accuse me of playing devil’s advocate earlier, but to me, he was the guy who released the annual prompt list. If it really does turn out that he’s a plagiarist and had malicious intent, then fuck ‘im. I never regarded him as an inspiration of mine or paid much attention to him outside of that. It was the community that made Inktober what it is. I’ve never met Parker. Maybe he’s a cool guy? Maybe he’s a bellend? I don’t know.

Granted this isn't the first time Parker has proved himself to be a controversial figure: - Last year people were upset about him trademarking (not copywriting, as many have erroneously claimed) the word “Inktober” and some artists were stopped from selling their related work or zines. Parker would issue a statement: claiming the takedowns were a mistake of “overzealous lawyers” and it’s just a matter of the logo being trademarked. People can sell their Inktober works and even mention they are Inktober-related. Just not use the official logo. On the one hand, from a business standpoint, I get it. It’s the bare minimum you need to do to protect your IP, especially when you have a store. BUT, like most people, I don’t like how, what’s intended as a community challenge, has slowly become more of a brand associated with one man. Hardly a surprise it left a bad taste in so many people’s mouths. But, since it doesn't actually effect anyone’s ability to take part in the challenge, outside of personal principle, I went ahead with it the previous year. 

 - The year before, when asked if one can do Inktober digitally, Parker said the following:

I know some are still bitter about that, but speaking as someone who inks traditionally and digitally, this came across as needless whinging and blowing things out of proportion. Claiming that Jake had derided digital artists and said they were invalid etc etc. Take it from me, challenging yourself to try out different methods to ink traditionally can greatly improve the work you do digitally. It’s like how learning traditional fundamentals of art can still be applied to digital. Plus he never said “No.” he just gave valid reasons about how it makes it a different experience. That said, if you’re someone who can’t afford any kind of inking equipment or pens and only have a selected application to draw on - then none of this applies to you. Just the aforementioned few who took it upon themselves to get angry over nothing. Recently I’ve heard from subscribers of his newsletter that he’s now embraced the idea of people doing inktober digitally, to the point of selling digital brushes for inktober. I’m sure some will call this “backsliding” or “money grubbing” because people aren’t allowed to change their minds or update their statements.

For weeks I’ve been torn on what to do, not being able to solidify one stance over another. One minute I thought #JusticeForAlphonsoDunn then I wonder “Wait maybe I should look again?” to “But wait, those are way too similar!” Having splinters in my arse from sitting on the fence for so long. The longer this went on, however, I began to realise that I can’t take one stance over another. This case is far too muddy and complicated. I don’t have enough sufficient knowledge or evidence. Nor do any of you. We literally only have Dunn’s video to go on. While it’s a good start, it’s not enough to be taken 100% as gospel when it’s the only thing to hand. 

As previously mentioned, a lot of artists have decided to not take part in Inktober at all, or follow different prompt lists. That’s completely fine. A lot of them are based around a specific theme: halloween, kinky stuff, bears, transformers, OCs, Disney or whatever. That has massive appeal. I just can’d do it myself. I prefer the focus on random words, rather than all centred on a single subject; allowing me to be creative with my ideas and execution. I actually did try to make a list of my own random words. Problem is, I worried that because I was choosing my own, I might be subconsciously bias towards certain prompts and not truly challenging myself. Even narrowing down my options was taking too long. In the end…. I’ve decided to just do the official prompts again this year.

For me, that’s what it ultimately came down to. TIME. It’s the middle of September. I can’t afford to wait for the court case to be settled. No other prominent artists I respect have released their own prompt lists. I know there’s been some shitty people who are condemning this choice. Attacking others, accusing them of supporting plagiarism, looking to block anyone who does the official prompts. Even trying to make this a racial issue. Just…. no. 

If someone doesn’t want to take part in Inktober, that’s fine. If someone wants to do the official prompts, that’s fine. If someone wants to do their own prompts, that’s fine.

Don’t go around aggressively making snap judgements or accusing people of taking a side. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable. This has been a shit year, let people enjoy something.

If you look at this situation and it makes you feel angry, and you don’t feel comfortable in taking part in a challenge because of it’s creator. I get that, I literally get that. It’s why I haven't done Mermay. And please don’t mention Pinktober, I’m aware of it, but given his insta video on the subject and the things he said, I quickly came to the conclusion that I can’t take this person seriously. I’m sure this might make me seem hypocritical, but how this differs, if only for me, is the sheer amount Inktober means to me. It’s more than a simple challenge. Inktober's the one thing I’ve been most excited about all year. As it was ruined for me in 2019, when I lost my home and I didn't get to complete every prompt. (Long story, I’m okay now). As we all know, 2020, has been an AWFUL year. We’ve got to take whatever joy we can. As I’ve looked longer at the official prompts, I found ideas I’m really excited for. 

Once I started to really dedicate myself to it, it became a massive event. I hype myself up as I prepare for the busy month. Buy in supplies, clean the house and workspace, cook and freeze meals in bulk to save time, printing off a sheet that allows me to jot down ideas as I plan ahead.  Then once it’s done, after so much work, it makes the reward all the sweeter: Ordering a takeaway, celebrating a great halloween night and still rocking those vibes throughout November. Feeling proud of myself for doing it and seeing myself improve my technique, discipline and earning a few lie-ins to make up for the sleep I lost working. I’m like a kid waiting for Christmas. That said, don’t think that there’s something wrong with you when you understandably can’t dedicate that amount time for a simple art challenge. If anything that’s plenty of reason to why you’re smarter than me. You have a life and don’t push yourself too much.

Now, I need to crack on with the preparations. If you want to boycott Jake Parker, just not buying any of his products should be enough. Doing the inktober challenge doesn't bring attention to him, as I doubt most people even know him as the creator, nor does it even line his pockets. I just hate how cancel culture can do such serious damage like this and then try and put pressure on others to act accordingly without even doing any research themselves. 

As long as you’re not harassing anybody. Just do what YOU want to do. That’s fine. 

[zenosanalytic]

Harrow the Ninth: Wordplay and Implication

So I started reading Harrow the Ninth last night(haven’t gotten far; I’m only on page 47), but some interesting stuff cropped up I wanted to yack about. Explaining it requires some Serious Spoilers tho, so don’t read past this point if you haven’t reader further than me and are also avoiding ...spoilers... X|

Ok so: Harrow is obvsl going through some Things. To begin with she seems to be having some manner of psychological break exacerbated by(possible caused by) the Lyctor transformation? A huge part of it is obvsl grief over Gideon -she seems to be avoiding any memory or thought of her and this mental block seems to be impacting her ability to access Gideon’s soul and thus her full Lyctor capabilities- but she’s also overwhelmed by her new senses and her inability to feel physical pain, and a bit unstuck in time? Some of that just might be her grief-driven illness, but so far there’s been some jumping around in the timeline/her memories so it’s possible this is also a side-effect of the Lyctor transformation and existing on both sides of life and death.

Anyway, there’s some nifty wordplay associated with all of this :>

the first one is in an edited memory, and it’s right at the start of it, in the chapter-title for said memory: “Parodos”.

Now most obvsl, that looks&sounds allot like “parody” and, while they aren’t directly related, the connection btwn the two is STILL intriguing: “parody” comes from para(side/beside/parallel) and oide(song), in the sense of a comical/mocking “parallel” to another song; parodos literally means entrance, though specifically it’s the name of a SIDE-entrance in greek theater-design which gave actors access to the stage, or the chorus access to the orchestra, BUT ALSO it was the name of the song(oide) the chorus sung upon first entering the play, coming after the prologue. The connection to an actual side-entrance makes me suspect the “par-” phoneme is from “para”, but I can’t find a constituent breakdown of “parodos” so it’ll have to remain a suspicion :T

Regardless: it is, in the manner of a proper parodos(even IF Harrow, here, is her own Chorus; this is a 3rd person perspective section), seeming to introduce us to the central conflict of the tale; Harrow is censoring Gideon from her mind, altering her perceptions and capacities in response to her grief, struggling with feelings that she is LOSING her mind(associated with, possibly embodied by, her “hallucinations” of The Body[1]), and clinging to this expression of control as a life-raft among all this trauma. At one point The Body even appears in this memory just to tell her it didn’t happen like this which “gave Harrow a curious strength”.

IntriguinglyER(and this is more of a stretch and idk if Muir really intended this implication) parodos is often popularly confused with/assumed to be related to “parados” which is a fortification embankment built to protect the rear of a military position(it’s basically the backside equivalent of parapet. Parapet=forward, parados=behind). What makes this intriguinger to me(aside from the fun of a FALSE pun for a FALSE memory :p), is that the false memory is part of Harrow’s mental DEFENSES, and in it she asks Ortus Nigenad to PROTECT her by keeping the secret that she is “insane” because, since opening the Locked Tomb and seeing the girl trapped there, she’s been experiencing full-spectrum sensory hallucinations of said girl(ie: seeing her, speaking with her, feeling The Body[the girl] touch her, the whole hog, etc etc). I feel like this is MOSTLY symbolic though, and the REAL secret she’s asking him to protect her from is Gideon’s death(and her “consumption” there of; since becoming a Lyctor The Body has had Gideon’s amber-colored eyes). Of course there’s another aspect to this and one of two OTHER potential secrets; Gideon’s body wasn’t recovered from Canaan House, Harrow does not seem to be in “possession” of her soul(though she does have SOME aspects of Lyctor abilities, so perhaps it’s partial or a connection?); so

it’s possible the SECRET Harrow is actl using Ortus to protect is that Gideon isn’t dead, that they healed her after defeating Cytherea and somehow undid the Lyctor process. OR

They’re keeping Gideon’s existence a secret for some reason

Now I think these are a bit out there theorywise because, while I’m not far into the book, I’m fairly certain that it’s only Harrow who is thinking Nigenad was her cavalier at this point. I mean: the Emperor would have spoken to Ianthe, and there’s no reason why she’d keep Gideon’s existence secret(also everytime the Emperor says Ortus Nigenad it’s attached to a description of his mouth moving oddly, so I’m fairly certain he’s actl saying Gideon Nav and her brain’s editing it to Ortus Nigenad to spare her facing Gideon’s death). Also and SUPER tellingly there’s this passage:

The Resurrecting King took on the expression of a man working out a very difficult and emotionally taxing anagram. He said, “Ortus,” again, but the bile was sputtering up into your throat...”

Now that just seems like an INVITATION to see what Ortus Nigenad can be an anagram of, doesn’t it? And, INCREDIBLY OBVIOUSLY it’s a partial anagram:

Ortus Nigenad

Gideon

Of Gideon’s name. Partial, because it doesn’t include “Nav”, and also there are these left-over letters

rtusna

Hmmm... What can THAT be an anagram of?

rtusna

Saturn

Well flog me with a spoon! I have NO IDEA what this, GIDEON SATURN, could POSSIBLY mean in the context of this convo or of the larger story(also: maybe this anagrams to other words? I honestly didn’t try too hard after this very obvs one. AtRSun??? Taurns?? OF COURSE Harrow would play Horde if she played WoW, but I’d imagine she’d’ve been a Forsaken Warlock, or Orc one at the very least :p), but that we have a character’s name being called an anagram by the narration and then that character’s name turns out to BE AN ANAGRAM of the first book’s, now(mysteriously[2]?) absent, protagonist plus the planet Saturn[3], seems an awful coincidence. Of course that doesn’t mean it ISN’T a Coincidence, nor that it means anything in relation to the story even if it IS intentional; it could be meant to throw off theorycrafters, or just as something Muir thought would be fun to do(making Gideon Nav, “the greatest cav the Ninth ever produced”, a near-anagram with Ortus Nigenad, one of it’s worst). Of course, it could also be a hint to Gideon’s origins, or where she/her body is now. For what it’s worth, I seem to recall the big contenders for her origins were Third through Fifth House, and those seem to be the most likely to be the Gas Giants&GG Moons(Third’s the wealth-house, and there’s probably more concentrated resources in Jupiter and Saturn than on any other planet in the solar system. And, for whateverMORE it’s worth, Saturn WAS the Roman god of wealth&the harvest. If Mars’s ...Martial[X| X|]... associations are a firm enough basis for its guess in the order, then why not Planet Fucking Saturn? Of course the trident theme suggests Neptune, but why in the cosmos would THAT be the third colonized planet in the system? Makes no damn sense |:T |:T).

The last thing(two things?) that I wanted to bring up, though it’s not really related to any of the above, is Alecto, the name for the next book. Presumably, this is The Body/The Girl. Alecto means “Implacable/Unceasing Anger”, and it is the name of one of the Erinyes; the Furies; the goddesses and purveyors of Vengeance. The Furies, according to Hesiod, were born from the blood of Ouranos spilled when Kronos castrated him. Interestingly, the way Necromancy works in this universe(as explained in these early pages) is that the Cohort “breaches” a planet, after which point its “thalergy”(life energy; presumably metabolism-produced energy since necros aren’t snacking on ambient heat&light) begins converting to “thanergy”(death energy, tho it’d be more precise to call it the energy generated by the detachment of a soul from a body), which Necros can use to do Necromancy. The microbiology within a planet’s soil can similarly be drained, as can the animals and plants, and the process of “breaching” allows Necros to draw on the thalery/thanergy of all of these. So Necromancy is a metaphor for environmental/planetary destruction&exploitation. Kronos is a harvest-god(his name is obscure, but probably means something like “the cutter” or “the striker”); Ouranos is the sky(probably a raingod with a name related, hilariously, to the verb for “to piss” :p :p), but at the same time still a planetary deity. Coincidentally, the primary antagonists so far in the book are “Resurrection Beasts” which seem to have been created by The Emperor Necrotising the Nine planets of Dominicus, and who have been pursuing him and his Lyctors to destroy them for this/for becoming Lyctors(Lyctordom is legit called “the indelible sin” by the Emperor himself) ever since. Sounds allot like the Furies, doesn’t it?

In this context, the Kronos Ouranos myth can be read as a story of planetary exploitation/injury(caution: I am NOT saying that’s the intended meaning of the myth originally, just that it is a possible application of it as a lens of analysis[it being referenced by the series through Alecto] to this story), and THAT suggests that Alecto, the Fury, may have been associated with this initial Necrotization(The Resurrection/Nine Resurrections, which SEEMS given what little I’ve read so far to be what they call the initial Necrotization of the Nine planets of the Sol System? Though maybe they were already Necrotized&all used up, and the Emperor revitalized them somehow?? I’m not sure yet), may be something instanced to stop it, or may be a “Resurrection Beast” herself; perhaps the initial form they took before 10k years of thwarted rage pushed them to become more monstrous. Alternately, I wonder if Alecto might be a manifestation or servant of Death? There’s a repeated focus on the Emperor having “defeated” Death, and The Body in the Locked Tomb is repeatedly referred to as a foe he defeated once but could not defeat again, so there are good reasons to disregard all the mythological trappings and focus on the clearer, less metatextual possibility.

Of course: it’s probably none of this and I’m just spinning Fantasy wholecloth from between my entirely metaphorical ears :p :p :p

[1]The Body is The Girl in the Locked Tomb which Harrow fell in love with. I’ll get to why this is relevant very soon after this footnote

[2]I mean we watched her force Harrow into Lyctorship by killing herself, so I’m still more convinced this is all trauma response. Her corpse IS MISSING, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t super-dead. Though: Camilla and Palamedes DID have a contingency, and Gideon DID wink at Harrow post-Lyctoring, and it was ambiguous if this was her impaled body or her spirit/hallucination doing the winking, so I can see ppl running with this theorywise...

[3]which is one of the Houses, obvsl(or at least it’s moons), though I’m only really confident on Sixth House(Mercury), Ninth House(Pluto), and 2nd House(Mars) at the moment. Seventh House is PROBABLY Venus, giving all its connections to poison, wasting disease, and Aphrodite(Cytherea is another name of the goddess), but that’s all just thematic suggestion. Oh also, I figured I should throw this in here given the large digression on Kronos and Uoranos, Kronos is Saturn’s Greek equivalent(or at least, the Romans considered him so).

[imagining-in-the-margins]

im honestly sorry if you feel triggered by this, but how do you feel about mgg fans diagnosing him adhd to excuse him saying the r word? isnt that invalidating towards neurodivergent people because hes not actually diagnosed with it? for some reason that just really bothers me (i have horrible adhd that i actually take medication for and it's awful so it annoys me when ppl ask diagnose with it)

So, I don’t have ADHD - I’m neurodivergent because I am autistic - just want to put that out there before I move on. 

From my understanding, people mistakenly think that he is actually diagnosed. I’ve seen a few people swear they’ve heard him say it. I’ve searched for awhile, but never been able to find any sign of Matthew explicitly calling himself ND in any manner. Since I think a lot of it comes from a genuine misunderstanding, it doesn’t bother me at all. (*If someone has proof he’s identified that way, please let me know and show me the link!).

As for people who are actually openly and admittedly armchair diagnosing, I take issue with that. I’m a firm believer in self-diagnosis, particularly in America and for adults over the age of 20 with NDs, specifically. It is way harder than a lot of people understand to get a proper autism dx in America if you’re an adult. If my parents weren’t willing/able to testify to my childhood, no psychiatrist would believe me. I think a lot of younger folks don’t realize how much our understanding of neurodiversity has changed in the last three years, nonetheless the last thirteen.

HOWEVER, armchair diagnosis is awful in my eyes. I am not a fan for a number of reasons, part of which being that there is often a bias by the person doing it. A lot of ND symptoms overlap between all of the different “qualifying disorders,” and I constantly see people say X is evidence of Y, when the correct statement is X can be evidence of ABCDEFGHIJKLM- (You get the point).

When it’s done by a NT or able bodied person, I get even more upset. They have no business guessing what it’s like to be us or talk about how they perceive us. It’s not their business. They need to keep their (usually ableist) opinions to themselves, period. I don’t want to hear about whether or not they think there is something “wrong” with literally anyone, ever (that includes Cheeto Man, who people seem real comfortable throwing “bad” mental illness labels on).

Lastly, my biggest problem with armchair diagnosis or outing someone’s disability they don’t outwardly express is that it takes the autonomy away from the person that matters. I personally don’t think it’s right to reclaim a slur if you don’t identify yourself as a member of that demographic, since you are benefiting from the pain without any of the work/danger. That being said, some people’s opinions differ. Our histories with our own disabilities and how the world reacts to them are all very different.

Do I think Matthew is ND? Possibly, but it’s not my place to say that for him. If he doesn’t say he is, then I’ll assume that he is not, because that’s probably what he wants. Until he says otherwise, I will assume that he does not want to be identified as ND, and in my opinion, he shouldn’t say the R slur (which, he hasn’t said in almost 5 years now, has removed from his very first directed works and website, is part of a campaign to replace the word, and he has started heavily advocating for adults with intellectual & developmental disabilities - one of THE most neglected demographics). 

Finally, I actually have some semi-controversial feelings about the R-slur itself and who should feel comfortable reclaiming it. The ND umbrella is extremely massive, and includes wildly different experiences. When specifically referencing the R-slur, the people whose opinions should be amplified the most, to me, are the people with intellectual and developmental disabilities that also suffered at the hands of the educational system.

As someone who was in school in the nineties, I went from being officially marked the R-slur on my educational record & being told I’d never be able to hold a job or be a functioning member of society... to being told I needed to skip 3 grades & that I was a genius... Those two experiences are so, so, so, so, SO painfully different. Sure, I still got called the R-slur for my other behaviors outside of the educational context, but we can’t erase the VERY different experiences in SpEd and TAG programs. I just want people to think about that, too. I personally get kind of uncomfortable when people who’ve never struggled with learning or intelligence tests tell me they get to use the word. I don’t feel comfortable using the word, but I also grew up in a very different time. I’m glad that people feel more comfortable with reclaiming the word now, though, because it means we’ve made progress and they feel safer with it! There’s a lot to it, and it’s an intracommunity discussion, anyway.

That’s a brief summary on my feelings. Mainly I want people to be patient with people who say he has ADHD just because I think a lot of people genuinely (albeit mistakenly) believe he’s identified that way. A lot of ND people cling to any representation we can find because it is so rare to find. I try to be more understanding with the topic for that reason.