#partly because i have to but also because i repeatedly read up on what to do in emergencies

[cyb3rtarot]

What Messages are Coming Through in Your Dreams?

Disclaimer: tarot readings are not replacements for professional advice. Take what resonates; don’t force a reading to fit. This is just a look into some of the energies in your dreams, not a comprehensive reading of what all your dreams mean. I used a recolored Smith-Waite, Tarot of Mystical Moments, Zerner-Farber Tarot, Oracle of the Radiant Sun, the Chakra Oracle, and runes.

pile 1↝pile 2 pile 3↝pile 4

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Pile 1:

Cards: four of wands, the hermit, empress rx, flattery (Venus in Gemini, 3rd house)|| exaltation (Moon in Taurus, 2nd house), queen of swords sideways, sharing (queen of action), completion, page of pentacles rx, page of swords, Ehwaz rune

The Dreams: hi pile one! Your energy came through strongly so your dreams could be more intense and vivid right now. You could also be having more bad dreams. You may feel like you’re in another realm or some kind of fantasy world while sleeping. In these dreams you could feel little control over anything or like you’re a different person. Like you’re “you” but feeling the experience of someone else. This could include very strong emotions. For example, melancholy you don’t feel while awake. Your dreams could be lonely during this time; you may frequently end up by yourself, others are far away, or they turn on you (one scenario I’m seeing is getting ostracized at a party). You might also feel like you’re having similar dreams repeatedly. Some of you are flip-flopping between these deeper dreams and lighthearted ones. Despite the contents, some of you are using dreams and sleep as an escape or coping mechanism.

Themes that could be common in your dreams right now: the moon (especially full), night time, the beach/ocean, planets in the sky. Palm trees, masculine side characters (one recurring in particular), sports jerseys, crying, flowing robes, pregnancy (especially a sudden one), gas stations, corner/convenience stores, brown or brick buildings, a different country, gray clouds or white skies, eating snacks, being a side piece or cheated on, feeling unappreciated, being ostracized or abandoned, a new family, being lied to, real life conflicts or enemies, the dream starting good and turning bad

The Messages: your subconscious is processing a lot right now which is partly why your dreams seem fantastical and out of control. But your dreams are also reflecting conscious fear. There’s a sense of imprisonment in your own mind while awake and it continues in your dreams. Huge themes in your cards are fertility, birth, and abundance. For a chunk of you, this is literal as I was picking up on a pregnancy around 5-9 months. But in general, your dreams are portraying something coming into fruition or being birthed, like something you’ve wanted or worked really hard on for a long time. The cycle is almost complete, but at this last step there’s hesitancy on your end. There’s a split between people in this pile who are making big physical changes like moving, starting a family etc, versus people who have gone through a big internal transformation and are holding onto limiting beliefs (overlapping for many). Whatever developments are coming feel inevitable and time-based; I don’t think you’re “blocking” it. But I do feel like there's a lot of present joy you can partake in if only you will accept it. I am never encouraging you to not think or to do something that’s toxic for you, I am only encouraging you to find a healthy balance between your rational and emotional sides :] When you deny yourself comfort or joy hopefully it’s for a strong reason, not because you’re afraid to be happy. I do see a lot of you have done significant shadow and healing work already, and now you’re in a transitory period. There’s also highly personal signs in your dreams, some from your guides. Your dreams are showing you one half of a story or sentence. You’re being encouraged to fill the other half through your own analysis instead of accepting your dreams as the full picture. It’s important to be realistic with this; don’t immediately take the worst case scenario of your nightmares and say it must be real life lol

Extra Details: just went through an upsetting time, Brazil, dark hair, love interest from another culture, very bright blue eyes, disappointment in love, a brother energy or friend who’s like a brother, Japan, Portugal, conflict with friends/family/neighbors (all 3 at once for some), mermaids, weddings, photoshoots, 4444, fear of abandonment due to trauma. One or some of you experienced a miscarriage in the past and you may be projecting that trauma onto future hopes for a family. For others this is fear caused by something you really wanted falling through and an opportunity to try again. Experiencing healthy, loyal love after toxic past love. Creative projects. Travel delays. Visas. 90 day fiancé?

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Pile 2:

Cards: two of wands, king of pentacles, seven of pentacles, birth (Venus in Cancer, 4th house)|| five of cups rx, ten of pentacles rx, ace of cups rx, friendship (Moon in Cancer, 4th house), the world, Jera rune

The Dreams: hello pile two! Like pile one I see your dreams feeling lonely, though for you it does seem like there are people talking to you in them. These dreams could feel very nostalgic, melancholic, or empty, as if you’re in your own world. I’m also seeing disappointment—dreams where you are longing for something deeply. Dreams where you experience a taste of what you want in real life, and they make you feel worse when you wake up. You might not even get to enjoy those moments. They could feel aimless, like there’s no plot or point to them. I see scenes where people are talking to you, but it seems like both of you don’t really want to be there. Like everyone’s nihilistic or apathetic. The dreams could also be extremely beautiful but you don’t notice it at the time. You could dream about people and places you loved in your youth, even fictional ones. Some of you might feel like you’re playing a game or in a game in your dreams? If you felt drawn to pile one I encourage you to take a look!

Themes that could be common in your dreams right now: childhood home or town, driving down long roads, bright/pretty sunsets, the ocean/coast, small towns or villages, dreams centered on conversations, friends and love interests you don’t know in real life or from childhood, video games, something out of grasp, pregnancy, travel, expensive cars, walking down the street, everyone being unhappy, the countryside, feeling used, being rich, being in a relationship, the Sun as an odd color (like purple), young children

The Messages: you guys have an energy of mourning in two different ways. One, mourning for a part of yourself that was lost from your earlier youth, or something left behind. There might be a loss of innocence, wonder, or happiness; a natural self acceptance that no longer comes easy to you. On the other side of this, I see some of you have lost people who were important when you were younger. For some this is due to a passing, but for others the relationship came to a close. Whatever this perceived lack is, it weighs heavily and comes through your dreams in the form of beautiful but melancholic nostalgia. The good times are right there, but you can’t fully enjoy them. Dreams where people are unhappy, apathetic, or ticked off could reflect a falling out, feeling like you let someone down (including yourself), or that you can’t make amends. Your dreams are a reminder that it’s the natural progression of life for things to end and begin anew. This doesn’t lessen the burden, but as time keeps moving so do you. Grieve and feel your feelings, learn lessons, but remember there’s still life for you to enjoy. There are new things to be found. Try heavy-handed self-compassion and forgiveness. Though there’s a focus on what’s no longer there, there’s a sense of acceptance. A few of you have just come out of a heavy healing period and might be feeling things you haven't felt since childhood. Or, you may suddenly remember things from childhood.

Extra Details: 555, longing for a better life, RPG games (particularly JRPGs), racing or racing games, vintage, having lived with a friend or relative of similar age to you, having lived near water, feeling like the world is changing too much, periwinkle, a child passing (already happened. A cousin or sibling?), going to therapy or being a therapist, a falling out with multiple friends (I’m mostly getting two friends), feeling numb, lonely, a friend who always wears their hair in a ponytail, a masculine friend with dark, big hair and glasses, empty villages, Japan, regressing. I see a lack of adult presence in childhood. Growing up, you might’ve felt like you only had those few friends or cousins to depend on, even though you were too young to take care of each other.

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Pile 3:

Cards: Temperance, four of wands, the Empress rx, devotion (Saturn in libra, 7th house), consciousness rx, devotion, traveling, the outsider rx, new vision rx|| king of wands sideways, king of pentacles sideway, the emperor, the high priestess, the emperor rx, defense (Mars in Taurus, 2nd house), seven of wands rx, Tiwaz rune

The Dreams: hi pile three! I feel like you guys are not remembering dreams as much right now, or only remembering fragments. There are more nights where you feel like you didn’t dream. This is my pile that’s astral projecting at bed time, and this is part of why I picked up on less dreams (both purposeful and not. Some of you just started doing this). Whether through the astral or your dreams, you’re having adventures that are opposite your real life experience. I see you guys having dreams others may think scary—like being chased, but you’re just vibing. There’s a sense of being stuck, trapped, or stagnant in real life; there’s also a lack of understanding and denial about your desires. Your dreams are fulfilling repressed wants by sending you to any and everything you don’t do in real life. The subconscious aspect of your desires is partly why so many fantastical elements make their way into this other life. Many of you also like watching and reading speculative genres (particularly horror, sci-fi, and fantasy), and this is also why those elements are in your dreams. Your dreams seem like a means of escape and fun to balance your day and night. To combat feeling trapped, you could have dreams of running far away from a creature, or exploring somewhere beautiful. A specific part of this pile has dreams of being in romantic relationships, and while you may genuinely not want one right now, it could represent another desire such as socialization. Your day and night are actual opposites haha. This was strange but there was a strong pull between this pile and pile 4, I felt like some of you have friends that would be in pile 4 (or you may resonate with some details yourself if you feel drawn to it).

Themes that could be common in your dreams right now: night time/full moons, fantasy creatures and companions (I saw green goblins? And vampires), historical settings, castles, feeling creepy, eerie emptiness, bats, forests, villages or towns (especially empty ones), pine trees, green meadows and hills, bright flowers, butterflies, cabins, scary situations but not feeling scared, theaters or plays (red curtains?), places that look like fairytales, being attracted to a character in the dream (even the bad guys lol), people you know as background characters, real life events replaying with different outcomes

Messages: your dreams or astral travels are a reminder of your real life potential! You guys don’t always have to hold the fort down. I feel like you portray an easygoing attitude and convince yourself you’re just okay with whatever. There are many highly spiritual people in this group, and you may feel like physical life doesn’t matter as much because your spiritual life has the real depth. But the astral and dream world are not meant to replace the 3D world. Your capacity to have these experiences is proof that you have amazing things in you, and if you wish, you can seek amazement in the waking world too. It’s very much within your capacity! I also feel like some of you guys have a “duty,” like there’s a constant responsibility you shoulder (or that you’re assigned), and you feel like you should just accept it peacefully. Your sense of duty is wonderful, but please also have one towards yourself! A lot of you guys want to travel internationally and the main blockage is your own self limits.

Extra Details: Latino (specifically Mexican for a chunk of you), Eastern Europe, Germany, 414, Titanic (the movie? You might find it romantic), “hit the road,” Indigenous American, travel list, familial responsibility, dissatisfied with a job, straight brown or black hair (reaches top of back), big eyes, stressed but can’t tell under the numbness, going through the motions, feeling on the defense or like a side character in your own life, having a job to pay bills but not a career, wanting to run away, feeling like your spiritual skills are developing too fast, rubbing hands on face when stressed (I see someone standing in a hallway outside their boss’ office, rubbing their face and then carrying on), literally taking the trash out (during the night, or to a dumpster in an alley?), over-sacrificing oneself, court or legal matters (including working in law), believing in fairies, or astral travels involving fairies, fairy rings near ponds?

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Pile 4:

Cards: egotism (mars in leo, 5th house), eight of swords rx, ten of pentacles rx, the lovers rx,|| truthfulness (throat chakra), imagination (brow chakra), riches (saturn in capricorn, 10th house), fulfillment (saturn in sagittarius, 9th house), the fool, eight of wands, eight of pentacles, nine of pentacles, king of swords, the magician, Fehu rune

The Dreams [CW for creepiness]: hi pile four! First I’ll say there was a strong link between this pile and pile 3, so if you feel drawn to it maybe check it out! There are similarities with you two having dreams with fantastical creatures popping up, and having dreams that others would deem as nightmares. You might also only remember little fragments right now. However, I feel you guys out of all the piles are having the most actual nightmares. I saw dreams that started out nice and calm then suddenly flip. There could be random characters popping up out of nowhere that don’t match the dream at all, like clowns or mascots. You might also have a lot of dreams where you feel watched, or are being watched by something in the background. Dreams where you feel a strong need to escape; you might feel preyed upon, followed, or anxious. It mostly seems like any weird things in your dream just “linger” instead of actually harming you, though there might be the occasional attempt. There’s also a strong sense of nostalgia, but tainted? Like you can’t enjoy it because of whatever else is going on, or it’s a reminder of what’s been lost as you’ve grown up. These dreams feel like you’re often alone except for whatever is loitering around you. Or when there’s someone else there, it’s like they’re kind of flat? Like a memory being replayed. A lot of you guys could dream of your grandmother. You might have dreams that actually look like “dreamcore.”

Themes that could be common in your dreams right now: beautiful places (I’m seeing a village by a gigantic mountainside, very bright blue skies, fluffy white clouds), cozy homes/cabins, grandmacore, cooking or eating, bananas?, PB&J?, having extremely different dreams everyday or in one night, scary creatures just standing there, feeling like you have to fight or survive, friends or partners from years before, caves, grimace??, eyes (floating eyes?), shadows, jumpscares

The Messages: Your cards got me riled up! I feel like a good chunk of your life, maybe up until right now, has been very tumultuous. You had to hold on and just find strength to survive, and this caused you to repress a lot. Your dreams are calling you to face what you’ve repressed—your shadow—because you are quickly entering a completely different era. It feels like all the ways you’ve had to struggle and fight are going to start giving way to a new life filled with things that bring fulfillment or contentment. I’m not sure exactly what these blessings are but they spoke of freedom, abundance, and new opportunities. It did seem like these are blessings you’ll bring about by your own hand instead of completely unexpected ones. Despite how off-putting or strange your dreams may be, they are prompting you to resolve things from the past that would make the future difficult to appreciate. We all carry scars, but doing our best to heal them will allow us to create a more joyful existence. What are the things you’ve pushed deep down that have been begging to come out? I do feel like some of you have been manipulated into staying silent, maybe about the way you were treated and harmed, and this has created a stifled feeling. I don’t know your individual situation, but I greatly wish for you to find a space where you can safely and truthfully exist. If you feel you need the help of a professional to do healing work or to escape any dangerous situations please research what’s accessible to you!!

Extra Details [TW abuse mention]: swears a lot, childhood trauma or abuse (some of you are still in contact with harmful people from your childhood and this is influencing you), Central Europe or Belgium, very close to a grandmother (especially one who’s passed), blockages in throat energy (could have trouble speaking up for yourself, saying what you mean, stumbling on words, or you REALLY want to talk about something), toxic or abusive friends, having no one to support you, you might just want to scream, seeing sequential numbers (like 234) or 8 a lot, feeling pulled towards a career where you use your voice or express yourself (writer, singer, motivational speaker, artist, communications), absent parents, a great new job or financial opportunity, lots of astral projection and lucid dreaming in this pile but also physically moving and traveling (some of you could go look at places you want to travel to in the astral or dream realm lol, or some of you AP into space? Cool. I also see someone AP-ing or lucid dreaming somewhere with a lot of vegetation), environmental activism, your childhood home or town being renovated/changed, rectangular glasses (thin frame), major Capricorn or Saturn in chart. If you already felt drawn to pile 2, you may resonate with it also.

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[layingeggs]

Playing Grey Area. Lots to write home about I think.

I enjoyed the art. I enjoyed how elaborate and much more subtly sinister the difficulty select friend is than all the enemy characters in the game.

I enjoy the kiddiness of it.

The movement and controls are wonderful to mess around with. It's lovely to just repeatedly sit.

I hope I'm not about to reveal my dreadful ignorance but I really enjoy that it's a precision platformer without wall jumps or double jumps. If there is a wall jump or a double jump that I've missed, then oopsie! But if I understand correctly, then the game has a jump and a dive. All other movement is momentum based I think.

Technically, a dive can function as a wall jump if you dive into the wall and momentum bounce of it. And it can count as a double jump if you use it to gain more distance in your jump. But I consider single jump and dive to be distinct. Particularly because you only get one dive per jump and bouncing off walls doesn't reset it. In my opinion, a precision platformer with wall jumps is usually one that also has wall grip and the ability to scale walls infinitely by repeatedly wall jumping. Maybe hampered by the wall being littered with hazards or by your turn speed from a wall jump being too slow to reach the same wall again. Grey Area's dive isn't quite like that so I consider it different.

Something that really stands out to me though, is the two different styles of gameplay used for I guess you could call them the levels and the overworld.

It's a game about a kid sleeping and dreaming I think. The main game seems to be the dreams. And the 'overworld' is when you're awake. (I don't know, maybe there's more main game in the waking world! Maybe there's dreams within dreams! I only played for about an hour before I wanted to get some thoughts down. Will play more. Maybe will see more layers of dreams.)

But what I saw, was the sidescrolling precision platforming in the dreams, then you wake up and the protag is in her house. It becomes a top down view.

Hold on, let me look up, yeh girly's name is Hailey.

Yeh so, you wake up in Hailey's house, right? And I don't know, there's something about this particular part of the game. The switch from sidescroller to top down, right?

But it's the same because you're still the same Hailey and the game still uses the same sprites, but it's not the same because she faces different directions for moving up and down, but it's the same because she still jumps but it's not the same because there's not the dive and the momentum anymore.

And I don't know. There's something that really speaks to me here about a child dreaming about her idealised sense of movement through the world.

In her day to day life, she's jumping around everywhere, she jumps on counters and jumps on the family car and she jumps everywhere. And it's like she's dreaming the imagined adventures as projected from the running around the house.

Did you ever hide as a kid? Not hiding from people, but that too, but like hiding for play. Like under furniture. Inside cupboards. Inside laundry hampers. Inside bushes.

I did this. And I imagined this as sprawling fantasy adventures. I thought of dragons living in the caverns of these spaces.

I remember being a kid and hearing that Miyamato based his work on the Zelda games partly on his childhood memory of running around and exploring his grandparents house. I remember reading that in a magazine and thinking yes, that's exactly right. I know just what you mean my man. The laundry hamper is the dungeon. I am glad that we are on the same page.

I feel that with Hailey living a peaceful chill top down life and running and jumping everywhere, and then dreaming the fantasy. That cool trick jump you did off the sofa? That was really cool and graceful and dexterous? It is now mandatory and if you fall then you have to talk to a stranger or have a doctor's visit.

Looking forward to playing more. I heartily recommend others check it out.

[toastandjamie]

So like, since I’m doing my re-read, I’ve reached The Great Hunt and it’s got me thinking about that of the three Ta’veren boys, Mat is the only one who doesn’t get a pov in the first two books. His first pov is book three and while he definitely makes up for lost time I’ve been thinking about it.

So, when I first read Eye of The World and The Great Hunt and joked with my dad about how Mat was virtually a ‘damsel in distress’ for Rand in the first two books. And while it’s Funny I think the actual reasons I got that vibe is the lack of agency.

So Mat gets daggered very early on in the first book and throughout the Camlyn Road-trip Mat’s main purpose is to be something Rand can worry over or be frustrated by. In writing a character Pov is a major way of establishing agency since it turns the character into an active participant in the story and while it’s not the only way to do this as seen by characters like Morraine and Lan who don’t have povs in the first book either but are still active characters. This becomes especially apparent in book 2 where the major motivation for the boys to even go on the hunt for the horn was to get the dagger back for Mat, so much so that it’s readily established that Rand wouldn’t have gone on the hunt point blank if it wasn’t for Mat and the dagger; yet Mat still has no pov in this book despite being the one primarily affected by losing the dagger. Mat is more or less used as a plot hook in the first two books to force Rand into situations he otherwise would not be in. Such as what happened at Four Kings where Rand repeatedly wants to leave and suggests doing so but Mat insists on staying so they don’t have to sleep in the rain or in the case of the hunt, causes Rand to participate in the hunt with a life or death ticking clock. We don’t get any incite beyond Perrin and Rand noting Mat’s physically declining health, growing paler, losing weight and looking sickly as the book goes on. Mat of course doesn’t ever acknowledge it in dialogue because it’s Mat so we as an audience never get any incite into how Mat feels about the fact that he’s quite literally dying since we don’t have the benefit of his internal monologue.

Compare this to a the time where they subverted the ‘damsel in distress’ trope. with Egwene, there are three major plot lines in which she’s captured and we have povs for all three and in each of those events she still has agency. Even in the damane arc where she is quite literally stripped of her agency she still feels like an active character because we see her trying to defy the Seanchen, she’s not simply a plot device needing to be rescued she’s a character experiencing trauma. Even when Rand was put in the box he continues to evolve as a character and so did Faile during her time with the Shaido. All three had povs, all three were still actively participating in their situation, we knew exactly how they felt about the horrible things happening to them and see them deal with them in ways that show their characterization and growth.

Mat receives none of that. Not until the third book at least when he’s finally freed from the dagger.

So what’s up with that? Well, it’s possibly intentional. Okay so, the dagger of Shader Logoth and it’s Evil overwrites or at least tries to overwrite the person it’s possessing, that’s it’s curse, you become one with the dagger and one with Shadar Logoth. So up until the point Mat is fully healed from the dagger he is not really himself. Even after Morraine partially heals him, calming him down and keeping it from getting worse he’s still not fully Himself, as evidence by his memory loss. Partly it’s repression, but it was also the dagger overwriting his pre-exiting memories, his personality, everything that made him him. In the simplest of terms, Mat quite literally Wasn’t really his own character until book three, in many ways he WAS the dagger. An object with no personal agency but a catalyst for other characters.

[whinlatter]

Ok but what’s YOUR favorite (good things) about Lupin?

God, I love Remus Lupin.

This might sound odd, but, re-reading a lot Remus’s dialogue for some new writing, I’ve really come to appreciate how he speaks, and who he is in conversations in the Order. I know in a lot of fics (including some very famous ones...) Remus is written as someone very rough around the edges, quite coarse in his language. And while he is rough in some ways, hardened by his life experiences and forceful when angered, Remus often speaks quite formally, with a sort of high-minded articulateness. He’s also often the one, in Order scenes, who adds an almost philosophical angle to discussions, injects the big picture into conversation, draws in the context of politics and press. I think he's someone who sees Wizarding society and its institutions for what they are. Partly this is because of the lens he has on society because of his own marginalisation, but I think it's also because of his own temperament and great intelligence. Few characters think as clearly as him. (I think this is important in understanding his reverence for Dumbledore: not just gratitude, but a really profound intellectual respect).

Most of all, I just love how liked Remus was by tertiary characters. I love seeing how much both Molly and Arthur valued having him in their children’s lives, quietly affirming their trust in him, and respecting his place as the peacekeeper and negotiator between them and the more rebellious characters in the Order's orbit (both their own children, but also Sirius). I really love how important he was as a mentor figure to different young people in the series, almost despite himself. I'm trying to write and think a lot about this at the moment: Remus as a figure who young people repeatedly latch onto as a mentor, including, but not limited to, Harry.

Dean Thomas’ relationship with Remus is such a good example of this. Dean repeatedly describes Remus as the best DADA teacher they ever had, both in PoA and two years later in OotP, when defending him to Umbridge. When Dean finds out Remus is a werewolf in PoA, he could not give less of a shit (and actually hopes they’ll get a vampire next year seen as he’s really liked the last dangerous creature who taught them, which speaks volumes about how much respect he has for Remus). Dean just really rates him and looks up to him in this extremely endearing way. I love that Dean got to see his favourite teacher again at Shell Cottage in DH. That Dean got to see Remus at his happiest, completely euphoric at the birth of his son, shake his hand one last time and congratulate him, is really special. I think it's one of the most underrated, bittersweet moments in the series.

[omgellendean]

So, the possibly controversial opinion about R/L I mentioned before is that I don't think Rhaegar planned to get Lyanna pregnant to get the third head of the dragon. I think he actually believed he and Lyanna were the heads of the dragon.

From what I can tell, the prevalent fandom idea about Rhaegar's take on the dragon's three heads is that he:

considered his son Aegon the prince that was promised,

believed that Rhaenys is one of the heads of the dragon,

escaped with or kidnapped Lyanna hoping to get the third baby, which would also become the head of the dragon.

As a proof, the fact that Rhaegar named his kids after the Conquerors is usually brought up, and him saying "there must be one more" in Dany's vision, which implies there were two heads already.

But, while this line of thought is reasonable, I don't really believe Rhaegar included children other than Aegon in his beliefs.

Rhaenys was born and named in the period when Rhaegar thought himself to be the prince that was promised. We can probably all agree that he didn't consider his baby daughter as his future partner in saving the world back then. Aemon's wording to me seems to imply the idea about Aegon being the real PTWP came up only after his birth ("later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived"), but even if it happened earlier — the dragon still needs two more heads, and I think Rhaegar could believe himself to be one.

And no, there's no requirement for the heads to be siblings and/or lovers (though we most likely will get a love triangle between the dragonriders bc Martin loves this shit). Dany makes this guess because Jorah repeatedly references Aegon and his sisters when they talk about her visions in ACoK and ASoS:

"The three heads were Aegon and his sisters." (ACoK, Daenerys V) "Rhaenys and Visenya were Aegon's wives as well as his sisters. You have no brothers, but you can take husbands." (ASoS, Daenerys I)

However, when Aemon realises that Dany is the PTWP, he laments being too old and weak to be the head of the dragon. It's pretty clear he wishes not to marry his great-great-niece but to guide and support her. Rhaegar could envision himself playing a similar role to his son: to help him fulfill the prophecy, perhaps to fight alongside him in the future great battle.

Now to why I think Rhaegar didn't want to get a baby from Lyanna to complete the family team but saw her as another head of the dragon. Mostly because their connection has started at the Harrenhall tourney, before Aegon (or the idea of him being the actual promised prince) was even born. So there wouldn't be any necessity for Rhaegar to look for another mother for his child. If the idea to steal Lyanna away started to form here, he was looking for a partner for himself.

Also I just think they were genuinely in love, however egoistical and reckless it was of them (mainly of him, of course). For Rhaegar to completely forget any decorum or political concerns and give the flower crown to Lyanna right in front of Elia, he had to be really impressed by her. And Lyanna at Harrenhall was protecting the weak and (most likely) fighting as the mystery knight, the one whose shield Rhaegar brought back to the castle. And she cried over his song, but again, was fierce when her little brother tried to tease her about it. He had to be at least partly impressed by Lyanna's nonconformity. All this has markings of a romance (especially if you read other Martin's works), just as Lyanna holding that damn flower crown even on her deathbed. And romance is more likely to be about them wanting to be heroes together, not to get a child to play supporting role to their half-brother.

[tanenigiri]

*punches through wall* OUR DINING TABLE

(Thoughts and ramblings on episodes 8 and 9 under the cut. Some manga comparisons but I don't think any of them constitute as plot spoilers since there's one episode left, but if you plan on reading the manga and don't want the differences from the show to be spoiled, fair warning.)

The corresponding chapter of Episode 8 in the manga is actually where we find out all about Minoru's backstory. We see a good chunk of it here in the flashback in the cafe, when he and Tane first cross paths with Yutaka. But most of the other things we've seen about Minoru's past up to this point in the show - that scene with Nao where Tane spills a drink on her, that flashback scene with young Tane which looks like it just happened right after their mom's funeral, and the general sense of Minoru bearing the weight of being a second parent to Tane - all of that comes to head in this chapter of the manga. I know I've said it repeatedly over my previous posts, but I really have to say it again because it deserves the praise - Minoru's plot arc was handled so, so well in this show, and I genuinely think all the decisions they made to spread and flesh it out was to its benefit.

There were already a lot of other posts last week that pointed it out but I still wanna highlight it - the silence that pervades this episode was really effective in conveying the conflict Yutaka and Minoru were facing. Giving them all this space to think about it could be dragging for some, but I found it quite necessary for what they were dealing with. This show has always used the quiet moments effectively and I think this episode isn't an exception.

I also wanted to highlight how that whole idea of "things being the same" is important to both Yutaka and Minoru. Before the events of Episode 1, Yutaka was living a very monotonous routine, down to the meals he was feeding himself. And Minoru's life has been nothing but one massive change after the other, so I don't blame him in wanting to find something that he could keep from changing. But, of course, both of them know that what happened between them isn't static, and that the change is something they either have to accept or have to let go of.

Gotta dedicate a bullet point to Ohata, who finally got her one manga-canonical scene in this episode (Hozumi-kun you're so easy to read!), but really her character has quickly become my favorite addition to the series. She's a much-needed confidant for Yutaka in the same way the dad (and his manager at the ramen shop) is for Minoru, and these past two episodes also bring up the fact that she was having relationship troubles with her boyfriend. I guess I can point out how her own issues seemed a little too convenient in terms of giving the right advice to Yutaka to move the plot along, but I honestly don't mind it - partly because I think those conversations also serve to show how far Yutaka's come in terms of breaking out of his shell and partly because I always cheer whenever her character shows up haha. (And can we talk about how she's constantly the best-dressed character of the show? Like I know she doesn't really have much competition but still?? Did you guys see her hair in that last scene???)

Speaking of which, I'm so glad they added that last scene with Yutaka joining his officemates for drinks. This was only mentioned in the manga, but I think this is as big of a deal as the confession in terms of Yutaka's growth. This is the same character who, in Episode 1 (which was only a few months prior to this), was known by the office as someone who would turn down any invite, and the manga even goes further with this in that they wouldn't invite him at all because they know that he would just reject them. Not to mention that the literal first thing we find out about Yutaka is how he doesn't share meals with anyone! Seeing him in the bar with his coworkers is absolutely massive in terms of how much Yutaka has changed, and while Ohata is right in teasing him that it's because of a special someone, I do think it's a testament to how much progress Yutaka has made over the course of the show both because of Minoru and because of his personal growth.

And since I mentioned it, I'm pretty happy with how they translated that playground confession scene into the show. In particular I enjoyed how generally awkward it was because it was very in-character, and I think giving the scene a more laid back vibe instead of a serious one was a really good decision. That whole "you're very important to me" spiel destroyed me though.

It's only recently I realized that the whole "BL male lead running to other BL male lead" is an actual trope that's seen in almost every series and I find that so funny. I've only watched a few before this and they do all have running involved.

Screaming at Mr. Ueda literally dragging his son out of the house and telling him to get it together before the New Year rings in. We don't really get a lot of scenes between the two of them so I'm glad we got this.

Tane-kun takes a bit of a backseat in these two episodes as the plot shifts to Yutaka and Minoru's relationship (the same thing happens in the manga), but the scenes he does get are still really good. In particular I like that once he realizes that Minoru and Yutaka are "fighting," all Tane says is that Minoru should apologize because, for him, Yutaka would always understand and accept their apology.

Ok so I'm of two minds about that scene with Yuuki (Yutaka's adoptive brother), which I was pretty surprised to see as it wasn't in the manga. On one hand, I'm glad that we do get some sort of closure for this, and that at the end of the day, Yutaka does have an adoptive family that cares for him. But on the other hand, I really don't think that the apology was anywhere close to undoing the damage that Yutaka's had to bear all these years? Like, I get that it's a misunderstanding on both ends and that proper communication would've solved it (and this is, in fact, the takeaway Yutaka needed for his confession to Minoru), but I'm not a fan of the implication that just because Yuuki was apparently not that much of a jerk to Yutaka as we thought that he's forgiven for his clearly traumatizing actions? I don't think they're gonna address this further in next week's episode (though I'd love to be wrong), but I dunno - it's not the note I would've liked that plot point to be left on. Sure, put some forgiveness in there, but I guess I wanted either party to acknowledge that while Yutaka could start mending his relationship with his adoptive family, there's still a lot of damage that they need to process? I know that's a pretty big ask for what is essentially a minor plot point, but eh. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it (and on the show in general).

The preview gave me a glimpse of the one other scene in the manga that's in my Top 3 (up there with Yutaka's cartoonified backstory and Minoru taking care of a sick Yutaka) and I am soooo ready to break down because of it. For manga readers who want to know which one: It's the scene without Minoru.

Love this show so much. I don't want it to end and I'm both anticipating and dreading the finale next week.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

For the BL trope ask game: 4 and 13

Thanks for the ask, dearie! (And for getting this ask game started to begin with.) These tropes are very much up my alley.

Long-Term Pining (4)

I’m a big fan of long-term pining, as I'm sure you know and as is probably abundantly clear to anyone who reads my tumblr or talks about QL stuff with me elsewhere. I’m not sure what’s so especially compelling about it for me. Part of it is how special it is for someone to be that loyal and committed. Staying constant over a long time without encouragement is one of the biggest indications of the strength of someone’s feelings you could have. I also relate to it in some ways, because when I have serious feelings for someone they don’t ever really go away. Not to mention all the hopeless crushes I’ve had in my life. 

A lot of my favorite BLs/QLs involve a significant amount of pining, so I had plenty of ideas for this trope—if anything, I had too many. I decided to go with my new blorbo, Ai Di from Kiseki: Dear to Me, because his pining takes a really interesting form. 

According to something Louis Chiang said in a behind-the-scenes video, Ai Di has liked Chen Yi since he was six or seven years old, which would have made Chen Yi nine or ten. By the time of the second part of the story, Ai Di is 22 and Chen Yi is 25. That’s sixteen years of pining.

The thing I find most interesting about Ai Di’s version of pining is that it has a really paradoxical quality. Because of a combination of circumstances and his personality, he doesn’t respond to things in the way we would expect for someone who’s pining for someone else. (I guess it’s no wonder I got obsessed with Kiseki after watching it a couple weeks back, since I seem to have a thing for paradoxical relationship dynamics.) Basically, Ai Di is pining for someone while pushing him away and even rebuffing advances from him, things you wouldn’t expect someone deeply in love to do. 

Ai Di gives Chen Yi a hard time about how "his eyes gave him away" when he looked at their boss at this meeting, but what about this?

In the 2019 part of the story, Ai Di often pushes Chen Yi away and even pushes him toward their boss. He passes up invitations and complains about Chen Yi including him in things, repeatedly makes fun of Chen Yi for being a virgin (according to Ai Di) and says he’s impotent, and tells him again and again to confess to or hit on the boss, practically daring him to at times (albeit in a derisive way that wouldn’t be a great approach if he actually wanted Chen Yi to make a move). When Chen Yi kisses him, he bites his lip hard enough to make him bleed (after only hesitating for a microsecond). After he has sex with Chen Yi when he’s drunk, he distances himself in the biggest way yet. Partly out of guilt about this, and fear that Chen Yi will hate him when he realizes what he did, and partly out of his usual desire to protect him, he voluntarily goes to prison for four years in order to protect Zongyi (whose imprisonment is Chen Yi’s responsibility). 

From this point on, Ai Di pushes Chen Yi away even more than before. When Chen Yi comes to visit him in prison on their shared birthday and brings a cake like the ones he used to get for him, dropping massive hints that his eyes have been opened now, Ai Di is incredibly cold and tells him never to visit again. When he’s released in 2023, he continues to push Chen Yi away with all of his might. He avoids him, tells him repeatedly that they should cease all contact, and returns gifts Chen Yi sends him. The most hurtful thing he does is probably the way he talks about the night they had sex, claiming he did it “just for fun.” He goes on to rebuff two more advances from Chen Yi despite continued hints that he has come to understand and even return Ai Di’s feelings. 

If your prospective partner has to put you in a double kabedon, you're hardcore about avoiding them.

Chen Yi’s next attempt is successful. He ties Ai Di up, since he apparently has to be physically restrained in order to hear Chen Yi out. Chen Yi finally tells him more explicitly that after Ai Di went to prison he’d figured out how he felt and how much he’d done for him, that he knew it was him when they slept together (at least, after a certain point), and that he’d realized that he actually returned his feelings. 

This is an epic amount of avoidance for a long-term piner. In some cases, his avoidance is probably for the best. When Chen Yi first starts to put the moves on him, he hasn’t begun to sort out his feelings about the boss. Giving way could easily have made everything worse. But once Chen Yi starts to understand his feelings, it would have made sense for Ai Di to start to let his guard down. Yet he pushes back against Chen Yi’s overtures way harder at that point. 

When asked in an interview (translated here) about what advice he would give Ai Di, Louis Chiang said about Chen YI, “you have to go after him relentlessly, don’t let go of him, don’t let go of your own love for him, keep looking at him persistently, and make him look back at you.” Ai Di pretty much does the opposite of this, so there’s no wonder Chiang thought he could use this advice. 

Why would someone behave this way? There’s actually a good psychological explanation. It has everything to do with the adverse experiences he had as a child. We don’t know when the boss started taking care of Ai Di, but he was definitely with his birth parents or some other parental figures for some time before that happened, and according to him, his parents “went crazy because of drugs,” implying intense use of serious substances. Even if he was under the boss’s care at a very young age, his most formative years would have been spent in a very chaotic environment. It seems like he experienced severe neglect and he may have seen any number of things a child shouldn’t. Like a lot of people with this kind of early experience, Ai Di appears to have a disorganized attachment style. Which is something I could go off about, but that should probably be its own post. 

For now I’ll just say that I think the paradoxical way Ai Di behaves given his devotion to Chen Yi is one of the things that makes him such an interesting character. 

Grumpy/Sunshine (13)

I'm a bit partial to this trope, too. I have a few favorites. Ji Woo and Seo Joon from To My Star are right up there. But for this post, I’m going to talk here about another grumpy/sunshine pair I love: Mamoru and Issei from Kabe Koji. 

How much more grumpy/sunshine could they get?

When it comes to BL protagonists, Mamoru is about as grumpy as it gets. He approaches the world as if disappointment and provocation are so inevitable that he may as well get angry and resigned now and skip the part where he makes an effort. And it seems like he’s had his share of experiences that led him to have these expectations. He deals with homophobic bullying on a regular basis. His rare sources of happiness are really tenuous, like his vacillating popularity with readers of independent comics. And his selective, biased memory of what happened with Issei serves to justify his worst views of life and humanity. Yet in the face of all of this, he has a remarkable, stubborn insistence on following his dream, and though he compromises it at times, he usually listens to his creative voice in an admirable way. 

Issei, meanwhile, is such a sunshine boy that he dances right up to the line where toxic positivity starts. But he doesn’t cross it. He's not always great at sitting with his own negative feelings, though he manages to grow his capacity for that as the story progresses. But it comes pretty naturally to him to sit with other people’s negative feelings. It’s one of the reasons he keeps winning people over wherever he goes--he's able to join with people in their fear and distress and still hold on to a thread of sincere positivity and compassion.

The trouble with Mamoru is that the negative filter he applies to everything is too extreme and he applies it so rigidly. It’s wild to see how much his brain is able to twist anything into something bad. Studying psychology and doing some training placements as a therapist definitely showed me firsthand that human beings have a remarkable capacity to twist things to fit their existing beliefs and expectations, so the fact that I was frequently blown away by Mamoru’s negative filter is really saying something. 

In his gentle, good-natured way, Issei forces Mamoru to look at things differently and open himself up to new experiences and relationships. It’s amazing gift to be able to do that. I don’t think I could pull off being as sunshine-y as Issei in a million years, even though I have some low-key Pollyanna tendencies. But I wonder if I could learn from the way he relates to people. Sometimes he handles other adults in ways that remind me of things I’ve read in parenting books. I guess this is because he makes it a priority to validate others, and that’s an important parenting skill. I don’t think he infantilizes others, though. It’s more that Issei is the kind of person who would treat a kid with as much respect as an adult. And really, the things that kids need from interactions with their parents are almost always the same kinds of things we all need from one another. 

And again, so grumpy, so sunshine.

It’s interesting that Mamoru is able to provide something to Issei that he can’t get elsewhere. It’s been a while since I watched Kabe Koji so I could be off here, but I think it has to do with the one little idealistic piece of himself that Mamoru has guarded with all of his grumpy defense mechanisms–and the fact that Issei ended up as a sort of patron saint of that part of him, a symbol of hope in the world. If he only saw Issei this way, that would be a big problem. But he’s still able to see him as a person–if anything, he understands his personhood and respects his feelings more than anyone. I guess he’s cynical enough that an idealized image of Issei as a perfect ray of sunshine wouldn’t be believable or appealing to him anyway. Sometimes his image of Issei gets a bit disconnected from reality, like what happens when he doesn’t interact with him in real life for a long time and just sees him doing idol things on TV and stuff. But as long as he’s around him sometimes, he continues to really see him in a way that few people do. 

It really doesn’t get better than someone who really sees you for who you are and still thinks what they see is exceptional. Or when someone you think is truly exceptional sincerely loves you back.

[avpdpossum]

Hi and thank you for making this blog! I have avpd and I have been wondering a lot about why. Why did I develop a personality disorder. So I wanted to ask you what your thoughts are? Is it genetics, the environment, trauma? My avpd is making it very hard for me to accept my diagnosis and not turn it into a critic of myself. “I’m born wrong/weak or I’m so weak that I went crazy and traumatized from nothing”. I’m trying to tell my negative thoughts that “I’m just a sensitive person, and the environment and people around me have affected me in a negative way so this is how my coping strategies and view of myself and the world have developed” but it’s hard to believe because I don’t know if I know enough about avpd to be sure of that. Also, not referring to the common misconception that avpd is avoidant attachment, do you think people with avpd also have some sort of unsafe attachment style? And if so, which one is most common? And are unsafe attachment styles an inherent part of avpd?

i’ll answer the easy part first — avpd is most commonly associated with a fearful-avoidant attachment style. if you read descriptions of it, you’ll definitely see the similarities to avpd. not all fearful-avoidantly attached people have avpd, but as far as i can tell it’s for sure the most common among avoidants.

and i would argue that yeah, people with personality disorders in general are pretty much guaranteed to have an insecure attachment style of some sort. of course, not being securely attached doesn’t automatically mean you have a personality disorder, but i think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with a secure style and a PD, including avpd.

now, onto the question of how someone ends up with avpd. i’m actually working on a longer post related to this right now, so definitely look out for that! but i can summarize my thoughts on the subject here:

the short answer is, avpd seems to be a combination of genetics and outside influences.

as far as the genetics go, there are a lot of factors indicating that a predisposition to develop avpd can be inherited. avpd more common in first-degree relatives of people with social anxiety and people with schizophrenia, avpd traits are associated with personality traits which are believed to be particularly heritable as far as personality traits go, and avpd traits have been found to be somewhere between 30% and 65% heritable (depending on which study you look at). so it’s very very likely that some sort of genetic vulnerability is involved in developing avpd.

that being said, the research i’ve read pretty unanimously agrees that the genetic part can’t account for all of avpd on its own, and most conceptualizations will attribute that other piece to trauma. if we do think of it as being at least partly caused by trauma, there are two main reasons you might feel like you were “traumatized by nothing”.

the first is experiencing harder-to-notice forms of childhood trauma. the research i’ve read repeatedly identifies two kinds of traumatic parenting as being related to avpd: neglect and overcontrol. both of these are hard to spot — neglect (emotional or physical) because it’s very hard to see what’s not there, and overcontrol because it tends to be normalized as “just how parents are supposed to act” (think lack of privacy/boundaries, high expectations, general lack of freedom). both of these (and combinations of them) are super hard to spot, especially when you’re the one experiencing them, so it can feel like the trauma comes from nowhere even if you’ve experienced a recognized form of childhood trauma.

the second reason has to do with that genetic component of avpd. one theory about what the specific inherited aspect of avpd is (which i personally tend to agree with and base a lot of my own theories about avpd on) is that we naturally have a lower autonomic arousal threshold. put more plainly, that means it takes a lot less for us to go into fight-or-flight mode than the average person. in situations where the average person would be a healthy amount of stressed/concerned (or not at all), someone with this hypersensitivity might already feel like it’s life or death. and at least in my opinion, that sure as hell sounds like it could turn common situations which most people come out of fine into trauma, right? i’m sure plenty of people also have that sensitivity and don’t end up developing some sort of neurodivergency as a result, but some of us do and that’s through no fault of our own. it’s already widely recognized that literally any stressful situation can become traumatic if you don’t have the resources to manage that stress, so when you’re already at a disadvantage like we are, it’s not hard to believe some of us would end up traumatized by things most people see as normal, manageable stresses of life.

so my theory on how avpd develops is that we’re born with this natural hypersensitivity, and then over the course of our childhood and adolescence, we go through some sort of trauma — maybe super obvious trauma, maybe less commonly recognized trauma, maybe trauma that most people would never even think of as trauma, maybe some combination of the above — which causes us to retreat into ourselves to manage how the trauma heightens that hypersensitivity. our brains go from being very easily activated to being pretty much always activated. we want to avoid things that could overwhelm our nervous system just like anyone else does, but because our brains have reached a point where nearly anything can overwhelm us, we just end up avoiding almost everything.

i’m sure plenty of people have other explanations and will disagree with me on this, but this is what makes the most sense to me based on my own experiences and the research i’ve done.

and i can assure you that, at least from my perspective (and i’m sure from the others too), developing avpd doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you — the fact that that’s the conclusion your brain jumps to is, i would argue, literally just an avoidant trait in itself and not a reflection of reality at all. you’re absolutely right to tell yourself that you are just sensitive, not “weak” or “wrong”, because i believe that’s a very real part of it and a lot of work on avpd seems to agree. our brains just naturally work differently and given the wrong cocktail of early life experiences, we end up avoidant. your brain’s just doing the best it can to protect you from a world that it perceived as genuinely life-or-death dangerous.

[lethesomething]

Yakuza and coping mechanisms

Yakuza has been my on and off hyperfocus for years now but also in particular the past month, so let's talk about it. And particularly, how many friggin coping mechanisms are in this game.

Disclaimer: I do literary analysis, not psycho analysis, don't come for me.

For all its silliness about fighting roomba's and disco minigames, the world that the Yakuza games is set in, is fucking brutal. They are, at their very core, crime drama's. People get murdered a lot, lives are ruined in various ways, a good third of protags spend large amounts of time in jail, usually for a crime they didn't commit. Most politicians and police are corrupt, racism is blatant and if you don't have a place in the very strict hierarchy of society, it's hard to get back on your feet (hence all the crime). I tend to read a lot of indictments of Japanese society in these games, partly because they are so clearly based on old school yakuza crime drama's.

This means that the characters go through some shit. And what's fascinating, is how they deal with this.

Spoiler warning for, uhh, almost all yakuza games except Song Of Life (since i never played that)

Pretending it's not real

Kasuga Ichiban

The direct reason I'm even making this blog post because he's the most blatant about it. Kasuga is Peak Himbo in that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he manages to take being beaten down Repeatedly and overcomes that with a sense of genuine good nature and optimism that is… honestly kind of hard to believe. The way he deals with any of this, is that he's a nerd who pretends to be in a video game. It's the whole premise of Yakuza Like a Dragon.

And to be fair, Kasuga suffers from an amount of mistreatment that makes me Very Angry in his stead. He has every right to be upset! He is literally homeless in the beginning of the game. If he requires the escapism of going around pretending to be in a jrpg to survive, more power to him. Especially since it works. Dude goes around helping people and making friends. Which is a good thing, because there's no way he'd make it out of Yokohama alive if he didn't have some back-up.

Side note: something similar happens to at the very least Majima, i think, in the admittedly non-canonical events of Yakuza Dead Souls. (yes i played it solely for Majima, no i do not recommend it, the game is garbage and you get more Majima in Zero anyway). In Dead Souls, Kamurocho is overrun by zombies. As a lover of all things Horror, Majima decides he may as well have a good time mowing them down like he's in an FPS while he trudges through the wreckage of society.

Self sacrifice

Mostly Kazuma Kiryu and  Saejima Taiga

If you hate yourself, at least try to be of use to someone. Let's be honest, a lot of the plot of Yakuza games is driven by self sacrifice or at least following some code of honor to its ludicrous ends.

Kiryu is the main example here. The game kinda glosses over this a lot, but he is, at least in Zero, a criminal. He goes around extorting money from businesses. He consistently solves problems through violence. It's kinda the point of the games. But he's also borderline a saint and 80% of the shit he gets into is because of his need to throw himself to the wolves for any person he cares about. He voluntarily does hard time for Nishikiyama, for one. He picks up a stray kid that he will now protect with his life. And it just goes on from there. See, Kiryu may be the famous Dragon of Dojima and the Fifth Chairman of the Tojo Clan and all that, but he would very much prefer not to be? Dude wants to live a quiet life and raise some kids, it's just that he's the protag of a game series about how hard it is to say goodbye to the yakuza life. So the plot keeps finding ways to bring him back, usually as a reluctant warrior to save the Tojo clan or Haruka  or whatever. If he was a little less honorable, he could still be chilling as a taxi driver with an unreasonably hot girlfriend, I'm just saying.

Saejima is very similar, but somehow even worse? Much as I love the guy, he's an idiot. He suffers from the same loyalty and selflessness as Kiryu, but he doesn't even get a cute daughter out of it. He spends Twenty Five years in prison for a crime he (we later find out) didn't commit. He escapes months before his parole to solve the convoluted plot of Y4. Then Goes Back to Jail to atone for (again) a crime he only thought he'd committed, only to escape (again) when he thinks Majima, his sworn brother, got murdered in Y5. As far as i can tell he goes back to jail one last time to finish his actual sentence, and to like, protect the name of the Tojo clan or some shit. My dude. My friend. Come on.

As a side note, acts of selflessness are kind of a big deal in the Yakuza games and one of the main ways to tell if someone is a good criminal or a villain. Kasuga and his crew are pretty big on the whole 'acts of selfless kindness' thing. It also seems to be one of the traits of Daigo Dojima, whose whole being screams 'I don't want to be here but who else is gonna fucking do it'. But in the case of Kiryu and Saejima it's very much verging on reckless self-endangerment.

Fabricated identities

Majima Goro, baby!

The Yakuza games really love this one, but I'll start with the big guy, everyone's favourite character: Majima. This dude has seen some shit. We see him throughout several flashbacks and the span of the games, but most tellingly we see him in Zero, at his rock bottom hero stage. And he's intriguingly unlike the other times he shows up. This is a Majima that's recovering from torture and backstabbing, and forced to do some dude's bidding for scraps. He's a chained dog (pun very much intended) and he's about to lose it.

What's fun about Majima is that he has So Many of the traits in this list. He has a lot of the reckless endangerment and self sacrifice that his buddies Kiryu and Saejima have. He gave himself up a few times for Haruka, he keeps trundling back to save Tojo and Dojima, but there's also a whole other layer of … Flamboyance to him.

And while Majima probably started out as comic relief, the games make clear that it's not all he is, and we get several glimpses of 'old Majima' throughout the series. He'll be in the middle of a self inflicted fight and drop some wisdom, for instance. He acts erratically, he is blunt, violent, exuberant in his dressing up. When given a task his first thought seems to be 'how can i make this Extra', but that doesn't mean the guy is unstable. You don't become a successful businessman with a building company, or a patriarch of your own family, without being smart and strategic. A lot of classic Majima behaviour, i feel, is a case of a mask he constructed to hide the severe depression, that became more of a second nature to him. Majima is one of the clearest examples of 'do what you need to do'. He's a survivor, through and through. Somewhere in there is a decent human being, but Majima will kill people to survive in a harsh world. It just seems like he constructed an extra layer to shield himself from all that.

Joon-gi Han (Like a Dragon): This is more a case of stolen (inherited??) identity, but again, if you don't want to be you, just be someone else. In this case someone he admires. Again: super tragic backstory, questionable life choices. As an aside, Joon-gi is fun because he is both a deadly assassin with someone else's name and face, but also  a Knight stereotype who would do everything for his queen and I think that's neat.

Zhao Tianyou (Like a Dragon): Somewhat more subtle, but Zhao is also a dude that was at one point confronted with a Situation, namely 'oh shit my dad died and now I'm in charge of a violent gang'. And to deal with that he decided to construct a persona that gives exactly zero fucks. He is very joking and very avoidant but we do learn that a fair amount of his laid back attitude is just veneer. Dude in fact gives several fucks. You don't decide to give up the throne and become a homeless sidekick to Himbo Supreme because you don't care. You do it to stop him from getting ultra-murdered by the parade of heavily armored gangsters he keeps storming into.

Akiyama Shun (Yakuza 4-5): I debated putting him here, because part of me believes Akiyama is just kind of a dick. A dick I love as a character, but still, ya know. At least some of the dickish persona is a front, though. Akiyama is another one that just saw his life's work destroyed at some point, and decided that emotional detachment was the way to go. Akiyama is different because he was never actually a proper criminal. He was homeless for a bit, and then came into some money (through Extremely Convoluted Plot Means) and now he's a moneylender. And like Zhao, he mostly pretends to be completely devoid of feelings, while having a fair amount of feelings. Enough to get into like… fist fights. With actual gangsters. Who have guns.

Vice

Sex, drugs and everything in between

The preferred way for noir drama's to show someone is Going Through It, is by giving them a classic addiction and Yakuza isn't any different. It's why several characters are shown mournfully smoking, in particular Kiryu and Majima. Yes I know it's because it looks cool and harks back to old crime movie atmosphere. That doesn't make it a healthy coping mechanism.

Another obvious one, considering the setting of the games in several red lights districts, is erotica. Both Adachi, the ex-cop from Like a Dragon and Shinada, the ex-baseball player from Y5 and also my least fave protag ever, are both in various stages of obsession about porn, sex work and the likes.

Tanimura, the cop from Y4 has a pretty severe gambling problem in the actual canon, though gambling games and casino's are a general mainstay of the Yakuza series. It's just that when Kiryu interrupts his busy day of solving the convoluted intrigue du jour to gamble in an illegal underground casino, it's not a character flaw.

Also: almost everyone drinks ludicrous amounts of heavy alcohol in these games. Both in canon and as part of the gameplay. 100% ing the games usually involves drinking tons of whiskey, but the whole Ichiban crew, sans I think Eri, is shown drowning their troubles at various times.

Violence: I mean, that's kind of the game, but an unhealthy amount of characters consider fist fights to be a good way to resolve conflict, bond with people and generally reinvigorate themselves. Particularly Majima is shown to get a real kick out of doing damage and being beaten up. There's just a lot of reckless behaviour, which is what makes the games good.

Karaoke: fake it till you make it, man.

Extra note:

You'll notice there's no women on this list, and that's because honestly the game is kinda sexist. So while there's already Very Few women in the game, the ones that are present don't exactly have super complex characters.

Mukoda Saeko, the hostess from Like a Dragon, drinks like a fish but that's about her main flaw.

Other notable female characters are Kiryu's kid Haruka, Kiryu's love interest Sawamura Yumi (Kiwami) and Kamataki Eri, the business lady from Like a Dragon. They're all stereotypical Good Girls who have no flaws apart from indecisiveness and an unhealthy tendency for selflessness.

Saejima Yasuko is ever so slightly more complex: her main trait is self sacrifice. The story promptly fridges her for it.

[clambrulee]

Okay so I haven’t read tokihogushi yet and I’m only halfway through kageboushi but I feel like the vns paint a more accurate picture of Natsumi’s personality. In the manga we don’t really see her negative personality traits as much because we’re only seeing her pov and she’s usually dissociating when she has a drastic mood change so you don’t actually know what’s going on until the final chapters.

If you’ve only read the manga she comes off as more of an innocent victim which on some level you can argue she is, but it’s complicated. The emphasis on her struggle to accept people from Hinamizawa and feeling like she has to denounce her connections to her hometown as well and conform to city life make her feel more real. She’s not perfect. She’s not completely sweet and innocent. She acts kind of horrible towards people she knows are from Hinamizawa including her grandma because she thinks their worship of Oyashiro-sama is creepy and if she so much as speaks to them she’ll be branded as a creepy person from the creepy village. She’s incredibly self-conscious to an unhealthy degree so much that it causes her to act selfish towards others solely to protect her own reputation. It’s definitely partly due to her mother’s negative influence. Her mom hates Hinamizawa and she hates how much her own mother worships Oyashiro-sama. She thinks her old traditions are creepy and that gets passed on to Natsumi, which quite honestly gives Natsumi a very ableist view of the village, but that’s also due to the way she was raised.

Natsumi’s mom is emotionally abusive which definitely plays into how heavily her daughter internalizes the narrative that Hinamizawa is a creepy village full of “crazy people.” I know at some point in the narrative we’re in Natsumi’s head and it’s not actually her mom saying certain stuff, because she’s hallucinating but what sticks out is what happens even before that. Before Natsumi starts acting violent. When I read the manga I got confused about whether or not her mother actually was that bad because of the unreliable narrator, but reading the vns make it clear that she’s kind of a terrible parent. She doesn’t try to reason with Natsumi. She just punishes and berates her repeatedly without letting her get a word in edgewise because Natsumi broke the rules and got a job “behind her back.” But the only reason she got the job was to buy her parents an anniversary gift. It’s no wonder her daughter’s so terrified to do anything considered “weird.” She can’t even have a bit of a private life without her mom breathing down her neck and telling her she’s wrong. Just for saving up some money. Natsumi doesn’t even trust her mom enough to tell her that she has a boyfriend because she knows that she’ll overreact. And her father kind of just doesn’t defend her at all because he’s scared to talk back to his wife. The woman gets into screaming matches with the grandmother just because she doesn’t want to hear her praying in a time of crisis. Of course when grandma talks about the curse, it distresses the family, but she’s just an anxious old woman struggling in a time of distress and she isn’t intentionally doing anything wrong. But no one actually tries to calm her down. And Natsumi’s mother only exacerbates the situation by yelling at her to shut up about Hinamizawa. No wonder Natsumi doesn’t want to be associated with the village, seeing her own mother’s attitude toward her grandmother.

And then Natsumi starts distrusting her friends. She acts cold and uncaring towards them. She becomes extremely possessive of Akira, believing he’s the only person who cares about her. Thinking that her friends are going behind her back and trying to keep him away from her. It’s all a misunderstanding. But it’s incredibly sad when you realize that the reason she’s so distrustful is because her own mother has her on such a tight leash that she can’t even feel comfortable enough to confide in the people she cares about.

[hoursofreading]

After reading her books, you have to ask, is Simone Weil a saint or is she crazy? After all, when she was ill with pneumonia, she allowed herself to eat just the amount she thought would be available to residents of German occupied France in the early 1940s – and starved herself at age 34.

Why should we read Weil? Susan Sontag tells us we often measure truth in terms of the suffering of the author. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Genet—and Simone Weil have their authority with us partly because of their conviction, their self-martyrdom.

Modern readers could not embrace the life choices or ideas of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, but ‘we read them for their scathing originality, for their personal authority, for the example of their seriousness, and for their willingness to sacrifice themselves for their truths.’ Simone Weil belongs in this category, ‘one of the most uncompromising and troubling witnesses to the modern travail of the spirit.’

Simone Weil was born into a family of wealthy, intellectual, secular Parisian Jews. In her early twenties she had a spiritual birth when in a Portuguese village she heard the wives of fishermen singing religious hymns. She felt Christianity was the true religion of the oppressed. Later she was moved by a chapel where St. Frances served, and by poem from Herbert.

Although she accepted Jesus as truth and beauty, she would never be baptized because she believed the same truth and beauty existed in the Greek philosophers, in Taoism, in Buddhism, in the Bhagavad-Gita and in ancient Egypt.

She also believed ‘The Church has borne too many evil fruits for there not to have been some mistake at the beginning. Europe has been spiritually uprooted, cut off from that antiquity in which all the elements of our civilization have their origin. . . It would be strange, indeed, that the word of Christ should have produced such results if it had been properly understood.’

She was also appalled by what organized religion could do when it became powerful, citing the Catholic Church’s record of the crusades, banning, and inquisition. She was similarly suspicious of Protestantism, which she felt to be too closely linked with individual nations. Plus, she felt too many parishioners assign importance to the rituals instead of striving to attain a personal understanding with God.

Weil saw Jesus as the perfect model of suffering. Weil believed that God's love becomes born or personified in us when we pay attention to others. This requires emptying ourselves of our own our interests and projections in order to be truly present to another person – similar to the kenosis of the early Gnostics.

She left her position as a philosophy professor where she was constantly in trouble with school administrators because of her involvement with the unemployed, her participation in labor protests and her difficulty dealing with authority. She worked in an auto factory, then in the fields working a farm.

Simone Weil tells us that the first principle of helping another is not action. It is to see and respect the other. She repeatedly notes that the greater the suffering of the other person, the harder it is truly to see and hear that person.

Weil reminds us how glibly we can talk about compassion, as if it were an easy thing, sometimes making it sound like little more than pity. However, true compassion requires us to allow suffering to disturb us and even sometimes to take us over.

Weil wrote ‘There should not be the slightest discrepancy between one's thoughts and one's way of life.’ Sontag responds that sanity requires some compromising, some evasions and even lies. Maybe that why Weil’s relentless searching makes us uncomfortable.

T.S. Eliot wrote ‘A potential saint can be a very difficult person. One is struck, here and there, by contrast between (Weil’s) almost superhuman humility and what appears to be an almost outrageous arrogance.’

Kenneth Rexroth wrote ‘Simone Weil was one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth, or indeed of any other century. She could interject all the ill of the world into her own heart. . . Her letters read like the more distraught signals of John of the Cross in the dark night.’

Pope Paul VI (who corresponded with Weil and tried to get her baptized) said that Weil was one of his three greatest influences, and Albert Camus said ‘Weil was the only great spirit of our time.’ I believe Sontag, Eliot and Rexroth are right. We may disagree with parts of what Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky and Weil said, but we can’t help but be struck by their searing insights.

Waiting for God is a collection of Weil’s letters and essays that were compiled after her death, and it is a full array of Weil’s thinking from baptism to friendship and from school studies to the nature of love. It doesn’t flow well because she never wrote a book in her lifetime; her books are all compilations of her letters.

I like one of Weil’s spiritual insights: 'An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.'

I initially rated this book lower due to the lack of cohesiveness among the essays, but after time and reflecting on today’s reactions against immigrants, and with Brexit and Trump, I felt perhaps the world needs to hear more from someone who truly understood compassion and actually lived with genuine empathy for those less fortunate.

[norsecoyote]

I do not as a rule read a lot of fanfic. This is partly because I don't get much time to read, period, and partly because I still have a bit of a cringe reaction to the whole concept, but also because I will get turned off a story quickly if the author gets something wrong either about a character (which I gather is common) or about the broader themes or point of the original story.

This is by way of saying that, now that I've thoroughly outed myself as an unironic fan of French children's animated superhero show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, I want to do what I believe is the next required step on tumblr.com: complain about something the fandom gets wrong.

Fair warning: this is not a meta-post about fandom or fanfic generally, this is 100% me, a nominal adult, bitching about People Being Wrong About Miraculous On The Internet. You stand at the Cringe Event Horizon; read on at your own risk.

So: the central interpersonal tension that powers the show is the "love rectangle" between the leads, where Marinette loves Adrien and Chat Noir loves Ladybug but neither knows the other's secret identity. The obvious solution is absurdly simple: reveal their identities and collapse the quantum superposition of crushes.

A ton of fanfic about the show does exactly that: contrive some scenario where they accidentally discover who each other are, they kiss, they live happily ever after (plus or minus one maniacally obsessed supervillain). And I get why, I think -- the show absolutely looks like it's going to keep this will they/won't they tension going forever, since it's one of its two central narrative motors, and a whole ton of early episodes play with one of the two trying to get closer to the other, failing, and returning exactly to the status quo. Given that, it makes sense why fans would want to just write the goddamn resolution already; it isn't until S3 that the two start making any real progress towards being together.

But. The problem, on many levels, is that the show's writers are smarter than that. Like on the very basic one, the show makes clear from very early on that the old master who gave the heroes their powers explicitly forbade them from revealing their identities, because doing so would let Hawk Moth find and defeat them. And this isn't like an arbitrary concern: Hawk Moth's whole deal is corrupting random people and getting them to work for him, so if he ever happened to even accidentally akumatize someone who knows their identities, that's more or less the whole ballgame. If you're writing a story where Ladybug and Chat Noir learn who each other are but they haven't defeated Hawk Moth yet -- and there are a bunch of these -- you have missed something rather crucial about why they couldn't just do that already.

(The first half of S5 -- which to be fair only came out a year ago -- does a very clever thing where it systematically explores basically every possible workaround to this issue, considering every new power or possibility opened up by events from across the previous four seasons, and methodically rejects each one by showing how it wouldn't solve the actual central problem. I bring this up not to throw shade on any fanfic authors, most of whom were writing before S5 released, but to credit (again) the show's writers for the depth of their understanding of what makes the show tick.)

More fundamentally -- and this is an insight very much stolen from that CJ the X video -- on a character growth/emotional level, Marinette and Adrian aren't ready to be in a relationship yet. Like, sure, they will be perfect for each other, but (at least for most of the series to date) they aren't yet. Marinette starts out with an extremely adolescent crush on a literal fashion model, and Adrien at first is clearly much more in love with his unexpected new freedom as Chat Noir than anything specific about his new partner. They are, to put as blunt a point on it as the show itself repeatedly does, kids.

And, critically, the show understands that they both need to learn to accept themselves first. From an adult perspective it's just duh that you can't have a mature romantic relationship without a solid sense of self (and self-confidence), but that's not remotely obvious to kids at the age of the show's target audience and it's genuinely refreshing to see it acknowledge and reflect that obstacle. One of the few active benefits of the show's extremely episodic pacing is that the writers have time to show both protagonists' slow but genuine character growth, Marinette building up her confidence in her own abilities and decisions and Adrien forging an identity separate from his father's business asset, until when they finally start building something real together in the fifth season it feels genuinely earned.

This emotional arc, in other words, is baked into the show's structure from the very beginning. Fanfic that tries to shortcut this process has, again, fundamentally failed to understand the characters it's nominally telling a story about. Like, I get wanting to experience the emotional high of seeing your favorite characters get their happy ending, but -- the fact that they can't just get that is kind of central to their entire characterization! Are you even writing about the same characters at that point?

[alectology-archive]

a day of fallen night final thoughts below the cut, but to summarise I think this is a book people can enjoy easily but it didn’t really do anything particularly great for me in terms of the themes it was dealing with (although I do feel very positively about it’s scathing criticisms of monarchical systems of power especially when they wield power in alliance with the fantasy!church. also that climate fiction is always delicious to read about). spoilers include the ending and partly the general character arcs.

thoughts on the technical aspects of the book:

having finished the book I still strongly believe that the pacing of the story progressed at break-neck speed and left no room for the characters to breathe. I do think this is specifically an issue with the editors involved with this book because all of her other books have never given me the same impression and samantha has repeatedly mentioned that her editors trimmed a lot of words from tpotot and adofn. male writers get to keep nonsensical bits of useless exposition; she should’ve been allowed to throw in a couple more thousand words to let the characters breathe and develop and feel. not that it necessarily means that the manuscript didn’t need to shed some weight, but you know what I mean. the scenes also cut off pretty abruptly sometimes to shift POVs which is well. not good.

… speaking of which a lot of scenes that we build up to take place off-screen despite having a lot of emotional and narrative significance (for instance we learn off-screen that wulf spent 9 months in the priory and also that he was easily convinced that cleolind really defeated the nameless one). this happens multiple times, and made for a very frustrating reading experience - I think dumai’s storyline particularly suffers from this.

I never really felt my heart leap in my chest the way it did multiple times while reading priory and tbs - her writing style involves making her characters face a continuous stream of conflicts that seem insurmountable which is kind of what really drew me to her books in the beginning. I suspect this might be because I kind of have a sense for her writing patterns now that lets me predict her style of storytelling.

I think glorian’s storyline should have started around the time preceding/following sabran vi’s death because I really tired of her POVs before that - it just didn’t have any plot significance. I also admittedly don’t care for reading about characters who’re in their teenhood any more.

with dumai’s storyline, the story seemed to promise court intrigue but failed to really deliver on it. samantha’s also pretty good at writing flawed antagonists but none of them landed well for me in this book.

adofn also seemed to feature a lot of Telling rather than Showing, but this might also be a personal issue because I prefer books to be a lot more subtle with their character development and themes. this was not really the case when I was 16, so I’m not sure if I’ve just become more critical of her work (it’s probably just that).

I think samantha isn’t very good at writing Nice Male Characters. I say this fondly. I love that she excels at writing terrible men, though. jaxon tbs sucks! I love him.

we spend more time with training sequences than we seem to with scenes with conflict between the protagonists and antagonists which is kind of a shame.

this is a very vague criticism and people might not agree, but I also did get the impression that samantha had a hard time letting women just be… horrible in this book. really morally questionable in a significant way. this was not a problem she had in priory. I do think it’s interesting to really deconstruct the concept of a witch in the woods and instead present her as a person who seeks to protect the land, but it also seemed to… contradict kalyba’s pre-established characterisation? like she retconned her background while working on this book? just…. let women be horrible lol. nikeya also wasn’t nearly half as devious as the narrative tried to convince us she was.

she often clarifies how a certain character is queer sometimes in ways I don’t necessarily like (this is specifically referring to the point about how I’ve gradually grown to appreciate more subtlety in books recently). in nona the ninth, we learn that camilla hect has two dads and tamsyn muir never descends into discussing the minutiae the way samantha does.

while the climate and balance element of the magic system was dealt with a lot of nuance a lot of the antagonists lacked the depth that the magic system had with a bunch of conflicts being painted as black and white scenarios (it doesn’t really turn out that way at the end of the book, but you do spend most of the book with certain assumptions that are only countered in the very last chapters of the book. it doesn’t make for an fun reading experience).

kediko onjenyu should have waged a war against the priory. prince guma and robart ellar should have been allowed to mount a more formidable political opposition to glorian. the river lord and nikeya shoild have done more politicking. there was a lot of opportunity for more politicking that was wasted as empty threats.

I was personally a little annoyed that religion played such a heavy role in every single POV we got, but it’s fine, it’s not a big deal. I love examinations of religions in text, but I also don’t enjoy stories that have a high density of religious characters because I don’t like the touch of false belief that religion infuses into the narration of the characters who keep strong faith.

While her writing style was really the one I first remember falling in love with, I do think you could tell when certain sections of the book were better edited and went through more rewrites. it’s fine! she cares a lot about writing as a craft and that’s all I really expect from an author. it didn’t particularly wow me this time, although I continue to love her usage of metaphors.

thoughts on thematic coherence:

the single most frustrating narrative was the very unsatisfactory conclusion to siyu’s storyline - it ended with the narrative seemingly concluding that she needed to properly submit to the suffocating structure of the priory that caused her severe psychological and emotional distress ie it ignored the family as a tool of oppression. I’m not saying the criticism was entirely absent - the narrative is pretty sympathetic to her and generally indicates that she was treated very cruelly - but that criticism is negated when it’s ignored in the latter half of the series. why would you do this to her! I’m glad she was allowed to go to inys at the end of the book, but the conversation where tunuva and esbar apologised to her should have taken place, and it never did. ead’s storyline did focus more on the need for reform in the priory, but I don’t recall if it really dealt with the questions siyu’s storyline was posing.

^^^ speaking of which I do think it’s weird to reaffirm the need for siyu to integrate into a system that has hurt her when samantha specifically writes with the intent to critique the concept of family and marriage. she needed to do some more retrospection in that department, I think :/ also I’m probably making it sound worse than it really is, but the resolution was still Not Great.

the reproductive burden that women face in continuing bloodlines and its significance in monarchies particularly was dealt with excellently, as was the mechanisms through which the institutions of power that they were a part of played a role in the dehumanisation of women and in denying them any real autonomy over their bodies.

samantha’s personal struggles with mental health also give her an informed view on depression and I could Relate. excellently done, no notes, I did mark the quotes so I’ll hunt them down and post them later.

the individual endings presented to us in the epilogue were all pretty great though! I always love her endings - particularly, the touch of tragedy she infuses into them always makes them very satisfying.

[rainbowchewynuggets]

Okay, change of plans.

Despite my best laid plans, my intentions to produce that Hellboy comic through October are turning out to be more unrealistic than they were before I moved. Unforeseen circumstances are going to reduce the amount of free time I have in the near future (thanks, Ian), and I straight up overestimated how quickly I’d be able to draw each page. Which happens a lot.

See, there’s kind of a bigger problem here. I routinely find myself getting excited about making a comic project, writing it all out, and then burning out repeatedly as I draw it. For the longest time, I thought that was just what it took to draw that many cool pictures on one page. It wasn’t until I started living with a friend from college that I realized there was a problem. Or, he realized it first. He’s astonishingly good at clocking me through my stubborn bullshit lol. He said that maybe I constantly burn out because I’m using 100% of my artistic capacity 100% of the time. Which sounds ideal on paper. I’m making the very best art that I can. But it’s completely unsustainable because, uh… I’m a human with limits, as I constantly forget. And comics take a lot of stamina.

Because I don’t understand comics. I read comics all the time growing up, but I didn’t draw like them. I learned to draw from making fine art pieces in school. I drew with realism and life drawing as the core of my practice because that’s what my dad had been taught back when he aspired to be an animator at Disney, and that’s what he taught me. The only thing that ever impressed art teachers and classmates was how accurately I could draw a face or a vase or a landscape. So I did that as well as I could.

Now, I should be clear here. Realism absolutely has a place in comics. Some of the most beautiful and intelligent pieces of work I’ve ever read had clear roots in realism. Life drawing is a sensible basis for any kind of representational art, in my opinion. Sequential art that’s just a series of fully-rendered paintings astound and enchant me.

It’s just that I think that level of detail and accuracy just isn’t right for me. Partly because my writing style is also super extra. I have big spiraling ideas that take a lot of time and pages to execute. My writing is actually just now reaching a point where I can whittle it down to reasonable finished scripts that I can draw with (which might be why I never realized this art problem before). And sooner or later, my brain wanders off onto something else. So being stuck with these big projects that are so exhausting to execute leads to a kaleidoscopic labyrinth of “break” projects that are supposed to be easier. They never are. Because my brain doesn’t know how to do “easier”. Like anything, I think “easier” will take practice. Study.

My plan, therefore, is to study an easier style to keep in my toolbox. Something fun and shape-based that lets me lean on the forms of abstraction and simplification that I already use in my current dominant style. Mostly, I’m looking at Scott Campbell (lead art director of Psychonauts 1) right now. And I’m gonna try working with some brushes that won’t leave me agonizing over line weight. If this works, it might give me more time to think about color dynamics, lighting, staging, and expression (since you guys seem to love that so much in TMA Encore; I love it too).

What does this mean for Hellboy and Encore, then? I think the best thing to do for Hellboy is post the pages I finished before I moved and release the remaining script in text form through October. It’s not as good as having the whole thing drawn, but I think having initial pages will at least help readers visualize the rest. (And I’d really like people to be able to experience the whole thing because I feel like it’s some of the best writing I’ve ever done.) Then, starting in November, I want to get Encore wrapped up. This will take the form of a kind of… hybrid media presentation. Encore has no complete script, but I can write a dramatic summary of what happens chapter by chapter, accompanied by drawn panels and sequences of important moments. Like a picture book. That kinda fits the dark academia vibe.

Following that, I’m going to use that Psychonauts fanfic I mentioned months ago as a study tool. I have a whole side blog for that (link), but I might crosspost them here when the time comes. And from there, hopefully, I’ll have a sustainable work ethic and can start on my own original projects. With videos. And patreon!

It’s a big weird shift all of a sudden, I know. This may just be another art blog on tumblr, but it’s important for me to try to be consistent and accountable when I make projects. And if I can’t do that, I at least want to be transparent. (Who knows–talking about this might help someone else who’s struggling, too.) I have kind of a rare opportunity in my life to sit and focus on art right now, and I don’t know when another will come again, if ever. So I want to use the limited time I have to improve and position myself for success (and wellness) going forward.

I hope you understand. But I have a feeling you will. You guys are real nice. :)

Thanks for reading.

[share-the-damn-bed]

I am 100% sure that they are gonna split the season and I am 100% sure that the last Jancy scene we'll get in volume 1 will be the blowup fight about college.

Hey, look, it's my most realistic season 5 nightmare haunting my ask box!

But seriously, Anon, there is a very real possibility this is exactly what will happen and it is partly why I'm so wary of a mid season break because I feel like the writers will use it to temporarily break up Jancy which will lead to a very stressful time between volumes.

However, I do still have hope. And I want offer a glimpse of that hope to break up the little bit of ask-related doom spiraling on my page recently.

At this point, I truly believe (after close analysis of all the ST4 scenes) that there is no chance for a St*ncy endgame. I really don't think Nancy's heart is in it authentically and I believe that the point of the entire plot line was to have Steve "crawl backwards" a bit, regress in his character development (since he was fully redeemed and they didn't know what to do with him) and give him a chance to mature past this once again in season 5 and win over the hearts of the audience in a way that parallels season 2. Fans love when Steve is a pathetic character they can root for (post-nancy dumping him, literally all of season 3). It's kinda like a reset for him.

I also believe that season 5 will end happily for all the main characters and I trust the writers to do right with all of them. Even Jonathan. I will argue that Jonathan actually did have a great arc set up in season 4 that was not focused on enough and was cut too early in the season until I'm blue in the face. They would be dumb not to explore it more in season 5 because his character needs it. I'm not saying that this guarantees a Jancy endgame but I do think it means the conflict with Jancy will be resolved in a way that satisfies both characters' overarching arcs. Even if they do temporarily break up between volumes. And I personally think that the best way to do that is by having Jancy end up together. Especially because...

The overarching theme of this show is the power of love. This has been shown repeatedly, especially in season 4. I believe this concept will be what our heroes will use to defeat Vecna in the end (especially with his anti-human/humans suck philosophy). Therefore, it only makes sense that love will be what will resolve this conflict between Jonathan and Nancy and that their love will help them overcome every obstacle.

For those, like me, who may agree with everything I stated above but are still wary because they no longer trust the writers, I want to point out one thing I've reflected on which may help...

I really hated the way they handled the Billy storyline in season 3 (sorry Billy fans). I didn't like how they made him an obvious human antagonist who was abusive towards Max in season 2 and then suddenly changed their relationship in season 3 where Max was worried about him and the show seemed to completely forget about all the horrible things he did in season 2. I thought his redemption attempt was cheap and I didn't bat an eye when he died. I was more concerned for Max but I was still confused why she was so upset. The show didn't do a decent job explaining any of this during that season.

I wrote this whole thing off as bad writing (which to be fair, in season 3 it mostly was) and I was very, very worried when I saw the trailer for season 4 for the first time (with Max reading a letter at Billy's grave) and learned that an episode was going to be called "Dear Billy".

HOWEVER, I thought season 4 did an amazing job, an actual incredible job, presenting Max's grief surrounding her step-brother and her mourning the relationship they would never have.

I'm not saying this makes season 3's writing choices suddenly good but it does give more context for why Max acted the way she did in season 3 AND the situation from season 3 gave the writers the foundation for the best storyline in season 4.

In summary, even though some choices did not make sense or seem good in season 4, I am going to trust the writers to tie things up in a satisfying way (just like they did with Max's relationship with Billy) in season 5. I want to wait to see the whole, complete story before I continue to judge them too harshly.

[starboundanon]

Wow. So it has been a long while since I came back to read your fics. I found The Rod when you were at like 11 chapters and was instantly hooked. I refreshed the pages like three times a day waiting for an update and even went as far as to include your fic into my maladaptive daydreaming. I was so pumped seeing you were creating a sequel and I'm sure like everyone else I was a bit bummed when you stopped regularly updating and kinda strayed away. Well your fic popped up on my memory today and imagine my surprise (and guilt) seeing you had begun to regularly update.

I feel now is the right time to leave a comment (I see you blocked those on that story) and tell you how much character development has occurred. Luke in the beginning would probably fight Vader tooth and nail before he'd be naked with the older man in a tub of water--even if Vader is his father. And Vader himself went from "don't talk to me or my son ever again" to "I want you to fuck my son so no one else can claim him" I was honestly stunned reading him give Din his "blessing" to mate with Luke. I thought for sure he'd struggle with the notion of keeping Luke mateless to satisfy his own selfish needs.

Din I don't think changed too much. You've stayed true to canon keeping him mysterious but at the same time I think it was destined you'd have him stay the same and just fall deeper for Luke, kinda the point of the tag. But I wonder what kind of alpha din will be to Luke? Perhaps not a total carbon copy of Vader but certainly influenced by the man. Poor Luke thought he was done being babied and coddled...well Din is faster, younger and just as eager lol.

I also noticed as the story progresses it gets lighter, not that I'm complaining. We don't hear about Vader spanking Luke, or forcing the boy to suckle his fingers for a daily dose of alpha scent or anything of the sort which tells me Luke is being compliant and it's amazing what great story writing can do when you compare the first chapter to the most recent. Vader is laxed and Luke is.....tamed?

It's so lovely to read your fic again it got me through a tough time and I just wanted to leave you a message saying how much I'm a fan of your work and I hope you never stop writing Herbie.

Anon, I couldn’t tell you how much I needed this ask today. You have to understand, 400+ words of cogent, detailed feedback is like the holy grail to writers. I’ve had commenting turned off on HtD since the beginning (because I knew how the purity brigade would feel about a soft father/son incest fic repeatedly “contaminating” the dinluke tag), but I’m still incredibly grateful when someone like you goes out of their way to tell me what you think. This comment made my entire fucking week.

I’m glad you traversed back into the orbit of my trash belt just in time for the regular updates to continue. ♥️ There’s certainly been a drastic change in these characters and how they feel about each other. Vader is no longer willing to risk losing Luke just to keep him 99% to himself. Luke has realized that overthrowing his father, as Gideon had planned, would create a power vacuum perhaps even more dangerous than the existing Empire, and is trying to figure out what he can do to help the galaxy from his privileged — albeit limited — position.

For Din, as you said, there doesn’t appear to be much of a change in his outward characterization, which is partly due to the POV narrative alternating only between Vader and Luke. But inwardly, I do think Din has changed some. I think he fell in love with Luke at first sight, but didn’t know why. Perhaps on a chemical level, they were compatible by scent alone, and that was enough to make him want something he’d never wanted before. But he’s starting to understand why he loves Luke. He’s seen his stubborness, his spirit, his resourcefulness, his fearlessness. He’s seen that he’s gentle and caring and loving but will fight tooth and nail, as hard as any Mandalorian warrior has ever fought. He’s protective of his family, and holds firm to his convictions and beliefs. All of those, in my opinion, are qualities that Din would fall in love with — and it’s only recently that he’s witnessed them.

And because Din now has a better understanding of why he loves Luke, he’s gained a respect for his autonomy that Vader’s “etiquette lessons” attempted to snuff out. That doesn’t mean he’ll start treating Luke like a Beta or an Alpha — he agrees with Vader that it would be borderline abusive to do so — but he’s willing to defy his Master more than he was previously, despite gaining a newfound kinship with Vader and beginning to see him as Clan. Din’s a very honorable character and he sticks to his word once he’s given it, and that includes playing the part of Vader’s apprentice as per their deal, but the appeal of his personality, to me, is that he always has that one person he will discard his beliefs for — he’ll forsake his Creed for Grogu; he’ll disobey his Emperor for Luke.

As for the babying/dark content factor of this fic… well, it’s not quite over yet. I hope you’ll continue to read the updates as they’re posted, and I hope you’ll enjoy the ending when it arrives. 💋 Thank you again for making my day.