#regarding her writing this time

[soup-of-the-daisies]

Really loved your headcanon about why Harry didn’t name any of his children after Remus. I’d never thought of it that way before! In that post, you said you have thoughts on why Harry decided to name his child after Dumbledore and Snape, and you’ve piqued my interest! Any possibility of you sharing that headcanon?

Hello anon!!! I’m glad you enjoyed the post (this one, for anyone interested. There's quite a few good additions in the notices as well)! I’ve got so many opinions and it’s really nice to see that people agree with them!

About the headcanon on Albus Severus: I was actually writing a draft for the HC as to why Harry and Ginny named kiddo no. 2 after Dumbles and Snape, so you’ve come in at a good time! It’s gotten long (2k kind of long), so I’ve divided it into parts within the post and added a ‘read more’. There's also a TL;DR at the very bottom. Feel free to add to it or disagree with me, if you want! It's only my headcanon :)

To start           

When I was eleven years old I finished my first proper read-through of the Harry Potter series. At the time, I obviously didn’t have a very good understanding of things like nuance and subtext and trauma and—well, you know what I mean. And I found it a cute name, actually. Obviously not as cute as ‘James Sirius’ or ‘Lily Luna’, as I’ve always been a Marauders fan (massive crush on Sirius starting the moment Mass Murderer is mentioned in PoA, anyone?), but still cute—until it wasn’t, which is when I started to find it a tad absurd. 

Listen, I really, really like the thought behind naming your children after people who’ve been significant in your or the other parent’s life. It’s part of the reason why I like ‘James Sirius’ and ‘Lily Luna’ so much: both kids are named after parental figures (and in LL’s case, also a good friend) and it’s really sweet that both Harry and Ginny (because you bet your arse Ginny was fully present in that decision-making process) decided to honour Lily, James, Sirius, and Luna that way. I myself am named after both my grandmothers and now that they’ve both passed, it’s a nice connection to them.

But the name ‘Albus Severus’ – and this is purely my interpretation, mind – has very different vibes compared to ‘James Sirius’ and ‘Lily Luna’. Albus is named after two professors; when I read the Epilogue™ for the first time, the name simply felt out of place in the family. Teachers, no matter how much you like them, ought to be distant supporters—especially compared to parents and friends. Additionally, the last scene with Dumbledore (in spirit) is him being… kind of frustrating; the last scene with Snape is him admitting posthumously that he protected Harry only out of obligation and guilt. Neither Dumbledore nor Snape died for Harry specifically, like James, Lily, and Sirius did: Dumbledore and Snape died so Harry could and would as well.

Some context

Albus Severus Potter is born eight years after the Battle of Hogwarts, when Harry is 25/26 and Ginny is 24/25. That means that, less than a decade before AS was born, Harry learnt from both Snape and Dumbledore that he had to die to get rid of the guy who tried to kill him for years—that he was raised and subtly manipulated into ‘voluntarily’ becoming a martyr ever since he was orphaned—

(I’m putting 'voluntarily' in quotation marks because Harry kind of had no other choice: either he runs and Voldemort is basically immortal for another century or so, or he sacrifices himself—and Harry is righteous and selfless and honestly rather suicidal so he’ll obviously choose the latter option. Harry couldn’t make any other choices, not with his saving-people-thing and his guilt complex the size of the African Continent)

—which… okay. Reading it now, as an adult who now is able to see fully that Harry was seventeen (a child!!) when he allowed himself to be killed, the entire thing pisses me off.

Dumbledore subtly talked Harry into becoming a martyr, because what’s one innocent life lost in the grand scheme of things? Harry needed to die in order to defeat Voldemort, so that hundreds, if not thousands, of others could be saved from that fate. I still tear up sometimes at the image that emerges after Snape’s memories have been viewed, when Harry’s lying on the floor in the Headmaster’s office and finally knows that there was never an expectation he’d come out of the war alive.

Dumbledore isn’t the kind, empathetic, caring grandfather of the story—he’s the general on the other side of the chessboard, looking at bigger things and forcefully ignoring that Harry’s worth extends beyond his prophesied fate. And Harry knows it, at that point the DH: even if Dumbledore did care for him, it wasn’t enough to try and find another way.

Then about Snape. Though he isn’t wholly complicit in the ‘Harry shall need and be willing to die’-plot (as shown by his anger at finding out about it, because like, same, Sev… sort of), he was the one who inadvertently set the prophecy into motion. Sure, Voldemort needed to take action for it to come true, but Snape’s the one who told him: he didn’t care that that a family would be eradicated until he realised it involved Lily, at which point he panicked and begged for her safety (but not the safety of James and Harry). Cue disgusted Dumbledore (same, Al) but an agreement, as long as Snape becomes a spy. Both Harry and the reader figure out that Snape antagonised Harry mainly because Harry looks nearly identical to James and Snape had difficulty seeing Harry as his own person—and when he realised Harry’s situation at home was much more similar to his own than to James’, he didn’t back down.

In the books, Snape is an adult man who irrationally despised a child, knows it’s irrational, and does very little to change it. He wouldn’t have cared if Harry and James died, as long as Lily didn’t; it’s only his desperation for Lily to live that initially causes him to join the Order, and later it’s his grief and guilt about her death that makes him protect Harry.

Getting into the nitty-gritty

Putting all that I’ve said above together makes the decision to name Harry and Ginny’s second kid after both Dumbledore and Snape seem completely illogical—especially because it’s information Harry’s been made aware of. They’ve done surprisingly little for Harry’s personal well-being as characters who are claimed to have done ‘everything to protect Harry’—not only physical, like the infamous ducking for frying pans at the Dursleys’, but also mental, as in Harry doesn’t truly believe that he deserves to live. I’d argue that McGonagall, who has also done very little for Harry, cared more about that.

Dumbledore kept Harry alive to die at the right moment, by Voldemort’s hand and curse; Snape protected Harry because he felt obliged to after becoming accidentally complicit in murder, developing a guilt-complex, and then following Dumbledore’s orders. Somehow, Harey, Ginny, and JKR decided that naming the second born after these two men was a good idea. 

Potential outside reasoning

Despite me finding the theory that Harry and Ginny decided on ‘Albus Severus’ to lure an outraged Sirius out of the Veil absolutely hilarious, I don’t believe JKR would’ve even considered that as an option. No, purely from a classic literary analysis standpoint, it is far more likely JKR just wished to highlight that Dumbledore and Snape actually were Incredibly Great Men who Harry hero-worships slightly and admires greatly—despite Dumbles’ fall from grace and because of Snape’s redemption (He Loved Lily So Much You Guys). 

Now, I shan’t share my entire opinion on how I think Snape’s redemption has been executed (it isn’t up to Zuko-standard, I assure you), but I will say that I don’t consider it ‘enough’ for Harry in particular. I like Snape as an explicitly morally-grey character, and I personally think that his redemption did a decent job at establishing him as one of the good guys instead of the meanie double spy/humanoid bat hybrid who enjoys snogging Voldie’s snakey toes.  

Snape being on the ‘good’ side shouldn’t mean that Harry has to like him or even fully respect him. However, naming his kid after Snape implies that Harry has forgiven Snape for making Hogwarts a little bit more miserable than it should’ve been, for selling him and his parents out, for getting Lupin fired, for encouraging the continued manhunt of Sirius, for the absolutely absurd occlumency training during an already terrible time, for actively participating in the incredibly fucked up situation of “Harry witnessing the poisoned and exhausted Headmaster he just saved from a horde of magical water zombies get murdered and thrown of one of the highest towers of the castle, whilst he’s frozen and can’t do anything”… yeah. 

Similarly, Dumbledore and his manipulations and machinations have to be such a fucking blow as soon as Harry’s out of that fight-or-flight adrenaline boost. Someone Harry trusted and could’ve seen as family used him as a pawn in his game against Voldemort, and though Harry does continue to have some kind of respect for Dumbledore’s genius, the nineteen year skip towards the epilogue makes it so that we don’t see the resulting anger and devastation that Harry must’ve experienced as soon as he had a one (1) decent night of sleep. From my perspective (as someone with a Literature degree), naming the second child after Dumbledore and Snape is nothing more than an attempt by JKR at making a point: there’s good and bad in everyone including wizard-Jesus and wizard-Judas, Slytherin isn’t as horrible as I made out to be dear money-makers I swear, and forgiveness is key.

Obviously this shoddy job means that a whole bunch of people ignore the epilogue (and the absolute disaster that is Cursed Child) with a vehemence, which is a shame from a Potterverse standpoint. Comfy DADA Professor Harry (I refuse to acknowledge his Head Auror position; that’s CC info, anyway) who is also a Fun Dad is one of my favourite tropes. 

Potential in-universe logic

We continue on to Harry-and-Ginny logic—or I, at least, take a shot at it. 

To get one of the bigger criticisms out of the way first – it being the names of all three children – I’ll state that I genuinely believe Ginny had an active role in choosing what to name the children she’s carrying. Harry, for all his faults, isn’t a selfish person; Ginny, for the faults she has as a slightly underdeveloped female character, is quite an understanding one. It makes sense to me that she agreed with naming their children after James, Sirius, and Lily: the only family member Ginny lost was Fred, and George will obviously have first dibs on that name. Harry, however, has no biological family left, and his parents and godfather were ripped from him far too soon. I daresay that Ginny suggested the names, actually, because Ginny is like that and because I don’t see a future where Harry demanded to name the children after his parents. Ginny wouldn’t allow Harry to bulldoze over her like that. 

But Albus Severus: the conundrum. The reasons I’ll propose are that the Wizarding World is unbelievably terrible about mental health, and that both Harry and Ginny are rather traumatised. 

Say what you will about Dumbledore (and I will say loads), but his was the hand Harry metaphorically held as he walked to his death. His assurance was what kept Harry going, for better or for worse. Harry owes Dumbledore his survival. And say what you will about Snape, but he gave his life to go against Voldemort and help Harry succeed; despite the suspicions, despite the hatred and distrust from nearly everybody around him, Snape didn’t stray from that path as far as we know. 

They’re actually two of the few adults of authority who Harry was able to trust to do the right thing in the end: rare, considering Harry’s tendency to side-eye every authority automatically because they disappoint him so much. Harry is someone with zero self-esteem, someone who has difficulty accepting gifts, someone who stares at every crumb of kindness he’s offered in amazement. This is an effect of the upbringing forced upon him, to be sure, but in a world without therapy, experienced by a boy/man who usually suppresses every emotion he feels, because he thinks he doesn’t deserve to or simply shouldn’t feel them? They’re very, very admirable. 

I think that Harry in canon refuses to acknowledge what was done to him. He doesn’t want to know nor even consider that he was no more than a pawn, because what use does he have then, as a person? And Ginny—it’s likely she, too, likes to live in ignorance, because she’s got her own demons to fight. As long as Harry’s happy, she is, too: all she believes is that Dumbledore and Snape kept Harry alive. 

Harry and Ginny name their firstborn after Harry’s two dads, who died for him. They name their third after Harry’s mum, who died for him, and their mutual friend, who was willing to die for them both. 

They name their second born after the men who died for Harry to finish the job he was groomed to do. I’m sure they like to pretend that that last bit was only a happy little coincidence. 

TL;DR: Harry and Ginny named Albus Severus ‘Albus Severus’ because JKR wanted to ensure that people knew that Dumbledore and Snape were Really Good Guys and that Harry thought so; and, in-universe, because the Wizarding World has no therapy and Harry doesn’t want to acknowledge how fucked up his life was with Dumbledore’s help—only that Voldemort was at fault.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl found dead in a hidden room.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[mosaickiwi]

yoohoo!!! @nabi004 and @mialuna4 and that one anon!!! sick angel request!!! many thanks for the love <3

14 Days With You is an 18+ Yandere Visual Novel. MINORS DNI

~A Sick Angel~

“Can you please—”

“No.”

The past few minutes had been like talking to a brick wall. [REDACTED] hadn't let you move an inch from the bed since you’d woken up in an agonizing daze.

Sure, you felt like complete shit, maybe a little on the side of a fever. And the moment you sat up you wanted to scream. But it was manageable. If you tried, you'd be able to make it through a day at the library. 

Blue eyes quickly narrowed, as if they knew exactly what you were thinking. It was frustrating how stubborn they could be when he wanted to.

You attempted to frown at your companion. Nothing really changed about your haggard expression—thanks to your face and entire body feeling like dead weight—but your tone worked well enough. “I need to go to work today.”

“Not happening,” he insisted as he reached up to your forehead.

You closed your eyes for just a second. His cold palm against your brow was too heavenly to ignore. “I don't want to let Elanor down. Today's really important for her,” you croaked.

They didn't bother to hide the momentary disgust in their tone at the mention of your coworker. “She wouldn't want y’working either, Angel.” As if to prove his point, they tapped away on your phone. He'd been holding it hostage behind his back. 

Only a minute later, it dinged with a response and he finally held it out to you. Elanor had sent a polite and elaborate text as always. You read through it while he continued to run both of their cold hands over your heated face like two makeshift ice packs.

Good morning, [REDACTED]. At least I assume so from how brief that message was? Thank you for letting me know Y/N is ill! I'm sure they must be worried about missing today's event but we can handle it just fine! And I’m happy to take some pictures for them! Please take good care of them and give my well wishes. Regards, Elanor.

You raised an eyebrow and scrolled back up to the paltry message he'd sent her.

sick no work

Somehow, it was probably the nicest thing they'd ever managed to send any of your friends. You looked back up at him with what was meant to be a pout. “Okay then.”

With instant trust in your word, he stood up to leave the room. He soon returned with his arms full. A cold compress, medicine, some drinks, and anything else they thought you might need. You lightly rolled your neck and resigned to your fate as a patient when he sat next to you. The medicine and drink he offered were swallowed without fuss on your part, then you laid down. The throbbing pain already seemed to calm as you did.

The compress stayed at his side instead of being placed on your forehead like you thought. You felt their hand on your cheek yet again, a more noticeable chill to his rough skin this time.

“Just in case it feels too cold f’you,” he explained before you even asked.

It felt perfect, so you didn't mind at all. You practically purred in relief at the gentle circles they rubbed. You tiredly looked up to him as you complained, if only to tease them, “I'm a little disappointed you didn't bring out the nurse outfit.”

“‘Course you are.” His eyes lit up with mischief, a knowing smile cut across his lips to match your playful one. “I'll make it up t’you when y'feel better, yeah?” Their thumb slowly traced back and forth from one corner of your mouth to the other.

“Germs, you weirdo,” you reminded him. Though you didn't bother to shake off his hand, weak as you were. “You’ll get sick.”

“Y’worried about me, love? Cute. But I promise ‘M not gonna catch whatever you have that easy.” They leaned down to kiss your flushed temple, eventually settling propped up on one arm to lay as close as possible beside you. Faintly warm breath tickled the top of your head until you drifted back to sleep under their watchful gaze.

[stuckinapril]

I don’t understand it when people say that Carrie was also the problem bc she was anxiously attached bc like …. maybe she had a moment or two but for the most part it was absolutely Big being such a selfish prick and then justifying it w “ohhh I have commitment issues bc my last marriage fell through” umm ur a 45 year old BABY actually

[blackbatcass]

sometimes the ghost of kelley puckett (he is still alive) haunts me. does he know. does he even know. he’s so detached from the comics community and he’s such a private guy (I RESPECT THAT WHOLEHEARTEDLY) that i really and truly do not know if this man knows how much cassandra cain means to us. does he know batgirl 2000 is heralded as the bible of dc solo books, as a lot of people’s favorite comic ever written. does he know how much we love cass. how we write essays over her character and how amazing she is and how she changed our lives. does he know how adored his writing is. does he know he wrote the best comics character introduction of all time. does he even. know.

[wonder-worker]

I've been thinking about the tragedy of Elizabeth Woodville living to see the end of her family name.

I don't mean her family with her husband, which lived on through her daughter and grandson. I mean her own.

Her sisters died, one by one, many of them after 1485. When Elizabeth died, only Katherine was left, and she would die before the turn of the century as well.

All her brothers died, too. Lewis died in childhood. John was executed. Anthony was murdered. Lionel died suddenly in the peak of Richard's reign, unable to see his niece become queen. Edward perished at war. Richard died in grieving peace. For all the violence and judgement the family endured, it was "an accident of biology" that ended their line: none of the brothers left heirs, and the Woodville name was extinguished. We know the family was aware of this. We know they mourned it, too:

“Buy a bell to be a tenor at Grafton to the bells now there, for a remembrance of the last of my blood.”

Elizabeth lived through the deposition and death of her young sons, and lived to see the end of her own family name. It must have been such a haunting loss, on both sides.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

K but the fact that Kristen is just a regular human being. Just a standard, average person in a land filled with mystical beings and magic spilling from every crack, nook and cranny.

And here's Kristen Applebees, the first born child of typical suburban parents, born into a religious neighborhood where everyone goes to church every Sunday and prays every night and everyone has a white picket fence with a perfect manicured lawn and not-so-subtly shuns those who are in anyway different from them.

Was Kristen not chosen by her God, by Helio himself, because of her perfect average parents with their perfect average house in their perfect average neighborhood?

Kristen wasn't rich, she didn't have a powerful bloodline, her parents weren't important, there was no prophecy foretelling her birth. No, Kristen was an attainable goal. Kristen was a good example for the youth, an example of what could be achieved if you just played along and played your part.

Kristen was destined to be the perfect picture of a devoted follower of Helio. She was the poster child, born smack dab in the center of Helio's flock, surrounded on all sides by followers and moulded into the perfect unquestioning chosen one since birth.

But by choosing Kristen, by marking her as property of a God, Helio gave Kristen power. Power over him, power over good and evil, the divine and infernal. Because Kristen is promised to Helio, because she was chosen by him and prophesied to be his, Kristen wields the power to start the end of days and crumble nations with a snap of her fingers. Should she want to, Kristen could destroy the world by simply not doing that, by not ending up in Helio's afterlife to live for eternity by his side, by proving a God wrong.

And it's with this power, this leverage that Kristen holds over Helio's neck like the sword of Damocles, that Kristen is able to free herself from his grasp. It's slow, at first. Joining a 'risky' school, meeting people outside of the religion, questioning elders, researching history and religions. And she doesn't understand how much power she has, not at first, because the power she possesses isn't magic, but a divine promise and unspoken rules that govern a world that she was never supposed to know.

But despite not having magic, despite being chosen for her averageness, despite being trained to be naive and blinded to the realities of the world, Kristen is overpowered as, if you'll excuse the pun, hell.

Helio creates divine religious scholars to protect her when she doubts and strays from him. Helio creates an entire new deity and religion for Kristen, allowing her to think that YES! (and, later, YES?) is it's own separate power from his and he does all of this, not out of generosity or love, but because he needs to keep Kristen alive. Kristen cannot die before she rejoins Helio's flock or the divine promise will break and Helio would be fucked.

So Helio gave her power under the pretense of it being from elsewhere, solely so that he could keep Kristen alive until he changed her mind.

And then! And then Kristen dies! And is revived. And she's Saint Kristen Applebees now (but the Saint of who?) and Helio has fully given up on her and turned his back on her (but his prophecy cannot be unspoken and he cannot be proven wrong so does he really? Can he really?) and Kristen finds a new God, a broken God and Kristen chooses her.

Kristen names her, creates her, Cassandra the Goddess of Doubt and Night, and Kristen finally has her religion, a source of power that doesn't stem from Helio, she's finally escaped his grasp.

And yet.

And yet, Helio still spoke his prophecy, still chose Kristen and she will always have that power over him.

And yet, in his own foolish shortsighted attempt to keep Kristen within his grasp, Helio still created a deity for her, a separate divine entity that chose her as well.

And yet, Kristen is still the undying, the follower of Night and Doubt, Saint Applebees, Creator of Cassandra.

With no real magic to speak of, with nothing special in her bloodline, with no real talents or money to her name, the perfect picture of normalcy in every way, Kristen has managed to twist the divine sphere around her little pinky finger. She has so much power and she has so little awareness of it.

And also she's going to be President, bitch.

[conanssummerchild]

writing a fic abt rick having an ed bcs why would i recover when i can just project all my issues onto fictional old men in cartoons and pretend everythings better now ‼️

tw eating disorder, minor self harm and vomit near the end

Morty stopped in the open doorway of the garage, watching Rick who was sat scribbling down some kind of invention idea, or equation, or whatever it was he did when Morty wasn't around, for all Morty knew he might well be writing fanfiction.

An involuntary smile pulled at his lips at the idea of his almost 70 year old genius grandfather spending his free time writing silly little stories at his work bench. What would he even write? Ball Fondlers fanfic? Maybe he wrote about his stoic bird friend, Rick had always been touchy with him and Rick wasn't touchy with anyone.

When Morty focused back on Rick he wasn't writing anymore, the slightly crumpled piece of paper shoved to the side as he fiddled with what looked like a small metal box with a bunch of brightly coloured wires poking out of the sides. A small spark shot out of one of the wires Rick was holding and he cursed loudly, shaking his hand.

"Fuck, Morty, are you just gonna– gonna stand there, or are you gonna pass me the fucking, uh– the thing."

Rick waved his hand in the general direction of the shelf nearest to Morty, but there were so many assorted trinkets on the shelves, Morty had no idea if Rick wanted a wrench, or a hammer, or one of his laser guns, maybe the box was like a new battery for them?

"W-what thing, Rick?"

"The thing, Morty! The fucking– the uh, destornillador."

"What? Rick, I don't know what that means. W-w-what is that?"

"Jeez, Morty, what are they teaching you at that crap school you love so much?" Rick scowled, tossing the box to the side and getting up to grab the screwdriver himself.

"I havent been to school in like a month, Rick!" Morty exclaimed. "And even then I only got to stay for like an hour before you were dragging me out again!"

"Whatever." Rick said with a burp, "School's dumb, Morty. I'll teach you Spanish myself. B-but, uh, not now."

He turned back to his box, done with the conversation, but Morty stayed hovering in the room, remembering what he had come for in the first place.

"Okay, um, w-w-well lunch is ready."

"I'm busy."

Morty sighed, having expected that answer already. "When's the last time you ate, Rick? Or slept? Or... showered?" Morty said, wrinkling his nose a little.

Rick ignored him, pulling at a blue wire.

"Rick!" Morty frowned.

"What, Morty? J-jesus christ, what the fuck do you want?"

"I want you to have lunch with the family."

"And I said no, so screw off."

"Rick, come on, it would make mom so happy."

Rick glared at him, not bothering with an answer.

"...Wouldn't y-you do it for your original Beth if you could?" Morty tried.

Rick slammed the box on the table, causing the thin metallic shell to crack, sparks flying from it, the sudden noise making Morty jump.

"The fuck did you just say?" Rick snarled.

"S-s-sorry!" Morty squeaked. "I didn't m-mean– mean it in a bad way!"

"Get the fuck out." Rick said icily, eyes blazing.

Morty stumbled out of the room, shutting the door behind him to the sound of something crashing. Probably Rick throwing the damaged box across the room.

Morty winced. In his defense he was worried about Rick, and sometimes, depending on his mood, something like that would've gotten Rick to cave, clearly he wasn't feeling so sentimental today, more annoyed and angry.

"What was that about?"

Morty startled a little and turned to see Summer looking at her phone behind him.

"Just, y'know, Rick being... Rick."

"Mhm, pro tip, don't bring up his dead daughter to try and blackmail him into something he hates." Summer drawled. "You can only do that if he's already half convinced, or if he's feeling especially depressed sometimes.

"Summer! That's– that's messed up!"

She quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah, so only you can manipulate grandpa Rick?" Summer scoffed. "God forbid women do anything." She said sarcastically and turned to walk away.

"Wait!" Morty fidgeted with his hands. "Can you... help me? To get him to have lunch w-with us? Please?"

"Yes, but not now. He's already upset so if we double down on trying to get him to eat he's only gonna clam up."

Morty nodded. "I know that– but how do you? You don't spend as much time with Rick as I do."

"Because he's like mom. Who do you think got her to stop drinking before parent-teacher conferences at school?"

"Wow. That's pretty fucked up that you had to do that, though, y'know, Summer."

"Yeah, well, we're the Smiths, Morty. Is anyone in this house not disordered?"

Morty winced at the blunt statement, Rick really was rubbing off on her. But it was kind of true.

"Guess it runs in the family." He muttered

"Guess it does."

---

Morty hadn't been planning on seeing Rick again until the next day. He knew that when Rick got upset he needed his space. Morty didn't quite get it because when he was upset all he wanted was for someone to hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay, but Rick wasn't like him he supposed.

If he was being honest it made him nervous to leave Rick alone in those bad headspaces he got into. Rick was volatile and unpredictable and a borderline danger to himself and often others. He'd walked in on a couple... compromising situations where Rick had had to explain away why he was passed out in his chair or why there was blood on his hands and his lab coat despite being the only person in the room.

Morty pretended to believe him when he said he had been doing a messy dissection experiment or that "This isn't blood, this is Balorkian dust I mixed with red Squanchenite fluid from Planet Squanch, Morty." But truthfully those moments haunted him.

However, he didn't want to invade Rick's space, so he let him be and tried to eat and sleep until Rick emerged like nothing had happened, even though Morty knew what habits of his went on behind those closed doors.

Of course Morty's patience had it's limits, like when two hours after he had left Rick in the garage, angry, there was the sound of something smashing, closely followed by an unmistakable sound that Morty had grown too familiar with since Rick had moved in. The sound of a body thudding to the ground.

He was up from the sofa in a flash, at the garage door before Summer could even put down her phone, flinging it open.

He felt like he couldn't breathe, but the only sight that greeted him was a smashed bottle and rick lying on the floor next to it, not looking any more dead than usual, looking up at Morty blearily, cracking a smile.

"Oh, hi Morty. H-hey buddy." He slurred, clearly drunk out of his mind.

"Jesus fucking christ, Rick." Morty said weakly.

"What happened?" Summer breathed, now standing at his side.

"He's just drunk." Morty muttered, wrinkling his nose at the overpowering smell that he hadn't registered before between his state of panic and shallow breathing.

Summer ventured into the garage, picking up an empty bottle and sniffing it. "God, grandpa Rick, what the hell are you drinking in here, fucking rubbing alcohol?"

"Sum-Sum! 'M just having some– some fun drinks. Fun drinks just a lil' bit. Besides I only ever drank rub-rubbin' alcohol once, n' it was– tasted like shit."

"What? I was being sarcastic, why would you drink that?"

"Because I was sad... was sad 'nd lonely after B-b-blood Ridge, couldn't find anythin' else. But 'm not s-sad now."

"What's Blood Ridge?" Summer frowned, "Actually it doesn't matter right now, you need to sober up."

"Get him some water," Morty interjected. "I'll clean up the glass. I also know where he keeps all his hangover serums and stuff, but he told me not to let you into any of his drug stashes."

"Fair enough." Summer shrugged, leaving to get Rick some much needed water.

While she was gone, Morty felt along the wall until he found the small hidden panel under Rick's desk. He fished out the light blue vial of fluid for hangovers, the red one he'd forced Rick to make that would sober him up and a green one that basically equivalated to getting your stomach pumped if you took it, just in case he'd taken more than just alcohol.

He shut the panel securely and placed the three coloured vials on Rick's work bench, grabbing a purple tube-like gadget from a shelf. He pressed a button on the back of it and typed in "Broken Glass" on a small hologram keyboard that emerged, then pressed that first button again. A blue ray shot out, scanning the garage, and the pieces of smashed bottle disappeared in a matter of seconds.

Morty looked over at Rick, who was still lying on the floor, but now he was tracing his fingers along a crack in the cold ground, his expression so solemn he almost looked sober.

"Rick?" Morty asked hesitantly.

"I miss her." He said flatly. "I miss her s-so much."

His words were still a little slurred but his tone had lost all the previous levity.

"I tried to save her, Morty, I t-t-tried, but I couldn't bring her back. And no one could ever replace her." A rough sob escaped his throat. Morty felt frozen. "I'm a crappy fuckin'– piece of shit father but I didn't want to be. I was gonna fuckin' give– give up everything for them, and I would've been happy. I would've been so happy as long as I had them, but he fuckin' took that from me! I nnever even got a chance."

Rick was crying, he was crying so hard that his tears stained the concrete dark grey and snot ran down his face sideways. He was shaking like a leaf and gasping for air.

Morty crouched down next to him, fists clenching and unclenching, unsure if he should hug Rick, or if that would make it worse. What else could he do?

"Oh– oh shit, Rick, I–"

"My little girl, my baby." Rick continued between sobs. "She meant everything to me. S-so yeah, I would be better f-for her if I could, but she's gone. There's no point."

Rick's sudden fit of violent sobs was calming down, replaced by a look that Morty could only describe as pure hoplessness and defeat washing over his features.

"'S no point in anything."

Shit, this was bad. Rick didn't admit defeat, and he certainly didn't talk so openly about his feelings like this.

"Aw jeez, Rick, come on don't– don't– don't say that. we killed Rick Prime, remember?" Morty said, wringing his hands anxiously.

"Yeah, I remember." Rick said, tone now devoid of emotion. "I remember killin' him with my bare hands, watchin' the life drain out of his eyes as his blood dripped down my fists. And I remember nothing changing. W-w-what d'ya do when you achieve your life long goal and nothin's better? It didn't bring them back, it didn't– didn't give me closure or give me a reason to live. I still can't sleep, petrified he's in the fucking house, comin' for my new family, that he'll kill all of you to teach me that t-that's what happens when I-I care about people."

Rick wiped his face with his lab coat sleeve, rubbing away the snot, drool and dried tears while Morty just kneeled next to him, frozen and unsure what to say.

"Rick..." he started but then Summer stepped through the doorway and Rick's demeanour instantly changed.

"Summerfest!" he called out and Morty watched, a little shocked, as Rick's whole face changed in the blink of an eye, going back to the cheerful, goofy expression he'd been wearing when he and Summer first came in. It didn't look artificial to Morty at all, even now that he knew it was. How could Rick just switch it on and off just like that?

"I brought water and coffee." Was all Summer said, placing two mugs on the workbench. "And a cereal bar."

The second statement sounded a little more unsure and Morty could've sworn he saw Rick's jaw clench for a second.

"Gimmie coffee." Rick said, making grabby hands, still lying on the floor.

"Water first." Summer replied, handing him the larger of the two mugs.

Rick pouted a little but as soon as the mug was in his hands he drank thirstily, finishing the whole thing in one go.

"You want more?" Summer asked, taking the mug, but he just shook his head quietly.

"Okay," Morty cleared his throat when his voice came out a little shaky. "drink this."

He handed Rick the red 'get sober' vial and Rick chugged it obediently, making a face. "Tastes like– like shit." He offered.

While he seemed a little calmer after the water and serum, his eyes were still unfocused and his voice sounded thick, like his tongue didn't fit in his mouth properly, hints of his accent were slipping through too.

"Did you- are you on drugs r-right now?" Morty asked, reaching for the green vial of serum.

"Maybe." Rick mumbled. His eyelids were starting to droop a little and he curled up more comfortably on the floor.

"Hey, Rick, don't go to sleep okay? What did you take?" Summer asked, crouching down next to him, shaking him a little. He groaned. "Come on, we just have to make sure you're not overdosing and then you can sleep. Maybe not on the floor."

"'M not overdosing." Rick grumbled.

"What did you take?"

"I dunno. Just some random alien drugs I found i-in my pocket." He said dismissively with a burp. "Actually one of 'em was probably adderall. Look at me bein' all responsible an-and takin' my meds n' shit."

He of course immediately showed his 'responsibilty' by gagging and then throwing up on the floor.

Morty winced, reaching for the purple device again while Summer tried to coax him into drinking the green liquid, frowning deeply.

Finally Rick gave in, sipping from the small vial, and almost instantly his eyes began to clear up a little bit.

"Why'd I make these work so well?" He groaned. Then, "My head is killing me, I want coffee."

Summer passed him the second mug and he gestured toward the hangover serum, which Morty promptly passed to him and Rick poured it in his coffee.

He gulped down half the coffee and sighed, wiping his mouth with his already rather dirty sleeve. "Fuck, that's better."

He downed the rest of it and placed the mug on the ground, getting to his feet shakily. He swayed and nearly fell, leaning onto the wall to steady himself as the dizzy spell passed, and then stretched, his back cracking loudly.

He took a few wobbly steps towards the door but Summer blocked the way.

"Fuck– fuck off Summer I gotta– I'm gonna go take a nap."

"Could you maybe eat something first?" She asked firmly, holding up the cereal bar.

"No."

Rick tried to sidestep her but she blocked the way again.

"Summer, don't fucking piss me off right now, I'm serious."

She stood her ground. "Just eat the cereal bar, grandpa Rick. Please."

"Summer, for fuck's sake, I said no!"

"Grandpa," She sighed, the arm holding the bar dropping defeatedly back down to her side. "Do you have an eating disorder?"

The garage was deathly quiet for a second.

"Wha-What?! I'm not a teenage girl in a f-f-f– goddamn netflix drama, Summer." Rick snarled. "What the fuck kinda question is that?"

He gestured wildly, taking another step forwards, which quickly seemed to be the wrong option as a sudden wave of dizziness hit him hard, making him almost loose his balance. He blindly tried to grab onto the back of his chair somewhere behind him, but missed and fell on his ass.

"Rick!" Morty and Summer both rushed to his side, Morty's eyes beginning to well up a little from all the stress of the day.

"I'm fine, don't– don't fucking touch me." He said, shaking Summer's hand off his shoulder, which caused another wave of nausea to hit.

"Please eat this." Summer said nervously, voice shaking as she pushed the cereal bar into his left hand, his right one gripping at his hair.

"Summer, I promise you if I eat that shit right now I'm gonna throw the fuck up."

"Please?" Morty pouted, eyes big and teary.

All it took was one look at him, and with only a brief moment of hesitation Rick snatched the cereal bar from Summer, muttering angrily under his breath.

Morty only caught "Me cago en la puta." and "Maldito cabrón." which he more or less understood, more familiar with swear words than any other words in the Spanish language.

Rick peeled away the wrapper slowly with unsteady hands and took a small bite.

Morty and Summer watched in silence, not wanting to discourage him by saying the wrong thing—which with Rick could be anything—as Rick uncomfortably ate the cereal bar.

"There you fucking go." He said weakly, Throwing the now empty wrapper at Summer, but missing as it was too light to travel more than a couple centimetres, landing somewhere by his feet.

"Thank you." Summer almost whispered.

They sat in silence for a while, Morty sniffling and rubbing at his eyes and Summer shuffling a bit closer to him for both of their comfort.

Rick was sitting with his knees losely bent and his head braced in his hands, trying to overcome another hit of nausea.

He wouldn't exactly say he tried super hard to keep the cereal bar down, but it wasn't deliberate when he vomited it down the front of his shirt.

"Oh! Aw jeez..." Morty winced.

"I did warn you."

"In our defense, you had every reason to be lying to us."

"Fuck you, Summer." It sounded weak even to his own ears.

She sighed softly.

"Morty, get his shirt off. Do you have pijamas or do you sleep in jeans and a lab coat?"

"Jeans an-and a lab coat."

"...I was joking, but okay." Summer said, flipping the switch that opened Rick's garage closet and grabbing one of his sets of identical outfits.

Rick squirmed, making noises of complaint as Morty tried to take off his current shirt.

"Rick– stay still, you have vomit on your clothes."

"I'm not fucking two years old, Morty." He scowled. "I can change by myself."

Rick tried to sit up but wobbled and then slumped back against the wall, needing more time to recover. Morty reached for his shirt again and this time Rick let him pull it carefully up over his head without resisting. Morty took the new set of clothes from where Summer had left them on the floor next to him.

Summer wasn't looking but Morty still shielded Rick's body from sight with his own, pointedly not mentioning the raised scars and jagged, angry, red cuts littering his arms which he had already suspected would be there.

Rick shifted uncomfortably, seeming relieved when Morty didn't want to talk about it.

"Okay." Morty said, helping Rick pull on his clean lab coat too.

"I'm going to bed." Rick grumbled, not waiting for him to continue, just getting up slowly.

He felt weak and shaky and his brittle old bones weren't exactly helping out. Despite his thousands of cybernetic implants he was still human, much to his dismay, and he couldn't treat his body as badly as he did when he was 30. Not that that ever seemed to stop him, managing to still maintain the same shitty habits he'd had for years at the ripe age of 67.

He stumbled through the dining room, Morty and Summer trailing after him, not discouraged by the glare he sent their way.

As soon as he reached his room, he slumped onto his bed with a groan.

"R-rick?"

"Fuck off, Morty." He snapped into his pillow, a little muffled by it.

Morty hesitated, exchanging a glance with Summer, who shrugged.

"...Ookay, Rick. Uh, see– see you at dinner, today? maybe?'

"Don't count on it."

Summer frowned, Starting to say something, but Rick interrupted, "I'm gonna apply my room's Lock Protocols in ten seconds, so i-if you're still in here, I'm not letting you out until I'm done sleeping. A-a-and if you're standing in the doorway, you're gonna get fucking squashed in the doors."

"Whatever, Rick, fuck you too." Summer huffed, pulling Morty out of the doorway with her.

"Room, activate Sensory Protocol 2. And t-tell Summer to go fuck herself."

"Sensory Protocol 2 activated." Came the mechanical voice and a heavy metal door snapped shut. "Go fuck yourself, Summer."

Summer scoffed. "Dick." Followed by a sigh. "What are we gonna do?"

"I-I don't know." Morty admitted. "There's not much we can do if Rick won't accept help. And he won't."

"So what? We just give up on him?" Summer asked accusingly, putting her hands on her hips.

"No, Summer, J-jeez. I just– We're gonna have to get creative."

"Fuck."

---

thats it thats the end i didnt know how tf to end this but my goal wasnt to rewrite like the bible idfk it was just to put rick through shit and put completely unfair expectations on summer and mortys shoulders so that they could ALL suffer in this fic !! :3 also this is so mf long i sincerely apologise if u read all that

[lastofthe20thcenturygirls]

this hate towards im sol is so ridiculous it's actually just funny to me. getting mad at her then for rejecting sun-jae even tho she only did it because she was going back to 2023 and 19yo did not like sun-jae at all his heart was gonna get broken anyway. hating her for pushing him away after meeting him again in uni. and now hating her because she wants to save his life even tho she's literally putting herself in danger to save him??? like she has wanted to save his life from day 1 that's always been her primary goal she went back in time to save the idol who gave her strength to go on at her lowest. she obviously wanted to stop that life altering accident from happening to her and yet she ran out on d-day because sun-jae might keep waiting for her in the rain. it's really what she's been doing from the start. ryu sun-jae the singer is so important to her she always tears up whenever she hears him sing but still tried her best to change his career path because she was from the beginning working under the assumption he committed suicide possibly because of the shit idols deal with. and when she learnt it never was that but the fact sun-jae saves her and got murdered for that 15 years later so she started running away from him. all of this has always been very im sol of her. i mean someone trying to do just what they have been trying to do from the start and getting hate for that... what is the thought process here? what should sol do? just go on dates with sun-jae then when he dies hate her for being selfish and the drama for a bad ending? i just know y'all can't even handle sad or bittersweet endings even when they are perfectly done & make all the sense. also i genuinely think people keep talking about tropes and shit but don't even know breaking up and lying to save someone's life is a very old trope too and it's about selfless love. anyway i think it's just y'all hate female characters otherwise why not call sun-jae a dumb bitch too for deciding to put himself in danger for her

[kismetconstellations]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart) x.

[thedrotter]

Re:Kinder Fun Facts of the day☺️!!! Have you ever wondered who talks the most from the main cast in Re:Kinder?? Well, I did😊. Today I'll be answering this question with some graphs and as a bonus telling you what words each character uses the most! I will warn you, this will be a bit long and I don't know how to be less verbose so, yeah!!!

First, I've made some basic rules as to what I counted regarding how much the characters speak. Not all lines really count as speaking, after all.

Any of the incoherent screaming lines don't count. There's a lot of screaming since the characters die a lot (as expected for a horror RPG game), but I don't really count that as speaking unless they're saying proper words. In that same vein, I didn't really count any of the panting or sniffing and such that are conveyed through words. Again, I don't really see that as a character actively speaking their thoughts!

If I cannot tell who a line belongs to, I will not give it to anyone. This happens for certain lines, so I felt this rule was important.

I won't be counting repetitions of the same line if it's on a variation of the same scene. This may sound a bit strange, but when a character dies, the game goes on to the same next scene it would regardless (unless the scene that follows it is an ending), with variations and new lines here and there to account for the dead character, but a lot will be reused and placed in the exact same beats it normally would have been in originally. So, this rule is here for that. Oh, and also the scenes with bits of Yuuichi's backstory that appear in Shunsuke's head won't be counted twice, because some appear twice line by line.

Of course, the "..." lines won't count. I am so sorry Aya!!!!😞

Now that the ground rules have been set, there's just one thing I want to mention. Though I will count all the total lines for Takumi and Yuuichi like any other character, I just want to mention that first I will have two separate counts for them! Takumi | Takumiel and Yuuichi | Yuuichi's Heart respectively.

Takumiel is separate because I was curious about how much Takumi spoke as an archangel compared to when he was alive. Yuuichi's Heart is because he speaks so much he feels notable enough to be given his own division, even if he and Yuuichi at the end of the day are one person

(I count the silly mind telepathy where Shunsuke is being directly spoken to [and being told things normal Yuu would avoid saying at that point] and the comical theater as Yuuichi's Heart. I clarify in case one assumes he only starts being counted the moment he's directly labelled as Yuuichi's Heart. Any line that can't be distinguished between Yuuichi's Heart and Yuuichi will be given to Yuuichi by default.)

With nothing else to be clarified let's get to the numbers!!!😊😊

First, the line counts with Takumiel and Yuuichi's Heart counted individually!! Here are the rankings:

Shunsuke (With a lead of 535 lines over second place!!)

Yuuichi

Rei

Yuuichi's Heart

Hiroto

Ryou

Sayaka

Aya

Takumi

Takumiel

You may be thinking— woah, does Shunsuke really speak that much?! You could say that, for a good chunk of those lines are from how he describes interactable points around the map and his inner thoughts, so they aren't all exactly said out loud. The benefit of being the protagonist, I suppose ww

Funny enough, Yuuichi's Heart has almost as many lines as Yuuichi does for not having that much time in the game, being on the higher end between the characters that don't get the benefit of being a protagonist (lol)!

Admittedly I had expected for Rei and Hiroto to have a more similar amount of lines given their nearly equal amount of presence, but for what it is Rei surpassed Hiroto by 51 lines! I also had expected for Takumiel to speak a little bit more than Takumi but turns out the opposite is true.

While the lack of lines of Takumi and Takumiel are to be expected due to their short time on the game, what stands out is Aya not even reaching triple digits between her other peers who are in there for most of the game. This is because a good chunk of Aya's lines in game are silence!^^" And thus weren't counted. If ellipses were a word, she surely would have reached triple digits, but unfortunately they're not.

Now the line count with combined sums of Takumi | Takumiel and Yuuichi | Yuuichi's Heart!!!

In here, the ranking isn't affected, with Yuuichi remaining second place and Takumi being last place. But the disparity of everyone's numbers compared to Takumi's feels a bit more clear to see when Takumiel isn't individually counted.

With Yuuichi's line counts combined, Shunsuke remains 318 lines ahead of him, but it also means Yuuichi has a 59% the amount of Shunsuke's lines; and impressive feat for someone who doesn't get the benefit of being the point of view for everything you press... Although he does also have an upper hand over everyone by essentially being the plot of this game ww

But maybe line counts do not suffice to tell how much a character speaks. Yes, Shunsuke has a bunch of lines from everything he interacts with, but is it really reliable to say he speaks all that much in all those lines? A good chunk of those could easily have 3 words each! So with this in mind, let's do a word count.

Even in a word count, Shunsuke has the lead, having a lead of 2,247 words over second place. But we'll see about that when we combine Yuuichi's numbers. Anyway, here's the ranking!

Shunsuke

Yuuichi's Heart

Yuuichi

Rei

Hiroto

Ryou

Sayaka

Aya

Takumi

Takumiel

This time, Yuuichi's Heart is the one at second place!!! It's pretty funny that he speaks more than his physical counterpart ww. I genuinely didnt think he'd out yap himself that way when I chose to count for him individually 😭!!! He has a lead of 63 words over himself, but a lead nonetheless.

In here, Rei and Hiroto are more even than in the line counts, with the difference seeming more minimal when put into words. But it also showcases that despite Rei having more lines than Yuuichi's Heart in the line count, those only get to have a bit over half of the amount of words he talks (To be fair he does get to infodump a lot in his section of the game).

And here's the combined word count!!! Suddenly Shunsuke's lead is only by a mere 55 words! So Yuuichi speaks about as much as he does with 318 less lines.

I must admit that I genuinely did not expect it to be that close. When I chose to count the lines for when you interact with things for Shunsuke, I thought he was granted to speak an absurd amount more than anyone else. But turns out that Yuuichi speaks about the same amount out loud when most of Shunsuke's are his own thoughts ww. But it does make sense! He is still the plot of this game.

So, after all those charts, here's the average/middle point of lines and words for characters to have, because why not, it's fun.

Average Line Count (YH and Takumiel counted individually): 197 lines

Average Line Count (When combined): 247 lines

Average Word Count (YH and Takumiel counted individually): 1,333 words

Average Word Count (When combined): 1,666 words

So there it is. That's how much the characters in Re:Kinder speak!

But wait!!! I am not done. I will share with you an additional fun fact... Did you ever want to know what word each of these characters said the most?! This one will be quicker, I do promise.

When it came to counting these words I did not count stop words, that being common words that are used all the time by everyone in English. "I, you, me, the, to, a, my, your, yes, no"... Words like that! Otherwise everyone would have one of those as their most said word and it'd be rather boring to look at. With that said, here are the words these characters say the most!

Shunsuke: Yuuichi - said 40 times! (this genuinely confused me so much im sorry he uses interjections so much I had expected it to be something like "huh" or "um" but no i dont know how this passed by me as i was rounding up all the lines he says or proofreading or writing all of those lines WHAT?!?! its been two days and it still takes me out)

Ryou: Shunsuke - Said 14 times

Sayaka: Murderer - Said 7 times (All in one sentence!)

Takumi | Takumiel (counted in one for how little he speaks.): Takumiel - Said 3 times (That name is so important, he said it thrice.)

Aya: Sorry - Said 5 times

Rei: Hell, gonna, look, Yuuchi - said 8 times (Most of the repeated words she says are stop words for she doesn't tend to speak about the same things repeatedly.)

Hiroto: Shunsuke - Said 17 times

Yuuichi (separate from YH): Problem - Said 17 times

Yuuichi's Heart: Mama - Said 24 times

Yuuichi (Overall): Mama - Said 31 times

So that is finally it. That is the fun fact of today.😊😊 Use this to woe your friends at parties!!!

I am aware Mami speaks about enough to be counted in, but this is pretty time consuming to do and I'm not sure anyone is invested on her enough to count her in. But if there's enough curiosity regarding that, I'll try counting her in. But for now this suffices.☺️ Thanks for reading!

[ladyalicentshightower]

I think people overestimate how feminist team black is. If someone brings up how Baela should be the heir to Driftmark, it's always "she would've been Queen if not for the Greens!", ignoring that 1, she would be Queen consort, not a Queen in her own right, and 2 she has a legitimate claim in her own right to Driftmark. Team Black's goal is to crown Rhaenyra, but Rhaenyra becoming Queen isn't a win for feminism because it does nothing to dismantle the rest of the patriarchal system that exists in Westeros. From what we've gotten so far, it reads that Rhaenyra wants to be the exception and not the rule. Rhaenyra has made a lot of bad political decisions, which means she can't acknowledge Baela's claim because it would weaken her own claim (blatantly admitting her eldest sons are illegitimate would not end well for her to say the least). So she betrothes Jace and Luke to Baela and Rhaena to kind of atone for that, like as a consolation prize Baela will be Queen and Rhaena will be lady of Driftmark, neither of them would hold either title in their own right. It's good matches because the kids like each other and will treat each other well, but it's not a feminist win or a feministic liberation. It's usurpation, usurpation that takes place because Rhaenyra has to do damage control after having illegitimate children and after a serious of bad political decisions (both hers and her fathers, Viserys is the arbiter of this entire mess). To me, Rhaenyra is very reminiscent of Mary Queen of Scots, I can see a lot of elements drawn from Mary's history in Rhaenyra's story and character, down to their sons eventually taking the crown they failed to claim/keep.

[chiropteracupola]

puella adiuva my class-readings are getting in my fic-writing again...

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[lollytea]

I do love the netflix avatar in my own way because it provides me with enrichment in the same way brain puzzles do for chimps. Like something is WRONG here and it's your very special job to figure out why! And then you will get juice reward!!

[quietwingsinthesky]

(For the game) I think the doctor should have more diverse companions. Give them more non human alien companions! Give them a companion is who fundamentally bad, who they have realize they can’t fix

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

yeah!!!!! oh and can i add to that! one thing i'd love to see? just like. a companion who is religious. in a way that is taken account into in the narrative and that is like. discussed? you know, how does going on time travel universe hopping adventures effect one's religious ideas. that would be fascinating to me. i think we've gotten like blanket statement things about future humans adjusting their religious beliefs or whatever but that's not what im interested in exactly. i want like. what does it do, to a modern human with modern religious ideas, to have to adjust that to aliens and shit. and how does their way of incorporating this life with the doctor reflect their character!

i think that'd be fascinating!!! and someone definitely smarter than me out there could probably write an incredible buddhist companion for the doctor and draw on the obvious cultural influences borrowed about cycles of reincarnation in constructing the doctor's whole regeneration thing to discuss shit. maybe one day. i'd love to see it.