#sick to death of his character archetype

[until-the-brahmin-come-home]

actively disliking cooper makes any attempt to look at fan stuff for the show basically pointless. girl where are the rest of the characters

[ama-kitkat123]

"Hi-Fi RUSH did everything No Straight Roads was trying to do but better." In terms of gameplay and polish? Definitely. But personally, NSR's art, characters, and music made much bigger impressions on me than HFR. I cannot remember a single standout original track from HFR that isn't a cover (not saying it doesn't have any bangers; the music is good— but all the rock tracks kinda blend together after a while), while NSR's music stands out immediately. Mayday and Zuke are also way more entertaining MCs than Chai. Fight me.

(For the record, I love both games. I'm just annoyed at HFR fans putting NSR down to make their game look better when it also has flaws.)

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Lenore Vandernatch: the rogue, the gothic heroine and the courtly knight. A review of archetypes

Okay, after going over my notes, here we are again. In case you don't know what this is all about, here is the first of these posts where I'm doing a review of some of the archetypes that Annabel and Lenore seem to be taking notes on.

Just so this doesn't end up being another 3000 word post, let's get started.

The Rogue

In 1554, the first written version of "El Lazarillo de Tormes" was published, the foundational work of what would become known in Spain as the "picaresque novel": stories centered on the rogue, a poor rascal who uses trickery to ensure his survival.

At this stage of the game, we have rogues in a variety of flavors and colors. It would be difficult to make a comprehensive list, so let's talk about these characters in general.

The first thing to note is that rogues are, by definition, outsiders. In the traditional picaresque, the rogue is simply someone from the lower classes, but as this archetype has grown, it has become less about class and more about criminality.

Yes. Rogues are criminals: thieves like Robin Hood, swindlers like the Lazarillo...

Fraud, arson. You name it.

Getting back to the issue of the rogue as an outsider, they may have been one from the start, or they may have become one after attaining their criminal status. Regardless of the reason, these people operate outside of the law, the authorities generally give a shit, and, depending on your rogue flavor, may even actively fight against it.

One thing to note here: this goes a bit beyond Lenore's rebellious attitude. Like a good rogue, she derives enormous personal satisfaction from the thought of getting her way. The world has turned its back on the rogue, so the rogue will not hesitate to turn her back on the world.

In Lenore's case, this attitude of throwing all authority to the wind and actively ignoring any rules imposed on her is a mixture of personality and trauma. In the flashbacks, we see that Lenore has always had a certain disdain for protocol and formalities, but of course, after being locked up for at least a year because the rules of the society she lives in have decided to make her an outcast for her brother 's death, she no longer finds any reason to listen to what they have to say to her. The rules will never go beyond the feeling that she has agency over her life.

From this follows the methods of the rogues: opportunism is one of their hallmarks. Ingenuity, cunning, and creativity are common traits among these characters, something that is usually tied to their status as outsiders and criminals; they don't care about rules, so they think outside the box, either because they are highly intelligent or because they lack common sense.

Maybe both.

So, yes, when Annabel tells her dashing rogue, she's not wrong in the least. But there are more interesting things to look at here

The Gothic Heroine

When some theorists say that Gothic heroines are bland and uninteresting characters, it's...true. But there's a reason for that, so let me get that out of the way for a moment: the image of the maiden in this period is used as a symbol of purity, chastity, goodness, and her corruption, death, or disease works on both a literal and metaphorical level. It is like when you see grotesque religious images in horror movies, there is a powerful and disturbing charge in the idea of seeing something "pure" destroyed.

So the thing about gothic heroines is that, at worst, they are not characters who contribute to the story they are in, but tokens, quasi-sacred representations who are there to die, get sick, or fall victim to a villain who might sexually harass them. Yes, unpleasant.

But good gothic heroines (besides possibly having tuberculosis) are characters with arcs related to corruption, especially mental corruption. And this is where it gets interesting.

But we go from less to more. In her flashbacks, Lenore's physical appearance is almost exactly that of a gothic novel protagonist: pale, almost cadaverous, slender, languid in her movements (because, in this case, she's drugged a significant percentage of the time), and long hair.

Her background in this part of the story, like that of the best gothic heroines, is one of mental corruption: she is here, imprisoned, withering and losing her mind, giving in to despair. There are those who point out a rather strong resemblance between the scene where Lenore tears the flowered wallpaper from her room and the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by the writer Charlotte Perkins. And although this story is not gothic, it definitely retains the most important trope of the genre.

Another element in which we can find Lenore is in the Gothic ballad of the same name, written by Gottfried Bürger in 1773. This poem tells the story of Lenore, a girl condemned by narrative for blaspheming against heaven after the death of her beloved, who is later visited by the Grim Reaper himself to take her to him.

A heartbroken woman committing blasphemy in the name of a lost love? I wonder if that sounds familiar.

And if I had to point out one particular gothic heroine with whom Lenore shares important similarities, it would be Laura from Carmilla.

With the first, she shares two very important things: isolation and a penchant for women who can murder her, a complicated relationship with a gothic vampire.

Laura lives in complete isolation from the world, with the only company of maids and her father; within the first few chapters, we know that she can barely remember the last time she had the company of a woman her own age. Like Lenore in the flashbacks, Laura is something of a secret, hidden from the world (though for less horrific reasons).

And that isolation is broken by the arrival of an elegant, almost supernaturally beautiful upper-class lady who almost kicks in her door with a "Hi, I want to be friends. You'll like me."

Both Laura and Lenore are not afraid of the vampire, though they are not unaware of her strange behavior and will raise a puzzled eyebrow at her promises of affection, as well as her obvious tendency to insist on a fucked-up secret that they are in the middle of and can't share. Another important detail is that both characters have a certain difficulty in describing their feelings as romantic: both are very obviously obsessed with this mysterious lady who has come to interrupt their loneliness, but Laura never fails to refer to Carmilla as her "friend" (a behavior that the modern reader may interpret, with more than fair reason, as comphet), and Lenore is little more than that, at least until the mansion arch where the shingle falls on her.

Last but not least, just as Lenore is treated as "crazy," there are several events in Laura's life (such as her first encounter with Carmilla when she was a child) or that occur throughout the novel that are dismissed by those around her as her being a little touched in the head.

The courtly knight

Here it is necessary to make a distinction: knights are a far-reaching figure, but before and during the Middle Ages they mainly starred in two types of stories: the canta de gesta (which was intended to tell great deeds of inspiration for certain peoples, such as the Song of Mio Cid in Spain or the Song of the Nibelungs in Germany. This last one is the best Canto de gesta in history, I do not accept arguments) and the Novel of chivalry or courtly (focused on the individual story of the knight and introduces elements of the court).

What is the main difference between the knight of the canto de gesta and the knight of the court? Well... the latter is much more horny. And we are talking about Lenore, so you have until the end of this paragraph to imagine which of these knights we are talking about.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the Courtly Knight has a pretty strong moral compass: nobility, mercy, loyalty, and honor are values they firmly believe in; these characters are heroes, and that means that while they are not perfect, they represent ideals that are considered important in this time. And we're talking about vassalage, so you get it.

This is the first thing Lenore has in common with the knights of the court: her strong sense of morality. Yes, she's not afraid to play dirty like a rogue, but she's pretty clear about what things are important to her in that regard, and she's willing to uphold those ideals even in the context of Nevermore, which actively encourages its students to kill and betray each other.

However, the personal agendas of these knights have one important thing in common: the conflict between their own desires and their duty.

What are those desires? Well...

Good courtly knights usually have to choose between their love/sexual interests and where their personal loyalties lie, which, due to the era in which these stories take place, are usually their feudal lords or even kings.

We already established that Lenore doesn't give a shit about authority, but her personal loyalty is to her friends. And this is where it gets tricky for her: So far in the comic, Lenore has kept her relationship with Annabel a secret from her friends, and she has kept the fact that she wants to save her friends a secret from Annabel. A conflict that may eventually blow up in her face, and on the face of it, really befits a courtly knight (though if she were a real one, the Misfits might ask her to kill the Deans or something in exchange for accepting her relationship with Annabel).

To continue with this, we need to stop for a moment and talk about another little thing: courtly love. There are many definitions of it, but my favorite is the one that defines it as an attempt to reconcile mystical love with eroticism. Fun fact: these stories were written in the Provençal language, something that would associate romantic tropes with "vulgar language".

In any case, courtly love usually speaks of the beloved maiden as an idealized object, a figure who inspires an almost religious devotion. And the most recurrent theme within courtly love is what is called "love from afar": it focuses more on the journey in search of the beloved than on the couple's relationship as such (this journey can be literal or metaphorical), the knight has symbols associated with the pilgrim, there is a certain hatred of the image, the maiden is seen as an almost religious figure, and...

Yes, the color associated with the so-called "love from afar", specifically with the beloved maiden, is damn blue.

Now that we've got all that out of the way, it's time to break down why Lenore fulfills some of these things and why she doesn't.

Going with the tropes that are fulfilled, we can say that Lenore is on a more or less metaphorical journey. A journey to recover her memories and her identity. One at the end of which her lover waits for her "until the abyss claims them both".

Like a knight, Lenore is willing to make great personal sacrifices in pursuit of the things she cares about: she is willing to die for the people she cares about (the misfits) and for her lover (Annabel). The Living Long Thing is something the Knight don't know about, and since Lenore is in Nevermore, apparently neither does she.

With all that said, it's worth noting the biggest difference: courtly love features relationships based on vassalage and a huge power differential. Something that does not happen here. No, Lenore calling Annabel "my liege" doesn't count.

To explain this further -and to summarize, because it's a subject that bloody books have been written about-t he relationships in courtly love have two different levels of power: the knight must perform feats to be worthy of affection, and the maiden is little more than a prize to be won.

This unbalanced power dynamic is something that simply does not exist in the White Raven: an important part of their relationship is that both are equal in charisma, intelligence, and resourcefulness. The unstoppable force and the immovable object. Annabel is as willing to die for Lenore as she is for herself, and Lenore would probably go into berserker mode if anyone dared to treat Annabel as a prize.

Yes, you could argue that the balance of power is a bit weighted toward Lenore because Annabel is willing to make sacrifices for her that Lenore wouldn't make because she has some, you know, morals. But I think that has more to do with Annabel's character than her relationship with Lenore (that's another analysis I have a pin for when the season is over).

Conclusions

If the archetypes that Annabel seems to take note of are all quite related, Lenore, on the contrary, is much more like a mosaic: these characters have little in common and some (like the Rogue and the Knight) directly contradict each other. This woman is chaotic in her conception: opportunistic and rebellious as a rogue, pious and with strong values as a knight, and condemned by the narrative as a gothic heroine.

Another thing that stands out is that two of these three archetypes are traditionally male characters. Personally, I don't think Lenore is "like a man": her entire background and personal history is meant to work in terms of her status as a woman in the time period she lives in. She can do all the shit these male heroes do and better (though the hc that Lenore is somewhere on the non-binary spectrum is not a reading that conflicts with that).

And I use the word "hero" because another detail stands out here as well: yes, many of these characters are not only often the protagonists of the stories they are in, they are heroes within their historical periods and literary movements.

I'm going to do a third part of this comparing Lenore's archetypes to Annabel's because, believe me, there's some really crazy stuff to unpack there.

[princeescaluswords]

Found Family?

In the last few days, I came across a really nice gifset celebrating Isaac, Erica and Boyd, but at the same time I was informed about someone arguing that Derek was a better alpha than Scott. I know that everyone loves to reconfigure the so-called Beta Trio into some sort of "found family" archetype and by doing so pretend that Derek Hale made these teenagers' lives better because they listened to him, but I feel it's important to remember that is not what happened.

First of all, the Beta Trio was not a Beta Trio; it was a Beta Quartet. Derek Hale bit four teenagers and when one turned out to be defective, he abandoned Jackson like a cruel dog owner dropping a sick puppy on the side of the highway so he didn't have to take care of him. "You've always been a snake, Jackson, just not the one we're looking for." Yeah, top-grade found-family parenting right there.

Second of all, they were soldiers, not family members. Members of the fandom may dislike -- and they do! -- when Scott yells at the New Hale Pack that Derek's just made them into a bunch of guard dogs, but they forget that that is functionally what they become. The first thing that Derek had them do was beat the crap out of Scott. Derek used Erica for espionage ("I have someone else in mind for you"). Then they kidnapped Stiles. Then they kidnapped Jackson. Then they tried to murder Lydia. Then they tried to murder Jackson.

There is exactly one scene where Boyd, Erica, or Isaac do something for themselves, and that's in Abomination (2x04) where Boyd and Erica attend the lacrosse game. "Derek isn't going to like this!" Erica warns.

Third and most importantly, Derek built a pack for his sake, not for theirs. Even if he did it because he was lonely, he still did it for himself. He watches Gerard declare war, he yells at Scott that this is what the Argents do, but he still goes ahead and recruits Isaac, Erica and Boyd. He also has no idea how to beat Gerard, which he literally says out loud after Peter explains that Gerard is winning. "Tell me something I don't know." He also knows the Alpha Pack is coming. Since the fandom likes to tell so much from glances, examine the look on his face when Boyd and Erica tell him they found another wolf pack in the forest. That's not surprise; that's fear. He wasn't prepared for the Alpha Pack yet, but he doesn't say anything but "You're not leaving; you're running." Once Boyd and Erica die, and once he can dump Isaac off on Scott, Derek never mentions any of them again.

This analysis is pretty harsh on Derek, but as I've always said, there's no need for a redemption arc if the character never does anything wrong. And as for why Scott is a better alpha, that's easy, too:

Scott didn't recruit. Of the thirteen Betas that Scott could be said to have over the course of the series and movie (Stiles, Derek, Allison, Isaac, Lydia, Kira, Malia, Liam, Mason, Hayden. Corey, Alec, and Eli), three of them were friends first (Stiles, Allison, and Kira), five of them joined out of admiration or were invested in what the pack was trying to do (Isaac, Lydia, Derek, Mason and Corey), and five of them were members rescued from peril (Malia, Liam, Hayden, Alec, and Eli). He didn't go looking for new members -- he found them, which actually makes it a found family.

Fandom should also compare how Scott treated Liam, the beta he didn't want to bite suffering from a mental disorder, with how Derek treated Jackson. The only time that Scott even hesitated to act as Liam's alpha was after Liam had beaten Scott to the point of death.

They were Scott's pack; they were his friends. Members of the fandom complain that Scott didn't train his pack or put the pack as a unit first. Absolutely. He didn't see them as soldiers. In Battlefield (2x11), when Stiles says he can't do anymore, Scott doesn't press him even though he needs all the help he can get. Scott doesn't want to bring Isaac with him to meet with Deucalion in Frayed (3x05). Liam doesn't have to be with them if he doesn't want to be in A Promise to the Dead (4x11). They hang out, they go to parties, they study like high schoolers are supposed to do. "While we're trying not to die, we still need to live."

Compare how Derek treated Erica and Boyd when they want to leave in Battlefield to how Scott treats Malia in Damnatio Memoriae (5x12). There is a vast difference between Derek insisting that they need him "Yeah, but I told you how to survive. You do it as a pack. And you're not a pack without an Alpha." and Scott explaining that he needs her. "What if I told you that you were the only one I have left?"

Scott built a pack to help others, not himself. Some critical thinker on X announced that "they all left him" about Scott's pack, which somehow proves Derek was better. They did leave (though most of them came back when he needed them), because he's their Alpha, not their owner. They have lives. Isaac couldn't take Beacon Hills anymore and left. Liam moved to somewhere in Asia. Stiles joined the FBI. Lydia founded a company. When he led them into battle -- and Scott did -- he did it because someone innocent was going to die if someone didn't do something -- whether it was the victims of Gerard and the Kanima, or the Darach and the Alpha Pack, of the Dead Pool, of the Dread Doctors, of the Wild Hunt. The pack came together under his leadership to protect innocents.

I don't understand how parts of the fandom can watch the show and argue that Derek's betas were better off as his betas or that Derek was a better alpha than Scott. Even if you edit out all of Scott's positive traits, as parts of the fandom tend to do, even if you erase Scott entirely, as parts of the fandom want to do, Derek's methods were less than constructive, Derek's motives were selfish, and Derek's end results were less than optimal.

[raisedbythetv89]

joss's sick obsession with not just causing pain and suffering - but punishment and humiliation to his "pretty popular girl" archetype characters aka Buffy and Cordelia and his favoritism of the most horrible mediocre white men aka riley, xander, and angel is never more apparent than in Into the Woods

The writers opted not for the FANTASTIC call back to season 1 with owen and Never Kill a Boy on the First Date when Buffy says "two days in my world and owen really would get himself killed…. or I'd get him killed… or someone else...."

which set them up perfectly for the road map of Buffy's attempt at a "normal" relationship that angel, her mother, and the scoobies keep trying to push her to have (when she's not normal herself so of course it's gonna be a disaster which is soooooo trying to force a queer person to be straight coded which is why spuffy is inherently queer on top of them both being canonically bisexual because Buffy embracing her love of Spike is embracing her inherent queerness)

But could you IMAGINE how amazing it would have been for season 1 to have foreshadowed riley being turned at the suck house (because literally all that evil in Sunnydale and NO ONE takes the opportunity to turn the slayer's boyfriend into the perfect secret weapon to take her and her whole family out??? PLEASE)

Then vamp riley almost killing Dawn and her mother (because Dawn would be the one tricked into inviting him in as a call back to Dawn accidentally inviting Harmony in and Buffy saying she's gonna get us all killed plus angel tricking his little sister into inviting him in once he was turned)

Buffy is forced to kill him after pleading with him to remember he loves her or any part of who he was (which would further show how exceptional Spike's ability to form a truce with Buffy, keep it, and fall in love with her all without a soul is)

Making riley her second (third if we count ford being left for dead and then having to dust him) turned evil boyfriend she's forced to kill.

Buffy would still be DEVASTATED and it's Buffy so she'd still punish and blame herself even though it'd be all riley's fault (demonstrating how this storyline would still cause immense pain for Buffy and be very high stakes drama for the plot but again joss elected for humiliation having Buffy literally chase after the man who was cheating on her with vampires while she was dealing with a sick mother and a hell god after her sister. Favoring a white man's character over the best plot line)

All while also further setting up her and Spike's relationship because of the "if that's what I wanted I'd be dating Spike" of it all which was her basically saying if I didn't want normal, Spike would be who I'd choose and now she's tried to be normal and he got killed, almost killed her family and then she had to kill him just like season 1 Buffy knew would happen when she broke things off with owen!!

AND the poetic irony of her trying to be “normal” and it ends with the exact same result?? The lesson being that rejecting who you are is not the answer and the only true answer is self acceptance because pain will happen no matter what so might as well love and embrace yourself ???

BUT NOOOOOOO the writers aka joss opted for riley's narrative to be that he's a hero and a good guy always, no matter what because joss has a big fat crush on marc and guys like him, angel and oz all get written off by treating women like shit without being villainized for it at all and then leaving. Getting to go on to live rich and fulfilling lives while Kendra, Tara, Cordy, and Anya are all violently killed off with barely any time spent grieving their deaths by more than one character..... (I haven't ever been able to finish ats so I don't know how much this applies to cordy's but my guess is the pattern didn't change much)

THEY EVEN LOOK THE SAME FOR CHRIST’S SAKE IT WRITES ITSELF

[zeroducks-2]

I've just finished Gotham Knights and I get that people aren't happy with the fucked ass haircuts but like, I do believe this is the most progressive and well written Jason Todd we've ever gotten in recent times. Even in recent comics. Like damn, bro goes to therapy, picked up his interests and hobbies again (e.g. the cooking and the reading and the shit talking) from his "Robin makes me Magic" days. Like yeah, he's still edgy, but he was murdered by a fucking Clown, he's allowed to be edgy. We got a Jason Todd that isn't diluted to "the angry black sheep character" archetype. He's healing, working on himself, his relationship with his family, and he's fighting his way (brutal and all strength and tact) to do what he stands for and what he believes is right. And his heart is just so big and full of compassion, but it doesnt blind him and make him wishful or naive. He's so well balanced in Gotham Knights. I hope this version of his character is written in future comics. I'm sick of DC writers making him this angry anti-hero who's only reasoning and purpose in life is to get back at Batman for failing him and so many others. Jason is allowed to be more than his trauma. Thank you Gotham Knights for seeing that.

I'm glad you enjoyed the game anon. I personally am not a fan, not because of Jason but because of the game itself. The dialogues felt stale, more reminiscent of tumblr "incorrect Batfam quotes" than the source material, and the NPCs felt dull compared to how full of life they were in the Arkham series (so much so I would hide in random spots just to hear them talking about the current game events, especially in AK). The most unforgivable bit to me was Tim not having ever fought the rogues because he's "young" - I've never seen anything more insulting and infantilizing for a character which already heavily suffers for being treated as the useless one, never allowed to participate in the game changing dynamics or to have meaningful arcs, and is relegated to being the cute little bisexual twink.

That being said it's a matter of taste, and Gotham Knights is surely a good game for those who prefer a wholesome loving family approach to these characters. Jason working on himself and going to therapy and having a good relationship with his "family" is surely what lots of people (especially in here) want to see. Me, I don't think any amount of therapy would help since therapy is based on shared human experiences and repetition of patterns, and Jason died and dug himself out of his own grave. That's not a trauma any therapist would have the means to help with. They indeed "diluted" the event in the game, changed the fact that Jason dug himself out of his own grave and was functionally braindead and homeless for two years, and made it so UTRH never happened in order for therapy to make any sense, because there is no reconciliation possible with a parent that slit your neck to save the person who broke all your bones with a crowbar and then murdered you.

It's kinda like when Wally went to therapy (canonically) after Barry's death. The therapist was a good one and he tried! But ultimately he didn't manage to make a real difference because Wally is the Flash, a super-powered creature with time bending powers who does things on the scale of absurdity, and who also happens to have had an extremely traumatic childhood and to have just lost the only person who ever loved him unconditionally. His problems have roots in reality but are out of the scope of any therapy method currently known to man.

And Jason is more than his trauma, but pretending his trauma doesn't inform his actions and can be solved with him "working on himself" is not an approach I hope they take in comics. I'd rather they went back to Jason doing things his way and protecting the people of Gotham in the only manner he finds helpful, because he experienced on his own skin (twice!) that Batman's methods don't work. I'd rather they allowed him to stop clashing with Bruce as main theme of his stories, and have his own plotlines in which he's in between a vigilante and a mafia lord (which they were doing with Dick by the way, before chickening out and have Slade bomb Bludhaven) with Bruce only as a cameo sometimes.

We have a high number of morally irrepressible characters who always do the right thing more or less. I'd like Jason to be something different, something darker, because there is a dramatic lack of grey characters and anti-heroes which were sanded down to either 100% bad guys or 100% good guys. I hate that, why can't we have nuanced choices and people struggling with the darkness they carry, why does everyone need to be a perfect "unproblematic" paragon of goodness who would never do anything wrong. We have A LOT of characters like that and I love them, I really do! But if everyone and their families are like that then it's really frickin boring!

Plus, I'd like the characters to actually struggle with their past traumas in a meaningful way, otherwise why even giving them those traumas to begin with. Give me Tim still grappling with how he couldn't save his father, give me Dick haunted by all the times he slipped and let go of the no killing rule in a way or another, give me Jason haunted by the tragedy of being abandoned by every person who was supposed to protect him and working from there to being the protector of everyone else.

That's what I hope DC would pick up and write about. I was never much for fluff and wholesome things unless it's in small amounts, I always preferred strife and complexity. But hey, I'm glad you enjoyed the game, at least one of us did!

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Edelgard von Hresvelg

Shes the modern version of a fire emblem archetype of evil well-armored character (normally male). except with edelgaurd you bond with her and learn her harsh backstory. she is still one who starts war and is overall bad but youre meant to also pity her as a misled child, not only see her for her epilogue conquering self that erases history. Yet the fandom cant pick anything but extremes

oh god. ok ok ok im sick to DEATH of hearing about 3h solely because of the discourse surrounding her. should she maybe not have started a war? probably! cpuld she have talked it out? definitely the fuck not! were her motives sound? sorta, yeah! i mean she was tortured in a goddamned basement, i can see why she would want to get rid of the systems that led to that occurence!

She was raised her entire life as a weapon, for those who hated being subject to an (equally morally grey) Church and Goddess. However, she recognised those who tried to forge her into their own tool as evil (they tortured her and killed her siblings to try to make her as strong as possible), telling them “there will be no salvation for you and your kind”. However, she still kept them on her side as allies once she claimed power as emperor, to help her fight against the Church. She plunged the entire continent into bloody war in order to overturn a heavily restrictive, exclusivist class system. Did the end of peace and greater freedom justify the seas of blood it took to get there? Honestly I don’t know.

Shen Jiu

Born a slave and bought by a toxic household, got out of the situation through a rags-to-riches plotline, started abusing+neglecting his own student in a cycle-of-abuse type of story and ended up a target of said student's revenge plot. Fanfic writers often write him as either a perfect/sad/lawful angel or a ruthless asshole - for most of the story he got replaced by an isekai'd bodysnatcher, so readers don't really have a lot on his characterization beyond what was shown in sidestories/extras.

He’s in the middle of the cycle of abuse and he gave all his loyalty in his lifetime to one man who he couldn’t talk to for more than 5 sentences but who then died trying to save him and then he ate the shards of his sword as a method of suicide.

Shen Jiu was an abused slave with a horrifically tragic backstory who went on to abuse and attempt to kill the protagonist of the original story before the MC (Shen Yuan / Shen Qingqiu) transmigrated into him. He's the embodiment of the cycle of abuse & is misunderstood and villainized by pretty much every character. When he was replaced by Shen Yuan, everyone pretty much went, "yeah, something's up, but I like him better now." He is simultaneously woombified and vilified at all times by the fandom. The discourse is horrid

[nicomrade]

Who are your fave and least fave fkmtverse characters?

the first that came to mind was hyoudou senior i just dont enjoy seeing him on screen very much and i think hes boring & annoying as a character. hes fine in middle management blues tonegawa cause then its a comedy manga & we poke fun at him but like as an Antagonist in Best Gambling Manga Ever Made Kaiji Part One its like. i just dont want him ever having the spotlight for more than than a single plotbeat at a time. im less scared thinking about "what if the ending of kaiji ruins all of my analysis so far?" than when i read people talk about hyoudou being the final antag of part 7. this is my 1 singular fear but this being said, im fine with hyoudou existing. hes not that bad. the one in zero was worse and by "the one in zero" i do mean theres at least 3 (?) of them and theyve merged into 1 singular existence in my memory. im sick of them. can we stop? it makes me appreciate how fucking awesome washizu is when i see fkmt utterly fail at writing any other good character w this archetype. what did he put in washizu that made him awesome? mahjong?

i typed too much about hyoudou but i still wanna mention some absolute FLOPS of fkmt characters like the protagonist from RUDE 39 (the pachinko manga fkmt did) katagiri yuuji... whys he named the exact same thing as the protag of t*m*dachi game? RED FLAG. i actively rooted for his ruin the entire time i read that one. i dislike him greatly. can we kill him? in a similar vibe i just cannot like nikaido of hell golf fame. initially i wanted him put in a death game cause thats just what i like reading about but it progressively grew into a need to see him suffer horribly on screen. i need him tortured and NOT mentally the psychological torture of being a loser is NOT enough for him i need him in REAL ACTUAL HELL. im still keeping w the nikaido chapters tho

my blogging may sound like i hate miyoshi greatly also but thats all in jest & good fun hes a good antagonist and a good punching bag. its very fun and enjoyable to go "miyoshi sucks miyoshi should die me and my friends wouldve killed miyoshi with hammers" which makes him a GOOD character i enjoy. hes awesome. hes my singular favorite example of hte trope of "the protags friend betrays them in the death game" its so masterfully pulled. miyoshis awesome. & i love how they wrote him in life in tokyo ichijou LOL hes also very important for kaijis depth of character- heres a guy he saved who then backstabs him. does he still believe in trust? is he still incapable of (direct) violence? and paves the way for part 4+5. miyoshis awesome. hes not top 3 favorites tho. hes just an honorable mention i guess

as mentionned i love washizu also hes my grandpa and i love him. also i love akagi hes my one singular favorite fkmt character its not even close no elaboration needed. i enjoy & love & think about all the akagi characters, banger after banger, urabe u are so funny, and so on. one year ill remember to celebrate yukio day properly. lets move on

SAHARA i love sahara an abnormal amount ive just made up so much shit about him that is real to me n then i read part 1 again n i dont notice that theres very little supporting my vision. but im RIGHT. he begged to be in the death game. he BEGGED to be in the DEATH GAME over being a WORKER. this dude rocks. i know in my heart that he loves gorey movies and he laughs when the characters die & his favorite movie is funny games but he disagrees w everyones analysis of it he just thinks its a fun movie? its a fun time? i also love endou & have similarly made shit up about him to meeeee he got broken up w between part 1 and 2 and htis explains literally everything about him. the way he yells at kaiji in the bathroom is just him projecting his frustration & anger he had with his ex. its NOT about kaiji. it simply makes sense.

uhm this is already too long but i didnt even get to ten. i love ten dearly. i also enjoy mamiya greatly as a character shes funny & a very interesting protagonist for a psychological, hot mahjong action work. her kinda character would be more usually seen in comedy slice of lifey mahjong (like penchan!) so its interesting. its fun. its new

in conclusion i like the characters that are good and dislike the ones who are suck

[semi-imaginary-place]

jjk 265

In the end the ultimate technique to end sukuna's whole career was the same one that ended gojo, yuji sent him to a public transportation hub. I'm still disappointed sukuna hasn't killed and or eaten more characters. Tomas the Tank Engine about to shred sukuna, isekai'd and reincarnated into a jrpg world as like a baguette or something.

Real twin vibes this chapter with the banter like the crayfish. Sukuna making up excuses for knowing what a hydrangea because Yuji's mocking him about it, bro's a poetry snob and traditional Japanese poetry is all about nature and flowers, he's cultured, a contrast to Yuji's typical teenager action movies and manga tastes. Yuji's arms are back to how they were before and his hair is down again, is this how he sees himself? His eyes for most of the chapter have the single pupil but at the end where he downs down the ultimatum of get back in his body or die, Yuuji's eyes have the same rings as Sukuna's. Two worsties wandering an empty city, I love the vibes of 265. Sukuna is having the worst day of his life being forced to follow Yuuji around while he prattles on about his childhood memories while not being able to commit violence. Sukuna's just simmering there in anger and hatred without being able to vent it as violence all he can do is make snippy comments here and there and insult Yuji. Also my religious iconography isn't too good but is that Kannon/Guanyin when Sukuna questions is this whole chapter has been Yuji's mercy/compassion?

https://tcbscans.me/chapters/7778/jujutsu-kaisen-chapter-265

Someone on reddit brought up how jjk's delulu brother sequences with Todo and Choso previously shown might have actually been a result of Yuji's soul resonance abilities since Yuji is shown to be able to affect souls. And so in a way Todo's false memories of going to a normal school together with Yuji and Choso's false memories of all the Death Painting siblings eating together foreshadowed 265 where Yuji shows Sukuna the town he grew up in. As for why this didn't happen with Sukuna earlier, a lot of it is probably narrative and thematic flow, it's rather fitting that it happens at the climax of the manga. Sukuna and Yuji have always been kinda special. For most of the manga there's also been a significant power gap between them. Yuji was never powerful enough to effect Sukuna, until Yuji got his offscreen power ups and sorcerers threw themselves at Sukuna for 40 chapters straight to wear him down.

Yuji talks a lot of his grandpa the most important person in his life. He wonders if his grandpa would have died alone if his friend hadn't died first. Just like how his grandpa was sick, bedridden and alone, everyone's lives have meaning. It isn't about how someone dies but how they lived.

In 265 Yuji has stopped forcing himself into a role resigning himself to being a cog in a machine. He also reflects and discards his literal interpretation of his grandfather's dying wish, the thing he had been clinging to to guide him lost and directionless as he was in life after his grandpa's passing, realizing that that was an excuse he used for his anger. And this is the part I'm unsure of I think what Yuji's saying is that the value of life in in the acting of living itself and the ways your life touches others. Comparing the translations I think it's an existence proceeds essence answer Yuji's saying it's not memories and the past that determine value and a person's purpose, instead through living and creating memories that value is created, pretty Buddhist.

I talked about this previously. Yuji's erasure of his selfhood to make himself a cog in the machine of Jujutsu society formed an ideological opposite to Sukuna's self centered hedonism and this forms the primary philosophical battle underpinning the series. With strong sorcerers repeatedly being those who just do whatever they want unbound by the wills of others, this forms a sort of anti-Buddha archetype, with a consistent theme of subverting Buddhist motifs (iconography, mudra, lines, imagery, etc) when it comes to these characters primarily Sukuna and Gojo. With this framing in mind Yuji was always going to lose until he changed his mindset.

This is why there was so much speculation about Yuji taking up Sukuna's philosophy and "becoming the new Sukuna". I never believed that jjk0 reveals Akutami's optimistic intentions. The subversion of the twin trope also offers hints as to the future. With Maki and Mai, irl Ryomen Sukuna, and Akutami's interview statements about being inspired by conjoined twins, the audience was led to believe Yuji and Sukuna were twins or Yuji was part of Sukuna's soul (same thing according to sorcerers). But this is partly subverted when their real relationship is revealed as Yuji is Sukuna's reincarnated twin's son, created by Kenjaku with one of Sukuna's fingers. Their connection is thus messy, not two pure opposites or halves but like a distorted mirror. As such I don't think their fates will directly mirror each other. If they had actually been halves I think them dying together or ending back in the same body would be extremely likely. But since the duality is warped Yuji's survival chance increases. Yuji plans to shove Sukuna back into his body and that might succeed or Sukuna might finally die.

Yuuji stakes his life and identity on his role as Sukuna's vessel. He'd already envisioned their destiny of eating all the fingers and dying. But Sukuna never needed him, took over Megumi, and shattered Yuuji's world. What is he if not Sukuna's vessel? The loss of both his friend, and the loss of his role his world view his place in the universe is what has driven Yuuji up until dec 24.

"Jin's name in Japanese are written in kanji as (仁), which means benevolence; consideration; compassion; humanity; charity. Interestingly, Yuuji's name, (悠仁), also contain the very same Kanji with an addition of the kanji (悠), which means composed​, distant; boundless; endless; eternal​. ... Now, we know Sukuna Killed Jin in the womb, considering Jin's name, it's as if the moment Sukuna killed Jin, Sukuna also killed HIS Jin (仁), His HUMANITY... It's as if The HUMANITY (double meaning as Jin and the actual humanity) that Sukuna Killed and trumpled upon all these years are blessed with stronger representative to get revenge on Sukuna" (MasterNature9559)

"This would also explain the lastest chapter (265), why Sukuna doesn't feel a thing for the value of humanity that Yuuji explained, and why Itadori still pity Sukuna despite everything" (MasterNature9559)

I (and many others) did hypothesize that Yuuji was Sukuna's discarded humanity before the Jin twin reveal. I didn't predict Yuji being the son of reincarnated twin. In some ways since Sukuna ate Jin/humanity once it makes sense that only a remade stronger humanity in Yuuji that could take down Sukuna.

Sukuna wouldn't have gotten angry at the end if Sukuna was apathetic about this chapter. He participated this chapter, he got drawn into stupid crawfishing competitions and wanted to show off archery. 265 was Yuuji's attempt to show Sukuna humanity, the worth of a life by showing the little shattered memories he has of the town he grew up in. And Sukuna of course rejects this but something about Yuuji affected him.

Notably Yuuji's recognition in the meaning and worth of life is anti-Buddhist which would be consistent with the rest of the series where Buddhist symbolism is brought up and subverted repeatedly.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi there supersonic person! I see in your off line lists you have some new caretaker/doctor John. I’d love to see those please. Thank you.

Hi Lovely!!

AHHHH I DO I DO I DOOOOOO! Here are the fics I've got for ya on that new list! Feel free to add more friends!

DOCTOR / CARETAKER JOHN Pt. 5

See also:

Doctor / Caretaker John

Doctor / Caretaker John Pt. 2

Doctor / Caretaker John Pt. 3

Doctor / Caretaker John Pt. 4

Sherlock is Sick/Hurt (Sherlock Whump)

Sherlock Whump Pt. 2

Sherlock In An Accident

My Unfortunately Average Sized Cranium by Haelia (K+, 996 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Headache, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Past Drug Use, Doctor John) – In which Sherlock has a migraine. ALMOST Johnlock. Not quite.

Mizzle by MrsNoggin (K, 1,233 w., 1 Ch || Friendship, Fluff, Platonic Johnlock, Humour, Slice of Life) – John can't decide if it's raining or not. Sherlock doesn't understand.

You're a Doctor, Fix me by edken (K+, 8,792 w., 2 Ch. || Humour, Romance, Sick Sherlock) – Sherlock doesn't do anything halfway, and that includes getting sick. John nurses a very sick flatmate back to health using cuddles, forehead kisses, and a massage. Humor, and fluff promised as always, but also some character analysis because who doesn't love that?

The Slow Dance and Death of a Carbon Copy by batslikepastel (T, 15,576 w., 8 Ch. || Angst with Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, Mental Health Issues, Mary is Not Nice, Idiots in Love, Eventual Fluff, Developing Relationship, Alcoholism, Love Confessions, BAMF John, First Kiss) – He hasn’t talked to Sherlock outside the bedroom since that first night. Today, though, when Sherlock painstakingly makes John’s favourite breakfast- eggs Benedict- he smiles delightedly and kisses his cheek. “Thanks, Mary.” The first sign of delusion.

Division by MrsNoggin (E, 19,542 w., 11 Ch. || Coffee Shop AU || First Kiss/Time, Fluff, Barista Sherlock, Clingy Sherlock, POV John, John’s Limp, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Sensuality, Touching, Virgin Sherlock, Insecure John) – John likes mysteries. And every morning he dips into the local independent coffee bar with his newspaper and ponders another... one Sherlock Holmes.

How To Unfold a Heart by elwinglyre (E, 25,477 w., 7 Ch. || Post S4 Fix It, BAMF John, Mentioned Eurus, POV First Person Sherlock, Case Fic, Fluff, Slow Burn Topping from the Bottom, 3 Yr Old Rosie, Introspection, Sexual Fantasies, John Worship, Ogling, Hand Holding, Kidnapping, Domesticity, Sherlock Whump, First Kiss/Time, Doctor John, Caring John, Soft Sherlock, Sensuality, Touching, Crying, Love Confessions, Anxious Sherlock, Rimming, Toplock, Fingering, Bossy Bottom John) – To Sherlock’s dismay, John’s return to Baker Street with Rosie is only temporary. Sherlock’s daily visits to Regent Park with John and Rosie illuminate his lost childhood memories and missed opportunities. But with each trip to the park, Sherlock also feels a growing sense of hope. That is until the past horrors return unexpectedly in a cryptic note folded in the shape of a heart. To decipher the message, Sherlock must uncover the nature of the hearts around him, including his own.

Lucifer's Gardens by ampersand_ch (E, 32,679 w., 12 Ch. || GERMAN VERSION|| Romance, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Murder, Poison / Drugging, Mystery, John Undercover, Academic Club, Therapy, Rituals, Jungian Archetypes, Doctors & Physicians, Grief/Mourning, Esotericism, Hospitals, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, John Falls In Love With Another Man, Jealous Sherlock, Crying, Doctor John, Hand Holding, First Kiss/Time, Mysticism, Hugging, Touching) – John goes undercover for an investigation as a favour to Lestrade in a village in Suffolk. The events surrounding the case awaken deep-seated fears in Sherlock. While John begins to come to a realisation of what he needs in Lucifer's Gardens, Sherlock tries to find a way to reach John – in more ways than one.

The Hollow Woman by ScopesMonkey (M, 51,335 w., 22 Ch. || Post-TRF, Major Character Death, Mystery, Romance, Friendship, Family, Angst, Crime, Reunion, First Kiss / Time, Nightmares, Doctor John, Jealous Sherlock, Jealous John, BAMF John, Angry John, Dub-Con, Rough Sex, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Villain Mary, Open Ending) – Forced to return to London sooner than expected, Sherlock falls into a case too close to home. Part 1 of the Hollowverse series

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love,  Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

Gold Rush by ShirleyCarlton (E, 71,783 w., 17 Ch. || Post S3 / No Mary, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Past Sexual Abuse, First Kiss, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Alternating POV, Switchlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Marriage Proposal, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abduction, Anxious/Insecure Sherlock, Miscommunication, Emotional Lovemaking) – John has divorced Mary and pops round to 221B one evening to find Sherlock in the middle of a case. As Sherlock tries to find the identity of a young woman’s stalker, John realises he can no longer deny his feelings for Sherlock – which then, to their befuddlement, turn out to be mutual. Shy kisses and tentative embraces ensue. But will Sherlock be able to cast off a shadow from his past that he thinks might prevent John from wanting to stay?

Swallow the Night by ArwaMachine (E, 87,873 w., 15 Ch. || TSo3/Stag Night Fix It, TAB/S4 Divergence, Toplock, Mutual Pining, PWP, Drunk / Public Sex, Anal Fingering/Sex, Alcohol-Induced Amnesia, Everyone Knows Except Them, Emotional Love Confession, Demisexual Sherlock, Internalized Homophobia [John], Parentlock with Rosie, First Kiss, Drug Relapse, Infidelity, Texting, Masturbation, Oblivious John, Emotional Love Making, Angst with Happy Ending, Dreams and Nightmares) – “Do you know how long,” John panted, his cheek scraping against the wall, looking back at Sherlock through half-closed eyes, “I’ve wanted this?” Sherlock pressed himself against John’s back, biting at John’s ear. “Not nearly as long as I have,” he whispered.

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Asexual Sherlock, POV Sherlock, Flashbacks, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Case Fic, Sherlock’s Past, Awkward Conversations, Anxious Sherlock) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

The Lost Special: Family Matters (As Do Relationships) by ShirleyCarlton (M, 144,688 w., 40 Ch. || S4 Fix It Fic / Meta Fic, Unreliable Narrator, John’s Mind Bungalow, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Demisexual Sherlock, Holmes Family, John Whump, Gay Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Drug Addiction, Parenting, TFP is a Nightmare, Virgin Sherlock, Slow Burn, Minor Character Death, Switchlock, John’s Past, Sherlock’s Past, Eurus, Love Confessions) –Sherrinford is not really the name of some high security prison. That was just a figment of John’s frantic coma dream. And Eurus is not actually Sherlock’s sister. That’s just something random she said to John before shooting him. Sherlock and John were never actually estranged. That was just their act to cover up what really happened to Mary – or Rosamund Moran, as her real name has turned out to be. Sherlock does have a secret sibling, though, and his name is Sherrinford. After finally eliminating Moran – though in a rather dramatically different way than they had envisioned – and exposing the truth about Eurus, John encourages Sherlock to delve into his past and to find out whether the reasons to keep Sherrinford away from Sherlock were the right ones, and to discover what really happened in 1981. Along the way, Sherlock and John gradually, finally, stop keeping each other at a distance, and eventually become a proper family of their own.

Fallen Series by Belladonna_Q, mamishka (T, 222,094 w. across 3 works || Winglock || Angel!John, Angels & Demons, Faes, Christianity, Changelings) – In a world where myth, mystery, and the supernatural flourish beneath the veneer of modern civilization, Sherlock is a master of magic as well as science and deduction. But there are some things that he cannot see, riddles he cannot unravel, even when they walk right beside him in the form of one John Watson…

[hurremsultanns]

It's interesting that the 'villain Hürrem' narrative that is so prevalent seems so much more gendered to me than Kösem's corruption arc. And I think there are a number of reasons why. 1) Hürrem is referred to with very gendered language (e.g. how often she gets called a 'witch'. Whereas Kösem isn't.

2) The 'Madonna-Whore' thing the show does with her and Mahidevran. The retroactive minimisation of the things Mahidevran did to Hürrem as 'just a small mistake' for example when referring to multiple murder attempts in order to paint Hürrem as the sole aggressor and the only one out of the two of them in need of/not deserving true forgiveness for her sins. Not only is Kösem treated far more sympathetically in this regard, but she is explicitly the character who the audience is meant to root for far more than Hürrem is. Mahfiruze felt far more 1 dimensional than Mahidevran did for example. Or even Firuze.

3) Hürrem's character type is rooted in a specifically female villain archetype whereas Kösem's character arc is based heavily in that of male antiheroes like Michael Corleone. She shares explicit parallels with him.

4) The 'wicked stepmother trope' is one that is applied to Hürrem whereas Kösem specifically avoids it. Even though you could argue that MC subverts it because of what Hürrem's motive is. And the fact that said motive is strongly validated. Especially in the leadup to his death. It's still not enough for a lot of fans to see her as anything other than just the villain in Saint Mustafa's story.

5) There are male characters in MC:K who are allowed to be just bad people and bad rulers (ie Murad) without any female coding or women copping the blame. This is not the case in MC. Even Cihangir's sickness and eventual death get blamed on his mother. MC has this underlying narrative of the scheming female influence (Hürrem and Nurbanu mainly) corrupting and bringing down the representatives of male military heroes. Where MC:K villifies its most militaristic character. And we're squarely on Kösem's side against Murad (and for good reason - he's the worst! But why is there no such scrutiny applied to a slaver like Barbarossa in MC? Why do HIS crimes get romanticised?)

7) Overall Kösem's motherhood and her grief at the loss of her children gets treated far more sympathetically than Hürrem's. We see the decisions that Kösem makes as understandable whereas the show gives no end of blame to Hürrem. Kösem's case gets treated like a tragedy. Hürrem's feels like 'the seed is bad': Her kids have the original sin of being hers and so they suffer for her 'evil'. While she gets more sympathy than this textually, fans who take this reading have an unfortunate amount of textual basis for doing so.

[andromebaa]

what are some of your favorite headcanons for just the two of us?

Oh man, I have so many lol. I'm gonna split them into serious stuff (plot/character hc), cute stuff (pairing/shipping hc) and dumb stuff (they're idiots hc). This is definitely not all of them, just the ones I could think of tonight. Kinda spoiler-ish if you haven't read up to the most current Just the Two of Us chapters so be warned! Serious Stuff

Kaito as a hero archetype always fascinates me. I feel like he has this compulsion to help others, especially those he perceives as weaker or unable to protect themselves. I think that's why I portrayed his 'biggest fear' in the simulation as hurting the people he loves the most and losing control in a way that makes him become a monster. (Very fun to consider depending on your HCs about his pre-game personality ehehe)

Kokichi is a walking bundle of trauma. So much has happened to this guy and I'm sure it's been dissected by people smarter than me but like - compulsive liar? Tiny? Really good at hiding? Those weird little spacing-out moments he gets? Something bad happened to you, didn't it? Like, maybe not as BAD as what I've depicted, but yeah. Poor baby.

Shadow Child was created as a representation of both Kaito and Kokichi's 'inner children', specifically the darker and more traumatic parts of their childhoods. They are portrayed more often as Kokichi because his trauma is much larger and more pronounced, and therefore more influential in the subconscious part of the simulation. I don't know why I stuck with they/them pronouns for them, it just kind of felt right?

The leech was based on Kaito's subconscious fears of his death. The concept of this parasite that drained its host's life force felt fitting for a death fear sort of thing. It also represents the loss of control he feels over this aspect of his life. It kind of 'evolves' as it takes in influences from other people, but that's kind of its main framework.

Miu's Copy had a massive breakdown during the bathroom scene. It was kind of her last straw before she turned on the leech. She kind of reflected on what she knew about the original Miu, the contents of the simulation and how Kaito and Kokichi interacted and it made her realise how fucked up everything was and how much she did not want to participate. Also she was getting sick of all the edgy thoughts leech was putting in her brain.

Cute Stuff

Kokichi's favourite food never used to be strawberries, it changed after Kaito fed them to him and he got some sort of psychological association between strawberries and him.

On that note, Kokichi probably can cook, like, decently, but he kind of plays up his ignorance because he likes Kaito showing him how to do it.

Kaito is super super into domestic life lol he can try to pretend he isn't but he so is. Definitely got into a routine when they were stuck in the simulation for that year.

Being with each other for that year made them get a really close, almost psychic-ish bond that people get when they spend too much time with each other. It's how Kaito can pick up on when Kokichi is lying, for example.

After he overcomes the whole 'don't touch me' hurdle, Kokichi swings to the other side of the pendulum and is very clingy. Won't leave Kaito alone. It annoys him at first but it grows on him.

They have lots of petty squabbles but they usually don't last. They're not fantastic at apologising properly to each other, it's usually just settled through physical affection or gifts (food).

Dumb Stuff

Kokichi drank shampoo the first time he saw it because he thought it was a fruity beverage. That's why Kaito started washing his hair for him.

Kaito named all his plants. He gets offended when Kokichi forgets them.

Miu definitely had relations with her P.A.L self.

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch lol but yeah headcanons woo! Thanks for the askkkk <3

[jerseymuppet]

i might be stupid but. is the gothamverse a muppets batman au? is that what the thing in ur bio means? (either way plz do tell me abt it)

That would definitely be infinitely cooler than my idea! Gothamverse is the beautiful result of me playing arkham knight while waiting for an mcr livestream to start up and thinking ‘damn bitches from jersey are fucking insane! ....wait a minute’

It’s basically a silly little idea I came up last March with where all the mcr guys are from Gotham and what their villain origin stories would be etc. I followed the main Batman villain archetypes: extremist, anti-hero, camp, and serial killer, and I had a fucking blast! It’s very silly and just something I did for fun. I guess I can go a lil bit into it here.

full disclosure, I am psychotic and disabled and I do not believe in the vilification of mental illness or disability in media, all of these characters will eventually get the help they need. Batman at its core is about a mentally ill man helping others who have been failed by society and I will never forgive dc for making him into an overpowered, glorified cop.

Frank’s character (Francis ‘Frankie’ Stein) is the extremist (duh). He’s the son of a mafia boss who is steadily ruining their town with crime and Frankie just kinda snaps and kills him to take his place as the head of the family and try to undo some of the damage done. He has great intentions, he’s just very unyielding and kind of insane 💕 his moniker is Frankenstein! And his whole schtick is that he’s very hard (if not impossible) to kill. He’s also chronically ill and Jewish, these are not important to his character but they are important to me !

Mikey’s character (Micheal Way) is the serial killer. He’s a ‘sociopath’ (theres nothing actually wrong with him, people just suck and made him feel lesser and out of place :/) trying to fit in with everyday society but he always feels like something is missing and becomes a neuroscientist to try to find what exactly it is. He invents a machine (the empathsizer) that allows him to experience other people’s memories and emotions as though they are his own. From there he accidentally gets addicted to the chemical responses his brain has to doing that. And keeps doing it. Even after the testing phase is no longer accepting applicants. It gets worse after he experiences someone’s near death experience and starts chasing the high it gave him. Idk what his moniker is? It’s sandman for right now but that’s honestly so boring and uninspired.

Ray’s character (Raymond Ortiz) is camp but very loosely. He’s an engineer by day and a rockstar by night! He’s really only an engineer to save up enough money to pursue music full time but it’s hard because he doesn’t get paid that much. Winter hits and with it, cuts to his hours! So he’s forced to choose between rent and electricity. When he gets really sick as a result, he can’t afford a doctor. And when he wakes up with his hearing gone as a result, theres nothing he can really do but spiral into a depression. Until he realizes he’s a literal biological engineer. If he can’t fix his problem he can at the very least prevent it from happening to someone else! Research does cost money, so it’s very fortunate that Gotham has so many banks. His moniker is Dr. Megahurtz! His weapon of choice is his guitar, which has been retrofitted with sonic emitters to amplify and weaponize the hertz. Not enough to hurt, but enough to incapacitate.

Gerard’s character (Jules Moss) is the anti hero! She’s (yes I made Gerard’s character a trans girl, they took too long to make a trans character so I did it for them) has the same backstory as Gerard actually! On her way home from work she witnesses a terrorist attack, but instead of starting a band she decides to fight crime instead. She does so bad. Literally her first night out patrolling she gets killed by some priest who’s been driven insane by what he claims is an angel that’s ‘chosen him to impart gods will’ but it’s just a fallen star looking for a vessel to possess and the first guy it came across wasn’t dead lol. The star turns into a sword of pure light and that’s what Jules gets stabbed with, but also it fuses itself to her dna so she wakes up a few days later, schrödingers girl, with some scary new abilities and a voice in her head that definitely wasn’t there before. Her whole arc is her trying to find the guy that killed her and get revenge. Her moniker is stigmata! Because when she gets impaled it also goes through the palms of her hands and the wounds don’t heal.

but yeah that’s the bare bones of it all! I’m planning on making this into a comic series but the script is still being written at the moment! Thank you for letting me ramble about it 💕🥰

[hexhomos]

I have a sincere question. I heard someone say Viktor is disabled in LoL. I feel this is untrue. Can you confirm or deny this?

That is definitely not canon. Arcane was the *first* Riot property to ever depict Viktor as disabled, and that's not without some considerable drawbacks. (Such as: knowing he could very easily fall into the 'magically curing your disability/deleting it out of yourself' ableist trope, new/casual TV show fans seeing him as positive representation while unaware that his ultimate future ideals Suck and frankly need to be viewed with a critical lens, etc etc...)

It's a very new concept which brings into question things such as agency & nuance & the continued portrayal of villains with some disability or disfigurement (as well as a deeply negative outlook on those things), not to speak of the eugenics slippery slope. The issue at hand is that Viktor's original concepts did not play into these tropes, unless it was fanmade stuff. I read his champion archetype to be much more tied to the cycles of industrialization/ exploitation /dehumanizing capitalism, while Arcane Viktor has very little to say about any of these things.

To put it more simply: League Viktor augments himself as a choice, to prove a point and present his creation; something no one could ever take credit for, because it is literally his own self. Arcane Viktor is forced to augment himself under the threat of impending death and a decaying body, via a darkmagic macguffin. Those are fundamental differences.

Riot doesn't have a good track record when it comes to sensitive topics and if I'm being perfectly honest with you I don't expect the argument borne out of Arcane season 2 to be... good... its likely to be very centrist and cartoonish in an effort to wrap up S1 storylines, and that means weird takes, bootlicking, and "Rich People Have Feelings Too".

League Viktor certainly has had fanwork interpreting him as disabled before; though back then it was a consequence of self-amputation, limb replacement, lab accidents, and the works. I can see how his staff and in-game gait brought those things to mind, and even knowing that Arcane can never un-exist, I'm happy that some people felt really seen and identified with an openly disabled Viktor being on the TV show. I think you could still write that well - if you gave a shit - which is not something I trust the company to do when they've already deleted most of his outside life/character motivation and made it singularly focused on a killing chronic illness to be 'solved'. The main character involved in scamming Viktor out of his work was even included in the TV show, but for some reason they decided to make him a long dead (and very nice and wholesome) professor instead, which just seems like proof of wasted character development to me.

^You'll see a lot of people who prefer to keep iterations of his character wholly separate for all the above reasons, some who rewrite his hollywood sickness to be a lot closer to a real condition, some who give league viktor different kinds of disability still.

You just have to remember they're different characters.

[alicent-vi-britannia]

The reinterpretation of the Faustian legend in Code Geass

In Code Geass Season 1 Episode 23, Lelouch rejects Kaguya's marriage proposal, claiming that he had made a pact with the demon. Fanboys made light of this comment as C.C. was present listening to them. But this was one of the few moments where the series was being direct with its audience and expressing its intentions through its main character. 

Code Geass can be seen and valued as a modern reinterpretation of the German legend of Faust (I don't doubt that each culture will have its own archetype to talk about these issues, however, given that we are Westerners and that the IIWW taught us that the Japanese and the Germans are cut from the same cloth, I will explain myself through this legend which, after all, is the most famous worldwide).

In case you have been living under a rock for all these years and have never heard of this legend, I will quickly put you in context: Faust is a genius who makes a deal with the devil in which he exchanges his soul for what he most desires, without knowing that by doing so he is condemning himself. This is the premise of the legend and of subsequent adaptations. The details then vary. In essence, this reveals to us that the demon, like the Geass, is able to see the human heart and figure out his deepest desire to give it to him. The problem is that that desire is corrupted. Mao and C.C. realized that.

What did C.C. want? She wanted to get love in the purest and most sincere sense. But the love she received from people under the influence of her Geass was not true love. It was a sick obsession. "Love without limit was love without meaning. I forgot what love really was," explained C.C. "I'm so tired of all the proposals and flowers. Now some of them are starting a religion around me," said young C.C. in the flashback.

What did Mao want? He wanted to understand why he had been abandoned by his family. Hence he received the power to access minds. But reading the thoughts of others or, rather, understanding human nature became hateful to him to the point that people generated disgust and contempt for him. C.C. was the only person truly human to him, even if she didn't think so.

Overwhelmed by his powers, Mao and C.C. refused their wish and were punished (remember that in the flashback to the moment C.C. accepts the code, she had the Geass active in both eyes, which was an indication that she couldn't deactivate it like Mao and Lelouch). Why? Because once you make a Faustian deal, there's no going back. There are no concessions or returns. You must fulfill the deal until its last consequences.

Lelouch didn't realize that his Geass was an evil power until the incident with Euphemia. What happened in episode 22 exactly? That Lelouch was in a conflict. Even though he planned to use the Geass on Euphemia to force her to shoot him so he could fake his death so that the Japanese would forever distrust Britannia and Zero could show himself as the only savior, Lelouch didn't want to hurt to Euphemia actually. This is the reason why Lelouch's eye hurt where the Geass was. He knew deep down that he would join Euphemia if she pushed him hard enough and he knew, furthermore, that this was against his goal, because what does Lelouch want? He doesn't want to be subservient to anyone, he wants to be independent, to be recognized and, last but not least, he wants to destroy Britannia. That desire stems from his childhood trauma.

And, if Lelouch sided with Euphemia, he would ruin everything he had been working for up until now as he would have to unmask himself and submit to Britannia. Therefore, he would be betraying the contract that Lelouch had made with himself by accepting the Geass. Thus, the Geass is linked to the desire of the heart. Think for a moment, why couldn't the forgetful Lelouch use his Geass, even though he had it activated permanently? Because Lelouch is who he is thanks to his memories and it was Lelouch vi Britannia, the prince who was disowned by his father and who longed to destroy Britannia, who made the contract. A Geass can be broken if the will of the victim is stronger than that of the Geass bearer. We see this with Nunnally. She broke Charles' Geass because at that moment her will was stronger than his at the time he used his Geass on her.

In this way, the permanent activation of the Geass was the way to keep Lelouch, Mao and C.C. on the way to their wish. The emperor is the exception that proves the rule. In theory, he claims that he wants to create a world without lies. However, he lies in everything he does. He lied to his brother, to Lelouch, to Nunnally and to his entire empire. Charles likely has a deeper, selfish desire that is never revealed to the audience.

What we can be sure of is that the Emperor never went against his wishes since he has no permanent Geass. C.C. and Mao had a Geass that can’t be turned off. Lelouch needed special contact lenses to hide his. Charles never needed this. He has a double Geass, so to speak, that can be deactivated. Therefore, we know that the permanent Geass is not a stage in the evolution of Geass. Of all the characters with Geass, only Lelouch, C.C. and Mao, who explicitly opposed their Geass, were the only ones to get a permanent one.

Either way, all Geass users paid the price, and what is the price? Is it the human soul? Pffff! Lelouch almost ripped his soul from his body to move on. For he was willing to sacrifice his mind, his conscience, his humanity. But he wasn't willing to sacrifice his loved ones (Shirley, Kallen and Nunnally mainly, although, in correct terms, it's the entire student council, including Rolo) and that's what the Geass claimed from him in the end. Because the price of the Faustic deal is to strip you of your most valuable possessions, which generally translates into the people you love. "The power of kings will isolate you."

That's why C.C. was afraid that Lelouch would hate her for giving him the Geass and Lelouch eases her anxiety by denying it. He doesn't forgive her just because his affection for her is greater than any grudge he harbored against her (that's totally secondary in Lelouch's case), but because Lelouch has the moral courage to admit that it was his choices that led him down that road destructive route, until the Zero Requiem.

Lelouch is a Faustian soul and therefore he is guided by a will to succumb. What I mean by this? That he is touched by fate and that kind of person has the gift of making all the wrong decisions that are going to doom him. And Lelouch screwed up like nobody else and, in unison, did evil. Some of his decisions were the product of misjudgment and most were made deliberately. For example, the betrayal of the Black Knights, Shirley's fall from grace, and the decimation of the Tokyo Settlement were consequences of his actions. Lelouch is a modern tragic character, in every definition.

Of course, this has a positive side. Otherwise, C.C. could not have ended well despite her immortality, nor would Lelouch have died with a smile, nor would the creators consider that Code Geass had a happy ending. It's just that I focused on the dark part because I was talking about the Mephistophelian treatment.

Tell me, did you already know the legend? Did they identify the Faustian treatment? What did you think of the little analysis?

PS: Before you ask me, yes Larry, Death Note is another reinterpretation of the Faustian legend, a little more obvious and with a much more malevolent Faust (like Christopher Marlowe's version).

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: The Invisible Ray

Week 15: The Invisible Ray

Week 15:

Film(s): The Invisible Ray (Dir. Lambert Hillyer, 1936, USA)

Viewing Format: DVD

Date Watched: 2021-09-03

Rationale for Inclusion:

As may be evident by the way I gush over James Whale's films, I am a huge fan of classical era Hollywood horror films. Imagine my delight when I learned that icons of 1930s horror Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi appeared together in not one, but seven films, plus a joint cameo appearance. Seeking out these films is what eventually led me to The Invisible Ray (Dir. Lambert Hillyer, 1936, USA).

The Invisible Ray was the third time Karloff and Lugosi were paired together, not counting their cameo in Gift of Gab (Dir. Karl Freund, 1934, USA). Something I appreciate if you watch the films in chronological order is the horror stars alternating who's the baddie and who's the victimized colleague. Karloff tormented Lugosi in The Black Cat (Dir. Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934, USA), Lugosi tortures Karloff in The Raven (Dir. Lew Landers, 1935, USA), and in The Invisible Ray Karloff's antisocial Dr. Janos Rukh finds himself at odds with or dependent upon Lugosi's Dr. Felix Benet. 

As can be surmised from both characters having the title of "doctor," The Invisible Ray like Frankenstein (Dir. James Whale, 1931, USA), Island of Lost Souls (Dir. Erle C. Kenton, 1932, USA), and the other mad scientist films thus far surveyed straddles the line between science fiction and horror. Since better examples of the archetype exist, I would have skipped over The Invisible Ray were it not for the film's plot revolving around a new kind of radiation from the element Radium X. An atomic sci-fi film almost two decades before they became the genre norm absolutely needed to be included in this survey.

Reactions:

Rewatching The Invisible Ray last year as part of a mini chronological survey of 1930s horror, I summed up the movie on microblogging sites as, "Boris Karloff's antisocial scientist pursues Radium X research to the point of self-destruction, but makes the mess he made of his reputation and relationships everyone else's problem." In retrospect, I could just as easily have described the plot with the "instead of going to therapy" meme.

As an early example of atomic sci-fi it presents the extremes that society associated with radiation and radium at the time: Radium X could be a cure-all that benefits society, or deadly poison. Janos Rukh, who previously studied astronomy in an isolated castle with only his mother (Violet Kemble Cooper) and young wife (Frances Drake), the daughter of his former associate, for company, ends up so irradiated whilst investigating the African meteor site source of Radium X that any living creature he touches instantly dies of radiation. His colleague Felix Benet helps Rukh develop a serum to keep the accumulated radiation from cooking him to death, but regular doses must be taken to prevent Rukh from killing himself or others.

In theory, having delayed death, Rukh should be able to continue his life and research without issue. Except all his time away from his wife Diana has alienated her onus based affections, which Rukh takes as a betrayal. Similarly, Benet building upon Rukh's research to develop Radium X into a blindness cure also strikes the irradiated scientist as a betrayal, despite Benet being sure to credit Rukh's work that led to the process. At this point Rukh fakes his own death and starts using his radiation powers to murder off everyone associated with the Radium X African expedition.

While near the end it is implied radiation sickness led to Rukh becoming a serial killer, at the climax his mother shows up to remind him that he was always not of the temperament to live outside of isolation. At which point he agrees with his mother and lets himself cook to death. The Invisible Ray serves up not only an example of an early atomic monster, but that being a mama's boy is tied with being a murderer. (For more on the latter see the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock.)

I typically try to avoid plot synopses in these posts, but the way radiation is shown to have a dual nature in The Invisible Ray makes it stand out compared to other mad scientist and atomic sci-fi. Typically whatever invention a mad scientist is working on comes from good intentions, only to prove disastrous for anyone who comes in contact with it. Radium X being both a cure and danger simultaneously is novel by comparison, and a less reactionary take than atomic sci-fi films made post-atom bomb. 

Apart from the novelty of its attitude towards atomic energy, The Invisible Ray is overall forgettable and not very good as a film. Better atomic sci-fi films would follow, and better pairings of Karloff and Lugosi had been made before it and would be made after it (in the latter case specifically Son of Frankenstein (Dir. Rowland V. Lee, 1939, USA) and The Body Snatcher (Dir. Robert Wise, 1945, USA)).

Although, I would be remiss if I did not point out that another novelty in The Invisible Ray is Lugosi got to play a handsome, competent, sane scientist for a change. His filmography usually involves him being obscured by monster makeup or playing an outright villain. As much as I love seeing Lugosi play a monster, I am sorry he rarely got to play more normal, romantic parts like Felix Benet.