#signals character growth

[robbyykeene]

My distaste with season 5, and this show as a whole, boils down to the fact that the writers have gone all in on the idea that the only true Character that is allowed to exist in this story is Johnny, and nearly all the others are just malleable dolls for the writers to move around and play with as they see fit to advance the story in a direction that will make Johnny the Ultimate Winner Of Everything.

And I hear the criticisms already of “but Johnny’s the protagonist! Obviously every other character is ultimately going to serve his story.” But Walter White is the protagonist of Breaking Bad and Jimmy McGill is the protagonist of Better Call Saul and Kendall Roy is arguably the protagonist of Succession. And obviously it’s unfair to compare shows of that caliber to Cobra Kai, but do you see my point? In all of the above, the characters that orbit the protagonist are fully fleshed out people, equally complex and just as motivated by their own desires and history and traumas as the protagonist is. And yet still, ultimately, their characters do end up serving the protagonist’s arc, and the story as a whole. Because that’s what good writing is.

But increasingly, all the other characters in Cobra Kai have stopped behaving like actual people—especially the ones that pose any challenge for Johnny. Their feelings get stamped down in favor of removing Johnny’s obstacles towards happiness, which only winds up reducing Johnny’s own character in complexity and likability.

I watch Cobra Kai now and I don’t find any of these characters believable, maybe Johnny most of all, because the writers steadfastly refuse to let him face any real serious consequence for his actions. Instead, they have everyone falling over themselves to forgive him, repeatedly giving him a do over—a chance to right his wrongs without ever ever fully acknowledging the hurt and pain he’s caused. This season, quite literally in the form of a new baby. And if that’s the story they want to tell, well fine. It’s their story to tell. But they can’t keep pretending like this is a redemption story, that there’s anything deeper beneath the surface of this show than just being about a guy who does karate and kicks ass and gets the girl and defeats the Big Bad of the week. This is not a story about trauma, Johnny’s or anyone else’s. It’s really not about anything at all anymore.

[mayasaura]

To be clear, I do ship Marcille and Falin!! I just ship them as.... complicated, you know? They have dyke drama. Marcille is deluding herself that Falin hasn't grown up and she's not going to age, and she's not going to die no matter what Marcille does, and Marcille isn't going to have to live most of her life having lost her. Meanwhile poor Falin would like a step by step written explanation of how to convince her very good elf friend that she is an adult, and has some potentially adult feelings about getting wet and naked and crawling into bed together

[winterpantsu]

Love the idea of Narinder being super thin and scrawny when he’s first brought in, and then him slowly starting to eat as he finally warms up to the lamb and life, maybe he even gets a little primordial pouch tum?

[teamsasukes]

there's a lot i hate about the naruto fandom but i think the worst of all is this strange insistence that hinata is an incredible character who puts sakura's writing to shame. 

let's be clear, none of the women in naruto were really written perfectly, and these issues are often spotlighted through sakura as she's the female lead. but while there's a good deal to critique about her writing, she's still a fairly solid character in her own right and there's lots to admire about her. she's relentlessly loyal to her team and pushed herself damn-near close to the top (despite her civilian, or at least low-ranking shinobi background) through sheer force of will. and for all the talk about how there are lots of sexist tropes shaping her character (which is true to an extent), she defies many as well. she never falls for the heroic mc, she's temperamental and doesn't take shit from anyone, she's allowed to be flawed (but she's got a good heart), and so on.

hinata, on the other hand, barely even exists outside of naruto. i've never seen a character who exemplifies "woman written by a man" more, from her demure nature, support of the mc from the sidelines, and modest clothing but still very conventionally appealing design. she had potential in OG (everyone did🤕) with the issues plaguing the hyuuga clan, but that was promptly forgotten in favour of her only moments in part 2 being dramatic love confessions. her cousin dies and all we get from her is "naruto's hand is big and strong."

i like her for what she could have been but she (and maybe karin, but for different reasons) seriously get the worst treatment of naruto's female cast. it never fails to get on my nerves when some dudebro talks all about how she would have been the perfect female lead. it's mind-boggling that such misogyny is on open display in the naruto fandom. hinata's ENTIRE character is a male fantasy and it's not even remotely subtle.

[note-boom]

It's definitely just me but for some reason the recent chapter's first coloured page gave me the same mood as the coloured page of Vol. 20 (the only one I've read asides from Vol. 1)

I mean....the decision making, the way he's torn between what to do, his insecurity about fighting by himself or choosing what to do...and also the Big Revelation he's just witnessed that he has to deal with by himself....

And he looks SO tortured in both panels? The boy man has been so conditioned into listening to others that the thought of standing by himself paralyses him...please give him a hug.

[bhaalble]

Back on my Wyll script doctor because I was talking about it with a friend. Specifically imagining a version of Wyll's big Character Choice that felt like it had some actual teeth.

Imagine a world where instead of a cartoon evil hot lady Mizora and Wyll's relationship actually had some complexity to it and like. some genuine push and pull which gives him temptation to stay. I just keep thinking about this 17 year old who his whole life wanted more than anything to be a hero, who got his chance to do something heroic and selfless and save the city from certain doom, and his reward is getting kicked out because he did it the "wrong way".

Imagine if instead of forcing his silence, Mizora instead comforted him. How unbelievably cruel of your father! Well...since you've nowhere else to go, why not stick with me? We make a pretty good team, as it turns out, and I can get you a whole list of monsters who need killing. Plenty of devils and demons loose in your world targetting all sorts of innocents. Our interests can keep aligning, and you get a place to sleep when you need it.

Wyll makes his peace with it, because he has nothing and no one. And Mizora's not GOOD maybe, not by Ulder Ravengard's definition. But she's fun. She delights in his growth. And she does certainly keep direct him at greater evils, devils who really do need killing. And if she spies on his every waking moment, well, she worries. If she sends him after the occasional innocent, well, she had people who she has to answer to as well. She's a devil, how much can he fault her for her nature? She's always seemed like she knew where the line was...

Karlach (and the player) express their doubts, of course, but for act one at least he's defensive. Yes, she punished him and he hates it and its miserable but....he was in breach of contract! She's NEVER gone outside its bounds, she's always stuck very closely to their agreement. Wyll, who wants so badly to trust others and believe everyone has the chance for good, can't find it in him to believe the worst even of a devil.

And Mizora is FOND of Wyll, loves him even in her way. As a cherished pet, as a trusted tool, as a best-laid plan. Never enough to choose his own well-being over her own agenda, never enough to see him as his own person. He's her little project, the long shot noble brat she gambled on when Tiamat decided to get too big for her britches. And it paid off! Wyll always pays off, currying her all the favor from Zariel she so desperately craves. And who are you, or anyone, to come between them? She's treated him well. As she's quick to remind him, she wanted him when no one else did, aided him while the rest of his city slept snug in their beds. And if Ulder Ravengard didn't want a son with a whiff of infernal, then do you REALLY think he'd want you with lovely horns and Avernus in your blood?

You discover his father's been taken. Beyond igniting a lot of old feelings, it brings up a question of succession. Of course, Florrick isnt giving up on him, but if not...there aren't currently any likely candidates to take over the Flaming Fists. Not trustworthy ones. Florrick will take the position, but everyone knows in the back of his mind Ulder never really stopped planning for it to be Wyll. With the city in chaos and a cult army on the rise, they may need an answer sooner rather than later. Wyll feels the call of the Gate, but knows just as well that Mizora wouldn't want him to return in such an official capacity.

For the first time ever the leash starts to chafe in a way he can't keep pushing through.

Act 2 rolls around. Mizora sends up the Warlock signal. After potentially some encouragement from the player, Wyll (NOT THE PLAYER. I DONT KNOW WHY ITS THE PLAYER IN THE GAME ITS WEIRD) hesitantly proposes that maybe, if he does this....they can do a renegotiation of his contract. Not break it, he assures her quickly! Just....reopen the terms, take a looks at the agreement. Maybe discuss an exit ramp? After all....I mean, neither of us truly thought I'd be doing this forever, did we?

Based on Mizora's reaction. Yeah she did.

But fine. She agrees. And Wyll's not mad that it turns out you're rescuing her, not a nameless "operative" for Zariel. He would've done that on his own had she asked. Its the fact that she apparently didn't feel like being honest, that she let him fret and worry about potentially handing Zariel back some runaway for basically no reason. Its the fact that she came here to check in on the cult that abducted his FATHER just to see if Zariel could make any use of them. And its the fact that she seems surprised and annoyed that ANY of this bothers him.

All this builds, of course, to the final confrontation. The basic elements are the same. Mizora outside the coronation (this time needling at Wyll, "I'll be at camp if you're not too high and mighty to consort with the likes of me anymore"), Ulder tadpoled and fighting it. Mizora makes her offer. I can end the contract now, and you're free to go running after daddy (who won't want you btw! not like I do!). You'll lose all your powers, all my aid, all those juicy quests to chase down the greatest monsters in the hells. Take on your father's job and settle in for a life of misery and compromise and only doing as much good as the nobles will let you. Or: pledge yourself to me, eternally. I'll give you a boatload of new powers and eternal life to boot, so long as you serve as my sword and shield.

From there I think three endings branch out, and with it three classes for Wyll. If he stays with Mizora, accepts a relationship where he will never be an equal or a free agent in exchange for the affirmation he wants so badly from his father, he remains a Warlock, with some juiced stats and extra spell slots, along with shiny new gear. If he pledges to follow in his father's footsteps, he instead becomes an Oath of Devotion paladin, pledging himself in service to Tyr, if with a sense of doomed finality. The Blade of Frontiers is officially retired, and along with it any identity he has outside of being his father's son. Or the third path, break the contract without taking his father's role. He will look for his father, yes, but whether or not you find him he's going back to his roots, travelling around to do some good in the world (as the Blade of Frontiers) or kicking ass in the Hells with Karlach (as the Blade of Avernus). In this timeline he becomes a fighter, with a default preference for Eldritch Knight.

What's important: if he breaks his contract then Mizora is NOT hanging around camp. She will leave in a fury, accidentally bound by her own word to withdraw her influence completely if he breaks his contract. She may still approach the player some night to sleep with the player, framed for high approval/romanced players and her trying to take something back from Wyll. But Wyll will have to learn how to define himself without her breathing down his neck, without keeping her happy dominating his every thought. Its nervewracking, and even lonesome at times...but its freedom. And, perhaps, that's worth a little bit of lonesomeness.

[brujahinaskirt]

I love rdr2 for the little things--like how sleeping arrangements over time reflect narrative arcs and interpersonal decay (or bloom).

Just a really quick observation:

The most obvious and important sleeping change, I would argue, involves the Marstons. At the start of the game, John has abandoned and disavowed Abigail & Jack; they sleep on the ground in a flimsy shelter while he, the returning golden boy, sleeps in a bed under a comfortable tent. John's tent arguably affords the most privacy in the game, and this makes sense early on, when he's trying to maintain a distance between himself and everyone around him (especially his family, including Arthur). In Shady Belle, John has welcomed Abigail and Jack into his bedroom, and -- notably -- he sleeps on the floor this time. It's as much a signal of John's growth as a person who is allowing himself to be a little more reachable as it is a sign of his fledgling sense of regret and apology (for abandoning them in the first place), and it is a sign of him warming to the idea of Abigail and Jack as his family. But it doesn't happen all at once; Abigail and John still refuse to sleep beside one another. In the epilogue, as they actively attempt to rebuild their lives together, John and Abigail finally sleep side-by-side as a couple.

I read someone once point out that Uncle transitions from sleeping all over the camp, wherever he happens to pass out, to sleeping directly behind Arthur's tent in Beaver Hollow. This was so cleverly observed. What a powerful sign of the overall degradation of the character of the gang as Uncle (the character most representative of optimism and comfort) begins to fear for his safety and future enough to take physical shelter behind Arthur. What a note of confidence and clarity re: the true person Arthur is beneath the air of danger he has worn like a job title and a suit of armor. (I hunted for that original post to no avail; if it was yours, please let me know so I can link back to it!)

Molly & Dutch and the sliding divide. We start off with a present but muzzled level of friction between these two. Molly sleeps on the only bed in Dutch's lavish tent; Dutch sleeps beside her but... sitting up (haha okay very healthy)... because there's no room for Dutch and Molly. Later, Dutch commandeers the master bedroom at Shady Belle while Molly drunkenly collapses in an isolated place, usually by the kitchen window, blasted with light (see: truth) but far removed from the others, a reflection of her self-isolation and detachment from the gang and anyone who might be able to help her.

Dutch's tent gradually drifts farther away from the center of camp, at its maximum distance in Beaver Hollow. Micah, Cleet, and Joe linger closest to Dutch at this point, noticeably even more so than Javier and Bill.

The slow pull-apart of The Girls. Similar to Molly, after Sean's death, Karen can increasingly be found slumped over drunk in various locations at the periphery, semi-conscious. This is never more apparent than the Beaver Hollow era. Meanwhile, Mary-Beth and Tilly remain sleeping tightly next to one another, not far from Sadie.

God only knows where Micah sleeps.

(Might come back and expand this more later! But that's all she wrote, rushed, for now.)

[snapscube]

Remember when people were calling you the "long lost McElroy sister"? Do you see the similarity at all, or do you think it's just because you share a similar creative niche (gaming/streaming/comedy) with the McElroy brothers?

Lol, "when" people were doing it.

I still get it to this day, friend, despite my constant protests.

I used to understand, and it was even expected initially if not personally encouraged! There was definitely a period of time where they were my biggest comedic/creative inspirations, and the truth of the matter is that I am a mannerisms sponge. I mimic people around me, and people that inspire me, and whether or not it's more than the average person I have no clue, but I will go through seasons of daily watching a particular personality or creator I'm fond of and/or inspired by and usually come out the other end having picked up certain tendencies VERY quickly, a large portion of those being speech patterns.

There's definitely a segment of my content around 2017/2018 or so where, yeah, you can very much tell I adopted a McElroy-esque speaking pattern directly (like what felt like 70% of other Tumblr users also did lol) and it was both because of how much of their content I was into at the time AND also because at the time I found their output inspiring as someone who was used to more... Loud Gamer forms of comedy, to put it bluntly. So at first I took the comparisons in stride and saw it as a signal of my own growth as an entertainer, and my ability to be funny in a way that wasn't just Loud = Funny.

But the thing you have to know about me, and my time as even a minor public figure, is that this comparison was not the first of its that was constantly levied at me, and it unfortunately was not the last one in the slightest. Some will remember the days in which I was a reasonably renowned "Bill Cipher" impersonator in the Gravity Falls fandom, and the pattern was very similar at the time. I dealt with people CONSTANTLY telling me that, despite all of my attempts to separate myself from the voice work I did as the character, I always sounded Just Like Bill even when I was just using my casual speaking voice. If this sounds familiar to those of you who have only been around since the dubs popped off, it's likely because I also go through the same thing ever since I became known for Sonic impressions.

And then outside of voice work I've had my style of content continue to be compared to the McElroy's body of work and even beyond to the likes of Jerma and other big-name-of-the-era content creators. And I have to once again stress: I am completely self-aware that it is not entirely unfounded. I mean, the most recent one I got was just the other day when on stream someone told me I had a speech pattern similar to Northernlion. And like, I even admitted right then and there.... yeah! That makes sense! I've had NL compilations going into my ears and brain for hours upon hours on end lately. So I don't mean to only complain and say "this makes no sense" with delusions that it's completely baseless. BUT, I guess if I do have to circle around to a point, it would be that, though I can occasionally understand comparisons, I would hope y'all in turn can understand why it might not be an easy thing for someone like me to hear, especially in the way it never really seems to go away? Even if one like Bill Cipher fades out, the whole "SnapCube is just a female version of [insert larger male peer in the content space]" thing is something that cycles along regardless. And I get it, it's human nature to compare and contrast. I do it too! But as someone who is always trying to stand out in what I do and make my own value as an individual known above the cacophony of content saturation, I do implore people to think twice about the language they use when making otherwise favorable comparisons. Recommending my content by saying something like "if you like Jerma/McElroys/NL/etc., then SnapCube gives off similar vibes" makes of a WORLD of a difference compared to "This stream is just something Jerma would do" or "Penny is just a female Griffin McElroy" (both things I have heard almost verbatim, constantly). They approach the same ideas, but one gives me so much more of a chance to like... start off a first impression as My Own Person and not just a derivative Girl Alternative, if that makes sense.

Whoops I talked about this way too much :) Can you tell I think about this a lot LMAO

Anyway here's the obligatory joke response that's been spread before

[weepylucifer]

Disco Elysium if it was a Hollywood Blockbuster

(inspired by the trailer by @brainrotdotorg)

Harry has to have a glowup arc where he regains his faith in his job and ability to be a good cop. The police isn't criticized here apart from maybe some handwaves at "a few bad apples" rhetoric. In the climactic moment, the phasmid appears and tells him it is his duty and his destiny... to reform the RCM

Because we don't have time for a nuanced take on addiction in this 90-minute movie, the narrative just turns on a dime halfway through to portraying Harry's alcoholism as rugged and badass instead of pathetic, or he suddenly stops drinking when he gets his groove back, with no withdrawal effects shown. The whole thing about speed helping him be better at his job doesn't factor in; Harry drinks and does drugs because he's sad about Dora and there's nothing more to it. All he needed was to buck up and focus on being the best cop in all of Revachol

Klaasje is portrayed as a one-dimensional scheming femme fatale. Her backstory doesn't really come up. She's dumbed down so that Harry can triumph over her, and is also genuinely attracted to him for some reason, "I am Sherlocked" style

Ruby is either cut entirely, or she's genuinely a predatory lesbian and that's it. If the latter, she shoots herself in the head in front of Harry and Kim and they make a MCU-style "Well that happened" quip about it

No political quests! We don't have time for that. Actually, both communism and fascism are only mentioned once in a backstory dump as stuff that happened in a bygone era. If anything, the film ends up really riding for moralism by complete accident

The film makers don't really know what to do with Kim, so he gets reduced to a guy that stands around and delivers snarky one-liners

The Hardie Boys are in one short interrogation scene, not quite enough to make casual moviegoers care when half of them are gunned down

Fan-favorite characters such as Cindy, Cuno or the Speedfreaks can be seen once in the background of a group scene, but have no lines (you KNOW hollywood couldn't handle the Cuno). It's announced on the director's insta as "a little easter egg for eagle-eyed fans"

Joyce has a way more active role, but also her character turns into an utterly flat "milf girlboss" type who gives Harry and Kim direct instructions on what to do, Madame Director style. The movie writers pat themselves on the backs for being more progressive and feminist than the source material. Also she has nothing to do with the mercs, they just sort of... appeared. Don't think about it too hard! It's stressed repeatedly that they're "rogue agents" and it's really nobody's fault that they're there

Evrart is a corrupt mob boss and that's it. He will be played by a skinny actor in a fatsuit. He also doesn't help find Harry's gun, Joyce has someone retrieve it offscreen so she can gravely and meaningfully hand it to him just in time for the mercenary tribunal

The Deserter just kinda being a shitty sad old man would be too anticlimactic for our summer blockbuster, so he is rewritten to be some kind of evil mastermind. Maybe he even directly communicates with Klaasje and tells her what to do, again "I am Sherlocked" style

The tribunal absolutely does end with RCM backup triumphantly arriving to save the day, led by Jean who underwent a mini-arc offscreen about putting his differences with Harry aside because at the end of the day, they're both cops, and goddamn it, cops help each other. He dramatically takes the wig off and chucks it on the ground to signal his character growth, and everything

No homo-sexual underground thought. The Smoker on the Balcony is allowed to show up in one scene, where he flirtily waves at Kim and Harry. Kim nods at him. Disney's first gay character--

There's a moment where Kim talks to Jean, expressing doubt about Harry. Cut to Harry doing something goofy across the room from them. Jean briefly glances at it, shakes his head, turns back to Kim and says gruffly: "He's a loose cannon... but he gets the job done." This is supposed to be a good thing

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

The Arcana HCs: How the M6 hurt you

~ I hope you're ready for some angst >:3 Even the healthiest relationships have painful moments when one hurting, flawed person hurts another hurting, flawed person. Moments like these are not signs of closeness. They are alarms that signal a need for growth, and a healthy relationship will take those signals seriously - brainrot ~

Here's the sequel!

How you hurt the M6

TW for yelling, references to canon death events, descriptions of panic attacks, abandonment, losing one's home, accidental gaslighting, burns, PTSD, violent outbursts (not character on character) and general trauma

Julian

It happened after a series of busy weeks. Julian had been pulling long hours at work, always gone before sunrise and back just in time for bed. You haven't been able to catch up with him in days

You're rather fed up too. Mazelinka and Portia had both stopped by multiple evenings to catch up, increasingly irritated with his absence while you hosted them and apologized on his behalf

And now he's home early, for the first time in what feels like a month, and you can see the toll he's taken on his body, and he's asking you to - spend the night working at the clinic with him?

"Julian, why do you want me to do this? I'm not a doctor."

"I know, I'm sorry, but there's a nasty cold spreading around. Right now the only treatment is to let the fever run its course, but with your help, I'm sure we'll able to find something!"

"Is the fever dangerous?"

"Well - it's not killed anyone, no - but what if it does? We need to be prepared. Just come with me for tonight, please?"

He's already shrugging his cape on at the door, holding your own coat out to you impatiently. You look at the exhaustion in his eyes and take his hand instead.

"Julian, you're tired. I'm tired. Why don't you rest for tonight? We haven't had a moment alone together in weeks, and people are worried about you."

Something about those words sets him off and he yanks away

"Worried about me? I'm not the one to worry about, people are sick, dammit!" His voice is rising in volume, a gloved hand waving around in angry desperation.

"They're asking for help and I'm the only one still trying! What was even the point of sticking around if you won't let me do anything useful with my life?!"

You would respond, but your throat's closing up in your effort to hold back tears and you don't want to look at him right now. You can feel his angry words sitting heavy in the silence, until he swears under his breath and slams the door

Moments later there's two de-gloved hands hovering by your face, a wavering voice full of regret trying to get your attention

"MC. MC I'm so sorry, I - I didn't mean it, please forgive me. You mean everything to me, and - and you're right, I shouldn't have yelled, and you're crying I - I'm so sorry, can you ever forgive me?"

He's shaken, shocked at his own words and full of shame at causing you pain, but refusing to leave until he knows you'll be okay. You're too tired and hurt to unpack everything right now so you grab a bit of his sleeve instead and make your request:

"We can talk in the morning, but can we sleep? Please?"

He'll nod and help you up the stairs and into bed, offering to exile himself to the couch if the space would help

You'll both fall asleep fairly quickly, but he's going to keep waking up through the night plagued with guilt and fighting the urge to leave so you can save yourself and move on

He'll let you know in the morning that he's really sorry and wants to talk about it too, and will take the next few days off of work to focus on resolving things and finding a way back to normal

Asra

You know for a fact that they're loyal to a fault and that they would never abandon you, but you two have been together for over a year now and they still forget to communicate with you ahead of time

He'd been unusually all over the place for the last month - disappearing with little notice for several days at a time, coming home to spend the night loving you, and gone the next morning

Every time they come back they're so happy to see you that you don't get the chance to ask how and where they've been, and every morning there's only the breakfast they made for you as evidence that they were even there in the first place

You've started to forget what it feels like to see him in daylight, so you decide to try bridging the gap. The next time you have him lying next to you, you ask for him to stay before dozing off:

"Have dinner with me tomorrow. I've missed you."

The next morning there's Faust and a note by your pillow, saying they'll be back at sunset and they'll bring food so you won't have to cook

Dinner is fun. He fixes you with that adoring gaze and gets you to tell him all about what you've been up to, even apologizing for not asking sooner. You get up to clear the table and brew some tea, and when you turn around he's at the door with his back to you

"Asra?" You can see the excitement in their motions as they shrug on their coat, eager to be off. They barely spare a glance over their shoulder as they heft their bag - still packed - onto their arm

"It's a moonless night, my love. The perfect time to start an adventure. I know you've been busy recently, so I won't push you to join me. We'll go together next time. Faust?"

The snake somehow notices your stricken face better than your beloved does. You barely get the chance to grasp what's happening as he bustles across the room to press a quick farewell to your frozen lips, heading out the door with an "I'll miss you!"

It's the sound of the door closing and the resulting, all-too-familiar silence that undoes you. You numbly put the half-filled teapot down and quietly curl up in Asra's chair, no longer fighting your tears as their lingering warmth begins to fade

"Haha! I forgot my hat. Why is the door still unlocked, M - MC? You're crying. What's wrong, what happened? Are you hurt?"

You can hear him rushing across the shop to get to you, sinking to his knees in front of the chair to get a better look at your lowered face. He's got a warm hand on your cheek, brushing your tears away while the other runs through his hair in concern

You can't move away before a hand comes to rest over your heart and you watch the face in front of you twist in pain and concern "MC - what's hurting you like this?"

You're not sure how it's not obvious to them, but you try to explain the best you can anyways: "You said you'd never go where I can't follow again, so - so why do you keep leaving? At least tell me when it's going to happen so I know what to expect."

It's clicking together in his mind now, and he's dropping his bag to clutch you to his chest and murmur apologies between kisses

They'll hold you as close as you let them that night, and stay home for the next few months to reestablish their missed connection with you. You'll be able to tell them eventually that you love their wanderlust - you just wish they'd do better at communicating

Nadia

One of the things that hurt the most when you first met her was how deeply her faith in herself had been broken. Always second guessing herself, doubting her intuition, and hesitating to act

She's the opposite of that now - a Countess more than worthy of leading Vesuvia out of its shambles - but sometimes you wish she would stop to think twice about things. Sometimes you wish she would stop to think twice about you, instead of just assuming

Like hearing her casually mention over lunch that she had received an offer for your shop and would need you to sign the paperwork tomorrow afternoon to confirm the handover

"Come again? Hand over my shop?"

She's still so deep in decision-making work mode that she forgets to read your tone, only pausing to sip from her cup and nod

"Nadia, why would I sell my shop?"

She smiles at you indulgently and calmly explains her reasoning, clearly under the impression that she's doing you a favor:

"You don't have any more need for it. You no longer use it for employment, as you are my lovely magician, you no longer use it for housing, as you are my partner, and you no longer use it for income, as I am committed to providing all your heart's desires. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine, my darling."

You're beginning to feel panic well up in your chest. The way she speaks is so certain, the deal she mentions has already been struck, and you are about to lose the last piece of your life leftover from before the plague, and -

"MC, whatever's the matter? Are the dishes not to your taste?"

"No, I - Nadia, what's mine is still mine."

"Of course it is, dearest, now what's troubling you?"

You don't know how to explain this. It's as if you're slowly going crazy, panicking at the thought of losing something that is apparently so worthless to the rest of the world, and you're running out of calm ways to explain: "I don't want to sell my shop, Nadia."

Her eyebrows raise in concern. "Are you not adequately provided for?" You shake your head. She sighs in newfound understanding and takes your hand. "I understand that leaving an old house can be disquieting. I assure you, the freedom is entirely worthwhile."

"Nadia," you croak, "Nadia, it's not just an old house." You're rapidly losing the ability to see your plate clearly, but you need to speak before your voice fails. "It's all I have left from my family. It's all I have from before the plague. It's all I have -" your breaths are getting shaky, but you need her to understand, you need her to understand what she's doing - "It's all I have. It's my home."

You can tell the truth's caught up to her when you hear her knife clatter to the table. "MC, I'm so -" she chokes and stands. "I'll resolve this at once. I hope ... I hope you can forgive me."

That night, the relief on her face when you join her for dinner is plain as day. She brings it up as soon as you're alone together, determined to talk things through and reach an understanding so she can properly resolve things with you and do better

Muriel

Certain times of the year are particularly difficult for Muriel. Dr Nazali explained it to you once, how ex-soldiers will have worsened symptoms of combat fatigue on the anniversaries of major battles

For Muriel, it's the dates for all of the new festivals that the ex-Count introduced. City wide celebrations meant thousands more in the Coliseum stands, which in turn required more than double the opponents and cruel spectacles he had to participate in

Whenever the old festival dates roll around, you watch him revert to who he was when you first met him - a shell of a man handling his own haunting in the privacy of the woods

It's been especially rough this week. He rarely speaks and barely eats. He doesn't have the energy to pull his hair back anymore, and he's taken to sleeping on the ground so Inanna can have the bed again. Even the chickens seem concerned

So you try to pick up the slack. You keep the hut clean, offer to comb and braid his hair for him, bring him meals that are easy to keep down, and decline any activities that would force him to socialize

His response is to take the safety as his cue to mentally hibernate through the worst of it. It's afternoon now, and you haven't seen him move since he used the bathroom and ate this morning

"Muriel?" You see his shoulder twitch, but his chin stays sunk to his chest, eyes hidden by the curtain of his hair. "Muriel, can you eat?"

You walk over, purposefully slow so he can see you coming, and crouch next to him with a steaming bowl of broth. "Muriel, you need to eat something. You don't have to get up, just ... please try to drink at least a little of this?"

He turns to you with a sullen glare, completely unlike the gentle green you're used to getting lost in, and Inanna whines from her corner. His voice is gravelly from misuse when he speaks:

"Leave me alone."

"Muriel -" you make the mistake of touching his shoulder, and he flinches violently away from the touch. His flying elbow upsets the bowl in your hand and he turns to you with his arms hiding his face

"Leave. Me. Alone, MC. I don't want you here."

You'd normally try to be understanding, but the bowl he accidentally knocked over landed on your feet and the boiling liquid has splashed up your legs, soaking into your trousers, first burning and then steaming the stretch of skin beneath

It's the way that you're clenching your jaw to hold in a scream that snaps him out of it. He knows that look - he's seen it a hundred times before, but it's the first time he's seen it on you

"MC?" His eyes drop to the upended bowl, to the steam rising from your legs, and his face goes slack in horror

Acting purely on instinct, he swats the bowl aside and tears away the clothing burning into your skin. He has you in his arms and submerged in the cold spring outside in seconds

He's a lot more intentional about staying open to you during his bouts of PTSD now, but he doesn't drink broth any more

Portia

Ambassador trips get draining very easily, much more for Portia than for you. Nothing makes her happier than making everyone else happy, and diplomatic negotiations aren't necessarily the best place to be a people pleaser

It's been three straight days of back-and-forth. During Nadia's coma, a nearby city-state had been slowly encroaching on and taxing Vesuvian territory. If the injustice wasn't enough to get her blood boiling, it didn't help that one of the courtiers had it out for her Aunt Tasya

You, on the other hand, have been busy since you landed helping out the neighborhood around the dock. Magic users seem to be in short supply here, and your days have been tiring but fulfilling

You're sitting in the cabin now, struggling to keep your eyes open, when Portia thunders into the room and begins changing for bed while aggressively ranting

"Those bastards! The farmers have been working on less than two meals a day for the last year and half! And did you hear what they said about Aunt Tasya? Why, I oughtta -"

You're listening to and watching her, concern tugging at your heartstrings, but when she turns to look at your face she doesn't seem to see the reaction she was hoping for

"MC - are you even listening?"

"Yes, you were saying about your Aunt Tasya?"

She huffs and you see her upper lip curl into a sneer. "Oh, I see how it is. I'm just supposed to stand back and let you handle everything, right? Am I just some side character to you? Is that what you think of me?"

She's angrily shoving her hair out of her face, trembling with rage, and all you can feel is shock. Is that what she thinks of you?

"What is it, MC? Cat got your tongue? Are you too important to talk to me now?"

You rear back, head spinning from the hurt in her tone. "No! I don't think that about you at all!"

She slams her fists down on the table, the clatter of the plates on it chiming in with a broken sob. "What, so I come from nothing? I'm nothing but a - a shipwrecked orphan whose older brother couldn't even stick around?"

You're rooted in your chair, heart twisting at her words. Is that what they've been saying to her? "Portia, you're not nothing. You're out here making such a big difference in people's lives -"

"Oh, you mean like you? Like how everyone in town can't take their eyes off of you while I do the grunt work? Like how I save the world with you and you're all people can see? I may as well be invisible next to you!"

You're both frozen, staring wide-eyed at each other. You've known Portia could get jealous. You haven't seen this before. Your hands begin to shake under the table as her eyes go from shock to grief

"MC - MC I'm sorry, I'm so sorry ... I didn't mean it, I swear I would never mean it, it's those bastards who keep looking down on me and I thought ... maybe you were ... I'm sorry -"

It's a long night of whispered sorry's before you're in the space to hear her explanation. She's better at being open with you about her insecurities now, but any time her volume changes she walks away to cool off before continuing

Lucio

Lucio has a level of resilience that will never fail to surprise you

Of course, most of that comes from his tendency to live in the present. It makes confronting the past rather difficult, but once it's been dealt with, he sees no reason to dwell on it and can drop it faster than a hot potato

The only issue is that sometimes he's so quick to drop the past and stay in his present comfort zone that he's blinded to people who still need to spend time thinking about it

Even when it's you. Especially when you walk through a town that's been ravaged by a plague locals refer to as the "Yellow Death"

While Lucio seems antsy to pass through, you find your feet dragging slower and slower as you look at the carnage. Houses marked with a white circle are burnt-out shells in an effort to be rid of the plagued bodies within them and entire blocks are rubble

It's when you stray too close to one of them that your foot knocks against a charred child's toy, painted a strangely familiar pattern

You may not remember, but deep down you know that you knew someone who had one of these. Maybe it was you, maybe it was a friend, maybe it was a cousin?

"MC! Hurry up, we're walking here!" You can barely hear Lucio's voice over the dull roar in your ears, but you know he's nearby when two wet noses nudge themselves into your palms and an impatient hand nudges at your shoulder

"Come on, MC, you don't wanna stay somewhere this depressing."

A hand tugs on your elbow and you're finally able to shake your gaze loose from the eerily familiar blackened doorframe. Your eyes travel down to your palm where the toy still sits

Lucio follows your line of sight and flinches, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple as his smile gets tight

"MC? Let me take that, you don't want it. It's worthless anyway, whoever had it's been gone a long time." His grip is considerably rougher than yours, and you watch in horror as the little toy splinters between his fingers

"Ha! Look at that, gone like smoke. Let's go already, there's nothing worth looking at here. The town's empty, nobody's around to care about whoever died here. MC? MC you're shaking -"

You haven't felt this angry at him in a long time, and you know he's speaking from his stress and not from his mind, but you can't take another invalidating comment from him -

"Nobody cares about whoever died here? Gone like smoke?"

You see the blood leave his face and the fear take over as he realizes what he's said. "MC -"

"I was a person, Lucio. I had a life. Is that smoke to you too?"

"I'm sorry!" He's got your wrists in his hands, tugging you away from ruins that could too easily be your childhood home. "I'm sorry, but we need to get out of here first!"

You follow numbly, unsure of how to proceed while he drags you away from the ghost town. You're barely able to accept his touch as he holds you through the first panic attack of many

Lucio doesn't like dwelling on the past, but he's learning the hard way not to trample on others for needing to

[rirururu]

Why Bachira x Isagi (Blue Lock) is One of the Best Ships of All Time

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR UP TO CHAPTER 86 OF THE MANGA

I’ll be honest and say that while Isagi and Bachira’s dynamic in the first arc was cute, it wasn’t anything that stood out to me too much. It seemed like a very typical sports anime type relationship at first. The main character shoots. His friend is there for him and passes to him so he can shine. They have good chemistry. They achieve results together that would be un-imaginably amazing compared to when they were apart. We’ve seen it so many times before already. Kageyama and Hinata, Kuroko and Kagami, Mihashi and Abe; the list goes on.

That all stops when the second selection starts.

Bachira was forced to leave and suddenly Isagi has to fight on his own. He recognizes that up until now, he’s only been useful because of Bachira and in order to get him back, has to learn to fight without him. And, contrary to what we’re made to believe in the first selection that Isagi is better when with Bachira, the truth is that Isagi actually thrives without Bachira. In fact, he gets so powerful that even an outsider like Nagi who initially called him worthless without Bachira genuinely believed that Isagi would decide against stealing Bachira back by the end.

As for Bachira, he’s given a hard wake-up call when he finally sees Isagi again. He recognizes how much better Isagi is without him to the point of Isagi ignoring him on the field, and that sets the part of himself that can only feel alive when he’s with Isagi off. It’s only with this wake-up call that Bachira realizes everything he’s thought up until now was wrong. That’s when we get a parallel to what Isagi did for Bachira in learning to fight without him in order to get him back. In exchange for being able to stand on the same level as and not be left behind by Isagi, Bachira threw away his purpose of playing soccer as his way to connect with Isagi. He realized he shouldn’t do things for the sake of staying by Isagi’s side. He should be doing things for his own growth. Bachira did this fully believing and grieving that he was giving up on being with Isagi. So much so that in his head, Bachira says goodbye to him. And in a similar fashion to Isagi, that’s the moment we learn that Bachira is actually stronger without him. 

They both had to get stronger out of desperation to stay together, and consequently abandoned that part of themselves that depended on each other in the first place.

I want to pause right here and just applaud the author. I know Blue Lock has been praised as being a subversion of a ton of sports manga tropes and this is probably one of the most fantastic examples. We’re so used to the protagonist-and-partner combination being put on a pedestal. But here, it’s deconstructed right in front of us to show how it actually hinders both Isagi and Bachira as strikers and as people. And honestly? It felt like that would be it. I remember my heart dropping when I reached that point in the manga. Logically they would go their separate ways in a mutual break-up.

But they don’t. In the final scene of the soccer match, we see that everyone hadn’t believed in Bachira’s ego since long ago while Isagi had never stopped believing in him. Isagi caught Bachira’s winning goal. I thought that was a perfect parallel to their first meeting when Bachira passed the ball to the monster and then Isagi became the monster. This time Bachira abandoned the monster. There was no monster anymore because Bachira left it behind but even when the monster was gone, Isagi was still there. It's symbolic of how he doesn't see Isagi as just a monster anymore. He sees Isagi as Isagi, signaling a new era in their relationship.

And that’s also when Bachira realizes that just because he’s grown away from needing Isagi, just because he doesn’t live to make Isagi stronger anymore, just because he’s embracing that part of him that plays soccer solitarily for himself, doesn’t mean Isagi won’t still be there with him and believing in him. Bachira could change as much as he wants and the other won’t leave. They don’t need each other anymore, but that’s exactly what allows them to realize that being together makes them so happy, makes soccer so much fun, that they want to stick together until the very end anyway. 

(Or the official translation / scans)

This direction for their relationship seems bittersweet but I think that’s what makes it realistic. Relationships are multi-faceted and they change over time. Isagi and Bachira had to say goodbye to one aspect of their relationship but they also gained a new one. They both used to rely on each other a lot to be their very best. That mutualistic symbiotic relationship they had in soccer, that is the crutch in so many sports anime, is gone now. Bachira and Isagi aren’t necessary to each other in soccer anymore. Personally though, I think this new dynamic actually makes them closer than they were before.

To Bachira, Isagi used to be a person he needed to pass to because he’s a monster and someone who staved off his loneliness. To Isagi, Bachira used to be someone who made good passes to help him function in soccer. I think the fact that Bachira was so easily swayed to making Rin his new “monster” made it evident. As they continue to grow as strikers, they’ll be cycling through teammates most suited to their skillset. Teammates come and go. What Isagi and Bachira are to each other evolved past that, beyond the soccer field, and became something that would stay with them their entire lives. There is no “I’m with Isagi because if I can’t play soccer with him, I would die from loneliness” or “I’m with Bachira because he lets me be invincible on the field” anymore. They’re together because they want to be and because they love each other (platonically or romantically). That’s all.

(Manga panel taken from an AMV on youtube)

And I think that’s beautiful. It’s beautiful because this is what true unconditional love looks like. I know what the manga did to them might not be the “popular” thing. Ships that are super dependent on each other and need each other to live are the ones that get views because it’s seen as romantic. But Bachisagi / Isabachi abandoned that to instead become one of the healthiest relationships you could possibly get not just in a sports anime but in general. 

I mean, wow. I wish I had someone who wanted to be with me and had the emotional capacity to always believe in me no matter how much I changed, disappointed, and grew away from centering my world around them. I wish I had someone who could say that they don’t need me anymore but that’s exactly why they can say in full confidence that they still want me with all their heart. Bachisagi is seriously #relationshipgoals more than most married couples. 

In conclusion, Bachira/Isagi deserves way more recognition and I will happily scream into the void with the other 6 of you out there who ship them /j

[talonabraxas]

“The aura is an extension of a person’s personality and emotional, mental and physical landscape, so it will change from day to day.”

Aura colours and their meaning.

The aura is an extension of a person’s personality and emotional, mental and physical landscape, so it will change from day to day. It can be affected by external factors as well as the general disposition and character of the individual.

There are no hard and fast rules as to what these visual variances ‘mean’, as, with all psychic practices, it depends on the intuition and knowledge of the reader. But there are certainly common themes. For instance, those who practice yoga tend to have a ‘still’ aura or people with serious illness have a fainter aura than someone vital. Moreover, auras tend to have a ‘texture’ to them. They may be sparkly, treacly, in lines, waves or arcs.

Below, I have given a rough guide to how you might interpret auric colours only, but it is no mean a fixed manual:

The Aura Colors Meaning Chart:

Red ~ Pertains to circulation, the heart and the physical body. In its higher aspect, it is an indicator of a healthy ego, stability and being strong-willed. In its lowest aspect, red energy can give way to anger, unforgiving, anxiety or nervousness.

Orange ~ points to the reproductive organs and feelings. It is the colour of vigour, vitality and enthusiasm. In its higher aspect, orange energy shows creativity, confidence and gregariousness. In its lowest aspect, it can give way to stress and addictions.

Yellow ~ represents life energy – qi or prana. The colour of optimism, awakening, inspiration and intelligence. It has no lower aspects.

Green ~ connects to the heart centre and lungs. It is the comfortable and healthy colour of nature, representing growth, balance, healing, and depicting a love for all sentient beings and Mother Earth.

Blue ~ Pertains to the throat and the thyroid and is therefore indicative of communicators. Writers, public speakers and linguists will often have a lot of blue in their auric field. It is also a cool, calm and collected energy.

Indigo ~ Pertains to the third eye and therefore is a colour of deep feelings, intuition and sensitivity.

Violet/Lavender ~ Relating to the crown, pineal gland and the nervous systems. It is the most sensitive colour in the aura. People with a lot of violet in their auras are usually highly artistic, psychic, intuitive, visionary and magical.

“The aura is an extension of a person’s personality and emotional, mental and physical landscape, so it will change from day to day.”

Other Aura Colours:

Turquoise ~ is associated with the immune system and usually found in the auras of healers and therapists. It is a sensitive, compassionate colour.

Silver ~ pertains to spiritual and physical abundance. A lot of bright silver in an aura may indicate a spiritual awakening or financial gain.

Gold ~ typical of divine protection and enlightenment. This colour points towards strong spiritual and universal guidance, intuition, wisdom and inner peace.

Black ~ points towards pulling, capturing and transforming energy. It can indicate unreleased anger, grief or health problems. It also shows an unforgiving nature (to themselves and others) and possible past-life issues that remain unresolved.

White ~ linked to protection and deflecting other energies. Flashes of white within the auric field often signal that angels are nearby. As with most associations with white, it symbolizes purity, truth and a healthy individual.

Earth Tones/Brown ~ Colours of soil, wood, minerals and plants highlights very grounded energy and someone who works with the earth, such as a gardener or farmer. However, a more brownish hue can point to greediness, self-absorption or ignorance in its lowest aspect.

Rainbow ~ auras with stripes of colour emanating as beams of light from the hands, heart, or head indicate someone who is a healer.

Solar Aura Peter Solarz

[sandboxer]

The Evolution of Edgeworth’s Color Palette

Throughout the original AA trilogy, Edgeworth undergoes significant changes not only in his character, but in his design as well. I’m ridiculously interested in the way these tweaks to his design (especially the colors he wears) exemplify the emotional changes he experiences and his relationships with other characters.

(1) The class trial is the earliest we see Edgeworth. He wears a bowtie in his father’s signature deep red. We also see at this point that Phoenix wears blue. This deep red and mellow blue are their most basic colors, respectively.

(2) After the class trial, Edgeworth and Phoenix have become friends. And their newfound friendship is reflected in their clothing changes: Edgeworth incorporates a bit of Phoenix’s blue in his bowtie; Phoenix incorporates a bit of Edgeworth’s red in his sleeves. Both retain their own basic colors, though, keeping the bits of each other that they steal as minor details. Phoenix still wears signal blue on his shirt, and Edgeworth wears a red sweater.

(3) The next time we see Edgeworth is during the Bratworth era, and I find this the most interesting period of time design-wise. The theme here is FRAUD, both in character and design. Much like his style of prosecuting at the time, his design is meant to attract attention, but it is symbolically hollow. His suit is a pure, bright red, a far cry from the mellower tones of his fathers’ tie. His waistcoat, too, is blue, but a far brighter and greener shade than Phoenix’s. It is a rejection of their friendship and the justice Phoenix embodies. In fact, the shade of his waistcoat is closest to the jewel around MVK’s neck. His entire design reeks of MVK—the cravat, the gold details on his waistcoat, the embellished lapels, the high black collar. Though at first glance he may have seemed to retain the red-and-blue of his childhood, it’s only a poor replica, twisted into something devoid of true meaning by the hands of von Karma.

(4) And then we come to the trilogy, where we see Edgeworth in his (comparatively sensible) maroon suit and cravat. He’s toned down the artifice and returned in a meaningful way to the symbolism of his childhood design. The bright red of his Bratworth suit has been 1) dulled and 2) shifted further toward blue on the color wheel. This color is much closer to the deep tones of his father’s tie. And this time, instead of relegating his care for Phoenix to an accessory like a bowtie, he’s tinted his entire suit. It’s a symbolic decision for him to keep the cravat he adopted under MVK’s tutelage, as well. Not only does it serve as a reminder of his growth as a prosecutor, but it also recontextualizes the essential image of von Karma (his neckwear) into something good and just with each case Edgeworth takes on under his adjusted mindset.

It’s worth noting, too, that Phoenix’s tie since his debut as an attorney is red, but a much pinker red than is often acknowledged. In my mind, this ties him specifically to the trilogy era Edgeworth, rather than the bright, pure red of Bratworth or the deep red of Edgeworth’s childhood.

Not included in the image above is Chiefworth, as I do think much of his design is similar to his trilogy design, albeit slightly more refined. But it would be remiss not to acknowledge his glasses during that era, bringing him even closer to the image of his father.

[youthofpandas]

Emil Sinclair & Frau Eva

A consistent problem I’ve run into while discussing the novel Demian is the rejection of Emil’s relationship with Eva in favor and treating it as if it is nothing but a tool to analyze the relationship that he shares with Demian. People treat his feelings towards Eva as fake, imagined, and entirely as misplaced affections that he holds towards Demian and become quite defensive when told that isn’t the case in the actual text of the book. I’m no stranger to interpreting things in ways that don’t quite match canon, especially when they make me uncomfortable, and it is clear to me that discomfort or even disgust is how a lot of people view this relationship as given the age gap between them and the general preference for seeing Emil with Demian instead of Eva. I have no problems with that aspect of this little debate, discomfort is more than allowed and I’m not writing this to force people into liking the idea of their relationship.

What I am writing this for, and what I do find a problem with, is the way that people attempt to force an erasure of this aspect of the book and will accuse people of misreading the novel when acknowledging its existence. To say that someone does not understand the book or Emil’s character because they made reference to his love for Eva or his general affinity for mature women just seems to signal that there is a confusion of what the book actually says. Emil does love Eva and it is not misplaced love for Demian. From the moment he dreams of her to the moment Demian passes a kiss from his mother to Emil, Emil loves her. (That doesn’t mean he doesn’t also love Demian, by the way, but this post/essay isn’t about that, so I won’t be dwelling on the feelings he holds for Demian).

This is not going to be a complete, in-depth look at her character and role in the story and will instead simply focus on the actual relationship Emil has with her throughout the story and the ways that the novel sets up their relationship and makes it explicitly clear what sort of relationship exists between them. I feel it has been a massive disservice to her character to view her as nothing more than a woman getting in the way of a relationship or as if all of the quite beautiful descriptions of her person and effect on Emil are inconsequential and/or imagined, so I hope that this does some justice to Hesse’s work.

All quotes taken from the translation of the novel done by W. J. Strachan.

To begin, I will actually be talking about Max Demian himself, because Eva can be understood through son as he acts as a bit of a proto-Eva in Emil's life. They have a similar appearance, as it is often noted, they both bear the ‘sign’, they are deeply linked to Emil’s personal growth and relationship with the world, so to get a full grasp of his relationship with Eva it is also important to look at how he sees Demian and the key overlaps between them. So, let's look at one of the descriptions Emil writes of his dear friend.

This remarkable boy seemed older than he looked; he did not in fact seem like a boy at all. He moved among us more childish members of the school strangely mature, like a man, or rather a gentleman. He was not popular; he took no part in games, still less in the general rough and tumble and it was only the firm self-confident tone he adapted in his attitude towards the masters that won him favour with the other boys. He was called Max Demian.

Note how it focuses on his age and maturity, even though he is literally a couple years older than Emil, spiritually, thematically, he is older than even that. He is like a man, an adult. Here's a similar passage from another moment where Emil describes his friend:

I saw Demian's face and remarked that it was not a boy's face but a man's and then I saw, or rather became aware, that it was not really the face of a man either; it had something different about it, almost a feminine element. And for the time being his face seemed neither masculine nor childish, neither old nor young but a hundred years old, almost timeless and bearing the mark of other periods of history than our own.

Once again we see that he is more than a child, Demian is aged, grown, but not old nor young. In contrast to Emil who is youthful and immature, someone who has not yet begun his true journey. Here we also see a hint at there being a feminine element to Demian. Demian represents not just the fact that he is mature and capable of leading Emil through the spiritual journey he so longs for, but that he is not limited to just one world. He is not stuck in the dichotomy of light and dark, of masculine and feminine, of age and youth, he is both and neither.

Continuing the subject of maturity, we can take a look at the moment we share with Alfons Beck, a relationship that Emil describes with "we seemed to have a perfect understanding of each other" and, while a character who does not stay around long, acts as a mentor in the way he teaches Emil to grow up when it concerns sexuality and affections. It isn't long after this moment that Emil begins his venture into the world of darkness and almost loses himself to indulgence and excess of drinking and what have you, but it is clear from the later scenes with Knauer that Emil retains this personal growth surrounding sex and desire.

I heard amazing things; things I would not have thought possible were trotted out as part of everyday reality and seemed quite normal. Alfons Beck had already gained experience of women in his less than eighteen years of life. He had learned, for example, that girls were only out for flirtation and attention, which was all very agreeable but not the real thing. There was more chance of that with mature women. They were much more reasonable. You could talk with Frau Jaggelt who kept the stationer's shop, and a book could not contain all the various goings-on behind her counter. I sat there spell-bound and stupefied. Certainly I could never have loved Frau Jaggelt - but nevertheless it was terrific. There seemed to be hidden springs as least for my seniors, whose existence had never suspected. It all had a false ring about it, a more ordinary and insignificant flavour than love should have, in my opinion, but at all events it was life and adventure and I was sitting next to someone who had actually experienced it and to whom it seemed a normal thing.

By the end of this talk, Emil feels like a boy listening to a man. He understands that in this area he is behind, yet still is drawn to it. Alfons Beck is here, quite clearly, setting up and building upon the themes of maturity, especially that of women. This is very important seeing how it is one of the first times he is so explicit about his feelings regarding sexuality, and it is not by accident that this conversation regards mature, older women.

Another element here is that Emil points out that he finds more passing encounters, attraction without the intent to form a significant relationship, to be not founded in love - or at least the type of love he desires. I point this out because it establishes the idea that the types of relationships and attraction Emil is most interested in are ones that are serious and lasting. Quick, temporary connections excite him, intrigue him, because of course they do, he is a young man away from home and free to explore the world for the first time in his life and he has wants and desires. But, as we will see in his actions towards Eva later on, what he is most interested in a more true kind of love.

I'm going to hop straight to the painting next, as it is the real start of his relationship with Eva. There's a lot with the painting that I don't believe needs to be quoted directly so I've chosen a description of his realization of who it reminds him of.

Then one morning when I awoke from one of these dreams, I suddenly recognized it. It looked so fantastically familiar and seemed to call out my name. It appeared to know me as a mother, as if its eyes had been fixed on me all my life. I stared at the picture with beating heart, the close, brown hair, the half-feminine mouth, the strong forehead with its strange brightness-which it had assumed of its own accord-and I realized that my recognition, my rediscovery and knowledge of it were becoming more and more a reality.

He says after this that it resembles Demian, it was not his features exactly but there is no mistaking the fact that it was ultimately Demian's face. A motherly, matured woman version of Demian. This will later be seen to be the same description he gives Eva, even beyond the fact that he explicitly states that it is her as I'll quote later.

The effects this painting have on him are, as we all know, quite extreme and trigger many contradictory feelings within him. It is obvious that he worships it, he puts it on the wall in a way he can look at the face first thing in the morning, the same way one would look at a lover in bed upon waking up, he cries over it and clearly experiences intense lust and attraction towards the figure depicted in it. He also finds these feelings towards it revolting and terrifying, and would sometimes call it a devil and a murderer. At this point in the story, he still has lingering shame for these sorts of desires, even if he has begun to embrace them in some ways, he hasn’t fully overcome his belief that the world is separated in two halves and as a result views many things in extremes of both the most beautiful parts of the world of the light and the worst of the tempting world of darkness.

But for full context on this painting, we also need to look at the dream in which its subject appeared in, the most important dream of his life that he dreamed of night after night.

This dream, the most important and enduring of my life, followed this pattern: I was on my way to my parents' home and over the main entrance the heraldic bird gleamed gold on an azure ground. My mother walked towards me but when I entered and she was about to kiss me, it was no longer she but a form I had never set eyes on, tall and strong with a look of Max Demian and my painted portrait - yet it was somehow different and despite the robust frame, very feminine. The form drew me to itself and enveloped me in a deep, shuddering embrace. My feelings were a mixture of ecstasy and horror, the embrace was at once an act of worship and a crime. The form that embraced me had something about it of both my mother and my friend Demian and also this embrace violated every sense of religious awe, yet it was bliss. Sometimes I awoke out of this dream with a feeling of ecstasy, sometimes in mortal fear and with a tortured conscience as if I had committed some terrible sin.

Here we see Emil's most important dream: one where he is filled with ecstasy when embracing a figure that is a sort of halfway point between his mother and his friend. I'm going to share another passage from later, when he sees Frau Eva for the first time since childhood.

Sensing my interest in them, she took me into the house, looked out a leather album and showed me a photograph of Demian's mother. I could hardly remember her but now that I had the small photograph before me my heart stood still. It was the picture of my dreams. There she was, the tall, almost masculine figure, looking like her son, but with maternal traits, traits of severity and deep passion, beautiful and alluring, beautiful and unapproachable, daimon and mother, fate and lover. There was no mistaking her! The discovery that my dream image existed on this earth affected me like some fantastic miracle! So there was a woman who looked like that, who bore the features of my destiny! Where was she? Where? And she was Demian's mother!

So, this figure he dreams about, the figure he paints? It is Frau Eva. And we see here that, much like how her son is described as feminine, she is described as masculine. She also is inherently full of contrasts: daimon and mother, beautiful and unapproachable. Frau Eva and Demian follow the same pattern of being opposing natures who exist in one, the deconstruction of the binary and embracing something that is less easy to categorize. They embody the same ideals as Abraxas, of Emil's dreams.

Speaking of Abraxas and Frau Eva, here is his proper introduction to her as an adult.

With eyes moistened with tears I gazed at my painting, absorbed in my reflections. Then my glance dropped. Under the picture of the bird in the opened door stood a tall woman in a dark dress. It was she. I was unable to utter a word. From a face that resembled her son's, timeless and ageless and full of inward strength, the beautiful, dignified woman gave me a friendly smile. Her gaze was fulfillment, her greeting a homecoming. Silently I stretched out my hands towards her. She took them both in her warm. firm hands. "You are Sinclair. I recognized you at once. Welcome!" Her voice was deep and warm. I drank it up like sweet wine. And now I looked up and into her quiet face, the black unfathomable eyes, at her fresh, ripe lips, the open, queenly brow that bore the 'sign.' "How glad I am!" I said and kissed her hands. "I believe I have been on my way here the whole of my life and now I have reached home at last." She gave a motherly smile.

Eva makes her entrance quite literally alongside the painting of Abraxas Emil painted not long after he put a name to the face of the painting he made of her. He describes this as reaching home, incredibly important to him after he has been feeling so outcast from the home he grew up in. And he loves her deep voice, her quiet face that resembles her son's, and her friendly, motherly smile.

Eva and Abraxas, the god he worships and adores, are linked beings. This all builds on to the Demian and Cain, Eva and Eve connections. Eve the mother of both Cain the murderer and Abel the victim, Eve the woman born of God who spoke to the Devil and committed the first sin (which to bearer's of the Sign was surely not a sin), is now properly linked to Abraxas and it all feeds quite well into a similar theme. Eva is mother and she is home.

Eva is the origin of Demian, an embodiment of his ideals with even more maturity, she created the one who created Emil in a manner of speaking. She truly represents a world that is not divided into light and darkness, the very world that Emil chases after and wishes to believe in. It only makes sense, then, that he would find her so attractive and want her, desire her. By this point, so late into the novel, Emil is quite grown up, literally and spiritually, compared to the young, lost boy he was at the start. He has accepted sexual desires, accepted the world is complex and rejected many of the beliefs he held as a child, and he wants Eva the way any grown man might.

But, of course as we established earlier, Emil wants more than a passing encounter fueled by lust. He wants a real kind of love. And when he has gotten to know her and understand her as a real person rather than just a figure in his dreams, he writes the following, detailed, heavily romantic, filled with yearning and love passage:

On many occasions I believed that it was not really just her as a person, whom I yearned for with all my being, but that she existed as an outward symbol of my inner self and her sole purpose was to lead me more deeply into myself. Things she said often sounded like replies from my unconscious mind to burning questions which tormented me. There were other moments when as I sat beside her I was consumed with sensual desire and kissed objects which she had touched. And little by little sensual and transcendental love, reality and symbol mingled together. As I thought about her in my room at home in tranquil absorption, I felt her hand in mine and her lips touching my lips. Or I would be conscious of her presence, look into her face, speak with her and hear her voice, not knowing whether she was real or a dream. I began to realize how one can be possessed of a lasting and immortal love. I would gain knowledge of a new religion from my reading, and it would give me the same feeling as a kiss from Eva. She stroked my hair and smiled with all her warm affection, and I had the same feeling as when I took a step forward in knowledge of my inner self. Her person embraced everything that was significant and fateful for me. She could be transformed into each one of my thoughts and each of my thoughts could be transformed into her.

This paragraph here always sticks with me, the way his love transcends reality. It mirrors the way that Demian's existence is questionably real, that the moments he shared with the Demian family are somewhere fundamentally between imagined and real. Does she kiss him or is it imagined? It hardly matters, because reality and symbol are mixing together and becoming one and the same. These are his manifestations, these are his calls to the world to make his love true. And that love is so true in his heart he can hardly tell when it is real.

Also I just want to point out how cute he is when he's in love... kissing the things that belong to her, linking his learning and his growth as a person to her. It is similar to his behavior with Beatrice, in that this woman is helping inspire him to improve upon himself, but now it is not the desperate clutch to an unknown figure as a guiding light he can never speak to, it is a woman who pulls answers from his own mind, a woman who exists as a symbol of his inner self. Frau Eva, again just like Demian, is an extension of Emil's self and soul.

Alright, so I have now established Emil's feelings towards Frau Eva, but what of her feelings towards him? This following passage comes immediately after the one before

When I arrived back at H-- I stayed away from her for two days in order to savour this security and independence from her physical presence. I had dreams too in which my union with her was consummated in a symbolic act. She was a star and I was a star on my way to her, and we met and mutually attracted, remained together and circled round each other blissfully in all eternity to the accompaniment of the music of the spheres. I told her this dream on my first visit on returning. "It is a lovely dream," she said quietly, "Make it true!"

Emil tells her that he had a dream of the two of them in which they consummated their union (which, just to make this abundantly clear, means having sex. there is no getting around that fact) through a symbolic act of entwining around each other for all of eternity and Frau Eva tells him to make it true. She tells him, explicitly, that this dream he has of them making love is lovely and that he should work on making it happen in reality. This is of course a further extension of her trying to help Emil manifest a kind of mutual attraction between them through his extended longing and deep, honest desires. While she does not currently reciprocate the romantic affections he has for her, she is clear about being open to the idea of that one day being the case.

Let's also look at this bit, which is mostly about Sinclair's affections towards her but provides a bit of a conclusion to this theme of manifesting her love.

One day this foreboding came over me with such force that my love for Eva flared up suddenly and caused me great pain. My God, what a short time I had left; soon I should no longer be seeing her, no longer hearing her good, assured step about the house, no longer finding her flowers on my table! And what had I achieved? I had luxuriated in dreams and comfort instead of winning her, instead of struggling for her and clasping her to me forever! Everything she had told me about true love came back to me, a kindred stirring, admonitory messages, and as many gentle promises and words of encouragement, too, perhaps; and what had I made out of it all? Nothing. I stood in the middle of the room, summoned my whole conscious being and thought of Eva. I wanted to gather all the power of my soul in order to make her aware of my love and attract her to me. She must come; she must long for my embrace, my kisses must tremble on her ripe lips.

Emil is realizing that despite her encouragements and his continued love for her, he has never truly spent the energy required to make his love reciprocated. These things, him wanting her be his forever, him wanting to kiss her so much that he shakes, to attract her to him so that she desires him in the same way that he does her... those are the things Eva wanted him to manifest. Now, this also makes it clear that for as much time as they spent together (the book mentions that Max was out for long stretches of time, leaving Emil alone with Eva for the majority of his days there), they did not get to do any of the things he wanted so passionately AND that she had still be encouraging him to manifest this.

And does she get this message? Yes! She does, only there is The War starting and so she does not go herself to him, but she does tell him that she heard his appeal and to do it again if he should ever need her.

Now, let's talk about the ending of the book, about the kiss.

"And there is something else. Frau Eva said that if things ever went badly with you, I was to pass on a kiss from her which she gave me … Close your eyes, Sinclair." I closed my eyes in obedience. I felt the brush of a kiss on my lips on which there was a bead of blood that never seemed to diminish. Then I fell asleep.

Demian (who is made clear to be a hallucination or a purely spiritual being at this moment, regardless of what you believe his regular appearances are that of a real actual boy or a reflection of Emil's self or a mixture of the two. in this scene he is a dream-like being existing from Emil's mind here to help conclude the narrative) passes on a kiss that his mother gave to him. Eva wanted to give this kiss to Emil after all of those appeals he made for her love, and uses Demian as a vessel to give this to him.

Now I am absolutely not here to deny any sort of queerness in this moment, in the fact that it is not Eva herself who appears but rather Max. What I am trying to say is that Eva and Max are linked people, especially in the mind of Emil, and therefore it makes thematic sense for the boy who had introduced him to the world of the enlightened and to the woman he would come to love to be here in this quiet, scary moment and pass on a message from his mother. I am trying to say that denying that this kiss is even the slightest bit from Eva and 100% Max's moment is ignoring her entire character and a large, large portion of Emil's.

I could’ve gone on for longer, I skipped over the story she tells Emil of the man in love with a star and how that star eventually came to love him in return and how Frau Eva is his star. His last description of her before leaving for the war is about the myriad of stars glowing in the night sky and it is quite romantic, but I feel getting into the star symbolism in Demian would double the length of this and her feelings towards him cannot get any clearer than the part where she encourages consummating their union, which itself is still linked to the star story. This was all done taking passages I remembered off the top of my head and not a full reread of the book, but I feel like this does more than enough to explain my point.

In conclusion: never tell me again that I misunderstood the 1919 novel Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth by Hermann Hesse because I joked about how Emil is into MILFs. He is.

[hothammies]

an analysis of clothes in st (part i) - the meaning of yellow within the party

so, this analysis is one that has been in the making since before s4 came out - i literally had to dig through old discord messages to look for what i was talking about two years ago. i'm hoping to make this into a series because i loved analyzing the outfits back then and i wanted to share what i thought about them! the costume designers put so much thought and effort into all the clothes and i'd love to try to understand why they chose what they did for specific moments. heads up! - this analysis series will mainly cover the party members. outfits are important within the entire context of the show as well, so i may include other group members from time to time. however, my primary focus on st has always been the party members, so i'm gonna be giving them the main focus in all of the posts.

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let's start with my favorite meaning for the clothes: yellow.

when party members wear yellow, they tend to be in situations where they are trying to fit in or act normal, typically when regarding relationships, but could also be within society, a situation, or in general. i have four examples of yellow being used as a signal that these characters are put in situations where they're trying to fit in / act normal - one of max, one of the entire party, and two of mike. let's start with max!

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example one: in s2e3, we watch max trying her best to fit in with the boys when dustin is showing them dart. despite her attitude when they first meet her, she obviously does want to be friends with these guys regardless. in this episode, max wears a yellow hoodie while all the boys wear variants of the same neutral grays/whites, dark blues and reds, showing the difference between max and the other party members. she has not "earned" her keep yet, and she's trying to fit in but she is not yet in the know of the upside down.

even el is wearing similar colors to the rest of the boys, another clear sign that she is "in" the party too, despite being away from them. they did something similar in the previous episode as well, where the boys + el wore matching costumes (boys were ghostbusters and el was a ghost), while max wore a costume that didn't have her fit in (michael myers).

all of the current party members have the colors gray, red and/or blue that tie them all together in that scene, so max's yellow hoodie makes her stick out like a sore thumb. a side note is that mike and will are the only members to have all three colors on them, and matching color outfits between couples tend to be common in the show.

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example two: in s3e1, the opposite happens. everyone in the party except dustin is wearing a combination of blue and/or yellow. dustin is wearing primarily green, which i will explain the meaning of in another post. all i'll say about it now is that the color green most likely has to do with being comfortable or confident in your own identity.

will, however, is a special case, because he was actually not wearing yellow in that scene, only blue and a stripe of red. personally, i thought it was to set up how will's growth that season wasn't completely about societal expectations regarding romantic relationships like the rest of his season group. his character arc was much more about having to grow up and understand change when he doesn't want to because of the trauma he'd experienced the previous seasons. this is actually also reflected in his clothes - will is the only one that season to not wear any new colors (he only wears the three primary colors -> red, blue and yellow) while the rest of the party got to wear both secondary and primary colors (mike wore teal, el and max wore many different colors, lucas wore purple, and dustin wore green + orange).

back to the party - in that scene, the couples also match each others outfits. mike and el's have the same color scheme, being mainly blues with a small hint of yellow, and lumax having the perfect blend of yellow and blue together. this may be a stretch, but its a possible hint to show that lumax fit together, while mike and el don't.

the party members that were dating each other wearing yellow that season was to show their attempts to act normal via relationships. season 3 was also the one that the duffers kept referencing as the summer of love, despite all the couples that season being dysfunctional.

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examples three and four: now, we're at the section of mike wheeler, my favorite closet case. he is the main reason as to why i noticed that there was a small pattern with the color yellow being used in the party's wardrobe.

i think we've all noticed that mike has a tendency to act very... straight when he's wearing the color yellow as his main color. this can be seen in both s3 and s4, especially during the episodes where mike is hyperfocused on his relationship with el.

when mike was wearing the first outfit in s3, he was searching for a way to make it up to el because he lied to her. though he was trying to act normal or learn to be normal for their relationship, he wasn't doing a great job of it. during that entire section, mike was going through the motions of learning how a straight man is supposed to act, with lucas by his side giving constant straight man advice. he was also not getting it.

now, onto what is possibly my favorite outfit in the entire series - mike's s4e2 outfit. first of all, he's wearing a yellow shirt over a purple undershirt, presumably for el because that's her favorite colors apparently. obviously, mike is not himself in this outfit, but he's trying to fit into this california tourist look for his girlfriend.

in this outfit, mike was trying extremely hard to only focus on being el's boyfriend and not will's best friend. we know how that went, and this outfit helped us realize how badly mike was doing trying to follow that mindset.

before s4, we were never given any indication that mike's style would be like this. michael wheeler should not be wearing an outfit that has a yellow hawaiian shirt, the color purple, a visor and sunglasses, and flip flops to top it all off. it doesn't fit his normal style that he's normally been shown wearing throughout the show, being button ups, polos, and for that season, black jeans and chuck taylors.

he was intentionally put in an outfit that did not follow his true identity. the shirt, thus the outfit and the het identity that mike was attempting to fit into, was literally called a "shitty knockoff" by argyle.

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i'm positive there are way more examples that can be used, but these are the ones that stuck out to me the most. i'll leave off with some ending thoughts:

we as bylers have always considered will's main color to be yellow, but from what i've noticed in each season, the majority of his outfits have blue, same as mike (matching couple's colors)! in fact, s4 was the first time where the majority of the season had will wearing yellow, probably because of how he was dealing with his crush on mike at the time. i'd like to point out that the main colors that lucas and max wear are also the same, being red.

i'd love to do another one of these, the next one probably being about the color green because i think i have a grasp on the reasoning behind that color. other than that, i still really need to analyze the colors of their outfits again because i think the party's clothes specifically are most indicative of their behavior. since they are the youngest group, they are the ones who are the most volatile and it's reflected in everything, especially their clothes!

[stickandthorn]

The thing about Imogen and Laudna’s relationship is that I want to like it so bad. Not just because it’s a very important relationship for two PCs that takes up a lot of runtime, but because there are a lot of elements that could be explored in the relationship that I really like the idea of. For instance, how do you navigate a close relationship with someone who can look into your mind? What kind of trust does that necessitate you build, what kind of boundaries do you have to set and how, and what happens if those boundaries are crossed? Is that imbalance in the relationship uncomfortable for Laudna? For Imogen? How would the circlet have changed this theoretical conflict?

But then those elements just… don’t get explored. Nothing gets explored. The relationship is stagnant, nothing ever changes, and the few conflicts that can’t be avoided get smoothed over without actual resolution so that they can go back to the place they started from all the way in episode 1. And there’s nothing to imply that the reason they’re so conflict free is that they worked out the biggest bumps in their dynamic before the stream, they’ve already communicated a lot and set up the most comfortable form of their relationship, and now it’s mostly smooth sailing (and even then, even the longest and best relationships still have conflicts you need to work through). No, everything signals that they’ve just avoid anything that could possibly cause conflict for years. Conflict or some other interruption of the status quo is how things change, and that’s how people grow, but they avoid any break in the status quo at all costs.

And because they avoid conflicts, they never grow in the relationship, they never explore, they never change it, nothing changes. And because the relationship is so important to both characters, because it takes up so much of their time in general and on screen, it feels like it also keeps Imogen and Laudna from growing individually. Both of them, but especially Laudna, had amazing arcs and great growth when they were separated from each other. Way more than when they were together. And even that feels like it’s getting pushed under the rug again, they’re reverting back to episode 1 status quo Laudna and Imogen.

And the worst part is that every time there’s been conflict in the relationship I’ve loved it. The gnarlrock thing, Laudna expressing her frustration at the other half of the party, those were really really good moments. I genuinely loved their dynamic in those moments, I want more of the relationship those moments imply. But they’re few and far between, and when they happen, the two back away from the issue and revert back to the status quo.

And I don’t think this is bad characterization, I think it makes sense for them, and I’ve made posts before about why I think their relationship is that way. But it is so constant, so unchanging, that it just gets tiring to watch. Especially when no other character ever acknowledges this part of their relationship, they all encourage it. Like, the kiss was cute for sure, but what did it do in their relationship? Nothing. If you removed the kiss there would be no discernible before and after.

I don’t begrudge anyone liking the relationship, if you do that’s great. I do genuinely mean that, I am glad that you like their relationship, I really wish I did. I want to like it so bad. But I just don’t. I’m tired of it. I wish the stuff I liked in the potential of their relationship would ever get brought up. If things do change for them, I will be so excited, but based on how it’s been going, they don’t seem like they will anytime soon. This is very lightly edited and way longer than I meant it to be, but the point is that god I wish I loved them, but god I really really don’t.