#so it's actually more of an interpersonal conflict and less ''SOMEONE WILL DIE''

[kiragecko]

Story Idea

Telekinetic supervillain who REALLY loves historical architecture. Living in a superhero universe where heroes keep crashing through stained glass windows and leveling entire streets. As well as the normal corruption causing building to be demolished or “restored” in extremely destructive ways.

Kinda has Poison Ivy vibes, without any of the femme fatale trappings - her entire focus is preserving historical valuable buildings, and she doesn’t really care if humans that get in the way die. But she also isn’t going out of her way to kill people.

And the leader of the local superhero team can see where she’s coming from. And decides that just throwing her in jail every time she acts up is a sign they’re failing in their duty to protect the city. Instead, he starts trying to gain her trust. He doesn’t care that much about buildings, but he works on lessening his team’s collateral damage. He promises the supervillain that he’ll try to pressure the city government if she brings problems to him rather than taking them into her own hands. Eventually, he convinces her that she can protect the city’s infrastructure better by being on his team than she can on her own.

She’s incredibly helpful! Shewill keep burning buildings from collapsing until everyone can get out and the fire is extinguished. She’ll hold skyscrapers up while supervillains reign destruction down around them. She’ll deconstruct traps and grumpily direct her teammates towards the hiding mastermind who set them up. And when the crisis is over, she’ll see what can be salvaged and rebuild if possible.

But she’s a PR nightmare.

Former Supervillain refuses to help people. She DOES NOT care. Your kid is trapped in the burning building? That is not her problem. Go bother someone else. Dude is holding a bunch of people hostage? It’s fine, he’s not causing any damage to the building he’s in.

People DO NOT like this attitude. People do not accept that she’s part of a team, and other heroes are capable of filling the “empathy” and “human rescuing” gaps.

And she’s high maintenance! The team frequently end up in situations where protecting lives is in conflict with protecting property. They take missions that mean very little to them, because they’re important to her. And the leader is constantly having to talk her out of rampages, pressuring the government to drop lucrative and unethical contracts, and making sure she’s sticking to the plan in the field. And she isn’t interested in interpersonal relationships or social niceties, so none of them are even doing this out of friendship!

-

Sometimes, you help someone not because they’ll be grateful, but because it will make your community better. Sometimes, you help the local drug addict not because he’s likely to turn his life around, but because he smashes less windows when he has a warm, quiet space to stay. And sometimes, keeping that community benefit takes a long term commitment.

I want to see a superhero team turn a villain as harm prevention and then willingly bear the cost of keeping that villain from causing harm. Not because it’s rewarding (though there are rewards) but because it’s more effective than any other method. And I want the villain to go along with it because the heroes actually found a more efficient way for her to reach her goals.

And it being messy for everyone, but I want them to make it work. And it to be worth it, in the end.

[jimmycarterghostland]

Why I hated Vengeful by VE Schwab

1 It ruined Victor's character by making him into someone who murdered innocent people. This sequel made him just like Eli, and I absolutely hated that. The appeal of Victor was that he was truly gray. Not evil, but not all that good, either. Unfortunately, VE Schwab ruined him in the second novel. That's the biggest reason why I hated Vengeful.

2 Victor didn't even get to kill Eli. Sydney did it. That huge interpersonal conflict was ended by someone who had less of a reason to kill Eli. It should've been Victor who killed him.

3 Marcella was frustrating. All she did was whine about how bad she had it. And the high heels thing with her was repetitive. Not to mention she seemed like a self-hating, misogynistic woman. She wasn't even an interesting villain.

4 June was an unnecessary character. And her unexplained attachment to Sydney was creepy and out of place.

5 Mitch wasn't utilized enough.

6 Victor was mean to Dom as he died. Victor was never unnecessarily cruel. He never would've insulted an ally like that, especially after that ally saved his life. Why would he insult a man who just rescued him? This book turned Victor into an unlikable character.

7 The whole book read like a badly written fanfiction. No, I don't want to know about Marcella's sex life.

8 Marcella and June were unnecessary characters. They made Vengeful more bloated than it already was. Too many characters who didn't deserve the spotlight.

9 I didn't have anyone to root for in this novel. It was so bad that I actually ended up looking forward to Eli's chapters. And I hated the guy in Vicious! Eli is a cruel murderer, but he's supposed to be. Victor ended up being a disappointment, and I couldn't cheer him on anymore. Such a shame.

10 There were too many cop-outs. Like the mad scientist guy making that anti-power serum, which wasn't foreshadowed at all. How convenient that this scientist made a serum, and used it to get rid of Eli's powers near the end of the book. The serum should've been foreshadowed more.

11 The book was a mess, simply put. The characters were unlikable. Victor became unlikable, murdering innocent EOs like Eli did in the previous book. Too many unnecessary new characters. Too many cringe coincidences, like Victor bumping into June at the strip club.

12 Expectations were subverted in a bad way. What's up with fiction nowadays ruining their characters and plots by subverting expectations in a horrible way near the end of the stories? Vengeful was Game of Thrones season 8 level bad. That show and this book ruined their once likable characters. I can't stand it.

13 The character arcs in Vengeful were awful. Victor became just like Eli. And it wasn't even Victor who killed him. Victor killing Eli would've been predictable, but it was thematically the best way for Eli to die. Their conflict was too deep for Victor to not kill him. It had to be Victor. But nope, what we got was Sydney shooting Eli in an effort by Schwab to subvert expectations. It was horrible. Victor had more of a reason to kill Eli. He hated him more. For Sydney to kill him was another disservice to the fans. Victor killing him would've been way more satisfying. Plus, Eli killed him in book one. How fitting would it have been for Victor to kill Eli in book two? Eli was Victor's "Frankenstein's monster". Victor needed to put him down. After all, Victor made him into what he was. An EO and then a murderous monster. Sydney killing him had zero thematic value. Not to mention it wasn't satisfying, because it wasn't Eli's worst enemy who took him out.

14 The time jumps were even more confusing and jarring than the ones in the first book, which were actually easy to follow. Especially because of the smaller cast.

I can't remember everything, because I only read the book once, a few years ago. But these points are the main reasons why I couldn't stand this book, with Victor being an actual villain as the top reason why I despise this novel.

Vengeful isn't a good book. It has a high rating, but just because a novel is popular, that doesn't mean it's a great one.

[silverwhittlingknife]

Dick + 5 Sophie's choices ("What's it gonna be, kid?")

I tried not to copy-paste entire comics here but this is still kind of image-heavy??? Anyway Dick has a lot of trauma surrounding Sophie’s choices and it’s a recurring motif going back to the Dick and Tim Batman-and-Robin run and I’m a LITTLE BIT OBSESSED.

1. Robin: Year One 2 - Bruce vs. Judge Watkins/Meany

Two-Face is threatening both Bruce and a civilian

Two-Face: The Batman and Judge "Let 'Em Go" Watkins. Their fates are sealed. Double death penalties. Of course, there are a few side bets open. Bruce: No... Don't play his game, Robin... Two-Face (hitting him): You've had your last words!

1a. Robin 0 - Bruce vs. Judge Watkins/Meany

Dick tells the Two-Face story to Tim; here the judge's name is Meany instead of Watkins, but it's the same story

(fun history note: this is the comic that introduced Dick's history with Two-Face - Robin Year One came out later and expanded on the story told here)

Dick: I almost failed him. I couldn't save Meany and I nearly got Batman killed. Tim: It was a no-win situation, Nightwing. You both came out alive. That's what's important. Dick: I know you're right. But it doesn't help.

2. Detective Comics 680 - Prodigal 7 - Tim vs. civilian

Dick has to choose between saving Tim from Two-Face and saving a civilian

Two-Face: “Well, the first Robin I ran into didn’t do so well. I put him in traction. Did my best to kill him. I could smell the fear on him. I got to him. I own him. Just like I’m gonna own Batman when he finds out I killed his new Robin. What do you think his reaction’s gonna be, kid? (Dick, as Batman, is hiding in the rafters watching. He has a flashback to childhood with Two-Face asking the same question: What’s it gonna be, kid?) Two-Face: “Here’s the game... I cut one of these lines and one of you gets crushed under a ton of paperwork.Two thousand pounds, to be exact.” (Dick shuts off the lights and attacks Two-Face directly.) Narration: No psychology. No reverse logic. He can't win by playing Dent's game. He has to make it his game. His rules.

3. Gotham Knights 11 - Tim vs. Bruce

Dick has to choose between saving Tim and saving amnesiac!Bruce

Hugo Strange (to Dick): “It’s going to take a choice. You can take Mr. Wayne home, or you can save your little associate over here. Now, of course we all know that the Boy Wonder can take pretty good care of himself. But that's even more true of Batman over there, so as I understand it, Nightwing, your instructions are to help Robin first. [...] Dora and I will shoot on the count of three. Ready, Dora? One - two -” [...] Dick: “Robin -?” Tim: “Him.” [Tim throws off Hugo Strange while Dick saves Bruce.] Dick: "Good job, Robin." Tim: "I think we lost Hugo." Dick: "Yeah, but we didn't lose you. No thanks to me." Tim: "Oh, hey, you don't -" Dick: "Shh, take the compliment. You did everything right."

4. Nightwing 138 - Tim and Damian vs. assassins

Dick has to choose between saving Tim and Damian and saving some poisoned assassins

Dick (internally): I have less than thirty seconds to save them. Can Damian and Tim hold out that long…? Damian (captured): So…I do embarrass myself. Tim (to Damian): Don't move - I'm almost there! Damian: And I am forced to at least thank you for trying… Dick (internally): Twenty seconds. What’s it gonna be, Dick? Save them…and sacrifice Tim and Damian? Tim: Nightwing! Dick (internally): I'm sorry, Tim...  (He runs to save the assassins.) Alfred (over the comms): Master Dick - they are leaving! Dick: Activate Tim’s tracer. Give me fifteen minutes. Alfred: Were you hurt? Dick: No. I was played.  (internally) I’m coming, Tim... I’m going to save you..

5. Red Robin 1 - Tim vs. Damian

Tim: I don't call this "okay," Dick. Dick: He's my responsibility, now. You're not my protégé, Tim... You're my equal. My closest ally. You'll be okay. But him... Tim, you know better than anyone that left on his own, he's going to kill someone. Again. You have to understand - Tim: No. I don't. This is all I have now. [...] How can you let him wear that costume, Dick? What earth are we on that you choose him over me?

[myenterpriseisparked]

can.... can we get a cast for your zoologist Trek show?

I don't have names for them but here we go! This is kind of long, so I'm putting the characters under a cut.

The ship is called the USS Frontiersman. It works mostly in deep space, studying new forms of life on newly discovered planets. Crew compliment of 160. 50 exozoologists, 50 exobotanists, 20 environmentalists (including geologists and atmospheric experts). The remaining 40 crew members are engineers, security officers, helmsman, and the captain and first officer. I'm not positive on the time period this is set during, but it's at least at a point where there's not much conflict between Cardassia and the Federation.

Captain: She's a 40-year-old Engineer who never expected to make captain. Finding out she was being offered a command was the best day of her life. The worst day of her life was the next day, when she stepped on board and realized it was an exobiology ship filled with eccentrics. She slept through her required exobiology course so she has no idea what any of her crew members are talking about. She's basically that babysitter who's charges are all extremely passionate about things she doesn't understand and the parents have asked her to drive them around to local museums and science learning centers while the kids yell in the backseat about who's topic of interest is better.

First Officer: She's a 30-year-old who went through the academy on the command route and was known for being an excellent pilot. Has less knowledge of exobiology than the captain. The two of them keep trying to push interpersonal conflicts to be solved off on one another because neither of them understand what anyone's talking about enough to truly help solve the issue and, frankly, they're both a little frightened of the ferocity of their crew.

Head Engineer: Bajoran who actually did pay attention in biology and, while she's a little confused, she's eager to learn about what the others are prattling on about and is an excellent listener. She tries her best to translate for the non-exobiologist crew members, especially the captain and first officer. She was married (spouse died. tragically) and has a daughter that follows her around engineering. Everyone loves the kid and tries to convince her to study whatever their area of expertise is. Later in the show, when she's a little older, she decides to go the command route at Starfleet and become a pilot, much to the crew's dismay. The First Officer is absolutely tickled.

Chief Medical Officer(s): The Frontiersman actually has 2 chief medical officers; a doctor and a veterinarian. Yes, this is terribly inefficient and yes, they constantly butt heads. The vet is a young human woman from Ohio with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for snark. The doctor is a young human male from Michigan with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for snark. They absolutely hate each other until the day they realize that they are actually in love with each other and all of their arguments have been attempts to deny their attraction. Both of them are absolutely disgusted that they could fall in love with someone so... so... infuriating gosh dang it. They try to continue denying their feelings for each other because they are from rival states and they constantly fight over jurisdiction in the medbay for new species. One day, however, one of their most heated arguments ends in a passionate kiss and they stop fighting their feelings (but not each other).

From there, the rest of the crew is divided up under chiefs of specific taxonomical divisions. Sometimes a division will only have 1 scientist, other times it has a whole crew of people. Depends on the frequency of that type of living thing appearing. Most divisions only have 3 people; a chief and two junior officers. Not every chief is featured in the show because that would be too many characters, so just the ones that are considered part of the senior staff, which were selected by Starfleet at the time of commission based on training.

Chief of Feliformia: She's a hotheaded Betazoid in her mid 30's who spends her free time boxing on the holodeck. She argues a lot with the Chief of Canidae, but they still have breakfast together every morning to trade ship gossip. She wrestles with PTSD and anxiety, which she hides under a layer of bravado. Surprisingly enough, the only person she really feels comfortable opening up to about her past is the Chief of Canidae, because, despite all of their banter about cats vs dogs, they're her closest friend and she appreciates their blunt honesty.

Chief of Canidae: They're a Trill in their mid 30's who's passionate to the point of poetry about dog-like creatures. They're host to a younger symbiont, and they're one of the shortest people on the ship. They also only really open up to the Chief of Feliformia for similar reasons; the blunt honesty. Their relationship is strictly platonic (and I mean actually platonic, not whatever the VOY writers were trying to sell to us about Janeway and Chakotay).

Chief of Rodentia: He's a 70-year-old Bajoran/Cardassian. His mother defected from the Cardassian army to be with his father and the two of them raised him on earth where he raised pet rats. He always has about 7 various rodents tucked into his lab coat. He is a neat freak about his lab space and refuses to let anyone into his area unless they have completely scrubbed up and promise not to touch his PADD stack. Part of his particularity about his lab comes from the fact that he faced a lot of public ridicule due to his mixed heritage when he was young and so he's naturally very defensive of everything he does and owns.

Chief of Chiroptera: She's a twenty-something Half Vulcan-Half Betazoid who was raised on Betazed. Her Vulcan mother was the Vulcan ambassador on Betazed, and her work made her somewhat absent so, while she has enough of a restraint on her emotions not to be violent or aggressive, she's also more Betazoid in terms of personality. The combination of telepathic and empathic abilities from her parents has made her sensitive to large crowds, which is why she LOVES working in caves with bats away from other people. The combination of the two species' abilities constantly bombarding her and the need to restrain her Vulcan emotions have also resulted in her having ADD (her attention is being pulled in every direction so focusing on other tasks that don't immediately grasp her interest is SUPER difficult for her). However, she's also incredibly kind, difficult to shock or surprise, and very passionate about her work.

Chief of Reptilia: They're a human in their early 50's, a bit reclusive, and VERY unwilling to let people in their lab. They never show up to a meeting without a snake around their neck. The snake might be venomous. No one knows for sure. Whatever the case; everyone on board is pretty sure the reptile division is actually a cult because they never see anyone from that crew outside of the lab decks.

Chief of Aves: She's human, no one knows her age, and she refuses to wear a standard-issue lab coat, opting instead to wear a tie-die coat that reaches the floor. She speaks in riddles and everyone thinks she's crazy, but she's actually incredibly wise and an excellent listener. She specializes in raptors.

Chief of Livestock: Even though it's not technically a taxonomical order, they have a guy who specializes in studying livestock of alien cultures. No one is sure how old he is, or what his species is, for that matter. He has the calm, level-headedness of a Vulcan, but he always wears a hat so no one sees his ears or eyebrows to know for sure. He might just be a Midwestern farmer, because they can be Like That too. Despite working with livestock, he also never gets injured, so not even the doctor knows. Some people speculate that he's not human OR Vulcan, but some other immortal species, like a Q. This mystery is never solved on the show, but everyone really likes this guy.

Chief Exobotanist: Despite the fact that the plants are divided up into other taxonomical species, they all report to one Chief Botanist because the plant department is a lot more efficient and interconnected than the animal departments. Despite this, she's completely overworked and undercaffeinated. However, her workload doesn't stop her from being one of the sweetest and most creative people on board. As to the rest of her character, I defer to @emilie786 , as she is the inspiration for this character!

There are other chiefs who are occasional recurring characters, like the Chief of Aquaculture and the Chief of Amphibians. There are also several junior officers who we get to know a bit that are kind of fun. I'm thinking there's some kind of star-crossed lovers arc going on between someone who works in exobotany and someone who works in exozoology. There's also an overworked head of security who is getting really sick and tired of all the escapee animals he has to track down. I think he might fall in love with the Chief Exobotanist partially because plants don't run away and get into the Jeffries tubes (until they do, of course).

Anyway, if anyone wants to add to this, go for it! I'm open to ideas!

[vivalavillain]

Hc + coworkers for Archer

Headcanons Prompt || Accepting

{I've been sitting with this prompt stuck in my head since I first got the alert that you sent it and I'm absolutely certain it's not going to be nearly as sprawling and major as I keep hyping it up to be. That said, I'm going to leave this under a read more in case it gets lengthy.}

{Spoiler alert: It got lengthy.}

{To start with, I think rather than rambling on like a loon for four hours, I'll try and break everything down into my headcanons for each of the major players in Archer's canon Rocket. Please keep in mind that these are based on my personal headspace for each character, not on anyone else's representation of their character and that this should in no way reflect another's iteration of the character. This is strictly those NPCs which exist around him as part of the story I have brewing for him. So, without further ado and in no particular order...

Ariana - The first person Archer called after news broke that Giovanni was arrested, Ariana is the only other person Archer trusts implicitly with the organization and operation of Rocket as a whole. It was a joint decision to keep Rocket running in secret and migrate to Johto, although it was mostly Archer's idea. He couldn't let Rocket die entirely as it served him far better than any attempt at a normal life after its destruction would. However, as Ariana so rightly pointed out, Archer was not cut out to run the whole thing on his own. Rocket had always had its individual segments run by their trusted Administrators and as someone who'd only ever operated within one of those segments, he was ill-suited to keeping Rocket afloat alone. It's not often Archer accepts that he's out of his depth-- let alone admits it-- but he gladly welcomed Ariana's assistance in heading the organization as it fled to nearby shores.

Although they both professed that their leadership was temporary-- Interim Bosses and not Bosses proper-- Archer has absolutely no intention whatsoever of ever handing Rocket back to Giovanni except under very specific circumstances. He would rather see Rocket return to dust than let it be run again by the man who he views as having betrayed them all. Ariana, on the other hand, is very adamant about returning leadership to Giovanni and she poses the only hitherto known threat to Archer's designs on keeping Rocket out of Giovanni's hands for good. They clash at times because of this-- although Archer keeps his designs a secret, Ariana has a nose for his true intentions and always pushes him to do things the way Giovanni would have-- but don't let their spats get in the way of keeping things running smoothly.

Ariana is more likely to return former Rockets back into the family. In addition to being Archer's equal as far as rank is concerned, Ariana acts as more or less the head of whatever counts as Rocket's HR department-- seeing to interpersonal issues within the organization, some recruitment, settling disputes, putting members to their best use-- she is the 'face' of Rocket's internal aspects and does her job exceptionally well. For all their disagreements, Archer is incredibly grateful to have her and never speaks ill of her to others even when angered or frustrated with her.

Proton - Proton was actually one of the first people Archer recruited in Johto. He was the leader of the largest, most violent and brutal (but also most successful) underground gang on Johto's shores. They were something of a problem when Rocket first made their moves on territory in Goldenrod. Despite their best efforts, Rocket's men usually returned to their temporary headquarters in either body bags or on stretchers and Archer found himself facing his first real obstacle in reestablishing Rocket's former glory.

He arranged a meeting with Proton in the hopes of arranging a cessation of conflict, only to find himself on the receiving end of a butterfly knife in the dark. The wound was superficial-- as Archer soon learned was the object of the attack-- and as he knelt in the alleyway, bleeding all over his hands and uniform, he came face to face with the one who would soon become known as the scariest and cruelest member of Team Rocket.

Proton wasn't an unreasonable man and he recognized Archer for who he was. He was familiar with Giovanni and Rocket's operations in Kanto and, despite the knife wound in Archer's belly, he was interested to know what Archer wanted. With nothing else left to him but the hopes of getting out of the encounter alive, the Interim Boss laid his plans out and made the situation plain: Archer wanted to recruit Proton and his entire gang into Rocket proper. He had no intention of moving in on his operations or putting restrictions on them. He would give Proton complete control over his own men and even pay him and give him a high-ranking position for his effort. Archer knew he needed a man like Proton on his side, not to mention the numbers of his gang, if he wanted to succeed in Johto and he was willing to offer quite a bit to get what he wanted. Proton mulled it over, helped Archer hobble his way to the nearest hospital, and when they left together, they did so as budding comrades.

Proton, as though he were the inverse of Archer, heads the darker, seedier underbelly of Rocket's machinations. While, yes, he is in charge of things like interrogation and rooting out corruption wherever Archer might assume there is any, he also acts as the face of Rocket on the street. Where Ariana recruits former Rockets, Proton recruits or absorbs what remains of the gangs running around Johto's streets. With the exception of the scientific research and experimentation sides of Rocket's illicit activities, if it's illegal, Proton is most likely at the helm. He and Archer have something of a mutual respect for one another and, although Archer is convinced he's a little too hotheaded at times, he is also aware that without Proton, Rocket would have died as soon as it left Kanto.

Petrel - Like Proton, Petrel was recruited off the streets of Johto. Although it was Proton who actually brought him into the fold, it was Archer who put him into an Executive position. Despite his laidback, easygoing attitude with those he doesn't consider a threat, Petrel is exceptionally skilled at both espionage and drug-running. Where Archer and Ariana act as the frontward facing leaders of what Rocket gets up to topside, Petrel and Proton are equal in running everything else. From drug dens full of opium and prostitutes to underground rings full of dogfights and Pokemon trafficking, Petrel runs it all and does so with a finely-tuned finesse that is belied by his seemingly lazy, incompetent behavior.

Archer and Petrel get along about as well as a recently-bathed cat and a dopey dog looking to play, but Archer cannot-- and will not-- deny his abilities and fortitude. Petrel tends to be the friendly face to all those in Rocket-- even Archer from time to time-- and oftentimes acts as the glue that keeps everyone from being at each other's throats on their worst days. He's quick with a smile and a drink to lift your spirits and although Archer wishes he would be a little less lackadaisical, he is just at grateful for him as he is for Proton and Ariana.

The rest of Rocket in general - Archer does not, as is often depicted in fanon and other iterations I've seen of him, loathe his subordinates. He doesn't mistreat them or look down on them, even if there is a bit of a disconnect between him and them. He sees them as the most important part of the organization and does his best to see to it that they're well taken care of (even if he leaves the actual caring to Ariana). Although he tries to run Rocket like more of a business than a family, he is not the greedy CEO who's only interested in lining his own pockets. He goes without more often than not to ensure that every bit of wealth they acquire goes into keeping everyone satisfied with the decision they made to take a chance on his Rocket. Unfortunately, this usually manifests as things like keeping the lights on, providing better Pokemon as partners to those unable or unwilling to catch their own, and ensuring headquarters runs as smoothly as possible. Because it does not translate to higher paying positions or the like, Archer is concerned that his subordinates see him as the stuffy white-collar manager who answers to corporate rather than the overworked and criminally underpaid team lead who only makes pennies more an hour despite the crushing weight of much, much greater responsibility. As such, there's something of a disconnect between him and the rest of his team, where they either fear him for his position or resent him for it.}

[linkspooky]

Annie Runs Away (Again).

Annie has suddenly decided she’s a pacifist. Annie is leaving on a journey of self discovery. Perfect timing. You take all the time you need. It’s not like the world’s ending or anything. 

Just kidding. Annie’s not actually acting any different than she usually acts. I’ve said this before, but Annie and Armin are characters who continually exhibit regression rather than development. If you remain the same person more or less throughout the story, that’s not suddenly going to change without impetus. You’re always just the same person, even at the end of the world. 

An analysis on Annie and Armin’s failings under the cut. How they parallel Eremika, and why they can’t get close. 

1. But That’s None of My Business

Let’s bring out my handy dandy Want / Need chart again. 

Want

: something your character desires, because they believe it’ll improve their happiness.

Need

: the lesson they need to learn to overcome their inner struggle and achieve true happiness.

Annie has run away again and again throughout her entire arc. 

Annie’s a survivalist. Her own life comes before anybody else’s. When the chips are down, Annie will always choose to run away and protect herself. When things get hard her response is essentially to find some way to escape, and insist that the ongoing conflcit has nothing to do with her therefore there’s no reason for her to be personally invested. 

The entire tunnel scene is symbolic for this. All Annie had to do was make a choice to confront what she had done. She had to choose to walk into a situation that would be unsafe and even potentially compromise her. 

There was a chance, but Annie can’t even walk into a situation where she’s potentially unsafe. She can’t handle any confrontation. Annie, who is capable fo turning into the female titan, and easily can beat up men twice her size, and yet ultimately that physical strength means nothing because Annie is a self serving coward. 

We know the reason why Annie is like this. It is a pretty good reason. Her father told her that the most important thing above all else was her own survival. Annie was raised like a child soldier, to her all she has is her strength, and her promise to reunite with her father. If one fails, if she’s not strong enough to fight her way out of a situation she falls back to the other and runs. That’s why Annie as a person is both strong, and incredibly weak, she can’t even stand the slightest confrontation. 

Annie says she doesn’t care about being a good person, but she also gets tripped up and coerced by Armin’s words that he’ll think less of her. Annie says she will kill anyone on this island to survive, but she fails just because she spared Armin. Annie is wavering back and forth. She’s contradicting herself constantly, and that’s because Annie doesn’t want to think about who she is or what she wants. Her entire identity is found in running away, and running back to her father, and Annie never tries to be a person outside of that. 

What do you call soemone who blindly follows what their parents told them to do, and is unable to make decisions of their own outside of listening to their parents? 

A child.

The words of Annie’s father have kept her alive until this point, that’s true. However, treating the whole world as her enemy, as something to run away from, has stopped her from connecting to another person and giving her what she needs to grow up. You don’t grow and learn by doing the same thing over and over again. The same ideas that let her survive are now holding her back. 

What Annie thinks she wants is to be left all alone. She gets exactly that when she’s crystallized, and it only makes her worse. She is protected from everyone, nobody is able to harm her, she doesn’t have to interact with anyone and she becomes completely helpless. 

Annie’s path forward relies on confronting the people she’s been avoiding. However, Annie has only ever known avoidance. 

What Annie thinks, is that she doesn’t have to care about other people. However, she contradicts herself because Annie clearly does care. If she didn’t care she wouldn’t have spared Armin. If she didn’t care she wouldn’t let Armin’s condemnation of her actions get to her. It’s not that Annie is a good or bad person, it’s that Annie doesn’t even want to think about if her actions are right or wrong, she doens’t want to have any kind of confrontation at all so she runs away. 

Annie’s arc has always come about by her realization that there are other people who exist besides her in the world, and who have other wants and needs outside of her. If Annie was truly capable of living alone she would have just stayed in the crystal after all this time, but she obviously hated that. 

The only way Annie can move forward is if she gets closer to other people, but she can’t do that if she’s running away from them. I’ve said this again and again, the micro informs the macro. Characters decisions on a micro-level  have greater consequences in story. Annie is not able to rise to the occasion, because of her personal weaknesses, namely that she can’t be close to other people.

Once again we have Annie insisting that she just doesn’t have anything to do with this. Annie is someone who is perfectly capable of fighting, and strong in some ways but weak in others. Any time she has to confront something, she always chooses to avoid instead and runs away. It’s not because she can’t do anything, but it’s because she doesn’t want to have to face the conflict. 

Annie will always try to run away and be by herself because that’s what she thinks she wants, when what she needs to do is grow up and learn to be her own person outside of her father’s words for her. Like. She even says she wants to die peacefully. As if she’s accepted death rather than trying to struggle to live. Which is why she even physically runs away from Armin, the one person whose closest to her. 

Armin is the one person who has consistently challenged her to be a good person. As long as she’s far away from Armin, Annie doesn’t even need to think about whether her actions are good or bad. However, being quiet and being at peace is just what Annie thinks what she wants because if that was really the end result of her arc she could have just stayed in the crystal forever. 

2. EreMika Parallels

Armin and Annie mean a lot to each other. Armin is Annie’s connection to her own humanity. Annie saved Armin once and because of that her life has been forever changed since that moment. Armin is the person who looks up to Annie, and sees the best in her and even challenges her to be a better person than she was previously. Armin sees Annie better than Annie even sees herself. Does this sound familiar? it’s like a parallel. It’s intentional. 

Mikasa has always seen the good in Eren. She’s seen the kind little boy who wrapped a scarf around her on a cold day, and gave her the strength to fight. Eren is always stopped and hesitates when confronted with the memory of the scarf because Mikasa represents his connection to other people. It’s his memories of  Mikasa who always opposes him when Eren insists he’s a terrible person that’s going to destroy the world. 

Mikasa sees the good in Eren. However, their relationship is a complex one. Mikasa has, time and time again, enabled the bad in Eren because she has difficulty looking at the whole picture. 

Mikasa has enabled Eren’s bad tendencies. This is because Mikasa is so codependent on Eren, and so paralyzed by the idea of losing him she’s too afraid to confront him. Annie and Mikasa are both characters who despite their tremendous strength, they can’t seem to whether the simplest interpersonal confrontation. 

Mikasa and Eren have both at some point in the story saved each other. Eren saved Mikasa from the kidnappers. Mikasa told Eren that he was accepted and loved at his lowest point when confronted with the Dinah Titan again, and he promised to wrap the scarf around Mikasa again.

However, they also both have the tendency to ruin each other because Mikasa enables Eren’s worst qualities. She could push Eren to be better, but she’s too fixated on the idea of Eren rather than confronting who Eren really is as a person that she’s unable to do anything to stop Eren until it’s far too late. 

Armin and Annie are too people who could just like Eren and Mikasa, challenge each other to be better people. Eren’s flaw is his independence, Mikasa’s flaw is his codependence. It’s gender reversed in Aruannie, Armin’s flaw is his codependence and Annie’s flaw is her independence. 

The problem with Annie and Armin is ultimately they both tend to be very cowardly people. When they interact they have the potential to make each other braver, or they can run away from each other. 

Let me elaborate quickly on Armin. If Annie’s tendency is to always do what she wants, then Armins’ tendency is to always try to do what other people want. That’s not as selfless as it sounds though because, Armin wants to put all of his decisions on other people. 

Think about the conflict with Connie. If Armin had just told Connie no, or asserted himself as a leader, he could have just avoided Connie kidnapping Falco all together. 

Armin doesn’t want to make choices though. Armin will do anything to put the choice on other people. He physically put the choice on Connie, by just throwing himself into a suicide and forcing Connie to decide to save him. 

Armin believes that he himself is insufficient. There’s a theory going around that Armin is the main character of the story, but even if that is true: Armin does not want to be the main character. Armin will do anything to avoid being the main character of his own life. Part of the reason Armin puts Eren on such a pedestal is because if he treats Eren like the main character, then Armin himself is spared from making a decision. 

Annie doesn’t want to think about other people. Armin spends so much time thinking about other people that his own will gets lost time and time again. Eren continually putting responsibility on others and relying on others around him when everyone needs him to take responsibility and step up is his own version of running away. 

If part of the reason that things got this bad, was the total failure of leadership. Everyone acting powerless. Floch even says humanity needs a devil to lead it immediately after he creates the situation that kills Hange, and puts Armin in charge once more. 

If Annie’s first instinct is to always run away to protect her own life. Armin’s first instinct is to always throw himself away in some kind of suicide plan. However, this creates far more dififculties than it actually solves. Reiner even yells this at him, how would it help for Armin to throw his life away in a sacrifice at this moment to buy time if he was there best chance against Eren.

Floch believes that humanity needs a demon to lead them. This is an idea that’s been built up since the death of Erwin. It’s not Eren who is the demon however, it’s Armin. 

However, just as Annie consistently runs away when she’s cornererd. Whenever Armin has to act responsible for other people he always reacts by saying he couldn’t possibly live up to Erwin’s legacy. But that’s just the same behavior. That’s just running away. Annie values herself too highly over other people. Armin sees himself as expendable and much lower priority therefore refuses to step up to any responsibility placed on his shoulders, or make decisions he can put off onto other people. It’s different motivations but the same behavior, consistently running away from each other.

This is something they both do, and they can either confront this behavior in one another or they can run away from it. 

If Armin had challenged her to stay and fight Annie probably would have stayed. he didn’t so she didn’t. Armin calls himself a bad person who has killed comrades, but he doens’t really want to make the decisions that Erwin made and so he avoids that. 

In order to get closer, Annie and Armin would both have to confront themselves and admit things about themselves they don’t really want to think about. Which is why Annie runs away, and Armin lets her. Annie could challenge Armin to be better and call him out, but Armin doesn’t really want that fight right now. It’s something they would have to work on in order to be closer. How can you expect two people to be close, if they are continually running away from each other?

AruAnnie, and EreMika are two completementary sets of people with similiar flaws that could help each other or ruin each other, and right now we’re seeing the regression and not the development. 

[alienheartattack]

Hello. Who’s ur comfort character? (Snk) what r ur notps for snk? And, last one, how do you write Levi and Mikasa so perfectly? Like their personalities and what they say- how do you even get good at that? I love all ur works

Hello! Thank you for reading and for taking the time to send a message!

I don't really have any comfort characters from SNK. I guess Levi? He's the only one who doesn't make me depressed about the series when I look at him lmao. Right now my comfort characters are my OCs, considering how much I enjoy brainstorming for them. (Both male leads I've written so far are masculine men with strong personalities who are also soft and kind. Now that I think about it, I tend to write Levi in a similar way in a modern AU where he's allowed to indulge his softness.)

In terms of notps, I think I've made my feelings on EM pretty clear. I'm not a fan of Levihan (love it platonically though, and I even follow some Levihan blogs) or Rivahisu either. However, I just filter everything I don't like so I barely even remember it exists.

I've been accused of writing Levi and Mikasa OOC before, so it's wonderful to hear that someone thinks I do it perfectly! I pay a lot of attention to how people talk IRL and sometimes I'll even say my dialogue out loud to make sure it flows. It's always been a big pet peeve of mine that authors who write "snappy" dialogue rarely write how people actually talk, instead they go all big and pretentious with it. I think Levi and Mikasa are relatively uncomplicated people (despite all the trauma), so their dialogue should be more straightforward. A lot of what I do is think, “How would a person who watched their parents die in front of them/was raised in a dangerous slum/is the only person they know who’s as strong as they are/etc. act in this situation?”

ETA: I rambled a lot about writing here, so I'm just gonna toss it below a read more.

In terms of Levi and Mikasa's personalities, I tend to focus on things we know canonically about the characters and then fill in the blanks from there. They're both relatively reserved people but they have a wicked sense of humor, and usually it relates to things that are scatological or taboo. I tend to focus on them being people who are stoic on the outside but very emotional on the inside, because that way I give myself an opportunity to explore their inner life, which usually involves some kind of domesticity (based upon Mikasa's desire for a family and Levi's potential career as a tea merchant).

I also like to drop in random canon or fanon facts, like Levi only sleeping a few hours a night or high school AU Mikasa being a goth, and then use those as jumping off points for further characterization. For example, writing a scene with cranky Levi doesn't hit as hard as writing a scene with cranky Levi when you know he's tired from a bad night of sleep and he's running on caffeine and fumes. It's easier to characterize him and add details to your writing by drawing on your own experiences of being tired: he probably feels like shit, he's exhausted, his eyes are puffy, he's yawning, he's not paying as close attention as he normally would be.

Another thing I do that helps keep me in tune with the characters is to decide what kind of Rivamika I want to write before I start writing. I decide how they feel about each other during the story and whether I want that to change. If I write a story where they're already friends, their personalities are going to show a lot differently in a story where they openly dislike each other, although I usually write them bickering in some way to reflect their interpersonal conflicts in canon.

The way I'm able to achieve all this complexity in my writing is that I tend to write pretty mechanically: I decide what goal I want to achieve with a story, then work backwards and figure out how to get there. For example, with the assassin AU, I knew it was going to center around a scene that was violent but also very caring and maybe even loving, so I made very sure to write Levi and Mikasa as people who argue a lot and say some really terrible things to each other, but who show deep respect through their actions. If they truly hated each other, Mikasa would never agree to sleep with him in any situation, so I had to make sure to add details that infer that maybe they don't actually hate each other that much. I really fixate on making my characters' motivations believable, so I was literally sitting there thinking, "If I were in Mikasa's shoes, in what scenario would I be okay having sex with a weird coworker?" Or I'll try to imagine a similar situation in my life where I thought I disliked someone but actually realized I would be upset if I didn't see them around. Especially with fanfiction, it's all about showing how the characters feel about each other, and what events and actions can make those feelings change.

I've already written enough here, but I wanted to emphasize one of the things I stand by as a writer that I think makes for better characterization: nothing is ever black or white. People are frequently conflicted or torn by competing desires, even when it comes to relatively easy decisions. (Especially when it comes to things like food and sex.) Even if someone falls strongly on one side of an issue, they can usually see the merits of both sides. No one is ever 100% good or evil, and oftentimes bad people genuinely believe they're doing the right thing. I try to make it so that every character in a story genuinely believes that they are doing their best, so when they come into conflict it's because they have deeper issues than just a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication. For example, in Inexorable, I wanted everyone to be sympathetic to a degree, even Eren, because I think it's too simple and unrealistic for him to be a straight up villain. Plus it makes the reader really feel for Mikasa, because both she and the reader can see that even though Eren was a dick, he's also trying to make things right. It makes her final decision that much more anxiety-inducing and ultimately satisfying because she has a good reason for being with Levi and a less good but still valid reason for being with Eren, and (hopefully) you don't know which one she'll pick. These problems often take a lot of thinking and brainstorming to resolve, but I find that they make for much more satisfying characterization and plot.

I could blab on about writing forever (obviously) so I'm always down to answer asks!

[jonismitchell]

Love dies in the city; or the romanticism v. modernism conflict on folklore

In my humble opinion, Taylor Swift’s 2020 album folklore is about the conflict between romanticism and modernism. It sets up the natural as a place of freedom and unrestrained love, contrasting this with the city (presumably New York) as a place of hiding and secrecy that ultimately dooms the integral relationship. In the end, Swift expresses her deepest desires to return to the natural world, to restart the timeline that began with her move to New York, something I will elaborate on when discussing “hoax” and “the lakes.” This storyline is the crux of the album, and the motif I’ve used to classify its songs into six distinct sections, which follow a vague plot that is not represented in the track list order.

the natural (seven, invisible string, betty) I would argue that “seven” represents the heart of folklore, containing what seems to be the album’s mission statement (“passed down like folk songs / our love lasts so long”) and describing the earliest point in Swift’s timeline. This song is the one most directly linked to nature, describing a childhood friendship that takes place in the woods. One lyric, “before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously / any time I wanted,” implies that Swift found freedom in nature, when her secrets were mere promises to friends instead of the pain she had since hinged her life on. In addition, this song is pure romanticism. The interest in childhood is implied, we can reasonably assume both main characters to be seven years old. To support this, the song states “although I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you,” implying that much time has passed since the events. There is awe of nature (the “beautiful things” are the creek and the trees), emphasis on the importance of imagination (your dad is mad because the house is haunted), and a celebration of the individual (“just like a folk song, our love will be passed on,” where the love is the individual she speaks of). This is the dream that Swift wants to return to, and yet her characters already face conflict (the keeping of secrets, hiding in the closet, an angry father). She romanticizes her past into something she can escape into, creating a sort of mythos around an upset childhood.

Our next nature-intensive song is “invisible string.” She again makes a callback to childhood, citing a park where she used to read in Nashville. It would not be incorrect to categorize this as a love song, perhaps the most lighthearted one on the album. Swift emphasizes time and fate, both recurring themes in her discography. Like “seven,” “invisible string” draws attention to nature as a freeing and healing space, which sets the stage for her romance. Lines such as “gold were the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park” draw attention to the ‘invisible’ connection the song depicts. In the bridge, she notes that there was “a string that pulled me / out of all the wrong arms, right into that dive bar,” implying a protection from the dangers of interpersonal conflict. Throughout the verses, mentions of any city stay tangential (“your first trip to LA… an American singer”) while the focus lies on her freedom. It is a dreamlike song, which implies that the city can be glimpsed but not detrimental, and showcases an utter belief in things working out. 

It is, then, rather ironic that the final song with unique ties to the environment highlights an unanswered apology after the foundations of romance have been shocked. “betty” is ostensibly narrated by a teenager, James, who plans to make up for her mistake in a garden. This perspective ties into the album’s greater focus on time, in this instance equating innocence (“I don’t know anything”) with a natural setting (the garden, which is explicitly removed from society). At first, James wonders if Betty will allow an apology, but wants it to happen without anyone watching (“if I showed up at your party… would you lead me to the garden”). She then casts this hope aside, dreaming about being able to broadcast her love to the world without fear of judgement (“will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends”). It is also, then, relevant that the relationship is ruined when scrutinized (“rumours from Inez”). When considering how themes of secrecy and hiding come into the picture once the narrative travels to the city, it is interesting to look at how the hope of an public relationship prevails here. But in the end, James still dreams of going back to any relationship with Betty, no matter how private (“kissing in my car again”). Of course, Taylor Swift herself is James, and James is Swift, so we know that the secrecy dooms the relationship in the end.

the romance (august, illicit affairs) “august” describes a doomed relationship, perhaps meant to be the affair James has that prompts her apology to Betty. However, the story of a love that was never built to last has been referenced multiple times in Swift’s discography (“Wildest Dreams” and “Getaway Car”) and even expressly linked to summer on 2019’s “Cruel Summer.” These songs show distinct lyrical similarities to “august.” Hence, I feel comfortable describing this song in the context of those, rather than within the storyline of Swift’s fictitious love triangle. (Which is flimsy as it stands, but that’s for another analysis.) While there is no set location, this song describes one kind of coming-of-age (“whispers of are you sure”) and delves into the hope associated with a short-lived romance. Here, there is no secrecy to speak of, but a fear of what will come when a return to society comes (“will you call when you’re back at school”). My contrast for this song is saying it is “Cruel Summer” without the ‘happy’ ending. There is a privacy here (“meet me behind the mall”) but it is the instability of the romance that dooms it (“you weren’t mine to lose”). “august” is a time capsule, a reflection on the love that always would’ve ended regardless of the locale.

The next song, “illicit affairs,” is another one that ‘visits’ the city (for lack of a better term) but places the primary conflict in a largely undetermined setting. In fact, there seems to be a rejection of the urban (“take the road less traveled by”). In the sorting of tracks as they relate to different sub-themes, “illicit affairs” is the first song that says, without preamble, that secrecy is the death of love. While the word ‘illicit’ simply means forbidden, the verses describe sneaking around in a way that has been attributed to cheating since album release. There is virtually no acknowledgement of another character outside of the two lovers, save for the ‘him’ referenced in the perfume line. But it is not this person that the narrator seeks to hide from, it seems to be almost everyone. It could be construed as a song about adultery, but taken in the context of the rest of the album it reads as a lament for having to hide a relationship (most likely a romantic one between two women, but this is extrapolation).

the city (the last great american dynasty, mirrorball, mad woman) Now we approach the slew of songs that deal with the actual location of the city. The first song is “the last great american dynasty,” which seems the most removed from Taylor’s viewpoint and yet involves her directly (“and then it was bought by me”). We get an actual move to the ‘city’ (“Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train”) which is reminiscent of Swift’s own move to New York in 2014. Rebekah is immediately disliked by the people around her, blamed for her husband’s death to the extent where she flies in “bitch pack friends.” (1) Keeping with the theme of folklore’s similarity to a time capsule, one could see this song as Swift retelling her own purchase of Holiday House (and by extension much of the events from 2014/2015) through the lens of someone else’s life. Indeed, part of this theory is directly corroborated by the song through the lines “then it was bought by me” and “I had a marvellous time ruining everything.” In relation to the conflict between secrecy and survival of love, “the last great american dynasty” does not offer much insight. However, it effectively sets the scene for songs to come.

(1): I don’t know anything about Rebekah Harkness’ life, this is just how I interpreted the song. 

After the initial move, “mirrorball” establishes the new dynamic between the lovers. In turn, it introduces the performative nature of romance in the city (which is referred to and combatted with the line “all these people think love’s for show / but I would die for you in secret” from “peace”). Swift expresses interest in a lover who is “not like the regulars,” who wants more than to watch her turmoil. Still, this song finds her drawn into the nature of performing, consistently showcasing her tragedy to let others see themselves to the extent where she cannot even let her guard down when “no one is around.” Even after the circus has been called off, she seems to have entirely integrated with the role of the mirrorball. This provides some introspection on her viewpoint: digging into insecurities under the viewpoint of desperately trying to save a sinking ship. Almost as a counterpart to “seven,” the lyrics to “mirrorball” show some characteristics of modernism. Individualism is represented through the focus on the person who is the mirrorball, while unrelated characters do not warrant much elaboration. In terms of formalism and experimentation, the format and structure of the song deviate from Swift’s usual manner. The concept of a person being a mirrorball (shown in the music video as a disco ball) is both a symbol and verges into the absurd. All the imagery in this track is based in large crowds; featuring a disco, a circus, and masquerade revelers. It both establishes the setting where love dies and assures that the relationship will end (“the end is near”). 

“mad woman” is the final song which establishes setting more than storyline. It proves the city as a angry and dangerous place, one that is not sympathetic to “people like” Swift. We find her contemplating revenge on someone who has done her a great wrong, which is less attached to the general storyline but serves to depict the setting as actively hostile and worthy of contempt. When compared with other tracks, certain lyrics imply that the narrator is hell-bent on getting the last word (“they say move on but you know I won’t” / “you know I left a part of me back in New York”). There isn’t much else notable about this song in terms of what we are talking about, but it does frame several absurdist tendencies in the context of a destructive setting. 

the death (cardigan, exile, my tears ricochet, epiphany)  In “cardigan,” Swift reminisces on a long-past relationship, which has been interpreted to be James and Betty’s teenage melodrama. This is the first of many breakup songs, which idolize what has passed and mourn the loss. We observe many signs of the city (“chasing shadows in the grocery line”) and individualism (“I knew everything when I was young”). As referenced in “betty,” the cardigan becomes a symbol for the relationship at large. Moreso, the idea that the relationship was cursed to end as it begun is elaborated on here (“I knew you tried to change the ending”) even if it is not ascribed to secrecy yet. In reflecting on Swift’s past work, we see many signs of her being accustomed to this thought (“I can see the end as it begins” from Wildest Dreams and “I knew (...) we were cursed” from Getaway Car), but “cardigan” comes across with deeper pain regarding the whole affair. In tying different lyrics together (“back when I was living for the hope of it all” from “august” and “I hope I never lose you” from Cornelia Street), we begin to paint a picture of the true narrative behind the love triangle. Swift knew her greatest love would end—desperately hoped it wouldn’t, prayed they could ‘get away with it’—and finally channels her anger and sorrow into this retrospective. She almost accepts it: love dies in the city.

Another reflection on a past relationship is folklore’s only duet; “exile.” This song discusses an inability to communicate, the concept of determined endings (“I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending”), and plenty of ‘hiding in the city’ imagery. This sees one narrator (Swift) faking a relationship (“just your understudy”) to hide her true lover (in this context, Iver). Both agree on various facets that caused fallout (“didn't even hear me out... never learned to read your mind… couldn’t turn things around”) until the final disagreement (“you never gave a warning sign / I gave so many signs”). So while the song is fundamentally about a miscommunication, it is evident that much of the misunderstanding comes from ways of signalling the secret relationship. Presence of the city is acknowledged through lyrics such as “I’m leaving out the side door,” “out here in the hall,” implying that the narrators share an apartment. Nature also gets a brief mention here (“breaking branches”), but this usage explains that the freedom of the narrators is fading, just like their connection to the natural. 

Most do not connect “my tears ricochet” to romantic fallout, but there is no denying that the song hinges around prominent death metaphors. Many metaphors used imply that the narrator has broken up with their lover, but still haunts the hope of what could’ve been. In the line “we gather stones, some to throw, some to make a diamond ring,” a connection to marriage is implied, divorcing the meaning from the loss of Swift’s masters. A crowd of people is repeatedly referenced (the ones in a sunlit room, for instance) and the lover must “save face” in front of them. This external pressure contributes to the greater theme of death of love in the city, which Swift equates to her own death. She describes herself as a recalcitrant ghost (“you know I didn’t want to have to haunt you”) but one her lover must have around (“when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies”). This song is another one that recognizes Taylor Swift the writer within the lyrics; within this interpretation the “stolen lullabies” are the songs that the ex-lover inspired, work she can no longer look proudly on. While no explicit connections to the city are formed, it is obvious that some external pressure resulted in a damning betrayal, which was painful enough to describe as death. 

The final song in this death theme is “epiphany,” which does not discuss the romantic timeline at all. Instead, “epiphany” is the culmination of two sub-motifs on folklore: water and war. In nature, water gains a passing mention in “seven,” but does not truly become relevant in this organization until “the last great american dynasty.” In “epiphany,” the water reference is “crawling up the beaches now,” which serves to distance it from the overall storyline. The song also deals with the war motif (evident in most of the songs, but “ease your rifle” is very literal) and contrasts soldiers at war to doctors during the pandemic. All of this builds on this section’s burgeoning theme of death. It fits in with the album theme, but does not display obvious modernist or romanticist hallmarks.

the chance (the 1, this is me trying, peace) Opening the album is “the 1,” a frequently disliked song but a very telling one. It is similar to “cardigan” in that it reminisces on a past relationship, but the narrator feigns contentment with her current situation. If all of folklore can be considered a time capsule, “the 1” perhaps describes the headspace of the narrator before they begin reminiscing: convinced they are alright, but not holding up very well. This song involves much city imagery (“I hit the Sunday matinee,” “I thought I saw you at the bus stop”) and deals with the aftermath of many events in the album. It is interesting that this song was one of the last written, as one can imagine the narrator went directly from “it would’ve been fun” to “don’t want no other shade of blue but you” (as described in hoax). The love has died here; but there’s a desperate hope to return (“if one thing had been different, would everything be different”). 

Much like “betty,” “this is me trying” is another last-ditch attempt to save a failed relationship. Both songs find Swift in a doorway, ready to apologize, but “this is me trying” bears the weight of experience and less expectation that they will have a second chance. The increased maturity finds acknowledgement of faults without excuse (“my words shoot to kill when I’m mad / I have a lot of regrets about that”) and an attempt to come to terms with the death of the relationship despite pain. This, of course, breaks apart in the bridge (“all I want is you”) but, as Swift consoles herself, at least she’s trying. Setting-wise, this seems to be in a smaller locale (“the one screen in my town”) which calls to mind the “the only thing we share is this small town” from “Death By A Thousand Cuts.” There is also what appears to be a bar (“pouring my heart out to a stranger / but I didn’t pour the whiskey”) and an influx of people (“it’s hard to be at a party when I feel like an open wound”). It is not necessarily the city, but rather a recovery period that does not go well. 

If the painful instruction of “illicit affairs” acts as a foil to 2014’s “How You Get The Girl,” then the anxiety of “peace” complements 2017’s “Delicate.” While “Delicate” expresses the sufferance of an early, undefined relationship (“is it cool that I said all that”), “peace” begs the lover to reconsider the end one last time. As “hoax” makes undoubtedly clear, it wasn’t enough. We see the dangers of outside influence (“I’d sit with you in the trenches”) and the strength of the romance (“the silence that only comes when two people understand each other”). It is a final plea for someone to stay, a list of the success and a fatal acknowledgement of the worst. There is a declaration that sums up much of the album: “all these people think love’s for show / but I would die for you in secret.” As we’ve seen from other songs, it is the secrecy and the hiding that has doomed them. Swift sees this, she briefly suggests a return to the free and safe woods (“give you my wild”) but is ultimately stuck on the question of peace, which she wishes she could give her partner. 

the return (hoax, the lakes) The original album closer, “hoax,” finds Swift leaving a part of herself in the destructive city that has become home. She makes an attempt to return to her home, only to find that it is not the way she’s left it (“my barren land”). With her lover, she has gone through a journey that changed her too much to return to innocence (“I can go anywhere I want, just not home” from “my tears ricochet” contrasted with “you’re not my homeland anymore” from “exile,” where the lover becomes the homeland). She turns to a bleak setting, using sparse lyricism and simple constructs to describe her pain and betrayal. While Lover highlights themes of likening one’s love to a religion, the Swift we see on “hoax” has given up on any sort of healing coming from her romance. All she acknowledges is that the circumstances of her love have “broken her down” and “frozen the ground” (from which she hopes a “red rose” will emerge in “the lakes”). 

In “the lakes,” Swift tries to move forward but still sets her sights on the natural world, citing a deep desire to escape the scrutiny that destroyed her romance completely. This is a call to action for her former lover, a final request for shared freedom that reminds the listener of the lyric “would you run away with me?” from 2017’s “Call It What You Want.” Swift continues to call on aspects of romanticism she’s referenced on reputation and Lover to make her point. It then tracks that she has been inspired by this muse all along, and is finally asking for a return; both to the early romanticism her albums are built on and to her lover’s “homeland.” Her desire for a new home is evident, her conviction that her former lover should join her too great to be overcome.

The response of the muse to this, of course, is unclear. 

[adrunkgiraffe]

I have been through this journey before, so I get to be actually frustrated about it.

IUnder a read more because im not subjecting y’all to this. Also: I should caveat I haven’t watched the episode cause I’m waiting till its on Netflix but I have watched way too many other episodes of Supernatural so I have a right to say these things. 

TL;DR: I mean you all knew Cas’ confession was fucking bullshit and that SPN is...hm. But I’d like to actually express my genuine frustration, for a moment? I’m going to say things you already know, but I have too much knowledge of this show and too much stupid meta in my brain about a series I haven’t genuinely enjoyed for at least 5 years which makes this not just blandly bad but disgustingly insulting to me not even as a gay just as like. A writer?

Or, even shorter: Cas’ confession is just a Charlie Bradbury Speedrun 

So. As some of you may know if, for some reason, you followed me back in 2013 (and till...okay fine 2015), I used to be, uh. Really into SPN. Really, I was into Destiel. Like, as in, I slogged through seasons 1-3 to get to Cas and am also really vulnerable to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and projecting onto characters. (I was in 8th grade in 2013, okay? Get off my back)

Also, because I monopolised use of the TV, I kind of...also got my parents into it? In a “this is silly but fun” kind of way.

Over time, critiques of the show from viewers, learning what queerbaiting is at all, fatigue with how long it was going, and also fatigue from how characters I enjoyed, like Rufus, or Crowley, or Ellen, or Jo, or Kevin, or Charlie, or Cas a few times, kept getting killed off. As time went on, it didn’t escape my notice that, aside from Cas, all of these characters fit one or more of the following criteria:

They were a woman

They were a person of color

Were Queer or Queer-coded in some way (listen Crowley was bad rep but at least Mark Sheppard actually kissed a man on screen)

I also just...generally got tired of the way the show treats women and sidelines people of color. 

The final straw really came with Charlie’s death. It got us all excited, because she hadn’t been back in a bit! And it was interesting to see how reuniting with her dark side from Oz had changed her! (yeah remember the fucking Wizard of Oz storyline? The writers sure don’t!) And maybe she’d get developed! Because at this point, Charlie and the fairly good writing of her character was a major upside for the series! Charlie was cool, fun, gay, and morally complex in a way...none of the female characters had been before her, in large part because by definition, her relationship with the boys would always be platonic.

And then. Offscreen. She is violently murdered. For no damn good reason. Like, literally, her being brought back in this episode after fucking off to europe after having returned from fucking off to Oz seems to have filled two purposes in total. 

The codex is solved (but Sam doesn’t know till next episode)

Charlie is dead, which means Dean can be angry, specifically at Sam, and kill more people because he’s the big bad this season. 

That’s it. Two things. Twooooo whole reasons to do this episode. Whoopee. 

But you didn’t come here for this, you came here for me to rip this reveal to shreds. Don’t worry, I’ll get there. What I want in your minds is that Supernatural already had a really good anddynamic queer character. And then they killed her off to make Dean angry. No, it doesn’t matter that they brought her back in season 13 or whatever. They made that decision. 

After the rage this incited, I started realizing general flaws in the writing (I had probably already noticed them but now I was angry enough to complain.) Every conflict is born of Sam and Dean not communicating/taking on burdens and Dean being angry at Cas for reasons that ranged from good to ridiculous, but in a way that always went way too fucking long, (which...yes, does make the “you do it for love” gifs fucking hilarious). It didn’t help that seasons 11 and 12 were next, which meant Demon Dean and GOD’S FUCKING SISTER, plus the decision to resurrect Mary, which, while I do like her later scenes, as a season 12 finale it...well I’ll be honest it kinda sucked. It undercut the majority of the Winchester’s’ arcs and their slow and painful journey out of their father’s toxic vengeance quest and knowing Mary as a person when it’s too late to know her was one of the last semi-compelling grounders of the narrative. 

By this point it was a hate-watch for my parents and I.

So then, I’m at college, and I’m not watching anymore cause I don’t have the motivation or access to Hulu to continue, and SPN is bad. I watch the Scooby Doo crossover when it comes out and my friend and I make fun of it, and we also continue making jokes about Dean and Cas and queerbaiting because we’re queer, but I don’t keep up. My Dad does though, so when I return, I watch some with the fam and lads. It’s even more tiring without context. 

So flash forward to Quarantine, my sister, the only one with taste, has left, and we have run out of netflix to watch. So we return to the well, and seasons 13-14 are. I’m gonna say it. Bad. Really fucking bad. The cycle of bad communication continues, season 14 has like seven antagonists and the way it’s structured makes it so I literally cannot remember the timeline of a season I watched 3 months ago. Oh also, they have a queer coded cannibal snake monster for...well I guess Jack’s snake bud was cool but like. Huh wow it’s almost like these writers don’t handle queers well. 

Our one saving grace is Cas, but he’s barely in any episodes, though I did note that his deal with the empty, being happy completely for one moment killing him, that struck me as “this has potential and I know they’re gonna half-ass it somehow.” Also Jack and Mary, but then oh...plot….The most compelling it gets is literally the finale.

But then, 3 days later, the first half of season 15 comes out on Netflix and it’s...actually kind of acceptable. The new character they give Jack’s actor is fun to watch him play until they make him evil. Exploring just how toxic Chuck can be gave the series direction again. The alternate future was genuinely scarring, and Eileen’s return was genuinely moving. Most of all, though, Cas got the opportunity to tell Dean no, that Dean was being unfair to him, had always been unfair to him, and he was sick of it. I had no illusions, I knew Destiel was never gonna happen, and Cas was gonna die, but giving him that bit of agency, letting Cas grow and be self-sufficient, and be angry with Dean not for existential reasons but interpersonal ones, was such a good sign for me, and Dean grew too! Dean fucking apologized for being horrible and Jensen Ackles had a...yknow what, ill give it to him, he had a good acting moment. 

But the thing. About. The “I love you.” 

Let’s take it in parts.

What was good: I’m gonna admit it, lads, “Wanting what I can’t have” - AS A LINE - is good, and, structurally, there is something to the Empty Deal that could have been an interesting aspect of Cas’ arc when it comes to self actualization and being on even footing with Dean. The problem is, this is Supernatural, and that arc only comes up when I bring it up because character study, even in bad media, is fun for me. 

What was bad:

I mean. Like. All of it? All of it. 

Okay. Fine. I’ll be specific. 

Cas dies immediately when - possibly because- he is revealed as having feelings for Dean. They kill him as they queer him, that’s a Bury Your Gays Speedrun right there.

Like the least they could have done is have him mention it to someone in another scene or something to establish some romantic feelings on the part of canon a full episode beforehand. That would have been the literal bare minimum. 

When Cas starts praising Dean, for some reason both the writing and Misha’s acting take a bit of a downswing (from...where it already was). Cas, whose most powerful moment this season was acknowledging that Dean’s anger at him is cruel and unfair, flatly praises him for doing everything out of love and it reads with a misunderstanding of both Dean as a character and Cas’ understanding of Dean. Dean is angry! VERY ANGRY! And it’s a problem he needs to work on and rarely does. 

Talking out of my ass, a better speech would have been about how Dean is angry because of his love for Sam, family, and the people around him, how, for better or for worse, he can’t help but be angry on behalf of others, and that his journey of moving that tendency towards the better is what made Cas care so much. Guys this alteration to the metaphor took 2 minutes to write tops I am an Art History student and these are TV WRITERS WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE CAN YOU TELL THEYRE NOT TRYING YET? 

A better speech would, of course, have come out of a better series. My point: this part was half-assed. Poorly written. Wow it’s almost like the series is also poorly written. 

 Also, Misha is the better actor of the three(***OF THE THREE), but his choices in that scene are jarringly out of character which. Makes the bad writing worse. It doesn’t help that they cut to the same fucking shot of Dean 3 times. The chemistry in that scene makes it feel so fucking hackneyed. Because it is. 

This combines lead me to the point: (wait there was a point to this?)

As someone who does not have the luxury of watching this capsized ship fall into boiling seas from a distance, it is less insulting to me that they did this so last minute and then sent Cas to the Void than it is how they did it. They had ingredients for something that could have been compelling enough to me as a former fan of the show to think that they had put effort into it, that they had decided months, perhaps even years ago to do this, and had crafted a storyline around it. That this was an intentional decision they cared about. It wasn’t. It was barely even pandering, because it’s almost insultingly blatant. 

SPN kinda proved to me that it didn’t care about queers when Charlie was killed off. It proved it to me again when Cas, not only died in confessing his love for Dean but did it in the weakest result of what could have been a surprisingly strong story.

[severusdefender]

The Concept of a Werewolf!Lily AU is such an Amazing Dumpsterfire I couldn't resist adding more

Hi, I’m here to blether about AUs and blow up ur inbox with said blether, hope you enjoy it as much as I did scribbling out my love of making everyplot needlessly complicated. X3

A fiat of timing could be everything in terms of future. Lily &Sev talking might be more frank they might end up pooling resources to simply leave the blastzone that is Wizarding UK/Scotland.

Also I feel that the personal guilt of Turning someone else into a werewolf would’ve nuked the Remus-Sirius friendship from orbit with feelings of betrayal, just saying.

Or Sev & Lily might separate for a time due to miscommunication (again, sweet merlin save me), and while Sev’s over there realizing he’s getting in over his head (I don’t know the chain of realizations he’d have, but it’d happen or start somehow), Lily gets drinkspiked &sudden possible prophecy child (idk who’d do the drinkspike specifically, maybe not James[who i think would at Least feel guilty about the too-late-to-stop-my-friend-from-accidentally-turning-you-into-a-werewolf thing, prolly not everything else, but that thing at least], but Sirius, who’s being an impulsive arsehole) & now she’s getting shipped off to safehouse w/ JP despite her protests.

Idk about possibly setting up a future Lily v Remus interpersonal conflict if she manages to forgive him in his unwitting role in screwing her life during this time with fighting/supporting the Order of the Phoenix. But him basically ghosting Harry later and Lily coming back to find, hey, his so-called promised support never fucking happened, could be juicy interpersonal conflict in the future as well. <<Sidenote.

Maybe the Order starts the rumor of “Lily Potter (nee Evans)” and a fake news of a wedding? Idk maybe in a attempt to Protect her Politically? Lily would absolutely despise it. It begins the Legend of Potter’s Muggleborn Wife, which also conveniently leaves her devoid of person-flaws and the fact that she’s a werewolf (probably never reported by Dumbles). A Huge Fiction.

In the meantime, Lily would be trying to cobble some sort of new, prolly a little or a lot Dark, ritual together so she and her kid don’t fucking die while trying to Not Think about this stupid train of trauma she’s desperately trying to not deal with regarding her… Safehousemate.

Things would be a little different but a little same, Lily wouldn’t be told who the Secret Keeper was though. Severus still overhears part of the Prophecy and gives it to Voldie, Voldie gives chase. But things could be different because Werwolves are more natural spellsinks? So there’s a badass-but-desperate fight at Godric’s Hollow, James dies but Lily gets away with Harry and is in the wind.

Voldemort is still at large.

And there’s also a countdown clock, because Lily got away with only a limited supply of Wolfsbane (or none at all, she’d be capable enough to brew it but the question is of ingredient access). But Lily hasn’t approached the Order again either.

The Ritual that she Made could serve as a Chekhov’s Gun in this plot though how I don’t know yet, but keep that in mind.

The Order needs to find her, but none of them Know her as well because she was always very withdrawn and played her cards close to her chest during her time with the Order this time around. So what do? Dumbledore seeks out one Severus Snape, and fishes for information.

Somehow this could culminate in Snape piecing together that something happened, thought he doesn’t quite have all the details yet. But he’d figure that the prophecy hunt net included Lily and oops, that’s kind of his fault, fuck. So Dumbledore has found guilt and stuff to push-leverage Snape into tracking down Lily.

Snape defects both because his friend (*& her son, he still doesn’t believe the papers about the “happy marriage”, he assumes the Literal Worst) is being hunted down, and also Guilt and kicking himself. But it’s less defecting to the other side, and more defecting towards what he considers his own side with Lily, and I don’t know how this complication could work. He gives chase, a whole runaround all of Wizarding Britain for maybe a little under a year, only to end up in the next town over from Cokeworth with no leads. Until-

Rumors of a strange beast sighted in the woods? Gotta check it out.

Severus and Lily finally meet again, but before they can truly hash it out, Lily’s about to transform and Voldemort & co. AND the OotP had also been hot on the trail. A running battle breaks out, Sev tries to get himself, Lily, and Harry (can we pls call him Henry, Henry’s such a good name), clear but Lily’s much closer to shifting. Shit happens, Voldemort pursues them personally yet somehow manages to not see the Identity of the Prophesied Child & his Mudblood Mother’s Protector (which is Severus). Maybe Sev & Lilyw/Harry got separated and now, Lily’s transformed fully and is throwing down w/ Voldemort.

Something happens, maybe the Ritual or some effect of that nature? And some canonmirroring just in a diff time diff place, Voldemort is destroyed by his rebounding AK, Harry gets the Scar and hailed BWL, and the fiction of Muggleborn Paragon Wife Lily Potter is preserved in quietude for the ages. But the strange part is that Werewolf!Lily was nowhere to be found, and it’s assumed that her body had been destroyed.

Severus is both devastated and suspicious.

From there it can either somewhat echo some stations of canon, but diverge further from there, or completely depart from the stations of canon entirely. Can’t decided what’s juicier or senseier. Snape could still end up a more tenuous Spymaster and Potions’ Master at Hogwarts, because technically he did fulfill his end of the bargain but Dumbledore still needs to keep him close after all. Snape still searches from what happened to Lily, but deeply resents Dumbledore despite not saying no to the resources that allow him to stay out of Azkaban and able to keep up his “fruitless search.”

Basically, this results in a more ambivalent Snape, his redemption arc happens differently.

The fable of The Potters is preserved for posterity and into the society’s collective memory, Harry Potter products are made. But Harry is not legally a Potter, Lily and James never married, Harry Evans is a true bastard in the lawbooks. I could still see him getting carted off to the Dursley’s for whatever actually well-meaning reason to be frank.

Idk, would Snape be Allowed to know about Harry’s survival status in this context especially since the Order or Law Enforcement would’ve gotten to him first? Maybe not, maybe Snape was under the impression that the baby “killed” the Dark Lord but was also killed in the process. Can’t decide if that’s worse than knowing Lily’s kid survived but is squirreled away somewhere where Snape can never check. Haven’t decided, both are equally angst. *shrugs*

Severus Snape still manages to be a disaster human on main.

Meanwhile, a big Russet Werewolf (stuck in form? Stabler? Haven’t decided yet) is wandering the somewhat intermittently devastated countryside, memoryless and adrift. (because I can’t resist shoving amnesiac au in here, im sorry i accept full responsibility lol).

Thoughts? 

the only thoughts i have is ‘this would be an awesome fic’

[appleciders]

I saw your latest fic on AO3 (great writing btw) and was wondering if you could expand on Charlie's relationships with her sisters when she was younger?

hey dude!! i’m so glad you liked it!! i love charlie and it was cathartic to give her some good things for once. unfortunately, i don’t think i’m gonna write a longer fic abt her and her sisters, at least not in the near future.

that said, i do have thoughts! according to my very very basic mythology research (which is prob as much as anyone in the show did, lbr) it seems like there are conflicting cosmogonies for the fates—either they’re the children of nyx, or they’re the children (i say children bc even tho i use she/her pronouns for charlie she’s not a girl imo) of zeus and themis, or they’re the children of ananke. in my fic, i went with nyx, a) because the zeus and themis account makes them out to be more righteous and just than we’ve seen them be on legends and b) because being a child of the goddess of darkness/night is sick as hell. atropos is actually the oldest, then lachesis, and then charlie. and because they’re greek gods, there’s a good chance they actually did “grow up” from babies to adults.

as for their actual dynamic, i guess i just riffed on what the show gave us. (tw: abuse) charlie is clearly the “little ‘sister,’” the one they “took care of,” and she gets manipulated and guilt-tripped as such. and the hard thing about that dynamic is like...as terrible as they were to her, it’s messy. 

we’ve seen it with lachesis and astra. as long as you do what lachesis wants, she’ll act nicely. buck her manipulative control, she strikes out. when charlie was younger, more willing to listen and learn, lachesis probably was...not kinder, but more outwardly nice, you know? she wanted charlie to be the perfect tool, so she trained her for that kind of role, framed it as love. and atropos is, like, murderous and vile, but i think that she did see them as a family unit (see: “you destroyed our family”). so i do think that she did have some twisted idea that she was “caring” for charlie, which in no way excuses her but also means that there were times when she probably acted accordingly. 

of course, charlie’s whole nature is about breaking the mold and new beginnings, and she developed a firm belief in personal freedom. she was never gonna last as lachesis’s lapdog. so i think that as they stepped into their roles as the fates, she began to stray from lachesis’s express wishes more and more, and she faced harsher criticism and less veiled emotional abuse. atropos took on her role as the inevitable, and she snipped every life charlie dreamed up. which is inherently fucked, regardless of the shitty way she probably treated charlie interpersonally.

so i think it leaves charlie in this weird place where she’s been terrified of her sisters for thousands of years, because she knows the terrible things they’re capable of. and she doesn’t love them. but they were her entire world for a really formative part of her life, and i think she’s internalized a lot of the things they told her about herself and about their roles in her life. so i feel like when they do die (if they do i guess), she’ll still be grappling with that, with a feeling of loss and loneliness even when she rationally knows how awful they were. even if she’s the one to kill them. even as she simultaneously feels incredible relief. anyway, i’m sure someone else has said it better, but that’s my 2 cents!

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Movies

Frozen 2. Beautiful AND inventive visuals. Felt like someone really sat down and took all the designing very seriously. Fully immersive fantasy film. Heartstring yanking main song. I can actually tolerate Olaf now. My heart thaws. Good flick.

Card Captor Sakura (first movie). It was sweet, and an interesting watch in line with most of the series, but felt like the plot holes were fairly large. Still is nice to watch Sakura in different situations and settings.

Card Captor Sakura and the Sealed Card. This one felt like it had less plot holes and was closer to the heart of Card Captor Sakura. Though I swear if you drank a shot every time someone attempts to confess their love and is interrupted, between the series itself and this movie, you’ll die of alcohol poisoning.

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. This felt more like the movie we should have gotten last time. The things that didn’t make sense still didn’t make sense, but typical Star Wars style instead of what-the-crap-was-everyone-back-there-on-drugs??? I enjoyed it and I wasn’t furious with any particular plot point by the end, so it definitely has a leg up over The Last Jedi for me.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. It’s been a long time since I watched the original Jumanji movie, but other people who loved that movie assured me that was a fairly worthy (if not equal) successor, so I finally gave it a go. While not amazing, it was definitely fun. I really could not watch several of the villain’s interactions due to personal squicks, but aside from that it was, as I said, fun to watch. And I was delighted to realize it actually was not a reboot, but comes AFTER the old Jumanji movie. Now I want to re-watch the old one...

Anime

Card Captor Sakura (the first series). The first time I sat down with Sergey to watch this, we had just started dating and I had a three episode policy–an anime has to interest me in three episodes or I’m done with it, but I have to give it at least that much of a chance. It failed the test for me. I was pretty sure I was watching a formulaic anime with no character development where the exact same thing would happen every episode. Six years and a marriage later, I tried again because this is his favorite anime. While it isn’t my favorite, I can understand better why he enjoys it so much. It’s relaxing to watch for the most part, and though developments do not happen quickly, they do happen, and by the time you get to them, you’ve picked up on the running gags and character traits and quirks that make the show fun. And it is, as Sergey has said, a little glimpse of what heaven might be like. In this world, nobody seems concerned if kids are talking to an unknown adult alone. Nobody is concerned if a kid travels alone. There are interpersonal conflicts, but deep down everyone knows if they are just being stubborn about something. There doesn’t seem to be any real, true hatred in this show. There is peril, but there is no bad guy. All in all, I think this is a series worth watching, and a nice series to relax with as well.

Haibane Renmei. I re-watched this to see if my impressions of this series have changed at all. I think I appreciate it a little more than I used to. While it isn’t a favorite, it has an interesting idea and is very laid back until the last few episodes. It does require a fair bit of intuiting to discern the lore of this world, unless you’re going to dig around online, which I don’t feel like doing. But a second watch did help me get further than I got the first time I saw it. Short and sweet and worth a watch.

Pretear. Another re-watch to see how well it held up. It does not hold up to the nostalgia/early-anime-consumption phase. Designs are cool, ideas are cool, but ideas don’t make sense/aren’t always explained, and about halfway through peoples’ actions and motives, as well as antagonist powers, stop making sense. Love Himeno in all the different outfits, though. She makes an awesome magical girl.

Books

Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too: A Book by Jomny Sun. Got this as a Christmas gift and... I just... how do you even describe this? It’s like a Millenial/Zillenial/Gen Z child-adult book that sees this chunk of generational soul and boils it down to deceptive simplicity. It has to be a genre, there has to be more books like this. I bolted through it and I already need to re-read it. AND THE STAB IT TAKES AT THE GIVING TREE HAD ME ROLLING. Guys you have to trust me, this is a must-read.

[homestuck-session-analysis]

Hello! I am curious about how a session between a 8 of my friends + myself and how screwed we'd be ;P. We have a: Witch of Heart, Sylph of Time, Heir of Doom, Knight of Space, Rogue of Hope, Page of Heart, Knight of Mind, Prince of Blood and Knight of Light. I don't know if this would affect our session at all but everyone is female except the Page of Heart.

THIS IS THE LAST FORGOTTEN ASK!  YAHOO!!!

Witch of Heart

Personality: Witches tend to find themselves in societies or situations where they are dissatisfied, which makes them strong revolutionaries and visionaries.  Their rebellious nature causes them to change their aspect in ways inconceivable to others.  As a Heart player, she would probably be very critical of others, or maybe even herself.  It is possible that this may manifest as a matchmaking personality, as is common for Heart players, though that is not always the case.  She will not be happy until her vision is realized.

Abilities: The Witch of Heart would be able to control a person’s emotions and/or identity.

Session Contribution:  The Witch of Heart is really scary, but useful in a way.  If you don’t mind manipulating people and possibly destroying their senses of self, then she would be very helpful!Sylph of Time

Personality: Sylphs are people who have a great sense of someone’s potential, and they tend to be driven to help in any way possible.  This can make them seem to be incredibly nosy and a little annoying, but they have nothing but good intentions.  As a Time player, she would be very concerned with her friends’ progression and development toward their destiny.  Her biggest weakness is that she cannot accept when something is a lost cause.

Abilities: The Sylph of Time would be able to mend tears in time and heal others by either reverting their injury to before it happened, or by accelerating the healing process.

Session Contribution: This is your healer.Heir of Doom

Personality: Heirs tend to come off as very dumb, but a more accurate term would be happy-go-lucky.  They are very much a representation of “ignorance is bliss,” for they tend to grow up very sheltered and secure, especially under by aspect.  As a Doom player, she gains her sense of security from her pessimism. By expecting the worst, she feels like she is always prepared for anything.  Heirs tend to struggle with change, as they tend to get comfortable with where they are.

Abilities: The Heir of Doom is the meme build of the century, because her special ability is dying.  I’d like to believe that she would also be able to bring herself back, just to make it less absolutely terrible, so she’s effectively able to play dead.  Also, I’m sure she will also be able to use Doom based powers.(Note: Actually, if she god tiers, she can likely avoid a just or heroic death by using her ability of dying, which would probably count as neither.)

Session Contribution: If she has additional powers, then she would be a great asset to the team.  If not, well, she will outlast everyone and might allow shenanigans to happen to fix a disaster scenario.  I dunno, this is a weird one.Knight of Space

Personality: Knights are a very insecure lot, typically using their aspect to attempt to create a facade that makes them seem more impressive.  As a Space player, they would try to manifest the “tortured artist” persona, and will very likely distance themself from others.  To develop as a person, they should learn to trust others and lower their walls.

Abilities: As a wielder of Space, they would be a teleportation master, being able to teleport themself or others or weapons in a fight.

Session Contribution:  The Space player’s duty is to breed the Genesis Frog, and this Knight will be able to do it very effectively on their own!  The Knight is called to a session with a lack of their aspect, in this case, Space, so either they must efficiently utilize the little creativity or physical space given.Rogue of Hope

Personality: Rogues are very selfless people, as they share a worldview with Robin Hood.  Their strong sense of justice and equality makes them easy to talk to, as they are very respectful.  They are also very spunky and ready to do what’s right!  As a Hope player, they tend to be especially concerned with social justice and equal opportunity, and they will be very trusting of others.  Sometimes, the Rogue puts themself into danger to right a wrong, so make sure they understand that it’s okay that life isn’t always fair.

Abilities: The Rogue of Hope is a very strong asset, as they can reallocate their enemies’ success and potential to the team.  This may manifest in the ability to take their very will to fight away and giving it to the team.

Session Contribution: The Rogue is a very important morale booster for the team, and depending on your interpretation of Hope, they might be able to solely win you the game.Page of Heart

Personality: Pages are known to be very weak and impressionable.  Like the knight, they are very insecure about their weaknesses, but instead of acting impressive, they display their weakness in hope that someone will help.  As a Heart player, the Page will likely have very little emotional intelligence and be very awkward, or find it difficult to empathize with others.  He can only grow once he recognizes other people as people with feelings.

Abilities: The Page of Heart would ultimately be able to project their emotions onto others, give identity to otherwise faceless game constructs, and other abilities.

Session Contribution: The Page of Heart would be a great emotional support.Knight of Mind

Personality: Knights are a very insecure lot, typically using their aspect to attempt to create a facade that makes them seem more impressive.  As a Mind player, she tries to appear purposeful, calculating, and responsible (if that wants to manifest itself as a random skateboarder-persona, it ain’t my business), but in reality she is rational and responsible in a less extreme way.  To develop as a person, she should learn to trust others and lower her walls.

Abilities: The Knight of Mind would be able to wield Mind by strategizing, using her understanding of consequences and free will to assist her on the battlefield.

Session Contribution: Knights are called to sessions with a lack of their aspect, which means that there will not be much logic or accountability taken in this session.  It is up to the Knight to make up for this by utilizing what she has to the best of her ability.Prince of Blood

Personality: Princes have fairly destructive personalities and resent others, mostly because they strongly resent themselves.  Their self-hatred often lead to them harming others, either intentionally or unintentionally.  As a Blood player, this Prince is going to have had issues with prior relationships she had, and she likely rejects societal expectations or the notion of the importance of interpersonal connections.  She needs to learn how to accept accountability for her actions and accept herself for who she truly is.

Abilities: The Prince of Blood would be able to destroy bonds between people, especially with the purpose to break an enemy’s allegiance to their allies.  She may also be able to establish bonds between people that would eventually harm them.

Session Contribution: I swore to myself I wouldn’t bring Modfic into this, but to anyone who read it, one of the characters was a Prince of Blood, and although he not trying to fuck everything up, most of the deaths happened because of him.  This player is going to cause a lot of strife among the team.Knight of Light

Personality: Knights are a very insecure lot, typically using their aspect to attempt to create a facade that makes them seem more impressive.  As a Light player, they would try to come off as intelligent and always knowing what’s going on, and while they are bright, they need to learn that it’s okay not to have all the answers.  This is basically a Knight who tries to be a Seer.

Abilities: As a wielder of knowledge, the Knight would be a fantastic stategian, but they would also be able to use light offensively very well.

Session Contribution: Knights are typically called to sessions with very little of their aspect, and it is their job to make the most of the little bit that’s present.  It isn’t surprising that this Knight appeared, as Light is commonly associated with knowledge, and you have no observation classes.  This player will function as your observer, not by gaining knowledge, but instead by using inductive reasoning.

Interpersonal Dynamics

The Witch/Prince and the Page would be super toxic with each other, keep them away from each other.

However, at peak power, I could imagine the Witch being able to change the Page’s god tier so that it is no longer conflicting, as well as the Knights’, so if they are comfortable with it, I would use it to my advantage!

The Knights of Mind and Light would be close friends.

Keep the Sylph of Time with the Page of Heart, she would stick through with him and make sure he matures into his powers.

The Rogue of Hope and the Sylph of Time would be cool with each other.

The Heir should work together with the Sylph, because destiny is also a very important part of the Doom player’s quest.

The Witch and the Prince can cause emotional havoc among the team when brought together.

Session Overview

Too Many Knights!: Knights are the worst class to have repeats of, because they’re present specifically to make up for a lack in the session, and if two are gonna die…well the session will probably not have enough of what it needs to succeed.  If the Witch doesn’t learn to change a person’s classpect, you’re going to have to keep the Knight of Space, at least until she breeds the frog, and then I’d personally keep the Knight of Mind.

Witch or Page?: Same problem, you have two Heart players, though this one is more of a coin flip.  I’d keep both until it’s obvious whether the Witch can change a player’s classpect, but if not, you’d want to keep the Page.  The Witch is more useful, but combined with your Prince, people are gonna start killing each other.

Leader: Rogue of Hope or Knight of Mind.

Offense: The three Knights, the Prince, and the Witch are all built very offensively in this session.

Planning: The Knights of Mind and Light are very very very bad signs together.  They better start doing their jobs, and hope that one of them doesn’t die.

Survival: Three players are “doomed” due to classpect redundancy, but the Sylph is a good healer!  Also, the Heir is still hilarious.

Frog Breeding: Knight of Space is amazing at breeding frogs, and if they need help, she has two other Knights to help!

Loyalty: You’re fucked.  Hope your Witch and Prince are nice, or that the Page or the Rogue can do something to offset how much of a shitshow this will be.

Overall: This session is also cursed, but not as cursed.  If you lose, it’ll be because someone murdered everyone.

]>>Maso

[palukoo]

so a couple months ago i relistened to w359 and made a 18000 word document while doing so containing iconic quotes, my reactions, feelings, et cetera. heres some highlights with varying amounts of context. (theres lowkey spoilers for the whole series btw)

""""i empathize too much""""

crazy how i still vividly remember walking outside [my old job] and to starbucks while listening to the spider ep... trauma

i mean i dont love it but it makes me feel things

GABRIEL THATS TOO ON THE NOSE

"let me have my badass space chick victory cocktail"

god like i AM team what wrong with handcuffs but I WOULD NOT HESITATE to kill hilbert for hera

the girlssss are fightinggg

THE SAD W359 MUSIC IS KILLING ME

like memoria who maxwell who jk jk

i love you renee minkowski marry me

local idiot's heart is in the right place

HARPOOOOOOONSSSS

lovelace lovelace lovelace loveLACE LOVELACE

"maybe she's some kind of clone thing" EIFFEL... this is day 1!!!

i hate these self sacrificial idiots

no no no not this music again ill cry

yall are so emotionally stunted it fucking hurts but damn if you dont care

literally how are they still alive

i want to hug her so much omg

alan rody shut the FUCK up im crying

rip zach valenti's throat

face the death reality via math

jacobi being a piece of shit

maxwell said lets kill hilbert rights

this is a kepler hate blog

minkowski thinking her emotions dont matter to the mission oh ho ho

"youre gonna straighten up" cutter they cant theyre not straight

maxwell and jacobi show up and blow up lads

"and you should really be more careful with your queen" KEPLER WHAT DOES THAT MEAN

wolf 359 stop making me stan these literally terrible people

FUNZO FUNZO FUNZO

i am caring about men tonight lads

theyre both awful sure go ahead have history

hilbert you interrupted their emotional moment they wouldve had a MOMENT

hera said im gay

ohhhh nooo interpersonal conflict makes me sad

hug minkowski rn

FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC jacobi and maxwell are iconic

minkowski how did you not kill him

how much do yall use the words "good enough" and "cant"

"are you an alien" GOD the Hints

"one of our... sexier jobs" vs "this is gonna said less sexy after that"

eiffel stop cockblocking them

y'all's choice of pronouns IS illuminating

PROTECT HERA AT ALL COSTS

aw eiffel... minkowski... communication is KEY

oh yeah THATS what the psi wave regulator is for.... SURE

hilbert read the room

JACOBI you can't just describe minkowski like that without giving me a heart attack

how many times have all these bitches almost died

SORRY ANYTHING THEY SAY I LOSE IT

oh minkowski finally flipped (VALID)

oh wait that fact isnt fun at all and im literally crying

LIKE sometimes you save someone's life at great personal risk only to kill her a little while later

minkowski cries to “back to before” from ragtime

i feel to many things about the gals here idk what to tell you i love them thats the problem

its gay and it hurts!

lovelace laughing at people who can and will kill her... hot

OH WERE STARTING LOVELACES SELF SACRIFICE ALREADY

they let lovelace say FUCK

OH WAIT NO I FORGOT ITS WORSE

THANKS FOR MURDERING ME WITH YOUR TEARY ANGRY VOICE

ouchie anyways gay or no but also gay

hilarious and sad at the same time?

MAXWELL dont be a bitch... i expect this from jacobi and honestly i actually expect this from maxwell too but i dont like it

NO NOT THIS MUSIC

BROTP BROTP BROTP

i cant say anything else im too busy crying

UGH I COULD WRITE ESSAYS ON MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS THE MESSAGE THE TAKEAWAY BROADLY THE PERSONAL EMOTIONAL ANGUISH THE DESIRE TO HUG HERA ITS

im mad but thank you... all of you... explain... 

stop stop stop im literally so tense gone straight from sobbing to freeze instinct

GOD I HATE ALL THESE SURVIVALS GUILT IDIOTS

OH theyre all about uncertainty... the what ifs... okay... ouch ouch ouch

give everyone awards for bolero

eris are you gay

she said gay rights and AI rights

like i know i know we been knew but goddard really is so awful

Hera stop narrating Lovelace’s ongoing existential crisis

HOW IS THIS NOT GAY (I know how it’s not gay but. Let me have this)

KEPLER stop giving Lovelace insecurities and existential crises

Team back off lovelace for the win

like not to be dramatic but her arc is beautiful

oh boy thats my girlsssss

THATS FLIRTING MINKOWSKI

god i love that concern for your gf keep it up minkowski

COMMUNICATION? WITH THIS CREW? BOLD

GOD angrey hera is great

you know hera is having the time of her life witnessing it

eiffel you just ruined their romantic moment

minkowski is gonna kill them

a much better gayer more altruistic light

WE’RE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT COMMUNICATION

WAIT I WAS BEING CANON DAMN I THOUGHT I WAS BEING CREATIVE AND PERHAPS OOC BUT IM IN THE CLEAR I GUESS

god hera has needed to snap at eiffel for so long

i can already feel myself about to get hit with the tears... the emotions

that shit hits different renee

The implications that Goddard like destroyed global warming omfg

it’s the moral grayness babeyyy

when it hits you with minkowski's shaky sigh first thing you know its gonna hit different

MINKOWSKI i need you to. love yourself as much as i love you

GOD the mutual concern they always have for each other is touching whether or not you think its gay. i think its gay

HERA WOULD YOU ASK A COW TO NOT BE A COW

oh of COURSE they cut coms first

lovelace is man, butterfly is quote, it says "is this flirting"

jacobi i need you to chill

but jacobiiiii thats lovelaces schtick

oh eiffel... you fucking idiot who gets really lucky sometimes

this game of chicken where theyre both chickens and kepler doesnt know any of that and each of them only know half

minkowski said im an ethics teacher now

who taught minkowski empathy in high stress situations?

yeah so i stay hitting the nail on the head

“kepler SHUT UP” is what brings everyone together

this is, como se dice.... kinda gay

this statement does not bode well for that

“Maybe less talking to yourself” he says to himself

ugh, to be Pop Culture Man™️

RACHEL i love you even tho I also hate you

Rachel if you make one more hand joke I’ll lose my mind

HER NAME!!!! IS HERA!!!! And I love her!!

i have a vivid mental image of post-series eiffel doing stand up like chris fleming style 

"my crew has made it very clear through a series of looks and gestures that one more slip up and i am out, thats it, so im taking this job very seriously"

"minkowski is very overprotective in a weird, erratic way, like when your seat belt randomly locks and its like i appreciate what youre trying to do but im going 4mph in a drive way."

"so when something like this happens you have to at least consider going away for a long time and living on a cursed space station"

"you know how when maxwell and hera are talking ive never felt less needed, you know, like ‘cause you guys would be totally happy alone on a rock in the middle of a lake"

"this is the kind of body you look at and go he'd probably be ok in space without a space suit"

the whole "theater kids" video is actually him going off about minkowski

minkowski is too swole for her own good

jacobi im gonna need you to take the redemption arc more seriously

i love my crazy crazy bitches

this FUCKING music

GOD HOW DOES PRYCE JUST ALWAYS GET WORSE

she just like mutilated that man he is doa absolutely destroyed one hit ko

can you tone down the gay, sweetie

you did it you broke rachel and Goddard down to their bare essentials

GOSH shes so AWKWARD 

so damn jacobi was just IMMEDIATELY ride or die for maxwell

this is too much for my poor baby heart

pryce & carter literally are just like lets do eugenics, lets do genocide

when hera says ill pull a yall and sacrifice myself for minkowski and lovelace 

god like cant believe KEPLER got a redemption arc (well not arc but you know)

ah yes the most tragic scenes all take place at once :)

I HAD TO STOP LISTENING TO BRAVE NEW WORLD CAUSE IT MADE ME TOO CRAZYYYY

THE SCRIPT SAID IT NOT ME

i love space moms!

this fucking music ALAN RODY IM SUING FOR DAMAGES

like the document also does have a lot of like deep thoughts and meta and parallels and discussion of motivations but this is just fun random things i said

[mauriceclivealec]

Am I the only one who didn't like how Maurice ended? (I just watched the movie, I'll read the novel asap) I was really rooting for Maurice and Clive and it kinda upset me that the story at a certain point started focusing on this new character (Alec) and Maurice. I mean don't get me wrong it ended in the best way for Maurice, he was finally free and he found someone to share this freedom with but still? I feel so bitter because I didn't like Alec's character and was really hoping for Maurice --

and Clive to sort things out or in the worst case get that sad ending we're used to see in these movies. When Alec arrived the plot focused on him and Maurice only and Clive was kinda left out? It's like I couldn't get attached to this plot twist because it was unexpected and it was all too fast. I feel happy that things worked out for Maurice and all but not how they made this happen. I just can't get it up for Alec; maybe because he popped up all of a sudden without any backstory, he did whathe did all so quickly and he kinda stole the plot I don't know ahaha we don't know anything about his personality, story. I mean if he popped up way before and they made us know him and kinda get used to him it would've been (maybe) different (for me). The thing that most irritated me tho (don't hate me) was that Maurice comes up with "I'm in love with Alec" while talking to Clive. I mean ok, I'm not saying he had to be still in love with Clive (I guess he got used to the fact they couldn't be a thing since Clive got married and all) but falling in love after a... fuck? I don't know... they didn't have any kind of conversation, they basically didn't even know each other if not bc they shared a few lines "good night sir", "you have to pay", "I don't want your money". I get that Maurice finally felt something by getting physical with another man and I understand that but falling in love? That's another story. I don't wanna criticise a novel in any way (it surely is a masterpiece and I would never), I'm just talking about the movie, that could be different. Also I think that Clive had the biggest regret of his life and also that he's still lowkey in love with Maurice and will always be. What do you think about this? I'm sorry for this rant but I saw you answered a question about the movie and I thought that maybe I could share this with you bc apparently on tumblr we don't talk too much about this movie. I'm sorry again 😭🤧            

wow there’s a lot to get to here! no reason to apologize for the ask. i wish i could devote more time to talking about this movie and book but unfortunately i have to Adult so i don’t have the kind of free time i did when i started this blog. and i also don’t think there’s anything wrong with critiquing media regardless of its masterpiece status.

i think some of your issues can be addressed if you think both about the historical context and about what e.m. forster was trying to accomplish. he has said on many occasions that he would not have bothered to write the novel if there was no happy ending. so your worst case scenario of a sad maurice/clive focused ending was never going to happen, and imo the story is better for it; a happy ending for homosexuals was and still remains revolutionary.

the novel isn’t just about the interpersonal relationships or even about homosexuality, it’s also hugely about class struggle. and the three main characters embody some of that class critique in their personality and actions. clive is really unable to shed his upper class morality and he ends up choosing status over his care or love for maurice. maurice starts out trying to be more like clive, which is exactly what the newly founded edwardian middle class as a whole attempted to do at the time this work is set, and why clive’s mentorship and friendship with maurice was so accepted and encouraged. alec is of course lower class and this fully colors his interactions with clive and maurice -- unlike the lofty proclamations clive and maurice share, his verbal interactions must be more subtextual, but additionally he is more action-orientied than clive is able to be because he has less to lose and is less beholden to society’s expectations. this is, by the way, a gross simplification of the class conflicts in the novel and how they manifest in the characters, but it gives you a baseline on why alec’s interactions seem sort of minimal and abrupt, because alec is given less berth in that society to express himself to maurice. he insinuates himself into the story fairly early but it’s so subtle that it can seem like he came out of nowhere. that’s especially what merchant ivory was going for in the movie version.

i think regardless of that, we do get a lot about alec’s personality, but it’s less overt. we see him as somewhat iconoclast and willing to break rules, seeing the way he refuses tips and speaks out, and the way he flirts with lots of characters fairly brazenly. he’s willing to forge a new life for himself in the argentine, so he’s fairly fearless and capable of making big changes for the better. despite his lack of formal education he is fairly sharp and smart. he’s bold and decisive and goes for what he wants, which is in stark contrast to clive. in many ways i think he’s meant to be opposite to clive, especially in respect to the “words vs deeds” concept that maurice and risley debate earlier in the work. risley thinks words are deeds and i think clive does too, but maurice doesn’t feel that way, and neither does alec. it’s one of the reasons they ultimately are better for each other, and also why they are able to choose each other so quickly and decisively.

i also want to talk about the fact that this is not a society in which even men and women have a great deal of romantic or sexual interaction prior to marriage. so to belittle the huge huge act of maurice and alec making love as just a fuck is a big disservice. it’s an absolutely monumental step for a relationship at this time, any relationship, and the additional risk of it being an illegal act makes it even more impactful.

additionally, in this one act maurice is finally able to shed all of the suffering and conflict he has had for literally his whole life and become whole as a person. it’s something he’s wanted for years and clive has been unable to provide, and he’s been told for years by clive that it’s somehow better and purer, but to actually get it with alec and discover how much it matters and changes everything? that alec is willing to risk his whole life to be with him and vice versa? and also sometimes when something is right, you know, and you have to just surrender to it. so i think a lot of factors really add up to why the two of them were able to fall for each other so quickly and really go for it.

as for clive, i answered that in the previous ask. he loves maurice as much as he will allow himself, which is less than maurice deserves. he makes his choice, and it’s understandable why he does, but it’s not the brave choice and it doesn’t reap the rewards of happiness. by the way i realize this sounds very unsympathetic to clive and i do want to say i understand fully why he does what he does. it’s not merely a loss of status that’s at stake, it’s potentially losing his actual life. like, he could spend all of his life doing hard labor in jail. he could die. the homophobia in that society is so pervasive that without clive maurice might have never even realized he was homosexual at all. so the fact that clive is unable to really commit to maurice isn’t a sign of personal weakness, or if it is, it’s a weakness almost all of us would have been subject to at this time if faced with the same scenario. that is what make alec and maurice’s choices all the more astoundingly brave and revolutionary.

[bigowlenergy]

Notes on Gender, Ethnicity, and Culture

At the heart of the etoneki conflict/drama is nothing more than culture clash.

Eto may be amazing at studying others and have replicated humanity well enough to be a respected author among humans without anyone finding any clues to her ghoul nature, not even Haise in RE: - but she is still someone who was raised by ghouls. Her base nature is as a ghoul, from the 24th ward specifically. Naturally, there’s going to be some confusion between her and Kaneki, who was raised by humans.

But that leaves the good good question of what those differences should be. Clearly, some should be tiny, but there NEED to be huge misunderstandings bc I live for that kind of drama. Also, it’s a slowburn, so. that’s how it is.

this is long, and tagged for spoilers for a good reason. nothing specific, but if u like being surprised by the plot in ur grapefruit, go no further as of chapter 5

1) Ghouls have ABO while humans do not. Sure, there was a decently long time where Kaneki lived among ghouls, but can u picture early chapter Touka willingly sitting him down and giving the birds and the bees and the grasshoppers and also the spiders Talk? I think not. Maybe Kouma? Itori would. Like, they’d both kill him dead with it, but they would. And knowing the contexts within another culture doesn’t mean that you have assimilated those words/concepts to your own yourself, or that you actually know every single social detail, especially as it applies to others.

...but Eto does. And human gender/sexuality is fairly simple on the whole, except when it isn’t, so she has a leg up on him there.

plus, the way I have the ABO structured, it makes a bit more sense for him to be less aware of it, since his gender, as perceived by ghouls, is the most privileged one. Especially since its associated with deliberate power gain, which he totally played into during the later half of the first TG, so it would be a natural assumption for ghouls to make that he understood that he was acting exactly as his gender is socially expected to. and in a way that would socially cement his powerful omega status.

Tsukiyama would totally say something about it, since with the whole affluent family thing he’d probably be very aware of gender and social dynamics, but anything shuu says can be followed by “and he called me a cabbage in French last week, so okay shuu, whatever poetics ‘omega’ means to u, go ahead, have your fun buddy.” Banjou, who was involved with Rize, would be too worried about offending him or making it embarrassing to say anything. and as a ghoul even lower than shuu, he’d be super conservative about getting up in an omega’s business. It would just be this ambiguous open secret that everyone but Kaneki is totally, painfully aware of. the gasmask trio find this hilarious. Hina is a wee bab whose parent was a doctor for ghouls, so she just accepts her big bro as is.

so there’s eto’s expectations to be basically an underling to someone powerful as a normal, comfortable relationship dynamic, pitted against kaneki’s human-embedded inclination toward monogamy and not something that feels like weird bdsm domination stuff. they each are expecting a certain treatment from one another, and not getting it. eto feels neglected, since he isn’t all in her business and allowing her to settle in the shadow of his power and just ride things out, and kaneki, with only human expectations for sex, gender, and whatever the hell just happened, expects the worst from her as the “““male”““ in the relationship who manipulated him.

the conflict is that neither happens.

all of the power is on his side of the court, but in human terms, it feels like the opposite - vis a vis, human misogyny and all the horrible expectations for a sex and reproduction based marriage system that go along with that.

which is why i’ve inverted all that to make myself feel better :)

2) i kicked knots out bc idk about that business, but there have to be other physical differences. there have to be, or its boring. and then again, since both are hybrids, what should either have?

i’ve decided eto will have all physical differences or a learned equivalent due to ghoul socialization, while kaneki should have none but whatever was forced on him through his kakuhou - ie, pheromone stuff, but nothing more.

ghouls can purr, bc i am weak to that shit. Kaneki is aware of this. it’s just a Thing that they do. he’s read to Hina and she’s fallen asleep purring before and it was adorable. irimi purrs very quietly when she cleans things. uta is a purr machine when he makes masks, and it knocks yomo out unless he’s drunk, then he just purrs like a truck engine from the floor near uta’s desk for three hours. touka hasn’t purred since ayato left

eto purrs when she’s satisfied with her writing flow, which is one of the main reasons she prefers to work alone in her apartment and keep shiono out. otherwise, she doesn’t mind company. she also purrs when happy, like most ghouls. kaneki does not. i can site Haise’s RC scan on this: since he never took damage to the throat, he never had a chance to heal ‘more ghoul’ in that area.

so the exchange of a happy eto, deeply content with their uneasy peace, purring to express such delight, meets a blank wall that doesn’t agree. her social expression of happiness clashes up against kaneki only maybe leaning toward physical affection and being quiet. he can understand that she is happy, and she can understand that he can’t respond in the same way, but the dynamics of their relationship make her doubt her actions and get instinctually afraid of doing something wrong and upsetting someone much more powerful than her who also decides if she is allowed to reproduce with him or not. and stops purring and gets unsettled. kaneki is only confused and maybe she doesn’t like being touched? time to touch less. oh no, she did do Something Wrong and now omega is mad at her!! interpersonal drama escalates on both sides >:3c

ghouls have great night vision. kaneki also does and you know why. youve read the series. full ghouls have tapetum lucidum in both eyes, but eto only has it in her single ghoul eye. her vision is unbalanced in the dark but due to her learning to compensate for the slight reduction in light capture on one side she gets by just fine. it also parallels nicely with arima’s poor eyesight and learning to compensate for it.

ghouls are crepuscular while humans are diurnal, but this doesn’t matter since neither of etoneki know what a sleep schedule is. and the 24th ward doesn’t experience day/night cycles, so they have their own issues with sleeping when safe, do not sleep when not safe.

ghouls tend toward pack structure, but not in a rigid way where there can only be one omega/powerful ghoul per unit. as long as everybody gets along personally, its fine. omega don’t see each other as competition. alpha toss themselves at their feet without prompting. they’re not a scarce resource. alpha don’t even really fight over omega unless completely affected by heat and rut cycles and unable to grasp the concept of maybe next time. but even that is rare, mostly only those who are jealous as a person attempt this. if alpha fight over an omega and one wins, the omega might just kill them for taking away some of their prospects, or might be impressed by the show of strength. or annoyed by it, bc they want weak underlings. depends on the person. (eto is more than a bit possessive, at least for his first heat.)

more on this point as i think of it.

3)  I haven’t specified kaneki’s personal gender identity for a reason. that reason is that i’m not sure what direction i want to go. this is strictly for maman, not Sugar, which is trans girl Sasako forever. for this piece of feti/sh garbage? whom knows! (I know. and until word of god says otherwise - i’m god - every character is trans.)

but really, there’s options. and i love them all.

A) kaneki was trans all along. hide is best bi bud. aunt was a bitch, but nothing worse than canon since he was closeted at the time, although he doubly prepared to never speak to her again. (true neutral)

B) woke up a ghoul and with new parts. why believe a species change but not a sex change, eh? heightens the early game confusion and search for id as a person whose major ids have changed against his will. (lawful neutral)

C) gradual transformation. like how he came into his strength as a ghoul slowly. read a doujin like this once. was okay. quality art, big titties, 8/10. ngl would read the sequel. (Perhaps I am writing the sequel? aren’t we all just chasing our Brands across the lonely internet, hopping from one computer virus to the next? maybe u die reading hentai, or u live long enough to see urself post to ao3.) (chaotic neutral)

D) heals himself a new set of parts due to intense damage. see the haise RC chart, which has a ton of pathways around the hips/torso area. parallels with cutting eto in half?? (also lawful neutral)

E) started happening as a transformation when eto’s pheromones triggered his heat cycle for the first time. boy would he be pissed at her X2 lmao (lawful evil)

F) transformation during #240 time due to losing all memory and only having instinct to structure his body with, and just enough RC pathways to make a hormone based transformation possible. Chiba would have had a field day, but also would have torn out his horrible bowl cut in confusion. get rekt bud. not even #240 knows wtf goin on (neutral evil)

G) maybe he just wanted a vag! thought about that?? learns he is supposed to be able to manipulate his flesh like his kagune, which he is canonically great at, and just Goes For It. it works. he is a strong, dependent idiot who don’t need no dick. (iconic)

H) same as above, but that’s just what Haise does when he has the reigns. looks deep into his pastless self and asks ‘do i have to put up with this cis nonsense? not today.’ (chaotic iconic)

I) it happens suddenly when he activates his kakuja for the first time. queer the monster transformation u wish to see in the world. just. so confused. but also there’s Guilt to be felt about banjou and amon and such, so that’s back burner. (chaotic evil)

okay, so in like fifteen minutes i was able to name 9 perfect opportunities for ishida to carry though the motif of 1)iding with female ghouls 2)paralleling with canon trans man mutsuki 3)litcherally having a female ghoul organ donation fiasco 4)being associated with vacillating between masculine yang and feminine yin black/white 5)having a narrative that revolved around accepting his body and learning to find his own strength and id that is different than what he was born with - but coward ishida stopped sixty miles short of the mark. fool. I Cannot Feast Upon Crumbs, Sir. Sir, You Have Given Me Airplane Peanuts For Supper. Sir, I Am Starving And Antagonistic At Best.

(i shouldn’t call him a coward. three huge series magically having the same Wife And Kids ending all during the time shinzou abe is in office? probably not a coincidence. hope they got a good payout for it. i’d sell out for that $$$ too tbh)

eto is just an alpha. her human social id is a Normal Human Female Who Is Totally Cis and Straight for maximum social acceptance and ease of integration, but that’s only her mask. her personal id is an alpha, which is cis by ghoul standards, and she uses she/her pronouns bc she feels like it. she has the power to id as above alpha, but she enjoys the social invisibility it gives her, since she can blend in the background whereever and noone looks at her presumably weak ass twice. like chie, but for nefarious purposes.

....does that make her the equivalent of a ghoul feminist? i’m getting Too Deep

4) the wards can be isolated and far apart, and its been explored in canon with the Three Blades family and the white suites - congrats u 2 - and ghoul organizations that have a home ward having distinct cultural differences from one another. small ethnic groups and isolated diaspora? natives? subset?? of whatever the 24th ward ghouls - sorry, tokyo humans - are.

this sort of thing is only tangentially related to kaneki. if someone with a texas accent teaches someone to speak english, that person will have that accent, whether they’v ever been to texas or not. so he has some of the social mannerisms of a 20th ward ghoul, but generally still has a lot of ingrained human attributes to confuse them.

5) i’m still fascinated by the half finished thought about there are just some ghouls who become binge eaters in canon. like Rize wasn’t special for it. I think shinohara mentioned this?? but. it makes sense. general food insecurity, lack of permanent social support, total oppression, absurd power levels, plenty of humans to take it out on...ye.

and kaneki has the kakuhou of an adult binge eater. there’s cool hints of the kakuhou being parasitic, so a mature one would def fall into the biological fulfillment of binge eating for strength and carry that genetic knowledge into a new host. and from there, it would induce cravings, serotonin reward systems, and all that good stuff to get what its come to like.... like, mayhaps, a cordycepts? ;)

well, i’ve put ‘binge eater’ down as just a general omega trait, since it feels authentic to do so, so we’ll see what i do with this in the future. i will also see, since i too am ignorant of my own self. what will my horny subconscious do next? i am usually the last to know.

anyway,

peace