#tangent essays

[helimir]

Some top tier Caduceus quotes I've been thinking about in these Downfall times. Something about how so much of Ludinus' position seems to rest on revenge. Showing Bells Hells the squabbling of the gods as they debate what to do about Aeor, and asking 'You can just watch bad people get away with it?'

It doesn't matter if the gods were wrong for their choices. Killing them won't bring back Aeor and it won't stop the violence that Ludinus and the Ruby Vanguard have visited on the world. I just don't see what it's for.

[it-came-autumnally]

This line is extremely funny (motherly??? hello??) but also it just reminds me of why the Minori & Airi dynamic makes me want to explode (positive).

Even though she's only a year older, Airi sees so much of her past self in Minori -- she knows what it's like to be an outsider in their industry, to be someone who's faced rejection for simply not possessing the innate “idol aura” that people like Haruka and Shizuku have. She’s not like them; and neither is Minori. Having a dream is great, but you can't become an idol purely out of desire. This is expressed very directly in the digest animation (which condenses the MMJ main story): "Just because you want something to happen doesn't mean it will."

Screenshots from MORE MORE JUMP - Journey to Bloom: [HOPE].

Airi's resigned herself to the fact that she's stuck in her role as a variety show entertainer, even though being an idol was her real dream. And, after seeing her own fate, she bluntly tells Minori that the other's passion isn't enough for her to successfully break into the industry. Despite this, Minori isn’t discouraged from her path; after all, she'd already been rejected 50 times. In her own words: she has faith -- something Airi has almost lost.

But Airi hasn't lost it completely. After some reminders from Shizuku, she reluctantly agrees to watch Minori's practices and give her some advice. It's a small ask, but one means a lot to Minori -- which Airi knows, and she's willing to give Minori a chance.

Minori has the chance to return the favor when Airi goes to confront Cheerful*Days. Even when Haruka warns her about the ugliness she's about to see, she isn't swayed. In her own words: she "care[s] too much for Momoi". Not just as a fan, but a friend* now, too.

Screenshots from the MORE MORE JUMP! main story chapter 11. *friend is a bit of a loose term here but Minori does know Airi personally by this point. Not as well as Shizuku, but better than she used to.

The affirmation of being an idol that Minori gives is huge for Airi. After being constantly denied her identity as an idol from both her managers and peers, hearing this from the girl who she had accidentally dismissed is perhaps the most powerful thing she could have heard in that moment. It's clear that Minori hasn't been disillusioned in the slightest even after seeing all the resentment and anger, and despite everything, she still believes in Airi, and her ability to spread hope as an idol.

After all that happens in the main story, Minori's presence becomes a non-negotiable part of MMJ. She is, after all, the final bit of glue that brought them together as a group. In Time to Re:Start! (Airi 1), Haruka, Airi, and Shizuku all make it extremely clear that they refuse to let their group split up. We see how Airi takes this a step further:

Screenshots from Chapter 4 of Time to Re:START!

Notably, she's willing to go back to variety programs and talent work if it means that MORE MORE JUMP! can stay together (even though doing so means that she probably would be extremely busy and have less time to do "real" idol work!)

Since Airi's offer is rejected here, we don't see the consequences of this negotiation come to fruition, but it's certainly not an offer she makes lightly. Note that Airi 2 hasn't happened yet; she still hasn't fully made peace with how her role as Happy Everyday took time away from her as "Airi Momoi the idol". Despite how painful it would be her to reprise as that role after resolving to become an "regular" idol again, Airi still makes this request as a last resort, because she would put herself through something she doesn't want rather than sacrifice Minori's dream to be an idol. This isn't something that the rest of MMJ would agree to, of course, but this cements a trend in Airi's behavior -- namely, her desire to protect Minori from the thorns of the idol industry that she's had to go through. Her Colorful Fes card gives some insight into this, where she encounters the younger version of herself (Little Airi).

Screenshots from "To You Who Wants To Be An Idol" Side Story 2.

The way Airi treats her literal younger self mirrors the way she treats Minori at the start of the MMJ main story. Even though she knows better than anyone how much being called a "tomboy" hurt her younger self, Airi still calls her that on accident. This is extremely similar to how she dismisses Minori upon their first meeting -- she of all people should know how hurtful it is, but she does it nonetheless. This time, however, she doesn't need Shizuku to remind her of her mistake, and quickly rectifies it -- a testament to how she's changed since the events of the main story.

Still Airi's ColorFes card story 2. Sorry for the spam of screenshots from this one I love this card way too much

Airi imparts the lesson she learned from Minori to Little Airi: "tomorrow will always be a better day." She shares the hope that Minori (and the rest of MMJ) shares, something she directly says she's grateful for. Meeting Minori has changed her for the better, and also allowed for her finally continue on her path towards being a "real" idol -- one that never gives up.

By the time Airi 3 happens, MMJ have taken off as online streamers. People have started to accept Minori as an idol -- but she's still a newbie when compared to the rest of the group, and lacks the same training that her fellow idols have. Nobody is more keenly aware of this than Minori herself. While she's initially practicing on her own, Airi is quick to understand what Minori's issue is, as its one that she's dealt with herself. Yet again, it comes back to seeing her past behaviors in Minori's - she's gone through the experience of trying to emulate the "idol aura," so she knows doing so is a waste. She wants to save Minori the time and effort that it took for her to learn these lessons, so that Minori is able to hasten her path towards finding the "best way to shine".

Screenshots from Chapter 6 of "Chasing The Sparkle Beyond the Blue Sky"

The other really interesting thing is how Airi tells Minori her to not put herself down -- and yet Airi does the same to herself! She needs Shizuku to reaffirm her status as a true idol and tell her the same things that Airi herself tells Minori. She's been able to relearn how to inspire others, but still needs help when it comes to having that faith in herself.

This event is a testament to how much the two of them have matured since the main story, while also showing where they still have more room to grow. The two of them still have some doubts about whether they "deserve" to be idols, but it's something that they're both working through, together with each other as well as the rest of MMJ.

In regards to Airi trying to shield Minori from going through the troubles she did, it comes into the spotlight yet again during Airi 4:

Screenshots from Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 of "Friendship Rebuilt"

This time, we see this behavior explicitly stated: "I don't want her to experience what I did back then". Minori is her own person, and Airi respects her ability to make her own decisions, but she can't help but see her past self in the other, even after how far they've come. She's worried; Minori may be strong, but Airi wants to make sure that she can avoid having to go through the same pain she did.

This all comes full circle then, when Airi excitedly talks about her upcoming school trip to Kyoto.

Screenshots from the "I'm Excited Too" (Pandemonium/Spirited Affair 2*) side story 1.

After constantly being the one looked after, Minori finally gets another chance to be happy for Airi. For once, Airi doesn't have to sacrifice her own happiness for work, and for that, she's glad. It's the least she can do for the girl who's been protecting her all this time, and its a step towards Minori truly becoming an equal to the idols she's looked up to her whole life.

MMJ as a whole unit is about spreading hope and joy -- more specifically, about sharing hope and joy. The reason both Minori and Airi decide to become idols in the first place is because they were cheered up by idols in their childhood, and wanted to do the same for others. Minori is able to finally become an idol herself after she helps Airi (as well as Shizuku and Haruka) regain their own hope and passion; Airi does her best to guide Minori down a path that is as least painful as possible in return. MMJ's stories focus so much on the idea of paying it forward it truly drives me crazy to see how Minori and Airi's dynamic really embodies that ideal, where Minori will never stop uplifting her friends while Airi always looks out for them.

[twilight-zoned-out]

Theory: The reason Mirabel didn’t get a gift is because she is Julieta’s child.

Abuela places more responsibility on Julieta’s side of the family. Julieta is the responsible triplet whose gift helps give the Madrigals a good standing in the town. Julieta’s children are given much more responsibility than Pepa’s. Luisa’s gift is easily adaptable to helping the town with physical work, and Isabela upholds the Madrigals’ good reputation. Compared to Pepa’s side of the family, Julieta and her children fit much better into Abuela’s view of what the Madrigals should be like. Mirabel not receiving a gift is an extra harsh blow to Abuela because she shatters that image expectation.

[samasmith23]

Why do some people think that stories portraying darker subject matter is always an inherently bad thing?

I’ve recently encountered this weird mindset in regards to certain online fandom spaces, wherein people will argue that fictional characters experiencing intense trauma and pain is somehow inherently problematic and negatively reflects on the creator’s skills or ethics. This feels like such a narrow-minded and shallow understanding of a piece of media, since characters undergoing hardships is often a necessary element for them to grow and develop as the narrative progresses. Plus, while some stories can indeed be more intense and graphic in what types of trauma is depicted, it’s mere inclusion doesn’t automatically make the story or it’s author inherently bad. For instance, even though I personally haven’t read the manga series Berserk by the late Kentaro Miura (May he Rest In Peace…), based on what I’ve heard from others while the series does include graphic depictions of sexual assault which the main protagonist Guts suffered from in his past, said-assaults are NOT framed in a gross or exploitative way, but are instead utilized to analyze and discuss the character’s feelings of physical and psychological trauma derived from said-horrible events, and heavily factors into Guts' overall backstory and development as a character as he tries to heal from the violent trauma of his past and discover some sense of happiness in a bleak world.

And yet despite this I’ve encountered a few people accuse Berserk of being “pro-rape” or even outright stating that Miura “deserved to die” (which is an absolutely disrespectful and disgusting thing to say!) simply because he included these darker elements in his manga. Like... that's as stupid as someone claiming that Quentin Tarantino is automatically "pro-murder" simply because his movies include lots of scenes of characters killing each other.

I’ve also encountered far less overtly toxic examples of this kind bad faith media criticism in comic circles. Awhile I was incredibly confused when I saw some people on Twitter arguing that Saladin Ahmed was “ill-suited to writing teenage characters” simply because of two scenes in his Miles Morales: Spider-Man & Magnificent Ms. Marvel runs respectively, which involved Miles being tortured by the new supervillain, The Assessor (who would later make clones of Miles as a result), as well as the final battle between Ms. Marvel and her evil robot-duplicate Stormranger getting quite brutal at times (you could see blood from the impact Stormranger’s punch).

In regards to the Miles’ torture scene, I've seen a small number of people argue that the scene's existence was inherently inappropriate due to Miles' status as a Black minor, going as far as to label it as "dehumanizing" and "really insensitive to the real trauma of black boys." I'm not sure how I feel about this as those labels feel a tad extreme due to the fantastical nature of Miles' stories. Like, as brutal as the scene with the Assessor is, it’s at least given a more ficitional sci-fi vibe due to the high-tech laboratory, the Frankenstein operating table, and the fact that this whole ordeal leads directly into Miles' own version of Spider-Man: Clone Saga after The Assessor acquires Miles’ DNA in the process. So it feels less grounded and not as reflective of those real-life traumatic experiences Black men and boys unfortunately go through in the U.S. like I saw a few critics of Ahmed’s run claiming. Plus, Ahmed had Miles be rescued by both his father Jefferson Morales and Uncle Aaron Davis teaming-up together. So the narrative frames the Assessor’s torture of Miles as a bad thing whilst depicting two older Black men actively putting aside their personal differences in order to save their son/nephew as a major narrative focus as well. How exactly is it "dehumanizing" or "inappropriate" then?

And it seems like this bizarre criticism isn’t just limited to Twitter comic fandoms, since a certain Lily Orchard recently made an AWFUL video which outright accused animation fandoms and creators of “fetishizing the torture and abuse of POC women” in cartoons like The Legend of Korra, The Owl House, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. As soon as I saw the thumbnail for that video I knew it was going to be an absolute dumpster fire.

In it, not only does Lily engage in those similar types of arguments like the ones I mentioned earlier about Saladin Ahmed’s portrayal of Miles & Kamala, but Lily went multiple steps further by outright accusing various scenes from The Legend of Korra, The Owl House & She-Ra of being “literal torture p*rn” and “fetishized abuse against POC women.” With Korra, Lily accused the scenes of Korra brutally poisoned with the Red Lotus’ liquid metalic venom, Korra still being significantly weakened by the poison during her final battle with Zaheer (causing her to fall and tumble down cliff-sides) and Zaheer trying to use his air-bending to suck the oxygen right out of Korra’s lungs (the same technique he previously used to assassinate the Earth Queen), plus the Unalaq fight from the Season 2 finale where extracts the Avatar spirit from Korra and kills all her past lives one by one with a water-whip as “white centrist writers being turned on by the trauma and torture of a woman of color.”

And in regards to She-Ra, Lily accused Catradora shippers of being an example of fandom going “full mask-off” simply because she found 2 or 3 random comments defending Catra’s abusive behavior prior to her gradual redemption arc in the final season simply because they found the Adora & Catra fights “hot” (which I know for a fact does NOT represent the entirety or even majority of the She-Ra fandom & Catradora shippers).

It’s just… I honestly don’t understand why Lily is describing these scenes as “torture p*rn” or “abuse fetishizing.” Like, it’s not unexpected for characters to undergo traumatic crap during their story arcs, and most often it’s for the purposes of raising the dramatic stakes of the conflict or to have said-characters eventually undergo some sort of positive change arc (which is what happens in both Korra and She-Ra btw). While the abuse Korra suffers at Zander’s hands is indeed violent, it’s intentionally disturbing and off-putting in order to increase the viewer’s suspense and fear over whether or not the main character will get out of this alive. Personally, when I first watched the Season finale of “Book 3,” I was on the edge of my seat and constantly worried for Korra’s survival, and while she is left physically and psychologically scarred by the whole ordeal I’ve heard that the entirety of “Book 4” (which I still haven’t seen BTW) focuses on Korra healing from her trauma and becoming more spiritually enlightened in the process. YouTuber and MarySue author, Princess Weekes, though had some interesting analyses about Korra’s portrayal of overcoming trauma and how its heavily rooted  in East Asian philosophy, despite Weekes' overall mixed feelings about the series in general:

And while I can’t comment on The Owl House (again, haven’t watched any of it), I can say that Lily’s characterization of Catradora as “torture p*rn/abuse fetishization” is 100% wrong since the show frames Catra’s behavior towards Adora and others throughout Seasons 1-4 as toxic and unhealthy, and Season 5 is all about her fixing herself on her own volition after realizing the harm she’s caused, and it’s only AFTER all of that when Adora & Catra become lovers. But the way Lily describes the scenes in Korra & She-Ra (which are honestly pretty PG in their levels of brutality despite being fairly dark for family-friendly animation) you’d think she was talking about some over-the-top violently explicit tentacle hentai or something, as she even goes as far as to compare the Korra & Zaheer fight to FREAKING The Passion of the Christ (seriously… Lily actually compared Korra to Mel Gibson's antisemitic guilt-tripping exploitation film which unnecessarily stretches out Jesus' torture and crucifixion; which in the Bible occurred in just a few brief passages instead of 2-and-a-half hours like in the movie).

Geez… given how Lily so inaccurately mischaracterizes these scenes from Korra and She-Ra, I’d honestly hate to see she’d react to Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is heavily centered around the characters suffering from intense depressive episodes and experiencing emotional breakdowns, whilst also including lots of psychoanalytical and disturbing imagery. Knowing Lily, she’d probably ignore the fact that NGE’s director Hideaki Anno was suffering from severe depression while creating the series (which heavily influenced the show’s overall production and themes), and instead accuse all the depictions of depression and trauma in EVA of being “unrealistic” and “inaccurate” since according to her all fictional depictions of trauma are inherently inaccurate since there’s no one universal depiction of trauma (Lily actually said that in her terrible video), and accuse all of the series’ violent and sexual imagery of being “torture p*rn” whilst calling Anno a “perverted abuse-fetishizing creep who is turned on by torture” (which feels incredibly SWERFy on Lily’s part, as well as needlessly hostile towards people who are into BDSM or sado-masachism and practice it safely and consensually) just like she did to the creators of Korra, Owl House, and She-Ra (even though NGE and especially the movie The End of Evangelion is highly critical of exactly that kind of gross and toxic behavior within Japanese Otaku subcultures).

So my overall question is this: why do Lily and some other people think that including intense trauma or brutal torture scenes in comics or animation, even when said-scenes they're framed in the story as bad things are inherently “problematic,” “dehumanizing,” “fetishistic,” or “torture/trauma p*rn”? It's like... I can understand not wanting to stomach intensely violent or depressing scenes if they can't handle them, or being critical if they feel unnecessarily mean-spirited or exploitative, but often times having darker elements is an unavoidable aspect of giving a story a sense of conflict. Conflict is necessary in order to have a plot or to develop characters, except it feels like a lot of people on social media believe that the mere inclusion of any type of darker conflict or subject matter is inherently ethically dubious regardless of how its framed within the overall narrative.

I just don't get this kind of mentality and why it's become so prevalent online these days... I really don't...

[bullbobb]

TSS!Time headcanons

He is. Very scarred. I assume he and elemental would fight a lot before they officially stopped working together, different world views and all that, and elemental’s a very violent person. I doubt Time would throw hands in return tho

Because of these scars, he probably wears his mask a lot. He’s not entirely self conscious of them, but generally prefers to hide his face. It makes him look more passive, anyway.

Because of wearing the mask so often, he’s sensitive to light. The sun makes him CRAZY you don’t UNDERSTAND. He also wears heavy clothing a lot, so skin to skin contact is a lot for baby. Sabre grabs his arm and he freaks.

Overall I see him as kind of a gruff guy. He’s friendly with sabre and rainbow but still remains quiet and kind of aloof. He usually comes off as emotionless and indifferent because of this.

He uh. Hates Elemental. Straight up. There’s no “ughhhh but he’s my brother,, I love him even if he’s a maniac,,” in TSS. He didn’t give a crap when elemental blew up. His biggest reaction was “huh that sucks” HE didn’t CARE I SWEAR. He probably didn’t like Elemental much at all (valid) and though might’ve enjoyed having a friend or a brother before, Time is kinda self-righteous and doesn’t think much of second chances. That guy traumatized and hurt him, he’s not going to feel bad. But, of course, bros hurting inside and his attitude about it just makes coping harder

Doesn’t care much for Galaxy either???? Like elemental was the one who was so passionate about their creator. But Time? “Uuuuhhhh ok. That guy. Yep. My dad. That guy. That guy my dad. He… fishes. And likes sandwiches. Super . Great.”

He’s got lung scarring thanks to having an anger issues brother with control over the elements. Try inhaling fire. Not good. Makes your lungs crispy. Breathing is an artful thing

Sabre is the ONLY one he is honest with. Like. At all. He hated Elemental, was FINE with Rainbow, doesn’t know what to think of Galaxy, but him and Sabre are bros.

Also uhhh Time likes men 🫶🫶

[eerna]

I think Inej's "I will have you without armor" scene is a good example of why you can't just randomly insert scenes from the source into an adaptation and call it a character arc. In the book, Kaz believes the only way to solve his issues is to brute force through them. When he tries to solve his touch repulsion, he does it by removing his gloves right away instead of dealing with the trauma that caused him to wear them in the first place, treating it as a physical failure instead of an emotional one. He isn't trying to solve his trauma, he wants to remove his "weakness". In fact, he is scared of letting go of the emotional damage done to him and reduces himself entirely to a "hurt guy looking for revenge who will destroy everything and everyone", since that's what has been keeping him going for years. Inej notices this, even if she doesn't have the full context. She witnesses him repeatedly trying to brute force his way through their relationship, opening up to her a bit only to shut her away the next second, because his only goal is to keep her by his side and not to actually heal himself. She understands his touch aversion is not just a physical thing, his gloves aren't just a way to cope with it, they are the symbol of everything that makes him a bad person - not his trauma, but the fact that he uses it as an excuse to hurt others. Inej herself has PTSD related to physical touch, but she doesn't let it define her, and she wants to heal and get over her past, so there is no way she could ever settle for a partner who is actively trying NOT to forget at the expense of hurting her and everyone around him. In the show, there is none of this buildup. We still don't know a single thing about Inej's trauma, except that one implied scene in s1 where she was scared of that dude touching her arm. She isn't even present for the wagon scene, which was supposed to be the first time Kaz was plainly suffering and in need of help. And Kaz is not running away from emotional responsibility - he has repeatedly told her how much she means to him, he tried to give her money to skip town, he got her indenture paid off, and all of that BEFORE this scene. So why is she saying it? What is the armor she is talking about?? It's word-for-word the same, but with none of the weight. It almost seems like it's literally just the gloves, just as all the bad-faith readers have been interpreting the scene for years, which makes me believe the writers went with that surface interpretation too and that's really sad

[youbutstupid]

You just don't miss with your takes do you? Nah but fr on Reid's anger, is he a little bit emotional and snippy? Yes, but that's normal. The situations that cause that anger in him are thoroughly unfair and he should be allowed to express it and have it acknowledged without having something stupid like the micro expressions thrown at him. He's also just not that socially inept, we see that he's able to process things quite well but despite this people (including fans) love to baby him and act as if he's totally incapable of emotional intelligence

I love asks like this and I’m so sorry it took me so long to respond

This is really interesting to me because we do see that Reid has a relatively okay situational awareness in the sense that it could be a lot worse. However this situational/emotional awareness isn’t necessarily because he himself is naturally good at emotions but rather because he has researched them extensively; I can’t remember where the quote is from but he states that he has trouble understanding people and that’s why he reads so much about them, and he admits that even with this knowledge it is difficult. So he 100% is able to understand a lot of emotional situations but rather because he has researched them and extensively as opposed to experiencing them like most people

I also think it’s important to highlight that it isn’t just the fans that baby Reid but the show as a whole and I think that was the writer’s intentions all along. Something that the show drills into us repeatedly is that the BAU is a family; they’ve done this by giving each member a complicated relationship with their own immediate family so they rely on the team. They’ve also done this by adding certain lines such as Morgan referring to Hotch and Rossi as ‘mom and dad’, Reid telling JJ that Morgan hit him like a child and also their repeated lines of ‘we’re a family.’

Obviously for this family to work, everyone needs a role and there needs to be a baby of the family and they make Reid that baby by making him significantly younger than the others, choosing an actor that is lankier and skinnier, putting him in dangerous situations and giving him childish nicknames such as ‘boy wonder.’ They also never hire new actors to play new BAU team members who are older than Matthew Gray Gubler; Prentiss, Rossi, Jordan, Seaver, Blake, Callahan, Tara, Simmons and Alvez all were newcomers at some point and were all played by actors/actresses who were older than MGG, even in season 10 when MGG was around 35/36 so it would’ve been perfectly normal to have agents younger than him, they never did hire anyone else so that Reid as a character could retain his status as baby of the family

[transingthoseformers]

SG DJD Laywers yess!

Now I'm gonna remind you, this idea came about at two am. And also all i know about the legal process is from us-gov/history classes and soap opera-esque books/shows. So basically nothing.

[marley-manson]

hawkeye's effeminacy being a point of pride and appeal in the first half of the show and shifting to, not always but much more often, a point of derision in the last few seasons like the vast majority of other unmasculine men in media is disappointing but so emblematic of the shift in portrayals of men from the 70s to the 80s in hollywood media

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Releasing shame, relearning softness

“Listen to this! A farmer went out to scatter seed. As he was scattering seed, some fell on the path; and the birds came and ate it. …The farmer scatters the Word. This is the meaning of the seed that fell on the path: When the Word is scattered and people hear it, right away Satan comes and steals the Word that was planted in them.” - Mark 4:3-4, 14-15

As we explored yesterday, the farmer in the “parable of the sower" sows extravagantly, optimistically, letting seeds fall on all sorts of ground.

I only have time to explore the first kind of ground today; you’ll have to read the whole text with friends to puzzle out the rest (just as parables intend for us to do!).

The seed that falls on the path gets eaten by birds; “Satan” swoops in to steal the Word away.

Is it our fault when this happens? I say no. We are not to blame when others trample our spirits flat, pack our hearts into hard, desolate spaces, exposed and vulnerable to attack.

Maybe someone we trusted, or whole unjust systems, convinced us we are unlovable. Maybe some human iteration of Church wounded us so deeply that God’s Word no longer sounds like liberation to us, but prison, poison, hate.

Beloved, it is not your fault. And this is not the end of your story. God will keep lavishing love upon you, until you feel safe enough to soften. And then, what beautiful fruit!  

What pains have left you feeling desolate, distrustful, afraid to soften enough to receive goodness? Where can you seek safety and healing? How can you hold others in their pain? 

- Posted on Daily Ripple, 16 Feb 2024

[kirkwallguy]

i think the reason why morrigan and anders' romances work for me and solas' doesn't is like... okay, romancing the first two will probably give you an emotional investment in their "twist" and you'll probably interpret it differently. but if you DON'T romance them you're not getting a worse experience. with solas i feel like i've missed out on emotional beats for my dalish inquisitor

[cyberscratch]

A new ref for Lemmy, and an official design and introduction of Limmy in This Universe Has Lemons In It! Limmy was created by the Guardian of the Lemonverse (any pronouns) as an attempt to stop Lemmy from what they are doing, which is creating portals to travel through various universes and dimensions to have fun. Not only is that a risk for the balance of the universe, but GotL just dislikes this kid having fun and wants to see them stopped.

Not wanting to do it in it's own hands, it created Limmy, an angel dog meant to be an direct opposite to Lemmy. Limmy, however, doesn't do much to stop Lemmy, other than following them and bickering. Their relationship is very Tom and Jerry rivalry-esk.

(Names color coded for myself to read easier due to the similar names!)

Fun fact, Limmy was originally going to be based on limes (Lime Angel), but I kept that concept for GotL - and made them more angel-like instead.

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

(Alright, going to stop procrastinating and finally make this post.) After playing through the new trilogy in French to see what was different, here are some things about the French localisation of Spirit of Justice I thought you should know:

First of all, I usually like the French and English versions of the games equally. This marks the first time I've actually enjoyed the French version... more than the English one?? Especially Turnabout Revolution? Don't get me wrong, I already loved it in English, but I think the next time I replay it I'll actively choose French. Idk man it just hits different when a bunch of French people are talking about revolution and overthrowing the tyrannical regime etc

Oh yes, speaking of which, yes, the "Japanifornia" parts of the game take place in Paris, France, as usual. No, I have no idea how Kurain village can be next to the mountains and also the sea while also being in the vicinity of Paris. I also don't know why the entire population of a small country in the Himalayas are fluent in French and use it on a daily basis. But seriously, the main characters mention SO OFTEN that they're French and from France, like, all the fricking time. Remember the incredibly Japanese rakugo case? Imagine that taking place in France.

The Khura'inese pun names are hysterical in French. An example that English speakers can get too: the first culprit's name in French is Sterh'uey Tu'heiven. I'm not making this up. That's his name.

RAYFA'S FRENCH VOICE ACTUALLY SOUNDS LIKE A TEENAGER INSTEAD OF A 30 YEAR OLD, THANK THE HOLY MOTHER

Unfortunately the Holy Mother giveth, but she also taketh away, and they gave Nahyuta a crunchy old man voice that doesn't suit his ethereal appearance at all...

Athena has now added German and Italian to her random English and Spanish phrases from the prev game. I mean... it made sense before, since she was meant to have lived in the USA in this version, but now I guess she just does it for fun? Who knows

French Roger Retinz uses €50 notes (euros) to fan himself instead of dollar bills

Inga's full name is "Inga Karkhuul Kel Nomh Bowkhou Tro'lon Pohm'peu Eh'Duhr Apronh Ons'ai Khura'in III" ("quel nom beaucoup trop long, pompeux et dur à prononcer")

Nahyuta's nickname in French is just "Yuta"

Ema and Apollo now use informal pronouns for each other, so do Ema and Trucy now, Maya starts using informal pronouns for Apollo from almost the first moment she meets him (though he uses formal pronouns for her lmao), and yes Dhurke and Apollo use informal pronouns with each other the whole time, even when things are awkward at the start. Rayfa and her mother always use formal pronouns for each other, which is a little depressing.

AS FOR NAHYUTA AND APOLLO... HOHOHO. Obviously they're both using "vous" (formal) in court, but in the scene afterwards Apollo switches to "tu" (informal) when he asks Nahyuta if he remembers him. Later in Turnabout Revolution, Apollo has gone back to vous but he's at least saying "Nahyuta" rather than "Prosecutor Sahdmadhi" or whatever (I think that happened in the English version too). Then during the final trial, after that one insanely angsty scene, Apollo starts using tu again and even (internally) uses the nickname Yuta once! Nahyuta eventually starts referring to him as Apollo and starts using tu after finally openly acknowledging Apollo as his family aaauuuuuugh ;o;

(Listen Apollo usually always tries to be formal and professional in court so this is a big deal!!! It's a big deal to me at least!!!!!!!!!)

In the English version there were a few times our good ol' American Apollo had a sort of "haha I'm just a foreigner I don't know anything here" vibe which... no you're not lol. The French version didn't have that (or at least toned it down a lot) and made him feel less like a tourist and more like an immigrant returning to his old home country with complex feelings, which he is. It makes it more personal that he's the one to bring about the revolution imo -- he's not some random foreigner swooping in to save the day, this is his home and his family, he belongs here. (As an immigrant myself I find aspects of him relatable and will defend his Khura'inese backstory to the death DON'T TEST ME)

The "what's crack-a-lackin' homie" line in all its glory:

[hannibal-is-my-comfort-show]

Me at a party, trying to think of an icebreaker: So if you had to die, how would you wanna go?

[samasmith23]

We need to talk about EssenceOfThought's ongoing bullying & slander campaign against Rachel Oates...

I normally don't make posts covering this kind of stuff since I mostly try to keep my Tumblr blog here relatively positive and cheerful. And I normally try to avoid YouTube drama in general. But recently I've become increasingly frustrated and angered by the behavior of a certain YouTuber whom I regrettably used to be a fan of awhile back known as "Essence Of Thought" (aka, Ethel Thurston), whom in the past 2 months has been continuously releasing multiple videos & shorts which slander and defame another YouTuber named Rachel Oates. I know that Rachel herself is currently trying to combat this situation and has even filed multiple claims against Ethel's videos, but I felt the need to try and show my support for Rachel by help signal-boost her story in response to Ethel's revived targeted harassment campaign against her.

Content Warning: Mentions of Transphobia, Cyberbullying, Self-Harm, Suicidality, and Child Abuse.

Also, while this post is going to be very critical of Ethel and her conduct, I will NOT tolerate any misgendering or deadnaming of her! Just because I think Ethel is a bad person does NOT excuse any transphobia that is directed at her, and I will immediately block and report anyone who engages in such reprehensible behavior!

Section 1: Confessions of a former fan, or my personal falling out with Essence of Thought

For those who are not aware, Ethel Thurston is a transgender atheist content creator who regularly produces video essays analyzing and criticizing TERFs and the broader far-right. This content greatly appealed to me as both a supporter of trans-rights and as someone who vocally opposes both TERFs and Neo-Nazis. However, exactly 1-year-ago I unsubscribed from Ethel's channel when she began made a series of videos accusing Lily Orchard of being a child groomer. While I do agree that Lily is an AWFUL person who has received multiple credible accusations of sexual abuse from both former partners and even her own younger sister Courtney, Ethel's videos which accused Lily of "grooming all minors in her audience" were actually heavily criticized by several former victims of Lily's abuse who have argued that the way Ethel & her editor "ABirdCalledLevi" (aka, Levi) presented their information against Lily was not only overly inflammatory, but only served to misrepresent and damage the testimonies of her other victims.

Specifically, critics like "Patchwork Heart" (aka, Shiloh Conner) took serious issue took issue with Ethel & Levi's constant liberal usage of the word "grooming" to describe Lily's actions towards individuals like Glade, who accused Lily of encouraging him on her Discord to watch a livestream where she repeatedly flashed her audience (Glade was still 17 at the time of this incident). Essentially Shiloh stated that while Lily was undeniably guilty of sexual harassment, neglectful misconduct, and indecent exposure, her behavior technically does not qualify as "grooming," since "grooming" is a term specifically meant describe the gradual breaking down of a victim's boundaries through manipulation and isolation from others (online it's usually conducted through private DMs rather than on public servers like Lily's channels). Furthermore, Shiloh and other fellow victim's of Lily's abuse also criticized Ethel & Levi's usage of the phrase "parasocial audience grooming" to argue that Lily was grooming her ENTIRE audience instead of individuals, as "parasocial audience grooming" is NOT a legally or medically recognized term, but was instead invented by the commentary YouTuber "Korviday" in 2020 to describe Shane Dawson's sexually abusive behavior towards several underage members of his audience. Essentially, it's impossible to groom an entire audience all at once since grooming is defined by the specific and deliberate targeting and manipulation of individuals in private or isolated settings with the intention of eventually sexually abusing them. But when criticized for the way they badly mishandled the testimonies of victims like Glade, Ethel & Levi instead doubled down by not only continuing to misuse the word "grooming" in their videos, but actively smeared and defamed their critics and other victims of Lily's like Shiloh as "abuse/groomer apologists.” Ethel even went as far as to compare Shiloh criticizing how she misrepresented Glade’s testimony to “defending Harvey Weinstein.”

Like... YIKES!

I'm not going to lie... when I saw the way Ethel & Levi actively bullied and slandered other victims of Lily Orchard, I was deeply disappointed and disgusted. While I was already starting to grow weary of Ethel's tendency to overly moralize in her arguments, and I knew she was unpopular in a lot of online spaces, for the longest time I tried to give both her and Levi the benefit of the doubt since I knew she had been harassed by TERFs like Graham Linehan past simply for being an outspoken non-binary trans-woman online. But the way Ethel bullied people like Shiloh Conner was simply inexcusable! And personally, I completely agree with Shiloh's criticisms against Ethel & Levi. Even though I dislike Lily Orchard and think that she's an abusive scumbag, spreading misinformation about issues as serious as CSA only serves to inflict further harm onto the people that Lily has hurt. Victims like Shiloh have very publicly stated that they either want their testimonies to be reflected as accurately as possible, or not at all. And I especially understand their concerns about misusing the word "grooming," especially because of how that word in particular has been so easily co-opted as an anti-LGBTQ+ slur by Republicans and the far-right in the past 2 years alone, which only serves to promote bigotry and obfuscate actual instances of child sexual abuse (Ethel claimed in their video that they "saw no harm in extending the definition of the word" BTW). Here's a link to Shiloh's video responding to Ethel if you want further details on the ways in which both she and Levi so badly mishandled the testimonies of Lily Orchard's victims BTW:

So how does Rachel Oates fit into all of this exactly? Well...

Section 2: Reevaluating Ethel's past conduct and the targeted bullying of Rachel Oates

Once I witnessed the ways in which EssenceOfThought bullied and smeared the victims of Lily Orchard's abuse, it honestly caused me to reevaluate and question a lot of their past content, especially because Ethel & Levi already had reputations of being overly inflammatory figures who've burned tons of bridges with lots of other leftist YouTubers. It was then that I was reminded of the biggest controversy Ethel's been involved in, and one I was only tangentially aware of before the Lily Orchard drama. That being Ethel's 4-year-long and currently ongoing defamation campaign against feminist and atheist British YouTuber, Rachel Oates.

The conflict between Ethel & Rachel all started back in 2019, when Rachel's friend and former atheist YouTuber "Rationality Rules" (aka, Steven Woodford), got into serious trouble when he posted a video arguing against the inclusion of trans-people in sports (which relied on heavily fallacious scientific data and even cited clips from Fox News, Ben Shapiro, and Joe Rogan). Unsurprisingly, the backlash against Woodford's video was enormous, and it even resulted in him being deplatformed from hosting a panel at an ACA conference in Austin, Texas that same year. However, a lot of Woodford's friends within the YouTube atheist community, including Rachel, argued that Woodford did not make his video out of intentional malice or bigotry, whilst fully agreeing that it was a terrible poorly-researched video that did serve to reinforce transphobic narratives even if it was unintentional. This led to Woodford not only delisting and demonotizing the original video, but also releasing both an apology and retraction video to try and help mitigate the damage his original video caused.

Ethel however, refused to accept Woodford's apology and retraction, and made several response videos accusing his apology of being fake and him continuing to spread transphobic misinformation. And while that's perfectly understandable if Ethel personally didn't find Woodford's apology to be adequate or genuine, where this crosses the line into unacceptable behavior is that Ethel then went onto repeatedly attack Rachel Oates simply because she was both friends with Woodford IRL and didn't want to get directly involved in the controversy. Essentially, Ethel is engaging in the "guilt by association" fallacy here. In actuality though, Rachel not only repeatedly stated that she disagreed with the content Woodford's original video and agreed that it was very bad and harmful, but that she is supportive of the trans community and felt unqualified to weigh in on the subject matter of trans-people in sports since she has barely any knowledge or interest about sports in general.

This response was not good enough for Ethel however, who instead misinterpreted Rachel's comments as a backhanded attempt at silencing Woodford's critics.

Things got even worse when a random fan messaged Rachel a screenshot taken from a private Facebook group from a trans-self-help group which compiled a list of public figures for the trans community to avoid following the Woodford controversy, and her name was included on that list. Rachel, not knowing that the list was from a private chat, immediately went on Twitter to defend herself, which led to Ethel accusing her of doxxing by publishing private information. This is in spite of the fact that not only did the screenshot already exist before Rachel discovered it, but she went out of her way to censor the names of the members of that Facebook group. Furthermore, Ethel had also blocked Rachel on Twitter which led to the latter asking some of her followers to show her what Ethel was stating about her so she could try to adequately defend herself, which in-turn resulted in Ethel accusing Rachel of sending her millions of followers to circumvent her block and harass her.

The situation escalated even further however, when Ethel posted a now infamous tweet to one of Woodford and Oates' friends' Lizzy Lang, not only described Woodford as a "violent transphobe intent on stripping away dozens of human rights,” but called Lang and others (presumably Oates) "members of Woodford's church a transphobia" before ending the tweet with the words, "do this world a favor and exit it."

That last line in Ethel’s tweet, “do the world a favor and exit it,” got a lot of people justifiably angry since it was very easily misconstrued as Ethel advocating for Woodford's defenders to commit suicide (she claimed it was meant to say “exit Woodford’s church of transphobia”). And while EoT later apologized and clarified the incredibly poor wording of that last comment, she still refused to apologize to Rachel after several months of targeted bullying and defamation. When Rachel saw the infamous tweet, it only served to amplify her pre-existing feelings of depression since she mistaken that tweet to be directed at her instead of Lizzy Lang. And a few days later, in an act of desperation Rachel posted an impromptu unedited video begging and pleading for Ethel to stop bullying her, not realizing that she was still badly bleeding from cuts on her arm due to feeling completely hopeless and isolated (Rachel already had a history of engaging in self-harm and cutting).

But not even Rachel engaging in self-harm nor her feelings of suicidality were enough to sway Ethel, who still continued to double-down on their harassment by arguing that Rachel "weaponizing self-harm, transmisogyny, and benevolent patriarchy," and was using "upper-class cis white woman tears" (even though Rachel has openly admitted to being lower-middle class). And to this very day, Ethel still continues to slander Rachel and falsely label her as a "serial transphobe" and "abuser" all throughout her videos, even going as far as to not only claim, "Rachel Oates' [abuse] was the second most psychologically destructive thing [she's] ever suffered, only being second to being raped as a child," but that she would rather relive her trauma of "being outed as bisexual, groomed at age 15, and sexually assaulted."

Seriously... FREAKING YIKES! Those are incredibly extreme and inflammatory statements to make! I do understand that Ethel is a CSA survivor (and on that level I 100% empathize with her because that is of course absolutely terrible and is one of the absolute WORST things anyone can suffer from), but claiming that someone circumventing a Twitter Block and or begging you to stop bullying her whilst feeling suicidal is even remotely comparable to “being raped as a child"?! That is so unbelievably insensitive on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start! It’s insensitive to not only Rachel herself, but to other CSA survivors as well since it trivializes their trauma! Ethel should know better than this!

Also, that screenshot of Ethel tweeting a link to a Guardian article discussing the weaponization of white woman tears? That was literally the top pinned-tweet to her Twitter account immediately days after Rachel posted that desperate video of her pleading to Ethel to stop her harassment campaign whilst feeling suicidal. What a truly vile and unempathetic thing for Ethel to do!

Section 3: Showing support for Rachel Oates

After I did more research into the whole EssenceOfThought Vs. Rachel Oates situation, as well as hearing Rachel's side of the story, I ended up subscribing to Rachel's YouTube channel and have since become a fan of her work. Before I eventually unsubscribed from Ethel's channel due to the way she similarly bullied several of Lily Orchard’s victims, I was given the impression by her that Rachel Oates was just another garden-variety TERF YouTuber based on he way Ethel constantly talked about her. But that’s NOT accurate at all… Rachel's channel from what I’ve seen is mainly just about discussions of secularism and religion, feminism, book reviews, and cute dog videos!

Seriously, her dog Kyra is so FREAKING adorable!

Look at her! Kyra's such a good girl! She's such a cute doggy!

But yeah, this is a prime example of how Ethel’s pattern of engaging in bad-faith moral absolutism while misrepresenting events and evidence can be seriously damaging to uninitiated viewers. And I say that not only as someone who was largely unaware of the full extent of what she had done to Rachel, but also because Ethel frames her content in a very pseudo-academic/intellectual manner and uses a lot of professional sounding words to try and disguise severely misguided and inflammatory arguments. She tries to portray her YouTube videos as if they’re akin to college-level essays with lots of citations and crap, which can easily fool people into thinking that her content is well-researched and sophisticated. Except looking below the surface, in hindsight Ethel’s videos are mostly just pretentious word-salad, cherry-picking evidence, and relying heavily on academic terminology in order promote her thinly-veiled absolutist black-&-white views on morality, attacking anyone who is “not progressive enough” for her (in addition to Rachel, Ethel & Levi have also done this to other leftist YouTubers like Lindsay Ellis, Philosophy Tube, & Suris the Skeptic). According to Ethel’s logic, you’re either an entirely good or entirely bad person, and there’s zero in-between and if you dare disagree with her to even the slightest degree then she’ll automatically consider you to be just as bad as the far-right. Basically, it’s moral absolutism.

All of Ethel’s fallacious claims against Rachel Oates are textbook examples of bad-faith moral absolutism, and I deeply regret the fact that I was ever once a fan of Ethel’s content. She is a bully and a liar. And that’s a conclusion I arrived to after seeing how Rachel’s stories about being repeatedly slandered & bullied by Ethel heavily paralleled the similar experiences of individuals like Shiloh Conner, thereby revealing a pattern of toxic behavior on Ethel’s part.

Section 4: Ethel’s renewed and current bullying campaign

So why do I bring all of this stuff up?

Well, even though the worst of the harassment Rachel suffered was back in 2019 and she has since tried to move on from this whole fiasco and continues making her usual feminist book reviews and dog videos (she even deliberately avoids mentioning EssenceOfThought by name in her videos...), Ethel has not only repeatedly tried to drag all of this drama back up, but has this singleminded obsessive vendetta to defame and destroy Rachel's YouTube career at all costs. For instance, in 2022 Ethel tried to further slander Rachel by yet again engaging in "guilt by association" fallacy because notable transgender TERF YouTuber "Rose of Dawn" (aka, the British equivalent of Blaire White) once tried to befriend Rachel in 2020 after the initial harassment campaign by Ethel, and later in 2022 Rose openly defended self-confessed genocidal serial rapist Lily Cade when the latter was platformed in an infamous transphobic BBC article. What Ethel completely neglects to mention however, is that Rachel had permanently stopped interacting with Rose when several members of her audience informed her that Rose is actually a TERF (and the way Rose suddenly tried to befriend Rachel after Ethel's bullying of her strikes me as very cult-like since TERFs sadly do have a history in engaging in incredibly abusive cultish tactics to recruit new members, as many people who have escaped that disgusting hate movement have reported...) and she has since apologized for ever giving Rose any attention. Regardless, Ethel still tried to falsely implicate Rachel alongside "Rose of Dawn" in a video condemning Lily Cade & the BBC, which led to Rachel rightfully filing a defamation claim to YouTube, getting Ethel's then-latest slanderous hit-peace against Rachel blocked in the UK.

But even worse however, is that starting in August 2023 Ethel has begun releasing a constant stream of videos continuing to smear Rachel even further by both repeating all of the exact same aforementioned slanderous claims along with a whole bunch of new ones. Like, not only has Ethel already released 3 main videos out of a planned 6-part series ranting about Rachel Oates, but she has also released 24 shorts taken from the main videos!

Geez! Not only is this beyond obsessive, but this is just straight-up targeted bullying and harassment on Ethel's part! And the new claims she makes against Rachel in these videos are equally slanderous as the ones before! For just one example, Ethel & Levi’s cite a now-deleted livestream of Rachel's that they re-uploaded as a mirrored-copy to their channel, accusing Rachel of denying trans-women's existence by making the offhanded comment of, “No, the only thing a man can provide me that a woman can’t is a p*nis. Only thing.”

Except… I actually went and watched the ENTIRE 3-hour mirrored livestream myself just to see the full context of Rachel’s quote, and it turns out that Ethel took that quote completely out of context! Not only are there lots of points in the livestream wherein Rachel repeatedly states that “gender is a social construct and that trans and non-binary people exist,” but during the stream she's doing a counter-response to a Christian fundamentalist incel who once responded one of her earlier videos. And that potentially problematic quote of Rachel’s, “No, the only thing a man can provide me that a woman can’t is a p*nis. Only thing,” was actually a sarcastic response to the incel’s homophobic argument that “women don’t want to love their equals [(aka other women)] because they actually all want what only a [dominant alpha male] can provide them.”

Essentially, Rachel was criticizing the incel’s sexist & homophobic “logic” that, “all women secretly only want p*nises,” in a snarky & sarcastic manner, but Ethel took Rachel’s comment out of context to try and instead paint it as some transphobic-slip-of-the-tongue/TERF-dogwhistle, accusing Rachel of “completely ignoring the existence of non or pre-op trans women,” in order to try and support the fallacious argument that, “Rachel Oates doesn’t actually view trans women as real women, but instead as props to objectify in order to make herself look like a better ally.”

Not once does Ethel ever mention the context that Rachel was responding to & mocking a bigoted incel during the livestream... at all...

I don't have time to go into all of the other new lies that Ethel & Levi are currently spewing against Rachel Oates since this post has already gotten incredibly lengthy (for instance, Ethel also claimed that Rachel “downplayed JK Rowling’s transphobia” simply because she used the words “incredibly problematic” to describe the Queen TERF’s bigoted views; which is such a weak and pedantic argument), but it’s a whole lot…

Conclusion

Overall, I just wanted to bring attention to this situation because EssenceOfThought's harassment campaign against Rachel Oates has been ongoing since 2019 and it shows ZERO signs of stopping anytime soon. Ethel & Levi are serial bullies and liars who regularly engage in bad-faith arguments, misrepresent evidence, and engage in moral absolutism in order to paint anyone who disagrees with them or makes even the slightest mistake as the worst people imaginable. So the more people who are made aware of this mess, the better.

Please show support for Rachel, whether that be through signal-boosting this post, subscribing to her YouTube channel, or even donating to her Patreon if you so choose.

And to EssenceOfThought, aka Ethel Thurston, (along with her editor Levi...) specifically, the famed basketball player Michael Jordan would have some choice words for you:

And I mean that sincerely. Seriously... just stop this targeted bullying & slander campaign against Rachel. It's incredibly unhealthy and obsessive. Just let it go already...

[erstwhilesparrow]

okay actually gonna use some of my data to open tumblr and make this post because outsiders apo+owen makes me want to start biting.

the thing about outsiders apo and owen is that at the end of beach episode, owen comments on what a lovely day they've had together and says, "i can't wait to do this all again tomorrow." and there's no way he doesn't know, okay? multiple characters demonstrate over the course of the day that they remember what happened before this -- even if they hope otherwise, they know they're going back to the maze eventually; this day is an impossible and perfect dream. and look how they choose to spend it. apo and owen see the sun setting and hear the cries of the gulls melt into the birdsong of the clearing and the thing they do at the end of this unrepeatable day, knowing they will never have this moment again, is turn to one another and promise they care. they've been running all over the place reminding each other all day: i care about you, you're my best friend, i want to spend time with you, i trust you so much i'll jump down into the mouth of a volcano with you. whatever happens before or after this, it matters that for this one day they sought each other out and played stupid games and shared food. it matters that this was real for them. it matters that at the end of it all, they could not bear to part without saying first: hey, you're important to me. do you get it?

and also, do you ever think about that conversation apo and owen have before the second clearing about what they're going to do next, what they think about the maze, and just before they go off their separate ways, they say, "i trust you," to each other in the same tone most people say "i love you"? do you ever think about how the roots of that trust went so deep in owen that when it was broken, his faith in the entire clearing was broken? no one can be trusted, he said. everyone was working against me, he says. he decides something must be profoundly wrong with this world, because it is a world where apo was able to look him in the eye and lie him. it CAN'T just be about apo because his care for apo was so fundamental to his understanding of the world -- there is no place he can go or word he can say now without remembering him. owen's world is (was) the maze, the clearing, rasbi, apo. and even after all that, owen still says the next time he sees apo, it will be to drag him to the maze's exit. even desperately hurt and swearing to himself that they're done, leaving apo behind for real is unthinkable!! do you get it??

and the prison visit itself: i hope you know you were everything to me, apo. of course i regret it, owen, i lost you. apo made cheesecake. owen says, don't try to make me pity you, and i thought, oh, it's absolutely working, isn't it? you wouldn't be half so upset if you didn't care. if you could escape your care for him, you wouldn't have spent so much time circling the prison, pulled by the gravity of apo, apo, apo. and then the escape, and apo's memory becomes part of owen, hanging over him as a haunting, as much a real presence as the living person. "he's dead" becomes nearly like a chant -- owen wants nothing more than to put those memories to rest (he says) but he also can't stop saying it: he's dead, he's gone, he's been dead for months. as if he needs to remind himself, somehow. apo's gone, apo's gone, apo's gone. but owen can't bring himself to stop saying his name. can anyone hear me. do you understand what i'm saying??

after reunion, i spent a lot of time yelling in a friend's DMs about how owen should have died with apo -- that killing should have killed owen with it, and in some sense maybe it did, but owen walks out of that encounter still breathing and apo is still right there with him. this is the start of something new and apo was there for its birth. how do you silence the voices of the people you kill, he asks magic, because he can never seem to. some of us hesitate at the thought of killing our friends, he says to rasbi. i'll give you ten seconds, he says to apo, and maybe that's just a hunter playing with his food but maybe, for all that owen hardly seems to recognize his friend during reunion, something was still sticking in him. confronted with impulses he did not have the context to understand, owen thought his purpose was to protect everyone. and then his memories come back and it doesn't matter that it's apo in front of him because that's a demon, but maybe it does matter. maybe no matter how hard owen tried to forget it, it never stopped mattering. i don't know!!! do you get me!! do you get what i'm saying!!!!!!!