#this is a long speculation but i love doing these analysis

[innovativestruggles]

Yuta & Rika - a speculative analysis

Like with basically any fandom out there, I'm about 3 years late with JJK 0 😩 Regardless, I finally watched it yesterday and subsequently really, really needed to discuss this topic before I forget.

As an anime only fan, I only heard of Yuta from bits and pieces in the anime and from the fandom. That would go for Rika too so I never really understood the extent of their relationship until I watched JJK 0. But oh man, when I watched it, these two took my entire heart and soul.

And whilst I do get why Yuta is shipped with Maki or Inumaki, Rika wins it for me. And before I jump into my explanation, I want to say it outright - Yuta and Rika gives me strong Obito and Rin vibes 😳

Anyways let's talk about Rika.

This sweet yet psycho girl is a super side character (much like Rin), but I did a bit more research into her and it explained so so much more about her character and why she is the way she is (both as human and cursed spirit). Rika lost her mother unexpectedly at the age of 5 and then her father during a hiking trip together at the age of 11. There are speculations (by paternal grandmother) that she is involved in the death of both her parents. I cannot say too much about whether a 5 year old would have too much influence over their mother, but I will shelve this for now. I want to focus on Rika and her father. There is an explanation that one of Rika's biggest dislikes is older men. Let me tell you this - an 11 year old child with an adverse dislike for a specific portion of the population (older men) points towards one thing - abuse. This is an educated guess on my end (and if I was given a case in real life about this, I would come to this hypothesis as well), but the trauma Rika endured shaped her personality and how she would end up attaching herself to Yuta. We don't know exactly what sort of trauma Rika went through, but my guess is some form of physical or sexual abuse. The development of a 'manipulative' personality towards adults is a form of a survival mechanism developed to keep herself safe. Rika's father most likely had a role in her abuse and hence the mystery of his disappearance (and how it alluded to the fact that Rika had something to do with it, together with the explanation of her manipulative personality).

Let's come back to Rika's mother. There are two theories/hypothesis to this.

A 5 year would have enough cognitive capacity to understand that they are in an unsafe situation. However, it is unclear whether Rika's mother had any involvement in Rika's abuse. But what I presume is that she did not have a close relationship with her mother. The reason? She gave her mother's wedding ring to Yuta. A child impacted by abuse by one parent and not the other means they would naturally be attached to the safe parent, so anything sentimental attached to the safe parent would give the child a sense of safety. To give something special away like her mother's ring means her mother meant very little to her, so Rika decided to re-symobilise the ring into something new - something for Yuta. And because an 11 year old most likely cannot afford a ring

The second theory would be that Rika had a close and safe relationship with her mother, and the giving away of the ring to Yuta symbolises the safety and security she finds in him. I.e. the element of safety and security she found in her mother has been transferred to Yuta (via the giving of the ring).

Regardless of what theory we go with, there is too little information regarding Rika's relationship with her mother. We don't know what happened to her mother, whether she died of natural causes or was murdered. But all we know is that Rika most likely endured severe abuse by her father (that may or may not involve other older men).

Looking into Rika's personality. Her proposal to Yuta is a dead giveaway of her need to locate a safe space. Yuta is Rika's safety net. They met at a time where both were quite vulnerable - Yuta being unwell and Rika having returned from a mountain climb where her father went missing. Rika's proposal is an indicator of her need for a new life, the idea of marriage is to be permanently attached to her safety net and to have Yuta take her away from whatever she experienced. Of course, 11 year old children do have a basic idea of what marriage is, but it seems like Rika has more of an underlying idea of what she would like to utilise the marriage concept for - that is, to escape and re-establish her safety within the one person she loves and trusts. This explains her personality as a cursed spirit - jealous, overprotective, intense, emotional and childish. Through trauma, Rika learnt ways to ensure she is kept safe emotionally, psychologically and physically. She is always having to survive day by day until she is finally able to manipulate her father out of her life (again this seems a likely scenario, given the very little info readers are provided). When the one person (Yuta) who comes into her life finally allows her to be a child - to play, to have fun and give her the life she should have been having, naturally Rika would be overprotective of Yuta. As I mentioned, Yuta is her safety net, and to have him taken away (by bullies, by another love interest etc), is the decimation of Rika's own safety.

We were given only very small snippets into Rika's life and what she was like as a human. But her personality carried over into her cursed spirit form, and the basic information provided in the character profile, are both more than enough to deduce that Rika's background is incredibly complex with multiple layers of trauma.

One really big thing I would like to point out is Rika's comment before she moved into the afterlife - she was happier accompanying Yuta as a cursed spirit than when she was alive. This is another important piece of information that showed Rika most likely experienced a significant amount of trauma as a human. What would force an 11 year old child to come to such conclusions? The only answer is abuse. As a cursed spirit, Rika is able to escape everything and be by Yuta's side (almost like the prospect of marriage - "take me away from all this and let me be by your side forever")

For Yuta, I can't speak too much about him because his background as a child is essentially a mystery. Not sure about his parents and how he grew up. But judging from his bond and connection with Rika, I presume he grew up quite lonely and friendless. Whether there was trauma, I don't know but it did mention he had to distant himself from his family when Rika became a cursed spirit. Regardless, Yuta's acceptance of her proposal and his happiness at the prospect of being together forever with her as they grow older indicates to me that Yuta may have some complexities in his childhood we don't know about. But it could just be that he genuinely had a normal childhood and Rika was the one and only person outside his family he connected with. However, we don't know whether his timid nature occurred before he met Rika or after she became a cursed spirit. There are too many unexplained parts with Yuta. Anyways, we know Yuta loved Rika immensely (as much as Rika loved him), and his refusing to accept her death is an indicator of his feelings towards her. Their love for each other is pure and innocent because they allowed each other to live in safety and to be children.

And even after releasing her spirit, Yuuta still held onto remnants of Rika. I do love the idea of Yuta being able to move on and give himself to someone else, but I feel Yuta has a lot more unprocessed emotions regarding intimacy - that though he freed Rika, he seems forever bounded by being with her and only her.

So here's my conclusion for this pairing - their background and their pure love is what really made me love them so much. Does all this sound very Obito x Rin to you? Whilst Yuta is able to bounce back from the grief with the help of a mentor and friends, Obito never did. But they both shared an immense amount of grief from the loss of their loved one at an early age.

And yes, I seem to love my tragic rare pairs...dear oh dear.

Anyways, these are all speculations based on canon materials. So if you have any interesting hypothesis, I'd love to hear it!

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

So we know that Wei Wuxian's treatment after his death was horrible. Even if nothing could impact him directly, there was still neverending slander, hatred, misinformation, theft...

But, for a while after he died, the sects did try to impact him directly – namely, frequently trying to resummon his soul. And today I'll explore the possible reasons for this, their likelihoods, and why I'm so, so thankful that Wei Wuxian's soul managed to resist the summons. Because, spoiler alert (or, you know. maybe not)... none of them are good.

(Long meta ahead)

In my opinion, there are four likely motivations for this: confinement, coercion, torment, and potentially destruction.

Out of all of these, confinement is probably the most likely motivation, at least for most sects (Jins and Jiangs excluded, though it was likely what the Jin sect said their motivations were – but I'll get to them later). This one is the most simple – we know spirit-trapping pouches exist, and we know the sects also placed 120 stone beasts on the Burial Mounds to prevent Wei Wuxian's soul from escaping. Therefore, this seems to be the most likely motivation – and fortunately for Wei Wuxian, probably also the best case scenario, though it still certainly isn't a good one.

For the second, coercion – this is where the Jin sect come in (more specifically Jin Guangshan with the help of Jin Guangyao). Due to their wealth and resources, they're likely the sect who played the largest role in the soul-summoning rituals. We know what they're willing to do to try to gain power – keeping Wen Ning under the pretence he was burned to death and trying to control him with the nails, and working with and helping Xue Yang torture people to help him refine his demonic cultivation, in order to have the Yin hufu fixed. Along with working with many other cultivators, alongside Xue Yang – Jin Guangshan really, really wanted that seal.

And so, Jin GuangShan sought after all those who imitated Wei WuXian in cultivating the ghostly path and gathered them under his rule. He spent a great amount of money and resources and these people, ordering them to study and analyze the structure of the Tiger Seal in secrecy so that they could replicate and restore it. - Villainous Friends extra, EXR

(Note that working with these cultivators very likely happened after Wei Wuxian's soul had failed to be summoned, since this happens some time after Wei Wuxian's death, whereas the soul-summoning ceromonies presumably started happening very close to it.)

In the previous paragraph, he's also quoted as having 'lusted after' the Yin hufu, which we already knew but it's nice to have a direct quote as evidence.

Now, would Wei WuXian willingly work with the Jin sect in doing this? No. We know that, and, given Wei Wuxian's actions in his first life (refusing to hand over the Tally, not being afraid to stand up to the sects, etc), I’m pretty sure Jin Guangshan knows that, too:

He beat around the bush a couple of times, using all his skills, yet Wei WuXian didn’t give in no matter what, and it made him run into a bunch of obstacles. - Villainous Friends extra, EXR

So this could actually make things go two ways. One, I'm wrong and that wasn't actually part of the Jin sect's motivations, since they know they wouldn't be able to control him (and in that case, had they managed to summon him, I could imagine them putting him in a spirit-trapping pouch and doing something similar to what Jin Guangyao did to Nie Mingjue's head. Which, also, not good). Two, it was a part of their motivations, and they hoped to find a way around that. After all, there are other guidao users out there now, and Wei Wuxian would now be a gui*. Also, cultivators can obviously harm ghosts – see the very existence of Night Hunts, and I'd include Xue Yang's talisman-caused destruction of A-Qing as well (while he isn't a traditional cultivator, talismans can be used by everyone).

Now, would either of these methods actually work? I'm inclined to think not really (and I expand on the former method in a note below). Would that stop Jin Guangshan/Jin Guangyao/the cultivators they employ from trying? Especially considering Jin Guangshan's lust for power?

I'm inclined to think no, too.

For the third, look no further than Jiang Cheng's reputation of capturing and torturing demonic cultivators after Wei Wuxian's death, due to thinking they could be him. And this does happen – Jin Ling knows and talks about it, and there's not real motivation for him to negatively lie about someone he loves. Also, when they come across each other at Dafan Mountain, we're told this in Jiang Cheng's inner voice:

A moment ago, Jiang Cheng was certain that this person was Wei WuXian, and all of the blood in his body started to boil. Yet, now, Zidian was clearly telling him that he wasn’t. Zidian definitely wouldn’t deceive him or make a mistake, so he quickly calmed himself and thought, this doesn’t mean anything. I should first find an excuse to take him back and use every possible method to get information out of him. It’s impossible for him to not confess anything or give himself away. I’ve done things like this in the past anyways. - MDZS Chapter 10, EXR translation

This mainly shows that he's tortured people before, rather than that he's tortured people because he thinks they're Wei Wuxian, but this reason is confirmed by Jin Ling in Chapter 24. Of course, the reason is also mentioned in this chapter, and there are other moments in the chapter that illustrate my point better**, but they come from second-hand sources which I know are easier to deny. Do take note of Jiang Cheng's expression both times he comes across 'Mo Xuanyu' (after he suspects he's Wei Wuxian) in Book One***, though:

After a moment, the corners of Jiang Cheng’s lips pulled into a twisted smile. His left hand started to unconsciously stroke the ring [Zidian] again. He spoke softly, “… Well, well. So you’re back?” - Chapter 10, EXR Although his face had always been clouded, marked with arrogance and satire, it seemed as if every corner of it had come alive. It was difficult to determine whether it was vengeful wrath, fathomless hatred, or raving ecstasy. - Chapter 23, EXR

This does seem to line up with what people say his attitude to Wei Wuxian is – there doesn't seem to be any happiness at seeing him again at all. The only time a word that could suggest that ('ecstasy') is used, it's accompanied by 'raving', and considering the context and the other possibilities of his expression, it's... probably not due to happiness at being reunited.

So, considering 1) this, 2) his contribution to the Siege specifically intended to kill Wei Wuxian, and 3) that at the time of frequent soul-summoning Jiang Yanli's death would be even closer for him, I feel pretty confident in saying that yes, this is likely a motivation for the Jiang sect in trying to re-summon Wei Wuxian's soul after his death. And, as mentioned earlier, cultivators can harm ghosts (and we know Zidian is able to remove souls posessing a body from that body, and that Jiang Cheng used Zidian on 'Mo Xuanyu' in Chapter 10. If it wasn't able to restrain/harm ghosts, or other methods weren't able to, why would he risk Wei Wuxian's soul escaping?).

And finally, option four: destruction. We're heading into much more speculative territory here, so don't consider this on par with the first three. But consider this:

We know there are some spells, like Xue Yang's talisman used on A-Qing and the body-offering ritual, that can ruin the returning soul’s reincarnation cycle by destroying it. Therefore, soul destruction is possible.

The 'main'/supposed reason for summoning Wei Wuxian's soul back is to stop the "cultivation world, or even all of mortal land" from being "faced with the most insane damnation and revenge, sinking into nothing but chaos and despair" when Wei Wuxian inevitably returns. While, as mentioned above, I severely doubt this is the motivation for certain sects – and to me is likely a rumour which the Jins (again, especially Jin Guangsha) fanned the flames of to justify summoning Wei Wuxian back for their own purposes**** – there are other sects which would take it more seriously.

Although likely disrespectful, people already thought it served Wei Wuxian right to die without his body intact by the time of the second siege – something believed to negatively affect your reincarnation in your next life*****. This is only the logical next step, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people would believe that, again, it would serve Wei Wuxian right, or would at least lead to less harm of the world in the long run.

For these reasons, I could definitely see this as an option for some sects, especially the sects who consider themselves more 'righteous' (cough cough the Nies under Nie Mingjue cough cough). After all, evil is evil and good is good, and the evil deserve what's coming to them. And what better way to prevent that than from preventing his soul from returning at all? So for the Nie sect – and likely some of the smaller sects involved in the Siege, since among them, additudes probably vary – yes, I do think it could be a motivation.

I’m not as sure about the Lans being willing to go this far, and that’s largely for two reasons. One, Lan Wangji’s presence and his relationship to Lan Xichen, who does (not always, but he does) let this affect how he treats Wei Wuxian. An example of this is that, when Wei Wuxian's return is made public, Lan Xichen does let him hide and shelter at the Cloud Recesses instead of trying to pursue him, likely majorly due to Lan Wangji. I'd argue that the aftermath of the Nightless City also acts as an example of this, although it definitely isn't perfect. But though he, Lan Qiren and the 33 elders do come to find Lan Wangji and do not let him continue to shelter Wei Wuxian (after they see Lan Wangji's feelings), Lan Xichen doesn't use this opportunity to kill/capture Wei Wuxian, despite Lan Wangji being in a worse condition due to having fought 33 elders, Wei Wuxian being catatonic, and Lan Qiren likely supporting this outcome (especially considering he was the one who led the Lan sect in the Siege – chapter 68, Wei Wuxian's POV). And he did let Lan Wangji take Wei Wuxian back to the Burial Mounds after:

After he went out of his way to send you back to Burial Mound and returned in such low spirits to receive his punishment, how long he kneeled before the Wall of Rules! - Chapter 99, EXR

Again, this was right after the Nightless City massacre – there isn't any goodwill towards Wei Wuxian at this point in time.

Of course, the Lan sect did participate in the siege after Lan Xichen knew of Lan Wangji's feelings towards Wei Wuxian, which Lan Xichen was no doubt a part of (although Lan Qiren lead the Lan sect in the siege, Lan XIchen had to have at least known/given his support, if not participated.) And it should be considered that Lan Xichen letting Wei Wuxian shelter at the Cloud Recesses was after Wei Wuxian had been back for a while, and had not caused the downfall of the Cultivation World, like many suspected he would after his death. And of course, as stated previously, his handling of the aftermath of Nightless City wasn't perfect either (though please note that his main motive here was to protect Lan Wangji from being potentially executed, rather than anything about Wei Wuxian himself). So caring about Lan Wangji doesn't mean he won't harm Wei Wuxian. But I do think he could find bringing Wei Wuxian's soul back to completely destroy it a bit excessive. There is, though, the chance that the elders of the Lan Sect would react to this differently, and of course they would have a sway on both Lan Xichen and the Lan sect as well.

The second reason is smaller, but there seems to be more focus in the Lan sect than in others when it comes to letting ghosts rest peacefully/helping them move on. And that could definitely lead to more resistance to the idea of summoning a soul back to destroy it as well, which could especially impact the elders. So I'd assume that the Lan sect would be the most likely sect to summon Wei Wuxian's soul back just for confinement, or just for some way of making sure any resentment is disippated, his spirit moves on, and he can't cause more harm to the world (eg via Inquiry)******. Not that he would or does as a ghost or as a reborn person, but that's unfortunately not relevant to this.

But yes, as a motivation for the Nie Mingjue-led Nie sect? Absolutely.

So, these are the main motives I suspect to be behind the attempted summoning of Wei Wuxian's soul after his death (and if I've missed any, please let me know – I'd love to have a discussion). And, of course, none of them lead to anywhere good. Because of course it wasn’t enough to besiege Wei Wuxian, murder the 50 non-combatants he was responsible for (and throwing them into the blood pit as a mark of disrespect because why not?), and lead to his death via him getting torn apart. It wasn’t enough to steal all his inventions, and use them commonly while still slandering him with no reprieve – or to steal his notes and give them to people like Xue Yang to study (Villainous Friends, again) and to use for their own, extremely extremely harmful, purposes. Of course, the cultivation world has to try to harm Wei Wuxian after death as well ((:

We don't know whether Wei Wuxian rejecting the summoning ceremonies was conscious or unconscious, but if it was the former, these are very likely reasons he refused to return in this way. If it was unconscious – for example, maybe during the frequent soul-summons his soul was in a weakened state due to him dying from a backlash of resentful energy and getting torn apart, and it healed over time but not before the soul-summoning rituals stopped – well, I can only be thankful.

Finally, let me leave you on the thought that – although it may well have happened since we don't spend much time in the immediate aftermath of the Sunshot campaign – there isn't even any textual mention of this happening to Wen Ruohan. Who, while not being a guidao user, was still very dangerous, still an extremely powerful cultivator, and still had a lot of reason to feel resentment. So.

:')

Thank you for reading!

--

*Considering what we see of how Wei Wuxian's guidao functions – redirecting the ghosts'/corpses' resentment into doing something they'd want to do, eg attacking people, and directing it towards a target – I'm not sure using it to force a spirit to do something 1) extremely specific, and 2) explicitly against their will would actually work. Iirc the closest thing we get to this in text is Wei Wuxian using the corpses of Wens to attack other Wens in the Sunshot Campaign, but he's still just directing their resentment to a target of his choice, and fierce corpses do tend to be on the less concious side of things (hence why Wei Wuxian had to awaken Wen Ning's consciousness). Considering how Wen Ning attacks Wei Wuxian and the Burial Mound Wens before his consciousness had fully awoken, I... really don't think those fierce corpses were able to differentiate (or didn't care).

Meanwhile, ghosts seem to be a bit more in control of themselves – see A-Qing, and Wei Wuxian's own descriptions of his ghost self.

That, alongside ghost!Wei Wuxian being able to resist his soul-summoning and the fact that pretty much all of the new guidao users are a lot weaker than he was, does make me think that this this wouldn't work. I do wonder about Xue Yang, since his methods are pretty different as well, but he's more of a modao user than a guidao user (he controls living corpses rather than dead people) and I don't think you can insert physical nails into ghosts?? Though if he was specifically instructed to figure out some way to control ghost!Wei Wuxian (who's probably kept in a spirit-trapping pouch in this scenario), he might be able to do something at least. Though also he was also struggling to piece Xiao Xingchen's ghost soul back together, so he may struggle with those areas?

Well, whatever the potential outcome, I'm so so happy once again that Wei Wuxian's soul managed to resist the soul-summonings...

**Mainly this:

Everyone in the cultivation world knew that the young leader of the Jiang Clan watched out for Wei WuXian in an almost crazed manner. He would rather catch the wrong person than let go of any possibility, and took anyone who seemed like they held the soul of Wei WuXian away to the YunmengJiang Sect, inflicting severe torture on his victim. If he wanted to take someone back, the opposition would surely lose half of their life. - Chapter 10, EXR

But I have heard people say 'you can't prove that it's just more rumours' before, and I wanted my evidence to be as watertight as possible.

(And, off-topic... isn't it really sad how Jiang Cheng, in the present day, is described as young? Because, for a clan leader, he is. And another thing he is, is close in age to Wei Wuxian – who was killed 13 whole years prior :') )

***And do note that the only other time they run into each other before Wei Wuxian's identity is revealed to the world apart from this is their brief interaction at Jinlintai, where he can't just act however he wants. The next time they run into each other after it, Jiang Cheng is literally taking part in another siege against him, and still extremely hostile ("surrounded by hostile energy, face insidious, staring straight at him" – from EXR chapter 60). Then he loses his spiritual powers and can't do anything. By the time he regains his powers, Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and the Wen remnants' corpses have saved everyone during the Second Siege, and though public opinion hasn't properly shifted quite yet, it will soon after Sisi and Bicao tell the story of Jin Guangyao, and voila, a new scapegoat (do note that he doesn't completely bar Wei Wuxian from entering Lotus Pier after the Second Siege, though). Plus, throughout it all, Lan Wangji is still constantly present, which makes it hard for Jiang Cheng to really do anything. And then he's finally faced with the Golden Core reveal, which does alter his motivations towards Wei Wuxian (obviously the resentment is still there – read chapter 102 – but it's also mixed with other complex emotions, and he seems to start being able to move away from that a little in Chapter 103). I still definitely wouldn't describe Jiang Cheng's attitude towards him as positive, but it isn't at the point it was at the start of the novel (eg Chapter 10).

But even if his attitude does change, or would for whatever other reason apart from the reveal, that still doesn't change an initial motivation so isn't relevant to this meta. We know his intentions at the start.

****It's also possible they may have originated it, but I think WWX's reputation was bad enough for it to form naturally. Though you can trace a major part of that back to them, too.

*****That belief isn't outright stated in MDZS, but the fact people are specifically talking about the status of WWX's body in the aftermath of his death suggests that this belief does have some grounding in the MDZS universe, at least? And we know MXTX has included it in TGCF (though that doesn't mean it's definitely in MDZS), so she has used it in her works. If this isn't the case in the MDZS universe I am sorry (although that could also mean there's less importance placed on not disturbing the reincarnation cycle in the world of MDZS...? Which would work towards my original argument) – I don't want to spread misinformation that something is definitely true, I just think there's evidence to suggest it is true, which isn't the same thing.

******Again, I think this would depend on who ends up having more influence over who in the Lan sect. After all, normal resentful spirits only do what they do because of their resentment in death, whereas Wei Wuxian is 'dangerous' because of who everyone thinks he was in life – so him being reborn naturally could also 'cause a lot of harm to the world' during the time period this version of him would live in, unlike the resentful ghosts they appease. This could definitely lead to many advocating for confinement, I think.

[amoneki-ramblings]

do you think Kaneki might ever pray with Amon despite not being catholic himself? just sitting next to him mumbling the words as Amon says it because he likes to be with him

speaking of religion, what kind of faith do you think Kaneki would follow? I hc him as an atheist :) but I think you know more about religions than me lol

Ooooh I like that idea a lot actually I have So Many Thoughts (rubs my hands together evilly)

also this is just a sidenote but i know some people may be uncomfortable with religious discussion, so if you are lmk and i'll start tagging it :thumbsup:

I feel like Amon hasn't prayed often in a while because of his past, but he may still on occasion (habit), and may get back into it properly after actually resolving his feelings with the past. At some point Kaneki starts to join him. He doesn't really know How to pray, especially since a lot of it is in silence, he probably just kneels there and silently wishes for safety for his friends, for strength and resolve, etc. etc. But when Amon starts saying the actual prayers out loud he just sits there and listens to him quietly saying them.

At some point Kaneki might start mumbling along with them, he vaguely knows some of the prayers and has heard Amon say them enough times to kind of know them. Amon is surprised when Kaneki starts doing that and it just kind of becomes a Thing; maybe Kaneki even asks Amon to tell him how to pray the rosary since he sees him doing that often as well (when the rosary is prayed in a group there's one person leading that says the first half of most of the prayers and the rest say the other half, and I think it would be interesting with them alternating like that)

While Kaneki isn't catholic himself he finds it reassuring, while it's unlikely to him that there's someone out there that'll actually grant his prayers it's a nice thought, y'know? It's also just very relaxing there, even if it was kind of awkward at first

I think he also finds the sound of Amon praying very relaxing *cough*

I also think Kaneki would be atheist, while he wouldn't completely deny the possibility of there being a god of some sort he also isn't really a follower of any particular belief system (note: ive actually been informed that there is a better term for this, agnostic, which is essentially being neutral lol). I think Amon would know this, and therefore doesn't really know why Kaneki chooses to pray with him despite this, but he figures that Kaneki does have a lot of things he would want to pray for, things he would want to seek forgiveness for, too, and he appreciates that Kaneki is willing to spend time with him like this anyway.

[infizero]

its been so fun reading actual published literary analysis for the first time lately and realizing that theres a surprising amount of overlap with the insane tumblr style analysis im used to

[reidsworld]

Unveiled Secrets

Summary: The BAU team has a sneaking suspicion that their stoic leader, Aaron Hotchner, is in a relationship, but they don't know the extent of it.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x fem!Reader

Category: Fluff

Content Warnings: Jack and Haley do not exist in this, kissing, cuddling, allusions to sex, light teasing, use of Y/N, pet names (my love, baby), that’s it I think, lmk if I missed any! Oh and pure fluff!

Word Count: 1.8k

Mars speaks… hi my loves, I was motivated to write so I am using this to figure out my writing style a bit and how I want to format my works! I’ve been going through a bit of a Hotch phase lately so I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Masterlist

The BAU office was slowly quieting down as the day turned to dusk, the last rays of sunlight casting long shadows across the desks. Aaron Hotchner, head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, stood in his office, the soft light of his desk lamp highlighting the stress lines that had deepened over the years. He checked his watch—almost time to go home. A rare, soft smile touched his lips, a sight reserved for only one person.

He closed the case file on his desk, slipping it neatly into his briefcase before reaching for his jacket. His phone buzzed just as he picked it up, and he glanced at the screen to see a text from you, Can’t wait to see you. Should I pick up dinner?

That smile of his deepened as he quickly typed a reply, I’ll pick it up on my way home. See you soon, my love.

He hadn’t planned on keeping his relationship with you a secret, nor did he have any grand strategy for revealing it. He assumed that given time, his team would figure it out on their own. After all, they were profilers—eventually, they would notice the subtle shifts in his behaviour, the unexplained absences, the slightly more relaxed demeanour after particularly stressful cases. He hadn’t intended to hide it forever, just until they pieced it together.

As he opened the door to his office, however, he nearly collided with Spencer Reid, who was walking by, engrossed in a file. Reid looked up, startled, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Sorry, Hotch! I didn’t see you there."

"It’s alright, Reid," Hotch replied, a calmness in his voice that belied the momentary flicker of surprise in his eyes. He wasn’t often caught off-guard, especially not in the safety of his own office.

Reid, however, had a habit of noticing things others missed. His eyes flickered to the phone still in Hotch’s hand, the screen just dimming from inactivity. Before Hotch could slip it into his pocket, Reid’s sharp eyes caught your name on the screen. His brow furrowed in confusion as he processed the information.

“Y/N, as in the academy’s Y/N?” Reid asked, the question out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

Hotch froze for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Reid’s sharp mind to pick up on the anomaly. Reid’s brain worked at lightning speed, connecting dots that others might have missed. He knew Hotch was fiercely private, but this reaction was new.

“Goodnight Reid” Aaron replied, quickly, shutting down any further questioning that may have come from the young genius.

Reid blinked, taken aback, but his curiosity was now piqued. However, years of working with Hotch had taught him when to push and when to back off. “Have a good evening, Hotch.”

As Reid walked away, Hotch let out a slow breath. This wasn’t how he wanted the team to find out, though he couldn’t say he was surprised. He had always assumed it would be Reid who would notice first; the young profiler missed nothing. Still, he had hoped for a bit more time. But the cat was out of the bag now, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the team found out.

The next morning, the BAU office was abuzz with more than the usual activity. Reid’s brief encounter with Hotch had set off a flurry of curiosity and speculation among the team. They were profilers, after all, and even the smallest clues could ignite their imaginations.

“I’m telling you, something’s definitely going on with Hotch,” Reid said as the team gathered in the bullpen before their morning briefing. He couldn't shake the image of your name on Hotch's phone from his mind.

JJ, trying to keep things under control, said, “Come on, guys, it could just be a friend. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Morgan leaned back in his chair, a knowing grin on his face. “Reid’s onto something. Hotch has been acting a bit differently lately. He’s not staying late like he used to.”

“And he’s been smiling more often,” Garcia added, her excitement barely contained. “The man’s practically glowing sometimes.”

Rossi, with a teasing tone, suggested, “Maybe he’s just getting better sleep. But I have to admit, there’s definitely something different.”

Garcia’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Don’t you want to know? If Hotch is seeing someone, that’s huge!”

Rossi shrugged, still smirking. “Of course, I’m curious. But let’s give him some space. If he wants us to know, he’ll tell us. And if we’re lucky, we might even get to meet her.”

Prentiss grinned, "Do you think it’s serious? Like, she’s ‘the one’?”

“I think,” Rossi said thoughtfully, “if Aaron is keeping this under wraps, it’s because it’s important to him. He wouldn’t be so secretive if it wasn’t serious.”

Just then, Hotch entered the bullpen, and the conversation quickly shifted to a quieter, more focused buzz. The team members turned to their desks, but the air was charged with unspoken questions and speculative glances. Hotch, sensing the change in atmosphere, gave a brief nod before heading to his office.

As the day dragged on with paperwork and case briefings, the undercurrent of curiosity remained. The team exchanged looks, clearly eager to discuss Hotch’s secret, but they were careful to avoid bringing it up directly. The excitement about Hotch’s personal life was palpable, and everyone was waiting for the right moment to address the topic.

Later that evening, Aaron finally headed home after a long day. As he walked through the front door, he found you curled up on the couch, a blanket draped over your legs, and a glass of wine in your hand. You looked up from the book you were reading, a smile spreading across your face when you saw him.

“Hi, baby, how was your day?” you asked, setting the book aside as he walked over to you.

“Tiring,” he admitted, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead. “And eventful. Reid saw a text from you last night.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. “Oh no. What did he say?”

“He asked if it was from you,” Aaron said, sitting down beside you. “I shut him down, but I think I gave myself away. The team’s been acting strange all day.”

You chuckled, leaning your head on his shoulder. “So, they’re onto us?”

He nodded, slipping an arm around you and pulling you closer. “It was bound to happen eventually. I just didn’t expect it to be now.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t figure it out sooner,” you said, your fingers tracing patterns on his chest. “They are profilers, after all.”

He smiled down at you, his expression softening. “I never planned on keeping it a secret forever. I just figured they’d figure it out on their own time.”

“So, what’s the plan?” you asked with a playful grin.

He sighed, his thumb rubbing gentle circles on your shoulder. “I suppose it’s time to tell them. They’re already curious, and I’d rather they hear it from me than through rumours.”

“You know they’ll be happy for you,” you said, squeezing his hand. “For us.”

“I know,” he agreed. “But there’s a part of me that’s nervous. I’ve always kept my personal life separate from work, but with you… it’s different.”

You leaned up and kissed him softly, the warmth of the moment lingering between you. “We’ll do it together, then. When you’re ready.”

Aaron’s gaze softened, but a playful glint sparkled in his eyes as he pulled you closer. “Right now, I want to do anything but think about the team,” his voice dropped to a low murmur.

You felt the heat of his words and smiled, leaning in closer. “Sounds perfect,” you whispered, as he nuzzled against you, his lips brushing yours with a grin.

A few days later, Rossi had decided to host a dinner party for the team. The team was eager to catch up and enjoy the evening. Aaron knew it was the perfect opportunity to introduce you to the team as his girlfriend. 

As the doorbell rang, Rossi answered the door to find Hotch standing beside you. As you both entered the living room, the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly as Hotch introduced you with a genuine smile.

“I’d like you to meet Y/N, my girlfriend,” Hotch said, his voice steady but warm. 

The room fell into a stunned silence before erupting into excitement. Garcia’s face lit up with recognition and delight. “Oh my God! It’s Y/N! I knew it was someone! This is incredible!”

Morgan’s grin widened as he approached. “So, this is the elusive woman behind Hotch’s new smile! You’ve been keeping us in the dark for too long, Hotch.”

JJ smiled warmly as she extended her hand. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Y/N, we’re really happy for both of you.”

Reid, ever the profiler, couldn’t resist asking, “How long have you two been together?”

Hotch laughed softly, putting an arm around you and smiling fondly. “Almost five months now. Y/N works as the unit chief for the BSU in the academy. I met her when she invited me to guest lecture.”

Garcia’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “I knew it! You two have that perfect power couple vibe. We have to plan another get-together so we can hang out more!”

Rossi, enjoying the moment, gave Hotch a friendly pat on the back. “Well, I guess this means you won’t be around for poker nights as often.”

Hotch chuckled. “I’ll still make time for poker nights, don’t worry.”

As the evening continued, the team enjoyed getting to know you better. The atmosphere was filled with laughter, light-hearted teasing, and genuine happiness for Hotch and you.

“So, when do we get to do this again?” Garcia asked eagerly.

Hotch smiled, feeling content. “Soon. We’ve been talking about having you all over for dinner. Now seems like the perfect time.”

As the team chatted and enjoyed the evening, Aaron felt a weight lift off his shoulders. Introducing you to his team had been a significant step, but their warmth and support made it all worthwhile. The thought of merging his work family with his personal life filled him with quiet joy.

As the party wound down and the team began to leave, Morgan gave Hotch a sly grin. “You know, Hotch, we’re happy for you, but don’t think we won’t give you a hard time about keeping this a secret for so long.”

Hotch chuckled, appreciating the camaraderie. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

With that, the team said their goodbyes and headed home, their spirits high. Hotch followed them, feeling grateful for the support of his team and looking forward to the future with you.

Mars speaks... (again) Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Also, would anyone be interested if I wrote for other fandoms such as F1 and Marvel? Any feedback is greatly appreciated🫶

[innaillus]

Drawing Ryōmen Sukuna

Development notes

This post has been in the making since last year, before the manga has reached its current arc. My aim was to respond to comments that pointed out that my version of that time didn't look like the one in the anime. I calculate everything I do and the way I do it. My current goal is to share my thoughts on the development of my take on him - simply because I'm a nerd when it comes to anatomy and I love figuring things out. It involves a lot of thinking, questioning, analysis, dissecting information and building theories. So I totally understand if it's not anyone's cup of tea.

MANGA SPOILER WARNING

The very beginning

I used to have a serious case of lack of self-confidence. My earliest art of Sukuna dates back to 2021, but it always felt like my skills are not worthy of this particular character. I never shared my art. I was also struggling to find my artistic voice. I was obsessed with the idea of semi-realism, but even if I managed to pull it off after weeks of stylisation practices, I didn't like the results.

Due to personal reasons, I stopped trying to draw him for a long time.

The development of "my" version

It was an entirely conscious decision to draw him differently.

The top reasons for the change was that I didn't want to sexualise him in his host, Yuuji, who is a minor. Back then I thought he inflicted the deformation on himself (extra limbs, eyes, etc), for the sake of efficiency, and I was curious what he looked like before that - or what he would look like in a civilised environment.

During the process, I considered a number of factors:

the beauty standard of the other JJK men - I wanted him to fit the lineup - his original appearance made him stand out quite much

in a setting where he adheres to the rules of society, more or less, I believe his MBTI personality type (ENTJ) would dictate a lot of his choices when it comes to appearance, at least to a certain extent. I thought he would choose to have an appearance that fits the beauty standards of the era

I kept his tattoos because it's a very distinguishing feature of him, but I also exercise freedom in the way I draw them, to make them as stylish as possible

Reincarnation

I used to believe once he reincarnates, his proportions would be closer to that of a "normal" human, even if he has some extra limbs. However, his size and features are above and beyond of what we are used to, and even the story emphasises their malformed appearance. So a a whole new era of Sukuna started in my art. I chose my favourite manga panels of him and mix-and-matched the most attractive features into a figure that I consider on the fine edge of monstrosity and unconventional handsomeness.

Even when I draw him with a regular number of limbs, I keep his usual mass and proportions. I dubbed this form "true gains" form.

I also realised that some of the tattoos Yuuji's body displayed was a product of the partial reincarnation stage, like we see it on Tsumiki's forehead.

NOTE: Did anyone notice that Sukuna is getting progressively more and more human/handsome in the manga? When he took over Megumi's body, I also noticed that as the story progressed, he started to look older and more mature. I'm curious of it was a conscious decision.

Twin dilemma and speculations

According to the Japanese wikipedia page, the mythical figure Sukuna could have been a conjoined twin. Despite my extensive digging in the matter, I was shocked by the recent lore drop.

My question: what does Sukuna look like in a universe where he did not absorb his twin in the womb during development?

It hasn't been confirmed, but I find it very possible now that he was born with his extra limbs, eyes and mouth, as well as the deformed, wide features. (...as opposed to my first theory about him altering his own body for the sake of efficiency)

This, however, would mean that in a universe where both him and his brother are born healthily, he would look different. There is the obvious lack of extra arms, eyes and mouth - but I believe he would also be closer to the JJK beauty standard of men, as far as proportions go (eg. more narrow face, anime-esque nose, larger eyes).

At first I was hesitant to accept this idea, as I'm very attached to the 4-arm hulk / "true gains" form now, but then I realised: this would mean that "my"version of him actually has logically explainable place in at least an alternate universe.

Thank you if you got this far.

I may edit this post later. Let's see where the story takes us.

[rue-dixon]

Is Chilchuck's wife blonde? Analysis:

I've noticed a lot of the fandom doubts what Chilchuck's wife looks like and still thinks she's a blonde woman. Which is understandable, since it seems to be something Kui really likes to point out. But my theory is it's intentional, and more important than we think.

As I said, be clearly has a type for blonde woman. And Kui makes a point of this by continuing point it out in the World Guide side book. But why? It hardly seems relevant, after all it's only mentioned once in the manga during chapter 58.

Many fans assumed the first woman that succubus took the form of was his wife. Which is understandable. But that gets quickly thrown out the window when the next serval succubus that attack him all look completely different. But according to Marcille, they're all blonde. And she even asks if that was because of his wife. Which is why many people probably think she's blonde.

But Chilchuck gets upset when she asks. Now at first you assume it's just Chilchuck being embarrassed as always. But at this point he's talked about his family multiple times calmly. Especially after having such a serious talk about his wife just a few chapters earlier, why would he react so strongly again now?

Now let's put that aside for a second. Why does the fandom believe the woman with short black hair is his wife? Well simply because she shares multiple features with his daughters, who we actually do see and confirmed to be his daughters.

His oldest, Meijack, shares her more unique eye shape. And his middle, Flertom, her hair. They even have the same small piece of stray hair on the top of their heads. So it's highly unlikely this is a coincidence.

And according to this official colored sketch, neither of his children are blonde. So it's safe to assume his wife is in fact, not blonde. So then why is it talked about so much?

Well actually I think his "fetish" to say, along with the succubus is what drove his wife to leave him.

So before they encounter the succubus, Chilchuck freaks out when he realizes what attacks them. Which isn't out of character for him, but he's very specific with what he said. It's clear he really, REALLY doesn't like the succubus. Even Marcille comments about how it seems he's seen one before.

Now we do know due to a side comic that a party tried to feed him to a succubi group. Which could explain why he's so scared, but he never actually sees any of them. He runs away before they even find them. (I'd provide evidence but I've reached my limit on photos and I don't feel like making multiple posts lol.)

So why does he know so much about how they work then?

Here's my theory:

He actually DID run into a group of succubus a long time ago with another party. The same party that actually knew and ended up meeting his wife. Blonde woman like we saw attacked him, and the party already knowing about his wife assumed; oh! That must be what if wife looks like of course! Eventually down the road the party meet her. Only to be surprised that she looked absolutely nothing like his fantasy they saw. So of course through drunken fun, the party brings this up. More to make fun of him if anything. I'd assume him and his wife were already having problems up to this point. Maybe she had doubts of him being disloyal since he was always away. Or maybe doubts that he didn't loved her anymore, or even no longer found her attractive or desirable still. So hearing that a creature that supposedly transformed into the thing your heart wants the most, and it's the complete opposite of her confirmed whatever insecurity she had in her mind. That maybe the woman they turned into was even his mistress herself?! Knowing Chilchuck, he probably didn't try to comfort her or at least did it very well. Or maybe not even try to talk about it after at all and instead just tried to blow it off. Which only made things worse. And that pushed her to finally leave. Her final straw possibly.

However this is purely speculation of course. A theory based on the extremely limited knowledge we have of that night and their marriage in general.

[lizardsfromspace]

What's the worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years, and what's the worst thing about fandom that's always been true of it?

The worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years has been the incentivizing of fandom-as-conflict: not merely as a field in broader culture wars but as the field for endless intra-group battles.

This manifests in many ways: as seven hour videos complaining about The Last Jedi, as Twitter backlash campaigns, but also as stans defending their faves from any and all criticism real or imagined, as the endless boom-and-backlash cycle to any fandom meme or joke you see on Reddit, and as the drive for people to look for evidence other people discussing a thing they like are hysterical illiterate dolts, before anything else.

Or, in other words: a lot of fandoms are full of assholes these days, whose main interaction with fandom is using it as a reason to be an asshole, and to defend being an asshole. The actual “fandom” part of fandom no longer really exists for them. The discourse more or less is their fandom; someone whose main fandom activity is sharing videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) isn’t in the Steven Universe fandom, they’re in the videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) fandom. I mean, the chief fandom for many people is their side in the fandom war. What type of fanfic you write is secondary to what your affiliations are vis-a-vis battles over fanfiction

(One trend I've noticed is people who aren't at the stage where they only talk about what they hate and not what they love, but are at the stage where they can only talk about what they love in relation to what they hate. "I love this movie...and it proves this other movie is bullshit made by a hack". No ability to say just "I love this movie", period, end of sentence. This is how like two-thirds of Film Twitter talks about film, the remainder are all the grindhouse people going "man you've GOT to see Wrong Turn 5")

Another one, that I think is related, is that fandom’s become...more transitory, maybe? There’s Big Fandoms that are inescapable and then everything else feels like it’s here for a weekend and then it’s gone. And we’ve always had fandoms that endure and fandoms that vanish quickly, when the show runs short or turns out to be bad/boring, but we did use to have a lot of enduring if small fandoms for Okay shows most people hadn’t heard of and now you don’t really. Or they burn themselves out fast.

So we’ve reached this stage where fandoms are either so big they have seven hour long discourse videos, or they’re a smattering of fanart over the course of two weeks last August. But that isn’t really the fault of fans so much as modern media release schedules.

A lot of fandom activities of old are just...impossible now, with many shows? The slow build of speculation and fan works and in-jokes and theorizing and analysis simply can’t exist in a world where the premiere comes out the same day as the finale, and you can’t talk about the finale because you have no way of knowing if the person you’re talking to binged it all in one weekend or is still on episode four. That was the kind of thing that sustained the fandom of something that wasn’t a big hit, or even something that was. My fave fandom experience ever was watching the online Lost fandom wildly theorizing for all six years of Lost, and we’d never get “and what if the Smoke Monster is a dinosaur but only the head?” under a Netflix release model. Now at a base level, we either have shows nobody can discuss because nobody’s sure who’s seen or what, or shows where everyone just discusses the finale right away, and where you get One Week of Show and then a massive hiatus, which either kills all momentum or...drives fandom in the direction of hyper-analyzing everything and fighting because, well, what else is there to do? And that plus the outrage cycles of social media plus the fact that “man who yells at Star Wars” is now a viable career choice result in, well. *gestures upwards* All that

(Really, shout out to Cartoon Network for engineering the Steven Universe fandom to Be Like That through their inscrutable strategy of dropping episodes during one random week every five months or whatever)

As for something that's always been with it...cliques and a certain fannish elitism, like, that sees engaging with media in a fandom sense as more creative or analytical or intelligent than your average person. You see it now in the form of, like, people holding up fanfic above published fiction as more representative or authentic (I’ve seen more than one post on here strongly implying queer rep doesn’t exist in mainstream non-fic storytelling???), or going “well, we think about shows, unlike those normies watching sports”. But that was probably way more pronounced a thing in the past, in the 40-50s sci-fi fans were calling non-fans "mundanes" and calling themselves "slans" as an in-group signifier (a reference to a book with superintelligent psychic mutants known as slans). Like at the very least we should be happy no one’s calling non-fans “muggles” anymore. In the evolution from “mundane” to “muggle” to “normie” normie’s probably the least bad one

[wowevenmoreloveonearth]

You know what? I have become a gaylor sympathiser

This is going to be a long post, sorry! Please read the full post before even thinking about commenting.

Over the past few days I’ve seen a few posts on my dash about taylor swift and her fans that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

I know that a lot of people think that some fans of her are “trying to make her gay” and I just wanted to put the record straight and defend some people after actually looking at what’s going on. And I know I’m probably opening myself up for tumblr’s poor reading comprehension but before I start I’m going to say this:

I do not think taylor swift is a lesbian

Ok? Now let’s have a conversation.

First of all from what I’ve seen most of the fans who talk about Taylor swift and queerness do it from a point of literary analysis and learning queer history. This is a huge part of the community and lots of people have said that they never would have learnt so much about queer history without reading taylor swift’s works through a queer lens.

Adding on to that point, it seems a little hypocritical for the gay site which loves queer readings of books, tv shows, songs, musicals, films etc to be bullying a pretty small group of people who are mainly doing queer readings of lyrics. Especially when those people get near constant death threats. Instead of bullying these people (who don’t think or do what you think they think and do) why don’t you go outside and think “does this affect me? No. Do I agree with them? No. Am I going to cyber bully them because of this? No.”

Secondly, for the people who believe that any speculation on a real persons sexuality is 100% wrong. I used to think this too but I have changed my mind a bit about this recently after stopping and thinking about it properly. I’m not trying to change your mind at all I just want you to stop and think for a minute.

If you only get mad when speculation is queer in nature, then maybe think about that for a minute. Why is it totally wrong to think a person might be queer. We probably do it in our daily lives with people we know and they likely do it with us, back in the day that’s how queer people found each other-by speculating on sexuality. Would you be upset if you found out someone that you know thought you might be queer? I wouldn’t, maybe you would but if you would, why? Why is it terrible to think someone might be queer (this is NOT about hounding a person to admit to being queer like shawn mendes, this is just thinking in your head and on your small blog that the person will likely never see). Also this is literally the website where we talk about historical (real people) being gay even when they would have never said something to the equivalent.

An addition to this point before people start saying in the comments is that this is NOT the same situation as with kit connor. The issue there was people assuming that he was straight and taking that role away from a queer person. Speculating that he was queer was the opposite of what happened in that situation. So this is not an example of what happens when you speculate queerness.

Final things to say:

1) don’t believe every post you see with someone looking insane about taylor swift being gay, a lot of them are fake.

2) before anyone says “they should listen to real queer artists instead” most of them very much do. There’s a lot of fans of Hayley kiyoko, girl in red, Janelle monae, tegan and sara, zolita, kehlani etc.

3) there are some queer flags that are there. Sorry but there are. Hairpin drops, lavender, the ladder, flag colours, songs about women, friend of dorothy reference. Whether they are intentional is a different matter.

4) shipping real people is not what is happening for the majority of the people in the community. Also this comes back to queer vs straight again. Plenty of swifties ship taylor with men she’s been seen with and no one goes into their inboxes and sends death threats even when they are the ones making taylor swift all about the men she may or may not have dated.

5) taylor swift has never stated her sexuality. I know this may be hard to belive based off of how some people act, but it’s true. She has made vague statements which could have many meanings but she has never clearly stated anything. When gaylors get upset with taylor it is not because she said she is straight, it’s because they are getting death threats and doxxed and she seems to either be unaware of it (which is unlikely given how she seems to be a little terminally online) or she doesn’t care enough to tell her fans to stop.

6) if she does explicitly say she’s straight then there will probably be disappointment in her use of queer history and flags and her potential queer erasure (as we saw with lavender haze, with straight women describing their relationships as lavender) and centring herself in queer spaces (like the you need to calm down music video) but no one will be angry that she’s not gay. And a lot will probably be grateful that she actually explicitly stated for the record to absolve any confusion. The main issue would likely be other fans ramping up the death threats and bullying.

In conclusion: these people who do queer analysis of Taylor’s work are not trying to out her or make her gay etc. if you don’t understand it that’s fine it’s clearly not for you and you can go quite easily without seeing any of it. It’s not illegal to read works through a queer lens and if it means more people know about queer history then I think that’s a very good thing.

I changed my mind after looking at what a lot of people are actually saying rather than what people perceive them to be saying and maybe you will too?

Just be kinder to people online please and if you don’t like what people are saying block them and do not engage!

[herejusttosufferalong]

Attachment Style Anon Here

I appreciate everyone’s comments on my last post regarding L/A. There was a lot more I could have added but I was worried it was too long… 

A few things I wanted to mention before I dive into L/N:

everyone has an attachment style, usually there is a combo but only one is dominate

There is a direct correlation between your attachment style and your personality traits 

Your attachment style can change after an impactful relationship (good and bad) 

I am a woman in STEM who researches behavioral styles and has been focused this past year on attachment styles (sorry if I come across clinical sometimes in my messaging) 

I wanted to understand why the chemistry between L & N seemed so 🔥 and intense in a way that we haven’t seen before.

I already established my thoughts on L’s attachment style in the last post. I’ll move onto N - my analysis of her is based on her personality traits and what she projects out into the world because of how little she shares of her private life. 

Overall, N’s dominate attachment style is Secure.I think it’s easy to see her secure attachment through her actions: i.e. her stable family life and the close bond that they clearly share, her ability to be private showcases someone who doesn’t need validation, general confidence in the way she presents herself, but ultimately its the way that other speak of her that showcases her secure nature. She had stated  in past interviews that she didn’t necessarily believe in love, gave some vague answers regarding her views on relationships etc. Speculation: at some point she was hurt by some type of relationship that temporarily that made her cautious of attachment in general, but ultimately her foundation is secure. 

A Secure person will essentially be compatible with anyone. The ultimate life goal is for a secure person to find another secure person, however the second most compatible relationship is a secure + anxious relationship (i.e. N + L = dominate attachments)

Surface level, they do gravitate towards one another because they are able to match each other needs. This is where I feel we see a “different Luke” when he’s with Nicola. He is different because his needs are being met when he’s with her and vice versa. 

Nicola’s verbal praise helps quell Luke’s fear of unworthiness. We have seen her time and time again, hype him up because she understands that he struggles with his anxiety. L’s strengths would be that anxious attachment people are very protective and are attuned to their partner’s needs. Nicola may be secure but she has emotional needs as well. Where we saw this was the interview where they watched the final scene and Nicola started to cry, they snuggled and he checked in with her. Also he checked in with on the Dublin red carpet. What he provides to her might be more subtle in terms of frequency but it’s impactful to her.  

The key to the success of this relationship is an establishment of a foundational communication level (i.e. verbal and non-verbal) - something that N + L have done probably subconsciously. We’ve seen a few BTS footage and interviews where they’ve said that they’ve been able to communicate with just looks. It think this along with their matching attachment style is where we see the actual magic - it’s that energy they put out of knowing each other so well that everyone around them feels their attuned energy. 

At the end of the day however, while the secure person has the ability to uplift an anxious person to a secure level, the opposite I also true. The secure individual tends to be the more dominate in the relationship and can hold more power within it. Luke will more than likely always be the best version of himself when he’s with Nicola, however unless he puts in the work to overcome his insecurities, the relationship won’t have any real legs. It would eventually becoming draining to Nicola. 

thank you anon for sharing

you were able to so succinctly express and give vision to my exact thoughts/feelings on their dynamic in a more academic way

💜

[seirei-bh]

Jason Mendal's facade. Deep analysis about him: his past, traumas, ideologies and subsequent development -Theories

I'm going to try to do a deep analysis here about why Jason is the way he is and how he became the person he is now. At least the little info que got about him until ep 5. Before start to read, you have to keep in mind that although there is some canonical data here, there is also a lot of speculation on my part, so these theories may be refuted in future episodes.

I am going to talk here about all the possible reasons for how his behaviour is today, applied to his business, as well as to his relationships of rivalry, friendship and romance. About his ideas, mentality, his heart, and everything related to the little we know about his childhood, personality and way of behaving. It will be a long analysis with many points to discuss.

Backstory and possible traumas

To begin with, another theory about Jason that I have after ep 5 that I'm going to add to my huge list of theories about him (you can read them in some of my previous posts, like this one and others in my Jason's headcanons post) is that, regarding the big number of brief romantic partners he had, and why he doesn't want to have a long and stable romantic relationship with anyone, I think one of the reasons to that fear may also be related to the death of his father and with his own actual “perfect” life in general.

First, I mean the fact that his father died when he was a teenager has made me think that perhaps Jason's emotional situation could be similar to Anthony from Bridgerton series, who after losing his father and seeing how much his mother suffered from that loss, that created a trauma that made him never want to fall in love for fear of losing someone else whom he loves again and suffering for it.

Perhaps his mother had depression after the death of her husband, maybe because of this she neglected her son or even lost her job, so they even had financial problems, and Jason having to deal with tons of responsibilities since he was too young. That also made Jason become a person more focused on getting money and power at any price and as quickly as possible.

We do not know how his father died, it is most likely that it was due to a car accident or some serious illness. About Jason and his mother, I wonder if maybe they never got along, or if their relationship deteriorated after his father died. But regardless of that, the death of one of your parents in your teenage years is something that can affect you greatly. This makes me think about what kind of situation Jason would live in high school, I’ve the feeling that he wasn't very popular, or at least not at first, and that he was one of those people who go from being one of those who suffered bullying to those who end up bullying others as a wrong way to show that he could be stronger and thus create some popularity with which he would stop feeling alone and unprotected. I bet his "charming personality" started to come through here, and the death of his father had a lot to do with it. Being a person who did everything possible to try to fit in, even if he had to destroy others to do so.

I also wrote a long time ago in another post that it is possible that other children made fun of Jason at school for having white locks, and that he perhaps dyed his hair all brown for a long time, and that perhaps his poliosis was also a consequence of Waardenburg syndrome, which can have other consequences. Which would only add more insecurities to that little Jason and cause him to accumulate more resentment.

He saw all those popular boys at high school who were very confident guys, seemingly charming (even though they were really jerks), rich, dating with all the pretty girlfriends they want, and who had everything going well in their lives, while him, being a good and nerdy boy couldn't achieve anything and who felt more vulnerable than ever after losing his father, so he told himself that to succeed and be stronger that was the law of the jungle that prevailed and that he had to be not only like them, but better, imitating them and also later going further than them in life, whatever was the price to pay. Succeeding the unpleasant way.

To add here something more: Chinomiko said originally when New Gen was still in the previous High School ideas, Jason was a character like a “stupid comical villain”, so at least we can imagine he ended been being a jerk in his teenage years for sure. Probably the typical pathetic bully who likes to bother others, but since his character had the best glow up I also guess that now he's more complex than before too.

And all this will also manifest itself in being obsessed with the ideal of perfection and in projecting an image of himself of absolute self-confidence. Which would also make him start faking a perfect image not only at high school, later at work, but among his “friends” and with his romantic partners, so it would be exhausting for him and would end getting bored of them and don’t make him feel happy. But by the other hand, he’s afraid that a woman could find out his true self and be disappointed, so he prefers to hide his insecurity and prevent them from seeing them, ending the relationship as soon as possible.

It could also be possible that Jason's father, before he died, was a very humble and good man who had high expectations for his son and convinced him that he had to reach very high levels professionally, either because he positively supported this and had great dreams and hopes for the future of his son so he could have the better chances in life he couldn't achieve, maybe even his father was the one who had the dream about “Goldreamz” and had the desire to start his own company one day, OR on the contrary, because he was a cold man who put a lot of pressure on him to achieve excellence, because he had no expectation that his son couldn’t achieve anything like him (I think it's more probably the first option than this second one because the second one is too similar to Nathaniel's father, but who knows). Both which also led Jason to want to achieve a high professional goal, either so that his father could have been proud of him and make their dream come true, or because he wanted to show him that he could be better than the low expectations that his father had.

Someone may think that Jason getting "daddy issues" and most of his problems being caused because of this is very cliche or simple, but we have seen that before with other Mcl characters, whether due to negligence and parental abuse (Nathaniel's parents), due to little attention and abandonment (Castiel's parents, Nina's father) or due to the death of their parents or one of the parental figures (Lysander, Armin and Alexy's biological parents, or Violette's mother), so I think it wouldn't be so strange for Jason to have a trauma related to that and that a lot of things that he try to goal in his life were in some way related to that, same about why he has that behaviour in his relationships.

Another thing: Jason mentions in ep 5 that his parents were not millionaires, and his birthday was rather modest. He is quite dry and serious when mentioning this, which makes me think that it is a detail of his life that he doesn’t like to talk about, since he may consider it a weakness. And it doesn't surprise me, since Jason couldn't set up the company alone, he needed the help of various private investors to whom he now owes money and favors. Also in his description he says that he likes expensive brand clothes and numbers (I guess this refers to money, not maths XD) So the fact of appearing to be a man with a lot of money is something that probably has him obsessed, and that it has cost him a lot of sacrifice to achieve, and he may also have still debts to those investors, but he does his best to pretend that everything in life is going very very well. He won’t want his rivals, his companions, or any flirt to find out that there are things in his life that are either not going so well or have not gone well in the past. (I’m not saying he’s broke, but I mean he’s not so rich as Amanda, despite of he tries to do his best to look like that, especially because all his company investors are probably rich men of very high category, high social standards you know), basically about this Jason is a bit like Jordan in The wolf of wall street movie, in the sense of someone who started very low in the social scale and ended up climbing to the top, according to him with clean methods, but who knows if he or any of his investors actually have any illegal secrets about his finances, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case and Jason purposely ignored this, since he himself said in ep 5 that he didn't know how some of his workers did their jobs and that he "wasn't interested in knowing it." He said this about Danica, but I think it really implies that he applies it to everyone who works with him and for him.

His business ideology:

There is a saying in Spanish that is quite famous in the world in marketing and great finances and that can be applied perfectly to Jason to explain and summarize his behaviour in business and his way to see the life: it is said that in business you need to have a "mentalidad de tiburón" (literally have a mind like a shark), this refers to a white shark, if it doesn't move it sinks, and means this is the mentality that an ambitious man of business must follow in order not to sink and continue continuing with his goals and dreams, the mentality of a person whose main motivation is money, who does not mind jumping the limits of ethics and morality in order to achieve it.

The equivalent in English here is “wolf-like mentality”, it’s similar to what I’ve explain, but includes too the saying of “divide and conquer” and to clarify this even more to understand Jason’s character, here I add all the main points it includes, something that can perfectly fix in Jason’s character to understand him better, a very Maquiavelo-like:

This can also apply to his personal relationships (romantic ones included), this way of thinking can explain it very well too what could be other of the reasons why he feels he cannot have a long romantic relationship: because his business are the first, and also can explain why perhaps he lost the interest in women very quick, because he’s mostly focused in the mentality of immediate results and thinks maybe the other choice is a lost of time + the fear for the previous trauma about the attacked and losing someone I’ve mentioned before.

And about wolf mentality and his rivalry and work…

Now let’s talk about the matter of his rivalry with Devon.

Maybe the answer is just a simple as: Jason was just frustrated for not be able to achieve his dreams for all the stuff I’ve been wrote before, which led him to steal the project from Devon (whether it was stealing it by himself acting alone and by himself in a desperate act or because some third person manipulated and convinced him to do it), but even if those were the main reasons, I still think there's something more here we still don’t know. Something more that happened between them before or during the town hall project thing, something more personal and complex than what we've been told, or at least that there's something more here that Devon doesn't know.

Maybe could be also for envy too. Devon was a good person and didn't have to pretend to be perfect to achieve his dreams like Jason did to have friends or a romantic partner and Devon seems to had a loving and stable family, maybe they meet each other since they were teenagers, but we still have no confirmation about this, so maybe I’m wrong, the only thing we know for sure is that at least they didn’t meet each other since childhood, since Chinomiko said it on Instagram long ago. But still this doesn’t feel enough (to me at least) to explain Jason’s behaviour.

For now, I also keep other of my old theories about there is possible a third person involved in all this problem. We’ll see what’s the real answer to this question.

Although here I want to add one more point, and that is that Devon and Devenementiel curiously represent the exact opposite of Jason and Goldreamz in the business approach, the called “sheep mentality”, and these are the differences between them:

Ironically, today in the competitiveness of modernity in business, it's considered that in reality the best entrepreneurs are neither one nor the other, but a mix between both types of mentality. Does this mean that there will be a time in the future when both companies find themselves in a delicate situation and decide to collaborate in order to mutually triumph against a greater enemy (Ioann and his company, f*ck Ysa's ex boyfriend, I hope we can punch him, that Ioann is gonna be the new Debrah and main villain mark my words) by overcoming their differences? Well, only time will tell...

Now, about Ysaline-Jason:

There is the small detail that Ysaline comes from a rich family, or at least her mother became rich and famous in her work in recent years, and thanks to that Ysaline was able to do private and expensive studies abroad (and Jason clearly knows this, he's an stalker who got her number and email easily XD and other characters like Thomas and Amanda knew Ysaline's mother was rich too just searching some info about her on internet). And that may also cause some insecurity in Jason, fearing that perhaps Ysaline may be disappointed if she finds out that he's not as perfect as he seems or at least that he was not at all in his past. Maybe he even had an ex girlfriend who, after she found out that, felt disappointed about him and left him, and that made him more superficial and cautious with her subsequent love conquests, or maybe since he only get romances once he started to put on his popular guy facade and succeed, he thinks he needs to impress and seduces her in the same way he did it with other women, because he thinks she will only be seduced by him by superficial stuff like his charms, attractive, money and work. Until Ysaline shows him what she wants is really get to know him, with all his weakness, in heart, mind and body, and until he realizes he really wants to know her better just because he loves to spend time with her and she makes him happy, and we know that will happen.

I've read some theories from different people and social webs that some think that Jason wants to use Ysa's family's money to invest in his own company, but I think his intentions are not in that way, but rather:

I think also one of the reasons why he agreed to help in ep 5 her was not only to seduce her or to show her Goldreamz so that she would want to work there with him, but also because Jason is able to see her potential, since a person with her studies, her family money, all the important contacts her mother has, and with the previous experience of having worked in a big important company and who has also shown him face to face that she has a competitive and brave side, she can undoubtedly go very far, and obviously he wants her to go far having her by his side, but of course he will also have a conflict here since I don't think he is the type of person who is comfortable mixing love with business, not like Ioann, the hell with that shitty man.

Obviously he also wants to manipulate her or at least bother Devenementiel somehow with all this. The little we have seen of Danica in ep 5 is that she is someone very efficient and fast at her job, Jason saw that and brought her to his side, now Jason sees that although Ysaline has failed in one of her projects, she still has potential to become a great event organizer. He also wanted to closely observe how she works when she is motivated and has someone guide her in the right path, when she is herself, and maybe even Jason sees in her the person he was before he achieved excellence. And Ysaline has ambition, she herself told Devon in one of the previous eps (if you follow Devon's route) that she dreamed of one day becoming a big star in the world of events and had the goal of being one of the best at her job. Even in one of the dialogues you can get in ep 2, Jason asks Ysaline "Aren't you willing to do anything to achieve success?" Jason knows that they are both similar in that way, and he wants to take advantage of that.

However Ysaline not only has ambition and a competitive will, but also a certain level of morality and feeling of unity with her co-workers, boss and her family and friends. And although it is still early to assume this, it's quite possible that she is the character that represents the perfect mix between the two business ideologies, both the wolf and the sheep. I'll call that fussion "the kitten mentality" because I can.

Of course, returning to the relationships issue, one thing to try his best to seduce her and make her work for him or at least have her as an ally and briefly as lover, and something very different is what we know will happen: that he will fall in love with her and both will want more, but he will feel that he cannot and shouldn't go further.

So we have here all this matter about his fake perfect facade of rich, charming and popular man of business + his humble origins + wolf-like mentality + his trauma about the losing of his father and more people in the future. A perfect cocktail to be afraid to have a stable relationship.

Greetings to all Jason fans like me who have him as a route and loves to suffer. In this house we love traumatized fictional men with red flags.

And let's add of course there will probably be many more problems that will make him fear having a relationship with Ysaline once he falls in love with her, because problems already numbered in more than 2000 words weren't enough first because he will try to convince himself that he only wants to manipulate her so that she change sides and join to Goldreamz, and to seduce her so that she'd end up in his bed (and she maybe would believe that too), but then when he finds out he's in love with her, and she with him, Jason will have to make the decision about whether to go ahead with his revenge against Devenementiel or not, because he knows that will end up hurting her, since she could suffer if her colleagues and boss find out about her relationship with him and distrust her or if that even ruins her reputation, which is was already bad in her previous company because she slept with her previous boss, and above all because she will never forgive him and will hate him if the Devenementiel closes and all his friends and her loses their jobs because of Jason's actions. And having a relationship with him makes her feels more guilty for what happened, like believing she was part of his plans and she helped him in some way, and then she could believe she was nothing except another more of his conquers and everything was a lie (her ex-boyfriend trauma attacking again here), or at least she wasn't as important to him as she thought.

And perhaps, even if he tries to stop those actions, and not harm Devenementiel further so as not to make her harm her, perhaps, by then, it will be too late to stop those revenge plans...

So he will lose another person that he loves and wants in his life. The only person who accepted him and loved him exactly who he really is and who really knows him. His biggest fears making true, again.

but this is an otome game, guys, everything will be solved at the end and everybody will be happy, don't worry!

[yannaryartside]

THE LIE THAT CLAIRE BELIVES

THE CARETAKER WOUND

So, I keep coming back and forth with my opinions on Claire. Yeah, she did many things that will be a no-go for me as a person, sometimes cringe or childless, and could be taken as manipulative as well. I have been rethinking about it after reading this amazing post:

But there was something constantly ominous about how she was presented, not only as a manic pixie dream girl coded woman but also as a helper, described as an "incredibly good person" who sometimes managed to become an enabler. I will use some books about childhood wounds I have been re-reading, trying to do for her what I did for Carmen in this post. A deep character analysis speculating on the character's childhood wounds based on behaviors they display.

Let's go brick by brick. Long post underneath.

PART 1: THE HELPER OF DRUNK, SAD PEOPLE

Quoting from @brokenwinebox post: In the party.

Claire: “In college, people would come back to my house after parties. and I think I got really good at managing sad drunk people.” Carmy: “Yeah, I know that feeling.” Claire: “I know you do.”

That made me pause, because she made it seem like a common occurrence. She doesn't say these people were their friends, and maybe they were. But it becomes weirder when you think they were at that party (with Carmy) with the excuse of helping her broken-hearted friend. Claire said, "She needs me"

Girl, what? I get wanting to be there with your friend, but you are talking to your (you said later) childhood crush, dont you wanna spent time alone with him? The other girl doesn't seem like your best friend or anything, so doesn't she have other friends she could rely on during this hard time? She was throwing a party, so she was surrounded by people who could have cheered her up. Why was your presence so needed in particular?

Even if you say they were really close, when Claire said that other people would come to her house drunk after parties, my question is

Why? why was your house the place to do that? Did they insist? Some people can be dangerous while drunk, even if she described them as "sad."

Why did you feel these people were your responsibility? To be a good friend? Didn't you have to study? I had a heavy reading career in college, and I will read while eating or even in the gym, but it didn't come close to being a medical student. I assume these parties were in college, and I understand partying is a college thing, but having to stay awake and comfort a drunk person for as long as they need is another thing. It demonstrates a disregard for your time and needs; weren't you tired, busy, and probably also drunk? You are accepting people who come to you at their most vulnerable but also their most unpredictable. We all have people in need we want to care for even when they are messed up, but she didn't say "my friends" or even "my girlfriends". She said people (it could be a wording thing, but this dialog is very intentional)

She seems proud of it, giving her limited time to confort people she may not be closed with.

Here is my point about the lie I think she believes. I was reading again How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self–by Dr. Nicole LePera, and there was this passage that sounded very familiar:

In the book, Dr. LePera explains "The 7 Inner Child Arquetypes" as behavior tendencies and internal beliefs that one may develop depending on the environment one grows up in. We don't know much about her childhood (I have a theory about it, which I will discuss in another post), but I think this description can apply to her behavior.

The issue here is not to "feel good to take care of people." There are many reasons one may do that, and many of them are altruistic in nature or just love for the person. the key element is the "disregarding of one's own needs." Look at me in the face and tell me that doesn't sound like Claire. She seems proud of how much people would go for her for comfort when she was a student in a very time-demanding career. It was likely very taxing, but she doesn't want to say it was. Not to mention that comforting somebody is emotional labor on its own.

The lie that Claire believes is that she needs to sacrifice (time/energy/emotional labor) to be loved, that only that is her worth as a person, particularly in the role of a caretaker of people in need.

And it also shows in her relationship with Carmy.

PART 2: LOOKING FOR THE LOVE

A scene that always stayed with me was this:

This "I know" seemed childish on my first watch, kinda saying "I know ligfe is not as complicated as you think."

But then I realized she was happy to say the right thing for him to love her. This "I know" is she saying, "I know I am perfect for you, I am catering especially to your needs" after saying, "Nobody is keeping track of shoes," which was kind of nonsensical, to begin with, but it also sounds like something from a Hallmark movie when they try to be profound and prophetic.

I want to bring the Caretaker Archetype to her relationship with Carmy because she also completely disregards her own needs with him. To begin with, when you have a profession with little time outside work, you probably will like it to be a good, stable one. Why are you chasing a guy who gave you a fake number and that you had to "push' for them to be with you? You even joke about the Faks beating him up for giving her a fake number, like wtf. In her interview, Molly Gordon talked about how Claire was pushed in a previous relationship, which gave her the idea pushing was okay, which is an entirely different conversation, but ok.

Regardless of that context, she went for a guy with also a time-demanding job, that you have seen in ages, and that you know it has social issues and comes from a family of addicts, and that family as a very tragic story.

Here is my biggest question:

DOES CLAIRE SEE CARMY AS ANOTHER "DRUNK, SAD PERSON"?

gif from @mporium

He may not be an addict, but he is aware of the substance; they made us watch her purposely giving him the soft drink; he didn't ask for one. Like she is saying, "I know you have this issue; look how good I am at anticipating your needs." Their first date was at a party, the place where she was to rescue a "sad drunk person," as she had done so many times.

Coming back to disregarding her own needs, she didn't establish boundaries or expectations throughout the whole relationship; she said, "I love you," after 2 months of fucking, no dates, and a homemade pasta dinner.

She squished herself into whatever hole Carmy needed her in. I have read in other posts that her profession does not give you much free time. Doesn't she sometimes need time of her own to keep studying, just relaxing?

I am aware they could have just not shown any of it, but when you are writing a romance, it is important to show how each person can satisfy the needs of the other; it is not supposed to be one-sided.

She doesn't discuss her stressful work or mean patients. She does not discuss her dreams; we don't even know her last name.

I think this is why she felt so empty to me: even in her conversations, she seemed to be mirroring him the whole time, looking to say the right thing. She only seemed to address her needs by asking him about the fake number because she felt rejected, and Carmy's pathetic response seemed to be what she needed to hear. For many people, that answer would have been a warning of someone not ready to be in a relationship. But for her, it was okay.

She has to be able to at least suspect his depression and other mental issues. She doesn't know about his fire incidents yet; why does a person look for a partner she has constantly to care for while he can't take care of her besides one dinner (or at least, she doesn't ask)? Because she finds her worth in caring for others while receiving very little in comparison. That is why their dynamic is that Claire is always giving and Carmy is always taking.

That is my theory. That's why many of her actions look both good-intentioned and manipulative because she is doing both. She wants to be loved in a very specific way after providing care and sacrificing a good deal herself. She wants to be loved because she does these things; that's how she earns it.

PART 3: ALWAYS SMILING

Gif de thoughtfulchaos773

She always makes this picture of perfect faces and soft smiles; a part of me wonders if she wants to display exactly that. She is inviting, always a calm and happy person, which is also on brand for someone who may have grown up finding worth in being pleasant to others. It is not like I hate pleasant female characters; I love a cinnamon roll any day, but this could be very performative, especially the way society pressures women to present themselves this way in order to be lovable. For Claire, this is the cherry on top of her masking to be a good caretaker, always available and welcoming.

This may also have a dark side. Why doesn't she recommend that Carmy seek professional help? Nobody wants to be confronted or hear that they are broken. She knows he may react negatively to her suggestion, so she doesn't do it; love is what she is after.

PART 4: CODEPENDENCY

This topic is huge, and I am gonna brush over it.

A person who only feels worth taking care of others will try to make the other person rely on them as much as possible. The party scene becomes dark-toned in this subtext. She brought him to a place where he felt like an outsider, she supported him in using a fake persona (ew), she knew there was gonna be alcohol there, didn't she feel bad that people may pressure him to drink, or she wanted to be his aid on the scenario (giving her the soft drink), she tried to make him fit in, even told him what to say in certain scenarios, especially when she was doing the thing she says she is so good at: taking care of the drunk friend. She kept bringing up in the phone conversation how much the Faks would be angry with him for rejecting her. She kept saying things like, "You could not have done this without me." Idk. Now that I keep thinking of the caregiver archetype, I can't unsee it.

Why did she leave that voicemail? Who says I love you for the first time in a voice message? On the opening day of the fucking restaurant? A very high-stress, demanding job, that day with so many things can go wrong?

Was it because she wanted her voice to comfort him during the most stressful times? The only comfort? Was she so sure that after all she had done for her, how could he not love her back?

PART 5: THE DOCTOR CONTRADICTION

This is to lomg, but to analyze Claire, I cannot ignore this part. I said this before in this post, but when Claire said:

I had to pause. That didn't sound like something a doctor would say. There is a reblog from @ciaonicole85 that I would like to quote:

I'm a healthcare provider, and I don't know anyone in my field who would say that setting a fire is cool. We're typically very respectful when talking about someone's dead family member, especially when suicide is a factor and mental health generally.

Then there is also the mention of discussing her classmate getting a broken arm in kindergarten. Quoting, again, from @brokenwinebox amazing post:

Claire: "When we were like six, she fell off a fence and broke her arm, and it scared the shit out of everybody. Except me, i just like sat there and stared at her arm." Carmy: "Cause you wanted to fix it?" Claire: "I wanted to understand it."

First of all, why is one thing exclusive to the other?  She said she wanted to understand it, almost as a priority to fix it. That is weird as fuck. She tried to make that distinction, that point. As @brokenwinebox mentioned, is this supposed to be a clue that she wants to understand more than fix? I think it is.

A little side note here, this line gave me a "I am not like other girls (or people for that matter)" vibe, because she made a point to say that everyone else freaked out but her, as if that made her extra brave or something, destined for what she does now, an emergency doctor, but no, a kid freaking out would be the most normal thing. The brave thing would have been asking for help, like wtf. But coming back to the point.

I am not saying Claire doesn't care about his patients or that she doesn't want to fix them. However, her dialogue displayed carelessness and ominous comments about other people getting hurt/sensible topics.

I don't think it's because she doesn't care but because she is attracted to risk. She mentioned she used to shoplift as a teen (I am not judging, but wtf). That surely will give her an adrenaline rush. She mentioned she likes driving because of the risk of it.

This also makes me think: Does she like Carmy because she thinks dating him can also be risky? Not in a dangerous context or anything, but because of how emotionally unreliable he is. There is a thing as always looking for emotionally unavailable people, and there is a psychological explanation for it, too.  

So yeah, those are my thoughts. Maybe s3 will prove me wrong.

Thank you so much for reading.

[orcelito]

:/

[cyren-myadd]

Do you have any thoughts on the fact that in first scenario Spider was supposed be from Mexico and his name was Javier?

I don't think we ever had any real confirmation of original-Spider's ethnicity or nationality, but when his name was first announced as "Javier Socorro" a lot of people assumed he would be Latino Hispanic (from a Latin American country) instead of White Hispanic (from Spain) like he ended up being. That meant he very well could've been Mexican, or at least half-Mexican on his mom's side since I think he was always intended to be Quaritch's son. I believe they changed his first name to "Miles" to make the connection to Quaritch more obvious.

If Spider had been Mexican, it wouldn't have really changed anything in The Way of Water. He's still a human, and being a different color wouldn't change the way the other characters perceive him. The only thing that would've been different is that he wouldn't have had the nickname "monkey boy/monkey mascot," since having Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang calling a Hispanic kid monkey would NOT have gone over well.

Even though making him a different ethnicity wouldn't have changed the movie itself, I actually think it might've changed the way he was perceived by the audience.

This is a thought I've had in the back of my head for a long time, and this question finally gave me a reason to type it all out. But before I get into it, I do want to say that I am white and American, so I'm speaking from the perspective of a white American when I make this analysis of Spider's character and how he was perceived by American audiences. Now let's get into it:

Spider was a pretty controversial character. A lot of people hated him, but there was also a minority of people who really loved him too (me lol). Some people hated him because they felt like Neteyam's death was his fault or because they didn't like that he saved Quaritch in the end, which are reasons that wouldn't change because of his ethnicity, but there were also people who hated him because of his appearance. Spider was often described as "feeling out of place" and off-putting to some viewers. After I saw the Way of Water with my cousins, one of them (he is also white) told me that he hated Spider. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said, "he's a white boy with dreadlocks!" like that was the only reason he needed.

Now I'm just speculating here, but I think a small part of the reason why so many people can't stand Spider might be because he is white. Not because of racism against white people, but because of the context in which Spider exists as a white person. The Na'vi are very obvious allegories for indigenous American, African, and Maori people, and the RDA is a very obvious allegory for European colonizers and US corporations that exploited those groups. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in America there are social controversies over white American people taking items that are culturally significant to other groups and wearing them as costumes. I know there's a lot of controversy over what is and isn't cultural appropriation, but when it comes to specifically white people wearing specifically Native American clothing, it's generally regarded negatively since most Native American people have said it's disrespectful because the clothing has cultural and spiritual significance.

And then we have Spider, who is not only white, but is also the son of two people who actively harmed the Na'vi, and he wears Na'vi clothing.

In the context of the Avatar movies, it makes perfect sense that Spider would dress and act the way that he does. He was raised alongside the Na'vi so it's all he knows. If you were going to fit Spider into the greater allegory of Avatar, he is similar to the historical figure, Olive Oatman. When Oatman was a child in the 1800s, her family was killed by a group of Native Americans, and she and her sister ended up being taken in by the Mohave people. She lived with them for several years before returning to a white settlement, and during that time she was assimilated into the Mohave tribe, wearing their clothing and receiving traditional tattoos. (Her story is super interesting, you should totally read more about it!). Spider is like a sci-fi version of Oatman, since his parents were killed by natives and he ended up being taken in by them and assimilating into their culture. In the context of modern day culture, a white woman getting Mohave tattoos would be considered appropriation, but in the context of Oatman's situation, it makes sense. Same thing with Spider. In-universe, adopting Omaticaya culture makes sense.

However, if you look at Spider through the lens of modern American cultural context, he looks an awful lot like a white kid dressing up in the traditional clothing of a culture his people harmed. If Spider had been raised on earth and was actively benefiting from the RDA's exploitation of Pandora, then what he's doing would be considered appropriation. But he wasn't. Even though that's not what Spider is, the association is still there. So when people see this "white boy with dreadlocks" as my cousin put it, they feel like there's something wrong with what they're looking at because they associate his appearance with cultural appropriation. I think if Spider had been cast as Latino, he might have been received a bit more favorably by the audience.

Once again, this is all just speculation, I don't really know if Spider's perception would've been different if he'd been a different ethnicity, and I acknowledge that most of the hate Spider received had to do with his character actions. However, I do believe that American audiences may have been partly influenced by the concept of cultural appropriation, which is where that feeling of Spider being "off-putting" comes from. I think it's definitely where my cousin's dislike of him comes from, since it's not about anything he did, but rather how he looks like.

[actuallyjustabiscuit]

The Fear of Being Forgotten

Ok, it’s time I talk about Pomni.

That’s right I’m doing another character analysis! Really it’s more of an analysis of episode 2 from her perspective, but I have a lot feelings about how they are handling her character so far.

I know we’re only on episode 2 and I don’t want to get ahead of myself so I’m gonna be keeping my speculations about this character to a minimum and focus only on what the show and Gooseworx has given us so far.

So I think everyone and their cat knows by now that Pomni’s name roughly translates to "Remember". Of course the irony being that it’s a name that was randomly given to her in the Pilot to replace the one she doesn’t remember.

So in a very meta sense, Pomni’s name is a joke, one that’s given at her expense.

Now, her entire motivation in the Pilot was centered around escaping this new reality that she suddenly finds herself in. And for the first half she’s kinda in denial, using the “dream” excuse as a flimsy way to rationalize everything, but still remains vigilant in finding a way out of this “dream”. So when Caine asks her what she wants to be called she tells him “I don’t care just pick anything.”, because she’s still convinced that what’s happening to her is reversible in some way. So what does it matter what she’s called in this new fictional place?

But in the end, it dawns on her that she is, in fact, trapped. No waking up, and no getting out. The Circus is her new home. And "Pomni" is now her new name. Whether she likes it or not, this is her life.

It really adds to the identity crisis of these characters that they know who they were but they just don’t know who they are. They don’t have full on amnesia when they enter the Circus, they just lose their identities (their names AND their physical appearance). And since it’s just their names that they completely forgot, that makes this scene

far more eerie.

Because just imagine how weird it is to suddenly find yourself looking at a face that is not yours. You know what you’re supposed to look like but your reflection is not showing that. Brain cannot compute.

(Actually I’m sure there are lots who relate to that specific feeling.)

So we know that these characters cannot “die”. They can get squashed, stretched, stabbed and suffer all other manners of bodily harms via cartoony physics without any lasting consequence because their bodies aren’t real. Their minds are the only part of themselves that is. Which is why Abstraction is the only major threat to be feared in the Circus . It’s the threat, because at that point, they lose what little else is left.

I love the different abstracted designs that fans have come up with, but this makes a lot more sense. You are no longer you when you abstract. And it’s irreparable. A broken mind creating a broken body. Caine, being an A.I., treats the abstracted like they’re just a whoopsie, sweeping them away in his cellar to be ignored. They are no longer considered characters. They’re arguably not human anymore either.

After they abstract, they’re nothing.

So the opening for episode 2 establishes Pomni’s fear of this right out the gate.

She’s not just trapped, she’s in danger of completely losing herself in this place. But this little scene does so much more than that. Because the choice in dialogue here is sooo interesting.

Pomni’s dream/ nightmare interpretation of Ragatha is someone who is mocking her for not being able to handle living in the Circus for more than a single day. Ragatha has managed to at least maintain this facade of cheerfulness, and everyone else has survived for years in spite of it all, yet here Pomni imagines that her mental health is so fragile that she couldn’t even last very long before suffering the same fate as Kaufmo.

And then we have NightmareJax chiming in about how he can’t even be bothered to remember her name, the new fake name that she’s had for only a few hours.

So this tells us two very important things about Pomni already. 1: She has very very little faith in herself and 2: She’s terrified of being completely forgotten. Both pretty reasonable and relatable fears.

Of course, we know this is just a dream cuz Ragatha wouldn’t be this callous. And we see this not a minute later after Pomni wakes up when she personally comes to check up on her immediately the next morning. With none of the quiet awkward tension from the day before, just normal awkwardness because Ragatha is too gay to function still trying too hard to make Pomni feel at home.

Now, I love Ragatha very much. I love her because she’s such a sweet person while being absolutely TERRIBLE about consoling people.

She speaks to Pomni but she doesn’t talk to her about what happened the other day. And this distinction is very important because what happened the other day was awful in many ways for both of them, and one of the first things she says to Pomni is

You can’t do this. You can’t undermine a traumatic event by calling it something like this. Pomni lost her home, her name, and her hopes of escape all in one day. Not to mention she has witnessed someone becoming a monster, getting seriously hurt, and being shoved down a hole with no regards to who they used to be. Nobody has really addressed her directly about all of that until now. And it was all condensed in one silly little word. (I love how this frame shows how Ragatha is fully aware that what she just said was BS)

And when someone tries telling you that what happened wasn’t so bad (when it obviously was) it makes you feel…shitty. More specifically, it makes it look like you were not personally capable of handling the bad thing that happened.

“You’re feeling bad not because the situation was bad, but because you are lesser for letting the situation affect you the way it did”

We already know Pomni thinks very little of herself for believing that abstraction will happen easily for her compared to the others, so hearing this definitely didn’t help.

To Ragatha’s credit, she tries to reassure her that there is no ill will between them by affirming that Pomni’s thought process for abandoning her was “understandable”. But it unfortunately comes off as a little passive aggressive. We know Ragatha is being sincere, because we as the audience have the benefit of hindsight, but Pomni doesn’t. “Understandable” does not mean “acceptable”. Jax’s destructive behavior towards the others and everything else in the Circus is “understandable”.

Abandoning Ragatha a second time after promising to come back to help her was not ok. Did it make sense in the moment, yeah. Was it still kind of a dick move, yup. And Pomni is very well aware of this. So it’s likely she doesn’t 100% believe Ragatha when she says shit like “there’s no hard feelings” nor can she think of her as a friend (yet) because she’s still not ok with her situation. She’s not terrified anymore and she’s past the bargaining phase that there’s still a chance for escape, now she’s just more or less resigned to it (and only after one day which is remarkable).

What also doesn’t help is that for the majority of the episode Ragatha’s attitude comes off as a bit patronizing.

So. Yeah. She wouldn’t appreciate this level of infantilization from someone she had previously dreamed was making fun of her.

What’s sad is that Ragatha’s not acting like this to be deliberately condescending towards Pomni. She really is just this into the adventures.

Bless her heart

Unfortunately, Pomni’s not having any of it because it’s gotta be kinda disheartening to know that your new eternal life just amounts to playing make believe with a bunch of maladjusted adults.

One of my favorite scenes that I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about is this one

Because I caught how she didn’t start looking away all irritated until Ragatha said “some way you could help”. Now I interpreted her reaction in two ways: Either she really doesn’t feel like getting involved in the adventure and is frustrated that Ragatha is still trying to push her to participate or (my personal favorite read on it) she thinks Ragatha is subtly rubbing it in her face how useless she was at trying to help her the day before.

Remember, Pomni actually went to a lot of effort to find Caine before she saw the “Exit” door. We don’t know for sure how long she spent looking for help, but it was a valiant effort on her part to explore the Tent on her own, only to fail at the end. Both at helping and not finding a way to leave.

She is two for two on the girlfailure checklist. And I’d imagine her self esteem would continue to decline with every little reminder that anything she tries to help herself or anyone else is futile.

Which is why her conversation with Gummigoo becomes such a turning point for her. It also shows how much better Pomni is at talking to others by allowing herself to be vulnerable.

She doesn’t try to make what Gummigoo is going through a lesser deal than it is. I also think the purpose of Gummigoo as a character was to be a sort of parallel narrative to Pomni.

The extreme wide shot of them sitting together under the map of his fake world makes them both look so small and inconsequential. And then it pulls back into a full shot of them with Pomni trying to convince Gummigoo that he does have value because he has people that he cares about and that care about him. (It won’t be until the very end where Pomni realizes that she’s in the same position as he is).

Gummigoo makes the argument of why should any of that matter when he, as an NPC, doesn’t have the luxury of having what little he has (his friends and his affection for them) when it will all go away as soon as the adventure ends. He was only designed for a single purpose, and that purpose ends with being forgotten.

Now we already know how Pomni feels about that, so she gives him what she’s been wanting: a way out.

She offers him a chance to be something more than what he was designed to do, where the fear of being forgotten doesn’t have to come into fruition (at least not in the way he would have to worry about)

And then he asks her the very fair question of why does she even bother helping him if he’s not even real, and her answer helps to further establish Pomni’s overall character. It’s not just a short term goal like wanting to find a way out of the Circus, it’s her defining motivation that will encompass her arc for the rest of the series.

Even in the Pilot, she proved to be a compassionate person when she chose to help Ragatha (both in offering her hand the first time and choosing to go back for her later). So I imagine she will start to actively be there for the other cast members once she grows more comfortable with them. Pomni has the benefit of being the newest addition to the Circus so she’s able to look at the others more critically by just passively observing them. Then calling them out on their behavior, not out of malice, but out of altruistic concern. These people have issues, she may not be able to fix them, but she’ll be willing to listen.

(This might be nothing, but a little detail I noticed after Gummigoo agrees to go with her is that she asks him for his name (and it’s also the first time we ever hear it in the episode itself) but he doesn’t ask for hers. In fact, he doesn’t call Pomni by name at all in the episode. Which could have an indication of some serious death flags. Again, I could be wrong about this and I’m giving it way more significance than it deserves. Just a stray thought.)

Anyway, Gummigoo gives Pomni the lead to get them both out and it’s telling how little she believes in herself the way she keeps downplaying her own ideas.

Because up until this point, Pomni has felt rather useless. So in her mind, the chances of something going right for once were slim. That’s why when her plan works as intended and manages to save not just herself but her new friend as well, she visibly starts to feel better. She’s actually smiling, she’s a lot friendlier towards Ragatha, and begins to act like living in the Circus might not be so bad.

…yeah…about that.

I think we are all in agreement that Pomni is a girlfailure. And she is, but not in the way we’ve come to understand it.

What I mean is that Pomni fails. A lot. Not because she’s an anxious mess or due to general incompetence, but because the narrative consistently prevents her from winning.

She tried to get Ragatha help -> Caine was nowhere to be found, abstracted Kaufmo was hot on her trail, and the door shows up to entice her to leave.

She goes through the “Exit” door believing it’s the way out -> She wastes an indeterminate amount of time going through countless doorways that lead to nowhere and is told in the end that the “Exit” was never real.

She tried to get Gummigoo to join the Circus -> Caine obliterates him Thanos style.

That is the face of someone who thought she was doing something right for once, and was abruptly proven wrong. God really said “LOL nope” to this poor woman. (I also love how Pomni’s trauma response is laughter, really leans on the whole jester imagery she has)

That she did, and it amounted to nothing. Pretty on brand for her really.

Yeah, it seemed like Pomni was not gonna catch a break. And once again Ragatha immediately tries to undermine what just happened, with Pomni going back to being paralyzed with shock at the utter insanity she had just witnessed. Homegirl is not ok. And she would have stayed that way if not for Ragatha actually being real for once by inviting her to grieve with them.

The ending of this episode truly caught me off guard.

Not poor Gummigoo’s “death”, that I actually expected, but it was still shocking to see.

No. much like Pomni, I wasn’t expecting the others to actually throw Kaufmo a funeral (and apparently this is a custom that they do regularly, which is bittersweet). And I wouldn’t have blamed Pomni for believing that they don’t really care about each other because all of them saw Kaufmo be thrown into the cellar and then the they all proceed to just eat dinner as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

I’ll be frank here, I didn’t get emotional from that scene because of Kaufmo. He never had a speaking part or even an actual on screen appearance; the man had no character outside of telling bad jokes and that had to be given through exposition, so there was no resonance in his “death”. But that is clearly intentional because they didn’t even bother making the other’s eulogies about him be audible. Pomni has never met Kaufmo, she never knew him, so her attending a funeral for someone she had no real connection with is odd.

And that’s because all Pomni needs and by extension what we need to know is to see that he clearly meant something to the characters we HAVE been spending time with. This funeral was less about mourning Kaufmo and more about putting Pomni’s fears to rest that even if she were to abstract, she would not be forgotten. And even more importantly, these people genuinely do care about each other (Jax is still up in the air, but 4/5 ain’t bad). So if anything could make Pomni more comfortable in her new home, it’s the affirmation that she’s not alone (Hence the title of the theme that closes the episode). So abstraction won’t come as easily as she previously thought.

It’s remarkable that the writers managed to make a FUNERAL feel like we were ending on a high note compared to the dread that the ending of the Episode 1 evokes. And I really like that because everything from the gentle music, to the visuals of everyone being sincerely doleful, to Pomni’s small smile at the end really stresses how this show isn’t trying to be nihilistic with its premise. That Pomni, in spite of everything, is going to be ok.

[merp-blerp]

A Gaylor/Kaylor Interpretation of "But Daddy I Love Him", Despite It Being Obvious, 'Cause Happy Pride

Overblown Analysis Under the Cut ↓

"I forget how the West was won // I forget if this was ever fun // I just learned these people only raise you // To cage you"

The opening line is a reference to a film called How the West Was Won (1962). I'm not well-versed in this film, but I know that older American Western films and the American cowboy aesthetic in general often represent male masculinity, and by extension, male heterosexuality, romanticized into picture-esque imagery of wealthy, cis, white, straight manly men ruling the West through violence. All this despite the fact that historically, many cowboys (not just boys/men, of course, so cow-folk maybe, if that's even a term) were broke queer people, often people of color, trying to survive. Similarly to Taylor, these individuals have had their queer history erased all for the sake of marketability and giving a general audience a more traditionally palatable and relatable portrayal of reality to consume. (For more on this topic, Kaz Rowe has two great videos on queer cowboy history and the queerness of cowboy movies, if that interests you.)

With "how the West was won" not being capitalized like a film title, it seems clear that while she's referencing the movie, she's not directly talking about How the West Was Won (1962). I think this line might hark back to "Cowboy Like Me", a song about Taylor (and her lover) swindling the public into assuming they're straight and the industry "rich folks" into thinking they'll abide by their rules forever. If she continues to beard and swindle she'll win the hearts of the general public more and more, or the hetero "west", but she forgets what the benefits of doing that at the unknowing cost of her happiness were. From my perspective, if Taylor forgets how the West was won, she's saying she forgets what the long-term value of hiding her queerness with straight narratives and beardings had in her mind once upon a time. She forgets if she ever found the beardings/stunts fun in her youth because she has now learned that "these people", likely industry people who have had hands in her career, only closeted her for their own money benefits, not truly caring about her at all.

"Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best // Clutchin' their pearls, sighing, "What a mess" // I just learned these people try and save you // 'Cause they hate you."

I think many songs or moments in TTPD are Taylor envisioning/anticipating what could happen if she were to come out. Obviously, the main source of bigotry against queer people is warped religious beliefs, so the "Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best" are homophobes in this reading, but considering Taylor's fanbase and the feminine names chosen, they could very specifically be swifties who are overprotective of Taylor. Swifties who do deplorable things in the name of protecting Taylor's honor, such as doxxing gaylors online because they disagree with them and see suggesting Taylor's queerness as immoral. These types of swifties will often call the act of speculation on Taylor's queerness "gross" and lean on the reasoning for that being that speculation is invasive, even though Taylor herself has never commented against speculation of her queerness in any way when she very well could if it bothered her. Therefore they have no actual clue if that's how Taylor sees it, it's just their homophobic opinion that the suggestion of queerness is gross and they project the opinion onto Taylor as if anti-speculation should be universal when it's not nearly that simple. They see the act of the Taylor sexuality discourse existing as a mess.

If Taylor is queer, seeing that a number of her fans find queerness disgusting would produce incredibly negative feelings, whether it's anger or sadness. While I don't think every anti-speculation swiftie has these particular feelings towards it (it's complicated and could have a post of it's own), some hetlors hate speculation because they know that it could be correct. If Taylor were out as queer she'd become a "queer thing" they couldn't enjoy the same way anymore; she wouldn't be their mirrorball anymore, and that's terrifying because for many that's Taylor's appeal. If she's queer she's no longer this bestie, big sister, twin from your dreams type of artist to hetlors, she's this "other" that belongs to "others". This subsection of fans try to defend her because they, consciously or not, hate the idea that an assumed "straight" woman could actually be queer and unlike them. And therefore they indirectly hate her. The real her. They'd rather have the brand Taylor Swift because they can relate to it more, so they don't want to see her. "You needed me, but you needed drugs more" (from "COSOSOM"). They try to "save" her from being seen/out 'cause they hate her.

"Too high a horse // For a simple girl // To rise above it // They slammed the door // On my whole world // The one thing I wanted."

Both the "Sarahs and Hannahs" and "Elders" exhibit a sense of superiority Taylor feels like she can't rise above by being simple. Many anti-speculation people see their opinion as the politically correct thing to do. Therefore it's superior to speculation in their eyes, despite the fact that speculation can be a critical step to finding other queers and even can be used as a form of coming out—letting people speculate. They're on "too high a horse". The attempted Lover coming out was very simple, with Taylor flagging rainbows without an obvious showing of potential contempt she had for the industry that closeted her, unlike TTPD, which exhibits much anger towards it. But the simplicity was partly why the coming out attempt didn't work. Taylor's general fandom still viewed her flagging as nothing because she didn't say anything and harassed gaylors while the SBs foiled the biggest part of her plan that would've freed her. In "I Hate It Here", Taylor mentions that she only "rise(es) above" her closeting in her fantasies for now. Instead of getting to come out, her closet door was slammed shut. Her identity, her whole world, was still in the shade of the closet.

"Now I'm runnin' with my dress unbuttoned // Scrеamin', 'But, Daddy, I love him' // I'm havin' his baby // No, I'm not, but you should see your faces"

The title of the song is pretty unanimously agreed to be a reference to The Little Mermaid (1989), which of course came out the same year Taylor was born. Arial yells this at her father when he discovers her hidden interest in the human Prince Eric before destroying her collection of human artifacts.

It's worth remembering that Arial in the film says that she is 16 years old, the same age Taylor was when her first album was released. Arial is still at an age where she would still be under her father's thumb, as she's a child, even if she doesn't feel like one. Meanwhile, Taylor is now in her 30s. She should not need her father's permission to have an interest in someone. The whole scene Taylor paints with these lyrics seems comical, Taylor running after and begging her father as her clothes come undone, maybe because she was caught in the act of making love to this "him", or she's going erratic and ripping her clothes off. Then she screams that she's having her apparent lover's baby. The story becomes more and more soap opera levels of dramatic till Taylor pulls the wool from over the listeners's eyes and reveals that it was all a lie once the facade becomes too crazy to believe unless you're gullible. It's easy to see just the "No I'm not" as a direct response to simply "I'm havin' his baby", but I think it's a response to the whole first half of the chorus. She's not a teen girl begging to be allowed to date, she's an adult.

"You should see your faces" directed at the listeners could be Taylor teasing about the shock on their faces at her wild story or the fact that it's a lie, but it could also be Taylor mocking the look of enjoyment the listener gets from her fake story, which represents her real life beard narratives. The dress unbuttoned story getting crazier and crazier seems to mirror how the real-life bearding narratives get more and more fantastical, at least in my opinion. With the current "Tayvis", Taylor is selling a high school fantasy of the popular cheerleader-type girl getting with the football boy, even though Taylor has never truly been the popular cheerleader-type in reality; she was a bullied nerd during her actual schooling days and has always portrayed herself as separate from the "cheer captain", instead being "on the bleachers" in "YBWM". Then there's the Joe vs. [Rat-dacted] narrative, where Taylor was reportedly head over heels for Joe for 6 or so years, with him not caring that she was famous and seeing her for her, till they suddenly "broke up" and the narrative changed to him stifling her. Then it changed again to her actually being deeply in love with [Rat-dacted] the whole time instead, with Joe simply being an elongated rebound type of relationship. And it gets even more confusing when you try to attach the original [Beard-DJ-dacted] → Tom Hiddleston → Joe Alwyn narratives into the mix. It's all just unraveling into less and less sense. Yet the Sarahs and Hannahs probably don't question a thing because the narrative is still straight, so what's there to ponder?

TTPD's first ever easter egg was "red herring", which is a tool meant to mislead the audience in storytelling, but an attentive audience member might be able to see past it, especially in time/hindsight. The dress unbuttoned story is a red herring to distract from the real story Taylor illustrates in the next half of the chorus, especially when the song is titled after the lie portion of the song. And by extension, in her whole career, all of Taylor's beards, many of the he/him pronouns in songs, lyrics like "your buzzcut and my hair bleach" in "Dress", and songs like "London Boy" and "So High School" are thinly veiled red herrings that keep up the surface appearance of straightness to distract yet invite the listener to dig deeper into the true queer stories in her music once noticed.

"I'm tellin' him to floor it through thе fences // No, I'm not coming to my senses // I know he's crazy, but he's the one I want."

Taylor now tells the listener what she's actually doing. She's telling her lover to run away, presumably along with her, especially with the song's end depicting the lovers returning to "town", but more on the ending later. The lover is still masked by he/him pronouns, but the story is still the truth. (While I do think the "he/him" in this song is in actuality a "she/her", it is interesting to view the first half of the chorus using "he/him" as a part of the red herring Taylor is telling.) In the lie, Taylor begs for her father's permission to love, but in reality, and in a lot of her music throughout her career, Taylor disobeys any disapproving peers and flees with her lover. They could either be fleeing out of the closet, or fleeing away from disapprovers. "Floor it through thе fences" reminds me of "And you know that I'd swing with you for the fences" from "Peace". The phrase "swing for the fences" means "to make a big effort to do something that is very impressive or important, but is difficult to achieve, especially if there is a risk of failure" according to Cambridge Dictionary. Both coming out and being in a glass closet can pose many risks. So Taylor telling her lover to floor it or rush through the fences could mean to run away quickly or have the double meaning of taking a big risk, like coming out or flagging when they should be closeted, along with herself doing the same.

The recurring storyline of running away and/or disregarding naysayers has appeared in songs like "Love Story", "Run", "Call It What You Want", "Speak Now", "MAATHP", "Down Bad", the unreleased "Better Off" from as far back as 2005, and so much more. Going against the grain is her reality. In her music she was never "Scrеamin', 'But, Daddy, I love him'", or just pleading to be accepted, but always running away, dreaming of an environment where she could be accepted, and refusing to come to her senses and just letting the cookie crumble passively. But her beards don't reflect the stories in her songs beyond the surface-level red herrings. The first half of the chorus is the flimsy public narrative, and the second half is the reality.

Taylor's lover is described by her as "crazy". Asylums are a recurring theme throughout this album. Historically and culturally people who were put into asylums were often dubbed "crazy" and mistreated rather than receiving the help they might've needed if they were truly in need at all, as some people who were put into asylums weren't even ill, just perceived as such, similar to queer people who are seen by homophobes as ill when queerness is natural. In this album, asylums represent the industry that raised Taylor and treated her like she was crazy. In the song "TTPD", both she and the lover call themselves crazy, so she and the lover are both in the asylum or industry.

From a specifically Kaylor perspective, Karlie Kloss, particularly in the years before meeting Taylor, has always seemed "louder" than Taylor. And not quite as disciplined in keeping her straight narrative(s) up properly (i.e. Kar recently posting an anniversary pic about being with Josh for 10 years when it's supposed to be 12 years by now. But who has she allegedly been with for 10 years as far as the public's known for sure...?). Through my interpretation of Tay's music, it seems like Kar is Taylor's driving force to potentially come out, as her albums up to 1989 seemed more keen on staying caged and being okay with it, but albums after that have felt like attempts to at least claw on the closet door. Being in a committed relationship with someone willing to be loud might risk Taylor's safety in the cage, so being with someone as "crazy" as Kar is a risk, but she's the one she wants.

"Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid // Tendrils tucked into a woven braid // Growin' up precocious sometimes means // Not growin' up at all."

Taylor mentions growing up precocious in at least 3 different songs on TTPD, this, "The Bolter" and "I Hate It Here". It's definitely something we're supposed to pay attention to. In "You're Losing Me" Taylor mentions being a pathological people pleaser, which lines up with her talk of trying to be the perfect "good girl" who didn't force herself onto people since childhood in Miss Americana. Often, AFAB people who behave this way are told that they're being very mature by being quiet, whether it's quiet in general or quiet on world issues instead of speaking up. As someone who also grew up precocious, it was always easy to get told you were doing a good job by just sitting pretty and never expressing anything. But these traits might begin to backfire the older you get as you suddenly realize that you never got to be a child, but you also weren't really an adult when you were called "mature for your age", so you might end up regressing in a way or just confused on how to actually be an adult properly.

If you're like me, you believe Miss Americana was originally meant to be a coming-out documentary, or a documentary meant to explain Taylor's journey with her sexuality, released after coming out, before those plans were foiled. Her early developmental years are likely a part of why she isn't out yet. She wants to come out in a very specific way that's more than "just saying it". Especially since theirs a lot at stake with her coming out the bigger she gets, the more employees she has to make sure get paid, and the more she has to protect her family. She can't be a "simple girl" and "rise above it" at the same time because the situation is way more delicate now than it was during the Lover era.

In Miss Americana and "The Archer", Taylor mentions feeling like she is stuck at the age she got famous, 16. If we see the lie of the first chorus representing her flimsy bearding narratives, then she could mean that she never grew up into being openly queer. Since she began writing songs, Taylor has always written her songs with the knowledge that one day they could be publicly heard. Even unreleased songs that are very queer-coded like "Welcome Distraction" still have he/him pronouns, just like the ones she writes to this day. Songs that don't have romantic he/him pronouns or are about a girl have always had plausible deniability, such as "Angelina" or "Question...?". Even if it's just a bit of that plausible deniability, heteronormativity makes it really easy to hide when you do it as well as Taylor does.

The mention of braids calls back to "Seven", a song in-part about childhood. Tendrils can be a part of a plant, which reminds me of "Please picture me in the weeds // Before I learned civility", which could be interpreted as Taylor being more wildly queer in some way when she was young before learning how to act straighter for her own good. Tendrils can also be stray pieces of hair, or metaphorically queerness, that was hidden in a straight, rigid braid. I also think this has to do with "Peter", a song I believe to be about Taylor apologizing to her inner queer child for taking so long to come out; when Taylor began hiding her queerness in her music, I'm sure she thought it would just be till the world was ready to hear her truth some years down the line. And if the song "Change" is anything to go off of, she might've been optimistic that that was soon. "I thought it was just goodbye for now // You said you were gonna grow up // Then you were gonna come find me". But here we are over 20 years after she began writing songs and she's still writing in the same closeted way, for now. The southern drawl (if that's the phrase I'm looking for), or her choice to use words cut short like "Runnin'", "'bout", and "ain't" during this song's most tense moments make this feel like her younger, pre-pop self-speaking up finally.

(As a bit of an extra tidbit, these lines really remind me of lyrics from "Welcome Distraction" that I think are meant to be, "A life and a plan and I wasn't gonna stray // Swore I’d never let a man in my way", but I get different results when I look up the lyrics due to its unreleased status. Younger and current Taylor possibly singing similar lines really expands on the never-growing-up aspect of this reading.)

"He was chaos, he was revelry // Bedroom eyes like a remedy // Soon enough, the elders had convened // Down at the city hall // 'Stay away from her' // The saboteurs // Protested too much // Lord knows the words // We never heard // Just screeching tires and true love."

The "he" being in actuality a "she" is the reading that makes the most sense for this song overall. With all the religious imagery in the song, religious elders would not object in this particular way so hard against a guy and a girl wanting to be together. It makes the most sense when Taylor's lover is thought of as another woman. If the lover is a woman, she would definitely represent chaos for Taylor, not necessarily because of her personality but through the way Taylor wants her and the trouble that want could cause. The lover was not a part of the plans laid. But the lover is also the celebratory feeling of being in love, and the celebratory feeling of pride you get from being queer once you've found someone who you can be yourself around and be proud of yourself with. Revelry.

If we think of the "elders" being the SBs specifically, than them meeting each other at the "city hall" could be them coming together to steal Taylor's masters, which recked her plans to come out the same day the news broke out.

Since I'm personally a late-stage Kaylor, I see the saboteurs saying "stay away from her" as the perpetrators and believers in the Kaylor feud, spreading the never-confirmed rumor that Karlie betrayed Taylor as if it's fact and being overprotective of Taylor by demanding Karlie stay away from Taylor since she's a "trader".

Alternatively, the saboteurs could be telling Taylor to stay away from Karlie, as even though there have been other rumored relationships with women Taylor has had, Karlie has always been the strongest suspect and the most well-known since Taylor was never really able to keep the straight facade up as well as usual around Karlie (i.e. Kissgate). I doubt this reading of the line a bit more purely because the lover has been constantly dubbed "him" through the song and it'd be odd to switch up here, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I'll move on with the former interpretation for this reading.

"Protested too much" is a reference to Hamlet by William Shakespeare. In the context of the play, Queen Gertrude says this as a reaction to Hamlet's play trying to weasel guilt out of her and mainly her new husband for marrying so soon after the original King's murder. When the queen in the play says she'll never remarry after her husband dies, Gertrude tells Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", meaning she thinks the queen in the play is putting on a front that shouldn't be believed. If Taylor believes the saboteurs are "protest(ing) too much" it could mean that she believes that they aren't being honest about their stance against the lover. That their hatred for them and calls for them to go away would falter if time were to prove their stance wrong. In "Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus", Taylor says "If you wanna tear my world apart // Just say you've always wondered", which I take as Taylor knowing that when she comes out, despite the strong rejection of her planting seeds to her truth right now, people will say that they had always suspected that she was queer once they feel socially safe to do so post coming out. If the lover in this song is Karlie, then it's not hard to imagine the saboteurs suddenly backtracking their hate in order to praise Kaylor and Karlie after Kaylor becomes publicly cordial again.

With "Lord knows the words // We never heard/ // Just screeching tires and true love" Taylor and her lover ignore the saboteurs's hatred and carry on with their love. Or they ignore the hypocritical words of "praise" for their relationship that'll come when they come out. I'm more inclined to believe the former due to the mention of "screeching tires", a car reference. I mentioned in my "Champagne Problems" analysis that vehicles often represent the closet/running away from the public for Taylor, so if she and the lover are enjoying "screeching tires and true love", they're making the best of their closet as they run away from the rest of the world for the time being, like how they do in "Paris".

"I'll tell you something right now // I'd rather burn my whole life down // Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin' and moanin'. // I'll tell you something 'bout my good name // It's mine alone to disgrace // I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing"

I believe Taylor is gearing up to come out, reveal at least aspects of her reality, and expose the harm the industry has done to her and maybe even others. This line syncs up perfectly with the "Burning Lover House" theory, with Taylor eliminating all the red herrings of her past albums and telling her truth. If Taylor's career and good name goes down the toilet due to her being herself, it'll be her doing and she wants to be in that much control of herself. The "vipers dressed in empath's clothing" are the fans who harass and harm people like Karlie all in the name of defending and "empathizing" with Taylor, even though Taylor has never okayed that behavior and has spoken against it. The vipers pretend to empathize with the situations they think Taylor's been in and her music, but their behavior shows they don't truly see eye-to-eye with her and what she stands for. She's done catering to them.

"God save the most judgmental creeps // Who say they want what's best for me // Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see // Thinkin' it can change the beat // Of my heart when he touches me // And counteract the chemistry // And undo the destiny // You ain't gotta pray for me // Me and my wild boy and all of this wild joy // If all you want is gray for me // Then it's just white noise, and it's just my choice."

Taylor calls out the "judgmental creeps" who hurt people in the name of her. Her asking God to save the "judgmental creeps" could be sarcasm, but I also know Taylor's a Christian (and maybe catholic. I know she grew up catholic), and as a queer Christian, I know that I tend to fully see homophobia as practically an illness, like how homophobes view queerness as an illness, and hope homophobes find it in their heart to overcome those ailments. I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor felt the same way.

The creeps "Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies" that Taylor will "never see". Doing something sanctimoniously is doing something in a performative way, calling back to the saboteurs protesting too much, being hateful only because it's so normalized in the community, and who are likely going to do a 180 once their hate is no longer in style for the times. If Taylor will never see these soliloquies then she could be saying that she'll never give them the time of day, the "words we never heard" from earlier. A soliloquy is a speech that's said when alone without listeners (they're also famously associated with Hamlet so that ties back to "protested too much"), so these creeps are essentially arguing with the wall, as Taylor turns a blind eye to them no matter how much the soliloquies are made to empathize with her or impress her because they do none of those things.

The creeps think their hateful soliloquies will change Taylor's truth. They think if they pretend Karlie doesn't or never existed in Taylor's life in any way and harass Karlie, then it'll change the reality that they secretly or unconsciously know is true, but it won't. The saboteurs and Taylor's closet-ers can't change who she is and what she has with her lover. If the Sarahs and Hannahs only want the straight, beard-narcotic-giving, grey Taylor Swift™, then their pearl-clutching just becomes white noise to Taylor, and it's her choice to be in screaming color, dazzling in the daylight.

"There's a lot of people in town that I // Bestow upon my fakest smiles // Scandal does funny things to pride, but brings lovers closer."

In my "I Look In People's Windows" analysis, I viewed the "town" as a metaphor for her tour locations and fanbase. Since she's of course performing on tour, Taylor's happiness could definitely be faked if she had to make it. She can do it with a broken heart and her fans wouldn't even notice. The amount of people inside the stadiums when she tours is massive, so it really is a lot. And if her beard is at the stadium, or "in town", she can give them all the fake winks and nods she needs to keep up appearances as the time to come out approaches. "Scandal does funny things to pride" has a double meaning. Scandal can take a shot at your ego or sense of pride. But queer scandal can also make you want/have to hide your urge to be openly queer and proud, as older queer celebs like Rock Hudson had to completely deny their queerness if rumors got out of control for their own safety. Still, scandal, or hardships, can bring lovers closer as they persevere through it.

"We came back when the heat died down // Went to my parents and they came around // All the wine moms are still holdin' out, but fuck 'em, it's over."

I like to see this and the incoming chorus as Taylor predicting the wake of the coming out. She'll burn it down, things in "town" or the fandom will be chaos, and then she and Karlie will return/publicly reunite in the afterglow of it all once the fandom's shock wanes. The narrative of this song is that Taylor and her lover ran away, disobeying Taylor's father figure rather than begging him, but when they return her family accepts everything. Taylor is still seen as at most a "PG-13" artist, accessible to children, so their parents, the wine moms, could still be upset once the heat dies down, wanting Taylor to be a sanitized image for their kids to look up to and still pearl clutching at her queerness. But fuck 'em, the pain of the closet is far behind her and her lover now. It's over.

"Now I'm dancin' in my dress in the sun and // Even my daddy just loves him // I'm his lady // And, oh my God, you should see your faces."

The lie is now gone, as Taylor gets to be joyous with her lover in the daylight, out of the shade, with her Dad accepting. She's possibly surprised by that, with the use of "even". She still mocks the creeps's outrage and shock.

"Time, doesn't it give some perspective? // And, no, you can't come to the wedding // I know it's crazy, but he's the one I want."

As mentioned before, the vipers suddenly backtracked their hate, as time proved their actions wrong, but no matter how much they might kiss up now, Taylor for the rest of the song continues to mock them with the post-chorus and outro. Especially with "Tayvis", her fans have been invited to vicariously and happily experience her "relationships" through her, despite her constant singing of private relationships and disapprovers. But the majority of her fans are not invited to her real relationship, the one she truly keeps private. No, they can't come to the wedding.

I like how "he's crazy" changes to "it's crazy". Taylor knows that the post-coming-out situation will be crazy, especially if she plans to expose an awful, buried side of the industry in some mass coming out with others as some theorize. But she wants her lover and the things that come with the freedom.

Thanks for reading!