#this was basically the serious analysis side of the notes I took

[ghostdrinkssoup]

okay so I watched ouef (s1 ep4) last night and I only vaguely remembered it as the episode with the lost boys and the creepy family dinner, but now that I’ve rewatched it I’m losing my mind over how much it actually sets up/foreshadows mizumono, especially thematically. considering this, it’s surprising how little this episode is talked about so I’ve decided I’m gonna unpack it myself because I honestly see it as mizumono’s necessary counterpart. it’s first half, if you will

so let’s talk about oeuf

I think part of the reason why a lot of early s1 isn’t discussed as widely as the rest of the show (especially late s2 and s3 in general) is because of the prescriptive use of genre conventions that underpin the “monster of the week” format that, upon first glance, makes s1a seem a little less interesting. it strongly follows the rules and expectations of the standard crime procedural that we’ve come to expect from a show like this: first there’s a murder, then our cast of characters go to investigate, slowly unravelling the mystery while learning some lesson along the way, until finally they catch the bad guys and the episode ends with justice prevailing, resolving the initial injustice of the crime. overall we’re left feeling satisfied, but it’s nothing to write home about

nonetheless, it is very important that nbc hannibal follows this formula in s1 because it allows it to meet audience expectations while also setting up the building blocks for its later acts, which, as we know, (mostly) abandons this scaffolding entirely. you can’t break the rules unless you know the rules, and s1 proves this by luring us in through its promise of convention. you could argue that, in its own way, s1 is the show’s own person suit

that’s not to say the “monster of the week” formula completely hides the show’s gothic side. beyond the show’s visual aesthetics (dark colours, artistic murders, etc) and the almost supernatural quality of will’s empathy, each episode/murder so far has had an underlying “fairytale-like” quality to it that’s achieved through the use of specific allusions/familiar images. first it’s will describing abigail as willy wonka’s golden ticket, then it’s the mushroom garden, then sleeping beauty wakes from her coma, and now we have peter pan and the lost boys. considering how the rest of the show plays out, especially s3 where hannibal literally describes the italy trip and his perception of life as a fairytale, this seems intentional to me. I mean, he and will literally adhere to the beauty and the beast archetype, with both fitting either role depending on what aspect of their relationship you’re looking at

that’s all to say, it’s notable that mizumono acts as the literal gateway between the familiar world of s1 and 2 and the phantasmagoric beauty of s3, stripping both its main characters and the show itself of their person suits, which isn’t as jarring as it should be due to the particular way s1 is structured

which takes us back to what I really want to talk about: ouef

the episode opens in baltimore, where will tells hannibal this:

as will speaks, we see his house, lit up and observed at a distance in the middle of nowhere, caught in the vast, misty darkness he describes. linking the house with the boat is important, since this dual image develops throughout the rest of the episode. thematically, ouef is about family, as is represented through the monster of the week: the woman kidnapping the lost boys and manipulating them into killing their families. but as we said before, this scaffolding is designed to set up character specific concepts and themes that’ll be relevant later. for now, will’s home is only a safe space for him at an observable distance — only “safe” because it looks like a boat at sea, which is a positive association for him

houses traditionally represent the self. it’s an image commonly linked to identity, both on a literary level and oftentimes when interpreting dreams. and of course, when talking about the house we naturally think of family. will can only appreciate the intimacy of both himself and his personal connections from an observable distance. he does not feel safe doing otherwise. it’s why his house is located so far away from the rest of society: he’s in hiding

from here, hannibal is quick to change the subject, stating that will “stood in the breathing silence of garret jacob hobbs’ home”, or, metaphorically speaking, hobbs’ identity. in episode one, will saw the truth of hobbs more so than he’s ever seen (or embraced) the truth of himself. he was not at a distance. he was not safe

then hannibal asks, “did they speak to you?”

and will responds, “with noise and clarity”

he then follows this by saying he “tried so hard to know garret jacob hobbs. to see him” beyond the police tape and dead girls and photographs, all of which he considers superficial details. this particular phrasing is significant, since it directly parallels what hannibal later tells will in mizumono after he learns of his betrayal: “I let you know me. see me.” this scene lays out the dominoes for this chain reaction, all of which results in s2’s climactic moment, by showing hannibal’s desire to be seen, even if he doesn’t fully realise it yet, and will’s desire to connect with others like himself, if they even exist. as I’ve said before, will does not think monstrosity and humanity are separate concepts

so, by wanting to see beyond hobbs’ person suit, which in of itself is a metaphor for conformity, expectations, and the false self, will set aside his own denial and discovered something very ugly about himself. he murdered hobbs in his own home and, for the briefest moment, caught a glimpse of the truth of himself. “see?” haunts will for this reason. it’s something he carries for the rest of his arc

it’s important that this all happened in the kitchen, but I’ll get to that later

but returning to the scene. hannibal asks will how he felt seeing marissa, the girl hannibal killed last episode. there’s an unspoken question here: did you try hard to get to know me too? did you know me? see me? would I ever allow you to do so? under the copycat guise, and the person suit, is knowing me even possible? as we learn in mizumono, the answer is yes

will says he feels guilty and I don’t think he’s lying here the same way he lied when he told abigail murder is the ugliest thing in the world last episode. there’s a difference between feeling guilt and feeling remorse. he thinks he caused marissa’s death, and he feels guilty because he knows he isn’t feeling (or reacting) the way he should be. killing hobbs felt good, remember? he saw hobbs, and in turn himself, with “noise and clarity” and had a moment of chilling self awareness he can’t shake. this is what he feels guilty about. it’s not about “not saving her” it’s about the threat of his self-destructive nature burning everything around him, which is what he fears. he feels monstrous inside, due to his own sense of vindication and inclination towards righteous violence

for the rest of this scene, I’m going to pick apart the dialogue in a kind of skeleton structure so we can take what information we need from what they say. their conversation goes as follows:

“sometimes I felt like we were doing the same things at different times of day. like I was eating or showering or sleeping at the same time he was.”

→ will feels like he’s doing the same things hobbs was (showering/sleeping/eating) even after he was dead because he’s now sensing hannibal, the copycat. or rather, his own copycat/foil. they’re already connected and they already feel the same (he feels like he killed marissa even though hannibal killed marissa)

“even after he was dead?” / “even after he was dead.”

→ so it’s hannibal he’s connecting to now, even subconsciously

“like you were becoming him?”

→ the introduction of the “becoming” motif which, as we all know, is a central theme and another reference to their foil dynamic (hannibal has already said he and will are the same). note hannibal’s tone when he says this: he’s speaking quicker, unable to stop questioning. there’s another conversation happening just below the surface of this one. he’s curious about will and his ability to connect, which was established earlier in episode 2

“I know who I am. I’m not garret jacob hobbs”

→ links back to the first episode where will, out of his own free will, chooses to shoot hobbs. remember that in the opening scene of that same episode he himself tells his students that, according to his own worldview, by understanding the murder, we understand the man. this isn’t a matter of confusing his identity with that of a killer: will knows exactly who he is, and that’s what scares him. he’d rather stay in denial

it’s also noteworthy that will’s refusal to be seen as hobbs, or a copycat of him, mirrors hannibal’s refusal to be associated with him too, as we saw in episode three when he tells abigail “I am nothing like your dad.” it implies that reading either of these characters as a mirror of someone else (other than each other, of course) would be a misstep. for both will and hannibal, hobbs is just another layer of the person suit. something that’s brutally stripped in mizumono, as I said before

we learn all this in one scene alone. like I said, this episode is complex and packed. the rest of the episode simply expands on the concepts introduced in this one conversation. I won’t go into every scene because this post would turn into an academic paper, but I do want to spend time dissecting a few key scenes which I feel directly link back to mizumono specifically and highlight why this episode is so important: the family dinner scene, hannibal breaking into will’s house, will’s therapy sessions with hannibal, and hannibal and abigail making breakfast together

how will analyses the family dinner, as well as what we learn from this scene, adds to our understanding of how these characters interpret family as a whole. after all, this episode is about “the lost boys” which, to me at least, will and hannibal both are. it’s their lack of real connection that causes them to treat abigail in the idealised way they do, similar to how the woman tries to make her own found family with the kidnapped boys (although this parallel better fits hannibal than will)

within his reconstruction of the crime scene, will sits at the head of the table, saying he’s “brought his family to this home invasion.” of course he’s impersonating the killer here, but this use of the home again (and family) is enough to pay attention to

power and control is also brought up in this scene. will says he controls the turners with “threats of violence. threats that turn to action” which is how hannibal operates (although more psychologically considering his demeanour, he doesn’t seem threatening at first and rarely loses his cool) but he can’t control people that way, least of all will. in the end threats of violence don’t even work, because the more worked up you get the less in control you actually are

will then shoots mrs turner, who, as we later learn, forgives the act since she loves her son. forgiveness (and acceptance) being synonymous with love literally underpins the conflict of s3, which is triggered by hannibal asking will if he’ll forgive him for murdering abigail in mizumono, but it’s first shown here, of all episodes, in the story’s set up. because of this, hannibal killing abigail and stabbing will recalls this episode, perhaps more as an echo than a direct link, but is strengthened nonetheless by this subtle build. added to this, it’s notable that the threat of violence here is also due to a type of betrayal (“family dinner, I wasn’t invited”) but the lost boy sits at the head of the table anyway, where he belongs, much like hannibal does, both at the end of this episode and as the “paternal” father figure throughout most of the show

as will says, this whole sequence portrays family values. twisted ones, but values nonetheless. it’s why I’m more inclined to connect this episode to the s2 finale than I am the s1 finale (although it’s still relevant) because this episode is so strictly about family. mizumono is the same but in reversal: the ideal family hannibal dreams and tries to take control of, since he had no control of his own as a boy, is shattered before his eyes

the other largely significant moment in this episode is when hannibal breaks into will’s house and pierces his thumb on the hook, tying the fishing/boat imagery back to the house again and foreshadowing will as the “lure” (his s2 persona)

what’s important about this scene is that hannibal enters will’s world (his isolated identity) to plant the evidence that’ll later frame him for all the s1 murders, leaving traces of himself on will so that, for a moment, will too becomes the copycat. again, not the exact truth of him or his nature, but a fragmented replica. inauthentic. fake. another layer of the person suit, except this time it’s hannibal’s forced on will

but what’s interesting is that hannibal also gets caught in will’s web. there’s a lot of focus on the hook specifically, and the camera lingers on the feathers, which hannibal takes the time to touch and look at, until finally, he pricks his thumb and draws blood

the irony is that in this moment, before the game even really begins, hannibal loses. he’s already hooked himself. we saw hints of this in the first scene of this episode, how his fascination with will is unlike any other attachment, or lack of attachment, he has, and it encapsulates the whole reason for his downfall: his attachment and obsession. it’s beyond his control (“you cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love”) and humanises him in darkly twisted way. he cannot control his feelings, and he doesn’t know what to do with this

his fate is sealed in this episode, but he doesn’t realise it until mizumono

again, the boat imagery is another interesting thing to note. fishing/boats/anchors are all introduced in this episode as mild, safe things (seeing the house as a boat makes will feels safe, wanting to teach abigail how to fish, hannibal saying will needs an anchor, will and his dad at the boatyard, etc) but fishing has an insidious side, too. one hannibal isn’t aware of. it has a meek mask, and in its own way, acts as another type of security. does will feel safe within his own sense of control, too? that’s the whole point of the person suit, isn’t it? it’s an important question, because the fallout is explored in mizumono. like I’ve said all throughout this analysis: everything here is being set up for a single climactic moment

will also sails to florence later in a boat he builds. he returns to hannibal’s home in s3, sitting in the kitchen with abigail’s ghost, but it isn’t home if hannibal isn’t there, so he sails to find him. I hate to say it, but will’s insane little sailing trip to italy is actually symbolic too if you interpret hannibal as will’s home, and by going to find him will, in turn, is also going home

the scene ends with hannibal sucking the blood from his thumb, before we transition to the blood streaked family portrait, opening the next scene. having the frame of hannibal bleeding being immediately followed by the bloody family portrait seems deliberate to me, since, as we know, he kills abigail later and destroys their “family” because will “makes him bleed”. again, tying the events of mizumono back to the family values introduced in this episode

also, in the script the sound hannibal makes when he sucks the blood from his thumb is described as “not unlike a quick kiss” which is an odd way to phrase it within the literal context of this scene, but makes a lot of sense when you consider what it means symbolically. it’s a small detail, but it recontextualises will “luring” him in as a romantic act, as well as a romantic betrayal

continuing on, what family means to hannibal and his desire to both connect with will and manipulate abigail are both interweaved as the episode progresses. hannibal says that “children transport us to our childhoods”, reframes the idea that will’s family, who will jokingly refers to as a pack of strays, also includes abigail (and without saying it, himself) and that the woman who’s kidnapping the lost boys is engaging in a “perversion” of motherhood. all these things evidently reflect hannibal himself, and the specific trauma he experienced losing his parents and, more to the point, his younger sister. we don’t learn the specifics of this backstory until much later on in the story, but his behaviours (and the trajectory of his character arc) are influenced by it regardless

in contrast, will doesn’t seem all that interested in the concept. he sees family as an “ill fitting suit” (yet another reference to the person suit) and it’s an entirely foreign concept to him (it’s foreign to hannibal too, since they’re the same, but I digress). still, he tries to connect to abigail anyway, but this isn’t motivated by a want for authentic family or someone who understands him, but rather an ideal. will doesn’t want to see the truth of himself, it scares him. he doesn’t want to see the truth of abigail, either. he doesn’t want to see her as her father’s lure (again, fishing imagery) but as something innocent and divorced from what he knows of himself. he ironically buys her fishing gear in this episode (although he never gives it to her) in an attempt to associate her with the same meek mask we discussed earlier. but as we know, this “safety” too has layers

buying abigail a gift also mirrors what hannibal says to will in mizumono: “I gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it.” the rare gift is family, which is given value when will says “I can’t give them back what they just gave away” in relation to the lost boys and their dead mothers. it’s again another part of the family values introduced in this episode: family is a rare gift, but it’s not something you can force, which both hannibal and will try to do with abigail (like the mother tries to do with the lost boys)

the “I can’t give them back what they gave away” is particularly important, since it implies permanency and an inability to reverse the action. the gift of family and connection is only rare because once it’s taken from you you can’t have it back; you can’t reverse time; you can’t take back control

this is the crux of hannibal’s entire arc. the belief that he is in control of his life, since, in his mind, he’s godlike and exists beyond human folly and attachment, underpins every single one of his actions leading up to mizumono. for this reason, it’s significant that the teacups are introduced in this episode as a means (and symbolic prop) to control abigail. they are later related back to time but this is meant to be a symbol of hannibal’s power. he directly says that he wants to give abigail her ‘power back’ earlier in the episode, but he’s really just empowering himself. he projects his attachment to mischa onto her, something he pretends doesn’t affect him and he is above of (his approach to dealing with trauma is clear through his interactions with abigail — he thinks she shouldn’t be immersed in the tragedy of the past and should just ‘move on’)

in truth, hannibal wants to recreate the moment of tragedy (both his tragedy and abigail’s tragedy) in order to reverse time and have the perfect family, despite being incapable of this. he’s trying to escape how his trauma makes him feel powerless by attempting to take power back, no matter how futile it is

he attempts to do this here, in his home, by making them breakfast, since in his mind by feeding abigail the same (and last) meal she had with her family, he is in turn engineering a kind of ‘rebirth’ for her. he reassures that although this was the last meal she had with her family, it’ll be the first with him, and tries to take away her bad memories by replacing them with positive associations. the reversal of time is even clear in how he makes breakfast for dinner, flipping literal time on its head for his amusement

for the audience, in this scene we learn he’s a more skilled manipulator than the woman who took the lost boys, since he’s forcing this “blur” between abigail’s father and himself through the use of psychedelics and fostering dependency. he wants to replace hobbs without necessarily becoming him. again, he’s his copycat, not his replica

the fact that this all takes place in the kitchen is also important. it’s the same place hannibal will later kill her, proving he can’t reverse time and he isn’t in control, and that she was never reborn, and he was never her father. and returning to the beginning of this analysis (I said I’d come back to this) will also killed hobbs in his own kitchen, where he finally sees the truth of himself. in mizumono, a reversal occurs: hannibal is now confronted with the truth of himself and, like will, accidentally finds something very ugly by exposing himself

the episode ends with will separated from the ‘family’ and resting with his dogs, similar to how mizumono ends with will lying in his own blood, alone. in summary, oeuf quietly introduces and foreshadows key plot, character, and thematic elements through the conventions of the crime genre, and it’s fascinating to me how many links can be made between this episode and the bloodbath in mizumono

even down to the episode title: the newly formed egg and all the consequences that are to follow its hatching

[occasionallykettle]

will destroying castle byers - an analysis

in this analysis, i will be discussing both will's feelings and connections to mike (and why that led him to destroying castle byers) and also mike finding and apologising to will, compared to when he has arguments with eleven. basically, this is a byler post. i'll also be referencing the script quite a bit, since i think it is an under-utilised tool by fans.

we actually begin with lucas and mike going to will's house to apologise to him.

i am assuming that mike took the initiative to bike to will's house, not lucas, because it only makes sense. mike was the one that had the argument with will in the rain and understood how upset will actually was by his comments.

the script emphasises that it is pouring rain. i am 98.7% sure that this is because they wanted to emphasise the lengths that mike and lucas will go to to apologise to their friend. there is a map online somewhere that shows how far away mike's house is from will's, and how far lucas and mike had to ride their bikes to get to will's house. they are determined on apologising to will.

the script then states that mike bangs on the door. why wasn't it lucas? it would be stupid to make assumptions from this one detail in the script, so lets continue...

mike is the first one to yell out for will after no one answers the door. he even apologises (something he simply could not do to el)! he realises his mistake, and then asks for will to come out (lol). no hesitation whatsoever.

also, is it just me, or does this scene give anyone else flashbacks to season 1? when everyone was yelling out will's name? just a side-note.

only after mike calls for will 3 times does lucas also call out for him. lucas only calls out for will after he realises that will isn't listening to mike (assuming he's home).

this is not to say that lucas does not care about will, no. not at all. lucas does care about will, as shown by the fact that he also biked over with mike in the pouring rain and also apologises. but maybe it's an indicator that either: a) mike cares about will even more than lucas does, or; b) mike cares about will in a different way. i am quite sure that it's the latter, because lucas and will also have a bond that, fairly, is underrated.

and mike might still care about will more than lucas, but what else is that supposed to mean? if they are all on the same levels of "friendship" then why does one care more than the other? because mike is exceeding friendship and leaking into romantic feelings. his romantic feelings being: 1) caring about will beyond the others, 2) caring about will's feelings beyond the others, and 3) afraid that will has lasting negative emotions on him (which he might as well have since mike didn't actually apologise to will yet, and more evidence later). even if he doesn't know it yet, mike is developing romantic feelings for will.

i would also like to point out that from what we have seen, mike didn't attempt to reach out to dustin like he did with will. yeah, mike and dustin didn't have such a serious argument, but they are still best friends. like will pointed out, mike didn't know where dustin was and didn't bother to check his house or even try contacting him on the walkie talkie. mike had a conversation with dustin in season 1 about how they were best friends... so why is will even more special than dustin? what level of "friendship" is there beyond literally being best friends? that's right, there isn't one.

now, we move onto will in castle byers.

even before the flashback started, mike was the first one that will heard. this might just be because mike was the one that was running the campaign and this was the only suitable way to incorporate this flashback.

will is reminiscing on happier times, as the script states. the script also clarifies that this was before will went missing, implying that everything went downhill in will's life after he was taken to the upside down, which is true - his childhood was taken away from him.

we know that this is about his childhood and not explicitly about him cowering in fear of the demogorgon everyday (which even further solidifies the idea that will is a strong kid who can deal with the most traumatic stuff), but about him being stripped of his childhood, because the argument he had with mike was about how they aren't kids anymore - they are growing up, getting girlfriends (subconsciously adhering to heteronormativity) and they can't be playing games anymore. will wants to continue playing games, but he can't do that anymore. that's what pains him the most. this is even further cemented by the following part.

again, mike is the first one heard in will's brain. this kind of signifies that will misses the old mike that would play dnd with him. the mike that didn't have a girlfriend.

we see another reference to how the boys were "having fun again", and how will wishes that they could go back to that time.

highlighted in yellow are the references to will the wise. we know that will was dressed up as will the wise just prior to mike and will's argument, so it must pain him even more seeing how much fun will the wise was having before mike got a girlfriend and changed to being less "childish" (this is why it actually makes me glad that mike started playing dnd again in season 4 despite will not being there)

okay, now the ghostbusters photo. this is the point at which will's eyes fill with tears, as the "echoes of fun" fade away (as quoted from the script).

the picture that will rips in half is the ghostbusters photo. you know what's insane? it's a picture of all four boys lined up, and although it isn't mentioned in the script, mike and will are the ones in the middle.

this means that when will rips the photo in half, he is ripping mike and himself apart.

if that isn't the most cliché thing to do after a breakup, i literally do not know what is.

then comes some more byler lines. remember in season 1, when flo said "only love makes you that crazy. and that damn stupid." to nancy? yeah, i'm sensing a connection.

love? crazy? stupid?

and the cherry on top? will proceeds to do something very stupid and very crazy. destroy castle byers with a baseball bat (he doesn't like baseball, his father forced him to like "normal" things). his love for mike and his love for the childhood that was snatched away from him made him crazy and stupid enough to destroy castle byers.

he is sobbing and screaming. he is utterly devastated.

then, he starts using his hands. i do not know specifically why this was in caps or why it was an important detail, but to me it seems like he's going crazy and being stupid. at the end of this scene, the statement that confirms a lot of what i just said: "childhood... gone." this line might be just as heart-breaking as the entire scene.

now we skip to the part where will has a neck tingle when the mind flayer awakens inside billy.

why is it that in the script, it is specifically stated that will faces mike? what about lucas? it might just be because mike asked the question, but he wouldn't just tell this to mike when lucas is there too. this sort of parallels to the previous scene where will would confide in mike before anyone else, implying that he trusts mike over the others. this mindset hasn't changed, and despite the argument that they just had, will still loves mike deep down.

also, mike returns with the "what happened? are you okay?" because he is so concerned for will. re-watching the scene can confirm this as well, since you can tell from mike's voice alone that he is concerned for will. i think mike saying "are you okay?" to will has become a trademark of his, since he is used to say it ALL THE TIME back in season 2. i was glad when he said that again in the same voice that he used to. mike also still loves will deep down.

conclusion? byler is real, will and mike love each other, and love makes will crazy.

[bluexiao]

#inazuma, the land of eternity.

—relationship headcanons for all inazuma characters

CHARACTERS. Ayaka, Baal, Kazuha, Kokomi, Gorou, Sara, Thoma/Tohma, Yae, Yoimiya; gn!reader

THEMES. fluff w/ character analysis:)

WARNINGS. spoilers up ahead! not much more like the basics of who they are and what they do + places in inazuma. nothing major unless maybe for ayaka? just a few implications for her story quest.

NOTES. this definitely took awhile to make! i have no regrets though:) also, this is very long time wow the dedication,,, anyway i think i blotched this whole thing but enjoy!! most are written based on how i analyzed them just a heads up!

AYAKA

Of course, the Shirasagi Himegimi is a well-known individual in the whole of Inazuma. With her identity alone, it may be difficult to loiter around without gaining attention from onlookers.

Nonetheless, it’s not a hindrance for you to bond with your beautiful girlfriend. Actually, this will only prompt the both of you to go and sneak outside probably with disguises or masks on so that there will be no one interrupting you. You’d both throw a fit of giggles and all whenever you two passed by someone familiar, probably her own brother or Thoma.

Your favorite place together however is the Chinju Forest. Not only is it near the Kamisato Residence but also because there are no monsters or people there. The surrounding is peaceful and beautiful as well.

Dancing for you while you two are alone? Definitely. She would even offer her hand and may take yours to join her. Don’t know how to dance? She doesn’t mind! She might even teach you how, or atleast guide you with your hands together. At first it might be silly but by the time you two had gotten serious, which is an easy feat to achieve really since she’s used to hold a serious facade, only this time it’s not just a facade.

She’s serious because she’s realizing just how you make her feel and that she, once again, is in awe that she has you now by her side.

“Thank you for being with me, I promise you that I’ll protect you and care for you as much as I can as gratitude of your love and kindness. Please, will you dance with me?”

BAAL

Is a strict lover, probably even the most protective out of everyone else. She may seem like she is pretty detached to you atfirst glance but she cares deeply inside nonetheless.

We don’t really know much about her yet but I feel like it’s difficult to spend time with you, especially since she seems to be the type to do her work seriously and not spend a single second wasting her time, not that you are a waste of time, no.

Point is, she’s a god. She should or would appear as emotionless all the time and she is also quite busy running the whole nation.

Also, public appearances are a no go. She doesn’t permit you to take her outside for the sole reason that it is to protect your identity.

She might take you out sometimes, but it is very rare, and most likely at nights. She might even stop the storm for you, wherever you two might go.

I feel like she shows her soft spot to you more often than not. She lets her guard down when you two are away from the eyes of others, often reaching out her hand and a soft look on her eyes as she does so. Normally, no words leave her lips since that gaze was enough for you to sense that it was her way of saying thank you--for staying by her side all this time, to eternity and beyond.

“Can you stay with me for eternity? Are you willing to? For… me, you say. If that is what you wish, then I shall grant it for you.”

KAZUHA

Is probably the best lover out of everyone, no cap. But that’s just at first glance, actually. He holds many thoughts inside his head, words he can never say aloud, memories he can never relive in terms of practicality.

Nonetheless, it wouldn’t stop him from showing his love and devotion to you. No matter how much he seems like he carries more than a few burdens deep inside his heart.

Loves dates with you all around Liyue, most likely. Taking you to eat is the most important time of his life. You will never miss a meal when you’re dating him, I tell you.

And he composes you haikus most of the time! If he is away, he might even send a bird to you with a paper on its beak or so and written there is a new haiku composed of how much he misses you and longs for you and so on.

Definitely is into hand-holding while walking down the harbor or even on the ship as you two are perched somewhere where the wind can pass you both easily.

“You have captured my heart, I take it you’ll bear responsibility for it, won’t you, dove?”

KOKOMI

Everyone is absolutely jealous of your relationship—not necessarily in a bad way though.

She treats everyone fairly and equally, but you? You—she pampers on a daily, if not per second, basis.

Definitely, the type to call you “honey” or “sweetie,” a replacement of the “comrade” she once called you along with everyone else.

On second thought, she might be calling you lots of sweet nicknames. And they don’t absolutely sound cringe-y when they came from her lips! It’ll just leave you flustered and on her grasps seriously.

She is incredibly busy though, so there is only limited time for you both. No worries! She always makes it up for you because she’s sweet like that:(

“Ah, there goes my lovely Y/n! How about we eat lunch together? Come, I shall cook for you as an apology for being away for so long.”

GOROU

Is a busy man, let’s get this point out more often than not. He is the general of the resistance and it shows that he definitely plays a big role indeed.

Training members, answering inquiries, assisting in the planning; the list goes on.

Although he does make time for you, at the very most capacity that he can. Eating and sitting with you during meals, letting you stand by his side whenever he walks around the camp, and even holding your hand while doing so.

He is also very protective. He would absolutely never let you go to the front lines unless it is absolutely necessary. He just couldn’t see you get hurt, and it would also make him lose his focus. So it’s best if he would be worryless while in battle if you were staying behind safely at the camp.

If you get even a small injury I tell you he’s going feRaL. Well, if it is caused by the battle, that is, On second thought, if you accidentally caused it yourself he might even reprimand you for that because poor boy doesn’t like seeing you hurt:(

“You must be careful next time, sweetheart. Does it hurt? There, I dressed it for you now-oh? You want me… to kiss it better? What-” he sighs, “How can I ever say no to you?” internally screaming rn

SARA

She is very considerate of your well-being. And very protective as hell. Anyone who dares disrespect your privacy earns an earful from her.

If you have conflicting beliefs, then that might be a problem. She wouldn’t want to see you on the different side, but she definitely would respect you if that’s your decision.

She probably wouldn’t even have the heart to hurt you… maybe try to capture you if it’s necessary but hurt you? No.

Dates with her is probably mostly private, partly for your safety and one part because she prefers it that way.

Okay but taking her around outside if she’s not busy? She might even let down her guard when you do so.

“This is… I had a good time, I shall thank you for that.” she’ll say with a small smile on her face and when I say she looks beautiful like that, she absolutely does, you’d probably stare at her in awe of such a sight.

THOMA

Is very fun to be with; he can make you smile, laugh, or even holler. Although he does many different things that you yourself wouldn’t want to involve in his business most of the time.

Another one who loves calling you pet names. He definitely calls you ones that make you cringe most of the time just to tease you or have a good laugh for the both of you. He just loves seeing you react to them, well unless if he stepped out of line, which is rare anyway.

He is a natural giver, and he would get flustered if he receives something from you; may it be a gift, a praise, an i love you, or hugs or kisses, absolutely anything. He just becomes happy with that, yknow?

Also protective, I mean it’s his job so he would naturally want to keep you safe and sound. But it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t take you out on dates. Actually, he might be the one who would do that more often than everyone, maybe aside from Yoimiya.

He loves treating you around town, anywhere. He actually likes it when people greet you two and they say that you two are a good couple, it swells his pride, you see.

“Ah yes, of course, you see that too huh, don’t you? See that, honey? Even Taroumaru agrees to me!”

YAE

Much like Ayaka’s, it is difficult to go out with your lovely Lady without as much as an interruption from any other person.

Dates in Mt. Yougou? Just roaming around while petting the foxes and talking to each other? Definitely. The peaceful atmosphere is very calming that even someone like her could cast her worries and work aside while she’s there with you.

She would mostly talk about the customers they had or the cases they covered, nothing too private to share to you, just sharing her line of thought on the people in general.

Also, the place is not too far from her work so she can go back if she is suddenly needed. After all, she still is the head of the Grand Narukami Shrine. She cannot possibly not take responsibility of that.

She is also a private person, me thinks. She would rather show her affections to you in private, whenever you two are alone. It’s mostly her initiating kisses, actually. She loves seeing your reaction right away and may even tease you for it.

“Flustered now, are we? Now, now, was it not you who asked me out first? You should have readied for this kind of treatment yourself, no?”

Also, she does seem very observant. She may even know you like the back of her hand by just observing your actions and your words. So if you say that it’s alright even if she’s busy and she’s not giving you attention, she’ll see if you’re lying and would do her absolute best to finish whatever task she needs to finally have time for you.

YOIMIYA

She is also fun to be with! Exhilarating might be the proper word, honestly. She is the embodiment of energy and joy.

I bet she may even be the best candidate for best dates award. She’s not busy so often plus she always knows her way around!

Fireworks festival dates are a given for her. But actually, she does have times when she is silent and you would notice that every once in awhile if you two are along and are not out running errands, just on a simple date with a tricolor dango on your hands perhaps.

When she is silent, it tells just how much she is enjoying your company and how peaceful she is at your presence. She might even lean her weight onto you for a bit as you two silently watch the ocean from up ahead.

“I like this, you know. Being one with silence and enjoying the breath of fresh air. Somehow, I don’t feel like I’m in a rush with you. I think it’s a good thing, right?”

NOTES. i personally liked writing for ayaka and also gorou hmmm am i playing favorites? sorry xiao and kazu

[ktinastrikesback]

Alright, here it is: The meta post about Eddie Diaz and mother figures and how it all leads to Buddie (I think). Thanks to @yramesoruniverse for your help with this, and @kitkatpancakestack and @evanbucklies for inspiring it! I really have been thinking about this nonstop and had to get it all down. This got quite long, so I'll include a cut in order to spare everyone who doesn't want to continue reading!

We first get an idea of Eddie's complicated thoughts surrounding mother figures throughout his whole storyline with Shannon in season 2 when he romantically reconnects with her for Christopher's benefit. I do want to keep the focus here trained on Eddie in season 4, but I want to point out a season 2 line that is pretty fitting. As much as I don't want to use a Shannon quote as a starting point for a meta, I think this one is actually pretty useful: "...Eddie always knows what's best for everyone...God forbid you stop for a second and actually ask them what they need." While it's harsh and spoken out of spite, Shannon does make a point here which becomes relevant at the end of season 4.

We don't know a whole lot about season 4 Eddie (thanks writers) aside from the fact that he's working on being a single father (he tells Marjan in the crossover that he's "doing the whole single dad thing") and being a support system for Buck and the rest of the 118. Eddie's "arc" this season is moving on from Shannon and beginning to date again (a very small and limited arc, which hopefully season 5 will remedy). Of course, because it's Eddie, the core of this arc is him wanting what is best for Christopher. And it seems pretty clear that what Eddie thinks Chris needs is a complete family with a mother figure (note how he asks Bobby if he's "happy now, with Athena and the kids" and just assumes that Bobby is talking about Ana Flores), but the universe pushes against this idea throughout the whole season. There are a lot of examples in season 4 of unreliable mother figures (for example, the alcoholic mother who causes the wreck in Blindsided), but in order to save some space here, I'll list and discuss those in another post. The main thing I want to point out is that we've seen that mother figures aren't always perfect, and they aren't the end all be all that Eddie thinks. And canonically, the show suggests several times throughout the season that the partner that Eddie needs/wants and who is best for Chris is actually Buck.

In Breaking Point, while Eddie is on his date, it's Buck who is at home taking care of Christopher and getting him through his nighttime routine (which establishes that he knows the routine and has gotten Chris ready for bed before, hence the reference to his "cautionary tale"). On the date, when Ana says that no one has been in his life since Shannon passed away, Eddie noticeably looks uncomfortable (the will reveal makes this scene and that particular comment and Eddie's subsequent reaction so rich. Eddie knows that what Ana is saying is completely untrue, because the person he trusts most with his son is with him at that exact moment). Later, when Eddie tells Christopher about his new 'friend', he says "it's a woman." And...to be honest, what the hell was that? He could have said, "I'm dating someone" or "I have a girlfriend." But he says it like this? And it's weird...right? Christopher is the one who has to say "girlfriend." Also his tone of voice when he says it...it's suspicious to me. Anyways...Eddie talks with Ana about Christopher's reaction and her first instinct is to take a break and wait for Christopher to warm up to the idea so as to not cause him more pain. Meanwhile, Chris is out the door, in an Uber, and on his way to Buck, the person who actually gets Chris to talk about his feelings and who fixes the whole mess. So while Eddie is talking with Ana, Buck is playing a parental role AND promising Chris he isn't going anywhere, completely juxtaposing everything Ana has said and done in this episode (throwback to Fools, anyone?). Just like we see in 4x14, the perfect partner that Eddie is looking for is already putting in the work, no questions asked (and this is all before Buck knows about the will!). Yet Eddie is still trying to force it with Ana.

We see this again very briefly in Parenthood. Eddie and Buck are seen agreeing on parenting ideals on a call, similar to how we saw them work together in Future Tense to talk Chris out of playing video games. At the end of the episode however, when Chris asks to join the movie, Ana just jumps ahead and lets him in, not consulting with Eddie. Of course, this isn't a serious issue and Eddie is happy to have Chris join them, but it still carries on with juxtaposing Ana with Buck. It's also a bit interesting that Chris sits between them, parallel to the video game scene from season 3. But again, it's a very brief scene, so I don't know how much value it has overall.

We see all of this come to a head in 4x13 when Eddie becomes invested in the single mother and her son from the balcony call. Interestingly, this call happens after Eddie's conversation with Carla ("make sure you're following your heart"). On the call, Eddie flirts with the mom. This is interesting because we've seen many times in the past that Eddie...doesn't like flirting, especially on the job. Eddie openly flirting with the mom here may be his way of fighting against what his instincts are telling him Carla's comment was about (him liking Buck/a man). Eddie quickly becomes invested in Charlie (the son) and takes a liking to his mother because he relates to her. You can kind of see the gears working in Eddie's head when he's at their apartment...he's admiring her and perhaps maybe fantasizing about having a partner who gets it. And he sees a mother taking care of her son...reinforcing his love for the mother figure. But of course, we all learn by the end of the episode that this mother figure is extremely warped and not at all what her child needs.

The best part about this plot is the way it plays into the shooting scene at the end of the episode. Just before he gets shot, we see Eddie in an interesting framing choice (I am genuinely serious when I say that I want to sit down with Brenna Malloy and ask her about her directing choices for this whole scene):

The mother and son are placed into separate ambulances, and Eddie stands between the two vehicles. Visually, Eddie is literally placed between the mother figure and the son, and Buck is standing in front of him (at a slight distance). As (thank you to @kitkatpancakestack for pointing this out!) the ambulance with the mother drives away, Eddie says "shoulda gotten here sooner" to Buck (who replies, "That kid is just lucky he met you." He knows how to reassure Eddie and recognizes what is good for the child). Then of course, Eddie gets shot. But let's focus instead on why this framing before the shooting is important: the universe does scream, and it sure as hell was screaming at Eddie this whole episode. Carla calls him out for not following his heart, he idolizes this mother only for her to end up being horrid, then he gets shot with his partner standing right in front of him (you know, the same person who takes care of his son for the entirety of the next episode).

This can be read so plainly: Eddie has been fighting hard for what he thinks is best for his son, and he's stuck in this relationship with Ana because he thinks she is what will make Christopher happy. Meanwhile, Buck is in front of him and has been there the entire time putting in the work with Chris and making him feel heard, loved, and important. This ties right back to that Shannon line: if Eddie had simply asked Christopher what he needs/wants, it's very possible that his answer would be "Buck." Eddie doesn't need to be stuck in the middle of this relationship he doesn't care about because Chris' happiness is not dependent on having a mother figure.

Of course, we didn't see very much of Eddie in 4x14 so we don't really know what is going through his head regarding the shooting or Carla's comment just yet, but I'm hoping we see a lot of him working through all of the events that took place in 4x13/14 throughout next season. Because of the way the mother/son storyline ended up and the way they framed Eddie in the shooting scene, I'm willing to bet that he's going to be reevaluating just what Christopher needs and what he already has (with his Buck).

(Also side note--the welcome home party scene...when Buck is watching Eddie greet Christopher, notice the framing there too. The photo of Chris and Shannon is on the right side of the frame, Eddie and Chris in the middle, and Buck to the left. You already know what I'm going to say, so I'll leave it at that...)

Anyways. Edmundo Diaz is confused about what he and Christopher need, and it's actually a brilliant way to dive into a storyline about his sexuality and his feelings for Buck. Remember that post-finale interview with Tim where he said Eddie is always concerned with what's best for Christopher? That there will be a lot to explore with Eddie? I take everything Tim says with a grain of salt, but looking at all of this, there's quite a bit here pointing in the direction of pining Eddie. It's not wishful thinking, it's in the text.

I'm literally just applying basic film analysis to these scenes...and everything is adding up to a larger picture. I'm really excited to see what Eddie's arc in season 5 will be because there's so much set in place for it to be really great.

[fablesofkitkat]

pov: keeping it casual with Shiggy and Dabi

warning: suggestive / lime af

DISCLAIMER: this doesn't belong to the [Cherry, I run] timeline nor [can the world cease to exist?] timeline. I didn't want to write this pov because I felt like I haven't done enough character analysis on both Shiggy and Dabi to write them in the same pov; but a friend told me if I keep pussyfooting over writing two characters at once, how can I practice versatility in writing?

everyone is in LEGAL AGE in this pov.

if you want me to tag you on any Dabi povs or Shigaraki povs I'll write, let me know

"You look like you're the life of a party."

Shigaraki takes a side glance at you and a subtle scan to your body. His eyes lighted with curiousity and appreciation with your choice of outfit: a high neck tank top mesh, a dark indigo fitch lace bralette, a black high waisted skirt that hugged your hips nicely and black stilettos.

"And you look like you're going to church." He gave you a smile, turning his whole body to you.

You and Shigaraki were both seated on the bar stools. There were still alot of seats available, not that it was still early, it's just that it isn't midnight yet and clubgoers were only starting to get in. He takes a sip from his drink, tasting the whiskey followed by a hint of sweetness, mixed with herbal, bitter notes.

You giggled. "Amen to that."

It was always nice to meet someone who understands sarcasm, you thought. Your eyes roamed his form appreciatively, his long sleeved shirt fitted him nicely and there was something so charismatic about the man, you couldn't quite put a finger on.

"Sazerac?" He offered, gesturing to his drink. You nodded and he waves the bartender down, buying it for you. "Tell me something, church little miss. Why me?"

"Hmm?" You distractedly watch the bartender prepare your drink.

"You're planning on sleeping with me. Why?" He takes another sip. "We both know interactions like this don't end as innocent."

You demuredly smiled at him, an enticing provocation when you're dressed ready to f–

"I didn't want those guys at the dance floor who grinds themselves all over me. I want someone different, a little intellectual stimulation." You tilt your head and leaned towards him; your lips curled in a secretive smile.  "A little foreplay, ya think?"

A bolt of heat shoots all over Shigaraki. It must be the sazerac. He's gotta admit that your boldness is quite attractive to him.

"You ever had it good?"

You snapped your eyes back to his. He caught you staring at his groin. To be fair, you were curious with his... package."What?" You asked, smiling seductively.

He cocks his head to the bartender.  "The drink. Sazerac."

You flushed, thinking he was talking about sex. Now you're just embarrassed. "Oh, what do you mean?"

Shigaraki leans close to you like how you did earlier. Like sharing a little secret. His breath smells like whiskey, with hints of cherry and spice. A dry sardonic aroma. Dammit, why does the scent turn you on?

He cups your chin with his right hand, the texture of his thumb sleeve brings goosebumps to you. He turns your head to the bartender. "After mixing the sazerac to one of the glass, the other is rinsed with absinthe before finally pouring the drink to it. If the bartender doesn't do that when you order a sazerac,  hop to a different bar."

You watch the bartender do exactly what he just said. You feel his thumb sleeve coyly touching the edge of your bottom lip, slowly following the curve of your chin, down to the curve of your throat, he pressed the spot aligned with your vocal fold that you let out a little gasp, or a squeak. His other hand is grabbing your thigh, preventing your legs from closing to relieve some of the ache.

"Ah-ah-ah." His voice deep but sing-song. "You don't get to close your legs with me here."

---

Dabi was randomly watching himself blow circles to the ceiling in the smoke room. When he hears the door slide open and you appeared, trying to catch your breath. He took an observation at you and found himself attracted to the way your chest heaved. Not that it wasn't a common sight for him, what with women flocking towards him whichever club he went to. He blew a circle in your direction, meeting your eyes critically. He smiled at the snooty, upturned nose you did and the way you rolled your eyes.

"This is the wrong place to try and catch a breath." He greeted.

"I wasn't trying to catch my breath." You patted your chest, slowly getting your breaths to slow down.

He raised an eyebrow at your reply.

"Yes, I was. But I was trying to run from a creep who wouldn't take no for an answer and you're pretty intimidating, so I was hoping to bum on your presence 'til he's gone." You explained.

Dabi couldn't stop staring at how, despite being seen disheveled just now, you casually primped yourself with a compact mirror. It amused him so since no one really cared what people looked like after spending a few hours at the club, usually everyone would be a hot mess. He found you cute.

"What's in it for me?" He drew a breath from the shisha and blew it again lazily at you.

You eye him critically, pursing your lips. "My wonderful company."

"So I get to take you home?"

"No. My company is only available within the duration of my stay here."

"Pity." With mocking a tone, he smirked at you. "But then again, you seem like you're too vanilla anyways. Can't have sex without being in love with someone?"

Dabi watches how your eyes glinted menacingly, a silent vow to prove him wrong. He anticipates how you crossed the room from the door to him, his heart jumped when your fingers brushed his as you took the pipe from his hand. You took a deep long breath, leaned down and blew sweet, sweet smoke in his mouth. He closed his eyes as the tobacco filled his nostrils, along with your scent. It takes everything in him to just let the smoke trail all over his mouth, and not let his lips press against yours.

" Your many piercings seem like you're overcompensating for something. What, you don't want people to know you're the one who's actually vanilla?"

He opens his eyes and a lazy smirk settles on his lips. He grabs the pipe back and blows the smoke to your mouth just hairsbreadth from you. "Why don't we find out then?"

You feel the way the air moved with his lips. It was so close. It was electric. His eyes daring you to close the distance. You took up his challenge of course.

---

"Oh, ffuuuck." You awkwardly stand by the door when you find Shigaraki and Dabi glaring at each other in the living room

"Who the fuck is he?" Dabi demanded

Shigaraki only glares at him and then turns towards you.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. Uhmm Dabi meet Shigaraki, my fubu. Shigaraki meet Dabi, my not-serious bf which basically is just another word for fubu." You awkwardly shuffled your feet. "I guess I had too much to drink, I accidentally texted the other and here you are... two... Hahaha..." Kami, you just made a huge awkward mistake. Dammit, you're gonna lose them both.

"Which one of us did you text first?" Shiggy asked.

"Which one does it better?" Dabi asked.

They exchanged glares at their simultaneous questions.

"Um–"

Suddenly, they are both on you; Shiggy cups your face, kissing you angrily, biting your lips til they bleed while Dabi is behind you, cupping your chest as he slowly takes off your clothes. Dabi kisses the spot behind you're neck, nipping your skin 'til there's all but teeth marks on your shoulder blades.

"I'm not stopping–" Both glared at each other for saying things at the same time again.

You moaned when Dabi starts press his hips on you while Shigaraki's hands unbutton your jeans, and finally touching you there.

"We're not stopping–" Dabi's hot breath fanned your right ear.

Shigaraki's low quiet rasp on your left ear. "–not until you know which one of us can do you better."

---

AN:

[Cherry, I run] Dabi is screaming betrayal at me rn. Dw Dabi, this version of you has less issues than usual. [can the world cease to exist?" Shiggy is ignoring me, telling me he wouldn't share reader. ever.

[lovee-infected]

So Merlin the goddamn great, smh but no ROOK LORE I AM FURIOUS! I STILL WANT TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS

Warning: Spoiler alert!

Oooooofff the final episodes of chapter 5 did seriously explode the fandom I see, from the overblot Grim to our twst Merlin, everything literally everything about the end of this chapter was a big surprise but... This chapter has also brought up a considerably huge wave of drama along with it, which is basically because of Rook voting for RSA instead of NRC. I, personally, considered it to be just a reason to laugh and make a meme or two about this chapter and all. But looking at the fandom, I can clearly see that it's been causing some serious consequences, some fans/creators are leaving the fandom, there has been a couple of offensively worded Rook hate posts (small memes and jokes aren't counted) and there's ever a #RookIsOverParty on Twitter now.

Okay but, it was all cool and chill until it was just a joke. Can't you see? This happens in many fandoms! And is often a good chance to laugh! But...This is getting serious. A huge majority of this fandom (even Rook/Vil shippers and Rook stans themselves) are hating on Rook/Rook stans and fans are leaving, therefore I believe the situation needs to be clarified before it leads to more dramas.

Many of you had also requested a Rook analysis before sooooo- here we go!

First off, this episode did eventually give us a considerable amount of Rook lore although it wasn't as perfect as we wanted it to be. Most of us wanted to get to know him more, but I'd say focusing on all we've got already would do for now. But before that, let's talk about what exactly happened in chapter 5 and why are fand hating on Rook rn:

after the performances are voted on, it’s revealed that nrc lost to rsa by just a single vote. that vote turned out to be rook, who voted for rsa in favor of their own team as he was moved by their spirit. the whole nrc team is shellshocked (of course) and vil faints

it’s also later revealed that rook is one of neige’s biggest fans, possessing albums full of his bromides, going to each meet and greet, and even writing him anonymous fan letters.

Okay okay I know this was quite unexpected and resulted in NRC's loss, but before you say how much of a shitty character Rook is consider this:

1) He was totally honest with his opinion and thoughts.

One of the interesting facts regarding Rook's character design and presence in chapter 5, is how he played the role of both the huntsman and the mirror.

He was honest with his beliefs and decision, although it was against his friends. Just as how the mirror introduced Snow White as the fairest one of all although Evil Queen didn't want to hear of her.

This is also what Rook did, he judged based on his idealistics towards beauty. NOT because he's a screaming Neige fanboy and NOT because he disliked Vil.

Honestly, if there's one person whose judgement would be strong and on point, that'll be Rook and only him; in parts (2) & (4) we'll explain why.

2) His decision has nothing to do with his personal relationship with Vil!

Yes, he voted for RSA, but to assume that this means he secretly preferred Neige over Vil all this time and call him a betrayer now, that's wrong.

Look, if there one person who could judge NRC's process through the training sessions fairly, that'll be Rook. He's been there all this time, watching each and every second of Vil's coaching and team's progressing, note that he also helped Vil the most, this performance would've been impossible without his help!

But, he was also there when Vil lost it, when Vil's fear of not being the winner took over him and made him even try to poison Neige. At some point Vil was nothing like the perfect coach he was at the very beginning, and if Rook hadn't told Neige to escape who knows how terrible the whole think might've gone.

His decision, on the other hand, was HIS decision. He was asked to choose one performance, and he chose what he liked; that's all, no big deal. Note that the silly thing with the whole issue isn't mainly how Rook voted for RSA, it's also about how half of the audience as well voted for RSA which makes it sound almost stupid, this point will be explained in part (5)!

3) Have you all really forgotten what Rook is like?

I mean, come on this is what he is in general! This is Rook Hunt we're speaking of, one of the rarely known characters of the game and mister of surprises and unpredictable decisions!

Him being a Neige fan is no big deal, and I assure you, he probably stans a lot of other people else than Neige too. Don't forget that this is the same monseiur Rook who gave 100 points! to anyone who participated in NRC's VDC test, so there shouldn't really be a panic taking all over the fandom just because we know he stans Neige, Rook is one to greatly appreciate the concept of beauty in general, and Neige is one of the most famous and beautiful people in the whole twisted wonderland, so other than this being much of a snow white reference, it was totally expected to see him stanning Neige as well. Keep this in mind that just because he's a fan of Neige, it doesn't mean that he hates or he has betrayed Vil.

In Rook's point of view, there is no such thing as rivals in beauty, he just appreciates both Vil and Neige's beauty regardless of what's going on between them.

4) This chapter proved that Rook is indeed a perfect friend for Vil.

While there hasn't ever been a mention of a canon relationship between Vil and Rook, shipper may be happy to know that this episode didn't sink the ship at all. And if you judge and see through what happened in the right eye, you'll see it even shows how strong their friendship is.

Note that this wasn't the first time Rook criticizes Vil either, back in Vil's SR lab coat story he openly criticized Vil and said he's gonna get fat if he continued to eat like this. See? Rook never the once lied to Vil, he openly judges him, and his judgements are logical and on point.

Vil on the other hand is always working his hardest to improve, to become better and completer by each and every day that passes. He needs such a friend by his side to judge him nonetheless, a friend to judge him just like the mirror judged the Queen. But there's a difference, Vil accepts and appreciates criticism BECAUSE, he wants to improve.

A friend like Rook is seriously what he needs, Rook supported and helped him all the way as RSA was getting prepared for VDC, he could've just made them lose and by ruining their training sessions if he wanted to! Can't you see? He helped Vil more than anyone else, but didn't lie to him when it was the time to judge. Vil still has a long way to go, and Rook is aware. He wants Vil to see that he isn't yet complete so that he can become better than he already is.

That's it, that's what a real friend would do.

5) Twst needs to be more considerative toward story line and sudden reveals.

On the one hand, it's mainly fans who are exaggerating the whole issue and starting drama over a simple voting and all, but twst itself as well is partly guilty. This is such a huge and active fandom, each and every detail about the story can be super effective (ex: Sebek being half human, Malleus being an orphan, etc). After making RSA's Yahoo performance look super silly they worst thing they could do was to make NRC lose like this, meaningless, silly and helpless. Why?

Twst seriously needs to take details more seriously as they could've AT LEAST made this comparison sound reasonable by choosing a better and stronger song than a twisted version of Heigh-Ho.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Rook voting for Neige, but seriously? Rook voting for Neige had to be a symbol of honesty and Rook's loyalty toward the concept of beauty itself and not Vil, not an stupid decision to make Rook prefer a childish song over NRC's wonderful performance and look like a helpless Neige fan boy.

-Sigh- Well, I guess that's all I had for now, hope I didn't miss anything. But anyway, the Rook drama is slowly getting overwhelming. There's nothing wrong with memes and jokes AS LONG AS THEY'RE JUST A JOKE- offending characters with clear intention and causing drama because of it is not okay. I know that was unexpected please remember not to exaggerate the story too much either!

[stellocchia]

I really liked Wilbur's lore stream from yesterday, so you guys are getting a short stream analysis from me

As always dialogue is color-coded: Wilbur, Tubbo, Ranboo

And since I'm the least concise person ever everything is under the cut

The stream is (DSMP LORE) A Year Later

The stream starts with Wilbur singing the L'Manburg anthem to Ranboo. It is interesting to notice that, just like all the streams since he's been back he doesn't start off the stream by addressing chat in any way but already taking with someone in-universe.

"I'm a big big fan of the song (...) (Wilbur notices that Ranboo was muted) so sorry, let's try again: have you heard that song before?" "Yeah I have, I have. I have- I've had a friend that sings it quite a lot" “Good, good, and I was gonna say, it’s obviously based on Hallelujah right? But the thing is, the thing is Ranboo, right? But the thing is- the thing is Ranboo, right? Is that the reason we did it is because Tommy used to sing Hallelujah to the plants" "Oh, to the plants?" "Yeah! In- in the- around the- around the uhm... around the thing! You know the- the caravan? (...) so, my man, Tommy used to sing to the plants to make them grow better and that was the song he used to sing and so I thought what a way to honour Tommy, you know, one of the most- one of the most loyal members or of our fair nation than by naming the song after him, you know? And singing it based on his little- his little Muse. Tommy is a- Tommy is all of our Muse really I'd say"

I cut as much of this quote as I could while still leaving it well understandable and leaving in everything I wanted to talk about, but man is it long... So let's break it down a bit at a time:

1) The friend that Ranboo referenced that sings the anthem a lot is most likely Tubbo considering that they met him later on in this stream while he was singing that very song

2) The memory of the song seems to still be a particularly pleasant one for Wilbur, which probably explains why Ghostbur as well was so fond of it. He speaks about it positively throughout and it generally seems like an overall positive moment of reminiscence, probably because it's a callback to a simpler time when Wilbur too was, you know, happier overall. It's a reminder of a time before the worsening of his spiral.

3) Also interesting that they kept it in canon that Tommy singing to the plants was what inspired the anthem. Especially because I'm not entirely sure if that's the case considering that the actual anthem wasn't written by cc!Wilbur but by a fan upon his request (obviously this is outside the story).

4) Last thing I wanted to mention was Wilbur describing Tommy as a Muse. Muses in mythology are the inspirational goddesses of the arts, music, and science, Tommy aside from the anthem obviously isn't that. But it is interesting that Tommy does take a central role when it comes to motivating people. We could say that Techno's speech on the 16th was inspired by him since it was directed at him. Similarly, Niki and Jack had their arcs revolving around him. Tommy was able to rally the troops with ease multiple times. And Dream's obsession with him itself is the main motivator for, like, 90% of his actions. So, while he may not cover the role of a muse literally it's not a comparison that is too far off...

They headed to the museum afterward and took notice of the Ranboo poster being missing. And then they headed off to L'Manburg (which, by the way, looks amazing, thank you cc!Phil for that one).

"It goes by L'Manhole now apparently" "I- yeah it's kinda- ugh- I'm not a fan. It's kinda rude to L'Manburg's history, you know? It- it's called L'Manburg. It's called L'Manburg. NOT Manberg, not L'Crater or whatever. L'Manhole, I don't care, it's now L'Manburg, it's always L'Manburg, okay?"

It's interesting that not too long ago he was saying that even L'Manburg itself (with an emphasis on the name) wasn't what was actually important, the purpose of it was. He admits later on that he lied in that conversation, but it's impressive how quickly he trusted Ranboo enough to let him see how much he still cared about L'Manburg when he was so intent on lying about it not too long ago.

Wilbur's enthusiasm about seeing the flag is another nice confirmation about him still caring deeply for his old nation.

"Damn, I really went down to bedrock, didn't I? Holy shit I did- I did a number on this place" (I wonder why Ranboo didn't correct him on this, because Ranboo knows that Techno, Phil, and Dream are the ones who actually exploded the country down to bedrock...)

They end up seeing Tubbo on the other side of the crater and head over to him. While they're heading there Tubbo is singing the anthem himself in a very mournful tone.

One interesting thing that I noticed it's that it's Wilbur that heads towards Tubbo's location instead of having Tubbo go to him like he mostly did with Tommy for example. I suppose it could be because Tubbo having been a president himself is in less of a subordinate position to Wilbur than Tommy who's always been a simple soldier.

"It's like looking in a little mirror, look you're wearing my suit still? How long have you been wearing that?" "Oh I just put it on, just for today" (in a similar fashion to Jack bringing out the L'Manburg uniform to reminisce, Tubbo also brought out clothes he strongly attaches the memory of L'Manburg to)

"Ranboo have you met Tubbo?" "Yeah, yeah. I've- I've met him, I mean we've, uhm... we've been around" (Ranboo still minimizing his relationship with Tubbo to Wilbur. Of course, this is because he doesn't trust him but it's interesting that he isn't even honest about that)

After a bit of back and forth, Wilbur starts apologizing to Tubbo. At first, like most other times he's having a serious discussion he puts himself in an elevated position to tower over Tubbo. It's a neat way to show how his own desire for control affects him, having Wilbur literally elevate himself over others when speaking to them. Literally putting Tubbo down in this situation. Which does make the beginning of his apology very obviously feel insincere.

"I'm sorry for making you president specifically before blowing it up and I'm sorry for when I did this *pointing at the crater* and blew all this up and making this whole. I'm sorry that I uh- that I said that you were the president of a crater"

This is that first part of the apology I mentioned. Just to clarify, I don't actually think that it was entirely insincere. It just feels less impactful due to Wilbur putting himself in a position of superiority over Tubbo, especially because it's something we've seen him do before. It's also to be noted that this time, like others before, he seems to be apologizing less out of actual guilt and more out of a desire to earn forgiveness. Which is not a critique by the way. I just feel like that's a misconception Wilbur has, that apologies serve the purpose of confirming to him that he's doing a good job at changing more than to actually make amends for what he's done. The reason why I think that's the case for the beginning part of this apology as well it's because of how fast he went to ask tubbo if he forgave him, which did put a certain level of pressure on Tubbo in this situation.

"I mean it wasn't- this wasn't all you Wilbur" (thank you tubbo for finally dispelling some of those misunderstandings)

"Yeah so me and mainly Ghostbur honestly, like-" "Ghostbur" (some more of Wilbur not being too fond of Ghostbur)

"Right is he [Ghostbur] this obsidian crap then I take it and these- these fucking dumb lanterns up here" (a bit more)

To correct Wilbur's misconceptions Tubbo starts off asking if the other knew Dream, to which Wilbur responds with how much he appreciates Dream and how he's his hero, which makes Tubbo backtrack and blames most of Doomsday on Techno and Phil. Which, as we know, isn't actually accurate and I have a feeling that this misinformation will be harmful later on once Dream is out of prison (though I don't blame Tubbo for backtracking with how enthusiastic Wilbur is, that was the basic conflict-avoidant approach that Tubbo seems to prefer).

"They rained tnt for days" (if this is actually canon then Doomsday was even more of a tragedy than we previously saw it as. It was days filled with fighting and destruction. Then again, Tubbo has misremembered traumatizing events before)

"Techno and Phil, they hated the government. I mean it was partially my fault as well" "But you didn't blow it up" "No I didn't. I would never have wished or anything like this to happen" "So it was just Techno and Phil?" *long pause* "Y-yeees"

Two things to say here:

1) I appreciate someone in canon recognizing that it's not Tubbo's fault for what happened to L'Manburg and blaming the people who actually blew it up, similarly to how I appreciate Wilbur bringing up with Tommy that it was clearly Dream pulling the strings with his exile with Tubbo. It's nice having it stated plainly for people to hear

2) This is the misconception I mentioned. This is most certainly gonna backfire at some point.

After that Wilbur commends Tubbo quite a lot for rebuilding New L'Manburg (once again being dismissive towards Ghostbur) and is clearly enthusiastic about it, even going as far as to say that that mattered more to him than them building him a grave.

"I just, I feel lost without L'Manburg. All my core beliefs, everything died with it" "You feel lost without a nation..." "I have no purpose anymore" "I guess that's where anarchy fails" (I think this may be the first time someone admits it to someone else, even though that lack of purpose and feeling disoriented is very obviously a shared sentiment amongst the ex-citizens)

After that, it's when Wilbur invites Tubbo to join Paradise, the, supposedly burger van with a small house attached to it that wasn't supposed to become a nation. I have a feeling that the proposition coming right after that exchange may imply that Wilbur changed his mind on it. He does purposefully put himself again in an elevated position when making the proposition.

"Would you like to come join me in Paradise? Literally" "Hmmm, I'm not sure Wilbur. I'm not sure I trust you man, I need to- in order to follow someone I need to trust them" "Wait, wait but you- I thought you forgave me! I thought it was, you know it-" "Wilbur I forgive you because I like to hang on to the hope that people can change, but-"

This is what I mean when I say that Wilbur's apologies come with expectations for the person he's apologizing to. By asking Tubbo first if he forgave him when he originally apologized, he already made it harder for Tubbo to refute that. And now we learn that he expected trust to come along with forgiveness. He's not doing this maliciously of course, but he does seem to have some misconceptions on this.

"I know you had that- that at the festival? With Technoblade? I never spoke to you properly about this. I- I could have saved you" "But you didn't" (other people brought this up, but this is a neat little parallel to the one scene in exile where Ranboo was lamenting about how he should have gone with Tommy and Tommy shut him down pointing out that anyone could have gone but no one actually did)

There is a second round of apologies and Wilbur is still standing higher than Tubbo, BUT he does put himself on his same level after he did a bit more pushing and found that Tubbo was standing his ground. He finally puts himself on the same level as Tubbo and openly acknowledges his boundaries which is the first actual real effort to change that we've seen from Wilbur. Which I'd say is a pretty important step for him.

"Wilbur in order for you to gain my trust back you have to prove it, I can't just give it out anymore. I used to be able to but I just- I just can't" (acknowledgement of how Tubbo's trauma also affected him deeply)

"You know I still have dreams, right? Of the explosion. And- and of the fireworks. And- and all of it. I- I still- I vividly see all of it. Every day. It hurts. It hurts a lot Wilbur"

I want to commend Tubbo here for being able to open up like this, especially considering how much he generally leans into denial and how much he usually suppress. And on top of that this is Tubbo acknowledging that both Wilbur's actions (the explosion) and Techno's actions (the fireworks) have hurt him and STILL hurt him and affect him deeply. It's quite a big admission especially for him.

"Sorry feels like such a weak word. I feel like there's nothing stronger that I can say" (first time that he's standing on the same level of Tubbo while apologizing)

"You're so strong man. Genuinely. You just- just the fact that you proved to me just there that you have this memories, that you have this nightmares and you still find it in your heart to forgive me. That's... you're a fucking champion man. You- you're a hero"

It's interesting that the reason why he claims Tubbo to be strong here is because he forgave him. It's not something that's inherently about Tubbo, like the fact that he still found the strength to go on and rebuild after the events he mentioned, for example, no. What Wilbur brought up is the one thing that Tubbo did for him. Which tells me that he still clearly has a bit of way to go to learn how to make amends and how redemption actually works, but, you know, that's to be expected honestly.

Wilbur moves on by inviting Tubbo to at least come and see Paradise, just to see what they'd made and Tubbo refuses because he wanted to spend more time reminiscing. Wilbur this time respect Tubbo's boundaries with no pushing which is yet another step forward for him honestly. Wilbur also gives Tubbo a "lucky rabbit's foot" that Tommy gave him to cheer him up and assure him that he had no problems with him not going.

With this their conversation comes to a close and Wilbur and Ranboo head over to Paradise (though not before Ranboo has confirmed with Tubbo that he actually does want to be left alone).

"You know I was gonna say 'this is hard' but obviously it's hard. I mean, you know, I've..." (a bit of reflection on his actions for Wilbur, you love to see it!)

"It's gonna get better! It's gonna get better! And it's gonna be worth it when I see them smiling. All of them. Tubbo, Jack, Niki, Tommy, anyone!" (I'm pretty sure that this is a genuine sentiment right here. It really does seem that wilbur's Big Plan right now is just to make amends and change)

"Do you know who the original L'Manburg group were? Do you know who we were?" "I- I think most of them yeah... I think it was like: you, Jack, Niki, Fundy I believe as well" "Fundy was a bit after. Fundy was after we'd gotten independence"

I wonder if that's an actual misrememberance on Wilbur's part (c!Wilbur, not cc!Wilbur, I'm sure cc!Wilbur remembers this) or just him wanting to put some distance between his good memories of L'Manburg and Fundy. Because Jack and Niki weren't there for the independence war either and yet he singled out Fundy who was. And I doubt that he'd forget about his son being one of the people who lost their first life in the final control room. In addition to that Wilbur didn't mention Fundy before among those he wanted to make smile.

I really think that this was intentional and that it was because, well, Wilbur felt deeply betrayed by Fundy. And we as the audience know that Fundy only ever publicly stopped acknowledging him as his father to be able to stay undercover as a spy, but he doesn't. It wouldn't be so weird that he wanted to erase Fundy from his memories of the time when he was supposed to be happy.

"I try and keep this on the low because I don't want uh- I don't want people to use it against me is the main problem. I do wa- I didn't even tell Tommy, I lied to Tommy" "Yeah?" "I'll be honest I'm gonna tell him soon that I lied to him because if it- it kinda eats away at me. But I told- I told tommy that I didn't actually care about L'Manburg and that it was just like a tool for me to use to gain, you know, power and stuff, but it's not- it's not true. L'Manburg is- was really important to me. And it is still to this day"

Once again I'm surprised how little it took Wilbur to trust Ranboo with stuff he hasn't really told anyone else. Makes you really understand how low of an opinion of himself he has that when the first person that calls him "alright" out loud just gets his undying trust. Especially considering that Ranboo doesn't trust him back and hasn't been the most honset with him so far. It's also a nice spelled out admission for anyone who didn't get how much Wilbur cares about L'Manburg from the longing look he gave to the camaravan's replica in the stream where he said he never cared.

"I wanted history to live on, not as a stain caused by me, you know. I basically took a big shit on the history books it feels like" (just another interesting little insight on Wilbur's view of the situation)

"I've heard about what's Tommy's, you know, moved on... and how jack's moved on, and how Niki's moved on and everyone's moved on from L'Manburg at least partially, but Tubbo man, he's still..." (he only thinks the rest of them moved on because he hasn't spoken almost at all with two of them and he never really listened to Tommy. Also, again, Fundy is not mentioned)

"I don't know where I'd be without you [Ranboo] here right now man, I mean T-Tommy's great and all and he's here but I- I feel like, you know, I don't wanna- I don't wanna string him along too much because he's- I- when I look at him. When I look at him when he's helping me out building things with me I see the same eyes that looked at me when... when... There were some- there weren't some fun times in the ravine of Pogtopia. I wasn't a very well man and I can just see Tommy from that day"

This one was one heck of a confession!

I don't know if this is me misremembering, but I'm fairly sure that this is the first time he's admitted to not being great to Tommy specifically. Again, Tommy is the one person he met with so far that he hasn't apologized to. Heck! He told Tommy to his face that him being sorry for his actions didn't mean he wouldn't do them again. It's a pretty damn big admission to acknowledge that that behaviour (which is the same now, if not worse when only related to Tommy) wasn't good. It also shows that he's at least a bit aware of Tommy's emotions which is rarely shown honestly. Though whether he cares because of Tommy or because being around Tommy makes him feel guilty (which is what you'd expect him to feel) and he doesn't like that is to be determined still, mostly just because the phrasing was a bit uncertain at the moment.

"I know what it's like to have no one- or at least feel like no one trusts you. Uhm, and I- I've realized that if- if no one's with you then how can anyone really know when you've redeemed yourself? So that's why I'm here I guess" (Ranboo's answer to why he trusts Wilbur. Which he doesn't, but still)

And the stream ends with Wilbur saying he hopes Tubbo comes around to try out one of the burgers (though he does repeat that he doesn't want Ranboo to pressure him to join) and complimenting Ranboo a bit more.

[n1kolaiz]

"Man fears death and yet, at the same time, man is drawn to death. Death is endlessly consumed by men in cities and in literature. It is a singular event in one's life that none may reverse. That is what I desire."

Character Analysis: Dazai Osamu

Age: 22 || Ability: No Longer Human

I've done a lot of research concerning Dazai's character because of how complex he'd initially appeared to me. It is still a question as to what his personality type is; some say he's an ENTP while others argue that he's an INTJ, and his enneagram would most likely be 7w8 (The Realist), but that isn't the thing I'm going to focus on.

According to general databases and fan analyses, his temperament is dominantly melancholic. A person's temperament is basically how they react to and live in this world. For those of you not interested in such details, don't worry, I'll get to my point.

The melancholic behaviour is characterised by individualism, self-reliance, and reservation. People of the melancholic temperament are described as having been overcome with sorrow and depressive thoughts, which is beyond the feeling of "just being sad."

Nonetheless, they are generally calm beings, with a tendency to hide how they truly feel by keeping their composure, even in events that demand severe reaction otherwise. Other aspects of melancholic temperaments is that they are absorbed in the cruelty and tragedy of this world, and tend to get lost in their thoughts.

Sound familiar?

Dazai is seen to be as the comic relief of the adaptation, and he'd never fail to bring about a sense of lightheartedness to relieve the serious moments; we all know that for sure. Remember the time both him and Kunikida found Nobuko Sasaki in that godforsaken hospital, and how Kunikida asked him about his opinion on the current state of affairs?

But, despite having developed a calm and serene personality, Dazai's dark side was more apparent during the Dark Era. There was a type of intimidating and arrogant flair evident in his behaviour, or even on his face. It was the type of demeanour that came off cold and terrifying to the rather unlucky people he dealt with. In a moment's notice, they could literally die by his hands. And I believe most of them usually did. It was during this time, he was more brutal and vicious. He lacked remorse. Plus, Dazai's suicidal ideations were more dense during this Era, and his suicidal tendencies did not do anything to alleviate the depth of how dark his character was posed to be.

Side note: Unfortunately, people misunderstand this 'depressed' part of Dazai; they minimise his character so much to the point that people use only a single word to describe him: suicidal. He is, in fact, so much more than that. I'll elaborate more on that in a while.

"Hey, Odasaku, do you know why I joined the Mafia? I joined the Mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence—close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that… I would be able to find something—a reason to live."

Dazai's approach to life is that of an aimless soul, weary of the world's oppressions and exhausted from the concept of living itself. Nevertheless, what he said above about having an expectation made me realise something: he had a goal, which he wasn't that enthusiastic about achieving—seeking for a reason to carry on with life. So he joined the Mafia.

And there, he met Oda Sakunosuke.

Despite how resilient Dazai carried himself to be (especially during the Dark Era), this specific excerpt stands in direct opposition of how he effortlessly embodied all things daunting:

"With every step I take, I feel as though the earth has opened up into a bottomless pit as I fall endlessly. As Dazai pointed to his forehead and approached the muzzle, the look on his face – like that of a child about to burst into tears – had already been branded upon my eyes."

- quoted by Oda Sakunosuke, excerpt from Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era Light Novel.

When I read this, it sent my mind into a spiral of despair and confusion. It was so vague, yet it made so much sense. Dazai was desperate to escape from this life, but part of him seemed to live in conflict with his desire for death. I won't elaborate more on this, because this specific excerpt has personal meaning to me, as I'd expect it to have for others as well; so I wouldn't want to ruin anyone else's perception on it.

Back to my point: Odasaku was one of the only characters who managed to interpret the complexity of Dazai's mindset and was able to compartmentalise the specific details of his persona that made Dazai the way he was. Oda knew that Dazai wasn't just suicidal.

"For most things in life, it's harder to succeed than fail. Wouldn't you agree? That's why I should attempt suicide rather than commit it! Committing suicide is difficult, but it should be relatively easier to fail at attempting suicide!"

Others boasted about how he was just a suicidal maniac, and that was only because of how good Dazai was at concealing his own feelings whilst flamboyantly priding himself in new, risky techniques, which he sometimes elaborated on. But Oda, on the other hand, saw through his jokes, and empathised with his friend, never wanting to ever barge into his vulnerability without Dazai's permission, but still trying to be there for him.

"Listen. You told me if you put yourself in a world of violence and bloodshed, you might be ale to find a reson to live. You won't find it. You should know that. Whether you're on the side that takes lives or the side that saves them, nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity."

Notice how Odasaku recognised Dazai's despair, before Dazai even dared to acknowledge his very own emotions? That was why, at Oda's death, he took the initiative to uncover Dazai's bandaged eye to show him that there was no use in concealing his feelings anymore.

Odasaku's last words to Dazai was to "be on the side that saves people," for he was aware that even though Dazai didn't believe there was a clear distinction between good and evil, he thought that perhaps Dazai would find meaning in his life, even if it was just a little bit of purpose.

In Dead Apple, we briefly relive this moment, but I'll write more on that some other time.

And when Dazai joined the ADA, he loses that dark side to him. No, wait, let me rephrase that: he loses a part of that dark side to him. He eliminated the raw sense of bitterness against the world from his face, and instead, he is seen to be a little more passive, and a little more adaptive. No doubt, he still does explicitly state his desire to die, but his wishes are very specific, if you know what I mean.

And a few years later, his journey with Atsushi began.

Atsushi and Dazai's relationship is just one of a kind. I think it isn't a matter of whether Atsushi needed Dazai, or whether Dazai needed Atsushi. It's the fact that they both needed each other. It's the way they both worked hand in hand, and how they sustained each other in ways they were lacking.

The two were polar opposites, but they had a tender kind of warmth embedded in their protectiveness for each other. Atsushi was just as lost as Dazai, but somehow, they worked together just fine. It was like their duality was meant to be. It was the type of symbiotic relationship, where their care for each other was implied, but very deep.

Does this also sound familiar... perhaps, in relation to Dazai's friendship with Odasaku?

Side note: Oda and Atsushi have the same enneagrams, which is Type 2, 'The Helper.'

There is a sort of balance that is brought about by two opposites. Odasaku taught Dazai many things, and I believe Oda learned a lot about a man's life from the way Dazai lived out his life with the innate desire to die. Atsushi sought for the right to live, while Dazai searched for a reason to live; in addition, Dazai validated Atsushi's feelings, and Atsushi was able to acknowlegde the amount of pain Dazai was going through.

Despite how Dazai's perspectives and beliefs stood in contrast with those of Oda's and Atsushi's, a type of inseparable bond connected the man who no longer felt like he was human, to the people who was the most human.

No Longer Human in the Japanese romaji is 'Ningen Shikkaku.' Ningen means "human," and Shikkaku means "disqualified." The late author, Dazai Osamu, wrote the book No Longer Human. He had gone through the rough throes of trauma and wrote this book as a semi-autobiography, whose plot was centred around a man who faked happiness, for he was tainted by the truth that everyone around him was fake themselves. He turned his life into a joke in order to protect himself from the delusions of this world.

This brings us back to the melancholic temperament, where a person was too deeply immersed in the sad truths of reality and the world itself.

And that's what Dazai's character and ability is based on: being disqualified as a human being, because he wasn't well-versed with what being human was actually like. The fabrications of being human sprung up all around him, but he wasn't willing to be fooled by how ingenuine the world truly was.

“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind—of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”

- excerpt from Dazai Osamu's No Longer Human.

People who don't feel human emotions or don't react to circumstances the way humans do have a variety of ways of explaining how they feel inhuman. They are highly intelligent, which separates them from the average class of humankind, since they've analysed and untangled the truths of life in order to attain understanding, which they value above all else. But, this understanding of the world and its painful truths results in a deep kind of sorrow, which only a few people can seem to empathise with in order to help them out with that burden.

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

-excerpt from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Don't you think that this deep sorrow that lies in the heart of the intelligent, makes them the most human of all? They're too human, to the point where they don't feel human. Perhaps, it is a type of defence mechanism, where the mind numbs the heart from feeling normal human emotion, because logically breaking down such concepts is easier than feeling them. But it comes at a price. The heart is willing to recklessly comprehend and fathom any sort of emotion, including pain in its true form, but the mind bears more pain in understanding such concepts because it seeks to decipher every single agonising detail of how complex human emotions are. The mind thinks, the heart feels. There is a clear distinguishing factor between the two. Whether feeling hurts more than thinking, or thinking hurts more than feeling, or whether both these processes work hand-in-hand to make up the reality of life itself, is up for an individual to decide.

Only a few people can seem to empathise with intelligent people who are deeply sad at heart, in order to help them out. As for Dazai, it was Atsushi and Oda. They never took away the pain, but they made him grow from it; it worked vice versa, too.

Of course, there are less tedious and more appealing aspects to the concept of Dazai's intelligence. Dazai was seen as a threat to his enemies because of how manipulation and his keen skill of deduction made up how sharp his mind was. Besides, no one could commit '138 murders, 312 cases of extortion, and 625 cases of fraud, along with various and sundry other crimes,' without having a certain level of intelligence, right?

Dazai had the moral alignment of 'chaotic neutral.' He was more focused on using his intellect to achieve the desired end results of a predicament, and he wasn't afraid to use the wrong means. A famous example was when he deflated the airbags of Ango Sakaguchi's car in order to gain the assured protection of Kyouka Izumi.

Justice is a weapon. It can be used to cause harm, but it cannot protect or save others.

Another example was when he blew up Chuuya Nakahara's car.

Just kidding. That was just a simple pastime (；・∀ ・)

His moral alignment points to what Oda said about him: the part where he mentioned that Dazai didn't really see any difference between good and evil. As long as his ends were achieved, especially if it were in the benefit of his fellow colleagues, he wasn't afraid to exploit, threaten, or endanger others' wellbeing. Because, at the end of the day, the end result triumphed the morally bad methods utilised to achieve it, correct? He always had a reason for his motives and actions, even if those actions were evil and inexcusable.

(eg. action: the psychological abuse he bestowed upon Akutagawa Ryunosuke.

motive: to enable him to hone his own ability favourably and to curb his arrogance)

But the consequences of one's actions will always catch up with a person, no matter what heights they've achieved.

Okay, we're reaching the end of my rambling very soon, I promise.

“If I had to go, I’d like to go out just as beautifully.”

“I’d prefer you don’t go.”

This part of the post is highly inspired by iwachuwu!!

An important factor of Dazai's development is highlighted BSD Wan's episode 10:

I'd like to appreciate that this scene focuses on how much Dazai actually means to Atsushi. When Atsushi responds with "I'd prefer you don't go," he said it lightheartedly for he thought Dazai was joking. But he wasn't. And once Atsushi absorbed the fact that Dazai meant what he said, he was overwhelmed with anguish at the thought of ever losing Dazai. Dazai, on the other hand, had a sense of longing on his expression. There was that look of pure desperation on his face. He was so desperate, yet he knew he couldn't act on his desperation due to a promise he'd made to someone dear to him. But keep in mind, Dazai is unpredictable, so we can never be sure of what's going on in that headspace of his.

Nevertheless, this time, Atsushi recognised Dazai's suffering, as no one usually cared to do, and Dazai didn't put in any effort to hide how he truly felt, as he habitually did. And this mutual emotional connection happened countless times during all the times Oda spent with Dazai as well.

To summarise,

Dazai's character had been carefully wired and patterned out in a way only a few would put in the effort to understand. Dazai was more than just suicidal; he was a being wandering from place to place with no specific aim. He was too smart for his own good. Dazai understood too well of how the world worked and deemed it void of any sort of hope.

Side note: Yes, the truth does come at a price, but it all comes down to how a person understands the truth. As for Dazai (both character and the author he was based off upon), well, it was quite tragic. But that's the way it is for some people, I suppose. But everyone has a different path to travel on, remember that.

His transition from working with the Port Mafia to the Armed Detective Agency was proof of how well-executed his character development was. It was two different personas morphed into what he is today: a womaniser with questionable morals a person who is still standing even after the rough refining process endowed upon him by the realities of this life.

However, he had people along the way come and teach him a thing or two, which perhaps made his life a little more interesting. Perhaps these people were passing clouds that hid the void out of sight for just a moment, and Dazai was always seen to be grasping on to these moments, and letting them go whenever it was time to let go.

His outlook on life makes his intellect look all the more intriguing. It shows that not only does his intelligence contribute to his own wit and shrewdness, but also the practical sense of realism that explains how tired he is of the concept of living because of the truths there are to bear.

However he's enduring the pain right now is by far the most bravest thing a person could commit themselves to doing. It takes courage, and it takes strength, but only a few would ever take the time to recognise such efforts.

Dazai has one of the most beautiful character developments, but I do hope that the development doesn't reach its end anytime soon.

fanart credits: @S7dOZPN3jWBB6cW on twitter

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.

Everything passes.

That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.

Everything passes.”

excerpt from Dazai Osamu's No Longer Human.

[theyarebothgunshot]

jib 7 breakdown and analysis 

a little while ago i said that i am open to requests for making analysis posts when it comes to cockles panels and just cockles in general, and i got quite a few responses. the first person who asked me was my lovely tea anon, and the panel in question is jib 2016 aka jib 7. 

first of all i want to give you my take on the overall vibe, and then second of all i will get into the details and link to certain timestamps in the video. 

standard disclaimer: i am not gonna be linking to every single thing i talk about, but i will try my best to link to the moments that stand out to me the most. my recommendation would be to watch the panel in its entirety alongside my comments. i have read long posts about this panel before, so not everything in this post is gonna be original or said for the first time ever, simply because there is a good chance that information has stuck in my mind and has subconsciously formed my view of this panel. this is also in no way, shape or form gonna be coherent, unfortunately. i’m just gonna hope that the cockles hivemind will be able to make sense of this regardless. love and light. and lastly, this is all in good fun, so don’t come at me if you think this is too out there please and thank you.

the overall vibe that this panel gives me is that jensen and misha are a unity at this point. they are in sync with each other, and this whole panel is very relaxed and in good spirits. there is also the fact that their outfits match very well. and with jensen ross ackles involved, that cannot be a coincidence, so i love that a lot. 

another thing that i cannot ignore is that it’s also a very sexual panel, with a lot of double meanings and innuendos and remarks that can be read as sexual if you are as pervy as me. 

now let’s get into the specifics. 

although i am sure this is not going to be news for any of you, i feel like a little background knowledge is in order. before this panel, misha had had a panel that day with j*red. the mishalecki panel was really fucking funny and filled with sexual innuendos. 

between these two panels, it appears that there was a break in which they all had nothing to do (i am basing this off other people’s experiences and reports that i have read in the past, as i unfortunately wasn’t there myself).

considering how this panel goes, i think there is a good chance that jensen and misha just had sex beforehand. and based on both of their demeanors, one could draw certain conclusions about who did what (i honestly don’t like talking about who tops and who bottoms because who gives a shit and things are rarely that black and white, but all i’m gonna say is that even though jensen has joked about his asshole before, jensen and misha clearly said switch rights).

from the very first second. the VERY FIRST SECOND. jensen is sauntering on stage like he is thee man. then the crowd is cheering ‘one more time’, and jensen looks at misha, starts cheering too, and makes a movement that is bordering on obscene before waving it away. conclusion: ‘one more time’ could also mean ‘one more round of hot steaming sex’ and he still had sex on the brains, so that was what he was thinking about. 

ahhh, the intricate ritual [1m34s] of greeting each other on stage as if you haven’t spoken to each other all day, even though you probably just had sex….. jensen ackles, i wanna study you. i wonder what the deal is with that. does he just like to pay misha extra attention on stage? does he revel in the fact that he knows that fans like this sort of interaction? can he just not help himself? questions that keep me up at night. 

also, there is just SOMETHING about the way jensen says ‘i’m doing well how are you?’ it’s almost flustered? borderline shy? and then he goes on to say that he did an impression of misha earlier, in a manner that’s just so flirty. idk guys. it’s flirty. kindergarten flirty, but flirty nonetheless.

misha, of course, immediately turns his entire body towards him. almost as if they both already forgot there is an audience in front of them. then he just gets closer and closer to jensen, for no reason whatsoever except for the pure magnetic pull they have on each other. pray4misha.

i think it is a testament to how in sync they are that misha immediately realises that jensen mentioned bicycle touring during his ‘impression of misha’, and i love the moment where jensen puts on an accent (something that misha normally does) and goes ‘is like sport’ and misha laughs and goes ‘is very similar to sport’ and they both lose it. idk, i feel like that might be a sort of inside joke to them as well. 

this might be slightly reaching, but hear me out: right away, jensen goes: ‘oh by the way, sore?’ why would he say ‘by the way’? what is he thinking about when he says that? is it about ‘is very similar to sport’? because i could totally see them having sex and refering to it as ‘well that’s kind of like a sport’, as an inside joke. it works. i’m just saying!!! 

look. i know this back and forth has been discussed to death. we all know that the implication is that jensen fucked misha and misha is kind of stunned that jensen actually goes there. so stunned that he repeats it: ‘sore? am i sore?’ almost as if to stall a bit in his response. yikes. 

i think that it’s fair to say that this is something jensen enjoys doing: riling misha up on stage. because a lot of the time, misha has the upper hand on stage (probably also in the bedroom but that’s another conversation), but sometimes. sometimes jensen just can’t help but throw a lil oil onto the fire. (see also: underbear panel, throwing himself on stage to get straddled, etc). 

misha goes on to say that ‘after the panel with j*red’ he is quite sore. you can take that at face value, and think ‘oh so he is joking around that the panel with j*red made him sore haha’ or you can see a little bit of the truth shine through: literally after that panel, something happened that made him sore. it’s always easier to lie when you are bending the truth.

i actually can’t believe i never connected the dots before, but when misha deflects and says ‘oh you’re talking about the bike riding’ jensen is quick to say: ‘oh no i was talking about what just happened’ but instead of pointing at the stage (which is where the previous panel took place) he is gesturing to backstage. i mean…. way to feed into my ‘they just had sex backstage’ theory, jackles. thanks for that. 

i cannot get over the way jensen is looking at misha throughout this whole ordeal, but especially when he goes ‘you heard it here first, folks’ and misha walks up to him. THAT FACE. fuck him. he’s so gone. 

sidenote: i have never wished to be able to read lips as much as i have since i have stumbled upon these two morons, because i WISH i could see what misha is mouthing to jensen. i know there is some spec that he might have said ‘i am a little bit’ (aka he is a little bit sore) and i could see that, but i just want to know for sure. and even though i have seen people state that jensen would have already known about the panel with j*red, i think it’s possible misha hadn’t filled jensen in yet, seeing as they probably were doing something other than talking. 

let me take this moment to tell y’all about one of my jenmish theories, and that is: i think that jensen sometimes is overprotective of misha and that can come across as jealousy when it’s actually just worry. and i think this panel is a good example of that.

misha says [4m25s] that in italy they call come influence and jensen just. straight up looks at misha like ‘what the fuck did you do, what mess did you get yourself into this time?’ this is another reason why i believe he actually didn’t know about what happened during that panel yet: the reaction looks very authentic. you see his eyes shift from one side to the other and back again, as he is trying to process it. and honestly when you look at misha, his face goes through this journey of ‘this is funny’ to ‘shit is this maybe going a bit too far?’ and ending on ‘okay wrap it up wrap it up’. this is further solidified by the fact that jensen starts to mime digging a grave (aka ‘digging your own grave’).

misha tries to ‘change the subject’ by saying cas is the bottom in the implied relationship with sam and jensen immediately brings it back to sports. see what i meant when i said that they are tying sex and sports together? here jackles goes again, doing exactly that. for no reason whatsoever. (except to once again proof my point). 

WHY [5m50s] do they both burst out laughing at ‘tight end’ why why why i don’t wanna know but why why also quick reminder of ‘are you sore at all’ help i am just. EVERY DAY they are making me perceive things and connect dots and i do not like it. anyways i’m not saying that this is all very graphic stuff about their sex lives but i’m also not not saying it, you feel? jensen’s face says it all tbh. on a more wholesome note: i love the fact that they basically wanted to say ‘we should take questions’ at the same time. again: in sync. 

when the first person to ask a question said ‘this is a serious question’ misha goes to explain to jensen that that was a joke during his panel with j*red, another reason to believe that he hadn’t told jensen about the panel yet. jensen’s face there…. heart eyes motherfucker. 

i really don’t see enough people talk about the ‘safe word’ [6m38s] bit. jensen is the one to bring it up ‘so we should probably establish a safe word at this point. mine is keep going.’ misha laughs, and then realises what jensen has said, and (here comes my dom/sub truthing) teases jensen by saying ‘what is your safe word?’ to which jensen replies ‘keep going’ but LOOK at jensen’s face after he says that. he shakes his head with a little smirk and looks at misha with such a knowing look in his eyes that says ‘you fucker you know damn well what my safe word is’ and he actually does a double take and immediately rolls his eyes at himself after that. it’s all very quick but it’s far from subtle and i am here for it. 

i fucking love this next part because when the person says ‘a real story about the real jensen and the real misha’ they both are just like ‘yes okay’ but as soon as they say ‘that you have never told anyone before’ jensen just looks down and moves his head as if to say ‘what the hell am i supposed to come up with then’ lmao it’s really funny, and they end it with: ‘to know you a little bit better’ and guys (gn) i beg of you to look at the way they look at each other here. [7m24s] jensen is just like ‘help wtf should we say to this’ and misha just smiles down at him fondly like ‘sigh our fans really want us to talk about our relationship and as much as we would love to share stuff we just can’t’.

when misha says ‘we have to dust off some of those stories that we usually try not to tell other people’, something comes to mind: the ‘3 least ordered items on the menu’ story, that jensen shared a year after this at honcon. i honestly think that maybe they started to talk about what else they could share with the public, after this panel, because they get similar questions like this one all the time. either that or jensen just thought about what he felt comfortable sharing, without talking to misha about it, and decided to tell that story. 

i also absolutely love when they say ‘this is a serious question’ at the same time. AGAIN: IN SYNC!!!

‘i actually have a voice for you’ jensen can you please tell me why this sounds flirty and charming while you are actually about to make fun of your husband? i hate you (no i don’t) the fact that misha immediately knows what will happen, says a lot.

then jensen says: ‘dust off an old story for uhh..’ and burst out laughing. i swear to god i’d give my left pinkie to know what came to mind and what he whispered into misha’s ear. and i’m left handed. but i think we can all agree that whatever jensen said, it was something sexual, seeing as misha goes ‘nope’. those fuckers (affectionate).

something that i have mentioned in the past is that jensen always sort of ‘jokey’ goes ‘oh shit’ whenever misha says he’ll share something personal/private about them. i mean. jensen, it would be less sus if you didn’t respond. just giving you some pointers here, bro. because misha almost never shares something strange, it’s actually your reaction that makes me go ‘hmmmm.’ this time he even gets kind of elaborate breathing?? [10m27s]

oh to be a fly in clif’s car… honestly, the things clif must have heard and witnessed lmao. he clearly knows what is up between them (has made enough remarks about thinking that misha would be the bottom and that misha on his knees was nothing new for me to see that he absolutely knows.) 

this isn’t really important when it comes to cockles but they talk a bit about j*red’s internet dispute with at&t and jensen goes ‘oh they know’ gesturing to the audience. so clearly, jensen is well aware of the fact that fandom gets involved whenever something happens online with any one of them. just. thought that is an interesting fact. just in general. also love how i can tell that they both think j*reds crusades are bullshit (as they should). 

there is something really cute [14m13s] about the way misha goes ‘do you want your apple juice?’ and jensen goes ‘yeah!’ it sounds so domestic and mundane and i just. god i love them so much. 

i know we talk about jensen’s heart eyes a lot. but y’all. look [14m52s] at misha right here. he’s SO in love.

the thing that strikes me about jensen putting on ‘that voice’ for misha is that misha is honestly not bothered by it at all, but i think if the shoe was on the other foot, jensen would definitely be bothered. i don’t know what conclusion to draw from that but i just thought that is interesting. i always laugh at that bit, though, they seem to have so much fun.

i REALLY wanna know how jensen got from ‘will you dance for us?’ to ‘no but i’ll tell you what, misha and i will write a song for you real quickly.’ it’s such a fast transition that i am tempted to think that this was something he had been thinking about for a while now. he just wanted his mish to sing a song. and that warms my heart.

if you think i will ever get over how soft jensen is here… ‘you’re smart, you think on your feet, you make brilliant videos, put them on facebook, write amazing texts (*coughs* poems) and tweets and stuff, go ahead. spit out some lyrics, big guy.’ there is not one single thing about this that i do not adore. an ode to misha!!!! so casually!!! fuck. it might be true that if you want jensen to do something, you get misha to ask him, but it’s certainly also true the other way around.

the way jensen just. stares [19m02s] at misha, trying to get inspired by him, trying to feel out what cords to play. yeah. the way misha stands up but instinctively turns to jensen when he starts to sing. yeah. and then during the remainder of the song, he keeps on turning to jensen even though he faces the audience. and jensen loved it all. it’s so sweet. idk why but it just is. jensen just wanted his babe to thrive and get the love he deserves. 

aaaand in comes the dom shake [20m37s]. we love to see it. jensen just keeps on looking at mish. almost gets lost in it. touches his inner thigh (one of his habits, which he does a lot around misha or when talking about misha). 

i think it’s very interesting that jensen’s reaction [22m11s] to the question if he thinks dean will ever find a way to have a romantic relationship and to find himself in between normal and supernatural, is to immediately looks at misha. like? what was the reason? did he expect misha to answer a question that wasn’t about cas but about dean? did he think he should maybe answer it in a destiel-like manner? was he worried that the fan was hoping for a destiel-like answer and was he looking at misha to gauge what he thought was a smart way to respond? so many questions. 

i think it’s pretty interesting that jensen was very aware of the fact that people did not wanna see dean end up with a huntress lmao. he absolutely was aware of so many fandom things.

when jensen said that misha just crossed the line [23m40s], it’s another example of how jensen is ultra aware of what misha says and how it could get him into trouble and by the sounds of it, misha knows that as well but he just can’t always stop himself in time. from what we can see, he often realises just after he has already said something (when it is already too late).

listen. the fact that misha says ‘when harry met sally’ BEFORE the question was even finished, and jensen LAUGHS, like??? that panel was 5 years ago at that point. it clearly made a lot of impact on the both of them (jeez i wonder why, could it be because misha faked an orgasm and jensen got excited? hmm. who knows.) 

i think the dance portion is so fucking hilarious i’m wheeeezing. literally. they are just moving randomly AND YET THEY STILL SORT OF ARE IN SYNC? amazing.

you wanna know what i find really cute? the fact that jensen has such a soft spot for the resume off. part of me thinks it’s because they had a resume off in both 2012 and 2013. 

and jib 2012 took place during the famously rumored break up period. i wouldn’t be surprised if jib 2013 was that much more special to him because they finally got to make it right again. don’t look at me i’m getting emotional (on that note…… i might wanna write something about the break up period at some point. but idk. i mean. it’s a lot to delve into especially since i wasn’t in the fandom back then but. it compels me. we’ll see i guess.)

okay i know i keep saying this but they are SO in sync, as soon as they talk about photo ops and jensen goes ‘and to dab a little salt in the wound’ misha knows what he is gonna say, and they stand up together to demonstrate what happened. AND they both go ‘that’s not the punchline’ they are husbands. 

misha and jensen have both “twirled away laughing” in the EXACT same manner during this panel: misha when jensen starts to read the script, and jensen right here when misha says ‘what’s it like to be in a successful long running show’. they are mirrors. listen. listen. i know my mind is in the gutter a LOT of the time but like. uhm. there is this moment where they recall a woman saying in the photo op to ‘eat it’ (the string candy she gave to them) and misha says ‘and so we did’ and jensen looks at misha and it is SUCH an incriminating look i mean i don’t wanna be that person but 5 bucks he was thinking about eating misha out i am JUST SAYING. LITERALLY LOOK AT HIS FACE. [28m55s]

misha teases [7m02s] jensen by saying ‘what did you do? did you actually do it on purpose orrrr’ and i think it was to make jensen elaborate on it. which i think is a fucking good way to pull that off when it comes to jensen. cause jensen doesn’t like to brag, which misha knows, so by making that joke he is essentially trying to get jackles to tell the audience more about what he did, without him feeling like he is boasting about himself. and misha looks so pleased when jensen starts talking.

fuck i literally had to pause just now because. jensen says: ‘one of the characteristics of dean that i love to play is that he can bottle those fears up, stash them away, and just go. and uhm… sometimes i wish i could do that.’

this is actually making me a bit emotional because. he took his time saying this. it was a very deliberate move. he wasn’t sorry he said anything or regretted it. he wanted to get that out there. and i just. it makes so much sense if what we all think is actually true. he wishes he could just ignore all his fears and go for it. and it’s not hard to imagine what ‘it’ could be: coming out. whether that be just about his relationship with misha or being attracted to more than women in general, just in any way shape or form. it’s poignant. and misha turns away, but you can see him sigh a little bit. 

the whole bit about “apple juice” is just very cute and i enjoy it a lot. one thing i will say though is that i can kind of spot two tells of jensen: the way his face scrunches up when he is telling a lie that he thinks is clever, and the way he always leaves his chair to pour a drink when a question becomes difficult/hard/too funny to face head on. he has done both of those things time and time again, during panels with misha. just an observation. 

there is this little moment [10m13s] where misha tells the story about how he used to make apple cider with worms and dirt in it and in the end he goes ‘anyways. new england apple cider everyone. highly recommend.’ and jensen echoes that, ‘highly recommend. yeah.’ and of course that could just be a way to joke around and play along with misha but i’d like to think that he has visited misha and they had some apple cider together. just because i like the thought and i can, so. 

how CUTE is it that jensen remembers ‘i’ll just wait here then’, a line cas spoke 7 years prior to that panel, in a scene jensen wasn’t even in. i love it.

jensen slowly shaking his head when misha says ‘fuck’ and apologizing for it has SUCH major ‘excuse my husband’ energy. i love it.

‘i’ve got an idea’ [14m13s] ‘what? let’s do it’ misha imMEDIATELY regretted that lmaooo they are always so aware of double meanings and yet they cannot seem to help themselves. we love to see it. 

can you BELIEVE jensen ‘dance monkey dance’ ackles OFFERED to shamelessly promote a movie they have nothing to do with??? jensen, who hates the fact that they have to play some sort of show on stage, actually wanted to do that with misha??? i’m just- something something if you want jensen to do anything ask misha, but apparently also: if you want jensen to do something get misha involved and he’ll love it. 

and then he has the audacity to say ‘over to the wheel of love.’ i mean. i can’t.

(i don’t necessarily understand what is happening btw but that’s okay, because it leads to champagne. which is fun.)

okay so again apologies for my mind being in the gutter but jensen’s face [16m33s] when he says he is going to explain what [the champagne] tastes like……. hm. help. 

 honestly i just love the whole champagne bit because i love it whenever they get so playful on stage, and them “presenting” the bottle and going all ‘we know what we’re talking about’ ‘we’re kind of connaisseurs’ and the whole english accent bit. say it with me…. in sync. 

jensen popping a champagne bottle is something that can be so personal…. (i’m touch starved and going crazy, leave me alone)

i absolutely love the fact that jensen notices that misha is miming taking off his pants and misha immediately runs to him to explain and jensen just goes full on protective husband mode (YET AGAIN) ‘i turn my back for 2 minutes’ lmao it’s just such old married couple behavior. an old married couple that is horny and deranged, but still. 

i’ve seen the gifset of this moment [24m52s] many a times but i still think it’s so intimate. the way misha looks at jensen and walks backwards with him, for no fucking reason at all. sigh. misha’s hand clenches a little, and honestly i think he would have wanted to reach out to jensen in that moment. pat his arm or his back. and something happens a little while later that only proves my point even more…

that caress [60m5s] is probably one of the most intimate gestures i’ve seen between them. it’s so familiar. so natural. it says a lot.

and that’s the end of the panel. all in all i have to say that i enjoyed rewatching this panel with the analysis goggles on, because it’s really a very different experience and i picked up on a lot more than i did when i watched it just for fun. i think this is one of my favorite panels of theirs (at least until my next analysis lmao) because of the fact that they are so in sync with each other, which goes to show that their relationship was in such a good place (mind you i am only using past tense because i am describing a past panel, not because i think they’re not in a good place right now). this was a lot of fun folks, if you actually read all of this, god bles, you’re the best. see you next time!

[theculturedmarxist]

The word “fascism” has been much in the news of late. Here is a chart of the year 2019 from Google Trends:

Interestingly, usage is more or less flat until the first spike, when President Trump put tanks on the National Mall for July 4, and then a second, larger spike, when he gave his Greenville, NC speech, and the crowd chanted, of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, “send them back.” Omar reacted as follows:

Omar is a serious person and that’s a serious charge, so it’s worth looking at. Certainly my left/liberal corner of the Twittersphere was consumed by the word “fascism,” to the extent that RussiaRussiaRussia was drowned out. Notably, however, the two spikes, and the resulting moral panic, were caused by symbols: Tanks on the mall, and a speech. (Interestingly, words about the border, like “concentration camps,” and “fascism” do not spike simultaneously, even though one might expect them to. We’ll see more about symbols in the Appendix.) However, although fascist deliverables often have excellent symbolism — graphic treatments especially — fascism is about more than symbols, although you might not know it from the ruminations of our symbol-manipulating poltical class.

So I thought it would be worthwhile to take a deeper look at the work of Columbia historian Robert O. Paxton, who is a scholar of fascism. Basically, this post will be the notes for the class I wish I had taken with him; Paxton writes as lucidly as another great scholar of fascism, Richard J. Evans, author of The Coming of the Third Reich and two wonderful successor volumes. I’m going to quote great slabs mostly from Paxton’s article “The Five Stages of Fascism” (The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 70, No. 1. Mar., 1998, pp. 1-23), but also from his later book, The Anatomy of Fascism (2004). “Five Stages” is only 24 pages, and easy, so do consider reading it in full, because I’m not really doing it justice; I’m leaving out all the historiography, for example.

And so to Paxton. I’m selecting passages partly when they contain useful ideas I just don’t see in today’s discourse, but mostly to give us tools to assess the current “conjuncture,” as we say.

Fascism and Democracy

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 3:

The fascist phenomenon was poorly understood at the beginning in part because it was unexpected. Until the end of the nineteenth century, most political thinkers believed that widening the vote would inevitably benefit democracy and socialism. Friedrich Engels, noting the rapid rise of the socialist vote in Germany and France, was sure that time and numbers were on his side. Writing the preface for a new edition in 1895 of Karl Marx’s Class Struggles in France, he declared that “if it continues in this fashion, we will conquer the major part of the middle classes and the peasantry and will become the decisive power.” It took two generations before the Left understood that fascism is, after all, an authentic mass popular enthusiasm and not merely [1] a clever manipulation of populist emotions by the reactionary Right or [2] by capitalism in crisis.

I think most “hot take” analysis by liberals would fall into the bucket labeled [1]; by the left, label [2]. I think the idea that democracy is, as it were, the host body for fascism deserves some thought. Certainly there was no fascism as such until democracy was well advanced.

Fascism: Made in America?

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 12:

But it is further back in American history that one comes upon the earliest phenomenon that seems functionally related to fascism: the Ku Klux Klan. Just after the Civil War, some former Confederate officers, fearing the vote given to African Americans by the Radical Reconstructionists in 1867, set up a militia to restore an overturned social order. The Klan constituted an alternate civic authority, parallel to the legal state, which, in its founders’ eyes, no longer defended their community’s legitimate interests. In its adoption of a uniform (white robe and hood), as well as its techniques of intimidation and its conviction that violence was justified in the cause of the group’s destiny, the first version of the Klan in the defeated American South was a remarkable preview of the way fascist movements were to function in interwar Europe. It is arguable, at least, that fascism (understood functionally) was born in the late 1860s in the American South.

(As an aside: It’s probably coincidence, but Civil War tactics, especially by the time of the Overland Campaign, were also a “remarkable preview” of World War I. Intuitively, I feel that fascism does not take hold of the body politic without a lot of organic damage, whether in the entrenchments of the Civil War, the trenches of World War I, or — just possibly — the opioid crisis, deaths of despair, and falling life expectancy.) Hitler’s American Model shows that Nazi jurists and lawyers came to America to research Jim Crow, and thought very highly of the legislation; they saw Jim Crow as an example of modernity — how advanced the United States was. Of course, by their lights, Jim Crow was misdirected.

Mutability of Fascism

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 4:

[Individual cases of fascism] differ in space because each national variant of fascism draws its legitimacy, as we shall see, not from some universal scripture but from what it considers the most authentic elements of its own community identity. Religion, for example, would certainly play a much greater role in an authentic fascism in the United States than in the first European fascisms, which were pagan for contingent historical reasons. They differ in time because of the transformations and accommodations demanded of those movements that seek power.

And page 5:

Fascists deny any legitimacy to universal principles to such a point that they even neglect proselytism. Authentic fascism is not for export. Particular national variants of fascism differ far more profoundly one from another in themes and symbols than do the national variants of the true “isms.” The most conspicuous of these variations, one that leads some to deny the validity of the very concept of generic fascism, concerns the nature of the indispensable enemy: within Mediterranean fascisms, socialists and colonized peoples are more salient enemies than is the Jewry. Drawing their slogans and their symbols from the patriotic repertory of one particular community, fascisms are radically unique in their speech and insignia. They fit badly into any system of universal intellectual principles.

One result of the “Lost Cause” propaganda and the historiography of the Dunning School — William Dunning, ironically enough, professed at Columbia as well — is that the notion that there might already have been an American Fascism (see above) is not available to us. Hence, we often see Nazis (and generally Nazis, not even Mussolini) as the quintessential fascists. The argument can be made that globalization has, in fact, created fascism of export — some in my Twitterverse had no problem believing that Trump was simultaneously a Russian puppet and a fascist — but I just don’t see how that helps fascism to root itself (see below) in any given country, which is a requirement for it to grow.

The Stages of Fascism

From the Five Stages of Fascism, page 11:

But one must compare what is comparable. A regime where fascism exercises power is hardly comparable to a sect of dissident intellectuals. We must distinguish the different stages of fascism in time. It has long been standard to point to the difference between movements and regimes. I believe we can usefully distinguish more stages than that, if we look clearly at the very different sociopolitical processes involved in each stage. I propose to isolate five of them: (1) the initial creation of fascist movements; (2) their rooting as parties in a political system; (3) the acquisition of power; (4) the exercise of power; and, finally, in the longer term, (5) radicalization or entropy.

And stage 2, the importance of parties, pages 12-13:

The second stage—rooting, in which a fascist movement becomes a party capable of acting decisively on the political scene—happens relatively rarely. At this stage, comparison becomes rewarding: one can contrast successes with failures. Success depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies seems to condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner. Some fascist leaders, in their turn, are willing to reposition their movements in alliances with these frightened conservatives, a step that pays handsomely in political power, at the cost of disaffection among some of the early antibourgeois militants.

That underlined portion does seem familar, doesn’t it? However, it’s worth noting that there’s no “seem” to American decline; how is a nation with dropping life expectancy not in decline? It’s also worth noting that “frightened conservatives” doesn’t necessarily equal Republicans; it was not, after all, the Republican Party that painted the anti-semitism target on Ilhan Omar’s back. It’s worth asking, then, whether centrist Democrats would seek a bipartisan alliance against the left.

Fascism Today

Here is Paxton’s first definition of fascism, from the Five Stages of Fascism pages 22-23:

Where is the “fascism minimum” in all this? Has generic fascism evaporated in this analysis? It is by a functional definition of fascism that we can escape from these quandaries. Fascism is a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline. Its complex tensions (political revolution versus social restoration, order versus aggressive expansionism, mass enthusiasm versus civic submission) are hard to understand solely by reading its propaganda. One must observe it in daily operation….

And his second, from The Anatomy of Fascism, page 218:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim- hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Speaking as an amateur, I think the two definitions map to each other, and both to the present day (“liberal democracy stands accused” v. “abandons democratic liberties,” but I like the second one much better, because the language is crisper, and is testable. For example, “redemptive violence”: During Reconstruction, the states that came under control of the former Slave Power, a process achieved by great violence, were referred to as “redeemed.”

More from the Five Stages of Fascism, page 23:

Can fascism still exist today, in spite of the humiliating defeat of Hitler and Mussolini, the declining availability of the war option in a nuclear age, the seemingly irreversible globalization of the economy, and the triumph of in- dividualistic consumerism? After ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the rise of exclusionary nationalisms in postcommunist Eastern Europe, the “skinhead” phenomenon in Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and Italy, and the election of `Mirko Tremaglia, a veteran of the Republic of Salo, as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Parliament during the Berlusconi government, it would be hard to answer “no” to that question. The most interesting cases today, however, are not those that imitate the exotic colored-shirt movements of an earlier generation. New functional equivalents of fascism would probably work best, as George Orwell reminded us, clad in the mainstream patriotic dress of their own place and time. An authentically popular fascism in the United States would be pious and anti-Black; in Western Europe, secular and antisemitic, or more probably, these days, anti-Islamic; in Russia and Eastern Europe, religious, antisemitic, and slavophile. We may legitimately conclude, for example, that the skinheads are functional equivalents of Hitler’s SA and Mussolini’s squadristi: only if important elements of the conservative elite begin to cultivate them as weapons against some internal enemy, such as immigrants.

Rather prescient for 1998, I must say. (And much as I loathe black bloc, it may be that they have their place in making these “functional equivalents” less easy to form.) Nevertheless, we do not have a “mass-based party of committed nationalist militants,” Yet. Paxton goes on:

The right questions to ask of today’s neo- or protofascisms are those appropriate for the second and third stages of the fascist cycle. Are they becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and feelings and wield major influence on the political scene? [TBD] Is the economic or constitutional system in a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities? [Yes] Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge? [TBD] It is by answering those kinds of questions, grounded in a proper historical understanding of the processes at work in past fascisms, and not by checking the color of the shirts or seeking traces of the rhetoric of the national-syndicalist dissidents of the opening of the twentieth century, that we may be able to recognize our own day’s functional equivalents of fascism.

And from Anatomy, page 218:

Fascism exists at the level of Stage One within all democratic countries—not excluding the United States. “Giving up free institutions,” especially the freedoms of unpopular groups, is recurrently attractive to citizens of Western democracies, including some Americans. We know from tracing its path that fascism does not require a spectacular “march” on some capital to take root; seemingly anodyne decisions to tolerate lawless treatment of national “enemies” is enough. Something very close to classical fascism has reached Stage Two in a few deeply troubled societies. Its further progress is not inevitable, however. Further fascist advances toward power depend in part upon the severity of a crisis, but also very largely upon human choices, especially the choices of those holding economic, social, and political power.

Our immune system kills off little cancers all the time; a metastatizing tumor takes a lot of effort to create. Stage One fascisms are little cancers, killed off by a healthy body politic. Stage Two fascisms, without treatment, will metastatize.

Conclusion

I think we’re somewhere in Stage Two: Rooting — or, to be optimistic, Uprooting. I invite the views of readers!

APPENDIX I: “Cosmopolitan”

Stoller tweeted, of a speech by possible Trump 2.0 Josh Hawley:

Then ensued the most moralizing and banal Twitter discussion I’ve seen in some time, and that’s saying something. Hawley used the word “cosmopolitican” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry here), which Stoller’s detractors felt proved Hawley was sending an anti-semitic dog whistle, and hence Stoller, in defending him, was an anti-semite too. (Paxton: “not by checking the color of the shirts or seeking traces of the rhetoric….”). To show how useless the entire episode was, I’ll quote The Nation’s Jeet Heer:

Of course, the view that “all politics is based on a division between friend and foe” could be traced right back to Nazi legal theorist Carl Schmitt, whose doctrine that was, and so Heer could be said to be sending an anti-semitic dog whistle. Of course that’s absurd, because context matters. Our symbol manipulating professional friends in the political class would do far better to look at function instead of checking their Index Expurgatorius of words suitable for censure and calling out. Liberals, and the left, have been calling out “dog whistles” for twenty years, at least. It hasn’t gotten them anywhere. Yet still they do it!

[virghogh]

NCT Birth Charts x Hexaco Results Analyses pt. 2

recently NCT Dream were on a new reality show called Mental Training Camp where they are doing a variety of activities and all of their behavior and interactions are being analyzed by professional psychologists.

ofc my virgo sun mercury ass was thrilled and I had their birth charts pulled up the whole time to cross reference.

I wanted to share some of my personal thoughts on how the 2 might connect!

p.s. Thank u for all the likes on part one !!<3

part 1 // part 2 // part 3

**key: in the hexaco charts the blue represents the Dreamies, the orange is an average result of 300 college students who took the same test**

Renjun - “An artist down to the bones”

✨aries sun // scorpio moon // pisces mercury // pisces venus // taurus mars✨

can i just start with a wow cause!! This title is so bold and what they continued to talk about with him, and when looking at his chart... there is much to unpack here so let’s get into it

they started off his analysis focusing on how much of an “artist” he is. They said 2 qualities a great artists needs is openness and emotionality and he scored way above average in those areas, and the highest of those in his whole group. Looking at his placements I think anyone could tell this person is highly creative. With his 2 pisces placements and water moon in scorpio. There’s a lot more going on with that moon sign than just creativity, but it is a common trait amongst water moons!

I feel like his water energy is responsible for more of his imagination? If you watch a lot of NCT content you can see just how imaginative Renjun is. Especially in the relay vlogs when he was taking us through his art all I could think was wow this guy has crazy (good) imagination! the reason I mention this is because he has a taurus mars. taurus is ruled by venus where we get a lot of our creativity from and it’s a known thing that taurus placements always bring natural creativity. I really think the combination of water imagination with taurus art is a beautiful combo.

 On top of his natural talent in creativity and imagination, scorpio moons absolutely need an outlet. He was truly blessed with placements that give him that outlet <3 They mentioned he could be a poet and scorpio moons are always being recommended to write poetry. His art is essential to his mental and emotional health. 

something really interesting is how they mentioned that mark has traditional leader energy, but Renjun has a “mother-like” leader energy. I thought that was so sweet and really accurate for him. They mentioned how throughout the intro he would scan the others eyes a lot and make contact very subconsciously and with ease. Taking everyone into account. I see this a lot in his 2 pisces placements. I feel like a lot of pisces makes someone very sensitive, in-tune with people and caring/compassionate. And with the slower, calmer taurus mars it gives him a gentle approach. He has this strong bull/ram influence from his aries sun and mars, his driving forces, that gives him initiative and a strong voice. when these 2 connect I feel like it makes a mom bear kind of thing. 

They also said it seems when he scans like that he is almost analyzing and observing, “gathering opinions”. Scorpio moons have hawk eyes, they’re always observing micro-actions and reactions. He is mostly observing with care so he can pay attention and accommodate! But I think having a scorpio moon just makes him naturally tune in to people a lot more and gives him a sharper eye. 

I wanted to put him and Jisung in the same post because they’re both scorpio moon kings, and I wanted to talk about how this really intense moon sign plays out in 2 very different people. I have a scorpio moon too, so seeing 2 idols I like with their own scorpios moons is very interesting to me! 

at one point the psychologists verbal report took a turn and all i could think about was that scorpio moon! After they finished telling him about his artists traits, they said “there is one thing you should look out for”, and it was that people like him tend to get lonely easily and often/a lot and Renjun quickly agreed! They said that since he’s with good friends a lot, it helps, but in the future he could get very lonely and experience it more than the average person. This is so textbook scorpio moon I honestly felt like he was speaking right to me and my scorpio moon for a second. From one scorpio moon to another, I’m so glad he has people around him. 

then they asked him when he typically gets lonely the most and he responded with “it just comes to be out of the blue” u poor scorpio moon bb😭. I don’t know how serious he was about this word but he said he will be depressed on the nicest days sometimes. 

there was another story Mark was telling thin time about Renjun. They went out to a meal together on a beautiful day and Mark comments on how nice out it is and Renjun just responds with “I’m depressed”. There are so many traits of his scorpio moon coming through here. With the moon being in such an intense, deep and dark sign, it is in detriment here. It’s a really rough placement for your emotions. Water moons in general are known for being quite moody and sulky, sometimes it just comes out of nowhere and very randomly. There doesn’t always have to be a trigger. I feel like his pisces-scorpio are really like teaming up a lot when it comes to his expressions and emotions. 

In the last post I mentioned how I think Jeno and Mark are lucky to have fire moons because they could get really hard on themselves or down/depressed if they had earth or water moons. Renjun is a good example of what I meant. With his Taurus mars, earth signs are known for being down and hard on themselves a lot and I think the combination of a earth mars and scorpio moon is tough. taurus likes to be alone a lot too and I could see him maybe in the future develop a tendency to isolate when he’s having a scorpio moon moment and feels like the world is ending (again, being around people must be really helping him). I also see his aries sun maybe being another way to help express that scorpio moon. It might feel less like he has to keep all of these scorpio feelings to himself, it’s easier for him to let it out. It’s also worth noting that having a scorpio moon and taurus mars means they’re in opposition! Giving him even more depth and intensity. 

as for the hexaco chart, based off just his chart I don’t know if I would have guessed his openness was that high with his scorpio and taurus?? But other than that I think his hexaco is very spot on for him! His agreeableness is slightly below average👀 umm yes hi aries sun and fixed moon and mars. His extroversion is pretty much average but that average to me tells me someone is more on the extroverted side or maybe in the middle? Being in the middle would make sense to me because I think he definitely has potential to isolate. I’m curious to see what his houses are! I’ve seen a lot of talk that he’s a cancer rising and I buy it because it would put his sun in 10th, and moon in 5th but that’s a whole other topic...

That emotionality is wonderfully high. His openness and expression/ reactions are one of my favorite things about him. He’s truly a little aries hot head at times. I feel like aries in big 6 often gives this kind of ease with expression and straightforwardness like I was saying about mark. Similar to Chenle though, I think even though Renjun is open, he isn’t an open book and has his deep thoughts and secrets. I see his openness more in that he will always be there for people and listen/help peoples problems. He’s the kind of person to meet someone and if he can tell they’re struggling he’d offer his ear or shoulder even if they’re not close. He’s welcoming. 

tldr; has intense imagination and creative abilities, he is very welcoming, compassionate, attentive and caring. Mom vibes. He is very moody and gets down a lot, his friends and artistic expression are essential. He is very expressive, passionate and hot headed but has a lot of patience.

Jisung - “Shy Perfectionist” 

✨aquarius sun // scorpio moon // aquarius mercury // aquarius venus // aries mars✨

Jisungs section in this show was reallyyy short they didn’t say much and moved on kinda quick😅 I’ll be honest Jisung has always kinda confused me especially when I try to understand his chart and what i see in the videos. So not getting a lot of information from this episode either (yet! the show is ongoing) is tough

As far as the title they gave him🥺chart or no chart I think it’s a good title for him and how he appears in content and stuff he is true baby. In their verbal report they basically just said he’s shy and then talked a lot about how he has very good “follower” qualities. They were saying having a good follower is also a really important quality in a group though. And jisung agreed with what they were saying. That’s pretty much all we got from them😅

Honestly if I could only have one members guaranteed full chart I’d want it to be Jaemins or Jisungs because Jisung has an aquarius stellium! And the house it’s in could tell us so much more about him. Typically when I think of or meet aquarius I don’t pin them as a shy type? I could see some of them preferring to stick to themselves but they still operate pretty well in social situations. So Jisung’s painfully shy personality we see is interesting to me. Where I definitely do see his aqua and scorpio working together is in how anxious and nervous he is. He’s a worrier too and has admitted it. Also I’ve heard the combination of aquarius and scorpio makes someone intensely intuitive to future events, so I feel like if jisung is unaware of this gift it could contribute to his high anxiety. Maybe he gets feelings of “something bad is about to happen” a lot for seemingly no reason👀

Another very aquarius trait is of course they’re weirdooos through and through! And what I’ve noticed about the aquarius weird trait is how many different kinds of weird there are because aquarians are always weird in such different ways. I definitely think Jisung is a weird guy, or quirky? You can almost see the gears grinding in his head when he’s contemplating and then he’ll do something “weird” after that! Weird, or just off beat. And what I love about the way jisungs lil aquarius mind works is you can tell those weird moments are purely just how he really is and thinks, and it’s not to be funny or for the cameras, he just processes information and thinks completely different from everyone else. 

Since we know jisung is shy I feel like a lot of his aquarius and scorpio mood comes out off camera so we won’t get to see that side! But I’m sure it’s there.

I think Jisung’s scorpio moon is a good example of how different it can be. To go from a very emotionally charged chart to one that is being dominated by air is quite different. With Renjun, I was talking about how his water and fire give him the ability to be in touch with and express his scorpio moon more. But with an air dominant chart I feel like hinders that ability and creates a more detached person. Not that he’s cold, not emotional, or not compassionate. But just that he probably prefers to “just not think” about certain stressful or emotional topics. But the problem with that is it doesn’t mean emotions are gone and scorpio is very hard to ignore, so he’s probably internalizing a lot of stuff v deeply or is surprised when emotions come, what feels like, out of nowhere,.. Jisung also has an aries mars though! I feel like the openness of the aries mars combining with the detachment of Aquarius sun could also contribute to sudden releases of emotion🤔 but be back to normal in minutes

I also wanna add that I feel like jisungs very follower personality and ability to just kinda let things happen or not take charge must be a result of the industry and being the maknae tbh, or it at least accentuated it 

For the hexaco chart I really want to comment on how high the honesty-humility is! In the first part I mentioned how aquarius and aries can be quite righteous signs. So this trait must be really played up in his chart because it seems he cares a lot about following the rules (could also be a result of industry). His emotionality is higher than average! For his chart I don’t know if I would have expected that but from watching him I think it totally lines up, maybe his aries mars is proving more of an outlet. 

I also wanna finish by adding that jisung is still super young and has been in this “baby” position for most of his life, and is literally the youngest out of a 23 person group lol and grew up in the industry so there’s more going on with that than just astrology <3

tldr; very shy, anxious and nervous, intuitive, an oddball, his community is important and helpful to him, easily reactive, but not very emotionally expressive, he’s level-headed, has a lot of growing to do🥺<3

part 3 coming soon!

feedback and thoughts are always welcome!

[togglesbloggle]

How We Decided

The day after tomorrow- that is, February 18, 2021- the Perseverance rover will attempt to land on the surface of Mars.  It will enter the planetary atmosphere at an acute angle, giving it as much time as possible to experience drag and slow down from orbital velocities.  Because Mars’ air is so thin, and the rover is so heavy, this will fail- in the best case, Perseverance would still be going almost a thousand miles an hour when it impacts the surface.  To help save itself, the craft will deploy a parachute of advanced design, seventy feet across and able to withstand supersonic velocities.  This, too, will fail.  Even with a parachute, there is simply not enough air between Perseverance and the Martian surface to slow it down all the way.  So this is where the rockets kick in.  Once air resistance slows the rover to a bit less than two hundred miles per hour, the heavy heat shield will be jettisoned, and a system of secondary rockets will fire against the direction of motion until it slows to near-hovering.  In a final flourish, the rover will descend from the rocket-boosted frame on coiled springs, until it touches down in the western part of Jezero crater in the northern hemisphere of Mars.

As it happens, Perseverance’s destination was one of the very last things we decided about it- not until the craft itself was fairly thoroughly engineered and designed.  Formally, the decision was made by the mission directorate.  In practice, they follow the consensus of the scientific community, which in turn hashes things out at a series of open-invitation workshops.  Things began with a call for white papers- an open suggestion box, basically.  In 2015, the first workshop narrowed things down from thirty serious proposals to eight candidates.  In 2017, the second workshop further winnowed the list down to three.  And in October of 2018, after three days of presentation, debate, and discussion, the final workshop selected Jezero Crater from these final three candidates using a simple vote of all attendees, and passed on the recommendation to the mission leads.

I haven’t been in the business for very long, so the final workshop was the only one of these where I actually participated.  It wasn’t a close vote as such, and I didn’t break any ties, and technically we were just making a strongly worded suggestion.  Nonetheless, my vote is one of the reasons why the Rover will be going to Jezero Crater instead of Syrtis Major or Gusev, and I think I’m entitled to feel ownership of this mission choice, just a little bit.

(This is, of course, terrifying.)

Having gone through the experience, there were a few surprises worth noting.  The first was how small some of the numbers are here.  The conference was not very large: only thirty proposals, debated by just a few hundred attendees.  I’ve seen book review contests with more entries, and that are read by a wider audience.  Which is to say, this is a situation that was, and is, extremely responsive to individual effort.  In that small a room, populated by people that are philosophically committed to changing their minds when they see good evidence or a good argument, one person can stand up and change the future in a very real way.

The second surprise was the attendance requirements.  Or rather, the lack thereof.  The project is public, paid for by American taxpayers, to whom I am profoundly grateful.  And one way the process reflected that public-spiritedness is that this is not a walled garden.  A small attendance fee (iirc, $40?), and you’re in.  You get a vote, if you want to use it.  A few non-scientists even took us up on this; there’s one retiree (a former schoolteacher, I think) that’s attended every major conference I’ve been to in the last few years, and sets up a small table in the back with his home mineral collection just for fun.  In practice this open-door policy is limited by the obscurity of the event itself; if you don’t move in research circles, you have to be something of a space exploration superfan to hear about it.  Still, as symbols go, you could do worse.

And now that we’re coming up on the day itself, the same kind of public-facing mindset is making me think about why I was persuaded to vote for Jezero Crater, what it means to explore there, and how I’d justify that choice to those of you that made the ongoing discovery of Mars possible in the first place.

If you want to know what Perseverance is like, and what you can reasonably do with it, start with Curiosity- the two are built, more or less, on the same chassis.  That means you have a mobile science lab about the size of a Volkswagon Beetle.  Add some mechanical improvements (no more wheel punctures!) and a few bells and whistles (microphone!  helicopter for some reason!).  Trade out some of the scientific instruments- raman spectroscopy instead of a mass spectrometer, for example.  And it’s got these:

That, dear reader, is a sample return canister.  Not to be returned immediately, alas, but to be returned nonetheless.  One of Persevereance’s primary directives is to find interesting rocks, collect them, and leave them in place for a sample return mission in the early 30s.  There’s a ton of work we can do in situ, but there’s even more we can do in a clean lab back home; things like isotopic analysis really need a much more controlled environment than you’ll get in the field.  And so a major, major consideration is to optimize Perseverance’s landing site for cool rocks that we’d like to take back home.

The other thing that Perseverance is really good at is astrobiology.  There’s no such thing as a life sign detector as such, but this rover represents an attempt to approach that ideal: instruments like SHERLOC and SuperCam are adept at finding organic compounds and fine-scale mineralogy and chemistry that might be influenced by microbial metabolism.  This is a natural extension of what we’ve been learning so far: Spirit and Opportunity showed us that Mars formed under the influence of liquid water.  Curiosity showed us that this was not just wet, but actively habitable: lakes and rivers at a neutral pH under a rich and temperate atmosphere.  The next question along this line is the hardest, and the scariest: we know it was habitable, but was it inhabited?

If you’re like me, that question makes you feel weird.  Collecting rocks is one thing, but a fossil?  The mind rebels.  We’ve spent the last two generations of space exploration tempering our expectations, reminding ourselves that the other worlds in our solar system are largely barren and dead, learning again and again how precious life is in the cosmos.  It’s hard to get in the mindset of people back in the 40s and 50s who could, somewhat reasonably, imagine that Mars might not just host life but multicellular life, vegetation and robust macroscopic ecosystems.  We look back at the science fiction of the era, swarthy soldiers hopping from planet to planet in silver rockets, and laugh at the naivete.  A smile at the exuberance of youth, if we’re feeling generous.  When we were first beginning, we may have imagined ancient canals on Mars and crystal cities on Venus, but that was when space was a blank canvas for us to paint our fantasies.  We’ve learned so much since then, and if it was less fun, at least it was true.  We did the hard thing and accepted reality over fantasy.  We accept that extraterrestrial environments are hostile to life- cratered, silent, and still.  We’re grownups now.

Unless…

Unless.

Imagine that we were born just a bit earlier.  Say, three and a half billion years or so.  We raise our telescopes to the sky, and we see a sister-planet.  Not red, but white and blue, with an atmosphere full of clouds and multiple large bodies of water scattered across its surface, prominent ice caps and snow-capped highlands, rivers tracing their way down to the lowlands in the north.  (Maybe the water is all under the ice, not open to the air at the surface; maybe the liquid pools are small and limited to craters, not feeding a large ocean.)  Sober scientists might have suggested we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much- after all, the gravity is much lower, there’s no tectonic recycling, and there’s no protective magnetosphere.  But is sterility really the default assumption we should be making here?  Is ‘we are alone in the cosmos’ really the most sane conclusion to draw from this situation?  Is it not worth, perhaps, sending a rover to go see?

We’ve adapted our sensibilities to a dead solar system because in the moment we’re looking, it kind of is.  We’re hopeful for the icy moons- and the evidence keeps mounting there as well- but the terrestrial planets are a grim reminder of the fragility and contingency of our own world.  The thing is, the more we learn, the more we discover that we’re a bit late to a very, very interesting party.  Venus is a hellscape, but it probably didn’t start that way.  Mars is a desert, but once it was an oasis.  What makes Earth special among the terrestrial worlds isn’t that it developed a temperate climate, but that it kept a temperate climate for more than four billion years.  Stability, not habitability, is the party trick that makes us unique in the solar system.  And if we’re really committed to being grownups, to accepting what’s real instead of what’s easy, we have to learn that lesson too.

And life does not need four billion years to begin.  Not even close.

That brings us to Jezero Crater.  The most interesting feature here is a large river delta- based on some clever geology, we’re pretty sure that a large river emptied into the crater during Mars’ wet period.  When the rapidly-flowing water hit the still water of Lake Jezero, the loose sediments being carried along the current all fell out of suspension at this place, forming a large pile of detritus at the mouth of the river that accumulated over the lifetime of the system.  Even more interesting, check out this geologic map:

See those tiny teal deposits to the right side of the image?  Those are also river delta deposits.  Which means the thing labeled ‘delta’ on this map isn’t the original extent- it used to be much, much larger, at least twice as wide.  Which also means that the outer edge of the ‘delta’ that we see here in this image is actually an erosional surface, and we get a natural cross-section of the thing with the oldest deposits at the bottom and the youngest at the top, just before Mars lost its hydrosphere.  By climbing the outer edge, we can move through time across a large fraction of the habitable period.

Here’s another image I’d like you to see:

The crater I’ve been showing you is the small circle in the lower right- color is elevation, covering a span of about 5 km.  The black line is the watershed of that river, the region of Mars that channeled water to the delta.  In other words, the river delta collects sediments- and potentially, biosignatures- from a region hundreds of kilometers in diameter, and gathers them all in one place, neatly sorted by time.

For this reason, ancient deltas on Earth are a favorite of paleontologists.  In addition to being comfortably wet and active itself- plenty of access to biologically important nutrients, fresh supplies of liquid water, and a nice dynamic environment- deltas do the legwork for us.  Rather than exploring a huge fraction of the planet with a tiny rover, hoping that we stumble upon an ancient life sign, we can position ourselves at the mouth of the proverbial fire hose and let life come to us.

This does come with some tradeoffs.  Most importantly, whatever we find, we won’t know the original geologic setting.  If we find an unambiguous fossil of some kind- a microbial mat, perhaps- then we’ll know less than if we’d found it in its original home.  And if we don’t find life, then the samples we take will be similarly uncertain.  They’ll be defined in time, at least relative to one another, but not in space.  In the case of life signs, this is an important caveat, but the bare fact of proving that extraterrestrial life exists is sufficiently monumental that it’s still a secondary concern.  But if we’re just talking about geology, that’s a hard thing to lose; that terrifying multi-stage descent isn’t the only risk we’re taking.  We’re leaning into the astrobiology mission hard with this one.

And the search for life is, in itself, fraught.  That’s putting it mildly.  There’s every chance that any evidence that’s even slightly marginal is going to touch off decades of debate, rather than being some kind of slam-dunk.  As it should!  Life is such a fuzzy concept, and such an important concept, that it should absolutely be held to the highest degree of scrutiny we can muster.  This is why it matters that Perseverance includes sample return- in the highly likely case that the findings are disputed, we’ll hopefully have the chance to subject those samples to the highest degrees of scrutiny.  So it feels like the right time to go hunting.

On top of that, there’s the ‘evidence of absence’ problem.  Strong biosignatures update our priors very hard in the direction of life on Mars.  But what is the correct amount of evidence necessary to convince us that Mars never was alive?  I’m not sure, but failure to find microbial mats in Jezero probably isn’t enough.  So the search for life can succeed, but if it ‘fails’ that doesn’t necessarily teach us much; the best experiments teach you something no matter what, and ideally a commitment this large would meet that standard.  This is, more or less, baked into the search for extraterrestrial life, and there aren’t too many ways out from under that problem.

That said, Jezero in particular has some compensation.  As I mentioned, we’re collecting a lot of good data regardless; and even without the gologic context, there’s a ton of opportunity to sample different minerals and how they formed, and get a nice broad sample of the Martian surface over time.  And, even better, here’s the location of another interesting potential field site, in northeast Syrtis:

Note the proximity to Jezero crater!  And Syrtis is also a fantastic candidate for a sample return mission.  It has exposed mesas with layered outcrops going all the way back to the earliest days of Mars, and extending (potentially) through many of the most interesting periods.  Now, these are not ideal for the search for life, although they’d give us a ton of technical data about surface chemistry and the behavior of the atmosphere during the early, wet periods; it would go a long way towards resolving arguments about the temperature of the early Martian climate, for example, or tracing the early destabilization and loss of the magnetosphere while teaching us loads about the planet’s core.

Those mesas are still pretty far away.  Too far, probably, for a sensible rover lifespan to make it all the way there.  But there’s a plan- called the ‘Midway’ route, as a nod to the compromise nature of it.  See, halfway between Jezero and these mesas, there are a lot of banded rocks that look suspiciously like they’re sourced from the table mesas in Syrtis.  And those, we can get to, maybe.  If we call a specific deadline on looking for life in Jezero, then we can pivot to Midway and hopefully take a really deep look.  So, in the end, we’re going hard for astrobiology research, but we’re not going all-in.

The importance of the search for life is… well, there are a lot of people out there, and we enter the world in a lot of different ways.  Most of us agree that the existence of extraterrestrial life would be a Big Deal, and we tend to have a lot of different reasons for that.  It’s not a bad subject for a future post or three, in fact.  But there’s one thing lurking in the back of my head that’s a non-obvious reason to go looking.  This wasn’t discussed at the workshop particularly, but it fed into my vote somewhat.  Check the logic of this for me, see if it makes sense:

Worrying about existential risks, we sometimes talk about the ‘great filter’.  That is, the mysterious phenomenon which explains the lack of extraterrestrial civilizations reaching out to us.  Now, maybe we’re in a zoo or a preserve or something, and intelligences are out there watching after all; maybe the Earth really is the center of the cosmos, because of the simulation hypothesis or the various religious explanations.  There’s no real way to know for sure at this point.  But consider the space of very real possibilities where the universe actually is material, and actually is mostly barren.  Why?

Stepping through the sequence, it might be that abiogenesis is really hard- going from a temperate world to a living one is almost (but not quite) impossible.  Maybe there’s some hurdle to clear between genesis and encephalization.  Maybe, given encephalization, civilization and tool-use are almost impossible.  Or maybe there are many civilizations like ours, and the great filter is ahead of us- it is almost impossible for technological civilizations not to self-destruct or turn in to lotus-eaters before they reach interstellar civilization.  There are a lot of possibilities for the filter, and for present purposes we’ll divide them into two categories: those which we would have already passed, and those which are in our future.

And here’s the thing: for each possibility we can exclude from the great filter, all the other possibilities increase commensurately, becoming more likely in our estimation.  (Assuming the exclusion is ‘clean’ and doesn’t favor some other possibility, that is.)  Given that the silence continues, if we could somehow prove that technological self-destruction isn’t a big risk, that would commensurately increase our guesses about how hard abiogenesis is.

Life on Mars, especially if we could be very sure that it evolved independently of Earth life, would be a strong argument against the difficulty of abiogenesis.  One biosphere in the solar system, and nowhere else, might be down to luck.  The one biosphere has to be somewhere, right?  Two in the solar system, and nowhere else, is a good bit less reasonable.  If we find a second genesis on Mars, then we’ve learned that life is not rare.  That the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way are likely host to many billions of different living (or at least once-living) worlds.

And as wonderful as that news is, as much as it makes me so happy that I literally had to take a second to cry on my bed for a bit, it also makes the great silence much, much scarier.  Today, we can reassure ourselves by saying that life may be rare in the universe.  But what if it isn’t?  If the cosmos is full of life, but not full of thought, then…

If this is the case, we need to know.  We need to know as soon as possible, and we need to know it while we’re engaged in the great project of technological development and moral progress.  It’s easy to imagine that this particular mission is one that can be framed in purely positive terms- the joy of discovery, the vastness of truth, the love of how things might be.  But I do also have this sense of civilizational fragility, you know?  And understanding the risks that we face and the chances we’re taking- that’s not idle curiosity.  That’s genuinely urgent.

[smolbeandrabbles]

Innocence - Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody x Reader (Animal Kingdom)

@mandy23b​ @wltz-bby​ @happyskywhale​

GIF CREDIT: X

‘This is gonna be one hell of a night, I know you want it...’ ~ Kim Petras, There Will Be Blood.

Author’s Note: Basically, this is a fic in response to #ThatOneFic on AO3. I got a little bit of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.’ syndrome and then decided I was better than that.  Could have written the one that’s in my drafts, but doing my Director’s Cut and then talking to everyone about it really got me like... 

Why not start some probably not very good smut with murder, after all? 😉

Can I disclaimer myself? The notes for this (written, as tradition states at like, 3am) are just pure filth. And I was horrified reading them back. So yeah, you’re not... getting that, but you’re getting remnants of what it could have been...

Added 800 words during the editing process because he needed it. I’ll fight for my vision of Andrew one fic at a time...

Innocence - Halestorm

Disclaimer: AK nothing to do with me / Part inspired by my own Director’s Cut analysis of Andrew & further fic research / lyrics & gif not mine

Small ‘need to know’ info: David is a policeman, and readers oldest brother.

Premise: When a drugs deal goes awry on the wrong side of town, and the police on the case, Andrew has one place to go. You’re used to this behaviour, but there is something about that dangerous side of him you just can’t resist - and you don’t want him to hold back...

Words: 5639

Warnings: Swearing / Sex / Sinday/Sunday Smut / Drugs references

____ You see it from the outside You're running toward the wall Swinging from your blind side But you don't know me at all I've been here too many times before And your tears don't mean a thing I only come when you scream Is this what you wanted Did I make your dreams come true? You're sitting in a corner Wondering what you got into And you ache for things you don't understand That your tears don't mean a thing And I only come when you scream, I told you Child, don't follow me home You're just too perfect for my hands to hold If you choose to stay, you'll throw it all away And I just want to take your innocence There's no such thing as fate Only yourself to blame You never walked away Child, don't follow me home You're just too perfect for my hands to hold If you choose to stay, you'll throw it all away And I just want to take your innocence

---

The scent of bleach filled the apartment; opening the front door gave you nothing more than an instant headache. You were lucky it didn’t make you gag, and you stood blinking for a few minutes – surely the feeling of your eyes stinging was only phycological?! Slipping your bag from your shoulder you exhaled deeply, followed by an inhale you instantly regretted, groaning and dragging a hand over your face. There could only be one culprit. What the hell had he done this time? He was probably long gone by now, tidied away and back home “ANDREW!” This was certainly more a cry of frustration to yourself; it wasn’t like you’d actively get mad at someone so volatile. This time you were met by an answer, coming from vaguely the direction of your bathroom. “Okay. But it wasn’t my fault this time.” You jumped immediately, dropping your bag, hand to your heart. “Geez! Are you incapable of giving me anything other than a heart attack!?!” Instead of being verbally answered, the man himself appeared; the white shirt and black slacks were ill fitting. Like he’d just grabbed the first possible thing he could from some shelf or other. Judging by the sizing, they were likely your brother David’s. Your eyes instantly narrowed; only one reason Andrew wouldn’t be wearing his own clothes. “What the fuck did you do?” He held both his hands up, the attempt to stop you from jumping to conclusions clearly not working by your unimpressed face: “Got caught in the crossfire, that’s all.” You folded your arms, daring him to pull the other: “Oh yeah, my whole apartment smells like bleach because you got caught in the crossfire.” His face was deadly serious: “You can’t expect me not to retaliate now, can you.” Your body’s instant reaction to that was to move away from him, but your jerk away was not followed by a step back, “So you did kill someone.” His eyes flicked over your shoulder for a split second, “Not exactly.” “Andrew!” “Would you rather I was dead?” He touched his hand to his chest, immediately making you defensive. “Don’t say things like that--!” Of course not, you never liked thinking that it was a distinct possibility. The corporate world of the men you used to date – of the man you almost married – was a million miles from the one standing in front of you right now. Andrew turning up here unannounced was not unusual, but it usually meant something had pushed him here. It was that thought that prompted your next question; “What happened?” “Drugs run gone wrong.” Too blunt. You opened you mouth, eyes going point a-z - you weren’t really looking at anything, you just didn’t want to look into his eyes when you knew all they’d show was how deadly serious he was – “You know, sometimes I wish you’d be just a little more subtle with me, Andrew.” You shook your head “But, I know that’s not your strong suit.” He gave a shrug, “You asked. Usually you don’t want to know.” “Yeah well, now I wished I hadn’t.” You indicated to your bathroom, “What state is it in?” “It’s fine.” You pushed passed him with a huff; “I’ll be the judge of that!” You couldn’t actually stand in there for more than a few seconds at a time, but when finally you deemed it safe, you couldn’t help but conclude that he was right. Even if he was on thin ice. “How much damn blood was there for you to need that much bleach?” Andrew gave you a single slow blink; “I like to be thorough.” There was an edge to his voice that sent a shudder up your spine that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Yeah, you knew that. “Did you come all the way up to my apartment in blood stained clothes?!” “Not exactly.” “This I don’t want to hear.” “I know there’s cameras. I know the blind spots and trust me, no one saw me.” That was about the only thing he’d said so far you did trust. Andrew was far too good at this – if he said no one saw him, then no one saw him. Or they were already sworn to silence. “And your clothes are where?” Because if they weren’t in a dumpster about 6 miles away, you’d throttle him yourself. “Oh no, you-” “It better not have been a shirt I liked!” This blink meant nothing, and his face remained stoic. So it probably was, now doused in someone else’s blood. Vital evidence, of course. You sighed and stepped towards him, “The police?” “Drug land wars. It’s gonna look like exactly what it was.” “Promise me this isn’t traceable?” “It wasn’t our side of town. But you know that means nothing.” “A…Andrew…” You took his face in your hands, beneath your fingertips the tiny litter of scars you could still feel, but not see. His body was littered with such marks – you doubted he’d ever consider healing properly before he was off to the next big ‘adventure’. “Tell me you’re gonna be okay?” He placed his hands gently on your waist, but shook his head, “I can’t. You know that.” Andrew would stretch the truth, perhaps even lie by omission; but never blatantly. Not to you – not to someone who cared about him in the way you did. You shook your head, fingers holding him a little firmer before you placed your forehead to his: “I’m just glad you’re safe.” It was all you could say, but you meant it. It could have been his blood all over someone else’s clothes, with their significant other now holding them the way you were holding him. Instead they were likely getting news that the person they loved was dead, and you got to feel Andrew Cody breathe. He wasn’t holding you like a man who loved you, you weren’t even close. You weren’t about to unpick his feelings right this second, but you knew exactly what that meant.   “You can’t stay, can you?” He shook his head again, slowly, detaching himself from you. “Not today.” Not I’m sorry, not I love you, just not today. His brothers were at the scene, but Andrew was the one that was in trouble. You wondered if that meant he should be staying – or if he thought staying would put you in danger. This was meant to be his safe house… then again, maybe he needed to get back to his family. Andrew had a knack for disappearing by coming to you – for exactly that reason, no one would think to look for him in this part of town – if the Cody’s didn’t know where he’d got to, they’d be facing chaos. You weren’t about to tell him that his presence god-knows-how-long later dressed in someone else’s clothes probably would only add to that. “If you need me…” “I’ll come back.” He only gave a single nod, those blue eyes telling nothing but the truth. Andrew let you steal a single kiss before he was heading toward your front door, he opened it without a word, pausing only to half raise his hand to say goodbye. You wanted to tell him you loved him, it didn’t seem like an appropriate moment, and with a last lingering look your apartment door closed, leaving you alone. You let out another breath, this time loud as it built into a groan, hands running into your hair: ‘What the fuck am I doing!?’

***

You weren’t exactly in the know on this type of thing, and living across Melbourne in your apartment, you saw Andrew by arrangement, or when he chose to see you. Crime in Melbourne didn’t interest you until it had to – and half the time it was only because he forced your hand. A shoot out on the wrong side of town attracted the attention of the police. The Cody’s weren’t in favour with the police at the best of times, so this only made the cops go haywire. You were none the wiser, but the boys knew it. The law would be all over them – Baz was surprised that they weren’t already, and to counteract this, quickly managed to set a plan in motion. Although it was enacted with an air of panic. “Alright! This time we take no chances, its lockdown. We can’t go anywhere; we move slow and cautious and don’t do anything.” Baz stilled and thought for a moment before turning to his friend, the most likely candidate to get into the wrong kind of trouble. They’d all been there, sure, but it was Andrew the police would come down hardest on. “If we do, we gotta stay put – if necessary, hide. Pope, that means you-!” Craig and Darren immediately began arguing about “How can the house be safe!?” and Baz had the job of reasoning about alibis and how they usually got out of this with help from Ezra, commonly - without evidence - nothing went anywhere… and trying to knock some sense into their panic. Andrew wasn’t hearing any of this, instead he just sat calmly, eyes on a fixed spot – staying here wasn’t his only option. In fact, it was an option he’d rather not take. He stood, wandering off to his bedroom, exiting barely a minute later with a bag. At this point the others realised that he was in fact, leaving, and their yelling after him didn’t cause a turn back. Andrew Cody left without a word. “Andrew!! POPE! Where the HELL do you think you’re going man?!” Baz was too preoccupied with his friend to bother holding the other two back, and yet they didn’t attempt to chase their older brother. He knew the answer that Andrew wouldn’t give; “Y/N.” Darren turned to him with wide eyes; “Is that even safe-!?!” Baz thought that was doing you a disservice as a head strong city girl, you knew what you were getting into. You knew who Andrew was. “Man, I don’t even know where she lives. It’s perfect. After all, who is gonna ask a girl - who barely knows the names of three drugs - where the hell Andrew Cody is. She’s the last place you’d think to look...”

They all heard the car engine start, and as it pulled from the drive they were left in silence. “Should we stop him?” “Nope. It’s not worth it. Pope’s made his choice, best he lay low and out of it for now.” Craig tipped nearly his entire body as he mused his thought; “How did he even get her anyway!?!” Baz frowned, “It’s not about how he got her,” Although he was sure he knew the answer to that,  “it’s about how he’s keeping her.” “Fear?” Baz was almost worried that that was Darren’s gut answer and shook his head firmly. “No. No that’s not it. Pope wouldn’t hurt her.” “You sure about that. He’s got pretty violent tendencies...” This particular incident was a case in point. “No. Because she really WOULD leave.” Unless it was truly accidental; you’d kicked him out for drugs – he lay a hand on you (in a way you didn’t like; he’d seen the scratches and bruises that often adorned your hips that you seemed to like showing off sometimes) Baz wouldn’t think you’d be incapable of calling the cops yourself. That wasn’t a thought he liked. “Oh, she loves him, dearly…” “So what is she to him?” There was a tone of disgust in Craig’s voice, Baz gave him a significant look, “At the very least, a safer space than he’ll ever have here.”

** Weekends alone were nice. You liked waking in someone’s arms, you liked wasting your time on nothing, maybe you’d be treated to a walk somewhere, but it was likely that if Andrew was staying the weekend, you’d not leave your apartment. But alone you could very nearly sleep the whole thing away, eat whenever you wanted – maybe do a grocery store snack run, see your friends at all your favourite Melbourne coffee bars, take your car up to your parents for the weekend to see the kids… but staying under the covers with nothing but your dreams was the priority.   And given that the smell of bleach was finally completely dissipating from your apartment, tonight was the best you slept in days. However, when you woke this morning you weren’t alone. Which was fine either way, your boyfriend had a key and this behaviour wasn’t uncommon, but he was not beside you in bed. Rather, standing at the foot of it staring at you. Andrew Cody wasn’t even blinking, and the only thing that would indicate that he wasn’t a statue, was the rise and fall of his chest for every breath he took. He’d been here for a while, simply observing your sleeping form, your movements and your breathing; Andrew didn’t want to wake you when the dreams seemed good. He didn’t scare you, or make you jump. If anything his presence made you feel a little safer, but by the indication of your clock it was nearly midday… what was he doing here? You flattened yourself out onto your back as you stared right back at him, but his eyes didn’t hold yours very long, raking themselves down your body. The fluctuation of his breathing changed, and you could read that like a book. This man was clearly DTF. And although you couldn’t possibly believe that Andrew would make the journey across the city just for that, it wasn’t out of Andrew’s remit. “What?” Your voice was still soft as you pushed yourself up with your arms so you sat. “Andrew? Baby, what?” Your pulse was elevating to meet the look on his face, the hunger in his eyes. Clearly your body was more than happy to read the signals of his and be roused from its dreams to give signals of its own. Your tongue danced across your bottom lip as you lowered your gaze to the rest of Andrew’s body. You couldn’t deny that you could feel the rise in your arousal and this time, as his eyes came up to meet yours again, your body tingled under the weight of his stare. You wanted him right now too. “C’mere.” You encouraged him, tipping your body back to rest on your hands, head inclined. Andrew didn’t need more than that invitation, crawling onto the bed, hands either side of you. You could hear his breathing now, and he was close, but still not touching you. You continued watching the way he was still staring at your body, the change to the colour of his eyes – he was putting too much thought into this and it was torture. Andrew inhaled you, and you could almost feel the heat coming from him. For a moment you realised you’d been forgetting to breathe, and as you did so your body gave a throb, stomach knotting deliciously. The scent of him covered you. With Andrew this close you didn’t think there was any going back from that. “Do you want me? Andrew? Babe? Do you want me? You can say it...” He still wasn’t looking at your face, and although his head movements were neither confirmation or denial, they were indecisive. With no verbal reaction, but consent certainly needed in order to continue, you closed that gap, grazing your lips to his cheek you nudged his head back just enough to ghost his lips. “I want you, too. Baby, I need you.” If he wouldn’t consent verbally, you would simply let him know you did. He immediately let out a growl, pushing you back into the sheets. Even if you expected kisses, you didn’t expect them to be this harsh and it was very nearly shocking – was Andrew only trying to hold himself back? He pinned you down; knees by your hips, feet between your legs. But you didn’t struggle against him, hands shooting to his shoulders and through his hair – Andrew didn’t pin your wrists. You could feel your hips widening for him – knowing immediately that you wanted him to do whatever the fuck he wanted to you. Shifting himself so that you were still pinned, Andrew pulled your underwear down your legs, discarding them. All the while his lips were still on yours and he wasn’t affording you much breathing room. Some would say this was too close, but this was just where he liked to be. His hands ran smoothly back up your thighs and your hips wiggled underneath his, looking for anything. Andrew answered you sooner than expected, clearly he wasn’t in the mood to wait for this, and slowed his hands to part your thighs just that little more. You immediately moaned into his kiss as Andrew ran his index finger teasingly through your folds. You knew he wouldn’t stop there, and you had to leave his lips in order to draw enough breath to whine as he circled your clit slow. Andrew freed you from being pinned just so you could feed your legs into a more comfortable position whilst still giving him access to you; already flushed, you knew he wouldn’t have to do much to work you up. Dipping his fingers into your arousal as he brushed his thumb across your clit, it wasn’t long before he pushed a finger inside you and even shorter before another joined it – widening you for him. You weren’t even sure you were fully awake yet and your mouth to brain filters hadn’t kicked in, hands shaking as you undid the buttons on your own shirt. “Fuck baby, I need you inside me. Oh, baby please, fuck me, hard. Harder. Edge me, tease me, make me yours.” Clearly neither of you were quite sure where that had come from by the look on his face, but if Andrew thought that was what you wanted, that was what he would give you. Andrew knew what the way you were talking was doing to him as he undid his belt and jeans; it was weird to hear out of your mouth sure, but you were only succeeding in turning him on even more. He removed his fingers from you and thrust in with more force than you expected – causing you to cry out again; not entirely in pain. He growled, lips to your neck as his nails dug into your hips, you pulled his body closer, locking your legs behind him. You drew Andrew deeper; but that was exactly where you wanted him. Here we go with another set of bruises I luckily never have to explain… No trips to the beach for another week, then. If this was back at his, if he’d have called you and asked you to come over – which wasn’t often but it did happen - then this would have to be quiet, and you got the feeling that he was going to be so rough with you that it would be impossible to be silent. But also Andrew liked it when you weren’t – he liked hearing the sounds that he was capable of drawing from you. For just a second he placed his head against yours, and that single kiss was gentle; you thought you were already breathless, perhaps in anticipation, but still managed to say it: “Baby, I will be as loud as you want.” It didn’t take long before you were blissfully sighing his name, moaning and arching you back into him and the travel of his hands. You had to admit you were insanely turned on, but also, in your house you could turn the volume to 10, because that’s what he enjoyed. Andrew didn’t hurt you when you had sex, it wasn’t something that occurred to him; sure he held you tight enough to leave marks and scratches, but he wasn’t actively hurting you. So him being this rough was an unusual experience. But Andrew also didn’t usually talk, beyond the occasional phenomena of his own quiet sighs, and his whispers of your name. So, you weren’t sure if you had unlocked or awakened something in him that was always there, but he never knew you wanted, or Andrew was simply playing into your request – but the threatening growl in his voice as he spoke basically had you doing as he commanded on the spot, “I’m gonna make you cum over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and then when you can’t take it any more I’ll finally cum for you.” You whimpered your ‘what!?’ in such a way that it didn’t even sound like a word – your fingers clinging onto him and tangling into his shirt for dear life as he continued his reckless rhythm inside you. You felt too high on the feeling of him fucking you, but you would take him at his word – that was exactly what Andrew was going to do, unless you told him to stop. And he would, if he didn’t want to hurt you, he would. He'd be out the door faster than he could apologise if not. Did you want him to stop, was the question? Instead you responded in kind; “Fuck me Andrew. Do whatever you want with my body, it’s yours.”

Andrew didn’t say anything unless it was worth saying, unless he meant it (at least sober) - that was like an unwritten rule. Although maybe with you like this he wasn’t entirely sober, ever. But it felt so heat of the moment and foreign to him - what he was telling you wasn’t calculated… it wasn’t even truly blunt information but it turned you on. And that clench of your muscles around him was something that he could feel. The same way he could feel your pulse under his fingertips, and your warmth: that was your life, your heartbeat and it jumped with your excitement. The sound of it with the ticking of his watch; everything was suddenly so sensory to him. It ran wild the harsher he was with you and the harder you panted; desperate to take on more air. He didn’t have to associate that sound with life, either, he knew that noise when taking it. Andrew wasn’t sure if he was supposed to find that sexy or not; but he thought he did.

Every little sign of your body was all he needed; Andrew could pay attention to that minutia of detail, whether it be the sounds you made, or the shake that you fought so hard against, the movement of your body under his, how it felt to have your fingertips glide over him, for your lips to press into his skin, smaller tensions of resistance… but also how it felt to be inside you - how being a little rough and talking a little dirty seemed only to make you wetter, a little tighter, a lot more desperate for him - as if suddenly all your senses had heightened too. Maybe this was just something you both needed. But all of this was bringing you pleasure - that’s what mattered most. That Andrew was bringing you something positive; HE was doing this to you. He didn’t know why you stuck around; he gave you plenty of reason to leave. But you proved a point, even if really you knew you were only proving it to yourself; that Andrew Cody could make a positive impact on people’s lives. You wanted nothing more than to desperately confirm to him that he wasn’t just some tool his family could use for violence without mercy. Andrew could be this for someone; a life partner, needed, wanted, loved... And it wasn’t just you - but the way your whole family felt about him; Andrew deserved a real family.

He watched the sweat dance on your skin for a minute, acutely aware of the way your nails were digging into him; “Andrew, PLEASE, give me more-!” You weren’t just a someone though. You were you. You of all the damn people in this city, let alone the world. You could have anyone you wanted - you almost got married. Whether that man be long gone or not, occasionally it crossed Andrew’s mind that if it wasn’t for him coming into your life, your absolute fascination with him, the fact that this was practically an affair… you would be married right now; in some extravagant mansion in some fancy part of Melbourne. But you weren’t, you were with him - having loud rough sex in your apartment in a moment where you were thinking things didn’t get much better than that. Andrew proved to you that you didn’t have to settle for what you thought you wanted - but you could just as easily find what you really needed, even in the most unexpected of places. For Andrew, he couldn’t help but admit there was an excitement about the potential of corrupting someone not from his world, nor should have ever crossed the line into it. And yet here you were, beneath him.

He didn’t go back on any of his growled promises; and every time you came it felt different. Because this wasn’t just about one thing – not just the physical act; it was how you were feeling about him, and how Andrew felt for you. How he listened intently to what your body was telling him and changed it up - how you vocalised what you liked (and maybe when he got a little too rough). Emotions might have been hard to find in Andrew Cody but they were buried there somewhere, and they were real, and sometimes he gave you a glimpse of them. Even if it was just the look on his face right now, as you came for him again, and again, and again… The slight sympathy in his features as you begged him to cum for you, in short sharp breaths that he could really barely register as a sentence: hot and flushed and sweaty and spent… but his; completely his. Heart, Body, Mind and Soul. And Andrew didn’t need to look at the marks across your skin to know it.

By the time he did finally come undone inside you, your energy was completely drained, body shaking beneath his. You were both drenched in sweat and breathing hard – but every second had been worth it – and your body was singing from every single high you were still on. You couldn’t be sure you were even down from the first yet. You weren’t sure if your mental note should be: we should really do this again, or, we really should never do this again! So you’d put a pin in it for now, far too tired to do more than sift your fingers through his hair as he lay quietly on your chest listening to your heartbeat. Whatever that decision would be, you couldn’t help thinking on the fact that you wanted this more often, you would keep Andrew here if you could… If you thought that was ever possible. One day you’d work up the nerve to broach him moving in, for now you lay still and quiet. Now wasn’t the time… Now you just wanted to get lost in the way he made you feel. ** You had barely left the bed all weekend, if only to shower. (Which hardly ever turned out as innocent as it sounded). Usually exhausted, but hardly something to worry about. Andrew took good care of you. But he really had worn you out and after he’d set you on the sofa, so that he could change your sheets and tidy up, Andrew returned to your sleeping form. He tilted his head to watch you; remnants of that afterglow remained, smile on your face as your body curled up. Although you were tired you looked content, no worries.  Exactly how Andrew wished he could keep you. You were with him though, so that certainly wasn’t easy. He stooped, arms under your body as he pulled you into him. You groaned gently as he tipped you, head against his chest. Andrew gave pause again as you immediately sought the warmth of his body with a sleepy hum. His head gave an involuntary little shake as he carried you back to your bedroom. Depositing you back on your bed to curl up once more, Andrew stopped in the doorway only to make sure you had settled, before he closed the door on you and continued his tidying. *** Andrew thought about simply leaving, maybe it would have calmed down at home, maybe he could find somewhere else to lay low… But, although you’d talked this weekend you’d never quite broached the subject of why he was here. It wasn’t something important to you, he supposed, it wasn’t something you’d ask probably because usually you’d get a blunt answer. You didn’t need to know. And yet maybe this time you did. You were still sleeping when he re-entered your bedroom, and Andrew settled on the bed to watch you this time. However, your body didn’t stir, as it had when he’d arrived; you were relaxed and peaceful. Andrew knew you enough to know that you slept pretty light usually, but you seemed a lot deeper in this time around. He was right, you were exhausted. Through good things, at least. He placed his fingers gently to your neck, searching for the run of your pulse… when he found it Andrew applied increasing pressure, it changed under his fingertips; manipulated by his exertion on you – but when he did this, he could feel it stronger. That was your life under his fingertips; something that he could so easily take from you. And that thought almost scared him, you walked a razors edge - balanced constantly - and yet never seemed to let it faze you. You stood up to him without fear that he could turn around and kill you, even though Andrew knew how aware you were of that possibility. Andrew supposed you just never let it cross your mind. That you wouldn’t allow yourself to believe that your relationship could ever end that way. He would keep it to himself, of course, but Andrew had an uneasy feeling this relationship would only end when one of you was dead. Uncomfortable with the applied pressure, your body woke you; Andrew withdrew his hand fascinated with the way you took on more air as you awoke. It really would be that easy… You stretched slowly and turned to him, “Oh… my god. I-” you glanced to the clock, “…I’m sorry.” “You needed it.” Andrew gave a nonchalant shrug. “I thought you might leave.” “I considered it.” He was still being blunt, you weren’t all that sure Andrew would recognise the difference and let you down softly: “…I might need to overstay my welcome.” You pulled yourself up, taking his hand in yours, “You are always welcome here. What happened?” He would take his leave, if there wasn’t a reason he couldn’t return home. “You know.” “The same as before? So the police are after you?” You said it with an undertone of ‘I told you so’. “Appears that way.” “And you’re gonna tell me what it’s about?” That was a rare event. “…I told you.” He indicated, “But-” and shuffling over to his things he presented you with a large polished wooden box. You were immediately unsure you were going to like this, and opened the lid cautiously, only at the last second realising now your fingerprints were on this thing. ‘David would scream at me!’ You blew out a breath at the contents, unable to quite raise your eyes to his. The entire box was filled with drugs, of various types, surely you couldn’t name them all, but pills, needles and powder were all present in various shapes and colours. Spoils of war? The darker patches of brown you could see around the edges of the box were saying blood to you. You were silent for a long while, before you said the first thing you could really think of, “This... is a lot.” A lot for me. “I know.” You weren’t sure he let your sentence settle enough for him to really know. You became sad for a minute, fingers dancing across the surface of the box as you closed it, unsure of what to do. What you were supposed to do with this information now. Andrew continued, deciding to take the leap of: “I can’t be what you want me to be.” You raised your head, with a blink and looked at him; clear and true, dead in the eye: “I don’t want you to be anything.” You had never wanted him to be anything, you knew exactly who he was. “You might be what they say you are, Andrew.” Not that you would know, being so out of the loop. But you’d seen enough, in your opinion far too much, “But that is not ALL you are.” I know you... I. Know. You. You could think of nothing else than to gather him to you, you didn’t care if he reciprocated or not – it was something you needed to do. Even if it was only for yourself. You buried your head in his shoulder, lacing yours fingers with his. Andrew wasn’t looking at you, he wasn’t even really giving you anything back. But he wasn’t pulling away from you either – and that was just as important. You rubbed his arm affectionately, running up to his collar. Those blue eyes trailed to yours; and you held him there. Your voice was gentle, voicing the only thing that really mattered to you in this moment – his own safety. “Stay as long as you need, we’ll get through this, we always do.”

You always would.

---

Thank yoooooou for reading! 💙💜

[sickcyclist]

This is the story of my day. It actually starts yesterday, when a heaven-sent rain swept in and cleared the smoke and cooled the air and tamped down the dust on the trails. I went on a bike ride because days like that are a gift. I have exercise-induced hypoxemia, which basically means that my oxygen drops when I exercise for reasons that we still don’t understand. Exercising with oxygen helps, but I still drop into the mid-80s. I knew I was too sick to ride and that doing so would make me much more sick, but I needed it for my mind so I was willing to sacrifice my body.

So that’s the first lesson of being sick. Everyone tells you that you have to be active and it will make things better and all you have to do is just push yourself hard enough. We’ve internalized this message to the point that many people believe sick people could get better if they just PUSHED. But that’s not always true. Sometimes pushing makes you worse. Sometimes it makes you much, much worse. And that can be true even if being active and pushing hard is something you love so much that it feels like it’s core to who you are.

I knew I would have to sleep for 12+ hours to make up for the ride, and I knew that I would have bad oxygen saturation stats because of it. And since I don’t have a real job, it should be easy to just take a lazy day (or week, or month) and get better, right? But actually I do have a real job and that job is to keep myself alive. It’s the job of a lot of us who are chronically ill, and it’s not a profession I would recommend. It’s not fun and it’s not rewarding and no one admires you for it and you’re not asked to speak to 5th graders on career day and you rarely get to move on to a newer, more interesting project.

Here’s what this particular day at work looked like for me. I woke up to a voicemail saying that my pulmonology appointment for Friday had been cancelled. I’ve been waiting to see a pulmonologist since March and was supposed to have an appointment weeks ago, but that was cancelled because the doctor quit two days beforehand. The other doctor in town couldn’t see me until the end of October, so I looked for a doctor in a bigger town hundreds of miles away. She comes highly recommended and in a way I’m happy because I strongly prefer female doctors, but for whatever reason she had to “clear her morning.” My new appointment is five weeks from now. I got off the phone and sobbed, which is not a good thing to do when your lungs don’t work. I probably could have toughed it up and avoided crying if I hadn’t worn myself down so much biking yesterday, but such is life.

I emailed my primary care provider asking for a note saying I could travel with my portable oxygen concentrator. I was supposed to get this letter from my pulmonologist, but now I won’t have a pulmonologist before I travel. The letter has to say that I use oxygen for sleep and activity, but it also has to specify that I won’t use oxygen on the plane. Which is a little funny because airplanes have extremely powerful oxygen-producing systems for emergencies, but they don’t like people who need oxygen because they don’t like the risk that comes with having sick people on board (think emergency landings). So people who need oxygen all the time need their own oxygen concentrator and battery power for the equivalent of 1.5x the time they will be in the air. I’m going on an 8-hour flight and it would cost about $400 to get strong enough batteries for that length. So I need them to let me carry my machine, which has lithium ion batteries that are otherwise prohibited. But in order to carry my machine I need to prove that I won’t be needing it.

I have a great primary care provider. I knew she would write the note. Easy peasy.

My next voicemail was from the specialty pharmacy that my insurance provider uses for certain drugs. I am allergic to a hormone all women produce as part of the menstrual cycle. This allergy is so severe that it has been responsible for 5 miscarriages, and it also means that I’m more miserable than usual for half the month. The good news is that all you have to do to stop it is take out your ovaries, but when you do that you go into full menopause. Which is not desirable because it increases your risk of cancer and osteoporosis and just overall mortality. Like not even from one thing. Just people who go into menopause early die early from all causes and we don’t know why.

That gives you some perspective on what the benefits have to look like in order for the cost-benefit analysis to still auger in favor of ovary removal. But since it is such a serious choice, you have to be sure. And the way you make sure is to stop your ovaries from working with a drug. The drug has hideous short and long term side effects, so if you feel better while taking it, that’s a pretty strong sign that an oophorectomy is the choice for you.

Approval for me to receive this particular drug was in limbo because the provider accidentally entered the wrong diagnosis. I have, as you can imagine, a lot of diagnoses. Entering the wrong diagnosis in this case was particularly funny because I’ve spent the last 6 months fighting with Blue Cross to get an expensive medicine that helps with my allergies. This medicine (Xolair) is approved for chronic urticaria (hives). It is not approved for progesterone hypersensitivity. I have both, which means I itch a lot for two weeks of the month and itch so much that I want to peel my skin off for two weeks of the month. Blue Cross argued that I wanted the drug for progesterone hypersensitivity. No medical provider said that, but it was the diagnosis they could use to deny the drug. Xolair costs $4000 a month. At that price it’s worth it to them to grind people down and hope they give up. It took four appeals and my lawyer (husband) to get the drug approved because I do indeed have chronic urticaria. It’s worked wonders for me, especially being allergic to the sun. You have no idea how easy it is to descend into madness when you are itchy all the time.

I went over all this with my new OB. I explained that, while the allergy shot solved the itching, it didn’t fix any of my systemic problems, which is why I was still interested in removing my ovaries. And because the conversation focused on how this ovary-suppressing drug (Lupron) specifically wasn’t for urticaria, it’s perhaps not surprising that she accidentally listed urticaria as the reason for the prescription. It’s like when you’re afraid you’ll mispronounce someone’s name. You tell yourself, “Say Kee-a, not Ky-a,” so many times that you’re basically guaranteed to call the person Ky-a.

So my ovary medicine was denied, of course, but I contacted my doctor’s office last week explaining the problem and they were very quick to apologize and resubmit. I returned the call from the specialty pharmacy but apparently they had just wanted to let me know that they were sorry for the delay. It was very polite of them but maybe didn’t require a phone call.

Then I got an email from Blue Cross Blue Shield. I logged in to read that coverage had again been denied (no reason stated) and that if I wanted to appeal the decision I would have to appeal through their specialty pharmacy. They gave me the name and number. Of a different specialty pharmacy than the one I had been dealing with for the past month. The one that I had already wrangled account numbers and diagnosis codes and special customer service phone lines out of. I typed up a polite response inquiring why I need to change pharmacies. And then I cried, but only just a little this time.

Then I called Walgreen’s because my medication for muscle spasms had been delayed and I received a note saying the pharmacist needed to speak to me. I am hypermobile so my connective tissue is just a little too bendy. My joints slip in and out all the time and my muscles have to overwork to hold my body together. Frequently they overwork so much that they lock up. This happens much more frequently in the progesterone-dominant phase of my cycle. Physical therapy is the best treatment, but sometimes I need muscles relaxants before I can even start physical therapy.

The man I spoke to at Walgreen’s told me I didn’t have a prescription for that drug. Then he told me I had a prescription but it had expired in March of 2020. I knew that wasn’t true because I hadn’t used it for years but had to start again when I got COVID. So I had no prescription in March of 2020 but I definitely did in March of 2021. No big deal. Just a simple computer error. Totally understandable in a pandemic, and I knew my doctor would refill it anyway. But he apparently felt that it was a big deal and wouldn’t submit the refill to my provider. I have no idea why. Maybe he thought I was engaged in drug-seeking behavior. Or maybe he was having a bad day. But he wouldn’t submit the refill. I hung up the phone and screamed. Loudly. Which really is not a good thing to do when your lungs don’t work.

Murry came up and rubbed the spasm out of my shoulder and listened to me vent and offered to be my medical power of attorney so he could deal with these people for me. But he’s the one with the real job that earns real money and when I’m sick he also cooks and cleans and does the shopping and walks the dogs. I may not be any good at the shitty job I had, but there’s no way I’m going to make him do it.

I switched tactics and chatted with someone through the Walgreen’s app. He was lovely and had no problem submitting my prescription for a refill. Easy peasy.

My final task for the day was calling to find out about the status of my CPAP prescription. I don’t have sleep apnea but while I’m asleep my breathing does slow down significantly enough that my oxygen drops (hypopnea). I need a special CPAP that adjust the pressure to my breathing, but it will get me off of oxygen at night. I’m very excited for it.

My insurance does not require prior authorization for CPAP prescriptions. However, St. Pete’s has its own prior authorization department that I guess makes sure you are not lying about not needing prior authorization? This department is, apparently, understaffed. I called my oxygen “rep” to find out how it was going. She very kindly bypassed the prior authorization department and called Blue Cross directly. Blue Cross informed her, as had I, that a prior authorization was not necessary. She could officially get me a CPAP.

Except that there is a national CPAP shortage. So she will try her best to get me one as soon as they get more. Hopefully this month. Even the rare, wonderful people who try to help you are sometimes as helpless as you.

I didn’t cry this time. Crying doesn’t fix anything and I can’t risk losing more oxygen. So I turned to writing therapy instead.

This was a bad day at work, but there are rarely good ones. It sucks to be sick, but I’m smart, articulate, overly educated, wealthy, and white. It could suck so, so much more. Someday I’ll turn all of this knowledge that I never wanted into something that helps people other than myself. Until then maybe someone will read this and know they are not alone. If being sick is your job, I see you. I would give you a hug—or a bonus!—if I could.

[sillytorch]

I’ve seen multiple, if not so many different takes on Roman Torchwick’s canon backstory that I might as well say my take on it (No he’s not the Brunswick Farms kid. The artist for it confirmed it was just a random character design, check the notes for the source):

I like to think that Roman was always a little shit, even as a kid. Maybe not as horrible as he became during his adulthood, but he was definitely a delinquent. And he definitely did not have a good relationship with his parents... he might have not even grown up with siblings. Speaking of his parents, they were most likely just abusive (of the mental and emotional kind).

I don’t think he was dirt poor but I don’t think he was rich either. He most likely grew up in a middle class home (you can decide which spectrum of middle class he was on).

Even though he was a delinquent, he still attended school but he most likely dropped out b/c well... he seems like the type of person who was expelled at least one time in school. On top of that, Roman most likely either grew up in an urban area or a suburban area.

I feel like with what I said and the fact that the show implied that he himself was a streetrat based on Mercury’s comment to Cinder (“My dad once said if you want to get to know a city, ask the rats.”) so I’m just gonna say that Roman most likely ran away from home at a young age (13-14 y/o).

Speaking of his childhood, I do think Roman at one point, wanted to be a huntsman. It may sound very crazy considering his last words, but his last words are what made me think about it:

“You wanna be a HERO?? THEN PLAY THE PART AND DIE LIKE EVERY OTHER HUNTSMAN IN HISTORY!!!!”

The tone of voice he has as he’s screaming that to Ruby, he doesn’t just sound like an asshole, he sounds bitter. And before that, he starts talking about “THE REAL WORLD” being “COLD” and “NOT CARING ABOUT SPIRIT”

(and keep in mind, he says all of that after losing Neo, someone he trusted and was probably the only true friend and family he had. Before losing Neo, he was very confident about his position, that he was on the winning side. But once she gets thrown off, he suddenly becomes so negative and flies off into a rage that we’ve never seen of him before)

Those last words he screams during his emotional breakdown, it wasn’t just to break Ruby’s spirit before he (unsuccessfully) kills her, he was most likely venting about how he feels about huntsmen because he probably feels betrayed by his idealized version of huntsmen when he was a kid versus the reality of huntsmen.

Think about it: being a huntsmen to a kid seems really cool. You fight monsters, you get the glory as the hero, legends and tales are written about you... seems like a really cool thing to basically any boy. But we all know the reality of huntsmen as we’ve seen in the show, which... is pretty Grimm (*rimshot*). They don’t exactly have the best living conditions, they die relatively young, training is brutal, some huntsmen turn out to be corrupt or militarized into super soldiers, may I go on?

My point is, Roman during his teen years as a streetrat most likely knew a huntsman, possibly was even friends with them at one point. Maybe said huntsman straight up took him after awhile. MAYBE, said huntsman tried to help clean up Roman by properly training him to become a huntsman and applying to a huntsman academy. Probably b/c a huntsman academy has a lot of resources, like food, shelter, training, which would have helped out Roman. And well... it could have worked... but it didn’t...

Because something HORRIBLE happened to that huntsman friend, and Roman was there to witness it. Something so shocking that pretty much gave Roman the idea of the reality of a huntsman‘s life... and that lead to him becoming this jaded man who doesn’t care about anybody or anything. Why care about a world if no one’s gonna care about or respect you no matter who you are? The real world is cold... lonely... and doesn’t care about spirit... so why care at all? So, he went back to becoming a streetrat and eventually started his growth as a serious criminal.

Now how did he met Neo? Well... according to One Thing, Roman took her in during a hard point in her life:

Gone's the life That he gave

I was nowhere I had no one I felt nothing Lost without a voice and on my own Then a candle's flame Brought a brand new name

I had one thing And you've taken it from me A single light A single friend But you made that end There was one thing To help escape the misery And now it's all disarrayed You took my whole life away You sent me back to nothing Now you'll pay

This man took Neo in. I’m not sure EXACTLY when in his life he took her in and they became partners, but he took her in. And while this song is from Neo’s perspective, it kind of says a lot about Roman too, especially if you take how he treats her in the show in context:

V2 Ch 4: “Neo if you would!” (Roman proudly says after smiling at Neo for coming to his rescue)

V3 Ch 10: He takes the scroll from Neo’s hand and looks very happy and remarks at her as he takes it, “Now this one? This one’s gonna be fun!”

Also V3 Ch 10: “Go see what’s out there.” (Roman says even though he’s annoyed, he calmly tells her to check outside the ship. Keep in mind, this is the same man who insults his grunts, threatens his allies, and has even attempted to talk back to Cinder a few times)

V3 Ch 11: Literally their entire fight makes it clear that these two have fought together before based on their teamwork. For example: note how when Roman enters, he waits for Neo’s illusion to get hit by Ruby’s bullet, and once the bullet shatters it, Roman shoots right afterwards. He knows Neo’s semblance so he could have just shot through her illusion the moment he saw Ruby right? But he didn’t because, it’s Neo. If he shoots through the illusion (or what he thinks is the illusion), he risks hurting Neo in the process. And THAT is just one of the many examples of how much he cares about her during this fight, including his famous “NEO!!!” cry.

This man cares about Neo. She might have been the One Thing, Roman cared about. Probably the one thing that mattered to him in the world, a friend, a family member... she was probably the only thing left in this cold, cruel, spiritless world he cared about. And once a certain little red started foiling his plans to keep him and Neo afloat from whatever doomsday Cinder and Salem are planning on Remnant, and said little red threw Neo into a sky thousands of feet up in the air full of Grimm where for all he knew, Neo was dead.

This might actually be what led Roman into that rant about the world as he LITERALLY beat it into Ruby’s head: that the world is cold and cruel, and he ends up proving that right to her, because not only did he lose his only friend, he died at the moment he was about to kill Ruby. It didn’t matter what side he was on, he never got what he wanted. Basically it seems like his entire life, the world basically yanked the chain on him and his entire life, leading up to his death proved it.

Now does that excuse all of the horrific acts he’s done in the series? NO! It doesn’t!! He became a horrible person! Yes he did one nice thing by taking in Neo during a hard point in her life, but this man’s legacy was being a high profile criminal and he felt no remorse for that!

But this analysis and theory... if the theory is true that is, may explain why he did what he did. Explanation =/= Excuse.

[stellocchia]

This is part 2 of the comprehensive analysis of c!Tommy and c!Dream’s relationship during the Exile Arc

Part 1

So, initially I was thinking of making only one post with only the important quotes from this streams but... yeah, not saying what I think about stuff is not in my blood. So now I’m stuck with this and I’m determined to finish it!

Once again, it’s all about the characters from here on out and I will be mentioning serious themes of abuse and gaslighting, so keep that in mind.

We’re starting this one off with the second proper exile stream: Tommy Is Getting So Much Worse in Exile...

Mushroom Henry is introduced at the beginning of this vod. Initially Tommy doesn’t like him, believing him to be a poor replacement of the real Henry. He then goes towards Tnret and finds it compromised as Lazarbeam had planted some tnt under it the day before during a visit with Vikstar and Technoblade (now, how much of that visit was canon? No one knows! But the tnt part definitely was). Also to be noted that Tommy already stopped fighting back against mobs, which is already rather worrying. 

Anyway, this is the stream where Tommy makes an enderchest with Fundy and Ranboo, so I will only write down some of the most notable quotes, and keep it rather brief. It is to be noted that Tommy’s depression at this point had already gotten worse as in the Nether time and time again he avoids doing the haybell mlg instead taking the full fall damage, he defends himself less and he’s already expressing feelings of loneliness. Also, he is now on the first stage of the exile skin set.

“Because if we can’t stay motivated then- then we won’t have anything to do (...) we’re gonna work out how to Keep Doing Things and not... sit around crying” (he has the need to keep busy to stave off loneliness)

“Now everyone, if you should know, we’re gonna go bach and reclaim everything at some point and kill Dream” (talking to chat)

“Music! It’s like a person but they’re not here!” (about Chirp)

“This is like, you know when you fall over? Or you know- or you know when one of your pets die? At school? And then all of a sudden you’re at school and you’re upset and all the people who are usually assholes to you start being nice all of a sudden. This is that!” 

This was quite interesting, so I want to talk about it briefly: but this is Tommy’s general mentality. He sees anyone trying to help him or giving him things as just pity from people who don’t actually care nor necessarily even like him. Basically, he feels betrayed and alone and doesn’t actually think that any of this people could possibly care. This however doesn’t seem like a mentality that’s born from exile (since he’s had it since the very beginning of exile) and we don’t actually know where it generated from. Though it could possibly be from the fact that he always had to be very independent since he had to fight in quite a few wars and even take the leading position in the Pogtopia times.

Other note: this is when Ranboo starts leaving letters for Tommy (You can find Tommy and Ranboo's mail exchanges here). At the beginning the chest they used to exchange them was situated on the Nether side of the original portal, which was a ruined portal a bit further away from Tommy’s camp. Also Tommy dies in lava (not canonically) a ton of times in this one and Fundy every times gives him some of his stuff to pretend like nothing got burned (which was kinda adorable).

“Fundy why didn’t you come with me when I got exiled? I was meaning to ask you. ‘Cause no-one came with me” “No-one came with you because it was- *sigh* Tommy I don’t know! It was- it was a shock to all of us” “You could have came with- yeah, but you just let me go. You just let go on me Fundy” “And- and just leave L’Manburg to Tubbo himself? Like all alone?” “No he would have had like literally everyone else on this server” “Like who?” (I just found this exchange interesting)

“I don’t think you’ll like it but Dream is uh, kind of proud of Tubbo. He- he’s actually acknowledging L’Manburg as a new country now” (and this is what the other side of the manipulation looked like from the outside)

“Wait wait! I could talk to the narrator! Then I’d finally have a friend!” (proceeds to start talking to the narrator)

“No no no. No no no Ranboo. Stop- stop complaining. Stop being weird Ranboo. You should be honoured to have a friend that’s close enough that he shoots you” “I don’t think that’s a ‘friend’, I think that’s just an assassin” (Ranboo with the common sense)

“This is where I used to live and then Dream tore it down” “Why did Dream tear it down?” “*sigh* I don’t know”

"Look guys: this is the song of a female astronaut named Clara” (about Chirp)

The vod ends with Tommy and Ghostbur’s attempt at saving Lazarbeam from lava and Ghostbur gifting Tommy the “Your Tubbo” compass.

Moving on: Tommy Is So Lonely in Exile with Dream

This is actually the first stream where Tommy starts off drowning (and he actually dies, yet again, non canonically). Also Puffy gifts him some blue wool, 3 diamonds and his own Christmas tree, specifying that it’s not out of pity so he actually accepts the present. 

“We’ve got some things to do. I’m still feeling um... I’m not feeling I AM very very very alone. Just- just so- just lonely all of the time... which isn’t, you know? Isn’t okay. I don’t know why I was at the bottom of the ocean just holding a bone”

Now, a bit to unpack here. In real time by now it had been 3-4 days technically, but in rp it has been specified already multiple times that it had been quite a few days since Tommy got exiled and we don’t really have any reason to believe that he received any more visits then what we’ve seen. Which probably increased his loneliness. Also we don’t have an actual explaination for him waking up drowning, my best guess for it is a mix of him being suicidal and general depression making it hard to get any proper rest (which we know was the case for him since he did mention at one point that he “didn’t sleep anymore”) which could have caused him to start sleepwalking since both “not getting enough sleep” and “stress and anxiety” are listed as causes of it. Now the actual subconcious reason as to why he was going in the sea and letting himself drown is unknown but, again, he was suicidal while in exile.

Also “How to Sex 2″ got burned by Ghostbur, not volountarily of course, he just had it on him when he died in lava. 

“I’m too lonely to be angry now, alright? We got to appreciate all the friends that we can get” (about Lazarbeam bringing him a present)

“The compass is nice though! We’ve got a compass that always will point to Tubbo... not that- not that he’d care” (beginning of the doubts about his old friends)

“Tubbo has one too? [referring to the compass] Oh he’ll just- if he’s got one he’s just using it for show... he’s- I’ve accepted that he’s the president now and I’m just- I’m just that guy he had to exile to show how powerful he was” (again, doubts)

Also Tommy makes his first path to Logstedshire in this stream. He also takes a liking to Mushroom Henry here after figuring out he could produce mushroom soup, meaning he actually had a sustainable source of food instead of having to relay mostly on handouts. 

“Guys we need some more coal” *Dream joins the game* “...ooooooh no please don’t come and visit me. Please please please” (I’m leaving this here, I believe this reaction speaks for itself)

“Hey! I’m- I’m above right now by the pretty Christmas tree that there is here” “Why are you here?” “I’m visiting you!” “Last time you said that you ruined me” “I- How did I ruin you?” “*sigh* Hi Dream!” “Hello~” “What have you- what” “Where are you at?” “I’m just com- why are you here? Every time you’ve been here you’ve done something destructive” “I- I what- I haven’t done anything destructive... everything’s been fine! I haven’t destroyed anything”

At the time there were a lot of people who were hesitant at calling Dream’s manipulation “gaslighting”, as that is a precise type of manipulation, but this right here? This is an example of gaslighting. Dream destroyed everything Tommy had every time he visited him and they both know this, still what Dream is trying to do here is convince Tommy that that never happened to keep up his friendly facade. Just because he isn’t saying directly “you can’t trust what you remember” doesn’t mean that that’s not exactly what he is implying. To reiterate this point they meet up right after and Dream, once again, blows up Tommy’s armour and diamond sword: 

“Hello~ take your armour off” “Why should I take my armour off?” “Um, drop it down here” “No, no! I worked really hard to get this. No!” “Okay... you can get it again!” “No! See this is what I told you about, that you’re destructive to me” “Tommy I’m not destructive... but, listen, you gotta drop it” (...) “No, no! I’m a rebellious teenager. I don’t listen to green punks” *Dream hits Tommy with an axe* “*screams* Okay okay okay okay okay”

Again, Dream hitting Tommy in this case is portrayed as physical abuse. And then Dream goes back to acting as if nothing ever happened, going on to talk about his day, telling Tommy that he knows about the 2 compasses and telling him that Tubbo went over while Tommy wasn’t there and that he is free to visit Tommy, he just hasn’t done it yet (all of this are actually true, but the implication that Tubbo didn’t want to see Tommy obviously isn’t). 

“Dream, I think I’ve realized why no-one’s came to see me” “Why’s that?” “It’s because- it’s because there is not an easy way to get to me and I’m gonna make an easy way to get to me today” “I mean, if you boat here, it took me 2 minutes” “No no-one wants to use the boat, it’s too far- it’s too far for people” “Oh you know what Tommy? I’ll do you a favour”

This is when Dream moves Tommy’s portal. Now, one thing that I want to point out is that Dream had already intercepted Ranboo’s and Tommy’s first mail book (we know this because in Ranboo’s message at the beginning of this stream he said that the first one disappeared) so he probably knew that Ranboo was using the secrecy of the further away portal to communicate with Tommy undetected. Of course Dream can’t have that, though he probably didn’t account for Ranboo not giving up that easily.

“Well it’s very awkward considering you exiled me and- and have banished me from being around all of my friends and now are trying to side with me it’s kinda-” “Tommy what’d you mean from all your friends? I’m your friend!” “Yeah... yeah you are” “I am your friend Tommy~” “Yeah I- Yeeeeeah, Dream” (just to clarify: Tommy is not agreeing with Dream here, he is being sarcastic. Also Dream starts harping a bit more on this point from here on out)

“Oh I just witnessed another suicide...” (second time this happens, the first was in the last vod, and he stays staring at the lava for a moment)

Tommy once again trying to push Dream into lava (again similarly to how he did in the first proper exile stream) and Dream just goes along with it (mostly just to flex about how that can’t actually kill him). I consider this couple of times as the first times Tommy started lashing out in exile. 

“Health and safety is important Dream! *staring at lava* Is it though?” “Yes, yes it’s important Tommy. It’s not your time to die”

“And then you’re coming over here giving me shit and also burning my shit. You’re just- you’re just a monster” “I didn’t burn any of your shit” “You blew it up! You exploded it! Man you’re ruining my life...” “I blew it up, I didn’t burn it though” (because that makes all the difference of course...)

“Hey man I could jump and you’d be able to do nothing about it and I’d- I’d be done-zo” “I- I ask you please not to” “Okay” “I need you alive and well”

Now I found this interesting when first watching as well, but Dream really did spell it out for us that he actually needed Tommy, huh? Like, in retrospect, what Dream then intended to do in the Season 2 Finale seemed kind of obvious. Also after that They have a discussion about the enderchest, but Tommy gets to keep it. Also Ranboo appears at the portal, though Dream doesn’t manage to see who it is and Ranboo manages to escape before he sees (thanks in part to Tommy distracting Dream). Now I want to point out that, even if outwardly people had the permission to visit Tommy, the fact that everyone was so scared about Dream finding out about it talks volume about how clear that was. Also this is when Dream gives Tommy the general direction of Technoblade’s cabin.

“Look at us go... hey why don’t you just un-exile me, you know? You know?” “*laughs* Well I think that I- I- I think that maybe there is a possibility at least in the- in the future that you could- you could- you know? Get a visitor’s pass...” (notice that he only confirmed a possibility for a visitor’s pass, not for actually going back, Dream literally never meant for Tommy to go back permanently)

Lazarbeam arrives to visit Tommy at this point to gift him Far and a fire resistence potion.

“See I told you! It was because I didn’t have a bridge that nobody was coming to visit me Dream! It wasn’t because it was me” “Yeah it must be...”

“Hey Dream come and listen to this man! [talking about Far]” “I-I’m-” “Hey, promise you won’t- If I get a new disc you wouldn’t mind would you?” “No I wouldn’t” “Okay, come and listen. I trust you now, now we’ve bonded” (Is this the second time Tommy invites Dream to listen to a disc with him?)

At this point Dream pressures Lazarbeam to mug Tommy with him and the whole scene is just pretty weird, but it boils down to Dream blowing Tommy’s armour up (again), while also hitting him a bit more when he doesn’t immediately comply (basically making this humiliating and making Tommy understand that he is not any safer with someone else there). Though Tommy does end up lashing out and killing Lazarbeam (not canonically) and Dream destroys his enderchest in retaliation. After that Tommy does become more submissive, not wanting to get killed. Now I want to point out that that same day Dream had agreed that Tommy could keep his enderchest without any conditions to it, but, of course, Dream’s rules are constantly changing. Dream does leave after that for a bit.

“I put your enderchest back by the way Tommy” “Really?” “Yeah. I just wanted to prevent you from putting his armour in there so... that’s why I broke it” “Thank you! Thank you” “You’re welcome” 

Wanna know why this is bullshit? Tommy didn’t even try to go towards the enderchest when he had Lazarbeam’s armour and immediately gave it up at Dream’s request. This is just Dream giving Tommy a “reward” for being compliant after punishing him. Also pointing out the fact that Tommy felt compelled to thank Dream even if Dream was the one who caused the issue he just fixed in the first place. Also Connor arrives as well.

“Yeah you can’t move into my home Connor” “Well I mean, of course he can because it’s not your home because you’re not going back” “What do you mean I’m not going back?” “Well as I said maybe potentially you could get a visitors pass” (reiterating a point from the start)

“Tubbo- Tubbo said that! Tubbo said it [the server] looked so much better since Tommy left. And I was like ‘wait what?’ and he’s like: ‘yeah it could be a coincidence though but I don’t think so'” (you manipulative green bastard)

“I don’t know if you know this but I’ve been constructing a- a uh- a prison and it is ginormous so...” (I did not remember Dream mentioning the prison this early on)

Anyway, the stream ends with Dream stripping for primes and since I need it, I decided that that’s canon.