#to confront the fact that they're being Like That (even if unintentionally).

[thornshadowwolf]

There's a word I try to use ALL THE TIME that apparently doesn't actually exist in English. IDK if it does in another language I speak and maybe that's where I picked it up?

I usually go to "facetious," "ostentatious," or "obstinate," but those are not quite it (tho the last is close).

It means something along the lines of "being difficult on purpose, often as an attempt at humor or smugness at the expense of the others in the conversation."

Closely related to contrarianism. It's like... the point in a debate where you realize the person is just arguing for the sake of arguing because it makes them feel better than you. A lot of "um, actually"s are this. The attitude of a person you'd rather just ignore in a discussion because you know responding to them will go nowhere (but oftentimes they insist). Not necessarily rooted in disingenuity though. Might be convinced of their own superiority? Not always though; it's not always done seriously. Might be done in jest but it is still meant to be annoying. Attitude / behavior that you'd say "ok, now you're just being [word]" (if more lighthearted) or "don't be [word]" (if seriously pissed) in response to. Can immediately take a mildly frustrating or exasperating discussion and turn it into seething rage acutely directed at the other person.

[batneko]

I'm forced to listen to Christmas music all day at work, so here's a Last Christmas bowuigi idea for your enjoyment featuring everyone's favorite* trope: misunderstandings!

*(lol nope)

Bowser has unintentionally achieved "friendly rival" status, and is invited to a big lodge to go skiing and snowboarding for a week. He still feels awkward around everyone, but they're all pretty welcoming, and he's not even the only former antagonist invited. Still, he's not quite willing to mingle with the whole crowd, and finds himself spending more and more time with fellow wallflower Luigi.

Luigi is a good listener. So good, in fact, that Bowser finds himself opening up a lot more than he meant to. So good that even Bowser realizes he's been dominating all their conversations. By the end of the week he thinks they're getting along well enough that he might actually call Luigi a friend.

Then, on the last day, he gets a note from Luigi asking him to meet in private. He's happy to do it. Looking forward to it, even. Maybe he can make things more balanced between them by listening to whatever it is that's so important. It had to be preceded with a note.

Then Luigi confesses that he has feelings for him. And Bowser doesn't believe it.

He's certain that this is a prank, and furious that Luigi would toy around with him like that. So he tears into him, breaking down all the reasons he would never even consider a relationship with him. He gets mean. He gets personal.

By the end both of them are heartbroken and convinced they were wrong about each other.

A year passes. Bowser is still sort of kind of friends with the others, and still gets invited to things, but he doesn't talk to Luigi at all. Bowser doesn't know who else was in on the "prank," so he's back to being cautious about who to trust.

Luigi and Mario are close, but they don't tell each other everything about their dating lives, so Mario doesn't press when a depressed Luigi says he got rejected and he'll get over it eventually.

He does, mostly, but seeing Bowser doesn't help, especially since the crush never quite goes away. There's a part of him that knows - even if he thinks it'll never happen - that if Bowser changed his mind Luigi would jump at the chance.

Next winter there's another trip to the ski lodge, and Bowser is invited, and Luigi resolves to put it all behind him and move on. Ask someone else out. Someone... safe.

But Bowser sees that Luigi has his eye on somebody else, and all the anger he thought he'd gotten over rises up again. How dare he act like nothing happened? How dare he think he can just have a normal holiday fling, as if he didn't use that exact premise to shatter Bowser's heart last year?

So Bowser starts blatantly flirting with Luigi whenever they're in a group. Compliments, playful teasing, one or two double-entendres. Whenever Luigi tries to talk to Bowser alone, Bowser walks away and refuses to say a word, but the rest of the gang think that Bowser is Staking His Claim.

The plan works, and Luigi's hopes of a new relationship are dashed before they can really start. The worst part is that the first time it happened Luigi had almost fallen for it. If he hadn't seen the glare Bowser shot him when nobody was looking, he might have done something foolish. Like flirt back.

It's a week of torture, but finally on the last day Luigi manages to corner Bowser and confront him. Ask him why he's doing this, why he feels like he needs to ruin Luigi's chances.

"Are you kidding? After what you did to me last year? You think I'd just forget?" "What I did to you?" "You didn't think I fell for that, did you? I don't know if you were recording it or if someone was waiting to jump out and laugh at me, but-" "You thought it was a prank?" "Yes! ...wasn't it?"

It takes some time (and some more yelling) but eventually Bowser accepts that Luigi wasn't lying, and they both have to re-think the entire last year... as well as what they know about each other. Bowser realizing that he was right the first time about how nice Luigi is, and that he could have had something great if he hadn't jumped to conclusions. And Luigi realizing that if Bowser thought a genuine confession was a cruel joke he's probably not nearly as confident as he acts.

"Give me a second chance," Bowser blurts out. "You're interested? After everything you said about me last year?" "I was mad, I was ranting, I don't even remember what I said." "I do." "Give me... a third chance."

Luigi says he needs time, Bowser (reluctantly) says okay, but also says he will do anything to make it up to Luigi. Favors, public humiliation, anything.

"If you still think I'm the kind of person who wants you to publicly humiliate yourself, you really don't understand me at all."

Neither of them sleeps well. In the morning while everyone is packing up, Bowser sees Luigi step into a quiet corner with the person he'd been planning to confess to this year. He's practically steaming from jealousy, but Bowser forces himself to stay away. He's not going to get a fourth chance.

But as he's about to leave, Bowser is stopped by Luigi. He hands him a scrap of paper with his phone number, and beckons him closer.

"Kiss me." "You sure?" "My brother is watching. So is the princess. You know what it'll mean if you do it, so..."

Bowser doesn't have to be asked twice.

He does get punched thirty seconds in as soon as Mario puts everything together, but it's worth it.

[rainyestcloud]

MAG146: Threshold. An Excruciatingly Deep Analysis. Word Count: 6702 .

The Final scene in mag146 is something i think about often. It wasn't a scene of the three assistants confronting Jon at Martin's behest, it was a scene of desperation for a tangible target that couldn't overpower them the way every other monster had, that could be loosely quantified as deserving every ugly emotion they've had to direct inwards. I think a large part of season four as a whole, is the lack of a "big bad guy" and how the absence of one big pure evil enemy can actually. make things worse sometimes. because back when Elias was present everyone had someone to blame. all their anger about their respective situations could be tied back to Elias and so everyone had common ground in their hatred for him, they had an outlet. Tim and Melanie both lashed out at almost everyone but in the end it was Elias Melanie tried to kill multiple times. It was Elias that Tim's rage always traced back to, and they he held as the true evil until his bitter end. Basira could blame Elias since he's the one who practically forced her into joining the institute to save Daisy. It made things easy. It was simple because it's so easy to direct all your hatred towards the person who's the obvious big bad antagonist. But as soon as Elias was not present anymore, none of them had that outlet anymore. That's a large part of the reason that Jon’s the one being scapegoated. He's the only one with no connection to them all. And the only one they can safely turn their rage towards. Basira and Daisy have a bond near unbreakable due to their history, Melanie and Basira went through the trauma of the Flesh attack together, Daisy and Melanie have the common thread of both being people attempting redemption despite it being what feels like their nature. And through this, they all have something connecting them all. With Jon, there's a lacking in that common thread. Especially since it was Tim who saved everyone from the unknowing. Plus, what makes Jon easy, is the fact that they can trace even just the littlest something involved with him. The point is, when Elias was there, everyone had something they could tie reeeally directly to their issues. But now thats he’s not. Jons the next closest thing. And many aspects about who he is as a person makes it ever so easier to put blame on him. Not only is he non confrontational and self blaming, so he doesn't have it in him to be a danger to anyone who may confront him. But, with the rapid deterioration of his mental state, he's been making bad decisions. He's been unintentionally hurting a few innocent people. And those two things combined are just enough to make him the perfect replacement outlet. Because god with everything they're going through they need something. Because, all in all, it's nobody's fault. And that is the hardest fact for anyone in their situation to accept. Because blame is easy. Blame is simple and blame lets you cast all your misfortunes onto one person without having to take painful responsibility for them. And right now? Fate is the one at fault. Everything is being subtly influenced by the web in a way that simply makes it so fate was the sole decider all along. The end was decided from the beginning. Nothing could have helped that fact. Everybody wound up in their positions because fate deemed them unlucky souls and no matter what they hoped or dreamed or wished to do there was nothing that could have been done because every single one of them was just a plaything for destiny to reel at. And that is the absolute most excruciating thing to accept in their circumstance. Because none of them can handle what they've gone through. And to accept that there's absolutely nothing that ever could have been done about it is. Devastating. Because why should Jon have been born to suffer, why should Melanie have had to live a life built off a burning stick tower of shaky rage, why should Daisy have had to live the life of a desperate predator that she can barely redeem herself for, why should Basira have to dedicate her life to something that-

has only ever backfired on her, and went through so much trauma because of. Every single one of them is at the absolute worst possible spot they could be at for one reason or another (except possibly Daisy), so what other option do they have besides creating blame when the alternative is accepting it was hopeless all along. They're all desperate. Now, to further explain my next point i'm going to bring in some historical context for the term "scapegoat. Based in the Bible, a scapegoat is one of two baby goats; the other is sacrificed, while the other is sent into the desert, carrying all of the sins and impurities with it. The idea is initially mentioned in the Book of Leviticus, where a goat is assigned to be sent into the desert in order to  carry away the sins of the community. Historically, this can be seen in many concepts. All of which are corrupt, and yet simultaneously used as one massive coping mechanism for the ways things are. The term though, interestingly (and ironically seeing a trend in historical scapegoats) enough, is rooted in ancient Judaism. Once a year, during Yom Kippur, Cohen Gadol sacrificed a bull as a sin offering to atone for all the sins he had inadvertently committed during the year. Then he took two goats and brought them to the door of the tent. Two goats were chosen by lot: one offered as a blood sacrifice, and the other as a scapegoat to be sent into the desert and pushed down a steep chasm where he died. The blood of the slain goat was taken behind the curtain into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled on the closing plate, the lid of the ark of the covenant. Later, the high priest confessed the intentional sins of the Israelites to God and figuratively placed them on the head of another goat, the scapegoat Azazel, who would symbolically "take them away". Now this is a very important analysis of a "scapegoat" because of how it narratively fits into the magnus archives you'll notice, that in the more ancient torah based description, it's abundantly clear that rather than simply an instrument for atonement, the goat is a sacrifice. The sins of the world were all placed on a rather innocent creature, and due to this, it met its untimely demise for reasons none other than fate. I like this specification, because I think it shows a really important context for the situation Jon is is. He isn't just being blamed for other people's problems, he's being utterly destroyed by them. Jons mental deterioration throughout the season has been nothing but noticeable in every way possible. And really? It's mostly due to that. He has an i n s a n e amount of survivors guilt at this point as pointed out by Daisy in Scrutiny, "And of course, for John, there’s survivor’s guilt in there, too. He thinks he’s not human. Makes him very… self-destructive.". So to have such an immense amount of guilt, and then have all the people around you, who you strive to have some sort of trust with, place all this blame on you, is detrimental. Not only is it a punishment perfectly tailored to match what Jons weakest point is, but it's also one that puts him in a cycle of agony that makes the entire situation worse. A sacrifice. It sends him into a vicious cycle of [ deteriorating due to being blamed -> not being able to sustain the pressure and agony of it and needing more statements -> taking more statements -> scapegoated for taking statements -> deteriorating due to being blamed ]. He's caught between a rock and a hard place with the situation because the ways the assistants are coping with their situation is directly contributing to exactly what they get on him for. They see him as a monster for doing what he does, and continue to deliberately try and make him feel worse, which only makes him need to do more of what they hate him for and no on and so forth. It's a vicious cycle full of unhealthy coping that none of them know how to withstand.

So, now that we have down the motives for scapegoating Jon and where Jon stands in the situation and what narrative role he's playing, we can now move on to the scene itself and the fundamentals of each character's stance in it. 

Coping: and how it interferes with regression of development. 

Firstly, I'm going to be starting with Daisy and there's a chance it's because she's my favorite and there's a chance it's because her stance is the most interesting. I lied, it's because she's my favorite! But either way, Daisy in this scene is the most conflicted character, and for extremely good reason. You'll notice that in her speech, she's almost desperately trying not to take sides, because she's the most aware of all the characters. She's undergone the most development and because of it is able to understand perspectives to a point where taking one is just something that's too difficult for her. After escaping the grasp of the Hunt, she's dedicated herself to atonement. Daisy has done terrible, inexcusable things in the past in order to feed the hunt. And since escaping it has done every single thing in her power to make up for it, no matter how hard. But the thing is. She's just as affected as all of them. And that's what makes her actions in this scene so interesting to look at. Because she can. not. blame Jon. She was Jon not too long ago she sees herself in him to a point where its painful. Because she too was caught in a place where she had to do things she knew were wrong simply to satisfy the desire of the hunt. She knows just how hard it is she knows the agony that Jon’s having to go through so she can't stand to see Basira and Melanie acting like he has full control. And yet at the same time, she can't bring herself to go against Basira. Because just as much as she knows where Jon is, she was on the police force with Basira. And cant help but see the justice side of the argument. She can't help but see how her circumstances differ from Ions in a way that Basira points out. So as much as she can see herself in where Jon is, she's incapable of not also being able to understand the points being made by the rest and where they are coming from due to how she knows that the logic for herself cant be applied to Jon. Since Jon knows what he's doing and she didn't. Since Jon hasn't been able to resist but she has. And a part about that fact is that it's Basira making it. She also still has a loyalty to Basira that makes it. Very, very difficult to fully go against her. So she becomes caught in a place where taking full, distinct sides, becomes a difficult endeavor. In the interaction, she's never the one making the points against Jon, but she's also not the one ever advocating for him. She makes a single comment about how Jons situation was similar to hers to try and reason was Basira slightly, but shut up about it after a few vague comments once she saw how driven Basira was in her convictions. BASIRA - You’re a danger, John. A monster. You’re hurting innocent people. ARCHIVIST - So did Daisy. BASIRA - Shut up. It’s not the same thing at all. DAISY - Basira. He has a point. BASIRA - You didn’t know what you were doing. [DAISY MAKES A PAINED SOUND, AS IF TO CONTRADICT HER, BUT STOPS.]. In this interaction especially, you can see just how tied she is between her understanding of both sides. She knows what Jons going through, but she also knows the differences in their circumstances, and it's not something she has solid ground to argue for. Now, bringing the regression topic in, I'll talk about how playing into this coping regresses her development as a character. Daisys current arc, and the one she's been having, is about fighting against her own monster hood. It's about resisting herself. About recognizing what she's done and atonement for it. It's about trying rather than succeeding. It's about fighting against your nature for what you know is right. So when upon seeing someone whos in as pained and monstrous a condition as she was, she cant bring-

herself to fight for them due to inconsistencies with what she believes, she regresses back to the person she was. The one who let their own morals get in the way of what was right. The one who allowed people to get hurt simply because it was "for the greater good." The way that regression is highlighted for her in this scene is how a blinding sense of morals and justice becomes too bright for her to act on the right thing. Even when staring at a pitiful version of the person she used to be. Character regression here works in the way where when tasked with empathy and understanding, she instead prioritized her own personal way of seeing things. 

Second, and much more simple of a spectacle to observe: Ms Melanie King. Melanie is a lot simpler to talk about, and mostly since her motives and ways of thinking are very direct and straightforward. Melanie is a character plagued by anger. She drew an unlucky hand in life, and the only way she was able to rise up to become a person she could be proud of was through fighting her way there tooth and nail, scratching and kicking and biting. So when everything comes crashing down on her. When everything she fought with her life for is suddenly destroyed, she can not blame herself. Because if she admits to herself that it was simply fate's fault that her career collapsed and that it was her fault that she joined the institute in the first place, then it means that everything will have been for nothing. And that her absolute rock bottom in life was all and only because of her. That. is NOT something she can face. And the rage that was once used to build her up in life, is redirected towards the ones who she sees fit to blame. First it was Elias. He hired her, he's the one commanding under the name of the eye, he's the one whose fault it is, and he's the one who she's going to take her rage out on. And so she did. And then Elias was gone. And her rage was taken over by the slaughter. In the time Jon was in a coma her anger festered, it grew, it empowered her and became more a part of her than ever. So once Jon was back, she had an outlet again. And boy did it make it ever so easy for her, though all through good intentioned. Jons surprise little surgery to help release her from the slaughter, the fact that it was her statement she made to him that got her involved with the institute at first, the fact that he's becoming less and less human. So many things about what Jon was doing and had done made it horrifyingly easy for her to place her rage on him. And so, all her anger was redirected towards the archivist that ruined her life. I think at this point it's also worth mentioning Melanie's pride and how it plays into her as a character. She's undergone a l o t of character change. But aside from her frustration the one thing that's stayed stagnant about her as a person is her pride. She took great pride in where she managed to get herself in life back when Ghost Hunt UK was up and her life was at its peak. It was her pride and joy and it's what boosted her ego so high because it's something she did for herself with her own bare hands. So when that collapsed, one of the massive reasons that she needed to blame someone so bad was due to the fact that if she admitted that it was her fault, then all that pride would have collapsed with the rest of her life. Navigating blame away from herself and avoiding acceptance is her way of preserving her ego, which is the only thing she really has left after all she's undergone. And due to this ego, it's also what makes her the most stubborn and fierce during this scene. And so, so willing to go against Jon at any and all costs. But tracing back to this pride of hers, I think it's an aspect that's actually quite a lot during the intervention. The moment Jon refers to her as being a character in an explanation of his she immediately assumes he's trying to blame her for it all. [ ARCHIVIST - The second was… it was after I got stabbed by Melanie. MELANIE - You are not putting this on me ]. She does this again, but this time when Jons agrees with her, this being a blow to her ego that someone like him could even think to agree with an idea of hers. [ ARCHIVIST - She does have a point. MELANIE - I did NOT ask you.] So now that motives and reasoning are out of the way, it's time to explain how regression is doing its work on Melanie here. Melanie's key point in her development as a character is. actually almost hilariously obvious to a point where she's actually seen as reasonable for a split second of her life. She got therapy. 

An honestly hilariously smart solution to the arising problems but. It was impressive for Melanie. Because her getting help after never once leaning on anyone around her was a massive step for her. It was a release of her pride, a recognition of her needing help from someone, of realizing she wasn't ok, and going out and getting it. Which god is more than can be said for most characters but essentially what therapy meant for her character development, was that she was finally taking a step to acknowledge her irrational anger and work to fix it. What happened in this scene for her, was a messy entanglement with the automatic unleashing of anger that she's always been so accustomed to, and the fact that she just took a massive step to stop that habit of hers. Regression is present here in the way that here, it's that automatic unleashment that ends up dominating, and becomes what overtakes her in this scene. The person she's been trying too hard to become fades away, and she moves back into the bitter, angry, spiteful person she was at the beginning of season four, still infected with the slaughter.

Basira is. undoubtedly the most complicated one. Daisys motives are the most contradicting, but Basira is the most dominant figure in what's happening, making her actions the most intense, and controversial. Basira is. complicated. She's extremely justice oriented and will do just about anything if it's for the wellbeing of the innocent and good of the world. She doesn't have the same "maul and kill the bad protect the good '' philosophy as Daisy, and is much less violent, but nonetheless lets her judgment of if people are good or not define her actions. And this goes for just about everything she has an opinion on, even changing what she thinks drastically if someone's morals shift. The only exception to this rule is Daisy, who seems to always have some affection towards whether what she's doing is good or not. The only time she's ever intervened with Daisy's immoral behavior is when she was going to kill Jon, who was someone Basira saw as moral. This type of mindset of hers got to the point where she completely turned on the police force the moment she recognized it as corrupt without even a second thought or dilemna about what she had sacrificed years upon years of work for. Unlike Daisy, who's developed to be able to see in shades of gray, Basira is still stuck at a point of black and white thinking. Deeming people as either "good" or a "monster." However over time, what went from just a mindset, became an utter and absolute crutch for her. She kept having to save herself from more and more situations. Rayners incident where she had to save herself from the chaos of the situation to when she had to rely entirely on her own head and wits to survive the unknowing, Basira slowly yet surely gets to a point where she can only trust to rely on herself, and her logic. After being through hell and back in Section 31 and then the institute she longs for stability, and gets this by having a rock solid state of mind that develops into the one and only thing she can depend on This gets especially reinforced in season four, when she's forced to take a leadership position. After the unknowing, her one, true last anchor besides herself disappears. Daisy was the one thing she could always count on, the one thing that was always there as an undeniable constant no matter what. But after Daisy was gone, she was left truly alone. So with Jon gone, Elias in prisoned, Martin out on his own agenda, and everyone else besides Melanie dead, she's forced to take leadership of the operation that is the archives. This in itself makes her extremely self sufficient. Becoming more and more self reliant and she increasingly loses anchors. This is likely around the time that she started really looking up to Gertrude, someone who all by herself did an unbelievable amount of justice for the world no matter what it took, or who had to be sacrificed to do it. Gertrudes self sufficiency, her effort, her efficiency, her image, everything Gertrude was, Basira strived to be. She's entirely independent, researching her own things and going all around the country without telling anyone about what she's doing. Leading all the operations such as the stopping of the dark ritual and now, going to investigate hilltop roads. She's undeniably retreated into herself, and no longer is used to being anything but autonomous. Because relying on herself for everything is how she copes. She turns herself into a pillar of stability which she must never leave, terrified that she would otherwise collapse. However despite seeming logical, she also greatly uses Jon as just as much of a scapegoat as Melanie, albeit more subconsciously. The problem that arises with Basira a bit more, is bias. Bias towards what's helpful to her personally, bias towards stability, and a strong bias against things that both destable her, and don't fit her view of justice. 

I'm going to have to try and word this simply because Basira is a little complicated, but essentially, her black and white view of the world mixes with her biases very badly. Being either extremely tolerant, or extremely intolerant. Due to her self sufficient development, she has automatic favor towards anyones who's useful to her. Aka: Melanie. During the flesh attack, Melanie saved her life. Melanie got Helen as an ally. Melanie helped her research and upkeep of the archives when nobody else was around. And otherwise, has stayed out of her way. Due to Melanie having been useful to her, she sees Melanie as a person on her "good" list. And is willing to excuse Melanie's emotional outbursts, and justifies them. She also has automatic favor towards people who provide her stability: Daisy. Daisy has had her back for likely at least a decade. She's always worked together with her, always helped her, always provided a sense of stability for her to rely on, and was a powerful unstoppable force that Basira found comfort in depending on. Daisy was also someone Basira became extremely trauma bound with, enforcing the fact that Daisy would constantly be relied upon. Because of this, Basira looked past her immoral behavior on the police force. Daisy also earned a spot on her "good" list. However, Jon has ever provided for her in a way where she can have this favor towards him, and if anything goes against the exact things that she values Melanie and Daisy for. Unlike Melanie, Jon has never helped her or been of use to her. He's never saved her, never gotten her in the nick of time, never assisted her in something great, and overall has really never been a person that has been of good use to her. Unlike Basira, he's extremely unreliable. He's messy, jumps into action without thinking, he's self sacrificial in the stupid way, always gets himself into danger, is sloppy with plans, puts himself and others in danger, and is the last person you can rely on as a sturdy boulder. So not only does Jon not possess the qualities she tends to favor people over, but similarly to Melanie she associates him with being put in danger due to him being unhelpful at some of the most dangerous places shes ever found herself in, including the unknowing, the stopping of the "dark ritual". And most other scenarios where she's been put in danger, and needs someone to assist her. That being said, this means that she's not willing to look past anything he does due to lacking in the favor that people like Melanie and Daisy have. This especially works in the opposite of Jons favor when the things that he happens to be making mistakes on, is exactly what Basira values. Justice of the innocent. So when you combine ALL these factors. 

Combine her need to be bold, black and white, stubborn and unmoving at all costs [ BASIRA - How many. ARCHIVIST - Basira…BASIRA - How. many. ] [ BASIRA Enough. ]. [ BASIRA -Then we go. Now. Unless, anyone has any objections. ] 

With her newfound need to be independent, autonomous, self sufficient, self reliant at all costs [ BASIRA - No. if he is being controlled, we need to know. And we need to know now. Tell me where she is. ] [ BASIRA - Fine, I’ll go, then. I’ll do some recon on my own, and update you. ]

And finally, her biases towards those she favors mixing with her strong sense of justice [ BASIRA - Why do you think? Because he was ashamed. ] [ BASIRA - You’re a danger, John. A monster. You’re hurting innocent people. ARCHIVIST - So did Daisy. BASIRA -  SHUT UP. It’s not the same thing at all. DAISY - Basira. He has a point. You didn’t know what you were doing. BASIRA -And since you did, you’ve spent every waking hour resisting. He knows exactly what he’s doing. ] [BASIRA-  You don’t get a vote. ]

Now that I've discussed the individual characters and their stances and motives, I want to give my personal review of this scene and it's mostly just. My goodness. Jonathan Sims is scarily good at writing characters. I feel like a lot of writers often don’t go into the messy details of what trauma does to you as a person. A lot of the time characters will go into scarring events and come out only slightly affected. But what's really done so, so well, is the realism put into the coping styles and reactions of each character. They don't react to their trauma in pretty, romanticized ways. Melanie especially depicts this. She has rage outbursts that have ruined her almost all her relationships, she becomes violent out of fear, she reacts irrationally due to defense mechanisms, shes messy and shes vengeful and shes angry and the ways in which she acts in order to protect herself whether its stabbing Jon and other violent outbursts, or a general inability to communicate without thinking the other person has bold intentions to hurt her. She screams at Jon, blames him for all her problems despite him being responsible for dead zero of them, and turns fearful and livid at the sight of him. She's traumatized and it's not depicted in a way that's supposed to get the point across while still preserving love for the character. They aren't afraid to make characters genuinely unlikeable for the sake of realism and it's represented s o well. And she isn't the only character who does this when faced with trauma. Tim becomes bitter towards everyone around him and vents his rage on anyone who comes too close. Martin becomes hateful, spiteful, and self isolating. Basira takes complete domination in order to be in control of situations, and becomes accusatory, cold, selfish, unfair. I could go on and on but there isn't a single characters whose reactions art brutally honest to what anyone would say or do. they are unpleasant and messy and excruciating but they're human, they are unapologetically human. heres a perspective that wasn't so easy to see coming, but it actually fairly crucial to this entire scene and what exactly it means. Martin. Martin was the one took the tape of the bystanders interaction with jon, and left it out for the others to see. A silent instruction to intervene. Which. Dear god shows a lot about who he is as a character and just why the lonely is benefitting so much from him. Martin cares about Jon. It's undeniable. Daisy and Basira and Jon and Martin have always worked quite well as foils because as Daisy is Basira source of stability despite Daisy being rather uninvolved, Jon is Martins source of stability, despite Martin purposefully not involving himself. We already know that one of the main reasons Martin is working with Lukas in the first place, was a promise that doing what he's doing is protecting Jon. Everything from his self isolation to his purposeful self sabotage with his peers to every ounce of work he's doing..is really just all for Jon and the promise of his safety. However, despite his care he refuses to get involved. He digs himself in such a deep self sabotage hole that he refuses to even try and do what Jon really needs from him due to being so deep into what he's doing that he can't really turn back. He's so incredibly focused in on his own agenda, that he ends up endangering what he says he values. He's so uninvolved with the happening of things that he sent a tape containing an example of jon acting “evilly”, to the exact people that push him to do so and without considering the danger that may put him in with his coworkers.Martins perspective on this isn't really something you can tell? So it's hard to guess if i did that knowing what would happen and thinking that would be for the best, or did it thinking things would end differently, not realizing what he was doing. is really just all for Jon and the promise of his safety. However, despite his care he refuses to get involved. 

He digs himself in such a deep self sabotage hole that he refuses to even try and do what Jon really needs from him due to being so deep into what he's doing that he can't really turn back. He's so incredibly focused in on his own agenda, that he ends up endangering what he says he values. He's so uninvolved with the happening of things that he sent a tape containing an example of Jon acting “evilly”, to the exact people that push him to do so and without considering the danger that may put him in with his coworkers. Martin's perspective on this isn't really something you can tell? So it's hard to guess if i did that knowing what would happen and thinking that would be for the best, or did it thinking things would end differently, not realizing what he was doing. Either way, it's very interesting to see just how dedicated Martin is to Peter Lukas’s plans to a point where even the main motivation to what he's doing in the first place becomes something he avoids at every single cost he can, even when attempting to better things. Of course there's a lot about Martin I could talk about, but it wouldn't be relevant to this episode. Instead it's just interesting to focus on the action Martin takes, the inaction he takes, and just why he does these things. 

Martins. certainly an interesting one right now. I keep trying to decipher his motives by leaving the tape out but it's honestly near impossible to fully know what he was counting on happening or not.

Now when you think about this scene in the context of psychologist "Leon Festinger's" cognitive dissonance, it gets even more interesting. For starting context, cognitive dissonance is when ones belief differs from physical evidence at hand. You may have heard of musical dissonance, when two notes in different keys are played in a rather jarring timeframe, made to make the listeners uncomfortable or shudder. Cognitive Dissonance is just this. When someone's belief doesn't line up with the evidence at hand, it creates a jarring discomfort quite similar. An example used by Festinger (1957) may assist in elucidating the theory. A habitual smoker who learns that smoking is bad for health will experience dissonance because the knowledge that smoking is bad for health is dissonant with the cognition that he continues to smoke. He can reduce the dissonance by changing his behavior, that is, he could stop smoking, which would be consonant with the cognition that smoking is bad for health. Alternatively, the smoker could reduce dissonance by changing his cognition about the effect of smoking on health and believe that smoking does not have a harmful effect on health (eliminating the dissonant cognition). He might look for positive effects of smoking and believe that smoking reduces tension and keeps him from gaining weight (adding consonant cognitions). Or he might believe that the risk to health from smoking is negligible compared with the danger of automobile accidents (reducing the importance of the dissonant cognition). In addition, he might consider the enjoyment he gets from smoking to be a very important part of his life (increasing the importance of consonant cognitions). Cognitive dissonance is seen here, particularly in Basira, very starkly. Basira and Melanie believe Jon is a monster. An inhuman thing that's instinct is to only harm others. She views him as this broken twisted thing that needs to be handled and managed so he doesn't destroy the people around him. However, at the same time she's still wholly devoted to Daisy. She holds no blame towards her, and excuses her every action due to her repressed feelings for her and the loyalty she feels towards her, despite Daisy having done far, far worse than Jon. but despite the hypocrisy, they make her feel safe. They give her stability. Because this way, she has a clear opposing force (Jon), and a clear allied force (Daisy and Melanie) and having that gives her the groundedness she longs for. However, cognitive dissonance comes into play. very quickly with this. For example: the evidence of Jon trying to be better. The fact that Jon does everything in his power to help others, the fact that Jon continuously resists using his power if he can't help it, the fact that Jon has a kind heart, the fact that Jon has worked tirelessly for others, the fact that Jons intentions are never once bad.

Basira sees this. Basira sees every. Little bit of this. But she denies. She feels that uncomfortable dissonance between what she believes about Jon and about what's in front of her eyes. So in order to close this gap between belief and evidence, she makes excuses. She convinces herself that Jon is barely trying and that things would be fully better if he actually cared, she convinces herself that Jon is against her and is being manipulative, she convinces herself that he's deliberately doing what he is. All these beliefs that convinces herself of help close that uncomfortable gap between her belief and logic, making that dissonance go away. As Lauren Slater said in her book on Leons Psychology "Opening Skinner's Box": “dissonance is really not about looking at how people change. The theory just didn’t concern itself with that.” Which describes her feelings towards Jon, really quite well. Its doubt of progress. Doubt of character. Doubt of the human ability to change and grow and live. Someone else along with this happens with her relationship with Daisy. 

Now for this part if we are to take a look at some more excerpts from Lauren Slater's "Opening Skinner's box:” "Did Festinger ever consider how our justifications are to save not only ourselves, but others too? Did he ever consider how lies and love are intertwined?” This part relates. Incredibly directly to Daisy. Basiras Justification of Daisy's past actions, every single time she says "It's not the same" when talked about Jon and Daisys inhumanness, it's out of pure love. She doesn't want to admit to herself that Daisy may be as in the wrong as she is, but she also doesn't want to admit it to Daisy. She cares about Daisy deeply and doesn't want her to have to face that pain of truly seeing what she's done. She lies to herself out of protection of Daisy, and out of preserving her morals. Because Basira wants to be a good person. She needs to be a good person she needs to stand for the name of justice as a totem, as a symbol. She can't do that if she stood by someone and let them murder countless people, and excuse it, and love that person deeply, and continue to. So she lies to herself. She tries to close the gap in dissonance by justifying Daisy's actions, because god she just needs to. Now, for how Melanie comes into this. It goes without saying that Melanie pretty much also can be directly applied to all of Basiras cognitive dissonance, except for some details. She experiences the same cognitive dissonance as Basira just in an angrier way, with different motives. And it's exactly this that makes the dissonance with Basira and Melanie worse.

“We spend our lives paying attention only to information that is consonant with our beliefs, we surround ourselves with people who will support our beliefs, and we ignore contradictory information that might cause us to question what we have built.” "Soothing can come only if more and more people sign onto the spaceship, so to speak, because if we are all flying this thing together, then surely we must be right.” Companionship. Because if someone believes the same thing as you you cant be crazy. If someone sees what you see then it affirms you, makes you feel like you must be right since you aren't the only one who thinks this. That's what happens with Basira and Melanie. They both experience with dissonance, and find companionship in it. They think. "Oh, well I'm not alone in this belief, so I doubt it's wrong." Their beliefs are affirmed, and they strengthen due to this. There's no room to doubt yourself when everyones telling you youre right. Another variable when it comes to companionship, is just how much both of them long for it. Melanie and Basira are in such lonesome, excruciating places in their lives. meaning that the companionship that comes with this common dissonance is strengthened simply by the fact that they both long for allies and for support. “The psychological opposition of irreconcilable ideas (cognitions) held simultaneously by one individual, created a motivating force that would lead, under proper conditions, to the adjustment of one’s belief to fit one’s behavior—instead of changing one’s behavior to fit one’s belief (the sequence conventionally assumed).”

[beanghostprincess]

Sanji unintentionally projecting his daddy issues onto usopp and his father. Once usopp told him about his dad leaving he instantly got beef with yasopp because how dare this man leave the sweetest boy on that island. How dare he leave without looking back.

When Usopp and yasopp do reunite it's nice. A lot of hugs, lots of tears (for some reason Franky is crying the hardest). Last time yasopp saw his son he was a little kid so he's trying to get to know his kid and catch up. He also acts like such a dad asking him if he's eaten yet, Tell him to get a jacket before going out and tries to control his sleep schedule. Usopp is annoyed by this for many reasons and made the mistake of venting to sanji.

Sanji being a protective boyfriend and also traumatized he assumed the worst. Yasopp thinks he's weak, He thinks he's worthless. He thinks he's not good enough to be on his crew or worthy to be a pirate. He thinks he's an embarrassment a mistake. That's what he thinks! How dare he think that! just because he's not a pirate of an emperor and he doesn't have advanced haki He's not worthy of being a pirate?!!!

Of course, none of those thoughts are true. Usopp It's just annoying that his dad is on his case all the time and seems to be overbearing. He gets that the last time he saw him he was seven so it made sense back then to be lecturing him about taking a bath But come on now. He's almost 20. There's no need to do that anymore he wants his dad to see him as a man.

He confronts his father and tells him his true feelings. He's glad that he's back in his life and He does want a father son relationship but he also wants to be seen as an adult and a pirate. He's not helpless he hasn't been helpless in years. He had to take care of himself for years. (they also talked about Banchina which causes a lot more tears for them) yasopp understands and admits that he was going a little overboard. He's aware that his son a very competent, confident and strong pirate...... but he's still his baby you know! You never you never stop wanting to protect your child even if they can protect themselves, it's just instinct.

While they're having this intimate talk sanji is listening in on them. If usopp didn't walk in on time he was about to beat yasopp's ass ( I don't think he would have won.... maybe I don't know)

He also watched them do target practice. Yasopp let him use his gun for the first time he's so proud

This is so real. It's, like, the only reason I say Sanji wouldn't like Yasopp. I think Sanji is very overprotective with the crew when it comes to their parents or, just when it comes to parenting/family in general because he had a shitty experience (shitty is an understatement, but yeah) and when he learned what a true family was (Sora, Zeff, the strawhats...) he promised himself to never let other people go through what he had to experience.

Usopp feels a bit betrayed and insecure when it comes to his dad but he understands why he had to go and admires him for it, and he's aware that Yasopp loves him. So after a few moments together and a bit of bonding, they pretty much get along. Yasopp can't fix all the times Usopp has missed him, but at least they can write their future together. Sanji doesn't quite understand this because he should be furious at him! He should be resentful! He's being too good on him! And it's funny, because Sanji is nothing but forgiving and kind and the guy saved the Vinsmokes for no reason other than the fact they were his family, even if he didn't owe them shit. But he still has a bit of resentment towards them he will never say out loud, so he ends up projecting on other people. Basically, he never let himself hate the Vinsmokes completely because he was too kind towards them and now every time he encounters a father/son complex bond, it makes his skin crawl.

Besides, he loves Usopp so much,, He knows how hurt he is and how easily he gets insecure. He doesn't want him to go through all of this alone. He's afraid he mind end up getting hurt. Sue him for wanting to protect his boyfriend, idk...

Also, he's a bit jealous once he learns/sees that Yasopp and Usopp are getting along. It's a bit unfair that he's the only one with the shitty dad and hating his shitty family and- And don't get him wrong! He's so glad Usopp is happy with his dad. But he thought that maybe this once somebody would understand him. He ends up forgiving Yasopp and supporting his boyfriend's decisions, of course, but the pang in his chest is still there.

You know who would've understood Sanji? Yamato. And I will always be forever mad they never got an scene together like that. Yamato and Ace. These three really needed to talk about their daddy issues with somebody who understood them.

[trg-deltarune-quotes]

All the Lightners are smart in their own way: Kris and Susie

I feel like there is a bit of a misconception when it comes to how smart the lightners are. This isn't much of a problem when they're goofy around, but when the situation is slightly serious then there’s a problem. Because some fans like to depict them as dumber than a brick. But aside from a few hiccups they made, they’re not as dumb as some might think. They still do dumb stuff but I argue that it’s not because they’re stupid.

Let's start off with everyone's favorite gremlin Kris. Kris is incredibly smart for a high schooler.

They have a way with quickly learning advanced tech when playing video games.

And even though we are in control of Kris when we solve puzzles, it’s heavily implied through their elaborate pranks that they are quite capable of solving it themselves if they weren’t under our control.

But the one area they excel at the most is emotional intelligence. They have a way of reading people and Identifying what they need to do to make them happy, without having to change who they are at their core.

In the very first fight of the game, the tutorial fight, you are given the option to hug Ralsei instead of the dummy. Keep in mind that Kris and Ralsei just met.

Their ability to read people is astounding.

But there is a major flaw with them that prevents me from calling them the best and it’s because of what Susie says when you try this same tactic on her.

This is Kris’s MAIN method of making people happy. They don’t want to confront them about their underlying issues and why they act that way.

During the second fight with Berdly Kris plays into his ego. Not to gain anything from him but because they like him and want him to be happy.

This obviously stems from whatever happened with Dess seeing as this method of theirs started after she disappeared. 

However this does lead to them unintentionally enabling a lot of their insecurities just to make them happy.

Susie doesn’t fall for this partially because of her own insecurities.

But mostly because of ONE key difference. She’s not afraid to speak her mind.

She is the most open about her worry for the people she cares about. 

She’s able to notice when they aren’t like their usual selves or distress.

And she even tries to make them happy in her own way.

But the biggest reason she’s the best when it comes to emotional intelligence is because she's not afraid to call people out.

And given enough of a good reason she’s willing to try and help them be a better person.

Or to at least improve their skills.

While the first time she does this she was mostly being a bully, and she almost fell back to that with Berdly, she is improving on it and is still one of the best when it comes to emotional intelligence.

But even beyond that, Susie is really good at improvising positive outcomes during combat.

She does this during the second battle against K. Round.

And during the battle against Sweet Cap’n Cakes. 

The S and R-actions are continually used throughout the chapter after this fight. 

However she does falter when it comes to puzzles, in fact she lets Kris solve them anytime they come across any.

But that's not too much of a problem since, aside from Kris, Noelle would gladly help Susie out with them.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Quill, I am very very very silly. I forgot that Brant died, and when I remembered he did, I thought he was killed by Grady or Sophie. But no, he was crushed to death. I think that decision was very silly.

Like, it is so forgettable? Like, it already has the issue of being In Lodestar, which already is considered to be kind of anti-climactic in general. And then it isn’t even like related to fire at all? He is just crushed to death, and sure it was to save Oralie, but it feels like it should have been fire or murder that killed Brant. I realize that might have unintentional consequences on the plot, but that is just how it feels like.

Anyway, I am inviting you to tell me all of your thoughts about the fact that Brant died, cause I feel like it would be very interesting. It is okay if you do not, but feel free to if you desire.

-⚙️

(P.S I will be sending you an ask telling you about Ninjago soon. If you don’t want me to, please inform me.)

I'm going to discover my thoughts on this as I write it, let's go! It is a rather forgettable death, especially compared to the dramatic and explosive deaths we've seen of other characters. The characters were just informed of it after the fact, they weren't even there.

Okay so first thought. Characters like him, haunted by a past, there's a sort of circularity to it. They're undone by their own mistakes, their own motif or something similar--what you're mentioning with fire would fit that. He brought this pain upon himself however unintentionally with fire, killing Jolie with it, and so joining her in death via fire references that, right? That's the typical pattern we'd expect?

Except that kind of pattern also tends to rely on repeated characters in their life as well, a confrontation with who they've hurt/who's hurting them. And the thing with Brant? We already got that. Grady had his confrontation with Brant--which involved that return of fire and him being hurt by his own weapon, his own conviction! His hand was burned off by his own flame, which fits that pattern. Everblaze (the book) already did it! And Grady moved on. He turned away from it, and he was the biggest driving force of the kind of rage necessary to meet Brant.

Edaline is ignored in this configuration to an extent, as we never see to the same degree how it's affected her. So if she'd been the one to shove the rubble and ultimately kill Brant, it could've satisfied the pattern and her narrative that way. Though the fact it didn't I don't think is necessary a bad thing? It could've been a moment to show Edaline's processing and her closure, yes, but I don't know if that's necessary for her character. She doesn't need to have a big moment to process and move on, and I do think it fits with how she's written that for this she was quieter in her processing.

Which all brings me back to my point: Grady was Brant's main foil, the main conflict, and he wasn't present or emotionally viable for that kind of event. Without that, there's no one to take it up. He's hurt Sophie in the past, true, but so many characters have that being there to witness every single one's demise isn't necessary. Brant's not special to her, he's just another villain. So there's no depth that truly necessitates something dramatic, being present and seeing it happen. What's happening is he's dying. That's it. Compared to what else Sophie's going through, it takes a backseat.

We could take it as a representation of how alone he was. How he was the only one who clung on to himself and his sufferings. Grady and Edaline left him behind, let go, there's no one to suffer his burning grief and rage alongside him. The Neverseen are a conditional place to belong, one that doesn't truly work together but fights, where you have to earn your place, and none of them understand his grief or connect with him. So in the end he died as he lived: alone, haunted by the memory of someone he loved and hurt. And there was no one there to sympathize. No one to care. No one to match his pain and witness. He died desperate and quiet, without fanfare, because he had lost so much and couldn't achieve the fanfare and rawness he reached for.

We could also take it as a form of self destruction. His actions, his affiliations, led to the complete undoing of who he was until he was so unrecognizable from who he was, so detached from everyone and everything around him that all he could do was fade quietly from the narrative because he'd lost himself.

I'm sure there's more that could be said about it, and that there are plenty of arguments to make in terms of both support and adjustments, but since you brought it up these were my thoughts trying to reason it out!

(p.s. you're welcome to tell me about Ninjago. I can't promise I long response given that it's a topic I know so little about, but please feel free to talk about it!)

[gloomforrestrunes]

Honestly poor River and Kane both :( Like Kane being a closeted(?) gay man at that time/ kinda still is and not understanding why he feels so uncomfortable being with women and River honestly imo either intented or not kinda did get stinged along instead of Kane just listening to that gut feeling and thinking "HMMM yeah this isn't gonna work out" But the boy is just so damn clueless and.. like yeah. I feel the upsetness because yeah they could've maybe still been friends/ on speaking terms if they ended it more soon. Yes it would've been awkward but awkwardness is better then Where They're At Now!! Sorry for the long ask btw. These aren't my characters but they make me Think

never apologize for sending in longer asks!!! the fact that my characters make you Think makes me so so happy because thats always my goal with my writing!! :D

and yeah :,)) kane is too deep in the closet to realize that he's even in a closet to begin with. its just a sucky situation all around. when writing it i tried to make it nuanced as messy breakups and relationships like that usually are!! kane is definitely more in the wrong by (unintentionally) stringing river along and making her believe that he loves her the same way she loves him- but again he's just sorta dense and didn't realize at first that liking someone platonically and wanting to be around them doesnt automatically mean you're attracted to them romantically!! it was just very confusing for him because he does want her to be happy. he does want her to be loved in the way that she wants! just... not by him. and river has every right to feel hurt and betrayed by that.

you'll find in the comic that kane is generally Not Good at confronting his emotions and feelings head on because that is Way Too Scary For Him!! he'd much rather put up a lighthearted and humorous front to brush off all of his problems so he doesnt have to deal with the implications of what his feelings mean. not to mention that with all the pressure being put on him by feli, vis, and the ancestors themselves, he'd much rather force himself to conform with their demands because in his mind that is his only option!! :,)) this dog holds so much emotional repression.

[horrocious]

MAn i just LOVE how you portray Reinhardt in your fics it drives me FUCKING INSANE

Its like, you show her flaws, her humanity, and its just so fucking raw its jus ARFFGGGHHHH

i think, unintentionally we more or less make rein a symbol bc thats what shes made herself in the story and to the characters, illumina's light, but jus showing her moments of weakness and emotion just gets me every fucking time. it reminds us shes human despite seeming p much omnipotent and it just punches me in the guts

i hjope i make sense bc im going insane and half akseep

oh man thank you so much this kind of comment brings me to life. allow me to postpone folding the laundry to ramble on incoherently about her. apologies if I get some facts wrong. unlike Victoria, I do forget things. anyway. (one more thing, sorry, there's spoilers under the cut for those of you who haven't progressed into the late chapters. OK I'll stop editing now)

she's complex and the way we relate to her is complex, given that she exists as both propaganda item and actual military commander (side note: I feel like it's worth mentioning that she gets represented to us as the be all end all of Illumina but revealed in the plot later to be beholden to other forces in the government, which makes me wonder how many people in Illumina even know who really runs their country.) and while it's kind of tempting to see this as the writers providing a "moral escape route" (i.e. well the bad things in Illumina aren't Reinhardt's fault, it's Eisen/The Committee/The Science Council!) for her I think it's more complicated.

she definitely has authority both in the military hierarchy and just by virtue of everyone's clear respect for both her as a person and what she represents. the upshot is that she's aware of e.g. the black umbrella laboratory and whatever Denier was up to* because, well, survival means making Hard Choices. wasn't her experience with Helios and Denier proof of that, after all? surviving the path to power at any cost meant exactly that. I think her objection to the human experiments in front of the Science Council is pretty telling! she knows it's wrong when she has to confront it! but because she herself was a "beneficiary" they more or less brush her off. this kind of thing is nothing new, but she's had time to see where that line of thinking really gets you. and it's not great.

that's a big deal, because her beliefs about Duty and Responsibility and Sacrifice led her here. and I think the psychological consequences of "I have given up everything, buried my friends, and committed myself to be the standard bearer for Atrocities, Inc.™️" are untenable. so she both has to be the ever-hopeful soldier leading to a triumphant future while knowing that the cause itself is extremely fraught. that manifests in her keeping up a facade both for everyone else and for herself. she needs her legend to be true. that's my read, anyway.

one more thing. you know who I think about in relation to her? the Varaki siblings. Charon has an important but not super high ranking job and thus can be as weird as he wants. he's the silly Gothic death rock train cappuccino theater man. I bet Reinhardt is insane with envy. she would love to be silly risotto exercise lady. but that's what she gave up for this. because survival means hard choices. my thoughts on how Reinhardt and Victoria serve as foils to each other will have to wait until another time because these underpants ain't gonna fold themselves. thanks for reading, and splendor Illumina.

*it isn't explicitly stated, no, but let's think. depending on how literally you take Forsakin when she calls Reinhardt "sister," they're either related or were extremely close. I'm not sure I buy that they would be that close without Reinhardt being aware of what Denier did for a day job. as an aside, I think she's speaking figuratively. one of the things that makes AS both interesting and infuriating is that kind of unexpanded detail.

[nerdycolorcupcake]

So, to start the post abt the episode "clouds on the horizon spoiler warning for safety bc i have a lot of my own personal highlights (and a bit of a rant too) to unpack here

-For the Collector and Belos near the portal scene;

I'm neutral over either the collector as a character but i kinda have a feeling that they have no idea of the kind of deal they agreed to

-Odalia being a bitch to her entire family for the sake of envy hits too close to home

i´m most certain he ain´t gonna have a good time when the spell happen, and even then he believes so much in Belos promise it´s almost so sad, they feel like just a kid that wants to play but doesn´t know the full extent of their actions, nor the person they made a deal with, even though they´ve been around each other for quite a while, he still have doubts over their "friendship", as is shown once again with King making a connection with the Collector

Tbh, i do not enjoy the 'luz being possessed by the collector' theory but then again it does seem to be the route they're taking by Luz deciding to confront Belos herself to avoid having her friends hurt

at least it's better than having the main protagonist straight up die-

Honestly i was surprised that she wasn´t homophobic, but god did i wanted to burn her to the pyre after all the stunt she pulled and saying Luz wasn´t a suitable partner to Amity BITCH PLEASE

AND THE FACT THAT SHE KNEW BELOS PLAN ALL ALONG AND STILL WERE HELPING HIM GENOCIDE HER KIND OMG SHE IS JUST AS SELFISH AS HIM GO MARRY HIS UGLY ASS INSTEAD YOU BITCH

DIVORCE ARC IS A REALITY!

-Kikimora obsessed with Hunter;

Yeah... that happened, also really funny how she got miserable after the last time she appeared, and desperate too jesus, she is so annoying, but my hate goes more to Odalia and Belos, i despise them more (especially odalia bc she hits waaay too close to home as a toxic mother)

And yeah she end up taking Luz instead of Hunter bc of the illusion trick WELL SHIT-

-Luz´s egg palisman;

Welp, looks like it wil remain a mystery what she got, but honestly it makes sense, it´s so many good options and whatever that will be her choice will only happen after everything is over, she grew so much in the show and i´m honestly proud of her for maturing and growing and being more in touch with herself, but she indeed needs time to reafirm who she really wants to be

-Alador being a dad for once;

Always had a good feeling abt him ever since his introduction, so glad i was right, he finally taking a stance against Odalia and supporting his daughter endeavors and apologizing to luz AAAAAAAAAAAAH OMG HE WAS DOING SO GOOD IN THE FIGHT SCENES TOO! DUDE'S FUCKING DESTROYED THE FABRIC JUST TO SHOW HE IS DONE WITH ODALIA SHIT AAAAAAAAAH

So nice to see that the tomato face runs in the father part of the family (probably bc i enjoy deadbeat dads trying to redeem themselves after being unintentionally neglectful idk it's just such a good trope when done right)

-For LUMITY KISS;

Yes they FUCKING kissed and the animation went all smooth there and *chef kiss* delightful!

I just screamed and cried of happiness! FINALLY!! The girls deserve to show some love to one another one last time before the shit would blow

-More Huntlow crumbs :3

Hunter disguised as Luz going full protective mode on Willow + Willow going feral at Kiki and stopping her attack when Hunter was threatened + Willow desperate to go after them not knowing abt the switcheroo-

Huntlow shippers *nod nod* i see y'all going bananas too :3

-Hunter and Luz keeping secrets together

Me and my brother are in this scene and we didn't liked it WHERE ARE THE CAMERAS DANA?!

In all seriousness this is the first time both Hunter and Luz had a heart to heart to talk abt the events of hollow mind and both agreeing to keep each other secrets

(This is totally not gonna bite them in he back later yep mhm)

Plus Luz being protective of Hunter when Kiki threatened him ✨

Anyways that's it for now

[hollow-prey]

Genuinely one of the biggest self esteem wins I ever got in my life was when I was going through the Grimm.jow tag on an Arr.ancar blog that I love because they write them all so well (and very much holds a "fuck canon"/"canon can be whatever I want" attitude and disregards 98% of Bl.each's story and lore in favor of fleshing out the Arr.ancar and writing them how they want, which I deeply respect and admire) and found a bunch of answered headcanon asks that coincidentally lined up perfectly with my own personal headcanons/self ship lore regarding Grimm and validated my compatibility with him more than anything else I had found before.

In the past, most posts I've seen in passing talking about "the best matches" for Grimm.jow ended up describing an ideal partner who's strong and serious and a capable fighter, someone energetic and a little feral, someone with attitude and a sharp tongue, someone who can keep up with him. so basically someone who's almost exactly like him And the vibe that always comes off these posts, whether stated outright or not, is that he's not, and will never be, an affectionate person. Cuddles? Get 'em outta here! He's not a soft character and he would never do that, or so a vocal part of the fandom seemed to say.

So, naturally, I felt foolish about my crush on him for a long time, because so many people seem to push the idea that Grimm's ideal partner is someone who is the complete polar opposite of me. I'm short and out of shape. I'm not physically strong and I don't know how to fight. In fact I hate confrontation. Most of the time I'm pretty calm (at least on the outside), I'm not that serious of a person, and I like affectionate physical contact. All signs pointed to me being the worst match possible and feeling that, even in my indulgent daydreams, he would still hate me or ignore me.

And then I find the Arr.ancxr blog. And it truly felt like they read my mind for how close their own headcanons and interpretations lined up with the ones I created for my own self ship purposes (along with some of the answers just being cute as hell). Stuff like OP saying he would probably actually prefer someone who's more calm and relaxed and patient who can therefore help him relax and not be on edge/on guard 24/7. Or saying he is actually very affectionate once you get close enough and loves to cuddle at every opportunity. The one that absolutely sniped me was when someone asked how he would feel about having a chubby s/o and OP responded by saying he wouldn't care or think any different or less of them, and in fact would probably enjoy it because they're that much softer and squishier to cuddle with. As someone who has always struggled with my weight and been insecure about my size my entire life, the idea that my number 1 f/o would love something about me that I've had such mixed feelings about over the years (many of them negative), would love me being so soft and delightful to cuddle with because of that very thing I've struggled with and despised, well, this idea lit up my entire goddamn week.

This is the True Canon of the Hollow Prey ship. Doesn't matter what AU or storyline I'm working in, these factors will always apply. I'm the perfect match for Grimm. He loves me, among many things, for being soft and sweet and affectionate and cuddly. I love being validated unintentionally and no I'm not crying I'm just sweating through my eyeballs

[itsdanii]

Rejecting you and regretting it

genre: angst to fluff

warnings: slight cursing, rude behavior (resolved), do message me if I forgot any.

ft. sakusa kiyoomi, tsukishima kei

Sakusa Kiyoomi

you're not oblivious to the fact that kiyoomi is a very conscious person

that's one of the things you loved about him

he was hygienic and he always made sure that his health was his utmost priority

but one downside is that kiyoomi had the tendency to push people away because of his straightforwardness

you were used to it and in fact, you were one of those people he tolerated

but everyone has their bad days

and unfortunately for you, today was kiyoomi's and since you were always attached to him by the hip, he unintentionally snapped at you

what's worse is that he snapped at you the moment you confessed to him

"Omi!" you shouted happily as you entered the gymnasium, giving Komori a small wave before making your way to where Kiyoomi was sitting.

He looked at you with a frown. He wasn't wearing a mask since they were training awhile ago and only took a quick break. "Y/n, what are you doing here?"

You sat beside him making Kiyoomi grimace and slightly move away. You frowned at him, completely displeased at the action. "I just wanted to give you a visit. Plus, I have something to tell you."

You started to fiddle with your fingers nervously. You practiced your confession several times already but doing it seemed harder than you thought.

"What is it? Talk, I'm not in the right mood to socialize right now."

Out of panic, you quickly blurted out a rather loud, "I like you!" You immediately covered your mouth with your hand and stared at him wide eyed.

The other players looked at you with sympathy, knowing what's about to happen. Out of all days, you really had to confess today, when Kiyoomi was in a pissy mood after several fangirls pushed themselves against him this morning, not minding his personal space.

Kiyoomi stared at you with a serious expression before standing up. "I don't like you. Leave."

"But Omi.."

"You're irritating and you always bother me when it is clear that I don't want your company." He turned around and left you on the bench, your head casted down in humiliation.

You whispered a small sorry before running out of the gym with tears falling from your eyes.

For the next few days, you did your very best to stay away from Kiyoomi. You changed your route to school knowing that your usual route meant that you have to pass by his house. Even if you got scolded several times for being late, you did not stop.

You sat near the door so you can easily exit the room after class. You even stopped eating with Komori and Kiyoomi during breaks and lunch. Even your usual routine of visiting the gym during practices was stopped.

At first, Kiyoomi didn't mind. He knew that you'd come back in a few days just like you always did. You like him after all, right?

But when a few days turned into weeks, He started getting bothered. Why weren't you pestering him like always? Why did you stop visiting him? You said you like him, right?

It was the second week that Kiyoomi took action. He woke up extra early to wait for you infront of your house, aiming to confront you about your behavior.

When you went out, your eyes widened slightly upon seeing Kiyoomi waiting for you outside. He was wearing his face mask while staring at you intently, letting you know that he purposely waited for you.

You looked down and was about to walk pass him when you felt him tugging on your wrist. Your gaze snapped to his hand, not believing that he was indeed touching your skin.

"Sakusa?"

His eye twitched at the weirdness of you not calling him like usual. Sighing, he stepped a little closer to you, hand still holding your wrist to ensure that you won't run away from him.

"You're ignoring me," he said while eyeing you. "Why?"

You took your hand from him and furrowed your brows. "I'm just doing you a favor. I don't want to be a bother anymore. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I-"

"It's fine, Sakusa. You don't have to force yourself to apologize just because you feel bad or obliged to."

He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I'm not apologizing because I feel bad."

"Then what? You're apologizing just to make fun of me? I know I said I like you but that doesn't mean that you have the right to-"

"You don't get it!"

At this point, you were both raising your voices. Some passersby were looking at you two weirdly, some even running as to not get caught up in the fight.

"Get what, Sakusa? Why don't you tell me so I can understand?!"

"I like you!" Kiyoomi exclaimed. "I... Fuck. I like you, okay? I wasn't in the mood when you confessed and I rejected you without thinking. I messed up. The moment I saw you walk out, I knew I fucked up real bad and I-"

"Om-"

"And I thought that you'd come back the next day to bother me again like usual. I wanted to apologize but my pride-"

You sighed as he continued to ramble. With fast movements, you stood on your tiptoes and encircled your arms around his neck to pull him down to you, kissing him over his mask.

When you let go, Kiyoomi was silent. His eyes were wide and you thought that you went over board. Panic made its way to your face as you try to find the words to explain.

"Sorry, I didn't me-"

This time, he was the one to cut you off. Kiyoomi took off his mask and bent down to kiss you on your lips. One of his arms snaked around your waist to support you while the other settled on your nape, angling you to him.

"Be my s/o."

Tsukishima Kei

Everyone in Karasuno knew how much you like Tsukishima

In fact, you remind him everyday

You often give him fresh strawberries from the market and even bake him strawberry cake

Sometimes, you would put little sticky notes on his belongings and write some encouraging words like "you can do it", "I believe in you" or "take it easy!"

On his birthday, you even gave him a hoodie with a dino design (which he secretly loved)

There are times that you knew Tsukishima gets irritated when you visit and even snaps at you but you didn't mind. You liked him and a small snap will not discourage you

But what you didn't know was that it would only take one conversation to completely shatter your heart

"-And they're back," Sugawara said as he saw you enter the gym, a bubbly smile present on your face as usual.

"Kei!" You skipped your way towards Tsukishima and handed him his water bottle which you voluntarily refilled with hot water.

He only gave you a 'tsk' and took the water bottle. Adjusting his glasses, he stared at you from head to toe as if analyzing you, a small blush appearing on his cheeks.

"What are you looking at? Have you finally come to realize that you like me back?" you cheekily asked, poking his bicep.

"No. I was just wondering how someone could look so ugly."

Despite what he said, you forced yourself to giggle, covering your upset feeling with an eye roll. "Oh shut up, Kei. You don't have to hide it, you know? Don't worry, I'm not going to reject you."

You winked at him causing Tsukishima to blush even more.

The rest of the boys snickered and laughed at his reaction which made Tsukishima more embarrassed than he already is.

"Just confess to the girl already, Tsukishima. Can't you see she's trying hard to win you?" Daichi said with a small chuckle while patting Tsukishima's back.

Tsukishima just huffed and pushed his glasses up. "What's there to like? They're nothing but an eyesore anyway."

"What?" you asked in disbelief.

Having a playful banter with Tsukishima was normal in your routine but this was the first time he called you such an offensive term. Does he really think of you that way?

"Oh come on, stop acting dumb. I don't even get why there are guys running after you. I mean, there's really nothing much to look at, right?"

Everyone grew quiet at what he said, clearly not expecting Tsukishima to be at such level of rudeness.

You swallowed the lump forming in your throat as your insecurity skyrocketed. "I try hard every single day to look presentable to you. I-"

You paused for a moment to laugh pathetically at yourself. "I exert a lot of effort to make you notice me. I cook for you, I give you gifts. Heck, I even stay after class to help clean the gym so that the task would be easier for you and I'm not even asking for anything in return."

Tsukishima glared at you sharply that you immediately felt extremely smaller than him. "I never asked you to do those things for me."

"Can't you at least show me that you care?" You wiped your tears with the back of your hand. "Because I'm slowly getting tired of this push and pull game."

"Don't you get it? I don't like you. Why don't you stop pushing yourself to me and start getting a life, hm?"

"Tsukishima, that's enough!" you heard Daichi yell at him.

"Y/n?" Sugawara was immediately beside you, his hand rubbing circles on your back in attempt to calm you down.

"No-" You lifted your face up to meet Tsukishima's eyes. "I think he's right. I should stop being a nuisance and focus on myself."

"I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry," you said before giving Tsukishima a bow and leaving the gym with everyone's eyes following your figure until the door shut.

Everyone could only look at Tsukishima as he cursed under his breath.

"Shit."

The moment you left the gym, you headed straight to the comfort room to let your tears out. You stared at yourself on the mirror as tears cascaded down your cheeks.

"You're beautiful," you reassured yourself while pointing at your own reflection. "What he said doesn't make you any less. Know your worth."

You wiped your tears and splashed your face with cold water before getting out and heading to class without sparing Tsukishima any glance.

You ignored Tsukishima, stopped visiting the gym and focused on yourself. You even made made friends with some of your classmates that you didn't bother getting associated with last time because you were too focused on capturing the attention of Tsukishima.

Unbeknownst to you, a certain male was eyeing you as you interact with other people. He blamed himself for pushing you away. He didn't talk to you, thinking that you only wanted space for a couple days before bothering him again.

He knew that what he said was out of line and he regret everything he did. He even asked Yamaguchi and the rest of the team for advice but all of them responded with the same answer - apologize and tell you how he feels.

Tsukishima gripped the pen tightly as he watched you laughing at something your classmate said. The said classmate was too close to you and it was obvious that he was trying to flirt with you.

"Tsukki?" Yamaguchi called out. He followed Tsukishima's gaze and sighed. "Why don't you go and talk to them?"

"Tsk. Why would I do that? Can't you see they're enjoying his company?" Tsukishima bitterly said.

"You'll end up losing them if you don't do something about it now. Who knows, they might already be lo-" Yamaguchi stopped as Tsukishima instantly stood up and made his way to where you are.

Taking your wrist, he pulled you towards him, heading out of the classroom.

"Tsukishima, what the hell?!" You tried to resist but his grip on your wrist only tightened.

You gasped as he suddenly stopped, trapping you against a wall with his arms beside your head.

"I'm sorry." Tsukishima closed his eyes, balling his fist as he bowed his head. "I said hurtful words to you and no amount of apology will take those away but I want you to know that I regret every single one of it."

You bit your lower lip as you felt yourself tearing up once again. "Do you really think that I'm ugly? I was hurt, Kei. It's just.."

"I'm sorry." His hand made its way to your cheek, cupping your face while he wiped your tears with his thumb. "You're not ugly."

You shook your head and averted your gaze from him, a sob escaping your lips as you felt yourself falling for him deeper. "Don't. Just stop. I'll accept your apology but please just leave me be. I won't be able to stop my feelings for you if you keep leading me on."

"But I don't want you to stop."

"What?"

"I've fallen for you." He tipped your chin up with his hand making you look at him and you were surprised to see the vulnerability in his features. "Please look at me again, y/n. Keep loving me because I swear that I'll do things different this time. Give me a chance."

You can't help but encircle your arms around him, burrying your face on the side of his neck as you nodded repeatedly. "One chance, Kei."

Tsukishima hugged you tightly, lips pressing on the side of your head. "One chance." He leaned away from you and held your face with his hand, eyes boring to yours admiringly.

"You're beautiful."

Likes and reblogs are appreciated ❤️

[dat-bruv-person]

Hello! May I request something for the Bakusquad August (event???) Where the group of friends accidentally and unintentionally keep leaving the reader out?? Like they've been hanging out without the reader, and when they're all having a conversation with each other and the reader tries to say something someone just cuts them off? ��\_(ツ)_/¯ Then they start noticing the reader's change of behaviour around them and then when they confront the reader about it, reader suddenly breaks down and explains how they've been leaving them out and stuff- Thenn they apologize and the rest is up to you ʕ •́؈•̀ ₎

That turned out way longer than I thought it would be O-O Sorry if it's too specific btw!! I've just been craving a lot of angst with fluff lately (;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`) But if you do do it, thank youuu!!!

Forget-Me-Not, Friends! - Bakusquad August Event!

Bakusquad August Masterlist

Pairing: Platonic!Bakusquad x Ex-Bakusquad Member!Reader, Platonic Dekusquad x Dekusquad Member!Reader

Genre: angst, smidge of fluff

a/n: I really like this ask, not done angst for a long time! And I'm deciding that I may keep anonymous asks on forever, because I just never remember to turn them off. Definitely not because I love you guys too much, no no no...

(L/n) sometimes wondered whether [insert pronouns] existed or not, because [insert pronouns] so called ‘friends’ surely didn’t make [insert pronouns] feel that way. It all began on Monday, when the class was talking about what they did over the weekend just before class started. (L/n) had nothing to say, but was excited to see [insert pronouns] friends nonetheless. For some reason, whenever the [insert hair colour]ed [insert gender] try to speak, [insert pronouns] would be ignored, but when Kirishima said the exact same thing, it would erupt in laughter and jokes. It wasn’t fair, but (L/n) was optimistic enough to believe that tomorrow would be a better day. [Insert pronouns] was wrong, so so wrong.

It got worse with every growing day, to the point that Mina would organise hangouts without telling or including [insert pronouns]. To say it hurt was an understatement. (Y/n) drifted away from the group and sat at [insert pronouns] desk, only to see a frowning freckled face, and short-haired brunette above [insert pronouns]. 

“Are you okay, (L/n)-chan?” (L/n) looked up, it was Ochako speaking. {Insert pronouns] suddenly felt all fuzzy and warm inside, a completely foreign feeling to [insert quirk]-user. None of [insert pronouns] friends had ever added an honorific onto the end of [insert pronouns] name before. In fact, (L/n) couldn’t remember the last time [insert pronouns] and Ochako had had a decent conversation, but she treated the [insert gender] like someone she’d known for years. That’s how friends were supposed to treat each other, right?

“I’m not okay, actually,” (L/n) admitted, sighing sadly, “My quote on quote friends keep ignoring me, it’s really annoying when Kirishima suddenly becomes the funny guy in the room, Mina and Denki plan hangouts without me, and Bakugou, Sero and Jirou don’t even bat an eyelid in my direction.” Deku looked sympathetically at his classmate. He had almost never spoken to [insert pronouns], except at the sports festival when [insert pronouns] had managed to come second place, yet despite this, he knew what it was like to be in (L/n)’s shoes. The freckled boy smiled at his classmates as he proposed they all hung out together. (Y/n) thought about the offer at hand, before quickly accepting. The others didn’t care about [insert pronouns]? Well, [insert pronouns] didn’t care about them either. 

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Or, in this case, and eye for an eye, a friend for a friend.

Days passed, and only then did the Bakusquad notice (Y/n)’s absence. [Insert pronouns] was hanging out with Ochako, Deku and Iida. What went wrong? Were they not fun anymore? Would (L/n) rather spend [insert pronouns] with a bone-breaking teacher’s pet, a rip-off Kirby and a stuck-up stickler for rules? Eyes widened when the [insert quirk]-user would roll [insert pronouns] eyes at Mina and Denki when they offered to hang out with [insert pronouns], (Y/n) would crack side-splitting jokes unintentionally, and never even breathed in Sero, Bakugou and Jirou’s direction. 

Enough was enough.

“Oi, (Y/n)-”

“Don’t call me that, only my friends are eligible to call me that.” (Y/n) had [insert pronouns] head held up high, as if [insert pronouns] was looking down at the people before [insert pronouns]. Bakugou scoffed at the behaviour presented before him. 

“Stop being so stuck up (Y/n), it’s fuckin’ annoying and childish.” (L/n) rolled [insert pronouns] eyes at the blonde, and spoke up again.

“You know what’s fuckin’ annoying Katsuki? The fact that none of my own so called ‘friends’ can tell whether or not I’m in the room. The fact that you all don’t notice my presence but can notice my absence. The fact that you all hang out without me in peace, but cause trouble when I don’t hang out with you. There’s a reason for that Katsuki, THERE’S A FUCKING REASON.” (L/n) spat out every word like it was venom, coated in poison. {Insert pronouns] was full on ranting, [insert pronouns] voice getting louder and raised at least two octaves with every new sentence. The bakusquad, and everyone in the room at that point, were trembling with how angry and upset their classmate was getting. But, (Y/n) wasn’t going to stop ranting anytime soon, no. {Insert pronouns] had some people to put in their place. Every word was like a slap in the face. Mina was on the verge of tears, Jirou holding her to her chest. (L/n)’s voice cracked.

“Why?”

It took only one word for the heartbroken, grief stricken hero to break apart the Bakusquad. And it took only one word for (Y/n) (L/n) to break down. Iida rubbed his best friend’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort [insert pronouns]. 

“We’ll be going now.” Iida, (L/n), Deku and Ochako walked away from the Bakusquad.

And, with that, the Bakusquad was no more.

“We’re sorry.”

[dragynkeep]

I think what bothers me the most about how the schnees were handled in v8 was how the writers continuously (and it's so obvious in the commentary) delegitmize whitley's anger.

It's like the writers had no idea what they want to portray him as. One second it's 'Whitley wants nothing to do with Weiss because she abandoned him' and in the next second it's 'whitley needs to chill out lmao'. They give a reason as to why Whitley doesn't like his sisters/mother and then strip it away later so Weiss can girlboss him. It's like watching a show with writers who have short term memory loss.

It really does make me upset sometimes when I think about it. Because if Weiss had just lost her temper on Whitley momentarily and then actually spoke and apologized to him later for threatening him with his weapon I would have accepted that. But the way the writers described it... Weiss was "standing up" to whitley and whitley needed to "chill out" despite literally listing everything in that scene that is upsetting him. His mother is neglecting him during a war (which was regulated to a joke later and never addressed meaningfully), all the staff are gone (no adults around), the family reputation is in the trash (it's all Whitley has left), and Weiss arrested Jacques (the only person who gave Whitley any attention as a means to groom and manipulate him). I mean, has Whitley eaten? Has he slept? Is he okay? We don't know any of this because Weiss never bothers to fucking find out. She doesn't ask him how he is. even. Once. She storms into the manor and just tells him to fuck off immediately and never shows any concern for him at all of her own accord. Just the thought of my little sister being alone and scared (and me knowing that I unintentionally hurt her) makes my heart hurt. Does Weiss have no shame?

What they introduced- whitley's anger at Weiss for leaving him behind- was never addressed. At all. Realistically, Whitley should have probably had a more negative response to her trying to hug him- because by all means he should still hate her to ambandoning him repeatedly and continues to do it up until a few moments ago. The show never addressed it ALL up until that point and just basically said Whitley should just "get over it".

I just see so much abuser logic in all of this. From weiss' actions as explained by the writers, from the meta narrative, from everything and it makes me sick. "Yeah I know repeatedly hurt you, and even after I was made aware that I hurt you, I continued to do it with no remorse. Your worries, your anger, and your hurt means nothing to me and I will continue to cause you pain- knowing that I am- until you prove yourself to me. In fact, I'll use all of that against you and withhold all comfort that I could give you in a scary moment so you come crawling to me for starved for affection. Then I'll love bomb you while never letting you know that all along why you were so angry with me so I never have to actually confront it. You deserve this."

I hope I never meet a person irl who is half as manipulative as how the tone-deaf writers of rwby portrayed weiss schnee in v8. Before the commentary I would have hesitated to come to that conclusion, but hearing the writers intentions... I am only to assume that they intended Weiss to be abusive, they just think Whitley deserved it. Because they're fucking stupid.

And Whitley takes all this shit from his family with a smile because he's literally just an abused kid who doesn't know any better. Winter isn't even on thin ice, if she takes one look at him in vacuo I hope cinder skewers her ass. Sorry winter, weiss ruined it for you.

(sorry for the long ask, I just needed to get it off my chest)

hard agree to all of this; it’s incredibly uncomfortable to see the dissonance in the way abuse is handled for certain characters like weiss or blake from their male abusers to then whitley when his abuser is weiss + willow versus jacques.

there is a lot of abuse apologism in the rhetoric surrounding the male abuse victims in this show, most notably in sun  —  which i’ve talked about before in the abuse he suffered from blake & how the writers, arryn & fans would literally imply or outright say that he deserved it  —  & in whitley. & considering the show, writers & fandom seem to pride themselves on tackling abuse & treating it respectfully, like this ... really doesn’t match up with that?

like you said, whitley is consistently pulled between the poor abuse victim who needs a helping hand  —  when his abusers are mainly jacques & tangentally willow  —  versus someone who just needs to chill out about his “attitude” towards someone mirroring his abuser, aka weiss. weiss does everything jacques did in aims to control whitley & make him do what she wanted, as well as physically & violently threatening him when he didn’t automatically obey her. despite the fact he had more than enough right to be annoyed with her, the older sister who only really seems to come around when she wants something & then acts like she owns the place, the older sister who got the only person who cares about him taken away even if that person was also his abuser, the older sister who consistently messes things up & puts more on him.

like i’ve said before, it’s incredibly disturbing that the writers of rwby can’t seem to recognize these patterns of abuse & these toxic mentalities in their own writing, especially when they’re in “abnormal” examples like the woman being the abuser or the man being the victim. & that is incredibly dangerous for a show that claims to be so educated about abuse, enough to want to tackle it seriously in their writing & has tried to do so for the last nine years with little success imo. i don’t think rwby have ever written an abusive relationship past the “passable” marker & that was with ozma / salem, even then the fandom was blaming him en masse for “causing it.”

i know a lot of people wanted these last two volumes to be the schnee arc, the writers even said it was supposed to be but in the end all it did was further degrade these characters & their effect in the story. jacques is a useless, one note abuser who was murdered with no fulfilling resolution. willow is the woobified abuser who will never have to atone for her actions. winter was nonexistant in this storyline. weiss is the prissy princess who doesn’t even care about her siblings despite being told to her face how he felt & instead chose to re-enact their mutual abusers’ abusive tactics on him.

& then there’s whitley. the one who will probably be forced to admit he was wrong next volume because poor weiss was martyred for being a dumbass & now they all have to mourn her despite the fact that he is a victim stuck in a family of abusers & enablers. it’s disgusting.

[latte-fairytaekwoon]

𝑀𝑦 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙 (𝑆𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑔ℎ𝑤𝑎×𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟)

Part Two / Part Three/ Part Four

Pairing: Bad boy! Park Seonghwa (Ateez)/ Reader (Female)

Genre: Fluff, Angst, School AU.

Summary: Y/N never cared about a lot, her only goal was to get through college as quickly as possible. One day, she makes eye contact with the notorious bad boy class and unintentionally glares at him. Did she just screw up her peaceful school life?

Requested by a very close friend who better appreciate this or else :) ♡

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12:53

Only 2 minutes had passed since Y/N had looked at the clock, but it felt like an eternity. She always did hate computer science. Not because she felt it was difficult or kept her up at all hours of the night trying to finish the assigned tasks, that was more of a biochemistry thing. It was because although her professor was really excellent at teaching them and helping them maneuver all the software, he had an awful tendency to leave early, sometimes up to half an hour, and just let them do as they pleased. While some decided to watch stupid cat videos, browse through their social media, others went as far as to play video games or even go onto some questionable websites that more than once made her cringe with disgust.

Y/N often just sat there, either finishing up assignments for her other classes or bored to death, waiting for it to be 1pm so she could go off campus and get something to eat. Having forgotten to eat breakfast, even a simple untoasted bagel cause she accidentally overslept through her alarm, she could really use some fuel in her system. She was tired, hungry and therefore moody, which was never a good combination.

12:56

She groaned softly and let her head fall back on the head of the chair. She closed her eyes, not caring about dozing off right then and there in front of the whole class. What would they care? They're too immersed in their narcissistic fake Instagram lives or their sadomasochistic porn desires to pay attention to her. In fact, no one ever really payed attention to her and she didn't care. She liked it that way. Invisible, unseen. It meant no one bothered her and no distractions from her only goal in life. No one seemed to notice or even look at her.

That's what she believed. But for some odd reason she couldn't shake off a weird feeling of someone watching her. She slowly opened her eyes and was indeed met with a pair of dark, glassy eyes staring right at her. Dark eyes sitting on top of a perfectly straight nose, small luscious pink lips accompanying a sharp jawline only complimenting the rest of his heavenly features.

Park Seonghwa.

If someone were to ask Y/N her honest opinion of him, she'd probably respond:

"I don't know. Everyone is afraid of him and everyone tells horror stories though."

Yes, he had a reputation for being the school's bad boy. She's personally never actually seen him be violent towards anyone, but she had heard about fights that often happened at the football field, always ending in his apparent victory. She never payed mind to such stories, frankly she didn't even care. She had even forgotten that he was in the same class as her, up until this very moment.

She somehow expected him to look away, but he didn't. He kept his gaze locked on hers. In any other circumstance, she would have looked away, but something about his stare kept her from looking away. The corners of his lips were slightly curled upward, almost as if they were forming a soft smile. That could just be his lip shape though, after all, she's never actually looked at him closely. His eyes as well had a particular glow to them, and if she wasn't in such a bad mood maybe....just maybe, she would have felt her cheeks heat up and turn a baby pink shade. But she simply looked away after a minute of staring into his eyes. Wait...was it a minute?

12:58

Yep. Pretty much around that time. 2 minutes left until her torture ended. Maybe if she looked at it hard enough, maybe time would go faster. Foolish thought but it is often said that the mind works wonders. Although in this case it seemed to be doing the opposite of what she wanted. And she still felt the same pair of eyes staring at her. So turning back she found she was correct.

Only this time instead of curled lips and glowy eyes, she was met with furrowed eyebrows and a clenched jaw. Now she felt a shiver ran down her spine as Seonghwa glared at her, almost as if he was threatening her. And it truly was menacing.

The light twinkling of a bell signaled that it was 1pm and time to leave. Y/N grabbed her books that were out in front of her desktop and quickly shoved them in her book bag as if it was an Olympic sport. She nearly tripped as she scurried out of the classroom, ignoring the throbbing pain on her shin which had collided with the leg of the chair. All she knew is that she didn't want to stay long enough to figure out if all the stories she heard about Park Seonghwa were true or not. So she practically ran out of the campus, completely forgetting about her hunger or tiredness. She was fully awake now and her stomach felt sick that she couldn't possibly even think about taking a bite out of anything.

Meanwhile the man she left behind at the classroom stood there in shock, his mouth letting out a soft scoff at her behavior. He shook his head as he picked up his jacket that was hanging on his chair and a notebook that had fallen out a few feet away from the row of computers in front of him. His mind was already working, planning on how to deal with this.

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I heard he was pissed.

Seriously?

Didn't you hear the way he slammed the door?

She must have done something to piss him off.

I don't know, all I know is that Seonghwa was fuming while muttering something about giving it to her.

Whoever she is, she sounds as good as dead.

That's what Y/N overheard some girls gossiping about while she was in the bathroom. Now half of the school was hell bent on finding out who was the mysterious girl who dared glare at Seonghwa and what he'd do to her. That's practically what the school thrived on: gossip and drama. And frankly, she wanted no part in it.

So for the next week, she completely changed her usual routine. She purposefully used routes that she'd never gone through before to attend her classes, she refused to eat at any nearby cafes around the neighborhood, and she went as far as to not physically attend her computer science course. One of the blessings of a course involving a computer was the fact she could do it right at home and she decided to take full advantage of it. And she most certainly avoided any places where she knew Seonghwa and his group of friends tended to hang around in.

She was scared, she was willing to admit that. Scared of whatever Seonghwa was planning for her, scared of it becoming the new school gossip and overall just terrified. So even if it was a pain and hassle to go to such extremes, she wanted to avoid the confrontation at all times and she thought she was doing a fairly good job.

Apparently not good enough.

Having forgotten a few things in her locker, she went back after almost everyone had cleared out, only the staff stayed behind at this hour, locked in the teacher's lounge no doubt complaining about their day's work. She was so distracted trying to organize the books and journals in her arms that she was only brought back to reality when her locker was slammed shut right in front of her, frightening her so much that she dropped all her things to the ground. She looked back and froze when it was none other than Seonghwa who stood in front of her.

"6 days..."

His deep voice felt like ice, freezing her from moving let alone breathe.

"For 6 whole days, I've been waiting for you in class, only to find out you stayed home. Then, no matter where I searched, you always figured out a way to avoid me...."

Seonghwa leaned down, close to her face, smirking right at her.

"Well I finally caught you little one....and there's been something I wanted to do..."

Oh no! This was exactly what she feared. There was no one around to protect her or even witness what was going to happen. So Y/N closed her eyes and braced herself for whatever was going to come. She only hoped that it would end as quickly as possible.

"I like you."

Wait. What?

She looked up in shock, wondering if she heard what she thought. Seonghwa had leaned back up and stared at her.

"I like you. I've been wanting to tell you that. " He repeated himself.

Y/N didn't even know what face she made, but whatever it was, it made Seonghwa chuckle softly at her reaction. Bending down, he began to pick up her stuff that she dropped.

"I don't expect you to confess your feelings for me nor even answer me at the moment." He continued as he handed her the books and journals.

"I know you're confused right now, I would be too if I was in your place. Besides...."

He looked at her and smiled very faintly.

"There's plenty of time to get to know each other. After all, the weekend starts tomorrow."

He picked up his bookbag that he had previously set down on the floor and slung it over his shoulder. Then he took out a baby pink journal with sparkles on the side from his bag.

"By the way, you left this at class when you ran out the door." He handed her what rightfully belonged to her. She recognized it as her sketching notepad.

"See you soon Y/N. Real soon." He winked and waved goodbye at her before walking away.

Y/N stood there, her mouth wide open and looking around, questioning if this was a dream, a nightmare or reality.

What the hell just happened?!

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"Medium hot white chocolate mocha with Irish cream syrup and whip cream."

The customer went up to the counter and picked up their drink, not even bothering to say a thank you or even acknowledge her presence.

"Thank you. Have a very nice day." Y/N repeated the customary line they all had to say when someone left the shop, making sure to add a warm smile and to use a light tone of voice.

Once the customer had left, Y/N turned back to her coworker, Jinhee, who was already groaning.

"That old geezer was such a pain! You're lucky you didn't take his order. I was about to strangle him." Jinhee complained and made a choking gesture with her hands.

"That bad huh?" Y/N asked as she wiped down the counter around the espresso machine.

"It's Saturday Y/N, and it's almost night. What do you expect? Only Karens and their annoying husbands come by for caffeine at this hour." Jinhee shook her head, tired from dealing with so many demanding and pushy customers.

"Look on the bright side, it's almost 7, meaning we get to go home soon." Y/N tried to remain positive.

"Hell yeah! I can't wait. Me and the girls are heading out to that club I was telling you about. You should seriously come."

Y/N expected Jinhee to ask her to join them, she always did. She loved Jinhee, she really did, but her style of having fun wasn't exactly her cup of tea. Y/N did not want to spend a perfectly good night getting shit faced drunk and waking up the next morning in some stranger's bed.

"Thanks Ji, but no. I have...plans tonight." She quickly said, although both knew that was a total lie.

"Yeah..... let me guess, plans that involve packets of ramen, an order of chicken wings, tub of ice cream while you rewatch some anime about a demon butler or about a people murdering journal?" Y/N hated how Jinhee knew her so well.

"Leave me alone!" Y/N threw the rag in her hand at her friend, who was now laughing at her reaction.

They both went back to their usual task of cleaning and disinfecting what was already clean since there weren't many customers when it was nearing closing time. Jinhee decided to go to the back room to make sure everything would be stocked for the next day, leaving Y/N to attend anyone who came in. Since she wasn't expecting anyone, she took out her notepad and began sketching like she usually did. She didn't know why, but the serene, tranquil atmosphere in the coffee shop, the scent of the freshly brewed coffee mixed with the light hint of cinnamon and other spices always seemed to inspire her to draw to her heart's content. And right now, she knew she wanted to draw a face. What face exactly? She didn't know. But she decided to start drawing the outline to give her a base to work with, while she figured out if she'd draw someone she knew or just an imaginary person that would only live in her mind.

The ringing of the bell signaled that someone had come inside, just when she was about to relax. Getting up, she quickly put her notebook out of sight and straightened her apron.

"Welcome! What can I get for-"

She stopped when she looked up to see Seonghwa himself in the shop. He looked at her and snorted softly.

"Don't you look adorable in that uniform."

Y/N pouted slightly, feeling self conscious about the pink and red apron.

"Aww come on, don't give me that look doll. You do look cute." Seonghwa complimented her, making her blush a little.

"Wha-what can I get for you?" She cleared her throat and went back to being professional.

Seonghwa scanned the menu options before looking back at Y/N. He studied her features closely before asking:

"What's your favorite drink?"

"Huh?" Y/N wasn't expecting him to ask her that.

It always did threw her off whenever people asked her what she liked. She hated answering cause customers would always say how boring her favorite drink was or complain it wasn't their type. Well if it's not your type, then why ask in the first place right?

"I'm still waiting for an answer doll."

Seonghwa's voice brought her out of her trance. She pondered over her choices: either tell him and get it over with or just lie and pick some random drink.

"I like a simple hot chocolate with caramel." Guess the first option was the winner.

Seonghwa looked at her endearingly when she answered.

"Not a fan of actual coffee?" He raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head. Ironic how she worked in a coffee shop yet couldn't even down a simple cafe latte cause the espresso felt too bitter on her tastebuds. Seonghwa chuckled softly, muttering a barely audible 'cute' under his breath.

"Well little lady, I guess I'll take a medium one of those and a small strawberry frappe. No coffee in that one either please."

Y/N looked at him with a questioning gaze.

"What? You're not the only one who doesn't like coffee sweetheart."

He handed her a $20 bill, not even bothering to hear the price and telling her to keep the change. He then sat down at the closest table and watched as she skillfully prepared the drinks.

When she heard the sound of the machines working, Jinhee rushed out to the front, thinking Y/N needed help.

"Do you need help?" Jinhee asked as she looked over, trying to see what Y/N was preparing.

"Relax Ji. It's only a frappe and a hot chocolate, not that difficult. It's for the guy over there." She turned her head and signaled to Seonghwa.

Jinhee had to do a double take when she saw him, her jaw dropping. Then she looked back towards Y/N.

"What?" Y/N asked as she piped the whipped cream on the frappe.

"Did one of your anime boys come to life!?" She exclaimed, making Y/N slap her arm and try to shush her.

"Shut up! That's just a guy in my class." Y/N explained as she put the drinks in a tray and maneuvered herself to put them in the front counter.

"Well now I wanna transfer to your college." Jinhee giggled, making Y/N unconsciously smile at her comment, trying hard not to laugh or she'd end up spilling everything.

"Your order is ready." She composed herself and went back to her usual demeanor.

Seonghwa walked up slowly to the counter and took the frappe and straw in front of him.

"You should smile like that more often. Makes you look even prettier."

Y/N felt her breath get caught at his comment and Jinhee nearly squealing in the back wasn't helping. She just blinked slowly as Seonghwa walked away with his frappe.

"Wait! You forgot the other drink!" She called out to him when she remembered how to use her voice.

Seonghwa shrugged.

"It's for you. You did say it was your favorite right?"

He opened the door and took one last look at her.

"See you later." He winked like he did the last time they saw each other and walked out of the shop.

Y/N stood frozen, replaying everything in her mind. Jinhee's loud voice shook her awake though.

"Holy shit! You're so lucky! He was totally hitting on you! Is he like this in class too?! I'm so jelly! Oh my God! I want one of your lover boys too!" She crossed her arms and huffed slightly.

Y/N got flustered at her comment.

"He's not my lover boy....." She whispered softly and started wiping the counter to try and get her mind off Seonghwa.

"Not yet.....but he might be." Jinhee playfully nudged her on the shoulder before giggling like a dolphin.

Y/N rolled her eyes. She still couldn't wrap the idea that Park Seonghwa actually liked her. It was a concept so foreign to her, it didn't make sense. She stared at the hot chocolate in front of her. She contemplated throwing it away, but it was too tempting. And it was for her.....

She picked up the cup and started taking small sips out of it, trying hard not to burn her tongue like she usually did. She replayed the conversation in her head once more and she found herself replaying his last words:

"See you later."

What on earth did he mean by that?

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*Possible part 2 coming up*

[yuikomorihotline]

Hey admin!

I have a question for you, as you are Yui admin. What do you think of her?

Would you make any changes to her character? Do you like her clothes and tastes in clothes? She likes fashion soooo you know 😋😋💕💕✨✨

Trigger warning, Essay with bad structuring, mentions of sexual assault and victim blaming.

And please note this is entirely 100% my opinion and by no means am I correct about anything I mention.

i ) First and foremost, I adore her as a character and as a protagonist, however, I have some criticisms. This sounds extremely and unintentionally harsh, but even she's not unworthy of criticism. There are factors that I am to consider i) that she's significantly weaker than the antagonists ii) she uses her faith as a coping mechanism iii) she's essentially a victim of 'fate' iv) she's an otome heroine, therefore she's written in a very particular way.

Yui stands out from a lot of heroines because she's less of an insert of the player and more of an actual character. She has a name, has an appearance that stands out, and has a vague and somewhat established backstory. Which also stands out from the antagonists.

However, she cannot be given as much personality or character building as the average female anime character because the player couldn't necessarily resonate or relate with her otherwise.

In my opinion, Yui is intended to be the dramatic foil in Diabolik Lovers, because she's everything the other characters aren't : persistent, open minded, gentle and optimistic, despite her seemingly hopeless situation. She as well shows significant amounts of innocent defiance towards her abusers.

If you look at Yui critically, then she is in fact a more likeable character, who is well written in the sense how much she contrasts the much crueler antagonists. I think that people dislike her because in comparison to the vampires, she's very weak because she's not as apathetic and cruel as they are. To me, she's such a godsent girl to highlight how awful the boys truly are.

The 'she doesn't fight back' mentality just feels like blatant victim blaming. Even when people say 'she puts herself in those situations' or 'she was looking for trouble', do they even know what that sounds like? I understand she's a complete fictional character, however, if the girls of this accursed fandom feel completely comfortable with what they're looking at and continuing to blame Yui, I think they should confront their internalized misogyny or misogyny before they project that mentality onto SA victims in the real world.

----------------------------------------------

ii ) I wouldn't change much about her personality or appearance, since her kindness is a key factor in Diabolik Lovers.

Personality wise, I would make her more outgoing, much like the popular girl trope, and it would be pleasant to see a shoujo protagonist be the popular girl, who doesn't have any 'pick me girl' aspects. As well as being more popular and outgoing, I'd write her to be more playful with everyone.

Appearance wise, I could see some very subtle hints of 'gal fashion' on her if she was more fashion forward. In my mind, I think that if the other characters have an odd sense of fashion, there's no reason why she shouldn't. It would add more to a more fantasy or otherworldly atmosphere.

In all honesty, I would have her wear her hair in a messy bun or messy high-ponytail, with small hooped earrings. I could see some soft pink makeup with quite the shimmer, it would be noticeable, but not too much that it would make her not look like herself.

As for her fashion in the game, it's only okay, it could certainly be improved because it looks rather ugly to an extent.

Thank you for reading if you have 💗💗

[autistic-victor-frankenstein]

Overanalyzing songs in my Frankenstein playlist and why they're there pt.2,quarantine got me wack

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/17tZKa7MLKM2ttPKRg8Vis?si=WA2a-yZbSQiwT7U8woTq-g

Updated! Time for pointless analysis

Most of these are some sort of conversation bewteen the creature and victor aside from one solely victor oriented one. I tried to include a waltonstein one but spotify didnt have the song in mind.

Meet me in the woods- Lord Huron

I've always loved this song but never realized how much of it applies to Frankenstein until I heard it off of @charlie-fells playlist (which is also great and you should also check out! This is the same case w the next song aswell)

Victor and the Creatures first confrontation in the Alps. Starts off with Victor,reminiscing about his making of the creature and his regrets from it 'I fucked with forced our eyes cant see,now darkness got a hold on me' him messing with the laws of nature itself,and it coming back to bite him in the ass. The second part is the Creature,discussing how long it's been since his departure and being left alone in the world to fend off the cruel things hes been victim to due to his hideous appearance

'How long,baby,have I been away? Oh it feels like ages but it's only been days. There isnt a language for the things I've seen'

The third half is the creature again,saying how hes going to change his kindly ways to avenge the woes that have been put onto him that stemmed from Victor's negligence.

'I have seen what darkness does,(say goodbye to who I was)...etc'

We will commit wolf murder-Of,Montreal

'Somethings terrorized my psyche to get even'

The first paragraph is Victor's POV,basically acknowledging the creatures torment to 'get even' and also his lack of ability to understand the creature 'I try to understand his logic but theres just no pattern there' as well as the fact of having his loved ones murders are on his hands

The next one is the creature reminiscing over how hes 'ugly from every angle' ,refusing to kill victor after everyone else,and 'crying out for guidance' reflecting on the fact of how he was thrown in the word by him with no guidance from vic that led him to be the way he is,both factors contributing to him unable to obtain sympathy. And that the murders are on his hands

It then continues with the creature showing his grudge against victor and how he had access to things he never did 'when I die I want you to die too/I envy you because you believe in things like I never could/and dose yourself in the bestiality of our race(could also refer to his creation'

The whole song kinda gives me the vibes of the creatures hesitation to kill vic despite his grudges,his rejection against humanity,and a little bit of vics guilt

All Delighted People- Sufjan Stevens

OKAY YHIS SONG IS THE MAIN REASON I WANTED TO MAKE THIS POST it's so beautiful and applies super well and AAA,full ass musical,

This only includes the first 5(?) Minutes and the ending of the song. Sufjan Steven's has a thing for either making song titles a paragraph long or making songs super long. (This song is 11 minutes,its a beautiful 11 minutes,but still alot,and it's not even his longest,impossible soul is 20) so I just took what I felt applied most.

It starts off with the creature going over the day of his creation , referring to Victor's room and how he 'wandered out alone'

He 'remembers every sound it made,the clouded out disguises and the grave' he briefly addressed regret of his actions,then goes on with his recounting tale

This time going to his first encounter with victor, 'and I took you by the hand,no other reason but to be your leading man,and you woke up with a fright'

I kinda see this as the scene in the book where Victor passes out,and is awoken by the creature and immediately flips shit?

'Still the force of nature spurned'

'Ideas of strength and style abated by the burning basement'

Again about him being created ,how the laws of nature were bein spurned in some apartment basement

'I had so much to give,despite the terror and abuse'

The creature acknowledging how much of an empathetic being he is,if he were just presented the opportunity before he finally lost his last hope in humanity.

'all delighted people raised there hand,but what difference does it make?/And what difference does it make? The world surrounds us with its hate'

Delighted people is just the everyday ongoer the (in joker voice) society that the creature feels rejected from and that victor sort of unintentionally rejects himself from. And how in comparison they seem to have something they both lack. A happiness both the creature and Victor are exempt from.

And in a way,maybe the creature more then victor within the presence of the story,they are hated.

'Hello Darkness my old friend,it breaks my heart,i've come to strangle you despite of what you'd like/ and dont be a rascal ,dont be a laughing dog in spite of odds' sorry my old friend didnt wanna do this, imma smite u for this shit like I did everyone else u love for what u did,and dont go on that rascal shit u always do.

'In restless dreams I walked alone I walked alive'

Reflecting on his rejection from society and being alone.

'I tried to save the things I made,oh but the world is a mess/I tried my best but I tried in vain'

Despite his best attempts to make a place for themself in the world,the creature is rejected ,the worlds just a mess

'Suffer not the child among you or you shall die young' I had some better wording for this earlier but I cant seem to recall it now.

Like a sort of message to victor? Kinda how evoking this suffering upon himself has made him die young.

Late edit:' the storm inside/the hurricane' that is mentioned several times is like a kinda reference to the suffering Victor and the creator both go through and the grudges bewteen them