#two relationships which have been implied but have literally never been shown in the show ever

[genericpuff]

The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere (Pt 2)

Alrighty, I promised a part two back in the first part of this analysis, but found myself busy with Rekindled and my day job, so I'm finally sitting down and finishing this up. If you haven't read that first part yet, please go check it out!

CAUTION: THERE BE FASTPASS SPOILERS AHEAD!

We left off with Hebe and Apollo roleplaying that one scene from The Lion King, albeit with a lot less sense or nuance. Literally all the "drama" so far feels purely manufactured for cheap plot progression and tension and it hardly feels authentic. But now we gotta talk about the second half of this episode, where we finally address the cliffhanger that the FP midseason finale episode left off on - Persephone causing winter.

And what better way to kick it off than with a completely off-base Persephone monologue?

Now, what's shown here is actually a flashback to the job interview scene from S1, when Persephone asked to see the snow in the Underworld. But it's written as if Persephone has some intimate relationship with snow as a whole, as if she's experienced more than this one time which... she hasn't. There was nothing "romantic" really about that scene following the job interview, she literally just wanted to go out and see something she hadn't seen before.

But that calls into question - why does Persephone constantly act like she has an intimate relationship with snow when it doesn't occur in the Mortal Realm? She even says in the honeymoon episode that it's hot all the time in the Mortal Realm, and the temperature only drops every now and then during rainy days... and she somehow makes this about Hades when it literally has nothing to do with him lmao Persephone monologues are some of the worst /r/im14andthisisdeep moments in the series because she's constantly using word salad to describe feelings we never saw or scenes that never happened.

And this scene is no different. She says that snow is something that's interwoven with her most 'treasured moments' but all the visuals have to show for is that one scene from S1 that, again, didn't even come across as a 'treasured moment', it was just her seeing the snow for the first time, there was nothing 'romantic' about it in a vacuum. All the moments from the series you could call ACTUALLY TREASURED milestones of Hades and Persephone's relationship - and Persephone's supposed "love" for the Underworld - are scenes where snow was completely absent (ex. the scene of Persephone and Hades talking about Sicily in Zeus and Hera's garden, Persephone and Hades spending the night in the cabin during the trial arc, etc.)

But then, to make it even more confusing, she goes on to describe her losing her powers and causing winter a "betrayal". As if the concept of winter owes her anything. As if Erebus owes her anything.

The allusion to Erebus itself in the visuals implies that she feels "betrayed" over this happening, as if it wasn't made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR TO HER that she would have to sacrifice something. She's gone SO LONG without knowing or caring about what she could have possibly given up, that by the time it finally revealed itself, she's acting all shocked Pikachu because there's finally something she can't just have. Everything that could make her seem imperfect has been washed away, from her SA trauma to those pesky green hands. Now we finally ARE seeing her affected by her own choices and she's basically waxing poetic about how sad it is that her actions have consequences.

That said, she does seem to have a moment of self-awareness here... but I can't be confident it will actually amount to anything seeing as how all the past attempts at 'growth' have been overshadowed by her vanity and ego.

This line is really confusing / weird in the way that it's written but I think she's trying to say that the source of the cold is from her, she can't pin it on any sort of 'big bad' like she could with Apollo and Kronos. It's just her.

And again, this could be a moment of realization for her that her actions are her own regardless of whatever she wants to pin it on-

But she rejects it instead. She's still not capable of acknowledging that her choices affect others, that her actions have consequences, that she's finally paying the price for something she knew had a cost.

If this were any other comic, I would accept her rejection of this, I would have confidence in knowing she may recognize it eventually. But this is LO and we're three seasons in, she's technically already gotten her happily ever after in the form of becoming Queen and married to her 'true love', so all of this feels like a very last-minute attempt to paint Persephone as this "struggling" character. But she's not "struggling", she's just finally experiencing karma catching up to her and as expected for a person like Persephone, she's already cracking under the pressure of realization that she can't have everything she wants.

Again, in any other comic, this would feel satisfying or endearing to see her fall on her own sword, but to me it just feels frustrating in the context of LO because we've spent five years seeing her get everything she wants with barely any real struggle that wasn't manufactured - with all of it painted as a GOOD THING - while still getting away with treating the people around her like shit.

And when I say she rejects this concept of having humility, I don't just mean through her monologuing, but also through her actions.

If I were to critique LO the same way I would an actual functional series, I would say that this should be the point of realization, the point where we see her crumble under the weight of her not being perfect, not being able to "fix" everything. It all stems back to her entitlement as a bratty main character, someone who can't fathom not being the main character or the "hero".

Because she's not the hero. Demeter is - or at least, she tries to be.

Again, it's hard to know if this is intentional or if this is yet another attempt to present Demeter as an "overbearing mom", but Persephone here looks and sounds like she's been reduced back to the state of a child crying for her mother in the face of her own failures. Despite now technically being a mother herself (through literal babynapping sigh) Persephone is still not a mature adult. Aging her up 10 years and giving her a husband and baby will not make her an actual functional independent adult who's capable of taking care of themselves or making the right decisions... unlike Demeter who is still, ultimately, more skilled than Persephone. She is an actual experienced and mature adult who's capable of rationalizing and decision making, and knowing when it's time to put aside your ego, walk away and let someone else who's far more qualified take care of things.

What Demeter has is something that one can only gain through true hardship, failing, learning from one's own mistakes, and experience, all of which Persephone does not have because she transitioned from a cage of her own imagination where hard work and responsibility was a virtue, into a gilded cage where true hard work can be passed onto someone else whose efforts she could take credit for while sitting on a throne and buying anything and everything she could ever want.

Despite everything Persephone and the narrative claims to have 'earned', she's still a child. The adults have to take over.

And like a child, she doesn't let them.

This is not an 'anime moment'. This is not a moment of redemption. This is immaturity and irresponsibility in its most visible form for Persephone - refusing to let go of her ego and shortcomings to "prove herself", even if it means making things worse.

And Hades enables it.

I want to make it clear there is a massive difference between not being controlling over someone, and actually enabling them.

This is not some small hill to die on. Persephone is literally causing winter, which could very well kill the Mortals. As we've seen in that prior Hebe scene from the first part of this essay, the snow is showing up in Olympus. This isn't something that's happening in the isolation of this single scene, this is happening everywhere and instead of taking the L, Persephone is trying to make things 'better' by simply 'trying harder' which is just not the solution here, Demeter knows this, but Hades is playing the "girlboss" version of a "good husband" by not even bothering to try and convince her to do otherwise. Hades above everyone else should be the one stepping in because he'd likely be the only one she'd actually listen to, but he's refusing to because he has to be the "good husband" who doesn't control the actions of his wife.

So he flat out enables her instead by not even bothering to try and reason with her, to help her see that what she's doing is not helping. Not even so much as a "Persephone, I know you want to help but it's clear something is wrong and if Demeter can figure out what to do to fix this, we should let her", just him saying to Demeter who wants to stop her that he can't stop her from trying... ignoring the fact that he should at least try.

And that's the difference between being controlling and being an enabler. He's not keeping her from doing something that benefits her and doesn't harm him or others. He's not micromanaging her decisions or trying to tell her she's not capable. Now, don't get me wrong, there are definitely things that make Hades a walking red flag especially when it comes to him being a groomer, but when it comes to directly controlling Persephone, most of the time she's doing things of her own accord convinced that it's "the right thing" (which is still just a side effect of the obvious grooming because I really doubt S1 Persephone would have done this shit lmao).

Here, he's not stepping in to even try to reason with her because "well I'd be a bad husband if I stepped in", completely ignoring the fact that it makes him a terrible person, period, to not at least try to calmly reason with his wife and explain to her that her 'help' is not going to help here. Just like when he rewarded her with sex for abusing a nymph in her own home, he's completely complacent to Persephone's actions and doesn't step in to try and help because, according to Wattpad and TikTok, a "good husband" is someone who looks the other way while his life partner does whatever she wants regardless of the consequences to herself and others. "Happy wife, happy life, who cares if the wife wants to be an actual piece of shit to people if it makes her happy".

And thus she makes things worse in her pursuit of "happiness", while Hades stands idly by, watching it all unfold as if he's just an innocent bystander who can absolve himself of any responsibility in this situation. As if she didn't become this way because she ate the pomegranate to be with him and a part of his world.

Now, there's one other sort-of-blatant smoking gun that I want to talk about that I haven't really seen anyone else mention since this episode went up. Granted, this might be me reading far too much into it, but hey, that's what this blog is for and I think it's something that absolutely needs to be mentioned.

Persephone goes on about how her powers aren't just gone, they've been replaced, all she can create is decay, and more specifically-

Now... think of the context of LO's narrative, what it's told us both literally and through subtext, intentional or not.

What does this sound like?

Hades lost his ability to produce children when he ate the pomegranate. He can no longer "create life".

And now, Persephone is finding herself in a similar situation, unable to "create life" the way she knows how. I'd like to think this isn't literal, but it really feels like there's a metaphorical implication here that Persephone losing her ability to create life is meant to be taken literally, that she not only can't create flowers and plant life anymore, but she's lost her fertility entirely. You can go even further back in this when it was established Persephone didn't eat six seeds, but nine, which originally felt like a weirdly random choice, but now seems intentional. I know some people have theorized that it has to do with her possibly being pregnant, but I don't think that's the case, I think it's the opposite - that the 9 months was a metaphor for the 9 months of childbearing that Persephone can no longer do.

And if that's the case... LO truly is no longer a "feminist" piece of work. It barely was before, but if the point of all this winds up being an attempt by Rachel to give Persephone a "flaw" by taking away her ability to bear children... that'll be a punch to the gut.

That said, if it does go somewhere, maybe the point will be Persephone learning she doesn't need to be able to reproduce to have value as a woman. But considering LO's track record with these sorts of plotlines, I can't be confident in the slightest that's where it'll end up. What I can be confident in is that Persephone will likely not stay this way. Like her green hands, she'll likely get her powers back, maybe after the resolution that she's still a real woman deserving of love even if she can't reproduce. I can't possibly know at this point where it's going, all I do know is that LO hasn't done a great job at resolving these sorts of deeper narratives so this just feels like another dart on the wall of bad ideas. Because it's, again, all being framed through Persephone being the "perfect woman", without there being any actual subtext throughout the narrative to imply that this may be a flawed ideology to have, it's just what Persephone has to be and it's sold in the narrative as a positive.

There's one term to describe this with that's rather consistent throughout LO when you peel back the layers of both the comic and Rachel's past work - white feminism. Despite LO's attempts to be "feminist", it's still ultimately being written through a heteronormative male gaze, that women are only "valuable" so long as they're youthful, that any goals or dreams a woman may have should be dropped as soon as they fall in love with a rich and powerful man, and that "other women" who don't fit into that mould of being rich, white, and heterocis are not worthy of love, empathy, or understanding. It's hard to trust that LO will actually challenge these norms when it's been practically enforcing them for five years.

But ultimately, that's a very loaded topic and right now, we don't know where this is going... I'm just not so sure I want to see it after all the missteps the series has pulled over the past half a decade. Like the miracle of childbirth, it's gonna take a miracle for LO to actually stick this landing.

Now, I'm assuming you read this line of dialogue, and you understood it. Yes? You positive? Okay, great. Why am I asking you this question as if you're an infant who doesn't understand what being "passed out" means? Well, you'll see what I mean in a minute.

Now, again, like with the whole "I can't bring life to anything anymore" thought process I just went through, I can't know exactly what they're trying to do here, but Demeter is fully in the right. I want to make that abundantly clear that Demeter was right the whole time and it's pretty telling that even a lot of the people reading the comic in good faith are pointing this out in the discussion circles they can actually access.

Now, in case anyone hasn't noticed, it's clear that Demeter herself is drawing upon the fertility magic of Gaia or Rachel is just alluding to Gaia for some reason. At first I thought it was supposed to be her form of "wrath" until I remembered that (unfortunately) Eris was the only reason for Persephone's wrath, so this is clearly meant to be some allusion to Gaia. Considering the fertility powers were passed down purely through Gaia and Ouranos, this means Demeter is a descendant of Gaia, which... calls into question Rachel's attempts to "remove the incest" from LO, but that's for another topic.

Either way, Demeter is fully in the right here. Hades is a fucking idiot - a useless lump - for not only enabling the shitty actions of his shitty wife, but for not taking even any amount of accountability for the fact that Persephone found out about the pomegranate through him.

"But Puff, she had to eat the pomegranate to beat Kronos!" Did she? Or was that purely manufactured for Rachel's sake because she just had to have an MCU Evil-Robot-Jeff-Bridges villain despite the fact that this FANTASY ROMANCE series didn't need one? The fact that it was written purely to 'force' Persephone into doing something she already wanted to do was completely redundant, it wasn't a 'sacrifice' she made, it was made pretty clear in Episode 165 that she wanted to eat the pomegranate as soon as she found out about it and while that decision is certainly her own, that does not absolve Hades of responsibility for not questioning his future wife's fascination with it or realizing that he unlocked the inner Pandora's Box of Persephone's mind.

And so, Demeter holds him responsible. As she should.

Okay, you read that, right? But remember that line I asked you about before? We should all know Demeter doesn't mean this literally. We have brains and we should all have a minimum amount of media literacy to understand that Hades was telling the truth when he literally said Persephone was "passed out".

We finish the episode on this panel, which I swear to christ I couldn't tell you in all of my own divine wisdom of the arts what in the world is going on in this panel. I'm literally looking at salad.

Is it Demeter and Persephone? Just some dying plants? I have no fucking clue, your guess is as good as mine.

But we're not done. Because we have one more glaring issue to talk about with this episode, and it comes in the form of an author's note that was inserted at the end of the episode. It is truly, despite EVERYTHING we've talked about in both parts of this analysis, the dumbest, most airheaded and egregiously pretentious thing I've seen in this entire episode.

Rachel quite literally put in a fucking disclaimer telling her audience what Hades already told us point blank in the comic - "Don't worry, audience members, Persephone is not literally dead, it's a metaphor for her spring powers being dead!"

I literally can't even express to you how pretentious and shitty this is of her to do. I can't tell if it's legitimately her thinking her writing is "too smart" for even her older audience members to grasp, or if she just wants to dispel the theories that people would want to make about this, or if she completely misconstrued the criticism about her writing not being "clear enough" and thinks that THIS is what people meant. Pardon my tone because I've kept it together relatively well throughout this post, but this is some 2009-era Fanfiction.net level of author's note bullshit.

If she thinks her writing is "too smart" for her audience to grasp, I'm sorry Rachel, but you're just wrong and this is incredibly shitty of you. You think the 14 year olds in your community aren't also reading other webtoons that have deeper writing than LO? I read Death Note when I was fucking 14 and I knew exactly the point of what the story was getting at by the time it was over, despite all the other stories I read at that age that completely flew over my head. And you think LO is somehow more complicated than Death Note, baby's first introduction to the grey areas of morality and justice?

If she's trying to dispel the theories... that actually holds some merit because not only is Rachel notoriously bad at not letting her fandom just talk about their theories without her swooping in to "um actually" them (even if it means killing the fun of theorizing), but the official FP page on FB was closed to new submissions in the hours following this episode and it since hasn't posted any new content. Is it because people aren't posting? Absolutely not. The mods are quite literally holding these posts hostage through the submission and approval system. People are legitimately trying to submit only for the mods to block it entirely from going through. If this is Rachel's attempts at trying to "protect herself" from the criticism this episode has surely earned, then all she's really doing is punishing her own fans who want to talk about it. It doesn't matter anymore that the discussion groups are finally back from 3-4 months of being shut down over the hiatus, they're still not being allowed to operate. The best there is now is the Discord and it's undoubtedly just as heavy moderated as the FB groups.

And as for the third possibility, this also feels like an attempt at Rachel trying to make her writing "more clear" without actually putting in the work of writing a good story. She's undoubtedly seen the criticisms towards LO as a whole that it doesn't express itself clearly, that it constantly flip flops on character motivations and information that has been established, and that any monologuing that's done implies things or events that we've never seen unfold on screen (case in point, the Persephone monologue from the start of this episode) but she seems to have either misconstrued or ignored the point of that criticism entirely by solving it with a quick and shitty author's note at the end explaining her intentions with a scene that was already clearly laid out to us. Instead of putting in the work to write a concise story to explain the things that are a bit more under-developed, she's slapping in a spoonfed explanation for scenes that literally don't need explaining and that ultimately cheapens the scenes that are TRYING to have impact, bringing them down to the same level of mediocrity as the scenes that never had the impact they intended to have to begin with. "You've killed the Goddess of Spring" was plenty clear after Hades said she was passed out, Rachel. Taking the time to explain it in a note at the end is just sad and it really goes to show what you think of your audience, especially when it comes to how you treat your fans in regards to community accessibility in the official discussion groups.

"The haters" didn't set this comic onto the path that it's on or ruin the fanbase experience, Rachel - you did.

[cringengl]

The two van scenes- Steve's self centered 'love' versus Will's selfless love.

The thing that I've only realised upon rewatch is the similarities between Steve's love confession to Nancy in 4x08 and Will's love confession to Mike, also in 4x08 (aka the van scene). Although we usually use parallels to show how similar the ships are, suggesting that they may have similar fates (such as jancy & byler parallels and mleven & stncy parallels), I think these two scenes are similar to show how different stncy and byler are.

So what are the similarities???

First off we have the fact that they take place in the same episode (roughly 25 mins apart) and exsist in a van. There's other similarities such as they both have a "Yeah?" "Yeah." scene:

Which really draws the parallels. Furthermore, both Mike and Nancy feel like they're losing El and Jonathan.

Although Mike confirms these fears more explicitly than Nancy, it's clear that her and Jonathan are drifting apart when neither of them go to visit eachother over spring break, which clearly upsets Nancy. Jonathan's college plans only confirm for the audience that they are drifting apart.

Finally, both Steve and Will give a 'gift' of sorts: Will's painting, and Steve's vision of his future (that he implies he wants Nancy to be a part of).

Will's love for Mike is selfless and generous.

The whole point of the van scene is that Will sacrifices and disregards his happiness as he believes that Mike would be happier with someone else- El, and so he uses his love confession to strengthen their (mleven's) relationship.

Steve literally does the opposite of this.

Steve's love confession is all about him. What he wants. He wants 6 little nuggets and a massive camper van for holidays and that's great for him, but it's not what Nancy wants. Steve is not considering what Nancy wants. It has been shown multiple times throughout the show that Nancy is ambitious and wants a career in journalism. It's what drives her to the trailer park where she learns about Victor Creel and it's why she wants to go to Emerson. I'm not saying that you can't be ambitious and have children, but children is clearly not a priority for Nancy. She literally says it right here:

Showing the difference in Steve and Will's love for their respective Wheeler. Whilst Steve is enforcing unwanted expectation onto Nancy, Will is doing the opposite- "ripping off the bandaid".

Even when Will envisions a future with Mike and tells him, it involves things that they have bonded over and enjoyed in the past together:

Will also gets Mike to talk to him, and share his insecurities. They have several other heart to hearts throughout the season where both Mike and Will talk honestly with eachother, whether that's about Mike's issues with El, being different and how scary it can be to tell other people and working together against Vecna.

Stncy at best has Steve talking about how he is crawling forward and working to be a better person, but not only is that in an effort to somewhat win Nancy back, Nancy never divulges her insecurities with Steve, their 'heart to heart' isn't mutal.

If we go back to the "Yeah?" "Yeah." parallel, you can see that's it's less of a parallel than you may originally think. The person who's asking "Yeah?" Is reversed in these situations, with stncy, it's the 'confessor', Steve, trying to see if Nancy agrees with him, but with byler, Will is instead the "Yeah.", and is helping Mike overcome his insecurities with El, and reaffirming Mike's new found confidence through Will's painting. Steve is again revolving the conversation around himself, where as Will is being as selfless as you can get.

Although it can be argued that maybe stncy isn't having as many heart to hearts and that the reason Nancy isn't responding similarly to Steve being vulnerable just yet is because they're exes, it's awkward, and Nancy is dating Jonathan.

But at the start of season 4, we see that byler are also in a rocky position in terms of their relarionship and Mike is literally dating El.

And yet, time and time again, we as the audience are shown how strong their relationship is and how much they care about repairing it, whereas stncy has had no such thing.

So what is the point of paralleling these van/confession scenes in the first place??

Personally, I think it's to show how pure and selfless Will's love for Mike is compared to Steve's, and what it's like for a confession to fall flat.

The byler van scene is full of beautiful cinematography, rising music, gorgeous lighting and powerful emotion, whereas in the stncy van scene, you can still here the rumbling of the van and the song 'Fire And Rain' by James Taylor, which presumably is from the radio, in the background whilst Nancy hesitantly agrees with what Steve is saying, making it feel less important and almost anti climatic.

Therefore, despite the initial, surface level similarities, these scenes show how vastly different byler and stncy are. Stncy will never be endgame because Steve's love is presented as self centered, whereas Will's love is beautiful and selfless. Byler is endgame as both Will's confession and Mike's reaction are telling of how strong their connection is and how deeply they love each other.

[hoonphobe]

there’s so many points i need to make abt aot, eremika, and eremin omfg. i’m just gonna bullet point it.

the last two eps are probably the most in depth mikasa’s character has ever been. i’ve always disliked that her whole personality was pretty much being devoted to eren and that she’d only ever be seen as her own person in very small increments. like even when eren wasn’t present. her character had so much potential and it was kind of wasted. she deserved so much better like how is the fmc one of the least developed women in aot

i was never the biggest fan of eremika because imo they lacked a lot of vital chemistry needed for a relationship especially on eren’s side. eren cares for mikasa deeply but i could never see it being romantic. i feel like every “advancement” eren’s made towards mikasa some other outside force caused that. like armin having to tell eren that mikasa deserves better because she’s liked him for so long and he never returned those feelings idk it feels so forced

eren’s relationship with armin is MUCH deeper than the one he shares with mikasa and it’s shown in both the anime and the manga. him and armin have always connected on a deeper level because they share all their burdens, the same dreams, they completely understand eo better than anyone else. if eren ended up with anyone it should’ve been with armin.

i think eremika had potential. if eren had a deeper connection with mikasa like he did with armin it’d make sense why they’d end up together. i’m aware that everyone has different relationships with others and love presents itself in different ways, but eren has always been someone that wears his heart on his sleeve so i find it hard to believe that he’s never express himself to mikasa once even if it’s not directly. i feel like since mikasa loved eren so much they used that to imply that eren loved her the same way which is very cheap and lazy imo.

i feel like there was sm eremin erasure after eren’s death like they had a whole conversation abt how they’ll always be together even after death and yet the only person we see reunite with eren is mikasa. i have no problem with eremika reuniting at all, it makes sense since armin was the last of the trio to die, but not even showing them all reuniting is so sick

i understand the sweetness behind mikasa being the one to help eren forget abt the stress he has, but i think it’s more powerful that armin has always been someone to not help him forget but to support him through every hardship he encounters. aot is a series abt how eren took extremely drastic measures to achieve freedom for his friends and his people, he literally committed genocide, he needs someone blunt to tell him that the decision he made was utterly stupid, that although he did it for a greater cause he still did an act that’s truly unforgivable. armin was the only one who could truly resonate with eren in that aspect, the only one who could “forgive” him because eren did it all so that armin could achieve his dream after his had already shattered.

i understand that eren confessing that he didn’t want mikasa to end up with anyone else was meant to be used as a double kill if he likes mikasa and that he’s very vulnerable, but i just feel like it was very forced. armin using it to get eren to let out his true emotions made no sense to me like armin has never used mikasa to stir eren so i find it crazy that he’s use it the final time he’d ever speak to him

and yeah those are most of my opinions, you don’t have to agree with them or are they supposed to be taken as a fact because they’re not!

[wannaeatramyeon]

Hi~ I just wanna ask you, how do you think/feel about Eli & Heather's relationship and their 'history'? Like some people said that Heather took advantage of Eli's innocence, some people said that it was Eli's mistake.

Ok anon. I have my thoughts but I reread the arc just to try and articulate them better. Fucking forgot Darius Hong was in this. And no one needs more Darius Hong in their life. Anyway.

Eli Jang/Heather Relationship rambles

In this essay...

Damn. This is rough. Please note I may be the least well informed person to give my thoughts on this. Happy for anyone to disagree.

Sigh. I think a lot of times we think of things in black and white, whereas almost everything is in shades of grey.

Eli Jang & Heather's background

First off, Eli has experienced a lot of trauma when he was first introduced, and clearly going through a lot mentally. He's also stunted in a lot of ways and 'deprived of an education'. Literally everything that he has known was abuse. Ran away from home at the age of 10. And whatever fucked up shit was going on with Tom Lee too.

I cannot stress how clear all of this is.

With Heather, the only real thing we know about her is she's 15. Both parents lawyers and very overbearing.

Eli Jang's 'recovery' from trauma

But by chapter 237: Eli Jang (6) a month passes and they have both met. Eli, from how he is portrayed, has already improved a lot. Healed a lot. Not fully. I think we need to remember that the passing of time and progression differs massively in Lookism than in real life.

If this was real life, nope. Lookism, ehhhh. Literally please suspend your belief.

This is in part a big reason why I don't blame Heather for her actions that night.

The huge fucking question mark over consent

I can also never fully agree with anyone saying that Heather groomed Eli. To me, she acts very much like a 15 year old girl with a crush. Less nefarious than what grooming implies. Could she have been better informed and set boundaries? Hell yeah.

From what we can see in the panels, Eli reciprocates her feelings. Sure there might be other things going on, but if there were insidious intentions I feel like PTJ would show it more front and center.

To me, looking at the storyline and art, it just feels like 2 people with a crush.

At the same time, if we apply real life morals to this, then yeah it's all pretty messed up. This isn't real life though.

(Sex education is a whole other kettle of fish I don't want to get into. Where I'm from, we have free contraceptives, free medical care, sex education. But oops, teenage pregnancies still happen an awful lot.)

Here's where people might disagree because I'm giving consent to people on their behalf - though we're talking about fictional characters here and all we can do is speculate.

My opinions on this are:

If we ask Heather if she believed Eli consented that night, she would fully believe so.

Similarly at the time, Eli would probably say yes he did.

I have little reason shown by PTJ to doubt that he would withdraw his consent present day as well.

As for Eli's mistake?

Uhh. Assuming they are both able to consent, and let's just say yes for the sake of simplicity, then I don't see how the night together is his mistake?

The whole mess afterwards and the poor communication and martyr thing going on I would say is his mostly his fault. Yes, he has his reasons for it. Two things can still be true.

And fucking Olly Wang.

But Heather was right there. Eli could have cleared the air with her. Said wtf I didn't message you those but he didn't.

Heather lashed out, which I think is a very human response to her situation and the sudden insane amount of pressure placed on her shoulders, however unfair her words are. She didn't have the full story though, whereas Eli did.

So like I said, I place more of the ownership of this situation on Eli even though I can also see where it all stems from.

In Summary

This goes back to what I said before about there are so many shades of grey, and this situation and relationship is absolutely not black and white. To me, anyway.

We can also imply all we want with things happening off-screen during any of the arcs though it's better to stick with what we can see or clearly read between the lines.

Taking in my thoughts above, honestly? I just think it's a tragic story about 2 kids that had unprotected sex one night and then it fucking spiralled. I don't see the blame lying with either one for their actions. Based on my reasons above.

This situation feels too nuanced here for me to say yeah Heather fucked up or Eli fucked up because there are so many details at play here, mostly to do with Eli Jang's background but also to do with the pacing of time and recovery in PTJ-verse.

TL;DR: No-one sucks here. Too many nuances. Sad af situation.

[androdetective]

Montaña Bazofia spoilers

Tulio Triviño is one of the most popular 31 minutos characters. Which, of course he is, he's the main main character. He gets talked about a lot but what I don't see as much is people discussing his upbringing and Why He's Like That when his family is so different. We learn more about his family in the comic, Montaña Bazofia. Particularly his father, who is a bit infamous with people who are aware of him. I'll get to him soon enough. From the show, we know his mom is very supportive of him. She praised him very much. He is a mothers boy. We know she was one of the first watchers of the show. He seems to have a decent relationship with him. Although constant appraisal of her child could've influenced his ego, although there are many factors to a dysfunctional ego. One of which is having a dysfunctional upbringing. Which brings me to the topic of his dad. Tulios dad is terrifying, straight up. He is emotionally stunted and seems to have some anger issues. When Tulio went to visit him, to some extent, his anger towards Tulio was fair. Tulio abandoned his family and father to go get rich and have a news show. It was shown that ever since Tulio left, he has spent most of his time in his despacho. (Idk how to say it in English sorry) The way he showed his anger, was however honestly kinda cruel. When Tulio walked up to him (with great hesitation) he said that he hopes he leaves soon and never calls him his father again. He even told him he's dead to him and has disinheritited him. He didn't believe Tulio came back with wholesome intentions (Although he was right about that) he literally said "tell me why you're here or I'll kill you". After that Tulio soon asks him why he never accepted him. Tulio then tries to remember good times he's had with his father, only to come up with nothing. Which either implies he legimately did not have any good moments with him, or that he just doesn't remember. And neither are great options. Tulio isn't a great person. He's done shitty things to everyone, including his dad. But his dad has been doing shitty things to him for a long time. At the end of the comic, he reveals that he's watched all his shows and interviews. And has actually supported his career. He has a heartfelt moment (heartfelt in heavy quotation marks) where he reveals that during Tulios childhood, whenever he made fun of him, ignored him, critiqued him, and even pulled his chair often when he was about to sit, he did it because he loved Tulio the most. He even admits that it probably wasn't the best way to show it. And the thing is, Tulio was the only child he did this to apparently. (Jesus christ no wonder Tulios fucked) This treatment would just ruin a child's self esteem, no matter what. He had no reason to do any of those things. It didn't make Tulio stronger or anything, it just gave him issues. Combine a father that was mean and critical vs a mom that was super nice, I only wonder if that was what caused his ego dysfunctionality. In a flashback to kid Tulio in the movie, he was showing signs of a high ego. It happens in real life and yeah I'm aware I'm looking too deep into this, but the implications are hard to ignore. Tulios' father did love him, he was just not great at showing it by any means. He was hurt by Tulio's not so great actions but he's also done many not good things to Tulio. His dad does want to be there for him. I think he just needs to find way better ways of it. Tulio could've had a naturally high ego of course, but I think his childhood affected it even more. The back and forth between the two parenting methods seems overwhelming idk. This genuinely is fascinating to me and I wish there was more discussion on Tulio's father. Neither of them are the best people, but both in different ways. I think they'll have a rocky relationship for a long while more.

[skatiet]

ok so. lost shipping. this is mainly just going to focus on the quadrangle (jack, kate, sawyer, & juliet). the thing is, i don't hate a love triangle polygon. i think it can lead to interesting character dynamics. but lost somehow missed the entire point of a love polygon, which is choice.

i personally believe that a person can be in love with more than one person, at the same time or at different times, whether that's in a polyamorous way or in a "i'm monogamous, but i just haven't decided which of these people i want to be with" way. i’m going to ignore the polyamorous way for now, because in lost canon that's never mentioned as a possibility, so it's implied that all the characters are seeking monogamous romantic relationships.

so, it's pretty clearly shown to us that kate loves both jack and sawyer and that sawyer loves both kate and juliet, at some point throughout the series. (i've seen people disagree with this, but i'm taking the character's words and actions as they are presented, so if you disagree, i don't know what to tell you.) the writers lean very heavily into kate's "choice" specifically. the concept that she could simply be interested in/dating/whatever two people at once when she hasn't committed or promised anything to either one of them being seen a problem is an entire other rant's worth of nonsense, but if we just take it as the show presents it to us, she has to choose between jack and sawyer. the problem is, she is never actually given a choice. three seasons worth of build up is never paid off because... sawyer jumps out of the chopper. and in being separated from kate, he is never given a real choice either, because by the time he is in the position to make that choice, one of the "options" is gone.

now, one could argue that sawyer made the choice not to be with kate by jumping out of the chopper, or that kate made the choice not to be with sawyer by not following him, but neither one of them knew that those decisions would result in them being separated for three years. so yes, kate ends up with jack because sawyer is no longer an option, and we never get to see what her decision-making process would've looked like had they both been there long enough for her to make that choice. and sawyer ends up with juliet in the same way. we never get to see what he would've done had kate still been around as he was falling more in love with juliet.

the entire interesting part of this entire situation was taken away because the choice was made for them by their circumstances. the show leans into the idea that whatever happens would always have happened, and the universe "course corrects," so maybe these pairings always would've happened, but the fact that we don't get to see a reason why they happen other than "the other person i was considering is now completely inaccessible to me" is so incredibly anticlimactic and disappointing. not to mention (and perhaps this is possibly partly a result of the strike shortening season 4), we barely get to see the actual relationships play out. we have 3 seasons of jack and kate's dynamic to work with, at least, but sawyer and juliet literally get "so we started to get along, then we were in love, the end." there is such little payoff.

and maybe that's part of why people in the lost fandom still to this day get incredibly defensive about their favorite pairings, because they as fans have created more of those couples’ stories than the writers of the show did. so, there are plenty of reasons people like different combinations of these four characters together, whether it's "these two have the most interesting bond to me," "these two are the characters i like the most as individuals so i want to see them together," "i like the chemistry between the actors who play these two the most," "these two are the hottest to me," or any number of other things. but it's never because we see a character make a fully-informed free choice.

and this isn't the only case of the writers doing this. we see potential relationships between jack and ana lucia, as well as sawyer and ana lucia, but she dies before either of them can ever fully decide if that's something they want to pursue. shannon dies before sayid is ever faced with a decision between her and nadia. and of course, juliet and jack die before any potential further quadrangle situations could be explored (not that they would've, given that sawyer and juliet are in a committed, presumably monogamous relationship at that point, but by the point of the finale, there's no room for the possibility at all.)

and again, this is another rant all on it's own, but we end this show, which was called time and time again an ensemble show, with an afterlife that is completely from jack's point of view. we see every character paired up with the person that jack saw them with during his lifetime, with no regard for other potential important relationships in their lives. and i get it, obviously. it would make no sense for the characters who lived beyond the finale to suddenly have other significant others, or to have more established relationships with each other, when we never see any of that play out. but it just feels reductive to only see them reunite in the circumstances that existed at the time of jack's death. but like i said, that's another issue altogether.

tl;dr the lost writers did a really bad job with their romantic relationships and everyone’s favorite ships are good and correct and we should all be nice to each other and love each other forever <3

[azulas-daddy-kink]

Alright so I know I’ve made some of these points before but now I’m compiling all of my thoughts about Ozai and Ursa’s relationship in one post.

People who do not see Ursa as a victim of Ozai’s abuse and/or delusionally ship Urzai on the basis that Ozai “really loved” Ursa legit fucking scare me.

Ozai did not love Ursa, in any capacity. Ozai does not love anyone. Except maybe himself but he flip-flops on that one, even. 

Ursa did not love Ozai. She was terrified of him. She was taken from her home and forced to marry him - and no, she did not have a choice, not really. Her “choice” was marry Ozai or he kills the love of her life right in front of her. She had about as much of a choice there as Jigsaw’s victims. Starve to death or hack your own foot off, yeah, complete free will.

Then once she married the bastard, she was told she belonged to him, and that she could never see or speak to her family ever again. So romantic, right?

What about this screams “Yes, Ozai, I love you and I can’t wait to have your babies!”

Speaking of, this is more or less implying that Zuko and Azula were conceived as the result of marital rape but y’all ain’t ready for a deep dive into that. Anyone who thinks Ursa could fully consent in this situation needs to have their head examined.

Now backtracking a bit to “she was terrified of him”, let’s not forget this panel!

This is what Ursa looks like when she sees a PORTRAIT of Ozai. A mere portrait. I rest my case.

But alright, I know what some of you are probably thinking. The comics are not canon (except when you want them to be), the comics “retconned” their backstory, or whatever else. I disagree on the last point in particular because that’s not what retconning means. There is nothing, absolutely zero, in the show that contradicts Ozai and Ursa’s comic backstory, or Ozai’s behavior during all of that.

Ozai, in canon, is a genocidal, child abusing, egomaniac. He is shown to have very little regard for others’ feelings, wants, or needs, and only seems interested in his own desires and lust for power. Never once do we see him treating someone with basic respect and consideration, not even his precious favorite, Azula. He manipulates her, he tells her what she wants to hear so that she remains loyal to him but ultimately he views her as a possession - an extension of himself rather than her own person. Which is very typical of narcissists.

Given the way Ozai treats literally everyone else he interacts with, what reason do we have to believe he treated Ursa any differently?

None.

“B-b-b-but what about the fountain?”

Look, I don’t know what it is with this fandom and viewing literally any little thing a character does behind shipping goggles but it is certainly quite annoying.

So here in Zuko’s flashback, we see Ozai standing in front of the fountain, the morning after his father died and Ursa was subsequently banished.

And for some reason, this is used to prove that Ozai loves and misses Ursa which.... what?

A lot just happened over the past 24 hours. Ozai and Ursa murdered his own father for one, and for two, Ozai is coming to the realization that everything he’s ever wanted is now within his grasp. Is it not possible he’s just thinking or clearing his head? I guess that would make too much sense. Is it not also possible that he is mourning the death of his father?

I know, I know Ozai killed Azulon... but it’s complicated. Up until this point, he had desperately been trying to please him. Think of the scene in the throne room, where he’s trying to show Azulon why he is the better son and more worthy of Iroh’s place in the line of succession. And he used AZULA to do it. The child he named after Azulon, his favorite. Declaring that she was “a true prodigy, just like her grandfather for who she is named”. 

Y’all, if this doesn’t scream “Please be proud of me, Daddy!” then I don’t know what does.

It was a bitter pill for Ozai to swallow, I’m sure, that no matter what he accomplished in his life that he would always play second fiddle to Iroh, and that his father would never give him the respect and approval he so desperately craved...

So yeah, gonna go out on a limb here and say this is what Ozai was thinking about. The father he had spent his entire life trying to please was now dead, and he had to close that chapter in his life for good.

Now, before anyone comes at me about the “original series bible”, yes, I am aware that it exists and what it says about Ozai and Ursa. The claim is again that the show and/or comics “retcon” this but I really don’t see how when all that was changed was that she was low-born rather that high-born and/or nobility.

I suppose it’s because people like to cherry pick the line “She was the perfect match for Prince Ozai and soon became his wife.”

Here is the thing about royal marriages - they’re not perfect because they’re love matches, they’re perfect because they are politically savvy and present a certain image to the public.

And not for nothing but these early character concepts and the old Nick website say A LOT of weird shit that never made it into the show or is blatantly untrue but even still, nothing in the above passage disproves the following statement: Ursa is a victim of domestic violence.

Ozai abused Ursa. Full fucking stop. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it...

HOWEVER...

...the point of this was not to say that people can’t ship Ozai/Ursa or that they can’t have their own headcanons or whatever. The point of this was to say that nothing in canon supports Ozai and Ursa’s marriage as being one of love and mutual respect and in fact, most of what is shown proves the exact opposite.

Ship what you want, it’s okay. Just call a spade a spade. None of this is healthy, loving, or wholesome but it IS sexy. Nothing wrong with that.

Now before someone tries to say I’m a giant hypocrite because “ew you ship Ozula, your opinion doesn’t count”, you’re still completely missing the point here. I would be the first to say that parent/child relationships are abuse, grooming, non-consensual, and morally reprehensible. I’m not out here trying to say this is an ideal relationship or that this is okay to do.

And that is the difference.

[homunculusalphonse]

The Cool Kids vs. The Crystal Gems, and Steven

This was also an old, shorter meta I wrote based on another post I made about the Cool Kids a long time ago. I never got around to it back then, and I was searching in my own drafts the other day when I found it again. So, I decided to finish this up, because I still really love the Cool Kids and their relationship with Steven.

It’s a known fact that the Cool Kids resemble the Crystal Gems. They’re not exactly subtle about it. However, like I stated in my other post, the Cool Kids still have their own thing going on. They’re human teenagers, not rebels fighting in an intergalactic war. Which is obvious on the surface, yet there’s another difference I find crucial, one that I believe to have implied in my previous post: the Cool Kids’ relationship with Steven vs. the Gems with Steven.

Quite a few people have pointed out that the Cool Kids treat Steven as an equal, and that’s very much true. While they do keep in mind that he’s a kid - especially when they stand up for him at the end of the episode -, they don’t treat him any differently due to his age. They include him in their antics, they’re friendly and supportive of him, and just want Steven to have a good time.

The gems, on the other hand… they don’t do that.

As much as the gems love Steven, they don’t treat him as an equal. Their grief for Rose is understandable, yet they have no idea how to actually recover from it without throwing all the responsibility on Steven’s back. They put him on such a pedestal that Steven constantly feels pressured to prove himself useful. While that’s already been proved in the very first episodes, I think An Indirect Kiss is one of the most notable instances where Steven is shown to be affected by their treatment of him.

Steven: Everyone expects me to be like my mom. What if I never get those powers?

Connie: Then you’ll be like me. That’s not so bad.

Steven: But if I don't have powers, then I can't hang out with Amethyst or Garnet or Pearl, and I-I can't go on missions!

He’s terrified by this possibility, and just now that I go back on it, I realize how heartbreaking it is - and how much sense Steven’s breakdown makes in Steven Universe Future. When he doesn’t meet the gems’ expectations, they leave Steven behind (whether metaphorically or literally) until he comes up with a solution - one that almost always involves destruction and life-threatening situations.

Steven: They're always leaving me behind, and... I guess I wanted to do it to them, too. (Rose’s Room)

The gems neglect Steven’s feelings all the time. That’s the whole opposite of the Cool Kids, who recognize when Steven is feeling pressured by all the things going on with him. They’re the first ones who call the gems out on their dismissive behavior, for that matter. It’s really too bad that, even after this, Steven is still neglected by the gems until it all piles up in Steven Universe Future, to the point of the kid becoming a monster.

And like I said in the other post, it’s a shame that we don’t see Steven interacting with the Cool Kids anymore after that. I firmly believe they would’ve been the first ones to go to Steven to help him out after what happened in Little Graduation. I know they didn’t seem to be as close as before since Steven spent two years in outer space to fix everything Homeworld did, but how come they don’t even console him? Lars was the only one who bothered to comfort Steven in the end, and even then, the guy still went all the way to space and never came back.

Personally, I will never forgive Future for downplaying Steven’s human relationships. It was one of the things I loved the most about the show. Feel free to disagree with me, of course, but please don’t be rude.

[redfirerai]

It’s only been 5 episodes and the iwtv fandom is already a shithole.

First off, the fifth episode SHOULD have had a trigger warning; I agree on that fact. This is not to say that the writers poorly wrote this episode/ made Lestate OOC because, after having watched the episode, I honestly don’t find it surprising that show Lestat would do something like this. It makes sense; he only loved Claudia because Claudia is both loveable and an extension of Louis. Lestat has shown an incredibly large capacity for violence and cruelty. He is not a good person. He is not a hero and he only cares about being Louis’ top priority. But some of you are acting like it wasn’t jarring to watch. As much as I love Hannibal, this is an extremely different situation from the finale of season 2. Louis and Lestat were in a relationship. They were functionally MARRIED. They were never perfect, but this was never even hinted as happening. He’s not had any previous slips with harming Louis or Claudia so people have every right to be shocked.

Second of all, some of you people are acting like Louis and Lestat are equally abusive towards each other, and that is 100% false and reeks of racism. Every moment that Louis rejected or hurt Lestat was always in reaction to Lestat. He was recently human and his current disposition as a fledgling comes with all of his humanly attachments. He cares about his family. His brother died which permanently destroyed his relationship with his mother. His sister became alienated. He was being targeted from every angle for being a black, gay man who dared to move up the social ladder. It’s like half of you blanked out for most of episode two/three until you heard the words “this is why you’ll always be alone,” leave Louis’ mouth. At the very moment he needed humanity and support from the one person he was risking everything for, he was met with complete apathy to his struggles. Not only does Lestat completely misunderstand Louis’ core—the very foundation and set of rules that form his values—he want Louis in a way that is not possible. Louis is a monogamous man that craves family structure—louis is fundamentally a different creature. And that’s okay. That is the story and I’m fully on board to be entranced by its beauty and suffering. But getting mad on behalf of Lestat? Justifying literally any of his actions towards Louis is fucking insane. If he wasn’t conventionally attractive or white, this wouldn’t even be a topic of conversation. You can like him—I absolutely love TV show Lestat for being this unhinged, devoted, and brutal. But don’t fucking twist the canonical story of the TV show to justify the Lestat you head-cannoned in your brain. People do this; this is very real behaviour. Love-bombing and isolating is part of toxic relationships. Many abusers seem like perfectly loving people until things don’t go their way. Seeing only the sacrifices Lestat made for Louis is ignoring the time, context, and attachments Louis had to his human life. I am not saying Louis is an angel, but he definitely is not the abuser in the relationship

Lastly, Claudia’s implied SA is completely unnecessary to the story and her journey as a character. There was no need to do this to her; she could have arrived at the world being a cruel place without this.

On a side note, I don’t have qualms with her character writing but I do see what people are saying about how she didn’t need to see Louis being half beat to death to want to k*ll Lestat. That is probably the only criticism I agree with when it comes to the writing of that scene. I would have loved to see her and Lestat be at eachother’s throats because that was already implied. And Louis, as a father, is justified in choosing Claudia over Lestat, especially when there’s enough abuse already. Again, I don’t think the scene at the end of season 5 was bad/OOC per se, but I don’t think it was completely necessary.

[erithel]

Since when has Lance officially been bisexual? That’s never been a thing and the show runners never claimed it was a thing.. where did y’all get that from, because it was never actually canon or meant to be canon.. like at all…

I also love how this fandom uses queerbaiting but then ignore shiro’s entire character and treat Adam as if he was a character that was relevant and important to shiro’s character. In fact, fandom was more outraged at adams death than shiro being sidelined and kicked out of his lion. People were more upset that shiro didn’t get back with his ex that gave him an ultimatum to give up his dreams instead of Shiro not getting an actual family. Can y’all stop saying the show queerbaited you, and then ignore the issues that surrounded the actual Gay character that fandom conveniently ignores because he’s not gay enough for them apparently. Because when y’all say quuebated and then ignore the gay character because he’s not in a relationship, it makes it seem like y’all don’t actually care about the character, you just care about a random out of nowhere ship

I believe the origin of Lance's bisexuality came from this image which was created by one of the showrunners.

I believe fans saw this as a literal sign he was part of the LGBT community (as anyone would), and since in canon Lance was shown as only having interest in women a lot of fans believed something would come up during one of the later seasons that would lead to Lance also showing an interest in men/possibly even coming out as bi.

As for the queerbaiting stuff…

The situation surrounding Adam and Shiro can be seen both ways.

I understand where you are coming from, and I also understand where people who are upset over how their story was handled are coming from.

You do have a valid point that any LGBTQ+ relationship does not need to be solidified with romance or a kiss to be real. LGBTQ+ characters do not need to be shown in those situations to prove to the audience that they are, in fact, part of the community.

On the flip side, there's a way tv shows/movies often handle these types of relationships that fall under the category of plausible deniability. If characters are not shown in any romantic setting (something like a kiss that cannot be misinterpreted), it gives the studio execs and showrunners an "out" for any backlash they receive from groups against LGBTQ+ rights.

And this is where things can feel like queerbaiting to some people, especially if showrunners or any member of the crew says things that can be interpreted as hints toward a queer relationship, just for the sake of keeping the audience interested.

I agree that Shiro shouldn't have to be shown in a relationship to be considered an actual gay character. No one – and no character – should have to prove that they are what they say they are. And especially no one – and no character – should have to depend on someone else to prove that.

But on this same vein, it is not our place to judge what is and is not true for someone else, regardless of how we view it.

We all interpret things differently, and all have our own opinions and feelings toward a situation.

Shiro, as a gay character, does not need a relationship to prove he is gay. But by bringing up Adam at all, and implying that a relationship used to exist – and then only showing a bad part of that relationship before killing him off to avoid any chance of an interaction between the two most likely felt to certain people like they were drowning…and then someone came along and showed them a picture of a life raft and asked "wait, is this not enough?"

[thranduel]

mike wheeler is not automatically straight just because he’s been in ONE relationship with a girl and it’s not “unrealistic” or “rushed” if he ends up being in love with will

please note i’m not “forcing” a specific label onto him, i’m literally just watching the show and stating canon facts lol

mike has never shown interest in girls in general, gets uncomfortable/grossed out when they’re mentioned (please look at this post, it has almost every example lol), was clearly uncomfortable at the lingerie shop, refers to girls as another species (which is also basically implying he feels like him and el are from two different worlds and there’s no understanding), doesn’t know how to manage his own relationship with a girl, finds it hard to make friends with girls (he didn’t even develop a proper friendship with el before being forced and pressured into romance), couldn’t tell his own girlfriend he loved her until his male best friend who’s secretly in love with him gave him strength and motivation to by disguising his OWN feelings for mike as his girlfriend’s, can’t confide in his girlfriend, only started showing romantic interest in el when other people teased him about it and he felt pressured because of society’s expectations AND because he’s fascinated because she’s a superhero with powers that he literally compares to SUPERMAN. this says a LOT.

at one point, ted even says “our son with a girl?”, and at first you’re supposed to think “oh he’s just shocked because mike’s a nerd and nerds usually don’t get girls”, but nope, there’s another hidden meaning behind it. there was no point in including this line if it was just to say mike is a nerd. we know he’s a nerd. we know he gets bullied. we know he only hangs out with the party and no one else at school. ted saying this implies he doesn’t show interest in girls AT ALL. usually boys might talk about their crushes at home or watch shows and point out the pretty girls, even if they’re nerds and don’t actually end up dating any. but mike has never done this. all his comic books and video game characters are men. he doesn’t have any favourite fictional characters that are female. he doesn’t have posters on his walls of female superheroes. he doesn’t have any female celebrity crushes. it’s all MEN. in season 4 his room literally has posters of big strong men. there’s not a single woman in his room at all. when dustin and lucas get excited and tell will a girl cried over him in season 1, mike didn’t care. when dustin and lucas were fighting over a princess in a game, mike and will showed no interest. when dustin mentioned an actress while talking about suzie, mike made a disgusted face. when lucas and nancy teased mike about el in season 1, he made a disgusted face. when he saw the lingerie shop, he made a disgusted face. when he saw lucas and dustin fighting over max, he made a disgusted face. even if he personally wasn’t interested in max, you think he would be excited and happy for his friends to be interested in a girl, but he was just disgusted and bitter the entire time and showed no interest. the only time mike went soft in season 2 was when he was protecting will. but every time girls are mentioned, mike looks disgusted and uncomfortable and the scene is treated like a joke. and yeah, you can say it’s awkwardness and they’re just trying to make the scene more humorous, but it happens every time with mike only. they don’t do this with the other boys. lucas and dustin don’t scrunch up their noses and look uncomfortable every time a girl is mentioned. when mike and lucas were fighting with el and max in season 3, lucas was the one who kept suggesting to call them and then tried giving mike advice to fix his relationship with el. again, he looked disgusted. even after el told him he loved him and kissed him, he didn’t say it back and his eyes were wide open. he looked uncomfortable and confused (also very interesting how they specifically chose to make this scene happen in will’s room).

mike has always admired and been very inspired by men, and i think it’s safe to say he’s had many crushes on them. not just on the people he knows in his life (like eddie, because come on, he definitely had a lil crush during that cafeteria scene), but also on fictional characters and superheroes. while talking about el, he literally called her SUPERMAN. he could’ve picked a female superhero considering el is a girl, but he didn’t! even in season 3, max is showing el superheroes and introduces her to wonder woman. then max is surprised el doesn’t know wonder woman and says it’s probably because she hangs out with mike too much, which is saying he doesn’t have anything relating to female superheroes, only male ones. argyle also refers to el as superwoman in season 4. they both use female superheroes because el is female but her own boyfriend doesn’t?! mike collects comics and games and films and posters and absolutely none of it has anything to do with women. if he was so obsessed with superheroes and was SO straight and romantically attracted to women, wouldn’t he have female superheroes on his walls too? heck, wouldn’t he have photos of his own GIRLFRIEND (who is a superhero as he constantly reminds her) on his walls? but he doesn’t! he doesn’t have any photos of her and he crumples up her letters. meanwhile el has photos of mike on her wall AND she made a shrine for him while collecting his letters. this is crazy.

that boy has never shown any interest in girls until he met el, but even then, it’s hard to take those scenes seriously and view them in a romantic way and think they’re being genuine when he is literally FORCING himself to be someone he’s not. this has been confirmed too. he acts like someone he’s not when he’s with el (which isn’t healthy or fair to either of them) and then that just makes you question everything else. if he’s not being himself, then how do we know he’s actually experiencing romantic attraction? what if that’s just what the show wants us to believe? what if that’s what mike is convincing himself he feels but deep down it isn’t? what if that’s the reason for his weird behaviour towards el and will and why he can’t balance his relationships with them at the same time?

we know mike loves el as a friend for being a kind person and that he’s grateful to her for what she’s done for him and others, but he doesn’t mention anything else about her as an INDIVIDUAL person. he doesn’t ever mention how beautiful she is or how she makes him feel or anything like that. in fact, they didn’t start dating because they had a genuine bond or had things in common or found each other attractive, they started dating because they had EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT due to saving each other’s lives during a traumatic time. el didn’t even know what romance was and saw mike like a brother at first. i don’t even think she’s ever complimented his physical appearance either. they rushed into romance just because of emotional attachment and now they feel stuck in this relationship because they think they’ll lose each other if they break up. that just shows how unhealthy and rushed their relationship is because they didn’t even have time to develop a friendship first! they probably don’t even know what it feels like to be friends because they kissed after 6 days of knowing each other when they were 12 years old, so that’s why they’re clinging to this relationship to make themselves feel more secure, even though it’s actually only hurting them more since they don’t understand each other.

anyways there’s so much more going on here and it’s SO obvious. i’ll never understand how people can say mike is straight when he has never actually shown interest in girls. he only become fascinated with el because of her personality and her kindness and her powers, but not her gender. it had nothing to do with her gender. in fact, season 1 tried pushing the idea that el looked like a boy, not once, but SEVERAL times. some people in town even thought she was will. even seasons later whenever mike talks about el, he doesn’t talk about her looks or why he actually loves her as a person. he just goes on and on about how she’s a superhero. he has absolutely no female celebrity or character crushes like many “straight male nerds” do and he’s never shown any interest in girls.

that’s not saying that he doesn’t love el. of course he does. and maybe he did love her romantically at one point but fell out of romantic love. or maybe he mixed up platonic and romantic love and tried convincing himself it was romance when it never was deep down and that’s why he couldn’t say “i love you” until he was forced into it and literally had no choice. who knows. but what’s canon is that he literally doesn’t show interest in girls otherwise and the idea of him liking boys and loving will (his childhood best friends that he’s known almost his entire life) back is NOT unrealistic and it wouldn’t be rushed at all. they literally have the closest relationship in the entire show and understand each other better than anyone else. will is also the only reason mike said “i love you” to his own girlfriend. will is the only person that gave mike strength and made him feel loved. people just don’t like the idea of two boys together.

[diamond-vic]

Nobody asked but I can’t get this show and this particular idea out of my head so maybe typing it out and sending it into the void will help

Future Sashannarcy headcanons where they’re all in a complicated QPR (and everyone is ace because I can’t not see every character as ace. Fight me right now)

Sasha is biromantic. This is confirmed canon in the finale of course, but beyond that, one of Anne’s friends has got to have dated pre-Amphibia, since Anne mentions having broken up for others before… and Sasha’s song heartstomper heavily implies that someone would be Sasha. I feel like she could even be demiro too, since all those relationships seemingly went nowhere. I can picture adult Sasha struggling to date because she’s craving that attachment that she just doesn’t have with a new partner she’s just met on a date. It would feel shallow and lacking the warmth she really wants, and they’d go nowhere for the longest time. When she reconnects with the other two girls in person, she finds that deep bond is still there with them, and that’s how she falls

Marcy is quoiromantic; she can’t really tell whether she feels romantic attraction or not. I can’t see Marcy dating (successfully, and in a genuine way where she isn’t forcing herself into a situation) in middle school, or even beyond, whatsoever. Her fixation with fantasy and games along with her general tendency to be overbearing would perhaps (unfortunately) keep others away when she’s younger, and additionally Marcy has never felt the need to branch out beyond Anne and Sasha, to me suggesting that she felt fulfilled with just them. Marcy also hadn’t shown the best handling of her feelings and reactions to them during the show, I feel like even as an adult (maybe especially as an adult what with trauma from Amphibia haha) Marcy would struggle to sort of untangle her emotions and figure out what they mean and how she can let those feelings interact with the world in a positive way. The distinction of what’s romantic and what’s platonic would sort of just blur for her into this sense of strong fondness and attachment (maybe she would eventually determine that her feelings are queerplatonic once she gets past the internalized idea that this strong attachment can, in fact, be not romantic in nature! And so go on to identify as aroace)

Anne is a lesbian-oriented aroace. Anne has read to me as aroace for the entire series, personally. Everytime she sees and interacts with romantic relationships seems to me from a complete outsider’s perspective, and lack of understanding of what it’s even about. When she’s trying to set up Sprig and Ivy, she refers entirely to a literal magazine for her information on how dating works. She has been designated the one to break off relationships for others multiple times on earth, enough where she is known for doing this. She’s probably super straight to the point and blunt with them cause she doesn’t see what the big deal of just saying what that truth is, and being done with it. And with how she gets immensely uncomfortable when Hoppop begins lecturing her on relationships (which I related SO HARD with) and assuming that she must already have a partner, I think she feels like someone fascinated by the idea of romance, but when the conventional idea is applied to her, she recoils from it. Anne’s friends are consistently her entire world, her love isn’t any less just because it isn’t romantic

The three of them after reconnecting would have all these complicated emotions after a while and eventually sit down and talk about it, ending up in a QPR with boundaries set up where they need to be for everyone to feel comfortable. Marcy and Anne are ok with Sasha feeling romantically towards them, even if Anne doesn’t reciprocate in that way and Marcy still really can’t tell how she feels for the two of them. I can see all of them being very physically affectionate, liking to just be physically close and cuddle. But they would have minor boundaries that differentiate the actions between them in slight ways. For example, Anne would set up a boundary against Sasha for mouth kissing, personally finding that uncomfortable, but she would be fine with affectionate kisses to the forehead or cheek. Their relationship is flavored a bit different between them, but there is so so much love, and they all understand that the others aren’t trying to con them or berate them for feeling a bit different in what their relationship entails to each other. And does it really matter when they’re all together and it feels so right??

This was so incoherent but this idea has been living rent free in my head the past couple days and once again, as an aroace person, I feel like walking that line between what’s romantic and what’s not is so important and can be so fulfilling and sweet. It’s not seen enough

[dirtytransmasc]

I'm blocking out names cause I don't want drama but like...

Billy threatened Lucas once, while already extremely pissed off and wound up by his dad. he beat up Steve because he found him and 4 other boys alone in a strangers house in one of the most secluded places in Hawkins with his 12 year old sister and was then lied to about where she was. billy outside of these two moments has been shown to be a good person, he's a life guard, he teaches little kids how to swim, he seems to have a better relationship with max AND Lucas (Lucas supposedly hangs around him long enough to know him wearing a shirt is a sign the the end is nigh and doesn't even seem to be afraid of him in season 3). we see a few days of his entire life, and people have made assumptions that he is a terrible, irredeemable person, despite being a child, an abused one at that.

(he is never shown to be racist outside of the situation with Lucas, but looking at his dad, who was very clearly bigoted, and the dynamic he was forced into with max, scapegoat vs. golden child AKA anytime max steps out of line, an example, if she was caught hanging out/befriending or god forbid dating a black kid, by Neil it would be Billy's fault and he would be punished for it. Billy was probably just trying to protect himself. to be clear this is not justification, just and explanation. and before anyone gets upset about this interpretation, I'm taking what we were given in the show and applying what Dacre said about how played Billy, specifically he said he didn't play billy as racist, so I'm just trying to combine what we see, what's implied, and what's been said about the situation/the characters)

Jason was a shitty enough boyfriend he had no idea his girlfriend was so traumatized she could be targeted by vecna nor that she was going through a living nightmare, he did the same with Patrick, lead a man hunt against someone who wasn't even a confirmed suspect despite police telling him not to multiple times, he then turned prophet and lead a religious rampage against Eddie calling him a spawn of Satan, he was fully ok with hurting/killing any one who got in his way regardless if they were literal children, 'befriended' Lucas because he was 'one of the good ones' and then subsequently attacked him because he was no longer 'one of the good ones' and held him at gun point and making him beg for mercy, he then best the shit out of Lucas, had his goons tackle his 11 year old sister, he also got Lucas shit faced (which personally is a red flag, since Jason is a senior and Lucas is a freshman, I know drinking was a lot looser back in the day but still, feels a little weird). Jason on his own just has a really bad vibe, and he did a lot worse than Billy with little to no justification.

(I know he lost his girlfriend, but like, everyone in this show has gone through major losses and never once led violent man hunts or tried to kill little kids so... I only have so much sympathy.)

[unpopular-dc-opinions]

Anon (by PM) asks:

How do you see Akai Shuichi as a character? And how do you see the Akai x Jodie ship?

Unbelievably, I've never talked about Akai before! Well, here we go.

Both Akai and Amuro strike me as full-blown Gary Stu's, which I don't always like, but I feel like Akai has a dark/depressed vibe that makes me like him more than the handsome Amuro. I mean, I find cases more interesting when Akai is present than Amuro. So, I will say that I like Akai, but he's not one of my favorites either.

My problem with Akai is that I perceive him too unhuman, too perfect (since an agent/detective perspective), to the limit of feeling him a cold and unrealistic character, almost as if he were an invincible robot/superhero. Rarely Gosho let us see his feelings or his humanity, and that makes it hard for me to empathize with him. I see few edges to the character. I even find it annoying how all the characters must be overshadowed when they are in his presence and that Gosho must always show that Akai alone can handle anything. It's sometimes a bit the same for me with Yusaku Kudo. Why the hell have we had through 1000+ files if Akai and Yusaku are here? The two of them together could have beaten BO since episode 1.

On that note, my thoughts regarding Akai are: 1) He should have died at the end of Clash of Red and Black! His death would have meant an epic moment, as it would have also shown his level as a character, but at the same time proving that he is not invincible either (as well as helping the public to perceive BO as a fearsome organization, which has been almost completely lost). But no, Akai is immortal and no one can ever beat him (not even Amuro). 2) He doesn't seem to care about people, unless it fits with his interests (like Conan), as if his relationship with people is mostly utilitarian. I mean, I resent his attitude towards Masumi, his mother, and most of the characters that are close to him, especially Jodie! He hasn't shown any attitude towards her that makes him worthy of her concern. Quite the contrary, he doesn't even seem to empathize for what she has suffered for him.

For these reasons, I used to ship Akai x Akemi. I really liked that ship! I felt that all that love plot and Akemi by herself humanized Akai's character. It made us see another side to him that we aren't usually shown. It showed us an Akai who had a soft spot for a person, for whom he really suffered for losing her, and who does everything he can to make amends for her death. But then Gosho made them cousins, and ruined everything for me.

The latter gives me the perfect excuse to answer your second question, regarding the Akai x Jodie ship. In theory it's a workable ship. I mean, he's single and so is she. They both work at the FBI together. They've had a relationship before... But seriously, how could they work as a couple when he literally abandoned her because he was in love with another woman? It doesn't matter if that woman is now dead. The guy didn't love her and left her for someone else. How is Jodie going to get back together with someone who told her to her face that he didn't love her? And you could say that maybe it didn't work out that time, but now things have changed. But in no scene is it implied that Akai's feelings for her have changed. He doesn't seem to show any special concern for her, nor for her feelings. Nor an special respect for her abilities. I even feel like he's a bit harsh on her sometimes. So, if Jodie and I were friends, and we sat down to talk in a cafe/bar, I would tell her, "Jodie, my friend, realize, that man doesn't love you, stay away from there!".

Personally, I preferred that in the end, Akai dies (real death), in an epic scene, and Jodie finds happiness with a man who really deserves it, maybe some other member of the FBI.

[davestriderascend]

the homestuck reread, pt 5

ive apparently finished what the map is deeming "part 3", and there are starting to be. a lot of subacts. and i am having a hard time remembering them all. and the map doesnt mark the subacts. so im just going to recap up to the end of part 3 now, before the act 6 act 6 nonsense sets in in full.

heres the previous recap if you missed it (meenahbound), and heres the first one if youre new.

Act 6 Act 4

this is the subact where the alpha kids enter their session! we are introduced to their planets, given a little glimpse of what theyve been up to, and their imprisoned jack noir gives us a wonderful little tally showing us exactly how much time has passed between their entry and when their adventure next picks up (153 days, with their adventure starting 11/11, and ending 4/13, so like five months). its super short and like nothing happens. moving on

Act 6 Intermission 4

breaking slightly from the previous pattern of a6 intermissions checking up on literally everything non-alpha kid related happening, this entire intermission is devoted to caliborns brand new session as he argues with hussie, shoots gamzee a lot, and is generally a tool.

The Characters

its in this act that hussie talks to caliborn about the consequences of him killing callie. basically, in killing her, hes stunted his own growth so that he will never reach his full potential as an adult, bc he didnt dominate in the traditional way. this is probably why lord english isnt shown with wings, the way other adult cherubs are. they also talk a lot about how this has impacted caliborns session and made it unique, (and they continue to talk about this in all of caliborns intermissions,) but im not gonna get into that here. caliborn is kind of implied in this act to have some kind of learning disability? which is. hm. its not framed great im gonna be real.

hes still a tool, hes still creepy, he shoots gamzee a lot and theres a whole elevatorstuck bit in this act that made me laugh really hard, but otherwise theres nothing else to say here.

Act 6 Act 5 Act 1

this is where we start getting into the sub sub acts. this is also where 99% of the alpha kids session stuff happens. everything with the alpha kid sprites is here, the jake, dirk, and jane mess, The hal and dirk conversation, and roxy briefly getting jailed by condy and discovering the void ring. this is also where calliope is first revealed hiding in the furthest ring. a6a5a1 is actually split into two separate parts, so im just talking about the first part here (yeah, i know).

The Plot

the jake, dirk, and jane mess is infamous. its hard to believe that all of that drama literally just happens in this one fucking act. even more so, its all contained more or less in three fucking pesterlogs. fr. people have so many opinions on this shit, i am just literally going to copypaste the relevant logs, even! youre welcome!

this is the majority of the really potent stuff. the way it reads to me, jake and dirk started dating when they entered the medium, and have been dating for the past five months, until jake suddenly stopped talking to dirk and dipped. jane mentions that jake has complained about dirk to her more and more over the past few months, and asked her less and less about how she was doing, so shes basically stopped contacting him altogether. dirks role in this act is virtually nonexistent, so we dont get any idea of how hes feeling about this until his conversation with hal, wherein he blames hal for scaring jake off w hals machinations in getting them into the medium, and hal says that blaming him is just a way of dirk trying to cope with the fact that he blames himself.

the reality is the alpha kids session gets very little screentime. we have no idea what really happened during those five months, and we never get to know. but it is worth noting that these kids are extremely isolated, and this is also dirk and jakes very first relationship ever. its going to be very new, very confusing, and there is also a lot at stake if they break up and dont stay friends, especially if it ripples out to the larger friendgroup. im sure all of that has a huge impact on the way they handle things and the way it explodes at the end.

personally, i find the parallel between jake and jane to be the most interesting thing here. while jake repeatedly checks in with jane to make sure hes not driving her nuts, and dirk checks in with jake to ask if he needs space, both jake and jane, instead of communicating their problems, refuse to say anythign about them. they avoid the issue and let it fester, pulling back from the relationships until they both have a lot of resentment for the other party. in both cases, that resentment explodes- with jake going no contact with dirk, and jane blowing up at jake. theyre really bad communicators, honestly.

The Characters

when i talked about roxy in a6a2, i was pretty harsh, and i said all of that keeping in mind that iw ould be revisiting her here. in a6a5a1, roxy gets sober. and when she is sober, she is so kind, and thoughtful, and strong, with a great love for her friends and a deep fear that she isnt worthy of them. she has a close relationship with fefeta, and its through her talking about fefeta that we actually learn about fefeta, given that feferi, nepeta, and fefeta never speak from the moment of fefetas introduction. she admires her mom, and is so excited and nervous to meet her in person, and her mom is actually the reason she decides to give up alcohol! she wanted to be a person her mom could be proud of. i just. i love roxy so much she really is the best shes so kind to all of her friends and sweet w callie and shes also so fucking funny and i just. love her.

dirk continues his pattern of not being there much, mostly. his big moment in this act is his conversation with hal. apparently, he has literally not prototyped his sprite this entire fucking time bc he promised hal hed prototype him but doesnt want to and theyve been arguing about it nonstop for five months. insane shit. he had to bribe gamzee to keep gamzee from dumping random shit in, and he prototypes hal on the day that stops working. anyway, the conversation that takes place between him and hal in this act is one of my favorite moments in all of homestuck, its just so cool and theres really nothing else to say about it. if you havent seen this animation of their conversation you should bc its iconic

jake is... kind of a terrible friend, in this act. just objectively. the reality is, jake REALLY struggles with social cues and shit. hes just fucking terrible with people. he has no idea when jane is uncomfortable, no matter how obvious jane makes it, he has no balls when it comes to communicating with dirk, he makes all of his conversations with jane and erisol about himself (and kind of roxy, too??), and just. jesus christ. everything about his relationship with erisol actually is really really bad. its like what some people THINK john and davesprites relationship is like. idk thats like 99% of my takeaway from this act and i genuinely love him but this isnt a strong act for him

there are things to be said about jane, but i think ill hold off for a bit.

fefetasprite, as ive already mentioned, we pretty much exclusively hear about through roxys reencounters of who she is. she likes to gossip, and shes given roxy a ton of advice. apparently, in one on one conversations, shes a hell of a chatter box, btu seems to clam up in public for some reason. hussies always had kind of a running joke in the formsprings and whatnot about "a million worthless dead nepetas" and how, in the grand scheme of things, most of the characters introduced in hivebent arent important and will never be important, and it just kind of feels like fefeta not talking is an extension of that.

arquius is arrogant, and leans even harder into brodude type language than dirk and hal. hes casual, but full of himself and commanding, fully enthused to the max about both equius and hals interests (which have a decent amount of overlap anyway). he defers to dirk, commands dirk, and commands dirk to command him in equal and contradicting measure. hes really pumped about having a physical form, and even more pumped that that form is so RIIIIIIPPED, and believes that he is a sort of ultimate lifeform as a combination of machine and man. they experience a level of cohesion we dont see from the other doublesprites like tavris and erisol, and the only real instance where they seem to disagree is due to hals horror over equius's classism and behavior towards nepeta. arquius's name, interestingly, seems to imply that the name "hal" was in fact a joke all along, and that hal- or ar, i should say- does really consider ar to be his name. anyway, the bottom line is that arquius is fucking hilarious.

erisolsprite, like tavris, is made of two trolls that dont get along. however, eridan loves to bitch and moan, and sollux is ridiculously apathetic all the time, so hes continued to exist regardless. he hates everything, he complains almost constantly, he seems to enjoy complaining constantly, hes apathetic about jake and whatever the alpha kids are up to, but enjoys being a btich about it just enough to give jake a daily double bird. jake is a huge asshole to him and doesnt take him seriously at all, and despite that he still deigns to give jake advice sometimes?? erisol is hilarious tho and hes such a fun quirky chara and i love him a lot

Act 6 Act 5 Act 2

the trickster act. all things trickster happen right here. alllll of the things. dirk breaks up with jake, both arquius and erisol try to apologize to fefeta, and fefeta spritesplodes. they all get hella drunk and eventually crash sometime later on their sacrificial slabs.

The Plot

trickstermode is a fucking nightmare and i kind of hate it and i really hate everything its spawned in the fandom. did you know the tricksters dont have any kind of candy theme at all? i didnt. i fucking forgot. bc fandom. fucking anything seems to turn ppl trickster, also, and not just nonconsensual makeouts. jane kicks jake in the crotch. roxy gets a pumpkin smashed over her head. how did fanon fall so far

Act 6 Act 5 Act 1 Pt 2

after they crash, we return right back to act 1, swearing that well never speak of a6a5a2 again. there are a lot of big important conversations that happen here between the alpha kids. their sessions jack becomes jack english and hic becomes more aggressive in her takeover, and the insuing chaos causes the kids to go godtier, with the act ending with jane going crockertier and jade going grimbark.

The Characters

roxy talks a lot about her fears and insecurities in this act. its one of the strongest acts for her, honestly, and a lot of what makes me really love her so much.

like me, dirk also spends a lot of time in this act talking about how fucking much he loves roxy. roxy is TERRIFIED shes let him down, but all he can talk about is how much he adores and admires her, and how she means the whole world to him. he admits that he doesnt think he could ever kill her, for any reason, and looking back at previous acts we see a lot of examples of dirk risking everything to keep her safe over and over again. their relationship is so fucking important to me you dont even understand

i said id talk about jane later, and later is now. this act feels like a really good resolution for her re: jake. she and dirk FINALLY cut the shit and talk through their problems, and honestly, theyre REALLY good friends and their relationship is really sweet. unlike jake, who doesnt seem to have the balls to speak to anybody but roxy (hes dealing with a lot of self realizations rn, tbf to him), jane reaches out to roxy and dirk to talk through her problems and theirs, solidifying her friendships with both of them in a way thats really touching. jane, at her worst, can be stubborn and avoidant, choosing to let resentment fester over causing conflict or distance her friends to avoid harsh truths. but at her best, shes bold and clever, and a hard worker, willing to put in the effort to make things right.

Act 6 Intermission 5

this is where i started losing track of sub shit. intermission 5 follows the usual pattern of intermissions, with a check in on where the meteor and ship players are at as their journey comes to an end. it also follows the dreambubble players and their adventure, and what spades is up to. its during this intermission that the album cherubim is released, and act 6 officially passes act 5 in length.

however, the thing about this intermission is that its frequently interrupted by intermission intermissions featuring caliborns session, updating us on where hes at. so in keeping with that, ill summarize this intermission while also randomly interjecting with caliborns intermissions.

The Plot

the act opens on the meteor, with karkat planning an intervention for terezi with dave. while karkat is getting steadily more worried about terezi, as her mental health obviously begins to decline in tandem with her relationship with gamzee, dave is growing steadily more worried about rose, who spends a lot of her time drunk these days, which is negatively impacting her relationship with kanaya.

Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 1

caliborn has begun his session properly and is working on conquering planets. each planet is knocked into a black hole in order, billiards style, and after completing each other he gets a new leprechaun.

the battleship has landed on jakes planet. davesprite tries unsuccessfully to wake a sleeping john, and then monologues for a while about his experience on the battleship and how much he hates himself, before just fucking off and leaving

Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 2

caliborn has unlocked more planets. he thinks the leprechauns are annoying and their powers are lame.

at this part of a6i5, john meets up with vriska, meenah, and aranea, who have teamed up and put all of their plans together. right now, theyre searching for vriskas treasure, and vriskas put a little pirate crew together, which eventually includes feferi and nepeta post fefetasplosion. aranea tells a long story about calliope and caliborns parents.

Interfishin

meenah has to pee, and the pirate crew plays elevatorstuck

aranea continues her story and talks a lot about cherub biology. we see that gamzee had a role in raising the cherubs. aranea goes on to talk about caliborns dead session, and how he got to the point of conquering planets like we saw earlier, and the deal he made with his denizen. aranea talks a lot about leprechauns and charms.

meanwhile back at the ranch, dave and karkat are now talking to terezi about her relationship to gamzee, her guilt over vriska, her insecurity, and her newfound sight and regret over it. dave wins karkat tantrum bingo.

Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 3

caliborn and hussie discuss crowbars usefulness and caliborns eighth planet. clover hits on caliborn.

the pirate crew is almost to the treasure. john questions vriskas sanity and morality, while aranea tells a story about the rings of void and life. most of the pirate crew decide theyre sick of vriska being an asshole and dip, and vriska gives a long speech justifying her actions that has lived in my brain rent free ever since i read it for the very first time in 2015. i love her so much.

on the meteor, rose and kanaya get in a fight about roses alcoholism and the way shes continuously let the people around her down as a result.

Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 4

the leprechauns are all flirting with each other a lot.

meenah has a bit of a breakdown about how much she loves her friends and her life in the bubbles and how she doesnt actually really want to follow in the footsteps of hic. they find the treasure, before the story cuts suddenly to the adventures of viceroy bubbles von salamancer, which is 10/10 adorable and hilarious. the treasure is revealed to be the house symbol, and john sticks his arm in it, getting his teleporty canon fuckery powers.

Act 6 intermission 5 Intermission 5

caliborn complains about the leprechauns and hussie complains about vriska.

spades takes over the felt as their new leader, stuffs them all in an oven, and winds up in the furthest ring with a growing cast of characters (dirk, jack english, and eventually bec noir and pm). john keeps jumping around the canon and seems to love con air again

Act 6 Intermission 5 Intermission 6

caliborn is on his last planet and has come up w a plan to use his sessions jack to destroy the queen, planning to dispose of jack afterward. hussie isnt responding to his messages anymore, which pisses him off.

john flashes to caliborns location and gets punched into the present, on lomax by the landed battleship. while the kids on the meteor debate how to get off the meteor safely, grimbark jade appears and teleports them all onto lomax where john is. and thats the end!!!

The Characters

i really dont have anything to say here. ill probably talk about vriska and meenahs character development whenever they start dating. its heavily implied in this act that aranea has taught vriska the value of storytelling, while vriskas manipulative behavior has rubbed off on aranea, but ill also probably talk about that later.

The Album

cherubim is a themed album that centers around calliope and caliborn (obviously), and reminds me a little of prospit & derse in that the songs are presented in pairs, with opposing takes on the same general theme. red sucker is probably my favorite on the album, it goes hard as hell. i wasnt expecting to enjoy the album as much as i did! its great

Final Thoughts

with this so finishes "part three" whatever the fuck that even is within the vast context of homestuck. act 6 act 6, i remember well, is its own kind of monster with a gazillion subacts and shit, so i think it just makes sense to hold off on talking about that until another post. maybe my next one will be after the retcon? stuffs really picking up, and characters are getting a lot more fleshed out, so its a lot of fun to read rn. if like, so long.

EDIT: I COMPLETELY FORGOT but at SOME POINT during all of this the tumblr stoppedupdating. i dont fucking know when. anything i had to say about it i already said in the last post tho tbh. its fine. its nice. infinitely better than the formspring

edit: a6a6-the end of hs proper

[highcourts]

(In continuation from the last one 😌, no art this time cause m tired)

Human?? No. Its Wonder. My name isnt Human, dont call me that.. please i mean! Like i dont call you Fairy man, I’ll call you Jesse. Or prince Jesse? I dont know what you normally go by. Literally just kind of going off what i’ve heard others say-

Still I’ll shuffle on inside while i go on my half-logical rant to this poor prince. I’ll only get quiet when im actually inside & looking at everything in absolute awe because- like- i’ve never actually been inside anywhere this nice before?? This is cool-

Yknow- Jesse, Prince- whichever- i kind of expected a swift death or something from you. I didn’t really think i’d get inside.. where can i go now? :0?? Can you show me around?

the nerve.

jesse's back was facing you, and god – was he thankful. one look at your face and he would've impaled you then and there, then go about his day like it was nothing. because you were nothing. your death would mean nothing.

he ignores the sudden ache in his heart, because deep down – he didn't want to lose you.

yet if he didn't lose you , you'd be his downfall. his ruin. he won't go down so easily. he never will, not anytime soon. not without you beside him.

whatever.

don't expect him to follow your orders , knave.

"well then, wonder.. "

he lived to surpass those expectations, after all.

some scatterbrained sack of spoilt flesh you are. giving him your name so freely, urging you to call him that same exact name. do you not know what you have just gotten yourself into?

he doesn't think he can stand you any longer.

one.

" first & foremost , to be able to address a prince by his first name is impossible if you're a lesser. address me as either prince jesse or your highness. i will not stand for anything else , here on. i demand your utmost respect. "

he enunciated his words in a way that demanded no arguments, hoping your tiny little human brain would remember. if you were stupider than he had assumed, he'd just drill it into your brain. or he'd just drill into your brain. depends on how irritated he gets with you.

two.

he witnessed as you went silent, and smirked. the diamante palace has always had this effect on visitors, and he was glad - it filled him with pride to know his kingdom remained beautiful through all these years.

I love you.

three.

foolish human, if you had irked him enough to be at his mercy during the first meeting - he would've made your death slow & painful...

" ... i am no murderer , not today atleast. "

one day , he will soil his hands with your blood.

" i let you in because you intrigued me. nothing more, nothing less. " he stated, evenly.

four.

" you will be shown around, if that's what you so wish, but not by me. i'm sure you forget that I am a prince , wonder . i have endless duties. " looking around, he spotted a nearby servant and beckoned them over. then, he leaned into them closer and spoke in an indistinguishable language. the servant nodded. jesse's gaze settled onto you once more.

"they will be the one touring you throughout the castle, but for now –" jesse's eyes softened the tiniest bit, exposing what he thought was subtle annoyance - on the contrast, actually. it showed you he seemed to care.

" it is late, twenty minutes to midnight. " he revealed. " put yourself to rest. "

you did, guided by the servant [ whom you came to know as eden. ] to one of the palace's very luxurious guest rooms, of which only the noblest deserve - yet who were you to need to know that ? you're just happy you got somewhere to pass out.

meanwhile, jesse stood still. in that same hallway.

seething.

he hated you. alot. for making him feel like this. to feel like you, a stupid, weak, mortal's equal? disgusting.

he'll make sure you know your place.

hello everyone ! friendly reminder that if you do not imply or plainly state that you are in an established relationship with jesse, he will have homicidal thoughts and mistake his love with hatred, since fae do have a hard time processing their emotions and do sometimes have a lack of empathy.

he is in his ✨️ villain era ✨️ /hj