#was always going to have a tragedy arc (at least at first)

[raayllum]

like in a perfect world 5x08 would have no consequences. finnegrin is dead, giving the spell didn't amount to any tangible harm, rayla's life was saved. callum did dark magic under circumstances that are understandable and sympathetic; the snake rattle is small and already dead. he, genuinely, did what he had to do.

but like, tdp is nothing but "your actions however good intentioned will often have disastrous consequences or not heal everything you wanted them to perfectly": the Show so like.

it's not looking good, particularly given a followup comment from aaron in this interview:

I will say, I'll add one more thing. Another way that the use of him using dark magic we’ll revisit is, do you think he's going to use dark magic again? What are the longterm consequences of that? How does that change him? Does he evolve past beyond the pale of the person [Rayla] knows and trusts or not? What, what does that character development and personal development mean to Callum? Is he going to go down that path or not? And what does that mean to their relationship, trust, friendship, etcetera?

[operator-report]

In middle school, I read a short story for English class called Flowers for Algernon. Maybe you’ve read it, too. In the story, a disabled man named Charlie is given a medicine that cures his disability. Over the course of the story, he comes to realize that his “cure” is temporary and that he will “regress” into being disabled again. The story makes it clear that this is a tragedy. As a disabled teenager when I first read it, the story affected me deeply.

I’d like to talk about David and Noelle. 

Content warnings for discussion of suicide, self-harm, ableism and eating disorders below the cut. Spoilers for Worm through arc 27. 

When I was first reading arc 18, one of the things that stuck out to me is how much time the story spends on Eidolon. For me, it was the first time I paid much attention to him - prior to that, Eidolon was just an extremely powerful background character to me. But in arc 18, we learn that (1) Eidolon is losing his powers and (2) he believes that fighting Echidna will allow him to tap into some sort of reservoir to bring them back.

We find this out, of course, through Tattletale exposing him, which is always an extremely embarrassing event for Tattletale’s target. It makes it extremely clear that what Eidolon is doing is pathetic. He is going to kill a teenage girl so he can feel something. 

Which would be messed up enough, right? We don’t need to make this even worse, right? Wrong. Because Wildblow has spent the last several thousand words building up the Case 53s as X-Men style metaphors for oppressed groups, and one of the forms of oppression that Wildblow generally writes well is ableism. I think you can consider most, if not all of the Case 53s as disabled in some way. I think the link is extremely clear with Noelle.

Noelle doesn’t get her powers from traditional Cauldron human experimentation - at least, not directly. Instead, she and Krouse are facing what is, to them, a no-win scenario. They’re quarantined with limited access to medical care. Breaching this quarantine would permanently render them criminals. If Noelle survives her surgery, which is a pretty big if, she’ll become disabled, in a way that both Krouse and Noelle agree is ugly and undesirable. She won’t be able to do “boyfriend-girlfriend stuff” because she won’t be “any good to look at, after.” 

Krouse and Noelle are terrified of death, yes, but they’re also terrified of disability. They are desperate for control over Noelle’s body, control that, as of that moment, only the state has. (Remember the quarantine?) Krouse pressures Noelle into drinking the vial. Noelle is cured. 

Noelle’s cure does not last. In attempting to assert control, her body becomes uncontrollable. Her body is her trauma and her eating disorder made literal. She still needs care.

Worm would be bad if this is why her life sucks. But Worm does something better, instead. Noelle goes through hell, not just due to the sheer difficulty of having her power, but because of the way her teammates and Coil treat her. They talk about Noelle like she’s already dead. They’re ashamed of bringing her the food she needs. When Krouse “includes” Noelle in a discussion in arc 12, it’s mostly perfunctory. They do not believe Noelle is human any longer. They lock her away.

Noelle doesn’t want to be put in a cage. Noelle doesn’t want to be dehumanized. In interlude 18, when we get insight into Noelle’s thoughts, we learn that what Noelle is angry about is the fact that Krouse locked her in a concrete bunker and placated her. When she tells people not to look at her, there’s a coda to that sentence that she doesn’t get to verbalize: don’t look at me like that. 

This is the person who Eidolon is going to kill. 

Via the Simurgh, this is a person Eidolon has unknowingly created.

A few thousand words of Worm go by. It’s Gold Morning. Eidolon is fighting Scion. Now, at the end of the book, we finally get substantial insight into David, the man behind the mask. 

David takes a Cauldron vial to cure his disability. David sees this as the only way out, after an unsuccessful application to join the military, and then, an unsuccessful suicide attempt. David is bearing an immense amount of shame and internalized ableism. David is worried that father’s friends are watching him. (Don’t look at me.) David cleaves the world into two kinds of people: those who can have jobs, who are liked and respected because they are useful; and people like him, who are useless.

It’s a terrible way to think. Without that worldview, how could a person not take the vial? David wants to be used, because David wants to be useful. He never gets the independence he craves – not when he’s in that level of debt to Cauldron – but he gets to be useful, and that’s one of the best things you can be.

Like Noelle’s, like Charlie’s in Flowers, David’s cure doesn’t work. His abilities are wearing off. He is essentially told, when Doctor Mother administers his booster shots, that his medicine is too expensive. 

Cauldron creates Noelle. David, as Cauldron’s soldier, has a role to play in her creation. David knows exactly what he is doing to Noelle. It happened to him. Worm fandom talks a lot about David being a father. He’s a father in more ways than one. (David’s father is always watching him.) (Don’t look at me.)

Cauldron never cures David’s ableism. In his world, you can be useful, or you can die. David asks Noelle if she wants to win. Noelle tells him no. You can have a job, or you can kill yourself. When David tries to kill Noelle to help himself, isn’t that a mercy?

Of course it isn’t. It goes without saying that all of this is extremely fucked up. When it comes to disability, “cure” is a complicated concept. I’m not going to get into all the ways it can be treated; this post is already a thousand words long. But I do think that Worm, through Noelle and David and the concept of the Cauldron vial, provides an extremely vivid picture of the problems with cure. 

Under ableist logic, when you have a disability, a cure is something you’re expected to want. Without it, the story goes, you can’t be useful. You can’t do boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. The expectation is social, like the act of staring. Your desire for it should drive how you organize your life – it is control, like a quarantine. David is crushed by that expectation. He throws his lot in with Cauldron, the cure-makers. The expectation is passed along to Noelle, and even though David can recognize that inheritance, he cannot imagine any other way to respond to it other than attempted murder.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that Flowers for Algernon is a tragedy. The reason that story has stuck with me so long is that I keep going back and forth as to why. Is it a tragedy because Charlie goes back to being disabled? There’s a good chance that’s what the author intended. I don’t know. It would be a pretty shitty story if that were the case. Is it a tragedy because people only treat Charlie well when he’s “cured,” and when that stops, he’ll go back to abuse? Seems plausible. I don’t think there’s one right answer. Regardless, when you’re disabled, there’s an immense pressure to seek out a cure, and a cognizable loss when it is withheld. The fact that Worm captures that social pressure and social loss so well is extremely compelling for me, and I’m going to be thinking about these characters for a long time.

[tilly-tilly-2827]

Benedict Bridgerton and the Multiverse of Madness

What always puzzled me (and adored) about the characterization of show! Benedict is his emotional maturity. Quoting the amazing Times article, he is a “loyal friend, a sympathetic listener with an open mind, a game and giving lover, and the emotional bedrock of his family”. (Lang, 2024) He’s very emotionally intelligent and sympathetic; the ability to sense his siblings and friend’s discomfort, and soothe them in his own way, the open-mindedness to Granville’s sexuality, the list is endless. I love him.

Now look at Book! Benedict. Although we have his character development/arc throughout the story, when readers first see him in 1817, he’s a complete dick. Arrogant, slightly abusive, manipulative, completely ignorant of Sophie’s insecurities, doesn’t accept Sophie’s rejection. His emotional immaturity toward Sophie is completely different from what show! Benedict is.

However, now that I’ve seen the first half of season 3, I could see how show!Benedict is changing into the Book! Benedict. As @the-other-art-blog (read her great review from here!!) has pointed out, his unnecessary hostility towards the debutants is slightly disturbing. He is bored and exhausted from the society, yet he doesn’t have a purpose in life, giving up on his artistic pursuits. In his season, He meets his love of his life at the masquerade, but she completely disappears from his world. His younger brother is happily married. His elder brother has two sons, so he’s no longer the spare. My guy is in absolute shambles and descending into madness at this point.

So as dickhead book! Benedict could be, he might not be relatable, but he is at least understandable. Benedict is at his lowest point when he reunites with Sophie in 1817; that is why he is so possessive and patronizing towards Sophie. He has to threaten and blackmail Sophie to London because he doesn’t want to let go the only light (Sophie) he found in his miserable life, and he’s already lost the love of his life, he doesn’t want to risk losing it again.

One of the most dickheaded moments in AOFAG?

The lake scene. Love that scene. Very Romantic. However, if you think objectively, seeing Sophie spy on him, Benedict proceeds to kiss her and asks her to be his mistress and tries to take her down on the ground? Knowing that she is a virgin? Absolute chaotic behavior and nothing like the soft, considerate respectful-to-women Benedict we saw in the past seasons. Why is he acting like this? Because at this point of his life, He is absolutely LOSING HIS MIND AND SANITY.

The aggressive “YES!!!” From season 3 Benedict? Oh we are slowly stepping in to the worst side of Benedict Bridgerton. Not the charming, respectful Benedict we have fallen in love with since the past seasons.

This is completely different from the topic that I rambled on, but I’m can’t wait to see the reaction when Sophie rejects Benedict during the pond scene. “I don’t see why not.” “But you wanted to just few second ago.” Imagine the look of confusion and frustration on Benedict’s expression. (In the past, viewers see that Benedict can bring girls to bed with one smirk and a flirty banter,) And as we all well know, Luke Thompson is the mastery of micro-expressions. Would love to see him deliver these lines.

Also, Benedict sleeping around with Lady Tilley, and also with the past ladies really heightens the tension between Sophie and Benedict, especially on the point of physical intimacy. For Benedict, he just likes to have fun, having sex is just light and breezy. So of course he would have no problem fucking an innocent girl who seems to like him back. In outdoors. On the FUCKING GROUND. However for Sophie, physical intimacy is almost like a sin; She can’t repeat the tragedy of her mother and make another human being suffer from the baseness of their birth. Ben and Sophie are perfect for each other, but Their polar opposite perception towards physical intimacy creates so much conflict and tension between the two. This point is also what differentiates Benophie from other couples, especially compared to Polin.

Benedict and Sophie are soulmates, two lost drifting souls finding solace, comfort and love in one another, but there is a deep rift between them that they have to overcome.

The angst in AOFAG is just pure drama.

Any thoughts? Love to hear your ideas too🥰🥰

I’m further rambling on in the comment section 🥶

References

Lang, Cady. Why Benedict is the Best Character in Netflix's Bridgerton | TIME, 2024

[freakinator]

funny thing about how i view the conflict in todays stream is that i view flame and wemmbu in very separate ways despite them doing essentially the same thing

in flames case:

i view his betrayal as ultimately a tragedy, their history all thrown aside due to a combination of wounded pride and genuine upset

if yall didnt see his chat for this stream it was actually really, really bad, like his chat is genuinely so fucking annoying oh my god and is a really good demonstration of why i think streamers should be mean to their chatters sometimes to so i actually wasnt at all surprised that he was so upset but i thought hed log off instead of acting out like this

he wanted respect but literally ruined the months long work of one of the few ppl that were willing to trust him over something that couldve been resolved if he just waited until september, but at the same time i can kinda understand why he was being so impulsive considering again his chat is Really bad, but at the end of the day that really shouldnt have been something you took out on one of your few allies like???? bruh even mocked zams storytelling as if he didnt do thee same shit as well 😭

honestly one of the reasons i was sad about his betrayal is cause it kinda sounded to me like he was genuinely about to cry at first??? maybe im just making shit up tho and he def stopped sounding like he was gonna cry after blowing up the spacewaffles tower lol

in wemmbus case:

i feel no pity for this man, he wanted conflict wherever he can get it and he got it! i think hes a lot like zam in that he just wants some attention and most importantly something to do but whatever happens to him next is his own fault lmao, i respect his honesty tho like hey he sucks but he knows what hes about at least lol

the fact that he still kept trying to get a commission from zam (or at least guilttripping him about it for lack of a better word) like bro i know you wanted to do a capitalism morality dilemma arc with zam but read the room my guy 😭

maybe hes at least a little mad that zam kept turning him away despite the fact he accepted a commission from mapicc of all ppl but like. bro. theres a reason zam called him a nightmare customer lmao

that being said you can tell hes not used to going this overboard considering he offered to help repair the tree when zam got upset lmao

idk i just thought his evilness was kinda funny, still hope he gets his shit kicked in spectacularly tho!

its funny, despite being acting like the shitty no reading comprehension version of abyss he gives me the exact same feeling of schadenfreude i did for minute back in s5 and i believe part of it is his mockery of lore and weird complicated dismissal of moral conflict particularly regarding zam

by weird complicated dismissal of moral conflict i mean both he and minute both tried to convince zam to see ''their side'' and ''reason'' but coming at it from an angle that completely misunderstands zam and when zam points it out they dismiss it and act like it means nothing because of their ''objective'' view of reality, spoiler alert! its not objective at all and they refuse to understand things from zams perspective cause they think hes just being unreasonable or something

idk overall i think their motivations for doing things are just kinda... shit lol

like ik theres some pretty obvious parallels that can be made with s5 here but the difference between the og players and flamebu aside from the lack of style and drama is that the og players waited several months before they started acting out the way they did and when they did start acting out tgey always made sure evryone who wanted to get involved Actually got involved rather than doing it while everyone was away plus their opps werent their own allies (except maybe pangi depending on how you look at it)

[yumeka-sxf]

Today's new chapter was so intriguing 👀

First off, nice to see the Authens again. Guess we're sure now that Endo will make them reoccurring characters! Yor's embarrassment about being called "Mom" ("okaa-san" in the JP version) was really cute.

They managed to translate this joke very well; in the JP version, the word "ebento"(event) makes Sigmund think of "obento"(lunchbox). Using the word "function" for "luncheon" was clever!

But the main highlight of this chapter for me was seeing the ever enigmatic Melinda again after so long!

She's a really a tough one to figure out, and this chapter only brought up more questions than answers. She seems extremely nice here, being very forgiving of Millie despite her harsh accusations against her husband. She also mentions that she'd be very resentful if anything were to happen to her family...which is kind of contrasting to her thoughts about Damian from the end of the bus hijacking arc.

I also loved the scene of Yor sticking up for Millie. Her expression was so blank yet so deep at the same time. It actually reminded me of Anya's expression when she punched Damian - in both cases, their blank expression doesn't match their action, but it makes sense because they're still unsure of how to act and what emotion to portray in many seemingly "normal" situations. Anger and annoyance aren't feelings that come naturally to them.

In Yor's case here, having to defend someone against such accusations isn't something she's had much experience doing (at least not for someone who isn't family), and at the same time she can't just outright kill the hostile party like she would on an assassination mission. So despite being in such an awkward situation, especially for someone like her who struggles with social interactions, she managed to remain remarkably calm. As usual, Yor gets easily flustered when it comes to her own feelings, but if she sees someone else being threatened, her capabilities shoot up to maximum! That unpredictable expression should be feared from both her and Twilight!

We also learn that Yor lost her parents in the war, which is something I always suspected. Her words in the below panel reminded me a lot of the thoughts she had during the end of the cruise arc. As I've mentioned before, despite her naivety about many things, she understands the tragedies that go on in the world, especially in terms of war - that it's not just soldiers who suffer, but the children and everyone else left behind. It makes sense that someone who understands that kind of loss and hardship has such outpouring empathy to others the way Yor does...

...which is actually contrasting to the way Millie deals with her loss, by lashing out at others. It's said that those who have suffered can become either very sympathetic or very resentful. It was interesting to see that subtle contrast between Yor and Millie here.

Speaking of Millie, it was nice to see her get some redemption and backstory. Like Camilla, I still don't think this makes up for all the mean things she's said to Yor before, but it's something!

Good to see McMahon again after so long. Don't think he's made an appearance since the cruise arc 👀

As usual, it's hard to say if this chapter is leading to a new arc or not. I'm sure things mentioned here, especially about Melinda, will come back later, but who knows if it will be right away or several chapters from now. I know we were all expecting something relating to Anya's backstory based on the previous short mission, but I still think there's a chance that what happened here could tie into that. We'll see! We're close to chapter 100 so I wonder if Endo is planning something special for that 🤔

[kinokoshoujoart]

CORRECT TAGS‼️‼️‼️‼️ @rn0na-lizard you are so so so correct….. my favorite ‘Normal Girl’ in hmds…….i almost never see anyone talk about these aspects of her let alone also love her for them as they should.

i feel like Leona/ DS lumina gets mischaracterized super often which is understandable bc out of all the DS candidates leona is the least like her ancestor (who i also love, for different reasons).

in AWL lumina was the only kid in the valley for a very long time, but many of the DS residents have lived in the valley their whole lives. while lumina had accepted her role as a proper young heiress by chapter 3 of AWL— and when DS begins Leona already at this point of her life— lumina still had a lingering sense of uncertainty and angst and loneliness and doubt, and unresolved worries about her parents. absolutely none of this is present with leona

in this world leona starts with Lumina’s 22 year old appearance, she’s just rich as hell and living her best life (as she deserves), she’s unabashedly shallow, puts herself first always, speaks so politely and affably yet she can be so casually cruel in the most genuine cute way and out of touch with reality and and i fucking love her and i’d die for her. my beloved girlboss girlkeep girlypop

more iconic Leona Moments

when muu/muffy asks for beauty advice leona’s recommendation is “this brand of mail order beauty cream is simply divine! and it was quite inexpensive too, just 100,000 G 🥰” everyone else looks uncomfortable and muu is like “you’re as frivolous as always….”

aside from the 3 who take literally half your money (Witch💖, moi, and thomas) leona and panama (romana) take the most money from you if they carry you home when you faint. just a couple of girl bosses holding on to their girlpire (btw shout out to sebastian, the only resident in the entire valley who carries you home for free)

neither panama nor leona attend the harvest festival, they send sebastian there by himself to test the food first lmao (if you poison it like the witch they’re harboring on their property requires you to do, sebastian is just like “i can’t serve this to Mistress Panama…”)

once again sebastian attacks mukumuku for her sake, this time not to make her a paintbrush but she told him to get her the best slippers and this was apparently the easiest way. sebastian gets fucking mauled btw

leona has hands down the best romance route in hmds. all her scenes are incredible but god the slow burn friends to lovers with your DVD player….

in her purple heart event she shows up at your house because she heard you have a DVD player, asks you to show her how it works, and then just leaves after she’s done playing with it

in her yellow heart event she has sebastian fetch van so she can buy a DVD player for herself but van’s like “i’m so sorry …. Pete… bought the last one….”

leona is so unable to stomach the idea of other people having things she doesn’t that she starts to cry and the only way to placate her is to tell her she can go to your house anytime she wants just so she can use your DVD player. that’s not a setup to a budding romance that’s her final heart event

it’s the most incredible romance arc in the world like girl you have infinite money you can just. buy a DVD player somewhere else?? “i want to watch DVDs at my house just like you!” leona you have three entire bedrooms

“rich girl love interest who has everything except love, win her heart by having genuine conversation with her”: done to death, tired, i don’t have time for that

“rich girl love interest who has everything except a fucking DVD player, win her heart by giving her expensive stuff and ‘relax tea’ and access to your DVD player”: audacious, intriguing, never been done before, innovative

if you deny her god-given right to access your DVD player she is like “Is that so……………Just let me be alone for a little bit.” incredible tragedy i understand. take as much time as you need to grieve darling

oh but her first heart event asks you to pick a side in an argument she’s having with panama and the correct answer is to say “sebastian is the one who’s wrong” (sebastian has said nothing wrong this whole time and yet both of them have just been yelling at him to shut up)

and her blue heart event is “help me find this heirloom necklace… boohoo…” and when you find it she’s like “perfect! now grandma won’t get mad at me. hmm, you seem pretty dependable…♡” augh she’s way too good at this…….!!! i’ll do anything for you!

when you propose she says “of course, i always dreamed of having a romance and a wedding♡” and says nothing abt how she feels about you <3

also if you marry her, once a week she goes to hang out at her ex love interest’s place for 6 hours straight and comes home saying “whew… i had so much fun that i must have lost track of time… i’ll hurry on home”

if you marry another girl she starts flirting with you like “I’m so envious of your wife, having such a fine husband… Pete.” (or whatever your name is)

i’ve become obsessed with her and romeo’s horrible trainwreck soap opera marriage since replaying cute in jp… it’s SO… i have so much to say about them that it should be its own post but i’ll just give the cliffnotes

shotgun wedding vibes. romeo is surprised by his own wedding. they’re childhood friends but he himself has never considered marrying her. her words to him at their wedding are “Make me happy♡” (command)

she understandably can’t stand his terrible table manners or his clothes or anything about him (except that she wants to watch him surf and have his child. but he instead walks in circles all day. coward) and he’s both really good at accidentally stepping on landmines and just ever so slightly majorly terrified of her after marriage (“but surely her angry outbursts are just her way of showing love hahahahaha” you’re going to die. she’s going to kill you). the only positive things they say about their marriage are extremely shallow. they can’t communicate with each other because romeo always says the Dumbest Shit obliviously and leona always responds by cutting him out of her life forever!!!!!! (for 5 seconds) while he has no idea what happened

they are both so melodramatic and they both just do nothing except make each other worse and run away from each other and push each other away but they can’t escape each other. neither of them ever has to grow or change if they marry each other because an elderly overworked man is sustaining both of their existences and neither of them can take care of themselves and i love them your honor

also romeo’s first crush as a kid was apparently her mom, and if leona falls for YOU she flirts by mentioning that sebastian says you look like the spitting image of her dead father. dear fucking god

they’re the epitome of “You're both just enabling each other's mental illnesses. You're both perfect for each other. Never change. Just never involve anybody else in what you've got going on.”

romeo really does feel like her stupid lackey. like the karen to her regina. they even had this dynamic in the games they played as kids… she was the Harvest Goddess and he was Servant A/Minion A (they might still be playing this game as adults…he calls her lady/mistress sometimes after marriage…)

btw leona’s best friend (wife) marivia is also just as… there’s an event where they just gossip about all the mineral town ppl and marivia says ann would win a gluttony contest and they both giggle

there’s also an event where marivia casually walks into Witch’s hut and just interviews her so she can write her into a novel. witch is left completely drained by this exchange. leona and marivia both are so chill about the horrible cruel villainess living in leona’s shed who wants the town poisoned and rewards you for killing animals and hurting yourself and is putting curses on everyone (and they’re right. she’s never done anything wrong in her life)

[batsplat]

Chad reed on always the entourages creating the drama. I cannot believe that is what caused rosquez downfall but also given the level of Vale's celebrity and the way he carried himself, I can totally believe that it was the entourage (iPad stand I'm looking at you) that brought the end

(about reed's 2020 quotes in this) yeahhh I mean the downfall was caused by a whole bunch of factors, not just any one thing... like all great tragic narratives, it feels inevitable from a global perspective and yet thoroughly preventable in its specifics, with loads of points where you think, 'oh, if things had just gone a little bit differently'... there's this tension in how, in the end, maybe it would've always gone wrong, but a lot had to come together for it to go wrong in quite such a spectacular fashion

reed's definitely correctly identified one of the factors - the entourages, and valentino's entourage specifically. though fwiw, I did cut off the article before reed predicted the marc/fabio rivalry was headed a similar way (this was from 2020, obviously before the arm injury):

for better or for worse, fabio has skipped the villain arc to head straight to the depressed frenchie arc

regardless of whether this rift would have happened or not, the idea that marc would have gotten a new appreciation for the situation valentino found himself in is at least an interesting one. though if anything, the rivalry with fabio would have more closely paralleled valentino's with the other aliens (new talent coming through, but with the previously dominant rider still a regular winner). now is the time marc's learning what it feels like to come back from a prolonged absence from being competitive at the highest level - and of course with a new superstar simultaneously making his debut

so yeah, anyway, tragedy, you can point to all sorts of strains and pressures and tension inherent to professional sport that were exacerbated by the personalities involved and the influence of the media and the passage of time etc etc. but never mind all that, let's get back to entourages! I know you mention everybody's favourite b-list shakespeare villain, but I'm going to basically mostly ignore him because it's well-trodden ground. yeah, it does help to have one guy who's whispering poison into your ear for a prolonged stretch of time before showing up at your motorhome doorstep with a bunch of telemetry and a dream. and yeah, there were people in valentino's entourage definitely encouraging this path to doom. but what I'm also interested in is the flip side - why nobody stopped him

I would like to submit into evidence this passage detailing the thoughts of vale's mechanic alex briggs. now briggs in this excerpt blames two groups for how things went down in 2015:

the yamaha side (specifically the press group) for not talking him down from the ledge before the presser

the crew chief and other assorted italians on the team for being too "yessy" and not standing up to him

let's briefly (for a given value of the word) focus on the first one. if you're a random yamaha pr person and you see the valentino rossi run to a press conference (given he was late) with a bunch of papers in his hands (well, he's not actually holding the papers in those gifs, but presumably somebody's got them), it's probably a tough ask to expect you to hold up the valentino rossi and ask him what exactly he's intending to do with those papers. also, is he really going to back off because you, random yamaha pr person, have asked him to please not accuse the competition of sabotage? added context is that some at yamaha were aware of what valentino thought about the race at phillip island (which we'll get to in a sec), but god knows if the pr people did. unless he confided in anyone on the yamaha side what the plan was, a lot of them would have been blindsided too - which does come back to the problem of how big a deal valentino is and how maybe you're a little more cautious about questioning what he's about to do with those papers than you would be with somebody else. it does feel like perhaps a bit too much to expect for them to have launched some last-minute intervention, or to even know what kind of intervention they could have gone for beyond low-level comedy hijinks to stop him from even getting to that room. why did nobody from yamaha place a banana skin in his path

but we do know that at least some in yamaha were aware of valentino's great big phillip island sabotage theory, because lin jarvis has very helpfully told us as much (from the post-sepang media scrum):

Q: Do you think it was a mistake for Valentino to [provoke?] Marc so much on Thursday with a very personal and hard attack? Jarvis: There are always many different ways of addressing different problems - Valentino chose to do it in that way. Perhaps that is what provoked Marc into being quite aggressive on the track. I really don't know, you need to ask Marc not me about that. Every action has a consequence. That's life. Q: And did you know before that Valentino was going to be so aggressive with Marc in the press conference? Did you know before? Did you discuss with Valentino about this decision or you didn't know until it happened? Jarvis: Personally, I was not aware of that. I was aware of Valentino's opinion of the race in Australia, but I was not aware... but I was not aware that he would - Q: Don't you think because Valentino at the end of the day is an employee of Yamaha he should discuss before with you about such an important decision, to attack a rider of another factory in such a heavy way [...]? Jarvis: You can't control every incident, everything that happens and you know, generally we have a very good [...] relation, connection with our riders, we talk to them before about things before, but anyway I think this is something Valentino felt strongly about and it was his decision and that's it.

note the use of the word "personally", which does leave the door open to others within yamaha (outside of valentino's inner circle) knowing what was going to happen. jarvis, unsurprisingly, comes down pretty firmly on the side of 'well what were we supposed to do'. given that jarvis admits he knew valentino's theory and is hardly a stranger to valentino's modus operandi - after all, he was already team boss at the time of another tense press conference in sepang eleven years prior that took place in the wake of valentino accusing a competitor of messing with him - you do have to wonder whether yamaha could not have tried a little harder to stop valentino. but again, accounting for the power of valentino's status and the power of his character, I'm personally unconvinced yamaha could've done much to convince valentino to change his mind

so then: the italians. a little bit of context - briggs started working with crew chief jerry burgess in 1994 and both of them were on mick doohan's team for all of his five 500cc titles. when doohan's injuries forced his retirement, valentino inherited his championship-winning team upon moving up to 500cc. jb was vale's very first crew chief in the premier class, and him as well as briggs have been working with vale since december 1999. understandably, this is a very tightly-knit group. it is one that made the jump to yamaha with valentino - here's just a quick excerpt (also from oxley's valentino rossi: all his races) about briggs' thoughts on that move:

When Valentino decided to defect to Yamaha, he was determined to have his crew go with him. Only one stayed at HRC. "We first got to know about the Yamaha deal in Portugal, I think [September 2003]," Briggs continues. "I wanted to stay with JB, because I hadn't finished learning what I wanted to learn. "I remember a clandestine meeting in the car park at Phillip Island, about salaries and how everything was going to work. It was really exciting. When I very first started working with Honda the whole group was very much a team. Towards the end we felt like it started to become a bit us and them: the engineers and management, then the mechanics and the riders. They'd sort of got too big for their boots - they'd designed this wonderful bike, so it was like it had nothing to do with us. That made it easier to leave.

and also about the move to yamaha, from the 2020 barker biography of valentino:

But with his trusted crew chief Jerry Burgess and most of his other team members from the Honda garage agreeing to defect with him, Rossi had the crew he needed, not only to win but also to enjoy his racing. It was a heartening display of loyalty and something of a risk for all involved. ‘When I announced to the mechanics that I was going with Valentino they said, “I’m coming too,”’ Burgess later explained. ‘Some of those guys were leaving very secure jobs and taking a big gamble.’

the group also survived the move to ducati (obviously a deeply frustrating two years not just for the guy riding the bike) and the move back to yamaha. but then, valencia 2013, valentino announced his decision to fire jb in a press conference organised for the pair of them. his 2013 season had been deeply frustrating - yes, he had gotten a podium in his first race beating both marc and dani, but after that generally speaking he couldn't come close to matching the other aliens when healthy. he was comfortably the fourth best rider that year, scrapping and clawing his way through midfield battles and having to rely on misfortunes befalling the three title contenders to achieve his podiums and his sole victory at assen. he was considering retiring at the end of the 2014 season once his current contract expired, but wanted to try everything he could to see whether he could be competitive again against the world's very best. and so, he made the decision to roll the dice and get himself a new crew chief, the italian silvano galbusera

now I have to say, personally I have a lot of time for this decision (even if it was maybe not... uh, enacted in the most graceful of manners, given how sudden it was). I come from a sports background where a certain ruthlessness in personnel decisions is encouraged and generally praised - if something isn't working, you should have the courage to make a change, even if it's deeply uncomfortable (including on an interpersonal level). also, while it was a sudden departure, it's not like burgess was that keen on sticking around much longer (again from the same oxley book):

Valentino ended his collaboration very suddenly at the end of 2013. Burgess was shocked but not too much, because he already knew that he was coming to the end of his own career. "When it ended for me I'd already been doing it 30-odd years and I'd told Valentino a few weeks earlier that I wasn't going to sign any more multi-year contracts. I was 60 by then, so I'd go year by year. I'd already signed a contract for 2014, but I would've thought if we hadn't had any more success by then that there wasn't much point in continuing. I felt we would win more races but I was more doubtful about championships. "I'd read enough sporting biographies to know that sportsmen change their coaches towards the end of their careers. It can give them a spike in results but it doesn't change the overall story. Looking back, Valentino's career went on longer than I expected. He enjoyed some success but no more championships and that's what you race for. Of course he was in the unique position of being able to get a factory bike until he retired. He was very special and deserved everything he got."

which, look. again, personal bias, but to me it's reasonable to part ways with somebody who doesn't think any more titles are plausible, because at that point it's just somebody who has a very different view on your career than you do and may well not stick around for much longer anyway. also, at the end of the day, jb was wrong! valentino came extremely close to winning another title, and just because he didn't, doesn't change the fact he could have. if it had rained on the 8th of november 2015 in valencia, we might be having a very different conversation. (or if they hadn't changed the bloody qualifying format post-2012.) honestly, if the 2016 and to a lesser extent the 2017 season had gone just a little differently - a working bike in mugello here and an unbroken leg there - he could have been a genuine title threat in two more seasons. in any case, what it does show is that valentino even at the end of 2013 was still as determined as ever, was ready to engage in what was a huge gamble (given how almost all his success had come with the highly decorated jb) on the off chance he might find what it took to win again. this will not have been an easy decision for valentino. here's a write-up of the presser at valencia, that stresses how uncomfortable the occasion was, how surprising a decision it was to jb, but how publicly at least there was a lack of recriminations (which, to be fair, wouldn't be much fun to do in a shared presser):

(you'll note that the phrasing in the presser about athletes attempting to extend their carrers by changing things up is echoed in what he says in that book interview where he adds that it doesn't change the overall story, again suggesting he didn't really believe valentino would be competitive. he also uses the same phrasing in ANOTHER interview that confirms as much, but I think you get the point.) valentino said at the time, "it was a very difficult decision for me because I have a great history with jeremy. he is not just my chief mechanic. he is like part of my family. my father in racing". this is somebody he'd been working with since age 21, somebody who is not only revered within the paddock for his work with several of the sport's greats but is also a man who valentino obviously has a close personal connection to. meeting for the first time when vale snuck into the honda pit to check out the bike he might ride next season, hitting it off immediately, countless rowdy dinners together, parties, jb and another older colleague sitting back when food fights started, watching valentino grow up, working with him throughout all his big manufacturer switches, all his successes and all his failures... as much as anything else, it's evidence of how strong vale's desire to win was, how determined he continued to be, to make this choice at this stage of his career. and jb was open to the idea (at least publicly) that it might end up being a smart call:

the 'dirtiest' part of the whole affair is how it was actually carried out - it's not great form to tell your crew chief the day before you end up doing a press conference together to announce your choice. for whatever it's worth, this is how valentino justified the timeline:

and lastly, which I think is the most key part, is valentino's belief. because at the end of the day, the only reason why he's doing any of this, and the only reason why what was to come was possible at all, is that he himself still thought that he could challenge for another title - as much as that belief had come under strain:

now what this piece also goes on to say is that nobody believes this will work. nobody believes that firing jb will lead to better results. people expect that this is going to lead to his retirement, quite possibly at the end of 2014. it's worth just remembering sometimes how extraordinary valentino's return to the top of the game post-2013 really was, how it went against how we expect a rider's competitive lifecycle to work, went far beyond the longevity exhibited by any top rider before or since - all while going up against riders who are widely believed to be some of the best to ever do it. valentino beat jorge in both 2014 and 2016, and remains one of two people to outscore prime marc marquez over the course of a season. not to engage in too much rossi prop here, but sepang 2015 can't really be understood without all the frustration that led up to it, to this one golden chance, this miracle that everybody had believed to be impossible (sometimes even valentino). this wasn't supposed to be happening. it was happening. and then, so so close to the finish line, valentino could feel it slipping, slipping, slipping away

but of course, we still don't know whether changing crew chiefs is the key factor that made him competitive again. maybe he just needed a bit longer to get back into the swing of things post-ducati disaster. maybe the bikes just started to suit him better. hey, maybe it was that nifty exercise regime he'd engaged in a wee spot of espionage for so that he could pinch it off his teammate. what we can say, however, is that valentino's choice both tells us a lot about his mindset, as well as (to finally bring us back to the actual point of this post) representing a massive shift in his 'entourage'. this is what briggs is referring to in his quote - the italians. the new crew chief. the people who couldn't stand up to valentino. now obviously, as mentioned above briggs had worked with jb for the better part of twenty years and can hardly be considered a neutral party. here were briggs' feelings on the matter (yeah it's from the same oxley book again, I got it new for eighteen quid which is a very generous price, would recommend):

When JB was out at the end of 2013 it was like losing my mechanic dad. I remember being in the garage when we found out about it. Then they arranged a kind of farewell, a kind of hodgepodge farewell. It was terrible, I didn't like any of it. I was just hiding behind one of the bikes in the garage, crying, going, what's going on here? It didn't seem right to me. I think maybe Valentino thought he would get faster again sooner, but I think it took at least a year to get the taste of the Ducati out of his mouth. I think if he'd stayed with JB we would've won the championship in 2015.

which. look. we don't have time to unpack all that. but. the point is that obviously briggs wasn't exactly a massive fan of the change within valentino's team, and his comments about the 2015 season do have to be read with that in mind. as to whether vale really would have done better in 2015 with jb at his side, your guess is as good as mine. all that being said, a part of me wonders how much losing that grounding presence enabled valentino's late-2015 spiral. maybe not in terms of talking valentino out of the great big fluctuating lap times treachery theory - to state the obvious, valentino got himself involved in plenty of drama during jb's time as a crew chief. jb himself occasionally helped add fuel to the fire in those feuds, like his infamous comment about how he would be able to fix the ducati's issues in 80 seconds that casey still brings up every three business days (the comments were poorly phrased but also somewhat taken out of context, in that jb was talking about a specific set-up problem). he's generally been pretty happy to be forthright about valentino's rivals, for instance this about casey:

My feeling at the time was that Casey probably only had one game plan, and having watched Casey over the years, he doesn't have a plan B. If it doesn't go his way from the outset, it's probably one of the weaknesses that he had through the youth that he had, through the lack of experience that he had. That's not a criticism of him per se, he was still only 22 at the time.

(this is about laguna seca 2008 and how he helped valentino win that race, including in plotting out vale's rather ruthless tactics - which casey was of course not exactly a fan of.) or these. uh. harsh comments about dani from spring 2010:

Q: Is that atmosphere or track knowledge? Is it like the Spanish finding something extra at the racetracks in Spain? JB: Well, therein we show the weakness, don't we? If you can get up on that weekend, on the technical racetracks of Spain, why can't you get up on the technical racetracks like Australia, where the Italians do? Lorenzo is a guy who will and does. Stoner has been able to get up on tracks all over the world. Unfortunately, Dani Pedrosa's into his 6th year in MotoGP, and he's won 8 races, Jorge Lorenzo's two months into his 3rd and he's won 6. It's night and day between those two, is the way I see it. Dani's an extremely fast rider, but a shockingly poor racer. Q: Were you surprised at Jerez [2010] when Pedrosa fought back when Lorenzo passed him? JB: When did Dani fight back? With two laps to go, and he didn't even get close enough to try to come back. Dani has never been a fighter in races, he's a lovely kid, don't get me wrong, but you can see that Lorenzo, having Pedrosa in front of him, it was never going to be the way he was going to finish that race. He was going to finish on the ground or he was going to finish in front of Pedrosa. That's the sort of race that we want, we had that with Biaggi and Valentino, and from history with Schwantz and Rainey. All the good riders have always had somebody they have had to put the target on the back of. It was Doohan and Gardner, and Doohan won that battle hands down, and I think Jorge Lorenzo's going to win this battle [with Pedrosa] hands down.

kind of a dick! so his attitude to valentino being valentino has generally been a) well having enemies is good, actually, with an added slice of b) good luck to his enemies :) - see also this quote (from the barker biography) in the context of the gibernau rivalry:

And that made Rossi even more dangerous, as Jerry Burgess pointed out: ‘Valentino is the sort of rider I wouldn’t want to get angry. He can take you apart on the track.’

so yes, jb is also perfectly brutal in his own right, as you presumably have to be to work alongside valentino so closely for so long. he is, however, also somebody valentino has a massive amount of respect for, somebody who helped turn him into a legend and is responsible for a lot of vale's success - not least, of course, in the pivotal move to yamaha. he was replaced by a man of a far far lesser stature in the sport, one who presumably would have been grateful to valentino for the biggest job he was ever going to get. if briggs is right and there was a shift in valentino in 2015, surrounded as he was by italians (derogatory) who could not stand up to him, who allowed valentino to insist on war and peace on the pit boards, to focus more and more on things that had nothing to do with riding... it would be going a little too far to say that valentino was missing an adult in the room given he was, in fact, in his thirties and should have been capable of being that adult. and who knows what jb would have said or thought or done about the great big childhood hero deception theory. but sepang 2015 was the culmination of a lot of things, including a pressure cooker of a season that grew more and more tense and put more and more stress on everyone involved - perhaps for none more so than valentino. maybe, just maybe, if he'd had somebody around him with fifteen years of experience in handling him, who could have just occasionally told him to knock it off, to concentrate on the racing, to keep things simple (always jb's defining philosophy), to maybe not get so wrapped up in the great big spanish collusion theory...

or maybe it wouldn't have mattered! maybe we're getting cause and effect all wrong here; maybe valentino was deliberately fashioning his entourage into one that was only going to give him positive feedback. maybe he would have just stopped listening to jb, maybe the very decision to fire jb makes it clear he was no longer interested in what jb had to say. it's a tragedy, after all! maybe it was always going to go like this. maybe it was always going to end like this

speaking of entourages, marc's manager played a bit of a cameo role in fanning the flames just a little further (article from marca, 26/10/2015):

alzamora obviously will be somebody valentino is familiar with, having raced him in 125cc and also having just coexisted in the paddock over the years. valentino could of course be lying, but idk, why would he? he's already made his case by this point, and what if alzamora were to contradict him? if it's true and this conversation did happen, you do have to say it's a spectacularly unhelpful intervention from alzamora. even if marc was mad at valentino, why the hell are you telling valentino this AFTER sepang 2015? what's the plan here buddy

^ 1999 world champions: alzamora in 125cc, vale in 250cc and alex criville in 500cc. people think motogp lore is complicated but if you know like, five guys, you're set for about twenty years of drama

which does get to the heart of the matter - a lot of these people have big egos and their own agendas and they love to run their mouths. they like talking a big game and getting involved in things they really shouldn't be getting involved in. is reed right that these people in the riders' entourages 'created the drama'? well, no, I think the two men at the centre of this particular tragedy were plenty capable of doing that themselves. nevertheless, you can point to how professional sports (and motogp in particular) forces you to rely heavily on a small group of people to keep you sane at the centre of the storm, and the risks that can emerge when that small group collectively unmoors itself from reality. you can point to the perils of fame, both in making your reliance on your inner circle so unnegotiable as well as in providing you with the status and power and ego to ignore anyone who might wish to change your mind. you can point to specific figures in this story who managed to incite the conflict between the two of them, as well as how the pressure cooker competitive environment they were operating within helped set up the ultimate catastrophe. you can point to how valentino lacked anyone with the power to stop him - both in the direct sense of forcing him to reconsider and the indirect sense of commanding his respect enough to make him see sense. maybe, just like in 2004, valentino had simply been "looking for an excuse" and he was always headed down this path. or maybe if somebody had just held him back a little that year, kept him focused on his riding, maybe if the right person had intervened at the right time...

maybe, maybe, maybe. that's why it's a tragedy

[youroomwasquare]

Marcy Wu, and Why Her Unfinished Character Arc Worked.

I'm gonna ramble a bit about our favorite newtopian ranger, marcy wu!!

so. I, like many others in the fandom, was a bit disappointed with how the show handled marcy's growth and character arc. it felt rushed.. incomplete, and overall messy. I felt that marcy's growth wasn't given the same attention and care that anne & sasha's growth was. coupled with the overall tragedy of marcy's character and role in the story, I was feeling extremely discontented with marcy's character.. until I realized that the show writers may have unintentionally made that the point of marcy's arc.

because LISTEN. out of all of them, marcy was the one who came away with the least positive things from amphibia. she didn't connect with her amphibian charges (she even admits it herself in the finale, and says that she wished she got to know them better), she was more focused on the technical and worldly aspects of amphibia, and while she did come into her own, she wasn't able to address and tackle her underlying core issues in the way that anne and sasha were. --

the two main themes of amphibia are learning to embrace change and letting go. and all the story arcs of the calamity trio showcase this in different ways (that's a discussion for another time, however). of these two themes, marcy's arc leans more towards the letting go aspect. but here's the thing. that was her main problem. marcy's greatest fear is being alone, and her greatest flaw is her inability to let go. marcy couldn't FATHOM a world without anne and sasha. they were her biggest support system, and by moving, marcy was essentially stranded. she had a hard time connecting with people, and she didn't have the social skills that anne and sasha did. so to her, moving was the absolute WORST thing that could have happened. she was unable to live in a world without anne and sasha, and so she didn't. she chose to take matters into her own hands, and as long as she was able to get anne and sasha on board, everything would be fine, right? wrong. we obviously saw how catastrophic that was, both for marcy and everyone around her. it was beat into marcy's head repeatedly how reckless and stupid and downright fatal her mistake could have been, how fatal it was. marcy's biggest lesson in amphibia was that there are some things you will have to let go of. no matter how desperately you latch onto them, there will always be claw marks left behind.

--

my point however, is that this was marcy's only major flaw. marcy was a flawed character, deeply flawed in some ways, but from what I observed, she was never flawed in the way anne and sasha were. outside of her major flaw.. marcy was a pretty well rounded person. and of course, there is growth to be left desired, but most of marcy's (visible) flaws were communication, and the ability to make yourself be truly seen in a friendship.. and they aren't really even flaws. more just things she needs to work on.

unlike anne, she didn't have self-esteem issues. she was pretty confident in her abilities and her interests, as shown by the first temple. surrounded by the right people (which at the time, were unfortunately not anne and sasha), she would've flourished. and in amphibia, she did. because for once, she was allowed to be the person she truly wanted to be. and unlike sasha, she didn't have horrendous control issues. anne and sasha's flaws are what I like to call character flaws, flaws that are innate and come from you; ie, they aren't as a result of other people's actions. anne and sasha were allowed to address and properly correct their character flaws because amphibia (and the places they landed in) was the perfect environment for them to see their flaws and to see the consequences that came with them. sasha learned that trying to control everyone and everything around you will only drive them away, and end up destroying both them and you in the process. her strength came from lifting people up, allowing them to rise WITH her instead of pushing them down like she used to. anne learned that self love is important, and in order to become the best version of yourself, you need to surround yourself with love, and in turn, it will come back to you. anne's heart comes from the people around her. their love allowed her to give love tenfold-- both to herself and the people around her. their major flaws only got resolved because of amphibia.

but marcy? her main flaw, which is letting go? that could not be resolved in amphibia, no. because amphibia only amplified this flaw. because choosing to go to amphibia, making the conscious decision to run away, is the entire reason why this flaw is most prominent. marcy flourished in amphibia, yes, but she was never able to address her major flaw. because of a multitude of different reasons, of course, but also because to marcy, amphibia was another out. another way to run from her problems instead of facing them head on and dealing with the fallout. anne dealt with the fallout. she stood up to sasha, for ONCE in her life, and watched her plummet down a cliff in return. (this is a weak point, but for the sake of parallels, I can't take it out.) sasha dealt with the fallout. she betrayed anne, once, twice, and was forced to go back to wartwood, anne's town, with the knowledge that she and anne are no longer friends, no longer anything. marcy's way of dealing with the fallout.. was not the core. to many, the core may be a physical personification of all of marcy's flaws coming back to bite her in the behind, but I disagree. the core was a cruel, merciless, and downright horrible way for marcy to learn her lesson, yes, but the core was not the fallout. the fallout, that showed marcy the consequences of her major flaw, was in true colors. was in the throne room. was in watching anne and sasha's faces twist into horror and disgust, respectively. the fallout was in living with the fact that everything she did was for nothing, and that she still had to live in a world without anne and sasha, that in her mind, they now hated her. that was when marcy hit rock bottom. and when you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go but up, right?

--

marcy did atone. in the core, in the face of everything she could have ever wanted being handed to her on a silver platter, she said no. she swatted aldrich’s hand, and said that for once in my life, I'm not going to run away. I'm going to face this head on. and why did she do that, pray tell? because of anne and sasha. because everything that marcy wu did depended on anne and sasha. because in her mind, even if they hated her, she'd rather face their potential wrath instead of accepting a reality without them. the real them. it's natural, of course. her major flaw was not of just letting go. it was letting go of anne and sasha.

--

and so, the reason why marcy wu's major flaw could never be resolved in amphibia, is because amphibia is a personification of marcy wu's major flaw. sure, she had good moments, and things about it she will always cherish and remember (and less good things that she’ll always remember), but marcy wu could not start getting better, could not start healing, until after she left amphibia. going through that portal meant many things, for all of them, but for marcy, I think it represented her final act of truly letting go. of letting go of her escapism, and her tendency to run away. of letting go of the old version of her, who came to amphibia with the intent of being with anne and sasha forever. going through that portal also symbolizes the end of that version of their friendship, the version that marcy kept chasing after. and I think that’s one of the many reasons why the only way to close off marcy’s journey, at least from our point, is by having her move. the move, and how marcy dealt with it, was what started this entire, crazy journey. and by choosing to have marcy move at the end of the series, even after everything that happened, is a brilliant move from the show’s writers. because it shows that marcy truly did learn from her time in amphibia. she HAS accepted and is taking the steps to overcome her major flaw, and I think more than anything, that is proof of the growth that marcy is capable of. marcy acknowledges that anne and sasha changed, yes, but through her actions and words, she also acknowledges that she changed as well. going through the portal, going back to earth, facing everything is a symbol of marcy's growth. because the marcy we were introduced to would have never done that.

--

going to amphibia changed all three of them. and even though we only get to see anne and sasha’s growth, marcy’s growth is SO poignant as well. I think it was for the best to leave marcy’s arc unfinished, because it shows that she still has a lot to learn and a LOT of healing to undergo. marcy’s final arc in the show has drawn to a close. but her character has not. and the amount of opportunities, possibilities, lessons, friendships, love, and more, are limitless. I also think it's poignant that we're left with a sort of open ended interpretation as to what happened to marcy after she moved. as for her friendship with the girls, I have many thoughts on that, but that’s also a discussion for another time. I think I’ll close it off by saying that moving was good for marcy in a different way as well: it allowed the calamity trio to truly come into their own. their reconciliation with marcy in all in was proof that they want to give their friendship another try, and that they are better off in each other’s lives. but showing that they drifted apart, came back together, and redefined their friendship on their own terms is beautiful. I think even without amphibia, they eventually would have to come apart. not forever of course, but long enough to carve out their own paths and figure out what they want to do with their lives. I know the fandom loves the idea of them being codependent messes together (it’s also a guilty pleasure for me lol) but I LOVE the fact that in canon, they allowed their childhood friendship to morph into something new, something better. in the wise words of anne boonchuy, change can be difficult, but it’s how we grow. but of the things you let go, you’d be surprised what makes its way back to you.

not to get all sappy, but out of all of them, I think I’m the proudest of marcy. and I relate to her a lot! so writing this was extra personal :,)

[thekingofwinterblog]

The Problem With Yasopp

So like many people I was genuinely surprised by Netflix One Piece, adaption, which turned out the exact opposite of pretty much every single travesty that america has made when adapting Manga and Anime.

It certainly was not without flaws, for one thing it needed to be at least 3-5 episodes longer in order to fix it's pacing issues if it wanted to get all of East Blue into one season, and the fight scenes while very well choreographed, didn't exactly sell me on the superhuman strength of most of these characters.

However, there was one thing that genuinely pissed me off, in large part because the american adapters changed something they didn't like, in order to fit "western sensibilites" and in doing so, completely missing the point, and frankly tragedy of the original context.

That of course, is the character of Usopp's relationship with his parents Yasopp and Banchina, and the rather sad tale of plans going completely arry due to twists of fate.

In the west, the character of Yasopp has been a rather contentious one, for several reasons, but also one that has been a bit altered by the changes from Japanese to English.

Yasopp is critiqued heavily by people who don't like him for abandoning his kid, and his wife to seek adventure on the high seas. Now this is not untrue, but there is a bit of context here that's a bit lost in translation.

And you can really tell that, because the way Netflix portrays Yasopp leaving is the surface level one you might get if you just read Syrup Village arc, and you don't pay any attention at all to the timeline given.

In the neflix series, it's explicitly said that Yasopp left Usopp and his mother while Usopp was still a baby. That is such a common reading, that it's actually what the One Piece Wiki claims happened(Another example of why you should always be critical of Wiki's).

The actual Manga tells a different story.

Yasopp left Syrup village right before Banchina unexpedetly got sick with the disease that ultimatly killed her.

When Usopp is so touchy against Kuro about him badmouting his father, it's not in the context of him idolizing some father he never met, because Usopp and Yasopp knew and loved each other dearly. Usopp's wish to see his dad again isn't some wish to meet the father he only knows through stories, but to reconnect with the dad he loved so much growing up and was sad when he left.

And then of course there is the glory of mistraslation. If you've read this part of the manga, you might rightly be wondering, what sort of woman would be proud of the man who abandoned her to take care of their kid while he sought adventure.

The answer, which the english translation does not give, is a woman who was the one to convince him to go out on that journey in the first place.

Because that is what happened in the orignal manga. It was Banchina, for reasons we don't fully understand or have the context for, eho convinced her husband to go out and seek his dreams.

That's the reason why she is so certain Yasopp will NOT be coming home, but why she is also not bitter about it. She was the one who encouraged Yasopp to go out to sea, while she stayed home and took care of their kid, until he grew old enough to care for himself, and seek the seas himself if he wished.

The story of Yasopp, Usopp and his wife is a genuine tragedy, but not because Yasopp abandoned Usopp before he ever got to know him, but because Usopp's parents made plans for the future, that while not perfect by any stretch, seemed workable enough... only for the entire thing to come crumbling down after Yasopp left due to something as mundane as a random disease.

One can certainly make an argument that this was NOT the best course of action for Yasopp and Banchina to take, but it's not the complete deadbeat dad who abandons his baby trope that the Netflix series portrays it as.

Further hammering in that this was a bit more complicated than that, Yasopp seems to have been one of the very first crew members Shanks tried to recruit, having sought him out not long after Roger died... And Yasopp seems to have flat out rejected him, as he stayed with Banchina for years and years afterwards.

It adds a lot of context to the idea that Banchina was the one who ultimately convinced Yasopp to go out and chase his dreams while she took care of the kid... Because it took years and years for it to ultimately conclude at this course of action. Yasopp would continue to reject Shanks offer to join him for years to instead to take care of his wife and kid, until about a year before Shanks met Luffy, when his wife told him to go.

It's a hell of a lot more nuanced and interesting than what Netflix did, that's for damn sure.

[general-cyno]

I finally got to thriller bark and of course I'm having many feelings about it, so long ramble ahead. what makes this kind of sacrifice have so much impact narrative-wise is precisely bc of which character does it and imo there was no better choice than zoro.

while his life was certainly in danger, zoro still joined luffy's crew in way less dire circumstances than most of the other straw hats and he's someone that luffy actively sought out to embark his journey with. zoro's dream of becoming of the world's greatest swordsman is one that matches luffy's own of becoming king of the pirates. this doesn't lessen the importance of the crew's dreams, but imo it's clear that there's a reason why zoro's the first to join. why luffy trusts him to take care of everyone and lead them when he's otherwise busy fighting the biggest bads, incapacitated or just not present for whatever reason and why zoro does exactly that. why, for example, he trusted zoro's judgment abt usopp coming back even though luffy was initially ready to accept him without even an apology needed.

another thing to note, which I don't think is a coincidence either, is that zoro's either been mistaken for the captain or has left ppl wondering why he isn't more than a few times already, throughout the manga. zoro's strong, a very independent guy, who already had quite the reputation before he decided to be part of luffy's crew. ppl still call him the pirate hunter. he's got a dream he's hellbent on achieving, and it's not only his, but also kuina's. he's not afraid of dying for it but it's not like he wants to, yknow? and he's never one to go down without a fight. zoro also admits during the davy back ordeal that there's no point to him being a pirate if he's not part of luffy's crew. all of these things make thriller bark so special.

this?

is zoro renouncing to his dream, his promise to kuina, to his own life - not in battle, and certainly not as a way to achieve the very dream he's forfeiting - and he's doing it to keep luffy safe. bc zoro's absolutely certain that luffy WILL become the pirate king and if zoro has to cast all that aside to make sure of it, he will. this is zoro taking all of luffy's pain as his own while protecting luffy's life and dream, putting them even above his. which, to an extent, also guarantees (from his pov, at least) the rest of the crew's safety. that's huge, so much that even kuma questions his decision.

and yeah he's protecting the crew, but it's very obvious that he's doing this for luffy. kuma points it out, as shown above, and he had already voiced out his intention to leave with luffy's head only, specifically. it's luffy's pain that zoro's willing to take on and die for.

also perhaps you'd think this seems a bit one-sided no? but if you ask me, zoro choosing to pretend nothing happened is proof that it isn't. sure, it's not like zoro's the type of character who'd boast or openly talk abt this kind of sacrifice, but this is what he said to luffy when he agreed to join him:

luffy adores his crew. he's willing to die for them, protecting and saving them always, and he takes their dreams very seriously. zoro has witnessed this from the very beginning, and also took it upon himself to remind luffy of how much they all relied on him back when usopp left the crew, so that luffy wouldn't doubt himself. imagine how luffy would've reacted or even felt knowing that zoro had done this. for him.

in hindsight, this panel from the beginning of the arc is a bit of a tragedy honestly. (still cute though!)

[raconteur-wanpi]

ONE PIECE 1124

I'm probably gonna start writing these thoughts / reactions with each new chapter at this point. At least as long as I have something to say!

Sentomaru is alive waaaahhhh!!! Mr. Golden Boy! I'm so glad! He skyrocketed his way up my favorite character list in this arc, but then again I'm weak towards any characters based on folklore / fairy tales and mythical heroes to begin with. It's nice to see him escape Egghead, but it's devastating to see him mourning like this. He lost so much, he really is a tragic character. Seeing him cry is genuinely a bullet through my heart. He lost his adoptive father, he lost the island he has spent much of his life on, he failed to protect the civilians who he risked his life to save, he's now a fugitive running from the government, and the man he considered an uncle and mentor figure was the one to pull the trigger. Poor guy, his experience with the Buster Call and loss of mentors almost makes him feel like a parallel to Robin. I hope he gets to heal, there are some revealed surprise good news he might want to hear eventually.

And speaking of tragedy within this little family unit, here it is. Borsalino's regret. This really reminded me of Garp and Ace, but unlike Garp being just passive and complacent in Ace's death, here Borsalino was the man who actually did it. You can see the sorrow and devastation but also the complacency. He was always going to do it, no matter how he feels about it. What in interesting character, I want to dissect his brain. His lack of a sense of actual justice and code was something introduced as a joke, but here we see what that actually looks like. A man passive enough to follow any order, even if it's something he isn't going to be able to bear.

And of course, the aftermath of such a conflict. This is the first time we've ever seen him sad and / or furious. He's sobbing and screaming to Sakazuki, someone who he's always tried to appease in the past. I wonder where will this lead him as a character. I adooore seeing the Marines betrayed, broken and fed up by their own system one by one. Maybe they will eventually realize they're on the wrong side of history. Or maybe Borsalino over here will stay complacent and passive as he always has been, who knows. Either way, I love the way Oda has approached all this interpersonal tragedy within all the grander politics of it.

Yep, there is it! The big twist! ...That most people myself included completely expected. Punk Records is still intact! The Gorosei need Vegapunks mind, so they explicitly tried to protect that part of Egghead. And that means, of course, all the Vegapunks' consciousness is still up there in the Cloud. There's a chance any of them could talk through Lilith, Stella included. Hell, she could probably build new android bodies for them if she gets the resources. Or at least, that's what I'm assuming she means by "everyone's alive", since she doesn't elaborate further.

Aaaand Robin getting excited to meet Saul again. 🥹 God I hope it goes well, I'll be devastated if it doesn't. PLEASE let this reunion happen properly.

And to close things off, somebody is waiting for them on Elbaf. People have pointed out the silhouette looks similar to the mysterious kasa-hat-wearing man we see chatting it up with Crocus in one of the cover stories. The most common guess I've seen is that it's Scopper Gaban, the man from Roger's crew, and potentially that he is the "man marked by flames". Others have suggested things like Shiki or even a 90-year-old Yorki who survived. I don't know if I personally have any predictions, but Gaban feels like a good guess. It could potentially also just be a character we haven't met yet. Really looking forward to the future!

[himejoshiangels]

batgirl 2000 reread bcs I'm crazyy...IM NUTS!!!

her and that damned rose..what does it all MEAN!!! it makes a reappearance l8r...also I missed this dynamic so so bad. me when I'm in a seeing my kids as an extension of myself competition and my opponent is Bruce Wayne

I always forget how fucking potent and tension filled the first arc of this comic is man. it's like, bcs cass can't speak or even have thought bubbles everything's communicated via her actions or the words of the ppl around her. every panel she's in has to be chock-full of emotion and every time she interacted with someone the implications and the ffUCKKKKK‼️

the atmosphere in this damn comic man

I dunno man not to "back in my day!" when it wasn't even my day. but comics these days don't trust the audience even a little. there's always gotta be paragraphs of text having a character explicitly state every detail of their motivation and like not that old comics didn't also do that but at least the words they wrote were pretty like fuck man who are they hiring to write this shit anymorw

this transition is straight out of a movie. I know we say this with literally everything but if ANY comic in the world should get an animated show it has to be this one. top contender. it's formulated like one already, it's episodic w perfect overall themes and bigger plots. even the vibe is perfect, the grainy mtv cartoon thing it has going. every day I pray for a batgirl 2000 cartoon it'd go so crazy jsut adapt the shit straight

batgirl 2000 just keeps hitting you and doesn't let up bcs in the same episode SORRY issue..where cass meets lady Shiva for the first time is also the same issue where babs first begins to address her as Cassandra

^^WHICH IS CRAZY bcs we have to keep in mind that up to this point cass is nameless, she's only been referred to as batgirl. this is one of the first times she goes out as not batgirl too tho, bcs Bruce benched her. it's GAHHHHH that whole thing where vigilantes angst and drama abt titles and legacies and their individual identities is exacerbated so so bad for cass bcs batgirl is the first name she's ever given. like it's all she ever knew and ever was. Cassandra came after and THIS

THIS PANEL RUGHT HERE ohhh my god it makes me crazy. she's only batgirl. she doesn't even have the words to explain it yet. she's only a reflection of the city she's sworn to protect its all she is and at first its lowkey all Bruce let's her be. not to mention. her relationship w babs, I'll speak on them l8r can't do it now I'll explode

a 1:1 animated series man. it's all I can think about so so many iconic moments. I don't kill but I don't lose either is already as cold as cold gets. the way the comic is formatted already fully visualizes as animated in my brain and it's so so fun to watch

LIKE LOOK AT THIS!! cinematic as he'll and it's not even moving..

both cass and Bruce hit the bullseye like....

Cass's perfectionism is such an underrated character trait of hers (in like the greater batfam fandom and more modern comics not here, never here) bcs she literally sacrifices her life about it. she's so self detrimental about how not perfect she is anymore and Bruce's nonsense doesn't help either. man sees himself reflected in a teenage girl once and looses all his damn sense. I'm just, yea we know "mediocre for a life time or perfect for a year" < god that goes hard, but the true tragedy that is cass's inability to see how unnatural and upsetting it is that her mind works the way it does at all, that she can run into bullets head on but complains that she could do it with more skill when she was 6 or whatever like girl...never evr letting myself become desensitized to her trauma, David cain when I get you...

AND ANOTHER THING AND ANOTHER THING!!! KKKKKKKKK!! the sideplots and b plots and background characters in this comic..each of them are offered so much empathy by the narrative and are written purposefully to reflect or foil whatever cass's current conflic is all while feeling like fully fleshed characters even if they only appear for one issue

^^ I have feeling abt these panels but my lawyers are advising me not to speak atvthis ttime

THFUCKINH THE ROSE!!AGAIN!!! so sure this is old news but my running theory is that it definitely ties into cass's sense of self and identity outside of her living weapon status. this whole issue is prime babs v. bruce custody battle material bcs babs wants cass to be able to have a normal life, to be someone outside of batgirl bcs where she is now isn't healthy even a little bit but bruce argues that cass doesn’t need that, all she needs is her devotion to the mission < now we don't have time to unpack all that but in this moment we see her make the choice, dropping the rose. in the very first panel of the whole comic cass does the very same thing, she drops the puzzle (representing her childhood) in favor of violence bcs at the time its all she knows THE PARALLELS HELP HELP MEEE

AND AND THIS NEXT WHOLE PANEL is so evocative of the first few issues where cass couldnt yet put her emotions into words. just atmosphere and silence. BECAUSE she's confused!!! bruce says justice is what she needs that it will make her feel better, feel normal but it doesn't!! she looks over the city and still feels..feeling!!!! she picks the rose back up and extends a hand out to barbara bcs she was right, she not Bruce, she can't sit in a cave all alone all day and feel better (<which arguably doesn't even work for him either)

in the next few issues she meets steph and tim which is soo fun bcs letting cass have friends her age opens up so much for potential dynamics. especially her relationship w steph, not just in a stephcass way but in a narrative foil way, to me at least

next post I'll probably talk abt cass's guilt, self hatred, and need for atonement but we move‼️

[writing-for-life]

To Be Human Means to Die (Even for Morpheus)

I know one of the biggest points of contention in the Sandman fandom (especially between show-only and graphic novel fans) is the end:

On the regular, we all hear the wish that the ending should have been more hopeful, that Morpheus dying is soul-crushing and devastating and sends the wrong message. And while I agree that it is incredibly sad upon first read (I actually cried my eyes out many moons ago when I first read World’s End, because that’s when I knew, without a doubt, what was going to happen), I would like to expand a bit on why I think we are actually getting the most hopeful message of them all…

It’s a Tragedy: Yes, but That’s Also Simplifying It

Let me briefly talk about tragedies first, because many people, myself included, often bring up the purpose of a tragedy first when we are talking about why realistically, there can be no other ending to The Sandman than the one we already have. That purpose is that we, as the audience/reader, are supposed to do better, and that we are supposed to learn from our hero’s fatal flaw(s).

And while all of this is true, it is also too simple.

Yes, Morpheus has fatal flaws, his inherent rigidity being the most prominent of them (on that rigidity, everything else hinges: his occasional cruelty, his sense of responsibility even if it destroys him, his inability to hold down relationships because he won’t communicate and compromise…).

But it would be too easy to say: “This is what we are supposed to learn from it, let’s not do that and instead be capable of change. Lesson learned, the end”.

For me, the most important personal truth of The Sandman goes far beyond that, and it is connected to the through-line:

Gods Can Die and Humans Can Be Immortal

When we first meet Morpheus, he is Endless in the truest sense of the word—although captured, it is very clear that he is not mortal, not human, and one step further: That he also doesn’t always understand what it means to be human. We get to know him as aloof, arrogant, proud, often devoid of empathy, and even cruel. And we all know that this changes throughout his arc. That the being who always asserted he is incapable of change finally has to admit, to himself and others, that he has changed, most poignantly in The Kindly Ones (e.g. when he tells Nuala that he lied to Ishtar when he denied he had changed).

And that change was initially a slow one--perhaps that is why he denied it for so long. But by the time we arrive at the end of Brief Lives, his change and, yes, his humanity, are already so clear to the reader that most of us probably went: “You really are slow on the uptake sometimes.”

Even Frank McConnell writes in his intro to The Kindly Ones: “And with [killing Orpheus], Dream has entered time, choice, guilt and regret—has entered the sphere of the human.” And Nuala is right when she asks him: “You want them to punish you, don’t you? You want them to punish you for Orpheus’ death.” Guilt, regret, and a choice. And his reply is silence, and it’s deafening.

On Becoming Human

By the end of The Kindly Ones, Morpheus basically is human in the metaphorical sense: He feels like a human, and even his body (or at least his relationship to his body) has changed. The most important indication for the latter is when we put in contrast that the Corinthian stabbing him in Collectors doesn’t draw a single drop of blood, but the scorpion whip of the Fates in The Kindly Ones does, and that scar remains. We can of course argue about who can hurt him and who can’t, but in either case, we see a Morpheus now who is more flesh and blood than he has ever been, and he feels a sense of mortality not only mentally/emotionally, but also physically.

(I have to throw in here that the change they made in the show at this point greatly confused me, and I think it is significant, as are a lot of other changes that have been made. And I personally hope they only use them to hint at a more human side to him from the outset to make us relate more, but not as a change to the whole arc. I will admit that I would have preferred if he didn’t bleed at this point because to me, it would have had more impact when we finally do see him bleed at the end. And we got foreshadowing for the scar in the show, when the earthquakes crack one of the windows and he looks through it for the second time. Yeah, I’m really that obsessive when I rewatch it, it’s embarrassing).

To Be Human Means to Die

And before we all collectively go into our evolutionarily ingrained wish to pretend that’s not true (because most of us fear death):

It is our mortality that gives our lives meaning. Without an end, life has no meaning bar feeling empty responsibility (or endless hedonism that gets boring at some point). And after 10 billion years, maybe the burden of that responsibility simply becomes too heavy (“But even the freedom of the Dreaming can be a cage, of a kind, my sister,” he says to Death in #69. And that he is “very tired”). It can’t make up for what truly makes our lives worth living:

The Impermanence of it.

Destruction got it right when he said that the illusion of permanence basically depends on our vantage point. That we can pretend if we so wish, and that there is comfort to be found in that, but that things simply don’t last. And that the Endless are truly no exception to that rule (“…even our existences are brief and bounded. None of us will last longer than this version of the universe.”)

And yet, we look at Morpheus choosing death and think: ”But that’s it then, he can't go back on that, but he deserved happiness because he has changed, he deserved (insert preference/head-canon of choice) and will never get a chance to have it now.”

And I get it. Psychologically speaking, we often fight the idea of death tooth and nail. We fear our own, and we have to deal with the loss of loved ones. So the denial is real—it’s not one of the stages of grief for nothing. But staying in that stage of denial is stagnation—the very antithesis of change. Death and change are linked—in the Sandman, they are not truly presented as alternatives, even if we might think so. They are two sides to the same coin. Death says to her mortal form in The High Cost of Living that the fact that life ends is what gives it meaning. That’s why it always ends. And that message has already been given to us in The Wake: “(Death) gives you peace. She gives you meaning. And she bids her brother goodbye.”

It’s Not Just About Dying, It’s Also About Coping With Grief

It tells us something about our own mortality, but also about mourning our loved ones. That’s why The Sandman doesn’t end with Morpheus’ death/The Kindly Ones, but we get a whole story arc after he is gone/The Wake. Because mortality isn’t just about us. It is also about the ones we love, the ones we need to let go while keeping on living, but we also hold on to them in certain ways (“humans can be immortal” because we make them so). All the mourners are us, and in the case of grieving Morpheus, many of us are probably a bit like Matthew:

In the throes of grief, we don’t care that there might be someone else who might even be more kind and loving (poor Daniel)—we don’t want a “replacement”, we want back what we have lost. And we are not ready to move on, until we somehow are/do. And that path is painful and long, as everyone who ever lost a loved one will be able to attest to. The pain never truly goes away, but it changes, from something so raw and painful that it knocks the air out of your lungs, to something that shows up here and there unexpectedly, still painful, but a little less so. Until it only hurts around the edges of memories that make us smile, miss and love someone, all at once. That love is permanent, even if life is not. It doesn’t really die with us either, because we can pass it on.

And it is somewhat fitting that the idea of “to be human means to die”, and that death is what gives life meaning, also extends to storytelling:

Without an end, a story has no true meaning. Our lives are stories, and every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Morpheus’ story is meaningful because it has an end (I already wrote about this before in “Why the order of the last three issues of The Sandman matters” and have attached a long reblog chain)—not because it plods on endlessly (no pun intended). And that end is exactly what makes it last, what makes people feel, reflect, understand, learn, pass it on.

We, a whole fandom. continuously talk about how upset we are that he died, what we learned from it, what we would do differently (be that in our own lives or in a retelling of the story), and I’ll just leave it at that, because it drives the message home so much more than any further exploration could….

[marvel-starwarsfangirl]

Of course I cried (a TBB S1 Retrospective and cry fest)

I finished S1 and it honestly is still stands really strong. While I love the other seasons more (for quite obvious reasons), S1 still has really standout moments and episodes such as the finale. Crosshair might be in is bad boy era, but he's still incredibly compelling.

What hurts to me most about S1 is this image above. This is the last time CF99 is all together. Ever. Obviously, we didn't know that and neither did our boys and Omega. Even if the Batch knew in-universe there was a chance that they would never see each other again, I think deep down they hoped they would reunite. I know Omega had hope that Crosshair would somehow find his way home.

What makes S1 (and the whole show in retrospect) even more tragic is that we will never see the BB whole ever again. It makes Tech's death hurt that much more because he and Crosshair never made proper amends. The last thing he hears Crosshair talk about is how everyone else is foolish for not joining the Empire and making his choice to stay. One of the last memories Crosshair really has of his brother is him pointing his blaster at him. After that, it's a one way ticket to suffering for Crosshair.

I know it's just a show, but images like the one above make me wish we had more time with the Batch before they were so cruelly torn apart from each other and it only enhances the tragedy they go through. The series finale, no matter how sunshiney it looks, is still bittersweet. The Batch finally get their freedom but at a great cost. Tech doesn't make it. Crosshair is still deeply hurting. It's a harsh reality that breaks my heart. In Rebels, we had 3 seasons of the Ghost crew together before we lost both Kanan and (temporarily) Ezra. The BB don't even get a single season all together. I would've loved to see them all with each other at least one more time without all the conflict.

But looking at S1 as a whole in general, I still really enjoy it. I love episodes like "Common Ground" or "War-Mantle" because we see how monstrous the Empire really is right out of the gate. Rampart, as goofy as that scream made him look, is a very crafty and entertaining villain who you just want to punch in the face. Crosshair himself is a fantastic villain who's both ruthless and tragic. While he doesn't hold back, the clear attachment he still has to his brothers in the back half of the season make the finale that much more emotional.

And while you can argue there is a lot of "filler," a rewatch proves that each episode happens for a reason. Why did the Batch have to capture a baby Rancor? So they could get info on Fennec. How come they stuck around to help Cid? Because she gave them money and work. I'm not saying that it's the most entertaining content we've seen, but there is a clear purpose for why those episodes happen.

I would've loved to see more Crosshair (for obvious reasons), but I do think the first season does balance out the story arcs well and when we do see him, he is always great. Thanks to the great music and acting from DBB, I do think the first season makes it clear that while Crosshair isn't leaving the Empire, he's not the same man he was pre-Bracca. The chip's influence isn't there (or at the very least severely diminished based on how you interpret Cross' reveal) and he does want them back but only on his terms.

As for the others, I definitely understand Hunter a bit more. He wants to help Crosshair, but he really doesn't know how nor does he want to endanger the others. I wish the group had a least one conversation about it though. For a group that feels like they should be very tight knit, it still feels like they brush Cross' departure off quite quickly. It's kinda like the Tech scenario in S3 where you know they're thinking about it, but nobody says anything. And that's frustrating because you know the Batch have a lot on their mind, especially Crosshair. And ironically, the quietist of the Batch is the most vocal about his feelings. Crosshair is so expressive and it's one of my favorite things about it.

Omega is such a cute munchkin. I adore her with every fiber of my being. She takes everything with stride and I love how S1 establishes many skills (like the hustling) that will later come into play in S2 or S3. And the show isn't afraid to show her learning process. Omega makes many mistakes, but she learns quickly and tries again. She loves her brothers so much.

Overall, S1 is still very strong and much more tragic in retrospect. I guess in someways, it reminds us how unfair life can be sometimes and that's why we gotta cherish each moment. Tech might no longer be with us, but he lives on through each of his brothers and Omega. Cross might never see him again, but as he tries to be better, Tech is no doubt smiling down from Clone Heaven.

Anyways, onto S2 (and more sadness). TBB lowkey is the most tragic of the SW animated shows not counting the Siege of Mandalore arc in CW. Every season, something awful happens to tear our little clone family apart. That's why the ending on Pabu, no matter the quality of writing, meant so much to me.

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Hey Frost 💙! Happy 200 Followers 🥳!!

For the event I would love to submit an idea! What about an angsty Wolffe confronting Fox after he shoots Fives 👀?

Congrats!

The Tragedy of Level 1325 [Commander Wolffe Fic]

Warnings and Information: Clones killing their own kin is always an awful occurrence, more often than not a rare and accidental thing. So when Commander Wolffe catches wind of what happened on Level 1325, he meets with the other canine-themed Commander to get answers. And none of them will be easy to get, or, to hear. Set after the Clone Wars season six episode “Orders”. Lots of angst and heavy stuff in this one, folks! Heavy references/allusions to Fives’ death. Heavy references/allusions to canon-typical death, violence and injury. Reference to Pong Krell. Star Wars and real-world swearing. Minimal Mando’a. Narrative and stylistic use of italics.  **This is not a cloneship/clonecest fic. Tag it as such and you will find yourself blocked.**

Word count: 4,287

How fast word travels in the GAR is both a blessing and burden. 

Regardless of the distance, time of day, or paint color, brothers will hear what the others have gotten up to in-between their conquest to defeat the Confederacy of Independent Systems. A rookie’s foolish notion to prank his superiors that ends with him earning himself a month’s worth of latrine duty. The terrible pick-up lines learned from holomags (and their success, or lack thereof) used on other patrons of 79’s. Brave charges lead out of killboxes and ambushes.

Clones turning on their own kin - that bitter pill was hard to stomach. 

Commander Wolffe found himself choking down one such pill upon hearing the events of the night before. 

It didn’t make a difference how many times he consulted the datafile in front of him, the mingling of horror and disbelief settled just as heavily in his heart each time. The primary commander of the Coruscant Guard had been the one behind the blaster used to end a Clone’s life on Level 1325, and it had not been an accident either. This was not another case of some sleemo stealing and wearing a Clone’s full kit; it had been, without question, a brother. 

Clones were less uniform than many nat-borns would like to believe. They may look the same from the texture of their hair, to their face-shape, and the warm-brown skin, but that’s often as far as the similarities go. They found their originality in names, speech-patterns, scarring, the way hair was cut (or bleached or dyed or styled), the addition and location of injected ink. There were the occasional (minor) aberrations, too, of course; like the brothers who ended up ocean-eyed, or blond. 

(They at least knew where the blondeness came from; a dormant echo in the genetics of the man who served as the master mold for the Grand Army.)

Not to mention the paint, and the patterns. The paint job was perhaps the biggest, most important piece of their individualism (at least externally). Those working in tandem with the soldiers relied quite heavily on the personalization to their second skins when first introduced. 

So when the datafile in Wolffe’s hands tells him the armor worn by the dead trooper was not his own, a sense of confusion as well as a wave of mild horror washes over the flint gray commander. The deceased was one of the 501st Legion’s cobalt crusaders, yet the ARC trooper had been killed in an unpainted, second skin that had been stolen from another. 

Why?

So many why-s.

When asking if his brother would agree to meet with him, it had taken some convincing. Fox’s agreement ultimately came with conditions, which were thankfully simple. Find somewhere in CoCo Town - as he was due to patrol that near that sector in a few hours time - and find some caf that didn’t taste like droid oil. 

There, Commander Fox would attempt to provide as many answers to Wolffe’s questions as he could. 

Though he couldn’t promise there’d be answers for all of them.

Entering the eighth eatery, Wolffe tries putting a little more trust in this diner’s advertising than each of the establishments he tried earlier. ‘Best food this side of the Senate District!’ A tagline like that would have to do a lot of heavy lifting for a greasy diner in a dilapidated industrial area. 

Inside, the diner has been furnished with several deep booths with shiny red seats as well as a long countertop that offers a glimpse into the kitchen through a narrow viewport. The decor is a mix of chrome and neon. While it’s perhaps not what Wolffe would call his favorite style, he had to give whoever ran the place credit for a cohesive, and constant, theme. 

This place looks like it hasn’t changed in years. Too often, Wolffe finds once-favorite establishments rehauling their menus, revamping the theme, gutting whatever charm the place had between his deployments. It’s a damn shame. Corsucant changes too quickly top-side; all of it fueled on someone else’s pursestrings, no doubt. 

Noticing his arrival, a WA-7 waitress droid, idly chatting with a pre-dawn client, pardons herself to welcome the prospective customer. Assuming he’ll be subjected to a facial recognition scan, Wolffe holds himself in near-militant attention until the droid speaks. 

“Welcome to Dex’s Diner! What can I get for you, hon?”

The first question he has for the waitress is the state of the diner’s caf. 

“Is your caf instant?”

The droid’s feminine programming and friendly inflection does its best to make up for an inability to smile. (He finds it a little unsettling all the same.)

“It’s brewed in-house, every hour on the hour.” 

Wolffe regards a small chronometer on the wall, displaying what his body-chrono already knows. Just a half-hour before dawn. Perfect. Depending on how far away Fox is, it shouldn’t take long for his vod to find his way here. Coruscant had been under the watchful eye and capable hand of the crimson commander very shortly after the start of the war; if anyone knew their way around this massive labyrinth of a planet, it would be Fox. 

“Good enough.” Wolffe says with a thankful nod. “Saves me the trouble of finding another place.”

“Looking for something to eat?”

“Not exactly. I’m supposed to meet with someone.” he explains, sending the name of the diner to Fox’s comlink while the WA-7’s back is to him, asking him to follow behind. She’s got just the spot for him. 

She shows Wolffe to a booth in the back-left corner, where he can already tell at a glance that the padding under the seat material is worn thin and unevenly. (Well, he’s sat in worse seats.) It’s secluded, just enough, that it should afford him and his brother a little more privacy. He unseals his helmet as quietly as he can to avoid disturbing the other patrons, and sets the sunbonnet down on the table. 

“Your business isn’t our business,” the droid promises to Wolffe’s great confusion as he works to seat himself as gracefully as possible with the kama, “so rest assured that whoever you’re meeting, we won’t tell a soul.” 

“Okay… I appreciate that.” 

Wolffe straightens out his modified phase two helmet on the tabletop, dismissing the waitress’s offer to get him something to start with while he waits. Glass of Jawa Juice, perhaps? It’s a house special. 

A mash of bantha hide and fermented grain so early in the morning doesn’t sound particularly appealing. 

“Nothing right now, thank you.”

The WA-7 nodded. “Suit yourself, hon. Give a holler when you’re ready.”

It wouldn’t be long from now. Fox had sown the seeds for a system the Corries called ‘Zeros and Fives’ when it came to meeting their vode for non-military matters. Seeking out Fox for answers wasn’t technically an emergency, but it should hopefully be treated with a little more urgency seeing as Wolffe couldn’t wait around all morning. With the General’s help, he had to fabricate time-sensitive duties to excuse his presence on Coruscant earlier than expected. 

Some poodoo about retrieving something-or-other under the General’s orders. Records of research from the Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives, Jocasta Nu. 

Records of what kind of research, he wasn’t sure. 

That comes later. Now, he was waiting for Fox.  Wolffe checks his comlink for any response to his choice of locale, finding only a silent ‘Seen’ status. Well, he’ll take it to mean his vod won’t be waving down the suggestion.

With little more than his comlink and the datafile to keep him occupied, the flint gray commander settled in for what could end up being a long wait in the event Fox ran into trouble on patrol. How long he would end up waiting would be inconsequential, so long as he got answers and insight to the root of this tragedy. Something to rationalize the reality of losing brothers to something other than Separatists and their sympathizers. 

He just had to ask himself why he was doing this. Why he cared so much, what he hoped to find. Maybe even who he was doing all this for. 

Was it for Fox, hoping to get ahead of the inevitable boiling point the rumors might reach?

Was it for Captain Rex, finding some shred of information that may bring closure to the death of one of his best men?

Was it for Fives, given the death of an ARC trooper was no insignificant thing? Was he hoping to find reason, or just cause?

Or was it for his own morbid curiosity, given other details of the deceased’s service file?

Commander Wolffe couldn’t be certain until his brother was dragging his over-caffeinated carcass through the doors of the diner, and down to the last booth on the left. He couldn’t be certain Fox would be forthcoming with those answers, either. Or the state the other commander would be in. 

Fifteen minutes before the next hourly pot of caf is made, Fox shuffles into the diner, quiet and wordless. Not in the sense of stoicism; rather fatigue. Ignoring the greetings of the waitstaff, he walks himself down to the booth once he’s found Wolffe in his visor. Like his fellow commander, Fox’s helmet remains over his head until he reaches the table, at which point he unseals, and drops it with a dull thud half an inch over the table. 

“Good to see you, Fox.” Wolffe says.

That was a lie. Perhaps only partially. He wished if he was paying the crimson commander a visit here on Coruscant, it would have been under better circumstances. With better beverages as well. The last time Wolffe had seen his brother, he was promised a splash of spotchka and the opportunity to properly talk about the Abregado disaster when next they met. To mourn the loss of Wolffe’s men and the change to his armor. They started this war named after members of the Canidae and painted in beautiful shades of red. 

Now they were just a couple of canines. 

Fox makes no immediate greeting. With a tired grumble, he drops into the booth, a small betrayal to the tireless façade the Corries had come to be known for. 

“Sorry to make you wait,” he says at last, propping his elbows on the table as he begins rubbing one bleary eye, “Patrol took longer to button up than anticipated.”

“That’s fine.” Wolffe replied, just relieved the other canine commander was here. 

Doing her rounds, the same service droid as before approaches the brothers’ booth and asks if they’d like anything to eat while they conduct their business. (She doesn’t suggest Jawa Juice this time.) Wolffe takes her up on the offer for the freshest cups of caf that would be ready not too long from now. Just as the droid goes to send in the order to the back-of-house, she takes another look at Fox— currently in the process of falling asleep at the table —and thinks better of it. 

“... I’ll tell Dex to make it a carafe.”

When the caf is prepared, instead of sending it out with the service droid, FLO, Dex himself brings it out from the kitchen to the front-of-house. 

And Dex had certainly not been what Wolffe imagined him to look like. 

Standing roughly 1.88 meters tall by the commander’s estimation, the owner of the diner was a heavyset Beskalisk who wore an ill-fitting, heavily stained white shirt and apron that had certainly seen better days. Making use of the four arms in his possession, Dex carried the carafe with the lower set, and a pair of mugs in a third, upper hand. 

Wolffe hides any surfacing unease after meeting the owner’s eye by fixing Fox’s helmet beside his own to clear space on the table. He came here to question his brother about an ARC trooper’s death over a decent cup of caf; he didn’t expect to be reminded of someone who put his brothers of the GAR through a gruesome campaign on the lightless word of Umbara. 

A Force-wielding Besalisk named Pong Krell had tricked the 501st and 212th into turning their blasters on each other some time ago. His style of leadership was firm, his fighting form aggressive. Krell’s war record boasted several successes at the bloody cost of countless Clone casualties; the highest of any Jedi. Having been seduced by the allure of rising power, he betrayed the Order, the Republic, and weaponized the absolute loyalty of the men under his command. 

It would be Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase of the 501st’s bravest blue to defy orders and take stolen ships to cripple enemy forces. They proved successful, though only Fives and Jesse would return. Krell had tried to order their execution as a result of this disobedience. But brothers in blue and orange mutinied against the fallen Jedi, and attempted his arrest. Once they managed to capture him, Krell had been interrogated and his treasonous plot was brought into the light. 

Fives had been faced with the business end of a blaster at the hands of his own brothers twice. 

He only survived it once. 

Wolffe could only hope Fives’ mortal remains were being treated with far more respect than whatever had been afforded to Krell. 

One thing was soon clear at least, the longer the diner’s owner was working to serve them the fresh caf: Dex was nothing like Krell, save for being a Besalisk. 

Dex was far kinder, friendlier. 

He first poured out a generous portion for Wolffe, chuckling warmly as he spoke. “You’ll want to be careful, gentlemen. Quite hot. Should do a fine job of perking you right up, though!” Wolffe was sure to thank Dex before carefully kicking his brother’s boot under the table to stir him. Fox hadn’t fallen asleep, but he certainly was heading in that direction the longer he sat in the booth. 

Tiredly scrubbing a hand over his face in an effort to wake up, Fox took hold of the mug that had been carefully pushed in his direction by the four-armed cook. 

“Thanks…”

“Don’t mention it! Matter of fact, I’ll leave the rest with you two and let you get about your business.” Dex carefully set the metal carafe on the tabletop and lumbered back into the kitchen, as promised. 

Together, the commanders would take their first sampling of the diner’s caf; Wolffe found it of decent quality, nothing more. There was nothing special that set it apart from other diners, but it was a step above the instant powder in his and his men’s rations. 

Fox on the other hand drank like the caf was no milder than water. Maker. That couldn’t be healthy. Once the mug had been lowered for a suitable amount of time, Wolffe voiced the first of his concerns. 

“When’s the last time you slept, vod?”

With a heavy exhale, Fox set down the mug and leaned against the backrest. “Same time as the rest of Coruscant.” he said, too focused on the patternless web of scratches in the table to see the displeased furrowing of his brother’s brow. 

“Coruscant never sleeps. Are you telling me you’re running on empty?”

“No. I just don’t remember, cub.” 

Wolffe grit his teeth, full lips pursing as his displeasure deepened. This was no time for the kit-and-cub routine they had developed fresh off Kamino, possessing a curiously bright-eyed quality that would be lost before long. This was serious. All of this was serious, and Fox is choosing now to be sarcastic and apathetic with him?

He has to stop and take a measured breath before acting on any kind of anger. Should he be short with Fox, Wolffe’s opportunity to get sensible answers might slip between his fingers. So instead, he nurses his mug of caf before saything or asking anything else. Maybe it’ll help him hold on to his tether a little longer if he combats his own budding fatigue. Crossing several galactic timezones in order to get to the heart of the Republic could make even the most tireless of men weary. 

Settled, Wolffe begins again. “What do you remember about last night?” A glance is cast over their helmets; the thought of scrubbing through helmet footage flickers in his mind. 

“Might need to be more specific,” Fox replies, wantonly tracing the rim of his mug with his forefinger. “What part of last night are you asking about?”

“The part that ended with a dead ARC trooper.”

For a moment, the other commander remained unnaturally still, and equally quiet. Now that the reason behind the visit Wolffe was paying him had been revealed, Fox felt the atmosphere of the diner tangibly shift. So that’s what this visit Wolffe was paying him was about. He was aware from the beginning Wolffe was coming all the way to Triple Zero to question him; not the subject matter of these questions. 

It was time to establish a baseline for the brothers. 

“What have you heard?”

Propping up the datafile, Wolffe presents the timeline as he understands it. 

Alongside the Kaminoan Nala Se and General Shaak Ti, ARC trooper Fives had traveled to Coruscant from the Clone homeworld and met with Chancellor Palpatine at the Grand Republic Medical Facility. Shortly upon their arrival, Fives presented a potential Separatist plot that he believed responsible for the death of a trooper by the name of Tup to General Ti, the Chief Medical Scientist, and Palpatine. Agreeing to hear him out, Fives was granted limited audience with the Chancellor. 

Per protocol, shock troopers and the Red Guard remained in the room when Palpatine requested to speak “alone” with Fives. This meant when the Chancellor was suddenly attacked, the response was almost immediate. 

Under threat of apprehension, Fives would escape the Medical Facility, and remain unaccounted for for some time before making contact with a member of Torrent Company - namely their medic, Kix. Coordinates would be given to a location on Level 1325 with the request General Skywalker and Captain Rex meet him there, as soon as possible, and importantly, alone. His commanding officers would go to Hangar 18 in Sector I-9, where Fives had been spotted by a probe droid, and find themselves caught in a ray shield. 

While effectively at his mercy, Fives would tell his commanding officers he had been set up, framed, before the arrival of the Corries. 

“Did you hear anything Fives might have said when you arrived with the Guard?”

Fox, just about to take a drink, paused. “Not everything.” Once they had made it inside the warehouse, he and his men were more concerned with finding safe cover before moving into action.

A minor tell of annoyance, the twitching of the scarred brow over his brother’s cybernetic eye, did not go unnoticed by the red commander. 

“Obviously. But what did you hear?”

“General Skywalker questioned why his ARC trooper believed the Chancellor was capable of orchestrating this… Separatist plot when an assassination attempt had failed. Said the Chancellor was incapable, though his soldier insisted.” Fox replied, considering the dregs in his mug for the moment before pouring himself another serving.

“At what point did you step in?”

Not long after, his vod tells him. 

“His back was to us. Didn’t see us draw our DeeCees.”

“Why didn’t you stun him?” Wolffe nearly demands. 

Fives had been declared a fugitive, the commander understood that. When he had taken part in the manhunt for Ahsoka Tano following the declaration of her own fugitive status following the bombing of the Jedi Temple and death of a suspect, Letta Turmond, it had been under orders. Tano had been a dear friend to General Plo; the Kel Dor often spoke so kindly of her… she had saved his life in the aftermath of Abregado.

But given the evidence at the time, he believed she was the primary suspect behind the blast that had killed Clones, maintenance workers and six Jedi, and left many more injured. A belief that would be buried once he heard General Skywalker had found and brought the true perpetrator before those who put the Togruta on trial. Firing upon someone he cared about, in his own fashion, while she was dazed and unarmed, would be the last time Wolffe ever saw Tano. 

The guilt still gnaws at him.

Maybe if they had taken Fives alive, the real perpetrator could have been discovered. Like Barriss Offee had been.

“Why,” he repeats himself, determined to break Fox’s continued silence, “Tell me why, Fox.”

“We didn’t exactly have much of a choice, Wolffe. I ordered him to stand down, warned him not to do it; but he drew a nearby weapon. He was acting erratically.”

Fox had to make a split-second decision with highly volatile variables at play; the way he had been trained. The way both of them had been trained. Trained to make the tough calls that came with the lofty status as Marshal Commanders, before Wolffe had been stripped of such a rank. Robbed of the red. 

It would be replaced with gray, to honor and remember the dead. 

The innumerable, tragic dead. 

Try as they might, the Kaminoans could never hope to train the sting of a brother’s tragic death out of the men of the GAR. 

Following a break to use the diner’s refreshers and collect themselves, the commanders return to the table, making use of limited time before Wolffe is supposed to act upon new military-wide orders from General Plo. 

“What orders?” Fox asks, brow pinched in confusion. 

He hadn’t seen any such notification. Just a report from Thire and Thorn that more surveillance footage had been acquired of the events from last night; they now had an answer for how ARC trooper Fives avoided the shock troopers checking IDs in the Clone bar. A damn hat given to him by a corporal from another unit, of all things. 

“I’m supposed to report to the nearest Republic med center to receive some kind of vaccination. For a parasite.” 

Continuing to read the message on his comlink, Wolffe learns soldiers on other planets will need to await the arrival of the inoculation that was being mass-produced to protect every Clone, whether their deployment was peaceful, or on the front lines. 

“They… think some kind of rare parasite native to Ringo Vinda was responsible for what happened to Tup. For the behavior Fives displayed before you-” 

Something about this didn’t feel quite right. 

This answer was too convenient. How was it possible that a parasite was missed by the Chief Medical Scientist during Tup’s thorough examination on Kamino, but discovered by the Chancellor’s personal doctors in a rushed autopsy? (They had been thorough, right?) How did invasive organisms cause these “aggression inhibitors” to decay? How many more men of the 501st Legion were potentially infected, and how did the organism spread? Something about this wasn’t adding up. 

Maybe by asking the shock troopers who had been present during the conversation Fives had with the Chancellor, he could find something they missed; maybe they had heard something-

“ -ffe. Wolffe,” 

Failing to get the flint-gray commander’s attention, Fox has reached across the table and taken hold of his hand just as he finds it beginning to tremble. Minor stress tremors such as these have plagued him since the ill-fated naval battle, though they’ve been dormant for a long time with a combination of strict rest and discipline. And typically, they’re almost unnoticeable. 

But Fox has always had sharp eyes with even sharper ears. 

“When’s the last time you slept?”

A slow burning behind his eyes—the feeling stronger on the right—served as an uncomfortable reminder that he had been unable to find much meaningful rest after hearing what happened in Coruscant’s sub-levels. Another brother’s tragic, untimely death. Resisting the urge to rub his eyes and rid himself of the discomfort, Wolffe instead returns the steady squeeze rather than pulling away. 

Voice soft, he heaves a quiet sigh. 

“Not recently enough, kit.”

Perhaps it was his own fatigue that had him jumping to absurd conclusions. The demise of an elite ARC trooper had reminded him of his own heavy losses, and his composure was beginning to suffer for it. That was unacceptable. He needed to sleep. Both of them needed to sleep. 

But more importantly, Wolffe needed to leave. He had a set time to arrive at the med center by, and it would be imprudent to be late. Gathering the datafile, his comlink, and his helmet, Wolffe took one last gulp of caf before standing to bid his brother farewell. 

Then, he had an idea. 

“Maybe… after I’ve gotten the inoculation, we should both crash in your quarters for an hour if you’ve still got that shitty old couch stuffed in there since the last time I saw you.”

Fox chuckled, a lazy smirk settling over his features. 

“It’s still there and shittier than ever,” the crimson commander promised, “Been too busy to remove it.”

Wolffe resealed his helmet so Fox wouldn’t see the grim smile, one grateful for the meager space to sleep and troubled by the responsibilities his brother has had to shoulder that have kept him so busy, he can’t rearrange a stained sofa. 

It was no wonder Fox was sporting some silver around his temples prematurely. It probably wouldn’t be long before Wolffe’s own raven-dark hair did the same, given his own burdens and losses. This war would make old dogs out of both of them. 

Assuming they lived long enough to see the supposed end of it. After all, only the dead will ever see the true end of war. 

And that was a tragedy for the living.

Thank you for making such a uniquely heart-breaking request for this event Maia; I hope I did these canine commanders justice and made it appropriately angsty enough. I hope you enjoyed! 🩷

Fic taglist: @anxiouspineapple99 @dukeoftheblackstar @dystopicjumpsuit @msmeredithrose @lonely-day3636

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[lonelywolfinthemiddleofnowhere]

Reading TLH again #4 - the tragedy of Jason/Piper

So we shall begin Piper McLean's character arc!

We had 2 chapters of Jason and in the third, Piper takes the reels of the narrative and we get to know her more inwardly.

I would like to begin this meta stating how Piper, from the three new demigods, are the most calm one.

While Jason is sort of used to this magical world, he feels confused and, because he is a logical person, feels the need to question everything, even if, deeply inside, he already knows the answers to his questions.

Leo is, apparently, excited by the new world he got into. He is curious and not afraid of new things, so he seems happy and satisfied in securing a place for himself in that strange magical camp.

So: Jason is still confused (this phrase is getting repetitive, but this is basically Jason's mental state through the whole book), Leo is excited and Piper is...feeling dreadful, but weirdly accepting.

It made me remember how Piper is actually a really cool-headed character. She doesn't freak out much. From what I remember, she usually keeps her worries and fears for herself, which makes a lot of room for misunderstandings and omission (one of the things that annoyed me about her in my first read).

Interesting observation #1: Piper is in love with Jason

She seems to be deeply in love with him, which is really sad since we already know he was an illusion. Their relationship starts pretty badly because of these manufactured feelings she has for an idea of him.

She is disturbed by the fact that he acts like he doesn't know her. It is, in her view, the most worrying thing that happened in the day.

This is sick u guys, I feel bad for them.

Another thing that made me think about their situation: Piper was the one actively seeking Jason's attention before they met.

Even in her fantasy, she is the one doing the groundwork. It makes Jason appear as a dense boy lol (spoiler: he kinda of is).

And then she tells us that their "relationship" is new. She spent a whole semester working on it before they got together. For her, they were best friends before being lovers. She has been hallucinating with Jason for at least 6 months now.

She can already feel Jason slipping through her fingers like sand. He is escaping her, going far away, somewhere she can't follow. Except she never really had him. He was never hers for her to lose, so what, exactly, is she losing then? Or rather, who?

Their beginning is a tragedy (and so is their ending), but is so much more sad reading their circumstance through Piper's emotional point of view. She feels like she owns him something, and that he owns her something in return. They were supposed to be a pair.

Another thing I would like to comment: Jason has a powerful aura, but if you look closer, he also gives sad vibes. He is a sad character. If Percy is anger, Jason is sadness. (I will make a post especially analyzing the seven's dynamics later)

Interesting observation #2: Annabeth's suspicious already

Annabeth's first feeling towards Jason is ressentiment, like we saw previously.

Here, her ressentiment turns into outright distrust. She is suspicious of him and his entire demeanor is not helping. Annabeth is smart, she is the kind of character that usually doesn't have difficult into look past beyond the Gods schemes.

She knows, she feels, that Jason has something to do with Percy disappearing. The fact he screams NOT GREEK is not helping too.

Jason always has answers he is not aware and Annabeth sees he has history.

Their dynamic is super cool in MoA, seeing them in the beginning is very amusing. They are similar in a lot of things, both are great leaders for the rest of the crew in the Argo II, but here they are getting under each other's skin. Annabeth because of distrust and Jason because of wariness.

Interesting observation #3: The late claim of Leo and Piper

Does anyone else thinks about this weird timing surrounding Leo and Piper's claim?

We know Leo has history with Hera. She has been in his life since he was a kid, so I kind of buy the idea of her shielding his existence until the right time for her plan.

But Piper? From what I remember, the gods didn't meddle with her life until now, in the Wilderness School. I don't understand why Aphrodite took so long to claim her. After the war, every kid should have been brought to camp at 13, and those older should have been there already.

They both don't describe weird encounters with random monster like Percy do in TLT too, so I assume nothing out of ordinary happened in their life up till now (except the whole Leo fiasco, but that wasn't a monster, so I'm not counting).

Coach also says that they are powerful, and their scents are quite strong (not big three strong, but still), so why this timing is so off?

Anyway, I don't have an absolute answer to this, but is something that makes me wonder about things, so I brought it here. Any theories?

Interesting observation #4: Percy's disappearance being a huge thing

The entire camp feels his absence. Percy had rough years at camp, and fought a war to protect it. Everyone there recognizes him as a leader and look up to him for guidance and inspiration (like they did with Luke). This is so satisfying to see, how loved he is!

Percy is not in the book physically, but he is still everywhere. Literally haunts the narrative, I love it (i miss him)!

Interesting observation #5: Piper is fast to judge

From the very first time she lays her eyes upon Drew, she knows they aren't going to be buddies.

Drew also traces fast judgment towards Piper, so maybe is an Aphrodite kid thing, analyzing and defining people in seconds.

Right after we have a lil leader!Jason moment, where he starts asking the important questions for the three of them:

And Piper starting her betrayal arc being sketchy:

Interesting observation #5: Piper can be violent

We had already seen her ready to knock storm spirits without prompt, and now we have her ready to smack Drew's face because she said Piper's hair looked like a dead badger (this is such an Aphrodite kid thing lol)

Bonus points for Piper's quick people judgment (also a very Aphrodite kid thing to me), cause she knows right away to not mess with Annabeth:

Interesting observation #6: Leo is the first being claimed

Jason doesn't count to me cause he already is claimed, he just doesn't remember (and Zeus doesn't acknowledge him). I assume Piper is claimed later because Aphrodite loves to put up a show.

But Hephaestus is pretty efficient in claiming Leo right away. He is a very straightforward god after all, so it makes sense.

Interesting observation #7: Will is Leo's assorted tour guide, and possibly his first Camp Friend

Their interaction is so small and in the beginning of the first book of a series of 5 books that we tend to forget that, before his brothers and sister, Leo's first camp friend/acquaintance was Will Solace. Odd friendship, I know, but it was there for a chapter at least.

Interesting observation #8: Piper is still thinking of Jason as her boyfriend

Piper is getting a whiplash next chapter when Annabeth explains what is happening with Jason to her, because right now, in her head, she still has a boyfriend. A boyfriend who is acting very weirdly, but still her boyfriend.

In the next hours, she is losing him for real. Poor Piper.

And Annabeth is still finding Jason's existence unnerving. His mere presence is rising lots of questions in her head. I love how Annabeth is zero chill, the girl is always plotting or trying to dissected the plot.

Interesting observation #9: Jason has 12 years of military service. He is 15.

Man, Camp Jupiter go all out on the claiming of their kids uh? They literally burn the tattoo on your skin, marking you one of their own.

Jason has been in the legion for twelve years. At this point in the timeline he is 15 y.o. Make the calc guys, this boy has been in active duty since he was THREE YEARS OLD. Unbelievable.

No wonder why Jason has almost none rebel cells in his body. They indoctrinated him with military mentality since, like, forever. All he has always known was duty and honor. Never questioning, always serving. That is part of the reason why he is The Order and Percy is The Chaos. They are foils.

Here we have a lil moment of Jason being tired of people asking questions he doesn't know the answer to. Let ma boy rest, he is amnesic:

Kudos to Annabeth being the unquestionable Camp Leader, ultimately respected by her peers:

With this, I rest my case. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

If you like my insights follow for more!

Jason I

Jason II - Part 1

Jason II - Part 2