#worst thing to grace my tl

[pekodayz]

this is ruining my afternoon plans

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

(tl;dr at the bottom)

this one is just petty, and i'm too much of a pussy to actually do anything (though my friends do say i absolutely should) but:

wibta for filing a complaint (?) against my table group for a class?

i take culinary for one of my classes, and it's one of the saving graces of my otherwise utterly shit high school experience. and while i do enjoy the class, i've recently been put in a group with people who do absolutely nothing and it's been frustrating me. for example, as of the day i am sending this, we made zucchini fritters. the dishwasher and i, the sous chef, did basically all the work and the manager and executive barely did anything unless we actively made them. i can understand the manager doing nothing, since their job is to basically just supervise the kitchen and they don't get to actually cook (worst role for me ngl) but the executive chef, who should be involved in the whole cooking lab, just sat around and watched. now don't get me wrong, i love the process of cooking and making stuff, but it's a little tiring when it's me doing most of the work while other people just grab their phones (they aren't supposed to get them until the lab is finished and the kitchen has been cleaned, for sanitary reasons) and idle about. anyways, the manager at least grated the zucchini while i worked with the green onions and garlic i guess, and during this the executive chef just kinda. stood there and watched? he always had earbuds in and i don't really know what he does, but i thought he'd at least be mixing the batter. he did not, and turns out he really was just standing there the whole time so i mixed the batter after i finished up with my veggies. while i was doing so, i also thought that they'd have put the zucchini in a bowl or a colander or something and started sweating it with the salt, but nope. the two of them just sorta went off to do their own things (stand/ lean against the counters and watch) and so i panicked and dumped the stuff into the nearest clean bowl, and i did manage to get the executive to salt it. then when it was time to squeeze the water out, it was again my job to do so, though i am currently missing about a quarter of my nail on one finger due to it snagging and ripping off. at this point, i think i should mention i have chronic back and joint pains and headaches, and i was starting to feel worse and worse, so i once again asked the executive to squeeze the water for a bit while i snagged a pain killer. when i come back, not even a minute later, he's just dumped the thing into the batter mix, instead of fully squeezing it like i asked him to. then he hands the thing to me and i mix it and then i have to fry it. by the time i start frying, all the other kitchens have finished, we have like half an hour till class is out, and chef puts on hell's kitchen for the class. me and the dishwasher (who offered to help throughout the lab occasionally. she's a godsend.) make them fry the rest (one fritter). while i did do the dishes after it doesn't count since it was as a thank you to the dishwasher who helped me. but other than that, it's like this for pretty much every labs except for when i'm dishwasher, and even then it's not too different since it just means i have to go back and forth between cooking and washing dishes.

i vented to a friend, who also takes a cooking class (catering) about this and he says i should email about it to chef. now this is where the question comes in. i don't feel good about reporting it to chef since i don't want to be a snitch. i, too, engage in listening to music and chilling, so i get the joy of doing these things. if i were to tell the teacher, though, they'd get in trouble for it and i don't think i want that. and i might be biased/ just cranky. last lab, which was hamburger and fries, the guy who was executive today threw away the fries because class was ending even though not everyone got their share of it yet. this instantly put him on the "i dont like this guy" list of mine, and on top of that, i was already feeling a bit cranky and gloomy since waking up, and it was only further worsened by whatever class cooked in the kitchen before my class, who leaves the dishes all dirty and gross every time without fail (specifically, it was all three pans sticky with grease and a glass mixing bowl encrusted with a white substance that set me off today) so i might just be being harsh on them. i usually enjoy getting to cook and actually do things, and thus i haven't had an issue with the lack of help from my tablemates (is that a word) until now, so this could just be me wrongfully directing my negative feelings to them and blaming them.

tl;dr: people in my group in culinary class do jackshit and make me deal with the brunt of the work except for this one girl, friend says i should report their asses to the chef

why i might be the asshole:

i was already cranky and might be just making them the subject of my anger and blaming them

i usually enjoy getting to cook anyways

i might be biased against one of them since he dumped potatoes before i could grab my full share

snitch

why i might not be the asshole:

should not have to do pretty much all the work and they get the same grade despite doing nothing

still have to do most of the work despite chronic back and join pains and headaches + injury

having to actively get them to help me is a pain in the ass since they just go right back to doing nothing after half assing whatever they were asked to do

sorry if this is a bit all over the place, i am bad at articulating my thoughts and the likes, and am currently being fueled by spite, pain, and caffeine.

(@sousanon so i get a notif when this posts)

[askbombasticblake]

Wait hold up. Patch supported a pedo?!

Alright, I'm caffeinated enough to answer this.

Strap yourselves in, folks. This is gonna be a ride.

So during my year-long mental roller coaster ride back in 2021, one of the things Shiloh confessed to me during one of my spirals was that Lily was not the first predator they had run defense for.

No, that honor goes to their college roommate, a trans/intersex (can't recall which, I just know they're not cis) woman named Tianwei (forgive my spelling). Tianwei had told them 3 things, hoping that 1 would be excused because of the other 2.

First, that she was a pedo and had pedophilic thoughts about children regularly. Second, that her parents abused her for one reason or another. And third, that she nearly died in a house fire.

Now, to most sane people, the latter two wouldn't matter, because the first is still fucking horrid. Not to Shi! They bought into Tianwei's bullshit hook, line, & sinker, and let her continue to pursue her education instead of reporting her to campus police.

In hindsight, this puts their willingness to look past both Lily and Poppy's fuckshit in a totally different light, as we now have a pattern of behavior.

Now I already know what Certain People in the Peanut Gallery are gonna say: "What about you? We heard you confessed too!" Well, let's get into that.

As a bit of background, one of the things I am very open and angry about is the fact that I was abused by multiple members of my family. Sexually (by my dad & my sister), verbally, emotionally, financially, psychologically, and most importantly, physically. I'm not just talking spanking, either. One of the most common forms of abuse I can remember from everyone in my family is them hitting me in the head as punishment/in their own fits of anger. I'm talking striking me hard enough to see stars, cause temporary deafness, and in at least two cases, smacking me hard and fast enough to lift me out of my chair.

I say that because I'm pretty sure the aforementioned physical abuse was enough to cause some form of brain damage, and at the very least has scrambled my memory to some degree. Worst case scenario, the abuse at such a young age will cause my inevitable autopsy to show that I've developed CTE. Would certainly explain some things. Anyway, back on track.

That previously mentioned scrambled memory is what caused me to THINK I had done horrible things as a teenager. However, my saving grace is the fact that my friend/brother Kaiser was in contact with me during my teenage years, and he has a much clearer memory than me. As the Twitter post pinned to my blog states, I told Kaiser EVERYTHING back then, because I wanted to seem more active than him (I was stupid and competitive, gimme a break). Because he himself said that I never told him about something that heinous, but DID tell him any time I met with older men who were grooming me online, combined with the fact that he has trusted me enough to name me the godparent of his daughter, I can safely say that my guilt and manic spirals were caused by false memories, and thus my name should be cleared.

The same cannot be said for Shiloh. Between Tianwei, Lily, and Poppy, it's clear that they have a history of defending and enabling predators when those people have something to offer them. This pattern should call into question their own history, accountability, and lack of personal responsibility going forward.

TL;DR: I got hit in the head alot & falsely accused myself, Shi is a grifter & pred enabler. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

[madoheart]

I wanna try and make a sweetheart angst fic,, i need suggestions

I may never post it thoug

me myself personally I'm not too knowledgeable on fanfic stuffs, I've read like 1 or 2 in my time on the internet, but if you want any problems that Sweetheart may have I can most likely provide

To clear things up that WOULDN'T be a problem, I'd say body positivity. Sweetheart is 100% in love with her looks I'd say that's painfully obvious from her merch alone.

Mentally though she's absolutely fucked, Considering that the only parental figures she has is her Donut grandma, and even then her grandma comments about how she doesn't visit much, Sweetheart probably has a very loose connection with her. Her castle and shows and everything she does to garner attention to herself I think is a result of her suffering from neglect as a kid so she's trying to make up for that. It'd also make sense with her lack of social skills and 0 actual friends as well as the fact that she holes herself up in her castle, literally NO ONE taught her how to interact with people and how to live in the real world. I don't think she's entirely oblivious to these problems, just shutting them out with her golden ego and blinding herself with her "perfect" life. Lot's of issues with how she refuses to see how fucked she is, but I think she still absolutely knows it. In my big fucking post about Sweetheart I brought up how I thought her battle is torment for her cuz she's slowly coming to the term with the fact that her world really isn't perfect, and I don't think it's a new feeling just one that's been amplified during her battle, she knows deep down her current situation is terrible but it's not like she can do anything about it. Accepting it will make her feel worse and it's not like she has any friends she can go to, who the fuck is she gonna get help from? a sprout mole?

Post Humphrey Sweetheart is absolutely 100% way fucking worse. Any redeeming qualities her castle had is now gone and she's at probably the worst spot she's been yet. Any denial about how terrible her life was has been thrown out because she is at the undeniably worst spot of her life. She now has to deal with the fact that she took her castle life for granted, unaware of how worse things could get, but going back to it would mean going back to the lonely fantasy she had before, so while it's a saving grace compared to her maid job it definitely won't fix her problems. To make things worse Perfectheart is also thrown into the mix. Perfectheart is quite literally a perfect Sweetheart, a mockery of Sweetheart, everything Sweetheart wants to be is right in front of her watching over as she toils away at her maid duties, stuck in the spot her selfishness and greed brought her to. I think I've brought up before what I think of Perfectheart and Sweethearts dynamic for any potential Sweetheart character arc. Perfectheart can see Sweethearts troubled, she acts as her overseer to keep her in line so she pays off her debt, but also tries to nudge Sweetheart in the right path so she doesn't stay as the lonely brat she is. I like to think Perfectheart is TRYING to be SWHs friend, doing things and giving her things to make her feel more comfortable in her current situation. And on the other end, Sweetheart absolutely HATES Perfectheart, not for anything she did, just their existence mocks her. While Perfectheart just thinks Sweetheart being so dismissive of her is because Perfectheart didn't end up as her perfect suitor, Sweetheart wants nothing to do with what is basically everything she couldn't be. I'm sure at some point they'll get along and Sweetheart will open up, but when Sweetheart DOES open up it is going to be EXTREMELY messy.

tl;dr, Pre Humphrey Sweetheart suffers from neglect and denying her imperfections. Post Humphrey Sweetheart has accepted her imperfections, hates herself more than she ever could, and the one person trying to be her friend hurts to look at.

Anyways that's all I have to say about Sweethearts problems, I hope at least some of this is good fuel for your angst

[vro0m]

merc are desperately looking for that lightning in a bottle they have w Lewis. they've banked a lot on RUS but (in my personal opinion) Russell cannot fully extract the raw speed HAM does out of the car (he has been consistently slower on race pace for about half/a tenth in both seasons) and that is starting to eat him up inside when on track. He has a lot of potential and needs to focus more on his strengths rather than beating his teammate outright cause it is not happening. I have a lot of faith in the kid and I don't wanna see him trip himself up this early in his career

End of the ask posted afterwards : "btw off track I believe George has a ton of respect for Lewis, it's nothing personal"

Okay it became a long answer in the end so I'm putting it under a cut but TL;DR 50% agreed and 50% disagreed.

I think you're being a bit unfair to him.

For starters, I don't believe Mercedes is expecting him to be as good as Lewis, because I think they are fully aware that there is no such thing as another driver like Lewis. Doesn't mean they don't have expectations for George, but I don't believe for one second they hired him thinking he would outperform Lewis, and in any case not that quickly. First of all because, again, they know Lewis is a once in a generation driver ; second of all because Lewis is Merc's n°1 driver whether they admit it or not.

George is doing well. George won a GP in Merc's worst ever car. Yes there were circumstances around that, but there always are. Victories never happen in a vacuum. He's been pretty consistent. He's doing okay given the current car and compared to the rest of the grid.

Because yeah, the current car is still not good and that's a big factor. Lewis has 12 years of experience on him to make it work anyway. What is raw speed? You cannot realistically separate natural talent (whatever that is,I won't deny some drivers seem to have a magic touch but historically it's not necessarily a permanent quality and it generally doesn't significantly beat the state of the car) and experience, that allows to understand the car, know how to drive the circuits, know what works for you in terms of set-up, etc. The only way you could genuinely compare them is if they'd started at the same time in the same car. As this is not possible, you can't put aside the fact that Lewis is a veteran and George is still, actually, a newbie.

I do agree more with the second part of your ask. As I said in a different ask I do believe George to be slightly over-eager although it makes complete sense that he is. It's natural. He's a racing driver. He has an opportunity. He's gonna do what it takes. I think what's happening is

The car is legitimately difficult to drive and more than just that it's unstable, as in : they seem to still not be quite able to predict how it's gonna behave from one track to the next. It's frustrating, and experience does play a big part in that part of the equation.

I do personally believe there's some extent of him just going through what all teammates of Lewis go through aka realising that no, you're not that different from your predecessors that you're gonna be The One Who Does It And Beat Him. (And we're back to fan favorite blog subject : Lewis breaking his teammates.)

Concerning the second point, it might be a particularly difficult wake up call this year because he did finish ahead last year, firstly because, again, he is good ; secondly, because of non negligible circumstances re: car development and all that that we all know about.

I'm gonna give him grace about the mistakes he's currently making, not that he's making many of them in the first place, because he is learning. Lewis himself made so many mistakes on his way to were he is. On and off track. That's just part of the process, they all go through it.

As you somewhat point out, I do think he needs to be careful on the mental side of things to not, just as you are doing in this ask, compare himself to the incomparable and psych himself out like others before him did.

My advice to him, not than anyone asked and that I have any authority to give any, would be that Lewis won't be here forever, and in the meantime he should focus on learning rather than outright trying to beat him. In the end, you can't achieve the second without the first anyway.

[bunnyloaves]

thinking about hickey n crozier hours

the thing is, francis made a very convenient enemy out of hickey. Like here is a guy who is not really liked, kinda disliked let's be real but then you made a martyr/victim/scapegoat out of him, and that my dudes is a very convenient leader for a mutiny. You’ve made for yourself a beaten down figure who will then usurp the titan, very convenient. Like lets be real i don’t think the other crewmen particularly liked hickey, but by singling him out, francis only managed to exacerbate the class/social strata divides among all of them. And i think thats pretty neat, how in his worse moments francis is vv explicitly like the distant captain dishing out arbitrary corporal punishments to presumptuous people, and he’s all that before he takes on the team dad, being so deeply responsible for every single man’s well being, loving his men more than god loves them kind of mindset.

and by god did he love those cold boys, like it's pretty sweet how he takes on a fatherly role at the end of it. not leaving a single man behind, letting them carry signifiers of their own home/humanity/britishness even though at the time it would be unnecessary baggage (but they’ve already shed so much of their constructs/mores/conventions that asking them to shed those signifiers of identity would be heartbreaking) and he literally does love them more than god does and that love is francis’ own undoing (love that we’re hammering in the god/father themes in here). on a similar thread the fact that francis is generally a source of absolution/forgiveness for the other characters (ie. hartnell with the whole you may go rest with your brother, he kinda takes on this permissor/grantor role which imo makes him more nebulous than he really is. like in the midst of his own present existence, he’s already nebulized and mythologized to take on the “mute/reservoir of all histories/receptacle of grief, of names, of everyone else’s memory” role he takes later on). another bit of ‘forgiveness’ is the fact that he feels like he can forgive the crewmen of their crimes/animosity/their mutiny (since he’s the one that put them up to it in the first place, but it also speaks to his self-sacrificing/effacing nature (ie. that he’d take on the shame of organising a mutiny against sir john/and leaving his own post if it meant that he’d be able to seek rescue for the men)).

ok back to feeling like he can forgive the crew for the crimes and offer them absolution, like that is so O____O to me, like hello what makes you think that ur the one meant to offer forgiveness and absolution, does he not deem himself worthy of blame either in that he can forgive others but still carries the guilt/baggage of bringing them all here within himself. And that’s what i find so interesting about hickey, is that he sees through it and challenges him about it all, like they both bring out the intrinsic worst out of each other and its great imo. like francis can forgive every other man of the crew for their cannibalism, for their mutiny (is vv willing to be the prodigal son's father with the mutineers, in that they leave a stock/cache for them once they return and its a stock meant as an offering of peace and goodwill) but i love the fact that despite this broad (and imo abstract) sense of forgiveness (to everyone else), he is just so weary and unforgiving and critical of hickey (like yass girl u are the least special girl out of all of them, you are so delulu rn)

tl;dr: like what i think is so neat about them, is that you can posit francis as this father/god/arbitrator among them and hickey is just like the one exception to that man’s mercy and sympathies, like hickey is distinctly treated with more disdain and cruelty than everyone else (rightfully so, he's a sleazy guy) but i think he just wants to be in someone else’s good graces for once (in the sense of nobody ever wanted anything out of him, or ig not necessarily good graces and wanting dad’s m&ms but more of him wanting to be equals with something greater than measly human, ie. bear, or at least he thinks he's par with someone who is great/has status (which he throughly lacked), ie. captain)

[safyresky]

(arrives to the review-course 1 day late with starbucks timmies, starbs has the WORST hot chocolate i have EVER had the misfortune of ingesting)

So. Episode 5! Wow! That was! Wow!

I know we've seen soo many opinions at this point but I have done the big sleep (gone to bed, as they call it, so that I can wake up the next morning refreshed and ready for battle or w/e) and am still very much in my thoughts here.

tl;dr: Bernard shone, of course! K-man loves B-Man as much as we do and he made sure to DELIVER. MANS CAN ACT! Shame that he did end up finishing off by being a punchline to a crappy joke that wwdits does WAY BETTER, and a shame that the writers didn't leave it perfectly ambiguous. That would've been such a lovely thank you to fans! But no, as with most of the Cool Things in the series, everything is the punchline to a joke that would've been funny 30 years ago 🙃🙃🙃

So the problem is NOT that now our fanfics don't line up with canon. NONE of us give a SHIT about that. In fact, I think that the majority of the writers I talk to are RELIEVED about that 😅😅 The problem is that our boy B-Man was done a DISSERVICE and that's just rude, after such a stellar performance and WHOLE 20 MINS OF FRESH B-MAN CONTENT 🤩🤩🤩, and then the lore in the episode just fucking dive bombed every time a joke was wedged in there. Holly fuckeros.

So yeah, Bernard wasn't the problem. He was a saving grace! The PROBLEM, that at least, I HAD, was the lore! I'm about to get mean on main so UNDER THE CUT WE GO. Also, since this is the end of the tl;dr, to the tl part we go!

One thing The Santa Clauses has consecutively done is give us really cool concepts, but when it comes to executing and explaining them, they leave more holes than they started with! See:

Sandra rushing to see Befana to talk about her magic, and then it doesn't get expanded on at all period. We don't even get to SEE them chat about it! Sandra gets freaked out by it one or two more times then suddenly BAM she's chill with it. WHERE'S THE TIME FOR GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Mrs. Claus's identity crisis! It fell flat for me. Carol was reduced to very one dimensional and being like, OBSESSED with why Mrs. Claus is Like That and why she has to conform to a roll--which is a newer thing given that in tsc 3 she did NOT have to bun up or wear velvet or whatever. Also, her look as Mrs. Claus in the series? Amazing! But that's besides the point. the point is, it's a thing that exists, and we want to see more, but instead it's written off as a weird mix between "token feminism" and "look! she's a principal again! yay!" and it's like, once more, WHERE'S THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Mad Santa. Remember that? Yeah. They mention it once and it seems like a build up to a Cool Concept and then BAM. IT IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN

And those are just off the top of my head!

Now episode 5, episode 5 was lore HEAVY. And it fell flat. It was half assed. You mean to tell me that:

NONE of the 17 Santas before Scott were human?!?!?!?!?

But then NOT tell me what they were? Aside from Ethereal?

WHEN THEY ALL LOOKED HUMAN?

ASIDE FROM KRAMPUS WHO ACTUALLY SLAYED, LIKE, THAT MAKEUP? GO OFF KRAMPUS! PRACTICAL EFFECTS MY BELOVED!

AND THAT SCOTT IS THE FIRST HUMAN

AND THAT THE NORTH POLE WAS GIVEN TO HIM AND HIS NUCLEAR FAMILY

AND THAT AFTER ESTABLISHING A PLOT WHERE THEY NEED A NORMAL LIFE, YOU'RE GOING TO THROW THEM BACK IN THE POLE?

BECAUSE THEY ARE THE FIRST FAMILY UP NORTH?

AND IT'S LIKE, THEIR BIRTHRIGHT?!?!?!?!?!

W H A T?

AND ON TOP OF THAT, SCOTT IS STILL DESTINED TO BE SANTA? AND SIMON, A POC, IS A VILLAIN?!?!?!?!?!?! AND CANNOT BE SANTA????????

WHITE KIND OF WHITE FANTASY BULLSHIT DID I WATCH?

The fact that Simon, who was given like, decent character development in the first two or three episodes, has become the villain? When all the signs of his character pointed to a reverse Scott (man cannot balance work with home life, prioritizes home life but can't support it as a result instead of vice versa), and an interesting plot line where he had to get past a fuckton of anxiety and also, GRIEF?!?! WITH THE MOM?!?! THAT THEY FRIDGED?!?!?!?!

And now, we have 1 flashback but we're not even seeing a change of heart from him? He's BARELY interacting with his daughter who was like, the LIGHT of his LIFE, and Grace is okay with this? She's just chillin in her tower? And spitting facts and being lonely and Simon's just like, not even noticing?

come ON. FUCK.

I am VERY mad about what they did with Simon.

So yeah, the lore is a lot but not enough at the same time, and it falls really flat because it, imo, is so self-serving to Scott who sucks, like this whole series just has me like

Like, this series, I was thinking, could've benefited from being 45 minute episodes. And I still stand by that. But ALSO, it could've benefited from uh, BETTER WRITERS APPARENTLY? WHICH IS WILD BC I REMEMBER READING THE CREDITS THE WRITERS HAD AND THINKING OH, QUALITY SHOWS--THIS COULD WORK OUT!

AND NOW LOOK! the concepts are introduced but never expanded on, hurting all of our heads and falling flat; it turns the movies on their heads (Bernard writing the clauses for Scott, meanwhile in tsc2 he;s like SHOOKETH that they missed the Mrs. Clause???????????? Hello??????? Like I get it, stepping away from movies for different source material, but like. CONTINUITY?!?!?! HELLO?!?!?!)

There's just SOO MUCH bouncing around my brain box right now, and this is just the tip of the iceberg? I can't even get past half of this! Heck!

And like, I knew from the start that the series was just a Disney nostalgia cash grab/diversity update like most of their new shit has been this year, but god DAMN. THEY DIDN'T EVEN DO GOOD ON THE DIVERSITY GIVEN THAT THEY VILLANIZED THE LEAD POC ACTOR! AND LIKE, WHY EVEN ANNOUNCE THEM SIDE BY SIDE IN THE LINEUP IF SIMON ISN'T EVEN GOING TO BE THE NEXT SANTA? LIKE WHAT EVEN WAS THE POINT?!?!?!

Also, everything Ana said in her rant? Yeah, preach it sister, FULL AGREEMENT. Why IS St Nick white? FUCK.

In conclusion, as stated previously on this post:

[memoriastellarum]

kaosou. do it.

Send me a ship and I will explain why I do or don't ship it

Simply put, it’s the red string of fate effect.  End post.  I love them for the dramatic, but entirely natural character growth.  Circumstances keep bringing them back together, and they learn to live alongside each other and truly, truly appreciate each other.  It was a very rocky start, though!  Even just the road they took to being friends was long and hard.  But that’s why this ship is one of my favourites-- they’ve already put an immense amount of effort to understand each other’s points of view, and they’re in a really good place as is.  This is the secret to harmony in any relationship-- whether familial, platonic, romantic, or anything else.  You listen, you learn, you understand, and you keep reaching for one another, even when times seem good.  (Especially when times seem good, dear reader!  Keep checking in on one another and you’ll avoid the worst of all disagreements.)

tl;dr They’ve put a lot of time and effort into working through their disagreements, and while they may never see eye to eye on every issue, they have a close, friendly dynamic that is, above all else, healthy in its current state, with plenty of room for forward movement.

WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN...  At the start, I guess!  I think one of the most important things to note about Souma is that he’s incredibly emotion-driven and will simply react according to what he feels.  For the most part, this works about the same as it does for most people.  He’s a very proud person, and while that usually translates into elegant speech and a certain degree of noble composure, it does also mean that he can heat up very quickly when his sense of pride is threatened.  More than that, he came onto the scene with an incredibly rigid, black and white view of the world, and he wasn’t always the most graceful at having his worldview challenged.

One of the first really big obstacles here was Kaoru.  I think it’s important to note that Kaoru was not in a very good place when they met, and he wasn’t dealing with it very well.  Their first meeting consisted of Kaoru approaching Souma, thinking he was a girl, then repeatedly blowing off Souma’s earnest attempts to speak with him when he realized he wasn’t, in fact, a girl.  For the most part, Souma was more patient with this encounter than most people would be!  But he did lose his patience by the end of it, and it set the mood for their relationship from then on.

Which is to say, things were tense-- and even violent-- between them moving forward.  The thing is, Souma does explain his reasoning for how deeply irritated he is with Kaoru, and it’s not as simple as a grudge over that first meeting.  What bothers him so much about Kaoru is that he’s actually a really good person, but Souma finds it difficult to trust him because he’s not genuine.  He remarks that it’s beyond frustrating to deal with him because he refuses to engage in any form of serious or meaningful conversation, and that the fact that Souma can tell that he’s actually not a bad person makes it all the more infuriating to see him behave like that.

Well.  If you think that’s a really flimsy reason to threaten someone, you’re right.  But they’re both dealing with very, very different circumstances, and in very, very different ways. This confession comes around the time when things start to really turn around for them, because they have something in common that keeps drawing them back together: their love for the sea.  In the same vein, they’re both very, very fond of Kanata, and so even at the least comfortable of times, they remain members of the Marine Biology Club together.  When they focus on the things that they both enjoy, they start to find common ground in other ways.  They grow to tolerate each other, and from there, to enjoy each other.

They make their introduction in !! together, where an annoyed (but markedly very calm!) Souma chastises Kaoru for stealing food without asking.  Once Kaoru leaves, Souma tells the newcomers that whatever other impression they may have gotten, Kaoru is a good and reliable person, and that they shouldn’t let his antics get in the way of seeing that.

UM.  WOW.

What a change from the man whose hand used to hover near the hilt of his blade when dealing with Kaoru.  The biggest reason for this is because both of them improve themselves.  I said multiple times already that they were both struggling with certain experiences.  By this time, they’ve sorted through the worst of that, mostly separately.  However, if you pay attention, there’s more than a little leadup to this.  It’s not out of nowhere.  If you read all of the stories where they interact, back to back, you can see a gradual but organic change where they come to appreciate one another’s company.  You can imagine that there’s plenty of this that you don’t get to see, as well.  Little moments off screen, and maybe some big ones, too.

I highly recommend reading Repayment Festival, wherein Kaoru spends the entire event with Souma, who is otherwise working alone.  He’s supportive, and their communication is on the same page the entire time.  Souma, in turn, is thankful.

The point is.  They’ve worked really hard to get through to each other, and that sets the stage for a lasting and healthy relationship, where neither person is afraid to communicate their wants, needs, or feelings.  There are a few stories in !! where you can see this, where any contention that crops up between them is simply a matter of difference of opinion-- and they talk it out until they reach a conclusion both of them are satisfied with.

[chronologicalimplosion]

I think the thing that's currently fucking me up the most about whatever formerly-gifted kid flavor of neurodivergence it is that I've got, at this particular life stage, is still the minefield of setting expectations with new people.

For most of my life, authority figures and colleagues have been pretty neatly divided into "people who judged me at my worst, most burnt-out and struggling and decided I was a lost cause" and "people who met me during or stuck around long enough to witness a period of High Output, and decided I was the coming of the next mundane workplace Messiah". I've gotten to the place where I know that I can't keep my highest most hyperfocused least taking-care-of-my-basic-needs level of ~productivity~ up for long, and that I struggle with regulating the highs and lows, and that may be my battle for the rest of my life… but it's always the perceptions that trip me up.

I'm acutely aware of the fact that people judge me based on the current level of productive good citizen neurotypicality I'm managing to ape during that first impression window. Not everyone, but enough. And no amount of self-inner-work is going to change that reality. I just have to decide what I want to do about it, what with some unknowable percentage of people who may or may not be making career-altering decisions

It just. Sucks that there's no way for someone to meet both ends of the spectrum at once, or to understand where exactly they're meeting me at without it sounding like I'm bullshitting. And "I'm having a burnt-out month because I was operating at 300% during the first week to meet a deadline" isn't actually going to get the government of [redacted] to accept that I should just get whatever working hours I want actually.

Every new start has been harder and harder as I've gotten past college age, because I'm still trying to buy myself into people's good graces when I first meet them so they remember me as a Hard Worker Going Through A Rough Spell and not their burnout inconsistent colleague who made a bad impression and is now on a short-lived attempt to turn their disastrous life around.

The people who've been here for four years know that neither of those is the whole truth, that I'm always going to be both, and they've stuck around anyways. But every new person I meet is one more week added to the mental arithmetic of how long I have to keep the act up before I've tricked my way into their esteem. And I can feel the stress of that burning me out faster.

tl;dr- fuck a dichotomy

[whostheerisofthemall]

╰          cis  woman  ,  she/her/hers☆ 𝐎 𝐍 𝐂 𝐄 𝐔 𝐏 𝐎 𝐍 𝐀 𝐓 𝐈 𝐌 𝐄  …      we’re  introduced  to  SELENE  MOON,  the  THIRTY-FOUR  years  old  SALES  PERSON  at  ANDALASION  IMPORTS  &  PERFUMERY  from  enchanted  falls  who  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  MEGAN  FOX.  the  whispers  in  the  wind  tells  us  of  their  AMBITIOUS  and  CUNNING  reputation,  that’s  why  the  townsfolk  often  are  reminded  of  the  insecurity  that  only  middle  schoolers  feel  when  they’re  not  invited  to  a  party,  backhanded  compliments  that  never  leave  your  mind,  long  sharped  manicured  nails  with  expensive  polish,  and  obscured  shadows  that  make  a  figure  look  larger  than  life.    they  are  often  haunted  by  dreams  of  a  life  lived  as  ERIS  (  SINBAD:  LEGEND  OF  THE  SEVEN  SEAS  )  .

i . statistics

full name : selene moon

age : 34

gender : cis woman

pronouns : she/her/hers

occupation : salesperson @ andalasion imports & perfumery

alignment: chaotic evil

ii . in the present

tw: body image, bullying 

tl;dr selene is mean for no reason.

"don't go into andalasion imports & perfumery if you want to have a good day. that's a piece of advice from me, to you, because you look pretty soft. and weak. don't take it the wrong way, that's just the vibe you give off.

because last time i went in the salesperson came out of the shadows like an apparition ( which is really quite hard to do, if you think about it, considering how bright that place is ) to tear me to shreds.

she ran her fingers through my hair, with the grace and the poise of a hairdresser -- not a stranger who just met me -- and complimented how beautiful it could be if it wasn't so flat. so lifeless. both greasy and dry. if that's somehow possible. she told me my clothes were a kind reminder that it's always important to hide your worst features with what you have at your disposable.

she acted like she knew me, like she had known me my whole life. she seemed to look right inside me, inside my bones, inside my soul. and then she talked. she talked and she talked.

and she told me everything that i wish no one could see about me. she told me things that i whispered to the mirror at night, things that i tried so hard to change about myself. she looked at me and repeated them all back to me.

and she did it all with a smile.

so please, don't go in there if you don't have to. don't get to know her if you can manage it. and most of all, don't let her know who you are. because then it's all over for you."

iii . in dreams

sometimes the strangest dreams awoke selene at night. always hazy, never quite easy to see through, to remember clearly. dreams where she's thousands of feet tall. she's a giant. she is not a woman, she's a god. everything in the world is at her disposable. and she likes it.

[mass-convergence]

Midshift might be the time my brain just figures shit out and gets super introspective. Anyway thoughts on stuff here in regards to [gestures to body] so we're getting into dysmorphia and shit. Proceed with caution. Also it's like a novel.

I have a very weird relationship with people being proud of their breasts. Like I'm going to first preface this with: Being proud of your body is amazing and you should definitely not stop being proud of it. This is my own personal hang-ups on my own view of my body and I'm not here to police how people feel about their own bodies.

But okay...

This all likely stems from back in middle school when things were ... ahem ... developing on my chest area.

At first I didn't really even notice it. I mean I was wearing a training bra that I knew was fitting a little tighter every passing week but aside from that I just went on my merry, oblivious way.

Well that changed rather suddenly I'm shopping for school clothes with my mom and I'm still at the age where she just stands in the dressing room with me. Which is a whole other thing but anyway...

Yeah she notices that the bra definitively does not fit me anymore and proclaims that we need to go get me a proper fitting bra. And I really can't describe the feeling I had in that moment.

Mortification may be the best way to describe it. It got worse when I'm standing in the dressing room trying out bras and I keep hearing other women around me just joking about their breasts and speaking light heartedly about them. And I just am staring in the mirror realizing "Oh fuck I'm going to have these things for the rest of my life".

Words cannot describe how much I didn't want to have breasts and hearing the women in the other stalls like talking about them candidly just made me feel like something was wrong with me for not being proud of them. And that still kind of leaks into today.

And I can also probably say I've just got weird hangups about nudity in general. I grew up in a Roman Catholic household and while anatomy was generally discussed (my parents are both doctors - I got an hour long lecture about how periods happen) and I don't really remember having any specific anti-nudity/puritanical shit said to me except for maybe from my super religious grandma ... I can say that getting dressed at PE was probably the worst experience I've had in school and that wasn't even like ... nudity. That was people in underwear.

Then in middle and high schools I was really into anime and manga and well if you know the levels of uh... objectification that go into some of those stories. You can guess how even more uncomfortable 15 year old me got with knowing I have boobs. Especially since I was graced with the lovely fact that mine are kind of on the larger side. God I still sometimes see myself in the mirror and I just .... see that art work or the anime with big breasted ladies like running around and I feel a weird sense of self disgust.

Anyway ... to this day I really can't stand conversations about sex, fetishes, bodies (both male and female) ... I've gotten slightly better about it and I will not and have never judged anyone for talking about stuff that's completely normal to talk about in a setting where everyone consented to that kind of discussion. I'm not like a complete prude where I'm just like, "everyone must be 'innocent' and discuss safe things like the weather".

I just know that when the conversation about specifically the female form comes up or my friend opts to not wear a bra ... I am painfully aware of my own anatomy and I just realize how much I don't want that anatomy.

TL;DR - I have a lot of baggage when it comes to my gender and anatomy. Discussions about which make me feel incredibly uncomfortable but I'm not policing people on it. This was just a long and slightly incoherent rant stemming from around 15 years (pretty sure puberty hit when I was around 13 y.o.) of realizing that this is not exactly the body I want.

I like everything else about it and I'm sure if I bulked up and lost a little bit of fat I'd have a jawline that could slice a man's jugular. But anyway ... the chesticles have gots to go.

[mudaconstructions]

episode 13 pt 1 review

tl;dr it was alright, the fights were fun and i missed the star road gang hanging out together. some stuff really sucked though. more under the cut

yeah it's alright. the e ve section dragged on a bit too long and the whole weeby obviously jujutsu kaisen inspired atmosphere kinda got on my nerves by the end though.

my favorite part was the star road now gang finally having pizza together after 10 years, it really stood out to me as the highlight of the whole thing tbh; i really needed to see some cute wholesome jonah and grace moments and this episode definitely delivered on that (i know episode 12 pt 2 had them as well but they were overshadowed by the Awful Thing That Led To Them Happening), it's nice to see how the group dynamic still feels familiar but also kinda new? now that two of the couples in the party have kids and all that

idk what happened to papa pep between star road now and severed strings but he is somehow more unhinged than before. love him for it

holy shit i hate tokyo ghetto i hate children and i hate severed stands

yogurt being a funny little menace and getting an actual backstory was really nice! another highlight of this episode. the flashback really affirms how scary he can be when he wants to and the way he killed his owner was fucking nuts. this dog could run me over with his trolley transformer stand and id throw treats at him. also his speech about looking for the stick and finding it has grown into a big tree with fruits at the top went so hard

the "still underground" fight was fine? i still kinda hate severed stands and the way their stand ability was so... meh? didnt gel with me but by god it was a goldmine of fun character interactions. i'd let left brain hephi throw a taxidermied bear at me!!!!! also left brain yogurt running everyone over with hound's hologram went so hard

by far my least favorite part of the episode was the whole shit with "as you like it" oh my GOD i did not think they could ruin a fucking joke character but they somehow did it??? "as you like it" is a severed stand as well as a wearable one, so the only way it can exist now is by possessing unwilling participants (sth they admitted to) and taking over their personality. and Take A Guess at Who Got Possessed! it's october's sister, papa pep's rival from srn, some woman we dont know about yet, simon peppers, gen and nick lastley

now why does nick lastley matter you might ask? because apparently according to as you like it, he's the one who's stuck with this glove stand on his head for the rest of his life. and if you thought that was bad, the justification behind this was that lastley would've got himself injured or worse on his own? like idk say what you want about nick but if he somehow made it out alive after 10 years off screen idk maybe hes doing just fine by himself? and the worst thing about it is that.... the party is just. okay with it. they dont protest or demand that as you like it leaves lastley alone, theyre just like "well you need to work on getting consent from the people you possess" and theyre like "yeah youre right sorry" and IT'S NEVER ADDRESSED? but noooo were all for overlooked dreams and freeing stands am i right? this totally doesnt reflect badly on the organization or the party in any way shape or form. idk how they did it but they somehow involved the severed stand bullshit with a joke character and made them worse? and less funny? it's fucking nick lastley how do you screw it up. just as i thought it couldnt get worse it somehow always does

mr ghana looks like a pink and blue boss baby. he looks edible so i will hereby crush him into fine saccharine powder and put him on my toast

yeah that's about it. this might probably be the best episode since the Vard Reveal and it's only because it's largely disconnected from the main plot so think of that what you will

[bloodraven55]

I saw a post recently where someone else analysed how Luz's love language is acts of service and Amity's is physical affection, and it got me thinking so in light of today's incredible episode I want to do some serious digging into Luz's feelings for Amity. This is probably gonna get pretty long but hey, these two are more than worth it.

I'm going to go through three key episodes for Luz and Amity's relationship so that I can properly illustrate my points, starting with Lost in Language.

First, I want to talk about how, despite the fact that Amity had been nothing but objectionable to her so far, literally all it takes for Luz to decide she wants to befriend her anyway is reading about Azura befriending Hecate in her book and seeing Amity reading to kids at the library. This clearly establishes that Luz is intrigued by Amity and willing to go out of her way to connect with her, even when Amity hasn't yet given her any particular reason to do so.

Next, let's talk about the manner in which Luz tries to save Amity from Otabin later in the same episode. This is one of the first times we see Luz attempt to be Amity's hero, as she chooses to make an unnecessarily dramatic entrance dressed as her own version of Azura, playing the role of the dashing knight come to rescue the fair maiden albeit not quite as gracefully as is usual in these stories lol. She even takes the time to doodle Amity being impressed by her performance too, introducing the idea that Amity's perception of her means a lot to Luz.

Finally for this episode, we get another example of both these things: Luz putting in a substantial effort to bond with Amity, and Luz wanting to impress Amity or get specific reactions from her. After impulsive plan to get them away from Otabin works, Luz finds the time to be a good even when they're running for their lives and actually manages to make Amity laugh which was an impressive feat at that point tbh, looking extremely pleased when her comment is received positively.

These next two moments provide a neat link to the next episode I want to discuss, Adventures in the Elements, so I'll cover them in one go. We see Luz's first Act of Service for Amity when she offers her the Azura book she's missing to show that she wants to be friends, and then when she meets Amity to get it back we see how important the gesture was for Luz. She's very eager to hear Amity's thoughts, loves it when she finds the fanart Amity drew, and in general it's just obvious that this was another attempt to impress Amity on Luz's part.

This only continues as Luz proudly proclaims that she's going to join Amity's class at Hexside, even winking at her in the process, and solidifies the significance of her giving Amity the book even more by suggesting they start a club to talk about it further. Like, seriously, this entire episode is pretty much just Luz being adorably excited to share classes with Amity and flat out learning a whole new spell just to make sure it happens.

The interesting thing here, though, is that Luz gets really nervous as soon as the twins suggest they all train together, enough to lie to them in a moment of panic, and then gets super embarrassed when she sees that Amity is also practicing at the Knee. This doesn't seem to make much sense since Amity is being pretty nice by this point and not at all mocking or condescending, and Luz has given up on trying to look cool to the twins by now too. But it actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that this is another instance of Luz wanting to impress Amity and worrying about looking inept in front of her.

There's also the way that Luz is just... so clumsy and awkward around Amity in these episodes. The girl knocks a book to the floor and falls off a rock just trying to say hello, for crying out loud, complete with stammering over her words. Yeah, it's safe to say Luz is lowkey crushing on Amity here.

Don't worry, because I saved the best for last. Enchanting Grom Fright is basically the culmination of everything those two previous episodes set up. Not only do we get two Acts of Service from Luz, with her offering to face her own worst fear for Amity with zero hesitation and then happily offering to go to Grom with her so that Amity wouldn't end up alone, but she also brings out some dramatic flair when she declares herself Amity's “fearless champion,” like a knight in shining armour vowing to protect her princess although she still hasn't got the graceful part down lmao.

Plus, there's the fact that in both of their Lingering Eye Contact in Close Proximity with Romantic Tension™ moments in the episode, Luz's expression is the exact same as Amity's, wide-eyed and curious like she's not quite sure what to make of what she's feeling. And that's even before she just full on starts flirting with Amity later on. I'm sorry, but those smirks and fancy show-off moves while dancing are not remotely heterosexual, Luz.

All of this brings us to their current situation: Amity is aware of her crush on Luz but thinks that Luz only sees her as a friend, and Luz is subconsciously flirting with Amity as well as trying to show off for her and be her hero but remains fairly unaware of her crush on her and thinks that Amity likes someone else. So in conclusion, teenagers are useless, but we been knew. Rather, the point I want to end on is that there's a reason why Luz and Amity were so in sync with such amazing chemistry during their dance when they weren't talking, and it's because they both have different ways of communicating their emotions but when they let their actions speak for them they were finally on the same page albeit briefly.

tl;dr - Luz and Amity are both crushing hard on each other, they just need to realise that the other has a different way of expressing their feelings and find the courage to be honest with each other. Amity's crush is more glaringly blatant, what with all the blushing and gay panicking and wanting to ask Luz to the school dance, but Luz's crush on Amity is also pretty evident in the way she tries so hard to impress her and often steps in to help her out with grand gestures, which she never does to anywhere near the same extent with any of her other friends.

[testudoaubrei-blog]

Content note for discussions of eternal damnation, and all sorts of other shit that will trigger a lot of folks with religious trauma.

Before I get started I might as well explain where I’m coming from - unlike a lot of She-Ra fans, and a lot of queer people, I don’t have much religious trauma, or any, maybe (okay there were a number of years I was convinced I was going to hell, but that happens to everyone, right?). I was raised a liberal Christian by liberal Christian parents in the Episcopal Church, where most of my memories are overwhelmingly positive. Fuck, growing up in the 90’s, Chuch was probably the only place outside my home I didn’t have homophobia spewed at me. Because it was the 90’s and it was a fucking hellscape of bigotry where 5 year olds knew enough to taunt each other with homophobic slurs and the adults didn’t know enough to realize how fucked up that was. Anyway. This is my experience, but it is an atypical one, and I know it. Quite frankly I know that my experience of Christianity has very little at all to do with what most people experienced, or what people generally mean when they talk about Christianity as a cultural force in America today. So if you were raised Christian and you don’t recognize your theology here, congrats, neither do I, but these ideas and cultural forces are huge and powerful and dominant. And it’s this dominant Christian narrative that I’m referring to in this post. As well as, you know, a children’s cartoon about lesbian rainbow princesses. So here it goes. This is going to get batshit.

"All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin

“We’re all just a bunch of wooly guys” - Noelle Stevenson

This is a post triggered by a single scene, and a single line. It’s one of the most fucked-up scenes in She-Ra, toward the end of Save the Cat. Catra, turned into a puppet by Prime, struggles with her chip, desperately trying to gain control of herself, so lost and scared and vulnerable that she flings aside her own death wish and her pride and tearfully begs Adora to rescue her. Adora reaches out , about to grab her, and then Prime takes control back, pronounces ‘disappointing’ and activates the kill switch that pitches Catra off the platform and to her death (and seriously, she dies here, guys - also Adora breaks both her legs in the fall). But before he does, he dismisses Catra with one of his most chilling lines. “Some creatures are meant only for destruction.”

And that’s when everyone watching probably had their heart broken a little bit, but some of the viewers raised in or around Christianity watching the same scene probably whispered ‘holy shit’ to themselves. Because Prime’s line - which works as a chilling and callous dismissal of Catra - is also an allusion to a passage from the Bible. In fact, it’s from one of the most fucked up passages in a book with more than its share of fucked up passages. It’s from Romans 9:22, and I’m going to quote several previous verses to give the context of the passage (if not the entire Epistle, which is more about who needs to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions but was used to construct a systematic theology in the centuries afterwards because people decided it was Eternal Truth).

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

The context of the allusion supports the context in the show. Prime is dismissing Catra - serial betrayer, liar, failed conqueror, former bloody-handed warlord - as worthless, as having always been worthless and fit only to be destroyed. He is speaking from a divine and authoritative perspective (because he really does think he’s God, more of this in my TL/DR Horde Prime thing). Prime is echoing not only his own haughty dismissal of Catra, and Shadow Weaver’s view of her, but also perhaps the viewer’s harshest assessment of her, and her own worst fears about herself. Catra was bad from the start, doomed to destroy and to be destroyed. A malformed pot, cracked in firing, destined to be shattered against a wall and have her shards classified by some future archaeologist 2,000 years later. And all that’s bad enough.

But the full historical and theological context of this passage shows the real depth of Noelle Stevenson’s passion and thought and care when writing this show. Noelle was raised in Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never specified what sect or denomination, but in interviews and her memoir Noelle has shown a particular concern for questions that this passage raises, and a particular loathing for the strains of Protestant theology that take this passage and run with it - that is to say, Calvinism. So while I’m not sure if Noelle was raised as a conservative, Calvinist Presbyterian, his preoccupation with these questions mean that it’s time to talk about Calvinism.

It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that Calvinism is a systematic theology built entirely upon the Epistles of Romans and Galatians, but only -just- (and here my Catholic readers in particular will chuckle to themselves and lovingly stroke their favorite passage of the Epistle of James). The core of Calvinist Doctrine is often expressed by the very Dutch acronym TULIP:

Total Depravity - people are wholly evil, and incapable of good action or even willing good thoughts or deeds

Unconditional Election - God chooses some people to save because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, not because they did anything to deserve, trigger or accept it

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only to save the people God chose to save, not the rest of us bastards

Irresistible Grace - God chooses some people to be saved - if you didn’t want to be saved, too bad, God said so.

Perseverance of the Saints - People often forget this one and assume it’s ‘predestination’ but it’s actually this - basically, once saved by God, always saved, and if it looks like someone falls out of grace, they were never saved to begin with. Well that’s all sealed up tight I guess.

Reading through these, predestination isn’t a single doctrine in Calvinism but the entire theological underpinnings of it together with humanity’s utter powerlessness before sin. Basically God has all agency, humanity has none. Calvinism (and a lot of early modern Protestantism) is obsessed with questions of how God saves people (grace alone, AKA Sola Fides) and who God saves (the people god elects and only the people God elects, and fuck everyone else).

It’s apparent that Noelle was really taken by these questions, and repelled by the answers he heard. He’s alluded to having a tattoo refuting the Gospel passage about Sheep and Goats being sorted at the end times, affirming instead that ‘we’re all just a bunch of wooly guys’ (you can see this goat tattoo in some of his self-portraits in comics, etc). He’s also mentioned that rejecting and subverting destiny is a huge part of everything he writes as a particular rejection of the idea that some individual people are 'chosen' by God or that God has a plan for any of us. You can see that -so clearly- in Adora’s arc, where Adora embraces and then rejects destiny time and again and finally learns to live life for herself.

But for Catra, we’re much more concerned about the most negative aspect of this - the idea that some people are vessels meant for destruction. And that’s something else that Noelle is preoccupied with. In her memoir in the section about leaving the church and becoming a humanistic atheist, there is a drawing of a pot and the question ‘Am I a vessel prepared for destruction?’ Obviously this was on Noelle’s mind (And this is before he came out to himself as queer!).

To look at how this question plays out in Catra’s entire arc, let’s first talk about how ideas of damnation and salvation actually play out in society. And for that I’m going to plug one of my favorite books, Gin Lun’s Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (if you can tell by now, I am a fucking blast at parties). Lun tells the long and very interesting story about, how ideas of hell and who went there changed during the Early American Republic. One of the interesting developments that she talks about is how while at first people who were repelled by Calvinism started moving toward a doctrine of universal salvation (no on goes to hell, at least not forever*), eventually they decided that hell was fine as long as only the right kind of people went there. Mostly The Other - non-Christian foreigners, Catholics, Atheists, people who were sinners in ways that were not just bad but weird and violated Victorian ideas of respectability. Really, Hell became a way of othering people, and arguably that’s how it survives today, especially as a way to other queer people (but expanding this is slated for my Montero rant). Now while a lot of people were consciously rejecting Calvinist predestination, they were still drawing the distinction between the Elect (good, saved, worthwhile) and the everyone else (bad, damned, worthless). I would argue that secularized ideas of this survive to this day even among non-Christian spaces in our society - we like to draw lines between those who Elect, and those who aren’t.

And that’s what brings us back to Catra. Because Catra’s entire arc is a refutation of the idea that some people are worthless and irredeemable, either by nature, nurture or their own actions. Catra’s actions strain the conventions of who is sympathetic in a Kid’s cartoon - I’ve half joked that she’s Walter White as a cat girl, and it’s only half a joke. She’s cruel, self-deluded, she spends 4 seasons refusing to take responsibility for anything she does and until Season 5 she just about always chooses the thing that does the most damage to herself and others. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that Catra is morally culpable in every step of her descent into evil (except maybe her break with reality just before she pulls the lever). The way that Catra personally betrays everyone around her, the way she strips herself of all of her better qualities and most of what makes her human, hell even her costume changes would signal in any other show that she’s irredeemable.

It’s tempting to see this as Noelle’s version of being edgy - pushing the boundaries of what a sympathetic character is, throwing out antiheroics in favor of just making the villain a protagonist. Noelle isn’t quite Alex ‘I am in the business of traumatizing children’ Hirsch, who seems to have viewed his job as pushing the bounds of what you could show on the Disney Channel (I saw Gravity Falls as an adult and a bunch of that shit lives rent free in my nightmares forever), but Noelle has his own dark side, mostly thematically. The show’s willingness to deal with abuse, and messed up religious themes, and volatile, passionate, not particularly healthy relationships feels pretty daring. I’m not joking when I gleefully recommend this show to friends as ‘a couple from a Mountain Goats Song fights for four seasons in a cartoon intended for 9 year olds’. Noelle is in his own way pushing the boundaries of what a kids show can do. If you read Noelle’s other works like Nimona, you see an argument for Noelle being at least a bit edgy. Nimona is also angry, gleefully destructive, violent and spiteful - not unlike Catra. Given that it was a 2010s webcomic and not a kids show, Nimona is a good deal worse than Catra in some ways - Catra doesn’t kill people on screen, while Nimona laughs about it (that was just like, a webcomic thing - one of the fan favorite characters in my personal favorite, Narbonic, was a fucking sociopath, and the heroes were all amoral mad scientists, except for the superintelligent gerbil**). But unlike Nimona, whose fate is left open ended, Catra is redeemed.

And that is weird. We’ve had redemption arcs, but generally not of characters with -so- much vile stuff in their history. Going back to the comparison between her and Azula, many other shows, like Avatar, would have made Catra a semi-sympathetic villain who has a sob-story in their origin but who is beyond redemption, and in so doing would articulate a kind of psychologized Calvinism where some people are too traumatized to ever be fully and truly human. I’d argue this is the problem with Azula as a character - she’s a fun villain, but she doesn’t have moral agency, and the ultimate message of her arc - that she’s a broken person destined only to hurt people - is actually pretty fucked up. And that’s the origin story of so many serial killers and psycopaths that populate so many TV shows and movies. Beyond ‘hurt people hurt people’ they have nothing to teach us except perhaps that trauma makes you a monster and that the only possible response to people doing bad things is to cut them out of your life and out of our society (and that’s why we have prisons, right?)

And so Catra’s redemption and the depths from which she claws herself back goes back to Noelle’s desire to prove that no person is a vessel ‘fitted for destruction.’ Catra goes about as far down the path of evil as we’ve ever seen a protagonist in a kids show go, and she still has the capacity for good. Importantly, she is not subject to total depravity - she is capable of a good act, if only one at first. Catra is the one who begins her own redemption (unlike in Calvinism, where grace is unearned and even unwelcomed) - because she wants something better than what she has, even if its too late, because she realizes that she never wanted any of this anyway, because she wants to do one good thing once in her life even if it kills her.

The very extremity of Catra’s descent into villainy serves to underline the point that Noelle is trying to make - that no one can be written off completely, that everyone is capable of change, and that no human being is garbage, no matter how twisted they’ve become. Meanwhile her ability to set her own redemption in motion is a powerful statement of human agency, and healing, and a refutation of Calvinism’s idea that we are powerless before sin or pop cultural tropes about us being powerful before the traumas of our upbringing. Catra’s arc, then, is a kind of anti-Calvinist theological statement - about the nature of people and the nature of goodness.

Now, there is a darker side to this that Noelle has only hinted at, but which is suggested by other characters on the show. Because while Catra’s redemption shows that people are capable of change, even when they’ve done horrible things, been fucked up and fucked themselves up, it also illustrates the things people do to themselves that make change hard. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, two of the most sinister parts of her descent into villainy are her self-dehumanization (crushing her own compassion and desire to do good) and her rewriting of her own history in her speech and memory to make her own actions seem justified (which we see with her insistence that Adora left her, eliding Adora’s offers to have Catra join her, or her even more clearly false insistence that Entrapta had betrayed them). In Catra, these processes keep her going down the path of evil, and allow her to nearly destroy herself and everyone else. But we can see the same processes at work in two much darker figures - Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime. These are both rants for another day, but the completeness of Shadow Weaver’s narcissistic self-justification and cultivated callousness and the even more complete narcissism of Prime’s god complex cut both characters off from everyone around them. Perhaps, in a theoretical sense, they are still redeemable, but for narrative purposes they might as well be damned.

This willingness to show a case where someone -isn’t- redeemed actually serves to make Catra’s redemption more believable, especially since Noelle and the writers draw the distinction between how Catra and SW/Prime can relate to reality and other people, not how broken they are by their trauma (unlike Zuko and Azula, who are differentiated by How Fucked Uolp They Are). Redemption is there, it’s an option, we can always do what is right, but someone people will choose not to, in part because doing the right thing involves opening ourselves to the world and others, and thus being vulnerable. Noelle mentions this offhandedly in an interview after Season 1 with the She-Ra Progressive of Power podcast - “I sometimes think that shades of grey, sympathetic villains are part of the escapist fantasy of shows like this.” Because in the real world, some people are just bastards, a point that was particularly clear in 2017. Prime and Shadow Weaver admit this reality, while Catra makes a philosophical point that even the bastards can change their ways (at least in theory).

*An idea first proposed in the second century by Origen, who’s a trip and a fucking half by himself, and an idea that becomes the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which protestants vehemently denied!

**Speaking of favorite Noelle tropes

[naoyas90dayfiance]

Relationship HCs | Naoya Zen'in

SFW

Female!Reader

HCs about how he confessed, how the relationship began, the relationship dynamic and how your routine is with him.

Confessing

I stand by the headcanon that Naoya first studies you from afar. Looking at the way you behave, speak, dress, and carry yourself. He even observes what things you find funny. It's his way to judge your character and decide if you are worthy to belong to the Zen'in clan.

If he finds himself intrigued by you, this man won’t tell you straightforward. Actually, he wouldn't get closed to you nor throw a nasty comment your way. You’d be clueless of his feelings.

Instead, he’d go to his father to ask what a proper Zen'in wife is like. If he gets to the conclusion you fit in the family, then he would proceed to the next step.

Which is not telling you he likes you.

The next step is to talk to your family and ask for your hand in marriage.

Naturally, you're confused. How the hell you got his attention, it’s the first question that pops on your mind.

It's up to you and your family to decide. Weighing your options and considering marrying you into their family. After all, they're one of the most powerful clans.

Starting the relationship

If you decide to get married, you're going to have your first conversations in front of his and your family.

He'd be cheeky, commenting on how beautiful you were and how he couldn't wait to follow the Zen'in bloodline.

He'd start to address you as "sweetheart" in those conversations.

After you two become official husband and wife, he can’t wait to get to know you better.

Naoya finds amusing every single second of your existence. He’s never met a woman so graceful.

Relationship dynamic

I still stand by the HC that Naoya's first love language is acts of service, so:

At the beginning, you learn he enjoys when you help him out in his daily routine, especially in the morning. He would request you to assist him during the first hours of the day.

He wants you to be make his morning tea, help him to get dressed and take baths with him.

One of his favorite moments during each morning is to have you bathe with him. He LOVES how you run your hands throw his hair and how your body dances in front of him. His face is always showing a smile when it happens, he might even wink if you get flustered by his attention.

He will definitely say how stunning you are, and will enjoy if you avoid his gaze out of shyness.

He feels calm and happy when you have breakfast with him.

If you want him to try something from your plate by taking it between your chopsticks and putting inside his mouth, he's going to melt in the spot. It's just so intimate.

He would let you wander around the Zen’in household freely during the rest of the day. His servants can help him with the rest of his schedule.

However, you must have lunch, the afternoon tea, and dinner with him. Otherwise, he would get upset and tell you how disrespectful you're being towards him.

If you “disrespect” him, he will ask himself if you're behaving that way because he isn't enough for you. He'll calm down after realizing his strong feelings, though.

My other personal headcanon is that his second love language is quality time, so not having that with you makes him feel like you’re neglecting him.

Even if he’s mad, he would never throw a dirty comment at you or raise his voice. Again, you're the one he considers a proper lady.

Therefore, your presence encourages him to be a better man, and getting control of his comments towards you. He doesn't want to offend you. His worst nightmare is for you ask for the divorce.

Besides, he takes pride on providing a good life for you.

Nights with you (SFW)

Most likely would command his servants to get him ready to go to bed. They will do the same for you.

Naoya wouldn't have conversations with you when you’re in bed. He would actually go to sleep when lying down. He expects for you to do the same.

Cuddling might or might not happen. It depends in the mood of the night. He takes his beauty sleep seriously, and he got enough physical affection in the morning.

If, for some reason, you get up in the middle of the night, he would wake up on the spot and ask you where you're going. After getting an answer, he would remain awake, only going to back to his slumber when you're by his side again.

Sometimes, Naoya looks at you when you’re sleeping. His thoughts go to the fact on how afraid he is about how much you mean to him. He had never felt this way for nobody, and never imagined to have someone as precious as you.

Naoya takes a mental note to plan the next day how to guarantee your safety.

Tw: babies

Six months into the relationship, Naoya starts to have dreams on starting a family with you, loving how small children with his cursed technique run around the household.

When he wakes up, he cannot help himself but to put his hand on your face, cupping your cheek and smiling at thought of that you're going to be the mother of his children.

tl;dr: Naoya loves u very much.

[iceglade]

yo this tarot shit has me genuinely so irl-stressed out bro 😭😭 i gotta either indulging in my hyperfixation fueled absolute-worst-outcome pessimism or get completely out of astro/tarot unless it’s super 100% /pos cos this is a horrible combination eeee

🌻 flower for you! tarot can be brutal, blunt, and harsh, and just out-of-context enough to only make sense in hindsight. thats just like life ahaa. i swear i also get way to stressed out (i am also too invested, ahahaa), but for me divination helps calm my anxieties a lot. let us help you :D tl;dr. the genre is angst with a happy ending.

you've struggled with insecurities before, and are right now, yeah? not just about the future, or about other people, but about yourself, too. its human!! the clearest messages anyone's readings always have for us whenever ANYONE asks about this topic is: so is dream. hey, y'know, both you and him deserve comforting when anxious, especially if you're scared about the future. even if you make weird decisions because of that fear. dream has baggage, yeah, but he is a hardy dude. he's willing to put in the work. you KNOW he is. he's defied fate before. and hes not alone.

if anything: (imo) tarot is like a pocket-sized mirror. its a small divination tool that you can use to see How Things Are At The Moment. try to think of future predictions like a motion vector graph - if you keep keep driving forward, you may clip the side of that jollibee

i try to keep a healthy level of skepticism, but divination on this topic it means something very profound to me, when everybody, over and over again, is getting the same cards -

"what will the meeting feel like": the sun. the world. joyful, full-circleness - it may feel to them like finally being free, or finally coming home.

"what is gnf feeling on this topic": the lovers. two of cups. queen of cups. compassion, unconditional love (p or r), experience and understanding,

. all of the above is no matter what deeply personal issue someone's cards may call him out for. tarot doesnt roast dream because hes malicious, or because it hates him. it roasts him because sometimes you get scared of the truth - and tarot is about as blunt a truth-teller as you can get. for all george's unhingement, he has this grace that people overlook because he hides it. his home-work seperation is strong. that's very very admirable! but we're not his friend. dream is.

dream shouldn't be scared of gnf. in the most pure sense of the word: he loves you, dude. whatever the situation is. he loves you. unconditionally. you. oh god. oh god. hoooh

its not just negatives that people can't avoid. but if theres one thing i can GUARANTEE: its that regardless (romantic or platonic) it doesnt MATTER, as long as they're together, the story will have a happy ending. they work hard and play hard, and they've done this for years. they are stuck together. forever. its too late bro!! they're stuck!! sure this is backed by astro but you can see it clear as day in what they do every day even unconsciously (i.e. obsess. cling. mutually!! and with full awareness of the other!! that is part of the appeal!!!) and they both represent something so earth-shatteringly important to each other, it makes me wanna shatter something.

"someone will stay by your side."

or maybe

"you are lovable as you are, with all your mess." or something else equally moving. but every possible is just as impactful as these ones. smth smth "yeah we plutonian. we leave deep lasting impacts on each other's lives that fundumentally change the other forever. keep scrolling." i know you're braced for the negative, but you cant escape the posi side of the wheel of fortune. you can try though. we can all try.

that's what brings ME comfort when doing readings, anyway. that plus this is a natural part of life. these lessons get learned by everyone. it just so happens that dream's is gonna be live and with FOOTAGE 😭 poor guy!!!!!/lh

. the genre is angst with a happy ending. watch how it plays out irl: someone will always surprise you. dream's too dedicated to positivity, and to george, for anything less than that. it'll be alright :O