#yes they are escaping poverty and their situation but also they want to escape to where they can be themselves

[garfballed]

just THINKING about fast car by tracy chapman gives me goosebumps

[loveandmurders]

hi hope you are having a nice day , i have a tiny request michael myers from rob zombie film x female s/o that used date Michael before he kill his family and when he escape from smith groove he found that the reader was a single mother ?:0

Hello darling! It's been a while you requested this and I'm sorry about that! I really hope you'll enjoy <3

I slightly changed the request as baby Michael and reader weren't dating yet.

I kept the gender of reader's child neutral and they are unnamed.

Female reader with no physical description.

Warnings: mentions of murders, mentions of a bad relationship witht the father of your child, a few strong words, mentions of poverty and unhappy life, mentions of Michael's anger and lack of empathy/feelings, mention of Michael as an abused child, stalking, breaking in

Michael perfectly remembered you, despite all those years apart from one another. With his baby sister and his mother, you were the person he loved the most. You were his best friend, and he knew that deep down, one day his affection would turn into more than friendship. But he snapped and killed his family and was sent away from you before you two, kids, could become teenagers and fall in love with each other.

Despite your strong bond, you never thought he would kill his family, even if you knew what he did to his bully. But you were an innocent kid who just loved him and enjoyed creating universes together, so you could both pretend that everything was perfect. 

Despite how much you loved him and how many times you asked his mother to take you with her for one of her visits to the asylum, Dr Loomis never allowed you inside the place. He was worried for you and he told your parents it was better if you stayed away from such a dangerous child. He wasn’t certain what kind of influence Michael had on you, but the truth was you were both bringing the best in each other. He was calmer and happier with you around, and you felt braver and more creative with him. You were certain that if his sister and father had let Michael celebrate Halloween with you, none of this would have happened. At least, it was what  you were telling yourself. And once he was locked away, you couldn’t stop yourself from thinking how wrong it was to keep a child away from the people he loved; you knew Michaell truly needed your presence, even more once he lost his mother and found himself all alone.

Several times, you tried to come and see him as you grew up, because you weren’t the kind of person to let go so easily. And no matter what your parents could tell you about this “monster”, Michael was still someone you loved, and you were loyal to. All the guards at the asylum knew you but Dr. Loomis always found good excuses to keep you away.

A part of yourself knew your life would have been different if Michael had been by your side. For instance, you would have known better than hooking up with some shitty guy and then staying with him because you got pregnant. And abortion wasn’t an option back then. 

You really loved your child though, you did, but you hated the life you had. It got even worse when your partner left you. You needed to work a lot because you didn’t have enough money for both your child and yourself, and your ex refused to give you anything. He just disappeared, probably having sex with other girls and not caring about anything. You liked to imagine how Michael would have killed him if he had been around. You were a little bit ashamed of those fantasies so you always tried to push them away. And you were trying your best, no matter the situation, because you wanted your baby to have a good childhood, not like the one Michael had.

And no matter what, Michael was still in your mind, and you hated when people were using his story to get some cash. You thought he deserved respect and understanding. Everyone thought he was a murderer; and yes he was. But he also was a victim. He was abused as a child, he was bullied too, and then you couldn’t imagine what happened to him in the asylum. You were certain that the isolation didn’t help his sanity, and all the awful things they must have said to him when he needed care and affection… You hoped he was doing okay, and you hoped one day you would be able to see him again.

You didn’t know Michael was out of the asylum the day you pushed two shitty journalists from his house. You yelled at them that it wasn’t their home, that they should be better than using such an awful story to make money. You were so angry, so ready to fight that the two people left, crumbling to each other that everyone was clearly insane in this town. You promised yourself to come by the house often during Halloween so you could keep the children away from here too. Michael was a really sensitive subject to you.

You didn’t know that you actually saved the journalists because Michael listened to you from the basement. Something inside of him sparkled with life. He knew he hadn’t been forgotten or hated by you, and it was a nice warm feeling spreading across his chest. He was barely feeling anything anymore, just pure rage and bloodlust. But for the first time in a long time, he felt something positive. 

He knew it was you, because he recognised the way your voice was raising up when you were calling out someone for an injustice they were causing. You were the same, back then, when kids were throwing rocks at a cat. He barely smiled behind his mask, half wondering why you never came by at the asylum during all those years, even if he could imagine it was because of Loomis.

He waited for you to leave the property too, and then he started to follow you. He saw you at your work, not really understanding what you were doing, but he could tell you weren’t particularly enjoying yourself. A part of himself wondered where all your dreams went in the years. But just like his, they disappeared as you grew up. Life wasn’t as happy as you thought when you were children. He still recognised the same strength inside of you, the same glistening goodness, the same kind intelligence. It brought back some happy memories to his mind, as he continued to stalk you. He tilted his head to the side when he saw you picking up a young kid from a house. He heard you gently talking to the child as you were hugging them and cuddling them against your chest. The kid was giggling and kissing your cheek, happily snuggling against you as their little arms were wrapped around your neck. You softly put them in your car, safely settled them, before driving home.

Michael found his way there as well.

As you arrived at home, the news that Michael had escaped was on all the channels of your television. You didn’t know he was observing you from the living room window, and he noticed you didn’t seem afraid. He swore he even read on your lips saying something like “Good for you, Micky”. You kept watching the TV a little longer before you got up and put your child to bed. You went out of Michael’s line of vision as you grabbed your kid and climbed upstairs with them in your arms. You tucked them into their bed and opened a book to read them their bedtime story. No matter how exhausted you were, you needed to take care of them the best you could. Even if their father was gone and was refusing to pay for his child, it was going to be alright, you promised it to yourself and your baby.

You fell asleep with your child but when you woke up, you saw a man standing in front of you. You jumped and instinctively moved in front of your baby to protect them. You tried to find a weapon, but there was nothing in your child’s room. And the masked man was so tall and carrying a kitchen knife. You didn’t think it was Michael.

“Please, leave my baby out of this. If you want to hurt me, do it somewhere else” you begged. Michael tilted his head to the side as he tried to watch past you the sleeping form of the child.

He slowly reached for his mask and lifted it long enough for you to see his face. His expression was blank but you recognised his eyes and his features. Your eyes widened.

“Micky?” you whispered and he put the mask back on as a way to positively answer your question.

You slowly moved closer to him, so surprised he was there after all those years, but also so happy he was finally back to you.

“You won’t hurt me, right?” you asked, even though you couldn’t imagine how your childhood best friend could do you any kind of harm. He slightly shook his head, and you fully relaxed.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to come see you, you know. Loomis never let me. But I never forgot about you.” you whispered to him as you reached for the hand that wasn’t holding the knife, so he wouldn’t believe you were trying to sweet talk to him to disarm him. 

He let you touch him before putting the knife away and his now free hand reached for your face and hair. You smiled up at him. 

“I’m glad you came by, that you didn’t forget about me either. Hope you didn’t break down my door completely though” you half joked “You know you could have rung and I would have opened the door to you” you teased as you were feeling quite at ease with him. He simply shrugged but you could tell he was listening and enjoying the sound of your voice and your cheekiness. No one had talked to him that way in years, like a human being, like someone you can be relaxed with, like someone you enjoy.

"You’re tall now" you giggled, and his silence was disturbing you but you knew he must have gone through a lot of stuff during all those years. And it was going to be alright because you were going to take care of him, like he was going to be there for you and your baby, you knew it.

“This is my baby” you whispered as you let Michael see your child “The father is an asshole who left us but it’s life I guess” you added as Michael’s attention went back on you. He came a little bit closer to your kid, to have a better look at them before reaching to very softly pet their head. You smiled as you watched this sweet interaction. You carefully grabbed his hand again and you gently tugged him away from your child’s room so you both settled in your living room.

“You hungry or anything?” you asked Michael as he was sitting down on the couch but he shook his head and simply brought you closer to him. He awkwardly hugged you and you hugged him back, your head on his shoulder. 

“You can stay here as long as you want and you can come back whenever you want too. I won’t call the cops on you and I hope you’ll be able to get revenge on Loomis.” You whispered and his hold tightened on you. He felt like he was finally home, especially with you in his arms. You had so many questions you wanted to ask, but for now, silence was alright and you were feeling safe enough to close your eyes and snuggled in his embrace.

“Promise me you’ll be careful and you won’t let them take you back” you whispered as you were about to fall asleep. Michael simply removed his mask and pressed his lips against the top of your head, as a silent promise that, yes, he would never leave you again.

Taglist:

@feathery-ass​

@g0thl3zz

@erasable-mustache  

[agentrouka-blog]

Jon, Sansa, Romance and Choice

Jon associates his mother with this mix of shame and longing, because his entire existence is founded on an act of transgression rooted in potentially no more than Ned rutting with some poverty-driven peasant behind a shed somewhere when he felt the urge. He has issues with sex and self-loathing a mile wide even before his consent is violated, but when it is, he paints over that with an invention of love that coexists uneasily with his perception of the truth. It makes the situation bearable and it's a familiar coping mechanism. "Beautiful and highborn and her eyes were kind" exists alongside his resignation that his mother was likely a "whore".

Double realities are a go-to for the Starks.

But given this longing for something "pure" to combat his own association with being inherently "soiled", is it any wonder that the kid tries to dress up his abusive relationship with fantasies of flowers, with gestures of chivalry or tender declarations - which either defy reality or are harshly rejected and ridiculed?

Jon is a romantic out of self-defense, much like Sansa. Sansa is escaping the reality of what marriage is for a woman in Westeros, Jon is escaping the base mechanics of sex without mutual dignity or considerstion for consequences. Both reach for the idea of love as a bridge. Love means that Sansa is valued for herself and safe from disrespect. Love means that there is a category of belonging and mutual respect. Their lives become more than a political transaction or an inconvenient byproduct of biology. Love adds dignity to a world that withholds it from them. Love. Not power.

The fantasy of romantic love is pretty crucial to their character arcs in similar ways.

This becomes especially interesting when romance and love slide into a place of transgression with Jon and Sansa. What prevails? The shame of the sordid and soiled, or the inherent dignity of love and mutual care?

It stops being an escapist fantasy, and starts being a choice about what they want it to mean. No double reality but an integration of competing forces. Love in and of itself becomes a central value if it cannot work as a solution to reality. Is it still worth choosing? The answer will be yes.

RLJ, ironically helps with that, rewards that.

Jon will find healing and meaning in the fact that his mother did love him, that no matter the transgressive circumstances, she was everything he had secretly longed for and her choice to love him imbues him with an inherent dignity that his status had always deprived him of.

The reality of being her son also frees his love for Sansa from the constraints of being inherently transgressive. It becomes possible. Integrating double reality twice over.

For Sansa, the incompatibility of love and political reality ("It is my claim they mean to wed. No one will ever marry me for love.") is resolved when the real but impossible love, equally, becomes possible, and only after it was made clear that it existed independent of her value as an "object" and for herself alone.

It's just such a neat shared arc about love. ❤️

[useless-catalanfacts]

Hello! Centuries after Jewish people were expelled from Portugal and Spain, Portugal allowed them to return, but I don't know if Spain did the same. I read your post about Jews in Catalonia, and was wondering if some came back and if there is still a Jewish comunity there today? :o

Yes, the same happened, but they are still few in number.

Some Jewish people returned to Iberia in the 20th century. It might come as a surprise to many, but it was during the proto-fascist dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and during the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco when more Jewish people moved to Spain.

Philosephardism became popular in the early 1900s. That's when the first campaigns to bring Sephardi people close to Spain started, many of them led by the politician Ángel Pulido Fernández.

The first campaign was in 1904, but it was more about creating shared organizations with Sephardis in Northern Africa and not so much migration yet. In 1910, the King of Spain Alfonso XIII founded the Spanish-Hebrew Union (Unión Hispano-Hebrea), which saw 4000 people sign up as members in the Moroccan protectorate (remember that at this time Morocco was a protectorate of Spain). This Union created schools for Sephardi children in Morocco and the Balkans to teach them Spanish.

The moment where many Jewish people migrated to Spain, creating a significant Jewish community for the first time since the Middle Ages, was during the First World War (Spain was neutral in WW1, so it was a safe area compared to most of Europe). Barcelona was one of the places that received the most Jewish immigration in this period: about 1,000 people, most of them coming from Austria-Hungary and some from France.

More continued to migrate to Spain during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (1923-1930), because in 1924 the dictatorship made a law that all Sephardi people could get the Spanish nationality. According to the Comunitat Israelita de Barcelona (the association of Jewish people of Barcelona), in 1936 there were already 5,000 Jewish people, more than half of them newly arrived from Poland and Germany, and others having arrived from Austria, Hungary and Romania.

As expected, the immigration continued during the Second World War, escaping the Holocaust (even though Spain gave support to the Nazis and sent some legions to fight against Russia on Germany's side, it was mostly neutral in WW2 because the Spanish Civil War had just ended, leaving the country in extreme poverty and destruction). The regime said that they were only allowing the Jewish people to cross Spain on their way to somewhere else and that they didn't want them to stay, but after all they weren't really checking on each person, so some stayed.

Even with this situation, make no mistake: Jewish people were not well seen during the dictatorships. It was mandatory to be Catholic, and everything bad in the world was attributed either to the "separatist reds" (national minorities, independentists, communists, anarchists, anticlericals, atheists) or to a "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy" (Jewish people and Freemasons), thought to be working together to destroy Spain and the Christendom. This wasn't just a matter of the early years, no: it was a constant reasoning during the whole dictatorship in the schools, media, speeches, everything. Even in Franco's very last public appearance (October 1st 1975, celebrating his 39th anniversary since he was "appointed" as dictator, when the last week there had been demonstrations in different places around Europe against the death sentence that the regime had condemned some political dissidents to), he blamed the eternal communist, Freemason, Jewish international conspiracy for those demonstrations.

Despite their antisemitism, after the Second World War the fascist dictatorship of Spain also used the fact that they were "helping" Jewish people as a propaganda point to get the sympathy of Western countries, as a way to show that they had sided with Hitler and Mussolini because of a common hatred of communism but not because they hate Jewish people. This way, the dictatorship hoped to be accepted as a normal country, join the UN, with no sanctions. And it worked, mostly because the USA was promoting fascist countries as a way to counter communism.

In the late 1940s, the dictatorship allowed private individual worship to any religion (you could pray to whoever in your private home), even though everyone still had to take part in the Catholic rites in public. In 1949, Franco officially recognised the Barcelona Israelite Community, who opened a synagogue in Barcelona in the year 1954. This was the first synagogue in all the state of Spain since the Jewish people were expelled or forced to convert in 1492.

In the 1950s, the biggest Jewish immigration wave to Spain arrives from Northern Africa, and in the 1960s from South America. In 1968, the Vatican and Spain symbolically revoked the 1492 decree of expulsion. After the end of the dictatorship (1977), there is freedom of religion in Spain.

Nowadays, there is a small but existing Jewish community resulting of these waves of immigration throughout the 20th century. They are only a few thousands, so it doesn't show up in any religion statistics, but they are there.

Percentage of the Spanish population that identifies with each religion. Data from Observatorio del Pluralismo Religioso de España.

[alfiely-art]

❤️, 💚 & 🤍 rain code for the ask game.. i wish to observe ur takes.........

For this ask game

1. Gonna be real I think a lot of the characters get mischaracterized? BUT I think the ones who get it the worst would have to be Martina, Yomi and Fubuki. Martina isn't an uwu victim girlboss she is a gun-obsessed weird ass bitch and I love her. Yomi isn't Satan incarnate he's a weird motherfucker who relishes in having power over people. Fubuki isn't an idiot she just lacks real-world experience. Etc etc. The game kinda encourages these mischaracterizations (rip Martina what did chapter 4 do to you) but yeah

2. Since nobody gives a shit about my favorite character (amapal) I'll go with my second fave (Makoto). Makoto wouldn't execute Yomi or disband the peacekeepers or anything like that post game are you kidding. He was A-OK with the peacekeepers and Yomi until they threatened to expose Kanai Ward's truth to the outside world. Now that the truth is out anyway why would he disband the peacekeepers. They're a useful tool for him and if he's gonna be in charge of Kanai Ward he's gonna need all the tools he can get. Also it's not like replacing Yomi or Guillaume or anyone else would. Fix it. The system is broken and I just don't think Makoto would touch it unless he Had To. Maybe after a few years he'd figure it out but there's no way he'd immediately fix the system after the game. He's smart but also one of the stupidest guys I've ever seen

3. Icardi he literally just wanted to escape poverty. Like yes he killed a guy and used Yuma to plant bombs but. He was in a dire situation and shit wasn't getting better, I can totally see how he thought that would be the only way to get out of that city. Rip Icardi I don't give a shit about you but you really weren't that bad considering your situation

[katnissandpeetamellark]

Lucy Gray Baird - an innocent victim or a manipulator?

What's your first impression of Lucy Gray?

Do you think she loved Coriolanus in tbosas?

What do you think might have happened to Lucy Gray in the end?

What's your opinion about theories :

1. Greasy Sae as Lucy Gray.

2. Coin as a daughter or relative of Lucy Gray.

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

OKAy, I saw people respond to this a few days ago so I wanted to wait because I didn't want the tag to be TOO filled with the same thing all at once lol

But... in my opinion (as a book reader - multiple times - before the movie came out)..

(LONG TEXT POST ANSWER BELOW!)

1.Lucy Gray is BOTH a victim of manipulation and a manipulator (in a "Survival" way). I mean to an extent she's a performer. And that makes her good at manipulating people to "feel a certain way".

To survive the games, she puts on her charm HARD (But I also think she's just a good person too. IMO there's a level of realness to her charm. She really does care about people and enjoys being around others.) I think she uses people to an extent to survive (and I DO NOT BLAME HER FOR THIS. Put yourself in her shoes in those situations and you can see how manipulating people would benefit you)

BUT she is ALSO a victim. To the "system" aka the Hunger Games/The Capitol's cruelty, and a victim of Snow. Her manipulation all stems from her being a victim in their world (Being an orphan, living in poverty, not being allowed to roam free in the world, Billy Taupe, the games, etc.). So yes, Lucy Gray is both a manipulator AND a victim (I don't like the word innocent though, it's a bit too black and white for me)

2.I think I immediately felt pity but you also see her "rebel" from the situation by signing and the way she's dressed for this moment. So you see her strength in a terrible situation. You have to admire someone who just says "fuck it" and rolls with the punches.

3.I don't know exactly. I think she could've let go of him if he hadn't "followed her" back to 12. I think again, to an extent she "uses" him to survive. And then when he's just there in 12 with her, she's like "well okay, I can make this work". I think she finds comfort in others (girl just went through hell) and there's definitely some sort of trauma bond there after the games. I don't wanna say yes or no, because again I have lots of thoughts and there all in grey areas lol.

So... maybe. But maybe not. Or maybe partially.

3.Again, I don't know. I don't mind it being a mystery because then it relates directly to the ballad. If she died or escaped to live in the wilderness... either would be better than being trapped (in 12, in Panem etc.). I'd obviously rather her be free, but I guess we'll probably never know and I've just become "at peace" with that.

I definitely DO NOT think she would go back to 12. Her life was in danger and 12 was never her home really. Let her be free<3

4.Hate both of those theories. They cheapen the story imo. Making Katniss "the chosen one" ruins the message.

Lucy Gray would not have gone back to 12 imo and she would have NEVER raised someone to be just like Coriolanus. She wasn't like him, she didn't shut out love and family and people. If Lucy Gray survived (which is totally possible) she wouldn't have raised someone to be like Coriolanus. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks for the ask<3

[xxknockoutxx]

𝕼𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖘

𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘: mentions of murder and hostility, toxic families, smut, poor/poverty terms, cursing, and other stuff. No proofread! There might be some mistakes sorry!

𝑺𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔: From a poor and brave curse user, to the wife of the strongest man in Jujutsu Sorcery.

𝕻𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘: Satoru gojo x fem!Y/N

𝕿𝖆𝖌𝖘: @theobsidianempress

𝕬/𝕹: I'm sorry about how long this took me. Tumblr deleted my paragraphs multiple times. And I had to rewrite everything multiple times. New Note: I made this a looong time ago and nobody saw it and it was the only post that that happened with so I'm just reposting

"WAKE UP"

The feeling of a hand rapidly smacks your face awake. As you take in your surroundings realizing where you are and what you're doing just to realize it's just your same old mother yelling at you for absolutely nothing at all. because you just decided to sleep instead of what she thinks you should be doing... Working.

Little do they know, you were up all night saving them from the non-stop curses that were trying to get you and your family. Because you are the only person who can see them and the only person who possesses cursed energy you are the only person that was in the house that can protect your family.

Knowing that you'll never be able to escape all of her yelling, you just got up and walked away so you can get ready for the day of work that you're doomed to do every single day.

"Hurry up and go to the village and see if there is any use of you there! At least try to be a role model for siblings!" And with that you were locked out and not gonna be let back in until sundown. Tired, and not wanting to make her physically aggressive, you just left for the village and hoped that someone needed to get their cat out of a tree or they needed someone to kill bugs.

As you walked through the village, you heard screaming. Concerned, you ran over to help and you found out that there was a lady screaming about a monster and her daughter also screaming because of a curse. Being a curse user, you could see that there is a giant grade Four curse destroying their house right before the curse gets the chance to kill the two girls you rush in and kill the curse.

The mother and a daughter stand there obviously shook by the entire experience, but thank you profusely for saving them. As you give them your thanks as well, you walk away back into the village to help more people. Eventually you stumble through the village one last time before going home to see if it's "late enough to go home" When you arrive back the door is noticeably unlocked so you go inside.

While the rest of your family sleeps comfortably after finishing dinner (Which they didn't wait for you to come home) you just decided to go to sleep without eating. (Not like you had a choice.) The next morning you wake up to a knock on your door and a letter.

I've noticed your strength and your knowledge of curses over the past few days. Your strength is honorable and I sent this letter to inform you that over taken an interest in you and can get you out of your situation. All I request is that you become my wife. Take your time to think over this offer.

To Y/N L/N.

S. G.

You threw the note to the side and hid it in your room. "Like I would let some rich ass prick buy me into marriage" You thought half way before speaking, thinking that you were too strong and independent to be swooned by some rich and worthless man. Your stomach quickly humbled you and started growling louder than Nanami fans during that beach scene (yes, we breaking the fourth wall) due to last nights neglect.

As you left out for good you noticed the sounds of screaming from more innocent people in the village. As you run towards the noise, you see a giant curse but this one is a special grade curse that you weren't strong enough to kill. The curse charges towards you and grabs a hold of you slowly taking all of the air out of your lungs. Your breathing slows, your sight darkness, and you pass out.

You wake up a couple of hours later in a nice room. With blue and gold accents all around it. While you looked around, you noticed a door that was slightly cracked open. Right as you got up a few people entered the room and grabbed you. They whispered about someone, almost like if they were afraid?

Why would Satoru want this peasant? Would Satoru approve? It's best that we dispose of her now that she's awak-...

"Put her down"

Your eyes widen as you see the 6'3, white haired, blue eyed and intimidating man in front of you with a heart stopping frown on his face. Before you could process what happened you were roughly dropped on your face. You get up and stare blankly in disbelief that these bitches dropped you like a fucking trash bag. Before standing up and looking like you were about to gut them. However they weren't focused on you. They were focused on the pearly hair man that looked like he was two seconds away from painting these Royal walls red.

"Get out of my sight."

The two hooded figures run away faster than light. And before you could turn back to the tall man before you. You felt his presence so close that it made your blood turn cold.

"I'm sorry about those disgusting rats..."

"It's fine, but where am I? Who are you?"

"Well to start you off, you're in my house. And the room that you were in before you came here was my room. And my name is Satoru Gojo, the head of the Gojo clan."

"Gojo clan? Where have I heard that before?" You take a look around the giant hallway before looking back at him. "Wait... By any chance did you send me a letter?"

He nodded happily and at that moment all you could do was cringe and mentally slap yourself in the face. The "rich guy" turned out to be a pretty young and handsome man, who's at the head of the most powerful clan in the world. And he liked you. As this all registered in your head you feel a hand on your cheek.

"If I remember correctly, that letter was a request to take your hand in marriage" he made a dumb little smirk that made you want to punch him but also laugh with him while skipping down the aisle and throwing flowers everywhere.

"Yeah what was that about?"

"Well you are really cool Y/N and I get recommended new candidates to take up the name Mrs. Gojo but the thing is, They all suck. None of them are my type, too lovey dovey, too distant, too pretty,-"

"That's a problem?" You looked confused. But Satoru just laughed before giving you a serious look.

"Oh yeah it is..."

"Yeah it must be tough having everything you want, being able to sleep at appropriate times in a nice warm house full of food, with people who respect you and do stuff for you..." You didn't even notice that you were rambling until Satoru stopped you.

He looks away before looking back at you with a smile.

"How about we discuss this over a nice meal?"

You swear you almost fell over at that point. Before you can even properly get on your knees and start thanking him (not like that you freaks) he grabs your hands and walks you through the huge mansion, into ONE of the kitchens and he brings you over to pick what you want.

"What would you suggest"

"Honestly none of this bullshit. But I'll make you a little bit of everything"

He was so welcoming but you couldn't help but feel uneasy and intruding after being in a place you definitely don't belong in. As you awkwardly sat at the table that didn't fit you, you watched Gojo in the distance. Making food and trying not to get it all over his pearly white haori.

"Here you go, one plate of dog shit"

You couldn't tell if he was making fun of you or not, because this "dog shit" was the best looking food you've seen in years. After thanking him, you dived into your food and ate like a starved animal. Which isn't far off from what you are anyway. Gojo watched you with gentle eyes. Taking time to absorb everything about you even just from eating.

His cerulean eyes stared at you without breaking contact even through his white locks. They glower gently under the shadow his hair cascaded over his face. When you finished you looked at him with a thankful and flustered face.

"Sorry about the way I ate, not very lady-like, huh?" You hate that term... "Lady like"

"Ugh, don't even start... We can eat like pigs together. Plus when you eat shit like that you can only eat like that with gagging."

You smile and laugh at him. When he made you laugh a smirk pulled its way across his face. He was clearly proud of himself.

"Let's get you out of these rags and into something more comfortable... Mrs. Gojo"

You barely heard him but kept walking behind him to another huge part of the house, a luxury king bathroom. You looked around amazed, taking in everything with care. Gojo snorts and grabs some old shirts that'll hopefully fit you.

"You're cute y'know that?"

"Well excuse me Mr. Millionaire-

"Billionaire, Babes."

You just frown and take the clothes and get in the shower. Or try to...

"Uh... Gojo? How do I turn this on?"

He has to hold back his laugh at your innocent frame while he walks into the bathroom and turns the handle twice to the warm side.

"How the fuck was I supposed to know that?"

He walks out the room laughing but before he leaves he corrects you.

"It's Satoru, to you, Sweets."

When you get out of the shower Satoru is gone but not only that, the bed is made. You wanted to lay down but you didn't want to exert yourself. Right as you were deciding, Satoru comes in wearing nothing but a robe and a towel around his neck.

"Hey, Tiny"

"Don't use your freakish height to justify calling me tiny."

He smirks and lays down on the bed and pats the spot next to him. You were conflicted because what the hell is this rich ass prince charming doing, trying to get you into his bed. Even if there aren't any ulterior motives, which you know there are. You would look like a doll in a custom king sized mattress.

But if there was something Satoru Gojo wasn't good at. It was being told no. Of course you end up in his bed and even more so IN HIS ARMS. The only thing you could do was sit with yourself, disappointed in your decisions and inability to control the situation.

"How does an endless and abundant source of happiness sound?"

"Nice, until you consider the price"

"What if I told you there was no price or catch, or but"

"There always is, now tell me what you want from me"

He smirks and tightens his grip around you while trying to hold back a chuckle.

"I want you to be my wife"

You wanted to be stunned but the overwhelming feeling of confusion and curiosity took over. You didn't believe him. Thought that this was just a cruel joke but on the off chance that he was being serious, it only raised more questions than satisfying answers.

"Bullshit."

"No, seriously. I want you to be my wife"

"Why?" You say while tugging on the soft comforter under you.

"Because you interest me, and I actually like you. I'm tired of being shown women like they are objects of affection that can buy me or make me love them. But you, I actually feel something for you that isn't spiteful."

You thought about it for a moment. The possibility of you, a random poor girl, appears interesting to the head of the Gojo Clan it was too real for you.

"If you still don't believe me then let me prove it to you"

Suddenly, huge warm hands grip your waist and pull you onto Satoru's lap. They snake up your shirt and push you into his chest.

"S-Satoru?"

"Shh... Just lay back, baby..."

All your senses were overwhelmed, so overwhelmed that every touch felt like hundreds. The way he gently sprinkles kisses and bites around your face and neck. The way he clothes fly through the air at light speeds and most importantly. The way that he lifts you up so easily and slams you back down on his cock so good.

All that money may have given him the tangible appeal, but this monster of a man before you was created by pure godly genetics. (Which was surprising because his family, if you can even call it that. Are far from flattering)

"Staring pretty hard. I don't usually let people who aren't my wife see me like this.."

"Ughh.. Shut up about this.. Mhph- wife stuff..."

He grabs you by your waist and brings you back on his lap. Before you could even struggle you dropped onto his cock. All 6 or more inches just drop into you, all at once. Pain and pleasure battle your senses as Satoru continues to thrust up so fast into you.

"F-fuck, you make me feel so good baby. Just like that..."

The last little restraint you had was broken at the feeling of Satoru's cock piercing your G-spot over and over again. You were basically turning into jelly while in his hands. The only thing coming out of you was strangled moans and babbles.

It all felt too good having him rut inside you but it felt even better when. He teased you relentlessly. Rubbing your clit and pinching your nipples, whispering how good of a girl you were. It didn't make sense but you didn't care.

You started to spasm obviously coming close to the peak of your high. Soaked sheets squish and cling onto your sweaty bodies. The sensation made Satoru groan and whine at the pressure. Satoru didn't care how loud he was being in fact he wanted those around to hear. He wanted them to know that he had someone in his room. A poor girl. That he was gonna wife up.

"F-Fuck... Mmm... Baby! That's so good~..."

His thrusts became untamed and erratic as he grabbed on any surface around him. Moaning and grunting at the feeling of your sweet cunt wrapping around him so tightly. The wet warmth of your cunt sends him straight to heaven as he begins to lose himself in your crimson walls.

"Nghh~... Fuck..."

Pearly ropes cover your insides and practically have your stomach doing backflips. It's not like it was a one way thing either, Satoru was just as stunned by the thick coating of slick around his base. Soon after your high wore out you fell asleep.

When you wake up, you're fully cleaned and beyond confused. As you sit up and look around taking in your surroundings you nearly have a goddamn heart attack at the sight of Gojo watching you look around the room. Instead of a serial killer or a guard in the corner, it's just his lanky, privileged, rich ass in the corner or the room. Prolly getting a kick out of watching you in this giant, Goliath ass bed.

When you get up you grab a robe that was on the side of the bed.

"Woah, where are you off in such a rush, princess?"

"Home?"

He smirks at you and walks towards you with a chuckle. He stops right before you and gently lifts your chin up.

"This is your home, Ms. Gojo..."

[verdantmoontruther]

d’you know the more i think about it, the less i think you can compare draco calling hermione a mudblood to snape calling lily a mudblood. the situations are completely different and no, i don’t actually think snape’s came from a place of blood supremacist hatred.

a friend of mine told me a story of when she was maybe 13, a kid she knew started hanging with the wrong crowd. he was 50% jewish, 50% something or other, and 100% lonely, and he started hanging with the something or others.

and you know how it goes - kid feels like he doesn’t belong here nor there, grew up in a predominantly jewish community but gets poisoned or manipulated into thinking those people - you know, the ones he grew up with, his neighbours, his teachers, his mother - they’re worse, they’re below them (and he’s now a part of the them, he has a definitive identity, and isn’t that alluring to a lonely kid like that). and the kid desperately wants the approval of these something or others, wants it like he’s never wanted anything before.

i don’t really remember the details because they was recounted to me later piece by piece, but long story short - he calls this other guy a yid. a sheeny. a kike.

that’s what i’m getting from snape - this is a poor, lonely, scared kid that was just humiliated (and essentially sexually assaulted) in front of half his school. he retreats to doing what he thinks will bring him the most comfort, get the most people to fight FOR him in HIS corner.

he weaponises his own self-hatred by projecting it onto someone else in order to win the approval of the few people that he truly believes may stick by him.

see, it’s really important that we remember that snape was half muggle himself, and loathed it. when he self-identified as the ‘half-blood prince’, the ‘half-blood’ was a reminder of his belonging to wizarding society. that’s why he took his mother’s name, too. when he expresses his hatred towards muggles by calling lily a mudblood, i think it’s moreso a reaction towards how unsafe and alone he felt in that situation, and it’s a callback to his father (a muggle), who was canonically abusive and neglectful. it’s a callback to muggle society, where he lived in abject urban poverty in the industrialised midlands in the 60s and 70s during increasing inflation and taxation, unemployment at the same height it was at during the fucking great depression, the ira bombings in birmingham, and miners’ (and other blue collar workers’) strikes, of which his father would have been a part, and which would all have become part of a cycle he couldn’t escape from had he not been a wizard. it’s a callback to, ironically, his own future, and how he would have probably continued his father’s line of work, however loathsome it was, because poverty is often cyclical, but the wizarding world gave him something to excel at (potions) and put his brilliant mind to work (he was 15 inventing his own spells).

there was a whole blow up over my friend’s situation, because it was a major dick move, but it also came from isaac who lives with his mama and bubbe across the street from the beit tfila, and you see every so often at the deli, and whose bar mitzvah you ate cake at. and it hurt because it came from isaac down the block, but it also hurt less coming from isaac down the block than if it had been tanner and makeighleigh and their billion dollar mansion.

this shit is so fucking common in minority communities, not just with mixed kids but with self-loathing full kids, as well. the amount of times i’ve had to check my own self-directed antisemitism, growing up in a predominantly non-jewish area (coincidentally, the same industrial midlands that snape and lily grew up in), is unreal.

draco calling hermione a mudblood, though? doesn’t compare. he’s a snooty pureblooded rich kid talking down to a 100% muggleborn girl for no reason but his own (or, at least, his parents’) convictions. vile loathesome evil little cockroach

so, tl;dr - was snape calling lily a mudblood a dick move? yeah, nothing can cover for that. but do we have to consider context, including the fact that that slur applies to him himself, too? yes. don’t be silly. furthermore, do i even think that snape ever held to any blood purist ideology? ... no. i don’t.

[bitchesgetriches]

Hi bitches, I'm a bit nervous to ask this but I'm being genuine I promise. I don't want you to think I'm some biggoted old fool.

Could you please help me understand how sex work isn't exploitative? I hear a lot of people saying "it's just the same as normal work, it's better than my job at Amazon/target/wherever and no one is calling that work exploitative" or "well you wouldn't do YOUR job if you didn't have to either" but like, checkout work IS hella exploitative??? Most work IS hella bullshit that only exists to feed the capitalist machine. I DO fight for a world where work is a choice. I understand why The Right would love onlyfans, but why is The Left lining up to defend it?

Sex work - especially things like onlyfans - is overwhelmingly done by the poor or as a way to escape poverty ("I was being paid shit in my previous job, now I can afford an apartment" is something I hear a lot). But in doing so it transfers all the risks to them, it's essentially turning sex work into the gig/hustle economy, isn't it? You end up on a zero hour contract with no union, health, benefit, maternity protection, in a job that can be hella dangerous and have serious emotional repercussions and requires huge emotional labour and/or disconnect and I don't really understand why we're just cheering this along?

I don't object on moral grounds. Sex is sex. Consenting adults do what you want. People are well within their moral and legal rights to choose to sell sex, (or the emotional labour that comes with it), or photos, or whatever they want - just like they are free to go work for target. I absolutely understand the need to - and support - decriminalisation of sex work, the need to make it safe and secure for sex workers, but I just can't see why ~the world at large~ sees huge numbers of young 18 year old women being herded and encouraged into joining Onlyfans - in several cases with people saying "can't wait for you to turn 18 so you can have an OF" so the patriarchy can pay £3-4 a month to see their tits and people cheer this along? One or two get rich, I'm sure, but who is getting REALLY rich? It's the old white men that own onlyfans and take a 20% cut, as always. It's the patriarchy working as it always has. Allowing one or two women to succeed while holding the rest down for exploitation. Except now it's mixing with the worst bits of 21st C capitalism, too. Surely all OnlyFans is is Uber for Sex work, using the gig economy to de-unionise and isolate workers, strip them of benefits, make them into independent contractors and profit off them?

Sure, it's a step up from kidnapping girls from Romania to have them do porn, but is that really the bar? Can we maybe just stop for a second and imagine a world where rich white men don't get richer off the emotional and physical labour of women? Where the other available work options aren't so shit that a zero-hour career with no employment protections, a limited lifespan, in a dangerous industry doesnt look like heaven in comparison? Sure, you can work for three years, sell your emotional labour, and pay for college. But why are we cheering that instead of asking why this has to happen in the first place? We're fiddling around the edges of the system, giving it a makeover, and rebadging it "female empowerment" instead of actually changing anything fundamental. Poor women sell sex. A few are allowed to break out. Men get to leer at naked women for pennies a year. Rich men get richer. Plus ça change. Not even to mention that because of the ~emotional~ connection that onlyfans gives beyond porn, we're embedding the idea that women are "money in, girlfriend out" machines. I know several girls that won't even *talk* to men in any situation without a minimum $50 fee. And apparently the fact we also have a crisis of men so lonely they're willing to pay this isn't a problem either? Where's our luxury communism dreams bitches?

Bitches, I trust you. What am I missing?

I don’t think you’re a bigoted old fool. Nor a prude! I think you’re incredibly enlightened about the dangers of unfettered capitalism and labor exploitation.

Almost all of the issues you highlight about exploitative sex work can be said about exploitative labor in any industry. Poor people taking shitty jobs that don’t pay enough and enrich capitalist, patriarchal corporate overlords? That happens all over the world in industries from meat packing to clothing sweat shops to, yes, sex work. The exploitation of a person’s body for labor is an ethical stain on our culture at large. It’s why we’re so in favor of labor rights advances including a higher minimum wage, unions, and humane work environments. 

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Make Our Lives Better 

Are Unions Good or Bad? 

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights 

Sex work is not unique in that it opens desperate and poor people up to labor exploitation. It’s not even uniquely dangerous to the bodies of workers--John Oliver did a bit on the US meat packing industry recently that made me faint with body horror. 

So we agree that labor exploitation is bad. And it’s something that we should work towards ending in every industry. But I can see why some people would view exploitative sex work to be a different kind of bad. Because sex is sensitive! It can be used to punish and hurt. See revenge porn and the way synonyms for “sex worker” are stigmatized and used as insults throughout society. 

Now, a few clarifications. When I refer to sex work, I’m not just talking about cam work on OnlyFans. There are lots of other outlets for many different kinds of sex work. And I’m also not just talking about women sex workers. People of all gender identities and sexualities do sex work, and we should advocate for fair labor practices and safety for all of them. I am firmly pro- decriminalizing sex work so that the industry can be made safe, regulated, and destigmatized in an effort to reduce exploitation. I want sex workers to have the power of collective bargaining! I want them to be protected by law enforcement and our justice system, instead of targeted by it! I want them to pay taxes and have the privileges associated with all tax paying workers! I want them to have the power and protection of a regulatory industry that will purge abusive and violent clients from their field!

I also disagree with the characterization that choosing sex work freely, even out of desperation, is a “step up from kidnapping a girl from Romania to have them do porn.” Human trafficking is not sex work. It’s slavery and torture. Even when the choice is between making $7.25 an hour working at WalMart and making $7.25 as a cam girl, there’s still a choice involved, even if it’s a shitty one. There’s consent. Trafficking victims have no choice, no consent, only violence. 

I honestly don’t want to start a debate here. We’re all on the same page that labor exploitation is bad. So I’ll just end with this: not all sex work is inherently exploitative. Which I guess is your real question!

I’ve mentioned before that I have friends who are former sex workers. Specifically strippers and a specialty dominatrix. As with any job, they had their ups and downs, their good nights and bad nights. But they all agree that they freely chose the work not out of desperation or a lack of other options. And they even enjoyed the work in some cases. If someone prefers sex work, thrives in giving that emotional labor to others, I’m not going to judge and I’m certainly not going to tell them they’re being exploited. It would frankly be insulting, condescending, to tell someone that their choice of work (when it truly is a choice) is bad for them. 

It’s a fine line, but the line does exist. Sex work CAN BE exploitative. But it is not inherently exploitative, as far as I’m concerned. 

[aspoonofsugar]

Emerald + Mercury = Cinder

BEGINNING OF THE END = MIDNIGHT

The episodes Beginning of the End and Midnight can be seen as complementary.

Both share a similar structure with the first part telling Cinder’s story and the second part showing how past events are influencing the present. At the same time, they show the links among Cinder, Emerald and Mercury and explore their changing dynamic.

In Beginning of the End it is shown how they came together and we reach the climax of their cooperation. The Fall of Beacon is when the trio is at its strongest. It is only because of their coordination and teamwork that the plan succeeds. In Midnight instead we are shown the beginning of their separation.

For different reasons (fears and wishes) both Mercury and Emerald are about to leave Cinder. Mercury already has and it is probable Emerald will soon.

The two episodes also give us two opposite and complementary visions of Cinder.

In Beginning of the End, we have the way Cinder wants to appear:

Cinder: (stepping forward slowly, glass anklet shifting with her footsteps) I've already told you. And I don't like repeating myself.

Salem: I would like to think I have shown a great deal of patience over my many years walking Remnant. But I do hate repeating myself.

Mercury: Is this how you treat a patient? (Emerald reaches over and twists the screwdriver in his leg, causing him to wince) Ah, too tight!

Cinder: Enough. Our Mercury put on a wonderful show. He was quite brave.

Salem: Do you find such malignance necessary?

Watts: I apologize, ma'am. I'm not particularly fond of failure.

Salem: Then I see no reason for your cruelty towards young Cinder. She's become our Fall Maiden, destroyed Beacon Tower, and most importantly, killed dear Ozpin. So I'm curious, to what failures are you referring?

In Midnight we see who she really is. Moreover, it becomes more and more clear that her imitation of Salem is different from the original:

Salem: I will tell you when and where you are needed.

Cinder: Both of you, get out. I’ll let you know when you’re needed next.

Mercury: Yeah about that, Salem’s got other plans for me. I’m not gonna be taking orders from you anymore.

Why is this being shown through her interactions with Emerald and Mercury? Why are they important for Cinder’s character?

First of all, Mercury and Emerald are Cinder’s kids, at least narratively speaking:

Roman: Oh, look! She sent the kids again! This is turning out just like the divorce!

Roman calls them so when they first appear and later on several characters refer to them as kids in relation to Cinder.

Raven (about Emerald and Mercury): Two children you've tricked into following you.

Tyrian: (chuckles as he slowly walks toward Emerald) Careful, little girl. Cinder isn't here to protect you anymore.

Tyrian (mocking Mercury): Oh yes, the world is mean, and I'm a big, bad man now just like the others.

Salem (to Emerald): Speak, child.

In short, they are meant to be the last link in a chain of abuse that starts with Salem, goes on with Cinder and finally arrives to them.

At the same time, as the title says Mercury + Emerald = Cinder because they are nothing more than parts of Cinder herself, both in their backgrounds and in their personalities.

CINDER + “HUNGER” = EMERALD

Cinder: Follow me, and you'll never be hungry again.

Cinder: It's... an emptiness. It burns. Like hunger. I like it.

In Beginning of the End Emerald and Cinder are shown to share a hunger motif.

Emerald is presented as a street rat who survives through stealing. She is poor and starved, so she accepts Cinder’s offer to be taken care of and to be given food. That said, it is clear that other than food what Emerald is truly starving for is love:

Emerald: I just... (sighs) Cinder was the only family I ever had. She cared about me, taught me things...

I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one

Similarly, Cinder too is shown to be hungry. More specifically, she is hungry for power:

Cinder: I want to be powerful.

It is meaningful that in the episode where Cinder tells Emerald she won’t have to starve anymore, she herself is starving. This contradiction conveys the tragedy of Cinder’s character aka a traumatized girl taking in a kid similar to her and becoming like her past parental figures.

As a matter of fact Emerald and Cinder’s first meeting has parallels with Cinder meeting both Madame and Rhodes.

When Cinder meets Madame she asks for food, but is negated it:

And she is later shown to have survived through leftovers.

In contrast, food is the first thing Cinder offers Emerald, who she recognizes as a girl who has survived in poverty, like her.

In their first meeting, Cinder also treats Emerald pretty much like Rhodes treated her. Both discover a young girl, who has just committed a theft and confront her. However, instead of punishing the girl, they both offer to be the girl’s mentor and become her idol.

As a matter of fact both Cinder and Emerald are shown to idolize their saviors to the point that both girls try to look like them by changing their hair/clothes:

So, it would superficially seem that Cinder is acting like Rhodes and in the opposite way of Madame. However, the reality is far more complex. Deep down, Cinder is acting like her adoptive mother because she is targeting a girl and thinking about how she can weaponize her. At the same time, there is a key difference between her behaviour and Rhodes’s. Rhodes had Cinder give the sword back, while Cinder never stopped Emerald from stealing. If anything, she encouraged her criminal activities changing her from a thief to a terrorist. In other words, Cinder radicalized Emerald.

This is once again linked to the motif of hunger both girls share:

Cinder: You Atlas elites are all the same! You think hoarding power means you'll have it forever, but it just makes the rest of us hungrier.

Cinder’s trauma is rooted in the unfairness of the world. She was made to starve simply because she was born in the wrong situation and society completely failed her.

What is more, when Rhodes refuses Cinder as well, she too refuses his vision of the world. Rhodes, pretty much like the Prince of the original fairy-tale, offers Cinder a way to social-climb. In the fairy-tale, Cinderella marries the prince and so becomes a princess in the end. Here, Rhodes is telling Cinder she can reach her own castle. Cinder can escape her misery and reach Atlas. However, this is seen as a lie by Cinder the moment he attacks her.

So, Cinder giving food to an orphan like her and trying to destroy the current order are both coherent with the idea that the world is unjust and needs to be changed. However, Cinder is using the same problems she criticizes to her advantage. What is more, she is exasperating them in order to fulfill her personal agenda, which is only about herself and her self-image.

Let’s see now, what do our two young thieves steal? What are they “hungry” for?

a) Emerald steals a ring:

Salesman: A beautiful ring... for a beautiful woman.

Interestingly, the ring itself might be a reference to the original story of Aladdin, which is apparently Emerald’s allusion.

In the original story Aladdin meets two jinns. The first one is in a ring and Aladdin uses it to save himself and to escape with the magic lamp, where a stronger jinn is. So it makes sense for Emerald to steal a ring (something she wishes) just to meet a woman that promises her she can have more (her personal jinn aka someone that can realize Emerald’s dreams).

Why does Emerald steal the ring?

It is possible she just wants to sell it in order to buy some food, but I like the idea that she steals it also because she wants some beauty (”a beautiful ring for a beautiful woman”) in the harsh and horrible world she lives in (“filth”).

b) Cinder steals a sword:

Like in Emerald’s case, the object of Cinder’s theft can be seen as part of her fairy-tale’s allusion.

As a matter of fact, in Cinder’s adaptation of Cinderella the swords are nothing, but her glass slippers.

This is made clear later on when Rhodes (both the Prince and the Fairy Godmother) gives Cinder the first sword. It is meant to be a prize on his part. He is showing Cinder she does not need to steal it anymore because she has gained it. Moreover,  weapons are said to be extensions of a person by Ruby, so it makes sense that the slipper of the original Cinderella becomes a sword in this version. It fits the personality of our Cinder, a fiery young girl, who wants to become a huntress.

Finally, since Cinder’s story uses both inversion and deconstruction when adapting the fairy-tale, it is interesting that in the end the Prince refuses to give Cinder the other sword (slipper) and Cinder takes it by force:

In this way, Cinder goes back to stealing, which was what Rhodes had originally tried to avoid.

Why does Cinder steal the sword in the first place?

She steals something to defend herself with and to hurt her tormentors. Violence is rooted in Cinder’s first theft.

In short, Emerald wants something beautiful, while Cinder wants something powerful.

This difference is coherent with their respective semblances since Emerald creates illusions, while Cinder is able to overheat objects, so that she can create explosions and manipulate their shape. Both powers are representative of their user’s flaw and coping mechanism.

Emerald is a person who has reacted to her traumatic life by chasing illusory dreams of warmth and love. She tricks others and is tricked because she refuses to dispel her self-delusions.

Cinder is instead a person, who has been molded through violence just like the glass statues in the hotel. She is forced to endure until she can’t take it anymore and she explodes:

She herself is the Glass Unicorn, which shatters like Cinder’s innocence when too much pressure is added. Not only that, but Cinder too has started molding others to her will. She has been grooming both Emerald and Mercury for her own ego. This is why the name Scorching Caress fits her so well. It is because behind every act of care it is hidden an act of manipulation. And this happens because Cinder too has been treated utilitaristically and the only kind of love she experienced (Rhodes’s) was a “weak” love Cinder ended up perceiving as fake.

In short, Emerald and Cinder have different coping mechanisms and aim for different things. However, this does not mean that one is better or worse than the other. Their main difference is that right now Emerald is more in touch with her own needs and wishes. Ironically, the delusional girl has never lost sight of what she truly wants.

Emerald wants a family. She has been looking for it in the wrong places and she has been pursuing it in the wrong ways. However, Emerald has never forgotten what she is truly after and she is starting to realize she won’t have it, until she stays on Salem’s side:

Salem: It's important not to lose sight of what drives us: Love, justice, reverence... but the moment you put your desires before my own... they will be lost to you. This isn't a threat, this is simply the truth. The path to your desires is only found... through me.

Tyrian: Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. I want to tell you both a little secret. Your question is all wrong. (laughs)

Emerald: What?

Tyrian: "What do you want from this?" Children, please, if you're not loving what you're doing, then you're in the wrong field.

Salem promises to fulfill Emerald’s wishes, but Tyrian has already told her that pursuing a wish while working for Salem is useless. Emerald is starting to realize it and this is why she will probably leave.

Cinder has instead forgotten what she originally wanted:

Cinder: Like you? You can do whatever you want, go wherever you want.

Cinder’s original wish was to be free and also to be loved, like Emerald:

You're no good I hope you know That your life is of no use And the truth is that No one's ever loved you

However, her being failed by the adults has twisted her wish into a desire for power.

This difference is well conveyed by Cinder and Emerald’s respective line in Beginning of the End:

Cinder: Follow me, and you'll never be hungry again.

Emerald: Thank you...

Cinder: The Huntsman severed the connection before it was complete. (pause) Yes. It's... an emptiness. It burns. Like hunger. I like it. (pause) Yes. I will claim what is ours. (pause) Thank you.

Emerald thanks Cinder because she won’t have to be hungry anymore, while Cinder thanks Salem because she is able to feel a hunger she likes.

This fits well with Cinder’s last words to the Madame:

Cinder: You’re right. Without you I am nothing. But because of you, I am everything.

Emerald does not want to be hungry, while Cinder has been tricked into thinking that being hungry is the only way she can become not even “everything”, but just “something”.

CINDER + “EVERYTHING” = MERCURY

Cinder: Because of you, I am everything.

Mercury: So I got strong, but I never got it back! I've had to work harder than anyone to get where I am.

Cinder’s way of thinking is very similar to Mercury’s. Not only have they both endured their parents’ violence, but they have tried to give this violence meaning. It is because of Madame that Cinder has become “everything” and it is because of Marcus that Mercury has become “strong”. They must believe that it was not all for nothing and that the pain they felt made them stronger instead of weaker.

This is why Cinder thinks that deep down her “hunger” is good. It is because it drives her, but she ignores that it blinds her too.

This is why Mercury keeps going back to his father:

Mercury: Bad hair, used a scythe, and smelled like my dad after a long day. It was him.

Mercury: My dad always said... "if you need to know a city, ask the rats."

He mentions Marcus here and there and uses his teachings to solve problems. That is because those teachings must have some value, right? If they don’t, then Mercury’s life means nothing.

The nature of Cinder and Mercury’s foiling is clear in their first meeting:

Like in Emerald’s case, Cinder finding Mercury calls back a moment of her past.

In particular, it parallels the murder of her adoptive family and Rhodes discovering it. Mercury, just like young Cinder, has just killed an abusive parent and is confronted by a person after the fact.

Once again, Cinder seems to act differently from the adults that let her down. Rhodes was horrified and attacked her, while Cinder praises Mercury and has him join her group.

However, she is deep down acting as Rhodes did. As a matter of fact what truly hurt Cinder about Rhodes’s reaction is that he convinced her that she is irredeemable.

The whole scene plays with the Cinderella’s allusion and inverts it:

The clock strikes midnight and just like in the fairy-tale, the magic is over. In Cinderella, the protagonist goes back to her true self and runs away not to be seen. However, in the end, the prince recognizes her through her slipper (a symbol of her innate beauty and kindness) and marries her despite her humble condition.

In Cinder’s story, midnight is when she reveals a part of herself to Rhodes. She shows all the anger and violence she has been repressing. Cinder is not a “good victim” like the Cinderella of the fairy-tale and Rhodes can’t accept it. Not only that, but he negates Cinder’s dream to be free:

Rhodes: You can run, but you’re going to be running for the rest of your life.

Cinder: I won’t have to run now.

Rhodes: That’s all you’ll ever do.

This shatters Cinder’s hopes and self-perception. She internalizes that she will have to live in opposition to society because she is somehow “a bad person”. She is not a huntress (a princess), but a nobody who’ll have to use violence to survive. And she starts doing it immediately. As the song that starts playing implies, she has been awaken from the “fragile lies in bones”. However, this “truth has broken her soul in two”. This wound is still there and it has influenced, among other things, her reaction to Mercury.

When Cinder meets Mercury, she associates him to his father three times:

Cinder:  And you're his son. We saw your fight from the treeline. He's taught you well.

Mercury: Guess so.

Cinder: What's your name?

Mercury: Mercury.

Cinder: Mercury... Tell me, are you anything like your father?

In this way, she strengthens the connection Mercury tried to cut by killing Marcus. She is indirectly convincing him that he can’t be different from his father:

Tyrian: All you ever learned was pain and violence, and now you're too afraid to leave it. Such a tragedy.

Tyrian spells it out clearly for both Mercury and the audience. The only reason Mercury joined Cinder and is now working for Salem is that he is scared. Not only is he scared for his own survival, but he is scared about failing to be anything else than what his father taught him.

Cinder is deep down scared too by Salem and her group:

However, she too, like Mercury, has given up on being anything different than a criminal. She puts up a strong demeanor, but is actually really frail. She is like glass that has been bended through heat (violence) and can easily shatter.

Both Mercury and Cinder are two violent victims. This duality is kind of conveyed also through their names and colors.

“Cinder” is something that has only partially burnt. They tried to reduce her to ashes, but failed and a part of Cinder is still burning. This is why her main colors are black and red. She is black because she was burnt. She is red because she can burn. She was both hurt and has hurted others.

Similarly, “mercury” is a silver/gray metal and this is Mercury’s main color. This choice gains a possible deeper meaning when one considers that his aura is white and that his surname is Black. His aura can be seen as Mercury’s nature, while the surname “Black” is a symbol of the “nurture” he received. Mixing these two factors made so that Mercury turned out like he is (a gray character).

So, Cinder and Mercury have been shaped by their abuse and this is clearly visible on their bodies as well:

Cinder keeps the scar on her neck hidden, while Mercury has chosen to weaponize his missing legs.

It is telling that Mercury made of his own mechanical legs his weapon and that he mostly uses kicks to fight. It is another detail that shows how he is reducing both himself and his trauma to weapons he can use.

Cinder too shows how frail her sense of self is through weapons. It is not by chance that her current weapons are made of glass. In her backstory her swords were a symbol of her true self and of who she could become. Right now, they are nothing, but glass imitations of that ideal.

In short, Cinder and Mercury are both victims and murderers and they needed to have both sides of themselves accepted by their mentors.

However, Rhodes and Cinder failed to do so. They both refused the victimhood of the child in front of them, but they did so in opposite ways.

On one hand Rhodes refused Cinder’s violence and its reasons. He ignored his feelings of affection for the girl and steeled himself, so that he could fight her.

On the other hand Cinder gladly accepted Mercury’s violence and groomed him (Scorching caress), so that he would completely embrace it too.

The difference between Rhodes and Cinder lies in them having different reactions to the violence perpetrated by a child. However, they both fail to address the child’s pain. Rhodes does so because his vision is too black and white. Cinder does so because she is not even able to address her own pain.

However, both Cinder and Mercury need to address their own victimhood. Still, they refuse to do so because it would mean to accept their vulnerability. It is easier to convince themselves that they are the strong and violent ones. They are the ones others are scared of:

Mercury: We're the guys you should be afraid of.

But it is precisely because of this refusal that they are currently caught in dynamics similar to the ones they escaped:

Salem and Tyrian are nothing, but more dangerous versions of Madame and Marcus.

Salem treats Cinder as a pawn, rather than a person. She strips her of her personhood and agency and punishes her violently.

Tyrian is a killer, who enjoys his job like Marcus. He keeps invading Mercury’s personal space and threathens him. Moreover, his own semblance is similar to Marcus’s. It might not steal people’s semblances, but it still messes with their auras (with their very souls).

Cinder and Mercury struggle to recognize their own situations because to do so they must accept they are still stuck in their horrible childhoods:

Mercury: You may not like it here without Cinder, but I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be!

Cinder: I don’t serve anyone. And you wouldn’t either, if you were built that way.

However, this refusal is confusing them about what their true needs and wishes are:

Cinder: I want to be strong. I want to be feared. I want to be powerful.

Mercury: So what's in it for me?

In Beginning of the End both characters receive a line where they express some kind of wish.

As stated above, Cinder’s wish is not her original one, but a twisted version because she thinks she can’t reach her true desire.

When it comes to Mercury, he is not even sure of what he really wants. This is made clear even later on:

Emerald: I mean, there has to be something you want from this, right?

Mercury: Salem's promised us everything. We win this thing for her, we'll be top dogs in her new world. What more do you want?

He says Salem will give him all he wants, but he still fails to answer Emerald’s question. What is it that he wants?

He wants “everything” Cinder can offer him and later on “everything” Salem offers him. However, this is just another way to say he’ll take anything he is given, be it even something as basic as survival:

Mercury: Look, even if what he said was true, we can’t stop Salem. You told me yourself, Hazel tried. He failed and he got in line. Big guy’s not going to pick fights he can’t win, and neither should we.

This is because Mercury is so scared and hurt he can’t even start to think about what he wants.

Similarly, he goes back to a fatalistic vision of the world:

Mercury: Just made sense.

Emerald: It made sense?

Mercury: All my life, my father trained me to be a killer, an assassin like him. And then moments after I killed him, you two showed up looking for someone with my exact skills. Just felt like it was meant to be.

Let’s highlight that Cinder does the same:

Pyrrha: Do you believe in destiny?

Cinder: Yes.

Cinder: You know, Neo, someone once asked me if I believed in destiny. And I'm happy to say I still do.

Both Mercury and Cinder have convinced themselves that there is a “destiny” written for them and that they must play that role (the role of an assassin, the role of the Maiden). However, in this way they are just chaining themselves and accepting to Do As They Are Told by adults and mentor figures, who do not really care about them.

EMERALD + MERCURY = SOUL + BODY

I'm the one That was born in a nightmare a murderer's son Got no gun But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one Delusion I'll steal til your blind and defeat you from inside your mind

I'm the one That was ripped from the earth and exposed to the sun Overrun By the hate and the beatings defiled by a father I'm the one I'll race with your eyes and you'll never outrun Illusions Will conquer your mind and will make you fulfill my design

Mercury and Emerald’s song says several things about them.

First of all, it conveys the idea of two kids that feel let down by the world and have decided to retaliate. They mock their opponents and praise their respective abilities. However, it is clear from the verses above that it is just a mask to hide their pain.

This fits with them appearing for the first time in Best Day Ever where Ozpin says this:

Ozpin: And they will be, but right now they're still children. So why not let them play the part? After all, it isn't a role they'll have forever.

Differently from out protagonists (at the time), Emerald and Mercury are not playing the part of kids, but they are acting as big bad thugs to prove themselves to the people around them.

Secondly, the song is useful to explore Emerald and Mercury’s foiling.

a)

I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one Delusion I'll steal til your blind and defeat you from inside your mind

I'm the one That was ripped from the earth and exposed to the sun Overrun By the hate and the beatings defiled by a father

Emerald was never given love, while Mercury was given hate:

Mercury: I'm sorry you didn't have a mommy that loved you, but I had a father who hated me!

This difference is at the root of their different personalities.

On one hand Emerald attaches herself to the care Cinder gives her and takes it as the most love she’ll ever receive.

On the other hand Mercury is just content with not receiving hate and violence from the people around him.

Emerald is more open about her connections with others, while Mercury is more disillusioned. She is strongly driven by them, while Mercury is too scared to fully embrace them.

Emerald has clear wishes, but she is deluding herself about them. Mercury has fears that do not let him realize what he wants.

This difference stems from the different nature of their traumas. Who was never given anything accepts whatever they are offered, while who received pain thinks even nothing is better than more pain.

Still, we are currently seeing an inversion of this dynamic. Emerald’s wishes and their not overlapping with reality are making her doubtful. Mercury’s fear and survival instinct are making him refuse the truth:

Mercury: And all of this is pointless, anyway. Salem’s not ending the world.

In the end, facing one’s own feelings, being them wishes:

Or fears:

Is still better than repressing them, even if it might be painful.

b)

I'm the one That was born in a nightmare a murderer's son Got no gun But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron

I'm the one I'll race with your eyes and you'll never outrun Illusions Will conquer your mind and will make you fulfill my design

The song I’m the One has four key verses. In the first two ones both characters tell a little of their past and then discuss their abilities, while in the other two Mercury mostly talks about his past and emphasizes it, while Emerald highlights her semblance more.

This ends up foreshadowing the importance of Emerald’s semblance and Mercury’s lack of one (”got no gun”).

Emerald’s semblance is important on different levels. As stated above, it perfectly embodies Emerald’s flaw:

Mercury: You're in denial.

And it is linked to unconscious aspects, like wishes and fears. Finally, it is a semblance linked to trickery and lies and these are among the causes of The Fall of Beacon:

Cinder:  Our Kingdoms are on the brink of war, yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark.

It is not by chance that this semblance specifically has been so instrumental in Cinder’s plan, after all.

Similarly, Mercury’s lack of a semblance is one of his defining traits:

Mercury: He never went easy on me! Every day of training was a beating. And when I unlocked my Semblance, he stole it with his!

Ironically, this would make for an excellent narrative objective for Mercury’s character. However, he is so sure his semblance can’t be taken back that he has completely given up on it. This even if he is clearly bitter about having had a part of himself stolen.

The key aspect here may be that Mercury has failed to get his semblance back through his father’s teachings:

Mercury: He told me I could have it back when I was strong. So I got strong, but I never got it back!

And he is now considering it lost forever. It is possible that the path to find his ability again is instead another one altogether.

That said, while Cinder mostly used Emerald’s semblance in her plan, she also made great use of Mercury’s skill and of the peculiar nature of his body:

The first step in her plan, after all, uses both Emerald’s semblance and Mercury’s prostethic legs to spread negative emotions. This tendency continues in PvP where Emerald uses her semblance and Mercury, unhurt because of his legs, prevents Ruby from interrupting the fight.

In short, Emerald mostly relies on her semblance, while Mercury mostly relies on his legs and fighting prowess.

This detail adds to the idea that Emerald and Mercury have been acting as a unit and have been complementing each other. Emerald acts as the “soul” and Mercury as the “body”.

The soul is one’s personal essence (like the semblance). It is where (once again) wishes reside. The body is what protects the soul and is animated by instincts and self-survival.

They complement each other. This complementarity is shown in Emerald and Mercury’s fights.

In the Vytal festival, Mercury takes on both Coco and Yatsuhashi for a short while, so that Emerald can size her chance to fight Coco at her own terms (and she wins by using her semblance).

In the Battle of Heaven, Emerald uses her semblance to help Mercury fight and, in a sense, she compensates for his lack of one:

This perfect complementarity used to make them strong, but right now it is clear that it has become limitating:

Blake: When you’ve been at someone’s side for so long, after a while they become a part of you. But that’s just it, they’re only a part of you. Don’t forget about the rest.

 This is why they are currently being separated by the narrative.

On one hand Emerald must learn not to be so emotionally dependant from others and must make her own choices. This is also why her using the lamp might be meaningful:

Qrow: This last great creation would be given the power to both create and destroy. It would be given the gift of knowledge, so that it could learn about itself and the world around it. And most importantly, it would be given the power to choose, to have free will to take everything it had learned and decide which path to follow - the path of light or the path of darkness.

The whole point of the relics (and of the journey we are going through) is to learn about the world, about creation and destruction, so that in the end a choice can be made.

This is why the first relic we saw is the relic of knowledge. Now, Emerald is a character that has been dependant on others, so that she could realize her wishes. Aladdin itself is a story about a character depending on a Jinn to make his dreams come true. However, it is possible Emerald’s arc will be different and it will be about gaining the knowledge to act and realize one’s wishes.

On the other hand Mercury must face himself and learn what he really wants. He must start living instead of simply surviving. In a sense, he must take the soul his father stole back.

Mercury quoting Marcus: "This is a crutch!" "This makes you weak!"

Marcus was wrong. One’s individuality (semblance) does not make them weak. If anything, Marcus’s abuse of Mercury made him need a literal crutch (since he lost his legs) and the boy is still hiding behind this violence to avoid any real choice about himself. This is what prevents him from becoming strong:

Yang: You might be powerful, but that doesn't make you strong.

Raven: Who do you think you are, lecturing me?! Standing there, shaking like a scared little girl?!

Yang: Yeah, I'm scared. But I'm still standing here!

His connection with Emerald might still play a role in this. After all, Mercury is, among other things, the god of thieves and this allusion has been played with by making him protective of Emerald (whose surname means “thief”). It might be used in a deeper and more meaningful way later on.

Emerald and Mercury must grow because if they don’t, they’ll end up as their dark foils:

Both Hazel and Emerald ended up joining Salem out of a feeling of love that was twisted. Emerald joined Salem because of her loyalty to Cinder, who is using her. Hazel joined Salem because of the death of his sister that he blames on Ozpin. Their semblances are even symbolic of their respective flaws since Emerald is caught up in her own delusions, while Hazel is unable to properly grieve, so he can’t “feel pain” on more than just the physical level.

Both Mercury and Tyrian are assassins and Tyrian is who Mercury might become if he truly chooses to live only to kill and does not find a different goal.

It is also telling that both Emerald and Mercury are currently put in similar circumstances as their two foils. As a matter of fact Mercury is leaving with Tytian, while Emerald and Hazel have been given the password to use the lamp and must choose what to make of this information.

At the same time, Emerald and Mercury have also some traits of respectively Tyrian and Hazel as well.

Emerald is fiercely loyal to Cinder like Tyrian is to Salem:

Tyrian: So devoted to someone so incompetent.

Hazel wanted to protect Gretchen (and is still acting on these unfulfilled feelings of protectiveness) like Mercury is trying to protect Emerald. Moreover, Gretchen and (probably) Emerald’s choice was/will be to fight an enemy that can’t be beaten, going against Hazel and Mercury’s wishes.

All in all, Emerald and Mercury have had interesting interactions with both Hazel and Tyrian that can be (ironically) seen as two incomplete and flawed mentor figures.

On one hand Hazel has been acting as a protector of sorts. He carried Emerald when she lost consciousness after the Battle of Heaven and he tried to protect both Emerald and Mercury from Salem’s rage after their failure.

On the other hand Tyrian is seen tormenting the two kids whenever he gets the chance. That said, he ironically ends up spelling out for them truths the two must face:

Tyrian: Do what makes you happy children... please? I'm begging you...

Tyrian: Of course she is! You’re surprised? Salem is destruction incarnate! Our mistress wishes to see the end of it all! There is no ideal more beautiful.

In short, some kind of interesting foiling seems to have been set-up for the four of them and it will be interesting to see if/how it develops.

MIDNIGHT = BEGINNING OF THE END

In a sense, when the clock stroke midnight it was the beginning of Cinder’s end because she entered a spiral she has not been able to stop since then. Not only that, but she has dragged other people in that same spirals and those people are now struggling against it, just like her.

At the same time, midnight signals the end of illusions and that may be a fitting description for where we are in the story so far.

Ruby has just announced the existence of Salem to the world, Emerald is uncovering several truths about Salem, Cinder and herself and the Ace Ops are being forced to face their emotions. Of course, when some illusions end, new ones appear. However, it is clear we are in a pivotal moment, which will hopefully lead to some changes.

Similarly, Cinder, Mercury and Emerald will probably go their own ways soon and it will be interesting to see how their paths will foil and where they will meet again.

As for now, it seems that because of Emerald’s allusion to Aladdin, she might use the last question to Jinn. If so, she will probably aquire knowledge and wisdom (emeralds are the stones of wisdom apparently).

Mercury will probably spiral a little bit as for now, but I wonder if he will receive some pivotal focus in the Vacuo’s volumes. Other than him going there with Tyrian, there is also the fact that it would make what is currently just a juxtaposition with Penny (thank you, @hamliet​ for noticing) a more interesting foiling.

Penny is an artificial human, a creation who was given life because her father loved her so much that he sacrificed a part of his aura for her... twice. She is at the centre of the theme of creation and it represents the good sides of it. She is a creation with a soul, a child, the fruit of parental love. It is because of the love she received that she is willing to protect creation:

Penny: That is not… I choose to fight for people who care about me.

Penny’s arc is about self-actualization. She struggles to be her own person outside her role, her purpose and even her parent. However, even if she has been objectified and keeps being objectified, she has also been given affection and this is why she fights.

Mercury is her opposite. He was the target of his father’s violence. Marcus not only stole his legs (while Pietro built Penny a body), but even a part of his soul (while Pietro gave Penny a part of his). He taught Mercury hate and violence and this is why he is currently helping a witch to destroy the world. Because of this, it would be interesting for such a character to receive focus on the volumes about destruction.

Finally, Cinder, as the Fall Maiden, is linked to the theme of choice. This has already been explored a little bit in her being obessed by destiny, as said above. However, the theme of choice is one which must still be fully explored.

In particular, there are several references to choice and destiny when it comes to Cinder’s foil aka Pyrrha:

Cinder (about Pyrrha): Hmm... People assume that she's fated for victory, when she's really taking fate into her own hands.

Cinder: It's unfortunate you were promised a power that was never truly yours.

Pyrrha: When I think of destiny, I don't think of a predetermined fate you can't escape. But rather... some sort of final goal, something you work towards your entire life.

Red-Haired Woman: She understood that she had a responsibility... to try. I don't think she would regret her choice, because a Huntress would understand that there really wasn't a choice to make. And a Huntress is what she always wanted to be.

Pyrrha’s arc is about making a choice. She must choose if she wants to become a Maiden. She struggles, but in the end she accepts this responsibilty. She embraces her idea of destiny and tries to be a Maiden even without powers.

Cinder’s idea of destiny is not fully explored. In a sense, just like Pyrrha, she has taken destiny in her own hands. However, she also seems to use the idea of destiny to nurture her self-image as the Chosen One and as the Worthy One.

At the same time, Pyrrha’s choice led to her tragic death. Not only that, but in the end her death accomplished little. Even Ruby activating her silver eyes has more to do with her wish to protect life, rather than with death. Why is that so? It is probably because Pyrrha’s choice was made without knowledge. She had been explained only a fragment of the truth, while the whole point is that one should learn, meet creation and destruction and then make a choice. This is why we have yet to meet the relic of choice.

My guess is that the theme of choice will mostly be explored through Cinder’s character, who will be asked to choose her destiny in the end.

[trulyhumblenarcissist]

Abourt Rei Himura and BNHA Chapter 301

Now that I've read the official release of chapter 301 I can finally try to gather my thoughts. I think this time the particular rendition of dialogues and inflections provided by Caleb Cook is more crisp and clear than usual, especially in throwing "shade" upon Endeavor as a father figure. But let's do things in order...

Title: THE WRONG WAY TO PUT OUT A FIRE - a simple, but stark message that doesn't leave space for ambiguity. There was a fire, an imminent tragedy that could and should have been avoided, but whoever tried to fix it, did it all wrong and now we have to deal with a huge arson.

CARLESS HANDLING OF FIRE, on the other hand, doesn't quite cut it for me, because it seems like everything was caused by a foolish mistake. "I was carless and now I'm in a pinch"- type of situation, while it's perfectly clear that Endeavor and Rei decided purposefully which "strategy" to use with Touya. A BAD one to say it lightly. Rei's contribution and complicity is debatable, of course, and I'll touch on this later.

Let me get this clear though: I'm not trying in any way to critique the hard work of unofficial translators. I can't say anything relevant because I'm not a translator in the first place (I can barely understand English and my native language on a good day) and also because I am so grateful for everything they do in order to give us really good material FREE OF CHARGE basically a second after the release in Japan. I'm just interested about the different shades of subtext we can catch if we read the story through multiple filters. Every translation is unique because it carries the personal spin of the author even if the bias should be inexistent or ideally undetectable...

However, back to the chapter

REI'S CAGE

The first scene opens on a luxurious classic Japanese villa, with Enji, Rei and her parents discussing the motivation behind Enji's proposal. Or at least we initially think that's what's going on... Because in reality Rei's family couldn't care less about the motivation. Everything these people see is a wealthy, famous guy the next number one hero ready to take their daughter in marriage. I guess the Himuras are pretty broke, thight on cash, their old prestige is definitely gone and all they can do to save themselves from shame and poverty is "to sell" their only remaining asset.

During the whole ordeal, Rei is standing still, silent, cold as ice. She knows she doesn't really have a choice. How mortifying and sad is this? An adult, capable woman has no agency whatsoever, she is used again and again and she stoically accepts this treatment from every single dominant figure in her life until she can't be stoic anymore. I really hope Horikoshi's going to give her a much more proactive role in saving her family and it seems the narrative wants us to expect this type of character development.

I'd like to point out 2 panels in particular:

First one

In this scene the Todorokis are back from their trip to the doc, who clearly said they shouldn't try to conceive a child with a perfect quirk mix because it is dangerous (and morally questionable too). Rei understands this fact and tries to dissuade Enji, but he doesn't listen, because he's projecting all his pent-up resentment and frustration onto Touya. He knows how it feels to crush against an unbreakable wall, since he can't surpass All might and his son can't too. He had to learn this truth the hard way, so Touya needs to do the same. Enji is purposefully throwing upon his son years of failures, self consciousness and despair, just because the boy has to get it into his thick skull that he is a dud, just like his father. This is not a hopeless dad making a mistake bona fide, this is a broken man trying to destroy his self reflection by proxy, annihilating everything Touya is, swiping the kid's identity under the rug. He describes his son's dreams and sadness as something birthed from stubbornness. He is auto-convincing himself however (because Endeavor is not stupid). A little bit later he's basically saying: "Touya let's play make believe! We can go on like everything I had engulfed in your psyche never existed, you're a failed attempt so you don't exist. Your needs and wants are silly and useless, nothing worth dealing with now that I can't make you my prodigy. Why don't you go play with the other failures so that I don't have to look at myself while taking actually care of you. I don't want to see you, because it's too painful, because you're a remainder of my own inadequacy."

Note: If you want to read an incredibly well done analysis about Endeavor's motives and psyche, you can get it on @thyandrawrites , she's dwelt on everything extensively and way better than me.

I really want to talk about Rei though. In the panel I showed above, her expression is a bit tricky to analyse. At first she is very vocal about her position. She doesn't want to put Touya through useless suffering, especially since they have a scientific reason not to. They have no guarantee of success with other children, besides, they could possibly have to deal with other health related issues. However, all it takes to convince her in the end is Enji's half assed attempt at the "It's for Touya's sake" shtick. Is it really? Why doesn't she question her husband anymore?

Well... I think before Natsuo, she was probably hoping Touya would let go "naturally", with time and growth, maybe by taking interest in his other siblings. Rei said she wanted to have more children because in her mind they would have supported and loved each other. Maybe she was naive enough to think that a big family full of kids few years apart from each other was all Touya needed to distract himself from his purposes... BUT and here is the point I want to get across: She was deluding herself too, much like Enji. The ugly truth, in my opinion, is that Rei is a person prone to protect herself by going with everything other people want, especially if said people are capable of hurting her. Yes, she was hurt time and time again, but what would have happened if she really tried to stop Enji?

What I am trying to say is that Rei is the kind of person who endures to survive. She holds a "captive" mentality in which, by indulging her captor's desires, she can continue living with less possibile damage. If I stay still and silent, if I don't make a scene, I can go on, I can hold onto the few things I have that actually make me happy.

Let's think about it... Enji was so obsessed with his psychotic, power-hungry quest that he would have probably disown Rei. She would have been thrown away for a more compliant woman with an ice quirk, or something similar, this resulting in her probably losing everything, the respect and love of her family (the Himuras) and also her own children. Because we know Endeavor can definitely hold a grudge and is vendicative.

So, clarifying, Rei doesn't put up a fight because she is scared for herself in a way... She is scared to be hurt in the worst possible way (by losing her little bit of serenity), so her strategy is to endure and to keep up a facade of control and purpose.

Rei, ironically just like Touya and other characters in mha, doesn't really get what unconditional love is. Her family loves her until she can be useful to the Himura name and status, her husband loves her for her quirk. Her children, however, love her for who she is and she wants to stay with them... Only to be forced to leave them later anyway.

The few times Rei actually smiles are when she is with her babies. She is a deeply loving mother in her core, but her declining mental health makes her a very lacking caregiver.

This panel, in my opinion, shows the point of no return for Rei. She can't keep the glacial facade forever...

After Natsuo's turn to be deemed a failure, Endeavor is crazier than ever, because All Might is as popular and loved as ever and he hasn't make any progress into his eugenetic games. The last two images of Rei are very telling. She is exhausted, but she knows what her husband wants from her this time too. She looks like a lifeless doll and honestly I can easily see Shouto's conception as... Non consensual and I will stop here.

Then Shouto is born, the last, perfect specimen... And Rei isn't doing much for Touya, we can see she's apparently blind towards her eldest son's distress already after Natsuo's birth... But why?

Because she is actively avoiding to face the Touya's problems too.

If Touya is still suffering, is still feeling stressed and worthless, then everything Rei has endured, everything she pretended not to feel for the sake of her family has been completely useless. What Rei cannot look at is her own parental failure, is the concrete proof that while protecting herself and her peace she did not protect her children too, because the two interests were never really aligned, even if she really believed so. She never had a functional family to preserve in the first place and everything she accepted to do was all for the sake of a false sense of belonging.

However is too easy to say she should've rebelled against Enji and dumped his sorry ass. Abuse traps you and your abuser too in a cage tricky to escape.

What I imagine will happen next chapter is one of two things:

Enji stops Touya by using brute force, probably also saying something really scarring to reinforce the notion that Shouto is the only child he cares about.

Rei stops Touya by using her quirk. This act could be considered by Touya another confirmation that even his mother actually does something by her own accord only when Shouto's safety is at risk

Necessary conclusions

I don't blame Rei for her actions too much. She is a victim turned abuser by circumstances, but more importantly she's actually taken mesures to prevent herself from hurting her children again. She's trying to heal for her family's sake, really this time. Ten years spent dealing with guilt and having actual therapy seem a good plan to me. And now she's the one ready to snap Enji back to reality.

Enji, on the other hand, is trying too. It's too little too late, but if he stops avoiding reality and hardly works on understanding his family's point of view I don't think he is completely unredeemable. I don't see him surviving his last confrontation with Touya, thought... But I could be totally wrong.

Obviously everything I've said it's my personal analysis on Rei's character, as I interpret her actions and words, so feel free to contradict me and/or to add anything you might see fit.

[itsjustthechems]

Musings on Danse's political/moral alignments

I saw a post mentioning how a lot of the Fo4 fandom associates Danse with current American conservatives. I disagree, and just want to ramble about my feelings on the subject.

Yes, he is a meathead asshole.

I totally understand taking Danse at face value and assigning him mentally to the "bigoted bootlicker" category. That's totally valid. Unless you travel with him extensively and pay close attention to his ambient dialogue, it's understandable to figure that's just how Bethesda wrote him.

Danse's backstory

To understand Danse's moral and political standings, we have to take a look at his origin story. As far as Danse is aware, he grew up alone in the Capital Wasteland. He was an orphan that scrounged for scrap metal and other junk, which he sold to get by. He had no known family, parental figures, or mentors of any sort. He had one friend, Cutler, who was around his age. The Brotherhood of Steel, much like the real U.S. military, preyed on people like this for recruitment missions. Teenagers of low socioeconomic status - hungry, lonely, desperate, unsure of their purpose. Of course Danse and Cutler would elect to join the Brotherhood, which promised them food, protection, somewhere to sleep at night, and above all else - camaraderie. During one of his affinity dialogues, Danse admits that joining the Brotherhood seemed like the only way to escape his situation.

The Brotherhood took advantage of Danse and other soldiers' naivety and lack of experience by instilling fear and hatred of the misunderstood (synths, ghouls, mutants) and using those negative feelings to shape their training. Dare to disagree with their belief system? At best, you would be disciplined. Verbally abused by the Elder and shunned by your friends and mentors. At worst, you'd be booted out - back to the Wasteland you had been taught to fear unconditionally. Back to starvation, radiation, poverty, and isolation.

After a year of service, Cutler disappeared on a mission. Danse searched for him for three weeks, finally tracing him to a super mutant hive. Cutler had been exposed to FEV and had become a super mutant. Danse killed him. He admits that he doesn't know if it was the right thing to do, but it was what he had been trained to do.

That was the first circumstance that really gave me a glimpse into the nuance of Danse's beliefs. Like...wait, he questions his oh-so-precious-and-infallible training?

Is he still a douche to almost all non-human NPCs? Yes. However, I don't think he knows how to be anything other than a condescending, militant, Brotherhood heavy. That kind of attitude is what got him promoted so quickly. It's what got him out of his bottom-of-the-pecking-order trainee position, where he had felt singled out by his superiors. He learned that bigotry and cold-heartedness were the only methods of survival and success in the Brotherhood.

His character arc

Danse is not meant to be a one-dimensional, blatantly bigoted character. If he was, I don't think Bethesda would have made him romance-able. In fact, that's why you can't romance him until after his character arc quest: Blind Betrayal.

Spoiler alert! On this quest, you find out that Danse is a synth. He had no idea, and has a subsequent identity crisis that leaves him suicidal. This is the breaking point in the struggle between his own innate morality and his Brotherhood training. His default stance is that he should be killed to uphold the Brotherhood's code — he even offers to do the deed himself to protect the Sole Survivor from disciplinary action (a true testament to the brutality of the Brotherhood — Danse would rather die than allow Sole, his best friend, to face Maxson's wrath). However, through charisma checks, you can remind him of his own humanity and convince him not to harm himself. This breakthrough leads him to recognize that synths are truly nothing to be afraid of.

After Blind Betrayal, he will agree with most dialogue options supporting synths. According to the wiki, any leftover dislikes regarding synth-related dialogue are glitches.

There are other moments in separate quests that reference his moral confusion — for example, he likes when you help Kent, who is a ghoul, but doesn't like if you flirt with Holly, also a ghoul (maybe that's just some jealousy, lmao).

He also dislikes when you give Virgil, a mutant scientist, the serum that will help him return to his human form. My personal headcanon is that seeing Virgil cure himself forces Danse to address the fact that he might have been able to save Cutler, but killed him instead, due to his Brotherhood brainwashing.

Evidence of Danse's fiscal/economic beliefs

Danse is a COMRADE. You heard me. This man's pussy pops for socialized medicine. When you walk through Milton General Hospital, he says: "Facilities like this were funded by privately owned corporations more interested in making a profit than helping mankind."

You heard me, this man hates capitalism. Behold:

"Vault-Tec built places like this to conduct unethical experiments on human beings. Just thinking about it makes me sick."

"It was corporations like this that put the last nail in the coffin for mankind. They exploited technology for their own gains, pocketing the cash and ignoring the damage they'd done."

"Private corporations like Vault-Tec ruined mankind. All that brainpower put to waste..."

"This is disgusting. I can't believe Mass Fusion dumped these barrels here. This is the perfect example of how environmentally irresponsible the ancient corporations behaved."

"This is exactly the reason that science never belonged in the private sector."

Ugh. Really gets me goin'.

Conclusion

He has several other comments that suggest he is generally anti-war, is very pro-education, shows appreciation for the arts, loves children and animals...several things that conservatives couldn't care less about. He reacts angrily to greed, assaulting or harassing any non-hostiles (including synths, ghouls, and mutants), turning your back on beggars, harming non-hostile animals, etc. In my opinion, he's a pretty stand-up guy once he completes his character arc.

Does he still love the taste of boots? Yeah, and he probably always will. :/

Bethesda did him so dirty by not finishing his character arc. The fact that he still gushes about the Brotherhood and acts as if he's still in their ranks after Blind Betrayal is pretty clear evidence that he's a generally unfinished character. I think he had the potential to become a more accepting, radicalized, philanthropic individual after recognizing the shortcomings of the Brotherhood's ideals.

But yeah. I love this handsome dumbass, and I personally consider him a comrade, not a conservative. Kudos if you read this far into my crazed ramblings!

[metvmorqhoses]

It’s a head canon of mine that Tom escaped poverty as soon as he had the ability to do so—in particular by spending his twenties charming and/or Charming lonely old people into writing him into their wills and then dying of Perfectly Natural Causes. He just stayed at Malfoy Manor after the resurrection because he liked the Old Blood history already built into the place and also thought that humiliating Lucius by replacing him as house head was an appropriate punishment for being a wishy-washy semi traitor. “More for me, since my rightful place in the world includes Everywhere”

that last line of yours pretty much sums up the crux of it to me.

i don't think voldemort particularly cared about material things, not even in his youth - at least not in the base sense of wanting to be rich just for the sake of not being poor. yes, i think he had resolved to expedients to survive when needed, why not, but actively using his time to accumulate money just to compensate his previous poverty? not quite.

we actually never see him owning or desiring anything decadent or mundane just for the sake of it, and in my opinion that's an emblematic characteristic of his.

he planned for the whole world to be eventually at his disposal, he didn't want a portion of the world, he wanted everything, the keys to it. everything his followers owned, he automatically owned. he used malfoy manor because it was convenient to him in that particular moment probably, but i can completely see him using just as freely every manor or house of britain. and he didn't even need to legalize any of it, didn't need a vault at gringott's with money on his name (he didn't even have a real name anymore), since he already possessed the minds of the very people who pretty much possessed society.

i see young tom riddle working hard to achieve that and nothing else. i suppose he thought the best was due to him, but i don't think he really obsessed or particularly reveled in the notion of being materialistically powerful. i don't really see him using his powers to charm vulnerable people in order to hoard wealth, to be honest. i see him charming old people to achieve his means more rapidly and in order to hoard different and much more valuable stuff.

he coveted special things (and in a quite obsessive way), powerful things, things made to be admired and therefore worthy of him, things that at the same time he also considered useful and in some way mystical. he didn't collect them to be rich, but to add meaning to himself, to adorn his own power with a legendary, ancient one. he wanted somehow to be part of the mythology of the magical world, to possess it, to link himself to it, in a way that really reminds me of how roman emperors used to collect lost heirlooms of deities to make themselves appear godly.

sure, i agree that he had felt the need since infancy to escape the terrible situation he was born in, but probably his arrival at hogwarts had already pretty much resolved the majority of the situation for him. he was a child that literally went from living in a gutter to residing in a magical castle. if arriving at hogwarts gave a fairy tale, mesmerizing impression even to the children of wealthy wizards, you can imagine how little tom riddle probably thought he had died and gone to heaven at the mere sight of it.

true, he had to go back to the orphanage for the holidays and true, he had to climb a social ladder amongst his peers, but his talent, looks and charisma ate pretty much everyone around him alive without much trouble. his focus was directed elsewhere.

so yeah, your last line summarizes it all perfectly. in his eyes, the whole world was his to use. he had probably been the wealthiest person alive at some point, but in a much broader sense.

[mlm-mod-taka]

Hi! Don't worry it's perfectly normal to take time off for any reason at all and I actually think it's really sweet that you took time off to celebrate your cats birthday!

In honour of Kiyotakas birthday can we have some surprise birthday headcannons with him? Thanks!

SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY

of course!! im not going to make this an x reader so it can just be a simple little piece of writing. also this is also more of an imagine in hc form rather than actual hcs, but i hope this is still good enough for all of you, and happy birthday to my blogs mascot! <33

tws/cws: mentions of junko, genocider syo, poverty and putting taka into a soft headlock.

|| -> mod taka <3

honestly, he stopped celebrating his birthday when the whole situation with his grandfather happened. not only did the kids in his grade not like him and would never attend his party if he did throw one, they probably didn't have enough money to even throw a big celebration.

the biggest thing he got from his birthday was new boots and a decent sized red velvet cake from the local grocery store. while he did want to throw a grander surprise for his birthday, he was always too busy to do so.

that was until the rest of his class figured out that it was his birthday soon. when everyone learned about that fact, they all had a secret group chat made for organizing his secret party.

it wouldn't be class 78 if there wasn't some element of chaos from it. junko kept suggesting a lot of more... outlandish themes.

byakuya would often just say that a whole party wasn't needed and it was just a big waste of time, which resulted in mondo and leon getting angry at him.

and the calmer ones in the group would have to ground the angry men just so they could continue discussing plans and what roles to give to people.

after approximately four days of everyone butting heads with each other, they all came to a pretty unanimous conclusion of what to do for his birthday.

chihiro, hifumi, makoto and aoi would go get the decorations. leon and hiro would tag along with mondo to go pick up the cake that they requested to be specially made for him.

sakura, toko, byakuya, junko are the ones distracting the moral compass so he doesn't go into the class room. celestia, along with mukuro just planned to help with decorating the class after the decorations came.

sayaka was preparing to perform a small little musical number while everyone was eating, finally kirigiri was the middle man to make sure that everything was going smoothly, and would help solve any last minute problems that might be occuring.

after a few hours of the others having to distract kiyotaka, which would be near impossible normally, but they managed everything was finally ready.

after junko and genocider syo had to force him into a headlock just to put the blindfold on, sakura led him into the class, where everyone was waiting with a deep breath.

a loud gasp escaped taka when they removed the cloth on his eyes. after everyone yelled "happy birthday!" to him, he was practically on the edge of tears.

he couldn't thank everyone enough. he finally got the surprise party he always wanted, which he thought would be impossible. it was a joy to watch him smile as he walked around the room to see all the work that went into the party.

after everyone comforted a now fully sobbing and grateful ishimaru, they all showed him the school-themed, red and white cake that was in a box previously.

this set off a whole other part of cries, but they were all happy, luckily. he also reacted this way to the mountains of presents on one of the tables that were from everyone else.

the best part of the whole part was when everyone was eating in a circle, talking to each other about things he's normally scold them for, as sayaka preformed at the front.

it warmed his heart to see everyone unite for a split second just to throw him a celebration over something that he didn't care for before. nothing could top the happiness he felt in that moment.

yes, he does have a few problems with how the whole class presents themselves, but he will always remember rare times like these. he treasures every single one of them with all of his being.

[syn0vial]

important question number 3 what do you have on boba and sintas vel 👀 - lekkui

i have... some things! honestly, i wish sintas’s portrayal had been a little more solid in the EU. it varied wildly between writers and in certain comics, she had little more characterization than “beautiful, tough bounty hunter chick.” i hope if they revisit her in new canon, they give her a more nuanced, more consistent depiction. also i’ll be ignoring said comics for the purposes of this post bc it’s my blog and i’m too sleepy for salt right now

but yes, onto the bullet points!

for those unaware, sintas vel was a female kiffar bounty hunter who boba tried to start a new life with when they were teenagers. they both got out of the bounty hunting game and settled down on concord dawn, where they got married and had a daughter, ailyn. boba was 16 and sintas was 18 at the time.

one of the things i find most interesting about the two of them, especially when they were teenagers: ailyn was consistently the more logical and level-headed of the two of them, while boba was always more emotional and impulsive. tragically, it’s this impulsivity that leads boba to fuck up so badly and, ironically, to transform into the emotionally detached asshole we know later on.

but yeah, this dichotomy is seen pretty early on in a flashback-by-proxy, in which we learn that the whole romantic run-away-together-and-get-married-and-start-a-new-life-somewhere-far-away plan? 100% BOBA’S IDEA. 

in particular, we get the briefest snippet of an exchange where boba is trying his hardest to convince sintas that this would be a good idea. and, no exaggeration, it goes like:

sintas: “i mean, it’s kind of very obvious that you don’t know what you’re doing--” boba: “THINGS I KNOW: YOU’RE GOOD AT SHOOTING THINGS. YOU’RE PRETTY??? I TRUST YOU A LOT. see this is a good idea :)”

TEENAGE BOBA FETT: PURE OF HEART, DUMB OF ASS

anyway, boba fett and noted-morosexual sintas vel make their way to concord dawn. here’s some things we know about their relationship before everything went to shit:

nicknames! they referred to each other with the first syllable of each others’ names: bo and sin. very cute :)

they got married using a traditional mandalorian wedding vow. neither of them had any idea what the mando’a meant, bless their hearts.

as a marriage token, boba gave sintas a small red heart-of-fire gemstone tied on a simple leather cord. it was the best he could afford which, at the time, wasn’t much. however, it had significance to sintas as a kiffar; kiffars are near-humans whose members possess an unusually high occurrence rate of telemetry, or the ability to read memories from objects. heart-of-fire gemstones were said to be among the best for storing such memories.

SHIPPY FIC WRITERS TAKE NOTE. three words to describe boba in a committed relationship: PROTECTIVE. AS. HELL. absolutely unwilling to tolerate so much as a dirty look towards sintas. maybe even a little paranoid. kind of understandable given how much grief he’d already endured in his short life.

it didn’t save them

ok, fair warning, here’s the point where shit gets traumatic, so if you want to know nothing but the relatively happy stuff, STOP READING HERE. also, CWs for manipulation, sexual assault, murder, and imprisonment, bc nobody in this canon is allowed to be happy :(

last chance to turn back!

ok. onto the traumatic shit.

so! boba and sintas are doing fine. operation stop-being-teenaged-bounty-hunters-and-try-to-pass-for-normal is going pretty well! not only do they have their own functional little family unit, but boba has a job as a journeyman protector. basically think of them as like. mando frontier lawmen. and on top of that, boba has been taken under the wing of his superior officer and son of a local magistrate, lenovar. 

we don’t know much about lenovar (like, is that his first or his last name, for example...) but we know that boba and sintas trusted him and that boba in particular looked up to him as both a friend and mentor. 

however, lenovar was not what he seemed. once he had the young couple’s trust, he managed to get sintas alone and raped her.

in the aftermath, sintas performed some brutally pragmatic mental calculus: lenovar was a high-ranking journeyman protector and son of a magistrate. she and boba were two struggling teenagers with a baby, escaping checkered pasts. retaliating against lenovar would likely destroy them. which meant not only that she couldn’t retaliate against lenovar; she had to make sure boba wouldn’t, either.

so. how do you keep your extremely protective, impulsive former-bounty-hunter husband from flying off the handle and murdering your rapist?

you don’t tell him about it. you don’t tell anyone about it :(

argh just reading this i’m feeling salty that we get so little of sintas’s perspective on any of this. it’s all just “how did this make boba feel? how did it affect boba’s life?” and it’s like GOOD GOD. this woman is now maybe 20 years old, making the absolutely-gutting decision to keep her sexual assault a secret from her closest friend bc it’s the only way to protect her and him and their daughter from being steamrolled by the system. and like, nobody thought to expand on that? 

nope, we just get a comic where she’s needlessly sexualized and drawn to look young enough to be boba’s daughter despite the fact that she’s older than him and ugh

OKAY. enough salt. moving on.

sintas’s plan works for all of a year, at which point boba somehow finds out the truth. and everything goes straight to hell.

boba, finding out that sintas kept her sexual assault by lenovar a secret for a whole year (and remember, boba was probably continuing to work under and look up to lenovar during this time), is utterly furious. of course, he wants nothing more than to murder the shit out of lenovar and is only further enraged when sintas tries to logically talk him out of it. in his anger, he proceeds to verbally torch ALL the bridges in their relationship, at one point even cruelly questioning if ailyn is even his daughter. he then storms off and makes good on his threats to kill lenovar

in the aftermath, boba was branded not just a murderer, but the murderer of his superior officer—an even more serious crime. yet, despite repeated interrogations, he refused to say why he had done it, fearing that doing so would drag sintas down with him. he only insisted that he felt no remorse for killing lenovar and that lenovar deserved to die.

in the end, his efforts didn’t save sintas—the courts seized all of what meager assets they had, leaving them all penniless. boba was then exiled from concord dawn and wouldn’t see his wife and daughter again for fifty years.

after everything that happened, boba was a changed person. it’s as if that spark of optimism and dare-i-say goodness that had survived his father’s death was snuffed out, leaving only a cynical, angry shell, laser-focused on violence because it was the one part of his father’s legacy he hadn’t yet failed.

sintas and ailyn, meanwhile, struggled to pull themselves out of poverty, with sintas reluctantly returning to bounty hunting to support them. ailyn never forgave her father for abandoning them, which led to its own equally-disastrous tragedy some decades down the line.

moral of the story is to listen to your wife and don’t make her sexual assault all about your stupid need for revenge. like, i get that the rapist needs to die but maybe like... work with your wife and make it look like an accident? don’t be an impulsive fucking inconsiderate idiot? maybe realize that your wife probably just endured the most hellish year of her life to protect YOUR dumb ass?

honestly, as frustrating as teenage!boba is, you can’t even be that angry at him bc like... he and sintas were both victims reacting imperfectly to absolutely shit circumstances. lenovar is the real villain here.

never going to be over how tragic it is that these two kids tried so fucking hard to derail their villainous origin stories, only to be forced onto even more brutal tracks bc the one adult they should’ve been able to trust in their situation ended up being a predator :(

[intothewickedwood]

Once Upon A Time Rewatch: 7x09 One Little Tear

Love the opening of this episode.

It was a really interesting decision to make Rapunzel also Tremaine. Who watches Tangled and thinks, “Ah yes, she grows up to become the wicked stepmother from Cinderella.” 

I actually really like young Rapunzel. She goes through absolute hell and she’s extremely determined. A combination that can inevitably lead to disaster if the character walks a destructive path.

I just realised Rapunzel’s Witch having a garden is likely influenced by Into the Woods, though it could be from one of the original tales. “Greens, greens and nothing but greens!”

It’s weird to think Gothel is way older than Rumple. I imagine she’s older than the Blue Fairy as well, but who knows anything when it comes to Blue.

Ow! Those vines straight up cut her!

Poor Rapunzel. Gothel, why are you like this?

Alice must have been marking each day she was trapped as well for her to know exactly how many days she was trapped for. Or maybe she just worked it out by adding them up each time the second star to the right blinked to the north. 

Those lanterns look so pretty. It looks like Anastasia and Drizella let off hundreds of them.

Also, how is it humanly possible for someone’s hair to grow that long in, like, 6 years? The only explanation is Gothel put a spell on it but why? Why didn’t she do the same with Alice’s hair? She didn’t need to brush it to stay young as she was able to stop or significantly slow her aging process for many years before that. I think it was significantly slowed as she seemed to be a teenager or young adult when her family were killed but appears to be in, maybe her late 30s by the time she gives birth to Alice.

But that does make me wonder if Alice can age properly up to a certain point? Did her own physical aging significantly slow after she reached young adulthood? Does she perhaps physically grow a year older every 100 years or so? That seems to be the case with Gothel. And, of course, Alice could take after her father in that sense but it’s fun to think about and she did inherit Gothel’s magic after all.

Oh! Rapunzel wasn’t even being held within the tower by a magical barrier. Imagine when she met Wish Hook and he was like, “Oh yeah, I climbed down and up that tower every day. No big deal.” She would probably want to scream. But I’m with her on this one. Without a rope that tower would be impossible to climb up or down. Maybe she just didn’t think of using her hair before, or Gothel was guarding her or maybe she’s just terrified of heights which is freaking relatable.

I do feel for her. All those 6 years and the only thing keeping her going was the thought of coming back to her family. Finding out that she can’t get back to that, especially since she had made that sacrifice for them, must have been so painful. I wonder if she didn’t use her hair as a rope previously because she was worried that if she escaped her family, with or without her, would lose their happiness and go back to a life of extreme poverty.

Her utter devastation. And poor Ella and Cecelia are caught in the middle of it. They did nothing wrong and they lose each other and everything as a result of entering the family.

So, is the Tweedle that actor also played in Ouatiw related to Marcus?

He still loves Rapunzel. What a difficult situation to be in for everyone involved and she still clearly loves him. Heck, the thought of him and her daughters was all that kept her going for 6 years of hell. The thought of that image that was all you had being destroyed upon being free is horrible. And for it to be so close to her reach, knowing he still loves her, that he would have her back if only the one person stands in her way could part from him. What she did was extremely wrong, but I actually think a lot of people would have done the same thing in her situation if they had a magic solution that didn’t have to result in death. 

I forgot Rapunzel initially refused to hurt Cecilia because she saw her as an innocent, which she was. She thought she’d never be that person.

How did Marcus not suspect that it was her who did something to Cecelia? Rapunzel got her family back out of Cecelia’s heart being poisoned. Who else stood to gain anything from that? I suppose he assumed it had to be a magic user, thinking it was a spell. Or maybe he thought Rapunzel incapable of such a deed. The woman before the tower would never have done such a thing, perhaps. I bet Cecelia knew what she’d done.

Omg Hooking Utensil scene!! I am not ready!! 

Bahahahaha! The thought of Rumple shoving his dagger into Sabine’s hand and asking if she feels anything lmao. Why does that seem like a creepily sexual thing to do? Sabine seems so disturbed. 

He must have suspected Tiana was a potential Guardian. I wonder if she could be. And I wonder if Rumple would have been willing to burden her or even Anastasia with immortality, considering he didn’t know them as well as Alice.

Why did Tremaine suddenly start pronouncing Anastasia’s name like that? It’s presumably wrong because she used to say it the way everyone else does when she was young Rapunzel. Maybe it’s a little joke they had between them or something. 

She’s doing the same thing she learned to do those 6 years while she was trapped. She’s holding onto the memory of Anastasia and expecting her to be exactly as she was when they were separated. That’s why she fixates so much on Anastasia, because she was just how she remembered her before she was trapped in the tower (albeit older). She was the only person or thing that remained the same and who lived up to her memories and imagination.

You know what, Rapunzel was straight up traumatized. She spent all those years in isolation. I never thought of it like that before. Her actions were terrible and inexcusable, but that trauma certainly informed them. Of course, Alice didn’t react the way she did, but everyone reacts differently to traumatic events. Girl needed therapy. Cecelia, Rapunzel’s relationship to Drizella and even Ella could have been saved. Where was Archie when they needed him? Even in present Hyperion Heights you can tell how much those events have both physically and mentally scarred her.

Tremaine: “And for the record, that girl out there hasn’t been my daughter for a very long time.” God, I feel for Drizella here.

Aren’t Disney making a ‘Tremaine’ movie? To be honest they can’t top this backstory. What are they gonna do, show us a bunch of mice beating her mum with a broom and shoving her off a cliff?!

Is Rapunzel their maid?

Cecelia seems so nice. I bet she was a kind mother figure to Alice.

Cecelia was totally ready to invite Rapunzel into their marriage. They could have had a poly relationship if they were all game. 

I think Ella might be the oldest. She’s a lot taller than Anastasia.

Marcus shows signs of wanting to invite her into their marriage too. I wonder if he’s still technically married to both. Maybe they should have outright asked her. Or maybe it just wasn’t for her or wasn’t approved of in the NEF.

Drizella’s just a kid, of course it was gonna be hard for her to adapt to having her birth mother back. For 6 years of her 10 years of life Cecelia was probably the only mother she remembered. She might have seen Rapunzel as a threat to her relationship with Cecelia. 

I understand it must really hurt Rapunzel to see her daughter not giving her a chance and pouring all her affections into her other mother. You can see it’s killing her. 

Rapunzel snapped. 

Rumple is so irritated by Gothel calling herself “Mother Gothel’ on behalf of Alice. It probably makes him think of What he thought was his own mother’s abandonment of him.

Why is Gothel hinting that Tremaine is after Lucy? Doesn’t she want Anastasia awake? 

Victoria’s being a creep. 

Ella, don’t go after the hat! It’s not worth it, girl.

Aww. Anastasia was worried about Ella and followed her. I tend to forget how many years they spent just growing up as sisters.

Marcus was gonna show Rapunzel how much he valued her. Was he gonna propose to her again or was he gonna do something else?

I’m not sure if he specifically went after Ella because of favouritism or if she was the first one he saw. It was fine that he saved Ella first but for God’s sake, save your other daughter too! He gave up so quickly! Rapunzel must have fished her out herself. Maybe he was hurt or something. I have to believe that, otherwise that’s just cruel and it seems like he doesn’t care about Anastasia at all. And I would say the same if he saved Anastasia first and left Ella. The only thing is that if he’d saved Anastasia first and was too tired to save Ella, I don’t know if Rapunzel would dive in to save Ella. She might have done if the other girls begged her. It’s not fair to put so much blame on Ella. Anyone could have made the mistake of going for the hat and she was just a kid. They shouldn’t have let them play there in the first place! And if she blames Ella for Marcus saving her first, that’s ridiculous because it was completely out of Ella’s control.

Interestingly, Victoria insists to Lucy that she is her family but earlier she said that Drizella hasn’t been her daughter in a long time. Does that mean she sees Ella as a daughter? She certainly doesn’t show it.

Wow. Grandmother of the year.

So, the blood magic couldn’t be broken by Anastasia’s mother potentially taking her place? I always assumed it was the blood of the tower’s occupant that kept them trapped but it makes more sense that it’s always been Gothel’s blood that kept any occupant trapped since she used blood magic before she tried to trap Anastasia and had access to her blood. So, Wish Hook could never have taken Alice’s place, which I think I always knew but somehow didn’t put the pieces together that it was Gothel’s bloodline magic that kept Alice entrapped and not Alice’s.

Ha! She got you, Gothel! Serves you freaking right!

Listen, that move was badass on Rapunzel’s part.

Bless Rumple, frantically searching for his great-granddaughter. I’m not sure we ever saw those two interact.

This tear magic is weird. The fact that Lucy’s tears can be used to break curses in a way that puts her under a curse is so dangerous. Every time she cries, they need to collect those tears and burn them or something. Emma’s tears were used to keep Hook separated from her, so it must run in the family. Keep those tears in a safe, Charmings!  

So, I guess Lucy wasn’t under a sleeping curse then? Presumably she suffered the same fate as Anastasia had all those years. I mean, it’s between life and death, so it could be the Neverworld. I’m not sure. That’s probably why True Loves kiss didn’t work between Henry and Lucy when she was in the hospital.

God, poor Lucy. Jacinda must have been terrified.

That was a great episode! I found young Rapunzel to be so complex and compelling. Her backstory was great!