#tl;dr am i the only person who sees this shit??? it’s fucking crazy

[fingertipsmp3]

Every single day I wish I was on a sitcom or something so I could look into the camera like ‘do you see this shit?’ and break the fourth wall

#this is mostly in reference to my last reblog to be honest #so like my best friend (g) has this friend she’s known her entire life (we’ll call her m) #m is in love with g. has been probably the whole time. she WILL NOT admit it though #and g pretends like she doesn’t know but i’m certain that she does. she must. m does literally so much stuff for her like.. #she has her by a fucking string. it’s absolutely ridiculous #m used to be really jealous of me in high school and i used to snipe back at her but now i legitimately can’t bring myself to care #they’re less insufferable to be around now but my attitude is just like.. i can’t be bothered to get in the middle of whatever this is #i am NOT making this into a bermuda triangle of toxicity. count me the fuck out. so i remain pleasant and don’t let her bait mr #*me and oftentimes i just leave if m is there so they can be weird together #but sometimes they just do stuff that is so…… like recently g was talking about moving to scotland right? #she’s not going to do it. there is literally no way on god’s green earth that she’ll do it. she doesn’t have the money #she lives with her mom in her mom’s house and her mom helps raise her baby. like unless her mom sells up and comes with she’s not going #fucking anywhere. she doesn’t work; she doesn’t have money; she can’t live in a van with a toddler. she’s fucking delusional #but tell me why M HEARD THIS AND STARTED APPLYING FOR JOBS IN SCOTLAND??? #like???? you’re really planning on leaving the fucking country with her and you want to act like you’re not in love with her LMAO OKAY #she must know as well as i do that it’s simply not going to happen but she’s still making plans just in case. i’m….. #tl;dr am i the only person who sees this shit??? it’s fucking crazy #personal

[sp0o0kylights]

why the deep sigh before saying you’re a natural redhead lol

Several reasons!

For context this is in response to my answer in the "rb in the tags what would be the physical feature used to identify you in fanfiction of you if you were a fictional character" post a few days ago and the TL;DR is the redheads get stereotyped in specific ways I hate.

Large ass rant below (hey you asked lol)

For a lot of people, redheaded women are a fetish. ( When I was younger, I had people date me who later stated they just wanted to cross off dating a redhead, they didn't actually want a relationship, and my personal favorite, that they would never date someone who "wasn't skinny" but made an exception bc I'm a redhead. I've been offered a LOT of sex and a LOT of threesomes, because I'm a bucket list item and they will say so, to my face, in person. Like many things in life, there's a line between a preference or appreciation or even a "type" --and a fetish. The later being an issue because you're no longer seen as a person but an object, and people will make that creepily, disgustingly clear.

2. It's a stereotyped personality. Redhead's are crazy/hot tempered/insane (see: that one dude from Fruits Basket and I cant even pick a female character theres so fucking many) crazy in bed (one example among hundreds is We're the Millers "Eh she's a redhead there's a 50/50 chance she'd be into it") Soulless (I actually used that one to get through High School by insisting I was collecting souls to pay for my fire-lake front mansion, shouts out to South Park lmao), and many more. The redheaded step-child, the vixen, the other women, etc.

I have had my hair color come up in job interviews, with teachers, with coaches or trainers and even in situations as a kid where I was essentially asked "Hello kid I just met, you're a redhead, are you going to behave for me?" Related, my parents got a LOT of praise because I was quiet. Throughout my life the most common "praise" I have received is that I am "not a typical redhead" bc I am "calm."

You still see a lot of this bleed into fanfiction, but you used to REALLY see it bleed into fanfiction lol.

Addendum to both points above--the fetish, hot, good in bed thing typically only applies to conventionally attractive women.

Redheaded men are "ugly", and if you don't fit into the current but ever changing Socially Acceptable Hot Chick Look, then you're in for it. This includes weight, skin color/tone, freckles, type of hair, fuckin' eye color sometimes, the list goes on.

I vaguely recall someone who was doing a media study about how the male "problem child" in media is typically portrayed as a redhead. off the top of my head, the kid from Malcom in the Middle and the kid from the magic school bus.)

And that's just the cis shit.

3. People in general get weird about my hair. A lot of strangers enjoy touching it without asking, or otherwise felt ownership over it if I had parts of it dyed, etc. I legitimately had people get super upset the time I dyed it black. Hell I had STRANGERS get upset. People I never met in my life who were making small talk in the check out line, absolutely FURIOUS with me about dying it black, because they asked me what my natural hair color was and I answered honestly.

4. If you're over the age of, ehhhh, 25? 27? You probably remember the age of fanfic where we described EVERYONE by their hair color lmao. Redhead was right up there with bluenette. It was painful and that post reminded me of it.

#Id honestly dye my hair black again #except my hair grows out insanely fast #and requires specific types of dye or some shit #at home box dyes are #sadly #a waste and believe me I have tried #anyway #I have to go to a professional and while I believe in paying my people that shit is EXPENSIVE to do every single month #and my ass pretty much picked doing other things in terms of hobbies and apperance #Ghosts long ass rant about redheads #feel free to chime in if you are one #I could talk for hours about the gross shit people of all genders have said to me #but esp men #up to and including the guy who asked me what made me different from any other redhead #like homie we're not pokemon

[life-and-death-companions]

some (possibly) unpopular opinions pt. 2

It turns out my rant about manhwas that did not appeal to me were actually pretty fun to read, and since I am nothing but a jester for entertainment I have decided to make another one of these. I feel like I'll get flamed for some of my choices though 💀 doesn't matter, all in good fun 👍

Under the Oak Tree

The Beginning After the End

Solo Levelling

Beatrice

I Have Become the Heroes' Rival

How To Hide the Emperor's Child

Why Are You Doing This, Duke?

Beware of the Brothers!

Under the Oak Tree

Let me just preface this by saying that my complaint is not about Maxi's timid, soft-spoken nature. I understand that her fear to defend herself and her inability to communicate her needs properly is a result of years of cruel abuse, oppression and control. In that regard, she is very similar to Soru from Twilight Poem (Heeran Love Song), and I love them both. They both have a quiet strength evident by their capacity for kindness in the face of constant barbaric mistreatment - not to mention their resilience. Few people would go through what they did and still strive to heal or accept genuine human connection.

However, I am far less empathetic towards Riftan. With how often he gets it on with her, he's been classically conditioned to associated Maxi with arousal and sexual pleasure. Too many times has he initiated this type of thing when Maxi was only trying to express herself and communicate, which made for a frustrating narrative - and if I'm honest, after some time it felt like he was using Maxi as a sex toy, which enraged me like nothing else.

Most people liked the smut, some thought it was a bit overkill. I, for one, am proudly ace and so it did nothing to appeal me to the story when it was obvious their sex life was 99% due to lust alone, rather than any sort of connection. I kick my feet and screech just like any other person when I read about two people loving each other so much and finding refuge through touch and physical intimacy - but this was shallow sex. It got to the point where when Riftan would made advances I would start laughing because it was just that predictable and boring.

(Also! Their first wedding night! Stank! Of! Sexual coercion! It made me so enraged and it was so confronting that I honestly skimmed through the dialogue and skipped the scene altogether. "You're my wife so we must fulfil our marital duties" PLEASE I WANTED TO BARF. Nobody come at me about historical accuracy and context when this story has fucking wizards and shit.)

Also, I'm a bit of a man hater (we all have flaws 💀) so reading about a man who by all means solely holds the power in a relationship makes me dislike the story on principle. Maxi has been under the thumb of men from the moment she was born, so her marriage to Riftan felt to me like a simple switch from one type of oppression to another. I'll admit I was projecting a bit because I was seeing the many women in my life who've suffered because of the patriarchy through Maxi and resenting Riftan as a result. However, I still don't think my assessment is that flawed.

TL;DR: I hate presumptuous, inconsiderate men, and unfortunately Riftan fell into that category, but Maxi, sweetie - I love you with all my heart.

The Beginning After the End

Manhwa that is obviously intended for a male demographic are honestly a bit of a hit or miss most of the time. I loved The Return of the Mount Hua Sect, and the main character from The Return of the Crazy Demon has my whole heart.

The reason why I dislike a vast majority of them is that they obviously cater to the idea that an ideal man should be cold, uncaring, callous, invulnerable and entirely masculine-presenting. The comment sections of male-targeted manhwa like Solo Levelling and the Beginning After the End are full of boys that look at all these MCs acting superior with their hands in their pockets and their arrogant smirk and think they're the 'goat'. Female characters are treated as incapable of rising to the same level of strength as the male main character, and indeed when they're confident in their skills the boys in the comment sections have nothing but derogatory comments to make about them.

In the comment sections of the Reaper of the Drifting Moon, not only is the MC under fire after their transformation to a leaner, more snake-like, curvy frame that appears more feminine, but the women he encounters are insulted in every way. Case in point:

I wish this was the worst among them, but it's not. I bet many other people can attest to the fact that comment sections like these are drowning in misogyny.

Arthur is in many ways that toxic masculinity personified. Always superior, always overpowered, always better, always smarter. Also, he's a thirty-eight year old weirdo that goes around having under-aged girls as love interests. If that isn't deeply disconcerting I don't know what else to say.

Solo Levelling

I'm so gonna get hate for this.

I also don't care.

Anyway, my issues here are three:

Jin-Woo panders to that ideation of an OP 'Goat' protagonist that I really don't fuck with personally.

The romance sucked. There was no real connection between him and Cha Hae-In. We had like one episode of them going to the amusement park. The whole "he-doesn't-smell!" premise was an obvious (and weird) attempt to force a romance subplot and give Jin-Woo a female love interest, perpetuating that image of him as desirable and flawless. She was, in a word, a prop.

The ending sucked also. It was one step away from the Protagonist Loses Their Powers And Settles Into A Life of Domesticity trope and I hated it. It was so unfulfilling.

The reason why I stuck around and read it in full was simply that it's fun. It's fun, sometimes, to read self-indulgent trash about OP main characters that solo every challenge. It just doesn't exactly make for a very memorable story or a likable protagonist, which is why I don't really care much for it.

TL;DR: The kind of brainless story you read when you can't be bothered putting yourself through the emotional and cognitive effort of connecting with complex characters and loaded stories.

Beatrice

I dropped this so fast I don't remember much about it, but I can say three things:

The fact that she was a slave and was basically rescued from hard labour because she was charming and cute was very much not it 💀 Why do all these girls that used to be slaves conveniently forget about slavery and its ramifications on others when their status is elevated and they posses the influence to do something about it?

LMFAO WHY DOES SHE LOOK SO HAPPY WHEN SHE'S SAYING THIS PLEASE-

In almost every panel, she looks dainty, petite and naïve to the point of appearing like a child, especially when compared to the ML's massive hulking rippling-pectoral figure. It made for equal parts ridiculous and creepy panels when they were put side by side.

LOOK:

ALSO CACKLING AT HIS POSTURE AND POSITION

TL;DR: Should have been classified as a comedy because I laughed more than I swooned over their apparently dreamy whirlwind forbidden romance.

I Have Become the Heroes' Rival

This story was so good and now it's rapidly going downhill. Claudia and Irene, my beloveds.

Felix - well, very questionable. When he abandoned her on the seaside after their first kiss and dramatically walked off into the ocean I laughed for hours.

And when he broke her bone during sex and the entire thing was romanticised and established to be proof of his inhuman verility I was actually gobsmacked.

"Don't provoke me because I won't be able to stop or control myself after" is the biggest fucking red flag to me. At any point during sex, Irene has the right to feel safe enough to say no or to change her mind. But whatever. The whole attraction of this story appears to be the kinky demon sex. I mean, judging from the comments and the fans it has garnered, I won't say this isn't successful.

TL;DR: Not my cup of tea.

How To Hide the Emperor's Child

I'm so tired of subpar, pathetic MLs.

Why Are You Doing This, Duke?

Some people thought the Duke's transformation from cold-blooded, cruel man to loving and kind to Nöel was funny and cute and a testament of the power of love.

I was uncomfortable with it. The overstated, grand gestures of love, the superficial nature of their relationship in the beginning, and Nöel's own focus on self-preservation to keep her position as the Duke's beloved made me uncomfortable. The Duke felt like a victim.

TL;DR: I don't like Nöel. I don't like the Duke much, either, from what I've seen of his real persona. That said, I did drop it, so I don't know how the story progresses with regards to that love spell and its origins.

Beware of the Brothers!

Sweet home Alabama~

#beware of the brothers #manhwa #solo leveling #the beginning after the end #under the oak tree #why are you doing this duke? #how to hide the emperor's child #i have become the heroes' rival #beatrice #unpopular opinions #please don't send vitriol about these without basis because i won't give a single fuck #discussions are welcomed though

[derangedhyena-zoids]

Many thanks to my wonderful friends for helping me unfuck part of my fic. I am now feeling quite chipper about it again. I also want to dump a little quick backstory/lore info here re:Sara and her stupidity. I may have mentioned it on this blog before, but if so only glancingly... so. I'm putting it under a cut because it's ... ish? spoilers, but not really? because this is mainly meta-knowledge. and I don't think any of the characters will ever actually figure any of it out. OH WELL.

Backdraft as a group is/was older than it let on, but its form and function had seen a lot of radical changes in the ~half century prior NC0.

Backdraft used to have a very purist policy for their membership - it was a "I do what I want" club comprised largely of rich Imperial families and their kids. You didn't join this group you were invited - and you could only actually join if you could prove you were some stripe of Imperial descent. (I need you to picture that the kind of folks running this would be the kind of folks who would've been on Prozen's side, pre-crazy.) As time went on and politics became bland by way of a benign but totalitarian government, the populace lost both interest in and knowledge of their backgrounds. Imperial or Republic heritage didn't matter anymore, not to anyone but a select few. As proto-Backdraft's membership was aging out and dying off, it realized to survive as an organization it had to relax its requirements. The furor this caused led to the Committee structure being formed, so there wasn't (as intense) squabbling over leadership and the way things were being run. A lot of older folks in what soon became known as Backdraft caught and maintained good-old-days-itus, in which they began to resent the org being "polluted." But most everyone at this point had fixated on Backdraft's control and moneymaking capabilities - completely losing the original concept(s) in the process. Enter Sara and her years-long power grab. In the process of viciously making her way up the ladder, she learned about the org's history and had the bug put in her ear about the good-ol'-days. She wanted to return Backdraft to being Imperially-rooted for the following reasons: -she, herself, is categorized as from the Imperial line -she thinks herself superior to other folks and is, in fact, aware of her Zoidian genetics, minus the knowledge that they're Zoidian. -her understanding of history boils down to "when the Republicans touched shit everything got fucked up, wow." Which is a gross oversimplification and hilarious misunderstanding of Literally Everything, but this is the kind of shit that happens with history! Especially when immersed in roiling Agendas. Which tl;drs to, if she decides people need to die, she's going to target one group over another, very much. Sara this is eugenics please stop

In reality: -Raven is the reason Sara's bloodline is considered Imperial. Ryss never made it into the recorded equation. Considering that Raven himself probably wasn't of Imperial descent (his parents seemed kind of faction/location agnostic - which is a whole other population nuance rarely considered), Sara isn't really Imperial at all. -As a result of the Cataclysm, records went to SHIT. And a lot of information was basically re-compiled after entire cities & their associated recordkeeping had been destroyed. What could be recovered and rebuilt was, to a degree. But a lot of information came from people's recollections. Most records have a large degree of uncertainty in them. -Once science recovered a little, there were sufficient advances in technology to allow a degree of insight and provide better resolution for well known families/lineages. But most people didn't care by this point... and this kind of information was seen as little more than a rich person's vanity pursuit. (please see: the other post I did awhile back about modern technology's development being oddly stunted due to many societal factors, most of which are intentional) -The genetics of Ryss's bloodline are known but not associated with her or Zoidians. They're erroneously lumped in with all the other genetic fuckery going on with Imperial bloodlines... almost all of which was self-imposed by the royalty and nobility early on inbreeding too fucking much. -Sara's dumb quest to have Best Baby resulted in her having None Baby - she miscarried multiple times. Vega was her last try, more-or-less an accident, and absolutely not what she was after: on paper, Vega's father is Republican thru-and-thru. -...because anyone in from Hiltz's lineage are Republican. He sired kids in a Republican colony when he lived with the Scholar. Whoops, nobody knows. -But this ruins Sara's whole feeling-real-special thing, so she went full sunk-cost-fallacy and ignored it all. And though she does love Vega, you can't help but wonder if this colors her perception of him at all ... or she's just in complete denial of reality and substituting her own (yeah, it's this one.) The amount of characters who have any of this knowledge is very small and getting smaller by the minute. :I again, oh well.

#headcanon

[yoinkschief]

Hey y'all, little announcement time :)

It's nothing so serious so don't worry, haha

But I WILL be taking a break from social media for two weeks starting today. Nothing bad had happened, I promise, I'm perfectly okay :)! It's just in the last month a LOT has happened, and I'm grateful for it all

I've met a ton of cool people who are fantastic to be around, and I've had lots of fun talking and drawing with them and just interacting with them in general

And I've even had some of my idols/favorite artists follow me back which is CRAZY TO THINK ABOUT, and I know they're regular people like I am and I shouldn't get so worked up over this kind of stuff, but it's still crazy for me to think about it

Fuck it still boggles my mind that people like my stuff- I'm so not used to all this attention and that's why I'm taking a break, just cause I'm finally able to take a break from all the stress happening in my life and I deserve a bit of a break I'd say lol

I am SO GRATEFUL for all the love and support, gosh I still get giddy when I see likes or notes on my posts, to think people actually interact with my art, reminds me of when I was first starting on Instagram (my art was so bad LMAO I've improved so much) and I'd get lounge 3 likes from my friends and a couple handful from random strangers and I'd get flustered over that, it's the exact same as it is now hah

But I've never been good at handling tons of praise, I try to say thanks as much as I can to show my appreciation but I can't help but feel like I'm coming short, like I'm not properly expressing my gratitude. But that's personal butt problems I'm gonna try and work out over this break, or at least start to unravel the large yarn ball of, but just know every note or interaction I have makes me happy and I greatly appreciate all of you guys :)!!

Apologies for the long rant, I didn't mean to speak all much when it's just "TL;DR: Taking a break for two weeks cause I can't handle praise" haha, but I want y'all to know I'm fine, just don't wanna get a big head or anything lol and I also want to chill my beating heart cause it's crazy to be to think people actually enjoy shit of mine, that entire life forms with cognitive thoughts and lives of their own take time out of their day to spread a little joy my way. That's wild. It's crazy

Even that was a ramble, hah

Anyway, I'll be back soon! I'll probably only respond to DMs but I'll mainly be in Discord DMs because that's where my partner is so :) of you wanna reach me that's how

Also I might have a couple of scheduled posts for the next few days? Just so my account isn't dry? It's art I've already finished so I can instead work on the upcoming series :)

Yeah, still no name drop, lol, big debate on whether or not I would, but feel free to ask any questions about it now that the teasers are done, I'll try to answer as many as I can when I get back without spoiling anything lol

#TL;DR: Taking a break for two weeks cause I can't handle praise #sorry it's different from my usual content lol #but yeah #that's happening #man if i had a nickel for every time one of my idols recognized me id have two nickels #which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice #but like actually oh my God #i woke up one day and saw one here #the other was just randomly in the middle of me working on some art over Instagram and i was like #HUH #these people are crazy #how can i possibly show my gratitude #to them and the great community in general #y'all mean so much to me #jay talk

[onewomancitadel]

B/S versus W/J paralleling anon again!

Sorry for the lack of line breaks last time. My worst vice is forgetting the return key exists. 😵‍💫 I appreciate the thoughtful response in any case!

And. Since you asked. (TL;DR It’s towers all the way down, to me. Also I have zero of the fandom-standard villain->hero / enemies-to-lovers hangups because I like when characters undergo foundational change.)

I don’t feel like I needed to be convinced, honestly? Except insofar as the narrative had to set the pieces up that way. Coming to the story fairly late (after V8 wrapped, so I watched all of that in one go) and being insulated from the people who are… weird… about Jaune probably helped rhghjk

My interest in RWBY is very thematically oriented—I actually wouldn’t quibble at all that the romantic arcs are key thematic centerpieces, I think that’s absolutely true. I’m just not very romantically inclined myself, in general, so fictional romance isn’t something I get the giddy, like, dollies kissing! kind of excited for normally. The flip side of that is as long as it’s narratively compelling and the characters are interesting I’m a pretty easy sell as far as willingness to believe a romantic arc.

What *grips* me in a story is like, emotional paradigm shifts, dynamic self-image—especially in relation to family identity and definition of the self apart from one’s family. V9 has been VERY FUN for me, lol.

So my focus, with RWBY, tilts more toward the breaking and healing of parent-child bonds, whether personal (Summer + Ruby) or narrative (creators + creations). I tend to read the romantic arcs in that context. I guess a succinct way to put it would be to say I’m thinking about Ozlem in terms of Salem’s eternal exile being a second tower Ozma has been unhappily conscripted into guarding? And the point of the story ultimately is to Get Her Out Of The Tower But For Real This Time, and in the same stroke save him from being her warden.

What twigged me to Jaune/Cinder is the fractal repetition of their family situations. He has this family legacy he feels quite burdened by and feels compelled to uphold it (imitate it) even as it runs contrary to his actual self—he is not a warrior—meanwhile Cinder has only ever known family as a means of control and intends to escape the control by emulating the means.

Then they’re connected by her killing of Pyrrha, who drew out the Arc stuff in the first place and facilitated his emulation of his forefathers by training him. Then Jaune vs Cinder in V5 foreshadows the Ozlem fight in V6 and suggests the shape of that connection. & Jaune has this baked-in empathy for the feeling of being in a tower (stuck in a tree, funny how that’s coming full circle right as he confronts the brittleness of his simulated heroism).It does rather announce itself.

What grips me in a story is like, emotional paradigm shifts, dynamic self-image

See, because what's interesting to me in this case is that this is exactly what I'd describe romance as, and I prefer it over genetic family relations because it's something which exists outside a given scenario you're born into. This is the Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre type shit for me. And no net ensares me. This is totally paradigm-shift type stuff because it's outside everything you thought you knew.

So basically you're saying you identified Jaune/Cinder like, on your own terms, and then you found my blog? Am I gathering that correctly? Because if so, first of all, well fucking done (not trying to gas myself up here, just most people who send asks on the matter have done so because they found my blog or my fanfic pre-Knightfall). Second of all, that's crazy, because you've approached it on your own terms, and third of all, I'm so interested to hear from someone not inoculated in the fandom. I've been in the trenches since Volume 1, so the show has really transformed for me over time.

I personally didn't twig Jaune/Cinder until the end of V7, when I was near-certain Cinder's redemption arc was set-up and the story was taking her character seriously. I had speculated upon it since the end of V3/beginning of V4, but never seriously considered it to be that emotionally sincere and thoughtful lol. As you say, the fandom was and is pretty inhospitable. Frankly you're probably lucky you missed out on it, but more importantly, I'm fascinated with your experience because you clearly have a textual grip on the matter.

I think what you're describing here about intergenerational inheritance is thematically critical to the story, but I think what's forgotten in a lot of fandom spaces is that romance is a building block of family too. People get married and have babies. Ozlem got married and had babies. Obviously I care about the marriage and babies bit, but it's not like a stork dropped Ruby out of the sky (and to be honest, I want to know what's up with the team STRQ love affairs). So I suppose I'm sort of like, curious about the false binary on the matter (and I'm for a model of romance which is like... reciprocal, unconditional, non-transactional and not forced, obviously). I do agree though, I'm a huge fan of the V9 development with Ruby in particular - I might be coming at it with a slightly different angle from you, in that Ruby's awakening to spiritual aridity (and basically outright confirmation this is her Heroine's Journey) is something I personally oscillate with, and the false image of her mother is one she actually needs to break. If we get Jungian here, Summer as Ruby's persona is very potent to me, especially if Grimm!Summer Rose theory proves true. (Your mummy comes back in the worst way possible, the truth of the situation is really painful as the illusion is broken, but that is the only way to grow up).

I think what you've outlined here with Jaune and Cinder's family backgrounds is influential to the pairing, but it's not all of it in my opinion, but it is interesting that it motivated your interest - I can definitely see what are the things you find valuable in storytelling influencing your interpretation here. I think what you've described with Jaune here is my exact issue with Jaune/Weiss, though. In the past I described what my issue is with a potential Weiss love interest; frankly the boy is simply not a good arranged match and is unmarriageable to another great house. The last thing his character needs is to join a different family weighted legacy. So in this way, I think Jaune and Cinder 'meet in the middle' on this matter, as they do with everything else. If the ideas here are intentional, it's actually quite clever. Because in this sense, Cinder needs to get out from her magical evil stepmother/godmother's thumb, and so does Jaune, and they need to get married and have babies.

I know what you mean though; I do think there is a difference between you and I in the sense that I can readily write tens of thousands of words about Jaune and Cinder falling in love with each other, which is a genuinely different experience from wanting to see Ruby's relationship with her mother evolve. But by the same stroke, I enjoy all that stuff too, especially in unusual places like with Raven (the Mother of the triple goddess cycle) in respect to Cinder (a well and proper Maiden) and Qrow and Winter. Anyway, I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, because really, you're fluffing up my ego with this 'I don't ship it but I see it' business.

I don't mean to sound weird but you said 'it's towers all the way down'; I tagged a Reverse Ozlem post this like, a year or so ago. So that's some interesting memetic repetition. (I'm not saying you're copying/referencing me, I mean this in a sort of vaguely mystical way lolololol). Because yes, I do feel the Ozlem story is basically fundamental to understanding the reincarnating/repeating pattern of the show, and this is even true outside of Jaune/Cinder itself and to do with the other canon romances. I really like how you've described the Ozlem relationship here, actually; I feel like you get it.

So that is... very interesting to me. My goodness. Very enlightening indeed.

Then they’re connected by her killing of Pyrrha, who drew out the Arc stuff in the first place and facilitated his emulation of his forefathers by training him.

Yes, yes that's exactly it. That's why Pyrrha is another persona (false self), and this is especially why the sequence of Penny -> Pyrrha -> Weiss all hurting him just in this past episode is puzzling me. These are all false images, attached to a false sense of who he is, which are assaulting him. Cinder killing Pyrrha symbolically frees Jaune of this weight but it's deeply and profoundly painful (and on a broader scale, the death of Pyrrha is the death of innocence and childhood, and then you've got the fact it makes the Fall of Beacon personal to one character who's meant to have a major connection to Cinder?). But then she forces him to kill Penny, which is even further brutal development, and now he's retreated to Weiss, which again he is dispelled away from.

The problem is that I want to analyse this on terms of character development and narrative consequences, but you can't really get past 'but she's evil for killing Pyrrha :( Jaune should kill Cinder :(', and it makes the matter rather boring. So I really enjoy the opportunity of getting to interact with someone who fuckinggggg getsssss it and I don't have to censor myself speaking about the narrative. Again: I've been in this fandom on and off for too long and I've seen it all. As bad as you think it was, imagine worse. Most of the fandom has been filled with 'Pyrrha is Jaune's tragic lost love and they should be together forever and ever' for years and years, if not 'Weiss is the replacement goldfish/Ruby is the replacement goldfish/something something', and so say, with the appearance of Pyrrha this volume my stomach's in the floor because eventually you start to wonder if the chorus is right.

But on textual terms that he is literally harmed by false images is pretty on the nose.

Regarding the V5/V6 Ozlem parallel, yeah that is the clincher for me personally with the ship. Reverse Ozlem itself is what I think to be the motivating factor (here's a recent post I made about the potential in which it can evolve as), so I'm glad you picked up on that bit too because as much as I care about all the other influences (see: my masterpost) I only take those as seriously as I do because of the Ozlem matter. Like, you know, Rhodopis (proto-Cinderella) marrying Sappho's (Sapphron's) brother. That one is so fucking weird, I really can't believe it.

I appreciate this follow-up a lot, it's really fascinating for me to hear your thoughts and I think you have a lot of interesting things to say. Really, a true joy. Also, thank you for the paragraph breaks, that really saved me and I appreciate it a lot. <3 I hope you have a good one, and please stop by again.

(Original post being referenced).

#seraphina's asks #user: anonymouse #knightfall #also yeah foundational change is awesome. I love when stories have things happen #you might like to peruse my #redemption arcs #tag #rwby9 #seraphina ruminates over V9

[techforevil-er]

04/12-11/12/2022

Firebreak, Christmas activities and dinners (pt 1), how to work when I'm temporary (but not really).

The programme had the firebreak this week, and despite one of my teams carrying on as normal I had some time to contribute. \o/ I chose to join a group thinking how our product, which recently had its 10th birthday, would be different if it was set up now. I ran a short visioning session where everyone in the group sketched Crazy 8s and a more refined idea and merged them in small groups until it combined all the ideas. I also extracted some principles that were common to all the visions and made a quick service map w/ unanswered questions, building on a session ran by the PM who pitched the idea in the first place. Overall, it was fun but not as different as messing around with a prototype kit that one time. :)

----

Team 1 wasn't working together during the firebreak but I had a random reflection on how they're doing icebreakers every day during standup mostly willingly. All it took is a point system and a vague promise of a reward at the end of the quarter. ;)

Big thanks to that Slack I don't go to anymore for recommending The Daily Stand-up Challenge cards. Some of them don't work so well for walking the board and remote so I make new ones as we go.

I need to think what I can improve when joining a team from how things have been going with Team 2. tl;dr - when I started about a month and a half ago it was meant to be a temporary situation while someone was on sick leave and/or another contractor was being recruited. Additionally, for the first two weeks I was waiting for a PM, who then left after the next two weeks. Overall I think I'm the 4th DM the Team's had in the last 6 months. So personally, I've felt a tension between not wanting to mess with the team, seeing stuff that can/needs to be iterated, and being reluctant to take up the team's time with additional process improvement activities (when another DM may want to do things differently...). I think it's generally not helped by the retros only happening monthly but the main lesson for myself when in this situation is... don't wait, and assume you'll be around indefinitely. And just do the PM things if there isn't one around. -\(-__-)/-

---

Some work social things happened! Darts, which I inexplicably suck at despite an early lead in some games, and Postal Museum trip including the Mail Rail train ride - which was super fun and you should go on! The postcodes part of the exhibit only lasts until end of December if that's your thing, but I'm sure they'll replace it with something equally fun and geeky. I also bought the most DMy magnet from the museum shop.

----

In pottery, I picked up my bowls with cat figurine, dog, and a snake planter that looks like a big poo. 🤨 Goddamn you terracotta, I wish I painted ya!

I learned a new technique, called nerikomi which is working with differently coloured clay instead (or in addition) to using glaze. I made a little bowl with an abstract pattern (which Bella the Cat can use as a water bowl), and a bigger bowl with orange pattern which I am super excited to see! I also made a big platter and a small side plate with different types of 'normal' clay - where terracotta tried to fuck me over by running and being a mare to tidy. Here's hoping it calms down in the glazing and doesn't just look dirty....

----

I went to Yauatcha with a friend. It was decent (any place that even serves prawn + beancurd cheung fun is ok in my book) but the desserts were definitely the high point.

I've been watching The Traitors - as a game it's... mediocre. But the casting is amazing. What I really want to do now is play Blood on the Clocktower, let's hope we can at the next xgov games! >:3c

The soundtrack is so camp, I lost my shit when this started playing in ep1.

Oh, and I got the exact Epik High ticket I wanted. \o/

NEXT WEEK

Taking notes at User Research sessions. Hearing insights from a popup research day. Visiting THREE departments (apart from the one I work at). At least two Christmas dinners. Eating all my advent calendar cheeses?! And the Witcher 3 remaster comes out!! \o/

#weeknote

[ficforthought]

On being SO DONE with M*sha, a rant a decade in the making!

After giving this some thought I'm going to go ahead and give my opinion on Misha and yesterday’s situation in public for the first time ever. I was going to just post on Twitter but since this has been 12 years in the making I have exceeded the number of tweets I can put in one thread! There’s A LOT in here, so my summary is also long. I'm aware that I will lose followers over this, I'm not looking to offend anyone but it will inevitably happen. I wish anyone leaving all the best as fellow human beings.

TL;DR - having kept quiet for so long I’ve finally reached my limit and it’s all come bubbling out. I’ve never been a fan of Misha, I’ve been ambivalent for the most part, but have never criticised him in any hateful way, that's not who I am, but after all these years of putting up with his bullshit, attention seeking and troublemaking I am DONE. Deleting his tweet containing the word Wincest and replacing it with an APOLOGY just to pander to his Minions and save face is the straw that broke the camel's back. He has consistently pushed his ship on not only fans but on other actors (despite Jensen's discomfort, and him having repeatedly made his feelings known on it), he has stood by while his Minions/Hellers have harassed, victimised, doxxed and sent death threats to people based on their FICTIONAL ships. He has pandered to their gatekeeping, constantly demanded attention in obvious and not so obvious ways, and to the best of my knowledge never criticised their actions even though he's aware of it in a very real way. Some of his Minions have now taken their shit into The Boys fandom and created negativity for Jensen before the guy has even got a foot through the set door, and how is that supporting one half of your ship?

Misha has claimed to be a victim of targeted harassment from Wincest/brother fans (not only shippers) yet his fans have said and done the most despicable things on his watch, all in the name of what he must think is entertainment, or even his idea of a ‘joke’.

Any respect I had for the man based on his humanitarian work has gone because I can only take so much hypocrisy. He and his pandering because of a desperate attempt to be woke and wholly inclusive (which is actually impossible, no matter how good intentions are) are beyond pathetic. Whilst I have never seen why people think he’s so great I have friends IRL and online who genuinely adore the man, yet they have been shocked and upset by his contempt for half of the fandom that made him somewhat famous. It's disgusting and I'm not scrolling by any more. Misha, I hope to never see you on anything J2 related in future because none of us need that kind of negativity, *especially* not J2. Be gone, foul fiend!

OK, so to the too long part. Please be aware that these are my opinions as a fan of the show, of Sam and Dean, and J2, not only as a shipper. I can separate canon and fanon, and can view canon from a gen or shippy PoV. Whether you agree or disagree with my opinion let me be clear that I do not condone constant bashing and hate of a person or character so this isn’t the start of a regular thing for me. It's possible to have an opinion and not show the same vitriol that has been following this man around for years, and that’s what I’m doing. I've not posted this to prompt more negativity, it's simply to get it off my chest and make it clear how I feel. I stand by my philosophy of ship who you want to ship, enjoy it, but don't force it on other people and don't be a dick about it…hmm, that kinda sounds like familiar behaviour, though, does it not?!

I have ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUE with other people liking Misha, Cas or Destiel when it’s for the love of the characters and the ship. What I *do* have an issue with is people who are the true definition of a Heller. I don’t see that as a generic term, don't be ignorant and think I do because I know the difference between actual ship fans and the crazies, both ships have ‘em and I want no part of either of their venom. If you are reading this and class yourself as a Heller then you are part of the problem so run along and as you are all so fond of saying, 'get help' and take your bestie king with you.

I’m stating my opinion in what I feel is the most mature way I can, because unlike many people on SM, I am an adult and can act accordingly, with forethought and without resorting to temper tantrums and bullying of other people to get my point across. I am able to tell the difference between reality and fiction, I don't tar everyone with the same shipper brush and I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinion, but as we know opinions are like arseholes, we all have them and sometimes they stink. Unlike some, for the most part in life (online and offline) I *do* stand by what I say and don’t backtrack or delete things to appease the masses. I have spent a lot of time writing this out to be as clear as possible without being intentionally hateful. Bear with me jumping between actor and character where relevant, at this point they're conjoined. I will say this before I go any further, it doesn’t end well for Misha, I don’t mince my words and if you don’t like seeing facts and opinions laid out, this isn't the post for you.

I’ll say right off the bat what most of you have surmised - I’ve never held Misha (or Cas) in high esteem but I have never *hated* on him. I have shared mild criticism of his actions and opinions on Cas over the years but never, I feel, in any way that has made me feel I have something to apologise for. I have said several times I've been unhappy about Misha crashing con panels, taking attention away from J2 when at those cons *most* people paid their hard earned money to see the STARS of the show they love, first and foremost, and anyone else is a very nice bonus. The odd appearance here and there crashing a panel is fine (and Misha isn’t the first or last person to do it), maybe take up a few minutes then leave, but when someone commandeers an entire panel, that's just not on. It's not only selfish, rude and attention seeking but also disrespectful to other actors, fans and to the organisers who work hard to make sure everything ties in to give us the best con experience we can have. Everyone gets their turn on stage, there's no need to try and hog any more of the limelight, Veruca Salt style. Oh, and if you’re reading this and not getting that reference, (a) you shouldn’t be on my blog because you’re far too young, (b) look it up, and if you still don’t get what I’m saying… well then please refer to point (a). Thank you, kindly!

There was a time in Kripke's era where Cas was - I feel - intentionally used as a pawn by the writers to divert *canon* from the ‘questionable’ relationship between Sam and Dean, i.e. Wincest focus. Prior to that people (other fans) lightened up and just accepted the fact that Wincest had been there since day one in terms of the writing of the show and the fandom. All the cast and crew knew - J2, Kripke and JDM in particular - and made light of it, never judging, never shaming and often encouraging it because they understand it’s a fun part of fandom. Wincest was present enough to be part of the not so subtle subtext, as I said people just accepted it. Kink tomato was alive and well, so was ‘don’t like, don’t read’ and we all just scrolled over things we didn’t like without turning everything into a personal vendetta and excuse for bullying others who didn’t share our views. When the angels came into the plot I think most of us Wincest fans gave the Dean/Cas innuendos the small laugh they deserved and then turned back to the focus of the show which was the brothers, as it had always been intended. Misha, however, milked those moments as much as possible which was amusing at the start but got old *very* quickly, not just for fans (shippers and non shippers alike), but for other actors, in particular Jensen who is on record MULTIPLE times showing his dislike for Destiel. He told people outright that's not how he was playing the relationship between the two characters and CATEGORICALLY said "Destiel doesn't exist" but did it end there? No, it did not because neither fans or Misha let it go, in fact Misha only pushed more, goaded fans into flogging the same dead horse as much as possible. He’s never stopped, not even when there was so much discord in the fandom, a huge wedge was driven into it because of ships, which IMO he heavily contributed to.

Fast forward to over a decade later (a decade, seriously man, let it fucking go!) he didn’t even stop when Destiel did partially go canon. I have never doubted that Cas loved Dean (Sam, too) because in SPN lore angels are made to love, even rebellious ones. I, along with many others, liked that about Cas because who doesn't love a rebel, especially one rebelling for very good reasons, and because of those two wonderful men? Sam and Dean allowed him to see beyond what he'd been brainwashed to believe his entire existence. The fact is that although the nature of that love changed for Cas, it never did for Dean and was CANONICALLY UNREQUITED because Dean was incapable of loving anyone else as much as he loved Sam. All that mattered to Dean, even when he saw other characters as "family" was still Sam…ALWAYS Sam, every step of the way. Again for those who have too much Misha shaped wax in their ears, that’s canon. Whether people choose to see that love platonically or romantically is up to them, soulmates don't always have to be romantic, either way, brotherly love won out above all else on the show. No amount of Misha screaming ‘hey look, Destiel!’ changed that, but it sure didn’t stop him trying, did it?

So now that the obvious has been stated, here's something else we all know - never once in all of the years on the show did Misha drop rallying of the troops to his precious, ego stroking ship. Never once (that I am aware of) has he called out his Minions and Hellers on their continued harassment of everyone involved in the show and other fans despite the fact that they have bullied, victimised and wished bodily harm, rape and death on people who don't see their ship and because didn't get the ending to the story that they wanted. Not once has Misha shown any remorse for the trauma his "fans" have caused, and I’m taking REAL trauma, here, not the kind Twitter stans see as ‘triggering’ - people have been driven to close SM accounts, attempted, and in some cases succeeded in taking their own lives. These Minions have openly mocked Jared’s struggles with depression and anxiety, and Misha - who claims to be friends with J2 and be supportive of them in every way  - has stood by and let it all play out, knowing full well some of the goings on, if not the full extent of how toxic these people are. We know he sees things being said online, and I have absolutely no doubt he spends time online searching his name for things that are relevant in some way to him in an effort to insert himself into a current conversation, or even start one so that attention is on him. Gotta stay relevant, somehow, right, Mish?

He has actively encouraged bullying by his actions of enabling the behaviours above, both by the flogging of the aforementioned dead horse, AND by not objecting to unacceptable behaviours. Remember when Minions and Hellers were slating J2, particularly Jared, for not posting on SM about BLM and other topics? Yeah, he didn’t ask them to stop doing that, either, even when he was tagged in things along the lines of ‘If Misha can post why can’t J2?’ etc. There have been some token protests, con vids I've seen have show his 'objections' which IMO have been done in a very tongue in cheek way, meaning that those people who needed to be pulled aside and told to change their ways just carried on, because their evil overlord didn’t explicitly explain it in terms a three year old could understand that bullying and forcing your opinion on others is WRONG. Not all of his cult are young and impressionable, not by a long shot, but many of the more vocal and vitriolic ones are.

As a father himself I wonder what Misha would do if he found out that his kids were behaving in ways his Minions are? I’m aware they’re young, but kids are cruel and bullying doesn’t just happen online. Even at whatever age they are, would he laugh it off the way he appears to have done with all of this fandom toxicity? Not bloody likely! I wonder if he’s as desperate to gain the approval of his family, friends and colleagues as he appears to be for that of his Minions/Hellers? I would certainly hope so, but that question can only be answered by Misha, himself, and I can and will not presume to speak on someone else's behalf on things in their personal life. For the record I would never presume I know what J2's answers would be on anything, however I do feel that after 15 years I have an accurate gauge on what kind of people they are so would be confident that any opinion I had on a matter aligns with their morals and ethics. As much as J2 have shared of themselves with us - willingly and under no pressure to do so, I might add - we don't *know* them, but we know enough to have an informed opinion. I can’t say the same for Misha because based on the behaviour he’s repeatedly displayed, things I've heard about from other fans as well as people I know IRL who have had direct dealings with him through cons or GISH (including some very actively in the early days when it was GISHWHES) he just hasn’t seemed like a person I wanted to follow on SM. I’ve never watched any of his solo panels, though I have watched ones with both or one of the J's, mostly being left irritated because of his behaviour. Watching the J’s put up with that shit is painful, and it’s a testament to how good they are as actors that they managed to hide at least some of their disdain for as long as they did. Microexpressions give them away, particularly Jensen, and they certainly have faces I have spent many years watching closely. Beautiful faces to go with beautiful souls, both of them! <3

I have precisely ZERO interest in Destiel as a ship, very little interest in Cas as a character anymore (though I did like him in the early days,and his relationship with Jack in late seasons) so I have absolutely no reason or desire to follow anything Misha does. That said, I've obviously been peripherally aware of some things he's been involved in because of friends, from things I’ve seen on SM and general fandom stuff. Despite the things I've already mentioned about his behaviour, up until now I have been able to maintain a level of respect for him as a person because of the humanitarian and charity work he's done. He seems like someone who really does want to change the world for the better and I am in full support of that fact, so much so that I have supported TWO campaigns relating to him. I bought one of the Super Good t-shirts for the campaign he did with Michael Sheen (a true angel!), the SPN/Good Omens x-over to help homeless charities, and I chose the design with text only and not artwork of Michael and Misha on, basically because I didn’t want to be wearing something with Misha’s face on it and I make absolutely no apology for that, whatsoever. I also bought Alex's #TheEndHasNoEnd shirt, which some of the profits went to Random Acts who do great work, so again, despite not liking Misha I still willingly contributed for a cause bigger than me, and to support Alex, who I absolutely ADORE. I'm aware that Stands aren't popular with some of the fandom, however since most of the cast of SPN are happily affiliated with them then I don't feel it's my place to either judge, or to discuss topics I know next to nothing about. But I digress, as a decent human being I have shown support tangentially to a man who I don't care for out of respect for the work he does outside the fandom. Telling you this isn’t to paint myself in a good light - I don’t need your approval, I’m a big girl, unlike some I don’t need constant validation! - only to provide background on how I’ve actively *not* hated on Misha.

Now though, any respect I had for him has come to an abrupt end, the events of the past 24 hours has seen to that. Whilst I have been annoyed at his behaviour in regards to shipping, I don't feel it's ever gone this far, or at least not that I've seen first hand. This man has, IMO, contributed to so much toxicity in the fandom by way of things I've mentioned before, he's claimed - without actually saying the words - that Wincest fans weren't interested in him as a character when he came onto the show, and hasn’t felt included because of the fans’ love of the brothers. Um, hate to break it to you, love, but when you come onto an established show that is about two people, and you’re a *guest star* you can’t expect everyone to love you. Some characters we as individuals do fall in love with straight away (Bobby, Charlie, Crowley and Rowena are good examples for me), it takes time to establish a dynamic, so if that’s how he felt then it was incredibly naive of him as an actor to expect instant acceptance from anyone. Also, why wait until after the show finished to bring it up AGAIN … oh wait, yeah, that would be to step back into the limelight in a way intended to garner sympathy from Minions and INTENTIONALLY piss off bro fans and Wincest shippers alike? How fucking self centred, desperate and disrespectful do you have to be to shit all over the finale of a show that for the most part accepted you and kept you in paid work for 12 years? Well, Misha Collins levels of all of those things, obviously.  

So, on the topics of self centred, desperate to stay relevant, attention seeking and being oh so needy, the tweet yesterday from Amazon mentioned Castiel. He wasn’t tagged in it, so I refer to my earlier comment about searching online, because how else would he have possibly seen that? It’s possible someone sent it to him, I appreciate that, but if we go off past behaviour it’s not any stretch at all to believe that didn’t happen. So, once again, having seen the tweet he took it upon himself to - oh so predictably - turn it into something relating to Destiel. When I saw it I immediately rolled my eyes and thought ‘here we go again’, but then also had a little smile because I really liked the fact that he explicitly mentioned Wincest, therefore seeming to accept that his poor old dead horse wasn’t the only one in the race. I actually mentally tipped my hat to him then because it appeared that he’s matured enough to acknowledge by name the ship that predates his inclusion on the show. Great, I thought, this is a positive thing in a sea of negativity surrounding the man and his sunken ship, because what followed was Wincest trending in the US (it may also have been other countries as well but I had to sleep!) … largely due to the fact that Hellers were responding to it, calling him out on mentioning the dreaded ‘W’ word. I’ll repeat that because it’s been a rare occurrence up to that point… the Minions were actually disappointed with their overlord for mentioning another ship. We all know what they think of it and I for one, don’t give a flying fuck about their opionion. Ship and let ship, it’s all fun (or meant to be) so we have different tastes, that’s life kiddiwinks, deal with it. I mean, you really don’t have much of an example set for you when your king has proven several times over to be one of the biggest obnoxious brats out there, but just give it a try for your own sakes, yeah? Awesome, good on you, besties!

An unexpected development - to my joy and that of other Wincest shippers - them doing that got the topic trending, only *kept* trending by the fact that were all coming online asking why it was trending. Wincest shippers barely lifted a finger, we just flooded each other’s timelines with lovely content and basked in the Hellers - and Misha - shooting themselves in the foot, which was awesome. But did the vitriol stop? No. Did he get the attention he so clearly craves? Yes. Was it in the way he wanted? Fuck no, so poor, emotionally wounded baby backtracked after seeing that his name was trending alongside Wincest because that’s *so* not what someone narcissistic to do it in the first place, wanted.

Now here’s where I could easily have just moved on with an unusually fond chuckle, giving him an ironic pat on the back and a ‘thanks, Misha’ for being the one to instigate hours of fun, but once again his despicable behaviour made that impossible. It’s been more than obvious for many years that he cares more about what his fans think than anything else to do with the show and the fandom in a larger sense, but to delete the tweet and APOLOGISE for daring to be so insensitive to the snowflakes’ delicate sensibilities for mentioning Wincest in the first place was absolutely disgusting. Stating , “I used a term that I had never really given any thought to other than, "that's a thing?! Yuck." is not only complete and utter bullshit, it’s pandering of the highest order.  

We all know he has referred to Wincest on multiple occasions, so to say he hadn’t thought about is a flat out lie, which IMO is an insult to everyone, not just Wincest shippers. Does the man have no self respect at all, why would you contradict yourself in the face of such overwhelming evidence? Instead of either ignoring all the people calling him out, or addressing it with another tweet saying ‘yeah, that happened’ or something similar he chose, I repeat, CHOSE the route of claiming he didn’t realise he was being offensive to people who felt ‘triggered’ by him using the word Wincest. He basically shat all over an entire ship and large sector of the fandom in an attempt to appease his own fan base which consists of a lot of children (or those that act like children) who have no idea what RL is like.

Once again, he’s reinforced the idea that if you shout loud enough at someone just because you don’t like something they said, they will back down and apologise for something even when there’s nothing to apologise for. If he wants to be such a role model then he could easily have pointed out that a fictional ship doesn’t condone RL incest, any ACTUAL trauma people have suffered because of RL situations, and made an effort to make sure people understand that. He COULD have used it as an opportunity to do some good in the fandom by encouraging people to build bridges, to accept that people are entitled to their beliefs and that sometimes we see things differently but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t treat others with BASIC HUMAN DECENCY because of it. Instead he YET AGAIN chose to show that he cares more about what Minions think of him, keeping them onside to constantly stroke his unbelievably fragile ego in everything he does.

It is my understanding that Misha is big on (or claims to be big on) putting positive energy out into the world, treating people with respect, helping others and accepting people for who they are, not who you want them to be… all this after YEARS of consistently practising what he preaches only when it suits him. He sends out a message that it’s perfectly OK to bully, to spread hate, to draw attention to yourself at the cost of others, to throw colleagues and friends under the bus and at the same time use them to further your own agenda and get hits for your YouTube channel. Is this really the legacy he wants to leave? Is this an environment he wants his own kids to grow up in as well as future generations? Is this what he thinks is a valuable contribution as a human being? JFC, the arrogance, hypocrisy and the need for constant validation this man exhibits is nothing short of cringeworthy… actually it’s beyond that. It’s deplorable behaviour, it’s not new, and he will continue to act like this for as long as he’s being enabled and this harmful cycle needs to end.

I have friends IRL and online who are (now, possibly, were) big Misha fans, who have supported him from either the beginning of his run on the show, or since they started watching, and this is how he repays this behaviour? He’s willfully alienating decent people (including multishippers) all to make himself look good by being seen to do everything he can not to offend people. Spoiler alert, you DID offend people, you continue to do so time and again and we’ve had enough. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must be to be such a perpetual people pleaser, but let me say it’s not doing you any favours in any way, shape or form.

Misha, you are *not* a role model, you’re *not* someone to look up to when you can't live up to the ideals you preach. You’re spitting in the face of people who have supported you even after some questionable things in the past, who gave you the benefit of the doubt because we’re all human and we all make mistakes. The key to growing as a person is not to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over, understanding *why* what you said and/or did was a mistake and making a concerted effort to make changes. I don’t ever see you doing that, you will continue down this path of only caring about Minions under the guise of caring for people in general. You are transparent, you are sad and despite the fact I’ve never particularly liked you, I didn’t speak up because I didn’t want to get involved in the drama. Well now I have spoken up and I’m saying you’re a disgrace, you have no respect for other people and nobody is fooled anymore. If it hadn’t been this tweet it would have been something else, but I for one am glad it happened so soon after the show ended so we can finally be rid of the limpet-like behaviour. It’s over, let it go for the sake of what dignity you might have left, for the sake of your family and friends and for the sake of anyone who isn’t capable of seeing through your ‘it’s a joke’ mentality.

You have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Misha.

For anyone who made it to the end of my ramble, thank you. This has been a cathartic exercise and I’m drawing a line under it now, I don’t think I could possibly make my thoughts any clearer. I urge you not to get caught up in any petty squabbles with his Minions, let’s celebrate J2 and other cast and crew members who have shown us all respect and who I am proud to call part of the SPN family. There’s always one member of the family who needs to be frozen out for the good of everyone else.

#ficforthought speaks #sorry not sorry #i spent way too long on this #purging the poison

[catbountry]

Weird question: seeing as how you were a former mod, how was Kiwifarms?

Stopped being fun a long, long time ago. Glad I left, though I feel as though I will be haunted by this for a long time, but I'm doing better and trying to be a better person. That's the TL;DR answer.

Null's policy of allowing users to say pretty much anything they are legally within their right to say led to a lot of people coming in from other banned sites or subreddits that had crackdowns on hate speech and general "they're making us look bad" vibes, to flood the Farms, and this drove off many of the older, more moderate users who simply wanted to use the site for internet gossip. It got to the point where randos would be popping up in threads I was a regular in and moderated and just spouting off conspiracies about black people, Jews and trans people with only a vague connection to the topic at hand, and I found myself afraid to do anything more than make fun of them for fear of getting chided by mods higher up the chain. I got a lot of shit for simply moving threads because I didn't ask permission from another mod first. Null knew the flood of reactionary posters was a problem, as those few that still stuck around referred to them as the A&H (Articles and Happenings) posters derisively, since they seemed to exist mostly to leave the worst kind of comments on any thread in that subforum. But Null also holds a lot of those same beliefs, so attempts to curb the problem were limp and ineffective.

I came to the forum, initially, to comment on strange people online and document a particularly unsavory character that was on Tumblr. But towards the end of my stint there, I found myself being completely miserable every time I checked a thread. I had talked about quitting for probably about two years, before another former Kiwi convinced me to just do it already, since I was doing nothing but complaining about the site. I resigned and Null gracefully accepted my resignation and dissolved the Tumblr subforum. That was on January 5th, the day before the siege of the U.S. capitol building by a bunch of crazy people... people that had a lot in common with the exact same posters that were making my time there feel about as fun as being dragged down a dirt road with shards of broken glass on it. And Jesus Christ, am I glad I got out of there before all the shit with Near/Byuu went down. In the time since I've distanced myself from the Farms, I feel better. I've been working on bettering myself and working my own little projects, and there's a lot of stuff I said on those forums I wish I hadn't, but at the same time, I also made friends there who felt similar to me, friends who just wanted to come to discuss the activity of really weird and dramatic people online. I think I felt a lot of gratitude towards the site in helping me learn a lot about the previously mentioned unsavory Tumblr user who turned out to be way more awful than I ever could have imagined, and that was a big factor for why I stayed on as long as I did, even though I'd been seeing red flags for years.

I'm trying to be more polite and accepting of others even if I don't understand them. I feel happier for it, which kind of fucks me up when people treat me like I'm still there. I don't know what good public groveling and begging for forgiveness would do, since a lot of the people who would hate me anyway would only hold my past over my head only to shove it in my face as soon as me and my big, fat mouth say something that they don't like. I also don't wish to make myself an enemy of Null. Realistically, I don't think he'd really care all that much if I started laying into him in public, but at the same time, I would prefer he at least remain neutral on me. This man runs Kiwi Farms mostly out of spite at this point, to the detriment of his own other life goals. I have a lot I could criticize Null about, but he was also Chris-chan's last line of defense against the trolls, and even then, he wasn't able to stop Chris from raping Barb. He didn't even believe it at first, and given how much time and money Null has put into trying to protect Chris, it's understandable why. Some people might say Null's only motivation was to continue using Chris as a source of discussion on the site, but I really do feel like Null felt a responsibility over Chris's well being and actually wanted Chris to be safe. Sadly, things didn't work out that way.

So, yeah. I'm not going to blow up at people for using Kiwi Farms as a source on some people doing some bad shit because KF users are more likely to use archiving sites that can't have take-downs issued by the thread’s subjects to hide their bad shit. I would definitely advise against joining the forums unless you feel like you absolutely have to, perhaps to clarify on anything as someone who was personally victimized or personally involved. And even then, I would suggest not sticking around. Post the info you have and get out. Many of the fun posters left a long time ago. I'm also not going to yell at anybody still using the Farms if they're not posting the kind of content that drove me away. People have their reasons for being there, and many of the threads have their own mini-communities and subcultures specific to those threads that were very different from many people's preconceived notions of the site. But if anybody is thinking of leaving, especially if they've been thinking about it for a while, I would say to just rip off that band-aid and do it. People just stop posting to websites without any explanation as to why all the time.

There are other places to get gossip on the internet. I still watch YouTube commentary channels and post to my friends about people making spectacles of themselves online... I just don't do it on Kiwi Farms anymore.

This post was originally going to be much, much longer, going into a lot of my feelings on internet censorship and my distrust of a small number of huge websites being controlled by a handful of tech giants, on my current dilemma in regards to how I feel free speech should be protected versus how dangerous I think anti-vaxxers are, and some anecdotes about times that should have been the thing that spurred me to leave, but I stuck around anyway out of some misplaced sense of duty. But this post is already pretty long and I don't want to bore you with a bunch of tangentially related ramblings. Suffice to say, again, I'm glad I left, but at the same time, while I said a lot of things I wish I hadn't and I feel like I've grown considerably as a person since then, I also don't regret having been there. I think what I do regret is not standing up for myself more, not pushing back harder against a culture that was becoming less and less recognizable to the one that was there when I joined in 2014. I don't really think I could have done that much to stop it, though.

It just sucks, man.

#tl;dr #drama #i guess

[twink-frank]

hi i’ve noticed the pencey prep gay conversation going on over on @awsugar and i have spent lots of time dissecting pencey prep lyrics and subjecting nathan @faggot-frank to my deranged ramblings so Here is my pencey prep super ultra mega gay lyrical analysis masterpost. it’s very long so its all under the cut but i will include a TL;DR for those who dont wanna read paragraphs of my deranged ramblings: Pencey prep uses lots of themes of: heartbreak, forbidden love, keeping love a secret, and toxic relationships. which none of that is gay on its own but combined with them almost never using gender indicators in their songs and the “nail in the coffin song” of 8th grade it ends up being a very Fruity Album.

I will be going through heart break in stereo in order and pointing out which lyrics and elements of certain songs jump out to me as Super Mega Gay and then summarizing my conclusions at the end <3

1 ) PS Don't Write

PS don't write is about leaving a toxic relationship, it has notes of moving on and leaving someone behind. "packed up all my shit / stole back all my tapes / left your spare key under the mat / this is not a joke / you'd better learn to take a hint / 'cause i'm not coming back / maybe you'll understand / when you're waking up alone / in a cold and empty bed." it has no gender indicators or pronouns which is the case in a lot of pencey prep songs, and something i'll bring up quite a bit. it also has general "coming of age" themes, something common in lots of pencey prep songs. which Yeah apply to straight people to but read in this context combined with future evidence can be pretty Fuckin Gay. "somewhere along the line / i found a hidden strength / i didn't know i had / standing on my own / cutting all the strings / that you used to control / surprise surprise / i am long gone / if you thought you could hold me down / by holding me up / you were wrong / you don't call the shots anymore." not to say only gay people can find inner strength and the room to love themselves but combined with other context it is a really poignant message about accepting yourself for who you are.

2) Yesterday

Yesterday is very repetitive and has a lot less to analyze, but the constant themes of wanting to "run away" strike me as very Fruity. once again, not saying gay people are the only people who can want to run away or escape from something But Combined With Other Context. and once again a song with no gender indicators, doesnt specify who the speaker is running away with or what they are running away from. just that they want to Leave. "i wanna run with you / i don't care what we do / gotta get out of this place / because it feels like yesterday." also saying "it feels like yesterday" could mean that the town feels backwards or old timey in its beliefs, implying homophobia. how the speaker wants to run away from an old fashioned town.

3) Don Quixote

i'm going to bring up the cultural significance of this title and literary reference first. Don Quixote is a classical novel by Cervantes which is about a crazy dude who thinks he's a knight, and goes on weird adventures with his best friend. It's typically used as a symbol of following your dreams and breaking free from what people expect of you. In the context of the song its used as a symbol of following your dreams with Someone. once again this someone is given no gender indicators. "you say it's not worth it / been burned too many times / if your spine's receding / you can borrow some of mine / don't go and quit right now / cause i'd follow you through hell." "you say so many things / and not a word of it was true / if you're still in that state of mind / i'd still vacation inside of you / cause i think you're worth every minute / and every dime that i spend / i'd spend all my time fighting dragons / just to keep you alive and talking." it's about wanting to spend time with someone, wanting to be with them no matter what. and its also about how this person feels unreachable, like being with them would be a fairytail but the speaker Still Reaches for it. "your imaginations running wild / round your deceptive heart / this is my crusade / and you're the unreachable star / but i'm reaching." talking about this person being unreachable and unattainble. which isnt gay By Itself  but again combined with the other context. FRUIT BEHAVIOR.

4) 10 Rings

another breakup song once again with no gender indicators, are you guys sensing a theme here? anyways this song is about someone cutting you off and then coming back suddenly wanting to talk again after breaking your heart. it has a sense of forbidden love, like this person Told the speaker they cant be together for Whatever Reason ;] and is now trying to come back and repair their mistake when the speaker is already hurt and reeling. "learn to live with decisions you make / i learned things from the break i can't forget / catch you doing drive-bys at 1 AM / it must kill you to know we can't be friends." "end of the summer you cut me off / i cut you out all the pictures i have." which this Isnt Gay By Itself. but bringing that phrase back with other context this is such a uniquely gay experience. being in love with someone and they cut you off Because theyre weirded out by that and then they try to come back, convince you it meant nothing.

5) The Secret Goldfish

my FAVORITE pencey song. this one has a lot. it's another breakup song about heartbreak and loss and im not even gonna dwell on the no gender indicators because yall see the theme now. it has themes of heartbreak and losing someone who is very close to you and having to let go of them and having to accept that this person cant be yours and you cant be with them. "land of the lost / i found myself in nothing / this time, promises broken find me / clutching to you for something / something that you're not / believing in what you say / it makes me lie awake at night / the truth, the truth is not what scares me / it's why you have to lie / all the time." here we see these themes of having to let someone go because they just Aren't The Same as you. "clutching to you for something / something that you're not." maybe like chasing after a straight boy and getting rejected? also the repetition of "heartbreak is forever" when you're young and gay losing that first person you felt some kind of love and attraction to can feel like the end of the world and can be a huge deal because of the lack of representation and guidance young gays get. and the themes of nothing lasting forever, the fact that gay people never get promised eternal love the same way straight people do.

6) 8th Grade

this song is the nail in penceys fucking coffin honestly. the rest of these songs have a lot of plausible deniability, just vague enough to maybe Not Be Gay. but framed in the context of 8th grade they all start to get a lil fruity. Im just gonna go through lyric by lyric for this one. "caught staring again / like a deer in the headlights / when you can't move fast enough / i take a hit for the team / pretty girl is blushing / i can't tell if she's disgusted / laughter starts to swell / someone gets the joke." this kid was staring at some cute boy ass and got caught and everyone is laughing at him for being gay. the "pretty girl" here is what most people think he's staring at but with the rest of the song it's obvious she's not the one he's looking at. "bells ring, i make my escape / helps a little, but doesn't save / beat downs a common thing / with us every day / maybe im just strange / cause i dont change schools / so maybe i like the abuse / or maybe i just like you." literally This is the nail in penceys fucking coffin. "maybe i like the abuse or maybe i just like you." this kid purposefully takes beatings from his bully who is Obviously male if you take into context the next verse. because he Likes Him. "maybe im just strange / cause i dont change schools" literally willingly taking beatings from his bully bc he has a crush. "another confrontation / you've got something to prove / your girl can't tell how tough you are / when you beat me up in the boys room." this just confirms that the subject of the song is a boy, and a tough macho boy with something to prove. maybe also hiding his own internalized homophobia through bullying? "well i made a big mistake / but i can't help who i like / this may not cost my life / but i am branded forever lame." LITERALLY ITS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE. "can't help who i like" "branded forever lame" do i even need to fucking explain this oh my god. he got outed as gay, he Can't Help Who He Likes and is now branded forever as "the gay kid." the rest of the song is general "im gonna get back at my bully" stuff but literally THIS. THIS is the song that brands all penceys other very vague songs as 100% verified super mega ultra gay.

7) 19

this song has a lot less, and is more about internal struggle than anything. but it is the only song with a "she" pronoun in it. but there is one thing i wanna mention. "I scream out loud / but no one hears a sound / i take my life with lack of sleep / i believe the things i feel / the things i see are fooling only me." this song is about not believing what the world shows you, believing what you think is true in your heart and what You feel. not what anyone else tells you. which is a gay experience. believing in yourself and your heart and your feelings, believing theyre right and theyre true and valid. Also this song has a significance in coming right after 8th grade on the album, going from being 13 to 19, from being unsure in your feelings and angry about the people who dont like you to lost and hopeless but somewhat grounded in yourself.

8) Trying To Escape The Inevitable

this song is about an abusive and toxic relationship, knowing you Need to escape it but being so infatuated with the person you literally cant. “i have this reoccurring dream / you make it hard for me to breathe / i gave you everything i could / i gave up everything i owned / and when you smile it’s not for me / you offer little sympathy / your grasp so far exceeds your reach / i wake up, this is not a dream.” “i have this reoccuring dream / where you admit that you’re not happy / i know that you will never leave / you’re here just to torment me.” which like again this isnt an exclusively gay experience but it is very interesting when framed that way. in that gay people are way more likely to throw themselves into abusive and toxic relationships because they dont feel like they can get anybody else. the repetition of “i know i should run” makes it seem like the speaker Knows he should get out but he just Cant because what if he never finds love again? and the little reprise in the middle “i have a new dream / and everything is perfect / the sky is pink, yellow, green, blue, and orange / and all the past has been forgotten / and we fell in love / and we fell in love / and we fell in love / and i fell into your trap.” implying that even if he escapes, even in his dreams he still falls for this person because he feels like he cant have anything else.

9) Lloyd Dobbler

another love song about wanting to have someone but not being able to because of Unspecified Forbidden Reasons. “why are you so far away / even when you’re standing next to me? / your eyes give you away / telling secrets your mouht don’t feel like talking.” falling in love with someone, maybe sensing that they like you too. that they Are Like You and that they have a Secret they dont want to vocalize. do i even need to explain it at this point? and in the chorus “That I’ll be your lloyd dobbler / with a boom box out in the street / and i’ll be there if you need someone / even if he isn’t me.” saying you’ll be there for someone even if that person isn’t you, also the use of Pronouns which is big for pencey prep. which yes the use of “even if he isnt me” could imply a straight girl ooorrr....Fruit Behavior. also this line “There’s a norman rockewll painting / of two kids sitting on a bench / it reminds me of all the stupid things / i’d like for us to share, but i dont care.” normal rockwell is a painter that paints traditionally “american” scenes. like the american ideal, that maybe he wants with this person. but he knows he cant have, but its stupid and domestic and he wants it but he Cant Have It because of FRUIT BEHAVIOR.

10) Florida Plates

another of my favorite pencey songs, and this one brings back those tragic “love but we cant have it” themes, except with a more somber tone. instead of being angry or resentful or spiteful in the face of adversity. its an Acceptance, of what they had and how good it was and how it just Cant Last. “kiss a mouth to open eyes / stall one last moment before goodbye / drive in different cars in different directions / never write all the letters full of good words, better intentions / it’s for the best although we don’t know it / paper words will cheapen the moments we shared / it’s better if i say nothing at all.” it’s about knowing you have to leave someone, even if having them in the moment is great they Can’t Stay and you can’t even talk or write about the moments you had. which do i even need to explain it at this point? forbidden love, not being able to have each other, not even being able to Talk about it. its a secret, and painful one but its beautiful while you have it. Conclusion alright!!! thank you so so much if you read all the way through that i Know it was long i Know it was a lot of repetition but i wanted to make my point. pencey prep has very big gay themes in their music. with forbidden love, letting go, heartbreak, keeping secrets, toxic realtionships. which none of it is gay on its own but in the context of: almost none of the songs having clear gender indicators and always speaking really vaguely about the subject and Eight Grade the “nail in the coffin song” you can see my point thank you and goodnight.

#adrian speaks #mcr #pencey prep #frank iero

[wovenstarlight]

rambling thoughts about hyj (canon vs ywbk)

yoojin is so so fascinating as a character to me... i think about him 24/7 he occupies every available inch of brainspace i have. like this man and his issues am i fucking right. so i’m going to talk a bit about how i see him working and how i chose to portray him in my time travel series

so canon hyj, right. he’s like. he’s such a funky narrator. he’s like if i occupy my mind with endless work i will avoid falling into the pit of depression and immense grief from all that i went through pre regression. but also what i went through pre regression wasn’t even that bad. but also everyone who hurt me back then is assholes. but anyway ignore all that because i have work to do.

and on top of that the way he interacts with people is very... i won’t say it’s utilitarian but he’s very focused on what he can do for people and what they can do for him. in a currently-unpublished but translated chapter, he says that (SPOILERS!) he’s asked his thoughts on shj, and he answers that sung hyunjae is a useful man, and yoojin has to be polite to him on the off chance he needs to rely on him in the future. a very “he’s useful” kind of answer. this despite the obvious chemistry he and shj have-- not even in a romance way (though i do like jinjae), they just? get along? they banter easily and they have similar senses of humour and even though sometimes hyj gets exasperated at his behaviour, he still chats with him in a friendly way all the same.

and yet he’s also like SHJ Is Useful And That’s It. I Don’t Like Him At All. and he saves him in his contacts as “skill” and generally acts like he’s completely uncaring. which, compared to how much love he has for hyh and then for byr, i understand- shj at the moment quite honestly does not rank up there at all compared to those two? but he does rank somewhere, i think, because then hyj gets annoyed and upset when shj doesn’t show up to help him, and past a “shit, i needed his specific skillset for this situation and now i’m not sure how to manage this”, he does react in a very... i’ve been let down by someone i had high hopes for, kind of way.

so basically he’s got this whole, i don’t care about people1, thing going on, but then he also very much does care. and hyj is a caring person! fuck, shj even says to hyh at one point that han yoojin-gun has a bad habit of letting people into his heart too easily. what that tells me is that hyj has like.... SEVERE trust issues. he won’t allow himself to care about people, to be aware of any feelings he holds towards people- he makes himself only think about the skills people offer him, about how he can use them. and even then, whenever possible, he does things himself and he avoids relying on others, sometimes because he “doesnt want to bother them [with adult matters]” (that one talk with yoohyun) and sometimes because he just doesn’t really trust them with whatever needs doing

1. as an aside i do think hyj’s moral sense is very funny because like. if anyone touches his fucking kids they’re as good as dead! he’ll kill them! he cares about no one but his kids and everyone else can die! [the world is in danger] ah, fuck, maybe he cares about people who aren’t his kids. he doesn’t want the world to die. but don’t BRING IT UP!!! JEEZ!!! HIS PRIDE!!!! but also if you get blacklisted for whatever reason then Die literally Die he will kill you himself. it’s a very funny, he’s a good person but oh, he’s also a little bit insane, actually. that sort of situation. i love him. go crazy go stupid, sweetie, you’re doing great.

WHICH IN CONTEXT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT PRE REGRESSION! like hyj was raised with the experience of his parents, the people in the world whose unconditional support he was meant to have, being tossed down the drain because he chose to take care of yoohyun. so he’s already like, yeah, i gotta rely on myself. he has that understanding that.... he’s gotta rely on himself first and foremost, rather than trusting people who are supposed to be taking care of him. not just caring for him, actually, caring for him and yoohyun, because then he basically has to dedicate his life to yoohyun growing up. he’s been acting as yoohyun’s primary guardian from age Baby. and age 17 to 22 was literally just him dropping everything he was doing for himself in favor of getting a job and making sure yoohyun stayed in school and was fine. yoojin himself dropped out of school so he must’ve lost his whole friend group and support system. and then post-dungeon shock, he gets thrown aside and pretty much discarded by yoohyun without so much as a goodbye from the kid, which-- wow! ouch! that shit must have hurted! talk about being fucking burned, jeez. and even after that, spending three years running after yoohyun, trying to “regain” his trust and love, yoojin would’ve seen his Unawakened self as ‘not good enough’ for s-rank yoohyun. and therein comes the “if it’s not useful it’s worthless” mindset. and then he Awakened as f-rank-- already a blow!-- and then on top of that he gets backstabbed by the dozens of people who were like “you’re an s-rank’s brother! go get Awakened, i’ll bet money on you Awakening to a good rank!” and then pulled out on him, leaving him with idk how much debt (this is all mentioned in early chapters somewhere, i’ll pull citations later). man, i’m not surprised he has trust issues.

so that’s already part of his difficulty trusting other people. but then it gets compounded when you think about it further because like, His Fucking Skills, Man. he has a whole skill focused around “if you make an emotional connection with someone and then they die, it’s useful to you.” holy fuck! no wonder he’s allergic to bringing people into battle alongside himself! no wonder he throws himself into dungeons solo just to get freebie skills that allow him to be some semblance of independently combat-ready! every time he makes a connection with people he’s wondering if one day he’ll get their dying memories! you ever wonder how many people he had on his list of “keyworded individuals” pre-reg? he’s stated that he used to be at the back of dungeon parties with a spear (the need for weapons with a longer reach because of his low defense, obviously) and so someone else always died before he did? how many teammates that he cared about has he watched die in front of himself, how many times has he gotten the dying memories of those teammates, how many times have the rest of his living teammates turned on him after finding out his ability and accused him of getting the dead person killed on purpose so that he could have their skills? like hyj brings it up when he’s first explaining last repayment, and hyj cares about people so easily that he’d never do it and yet he still thought of it. which means other people would undoubtedly think of it very easily. and they wouldn’t be as forgiving when there’s a body count right there.

just, last repayment basically took hyj’s (largely yoohyun-induced) fear of losing the people he cared about and slammed his head directly into a concrete wall. thanks for that, king. so now hyj forces himself to constantly asses people on a “what skills do they have? how useful are they to me?” basis if they try to get close to him, rather than allowing him to just go “friend :-) i care them“. and it makes him reluctant to get close to and rely on people, because again, Danger Lies Therein

and all of this also must have made him be used to... being unloved, i guess (from his perspective- yoohyun cared, even when he left, but yoojin didn’t know that until yoohyun died). because most if not all of the people who have cared about or pretended to care about him have later left him. he’s got abandonment issues up the wazoo. when people say they care about him (stw, shj) he reacts with distrust. when he reveals the slightest imperfection he’s convinced they‘ll leave him, regardless of how much kindness he’s shown them in the meantime-- remember when he told myeongwoo he’d lied about them being childhood friends? complete confusion that myeongwoo didn’t immediately renounce their friendship. (SPOILERS FOR UNPUBLISHED CHAPTERS!) and later, it happens again with yerim- he tells her that he wasn’t actually a friend of her parents, he just wanted to poach her for haeyeon-- and then wonders why she doesn’t react with betrayal, when what she says is “i’m glad! ahjussi was so kind to me, i was worried i’d bewitched him somehow. i’m glad he actually cares about me. it makes me happy you were so kind”. he expects to lose the people he cares about, if not by outside causes, then of their own volition.

though on the outside causes front, i suppose it does help that like, all the people he’s growing close to now are hypercompetent high-rankers and therefore less likely to get themselves hurt. versus last timeline’s f-rank and e-rank friends, who’d probably routinely get killed, rip. but then there lies the possibility of yoojin thinking “if i pull them into danger then they’re in that much more danger” (see: Literally The Whole Reason Pre-reg Yoohyun Died. he went to help hyj and got in over his head trying to defend hyj and keep hyung alive, when he should’ve been able to defend himself with ease. hyj and diarma both acknowledge this.) which, again, plays into the reason he tries to avoid relying on other people.

tl;dr hyj’s interpersonal relationships are fucked!

but anyways moving on to talk about my fic versions of canon yoojin (hyj): han hyunjae (hhj) and han yoojin jr. (hyj jr). and how i’ve given them both problems disorders based on hyj’s issues

so like right off the bat we have hhj’s major issue, repeatedly brought up in-fic-- his issue with relying on people. let me pull a quote about this from the author notes of ywbk chapter 11:

some of you might be wondering why the yoojins are so [pretends to be okay and centers self on taking care of others], particularly [hhj]. my thinking for that part was mostly... in canon we see yoojin surrounded by people he knows are competent and capable, almost all of them adults. even when he's "raising" them, he has some degree of confidence in their ability to watch out for themselves. plus he's had time to grow out of being the only one in charge of the family; he's seen his brother come into his own and he's pulled back from his caretaking role

but here, [hhj]'s been directly thrust into raising two kids (and yeah even if [hyj jr]'s 18 he's still very much a child). not only that, but his knowledge of the future makes him (in his eyes) more knowledgable than just about all the folks around him, even the adults. mostly, he doesn't want to drop all his baggage on them when he knows they won't be able to relate (and in some cases, he doesn't want them to live with that knowledge). so he kind of distanced himself from everyone and pushed himself further into the caretaking thing as a way of coping, without realizing that's what he was doing.

we have hhj who, as hyj’s au twin, has the same trust issues and forced utilitarian attitude rising from pre-reg experiences. and then we dropped him into a situation where that “prioritize work and handle all issues myself” attitude is-- i don’t want to say rewarded, exactly, but it’s definitely useful for him in the timeline he’s in. he’s the oldest han brother, so handling issues naturally falls to him anyway as the head of the family; with both boys in school, he’s the breadwinner of the family, so prioritizing work is good! he becomes a super-efficient worker and it satisfies the needs of everyone around him!

unfortunately yoojin is a caring person, so hyj jr realizes that hhj is very much overreaching when he’s not even begun to address the effects of the Very Obvious In A Non-Dungeon World pre-reg trauma. so he’s like. hyung. what the FUCK, dude. take it easy and rely on people once in a while.

and physically, sure, hhj can rely on them. he can get yoohyun to do chores, he can get junior to take on a part time job so funds aren’t a constant worry. he gets better at trusting them to manage regular life stuff, honestly! he’s pretty good about that sort of thing now!

but then it comes to emotional needs, and like, hyj jr is a kid? and hyh is a kid? so any trust hhj builds there is going to be a little one-sided, since he can’t dump all his emotional worries on children. whatever yoojin is, he is a good caretaker who addresses his kids’ needs, and the kids do not need to be hhj’s therapists.

and hhj doesn’t really have friends his own age, and even when he does (hello jiyeon and hamin and orv gang), none of them can quite- Get it, because there’s not really an easy way to explain “i have deep-seated trauma about my family leaving me and about the people around me dying brutally” without, uh, (a) a LOT of trusting them to take you seriously and not snitch (b) explaining some Context about his youth and also the dungeons. (like yeah he could say “i’m scared everyone i care about will die on me in horrifying ways, particularly if they try to get close to me”, but that’s an irrational fear (because why would everyone die horrifyingly, why would getting close to hhj be a death sentence)-- unless you know that “everyone i care about” consists of Hunters and getting close to hhj involves getting involved with dungeons, and then his fear is very real and very understandable, even without knowing about pre-reg. there’s a reason why, even though hhj had four years to grow close to jiyeon, it still took the dungeon shock occurring for him to finally tell her even the smallest bit about pre-regression.

(from jiyeon’s perspective, she doesn’t notice much amiss, because the things hhj is keeping from her are mostly pre-reg related. he doesn’t mind talking to her about his current life, though he is reluctant to talk about some personal issues with her. hamin is a little more distant, because he is still hhj’s boss, so hhj tries to stay mostly cordial with him. orv gang is a more casual relationship- not really the type where he can dump his personal issues on them; and anyway, they’re a tight-knit friend group themselves, so hhj feels a little more on the fringes, not excluded but not fully included, either. a little like hsy does, but without the whole “i have to play the bad guy of the team” mindset.)

and this distance he creates without anyone realizing, this inability of his to fully trust them with all the details of his life, is what results in the freakout around the dungeon shock. the whole, You Are Actively Dying, if you don’t explain yourself right now i’ll finish the job. (though i don’t blame him for not trusting them with his trauma! i don’t really think he’s ready to talk about it. especially with people who don’t yet have any context for even the start of the story. hopefully this’ll change post-dungeon shock, though.)

unfortunately even with his newfound ability to talk about things more freely, he’s still in a sticky situation-- over the years, he’s developed his ability to rely on people for non-life-and-death situations like “earn money on the side”. but sending his brother to take out the trash is very very different from sending his brother to fight dungeons and other Hunters without backup. is very different from needing to risk a life and choosing his brother’s. so despite his hard-won Relying On Others abilities, they don’t extend to dungeon world situations.

and what does this mean, practically? it means, like canon hyj, hhj is going to persistently overreach himself in trying to fight alone-- he’ll try to be competent, to take on adversaries, to build strength in every possible avenue so that he can keep yoohyun and hyj jr and the rest of his family out of danger. he’ll try to be a one-man army, just to defend the people he cares about.

(ONE DAY. one day he will learn that it may not be safe to care, he may still be hurt, but that doesn’t mean he should cut himself off in advance. he’s still allowed to care. he’s still allowed to be cared about. oh, hhj. i want to beat him up but more than that i want to hug him.)

and then there’s hyj jr. oh, junior, you’re a delight. i love the concept of a yoojin who’s never had the trauma of being left behind by yoohyun, who’s gotten to flourish and become everything he has the potential to be, fighting at yoohyun’s side and being amazing. it’s too bad the method i chose to achieve this through also left our prodigal son with extreme issues.

(FAIR WARNING: THIS PART WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR LATER PARTS OF YWBK VIS A VIS SOME CHARACTER DECISIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS. mostly since hyj’s time to shine hasn’t come through quite yet, so we don’t have as much of him)

so our boy junior may not have the various traumas induced by pre-regression, but he does start off with the same parental neglect that makes him hesitant to rely on seniors. and when his parents die, it’s about a week or so before hhj shows up, which junior spends realizing that he’s really going to have to give up his life and completely dedicate himself to guardianship, huh? and then hhj appears, and rips that role out from under him-- not just the “head of the family” role, even the “primary guardian of yoohyun” role. because yoohyun trusts him instinctively, and looks to him with just as much respect as hyj jr. junior becomes desperate to regain that role he’s lived all his life, in whatever form he can, resulting in the chapter 11 blowup. and past me already covered this:

as for junior, he's suddenly gained a new brother out of nowhere who is demonstrably bad at taking care of himself; on top of that, the "head of house + reliable caretaker" role junior's played almost all his life has been stolen out from under his nose without his realizing, and he's not really been able to adjust to suddenly being made to depend on yoojin (and, to a degree, jiyeon). yeah it helps a bit that yoojin's his elder self but even so. so he's attempting to re-assert himself in the role he's familiar with, particularly now that he's due to [go to mandatory service and] not see any of these people for months

he’s trying to figure out where he fits in this new family setup, trying to figure out what he can do for his family. and he would’ve started out on a track similar to hhj, trying to be everything for his family, except then the dungeons start appearing.

and what does hhj reveal? that hyj jr is destined to be an f-rank. that most of the useful skills hhj has, the hard-won power that he has, it’s all earned from other places that hyj jr won’t be able to replicate, most likely. and hyh-- hyh is going to be the pride of the family, as always. s-rank, top of the nation, worldwide hero, peerless and amazing.

hyj jr starts feeling like he’s falling behind. he starts feeling a lot of pressure to keep up. as the dungeon shock hits, he decides he’s going to keep up, one way or another.

and then there’s the aftermath of the shock, and all hyj jr can do is- is sit in the hospital room and wait for hhj to be okay. there’s monsters on the streets, yoohyun is out there killing them and making a difference, and all hyj jr is doing is sitting around. all he can do is offer yoohyun emotional support when he gets back, all he can do is keep jiyeon sane when she calls for daily checkins, all he can do is wait for the nurses to check that hhj is still alive. all he can do is support the people around him without actually acting out himself.

all that determination he had during the shock doesn’t get killed by the realization that he can’t actually do much, with his strengths; by the realization that he can’t be a one-man army like hyung is, sometimes. he decides, instead, that he’s got his handful of things he can do, so obviously the only path left is to do them perfectly.

he throws himself into learning to fight; he throws himself into playing support whenever possible (though allowances are made for being bratty, sometimes, the remaining anxiety from the aftermath of the shock leading to him acting out); he throws himself into working for haeyeon, to the point of becoming the deputy guild leader. he throws himself into perfection so hard that he takes the slightest failure to meet his sky-high expectations hard. (”Why can’t i fight high-ranks without being afraid like hyung can,” says local E-rank without his hyung’s L-rank Fear Resistance) because he only needs to be good at these few things, he can’t do anything other than these few things, so why can’t he at least do this perfect, y’know? why can’t he keep up with his family? why is he never good enough?

(what if he gets left behind again for not being good the way they want him to be? he’d only wanted to take care of yoohyun, and look where that got them.)

so basically, hyj jr winds up with the same Need To Be Enough that hhj has-- but where hhj needs to be able to do Everything, hyj jr needs to be able to do Perfectly at his (self-assigned) Roles. where hhj wants to do whatever he decides needs doing, hyj jr has no illusions about his abilities; he knows he can only be the supportive brother, the hard-working guild leader, the caring friend, the perfect whatever. everything else is something he won’t dare to try for, because he Knows he’ll never be enough. and if he ever fails even slightly at the things he can do, it’s an instant game over, anyway.

congrats, junior, you’ve given yourself clinical anxiety!

but yeah, that’s. yoojins.

#star.txt #hyj let me study you [hand emojis] #my first exam is tomorrow and yet i wrote an essay for an hour and a half. time to do statistics now #i don't claim to be good at character meta. but i will still write it. #ugh i guess i should tag this with the fandom tags #han yoojin #my sranks #work: yesterday will be kinder

[randomingoftherandomness]

Hi, I’m sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering about your distaste for S*a*g C*i. I’m not very familiar with the comics or the characters. Your post caught my attention because I try to be knowledgeable about the media I consume, especially coming from Marvel/Disney(being Jewish Rromani, I’ll never forgive them for what they did to Wanda). I tried googling information about it but couldn’t find much. I was just curious if your post had a deeper meaning or if it simply isn’t to your taste. Obviously feel free to ignore this if you don’t feel like getting into it or don’t want to answer.

Hi! First up, thanks for taking the chance to ask and being willing to listen. I appreciate that a lot.

I am going to preface this by saying that I am part of the Chinese diaspora. I have never read the comics in full but I have seen enough to formulate my own thoughts. All my opinions made here are my own and I’m not looking to debate or be persuaded or to shift my point of view. I have my mind about these things and you have yours. I do urge you to keep opening avenues of discussions as I should not be the only person being asked.

Also, heads up, I will block any sort of argumentative bs-ery.

SC is obviously made with the perspective of the Asian American lens in mind and I have seen it been pointed out that it isn’t meant to be ‘representative’ but let’s be real here. How many people in the tag have already been hyping it up as Asian rep and stuff? I’m just saying. I just want to say that the experiences of Asian Americans do not reflect those of the diaspora. Yes, we can relate to a certain extent, but to generalise and distill all experiences of all members of the diaspora into that of Asian Americans is unacceptable.

My issues with SC (not gonna bother with spelling the name out and we are going into the whys) are as follows:

I would recommend starting out by reading this article on cbr.com that goes a little further into detail on the history of the character

The tl;dr is this; SC started out as an insensitive East Asian stereotype character created to capitalise on the 1970s fervour for anything Kung Fu. Sure, Marvel has done their best to retcon some of the less stellar parts of his origins, but the funniest thing is (legend. big bro. uncle Tony) Tong Leung, a renown Hong Kong actor has been casted as The Mandarin while Simu Liu, a Canadian Chinese actor, was casted as SC. Make of that what you will.

Okay deadass I’m not saying Simu Liu won’t do a good job because at this point all we have to work on is a teaser trailer but I’m all saying that is, was Arthur Chen Feiyu not available or something?? Idk. He didn’t pick up the phone?? Did Marvel even ask?? This is nonsensical salt and I digress

Then there’s the name. What kinda hell name is S**** C**??? This is some Cho Chang level bullshit. Yeah, sure we can say, oh they just want to make sure the branding is right. Ok. This coming from the studio that amalgamated the characterisations of Ned Leeds and Ganke Lee. Sure, Jan.

Full disclosure, I did like some of the vibes given out by the teaser. There were some very wuxia and xianxia inspired shots and scenes and if I do watch, I’ll be very keen on these bits. Awkwafina already looks like she is set to be etched deep into my heart and Uncle Tony looks to be gearing up to kick this out of the park because goddamn he looks good in that armour. Haven’t seen Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh’s character, but I’m sure she will be kicking ass and taking names for sure too because I am very sure veterans like her and Uncle Tony will look good doing wire works. But this isn’t a movie about them, is it? It’s about SC and right now with this teaser trailer, nothing about SC makes me want to froth at the mouth to watch.

Yes, I am saying that that subway scene does not impress me. We live in a world with stunt teams from China can work on a peanut budget to make conversations flow in a fight scene. Do better.

Again, I am very aware that this teaser is to hype people up. I know. I am still waiting for the proper first trailer to drop. I have actually deliberately kept myself oblivious to the production of this movie so as to not give myself any sort of preconceived notions. When that first trailer drops, then I will formulate my thoughts again.

Okay, I know it’s a teaser but some of the cgi just looks... very uncanny valley? It looks unfinished, is what I am getting at here. For a mega conglomerate verging on industry monopoly, even a teaser trailer should look 1000% better than this. Every beat of this should be flawless. It should look on par with the trailer. People who follow will know that I won’t ever fault a product because of shitty cgi (re: Word of Honor) but when you are the people behind the Live Adaptation of Mulan (which I hate) and Raya and the Last Dragon (which I categorically DETEST because that shit is bullshit mishmash of SEA cultures with fucking made up words being painted as *representation* and that is some fucking bullshit and as someone from SEA I’m sorry Queen Kelly Marie Tran BUT NO) I will hold you to the fucking standards of the high heavens as the House of the Devil Mouse deserves. Do fucking better.

I am not clairvoyant but I can already see how it is going to go when this movie doesn’t “do as well as expected” in Asia; you’ll hear people going on about how the Asian Asians don’t support these types of stories, how we don’t put effort into hyping movies and shows that push for representation. But can I ask whose representation are we talking about? I saw it with Crazy Rich Asians and Mulan, I saw it with Raya. Whose rep are we talking about? If someone out there, some little child sees themselves in these media products, sure, great! Empower these next generation for the push for a better hope. But whose rep are we pushing for? Because I definitely do not see myself in the Asian American lens of representation and I’m very sure I won’t ever and I know that I am not alone in this.

Hollywood needs to do better. To borrow the words of a friend, excusing mediocrity for ‘cultural appreciation’ is no good.

This rant has gotten long enough and I’m so sorry to everyone seeing this on your dash. I have a lot of salt today.

#gab rants #I’m typing this out in my phone I’m so sorry

[grayintogreen]

In all my Lucien chatter, I feel like I have to answer a certain question:

Do I Find Lucien A Sympathetic Character?

Short Answer: No.

Mid-Length Answer: No, but he’s a compelling, tragic one, and those two things are VERY different. You can be a tragic character and a compelling one without being sympathetic.

Long answer: Hoo boy.

Here’s the thing. Everyone has a choice to not be a dick. If the world is a dick to you, you don’t have to be a dick back to it. If you get broken and pushed around and treated like shit and every attempt to reclaim agency just leads you into YET ANOTHER THING that makes people kick and spit at you, you can continue to yeet yourself at the world and overcome it. You do not have to suck the first eldritch monstrosity that offers you powers’ dick and become a massive toolbox to do it. Doing that makes you a bad person. It does not make you sympathetic. It makes you a person who makes bad choices when they could have definitely made other ones. It makes your circumstances deeply tragic. 

That being said, I have made this joke once before and I will make it again- Molly is kind of like Lucien’s Tyler Durden. He is free in all of the ways that Lucien is not. Free of the Somnovem, free of his past, free of the anger that’s colored his attitude for years, free of literally EVERYTHING but the thrill of just doing what you please. Molly once said “joy can fill an awful lot of a person’s life.” Well, so can hate. That’s what makes Lucien genuinely tragic (and viscerally human)- he doesn’t have to be sympathetic. I do not feel the least bit bad for his schmuck ass, but I do feel like he’s a tragic villain, who clearly can only be truly happy and at peace with himself and the world when he has nothing else in his head. Molly and Lucien are the same person and I stand by this, but Molly is a fresh start and a clean slate that Lucien is too much of a hopped up arrogant pissy bitch with a god complex to ever consider on his own. He doesn’t think he should give the world a pass on what it did to him by taking a different path, and he won’t. Not unless he has some kind of epiphany about what it was like to be Molly and how liberating and freeing that is, but since the Nonagon is more present within Lucien than Molly, that won’t happen.

That’s the thing. Lucien is the middle ground between “Molly” and “Nonagon.” Molly is the potential to make better choices and the Nonagon is the guy going BURN THE ENTIRE HOUSE DOWN WHOO LET’S GET WEIRD (like a shoulder angel/devil combo except the angel is doing heroin and planning bacchanals), and guess who is making all the calls right now? Hint: it’s the crazy one. Part of me is still holding out for the parts of him that are Molly to wrest back control, but I’m also pretty sure Lucien is gonna eat the Star Razer before that becomes even remotely likely, and you know what? That’s fair. I respect that.

But on the off chance that Lucien is allowed the opportunity to dial it back and we get to see what he’s like without the Nonagon bullshit (probably still a dick, but so was Molly more than half the time, if not a mostly harmless one), he’s still not going to be a sympathetic character to me. I don’t find Essek to be a sympathetic character either (an adorable, affection-starved idiot, yes, but he’s got his poor little rich boy schtick going on and that’s a whole other thing), but I love him!! You don’t have to be sympathetic to be a good, compelling character and worth a redemption arc. You just have to have the capacity to change and the desire to do it. 

But as of right now, Lucien/Nonagon just wants to see the world get rekt, so he’s a bastard man and I am only sad that he’s too much of an idiot to realize that he definitely had options and that’s one of the myriad reasons I love him. He’s garbage. It’s delightful. Compelling characters that are just awful and have reasons to be awful (even if it doesn’t justify being awful, because NOTHING justifies being awful) are fun to me, because even if you think they’re actual children, you can still see how they got there. In many ways, that makes the monsters scarier- you can see how easily you can become them.

And on the converse, it makes the monsters less scary because you can see how easy it is to turn them to your side with the right attitude (see: Essek). The Mighty Nein (or at least Jester) kinda tried to do that for Lucien? But he rejected it and doubled down on his bullshit, which... I mean fair. I don’t think they gave him the fair shake they gave Essek, but Lucien sure as FUCK didn’t deserve it, and I don’t feel bad for him about that either.

Anyway. Tl;dr I love Lucien to itty bitty pieces. He’s my favorite NPC (followed closely by Essek and Artagan, who are also flash bastards). But he is a shitheel bastard and deserves whatever is coming to him, and if he does get a redemption arc, it’ll only be because the Molly side of him got admin control, which, again, PROBABLY NOT GONNA HAPPEN. I’ve made my peace with that. 

#critical role #look i just love rat bastards a lot #lucien #lucien the nonagon

[makeste]

checking in with Tomura, Deku, AFO, and their drunk AF quirks

yeah lol it is pretty confusing ngl. so anyway my theory on this is a little hard to explain without going a bit in depth, so let me try to break it down. first, the basics:

AFO and OFA are the same quirk. OFA is just a xerox copy of AFO, in the same way that the current AFO is making do with a xerox copy of the original AFO quirk which Tomura now has. we already know that quirks can be duplicated; it’s just that in OFA’s case, duplicating the quirk was an accident on AFO’s part and not intentional. it’s very similar to how Harry was accidentally turned into a horcrux by Voldemort in HP, but more on this here; for the time being let’s move on with the rest of this post.

as explained in chapter 213, OFA’s previous users are NOT in fact just “vestiges” (although I will keep calling them that for simplicity’s sake lol). Deku says it’s much more than that, and that the previous users “are somehow alive in One for All.”

we’ve also seen other indicators that the vestiges are more than just mere shadows/echoes of their former selves. they have sentience and can think independently and even make decisions; they’re not just subject to Deku’s own will. see: the end of Heroes Rising, as well as chapters 193, 213, and 272.

I personally interpret this to mean that the vestiges are actually little pieces of the former user’s souls, who stayed behind in the quirk in order to help guide future users until their mission is finally over. and yeah, I know that sounds a little hokey and ~*~mystical~*~ and the like, but you know what, OFA is just that type of quirk though. like, you don’t have to use the word “souls” if you like -- you can go with “consciousnesses” or “wills” or whatnot instead; whatever suits you -- but the point is just that they’re much, much more than just the lingering resolve of the past users. there’s a lot more going on there.

so now, getting back to the part where I believe that OFA is actually just AFO 2.0, we can start extrapolating some things about the “vestige” that’s currently inside Tomura based on what we know about the vestiges inside Deku. if the same things hold true for the AFO-vestige as the other vestiges, that would mean that the AFO-vestige:

is sentient

has a will of his own

is capable of exercising some measure of control over the quirk, the extent of which is currently unknown

all of which is already cause for concern! BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

because if what Ujiko says about the nature of Tomura’s quirk is true, AFO-vestige... actually might not be a “vestige” at all.

“he took a duplicate of his quirk for himself... and gave the original to Shigaraki Tomura.”

in other words, AFO xeroxed his quirk, had Ujiko inject the dupli-AFO back into him, and then had the original AFO quirk transferred into Tomura. Ujiko is very clear on this point. Tomura has the original, NOT the duplicate.

so what the hell does that mean? well, if we ride this train of logic all the way till the end of the tracks, then what it would mean, as crazy as it sounds, is that AFO transferred his soul into Tomura. and kept only a little, tiny horcrux piece for his own self, in his own debilitated shell of a body.

which sounds crazy! because it is crazy. but (1) quirks are fucking wild, and (2) AFO/OFA is already the wackiest of the wacky as it is. so it’s also kind of a “this might as well happen” thing, imo. like, I can only speak for myself here, but I personally am 100% capable of suspending my disbelief, because it’s consistent with what we’ve seen of the quirk up till this point. the AFO-vestige even looks like the other vestiges; Tomura points out that he “looks like Kurogiri”, which is consistent with the other vestiges’ appearances when we first saw them way back in chapter 31.

and Tomura can hear AFO-vestige in his head in the same way that Deku could hear Lil Bro earlier in this arc.

oh and by the way, now might also be a good time to point out that AFO-vestige also seems to be able to detect his fellow vestige’s presence inside of Deku...

...just like AFO Prime can do.

that has nothing to do with anything; it’s just a fun, creepy fact I felt like throwing out there to remind everyone just how fucking unsettling this all is lmao.

so now I’m almost ready to answer your question, anon, but before I do, one last piece of the puzzle here. you see, I think that the original plan was for AFO to transfer his “soul” into Tomura’s body and take him over completely. we’ve already seen him try to take him over once, so I think this particular theory has some solid ground underneath it.

unfortunately for AFO however, and fortunately for everyone else (including Tomura), things didn’t go 100% according to plan. in fact they only went a very specific % according to plan as it turns out:

so if my thinking on this is correct, what this means among other things is that the AFO-vestige inside Tomura is not the full AFO-soul as intended, but instead only a 75%-AFO-soul. the other 25% got shattered into oblivion by Mirko and Present Mic I guess. and so AFO’s plan to transfer himself into Tomura’s body and emerge fully restored and more powerful than ever has backfired on him, because while he would like to have full control over Tomura, I think we have seen pretty clearly that he does not. Nana’s grandson doesn’t intend to play by his rules. and while I do think that Tomura is still underestimating just how much danger he himself is actually in here -- right now he’s confident that he’s shrugged off his old Sensei’s influence and has gotten rid of it, which I don’t think is actually the case at all -- I think we can already see the cracks starting to form in AFO’s plan, though the full extent of the damage remains to be seen.

anyway! so now getting back to your original question, anon, let me break it down piece by piece:

What do you think happened to AFO after Tomura rejected his vestige? - I think he pretended to go away and is currently just watching to see how Tomura handles this, and will step in again if he feels it’s necessary, or once he has gathered a bit more of his strength (he did only just hatch from his test tube like fifteen minutes ago, so he’s probably still working on that).

Do you think that the AFO vestige is just a copy of his mind, or the transferred consciousness? - I think it’s the transferred consciousness/soul, but only 75% of it.

If it is the former than I’m surprised that he went for it. If it is the later did he temporarily leave his body only to be ejected out of Tomura? - I think they duplicated the quirk first, so original!janky!AFO had two AFO-quirks inside his body, the original and the duplicate. then he transferred the original-AFO (and his soul) to Ujiko, or to an external quirk hard drive, or whatever, leaving only the dupli-AFO quirk -- and the horcrux!soul -- inside his original body. so the AFO we’ve been seeing for the majority of this time has only been a feeble little horcrux version of his former self all along. meanwhile the bulk of his soul has just been chilling inside some hard drive somewhere until Tomura finally transferred it to Tomura’s body. quirks. are. wild.

but here’s the key thing here -- Tomura only thinks he rejected the vestige. but I don’t think he can actually get rid of it unless he gets rid of the entire quirk. it’s a whole package deal. so that means that in reality, vestige!AFO -- who is actually real!AFO lulz -- is just chilling out inside Tomura’s body still, biding his time until opportunity presents itself once again.

tl;dr (1) vestige!AFO is actually real!AFO, (2) real!AFO is still inside Tomura and is fine, (3) janky!AFO’s body is currently housing the actual vestige!AFO and is probably laughing it up in Tartarus watching this all go down via his weird psychic connection to his discarded soul, and (4) Tomura is really deep in the shit and doesn’t even know it yet sob.

oh and also, I’m pretty sure that last part also applies to Deku, who if my calculations are correct also has a piece of AFO’s soul inside of him, because this manga is fucking crazeballs and this shit wasn’t already complicated enough somehow I guess. after all, Deku can sense AFO’s soul and AFO’s soul can sense him. just a whole lotta soul-sensing going on, back and forth. so yeah. I guess we’ll see about that.

anyway! and just for the record I’m loving this all and can’t wait to see how it plays out. also, another unrelated side note, chapter 284 should be out early because Jump is coming out early this week. so it’s likely there will be spoiler leaks released in just a few hours’ time, and the chapter itself will probably come out on Thursday or possibly earlier. so maybe we’ll see some of this either confirmed or disproved even sooner than we think. for all I know this post may only have a few hours to live lmao oh well.

#one for all #all for one #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha meta #bnha theory #all for one for all #horcrux!deku #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #bnha 283 #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks

[twilightprince101]

The Train, Purple Lightning and “Fate”: An Infinity Train Theory

NOTE: This contains HEAVY SPOILERS for all of Infinity Train! Putting this under a read more, but tl;dr, I think the train has a way of predicting when things will happen-but not entirely be correct.

I was going back and rewatching Infinity Train Book 1 (Mainly bc I love the show and wanted to relive it) when I noticed something interesting. At the end of episode 9, when Tulip decides to fight and is racing to the Engine, we get a glimpse of the sky and see hints of purple lightning

Which was pretty cool as an effect, but then I remembered something: I’ve seen this lightning before. And if you’ve just watched the Book 3 finale, I’m sure you know what I’m referring to.

But it wasn’t just here either, it was also in another scene with Simon earlier. The one where he shifts from “okay he’s a shit but kinda ok” to “motherfucker unlimited.”

After thinking about it for a little bit, I went to Book 2 to look around, and sure enough, the lightning was there too

I’m going to reiterate: I’m rewatching all of Infinity Train, and the purple lightning throughout the entire series only appears this prominently during these scenes.  (May I reiterate: this prominently. I am aware that it can be seen in a brief flash in the very first episode when that random passenger gets sucked into the vortex, but it’s barely as noticeable as these three instances)

At first I thought the lightning was just a cool effect to reiterate the tension and weight of these dramatic scenes, and to be honest it very well could be. However all of these scenes where the lightning appears have something in common.

They all take place during times of great change not just for these characters, but for the entire train and its system as a whole.

Let me break it down and explain it one at a time.

Season 1: The lightning appears as Tulip is taking a stand against Amelia and her reign as Conductor, resolving to overthrow her and save Atticus.

This one is relatively simple, all things considered. Amelia has reigned as Conductor for 33 years (as noted by OneOne in the documentary shorts), and now that Tulip is going to fight back and bring OneOne back to the engine, her reign is soon going to end and things are going to go back to normal

Season 3: Simon, after committing so many atrocities, gets his number up so high that it has nowhere left to go on his body, giving him the highest number in existence.

(I’m doing season 3 before season 2 bc it’s shorter and relatively simpler than its big brother, you’ll understand soon)

As twisted as the train may be, we all know that its base premise is that it helps those it deems as needing help, teleporting them onto the train so they can sort out their problems. But as we’ve seen with Amelia and The Apex, they don’t technically have to. Aside from the threat of being stuck on the train forever, there’s nothing stopping them from fucking about and ignoring their problems.

Throughout Season 3, the Apex assumes that because they are destroying the cars, OneOne is trying to fight against them and put them back on track. However, as Amelia clarifies, he doesn’t even know that they exist.

Despite the fact that their numbers have been climbing in the complete opposite direction, the train hasn’t logged them down as anomalies or glitches in the system, they’re still considered normal passengers. It could be assumed that, like Grace and Amelia, they’ll all eventually come around and get the numbers to zero.

But then of course... Simon happens.

Considering our limited view of the train and its history, we don’t know if the numbers really can go higher or if other passengers have done the same thing in the past. However if he is the first, the fact that Simon’s number literally had nowhere else to go, reaching the highest possible limit, this goes against the train’s whole philosophy of “helping people.” There is now a clear flaw in the system that can no longer be ignored.

(As for the other instance with Simon, we’ll get back to that)

Season 2: Mirror Tulip (AKA M.T. (AKA Lake)) and Alan Dracula are waiting for one of the passenger pods so they can hijack one and get a number to get off the train

From what we’ve seen of the train and how it works, it seems clear that everything is made to revolve around the passengers. The cars are made to help people realize stuff about themselves, the numbers are made to represent their own personal growth and the denizens are made to assist them throughout their journey.

But that’s the thing: These denizens are made by the train. Every car that is created, the denizens are created alongside it. They are literally made to be the NPCs of the whole system and are made to assist passengers. OneOne even says so in the final episode of Book 2.

“Your passenger.” Not “Your friend” or “That one guy,” he specifically says “Your passenger.” Somehow, despite already helping Tulip with her problems, MT was assigned to Jesse.

And we’ve even seen this in other circumstances too! Tulip had Atticus to help her with a bunch of her stuff, and Grace had Hazel to make her realize that “Nulls” were people too. If they weren’t there, they wouldn’t have gone through their whole character arcs and back!

(As for how MT got assigned to Jesse despite already having “served her purpose” for Tulip, we’ll get back on that later).

But back to the point: The Denizens are created for the passengers by the train itself. So its whole deal with helping people grow and giving them an exit? That’s a luxury only reserved for passengers. It doesn’t see the denizens as “real people.” 

So Jesse refusing to leave MT behind, returning to the train so he can get his friend back? The train literally cannot fathom this turn of events and literally begins to break down.

It’s only through MT outsmarting the entire system and resolving OneOne’s broken logic loop that she’s able to escape, leaving the train for good.

But the fact that she’s even able to get off is crazy in of itself! We may not know how long the train has been around for, but the fact that the train began to broke down at MT wanting to leave means that this has to have been the first time this happened. And now that it’s shown that it can be possible for one denizen to leave the train, that opens the door for every single other denizen on the train! If they can “get a number,” they can leave the train.

Not to mention, Lake’s presence in the human world now gives people concrete proof that the train exists. If the train has existed for as long as humans have been alive, then that means there has to have been some rumors about it. And now, with a living girl made of chrome walking around (and a girl without a reflection), it is impossible to blow off those rumors anymore. The train is real.

So what does all this mean then?

The purple lightning (bet you already forgot about it now, eh?), throughout the series, has only showed up during these moments.  Tulip brought back OneOne, MT proved that denizens can leave the train, Simon proved that some passengers cannot be redeemed.  All three of these instances were points of great change in the train’s system, that will drastically alter things to come.

But why does the lightning only show up here? Is it that the train’s world can somehow sense when big things are going to happen? Or is it something deeper, like it can tell the future, and that’s how the passengers get “assigned” denizens? Well... I think it’s kind of a more complex system than that.

It’s painstakingly clear by now that the train is extremely flawed with the way it does things. Nothing is stopping passengers from staying on the train forever, it can whisk away people that are probably no more than 7 who are still developing as people, it’s possible for passengers to never change and make their numbers reach infinity, it doesn’t account for all the trauma that the train itself can leave on the passengers after they leave, it cannot fathom denizens wanting to get off the train and passengers wanting to help those denizens getting off the train and, in the case with Amelia, it’s possible for anyone to overthrow OneOne and take over as Conductor of the train.

However, I think these flaws show something very important. The train itself isn’t some sort of balevolent god that wants to help people become better, nor is it a malevolent one that wants to wreak havoc. It’s a giant machine.

Each car is made from different orbs, programmed by the Conductor (whoever that may be) to be whatever they like. The train’s helpers are all machines. The entire system itself runs on code. Very outdated code.

This is how I think different denizens are “assigned” to the passengers. I don’t think the train itself can see the future, but it can make predictions based on pre-existing data. Whatever passenger gets whisked to the train, they have their entire history and internal angst calculated and carefully analyzed. After running through their problems, the train can figure out exactly what that person needs in order to grow.

In the case of MT being Jesse’s “assigned Denizen,” while also technically being Tulip’s, here’s how I think it went down: After MT left to go her own path, the train kept her in mind as she went about her business, reassigning her to be someone that can help passengers grow. When Jesse got onto the train, it assigned MT to him and sent him in her general direction in his pod.

As for why exactly he didn’t get dropped off in the same car as MT, Jesse needed a bit of time to adjust and had to befriend Alan Dracula while MT wasn’t there. So when MT was asleep, the train moved the car Jesse was in right before the “Family Tree” car and let the rest of its predictions run its course. We do know its possible for the train to move around cars after all, with passengers on it.

But just because the train is good at predictions, it doesn’t mean they’ll always be 100% accurate. Remember: the train runs on very flawed logic. It isn’t always correct with how the passengers will act (Again, see Amelia and the Apex). So bringing this back around to the purple lightning, I think we found our answer.

The purple lightning represents moments when different aspects of the train completely fly off from their “intended course.” 

The train likely wasn’t thinking that Tulip could be its savior, especially with Amelia as the conductor. It likely thought that, as soon as her exit appeared she’d leave for good. But instead, she stuck around and went to save her friend. Tulip stuck around longer than predicted.

The train doesn’t see its denizens as actual people, thinking that as soon as passengers resolve their problems they’ll leave without a second thought. So MT going off on her own to get a number, along with Jesse coming back for her, both of them defied what the train thought was possible.

Then Simon. Simon, Simon, Simon. Out of everything the train could have predicted, it couldn’t have predicted him. 

The first time he broke from the train’s “intended course” was when he killed Tuba. We already know that Hazel was likely Grace’s denizen, since she was the reason that her whole view on the denizens had changed. But I think Tuba was meant to be Simon’s denizen (at least, his second one since The Cat abandoned him). With how helpful she was in The Colored Clock car, helping him escape and being the key to leaving the car, she was likely going to be Simon’s ticket to learning to trust “nulls” again. 

But then... yeah.

The second time he broke was after his fight with Grace. Despite abandoning her, betraying her, trying to kill her several times, Grace still saved him when he was about to fall. The train likely predicted here that Simon would see the err of his ways, pull an Amelia and go on the path of redemption.

But then...... yeah.

The third-and final time-was when he got what he wanted and got the number to end all numbers, likely bigger than the entire train expected. He had gone so far down the rabbit hole that there was nowhere else to go. Every chance he got to become a better person, he rejected. Simon himself is definitive proof that the train’s prediction system is flawed.

Each of these big moments reflects a gigantic flaw in the train’s system. It doesn’t expect these passengers to do the things they do, go off course from their intended destination. Like I said, the system relies on very outdated code. But now, having each of these situations be resolved, it knows how to deal with these issues going forward. A passenger can leave however they want, anyone can leave if they have a number, and most importantly, its prediction system needs fixing if it wants to keep helping passengers.

The train itself is a very, very strange beast. It’s kind and cruel all at once. But at the end of the day, it’s just a big computer doing its purpose. But this computer is old, outdated, extremely touchy. Each time these offshoots happen, it gives the chance for that code to be rewritten. And it’s very likely that it’s going to commit to these changes. For if it doesn’t... well... 

Let’s just say a lot more sand is gonna be added to this desert.

#infinity train #cartoon network #infinity train spoilers #IT spoilers #infinity train tulip #infinity train mirror tulip #infinity train lake #infinity train jesse #infinity train Amelia #infinity train tuba #infinity train atticus #infinity train oneone #infinity train one one #infinity train grace #infinity train simon #infinity train hazel #infinity train the apex #infinity train the cat #IT simon #IT jesse #IT tulip #IT lake #IT mirror tulip #IT MT #Infinity train MT #IT atticus #IT oneone #IT one one #infinity train book 1 #infinity train book 2

[florencesmachine]

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Why tumblr user donottearmedown/luciequeenofelfame/luciehvrondaie is an embarrassment: a Masterpost

Hi if you’re here it’s because you’ve heard that tumblr user donottearmedown is an embarrassment and you’d like to know all the details! Let me break it down. It all started with this post by @minacarstairs (Tessa (yes @minacarstairs’s name is Tessa sorry if that makes this post confusing)), in which donottearmedown originally reached out to Tessa by sending her something along the lines of “Do you ship heronstairs/herongraystairs?” And Tessa replied with something along the lines of “Yeah lmao herongraystairs rights!”

(I wanna note that Tessa was being very polite, and continues to be very polite to people who disagree with her opinions on heronstairs/herongraystairs. She even began her original conversation with dont tear me down by saying it’s a matter of personal interpretation :) it’s donottearmedown who made the conversation mean-spirited)

(Also Tessa pls correct next if I’m wrong on any of this thnx)

And then sometime later, the conversation above ensues in which donottearmedown, seemingly perfectly reasonable at first, disagrees with the ship and offers a link to look at. (She throws this link around any chance she gets. She really fucking loves this link.) I got involved because in her answer, Tessa replies back with a link from a post I made from my own blog starting back in 2018, and then continued to add to it until my account got terminated (long story). You can read through both posts and check out all the replies! But basically we realized during this interaction that donottearmedown wasn’t looking to have a friendly conversation and was, in fact, batshit crazy. They were saying some absolute brain dead shit like that people shipping heronstairs is the same as people shipping Alec x Clary. Here’s the screenshot:

donottearmedown came back the next day to reply on several of Tessa and mine’s post which she wasn’t even tagged in, such as this one, and this one that had absolutely nothing to do with her because I make that same post every year. Here’s a screenshot from my old account last year via Instagram:

(there are more posts she replied to but I can’t be bothered to look for them, I’m sure you can find them on their blog if you can spare the braincells)

Racism by donottearmedown:

So, Tessa received this anon which tipped us off to some of the other tomfoolery on donottearmedown’s blog. We decided to look for ourselves and lo and behold, here’s the post of donottearmedown accusing Cassandra Clare of having a “Chinese kink” for writing Jessa:

Which, first of all, makes no sense because there’s like 2 Chinese characters in TSC total. If anything CC has a straight white boy kink lmao. But by saying this she was basically implying that the ONLY way Tessa (book!Tessa), or anybody who loves Jem, can love him is if they have a “Chinese kink”. Which donottearmedown can’t seem to be able to understand is an incredibly racist thing to say and think.

They also reblogged this BLM link and proceeded to tag it with absolute nonsense like “#smoke weed #lose weight #wessa”. I don’t know if her intentions were to mock the BLM movement but I still found this to be so incredibly disrespectful and tone deaf.

I also feel like I should mention this ask sent to Tessa in which donottearmedown implies she ~could be~ Asian, but it’s “none of her business anyways” (as if being Asian would absolve anyone of being racist akjsksjsj), but based on the fact that she has a track record of lying and pretending to be a person she’s not (as you will soon see :)) I call bullshit lmao:

I think that was the last of our interactions until today? Tessa and I were distracted because we have, you know, real lives.

But anyway, that brings us to today.

donottearmedown started replying to posts from mine and Tessa’s blogs which she wasn’t tagged in, again, and made several days ago. This one literally wasn’t even about her, it was about someone else that had engaged with one of Tessa’s posts. I made that post over a week ago and had already forgotten about it, but clearly donottearmedown never stops thinking about us 😳

NOW I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THIS POST SPECIFICALLY.

Why? Because donottearmedown and luciequeenofelfame (now luciehervndaie) interacted on this post, as 2 seperate entities. luciequeenofelfame had also interacted with Tessa and I’s original posts at the beginning of June (you can check the replies on the posts!) coming to donottearmedown’s defense, and praising her for her opinions and other shit like that.

Here’s the screenshot. As you can see here, luciehervndaie reblogs from donottearmedown and adds on to their opinion:

Now here’s the kicker: donottearmedown and luciehervndaie are the same person.

As in, this bitch literally made up a second blog so that she can pretend to be someone else agreeing with her own opinions and cheering herself on.

Here’s the proof:

I made this post calling out donottearmedown on their racism. I didn’t bother tagging her in the original post because I knew she was stalking my blog and would see it eventually anyway. 😌 And they took the bait, as you can see.

AND THEN I got the notification that luciequeenofelfame had replied to my post. Here’s the reply:

Now here’s where donottearmedown/luciequeenofelfame made an oopsie! 😳

Notice where luciequeenofelfame says “1. I didn’t delete it lmao”. She’s responding to my tags on this post where I’m calling out donottearmedown on her racist post, and my tags read:

“#the fact you went and deleted this post because you KNEW you were about to get slammed #comedy”

(context: @wilhelminacarstairs looked on donottearmedown’s blog recently looking for the post I screenshotted in the link above, and he couldn’t find it so I assumed she deleted it so that I wouldn’t call her out on it. Although she claims she didn’t delete it, so! Maybe it’s still up! Feel free to look for it and let me know lmao)

Now, in the tags I am obviously talking to donottearmedown, correct? So then why is luciequeenofelfame replying that she didn’t delete anything? 🤔 AND JUST AS IM ABOUT TO REPLY-

Wow, looks like I can’t reblog the post. Why? Because luciequeenofelfame has deleted it, and then IMMEDITALY changed her url to luciehvrondaie, hoping it would cover her tracks. Little does she know, tumblr notifications are forever:

As you can see, donottearmedown/luciequeenofelfame/luciehervndaie realized they made an oopsie, so she deleted her first response and posted it again from the blog she actually MEANT to post it from. Damn if only she knew that @minacarstairs @wilhelminacarstairs and I keep screenshots of e v e r y t h i n g :/ Then she might have gotten away with it! 😩

But yeah lmao here are the posts I made about it immeditaly afterwards calling her out on it because I thought it was funny: X X X X

She defends herself on some of them saying shit like “wow so I’m just making up blogs for support wessa? The majority of the fandom supports Wessa so I’m all of those blogs according to you? I’m thousands of people?!” Or just trying to change the topic back to heronstairs and ignoring the allegations altogether. Like, no luv we’re not saying you’re every single Wessa blog ever. We’re just saying you’re these 2, and we’re right lmao. If you look through both their blogs they also post about the same fandoms, and more damning, make a lot of the same spelling errors. Seriously their speech pattern is exactly the same. Feel free to look through them if you want, and if they don’t start mass-deleting post trying to cover their tracks.

BONUS:

I don’t know how true this is, but according to @fair-but-wilde-child on this ask, donottearmedown is ALSO the infamous twitter stan that complained to CC about TLH having too many gay characters.

EXTRA BONUS:

luciequeenofelfame/luciehvrondaie (donottearmedown’s second account 😌) is the account responsible for that wessa vs jessa comparison chart that went around a while ago LMAOOOOOOOO embarrassing

tl;dr: donottearmedown/luciequeenofelfame/luciehvrondaie is a biphobic racist who’s opinions are so bad she has to make a second account to agree with herself

🥺 tragic

Also I wanna say for the record, as @minacarstairs ans @wilhelminacarstairs will testify, I guessed a while ago these accounts were the same person when I noticed their speech patterns were eerily similar, and how luciequeenofelfame always seemed to reply to donottearmedown’s posts IMMEDITATELY after they were posted. 

So the lesson for today? Cinthia is always right. 😤

#WHEW this took a while but here u go #feel free to scroll back through my blog and see the posts #also ive tagged almost everything from these interactions with her url #donottearmedown #replies #bidrewtanaka #long post