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ellionwrites · 5 months

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If Geto and Gojo were so close, why didn't Geto try to convince Gojo to defect with him?

Because Geto knew that Gojo’s support would guarantee his success, but that success would come at the cost of hurting Gojo.

I believe that Geto cared more about protecting Gojo than he cared about building a better world.

Let me explain…

First, let’s talk about why it would’ve made sense for Geto to ask Gojo to join him:

(1) Gojo would’ve been Geto’s most important / most powerful ally

By the time of Geto’s defection, Gojo is already the strongest sorcerer in existence. He and Geto are two of only three special grade sorcerers. Having them both on the same side is essentially an automatic win.

(2) Gojo should’ve been (relatively) easy to persuade

Gojo had already told Geto that he didn't like having to save the weak and didn't care about the moral justifications for it…

…Geto has also seen that Gojo doesn’t always value / protect human life. He was ready to massacre the Time Vessel Association without reason, but ultimately he didn't, because he deferred to Geto's judgement…

…and, most importantly, they are best friends on a DEEP, unparalleled level. Geto is Gojo’s “one and only” best friend.

If Geto was truly dedicated to changing the world order, Gojo should’ve been the first and most important person that he tried to recruit to his insurgency / cult / mission.

BUT

Not only does Geto make zero effort to reach out to / recruit Gojo, he actively avoids him and pushes him away...

- - - - - Keep reading cut - - - - -

After he kills the 112 non-sorcerers, Geto runs into Shoko in Shinjuku. He happily approaches her and willingly answers her questions.

Look at his smiling face in their interactions:

But, when Shoko calls Gojo, Geto leaves before Gojo shows up. Gojo tracks him down anyway and demands an explanation. Geto still doesn’t want to talk about it (“You already heard it.”)

It's strange, right? Geto loves talking about his vision of a better world with everyone else.

Then, there is this confusing progression of dialog:

Geto is hurt/annoyed that Gojo doesn’t believe in him, so he points out that Gojo’s argument against his plan is invalid. The plan is possible (“You could do it”), therefore (according to Gojo’s own logic) it’s not “pointless.”

In a way, Geto is admitting that he knows it would make the most sense for Gojo to join him.

But before Gojo can respond, Geto pivots to saying something extremely hurtful. He's questioning who Gojo is / would be if he wasn't the strongest. Is there really anything more to him? (See more detail in my post here).

Then, in the very next panel Geto turns and starts walking away.

In summary: (1) Geto avoids Gojo, (2) Geto only argues in favor of his plan when Gojo forces/baits him, (3) Upon invalidating Gojo’s opposition to his plan, Geto immediately puts emotional distance between them, (4) Geto then puts physical distance between them.

Why is Geto trying so hard to make sure that Gojo won’t follow him?

Is he just being prideful about doing this on his own? Is he so angry at Gojo's arrogance that he'd jeopardize the success of his life's mission over it?

These arguments aren't in line with Geto's characterization / known motivations (see the end of this post, if you're interested in more on that.)

Geto's main motivation is (a twisted form of) compassion. He wants to end the suffering of sorcerers.

He is a thoughtful, contemplative person, and would've thought about the ramifications of recruiting Gojo.

What are the ramifications?

If Gojo joins the cause, Geto’s plan would succeed, but Gojo would suffer for it.

Like anyone who joins Geto's cult, Gojo would become a pariah / fugitive from Jujutsu society. He’d kill people. He’d kill other sorcerers.

But because Gojo has the singular level of strength/ability to kill non-sorcerers en masse, he would commit the vast majority (or all) of the murder / destruction. The legal, social, and mental impacts would be most severe on Gojo.

(Also, at this point, I think Geto may still question whether he’s made the right choice. It’s difficult to go from a hardline stance on protecting non-sorcerers to wanting to gen0c1de them, within the span of a year, without any lingering ethical qualms. So he may be worried about moral costs to Gojo as well.)

Let’s remember that Geto (canonically) deeply loves Gojo. Gojo is his one and only best friend. Geto worries about Gojo when he overworks himself protecting Riko. Geto is shocked when Toji kills Riko in front of him, but he only flies into a rage when he thinks Toji has killed Gojo. (Again, see my post here for more on how much Geto loves Gojo).

So, it makes sense that Geto is ready to make sacrifices to create a better world, but it’s a cost he’s willing to put on his own head. Not Gojo's.

Ultimately, Geto cares more about Gojo than he cares about achieving the mission he has dedicated his life to.

The last thing Geto says to him is this:

What he's really asking Gojo is: "Have you stopped loving me, now that I've committed myself to this dark path? Would you kill me to save them?"

If Gojo hates Geto enough that he’d kill him, then Geto never had a chance of recruiting Gojo in the first place.

Of course, Gojo can’t make himself hurt Geto. He still loves Geto too much.

Geto protected Gojo by pushing him away.

___

Addendum:

I'll also argue against two other possible explanations for Geto's behavior.

(1) Geto is jealous / prideful /wants to build his own legacy without Gojo stealing the spotlight

Geto has clear motivations for his goals and they’re not egotistical. He wants to end the suffering of sorcerers caused by non-sorcerers’ existence (e.g., Riko’s death, Mimiko & Nanako’s abuse).

Geto’s pride isn’t hurt when Gojo becomes the strongest. The only thing that bothers Geto is that they’re getting sent on separate missions.

After Gojo becomes stronger that him, Geto still has overt affection for Gojo (e.g., he asks Haibara to bring back sweets from his mission so he can share with Gojo).

Although Geto does believe in his superiority over non-sorcerers, he doesn't feel superior over other sorcerers and doesn't struggle with his 'inferiority' to Gojo.

Does Gojo’s lack of faith in Geto’s ability (calling his goal “impossible”), spur Geto to want to prove himself? Yes, probably. But Geto had already been avoiding Gojo before he said that. And I don’t believe that wanting to prove himself to Gojo would overshadow his stronger motivation to build a better world for sorcerers.

(2) He thinks Gojo actually is too moral to join him

After Geto kills the 112 non-sorcerers, Gojo is shocked and upset by what’s happened, but not once does he insult Geto or imply that Geto has done something unforgivable. In fact, he’s practically begging Geto to explain himself because he wants to be able to justify his actions. And, again, Gojo’s argument against Geto’s plan is NOT that “it’s wrong,” it’s that “it’s impossible.”

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borderlinereminders · 6 months

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I post a lot about self-soothing and working on needing reassurance. And while it’s important to do, it doesn’t mean that’s how it always has to be.

I try self soothing first. Sometimes with my best friend, I know my feelings at her aren’t her fault. It’s something small that’s triggered insecurity even though I know it’s not rational. And I try to deal with the feelings myself first. But sometimes I can’t. And it’s okay.

In these cases, I usually go to her. I’ll tell her “I know it’s not rational and it’s not your fault. But I’m having feelings about x, y and z”. If possible, I’ll tell her what I’m looking for (like reassurance).

She’s always very happy to offer me that reassurance. She knows that I’ve come so far and worked hard and if she can reassure me, she’s often happy to in order to make it easier for me.

I’m going to share my most recent example under the read more for a real life example of how I applied this.

But my overall point is that it is absolutely okay to ask for reassurance and sometimes you need to. It’s just important to do it in a healthy way.

A few weeks ago, she was overwhelmed and busy. I offered to watch her dog for her while she was working. I didn’t get a response back because she was thinking about it.

And then I found out someone else was watching her dog.

I felt a lot of confusing emotions. I felt angry. I also felt insecure, like she didn’t trust me. I was frustrated at her and the person now watching her dog. I felt jealous.

I used skills to try and cope with these feelings. I didn’t lash out at her. I tried using logic to suggest alternatives to myself. Perhaps it wasn’t personal that she picked someone else. Maybe it was for logistical reasons. It was probably just easier for her.

I tried to sleep on it, but the feelings were growing. No matter what coping skills I used. Sometimes, the coping skills don’t work to self soothe or talk myself through it.

I was feeling annoyed for small things and I knew that it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t done something wrong. But I decided to talk to her about it. I didn’t want the feelings growing and causing issues and they weren’t going to sort themselves out.

Here are copy and pastes from our actual conversation :

Me: My explanation for feeling hurt is that **** told me she was taking Storm and I felt hurt because I offered twice and you didn’t respond at all to it. It made me feel like I did something wrong to break your trust. I am really emotionally sensitive right now and I know I’m having an *extremely* heightened emotional reaction to it but I can’t seem to let go of the bad feelings. And I know it’s not your fault. But also it just feels bad and I feel like I need to tell you about these feelings because I can’t let them go on my own. I could really use some reassurance.

Her: That’s so valid.

If context helps you feel less BPD, I was actually trying to figure whether to leave Storm at home or bring her to you but I needed to know my new start time at work with the new schedule before I’d know if I could make the timing work to drop her off with you after the ferry.

Then *** was sad about the breakup with *** and I offered to lend her Storm as an emotional support animal. I know she really struggles with being alone when she is sad. And I decided I could do without my dog temporarily. I can see how it would’ve seemed like I preferred having **** watch Storm.

But your BPD is very valid, I probably would’ve felt the same way under the circumstances. I hope you have a great day and I hope you know I love you. Also that I think you’re great with dogs and would have 100% wanted you to watch Storm this week.

( The name of the person watching her dog are blacked out for privacy reasons.) While she didn’t need to share the context, she chose to do that so she could better offer reassurance. I also want to point out that she validated my feelings. My emotional reaction was heightened but she still validated me. She also then offered reassurance for my specific concern (that I wasn’t trusted). She was patient and understanding. I was valid to need reassurance but her reaction to it was super valid and why it felt so safe to seek reassurance from her.

#personal #Gorlfriend the biked #I don’t know why I’m rambling today #but here we are

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cheeseanonioncrisps · 1 year

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One of my favourite things about Deep Space Nine is imagining how Sisko's superiors must have been reacting to his shenanigans behind the scenes.

I mean just imagine it.

You're an admiral or something in Starfleet. You belong to an organisation that spans half the galaxy, has access to unimaginable (to many civilisations) levels of technology, and contains numerous different cultures.

You are well aware that the power and technological advancement of the Federation makes you inherently dangerous to less technologically advanced peoples. Like the moment any group is introduced to you, the development of their species is basically going to be changed forever. A single individual fucking around can, if careless, negatively impact an entire world.

Avoiding this kind of thing is therefore one of the core values of your civilisation. Your Prime Directive. There are huge lists of rules and regulations over when it is an isn't appropriate to intervene. People have literally died rather than break them.

And then there's this one world, whose people have only just overthrown an oppressive regime and are looking to join your Federation. You and your colleagues vote to help them rebuild, while steering clear of interfering with any of their politics, of course, and send some of your guys over to help administrate.

One of those guys then goes and DECLARES HIMSELF A GOD.

Like, we, the audience, know that Sisko was chosen by the Worm-Hole Aliens to be their Emissary. We know that he struggled with accepting the role at first and that he had visions and eventually came around to whole-heartedly believing in the Bajoran religion.

But Starfleet doesn't know that! Starfleet isn't inside Sisko's head!

From Starfleet's perspective the most logical explanation for all this is that they sent some guy to the back of beyond, the local people got him involved in their religion and then he either went crazy or saw an opportunity to gain power, and now he can impact the entire planet's political decisions on a fucking whim and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

I mean, this has to be every higher-up's worst nightmare, right? This is the sort of extreme scenario they'd come up with in school textbooks to explain to children why the Prime Directive is necessary.

If the Dominion War hadn't happened, Sisko's main legacy in the Federation would have been "the reason why we have all these extra regulations about interfering with non-Federation worlds, and why all Starfleet Captains operating in the vicinity of such worlds have mandatory psych evaluations every couple of months."

And they can't even do anything about it! They can't remove him and replace him with another Officer, because the local people are 100% on board with this 'Sisko's the Messiah' thing and won't work with anyone else. You can't back away from the situation entirely and give them a few years to repair the damage because it's super critical for the war you're currently fighting.

You can't even really control Sisko, because although he makes a show of being The Good Starfleet Captain, in practice there's always a risk that if you say something he disagrees with too strongly he'll just go off piste and do something else entirely and justify it with: "the Prophets told me to".

Which, again, the audience knows is a very real thing that is actually happening to Sisko, but from Starfleet's perspective could be anything from "Sisko is hearing voices" to "Sisko is legit just pulling things from his ass and trusting that we won't risk pissing off the Bajorans by contradicting him."

Just saying, from the perspective of the Federation, Sisko is probably as well-known a cautionary tale as he is a hero.

#benjamin sisko #deep space nine #ds9 #ds9 meta #star trek #star trek meta

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liveforjeongin · 24 days

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omg! I loved your 3racha fic! I would love to see a part 2 with these cuddly tickles hahaha where they just tickle him softly and he's trying not to squirm away so bad ❤️ you write very well!

Just Like You Wanted - An Essential Part Of Cuddling Pt2

This was a very cute request💔 I loved it a lot💔

-tickle fic, if you don't like that you can keep scrolling

requested by: anon

warnings: really nothing... Cuddles?😭

Read the first part here in case you haven't yet!

taglist: @itzsana-kiddingmenow @channieissocute125

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3racha were on the studio, producing a new song as usual.

Hannie was sleeping on the couch, as it was normal of him, too tired to even try to be awake.

It was 2:44am, the boys had been there since 8:00pm, it was logical Jisung was asleep, but that wasn't the only reason for our quokka boy's need of sleepling, he actually couldn't stand being with his hyungs anymore.

'Why?' You might be asking

Well, since that time 2racha wrecked him while cuddling about three months ago, Han discovered his like for being tickled, which actually surprised him a lot.

Changbin already knew his little secret, and was more than happy to help his dongsaeng whenever he needed some tickles.

'Then why didn't he just ask him for it?'

Well, the maknae of 3racha was feeling particularly shy in that way this day, so that was a big no.

"Hannie?" Chan called the younger, who was still dreaming, but got no answer.

"Hannie" tried again, this time moving the younger a little, but Sungie didn't wake up.

"Han" Changbin tried this time, sending a quick poke to the youngest's side, which certainly woke him up.

"AHH- Hyung! Don't do that..." Jisung whined as hid his face, knowing it was burning red.

"Oh? We feeling in the mood today~?" Changbin teased, noticing immediately the lee mood of his little brother, which of course just flustered Sung more.

"S-Shhh! We're not alone, hyung..." Hannie blushed more. Despite Chan being probably the hyung he trusted the most, he hadn't been able to tell him about his unusual interest, he was afraid he'd think of him as weird, so it had been being a secret between him and Binnie.

Or well, until now.

"Mood? Which mood?" Chan asked, genuinely confused. Changbin gave Han a look, as if asking for his permission to tell the oldest. Hannie peeked a little, quickly covering his face again. He nodded slightly, the nervousness eating him alive.

Binnie grinned slightly, laying down on the floor "C'mere" he told Sungie, cuddling him when, shyly, he layed down next to him.

"You'll see, Channie hyung, you remember that time we were cuddling in your bed and ended up tickling Hannie?" Bin started.

"Yeah...? What's with that?"

"Turns out Hannie actually liked it a lot, and then found a community on Tumblr of people with this interest too, and sometimes he has this moods called 'lee moods', that means he wants to be tickled" the rapper concluded his explanation.

Chan remained quiet and still for some seconds, then smiled a little and layed down next to Hannie on the floor as well.

Needless to say that in the meanwhile of all this conversation, Sungie had turned extremely red and was currently with his face buried on Changbin's chest, feeling all shy and embarrassed.

Channie seemed to notice that, cause he started to stroke the younger's hair and talked to him affectionately "lt's fine, Hannie... I think that's pretty cute. Would you like us to tickle you for some time?"

Hannie teared up a little, his hyungs were truly the bests. He buried his face even more on the dwaekki's chest, unable to handle his nervousness "Yes, please..."

Both Chan and Changbin remembered the past time they tickled Han, and what they had learned.

Hannie liked soft tickles better.

And they were going to use that information.

Using the fact that Bin was already cuddling Han, he sneaked his hand underneath Hannie's hoodie and shirt, and gently scribbled on his dongsaeng's bare side, provoking the cutest giggles out of Sungie, and some squirming as a natural reaction.

"T-Thahahahat's..." Jisung cut mid word, not able to say the fearned word.

Chan cooed at the youngest, finding him extremely cute "Awwww. That's what, Hannie? Ticklish?" He teased, tickling the quokka's neck gently, making Hannie giggle more and scrunch up his neck.

Hanji nodded his head, his heart was all happy, he was being so tickled by bis hyungs, and it felt so nice...

"You're loving this, aren't you, our Hannie? Yes you are~ Of course you are~" Changbin teased, tickling Sung's sides faster, but still in the same soft, gentle way.

The faster tickles made Hannie's giggles become way louder and cuter, and made the squirming almost impossible to control "Hahahaha, Changbin hyuhuhuhuhung! Oh my Gohohohohod! That's so bahahahad! It's bahad!"

"Aww, it's bad? You'd prefer us to stop?" Binnie asked, knowing that was the thing Han wanted the least at this moment. Shyly, Hannie shook his head, his chubby cheeks getting redder at every touch of his hyungs.

"Of course you don't"

2racha stayed on those spots for a while more, but soon, they decided to change. Chan now aimed at their maknae's belly, which Jisung certainly loved.

Definitely his favorite spot.

And the leader seemed to notice it.

"You like it here, don't you?" asked without intending to tease Sungie, it was a genuine question. Jisung nodded, and the oldest couldn't help but smile at this. Gosh, he was too cute.

Changbin, in the other hand, went for the younger's knees, lightly tickling them.

Sung's giggles got louder, he was very ticklish there "Nohohoho! Binnie hyuhuhuhung! Oh my Gohohohod..."

"No? But why not, Hannie? You seem really happy~" The dwaekki teased

"B-But it's bahahahad!" Hannie kicked the air a little, he couldn't take what was going on, but he was absolutely loving it.

The two producers kept on tickling his younger for some more minutes, until he wanted them to stop "Okahahahay hyuhuhuhuhungs! Yohohohou can stop now!"

Bin and Chris stopped immediately, and rubbed the spots where they had tickled their quokka boy, to help him ease the ghost tickles. Then, of course, they cuddled him for some more time.

"Hey... Thank you, hyungs...", Jisung mumbled after some seconds, right before trying to fall back asleep, to which Changbin sent a poke to his side again

"AAH- Hyung!"

"We gotta record, Hannie" he reminded him, smiling softly

Hannie stayed quiet for some seconds "Oh... Right"

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WELL HELLOOOOO, I'M BACK😻

This whole thing was written at school... And I would say it's pretty good, I liked it a lot

I also think my soft tickles writings are getting better...? Idk, you tell me that

I'LL TRY to finish soon another fic I've half done and post it soon, then I can worry about the other 9-

Anyway-

I hope you guys liked the fic<3

#skz tickle #kpop tickle #stray kids tickle #tickle #tickle content #ahhie's blog

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bas-writes · 2 months

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your blind date is waiting for you...

A suitor is awaiting for @stuckinthewrongworld who as her dream date wanted to go to the beach. I hope you will spend lovely time together!

female reader | ~850 words | modern AU

Your date isn't really the type of guy who holds all his thoughts and emotions on a silver plate. You know him for quite a long time now and he still remains one big mystery—big enough for you to wonder at times if you actually know the guy you're seeing. It weirdly suits him and after a few attempts to solve him, you've grown to accept that it's just his nature and that you won't be able to look through him even after decades.

That's why you're not entirely sure where you two are heading until the very last moment, when the crowded bus you're taking finally reaches the coast and continues its journey along the shore. Until it reaches the final stop, you remain right by the window, your face almost plastered to it as you're swallowing the views, impatient and excited. Thinking back, you did mention you would love to go to a beach again, but the topic seemed to die right as it started, immediately forgotten by your always busy boyfriend.

You must give him that credit, his attention to detail and good memory far exceeds your own. And he knows how to utilize them to bring the best out of surprises he has for you.

Law helps you get off the bus and, still holding your hand, such a pleasant change after his usual, dry, and reserved, approach to public physical demonstrations of affection, leads you away from the public beach, place where the crushing majority of the crowd moves. It's too cold for a proper beach day and you haven't taken the right equipment anyway, so you don't mind, trusting the surprise still unfolding. He clearly has the spot in mind, your part of the act is to follow his guidance and enjoy the views on the way.

When he finally decides to get down from the boulevard, you two are almost alone. The extreme introvert he is, Law feels the most relaxed and confident when there's no one gazing at his back—and indeed, his approach changes fast in comparison to his behavior on the bus and earlier, when you made your way through the city. His face is so serene he almost doesn't seem himself. It's unfair you must divide your attention between this spectacular sight and the sea you've waited for so long to see.

Law sits straight on the stairs to undo his shoes and roll his jeans up, then insists for you to lean against him, so you could deal with your sneakers and socks without getting your pants dusty. Sand under your bare feet might not be hot but it's still quite hard to walk, even with the help of his arm keeping your balance in check. It feels awkward at first, to depend physically so much on him. Neither of you are used to it but you refuse to let go once you've wrapped your arm around his elbow and let him control the pacing. From afar you might look like an older couple and the thought of it almost has you giggling. You bite it back—though, looking at a faint smile tugging at his lips, you kind of regret restraining yourself. You usually do so around him when you feel you don't have a good reason for laughing. When you have no explanation for your behavior, he seems to be lost whenever you do so, and as he has never given you even the faintest suggestion that he prefers you not giggling, the atmosphere tends to turn awkward when he can't find logical reason for your behavior, and then you both need to work your way around it. You don't want to interrupt a date that's already unrolling so well.

But who knows, maybe today you could be able to make him laugh?

The wind tugs at your clothes as you slowly wander along the shore. Despite the weather, the sea itself is not cold, so you let the waves lick at your calves. Your pantlegs, even if rolled up, are soon soaked at the bottom, but neither of you tries to move to the safer part of the beach.

"I even like the weather but...I wouldn't really call it a good one for a date," you muse as a particularly high wave forces you to jump away and Law curses at some of the splash reaching his hoodie. "Why today?"

He doesn't answer until you reach a puddle of algae and other sea trash. He leans down and digs through it, still shielding you from the waves, but focusing mostly on his task, until he finally finds what he's been looking for: a few colorful seashells hidden in the wet debris.

"Yesterday's storm must have thrown a lot of treasures all over the beach." He carefully pours them into your palm. "We might even find some amber."

Hand still wet, Law traces the line of your collarbone, then the curve of your neck towards your chin. He tilts your head slightly to the back, your eyes meet and you almost gasp at the amount of warmth and love you find in his as he leans close to speak against your lips before kissing you, "I'd love to make a seashell necklace for you."

#trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar law x y/n #trafalgar law x you #trafalgar law imagine #op x reader #op x you #op x y/n #one piece x reader #one piece x you #one piece x y/n #bas writes #op #trafalgar law #blind dates #female reader

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 1 year

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Dazai Likes People

Ok. So this is probably not the analysis you think it is. I'm not going to talk Dazai's dynamics with specific characters - I think that's better suited to personal interpretation and I've kind of already gone over my thoughts on Dazai's close relationships starting with this analysis here.

Instead, this is more about Dazai's thoughts on human beings in general, which, admittedly, can be a little hard to parse. There's a variety of thoughts on this amongst the fandom, ranging from the one extreme of "he loves people" to the other "he doesn't care at all".

This is merely my own thoughts on the matter. I don't know if this fully counts as an analysis, but I hope it at least sparks some discussion or helps piece some things together.

As you might've gathered from the title, I lean towards the idea that he likes people. There's always been things he's liked about people, as a matter of fact, but I think the nature of what he likes about them has changed across his development.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that Dazai's development as a character is, rather than a behavioural shift, instead based on his changing perception of human nature, and the value found in human connection. His methods are largely similar, however, the thought behind them and the direction they're given is different.

I'm going to be jumping around a bit with the timeline, so here's the core ideas in advance just so it's easier to follow.

Belief #1: "People are stronger in groups than individually." This has not changed across his character arc.

Belief #2: "There is a divide between myself and humanity that cannot be broached." to "Some of that divide may not be as wide as it seems." This development is still ongoing and key to his overall character conflict.

Belief #3: "Attachment is an incomprehensible motivator." to "Attachment is a reliable human drive." Take a close look at how his plans change as he ages.

Belief #4: "People just can't stop killing each other." to "There is beauty in the fighting human spirit." This one is a bit more conjecture based on hints in the story, but I think it holds some weight.

Belief #1: Groups over Individuals

This point requires very little explanation. If you look at the intro to the DHC conflict, linked here, you’ll find that he actually says it outright.

"What's more, you underestimated the power found in organizations. Humans are stronger in groups than they are as individuals. That's just the undeniable truth, Mr. One Man Army."

Again, in Stormbringer, Dazai confidently says the following:

"This is how the world works. It's an absolute truth no matter when or where you go. Groups are stronger than individuals...There's strength in numbers."

This is a canonical belief of his that he holds very strongly to, and at a young age at that. This is a primarily logical value to place on others. It's interesting though, because it goes beyond just "strength in numbers".

His further dialogue in the DHC prologue has him go on to respond to Shibusawa asking if the reason he joined the Mafia had to do with the strength in a group affirmatively. It ties in quite interestingly with what he tells Odasaku in The Day I Picked Up Dazai as the reason he should consider joining the Mafia, and Oda's own thoughts on the organization.

If one of their members is attacked by an outsider, they will turn into a row of fangs and bite the enemies.

"If you join, you will no longer be bothered by anything from your past. Because no past can touch that place."

He's said to speak with some pride about the organization in this scene. It's not just about strength. It's about safety. It's about knowing someone has your back. It is, ultimately, about trust.

So, really, it's no wonder that Dazai thrives in, and is honestly at his best, when working in partnerships.

The comfort in partnerships appears to have come rather quickly to Dazai in Fifteen; he works seamlessly with Chuuya after only a few minutes planning and is much more "alive" than in the previous scenes. We see a similar level of confidence, even unusually brazen cockiness, when working with him again in chapter 31. Dazai also works fluidly and has incredible faith in Kunikida, which explains their flawless teamwork in Entrance Exam.

He appears to be at his most confident when he is working with someone else. Look at these facial expressions.

So, it's no surprise that his response to crafting a way to protect Yokohama... is to create another partnership - this time between Atsushi and Akutagawa. And it's clearly not just for ability complements, but also some kind of genuine belief they have what it takes to support each other, if Chapter 84 and Beast are any indication.

It's about trust, in your partner and in your group. It always has been.

Belief #2: The Divide from Humanity

This divide comprises much of the fundamental core and conflict of Dazai's character - his disconnect and alienation from "humanity".

Again, this is not something I really have to defend - this becomes readily apparent to anyone who is the least bit familiar with the author's actual work, No Longer Human, from a cursory read through the manga, and is really quite obvious in the light novels, especially Dark Era, Fifteen and Stormbringer. As of now, it's still an ongoing aspect to his character, and if Oda's words are to be believed, he will likely always struggle with this disconnect to some extent.

However, there's a difference in how this aspect manifests in his dynamics with others across time.

Initially, it is a little like Dazai is unclear on how he differs from others; he only knows that he does in some way. He responds to Mori asking him why he wants to die with genuinely innocent confusion on why one would find worth in living, and responds to Chuuya stopping him from shooting the body with surprise and a simple admittance that not doing such a thing would be the "normal" way to think, before laughing it off.

By Stormbringer and Dark Era, Dazai is all too aware of what is "different" about him - that is, his apparent inability to connect with others in a meaningful way. However, I need to stress that this distance is also at least partially self-imposed. Dazai has internalized his differences from others, his lack of humanity, and decided to put up a front of being some inhuman mafia monster. Think "I am a man hated by righteousness" before repeatedly firing at Akutagawa.

Even with this initial uncertainty, there's one thing he's been quite clear on as different since the beginning: his high intellect, and he wields it like a weapon, appearing somewhat proud of at least this aspect of his distance from others. He's almost cocky about it, complains of boredom, and usually becomes interested in people when they sidestep or outright defy his predictions. It's something we see quite a lot of in his Mafia days and also a little in Entrance Exam. While he appears to grow more attached to people who live their lives in the midst of seeming meaninglessness than those who observe from the sidelines the way he does, he also comes off a bit envious in the same respect, especially when younger.

In some way, I wonder if this doesn't mirror Mykola's envy of those who "don't know they're stuck in a cage", in that sort of ‘how do people not see what I see’ kind of way, or 'if they do, then how can they deal with it'. Dazai’s intellect is rather like a double-edged sword - while it allows him a distinct advantage in prediction he enjoys, it’s likely also a strong contributor to his loneliness and separation from others, much like Ranpo. However, while Ranpo externalized his issues and thought there was something wrong with everyone else, Dazai internalized his and believed there was something wrong with him, which unfortunately caused him to isolate himself even further, rather as a self-fulfilling prophecy regarding the next point.

Dazai is a bit odd about his perceived inhumanity, because on one hand, he wields it when necessary much like his intellect, but on the other, he is almost dismayed by any reminders of his differences from "normal" people, even a bit hurt. A prime example of this is in the Dead Apple prologue, at Chuuya's "no one would believe that" line, but can also be found to a lesser extent in certain interactions in Fifteen, Dark Era, and Stormbringer. A lot of the complexity in Dazai's character comes from this juxtaposition - the mental superiority vs the human inferiority. So, he feels isolated in two ways: one is intellectually, which he tends to see as an advantage, and two is a bit harder to narrow down, but roughly has to do with the nature of the human self and its connections, for which he feels lacking.

Interestingly, Dazai seems to regard people with similarities to himself as threatening, and even gets uncharacteristically direct about how he is going to stop/kill them (Fyodor, Q). An interesting case occurs in Entrance Exam. Entrance Exam is really valuable for looking at Dazai's character because it is very much a transitory period for him, and there is one part in particular close to the end that gives me chills, both in the action and the implications of the action.

I am, of course, talking about the part where Dazai arranges Sasaki's death.

I'm going to expand on this later on once I do my analysis focusing on Sasaki herself, but her and Dazai have some pretty notable similarities between them that I heavily believe Dazai was aware of close to the end. For now, the most important similarity is the way they manipulate others - Sasaki's selective distribution of and often misleading info created situations that encouraged most of the people she contacted to act entirely on their own accord but also in the exact way she intended, without her having to do anything herself. This is quite eerily similar to the way Dazai tends to operate (though I'd say in his case with a bit more finesse that comes from Mori's strategic training).

And Dazai... he arranges her death using this same method. He kicks the gun, Rokuzou picks it up and shoots her out of revenge - and Dazai didn't have to do a single thing.

"She killed too many people."

So have you.

"That was the only way to save her. This was the best we could've hoped for."

........

I think I'll just leave it at that. There's a lot more to this complicated situation that deserves a thorough analysis of it's own, but I do think that the only means in his mind to save an empty, apathetic person who was responsible for too many deaths was to kill her says quite a bit about his mentality at that point.

But that appears to be changing.

I loved that Asagiri confirmed that Dazai's words to Kyouka in Chapters 34 to 36 are genuine. He's being probably as close to honest as we've ever seen. And we know this, because who shows up?

Why hello, Odasaku silhouette. Dazai knows full well how similar Kyouka and Odasaku are - their situations, even their dispositions, I'd say, and the way the both of them seem to unwittingly trigger character development in the people around them lol. But there's more to it than just that.

"Every person has their good and bad points, and your bad point happens to be killing. That's why you think you can't become an Agency member. That's just stupid."

"No one can know everything. That's what possibility is."

"You are not the only person with this kind of distress."

"Why do we fight? How should we live on? There is no one who can tell you the answer. All we have is our right to waver."

None of this is something I'd expect Mafia Dazai, or even Entrance Exam Dazai to say. This is someone who, from my perspective, has the barest, slightest will to live on.

"No one can know everything." In spite of his intelligence, in spite of his eerily accurate predictions, this admittance means that his perception of that intellectual distance is likely somewhat decreasing. He's still on a tier far above most other people... but he's closer to them than he is to a god. He cannot know everything.

It's similar to what he tells Sigma in Chapter 105.

"It's all a play of hands. I'm not a superhuman beyond the limits of human wisdom."

The emotional gap may also be closing a little. I think fondly of Dazai's dry "Don't you have any friends?" to Shibusawa in Dead Apple, then following up Shibusawa's dramatic 'I understand everyone so much that everyone bores me but don't understand myself' spiel with "You wouldn't be saying that if you had friends." Dazai really said friendless behaviour, pfft.

There's also his "I wonder how Kunikida-kun is doing~!" in the prison and his internal (and I thought oddly fond) comparison of Sigma to Atsushi.

Still, though, there is a significant gap in the way he removes himself from other people. Even as Dazai affirms his belief that it is the people who fight through uncertainty and live and breathe within it that create the greatest change, he still excludes himself from that category, placing himself, alongside Fyodor, above all others yet paradoxically inferior in the ability to enact real influence, sitting alone in a prison at the end of the world.

Belief #3: Attachment as a Motive

"I see... so it's all for your partner. Betraying the Mafia, spreading rumours about the old boss's resurrection, this fight we're in now... it's kind of hard to believe, to be honest."

Dazai, in his earliest appearances, seems to underestimate the drastic lengths people will go to in the name of the people they care about. The above line to Rimbaud, after he reveals he did all that he did to find out what happened to Verlaine, indicates that while he does understand bonds between others, he fails to grasp how that could be so incredibly motivating - whereas by contrast, Chuuya understands it instantly.

In fact, earlier in Fifteen, Chuuya's assistance is assured by Mori's capture of the Sheep members, which prevents Chuuya from harming anyone - Mori weaponizes this attachment and responsibility Chuuya has to great effect, and points it out to a bemused Dazai, who doesn't... really care. Dazai seems much more intrigued by the growing strife between the Sheep and their leader, and amusedly pinpoints Chuuya as a "sheep getting stared down by a wolf", before intentionally ramping up the tension. Dazai weaponized the cracks that were already showing between them, and while he seems to have started to acknowledge the importance of attachment as a powerful motivator, unlike Chuuya who sees it as honourable, Dazai at this point seems to regard it as a weakness to be exploited.

While Dazai absolutely shows budding signs of attachment himself in Fifteen and Stormbringer, it's nowhere near enough for it to be a key motivator of his own. He runs on logic. His plans are practical, precise and take no chances; a logical strategist much like Mori.

But that all changes with Odasaku. Odasaku's impact on Dazai was undeniably the strongest motivator for change he's had, but I want to talk a little about Dazai's side of things, and his unusual devotion towards his friend. For as much as Dazai is evasive, incredibly concerning, and apparently added some kind of stimulant to a dish he made for the trio without telling them (!?? bro.), when it comes down to it and things get serious, Dazai is, surprisingly enough, an objectively good friend to Odasaku. He gets panicked when he realizes Odasaku happened on Shibusawa during the DHC. He tells him immediately he doesn't need to use the Silver Oracle to ask for his help. He apologizes for killing the snipers in front of him because he knows Odasaku doesn't like killing (even if, at this point, he doesn't know why he holds this philosophy). He arranges for the kids to be hidden in a safe location once it becomes obvious Gide is targeting Odasaku. He tries to convince Odasaku he can find a reason to live, even though he doesn't, at that point, have one himself. He runs to him at the end, even when it is pointless, even when it is not logical, all because that's his friend. And this isn't even touching Beast Dazai, who wasn't even friends with the guy but saw that another him was, and decided he would do everything he did to protect that one person's dream (thereby missing what Odasaku wanted for him, which also, incidentally, was for his friend to live on, but I digress). Dazai is a surprisingly incredibly devoted friend to him. This guy experienced close friendship and it completely changed his perspective, because he'd never had anything like that before. Connection and understanding are extremely powerful motivators. He knows this now. It's in everything he does. The person is gone, but the bond remains, and it drives him to this day.

It's also important to point out that while we haven't seen the turning point in Double Black's dynamic where they went from uneasy partnership to that intense trust, Chuuya is the poster boy for attachment as a ridiculously strong motive for living. His decision to risk everything for the sake of those he has sworn to protect means that Chuuya is reliable. So, suddenly, Dazai doesn't need to make such stringent plans with him - they can be more loose about it, yet still perfectly in sync. "Chuuya is a reliable partner" is not an opinion to Dazai, it's a fact. Attachment as strength, not weakness. I feel reasonably confident in saying he likely learned this first from Chuuya. It gives him the power to persevere through the pain. It's not always fragile. It can be relied on. Chuuya struggles through his life and finds purpose in his bonds with others, and Dazai, both envious and admiring, picks up that he can utilize this in his plans.

Dazai making plans in the Agency is a little different to how he makes them in the Mafia. While there is still hefty reliance on logic and trickery, there's now an extra caveat of social and moral expectation. Dazai makes plans, knowing that people will carry them out because of the kind of people they are. He's making character judgements, not purely logical ones.

While Mori and Fyodor are also capable of much the same, it's rather unlike their methods, as they use attachment, often by leveraging it. Dazai can and does do this too, but notably, Dazai's allies are also regularly left to act in accordance to what they believe to be right without much direct interference - Dazai uses but also relies on this attachment to people and morality. It's odd, because in a sense, it's both an accurate logical prediction and a form of trust. Many of his plans in the present involve people doing what they would have done anyways given their character, but in a narrowed scope that comes from Dazai's influencing of them and the situation. He knows Ranpo will take charge when the Agency is threatened. He knows Atsushi will risk it all for his friends and family and people who remind him of his younger self. He knows Kunikida will never accept lives being lost if there is something he can do about it. He, highly unfortunately, knows Akutagawa will do anything to gain the recognition he seeks.

It's odd, because while undoubtedly still a manipulative tactic, he also has to know, for certain, that these people will act on their morals, drives, and bonds, otherwise it quite literally would not work. Is it manipulation? Is it trust? I lean towards both. Whatever the case may be, it is clear that Dazai finds at least some value in attachment (even if he, again, still largely detaches himself from pure expressions of this kind of motive - Odasaku was the major exception).

When Fyodor says people are sinful and can't help killing each other even when they know they're being manipulated to it and Dazai replies with yes, and? "What's so wrong with that?"

The way Chuuya wins against Verlaine, because he cared for people and Verlaine, in spite of everything, had at least one person he didn't want to let die. The way Gab might not have met such a tragic end if he'd had the chance to connect the way Atsushi had. The way the isolated Sigma ultimately falls, and Tachihara finds new purpose and drive from his conflicting bonds that should've weakened him but instead gave him conviction.

Attachment can be a foolish thing. It can be logically irrational, and in certain cases leaves one vulnerable, but it's not inherently a weakness. It can also be the source of incredible strength and perseverance. Human connection is the beating, bleeding heart of this series. The Agency barely took a breath after being framed before they were preparing to hold their own and prove their innocence - because the Agency meant something more to them than just a workplace. It's their place to belong. They rally to protect it and each other, just as Dazai knew they would, and he, too, is taking great risks to protect it.

Which brings me to the last point.

Belief #4: Beauty in the Fight

Fyodor and Dazai are foil characters - they are intellectual equals, and their methods of thinking and planning tend to be very similar. However, motivation-wise, they are very different - Fyodor says things like the above, clearly with a low opinion on most others. While Dazai agrees with the statement, he disagrees with the sentiment.

"What's so wrong with that?"

But I'll be honest: I don't think he always felt that way. In fact, I suspect he used to feel similarly to Fyodor when he was younger.

In Fifteen, Dazai describes the situation with the Sheep as similar to the "Undercooked Meat Theory" to Rimbaud, which acts as an analogy for violence - everyone wants to eat more of the meat, so one takes it earlier to get more than everyone else, then another takes it even earlier to get more than that guy, and so on and so forth until they are all eating undercooked meat. Here are some key points from that conversation:

Dazai: "If one person stops, he alone will end up with less meat than the other two. Therefore, each of them is trapped, forced to eat the undercooked meat and nothing else, even though all three know that perfectly cooked meat tastes much better."

Dazai: "It explains at least half the misery in the entire world."

Rimbaud: "I see... in other words, since everyone pursued what was best for them, they couldn't achieve what was best for the group..."

Rimbaud: "Violence and war are not necessary for survival... if everyone agreed to stop fighting and banned all weapons - then violence would be no more. But that isn't realistic. No matter what, someone will break the rules to get ahead of the rest... everyone else... would have to maintain their stance on fighting back only when provoked."

Although Dazai expresses his interest in the criminal underworld as a "thrill", there's cause to believe this dog-eat-dog world is something that Dazai himself personally does not like. After all, shortly afterwards, when Chuuya crashes onto the scene and proclaims that "the strongest always win", Dazai disgustedly says,

"It's people like you who turn the world into undercooked meat."

In a way, it almost reminds me a bit of what Teruko proclaims about what a rubbish society it would be if those with the strongest violence always ended up on top. That's her purpose, as a Hunting Dog - to use violence to stop criminals - but violence to maintain order is still violence. Violence begets violence, but you can't just not defend yourself in a world that wants to hurt you. And so the world goes round, and people still kill each other, often quite needlessly.

It seems both Fyodor and Dazai shared the mentality that people are all the same, self-centered and out to protect themselves at the cost of others; sinful, boring beings. Except Fyodor, a more proactive person, decided he was going to try and fix the problem. Dazai, prone to inaction, did not... and saw nothing interesting in the world worth living for.

"It explains at least half the misery in the world." I wonder, does it explain some of Dazai's misery too? He appears to be drawn to the Mafia, not because of the violence in itself, but because of the honesty with which it is approached. You know what you're getting, with organized crime - there's going to be crime, and death, and murder. The proximity to death is a removal of the veil of social acceptability; the mask over the world - Dazai is hoping that by getting closer to the cruel world's "reality", he'll be able to find that something that the people around him would kill for in order to live.

Unlike Fyodor though, who still sees people as boring for their foolishness, Dazai apparently seems to find them interesting by this point. What changed?

It's worth noting that even though Dazai genuinely thought Chuuya was just an arrogant, violent kid before the confrontation with Rimbaud, in an earlier fight scene, Dazai goes breathless at Chuuya's battle prowess. That sheer display of life and energy and raw destruction is something captivating to him. And that's interesting, because that fight there was one he had just previously been deriding Chuuya for starting - it was pointless violence, to him - and yet, he can't help but watch.

So, when the Arahabaki reveal happens and Dazai suddenly realizes he'd been mistaken about Chuuya, it triggers a shift. Chuuya wasn't looking for power. Chuuya was looking for himself.

In Fifteen, Dazai is intrigued by Chuuya's situation. In Stormbringer, Dazai is invested in Chuuya's story.

Once again, Dazai watches Chuuya fight as he relinquishes control to use the full power of Corruption, carefully watching the progression of it all. When Chuuya turns fallen angel, Dazai says to himself, "That's Arahabaki's - that's Chuuya's true form." This incredible show of strength is not just the result of a raw power. This is the will of a human who has something worth fighting for. Chuuya is not a blank vessel for Arahabaki. Arahabaki is Chuuya's to wield. This is all Chuuya, through and through.

Chuuya, caught in the act of dying, in a last-ditch play that could easily be a self-sacrificial one, surrounded by death and destruction, is nonetheless fighting with all the life within him to defend the lives of his people, with the symbol of his stubborn will to survive (that is, Arahabaki, the singularity that should've killed him) on full wrath and display. To the death-obsessed kid who wanted a reason to live, who did not see why people would fight so hard to live on, such a sight would be breathtaking.

Dazai is drawn to the people who struggle through hardship, and the ones who rebel in the name of valuing life. He becomes interested in Ango when he finds the reports he made on the DHC dead, that he made to preserve their lives even without Mori's permission. Dazai does not want to compromise Odasaku's morals, and is deeply fascinated by the juxtaposition of his Mafia status and his no killing rule, though he doesn't pry for the reason. With Kunikida, much as Dazai does not care much for ideals, he sees how Kunikida keeps on pushing through against every setback and horribly cruel reality check, and I honestly think he respects that.

Then there's this bit when Atsushi has just succeeded in getting Q's doll safely to Dazai after the curse on Yokohama.

"It was your spirit that emerged victorious."

He likes it when people succeed. He wants to see people triumph, against all odds.

I find it fascinating because Dazai becomes most invested in the aspects of the characters that we tend to get invested in - we, the readers, which makes a lot of sense given his consistent observer status. The story is never actively about Dazai, but he's always there, watching others' stories unfold, growing fascinated with the struggles they face and the development they undergo, and feeling pride and admiration when they learn to overcome.

But the tragedy in Dark Era in part was a vicious reminder that the story impacts him too, no matter how much he tries to detach himself - to become invested and connected is to open yourself up to the inevitability of getting hurt. But it's also in this struggle to find balance that we are open to make change, and to live.

Fighting to save a life - even and especially when that life is just your own - there is beauty to be found in that fight.

#hi hello here is the meta i said i'd write two months ago ✨#i hope it is coherent. i really need to stop writing these at 3 am.#bsd #bsd meta #bsd analysis #<-i guess lol #bsd dazai #storyrambles

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devotion-that-corrupts · 11 months

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Some rambles on the ending and the codependent nature of Constantin and De Sardet's relationships. Spoilers for the whole game under the cut.

When I played Greedfall for the first time, I couldn’t stop thinking about Constantin’s corruption arc. It didn’t really make sense to me. Why would he want absolute power over the island? He has plenty of power and probably lives quite a luxurious life already. He also says he finds politics boring if De Sardet asks him, so the desire to rule over the whole island full of people seemed to me very out of character.

I do understand that he went mad and everything, but my brain deemed it a boring explanation and kept searching for something more logical.

So here: I think his actions make more sense if they're driven not by greed but by jealousy, less hunger for power and more hunger for absolute love (either platonic or romantic).

Let me explain.

His family is all kinds of messed up. He thinks his father doesn’t care about him, and although we don’t know if he’s actually abusive, I can’t think of any good reason why Constantin would lie about this. His mother, if DLC is to be believed, is responsible for the death of his brother Laurent — Constantin being an heir is clearly more important to her than his wellbeing & mental health after the literal murder of his brother. We don’t know much about Laurent and Constantin’s relationship (although he doesn’t ever mention him & he says nobody cared for him but De Sardet, so maybe it wasn’t good? Maybe Laurent was better suited for politics? That would explain Prince d’Orsay’s disappointment. That’s just my theory though).

Anyway, what I’m saying is that a child needs unconditional love, and judging by this family and Constantin’s line “You've always been the only one to care for me. Our friendship is the only thing that matters to me”, he has only ever received love from De Sardet, which sounds like quite a fertile ground for unhealthy overly attached relationship.

Then the game starts, and the thing is… Well, they are not each other’s everything anymore. De Sardet goes to various cities & talks to every person imaginable & makes new friends, maybe even falls in love. Constantin meanwhile is chained to a palace, especially after his sickness is revealed. De Sardet's world grows beyond him, and he can’t follow them there.

So what do you do when the only person who matters to you grows apart from you? What do you do when you are driven mad with pain and may die alone, and they have to leave you?

Naturally, you find a way to bind them to you for all eternity, and in doing so alienate them from everyone but you. Constantin's smart enough to realize that if De Sardet's friends and allies fought against him, they would turn away if De Sardet joined him. But even if they wouldn't, they're mortal. Their death is inevitable. The only one who can keep De Sardet company for eternity is Constantin. Everyone but him will eventually leave.

That’s why “For you, for us”, that’s why “together, forever”. Not power over the island or some people, but power to keep the only person who loves him unconditionally close to him.

(Again, I acknowledge that this is extremely, extremely unhealthy. That’s exactly what makes their relationship so interesting.)

Anyway, as I said, it feels very in character for him to basically give up on humanity in favor of De Sardet. I can't look at him in the beginning or in the middle and say, “This character would do anything for power”. But I can look at him at any point of the game, any cutscene, and say, “This character would do anything for his loved one”.

#*throws this into a nearly dead fandom and runs away*#they are NEVER beating the codependency allegations btw #greedfall #greedfall spoilers #greedfall meta #does it even count as meta? idk #constantin d'orsay #de sardet #constantin & de sardet #constantin x de sardet #jay talks

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scribbles97 · 6 months

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Whelp... after one hell of a haitus Scribbs is back writing for the Thunderbirds Are Go fandom again! It's been a while and what I've produced is only short, but it felt good to get back to my comfort characters again. Thank you @gumnut-logic for the hugs and support that you continue to give me <3

Virgil had known as soon as Gordon had sunk into the co-pilot seat on Two.

A run of back-to-back rescues was the final nail in the coffin on a week that had seen them reach six out of eight continents, and more ocean than he dared to count. He wasn’t sure when he had last seen Scott, their paths crossing less frequently than normal with the financial year end meaning the board were demanding more of his older brother’s attention when he himself wasn’t out on a rescue. Grandma had caught them each time they had returned to the Island, hot food cooked by MAX readily available for them to wolf down as the ships refuelled.

John had assured them as the retrieval mechanism had wound Four back into the module that there wasn’t anything else to demand their immediate attention. Their space-bound brother confident that they could all take a much needed break - world ending disasters notwithstanding.

The way Gordon had paused as he had sat down and not immediately stretched his legs forwards as he always did on their way home was enough of a tell.

Virgil had been piloting with the aquanaut at his side for years, and had known his brother for nearly two decades before that. They had seen the swimmer through rehabilitation after two life-altering accidents that had left him scarred and fragile - but not as broken as doctors would have anyone believe.

Yet, he knew better than to comment.

It wouldn’t be received well.

Not when Gordon was still well enough to climb out of Four and make it back to the cock-pit of Two. There was clearly a niggle, something somewhere apparently sitting just not quite right, but that must have been all.

Virgil hoped that a hot bath and some yoga once they got home would see his younger brother right. Gordon hated the bad days, the worst ones when his back locked up and the tension in the same muscles that provided much-needed support left him crippled.

Virgil hated those days too.

Hated that there was little any of them could do to help.

It was the same reason Gordon was always so prickly when his back did decide to play up, knowing full well that painkillers and patience were the only real options when it came to riding out the ache.

That he was quiet most of the ride home, save for the occasional sigh, simply served to assure Virgil he was right in his diagnosis.

Gordon had two extremes when he was bothered by something - full throttle chatter, or deadly silence. Not that he’d ever admit it, and not that Virgil would call him out on it in the moment.

Still, it was a big brother’s prerogative to at least ask.

“You good?”

Gordon’s sigh was heavy next to him, answer enough in itself.

“Ready to be home.”

Which was code for tired.

Which was code for hurting.

Because, for all Gordon was prickly when it came to his back, he wasn’t stupid. He was perhaps the most aware of them all as to how close he had come and how far he had to drag himself back. The rest of them had merely been spectating supporters, very much aware of the problem and its implications, but with no real idea of what it was like.

None of them had a spine that was a third artificial.

Gordon knew his limits - even if he did sometimes push them too far - and knew when to ask for help. An athlete at heart, he knew when to listen to his body and how to look after himself. He knew when enough was enough, and what was needed to reset himself to best function.

He knew when to ask for help.

Scott would have heard the coded response and immediately had any of them down to the med-bay. Big brother, ever protective over his brood, would have needed a full explanation and a med-scan before he had been convinced that it was just an ache that their little fish had been feeling.

He meant well, but sometimes their oldest brother was blinkered by his need to keep younger brothers safe and well. Not that Virgil blamed him, Gordon had given them all enough grey hairs to warrant wrapping him in cotton wool for the rest of his life.

Virgil knew he himself could be guilty of just the same, but he’d been working on it over the years. He’d taken the time to figure out the more subtle signs and listened to what Gordon was really telling him.

Ready to be home, was an answer.

It wasn’t stubborn silence - I’m hurt but I don’t want you to find out.

It wasn’t inane chatter - I’m really hurt and you’re going to take me to hospital whether I like it or not.

And it wasn’t an outright admission - I’m hurt but I already patched myself up so it’s fine.

“Want a heat pack?” He offered, glancing across to gauge how well the question would be taken.

Gordon’s grimace said enough, “I’ll get it - probably best to keep moving.”

Virgil simply nodded, returning focus to keeping the flight of his ship as smooth as possible. They’d get home eventually, little brother would get his bath, some painkillers, and with any luck a few days off of rescues to recover fully.

Whilst he did, Virgil would do what he did best, and listen.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #thunderbirds fanfic #scribbles writes

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skaldish · 1 year

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hey, I recently had to interact with an evangelical family member on thanksgiving (as in, I calmly listened and explained "my views and values differ from yours, but I appreciate you sharing your world view with me" while I was aggressively proselytized at for well over an hour; even by evangelical standards, this family member is aggressive about pushing his beliefs onto others).

I was raised atheist and don't usually have an issue with this; I don't believe in hell or divine punishment, but things he said keep popping into my head (like being called "the definition of being lost" for saying im agnostic— which is a half truth but he wouldn't be receptive to a full explanation). I'm tacking this down to a combination of evangelical thought poison and my anxiety disorder related habit of ruminating (which thankfully I'm working with a therapist on now).

I know you're passionate about the subject of cult thought and the likes and just wanted to know if you had any advice or thoughts re: getting cult thinking that doesn't align with your views or values to kindly edit your headspace.

hope you're well 💚

Apologetics. It's something every Evangelical learns, and it's a form of mind-control. They engage nonbelievers in religious debate and use it to covertly indoctrinate them.

Evangelicals spend years learning how to counter every argument, direct conversations towards specific points, compromise our mental reasoning through various means, and inject their logic into the vulnerable mind, which then festers on its own.

Apologetics is a masterstroke of manipulation, and one of the very few things I consider evil.

My best friend is ex-Evangelical and well-versed in Apologetics. A while back, they gave me an example of how it works (with my consent of course).

Now, I'm extremely good at entertaining ideas without adopting them. It's a skill I deliberately and constantly wield, almost subconsciously at this point.

There's no way I could do it. The more you think it over, the deeper it digs into your brain. All an Evangelical has to do is feed you enough information and your own thoughts will do the work from there.

My friend wasn't even simulating an actual instance of proselytizing; they framed things within the context of, "This is what they'd say." And yet I could literally feel my mind tunnel at the logic, burrowing its way deeper every time I thought, "But what if...?"

I did throw it, though. The way I shook it off was Occam's Razor: "Simpler explanations are more likely to be correct."

Evangelical philosophy is too complex to be statistically probable compared to other frameworks. It even compensates for this by portraying itself as the only safe bet in a high-stakes game. But the reason we find it so compelling is because it makes us fear for our survival. It's the same fear we get when we hear rustling in the bushes when there's a predator around...only this time the tiger is something we can't know. Regardless, our lizard-brains will always take a false positive over a false negative in those situations, and will try to do so if it succumbs to the existential dread. This evil, perfect storm is what drives people to convert.

I've seen many forms of mental manipulation, but Apologetics is a weapon unlike any other.

So here's my advice to you and everyone else:

When it comes to the Evangelical debate game, the only winning move is not to play.

Do everything you can do avoid the topic of religion in conversation, and make a concentrated effort to give it as little breathing room as possible. Bring up a different topic. Say "no thanks" and move on. Ask questions about secular things. Ignore the religious content peppered within statements. Be cordial, but never ever let up on that boundary.

I don't know your relative, but I do know Evangelicals never respond well when denied a platform. They may try to persuade, provoke, trick, or guilt you into giving it to them, so be prepared to hold your ground if you have to interact with them. If all else fails, excuse yourself from the conversation.

Remember: It's not rude to hold a boundary. Don't let anyone convince you that it is.

#answered #tw religious trauma #description of how apologetics works

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yutaleks · 2 months

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i have a genuine question, this is just pure curiosity, no judgement lol

what's the appeal behind incest? :o also i'm assuming it's specific kind of incest, like sibling x sibling, and not parent x child??

i mean i know it's a kink so maybe there's no explanation, i'm just curious xD it's totally fine if you (or others) don't wanna answer ofc!!

well your assumption is incorrect LMAO I’ve written and read parent/child incest fics just as often as sibling/sibling. Familial relationships have different contexts and implications, not limited to just sibling/sibling.

I don’t necessarily think any kind of kink has to be appealing in order to have the right to exist, so I don’t think trying to justify it will actually mean anything or give it any kind of standing that it doesn’t already have. If that makes sense. Like you don’t necessarily have to understand it to make it any more or less of a valid thing to read or write about.

That aside, I can tell you personally what I feel gives it appeal to me:

Sibling/sibling:

It is a balance of a relationship that is inherently taboo but the characters feeling so much for each other that they overcome that hesitation and go for it anyway. Like a “despite all odds” taken to an extreme. A level of devotion and kinship that not only transcends physicality (the two characters are blood related, made from the same flesh and bone. So to speak) but also morality (despite inherently how “wrong” it is for them both to be together, they don’t care).

Taking away the “incest” and looking at it strictly from those two reasons (a character who is cut from the same cloth, who loves me above all and against all odds) I think it is psychologically some form of self-love and acceptance that you cannot achieve by thinking of the character as a random stranger. I’m not a psychologist so idk if that makes sense, but I think to me it fulfills this basic desire: two people who are made of the same flesh finding themselves desirable.

Like irl i hate myself right. But like. Someone who came from the same flesh as me. Who lives the same life as me. They are lovable. And they love me. Does that make sense? I’m saying this as love not as something sexual btw. I’ll touch more on this later.

And I have to tack on that even in the cases of step-siblings/adopted siblings or “pseudocest” as some people call it, I still think the same logic applies. It’s still incestuous. Blood or not, you’re still in the same familial “role” in which you are designated to be siblings. The “kink” still exists in the very same fashion, in which you treat each other as siblings or are raised as siblings. The same makings of a blood-related siblings fic exist in a “psuedocest” fic so if you’re running circles trying to make up some difference between the two, you perhaps are just making excuses to yourself lol. Because the fics are exactly the same, minus the “they aren’t actually related” disclaimer. lol

A sibling/sibling relationship (blood or “pseudo”), if done in a manner which is more closely paired to real life instances of incest, will probably feature abusive or abhorrent situations for the involved characters. That is the nature of incestuous relationships in real life. It is probably a different topic entirely on the appeal of fiction which depicts abusive or traumatic incidents but thats for another post I think. Just as with incest itself I don’t think anyone needs a reason to justify why they would want to read traumatic/horrific situations in fiction and I don’t think there is any correlation between this and personal morals/values but yeah. Anyway

Parent/child:

I think in the case of parent/child usually that kind of relationship is paired with an insane amount of trauma. Something like that would not occur without either something terrible happening, or abuse happening. And again I don’t think anyone needs to justify why they enjoy those tropes in fiction.

I do think there is more of an element of gender roles in a parent/child incest fic vs a sibling/sibling scenario. A fic which is father/daughter is going to be entirely different from father/son or mother/son, mother/daughter. Each one of those has different psychological implications, I feel like. Because the role of “mother” “father” “son” “daughter” all have ingrained societal roles that we are typically expected to follow.

I think when you read a fic which features parent/child incest, there’s a LOT happening psychologically between the characters. It’s usually subversive of what typical nuclear family roles are, in ways that inspire disgust in readers. Like the role of “son” typically has such a barrier from the role of “father” than when the son steps in and takes the role of father (being his mothers sexual or romantic partner) it typically makes people very uncomfortable. And even within the fic one party of the relationship may be uncomfortable.

Some readers perhaps find appeal in that exact feeling of being uncomfortable—the same way you squirm in your seat at a horror movie or when things are unnatural to you. Do you ask people why they enjoy horror movies or why they enjoy murder mysteries? The things that happen there are unnatural as well, and inspire feelings of disgust, but it is because incest is an affront to nature and the gender/familiar roles that are so ingrained in us? Is it because the thought of your father or mother taking on the role of your lover disgusts you? Why? I’m not saying they shouldn’t, but I’m asking you to think about why they do?

Like I’ve written personally many fics of the sibling/sibling variety. But I’ve only ever once written mother/son and once have written father/daughter. And I find it intresting how different the responses are to those. People are very disgusted by parent/child incest in ways that they are not disgusted by sibling/sibling incest. And I wonder why. Deep down they are all immoral. What is it about parent/child that pulls out the most abhorrent disgust from readers? Anyway. I find that reaction just as intresting as the trope itself. Like what does it say about the human psyche that we have such reverence of the relationship to our parents. Is it because I personally do not have such strong feelings about my parents that I don’t feel particularly strongly about parent/child vs sibling/sibling?

I don’t think I know enough about psychology to offer an answer to that question. But I find all aspects of the parent/child topic fascinating. I think maybe because I particularly feel very unloved by my parents that I also find a scenario in which parents feel so strongly for their children to be different to me. I personally grew up in an environment where my mother openly told me many times how much she hated me and how I ruined her life. And my father never said anything to me at all to really indicate that he felt differently. So in particular when I come across fics in which parents want to have a relationship with their child it feels very foreign to me. I think I approach it wanting to understand it or wanting to feel wanted? Not the sexual aspect of it obviously (put down the keyboard, morality police). I think there is a difference between reading a fic with the desire of being wanted as a person vs reading for sexual gratification. NOT THAT ONE IS ABOVE THE OTHER. It’s perfectly fine to feel sexual gratification from reading immoral fiction. But I don’t actually get sexual gratification from reading smut fics, it (For Me) is about being desirable above morals and above what is acceptable in real life.

I think there is an entire different conversation to be had about why people cannot see the distinction between love and sexual desire. I know what you’re thinking reading this: but aleks, the incest fics you read and write have sex in them, so wtf are you talking about? Well. When I read a fanfic that feature incest I usually do not care for “porn without plot” fics. I think incest fiction and pwp do not go together very well. Like I said earlier, incest is usually the product of trauma or abusive scenarios, or unhealthy/unestablished familial roles. These things take time to build up in a fic, and require backstory. In order for an incest fic to reach the point where the two characters will engage in romance, there will have to be backstory to justify why they love or want each other. And this comes before the sexual part. I think, for me, that is where the appeal of an incest fic lies. In that part of the story where they take a “bad” relationship (estranged relatives, or abusive situations, or traumatic situations) and then sort of “fill it” with love/nurturing/etc in the culmination or romantic feelings/feeling of admiration. Idk if I’m getting my point across. But the base need of “fixing” a bad situation with romantic love is what I’m talking about here, not about “fixing” the bad relationship with sex. To me sex is the product of a romantic relationship or feelings of desire, not the product of the damaged relationship itself. Does that make sense?

Anyway. In my mind the smut is not the cause of the incestuous relationship, but the feelings of attraction/desire are.

Incest kink in situations where they aren’t actually related:

This does not pop up as often in fiction explicitly. but I think this version of the incest kink is actually hands down the most intresting to me. I think it is hard to do in a fic so it is not done often. But I think someone who is a stranger doing a roleplay, or taking on functionally the role of a relative, I think that is like… a dynamic I want to study under a microscope. Something about being nurtured and loved by a stranger in a way that you were missing from a relative or on purpose to enact a sexually gratifying taboo… phew.

I haven’t posted it yet but I do have one part of the series I’m working on where the character will choose to pretend to take on the role of your brother. And there’s a reason for that, given earlier in the story. It is to fill in a role that you find lacking. I think it’s intresting to think about…

I think this may in some ways link to more popular kinks like mommy kinks or daddy kinks (WHEN THEY ARE DONE WITH NUANCE/when it is less about the spoken “mommy” or “daddy” and more about the ROLE of “mommy” or “daddy”) because that is a person taking on a role that may have not been done “correctly” the first time. What I mean by that is, putting it simply, like when someone says they have “daddy issues” so they look towards a fatherly partner who, unspokenly, or maybe even spokenly and more obviously, takes on a fatherly role in their personal life (does things for them that are typically reserved for the familial role of a father). Same for someone with “mommy issues” who looks towards a nurturing partner who “mothers” them. This is probably not what you think of when you think of incest kink, but I think in some ways the tropes are the same. I think a lot of this is to fill a role that was not done correctly during the child-rearing portion of your life, and you look to self-soothing through these dynamics in adulthood. Or something to that effect. (This is my own thinking of it and not psychological advice or fact LOL)

Anyway.

TLDR: I think for me a lot of these incestuous dynamics fulfill a need for me that I did not have as a result of various traumatic circumstances that don’t need explanation. I personally have never really found sexual gratification in fanfiction (aka I don’t “get off” to it, but more like, it stimulates/fulfills this inherent desire to be wanted). Aka I should seek therapy but instead read fanfiction to cope with self loathing. 😁

But as a general rule of thumb I do not believe that people inherently need to experience trauma to find these things either appealing or at the very least intresting, or sexually gratifying. People have always been attracted to something taboo, the same way people enjoy horror or people rubberneck on the highway. Things that are “wrong” are just intresting because they are different. The mind is stimulated by things that are different to us. I don’t think it has to be any deeper than that… though in many cases it is. But it doesn’t matter. People don’t have to have a reason! Enjoy your taboo fiction or don’t if you don’t like it! Every kink is valid even if it’s not for you in particular. 😊

#wow all this to say: shrug who cares let people have fun!#but also I’m a traumatized individual and find comfort in the inherent wrongness of being desired!#nbd or anything…#HAHAHAHA #ϟ asking aleksandria #fwb anon #cw.incest #I hope all this long talk doesn’t offend you or anything I just started rambling and diving down the hole of self reflection…

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kitcatttt · 12 days

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Serious post.

Hi guys. I know you guys are probably surprised to hear from me considering my last post, and no, I’m not back permanently, but there is something I feel I need to make a post about.

Disclaimer: Do not harass the user mentioned in this post, I do not wish any harm onto them.

If you have been in the TPC community since January of this year, you know about the drama involving the user Cintagonisupset. If you’ve been keeping up with his blog (only reason I have is because I do 100% expect him to make another post about me and/or my friends) you would have seen one, or both of these posts.

Now, you might be wondering, why am I bringing these up? Both of these situations are extremely unfortunate, and they would be, if he wasn’t lying.

I know that it’s a bold claim to make, but it isn’t inaccurate. I may not have concrete confirmation of him lying, but I have more than enough evidence.

For the first image, he legit just- didn’t leave tumblr. He just pinned that post and kept on tumblr like normal. For the ENTIRE time he was supposedly gone, he was still reblogging posts, just putting in tags that he was “still gone”. After about,, maybe a week or so his pinned post was back to the usual one and he was posting like normal. Not to mention, a little ways through that whole leaving tumblr bs he had changed the pinned post to this. “I hope y’all bitches burn in hell” (actual picture to be added once I fucking find it AUGH)

(UPDATE I GOT IT) And the second image? He claimed. To have to be sent to a mental hospital because of a mental breakdown. That is EXTREMELY serious. Do you know how in need of help you need to be to be admitted to a mental hospital? Do you know how horrid that would be to fake? Now, I haven’t been to a mental hospital myself, but I have several friends who have. Hell, I even have a IRL friend who has been to one AND has written a 10 page research paper on them. They have all stated to me that they wouldn’t let a patient keep their phone, and my IRL has stated that the wait times there would most likely keep them in the hospital for longer than they supposedly were in there.

All of this alone isn’t enough for me to claim that he faked it, seeing as he is in Canada and I’m in the US, and they most likely operate different than here. But you know what is? The fact that he has deleted EVERY SINGLE POST HE HAS MADE ABOUT HIM BEING IN THE HOSPITAL. Sure, he could’ve gotten out early, but why delete all of the posts about it, and not at the very least make an update post on his condition? I know for a fact that there are still people that care about him, and not making a post about his condition when he CLEARLY has the ability to be on tumblr seeing as he deleted all his posts mentioning the hospital is extremely suspicious, and basically proves that he has ulterior motives for making these posts.

What do I think these motives are? Well, I believe that he is trying to make anyone who checks his blog that was involved in the drama against him think that he’s gone, so that they stop checking his blog for good. Then he gets rid of or hides/buries the posts and goes on with life like nothing happened. I honestly don’t blame him for trying this, as trying to get out of drama with desperate tactics isn’t that surprising and is not that odd of a response. BUT LYING ABOUT GETTING SENT TO A MENTAL HOSPITAL??? YOU REALLY COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING BETTER??? Honestly, it makes me sick. Seeing someone fake something as SERIOUS as that. Makes me sick.

I do not wish harm on him. I wish for him to heal. I wish for him to get the help that he needs. From his repeated behavior, there appears to be something wrong with him mentally. While I do not enjoy claiming this, it’s the most logical explanation seeing as he’s been doing shit like this FOR OVER 4 YEARS. He genuinely needs professional help, and I pray that he gets it. But for now, all we can do is defend ourselves if he decides he wants to attack us yet again.

And a personal message to Cintagonisupset, if he just so happens to be reading this. Your actions severely upset me. This post has not been made to wish ill will onto you, but to bring to light something that you have done wrong, that is genuinely disgusting in my opinion. You have made callout posts for way less. Again, I do not wish any harm onto you, so do not wish any harm onto me. Or do. It’s just more evidence against you.

If anyone has read this far, thank you. Once again, do not harass Cintagonisupset, that is not the purpose of this post. Thank you, and have a wonderful rest of your day.

#cintagonisupset #drama

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invested-in-your-future · 3 months

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I don't know if it's just me but I don't give a shit about that last minute lore dump about the brothers god in V9,I find it unecessary like no I don't want to know about these two gods origin I wanna know where Summer and Raven go in the flashback instead

Well that's an issue with entire show, no?

People wanted to see how Yang bounces back, people wanted answers about Summer, about what Raven is up to, about where the things will go after V3.

All the theories about the moon since the trailers, all the questions about Ozpin and Cinder's motives and everything.

And the show just isn't interested in that - it treats it all as a throw-away "boring" stuff.

(seriously how do you take A SHATTERED MOON IN THE SKY and make the explanation boring and pointless?!!)

The Two Gods are Miles and Kerry's babies - their true creative input into the setting that is just theirs. In their eyes its where everything else leads and nothing else matters. For them it "raises the stakes" away from "all the boring stuff" - why watch Yang's recovery when you can have Qrow deliver a monologue about relics or an entire episode about two gods?

Even when dealing with Atlas situation and a pretty solid conflict set-up (that they mishandled), the show can't help but keep going "Hey but what about Salem and relics?! Look she's an approaching threat!"

Everything eventually leads to the two gods now, so it's no surprise that the big infodump of V9 focuses on THAT and Summer stuff feels like a way-too-late afterthought.

But the issue is - the gods are boring and pointless.

And more importantly redundant.

The show already has two ancient beings in conflict, so why add two higher ancient beings? Okay now the show has two ancient beings and two higher beings, so why add another even higher being???

The show already has four concepts of unimaginable power that break logic and rules of the setting and are shrouded in mystery - so why add four relics that do exact same thing but are inanimate? They still have to write Maidens as characters so it's not like it's a shortcut. But oh wait, if four relics do the thing then the two gods will do big thing that breaks the logic and rules and is very dangerous apocalyptic event! But the show already has four beings and four items, each with near-apocalyptic level of powers and a threat of eldritch abominations so why add another layer? But oh wait there's an entire whacky realm where logic doesn't work and even more superpowered things exist!

The showrunners are desperate to make the Two Gods plotline "exciting" but they mistake quantity for quality instead layering bunch of similarly unexciting things on top of each other.

The issues they have with focusing on Two gods rather than fleshing out interesting lore and story aspects on macro level are the exact same issues as with focusing on Jaune rather than on interesting characters and dynamics on micro level.

But that's not all.

There's also a fundamental issue with structure - the Two Gods stuff is completely disconnected from EVERYTHING - the entire setting(characters, countries, everything) that came before they retconed them couldn't be further removed from the concept even if they tried.

So you have weird structural issues where characters are doing something and the narrative is like "but wait, let's switch up to talk about the Two Gods related stuff":

There's this huge conflict between opposing viewpoints in Atlas and character tor-.... BUT WAIT the Relics! Salem is coming! She will start Biblical Apocalypse! The Gods!

Raven is this mysterious character who appears and disappears randomly and is all cryptic a-...but wait Salem! She needs to talk about how scary Salem is! And Relics! Just fill the rest with random nonsense of bandits!

Silver Eyes is this mysterious concept th-...but what if we made allusions to it somehow tying to the Two Gods?! Because, uhhhhh, Two Gods are powerful and scary and they are reason for...stuff!

There's an extreme disconnect where the characters will keep doing things that only tangentially relate to Relics/Gods and then the show will dump like a hour long detour about how Gods are important.

It's almost like they are tacked on concept that doesn't mesh with the rest of anything and writers keep forgetting it's a thing they have to tie things back to (just like Ever After).

Imagine if V9 had no Ever After and was just a road-trip of Team RWBY traversing Vacuo, racing against time to get to the city before Salem gets there as they encounter other survivors, fight monsters and struggle with what they did in Atlas and Ruby ends up actually having moments of self-reflection and learning things about her mother(and the eyes), while Yang gets to confront Raven(who had saved them from the dark void they fell into with her dumb teleport semblance) about everything and Weiss grapples with Atlas and everything she knew being gone and whether there's anything to the Schnee name than just being a destructive capitalist fraud, Blake struggles with lack of purpose and realization that she fixed nothing in Atlas OR Mistral. Meanwhile Blake and Yang finally get to speak about end of V3 and then about having killed a person together, as they finally start to unwrap the tangled mess of conflicting emotions between them and grow closer together.

Imperfect, but at least something.

But no, see that has nothing to do with Two Gods or Four Relics and we can't have that. That also only had one Salem mention too! And no Jaune! We can't have that.

RWBY is real adept at focusing on everything but what audience actually wanted to know.

And when it does, everything is offscreen.

#rwby #rwde #rwby v9 #rwby volume 9 #ruby rose #Summer Rose

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furryprovocateur · 2 months

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a natural, inevitable consequence of the rise of therapyspeak is that it teaches us to be more selfish and self-centered in our relationships. article after article, tweet after tweet will say things like "if your friend is traumadumping to you, it's okay to ignore them" or "ghosting someone you made plans with is okay if you felt anxious about it", which, while maybe beneficial to one side of that equation, will ultimately greatly burn the other side and likely result in relationship deterioration. so much of the emphasis has been placed on understanding the self, what emotions we experience, and what situations cause these emotions that we've lost sight of the world around us. we forget to ask things like "oh, my friend is traumadumping, they probably just experienced something really bad and need someone to console them" or "[person] was probably really looking forward to going out with me, i should communicate with them".

this is part of the reason i hated that one post that was like "therapyspeak isn't ruining us, it's just enabling selfish people to be more manipulative" or whatever. unless you think people have always been this level of selfish and borderline callous due to their self-centered nature, it really fails to explain the unique rise of rational adults suddenly becoming indifferent to the wants/needs of those they care about. therapyspeak has taught people that their emotions supersede the emotions of those around them, and we need to resolve our emotional conflicts without doing the icky stuff like confrontation, communication, vocalizing and naming boundaries, etc. why should you have a difficult talk with your bestie about how you feel terrible that their wedding is reminding you of your own personal loneliness and amplifying your depression? why not instead just ghost them, not show up to the wedding, and leave them wondering as to why you suddenly vanished from their life with no warning and were apathetic to one of the most important moments of their life? your emotional wants and needs are more important after all, and you shouldn't even have to consider how someone else in your life would feel in response to your actions.

here, i'll give a personal anecdote as to what i mean. there was an online friend i knew for about six months who i had a good friendship with. out of the blue, without any warning, i was blocked by him, kicked out of his discord server, and given no explanation as to what the reason was. i actually had to text his number and ask "hey, did you do this intentionally? if you did, why?" to get a response. and this response was a long text using therapyspeak-esque logic of "well you and [mutual friend] played a joke on me and you know i'm extremely gullible (this had never been communicated to me btw) so it really hurt my feelings so i chose to prioritize my own feelings and end our relationship". you might be saying "oh wow, well that's just how internet friendships go sometimes" but this was someone who had flown to my house and even admitted to having a crush on me at one point. this was someone who arguably was more invested in our relationship than i was. when did we get to this point? the offense i had committed was. . . lying about being a user on a forum and telling a mutual friend to go along with the lie if asked. and it was only brought up once.

i don't want to diminish the potential harm and pain that my actions caused, but, at the same time, i want to highlight that every reasonable adult out there could likely deduce that this perceived harm would greatly be outweighed by the investment in this relationship and also how much this person seemingly cared about me. and, instead of taking the very reasonable option of doing any of the following: addressing this with me and asking for some type of acknowledgement of harm and subsequent apology, communication of personal boundaries to avoid future harm, informing me of my wrongdoing and still continuing to terminate the relationship, i got ghosted. you could say i wasn't owed any type of explanation, and, maybe, just maybe, you're right. but at the same time, it's emotionally harmful to have someone do that to you. immediately after realizing what had occurred and why, i felt extremely disposable in my friendship with that person, as if i had never truly mattered to them and instead had just been a concept for them to idealize, only to be thrown away when i failed to meet these impossible standards. moreover, it's just generally very bad socialization to be so incapable and unwilling to assert yourself and engage in confrontation with your friends that it's going to likely be a constant issue.

this anecdote is a microcosm of the greater problem i see with socializing in the modern age. with how easy it is to remove people from our lives with no explanation, it suddenly becomes the more tempting option when choosing between that and confrontation, boundary talk, and other interpersonal intimacy topics. and i don't want to say that everyone is obligated to your time and energy or that there's never a warranted block w/no notification (i've done this before in fact!). it's just that culturally, we're becoming more and more self-interested and less invested in the wants/needs of those around us, stranger or friend. by telling ourselves that we owe no one anything, we don't hold ourselves accountable to the social obligations of checking in our friends every now and then ("i don't believe in friendship degradation!" that isn't how the real world works), making sure we communicate when we need certain things from them, and when we need to have conversations about things that are bothering us. we choose instead to prioritize the self, and in that, we lose sight of the world around us.

#long #long post #i was thinking about this while showering

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anderscim · 1 year

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welcome to wild theories with bagel

this one is… quite unlike the other posts as this is almost entirely speculation and probably has a lot of room for rebuttal

(it’s a theory after all)

this is mainly about teruko and her (possible) connection to the killing game.

take this with a grain of salt as always

//drdt prologue, chapter 1, and chapter 2 spoilers

// blood warning from about the second half of the post.

also i go on a giant tangent here. so quick warning about that as well

i’m just thinking back to this motive secret:

“How could I even select what secret to be your motive? Just about everything you’ve done in your life is worth killing for. This killing game is all your fault.”

as of now, we’ve been told (by David) that this was Xander’s secret, but I highly doubt it. for me, this is mainly because when everyone was sharing who’s secret they had at the 2nd trial, David hesitated and asked to go last—there’s really no reason to do that unless David wanted time to think about what to do and/or fully process the situation before taking action (plus going last would give David the added benefit of knowing whose secrets are already revealed).

not only that, Xander’s bonus episode and secret quote seems to imply that his secret is actually the one Min has (“You’re constantly blaming yourself for the death of your parents and siblings. It doesn’t matter that it’s not your fault, just that you didn’t go with them”). Xander’s survivor’s guilt seems to be a major motif for his character, so logically it would still be plausible for his secret to be related to the Chariton incident and his guilt.

in that case, who’s secret does David actually have?

unfortunately, it would be quite difficult to try to deduce this through that last sentence (and i don’t think i have to explain why), so i decided to go back to the first sentence—which implies that whoever this motive is about has too many secrets that they don’t want to remember and/or discuss.

i can clearly recall one character that explicitly mentions this:

i don’t recall anyone else saying something like this, but please correct me if someone did actually say something similar

additionally, each one of Teruko’s accidents that she’s survived as a result of her luck can become “secrets” that are worded to incriminate her and give her a motive to murder. after all, whoever wrote these secrets have done so in a way that paints the other characters in a bad light—there’s really no reason to exclude Teruko’s “secrets” from that treatment.

but if that were the case, is there a proper explanation as to why “this killing game is all [her] fault?”

as i’ve mentioned before, the secrets are specifically written in a way to incriminate the participants and taint their image. even Hu mentions this at one point:

and to be completely honest, if someone were to explicitly write that a killing game was a specific character’s fault, it would probably be to throw the cast off. it would be extremely imprudent to specifically implicate someone as a potential mastermind otherwise. after all, that’s essentially putting the entire killing game at stake.

however, despite the fact that these secrets are written to implicate the cast, most of them do have factual evidence to justify some part of it.

here’s where i get into wild theory territory:

what if Teruko is indirectly responsible for the killing game, just not in the way that we’d think?

let me elaborate on how this could actually happen (and this is gonna get long):

think back to the opening scene of the prologue. whoever it was that was injured here, they seemed very… determined to end the killing game “all by [themselves].” or kill teruko.

// (pink) blood warning from here on out

•

from here i’m going to pay a lot of attention to specific wording and such so please take this with a grain of salt

oh also this is gonna go on a tangent lmao

as seen here it seems that Teruko and the killing game are directly correlated to each other. this person here says that even if the killing game doesn’t end, Teruko must die—which seems to imply that her death could be a possible solution to the killing game, even if it is eventually revealed to not be one. after all, in a situation like this it wouldn’t make sense for this person to mention two seemingly separate things one after another if they weren’t related to each other somehow.

also this might just be me, but i just wanted to bring attention to this line:

“all by myself… i must end this killing game.”

this implies that whoever this person is, they want to end this killing game independently, by their own effort. specifically asking Xander to kill Teruko with no justification or reason why, in that case, doesn’t really make sense as it’s entirely dependent on the decision and whims of another person.

and besides, this may again just be me, but Xander mentions how he needs to “trust in [him]self” that killing Teruko would be worth it:

this may imply that Xander attempted to murder Teruko out of his own instinct, and/or Xander deduced that the person who wrote that note to kill Teruko was himself. whether that’s because that note was in his own handwriting, or something from his memories told him so, i’m not sure.

also, recall the fact that some of the cast’s memories have been removed. for example, Xander doesn’t actually recall when he lost his eye.

someone else said this in a YouTube comment (that i unfortunately cannot find, but i’ll see if i can find the screenshot and put it here later), but—in that original prologue cutscene, there’s a fork under the person’s hand.

Xander’s eye injury, as we saw in chapter 1, has indents on it that look similar to claw marks. but based on those indents, it is actually plausible that those injuries were done by something similar to that fork (the fork in the prologue cutscene has four prongs, and the injury seems to have been caused by something that had four,,, uhh, prongs/claw bones). however this is purely speculation so this may be entirely wrong.

if this does happen to be correct, though, this could possibly imply that Xander was the person in the prologue cutscene. in that case, it is possible that Xander himself wrote the note to kill Teruko.

trusting “himself” to kill Teruko would, in that situation, actually make sense.

but as we know, killing Teruko is a challenge in on its own, whether that’s by attempting to incriminate her or attempting to directly murder her. she even declares this herself.

actually, little side note: “no matter what” is seen in both this scene and the prologue cutscene—and they’re highlighted in both cases. just thought it was interesting because it gives off “unstoppable force meets immovable object” vibes lmao

though this could definitely be more important than it seems right now

this has been kind of true. in the first chapter, we saw Teruko almost getting killed multiple times, and her surviving all of them. first with Xander attacking Teruko, second with Min attempting to frame Teruko to ensure her own survival (and don’t forget about the detail of two people voting for Teruko for some odd reason—not sure why, but this could suggest that someone other than Xander was aware of this situation? that’s the current weak point of my theory, unfortunately). so as far as we can tell, attempting to kill Teruko proves to be very difficult as her luck carries her though each incident, even if she didn’t want to survive them. it almost seems like an impossible feat with the amount of luck she has.

the thing is, the fact that killing Teruko is nearly impossible adds to my personal theory: “what if the killing game is only running because Teruko is alive? what if killing her effectively ends the killing game?”

look i can explain it okay

as far as we can tell, Teruko actually has a lot of advantages compared to the others in the killing game:

her distrusting nature makes her less vulnerable to being lured into a trap

her luck. that’s all i have to say

MonoTV is giving her some advantages himself, which seems a little… suspicious.

okay on second thought let me elaborate on that last bullet

think back to ch2 ep2-3. MonoTV is the one that asked Teruko to do some chores for him in exchange for MonoCredits—which are essentially tokens that allow Teruko to get others to leave her alone.

what’s interesting here is, MonoTV doesn’t set any restrictions on when she can’t use them (although that could be just because Teruko cut him off). in that case, couldn’t she theoretically use one if she’s about to get murdered or something?

and I also find it weird that MonoTV asks Teruko specifically (as well as follows her around) to do that chore. since there were so many other people that Teruko talked to when MonoTV was still following her, he technically could’ve walked up to anyone. therefore, it could be a possibility that MonoTV intentionally did that to give her an advantage.

just me? okay

anyways what i’m trying to say here is that the series itself seems to be gradually giving Teruko more advantages and opportunities that prevent her from being killed. although that could point to her being the mastermind, i kind of explained with the secrets why that seems unlikely.

but if my theory of “killing Teruko will end the killing game” proves to be correct, the true mastermind actually benefits from giving these added advantages to Teruko—it makes it harder for Teruko to be killed, which effectively keeps the game running.

which indirectly makes Teruko responsible for the killing game—by literally just being alive.

this. uh. was a lot of small speculation and details. that could probably be proven wrong.

besides we’re only mid-ch2 at the time of writing this

so feel free to refute me on ANY of these points—i will listen. for all i know i could be wildly wrong

and as always, take this with a grain of salt.

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #bagel’s train of thought #teruko tawaki #GOD THAT WAS A LOT OF THEORY #i speculated waaay too much in this lmao #btw i got influenced by y’all’s theories while making this #so honestly just gonna give credit to the entire drdt community for this long post #take this with a grain of salt. as always. i could be horribly wrong #fangan #fanganronpa #bagel attempting to string together multiple coincidences to make a theory in 1.6k words

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