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banchieplaysminecraft · 3 years

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How Aaron could’ve been a good character and why he wasn’t

I’ve been annoyed at this for a good long while and i’ve finally gotten around to talk about it so here we gooo

please note that, though i watched all of mcd s2 while it was coming out, i haven’t rewatched it all the way through (i’m a little less than halfway through s2) so bear with me

now, we can all agree that we didn’t really have a lot of beef with aaron in s1. was it annoying that aph was keeping secrets? yes. did we actively enjoy the fact that this random edgelord showed up with all of this convenient information? sure. but did we actively dislike him? i don’t think so

im sure that some people did, but it was a far cry from the universal grudge that we as a fandom hold. the only question is, what changed?

the answer is pretty simple: he got annoying

there is no greater sin that a content creator can commit than to make a character tedious--especially a character that the fans are meant to root for. i once heard someone say that there is no such thing as a good character and a bad character, there are only interesting characters or boring characters

now, before the s1 finale, aaron wasn’t annoying because he made sense. we didn’t know a lot about his backstory, but we knew just enough to not have a lot of questions while also understanding why he as a character worked. he spied on zane, he got information, and he got away with it because, according to every government in existence, he was dead. he was doing it to avenge his village, which seemed to be his reason for doing most things.

that was basically it, because that was all that we needed. he didn’t answer personal questions because that could reveal his identity, and he didn’t hang around phoenix drop proper because he knew that there was a spy in the village who might figure him out. all in all, he was a very logical character

what changed? his motivation

after the gang sealed zane in the irene dimension, may i ask WHAt the fuck was his reason for staying??? nothing! what was his reason for keeping his identity a secret? pretty much nothing! it made no sense!!

according to all of his characterization as a *~lone wolf~*, it would make the most sense for him to strike out on his own and do whatever the fuck, maybe occasionally popping back in to warn the main characters of some impending doom, maybe hold a giant fuckass sword to someone’s throat again, maybe find some other tyrant to destroy.

but he didn’t, and it made no sense

this was made exponentially worse because he was an ~edgy dark angsty boy with a sad past and a dead wife~ and because he seemed to be able to do no wrong. he rarely, if ever, communicated with the rest of the group, and he often just went out on his own--and yet, most people seemed to trust him unconditionally?? he always seems to show up at the right place and the right time with little to no explanation as to how, and no one ever questions it. sure, laurance and dante had some doubts and even spoke up once or twice, but laurance’s grievances are mostly due to being in love with aph, and literally no one else ever asked anything, despite not even knowing his fucking name

and, of course, everyone thinks that he’s super hot and aphmau falls in love with him and then he dies a tragic death in a moment of self-sacrifice that really wasn’t all that heroic because he left his wife and child behind

i mean, come on

THAT BEING SAID he had soooo muuch potentiaalllllll

LET ME EXPLAIN

during s1, his role in the story was the spy--and he was very good at it, because everyone thought that he was dead!! how are you gonna blame a dead man for anything without sounding crazy! no one knew his name or his face or anything--and they should’ve kept it that way because, surprise!! theyre still at war in s2. sure, it’s a different war, but it’s still! a fucking! war! and like 70% of war is ESPIONAGE and INFORMATION and STRATEGY, havent you ever heard the phrase KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE??? they literally had possibly the best spy that they knew of and instead of actually putting his skills to work he just dramatically leans on trees and sits in the shadows??? WHAT

he clearly had ways to get into high places, since he had somehow gotten his hands on the amulet in s1, and he used to be a lord so he would’ve known things about POLITICS and KINGDOM STUFF--i mean, we all know that aphmau knows jack shit about this world and how it works.

what SHOULDVE HAPPENED IS:

after they all get back to the overworld, he leaves the party. idc if it’s immediately after or if he waits a few days, but he leaves regardless. every once in awhile, we hear of him popping up in various places, and we run into him a few times. he informs the gang of what he’s heard, maybe tags along on some missions. he still shows up in random places the way that he does in canon, but since he’s not based it phoenix drop i think that it makes a bit more sense, and he occasionally pops back into phoenix drop whenever he’s in the area or needs time to rest and recharge, and stays an informant for aphmau & her crew. as things pick up, he slowly becomes a more commonly-seen member of aphmau’s inner circle.

throughout this whole period, he finally starts to come to terms with the death of his wife & their village, and he slowly starts to share more with the group--nothing big, just details here and there--and he actually starts to develop *gasp* a personality. i’d like to imagine that he gets closer with laurance, dante, and katelyn instead of only ever talking to aphmau. i don’t think that he’s ever super talkative, but he starts to be a little less quiet & closed off.

at this point, he’s either told them his name or (preferred) they all have a list of nicknames that they cycle through to address him. sooner or later he starts to help with the building of phoenix drop and the alliance, taking on duties that are more akin to his old role as lord. he either phases the espionage out of his schedule or ghostwrites all of the legislation, and falls more easily into his new roles

i don’t really care if he ever ends up with aphmau or not, but if he does then that also happens at some point or another, but i, at least, would no longer be angry at that outcome

However, this whole plot would require everyone in the story to take literally all of their roles in this literal government that they’re building seriously, and we all know that that’s never going to happen, but i can dream /s

Tl;dr, if aaron actually used his strengths and skills to be a useful member of this alliance instead of randomly showin up and dramatically hitting things with his giant fuckoff sword, he’d be so much more tolerable

#please tell me if the bolded phrases make it hard to read i'm trying some stuff #this whole thing was very stream-of-concousness #so please tell me if there are any typos or anything #concousness #i can spell #anyways #aphmau please give your characters actual personalities im begging out #you******** fuck #Aphmau #Minecraft Diaries #aaron aph #aaron aphmau #aarmau #mcd #mcd s2 #mcd s1

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moiraineswife · 3 years

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Jasnah Meta - The Importance of Context

AKA: PLEASE stop saying that Jasnah is pro-genocide when she is. Not. At all. In any way. Shape or form. Whatsoever.

TL;DR: Nowhere, at any point, in four ginormous books of text, does Jasnah ever say ‘you know what’s great? Genocide.’ She never even implies. It she never even actually, seriously, suggests it. Please stop saying she does as though it’s canon I lose 12 years of my life every time it’s mentioned.

AND NOW FOR THE LONG VERSION BECAUSE Y’ALL KNOW I CAN’T LEAVE IT AT THAT!!!!!

PLEASE NOTE! THERE WILL BE SOME MINOR RHYTHM OF WAR SPOILERS IN HERE. PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYEBALLS IF THIS IS A DISTRESSING CONCEPT TO YOU.

So first things first, let us discuss The Scene Itself:

“Yes. The answer is obvious. We need to find the Heralds.”

Kaladin nodded in agreement.

“Then,” Jasnah added, “we need to kill them.”

“What?” Kaladin demanded. “Woman, are you insane?”

“The Stormfather laid it out,” Jasnah said, unperturbed. “The Heralds made a pact. When they died, their souls traveled to Damnation and trapped the spirits of the Voidbringers, preventing them from returning.”

“Yeah. Then the Heralds were tortured until they broke.”

“The Stormfather said their pact was weakened, but did not say it was destroyed,” Jasnah said. “I suggest that we at least see if one of them is willing to return to Damnation. Perhaps they can still prevent the spirits of the enemy from being reborn. It’s either that, or we completely exterminate the parshmen so that the enemy has no hosts.” She met Kaladin’s eyes. “In the face of such an atrocity, I would consider the sacrifice of one or more Heralds to be a small price.”

“Storms!” Kaladin said, standing up straight. “Have you no sympathy?”

“I have plenty, bridgeman. Fortunately, I temper it with logic. Perhaps you should consider acquiring some at a future date.”

So the only time Jasnah actually brings up this concept it’s to, hyperbolically, point out that asking the Heralds to return to Braize and trap the Fused may not be the worst idea.

She’s not actually suggesting this as a valid or legitimate tactic. It’s to contrast the plan Kaladin just called her ‘insane’ for suggesting (I bet that’s gonna hurt a million times more than it already does in 900 years when we get Jasnah’s book and backstory but hey. Back on topic) and point out that, in the face of the apocalypse, this is the kind of level they have to think on.

I’ve already talked about the nuances of this scene at length here, so I’ll just do a quick summary: Jasnah is not as composed about any of this internally as she makes out to be - even what she suggests with the Heralds.

When we see her alone with Ivory, reading Taln’s repeated mantra, Ivory notes that she’s troubled. The words (and where he was/how he was being treated when they were recorded) is enough to trigger a twenty year old flashback in her.

This scene is one of the clearest moments (along with the Kharbranth thug scene, I suspect) where Jasnah’s outward projection of her internal feelings and thoughts least matches up with reality.

In spite of the inflammatory remark that sparks this all off, she doesn’t want to assassinate any Heralds. She quite clearly says she wants to “see if one of them is WILLING to return to Damnation.” She wants to have a conversation with them, understand the Oathpact, and see if any of them would consent to buying them some time. She is not suggesting they knife one of the Heralds in a back alley. That’s Moash’s job.

This is supported by what she does in canon. Jasnah is actually the one who recognises Taln and Ash and, somehow, manages to persuade them to join her at Urithiru and help. She treats them with nothing but dignity and respect in her scenes with them in Rhythm of War, and tries to find out more about the Oathpact and their options - as she said she wanted to do.

But since Jasnah is a Kholin, which means the ‘D’ in her DNA stands for DRAMA, she doesn’t say that, instead she says: “let us find the Heralds and kill them.” (I love her so much y’all. Ahem. Anyway).

But there’s method to this madness, too. Please click the ‘keep reading’ button to discover why! (have to turn my own posts into clickbait bc they’re so long I have to put in a cut to spare ur dashboards).

Jasnah likes to push people. She likes to force them to think, and consider all angles of a problem, and come to terms with their own thoughts and opinions. This is one of the things that frustrates Shallan about Jasnah in TWOK:

Shallan caught a victorious glimmer in her eye. She wasn’t necessarily advocating ideas because she believed them; she just wanted to push Shallan. It was infuriating. How was Shallan to know what Jasnah really thought if she adopted conflicting points of view like this?

-TWOK 36

Jasnah doesn’t want to brutally murder the Heralds and force them to return to their maddening idea of hell. But in phrasing it as she does, she can get an insight into Kaladin. Despite the fact we know him very well at this point, this is, this is the first time Jasnah has interacted with him on-screen, and only the second time she’s met him ever.

“That Windrunner. What do you think of him, Shallan? I find him much as I imagined his order, but I have only met him once. It has all come so quickly. After years of struggling in the shadows, everything coming to light—and despite my years of study—I understand so very little.”

Oathbringer, 33

Jasnah in that scene is deliberately being as exaggerated, ruthless, cold, and harsh as she can get away with. She’s trying to push Kaladin. She wants to bait responses from him, to get an idea of what kind of man he is, and what he stands for. She focuses entirely on him on that scene, and the reactions we as readers get see that as well.

“If you wish, Captain,” Jasnah snapped, “I can get you some mink kits to cuddle while the adults plan. None of us want to talk about this, but that does not make it any less inevitable.”

“I’d love that,” Kaladin responded. “In turn, I’ll get you some eels to cuddle. You’ll feel right at home.”

Jasnah, curiously, smiled.

Jasnah likes to be pushed as well. She likes to have people push back with her, and stand up for themselves, assert themselves, make their arguments. She all but encourages Dalinar to publicly do so in RoW.

Socially, in spite of Kaladin’s rank or status as a Windrunner, it’s probably 100% Not Acceptable to ask an Alethi princess if she wants a basket full of eels to cuddle because she is one, effectively. But Jasnah’s unphased - and even pleased - by Kal’s response. She likes that she’s seeing this from him, that he’s unguarded, and passionate, and more than willing to go toe-to-toe with her, which few people are.

Also, because I foresee potential problems in this meta that I would like to nip in the bud right now, I don’t think that Jasnah is doing this to play with people? That’s not really in her nature or who she is. There’s a purpose to everything she does, and there’s a purpose to her doing this, too.

With Shallan it was to encourage her to think for herself and form her own thoughts and opinions. Just before in that scene, Shallan asked why Jasnah couldn’t just tell her what to think and what was the right philosophy to have in life. Jasnah replied it was something she had to discover for herself - and that’s how she approaches all of their studies.

Jasnah never teaches Shallan what to think, or even what happened, despite that being the meat of her study. Instead, she teaches Shallan how to think, how to study, how to learn, how to critically reason, and how to form and argue her own thoughts and conclusions.

With Kal, I think it’s a quick and brutal way of quickly getting to grips with a new, very important, element in what’s going on in her world. Remember, too, that one of Jasnah’s most obvious aims, aside from protecting the world, is protecting her family. And Kaladin is very close to everyone that she loves and holds most dear, while she knows nothing about him.

However, something else that’s important to note, which, for me anyway, RoW all but confirmed: Jasnah has low cognitive empathy.

She’d come to realize, early in her youth, that she didn’t approach relationships the same way everyone else seemed to. Her partners in the past had always complained that she was too cold, so academic. That had frustrated her. How was she to learn what others felt if she couldn’t ask them?

Chapter 99 really was an absolute fucking gift, I mean really. Asexuality AND low empathy, all in one go. What a delight.

This little snippet can be read as her being asexual, potentially, but I actually think it reads more heavily and obviously about her being neurodivergent? And specially low cognitive empathy. Brandon says that, to him, Jasnah is not autistic spectrum, but you just keep giving me more evidence to say she is buddy!! Anyway. Diagnostic debates aside.

I would guess some of y’all don’t know what the heck I mean by ‘cognitive empathy’ (I didn’t before I researched all of this a couple of years ago).

There are two types of empathy, in strict psychology terms (and then there’s the colloquial way we use it to just mean ‘a good person with feelings’ which drives me BANANAS but that’s a rant for another day):

Affective empathy - which basically means ‘this person around me is happy/sad/excited, I am also now feeling that way. Because emotion is infectious like a cold! How thrilling’.

Cognitive empathy - is the ability a person has to pick up on/know what others are feeling without having to be told. Using tone/body language/facial expression etc etc. It’s something I, and a lot of other autistic people, are bad at.

So is Jasnah!

Her previous partners disliked her probably verbally vibe checking them every other week to find out where they were at. Jasnah was frustrated because how the heck else is she meant to know wtf?? What an absolute mood this woman is. Anyway.

This revelation/confirmation makes a LOT of Jasnah scenes make a lot more sense. Including: chapter 64, and her insistence, to the point of it almost being illogical, that she fight without her Surgebinding to try and get as clear a picutre of what her soldiers are facing as she can. Jasnah starts off that chapter by saying she’s never actually been in a war before, and states throughout that she wasn’t prepared for what it was actually like.

Her low empathy means that, without a personal context/experience to relate to and draw emotional experience from, she struggles to understand exactly what her troops are going through.

Obviously she knows that ‘war is bad, battles are scary and not fun’. But she has no way of emotionally relating/truly understanding what they’re feeling. This is one of the reasons I think it’s so important to her, despite Ivory’s chiding, to do it that way so that she can understand.

Similar thing is happening here with Kaladin. Jasnah struggles to instinctively Get Vibes from people, so she goes about things in a very scholarly way.

She does research and makes notes (see: her little folio on the highprinces (which, by the way, misses out on several important aspects of them Shallan picks up on pretty quickly by the power of Intuition), she asks questions - and she sets up scenarios that push people into blatant emotion so she can observe and get an idea of what makes them tick.

TL;DR TAKE TWO: Jasnah does not want to murder all of the Singers. Jasnah never says she wants to. Jasnah only uses it as a ‘see, asking the Heralds to go back to Damnation isn’t actually that bad now is it?’ hyperbolic counterpoint after Kaladin asked her if she was insane. Jasnah is not actually what she pretends to be in that scene. She is but a hapless gay who cannot detect emotions so she has to conduct her Vibe Checks differently from other people. She is highly valid in every way and i stan her.

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moonlightserenadeeznutz · 3 years

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Warlocks Are Attacking: Full muggle timeline.

(Hello internet, welllllcome to film theory!)

This is a detailed timeline of the headcanon I made about James Sirius Potter being in a band, specifically the tl during which the band pretended to be a lost 80s band in the muggle world, explained in this post (which I recommend reading first otherwise you may be quite confused).

This is honestly a super random thing I wrote when I was bored, but I ended up getting super invested in it so guess what, you guys are subjected to it as well now!

Written in the style of a YouTube video, I’ve heavily based the discography of Warlocks are Attacking on the band I Don’t Know How But They Found Me.

Enjoy!

~ On April 17th 2025, a piano cover of The Scientist by Coldplay was released on the YouTube channel JSHarkness04. A completely ordinary- if not low quality- video where the person behind the camera is neither seen nor heard.

More covers are uploaded over the coming months in the same style, and really the channel gains no special interest or notoriety. A few edit videos are uploaded, the usual crack stuff, and a few more covers.

On January 23rd 2026, a vlog is released showing the YouTuber moving into his new house. We finally hear and see the person behind the camera, a British dude around early twenties whose name is revealed to be Alex, and his girlfriend. Again, there’s nothing out of the ordinary in this video, and it’s only a few minutes long.

A few more piano covers are uploaded, as well as another edit video, and then...

This is where it starts.

On May 3rd 2026, a video is uploaded entitled “Warlocks are Attacking”. In it, Alex talks about how he was clearing out the attic of his new home when he came across some old cassette tapes. All the tapes had writing on them, all different, except for the phrase “Warlocks are Attacking”. Judging by the labels, it appeared to be the name of a band, while the rest of the writing could be taken as song titles: Bleed Magic, Do It All The Time, Nobody Likes the Opening Band, etc. Alex said he had listened to some of the tapes, and confirmed that they were songs correlating with the titles. Alex said he’d never heard of the songs before, nor could he find any trace of the band’s existence online, but that some of the tapes had been dated 1986.

This video didn’t really have a conclusion, but only two days after it was uploaded, another video- only a minute long- was uploaded entitled “New Channel”, where Alex explains that he would be setting up a new YouTube channel to showcase the songs he’d found on the tapes, and hopefully be able to find out who the band was.

On May 25th, two videos on Alex’s new channel, given the name “Warlocks are Attacking” were uploaded. The first one was 30 seconds long entitled “Introduction”, which was nothing more than a man’s voice introducing the band. It didn’t cause much suspicion, especially since the record label that the band was apparently signed to was called “None You Jerk”, obviously a fake label. So the introduction could most likely just be a joke made by the band and recorded.

The second video was a simple lyric video for the song “Nobody Likes the Opening Band”. And in the description he explained the story again of how he found the tapes, and asked if anyone knew the song, or the band.

More songs were uploaded, Choke, Bleed Magic, Absinthe etc. And soon the channel started to grow, both from people who genuinely enjoyed the music, and people who were intrigued as to whether or not this really was a lost 80s band, or whether the entire thing was fake.

Theories started circulating, and people started to try and find hidden messages. They started with the username of the original channel JSHarkness04 but search J Harkness, or even JS Harkness, and the only real result you get is Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who. So it seemed that the only thing that the username implied was that the YouTuber was perhaps a Doctor Who fan.

People searched for hidden meanings in the piano covers, the moving house vlog, even the random edits. But no one came up with anything. So eventually people started to give up and accepted the fact that the whole thing was real, and the songs really were from old cassette tapes found in some guy’s attic.

That being said, there were a select few people who just weren’t convinced. Mainly because of the fact that the songs were good. They weren’t experimental pieces from a band trying to find its sound. They had their sound. They knew what they were doing. So how come no one had ever heard of them? Did they really never play these songs to anyone? Not even for an underground gig?

Well, that’s the thing. There’s no saying they didn’t. If you heard a song forty years ago at some random gig, would you remember? And even so, a number of things could have happened that would have stopped the band from ever having their songs released. Maybe they broke up, maybe they couldn’t find anyone who wanted to pick up their songs, maybe they died was one theory someone had.

Point is, the quality and consistency of the songs was really the only evidence that this whole thing was fake, and even that evidence was sketchy.

But then, on November 7th 2026, an altogether different video was uploaded titled “Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd (cover by Warlocks are Attacking) (found footage!)”

In the description of this video, Alex claims that he found some video tapes in the attic that had been hidden away. A few had been recorded over, but he was able to find a few complete videos of the band.

In this video, we see three band members in what looks like a garage jamming out a cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. And people went crazy. Not only did we finally see what the band members looked like, but we also found out their names. The video, which was dated 1983, had credits edited to the beginning, easily done in the 80s so there was no implication that it wasn’t legit.

Anyway, the credits show that the singer in the video is called Noah Mori, the keyboardist is called Lyra Thomas, and the drummer is called James Potter.

People took apart this video piece by piece, trying to find evidence of either the band being new, or some connection to the YouTuber. Maybe something in the garage was from a time after 1983, maybe the 70s Doctor Who poster in the corner had something to do with JSHarkness04. But all in all, once again, there really was nothing to suggest that it wasn’t real.

However, one thing that was noticed was that, when comparing the singing voice of Noah to the singing voice in the other songs released, they sound completely different.

So despite everything, no one could say for sure who the band members were. We didn’t know if the drummer and the keyboardist were the same, nor did we know who the new singer was. We didn’t even know if they had more than three band members by the time 1986 rolled around, or even if some of the original members had left. All we knew was that the singer had been switched, either with a new singer who wasn’t in the video, or with James Potter, since he was the only other guy in the video.

After the video was released, not much else happened, except the occasional release of another song, which were combed by theorisers looking for evidence that the songs couldn’t have been written and recorded in the 80s but once again came up short.

By this point, the band had grown a real cult following, increased even further when the songs were put on Spotify by Alex.

On March 18th 2027, another video was released, titled “Choke- Live Performance” and showed footage of an actual gig where the band was playing their song, filmed on an old camcorder by someone in the audience, completely unprofessionally as the camera would bob down every so often. Once again no evidence was found of it being faked. However, it did open new possibilities: the band had played gigs. Which means that someone must have seen them play. Not only that but it confirmed that the singer had been switched to James Potter, while the drummer was now Noah, and Lyra was still the keyboardist.

People went onto various sites trying to find anyone who may have been present at a gig in the 80s to see the band live, but no one came forward.

Well, a few people did. But the only evidence they could give was their word, so no one knew whether or not to believe them, which means no one could for definite write off the gig as being fake.

The next stir in the band’s fanbase came with a video simply entitled “???��, a one minute video, with the same voice as the introduction, talking about indoctrination:

Indoctrination program, designation "CVM51-D". Congratulations, you have been selected. You are special. Only the very best and brightest are considered for placement in our patented Temporal Arts program. We invite you to follow along, as we work together to decode and exploit the secrets of time and space for our benefit. Each volunteer pairing will be assigned a chaperone. Our white shadows will oversee your progress. Be sure that our company's interests maintain the highest priority throughout your journey. Please enjoy your experience, and remember: Time is on our side.

Predictably, people were very excited to analyse the text, and while it could still be taken as just a joke by the band, and therefore still no evidence of the band being new, it was an odd thing for the band to do if their songs were never released. A waste of time in a way, especially after already doing it once with the introduction. The voice also wasn’t familiar, though some say that it sounded a little like Noah when compared with the Pink Floyd cover, but putting on an American accent and edited to sound like something out of a PSA.

Another song was released entitled “Need You Here” and then came an actual music video. Or at least, an attempt at a music video.

It was for the song: “Nobody Likes the Opening Band” and in the video we see James singing on a stage, with Lyra playing the piano in a corner and Noah entering onto the stage to play the accompanying tambourine. It’s clearly a music video rather than footage from a show, considering the rather humorous moments that it involves, but executed with complete seriousness.

It also cuts out at the end and shows footage from some kids show which, according to Alex in the description, was called Bagpuss, and was aired in the UK from February 12th 1974 to May 7th of the same year, indicating that the music video had perhaps accidentally been taped over.

(Badly edited example I made of the end of the mv).

While the music video itself didn’t cause too much of a stir, the kids show at the end did, as people claimed that if the show had aired in 1974, and the band hadn’t established itself until at least 1983, how had they managed to accidentally tape over the video with the tv show? People thought it was deliberate, and therefore a sign that the band wasn’t real. Others claimed Alex had done it himself as a joke.

Looking back in the coming months, people saw this video as the start of the band slowly revealing itself to be not what it first seemed. But more evidence didn’t come for a while.

After the release of the song “Mad IQs”, another music video was released, and this one seemed much more professional, as if the band was really trying to make a proper video. It was still filmed in the 80s camcorder style, and it was still very simplistic, and possibly low-budget, again implying that this was a band doing everything themselves.

Released on the 23rd December 2027, the video was a cover of “Merry Christmas Everybody” and once again had the rather quirky vibe of the Opening Band video, where James is unsmilingly singing the song while Noah sits next to him... playing dead? And Lyra comes in halfway through and begins decorating the lifeless Noah with Christmas lights. So at least, if nothing, we know the band has a sense of humour.

An acoustic cover was released of Choke, then a few more songs. And then another music video which so far was the most professional out of all of the ones released. The song was called “Social Climb” and for the video, they actually had a set: a very fancy mansion. We don’t know whether they rented the mansion out, if they borrowed it from a friend, or if one of them even lived there, but by this point they had seemingly become determined to be a real band, which is why the whole idea of them having no recognition whatsoever was odd.

But it was the next video that caused much more of stir, and was the real proper beginning of the band revealing their true identity.

On the 12th September 2027, another cover video was released of David Bowie’s “Heroes”, though was much more in the same style as the Comfortably Numb cover, suggesting that this video was made quite soon after. It was still filmed in the same garage, though with a little more editing, and James was now the singer, and Noah the drummer.

Once again it had credits, but this time they were a little different:

Songwriter/drummer: N. H. Mori Keyboardist: L. A. Thomas Singer/guitarist: J. S. Potter

Doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, right? Well, that’s what most people thought too, but others were adamant that the initials were a sign, because if you notice, James Potter: J S Potter.

People were convinced that the initials JS were linked to the username JSHarkness04, and even brought up the 70s poster of Doctor Who seen in the first footage video as evidence that the username was something to do with James, and therefore showing that the entire thing was contrived.

Some people accepted this, but a lot of people were still sceptical. After all, it could easily just be a coincidence.

Another song was released, and then one more music video on November 16th.

This one was the most different- and the most professional of all the music videos on the channel, for the song “Do It All The Time”.

According to the description, it was sent to Alex by “an anonymous donor” saying that it had once been aired as an educational video in their school, around the year 1987/88.

And while the video could have been created in the 80s, it’s format is much more satirical than anything. The description could easily have said that it was another- and much better- attempt from the band at creating a music video, but instead the description gave an explanation that seemed... off. Not because the uploader had grown cocky, but because the band was finally making its transition from being surrounded in theory to being simply aesthetically satirical.

That being said, it still wasn’t concrete evidence.

There wasn’t another video until December 23rd. Another Christmas one, this time for a song called “Oh Noel” with James sitting alone in front of a decorated fireplace and singing.

Another subtle reference to the band’s identity was revealed with the lyric “I met you in December ’93”, obviously quite a few years after the band was supposedly around.

The next music video was for “Modern Day Cain”, and this is where the band’s identity properly moved away from the convincing 80s set up. The music video had a similar vibe to “Do It All The Time”, though the content was different. In this case, the video was mock footage from a TV show, which, according to the description was called ‘Superstar Showcase’, aired in 1989.

No such TV show ever existed, which was rather obvious by the footage, as once again it was very satirical.

So by now, only the most stubborn of fans were still convinced that the band was really from the 80s.

But no one was really disappointed. The band had executed their persona well. They had maintained the belief that they were a lost band for over two years, and revealed themselves so subtly that people hardly noticed.

The entire act was wrapped up on April 17th 2028, exactly three years after the first video was uploaded on JSHarkness04′s channel, with the release of a cover of “Debra” by Beck. A song released in 1999.

I should mention by this point that the channel JSHarkness04 had been uploading relatively consistently the entire time, most likely for the extra realism to the act. But once the act had been dropped, the channel went dormant.

Since then, the band has been releasing new songs here and there, and they still keep up the 80s persona, but now that they don’t have to be so careful, they’ve been able to have more freedom over what they post. An official music video for “Choke” was released, with the description:

“Pop Time Live was a short-lived music television program that aired briefly in Eastern Europe in the early 1980s. The show, and its producers, had hoped to capitalize on the then popular ‘Italo Disco’ movement, but audiences found its lack of authenticity objectionable. Labeled ‘NOT FOR BROADCAST,’ it is believed that this particular Warlocks performance never made it to air due to the band’s refusal to properly pantomime to their own song.”

Again, no such show existed. So now it was clear that the band was now a fully satirical 80s persona, and eventually they made live appearances, and even interviews, where people were finally able to find out exactly who they were, and that the band had actually been formed in 2021, and their plan to pretend to be an 80s band had first been made up by Noah who filmed one of their performances when they were first starting out (and James was still the drummer, Noah the lead singer) with the idea already in mind. And Alex was a friend of the group who had agreed to play along, but that the Warlocks’ YouTube channel wasn’t run by him, but by all three members of the group.

And as of now, that really covers the entire timeline of Warlocks are Attacking.

~ But heeey. That’s juust a theory. A film theory. Aaand cut.

#only on tumblr could I post something like this and people wouldn’t think it was weird #or at least I hope people don’t think it’s weird #im so fucking invested in this as well though #harry potter #james sirius #Harry Potter next gen #Harry Potter next gen hc #james sirius potter #james sirius hc #Harry Potter oc

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nighttimepixels · 4 years

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Just wanted to let you know that... I'm trying to learn the little sign language, at least a little bit with your comic. It's always been a language I wanted to learn, both ASL and my native language, in fact. Say, why snd how did you learn this language ? If it's okay for you to respond, of course, I don't want to urge you or step in a line I didn't know was there

Oh, that’s awesome-!! I’m so honored you liked it ;v;

To answer your question - I’m not fluent in ASL, not at all! But I’ve picked up bits and pieces over the years for a lot of reasons. Some of it was media I enjoyed, more came from having a few friends that were struggling with selective mutism and wanting to be there for them even with a few signs, and more yet was just… personal interest!

I’ve learned everything I know of ASL online, but I of course rec joining a class or even just community group if you have access!

There are several wonderful sign dictionaries out there - with videos, picture sequences, and GIFs of the signs in action - and that’s a great place to start just picking up a few that are most important. Also… videos on Youtube, allllll the way. The great thing about ASL too is that even if your sign vocabulary is still small, if you learn your sign alphabet, then you can make tough spots work by spelling out words - and asking for the official sign by spelling the word out!

The thing to remember about ASL too is that… it isn’t just a ‘modifier’ to English.

There’s a lot of ease and benefits to the obvious crossover, but… there’s culture, there’s tics, heck, there’s different grammar rules! A lot of ‘extra fluff’ is left out of ASL because it’s absurd to leave it in, it’s not needed, and it’s just not part of the language for good reason, and more importantly, without detriment.

For example- in Part Two of the comic, I show Brick signing along to the dialogue as in-fic, “seems like I…. made an impression.” Now, in spoken English, we can envision the tone used, and so on, really easily, right? And the signs translated to that sentence. However… the actual signs used strictly translate to:

seem

impression.

A big reason why I chose those, in that order, is because part of Brick’s story is that he isn’t yet fluent in ASL - he’s still learning, and is actively searching for words & their corresponding signs! I get the feeling he’s ‘thinking’ in spoken English, and is translating in sign as best he can. (but idk, @popatochisssp is obviously the best one to ask on that front, I’m just interpreting and checked a few details with her as I was working on it X) )

I considered adding the sign for “big” in there before impression, but for space & dialogue translation reasons I ended up leaving it out - even though, tonally, that might well be what someone signing would choose to get across the same impression - or just emphasize ‘big’ using their body language!

That’s one of the things I love most about ASL- that it is just as expressive as a vocal language, despite what it seems like a lot of people think. Maybe it’s bc I’m an artist & animator, but the use of the body beyond just the ‘hand motions’ is just as important… and relays a lot about personality, just like someone’s voice and basic, more simplified body language might.

(On top of this, consider ASL’s different grammatical structure - you can read more here, it’s really cool - but basically, commonly you’ll see Subject-Verb-Object or Subject-Verb order; and if time is involved, then you might see something like “WEEK-PAST I WASH MY CAR” or, depending on the user’s vernacular, they’ll favor the subject-first style, and sign “MY CAR WEEK-PAST I WASH”. Point is, there’s variation just as in spoken language, and reasons behind those choices!)

.. okay I’ve rambled too long XD

Basically, I myself started learning bc I was interested for several reasons, both personal and bc I’m a nerd who happened across ASL content online (a couple bloggers, a few stories). I recommend just keeping it in your personal orbit as much as possible if you’re interested in learning! Read comics with sign, check out shows/movies with characters who sign, and definitely check out bloggers/youtubers who sign (and I always rec people who are HoH/deaf and/or mute most of all!)

TL;DR, if you get nothing else outta this post but are curious about Sign Language here’s some video-based Signing Content to get you interested/follow!

Things Not to Say to a Deaf Person (feat lots of BSL - British Sign Language - actually! But it applies across the board and is cool to see signing folk bust some bs)

I Can’t Hear Myself Speak! [CC] by Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, who is a lovely disability advocate & queer lady who is also Deaf/HoH! She talks about how she can’t hear herself speak in this video, and the varied ways deafness/being HoH can be manifested, and a bunch of other related things. (Link includes the playlist she has for her videos on Deafness - she signs in BSL, so don’t worry if you know only bits of ASL and don’t cotton on to her signing!)

ASL time - Top 10 Basic ASL Phrases for Beginners by Nyle DiMarco! You might’ve seen him around - he’s that super nice deaf model who went viral in the past few years on a few videos! He’s got a short series about basic ASL (and him being cheeky) that’s actually a big fave of mine bc he phrases it like a conversation, not just disjointed phrases.

How I Learned Sign Language From My Deaf Boyfriend by Sign Duo! Honestly, their whole channel is great. Tons of vlogs, they both sign the whole time of course - and they’re just really relatable, they feel like conversations - plus they’re both just really likeable. I strongly recommend any content that actually features two+ people fluently signing, but these two are great and informative. Also, I recommend their video My Deaf Boyfriend: Why He Doesn’t Use His Voiceif you want to know more about that cultural choice/inclination. Remember to turn on closed captioning if you aren’t fluent in ASL! :)

How Do Deaf People Experience Music? an interview featuring Shaheem Sanchez, a stellar deaf dancer and actor. Like I said earlier, I really really recommend learning about Deaf/Signing culture alongside the signs themselves. The context is incredible, and honestly, broadening your understanding of any marginalized group by learning their stories as told by them is a good thing in my opinion.

Dos and Don'ts of Interacting with the Deaf Community [CC]by The Essential Sign. Again, turn on CC if you’re not fluent in sign - her videos are great! This one’s a great cultural one for those new to signing/who want to learn about deaf culture. She busts some common misunderstandings and shows some course corrected alternatives that are actually positive, and encourages you how to move forward without stumbling over insensitive landmines! Similarly I super recommend her video What is Concentration Fatigue? (with RIKKI POYNTER) [CC]which talks about something you don’t see mentioned as often, I think - precisely what’s on the tin.

… aaand I’ll leave it there for now, I think those are good starting points and a variety of styles! Deaf/ASL-fluent vloggers are a great resource and way to, even if you’re isolated/don’t have a practice community, get regular exposure to sign as well as actual first-hand (heh) accounts from people who sign in their everyday life!

#night answers #about the Tangles comic #about sign language (but yeah disclaimer I'm not Deaf/HoH and am just attempting to learn as I go!)#I'd have to say that Sign Duo probably have the best ongoing vlog channel of this list (for ASL - Jessica's channel feats BSL so I rec that #but all these are good #idk just - stoke that curiousity!#that's always my stance #the fact that you're interested is so so good #hopefully this helps! most of all the videos i'm guessing pfff #thanks for your kind words ;v;#kyonesan

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prorevenge · 5 years

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How I got revenge on my cheating ex!

TL;DR at bottom.

This story takes place almost 12 years ago so I'll do my best with the dialog and details but admittedly some things are a little fuzzy. Most of my life I've had a problem with picking men that were not good for me, so much so that I even had a phrase for it "saving the world, one moron at a time". One of my more spectacularly bad choices was a guy by the name of "Bob" (obviously not his real name). I met Bob when I was working one of my 2 jobs at the local mall, he worked somewhere else in the mall so we hit it off and soon enough we were in a relationship. Within a few months my lease was up and we ended up moving in together which obviously in hindsight was a huge mistake but I was dumb and lonely.

Soon enough red flags began to fly, he would say things in common conversation that were simply incorrect (like there's only 4 continents and the rest are actually owned by the martian government and thus don't count etc. ) and when challenged would circular talk until you either agreed with him or dropped the subject. He would also make claims that seemed entirely unbelievable such as when I asked where he had been staying prior to his mom's house he said he "camped in the woods" when I asked how he did that for months on end and without any gear he simply gestured to himself and said "this is all the gear I need". The worst trait though by far was his epic LAZINESS! I have never witnessed someone so lazy in my life.

Bob was unemployed for over a third of our relationship and would simply sit in the apartment watching netflix or playing some war game on "his" computer AKA my spare computer typing away in the group chat. He would never clean up after himself leaving dirty dishes in the sink and filth on every surface while only taking a shower MAYBE once a week. The smell that permeated my apartment could only be described as revolting and could easily gag a maggot. I would inquire a few times a week on his "job hunt" only to be dismissed or given a growing amount of excuses such as "but I don't have a car, how would I get there"... "the bus doesn't run in that area"... "the internet went down so I couldn't apply"... etc. etc. Meanwhile I am working double and triple shifts at my job to try to make up the lost income and running him all over town in my off time getting applications and helping him fill them out and turn them in. Keep in mind he doesn't have a cell phone so all of these apps have my contact info on them. Thus begins the era of him "holding my phone" while I'm at work so he can make calls or schedule interviews as well as I can get a hold of him from my store phone if I needed to.

Things began getting weird, he began staying up later and later on this group chat, sometimes till almost dawn. Sometimes we would hang out all evening until it was time for bed. Then he would always make some excuse on why he needed to check the game before bed and he'd be right there.... hours would pass... no Bob. I began to get suspicious but nothing incriminating seemed to be taking place so I just shrugged it off as me being insecure. Then he started asking to use my car to go see his best friend "Ben", now I wasn't super comfortable with this but I did know Ben pretty well and we got along almost better than Bob and I did so I guess to a degree I trusted Ben more than Bob and agreed to it. This happened a few times while I was working the evening shift and he was always back at the allotted time with my car and my phone and relatively grateful for the opportunity to hang with his buds. Suspicious... umm yes, but I'm the kind of person that is loyal and trusting to a fault and don't assume anything without proof and from every angle all seemed to be on the up and u so I took it at face value.

So one day he asks to borrow my car and go with his friends to a card gaming tournament, he put on a great show telling me how the prize money would help us out and with the deck he had there was no way he could loose. I just had to let him use my car and phone this one last time and he would be able to buy himself a phone with the prize money. I wasn't a huge fan of the idea but nothing untoward had occurred in the previous instances and I didn't feel like spending my only day off at a card game convention that I literally couldn't care less about so I acquiesced. I bought myself a couple green monsters and some vodka and had my own little personal drunk party. Hours tick by and no Bob... Eventually I pass out only to wake up at the crack of dawn VIOLENTLY sick, this went way beyond a hangover. I start retching in the bathroom until there was nothing left but bile but the retching wouldn't stop. Hours ticked by and I lay in my bathroom floor sweating and convulsing with no phone, no car and no Bob. I eventually was able to crawl to my room and wrap myself in a bath robe before crawling down my apartment building stairs and began knocking on the closest doors. It took 3 apartments before someone opened the door and allowed me to use their phone to call my mom. My mother was at my apt in 6 minutes flat and rushed me to the ER where I was diagnosed with an aggressive and antibiotic-resistant strain of C-Dif. Bob finally showed up later that afternoon phone and car keys in hand looking very concerned and claiming to be deeply apologetic but my mom hated him from that point on. I was out of the hospital and back to work within a few days but it was the beginning of the end.

During these last months we were constantly scraping by due to his lack of consistent income and poor spending habits. There were jobs gotten and there were jobs lost for various reasons throughout our relationship but the final job was one I helped him get literally 3 buildings down from my own workplace. This company rents furniture and electronics on a weekly/monthly basis and I happen to know most of the employees and the hiring manager as they are regular customers at my coffee establishment . I was able to use what little sway I had to get him on there and he accepted a job as a delivery man.

Within a few weeks I come home from work to find a brand new TV and entertainment system and him grinning like an idiot. I tell him we can't afford this, we can barely afford to eat and are surviving off scraps I bring home from work. He talks about his amazing employee discount and assures me it's no big deal that the rental fee will just come out of his check etc. I was pissed! Not only had he not consulted me, he also had me on the account as well (my info had been taken from the credit app I filled out as a favor to help their numbers) so if HE flaked I was liable. Fast forward another few weeks the rent is late and we are receiving eviction notices on our door, I come home from work and the tv is mysteriously gone. "Thank goodness" I think, "he finally realized we can't afford it and took it back"... he gets paid, rent gets paid and all is as good as it can be. Until I found a pawn slip for the TV in his pocket as I was doing laundry and went ballistic! He assured me he had plans to get it back in the works and to not worry about it, it will be taken care of soon and no one will be the wiser? I was too pissed to catch on to the secrecy aspect of the situation.

A few more tense weeks go by with him working mornings and myself working evenings while we shared one phone and car... Until that fateful day arrived! I woke up that morning with a migraine headache and opted to let Bob take the car but leave me the phone so I can call someone later on for a ride to work. A few hours of uncomfortable sleep go by before I am awoken by my phone.... I answer the phone still groggy "Hello?"

There is a long pause on the other end of the line until a female voice asks "Umm is Bob there?"

I felt a sickening feeling in my gut and began to shake.... is this real? Am I dreaming?

"No, he's at work right now this is his wife (total lie but hey) is there something I can help you with?" I wasn't rude, I phrased it as a genuine question rather than an accusation.

Another long pause before she began to stammer about maybe she had the wrong number but it was obvious she just wanted to get off the phone with me as quickly as possible and I realized in that moment that I desperately needed her.

"Please" I said with an edge of desperation in my voice.. "I don't know what's going on but I just really need somebody to tell me the truth" the last word came out in a sob and I sat there for a moment in silence trying to quell the urge to just cry uncontrollably.

"Listen" the voice on the other end was almost gentle "I need to make a few phone calls but I promise you I WILL call you back". She said it calmly and with so much conviction that I really wanted to believe her...

"Please, you promise?" I almost begged.

"I promise" she replied

"Ok" I took a deep breath and released it, "I'll talk to you soon" and hung up.

I then proceeded to aggressively pace my living room floor staring at my phone while chain smoking and muttering to myself like a crazy person. I knew who she was calling... I was replaying all those little red flag moments in my head from the last few months, pinning down dates or behavior I'd found suspect when the phone rings again. It's her. I froze for a moment... shocked she followed through and called me back, terrified of what this meant... I answered the phone and what followed was about the most soul crushing 45 min of my life

After initial introductions June (again not the real name) and I began comparing stories and it became glaringly obvious what was happening... They had actually been in a relationship several years prior and had run back into each other on the aforementioned war game where they began to flirt on group chat. All those nights he'd been on the computer he'd been chatting with her. All those times he'd go hang out with his "friend's" he been using my car to take her out and my phone to communicate with her. The time I was sick and alone with NO resources... you guessed it... he was with her! Oh but it get's better...

"Do you have a little silver hummingbird necklace?" she inquired. "Yes, my mother gave it to me for my 27th birthday actually I love it"

"Really?" she said "Cause he gave me one for mother's day"

"OMG" I almost yelled into the phone as I ran to my room and tore through my jewelry box... it wasn't in there... it was around her neck.

From there we discovered not only had he been giving her my property as gifts but he'd had her over to our apartment passing it off as his own. I didn't want to believe him capable of doing something so cruel and disrespectful when I have allowed him to sponge off me for the better part of 3 years. Unfortunately as in confirmation she began describing my apartment to a T, all the way down to my bed sheets. June said he even pulled my "secret box" from beneath my bed and offered to use my adult items on her. She said she found it weird and didn't partake but I threw them away due to the sheer ick factor. Finally she uttered the words I didn't know I wanted to hear"

"You know what we should do? We should bust him together."

My mind immediately started racing, indeed we should! I was a mix of fury, adrenaline and despair so my thinking wasn't exactly strait and details begin to get hazy here. We arrange to meet up at my work and find a way to lure Bob over there but unfortunately she lived about 40 min away whereas I only live about 6 miles from our destination so if I got there first I'd need to stall him (assuming he wasn't out on a delivery). I called a trusted coworker of mine at work sobbing and begging for a ride... to his everlasting credit he got somebody to cover and LEFT WORK to come get me and bring me to my car. When I got to Bob's workplace I went inside to retrieve my keys (this isn't uncommon as they know the car is mine) and was stopped half way through store by Bob's manager wanting to talk about the payment due on "our account".

I don't remember the exact dialog but I said something along the lines of "Look, I don't know when you are going to get your payment." I looked utterly defeated and told him we could never afford the TV in the first place and how I had begged Bob to take it back and now we don't have it anymore as Bob has pawned it and I don't have the money to get it out let alone pay him. I was full on blubbering at this point when he stopped me to clarify that his EMPLOYEE pawned a rental TV under contract. I confirmed that this was indeed true and presented him with the pawn ticket. HE WAS MAD! Apparently such an act is illegal and is terms for immediate termination but he assured me that if I could get the TV back to him there would be no harm no foul and he would terminate my contract without any penalties. I thanked him for his understanding and told him to let Bob know I would be over at my workplace.

My heart is pounding in my chest and blood is roaring in my ears... what was I going to say? What was HE going to say? Would June make it here before he did?? My heart sinks when I see Bob's hulking form making it's way in my direction, I frantically scan the parking lot for June's car... she's not here yet and I'm out of time. He hits the door looking out of breath and guilty as hell and I just stare at him stone faced. I walk outside silently to light a cigarette unsure of exactly what to say and he follows me wordlessly outside.

He starts in with the "it's not what it seems" and "it's all just a terrible misunderstanding" and I just let him dig himself deeper into his hole of lies. I listen, I nod, I pretend to understand until a particular car pulls into view. June parks in the space directly next to where we were standing and gets out of the car... "Hey Bob, how ya' doing?" Bob has gone visibly pale, he hangs his head and sits down on the curb saying nothing to either of us. June and I greet each other and awkwardly shake hands before again returning our attention to Bob. June begins berating him on his lies and deceit, unveiling all of our mutual info and subsequent conclusions while I stood mostly in silence agreeing at the appropriate times but mostly still in shock. After 20 minutes of this I finally mustered up the courage to take my stand.

"We are done, I don't want to see you ever again. I'll pack up your things (only 2 boxes worth) and your sister can contact me in a few days to pick them up. Now I want your key." I held out my hand and looked at him. "Not until I get my stuff out, then you get your key" he replied. I tried to argue but he continued to refuse and used his large stature to his advantage knowing I'd have no chance in a physical altercation. He turned and walked away heading back toward his workplace, June and I talked a little more before she handed me my hummingbird necklace and left. I stood there alone staring at nothing trying to wrap my head around what had just transpired and then I cried... oh how I cried.

With nowhere else to turn I had only one call to make... to my mom. The moment she answered I unleashed this deluge of words at her that were half sobs and half rant. "Stay right there, I'm coming" she said. God Bless my mother! Soon enough both of my parents pull up in my dad's truck and my mom gets out to comfort me and give me hugs. I look at the driver's seat and see my father with his jaw is clenched and a death grip on the steering wheel while staring strait ahead... OH Crap! They take me to the pawn shop and my parents write a check for more than $500 to get the TV out, we then drive strait over to Bob's workplace and return the TV to the manager. As the manager finishes up the cancellation paperwork my dad spots Bob pacing around the back of the parking lot talking frantically on the phone. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear the ensuing conversation but my dad returns within a few minutes holding my house key and looking victorious.

"I believe this is yours" he says as he hands me the key and then pulls me into a hug and I cried a little into his shoulder. My dad gave me a squeeze, kissed my temple and whispered into my ear "They're firing him." I leaned back to look at my dad and he just smirked and said "Now he's jobless and homeless." I thought about it for a second before I said in my most sarcastic tone "Ohhh I'm sooo soorrryyy to hear that" We laughed about it a little and my parents gave me some words of wisdom before leaving me to drive myself home where my best friend was already waiting to keep me company.

Bob and his sister showed up a few days later for his pitiful boxes of stuff, he tried to talk to me, to explain... but my best friend descended on him like a harpy if he muttered more than a few syllables in my direction so he was shut down almost immediately. He left that night and I have never heard from him since, I blocked him on social media but there was really no need as he made no effort to contact me on any level. That's Bob... ever lazy, ever deluded and always an a**hole.

So here I am many years later happily married to my high school sweetheart and the mother of two beautiful little boys and grateful to have moved on when I did. The experience with Bob certainly took its toll I lost a lot of weight due to lack of appetite but had a myriad of trust issues moving forward but the point is I moved forward. I have grown leaps and bounds as a person since this experience and am truly content with where my life is now but every now and then when I'm drifting off to sleep I can't help but wonder... what ever happened to good ol' Bob? Is he out there somewhere... in the woods with a stick and his wits as his only gear... waiting for a martian government to make its move.

Ah well, a girl can dream ;)

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to message me with any questions or comments :)

TL;DR: I discovered my boyfriend was cheating so I organized a sting operation with the other woman. Boyfriend ended up chickless, jobless and homeless within a matter of hours.

(source) story by (/u/Jenabear7897)

#prorevenge #by /u/Jenabear7897 #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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sebinvld · 4 years

Text

“dark side, i search for your dark side, but what if i’m alright right here? i cut off my nose just to spite my face, then i hate my reflection for years & years.”

tl;dr: sebin puts his feelings on paper. featuring: @taevld, @vldgeonwoo, @ryunhovld, @vldhyunjun. wc: 1,953.

the simple truth: sebin is an inconvenience.

it isn’t something that very many people have outright told him, but it’s a conclusion that he can easily come to on his own. his impulsive actions and persistent enmity always come back around to hurt not only him, but those closest to him, too; he has a hard time controlling himself, and because of it, everyone suffers.

and someone who makes others suffer definitely isn’t convenient to have around.

but as self-aware as sebin is, the awareness isn’t enough to silence the monster that makes apologizing so hard — pride. to apologize means to admit that you’ve done something wrong, and to admit that you’ve done wrong means that you’ll have to try to be better. sebin doesn’t want to try. maybe he would’ve wanted to try years ago, but not now. he’s grown into his sardonic persona; it’s comfortable for him, safe.

unfortunately, comfort doesn’t erase guilt, and sebin is just as susceptible to guilt as anyone else is. it’s because he tries to mute the guilt that it stings so intensely; especially late at night, when he’s trying to sleep. it becomes an acid that eats away his insides, making him feel rotten and empty.

it’s the reason why he’s still awake right now: the digital clock on his desk tells him that it’s a little after 4am, and he knows that he shouldn’t be awake. his body knows it, too, because his eyes keep closing in somnolence. but he refuses to give in because for the first time in years, he’s attempting to do something that’s never been easy for him: express his feelings.

he’s been trying for hours now, and all he has to show for it is a trashbin full of crumpled pages, ink stains on the side of his left hand, and one lousy phrase.

FOR HYUNJUN.

he had thought that this would be easy. starting out small. the members of danger are far from being the only people he’s ever done wrong, and admittedly, he hasn’t been half as cruel to them as he’s been to some others, so he doesn’t have near as many things to apologize for. but maybe it isn’t even the apologies that are making this so hard. he doesn’t want to leave it at just apologies, he wants to show his gratitude for them, too, and that’s something that might be even harder for him than apologizing.

he isn’t sure why.

if you care about someone, you should let them know before it’s too late, and sebin constantly feels like he’s running out of time. not because of any real time constraints, considering how many years of their lives they’ll be spending together and have already spent together, but because he has a tendency to push his luck, and no one has a bottomless well of patience.

the sun doesn’t have patience either, and sebin knows that if he doesn’t get these letters written soon, the daylight will steal his time and he’ll never get them written at all. so, he puts his pen down to crack his knuckles, picks it back up, and then starts writing again.

FOR HYUNJUN.

the most dedicated person i know.

i’m sorry for making fun of your anime collection. i know that part of friendship is making fun of each other, but i always go too far, and i don’t really know why i do that. i don’t really want to hurt your feelings, but it seems like that’s what i aim for, huh? i’m going to try to stop doing that.

i think it’s really cool that you’re so dedicated to it. you must be really passionate about it, and i can’t even imagine what it’s like to be so into something. maybe that’s why i feel obligated to make fun of you for it. because i don’t know what it’s like.

anyway, i’d like it if you could send me a list of animes to watch. i can’t promise that i’ll actually watch them, but i’ll give it a shot. maybe then we can have something to talk about.

i know it’s been years now, but i don’t think i’ve ever apologized for the way that i treated you when we first met and the way that i still am sometimes. i’m sorry.

you’re a very warm person, hyunjun. i respect you a lot, even though it doesn’t always seem like it. i’m glad to spend my youth with someone like you.

one letter written. it’s brief, but it says everything that sebin wants to say—everything he can think of in the moment, at least—and besides, it’s better than the blank page that he’d had before. if he thinks of anything else that he wants to say later on, it’s not like he can’t write another letter.

he opens the left drawer of the desk, grabbing a roll of tape and the kakao friends keychains he’d bought. they aren’t anything special, but he hadn’t wanted to spend a lot of money on a plan that he might not even follow through with. plus, even though they had been cheap, they do all remind sebin of his members, in some way or another.

he folds up the letter and attaches it to the keychain of ryan with a piece of tape, then rips another piece of paper from his notebook and begins the next letter.

FOR TAEWOO.

the most patient person i know.

your patience used to irritate me, to be honest. but i’m sure you know that already. but i’ve grown to respect it a lot.

i wasn’t always kind to you, and i’m still not. i’m sorry for all of the times that i’ve lashed out. i’m sorry for all of the times that i’ve made you feel annoying. you aren’t annoying!!! read that, and then read it again. lock it into your brain. i know how terrible it is to feel annoying, and i want you to know that you aren’t.

thank you for being kind to me when i don’t deserve it and thank you for believing in me when i find it hard to believe in myself. you’ve made the past few years so much easier than they would’ve otherwise been. i could never thank you enough for that.

oh, and thank you for making me laugh. they say laughter is the best medicine, so i feel pretty lucky to have you around.

i think you might be the nicest person i know. i admire your kindness and i hope that i can learn from it in time. the idea of debuting doesn’t seem so terrible since it’s with someone like you.

the second letter is finished and for a second, sebin lets himself feel happy about it. but then he glances towards the window and sees the sky changing from black into medium blue — the sun is beginning to rise. he guesses that he could skip his morning run to finish the letters, but he doesn’t want to. sighing, he grabs the keychain of tube and quickly attaches the folded up letter to it.

immediately, he has his pen in his hand again and he’s writing—trying to, at least, but he finds that all of a sudden, it doesn’t want to write. he scribbles harshly in the upper corner of the paper, to no avail. he’s just about to search for another pen when he realizes the cap is on it. that’s the only reason it hasn’t been writing. “fucking idiot,” he mutters passively, removing the cap.

FOR RYUNHO.

the funniest person i know.

i just want to say thank you for every single night you’ve ever spent with me. i love our convenience store trips, late night adventures and ridiculous conversations more than you could ever know.

before i met you, i didn’t really know much about friendship. it’s not like i didn’t have friends before, but i never had any that i was particularly close to. i guess the situation that we’re in is what made us so close, and as much as i hate training, i’m glad that it made our paths cross.

i’m really proud of you. you’re one of the coolest people i know (even though you’re a fucking nerd), and i can’t wait to brag about you to anyone who will listen. god knows you won’t brag about yourself, you humble little goblin, you.

i think you and i are on the same wavelength. i’ve always felt far away from other people, but not from you. thank!!! you!!! for being you!!!

my attitude’s kinda terrible sometimes, and i’m sorry for any of the times that you’ve had to witness it (or were a victim of it). i’m going to try to be better.

i’m so excited to debut with you!!!! life is a highway and i’m glad we’re in the same car.

he isn’t sure when it started, but he realizes that he’s crying when one of his tears slips from his cheek and onto the paper. he tries to dab it away, but it smears the last word. “are you fucking kidding me?” he huffs under his breath, scratching the word out completely and rewriting it after the horrible blob of mess. he raises one hand to rub his eyelids in hopes of ending the tears at once, then folds the letter and attaches it to a keychain of muzi.

only one more to go. undoubtedly, it’ll be the most difficult to write.

FOR GEONWOO.

the hardest-working person i know.

i know we’ve never gotten along, and although all the blame doesn’t belong to me, i know that a lot of it does. i’ve always been harsh towards you. i’m sorry.

i know that you probably won’t believe it. you might even think that i’m joking. but i know that the way i treat you isn’t fair, and i know that it must be difficult to deal with since you’re trying to chase a dream. you shouldn’t have to share a dream with someone who makes things so difficult.

i think it’s really cool that you worked so hard to get to where you are. you have a lot of dedication, geonwoo, and that dedication will get you so far in life. i know it will.

i want you to know that i don’t really think that you’re a nobody. maybe what i think means nothing to you, but you’re just as good as any of us. i’m not embarrassed to share a stage with you.

i’d like to say that the future will be easier for us, but i can’t promise that. i want to be completely honest in this letter, so all i can say with certainty is that i am sorry.

i’m looking forward to seeing who you become in the future.

just as he writes the last letter, he realizes that the sun is almost completely up. luckily, it’s still early enough that he can go for his run and be back by the time that the others are waking up (maybe a little after), but he’s still shocked that he spent the entire night working on these letters. what a joke.

he attaches geonwoo’s letter to a keychain of apeach, then stands up for the first time in hours. he leaves taewoo’s letter on the desk in their room, then takes the others and slips them carefully under the doors of the other members’ rooms.

he tries not to overthink the decision — before he can, he goes to get ready for his run and leaves, only hoping that the letters will be read before he returns so that he doesn’t have to feel the embarrassment firsthand.

#011. / solo.#here's a small moment of redemption #it won't last long #tw swearing #not much at all tho #just like...... twice #he's not going to stop being terrible towards the members

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baenxietydad · 4 years

Text

What’s The Matter Here? || The Baes

title

April 30th, 2020

tl;dr: Nemo confronts his father about his knowledge of Ashlee’s situation

@justkeepdancing-nemo

tw: discussion of abuse

NEMO:

As soon as dance practice had finished and he’d said goodbye to Ashlee, Nemo snatched up his phone as fast as he could, dialing Appa furiously. He still couldn’t believe it. How could his appa know that Ashlee was being abused and do nothing about it? Well, not nothing but-- nothing to stop it. Tears of frustration and fury beaded in his eyes, though Nemo didn’t know if they were leftover from the adrenaline rush of his panic or the fact he wasn’t sleeping well these days or...who knows.

He ignored the tears. He grit his teeth. He got Appa’s messages.

Nemo snorted at once at the irritating beep. “Appa, we have to talk right now!” he snapped and snatched his bag from the ground, ignoring the raised eyebrow Chase was giving him. “I can’t believe you’d keep that stuff about Ashlee from me! She’s my friend, you know! I can’t believe--” his anger got too big and snatched the rest of the words from his mouth. He sucked his teeth the way Appa always did to him when he was too frustrated for language-- any language, Korean or English.

“You better pick up next time!” he yelled into his phone.

And dialed again. Got the same beep. Left another miniature rant, this one featuring a couple of Korean phrases just to prove how serious he was! Meanwhile, he clambered out of the dance studio and started speed walking all the way to the forest with Chase zipping along beside him.

They wing-sprinted all the way back to the Hollow, and Nemo didn’t even bother to get changed out of his dance clothes. He marched straight to the clinic.

Like always, the waiting-talent at the front sighed when she saw him. “Nemo,” she said. “Your father is--”

“I know, I know!” Nemo shouted, brushing past the curtains.

“I didn’t say you could--!”

“Appa!” Nemo exclaimed. His eyes darted around once, but the clinic really wasn’t busy-- it rarely was, it wasn’t like people got life-threatening injuries that often. There were just a couple of sniffly fairies (allergies, spring colds) and then one who looked like he had a stomachache. Good! No emergencies! So Appa could take a five minute break.

“Appa, we need to talk right now,” Nemo said.

MARLIN:

“There Bae’s kid goes again, making a fuss.” Jeered one of the healing-talents in the corner of the room. Mu-yeol glared at them over his shoulder and reached out a hand for Nemo to take it.

He led him to a room down a hall mainly used to store things and pushed some clutter aside so they’d have room to talk. Whatever this was, Nemo seemed serious. Was this an appeal to get Chase off Nemo duty? Yeah, right. Not happening.

“What is it, baby?” He asked, reaching to play with Nemo’s hair. “Are you okay?”

NEMO:

Nemo swatted at his hair. He wasn’t in the mood to get babied right now.

Actually, he hadn’t been in the mood for days, but that’s what happens when an appa makes his son break up with his boyfriend. Nemo hadn’t been sleeping. His whole chest was still sore. And now all that pain had doubled with Ashlee. He was definitely yelling at Appa 75 percent for Ashlee… and maybe 25 percent for himself too.

“I’m fine, but y’know whose not? Ashlee T.” Nemo said. The fury deepened in every line of his face now that he was looking at Appa’s clueless expression. He had known. He had known for how long? “Her dad’s hitting her, but you knew that-- you knew and you didn’t stop him! You didn’t even tell me!”

MARLIN:

Mu-yeol’s hand fell to his side as he stepped away from his son’s burning hot anger. No, not burning hot - so cold it burnt. He swallowed and licked his lips as he backed up against the nearest wall as if to distance himself from his son’s hatred.

“Nam-min...how did- where did you hear that?” He wouldn’t confirm or deny anything unless Ashlee herself fessed up to Nemo. He promised he wouldn’t tell, didn’t he?

NEMO:

“From Ashlee, obviously!” Nemo hissed. His fists were clenched. He was trying not to shout, if only because he knew what people thought of them-- especially after this past week. Pixies hadn’t stopped whispering about him. He’d heard pitying remarks, he’d heard sneers, he’d heard scoffs of disgust.

Nemo didn’t want to give them more ammunition. But he was also so mad.

“She told me you’ve been healing her. You realize what that means, don’t you?” His eyes burned with tears. “It meant her dad could just hurt her all over again. Over and over. For months. You knew all that, and you just let him.”

MARLIN:

...what? No, no it wasn’t like that at all. Ashlee wasn’t willing to reveal her father to the authorities, she wasn’t-- someone tried to force her into telling her story and her father punished her with violence over it. What else could he do?

He couldn’t force her to reveal her father; he could only take away her pain.

He could also, and did, take detailed notes of every occasion she came to him for healing. The notes included the date , time estimate, and injuries with a description of how old they seemed, for when Ashlee was finally ready to tell the truth about her father.

“No, Nam-min— baby, listen to me. It isn’t - it isn’t as black and white as that, as much as you and I want it to be.” Mu-yeol stepped forward and held his son’s hand. “Nemo. I found out by chance and Ashlee wouldn’t even admit what he was doing to her. I healed her to take her pain away, not to protect him. She made me promise not to tell and I- I should have told the police, probably, but I don’t. I don’t trust them. The police don’t protect and serve anybody but the interests of the State. Anyway-” enough with the Marxism, Marlin, not the point. “The police don’t actually protect those in trouble. They didn’t investigate your mother’s murder, and they didn’t help Ashlee. Because after I healed her, someone else who suspected something was wrong called the police.”

Marlin scoffed. “And you see how well that turned out. Child safety services did a half-assed investigation, Ashlee denied everything to avoid the embarrassment, and despite that being a common thing for abuse victims to do, it wasn’t looked further into. And then she came to Pixie’s when the rumors circulated, to accuse me of being the one to report him and...Nemo. The state of her made my blood run cold. So what would you have had me do Nemo, hm?”

He sighed and stepped back from Nemo to lean against a table. “Someone already tried to force Ashlee into telling her story. And her father punished her for it, terribly. I tried. I told her over and over that a father - a good father - doesn’t hurt their children. I told her it wasn’t her fault, that she deserved to be safe, and that I would help her be safe. But had I gone to the police, Nemo? They failed her once. If Ashlee wasn’t ready to tell her story for herself, then I couldn’t force it. He’d only hurt her as terribly as he did that time if the police started prodding him again and she wasn’t ready to be honest.”

NEMO:

Nemo glared. The longer Appa talked, the harder the glare got, his anger unyielding when he wanted it to be. And he wanted it to be. Sure, Appa had all his excuses. But they weren’t good enough. He wondered what Appa might have done if Ashlee had been a pixie like them--

--no, that thought was too mean, Nemo knew it was-- but right now he was hurting everywhere, hurting for Ashlee, for himself, and blaming Appa was a strange, comforting salve. None of Appa’s excuses even made sense. Because he was Appa. He was a grown-up. Wasn’t that supposed to mean something? If it didn’t, why did Nemo bother listening to adults at all?

“Too bad!” he said angrily. “Too bad, you’re-- you’re an adult. You’re supposed to do something. Even if the cops suck, there was something else you coulda done, not just let her get hurt over and ov--”

His breath suddenly hitched, words swallowed up by his own horror. The tears brimmed, nearly falling. Nemo sucked a breath, shaking his head.

“You should’ve at least told me. I don’t care if she said not to tell anyone-- this is something you tell people! We have to help her before something worse happens!”

MARLIN:

“Did you not hear what I just said?” Mu-yeol hissed. “Someone had called the police. And Ashlee was hurt for it. If I called them next what would have happened, hm? So you honestly think they would have actually looked into it?”

He raised an eyebrow at Nemo. “He would have gotten away with it again, until she was ready to expose him herself.”

You should have told me. Maybe. But what would Nemo do, huh?

“She didn’t want you, specifically, to know. If I told you and you asked her about it, she would have stopped coming to me to heal her. If she wasn’t constantly getting her strength restored, she would be in worse pain. Ashlee has yet to indicate she’s willing to bring her father down once and for all. At least I can heal her, Nemo. At least this way her injuries can’t pile on each other. And if she’s ready to expose him, I’ll back her up.”

He gestured vaguely in the general direction of their home. “I’ve kept a detailed record of every incident. Dated, descriptions. I can corroborate her story in writing. Has she told you she’s ready to end him?”

NEMO:

Nemo wouldn’t ever believe what Appa said. And that was because of one thing-- he believed in Appa. Even now, after his heart was crushed, after Appa let him down for Placement, he still had his abeoji’s roots grown deep through him, planted firmly. He was the only person Nemo had to rely on for Big Life Things. Not silly problems at school, not petty complaints at dance. The real stuff. When disaster struck, Nemo went to his appa, that’s just-- the way life was.

Disaster struck. Appa was saying he couldn’t do anything. It didn’t make sense. The only thing that would make it make sense was that Appa didn’t want to try-- because maybe he was too much of a coward, because maybe he let his own feelings about humans get in the way.

“We’re-- I’m-- making sure she’s safe first,” he said, flashing another glare Appa’s way. “We’re figuring it out. She’s gotta talk to her other friends and make sure she can stay with them so foster care won’t take her away but then-- yeah.” He sniffed a little, and crossed his arms, all that anger still bright and hot in him. Anger and-- disappointment. Appa had let Ashlee down. And Nemo too.

MARLIN:

Foster care.

Those words made his heart race and his palms sweat more than his son’s borderline hatred did. Mu-yeol purposely didn’t try to involve himself with humans much until recently but he had still interacted with humans enough to hear about the horrors that ran rampant in the foster system. There were some truly loving, safe, and well-intentioned foster homes. There were some who were a warm bed to sleep in and little else. And there were others, still, where the horrific foster care tales were reality.

“She can’t go into foster care.” Mu-yeol gasped, like he was short for oxygen. “I’ve read what happens to kids, especially girls.”

That was another reason he couldn’t try to force her to tell the truth. If Ashlee was whisked away to a foster home in London or Liverpool who turned out to treat her like her father did, was that really better? At least in Swynlake she had a healing fairy at her disposal.

“Nam-min.” Marlin sighed, dragging his palm down his face. “I was afraid that if I said something before Ashlee was ready to say something and tried to force her to expose him, she might deny everything out of fear again. And when she did, I thought he might be so angry he might — might really hurt her. I mean...Nemo, I mean kill her. I’ve read enough stories, that’s what humans do when they’re about to get caught.”

NEMO:

“I don’t care!” Nemo blurted-- too loud. He blinked furiously at his own voice, and his eyes darted back toward the clinic. He didn’t want anyone to hear. Even though most of the fairies in the clinic never went to town, Ashlee wasn’t any of their business and neither was fight between Appa and Nemo.

Though, was it a fight? Nemo didn’t know if it was a fight. He couldn’t win anything. He just wanted Appa to say he was sorry or something.

“If that’s what you’d really thought, you should’ve done something else. Anything else. N-not just-- just let her be hurt over and over, and right under my nose--” And suddenly he was crying, tears dribbling out of his eyes. He ducked his head to wipe them away as quickly as he could.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” he heard himself crying now. “Why didn’t she--?”

MARLIN:

“Oh, my love.” Mu-yeol cooed, wiping Nemo’s eyes with his thumbs.

He frowned as he helplessly watched his son grapple with the reality of what evil humans are capable of. He lost all of his drive to argue, and to explain to Nemo that the government systems in place meant to protect Ashlee failed and were inefficient and would have failed again.

“Nam-min there is a complicated psychology behind victims of abuse. On the outside it is very easy and tempting to feel hurt that you weren’t told, but you have to realize, baby.” He held Nemo’s face in his hands. “It has nothing to do with you. People— people in those positions feel shame, and they blame themselves even though only their abuser is to blame. I know you’re not used to seeing things like this, you’ve been insulted by a Hollow your whole life. I raised you here so you wouldn’t have to understand the casual evils of the human side like that. But you’re learning them anyway.”

“It’s okay to be confused. And sad because it is sad. Ashlee deserves to have an Appa— er, dad— that loves her like you got.” Mu-yeol pulled Nemo into his arms and carded his fingers through his hair.

NEMO:

Appa drew Nemo into his arms and Nemo wished he could fight him off. He was still so mad at Appa-- mad at him for everything. For Robbie, for Nemo’s placement, and now for Ashlee too. Seasons, he still couldn’t believe that for months, Ashlee had been getting beaten. For months, and Nemo didn’t know.

It wasn’t his fault, but like everything else, it felt like it. And so like everything else, he wanted to give the blame to Appa to hold instead. Appa was so much stronger than Nemo-- he could take it.

But he didn’t fight Appa. He didn’t yell or blame him. He just hugged Appa back, his wet face pressed against his tunic as he shuddered with his tears.

“We have-- have to help her.” His voice was muffled by Appa’s tunic. “Please, promise. You’ll do--do something.”

#nemo

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kalimaruquin · 5 years

Text

R.I.P. Strelitzia (and everybody else)

So after everything (released up to 3/8/19), there’s only three people that I can suspect of killing Strelitzia.

Ventus, Brain, and Vanitas.

Every other possible suspect has either a reason not to have done it, or no reason to do it.

Lauriam’s her brother and is desperately investigating her disappearance, seemingly unaware that she was chosen to be one of the leaders like him.

Elrena is helping Lauriam investigate and unless she’s lying in order to manipulate him for some ridiculous end, she doesn’t know about the current state of the world in Union X. Manipulation’s unlikely though since she’s managed to keep up a familiarity with Marluxia all the way through KH3, something I wouldn’t believe possible if he had figured her out (which he would have by then) or if she was trying to accomplish something with a deadline back in UX.

We didn’t do it (I think), since we aren’t shown to remember her and wouldn’t have run headlong into the Keyblade War if we had her copy of the book (unless we were suicidal and/or somehow learned from her book that we’d get saved and mind-wiped by Ephemer and Skuld and would get away with killing her and it’s part of our fall to darkness that causes everyone else’s fall to darkness and we were the villains all along, but that’s such a stretch that it’s borderline insane...)

And Ephemer and Skuld were guaranteed leader spots.

So why those three?

Well, Brain’s currently talking about hijacking the timeline and he seems to have known about the oncoming glitches, so he’s either got a more detailed book than the others somehow (Strelitzia’s maybe?), or he’s really been doing his research. Either way, that he spent most of the time up until now with his face hidden and that he said the same ‘virus that will overwrite the timeline’ phrase as the Secret Reports in KH3 are the main pieces of evidence indicting him. But at the same time, he’s talking about hijacking the timeline so that the world doesn’t end, which it hasn’t on account of UX being a prequel. Unless of course he’s talking about the world splitting into the various different worlds or the eventual collapse of Daybreak Town, but even then that would require him knowing too much about the future.

Maybe he’s the Master of Masters or Luxu in a new body? I don’t know, I just feel like he’s a little too perfect as a suspect to be responsible for everything that goes wrong during and after Union X. It feels like he’s being set up to be a fake-out, a red herring.

Ventus, on the other hand, is too quiet. It’s like if Brain is standing in the middle of the room and yelling ‘I might be the bad guy’, then Ventus isn’t saying anything at all while he’s trying to sneak towards the door. He doesn’t chip in much when the other leaders are deciding what to do, he hasn’t really given any details of his current life away, and we know from BbS that he has a pretty powerful dark side. Of all the repeated non-Disney characters that we see in UX, Ventus is the only one who isn’t eventually a Nobody or dead, so we know he won’t fall to darkness or get killed by the end of UX’s story. I’m assuming that UX is going to end like BbS did, where all of the main characters get screwed over or die in the fallout from the reveal of Strelitzia’s killer, and being said killer who gets away with it while the others fall like dominoes in his wake is a pretty decent reason for Ventus to still be fine afterwards. Otherwise I have to assume that not only does Ventus have nothing to do with that murder, but he doesn’t have anything to do with any of the events afterwards either. Basically, I’m banking on Ventus being in UX for a reason, because if he isn’t involved with the murder plot, and nothing happens to him after that murder plot is resolved, then he’s only in the game to fill a leader space and his eventual dark side comes from... what? Not fighting in the Keyblade War? Not manipulating his fellow wielders? Not doing whatever it takes to get what he wants? If Ventus ends up doing nothing in UX, then it means that his hesitancy during training with Xehanort in BbS comes either entirely from Ventus not liking Xehanort(which is fair), or because he saw what using a Keyblade did to the other kids back during the aftermath of the war that he helped lessen the terror of. And neither of those would excuse Vanitas’ extreme villainy and personality.

So we come to the last, the dreadfully and hilariously most likely suspect, Vanitas, who isn’t even in Union X. Yet.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain myself.

So from the conversation at the end of KH3 between Sora, Ventus, and Vanitas, it really isn’t hard to suspect/learn that Vanitas is the real identity of the Darkness character that showed up to talk with Maleficent in UX. Vanitas even ended the KH3 chat by saying ‘I Am Darkness’.

So how’s Vanitas in UX?

He used Xehanort’s time-travelling method through his connection with Ventus.

Since Ventus and Vanitas are still technically two halves of the same person (but not in the regular KH way), any moment in time that Ventus exists is a time period that Vanitas can send himself to.

So why would Vanitas kill Strelitzia?

Because he already did.

Or rather, because Ventus found out that Vanitas did, learned that Vanitas was himself from the future, which would make him hate and fear himself, which leads to him cultivating both a darkness from self-loathing and a desperate want to avoid that future self, which leads to his refusal to accept that darkness in himself when Xehanort demands he do it to forge a X-Blade, which leads to Xehanort ripping the darkness out of Ventus and forming it into Vanitas (who knows at least an abridged version of what he’ll eventually do because Ventus knew), which leads to Vanitas going along with Xehanort’s plans so that he’ll eventually learn how to time travel so that he can go back in time, and finally it all comes full circle when Vanitas uses that knowledge to go back and commit the murder that he knew would lead to his own creation.

And the only evidence at this point that counters that Homestuck-level time loop nonsense is that we have been led to believe that Ava only picked five people to inherit the books and Unions and not six like the Master did.

tl;dr

If Brain did it, there’s only five books and he did it because he already knew the future and needed to steal Strelitzia’s spot/book in order to change the future.

If Ventus did it, there’s only five books and he did it because he’s not just a nod to the fans and is actually a stone-cold killer who eventually becomes a good boy after being exorcised of his murder demons.

If Vanitas did it, there’s six books and it was to screw with Ventus and to make sure that Vanitas was born.

If someone else did it, it’s because the writers are hacks and thought an unfounded murder with no motive was the best they could do.

#Kingdom Hearts #khux #Brain #Ventus #vanitas #strelitzia #kh spoilers #kh theories

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fallwithmemydear · 5 years

Video

youtube

I’ve been listening to this lovely song a lot lately, and it recently struck me how remarkably similar it is to the story of Aziraphale and Crowley. It fits so perfectly, in fact, that I’ve decided to analyze the song, line by line, as if it’s being sung by Aziraphale and is from his perspective after the events of the book/show. (I suggest that you listen to the song first before you read my analysis of it, btw.) So without further ado:

ARMY OF ANCIENTS - GOOD OMENS ANALYSIS

An army of ancients could rise from the ground/And tear every nation apart: Obvious reference to Armageddon. The army of ancients rising from the ground is a direct allusion to the hellions and demons below, but I also take the army of ancients to mean an army of angels, too. Considering the style in which the word is sung, it could easily be mistaken for “angels.” And in Good Omens, it’s clear that the angels from which Aziraphale came use somewhat morally gray methods to accomplish their means. They care about winning the war no matter what, and damn the consequences; thus their ascension from the so-called ground, the bottom, Hell.

And I’d still be sitting there counting my cards/Wondering when will it start?: Aziraphale is used to a certain way of life - his comforts, his luxuries, his home - after six thousand years. “Counting my cards” is a reference to a game, one that likely involves gambling. The entire Arrangement with Crowley is definitely a gamble: there’s always a risk that they’ll get caught by their respective Head Offices (and they eventually are).

However, cards could also be referring to the sort of activities Crowley has successfully tempted Aziraphale into over the past millennia - going out for lunch, drinking copious amounts of wine, and maybe even gambling as well. If we go with this interpretation, then Aziraphale is saying that despite the apocalypse, Crowley and I will remain. The line about “wondering when will [Armageddon] start” can also be perceived to mean that Aziraphale is wondering when the real war to end all wars (the one Crowley referenced at the end of Episode Six; “Heaven and Hell against all of us”) is coming.

The oceans and forests could collide into one/And muddy this world in a spark: This references Adam coming into his power. The oceans represent the unknown, the ethereal, the ineffable: myths and conspiracies that Adam reads about in Anathema’s magazines. And the forests represent the world as we know it - a concrete of Adam’s world, anchored in reality; the Them’s hideaway in the forest, where he feels safe and free. The collision of the real with the unreal (as Adam subconsciously makes the unreal a reality) signals that Armageddon is here, the world is ending. The line “and muddy this world in a spark” is a further extension of this metaphor, and refers to the ruination of the world brought forth by the “spark” of Adam’s mind.

And I’d still be sitting there twiddling my thumbs/Wondering when will it start?: Aziraphale does nothing while the so-called apocalypse is happening. This could be a reference to the overall futility of Aziraphale and Crowley’s work during the eleven years leading up to Armageddon (as they influenced the wrong child and all of their work was in vain). Or it could be a reference to his knowledge that there is nothing he can do to stop it.

How did the fox get the raven to crow?: This has to be my absolute favorite line. The fox, typically known as a wily trickster throughout fairytales, represents humanity, and the raven is Crowley, with pitch-black wings. The fox got the raven to crow - change his name from Crawley to Crowley, hide his demonic, inhuman appearance, shade his snake-eyes behind sunglasses. The fox got the raven to “change” its very nature for its sake.

Why, at the creek, did the dog lose the bone?: This, to me, is Aziraphale questioning how he and Crowley lost hold of the true Antichrist, and fixated on Warlock (the wrong boy) for so many years. But it could also be him wondering how Adam managed to win the hellhound over and take him as his pet in a small little dog form. This one is more open to personal interpretation, I think. All of the questions in this song are direct references to either fables (written by Aesop) or biblical passages.

The man could come back on his fiery throne/To measure the feathers and hearts: The hypothetical “man” here has to be referring to a divine being. Whether Aziraphale is talking about Satan or God, however, is I think up to interpretation. “Fiery” would imply that he’s talking about Lucifer, but the act of measuring the feathers and hearts is a reference to Ancient Egyptian myth, where when mortals died, their hearts would be measured on celestial scales against the Feather of Ma’at (who was the goddess of justice) to determine whether their actions made them worthy of passing on to paradise, or Heaven. A being maintaining justice, however, could be God. Regardless of who this being is, Aziraphale says they “could come back,” so it definitely can’t be anyone who walks the earth.

And I’ll still be whistling Dixie alone/Wondering when will it start?: “Dixie” is a song very commonly associated with the south (specifically in the United States) and the Confederacy of the American Civil War. This connects with Aziraphale’s supposed “roots” as the southern pansy, as he’s dubbed by Shadwell. And he’s still wondering when the real war is coming.

I don’t want to wake up/I don’t want to move: This is where the song shifts from its previous pattern. Aziraphale is saying he doesn’t want to wake up from his life of comfort and pleasure; he doesn’t want to leave Earth. He wants to stay and keep enjoying the luxuries (mostly foods) he so wholeheartedly enjoys.

I’ll skip the sermon and stick to the booze/I’m sorry: Aziraphale denounces his faith - he’s on his and Crowley’s side, not Heaven’s - and says he’ll stick to his comforts. He’ll keep drinking with his demon and dining at the Ritz and feeding the ducks in St. James Park. And he apologizes, because of course in a way, he is denouncing himself. He is denouncing what he was created for. He’s announcing his moral grayness and his love for Crowley, the importance he places on staying with his demon above all else - even the greater good.

Well, I’ll take what I want in the dawn’s early light: Aziraphale will take what he wants (often used as a sexual phrase) in the very early morning - again, sexual implications. It can be assumed that Crowley is what he wants, and he no longer has any qualms about making it clear what he wants.

How did the fox get the raven to crow?: Again, how did humans manage to make Crowley change himself - change what Aziraphale loves about him?

Why did the hen pick grains in the snow?: After a fair amount of research, I can’t actually find the exact fable the song is referencing, but I can derive its meaning. Picking grains in the snow seems like a futile, almost pointless task; perhaps Aziraphale sees himself as the (mother) hen, and is asking himself why he and Crowley went to the seemingly pointless trouble of trying to influence the “Antichrist” (Warlock) for so many years, in an attempt to balance him out and raise him to be completely neutral. (The answer, of course, is simple: because Crowley suggested it, and because Aziraphale is absolutely #whipped. So is Crowley.)

Why did the brother bury his gold?: I’ve seen this recorded as “coat” instead of “gold,” which would be a reference to the story of Cain and Abel, in which Cain kills and buries his brother. As God supposedly clothed Adam and Eve in “coats” of animal skins, it can be inferred that the brother in the song buried not his own coat, but Abel’s.

The man took the rats, but the kids came along: Direct reference to the story of the Pied Piper. I think this could also be an observation made about Adam’s “enchantment” (read: control) over the rest of the Them during his little rampage. The rats could be a reference to Adam’s “new friends,” or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - some pretty nasty people, if you ask me. Easily comparable to rats.

Why did the mouse help the beast with his thorn?: Another of my favorite lines. This has to be Aziraphale recounting back to the first time he ever helped Crowley, by covering him with his wing and protecting him from the first rainstorm.

Does this town know how to make soup without stones?: A barely-there last line, whispered as the song fades out. Another reference to a folk tale, but I think it can be read as more of a joke in Aziraphale’s case. The original story details a group of villagers all pitching in to help some travelers make “stone soup,” and then all sharing the end result (sans stone). However, I think Aziraphale is saying it in a way that implies he is just a little selfish - just a bit of a bastard - and he doesn’t want to share what he has. He wants to keep it to himself. And I think in this case, he’s talking about Crowley again.

TL;DR - Aziraphale is very much in love with Crowley, and is still biding his time, waiting for the real apocalypse to come.

#meta #good omens #ineffable husbands #video #aziraphale #liv rants #my song analysis #song

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dabistits · 5 years

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1) Thank you for answering! I hope that you don’t mind my continuing this conversation despite not disagreeing with your points - the misogynistic undertones of that forgiveness were heavy enough to drag anyone’s mood down. It’s just that I feel the need to clarify that I’m in no way trying to absolve Horikoshi for writing these people on those circumstances in that way nor to guess if any nuance we extrapolate from it is intentional or not, just to say that an in-universe lens makes it really

(cut for length again and more discussion of fictional dv)

2) easy to empathize with the reactions of the Todoroki women. Maybe even more so than with Natsu’s perfectly natural hope than having their abuser at least recognize how shitty his action were may bring closure, since that puts healing on the hands of said abuser which isn’t constructive. And then there’s Shouto who has been trying to not do that anymore for a while and has felt pressure to work with/under that asshole to achieve his full potential (which, another sadly realistic thing) so of

3) course he can see that for now, regardless of how HE feels about it, the best hope for their mother is that their father’s action reflect this supposed change of heart regardless of genuinity. And I think we are actually supposed to side with that but whether that’s intended for the sake of the victims or the abuser depends on how charitable you are feeling with Horikoshi’s writing. I mean, in the absolutely most hopeful interpretation of his writing we may see that flower thing as a parallel

4) of something the Joker canonically did for Harley and hence a hint of not seeing Endeavour as redeemable but not being the time for his comeuppance since right now their world really needs effective heroes whether they are good people or not… but that wouldn’t have been such an issue if he hadn’t written Endeavour to be as consistently useful at law enforcement as he did. I very much do not feel like dismissing the Doylist readings of complex subjects, that just facilitates the propagation of

5) harmful messages, but I believe that complementing those readings with Watsonian ones can help us more fully tackle said subjects and avoid detrimental “moralizing”. We understand the world through stories, which is why fostering empathy for fictional characters is still used to teach empathy for certain groups. And like you’ve said, at least on the West victims who haven’t ‘fought hard enough’ get thrown under the bus (Cinderella being a great example of a fictional case) so to me

6) encouraging others to see things through the victims’ eyes in fiction too is important even when the author won’t. TL;DR: please do go off on any author that punches down instead of up but why miss out on appropriating representation for those who are down while we are at it?

i’ll say in advance that i know it’s hard to submit long responses through an askbox, so if any of the things i’m focusing on below were just a result of the character limit/poor wording/misinterpreting, then please do let me know and send a follow-up.

there’s one major thing that i think we have to get out of the way first:

i don’t think it’s fair to characterize natsuo (or any other person who refuses to forgive their abuser) as placing healing in the hands of their abuser. being angry and resentful towards the person who abused you is not predicating your healing on that person’s future actions; it’s claiming your emotions and experiences which your abuser has no control over, it’s setting boundaries for what you will accept from that person, and on what terms you will interact. it’s saying “if you don’t get better, then you will not have my love or support” and that’s totally fine! no one is owed our love, thus it isn’t hurting us not to give it to someone who doesn’t deserve it.

i’m not gonna lie, phrasing a survivor’s choice of dealing with their trauma as placing agency in the hands of their abuser bothers me a lot. it also sounds a lot like the things people say when manipulating a survivor into forgiveness, like: “you can only control your actions, so why don’t you forgive them for your own sake instead of waiting around for them to become better people?? :)” not that you’re trying to manipulate anyone, anon, but wording like that can be easily misconstrued and i would be mindful of it in the future.

now, for the rest of your ask: again, i fully believe it’s your right (and everyone else’s) to headcanon rei and fuyumi however you want to fulfill a satisfying watsonian reading for yourselves. the problem with watsonian readings, however, is that they’re all down to interpretation. you may say that fuyumi wants to reconcile for many complicated reasons, while another reader might say she’s just forgiven her abuser, plain and simple. it’s even more open to different interpretations than doylist readings, so why would i just pick one of them to incorporate into my analysis? how would i choose it? what would my biased choice lend to my meta?

i’m also not sure why you say sticking to a purely doylist reading would be ‘moralizing.’ a doylist reading places nothing on the characters themselves—it’s about using narrative cues to figure out what the author intends to convey, and in this particular case, it’s about criticizing the way horikoshi wrote the pro hero arc based on the way he framed the actions of the tdrks’ abuser and the perspective from which he decided to tell the story, all of which only add depth to the abuser’s character. there is no evidence to argue that this arc was meant, canonically, to condemn that character—in fact, all the evidence points to the contrary—and i disagree with the idea that our criticism targeted at the author and at the narrative must be filtered through a watsonian perspective. unless you believe that people adhering to a doylist critique of the tdrks’ narrative is somehow promoting a lack of sympathy towards rei and fuyumi, then what purpose does it serve except for doing hori’s work for him?

there’s a time and a place to discuss headcanons, and for me, within my metas isn’t it. most of them are geared towards a specific message that analyze the narrative at an authorial/doylist level, for instance “this is why hori is so damn shitty at writing abuse.” they’re not about “hori’s shitty and i’m correcting him with these headcanons based on this canon evidence and these real life examples.” if you want to do the latter, then by all means, be my guest! it’s just not a task i’m interested in undertaking, and, again, i don’t believe they’re necessary for message i intend to convey, and i don’t believe it’s actively harmful to survivors to exclude watsonian explanations.

i think it’s fine to feel sympathetic towards rei and fuyumi. i encourage it! i also understand if there are people who don’t want to get involved with them because they’re badly written and because hori uses them as his abuse apologism mouthpiece. it’s very dispiriting, and people are allowed to not interact with messages they feel are dispiriting or harmful.

i think it’s fine for fans to write rei and fuyumi however they please. they can write them as avenging furies or they can write them as complicated abuse survivors with conflicting desires. as i said in the post you’re referencing, i understand that fans themselves are coming from a complicated place, and i sympathize with that.

i think it’s simultaneously important for fans to remember real abuse victims, who don’t always make perfect choices, and who already get a lot of flak from society regarding what they do and don’t do. we must extend our sympathy to these real survivors, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have complicated and negative feelings about the ways fictional survivors are written.

lastly, i want to say quite simply, if you want to encourage people to sympathize with abuse survivors, there are better works than bnha. there are creators who work their commentary about abuse into the text itself instead of making fans invent an interpretation to convince other fans. i think it’s far more straightforward and a better overall experience for someone to read or watch a piece of media that intends to have a statement on abuse than to be left to flounder in the mess that bnha is.

#abuse /#ask

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theharellan · 6 years

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Do you think there is a difference in how Solas views city elves vs how he views Dalish?

send me a topic to write a meta about my muse on | accepting

don’t reblog this one pl

There are some misconceptions about Solas’s feelings re: city elves, I think. People tend to see them as more negative than they are? There are certainly problems with his perspective on them, but it’s not nearly as hostile as you might expect, after hearing his position on the Dalish.

First, some cliff notes on what he has to say about city elves in dialogue with the Inquisitor:

If you ask him about city elves when you have his approval (or are Elvhen yourself) he will say that they have a few rituals that they cling to differentiate themselves from humans, and notes that these rituals are common of those belonging to oppressed groups. His tone isn’t hostile, or derisive, but sad or, at worst, neutral.

After completing WE&WH you can either apologise or imply he should be happy about the outcome, depending upon Briala’s fate. He will then express surprise, and state he does not feel he has much in common with the elves. However, he does express admiration for Briala, and believes that (if she lives) she will do her best to serve the city elves.

If you have negative approval, you can accuse him of abandoning the elves. This conversation is a little more general than specifically about city elves, but he explains that as things are now he can’t see himself helping more than a few people (and admits that is more than nothing). If you pick the right option he will drop a Veil-destruction comment, implying that his plans to help the elves will not happen so long as the world is structured as it is.

And now, I’ll go over how each scene helps explain his perspective on city elves:

There isn’t all that much to say about this one, but it indicates feelings that are echoed more strongly in the second conversation about city elves. I will note, however, that he does not feel as strongly about city elves upholding these old elven rituals as he does the Dalish. For example, in the quest “Flowers for Senna” he does not disapprove, even if the widower in question clearly believes in the Elvhen gods and the Herald can invoke Falon’Din, he, in fact, approves of it. (It is possible this elf is Dalish or of Dalish heritage, but he has no vallaslin and looks like he’s supposed to be 50 at least, and lacks an accent, so I think it’s likely not the former).I think this is ultimately the problem with how Solas approaches city elves versus the Dalish. The slack he gives city elves has a lot to do with how city elves have to live with human rituals every day, compared to the Dalish who are more solitary. When, in fact, both groups of elves are holding onto their rituals (in part) as an act of rebellion against their human oppressors. A lot of this has to do with his bitterness about his attempts to reaching out to the Dalish being met with derision and accusations of madness, and I understand why he’s so much more hostile about their beliefs, but it’s Not Good. It also has to do with something I’m getting to next.

This conversation is a weird one because if you’re Dalish you might say a line that contains the phrase “our people” and Solas will then act surprised. This is after Solas himself has potentially invoked the line “our people” with Lavellan, so like-- obviously he knows what they mean? I think it’s clunky writing having to do with so many races being possible choices, but the best I can explain it is his surprise is specifically due to the connection made between himself and city elves. He doesn’t see having much in common with them besides race, compared to the Dalish where he can at least recognise remnants of his culture, even while they are incorrect on many fronts. Therefore, it’s a lot easier for him to recognise Dalish elves as “our” people.And I can understand that perspective. Solas fell asleep at least a thousand years ago. For perspective: I’m English, 1018 was about a half-century before the Norman invasion of England, and a couple hundred years after the Viking raids/invasions began. If some English woman from 1018 for whatever reason fell asleep and woke up in 2018 and had a talk with me (ignoring that we wouldn’t even speak the same language) I’d be surprised if she did feel like she had something in common with me right away. And this is all without the persistent oppression the elves faced, that further destroyed their culture in the way that mine didn’t have to endure. And this is also without factoring in the fact that the very fabric of the world changed, with the implications that a body wasn’t even necessary to be elvhen.Recognising themselves in modern elves seems to be a consistent problem with Elvhenan elves, too. Felassan and Abelas also struggle with feeling connected to them, and Flemythal, someone who has been around and aware longer than the three of them, tends to keep the elves at arm’s length in dialogue. She is warmer to the likes of Merrill and Lavellan, but even in the scene where she reveals she is also Mythal, there isn’t a recognition as the elves, even Dalish elves like the aforementioned two, being “her” people-- although, this could just as likely be a result of her being in the body of a human.This section got a little long, but I’ll sum up: Solas feeling disconnected from city elves isn’t really a sign that he feels negatively towards them, and he recognises them as elves, potentially saying in the lead-up to the confusion about who his people are “... [Briala will] look after the elves.”

Again, I think this is relatively self-explanatory. There isn’t really word on whether all elves are welcome to join Solas’s cause. I go with “they are” because it opens up more rping opportunities, and because rp has afforded me the opportunity to allow that character development. In Trespasser, a slide makes mention of elven servants across Thedas disappearing. This means either his ancient elvhen agents have infiltrated enough servant positions that them leaving is something people noticed, or that he has reached out to modern elves. If the latter, the fact that they are city elves, specifically, is interesting.

Now, we’ve covered his conversations with the Inquisitor, but there’s someone else who I really want to talk about: Sera. Sera isn’t a typical city elf, and probably resents the term a little, but nevertheless his attitude towards her both does and doesn’t inform potential attitudes about city elves.

At multiple points, Solas reaches out to Sera in a manner specifically related to their shared elfish-ness. He’ll speak Elvhen to her, wondering if she might understand its meaning through its rhythm, and ask her how she perceives the Breach in a way that seems unique to elves. In the latter conversation he even says “we are not so far apart, you and I.” But at the same time, he also tells her she is the “farthest from what she is meant to be.” I feel that comment is specific to Sera, whose internalised racism due to abuse has spurred her even further from the Elvhen identity, but let’s be honest: it’s a shit thing to say to someone. I don’t know if there’s any structure to the order their banter comes in, but I tend to get the ones where Solas reaches out before anything else, and I take both of these characters with me a fair amount throughout my playthroughs because I love them both (also they have the best classes).

The rest, however, kind of conflicts with conversations he has with the Inquisitor about city elves (which is honestly??? Expected at this point. See: my meta about Solas and Qunari, that I can’t find right now so I guess you can’t see that). I tend to see it as a willingness to connect with city elves. He definitely sees himself in Sera, the young rebel willing to start a fight, who cares deeply for the oppressed, though I think this has as much do with Sera’s personality as it does with her being an elf (that being said, the two can’t be easily separated). And, as I noted, he attempts to connect with her on a shared Elvhen heritage.

What I glean from this is that, while Sera pushes away his attempts to connect, other city elves may not. And that he’s more willing to try to connect with city elves than some people tend to imagine him as? That the default is what I stated in the numbered sections above, but Sera (and, in rp, other non-Dalish elves he interacts with and grows fond of) helps him see similarities in ways he hadn’t before Inquisition. If it turns out all elves are welcome among his agents, then I think Sera (and a Dalish Inquisitor, if befriended) might be why. Or, again, because this is rp: non-Dalish elves he connects with.

tl;dr - Solas’s opinions of city elves aren’t negative. He supports their advancement via Briala, and does not judge when they invoke gods he knows would not care to listen. I only wish he exercised this attitude more when it came to the Dalish.

While he’s pretty willing to drag the Dalish, he doesn’t do so with city elves, and rather expresses a disconnection that, ironically, many Dalish elves also express in games and lore. However, banter with Sera indicates he tries to find things he has in common with them based upon shared elvishness, and Trespasser might imply that he has welcomed them into his ranks.

RP-wise this means don’t assume his prejudice towards the Dalish extends to all elves, and it also means: city elves (or non-Dalish in general), come plot with me.

I could probably go on and note how disconnection from one’s own race and/or culture is not only not unique to Solas, but not unique to elves in Dragon Age. Inquisition in particular deals with it a lot: Bull with the Qun, Varric with the dwarves, Harding with dwarves, Dagna with dwarves, Cassandra with Nevarra, Leliana with the Chantry, Cadash/Adaar with their races, and, obviously, Sera. Heck, even Lavellan, while not rejected in the way a Surface dwarf is from Orzammar, is forced to play herald for another people’s god. It’s a really interesting theme imo, and how some characters explore it via banter (Solas, Varric, Sera) or in Trespasser (Sera, Bull) is fascinating. I’d love to draw comparisons between these characters one day, but probably not on this blog b/c it’s not strictly Solas related.

#( headcanons )#( solas meta )#( ooc )#dorf elgar ( anonymous ask )#( asks )

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vvardenfellcat · 7 years

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11, 17 & 19?

11. How are they vocally expressive? What kind of voice, accent, tones, inflections, volume, phrases and slang, and manner of speaking do they use?

J’hasi’s fairly quiet until he feels somewhat comfortable in the setting, or if he feels strongly enough about the situation to speak out. Around friends or if he gets excited/interested, he loosens up and talks a bit more. His voice is fairly high pitchwise, only dropping low when he wants to intimidate or if he’s not happy about the situation, or the people around. Rarely he drops low if he’s keeping his voice quieter to talk to a friend privately, but it’s not as low as when he’s upset or trying to threaten. His overall volume is a little on the quiet side unless he’s excited (louder) or if he’s trying to make a point, his speech firm and volume a bit louder, obviously loud if he has to yell to get his point through to someone. When he’s really pissed and trying to threaten someone, he’ll drop his voice a little quieter, because people seem to listen more when you’re quieter for some reason.

His voice is rougher if he’s pissed off or if he’s drunk, tired, or just got up, and smoother when he’s happy or trying to calm someone down. He talks a little too fast when he gets excited, and he tends to stammer when he’s anxious. He tends to speak in an overall formal, restrained fashion when he’s first meeting people, occasionally breaking out into phrases like ‘thing’, ‘kinda’, and ‘-ish’ when he can’t quite remember the words for the specific term he wants to use. He relaxes a little more around people he’s met before, or friends, and tends to contract his speech like ‘d’you’, or ‘m’not’. Always contracts when introducing himself properly, ‘m’name’s J’hasi’, which is how his friend who taught him Cyrodilic talked. Also uses more ‘complicated’ or ‘higher class’ vocabulary on occasion when he usually speaks like a commoner, similar to his Dunmeris, which I’ll get to in a sec. It’s not an attempt to sound fancy, but just picking out the words that are close enough to portraying what he wants to say. Cyrodilic is hard.

He has a slight Dunmeris accent in his speech, worsening when he gets drunk. His Dunmeris is unaccented, sounding native Vvardenfell to most outsiders, while native Dunmer can tell that he’s not native, but spent a significant amount of time there. His speech is a little odd, sounding commoner overall, but then you get these odd bits of formal, higher class and that throws some people off.

Jel is his native tongue, but he has a slight speech impediment. Anyone who’s native to Black Marsh can understand him, and can tell that he has more of the ‘inner marsh (tribal)’ dialect, which sounds more alien and difficult to understand to those who learned Jel as a second language, or other such outsiders. To those who learned it as a second language, good luck understanding him x__x

Voiceclaim (closest I’ve found, anyway): Ryan Guldemond

Examples of: | lower range | midrange | upper range |

—

17. Are they more shaped by nature or nurture — who they are, or what has happened to them? How have these shaped who they’ve become as a person?

Thankfully, his nature has largely prevailed over nuture. He’s always had a temper, always been a little fiery, but deep down he’s sweet, gentle, kind, and sensitive. While the sensitive bit helps him to be extremely compassionate, it also means that he hurts a lot more when he’s hurt, and man did he have a lot of that growing up and even into adulthood. His nurturing from the few good people he’s met along the way helped mitigate some of the awful shit he’s been through, but the bad shit has left him guarded, mistrustful, and slow to warm up to people.

It’s a defense mechanism, appearing difficult to approach, baring his teeth outright to people that are aggressive, while deflecting other, less aggressive and friendly types with humor or indifference. He winds up hurting himself in the process, as he does get incredibly fucking lonely, but oh no being close to someone means vulnerability, WELL WE CAN’T RISK THAT.

TL;DR him heart hurt ez so let’s keep up walls so nothing can get in! Haha what avoidance behavior?!

—

19. How do they behave within a group? What role(s) do they take? Does this differ if they know and trust the group, versus finding themselves in a group of strangers? Why?

I feel like I’ve answered this question before, but more or less J’hasi is the quiet one in the group, choosing to listen and watch over speaking unless he’s close with those in the group. Not sure what’s meant by ‘role’, but in a group of strangers he’s the one who leaves first to head straight to the bar, or to leave entirely. Being around people takes energy, and if he doesn’t know them, then he’s not going to waste his energy unless he can get something he wants out of it, either information or something equally valuable.

In a group of friends he’s the one that tends to chill and listen, speaking when spoken to or if he has something to add to the conversation. Being around friends either takes very little energy, no energy, or can even give him some, depending on the friends, so he’ll stick around until people start to leave or if he needs to go do something else.

#boarchasers #SORRY THE VOICE ONE GOT LONG I JUST GOT REALLY EXCITED AND IVE NEVER REALLY DONE A DECENT POST ON IT #jhasis my oldest charas so i know him better than my newer ones aka LONG FUCKING HEADCANON POSTS lmao #jhasi asks #vvcat asks #vvcat #thanks for the ask!! :D

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kyberled · 7 years

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also; kind of a meta topic — what would braig's life had been like if his father, rather than his mother, died? what would he have been like if his mother had raised him alone (or perhaps with her parents, or a new partner, or other extended family) in her care, without eadric? or, perhaps divorced from eadric in a strangely ideal situation in which they receive financial stability from him but he rarely has any contact with braig.

Metas || Accepting literally always

Ho boy. I got a lot to say about this. First off, I do wanna make a few points about Eadric, cause, he wasn’t always a flaming mass of acrid fecal matter in a vaguely bitter humanoid shape. He wasn’t a great person by any means, but it was a lot of the fallout following Shiv’s accident that made him as bitter and disgusting as he is, today. He never wanted kids to begin with, and would’ve been a bad parent regardless, but, yeah, not quite as awful as he is, now.

So, if Shiv had never died, Eadric still wouldn’t be very involved in Braig’s life. As I said, he never really wanted kids, so he decided he’d take on extra duties and whatnot at work, which had the double bonus of letting him stay away from his responsibilities and bringing in extra money so Shiv could take time off to actually, you know, be a parent to their very young infant son? But it worked out well for them, they each got what they wanted (mostly), Braig was well looked-after by Mum and Dad didn’t get to bother him while also providing the financial support, and sometimes Shiv would go out to help at the hospital she worked at and leave Braig in the capably-programmed hands of the various droids they owned, after lecturing them on exactly how to take care of her baby, right down to the very finest of details regarding his feeding. She was kind of obsessive over making sure Braig was okay. If Eadric had died, then obviously Shiv would have to spend a lot more time at work, and a lot less time with Braig, in order to make end’s meet, and he’d probably spend a lot of time being raised by droids, which, while not necessarily a bad thing, it would definitely impact his upbringing and perception of things. As an added bonus, this would really stress Shiv out and make her feel guilty about not being there for her kid, which in turn would bring down her mood, and of course impact their relationship. She does her best to avoid taking any of it out on Braig, of course, and on the rare instances she does snap at him, it’s followed instantly with apologies and hugs - “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to yell at you, it’s not your fault, you didn’t do anything wrong, work’s really tough right now but I still shouldn’t have yelled, I’m sorry, I love you”, that kind of thing, but she still feels kinda like garbage afterwards. Once she works her way up in the hospital staff, it’s less taxing on her, and bonus points come in the form of getting some time off to spend with her boy. Some usual activities for them include going to the book store, the tea shop, or the park, though they also enjoy spending time at home. Sometimes they’ll just read, or watch holovids, or cook. Braig figures out he likes cooking a lot earlier in this verse than the canon, since he doesn’t really have much else to do, without training or missions to get in the way. He’s obviously not in nearly as good shape as he is in the canon verse/main timeline, for obvious reasons, but he’s still a wiry little guy with a metabolism that could outpace an out-of-control speeder. I like to think that the Force in an untrained individual, or, at least, an untrained Braig, manifests itself in the form of loads of pent-up energy, all the time, and a lot of stimuli that non-sensitives can’t pick up on, kind of like the air being filled with static electricity and your ears always getting filled with whispers, maybe random fluctuations in temperature without it getting actually hotter/colder– It’s kind of hard to explain, but just think about the air feeling different based on how strong in the Force a place is, and of course this can also amplify other sensations caused by the Force, as well. I also headcanon, at least in Braig’s case, that phantom touches can be a thing, like feeling something brushing by when nothing is there, and it can be really disconcerting if you’re not used to it. Of course, how strong these are depends on how strong the specific person is in the Force. Since Braig is still the same old Braig, he’s got enough midichlorians swimming about in his cells that he could have been a Jedi, if his mother had agreed to give him to the Order, and so he’s pretty susceptible to the different signals the Force sends into his brain. Adding to this is the fact that he’s never gotten any training, and so has no idea how to throw up the ‘shields’ or barriers that Jedi use to dull the feelings that the Force gives him, so he’s basically just getting slammed in the face with all sorts of stimuli twenty-four seven, but it’s been like that for as long as he can remember, so he’s pretty much used to it, by now.

Tl;dr, Braig who was not taken in by the Jedi is more easily distracted, and wired on some kind of energy, and in some places gets really bad mojo and just generally feels terrible, and that definitely reflects on his mood.

He’s also a lot less selfless in this AU, if that’s the word I’m looking for. Or, well, maybe more attached to material goods is a better way of phrasing it. Less likely to put himself at risk for the greater good, or whatever. I wouldn’t call him a bad person by any means, but he’s not trained to think other people just matter more than he does. He tries to be helpful when he can, and he wants to make his mother proud and do good like she does, but in the end, he’s just a normal teenager. He’s not a civil servant, not a monk, just a kid with a pretty good heart in his chest. He’s less brave, as well, since he hasn’t been forced to endure the horrors of war at a young age, but he also doesn’t have a lot of the same fears he had as a Jedi, such as the fear of worms and snakes, of narrow underground spaces, and even his fear of abandonment isn’t nearly as bad as it was what he was a Jedi. He’s not subject to the nightmares and insomnia and whatnot in this verse, so, while he’s not as in shape, he’s probably healthier, since he’s getting regular sleep and a lot less stress. He’s also got a lot fewer scars, for obvious reasons, so, that’s a bonus.

In this verse, Shiv actually doesn’t have nearly as many problems with Eadric, the Republic, or the Jedi that she does in the canon, so they’re probably still married in this verse. Eadric’s not as much of a trash heap, as I said, but he’s also not the most involved person in the world. Braig doesn’t know him very well, but they don’t have the same antagonistic and detached and quite frankly abusive relationship they would have if he were Braig’s sole caregiver. He is still pretty strict, though.

Probably the really only positive interaction he has with his dad in this is chess. Instead of Obi and Shaak, his chess partner is Eadric. It’s really the only form of strategy Braig has to employ, so he’s not quite as good at war games as he is in canon. He’s also not even close to being at the level of combative skill as he is in canon. Again, this one’s kind of a given, but, oh, well.

He still goes on walks/jogs around the neighbourhood, usually at the parks, since, even if the Senate district is safer and less crowded than some other parts of the city, he finds the parks are a lot quieter and easier to navigate. I dunno if martial arts clubs are a thing in the Star Wars universe, though I’m not sure why they wouldn’t be, so he does that as well. It’s a good way for him to burn off more of the Force-given energy, gives him a decent social circle, and the bonus points are, Eadric quietly, and very distantly, approves of it as an activity.

Braig’s still interested in medicine, and follows in his mother’s footsteps of becoming a doctor, and in fact would volunteer his services to the war effort. He wouldn’t go out to the front lines, but he would go to planets that had been hit by the war and were trying to get back up on their feet, and give medical treatment to the people there. He might go to the front lines if he was dragged out, but he avoids it like the plague. Refugees, he will gladly help, but he doesn’t want anything to do with a war zone.

Even so, Braig’s not nearly as well-travelled as he is in the Jedi verse, and he doesn’t speak nearly as many languages. He speaks a few, but it’s more conversational than fluency, at best.

He wouldn’t live with his extended family, since they’re all living at least a couple levels down, and Shiv worked her butt off to get to the surface, where the air is filtered and clean, the sunlight is natural and bright, there aren’t nearly as many feral animals roaming the streets unchecked, and it’s generally a nicer place to live. If it were just her, she wouldn’t be as adamant about it, and might even venture a few levels down to live more within her means (If this were in a timeline where she’s not with Eadric/doesn’t have that financial boon), but, she would never subject her son to that. Only the best for him, she thinks. She kind of spoils Braig relentlessly. She’s also the glue that holds them together as a family, too. I’m not gonna say Eadric and Braig are best friends, or anywhere near as close as Obi and Braig are in canon, but it’s a positive-neutral sort of thing.

He’s quieter in this verse, since he doesn’t have to confront politicians or enemy soldiers all the time, he hasn’t developed that outspoken personality as much. He’s more introverted, and another part is due to the fact that he doesn’t have that Force training he does as a Jedi. He doesn’t have the reassurance of being able to sense people’s emotions, so he’s not nearly as confident when speaking.

I mean, overall, he has a pretty good life. His mom spoils him, he’s not a soldier, he gets an education. He can’t complain.

He does feel like he doesn’t really belong, though.

And, sometimes, on his runs around the city, he’ll stop and stare at the Jedi Temple, and he’ll wonder.

#long post //#ask to tag //#i could write a whole novel about braig's life outside the order but i don't wanna let this get too long #esp since i got another drabble almost done #storygiver #&& give the sun a head start; ooc #&& as best i can; answers #&& temple archives; headcanons

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pinkcatsy · 7 years

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i fucking hate fair game

tl;dr There are too many words – a majority of the words in this story build up to obnoxious and redundant/otherwise unnecessary sentences, paragraphs and thoughts.

Fair Game by Monica Murphy is a New Adult Romance that is largely about how badly cliche insecure lead Jade Frost and cliche rich playboy Shepard Prescott want to fuck each other and, occasionally, how much Jade Frost and Shepard Prescott enjoy fucking each other. There’s some hubbub at the begin about Shepard “winning” Jade in a bet but it’s largely of little importance to the plot besides being one of the many little bits of misogyny.

Fair Game currently has largely positive reviews – it’s not very many reviews, I doubt I’ve seen more than 10 either Goodreads or Google Play, but they’re not just positive, it’s 4.4/5s. This is initially confusing to me and anyone else who’s had to listen to me talk about how much I hate this book and its characters (especially Jade, seriously fuck her). But it makes some sense once you consider fanfiction.

This is not a knock on fanfiction, I’ve read many incredibly good fanfiction. Some of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read were fanfiction. I wrote fanfiction from the age of 12 to about 16/17 – I wasn’t mega popular but I had reviews blowing up my inbox at my peak. From experience, I can tell you that it’s not really difficult to write enjoyable fanfictions. It’s not hard to write fanfics that people will like. Because someone else has already done most of the heavy lifting for you – it’s not necessary to work especially hard to establish characters or develop relationships, most of your readers are already know all of it and, most importantly, most of them are already emotionally invested in them. I got by writing romances by just hitting a few beats; I didn’t need to know why Inuyasha and Kagome would fall for each other or think especially hard about what they like about each other, Rumiko Takahashi sorted that shit out and it’s just safe to assume it carried over somehow.

I don’t think this covers all of the positive reviews or all fans of Fair Game but, personally, I assume some of the emotional investment people have in Fair Game, its core “romance” and its characters are not a result of anything that’s actually in Fair Game. I’ll admit to you right now that there’s tons of manga, anime, books etc. that I have read and enjoyed because the characters hit on archetypes I was already invested in or because they reminded me of my characters, not because of the writing of the material itself because sometimes it was kind of garbage.

Another thing I will talk about is yaoi – I’ve recently gotten particularly into yaoi, especially reading it off the ebookrenta site. Most of them are pretty trashy – some of them are honestly, kind of garbage, some of them know what they are and know that engaging characters and romantic developments are absolutely not necessary. I can tell you I’ve read a lot of garbage, although I’ve read some really interesting, emotional and complex stories, most of it is just finding a way to get two hot guys to fuck each other. And, to be completely honest, that’s all I’m reading it for anyways. So it’s not particularly important that their relationship seems fairly shallow or contrived; that if I really thought about it, I couldn’t tell you what the characters like about each other or even much about them at all – the art is cute and the sex scenes are decently drawn. And maybe I would’ve felt that way about Fair Game if they’d spent less time talking about fucking and more time actually fucking and if they also spend less time thinking stupid, obnoxious and redundant stuff during the sex scenes so that I could focus on what they were doing and not how much I fucking hate Jade, how douche-y Shep is and what a misogynist Monica Murphy almost certainly is.

There’s also the likely fact that the other readers probably have a higher tolerance for all of the absolutely hokey sounding shit that’s in the book, a lack of well developed anything and MISOGYNY.

Let’s talk about the misogyny for a bit, actually. There’s nothing that’s out and out women are dumb stuff, there’s just little things like:

· all the obnoxious, unnecessary moments of slut-shaming like:

o Jade describing her roommate jumping from relationship to relationship while stressing that she wasn’t a slut

o Shep remarking that the revealing top Jade wore to a party is revealing but not trashy

o Shep lifting Jade about as a natural beauty by putting down all of his previous sexual partners as being fake or deceitful by wearing heavy makeup and dying their fucking hair

o Jade’s use of the word skank

o Jade’s roommate (Kelli) use of the word whore (which could be a sort of friendship thing if not for the rest of the fucking book)

o the fact that Jade is adamant on not having sex with Shep purely because she seems to think she’ll lose something by just having a one-night stand with a guy she finds sexually attractive - up until they actually get to having sex, then she’s scared to catch feels

o and the following aren’t centered around women but it’s actually slut-shaming all the same:

§ the use of the word man-whore to describe Shep

§ the pervasive idea that there’s anything inherently wrong with Shep being uninterested in pursuing romantic relationships – he’s hooking up with girls who are also only interested in hooking up, that doesn’t make him a fucking asshole or even a playboy so you fucked up your archetype here Monica

· the way all the other girls interested in Shep are treated (which is probably also slut-shaming) and, in fact, the way any girl that is not Jade or Kelli is described in this story

· the PMS stuff on both Jade and Shep’s part

· the way Shep sexually objectifies Jade every time he talks about her and I mean literally every time

· the way Shep just plain objectifies Jade and how the story doesn’t seem to think of it as problematic – he suggests that she be thrown into the pot during a poker game, he tries to use “winning” her in the bet as a way to get close to her at least twice which is two times too many, he calls her a fucking prize near the end

· the fact that Shep “changing” just means he’ll tone down the misogyny and douchebaggery when it concerns Jade and only Jade

· the fact that Jade suggests Shep should go and hook up with a drunk girl instead of with her

· the fact that Shep thinks Jade being on her period is a test from God and this is allowed to continue without any hint whatsoever that it’s a disgustingly self-centred notion or douche-y thing to say

Additionally, there’s little bits of actual misandry because Jade is the fucking worst:

· she says something to the affect of “you’re a man, of course all you think about is sex”

· she literally says “men are so pathetic”

· she’s disgusted by a toilet purely by thinking of all the specifically male butts that have been on it

And just as a bonus, here’s things I hate about Jade:

· she’s not strong or defiant – she’s just rude for no reason and blatantly dishonest about her feelings throughout the whole story for also no reason really; it’s treated not like a major character flaw but it’s actually something Shepard likes about her

· the way she thinks – just the way she phrases things sometimes just piss me off

· she says repeatedly that “[Shep] confuses me” but Shepard is actually pretty straight-forward and honest about his feelings the entire story – he’s not confusing, you’re just insecure and projecting that onto him which is something you should be at least a little aware of, given that you’re a fucking psychology major

· her insecurity feels like it’s there because of the clichés anyways

o she’s had 2 boyfriends – 1 was pretty long-term and they only broke up because they didn’t want to do long distance once they picked different schools and the other one tries to get back together with her but apparently neither of them ever said she was beautiful

o even though her performance anxiety is driven pretty hard before she has sexual intercourse with Shep, it’s barely there immediately before she has sex with Shepard, it’s almost as if she only has performance anxiety so that sex with Shepard is that much more special and unique

· the story tries to act like she’s a strong character but she just does whatever she’s told after saying no maybe once or twice – and despite Shep saying “she doesn’t fall for my shit” every thing she does in the story, with few exception, is motivated by him in some part and she’d been taken with him since chapter one

· even though she’s only had 2 boyfriends, she later talks as if she’s very experienced

· it’s later strongly implied that the only reason she’s never successfully orgasmed during intercourse before is because she wasn’t willing to communicate her needs or wants with her previous sexual partners yet somehow it’s their fault – Shep doesn’t have “magic” fingers, he just asked what you liked and you actually fucking told him, it’s not hard you fucking dolt

· Jade: "Has he been keeping tabs on me? I hope not, I'm infinitely boring, especially by Shep standards."

Jade, literally on the next page: "Not that I care what this man thinks of me anymore."

· "I'm supposed to hate it when he calls me baby, but I don't." – who told you that Jade? Why are you supposed to hate it, JADE???

Things that annoy me about Shep (besides the stuff under the misogyny list):

· every time he says or thinks something and then goes BOY AM I DOUCHEY or WOW EVEN I THINK I SOUND LIKE A RICH ASSHAT

· the fact that he thought Jade being on her period was a test from G O D

· the fact that he didn’t immediately follow the “maybe she’s on her period because God is trying to make me fail to hook up with her” with one of those BOY AM I DOUCHEY moments

· every time outside of a sex scene that he told us his dick was twitching

· he’s not really funny

Yeah so this book is terrible. If I’d paid money for it, I would be furious. If I could give it negative stars, I actually would. Monica Murphy seems like she doesn’t know how to convey things subtly so whenever she can, she makes sure to spell it explicitly in some of the most obnoxious cases of telling instead of showing that I’ve seen in my entire life. Every time something about the characters, their feelings or their relationships are referenced, it is like it is the first time it’s ever been mentioned.

Also, there’s a superfluous “plot” point tacked on at the end about Jade’s mom selling their home and Jade needing a place to stay. It serves no real point and is wholly unnecessary as what little it does do could be done in literally any other way. In fact, Jade’s relationship with her mom is talked about a few times but it adds nothing to her character or the story so it’s also totally unnecessary.

I didn’t buy their romance – I don’t think these characters know much of anything about each other because I don’t know much of anything about either them besides what establishes their archetypes and their physical appearances. When they do start to learn about each other, aside from one scene, it’s all basically “off-camera” and we’re told about it after the fact. These are not two people falling in love with each other, these are two people who wanna fuck each other and love fucking each other. It was also extra annoying whenever the story acknowledged that these are two character who barely know each other falling for each other for apparently no reason.

Also stuff like this was actually written and (self-)published:

· Guys like to watch. They're visual beings. Hello, porn.

· I come face to penis within a few shocking seconds.

· Damn he's so strong. I'd really like to see him naked.

· God, look at me. Yes, me. Straight-laced, good girl Jade Frost is hanging out with a billionaire spoiled sexy brat who runs an illegal freaking casino in a house just off campus. What have I done? Who am I, for God's sake?

· I need to be able to handle all of her moods. Is this some sort of test? Is God upstairs laughing at me, throwing me one obstacle after another in the hopes that I'd fail? (this is the PERIOD thing and no I’m not over it)

· She slowly shakes her head, all those wayward strands of hair tickling her cheeks. Her hair is like fire. Vibrant and bright, wild and free - I sound like a fucking poet in my head. Jesus.

· "Five minutes," I tell her, leaning in so I can press a quick kiss to her surprised lips. Who knew lips could be surprised? And they would taste so damn good?

#pinkcatsy reviews #fair game #monica murphy #shitty review tbh #whatever

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andseperand · 7 years

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thoughts

ive been sitting on this post for the better part of a year. i tried to read through it and make edits, but im going to have to post this as is. maybe ill be able to edit it someday. anyway, this is completely composed of spoilers.

tl;dr: i mostly wrote bitterness about “kung food,” “origins part 1,″ and “reflekta.”

these are my thoughts on what ive watched of the first season of miraculous ladybug (i have watched most of every episode except the last three).

i may be confused or misinformed on some points. some of this is not as serious as other parts, and the writing style is disjointed because i didnt write it all in one go. any links are formatted within brackets (as in [text]).

ordered by the order i initially watched (parts of) the episodes in and indicated by villain name somehow (english, korean, french, french translation, etc.).

stormy weather/climatika

why did alya just toss manon like that? she couldve hurt something just being thrown around with her tiny little bones and joints that lack any significant cushioning. not to mention that her neck is completely unsupported. safety, much?

the bubbler/le bulleur

so the record is fully functional but also survived getting smacked off a building on its edge? wow.

copycat/l’imposteur/the imposter

i get that alya is supposed to be that “go-getter” friend who pushes marinette to be brave, but honestly, if she had waited another minute for marinette to be more ready for making a phone call, this wouldve been less of a mess. yeah, i get the “pushing boundaries to build confidence,” but honestly we could have waited for marinette to stop stalking adrien, too.

i gotta say: marinette is truly fearless. my phone is so suspicious. i would not have the confidence to deliberately touch it with my face and risk contact with who knows what has been on it.

the “moral” or whatever of this episode is kind of unclear? steal someones phone and run into issues with security but then also somehow break into it and get what you want anyway? no, thats not okay. its not that funny that marinette legitimately stole someones phone, and she doesnt even get seriously reprimanded for this.

timebreaker/chronogirl

one of the most pressing questions i have for this episode is why no one thought of using pockets or a bag or something to hold this important watch. hand perspiration is pretty bad for a lot of older and newer mechanical objects alike. why is this clearly-important item treated any different? ive considered both the “tikki is in the bag” (doesnt mean it has to be marinettes bag) and the “girl pockets” (marinette designed her own clothes, though) possibilities, and im still stumped.

mister/monsieur/mr./m. pigeon

how did chloe know what the colors were or even what the embroidery pattern looked like from a pencil sketch? it looked like chicken scratch.

lady wifi

im not sure that “dont violate other peoples privacy” was very well stated, seeing as alya was landed with an unfairly harsh punishment due to corrupt politicians. and how did that get resolved, anyway? was she still suspended? was there even supposed to be a moral in this mess?

the pharaoh/le pharaon

the villain is a pharaoh, continuing the ages-long trend of pretending ancient egyptian culture is just ~so interesting~ and that its portrayal isnt exploitative at all. i cant really say much about this, but i dont like those special ancient egypt episodes of anything.

rogercop

a mess

im pretty sure that this was to save animation budget or something, but why was marinette picking up those croissants off the floor and arranging them so nicely as if it really mattered what she did with them besides cleaning up the spill? i guess ill let it slide if shes trained that way as an advertising thing (though advertising doesnt get a free pass by default just because its strange).

the evillustrator/evil artist/le dessinateur

off topic, but could that tablet also erase or create living beings?

dark cupid/le dislocoeur/heartbreaker

this was still technically a kiss without consent? doesnt really feel all that romantic and whatnot. i cant really get behind this as shipping material.

horrificator

side note: i really liked how chloes english voice actor delivered the lines mockingly announcing mylenes “award” in the beginning.

im not a fan of the “you must kiss as part of acting” plot point. it always gives off those peer pressure vibes from other people and opportunistic vibes from main characters who want to actually kiss the other person.

darkblade/le chevalier noir/the black knight

sabrina is honestly super lucky that marinette made her box have a hole big enough for super tiny animated character wrists or else she wouldve been in a world of more pain.

alya had a platform? im so confused about how this election worked. did they do ballots or some sort of “heads down” in-class vote thing?

the/le mime

seeing as people dont lose their memories of being attacked by the villains, i really dont see how tearing down the eiffel tower (even in an animated show where people are not in the structure at the time) is the best way to minimize traumatic experiences. i get that it was supposed to be a “wow” moment for the plot and just visual effects but not the appeal.

kung food

the second i ever laid my eyes on this name i knew it would be bad, i just didnt know how bad because there were just so many ways it couldve gone with that phrase and i didnt know what to expect until i actually watched the episode. more on this in a bit.

there was literally no point to having the famous chef be related to marinette other than contrived circumstances to get adrien into this episode. im using this as a launching off point for talk of other stuff.

why didnt marinettes parents do anything about a relative coming to their house? this really baffles me because they have their daughter meet an effective stranger with no help.

why didnt marinettes parents tell her what languages the relative spoke? honestly, it kind of seems like they just didnt even care if this would cause her extreme anxiety or anything. you would really think they would have at least discussed this as a family because it was made pretty clear that his visit was actually expected. i thought way higher of their characters until it seemed that they pulled this crap move.

i know it was supposed to be all cute and a bonding moment when adrien came over to translate, but it was even more of a disaster. why did they take a car literally around the corner to get to the hotel? why didnt the chef go directly to the hotel if it was so close? was that adriens car? who was in charge of organizing this event and making sure the contestants didnt end up in the wrong place? how in the world did the chef even get to the bakery? because of the close proximity of the hotel to the bakery, it doesnt make sense that he would go to the bakery instead from an airport or something? unless he was supposed to meet his relatives? which, in this case, was not facilitated at all? so many questions are raised.

i dont speak nor understand mandarin, but im pretty sure adriens wasnt good enough for him to actually be complimented for it. then again, its nothing new to see white people getting complimented for deigning to learn a ~foreign language~ while i get interrogated about my lack of “authenticity” for not speaking “my native tongue,” so i guess the writers were just being realistic.

he bowed...funny story, at least one time i went to a restaurant with other visibly asian people and the apparently-white waiter kept making this weird head bobbing motion every time they left the table and what im saying here is that i know adrien has presumably been learning about culture stuff, but i also know firsthand that creators really love to shove bowing into media whenever asian people show up. (that waiter did give us extra mints, so i guess that was nice.)

sarcasm alert: i love when ~asian~ people have ~asian~ accents. its not like this is a tired gimmick that i dont need to see literally everywhere i turn (oh, wait! according to the english version, it is! hooray for me! this is probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me ever! im not being sarcastic at all! or overly sarcastic to the point where im sarcastically putting in that everything ive written in this paragraph is sarcastic because im just so mad! or maybe it definitely is! it probably is all sarcasm!) [bonus sarcasm here]

the chefs english/default dub language fluency was either inconsistent or this was just a straight-up rude portrayal of a nonnative speaker of a language, because adrien didnt seem to wait five seconds (for the chef to even consider the question about what he was cooking) before talking to the chef (and naturally, being a polite person, the chef listened to what adrien was saying), and i feel like it was only for the sake of adrien being ~useful~ because right after that, he talks to the chef in english/whatever language? dont think i didnt notice that his english speaking got “better” after becoming a villain. you know, if they hadnt faked the accent in the first place, they wouldnt have had to hastily cover for the fact that their voice actor couldnt even execute it well.

im sure adrien and marinette tag-teaming to argue with chloe and her racist comments was supposed to be this whole “wow look at that team” deal, but it felt like adrien was shoehorned into this mess sloppily. woohoo for the white boy defending marinette because she cant do it herself or something! i do appreciate when white people help stand up for me, but in this context, it feels off.

i have such a big problem with the “pep talk” adrien gives marinette when she thinks the chef doesnt like her. first thing, white boy explaining things about a person of color to a person of color, and the two people are actually literally related? i think the bouquet misunderstanding was really bizarre, and when did adrien have time to gain all this extensive exposition? the interview when they first arrived was short, and i dont think that both adrien and the chef would be so rude as to exclude marinette from their conversation in the car on the way over. this just comes off as a way to have adrien ~encouraging~ marinette, and its not a very good one.

this supposedly super prestigious competition literally has no security to make sure no one is mucking around behind the scenes, let alone ensure that the contestants arent up to any funny business. because why not. and no cameras around either, because cooking-based television programs never show any cooking, just the tasting and subsequent subjugation by a villain (this is a sarcastic sentence). even if this is supposed to be a featured dish and thus one they dont want to showcase the recipe behind, they could still have those little soundbites interspersed with candid panorama shots (can you tell i have no idea what any of these words mean?). im just going to have to chalk this one up to animation budget and move on.

i know this was just a sort of (intendedly funny) visual thing, but i highly doubt that the objects chloe put in the soup could just go unnoticed, especially since i presume a chef would thoroughly stir (and taste) their cooking, and the soup didnt appear to have properties of decomposing things touching it. otherwise that tasting session would probably have turned out a little messier (i am completely kidding here).

why is the chef being upset about being sabotaged made into a ~cultural~ thing? why is a white boy telling marinette about her ~own~ culture? sheesh, its like you cant just be upset because your shot at a world title was ruined on live television and you have confirmation that you were deliberately sabotaged. yes, chloe did it because shes petty and racist, but the results of her actions could upset anyone! its not just because the chef is chinese! what is the point of saying that? its a pointless throwaway comment! why dont you just find some other way to get the chef alone so he can be become a villain that isnt a) nonsensical and b) making sweeping generalizations about people? (granted, i cant speak to the validity of anything said about cultures, but i sure can comment on why saying such things about them isnt okay regardless).

“kung food” oh my god. this is such a piece of crap name. it is racist. you can literally try to argue against this until youve gone far beyond oxygen deprivation and in a grave but itll still be racist by the time youre done. aside from the pharaoh, there arent a bunch of ~ethnic~ names (not that it would be okay for that to be the case anyway) running around, and yet we get one with this specific villain whose ethnic and national origin is talked to death? okay.

and ive seen this pointed out, but the villain appearance seems to have a kind of anime-inspired design, which is honestly a good laugh because who was just talking about not conflating china and japan again? weeaboos and sinaboos are often in the same boat.

okay, not related, but adrien just had to taste a suspicious substance off the floor. why. there are so many ways to figure out what a substance is before putting it in your mouth. or you could just not do that at all. before this point, they did not appear to suspect a food-related villain, so this couldve ended badly.

another side note: i dont know how that receipt retained its integrity long enough for ladybug to wrap the villain up after dipping it in the soup. do the magical items just have super special properties like extra toughness that allows them to defy the reality of paper receipts? i wonder how many of the things ive talked about in this post have been me marveling at the sturdiness of lucky charm items.

of course this turns into an ~accountability~ lesson for marinette. and chloe doesnt get reprimanded? yeah, she got booted off a panel she didnt even want to be on and no one actually clearly articulated to her that the things she said were absolutely unacceptable? then again, this is a “diversity episode,” so i dont know why my standards are so high.

wow, marinette really needed to have adrien encourage her before going to take a picture with her great-uncle? im going to be generous and allow that she wanted to make sure he would be okay with her ditching him for her much cooler great-uncle because she didnt want him to feel bad about how not-cool he is in comparison. there, you see what i mean about making up story elements? (though im really not much of a writer, oops.)

im so over people making fun of how others dress as a joke. before i realized that i am autistic and reflected back on my life, i didnt realize that i gravitate toward clothing i find comfortable rather than fashionable, and ive always gotten negative comments, ill-intended or otherwise. so i really didnt appreciate marinettes jab at chloe, even if it was to defend herself. it was just unnecessary.

i want to talk about the whole ~chinese representation~ thing in this show. yeah, i know marinette is one of the very few chinese and mixed main characters out there (and there are barely any that are both), but im going to be super honest about this: i dont think shes all that great. i am a big fan of her and this show, but that doesnt make it infallible. the fact that adrien of all people is telling her about her own culture is a huge failing in itself. i dont know everything about my own cultures, but its not cool to have a literal outsider being shown to be the expert on someones culture and be the one to guide them through that. theres barely any portrayal of sino stuff in the show as is, and i hate the way this is only shown as a kind of special episode topic. i would be way more fine with this if this wasnt basically the sole instance of discussion of marinettes heritage. and no, the fact that her mother wears stereotypical clothing doesnt count. at all.

okay, this has been a huge issue for me before and after this point, but it was in this episode that it was made abundantly clear just what we are dealing with. i know that it is completely possible, genetically speaking, for a mixed chinese and white person to have blue eyes. its also completely possible for a chinese person to have gray eyes even without being mixed (i say this because i dont know if her mother is monoracial). however, if you only have two confirmed recurring characters of chinese descent, and their eye colors are ~special~ colors...well, thats kind of iffy there. why is it that the minor chinese character has stereotypical eyes? theyre basically just expanded pupils for all intents and purposes, which is not the problem, because its possible to have irises that are so dark as to make figuring out whether they have a distinguishable brown tint to them really hard. anyway, i suppose i dont want to talk about things ahead in the season, but why is it that the background asian characters get the stereotypical eyes but the main characters who are asian get the special eye colors? (that was a rhetorical question. i know exactly why.)

im pretty that at some point in the creation of this villain name, someone patted themself on the back for being so ~clever~ like “haha kung food geddit? its like kung fu but with food because im actually not that creative and more racist than i would like to openly admit.” okay, i know im being a bit harsh. but its really annoying when one of the few things people “know” about sino people is that kung fu exists. and honestly, i kind of suspected this, but ive seen other people say that the villain more resembles a villain from anime, so...thats kind of disrespectful there...

the/le gamer

i really disliked marinettes combo move names. they all had ~asian~ words like lotus, jade, oriental, etc.

animan

i find the sniffing scene to be kind of creepy. personal space much?

the city has really high quality buses. i cant believe the bus didnt end up backfiring on their plan because if i know anything about buses its that the ones ive seen are probably way older and more decrepit than me.

antibug

how do the earrings work in this setting? as far as i can tell, it would make sense for chloe to have pierced ears and a pair of ladybug imitation earrings that she could put it, but how is it possible that ladybug was able to just pull the earrings off? because that could be a really, really messy situation if they are actually piercings with backings and everything, but is there an explanation for this? magnets, clips, anything?

the puppeteer/le marionnettiste

can that glowing bright red effect that comes from her yo-yo and the power cord being swung around just for the viewers, or can it actually be seen in-universe? or is that a null point because both items are generated by ladybugs magic?

reflekta

this show really didnt need any “haha look a ~guy~ in a dress” jokes. and honestly, this was ill handled (though arguably, its very existence was ill handled). first of all, im not the best judge of this kind of thing, but to me, ladybug felt out of character while mocking chat noir? honestly, marinette doesnt strike me as the type of person to find that kind of situation funny in the first place, so the premise doesnt really hold up in my opinion. i know marinette can make mistakes, but youd really think she would be more open to not thinking this way because she knows what its like to be bullied for other things. moving on... [though, to reiterate]

the way this was not addressed? at all? yeah, ladybug apologized for that one comment at the beginning of their conversation, but then she continued to make jokes at chat noirs expense, and it just wasnt as funny as it was probably intended to be?

i know the whole thing about ambiguous chronology, but there is no reason ladybug wouldnt take chat noirs opinion into account when planning for things anyway. it felt like that part was written specifically so he could “prove” his worth to the rest of the episode and ensure that, yes, he is still allowed to be in it after being turned into a reflekta lookalike, and the whole thing smacks of trying to write out of a corner...that was written into in the first place. if it hadnt gone the route it did with the mocking of appearances, i dont think it would have had to be as convoluted as it ended up being.

i personally dont care for high heels, but i dont get the kind of “fashion cracks” that were being made about them. like yes, high heels can be hard to move in? yeah, it isnt fun being turned into the appearance of someone who isnt you against your will? i just dont understand this gag.

guitar villain

did ladybug really honestly just full-on spray someone in the face with the contents of an aerosol can? im aware that the point was that the hair was in front of his face, but what if some had gotten into guitar villains eyes? dang, what if someone tries to emulate this in real life? ouch.

digital/numeric

kind of done with the spotlight on stalking behavior this show has.

marinette still shows no fear of suspicious screens. she continues to use parts of her face to touch one multiple times, never mind that she literally flings her yoyo all over the place.

stoneheart/coeur de pierre i

did marinette have pierced ears in the first place? shes not shown taking any earrings out, and we dont get that clear a view of her earlobes anyway. that might be deliberate for modeling budget and all.

master fu has brown eyes. so thats like four ~chinese~ characters that are in this show, and the main character and her mother have the special eye colors, and the minor character who is somewhat important to the plotline has non-black eyes, and the minor one-episode character has the black eyes. what a shining example of diversity (no).

anyway this is a good point to say that some things are just not for you. there are things that you just cant be a part of no matter how much you want to be because it just doesnt work that way. and the mess that is the miraculous “mythology” is definitely an example of this. i myself have very little knowledge of anything sino, but i sure as heck can spot that this...”history” thing is so off.

at this point i should probably mention i really dislike master fu as a character in general. just as a single point, apparently hes based off the teacher character in karate kid? i saw somewhere that the creator said he basically made marinette mixed because he was dating an asian person when he was thinking about the show and that marinette is basically his idea of their mixed kid? and back to the eye color thing (again), ive even seen someone with green eyes and blue hair suggest to him that they could be the child of marinette and adrien, and he said theyre like his grandchild? (im not really inclined to try to dig up an iron-clad, indisputably genuine source for this right now, but if youre honestly searching for completely serious, well-researched information in a really good quality post, this is not the post you are looking for.) i have no idea where i was even going with this paragraph.

stoneheart/coeur de pierre ii

why is marinette so invested in her crush on adrien? this couldve been a sweet crush, but no, she has to make it so creepy? leading up to this episode, i really didnt know what to expect because i really thought there would be some sort of explanation for just how extreme the lengths marinette goes to are, but from what i can tell, shes just being super invasive? the ambiguous timeline doesnt really help with this, nor does the fact that the origins episodes were aired at the end of the season. whatever characterization was supposed to be inferred from this feels choppy and unnecessary.

simon says/jackady/jacques a dit

i dont really blame her, but ladybug totally could have reduced the level of adrien distractedness going on here. shes previously shown signs of compartmentalizing ladybug and even having to face the fact that it isnt worth using up her power over adrien, but gosh golly, what gives?

princess/princesse fragrance

ive seen criticisms of how ladybug was written to be overly competent in this episode, which i think is fair since it keeps happening, and its so late in the season by this point that its gotten tired.

volpina

i try not to be too judgmental, but frankly, adrien is not that great of a prize.

anyway, from what i can tell about this episode, i think that there was too much on marinettes flaws, which i really think is a bit much to have in the last chronological episode of a season. its already been established that she makes mistakes with her decisions, but i just thought her unequal prioritization of adrien was too much. it just seemed contrived to squeeze in scenes that the creators wanted to animate regardless of overall context in the show, which is really unfortunate because of how the show becomes a little less chronologically ambiguous at this point.

#lt #kung food #this is a 'kung food' hate blog #wall of text #really long post with low readability #racism text mention (a lot of it)#transmisogyny text mention

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