something that seems to get overlooked in 95% of posts I've seen on the subject of paid audiobooks-as-a-service and ebooks-as-a-service models (i.e., amazon audible and amazon kindle unlimited) versus free content from libraries is how, like, amazon isn't banking on the hope that you'll forget what a library is. they're not stupid. both of amazon's books-as-a-service models rely heavily on ""originals"" that you literally cannot find anywhere else (legally, at least), and I feel like the positioning of these "don't tell bezos that you can find anything you want at your local library ;)"-type posts kinda fails to capture how the core issue here, imo, is less about cost of any given subscription model than it is about exclusivity and walled gardens

the demon world arc centers itself primarily around four relationships that kim dokja has: his relationship with biyoo, his relationship with han myungoh, his relationship with jang hayoung, and his relationship with yoo joonghyuk. what I find very interesting about this is that the throughlines of all the first three relationships, as either introduced or recontexualized in this arc, have to do with parenthood/the responsibility of creation.

the last arc, dark castle, heavily examined kim dokja's relationship with his own mother. now, in this arc, he is taking on the role of a parent and the associated guilt and responsibility with it. let's take a look at the first three relationships mentioned.

biyoo - biyoo hatches this arc! though kim dokja needs her abilities as a dokkaebi to survive here, he feels some measure of guilt about bringing her into this world where she has no choice but to love the story. she's not a human infant, so their relationship isn't the same as a traditional parent and child bond, but he still views himself as her parent and feels responsible for her. her utility as a helping hand in his survival and his guilt towards both her and her past life as 41st shin yoosung are both major components of their interactions this arc.

jang hayoung- while kim dokja is emphatically not her parent, it was his comments on twsa that created her character. again, like biyoo, he feels some guilt and discomfort with his role in bringing her into the world. while it is plot-important that he helps her develop past her emotional problems this arc, I can't help but read his interest in helping her develop as being related to his personal sense of responsibility to her. he takes on the role of an older mentor to her in this arc. (you also super get the sense that kim dokja does not understand Kids These Days lmao)

these two relationships inform each other quite a bit. biyoo highlights kim dokja's responsibility as a parent, on a very mundane level. meanwhile, jang hayoung highlights kim dokja's responsibility as a story creator. both of these roles have things in common, and since biyoo is a story creator and jang hayoung is a real person rather than a fictional character, there's aspects of both roles present in both relationships.

kim dokja struggles quite a bit with viewing himself as an active party in the world. dark castle, as part of its setup in informing kdj's ongoing character, dealt quite heavily with how his mother's choices and his reliance on the fourth wall created this problem. now, he is forced to acknowledge his direct involvement in the creation of two separate people, and the veil of fiction cannot protect him. he is a parent. and his comments on twsa created a living person. he cannot easily deny, now, that his involvement with twsa is something that had no consequences. he hasn't quite processed all of that yet, but the feelings of guilt and responsibility are difficult to ignore. both of these relationships are priming him to deal with more difficult stuff down the line. we'll get to that in a minute.

meanwhile, han myungoh serves as an interesting parallel to kim dokja now! after learning that han myungoh has a daughter and was changed by his responsibilities as a parent, kim dokja is forced to reevaluate his relationship with someone who was formerly only his cruel boss. his presence in the story brings forward a lot of observations on parenthood that kim dokja would not have otherwise noticed. and... it also provides setup for kim dokja further coming to understand that people can grow past his impressions of them.

which brings us to yoo joonghyuk. THE focal point through the novel regarding kim dokja's involvement in the world of the scenarios. while his role in this arc is primarily dealing with his and kim dokja's relationship on a mundane level - and them literally impersonating each other - his presence is a reminder, something highlights those meditations on creation, responsibility, and involvement in one's story. if jang hayoung was created as a foil for yoo joonghyuk, and kim dokja is helping yoo joonghyuk develop in this timeline, can kim dokja really say that his reading of twsa did not have any consequences...? the thematic and emotional groundwork laid by this arc lays down a strong foundation for that question to be brought forward and explored more in future arcs.

Saraqael, Heaven's Only Competent Angel

Season 2 got terrifically lucky with Liz Carr. Fantastic casting choice for a decidedly intriguing angel.

Saraqael strikes me as a Chief Operating Officer type. Judging from the colors of her lapels and Muriel's ascotty thing, Muriel is in her chain of command (near or at the bottom, naturally). Those colors also suggest that Saraqael, archangel or no, is a step down from Michael and Uriel. The big archangels don't wear plaids.

When Muriel goes to Saraqael with the matchbox, she makes a quick (and bureaucratically correct) decision to bring it to Michael and Uriel. She approaches them politely, with the correct form of address even, but fearlessly and without undue fawning. Good for her.

While Michael and Uriel are being completely and utterly useless, Saraqael heads over to the Realtime Big Globe and starts searching, zeroing in on the miracle plume quickly. So she's upper management, but she hasn't lost all ability to do hands-on OSINT. Intriguing.

Saraqael stops the standoff at Aziraphale's bookshop door with a firm but polite "Shall we discuss this inside?" She's also the one with the measurement of miracle strength, which fits a manager who still keeps her hand in. Otherwise, she observes -- and unlike Michael and Uriel, she doesn't give away anything. (Lord, Michael. "Did we [mention we were looking for Gabriel]?" It was the first thing Uriel said! Y'all get your good-cop-bad-cop story straight beforehand next time.)

And it's competent-ops Saraqael who decides on action: sending Muriel down for miracle verification and keeping a close eye on Aziraphale. Aziraphale calls this "very professional of you," and he's not wrong, considering Heaven's twisted, surveillance-laced notions of professionalism. Saraqael does her job.

Somebody definitely needed to coach Muriel better about fitting in on Earth, but I'm willing to forgive Saraqael that one; it's probably not her job to do that, but Muriel's line manager's job. Muriel's 37th-level -- I have to assume there's a line manager or two (or twelve) between them and Saraqael. Plus, of course, all the angels (except Aziraphale, possibly Sandalphon, and the Metatron) are ruinously terrible at Earthing -- s2 continues the s1 throughline of the archangels being seen on Earth only rarely and briefly.

Another moment of Michael's utter uselessness, incidentally -- in the Job minisode, when she archangelsplains the meaning of "Shuhite" our timorous Aziraphale actually rolls his eyes, and Gabriel quiets her with one hand. She's actually right to be suspicious (this happens often in s2), just terrible at actually communicating her suspicions such that anyone else will take action on them.

(I actually have considerable sympathy for Michael here. I have also 'splained a mighty 'splain professionally in my time, and had many eyes rolled at me. Michael's right. So was I. But so it goes. Knowledge without adroit communication isn't worth much.)

Saraqael recognizes Crowley in his bee!demon disguise immediately (unlike Michael and Uriel, again), but notice that she doesn't raise any alarms and she doesn't even bother punishing Muriel. (I am a bit sorry she doesn't get to take a crack at his horrific garb. Missed opportunity there.) With the Metatron's find-Gabriel mandate still in place, she lets the situation run to see if Crowley will get her closer to finding Gabriel -- which, in fact, he does! So she knows when not to act hastily, too.

In the meeting about the Second Coming, and at Gabriel's trial, Saraqael again observes but mostly holds her peace. Her opsness comes to the fore again when they decide to mindwipe Gabriel; she's the one to set it in motion via her glass phone, and she's the one to report that he can't be found. As ops, though, she doesn't unilaterally decide what to do -- she asks.

(And the Metatron, extremely punchable boss that he is, throws the worst and least accurate possible insult at her! Look, I'm not expert at British English or anything, but "wet" seems to mean "whingy halfhearted coward," and that is so not Saraqael! Ugh, if Gabriel learned management from the Metatron, no wonder he's such a horror in s1.)

So we're set up very well for the angels-and-demons bookshop scene. Does Saraqael act swiftly when told to? Yep -- if not for Crowley, Maggie and Nina would be table seasonings.

Does Saraqael observe, and draw correct conclusions? I think so. Because I'm on the side of things that thinks she rumbled the human-guise Metatron well before Crowley gave the game away to Aziraphale, yet said nothing. Very intriguing.

Here's where I'm going with all this. Two points, actually:

Point one: Maybe it wasn't the Metatron who mindwiped Crowley, since that's a thing that sure seems to have happened. (That would leave human-Enoch-becomes-the-Metatron theories intact.) Maybe it was Saraqael. Who worked with Crowley on the Horsehead Nebula, and might well have heard him asking dangerous questions. Whose job mindwiping apparently is. I'm not wedded to this theory, but gosh, it sure is interesting.

Point two: Organizations can shamble along like zombies with consistently crappy ops (a lot of us have probably worked for such; I sure have). An organization that had competent ops but suddenly loses it, however, is boned, humped, screwed, at least temporarily and quite possibly permanently.

If I were Aziraphale, wanting to ruin the Metatron and wreck Heaven's whole deal, the very first angel I'd want to subvert, recruit, or -- and I hope this doesn't happen but I'm not ruling it out, because if I'm right about what Saraqael did to Crowley, Aziraphale's gonna go postal when he finds out -- destroy, would be Saraqael.

Love for Love's Sake Episodes 7 & 8

Well holy shit, that went in some directions I never imagined, and it was very dark indeed. I can't believe this intriguing little show is already over. So let's unpack what happened here.

My interpretation of everything we learned in these final episodes is that Myungha already died by suicide in the real world after a series of hardships, including the death of his grandmother, a long-term struggle with depression, and rejection from his ex and his mother, and the author gave him a chance to live again in the game world. The ending suggests he will now stay in the game world with Yeowoon and get another chance at life where his core objective is to make himself happy, and any expectation we had that he would have to return to the real world is out the window, because his life there has already ended.

But what exactly is this game world? I don't think we'll ever fully know for sure. Certainly, the show did not explain the how of it, or tie together all the vignettes we saw of Myungha and the author discussing their philosophy on life in a clear throughline to how we got to the game. The game world was purportedly based on the author's fictional novel, but all along it has taken on the features of Myungha's real life, including all the significant people we saw in his first life flashbacks. His grandma is here, his mother is here, his ex is even here in the guise of Yeowoon's agent. Myungha's memories and consciousness seem to inform the way this world was built, even as he did not create it. The author is given the role of Creator, somehow designing this world for Myungha to try to find happiness via seeking to make someone with very similar experiences to his happy.

Now, on this point, I don't think everything that happened in the original iteration of the game totally holds up. The way the author was messing with Myungha and forcing cruel choices on him really does not track with a desire to help him find happiness, and the point where Yeowoon seems to discover the game and somehow intervene to pull Myungha back in was lacking some clarity. And I wish the show had grounded us in Myungha's experiences earlier on rather than holding everything back for the sake of mystery--I do think that choice got in the way of a more coherent emotional arc for our protagonist.

But despite those quibbles, I still was able to connect with Myungha's struggles. This is a boy who has been so mired in his own misery that he doesn't know how to let anyone else in. He is too afraid to trust and let someone care for him in the way he cares for others. I wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him when his own emotional paralysis caused him to destroy the game--Yeowoon was telling him exactly what he needed, but he couldn't find the strength within himself to give it to him. And this is why knowing Yeowoon is exactly what he needed to see a different path for himself, because Yeowoon has experienced many of the same hurts but still finds within himself the ability to trust and rely on Myungha. Yeowoon is the stronger of the two of them, and Myungha needed to learn from him to overcome his own cowardice. Their happy reunion in the game world felt earned, and I believe in Myungha's ability to try again at both life and this relationship without holding back this time.

This show definitely wasn't perfect, but it really did some interesting things and left us with a lot to think about. I am looking forward to reading everyone else's interpretations of these final episodes, and Myungha and Yeowoon will be staying with me for a long time.

honestly though if you want a really good technique for avoiding annoying people in fandom, get attached to a widely hated character! or, if you can't make yourself do that? just pretend you are. pick the WORST character. the nastiest, most despicable, most vile character. or the most overhated and misunderstood one, who might not have even done anything wrong. what matters isn't the content of their character, just that they generate discourse. i'm talking your vriskas. find the vriska. pretend they are your favourite if they're not.

then, early on in any given interaction with a new fandom person, mention that they are your favourite. and watch how the person reacts.

i have two characters i do this with. the first is fi from the legend of zelda. her heinous crime that swaths upon swaths of gamerboys decided to froth with rage over for years is that she makes them feel emasculated because she likes to infodump. she is handholdy, she is helpful, and she is blunt and robotic and lacks any semblance of charisma or sex appeal. therefore she is nothing. and she is my favourite video game character of all time. i mention this early on and study the reaction of my conversational partner.

fi weeds out the kind of people i want to avoid in that fandom: misogynists. smug gamerbro types who make you spew novels of lore before they respect your opinion. no one like that is going to like fi, they have nothing to gain from her and everything to hate about her.

the second one is manfred von karma. he orphaned a child and then framed that child for murder 15 years later just, like, for fun. just 'cause he was having a hot girl moment. aforementioned orphan is the traumatized autistic darling of the fandom who all the twitter girlies love to project onto and hate to see any form of nuance in. mvk is cartoonishly evil and has no redeeming qualities. he is unpleasant to be around. he is controlling and cruel. and he's an old disabled man so basically no one besides faggots with good taste find him hot. when talking with ace attorney fans i bring it up as soon as possible that he's like my blorbo of all time. my silly rabbit. i talk about him like he's the fucking sun in my sky and i call him 'papa' because my cringey fictionkin ass does what they want and i watch people squirm and writhe and unperson me for it.

like fi, mvk very specifically roots out a very specific subset of this fandom i dislike: fanon-poisoned twitterbrained AA fans who "play the games" through fanfiction and incorrectquotes. they all think mvk is a child abuser (because evil, evil mean abuse kids, cannot be complex, all evil do a child abuse) and so they point their fingers and call me an abuse apologist because that's activism to them or whatever. they can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, of course, but they're annoying and i want them to leave me alone. and because i love this monster they've created, they do.

the throughline here is: anyone who gets this fucking worked up over made-up pretend people is probably severely online, and uses fandom discourse as a personality replacement. what ever flavour of severely online it is, it's generally best not to associate with people like that because 9/10 times they are fucking deranged and are just waiting on you to cross them in some meaningless way so they can unperson you.

so, my advice to you: find the vriska. find the vriska, love the vriska, do it as early as possible. it will save you SO much time. weed out the people who respond with screeching and wriggling. keep close the people who say things like "haha whaaat? alright, explain that for me!"

Opps I've been thinking about Teru during confession arc again. Opps opps opps here i go down the hill come join me~

This meta has no strong throughline I'm just. Thoughts. Right now. I wrote this weeks ago and never posted it.

Note this may not be super on point or a perfect analysis, I’m just rambling

Been thinking about how during confession arc, everyone who stood up for Mob, stood up for him because they cared deeply about him in their own way. Touchirou wanted to pay him back for his kindness. Reigen needed to be open with his student. Ritsu had to accept his brother for who he is.

Teru is Mobs friend. But he doesn't, at this point in the story, have the same long-term friendship/relationship like Ritsu or Reigen have with Mob. He has the same need to repay Mob as Touichirou does but it's...hm, it's different.

Teru nearly gets himself killed for another person whom he cares so deeply about.

Is it because Teru has a crush on him?

...Perhaps. At this point I’d argue it’s not a crush but still an infatuation with Mob. Which can be a crush, but I don’t think he forms a crush until the pedestal is broke. At this point he still sees Mob as better than him.

Mob is also the only true friend Teru (from what we know) has had.

….

If Teru loses Mob, who else does he have? Ritsu maybe, and Shou, and maybe Reigen, but those friendships are still so new.

No, Mob is different. Mob is perfect, amazing, powerful--Mob is his only friend that knows the most "true" parts of Teru.

Teru is willing to die for Mob.

And I both love and hate that. I have a lot of mixed feelings about characters being willing to die for another and that is my own personal situation

Teru cares so much that he is willing to put his life on the line for Mob and that is something I think they will have to unpack. Just as friends or if they get together romantically.

(Honestly everyone is willing to die for Mob...... Reigen, Ritsu, Touichirou---they all see themselves as not worth it. That the best thing they can do in this situation (initially) is give up their life for this person. But they all realize through that they can't do that. They can't.)

This is my personal two cents: Loving someone does not mean throwing your life away for them. Because then you lose yourself. And what are you left with? Loving someone does mean stepping up for them, being there for them, making sacrifices for them. But not losing yourself for them.

But I’m gonna get super real for a hot minute. As someone who has been there. It destroys your sense of self. Who are you when all you are, is the other person? I see Teru doing this. He doesn't have much to stand on who "Teru" is. So he throws himself in to protect Mob in the only way he knows he can.

Teru doesn’t think he is special at this point compared to Mob. Mob is the most important thing. Mob is his only friend. Mob is everything. Teru has everything to lose. He has found this one friend, this one connection in his life, and he will do anything to protect them. He is still trying to find himself. Right now all that he is, is Mob.

He loves Mob so so much in his own way, and through their fight he realizes the best thing he can do is not die for Mob or beat him, but to save the people around him. Teru takes a huge step towards who he as a person is.

Confession arc is Teru realizing he can’t give Mob what he wants. He can’t protect and he can't defeat him. Teru has to figure out who he is, not who he thinks he should be.

I was wondering if you could share your thoughts and feelings on Felonys takes over the years overall? I know a lot of people see him as this grand savior of star wars without much more to it so I wanted to hear your take on how he handles the pre-established world he writes for and the dissonance with what George Lucas established/said before

Honestly, I think a lot of Felony's appeal is that he writes a very polished story and that's appealing to audiences (no shade, I'm part of that audience!) and that he has at least given some thought to what the Force means. There are a lot of takes he has that I agree with, I still quote what he says about the characters at times, but I think he has a big central problem and that's characterization drift-slash-the inability to let go. Well, two big central problems: He also can't write/finish a narrative arc to a satisfying conclusion. I have such a hard time getting into the Mandalorian storyline because it's been told in snippets for like 10+ years now and it's never really coherently come together, it still has huge gaps in it, it doesn't have a strong narrative central theme that he sticks to, but instead told through cameos and mini-arcs in separate shows. And when you examine a lot of his work, it often doesn't hold up to scrutiny because I'm not sure he has a solid thematic throughline that's driving him--like, some of the choices he made in season 7 of TCW are baffling--Ahsoka walks right by people who need her help, then says, "In my life, when someone needs help, I help them."??? When she wants the Jedi to help Mandalore instead of Coruscant, she says the Jedi aren't helping the people who really need them, despite that Coruscant is under attack and that's where Trace and Rafa are, the characters we just spent an entire arc on?? Ahsoka and Bo-Katan want the Republic to literally invade Mandalore, this is brought up in the arc itself, and then never mentioned again because it's inconvenient and the author doesn't want to deal with the established worldbuilding?? I also don't think he knows how to end a story, like I love Ahsoka as a character, but he very much does favor her and a lot of her appearances are starting to feel like she's only there because Filoni can't resist. She just never ends, there's no conclusion to her, what's even her character arc over the course of her life after the Jedi genocide? She's obviously dealing with trauma about it and now she's looking for Ezra to find him again, but what's the character arc on a personal level? Is she still dealing with letting go of Anakin, ~30 years after it happened? Did she not put that to rest in Rebels finally? @david-talks-sw has a great post about the differences between George Lucas and Dave Filoni here, illustrating that I do think Dave misses some really key points about characters that he has personal biases against. And, you know, I'm not getting after him for that, I disagree with him and I think he's wrong about a lot of stuff that Lucas directly established, but I also think a lot of people dismiss criticism of him because, oh, he worked with George and therefore he's an extension of George! No, he's a different writer with his own strengths and weaknesses, one I think who makes very popular (often for a reason) Star Wars, but I think misses the heart a lot of times. But I also often think of that he doesn't try to see himself as the grand lord of Star Wars, either, even he himself says:

He's not the ultimate authority on Star Wars, he's just as fallible as anyone else is, and always should be. I think he made Star Wars shows that a lot of people loved, he has a very polished style, and he has given thought to the characters he loves. He just also has biases and directly conflicts with George Lucas' established story and I think that's fair to point out. Maybe you like those better, I'm not trying to talk anyone out of that, but it's still fair game for me to point out that I think he's wrong about Star Wars just as often as he's right. (And that, as time goes on and The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett became more and more of a hot mess, I grew less charitable. This is a major overview, I don't want to get too into the weeds on this, I've gone over a lot it in past meta, and it would be exhausting to dig it all up again, but basically this is why I'm on the fence about Felony. He has a lot of weaknesses as a writer and I don't find I like his strengths more than I dislike his weaknesses sometimes.)

Trying and failing to be normal about it but listen, as hard as last episode was to watch I am convinced that drinking that tea was the best thing that could have happened to Ruby after everything.

This is true for the sole reason that Ruby coming to terms with who she wants to be before anyone can move on isn't just necessary in the abstract character development sense, but also the primary throughline of the volume cannot resolve without it. By it's nature, the Ever After physically cannot let them leave until she does.

The Ever After mechanically operates by what we would recognize as narrative logic and has a demonstrated empathy with those who are present within it. The physicality of the space is defined and altered by that empathy as we've seen on many occasions now (the rain when Ruby gets sad, the entire nature of the punderstorm. The acres exist as they do to facilitate the afterans' purposes, not the other way around). That said it doesn't have a will of it's own, it's a passive. The plasticity of the environment is prompted by the feelings and desires of those who inhabit it, and the world reacts in turn. It looks like nonsense coming from the "real" world but makes perfect sense once you establish this as a fundamental rule of reality here.

We still don't have a reliable source of information the claim that the tree is how the team gets back to Remnant and a lot of different perspectives on what it really is. From the fairy tale it is the way home, for the afterans it is rebirth. According to Jaune it's death (which says more about him than the tree but I'll get to that in a bit). None of them are completely wrong, I think.

The first time we see anyone 'interact' with the tree is in the herbalist hut with the smoke. I don't think this was just some shadow self vision. We see that the smoke is made from the tree's leaves. Drinking the tea swallowed Ruby up the same way the Herbalist was at the end of this scene. So we have an established pattern here of what returning to the tree looks like, and how ingesting the leaves call out to it, for lack of a better phrase. The important part of this here is the stark difference in how wby interact with the tree, via the images of their past selves, as opposed to Ruby. I'm not going to harp on it too much because better meta than mine circulated when the episode aired, but we're shown how the losses from the previous volumes have ultimately helped to galvanize wby rather than weaken their sense of identity. They don't presently need to initiate a full deconstruction of themselves to find what they want or who they want to be: they don't need the tree and therefore will not be able to find it.

This is in contrast with Jaune's stagnation while in the Ever After, but is ultimately to the same effect. He's spent decades cementing his identity in his guilt. The tree is death because he can't conceive of being himself without that guilt. (We see this exact same concept with Ruby's first visit to the blacksmith. "I'm fine, I can handle it." She's not happy with this, but the tree cannot help her change until she wants to change herself. "If you change your mind...") Until he's able to crack this image of himself, there is no desire for change and thus he couldn't find the tree even if he wanted to.

Between them all, they lack a desire or need for substantial change to their sense of self, and do not have the ability to make it to the tree until they do. Despite her internal turmoil, the narrative has positioned Ruby as the only one who can lead them all to the tree and ergo out of the Ever After, because the Ever After itself has made this journey one and the same with her journey of self discovery.

"The tree isn't a place you go, it's a place you know."

All of this to say that the tree facilitates change, whatever that may mean to those who find themselves there. Deconstruction can be painful, it means stripping away things you thought were key structural components of yourself (Penny's sword, the emblem, maybe even the cloak ???) to find what's left. I am certainly not arguing that Ruby is in a good place right now, but on its face, not wanting to be me anymore is a statement desiring change, not erasure. And change requires destruction and creation both.

So, narratively, Ruby is being deconstructed, broken down to her core elements (a phase of the process we'll probably see conclude next episode because she still hasn't acknowledged Summer in the mirror-). It's hurt, it's not always come from a healthy place, Neo's torture circus certainly pushed the issue, but it is happening. So what is 'Ruby Rose' when you look at what's left?

I don't know but I'm excited to find out.

Ruby doesn't have to answer that question by the end of this volume, nor do I think she will, but what I do think will satisfy the Ever After's "requirement" before it can let them leave is a desire to answer that question. We're seeing the story of "a girl with a lot of problems" in this volume. When the Ever After no longer has a role in that story, literally, it will physically manifest whatever it needs to progress that story.

Like, say, a door back to Remnant. It's that simple.

um. cschlatt finds out shes transfem post revival. is this anything.

AUGH IT'S EVERYTHING it'suwgwudgdhgh. hold on let me explain.

i think the cschlatt transfem throughline is, again, soso easy to read theres sm to dig into and chew on. i'm genuinely bewildered it's not smthng ppl hve picked up on more because it seems so v clear to me.

guy refuses to accept help bcs he sees it as weakness makes it v clear his narrative lesson is -> he should allow himself support and compassion w/o recoiling, because he's allowed to want it and need it, w/o masking it in disgust or irony.

on that point, guy refuses to see himself as disabled despite having very very blatent disabilities that leave him in horror of himself -> a panicked assertion of power to take back "control". ok ,what is he in "control" of, what can he wield, what can he have a narrative over.

guy likes being called a pretty princess and wears dresses "as a joke", using that same irony coated sheen he uses w a Lot of the things he's afraid of being more earnest in, like his care for other people or his wants. he likes being wined and dined and cooed at, and then reacts to "feminine" things, the possibility of being "not a man", in the same wild rejection as the other two, the rejection of the body. a real man doesn't care if he's betrayed, that's why he takes it so personally. a real man doesn't care abt sm partner, who needs 'em, and thats why the bow shot becomes a canon death that he feels personally heartbroken abt. a real man isn't scared and panicked and a real man isn't disabled and isn't needy. and he definitely isn't afraid. and he doesn't like the dresses. -> well. yknow how it is.

even the gym...we don't know his limbo specifically but i think it's pretty easy to infer that the gym is at least partially a manifestation of it? ghosts are confirmed to be able to be tied to locations, like mexican dream w el rapids. and in his, he has that "control", surrounded by that ideal figure, here he's powerful and on top and sooooo intouchable. the mask worked. and it doesn't actually because it still doesn't match up w how he acts. a "real man" doesn't need anything, doesn't care about anything, and glatt is still still still so deeply needy and clingy and longing for connection, and still tries to mask it w things like "spanish lessons" and "horror mansions" tht end up just being an excuse to throw little parties in. uuwgh. who even ca(blows up 320 walls with my mind)

additionally ppl forget that limbo is supposed t like..not actually be hell lmao? it's torturous for sure but it isn't like. supposed to represent their worse nightmare? it's supposed to, i think, represent a state of being unable to move on. the train that won't ever pick you up. a existence of blankness where you can't feel a thing except waiting for the other shoe to drop. a gym full of idols that you will never be able to "live up to".

bcs of that schlatt is bigender (✌️) to me specifically...cuz he clearly likes Parts of masculinity. the little conman shtick, the big guy-isms. it's smthing he enjoys, but he's v clearly fearful and panicked abt the "Ideal Masculine Figure™️", the mythologized toxic version in his quest for control. the conman thing is fun and easy, and the freaked out assertion of "i'm a man, i'm not weak or scared, i'm not like them." is smthng else entirely.

(and again the symbolism WHATT the fuck was going on in the writer's room. the gym is handled like a trap that he can't get out of by himself, and being in the sun, being visible is tangibly equivalent to being burned. Fucking Excuse Me? Answer My Emails.)

anyways this is very brief and i could talk abt this for 53 years and counting but the thesis statement is estrogen and anti psychotics could've saved her 👍and she does eventually get revived and accepts it abt herself and he's so happy and loved. forever and ever. happy tgirl cschlatt tuesday‼️

Inspired by 'it's not love, it's obsession': what are your thoughts on the parallels between Luo Binghe and Xue Yang?

oooh this is a fascinating one.

One of my favorite things about looking at MXTX's books as a corpus of work taken together is the ways in which you can see her evolving as a writer. I don't necessarily mean stylistically (I don't feel like I can speak to that, since I can't read the original), or even necessarily narratively (though I do think TGCF is the strongest narratively, for all it's probably longer than it needs to be). What I really mean is how you can see her coming back to the same themes over and over and exploring them with variations and shades of difference. There are very clearly things that are MXTX Concerns, as it were, that she revisits and echoes and plays with in all of her works; questions about justice and the cycle of violence are one big one that I've thought a lot about personally.

And when you're looking at the three books together, there are places where you can draw throughlines - for instance, from Yi City > Black Water Arc, or from (arguably) Xiao Xingchen > Xie Lian. In light of the trivia that Yi City comes at least in part from an older, abandoned story MXTX worked on when she was younger (per an interview with her, I believe), I feel like you can draw the line from Xue Yang > Luo Binghe as far as some of the tropes being played with. Xue Yang is (in some ways) an echo of Luo Binghe is an echo of an older story that had a character who may or may not have been named Xue Yang.

In obvious ways Xue Yang takes a different position in the story he ends up in than Luo Binghe does in his (he ends up an antagonist), but while one could look at the Song Lan/Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen trio and posit Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan as the intended pair of whatever original story they came from, that doesn't, in my eyes, fit with the other relationships MXTX chooses to write. Xue Yang lives at a nexus of a lot of the things MXTX pokes at with Luo Binghe and, yes, Wei Wuxian, but also (to a lesser degree) Hua Cheng - the legacy of childhood violence, the importance and weight of small kindnesses in changing a person, the probing at the idea of people as irredeemable or incapable of change (and finding it lacking).

He comes from a disadvantaged, marginalized background (as do the other two protagonists) and, despite perpetrating atrocious acts of violence (Wei Wuxian actually, Luo Binghe less so in SVSSS canon but explicitly so in PIDW, which is the way Shen Qingqiu relates to him initially), kind treatment from a single person having a deep impact on their behavior. There's also the quality of deep, obsessive devotion, notably beyond death, that Xue Yang shares with Luo Binghe, Lan Wangji, and Hua Cheng (portrayed in the latter two cases as clearly and explicitly romantic and to be valued). Xue Yang doesn't occupy a protagonist role in MDZS (obviously), but he has some of those thematic qualities that tend to pop up in MXTX protagonists and/or love interests.

(Hua Cheng might stand out here, and he is different, certainly, but I would point to the very, very early identification of him as inherently ill-fortuned and bad to be around. Xue Yang has TGCF echoes, I'd say, to a lesser extent in Hua Cheng than in Jun Wu, but I don't think the echoes are absent from Hua Cheng, either.).

This positions Xue Yang, potentially, as (if we're using a crude metaphor) a little bit the Luo Binghe to Xiao Xingchen's Shen Qingqiu, with Song Lan potentially occupying more of a Yue Qingyuan place (but of course that's just speculation and we'll probably never know).

This is a lot of tl;dr but I guess the main thing I'm thinking about here is that while it's I think shallow to describe Xue Yang as a proto-Luo Binghe (or rather, ur-Xue Yang from that older story as), I think it's fair to see that relationship between the two characters as part and parcel of MXTX's revisiting, revising, and reconsidering the same themes over and over again in her work - in the same way, I think, that within the same story Wei Wuxian's parallels with both Xue Yang illustrate that same impulse. (And not, to be clear, as a simple "this one good, this one bad" morality tale; what MXTX is doing with her parallels is, I daresay, more interesting than that.)

anyway, there you have it. I feel like this went maybe a little left of what you were asking (maybe you wanted me to talk about the actual parallels in terms of character?) but this is a sub-category of that subject I personally find very fun to think about.

tumblr clique server got me thinking about Tyler but specifically about how his anger and rage have manifested in his music

I've always loved his ability to vividly depict complicated expressions of pain and anger in his music (i.e trapdoor, kitchen sink, neon gravestones, etc), and I love those songs so much precisely for what they are.

But I also love how, throughout the years, he's mellowed out a lot and has found people who make those painful emotions easier to bear.

TØP has always been pro recovery to me, and no matter how painful or sad their music is, there's always this throughline of hope and reassurance that it's worth continuing onward.

And as much as I love the darker or more cuttingly accurate songs, I also love that he seems to genuinely be more at peace now with his pain; It's not gone, but it doesn't dominate his life anymore, and he's not dealing with it all alone.

I feel like this is the main reason people misunderstand SAI, and why it seemingly has a lighter tone to the rest of their discography. It's layered with a ton of meaning (that I won't get into here but will if someone asks lol), but I think it unfairly gets put to the bottom of favourite lists bc people miss the rawness of the previous albums.

It's got me thinking about, like, how sometimes during recovery, you find you can't reach the desperate depths of your pain anymore, and therefore can't express it. It can make you feel like there's this void in your soul, or in some cases, compulsively chase that pain that you've started to miss.

I think that's part of the themes of SAI, but I also think it does describe the confusion people feel upon the tonal shift of TØP's albums between Trench and SAI.

I do, of course, hope that Tyler doesn't stop using music to express his tougher feelings, but I also really appreciate that they're branching out into more styles of music and that their current shift really does articulate what Tyler and Josh have been saying since the start; Recovery is possible.

the moment weve all been waiting for EXALTED SECRET 2023 BIOS YAAAAAY

Heres my bios for the secret santa ! this years theme is Girls Who Rot, Have Rotted Previously, or Are Rotting Right Now

I like to provide some little details, tidbits, tone and setting ideas in my bios in case you want to draw them in like a little scene; don't feel obligated to get that fancy, though!

without further ado.

Pleione (Plin for short, she/they, roughly equivalent to early 20s) is a Marrow Aspect forged from the remnants of a young royal from a long-forgotten kingdom, resuscitated from the depths of the mausoleum in which her body was interred by (accidental) necromantic means. She's spent the past two decades quietly living on her Anchor's manse-estate, indulging in her passions for art and botany.

Plin is a big chicken who is deathly terrified of conflict and does a lot of screaming and cowering when things come to blows for someone who

Her personality is particular, peculiar, and holier-than-thou. She's got dynastic sensibilities, snobbish and disinclined to associate with 'the proles'. Get her on the subject of one of her special interests, though, and you might find each other fast friends.

Motifs- Plin has an orchid motif on account of the fact that she needs a dose of a special tea made from a (formerly) extinct orchid several times a day in order to NOT DIE. She hasn't died yet. She doesnt know she can come back give her a break. Some other motifs include glass, terrariums, spiders & fireflies; marble & porcelain, old-timey anatomical drawings, delicate floral and baroque patterns; antique-white, minty green, deep purple, and black.

Ideas- If you want to draw her doing something she is equally likely to be found reclining on a huge pile of pillows with a book or with her knees planted in the dirt rooting around in a thorny shrub. She loves to dissect and draw plants and is liable to be found at a desk or behind an easel doing one of those activities

Anima- Currently I am thinking... a grove filled with ghostly-white plants twining over enormous bones (hopefully of the animal variety, but hard to say, really) and probably features giant flowering orchids that are shaped suspiciously like skulls... Also its hard to say but the ground does look an awful lot like meat, and those stringy bits look an awful lot like connective tissue... hmm

---

Desert Fang Grim Devil Lioness (Grim for short, she/her, 36 yrs old) is a renegade Midnight caste former-warlord-turned-backwoods vampire-MILF. upgrades!

Grim was fazed a lot as a child (being pawned off by your family as a slave will do that to you) and vowed to grow up into a woman who Wouldn't Be Fazed By Anything. Having achieved this (with a few notable exceptions), she mostly gets her way by via being larger, stronger, and scarier than as many of her problems as possible. Sometimes problems don't and can't have physical largeness, though, which is annoying.

One of these problems included being counter-merc'd by one of her targets and dying of exposure under the desert sun. She didn't... quite... let this stop her, though. There are people in need of her skillsets, and dying isn't really a disqualifier for their service. She was raised as a deathknight and for several years served as one of the First and Forsaken Lion's most fearsome officers.

Another problem is... More recent. Having run off with her lunar mate and tried to start a family far, far from FAFL's stomping grounds, it turns out toughing it out in the wilds of the North can kind of suck.

Motifs- Pretty normal deathknight stuff. Black iron of the wrought variety, and soulsteel; tattered and blood-drenched fabric, rough-hewn basalt and dark masonry. Honestly got stronger canid than felid vibes, to spite the name. Black-and-red is an obvious throughline but grimy grays and natural tones complete her overall color scheme. Things that are totally inert and lifeless, and will always remain as such.

Ideas- Riding her terrifying steed (basically just a half rotting perma-permafrosted elk corpse with a broken antler), slicing something in half with her awesome reaver daiklaive, hovering over a pot of survival-stew boiling over a crude hearth, walking thru the woods in the dark covered in blood. Or maybe hanging out with her awesome baby (pictured) if youre inclined to draw something... Nicer :)

Anima- A bit stereotypical, I think like. a blasted land with bloodsoaked earth so barren and expansive that it blends with the crimson sky, as well as off in the distance banners that tower like skyscrapers which only flutter by virtue of their enormity. Not even Mela's breath will touch this forsaken place.

Grim is the current wielder of Gorgon.

---

(WHOOPS forgot the tattoos in the second thing but like hell im fixing that at this point)

Last but not least, the Gunstar Autochthonia Girl Hirudana Siithavari (Siithi for short, she/her, 32 y.o.) a No Moon ostensibly still answering to the Deliberative; at heart, a roustabout and a scallywag. She crawled deep into Authochthon's world-body on a suicide mission and then beat all odds by sheer cockroach-style stubbornness, earning her Luna's favor. Also, terrible death-sorcery (necromancy is sort of an unknown factor in our rendition of the Gunstar shard but she somehow managed to make contact with the neverborn and stumble into its practice)

she likes drinking, and gambling, and yelling, and generally being a nuisance. Sometimes a little bit of heart-of-gold shines through, and quite frankly everyone is probably better off with the secrets of necromancy in her hands rather than someone slightly less grounded in reality.

theres more pics of her in her tag if you want to poke around.

Motifs- Bronze, brass, grimy earth tones mixed with bright accent colors. Black leather, studs, needles, teeth. Tubes, pipes, gears, grates and various industrial junk. Worms, bugs, and other vermin. Dankness, darkness, the sickly shadows of Black Non. Smoke-haze and drug paraphernalia.

Ideas- Generally she spends most of her time at the bar, the gym, in her lab, or asleep. you could draw her pumping iron, or taking a toke on a decrepit sofa in her dingy weed-cave (not a literal cave though that would be kind of fun), or sitting at an industrial workbench pouring over a half-disassembled chainsaw. or corpse. or both at the same time.

Anima- Her lower-level anima is kind of gloopy like a lava lamp. Iconic is a swamp with oil for water, populated by mangroves assembled from pipes and black plastic tube-vines, with the moon reflecting brightly on its surface. Her spirit shape is a Buffalo Leech, one of the largest species of leeches (on earth at least). i'll attach a pic of her hybrid form if you wanna draw that instead!

(necessary disclaimer for these sorts of things) youre welcome to take this as an opportunity to do some experimenting but if you don't think you can passably represent a certain characters body shape i would recommend picking one of the other options. thank you!

realizing it is probably better to Use The Askbox For Its Intended Purpose than to attempt conversation in tags ^^; anyway. YEAH I WOULD LOVE FWHIP THOUGHTS. MY LITTLE GUY. MY DUDE. I LOVE HE. fwhip's throughline IS SO VERY MUCH AVOIDANCE YOU'RE SO RIGHT (haven't seen scott s1 so can't comment on that yet). feel free to elaborate on any of [fwhip's avoidance, the thing about fwhip instinctually shooting sausage, fwhip's relationship to the rest of the WRA]! (also, 13:05 - 13:12 on the twelfth episode in fwhip's e1 playlist, "MAKING PEACE and NEW SKIN!", has the moment with the bow, if you're curious)

Ooh yes, okay. I’m gonna go into Empires season one fWhip and the Wither Rose Alliance, how fWhip handled the rise of Xornoth and the proceeding corruption of Sausage, as well as Sausage’s curing, and the reconciliation of the WRA. Basically, I’m gonna talk about why I love the WRA so much, as well as highlighting some really interesting character moments for fWhip, and his overarching theme of avoidance. Welcome to my Ted Talk.

(If you’ve only ever heard about empires season one through osmosis, or never watched any of the Wither Rose Alliance POVs— fWhip, Gem, or Sausage, this might be a good way to kinda figure out what their deal is. I ended up explaining a lot of context for things, for the sake of saying what I wanted to say, so I feel like it’ll be comprehensive even if you don’t have much prior knowledge of season one.)

At the start of the season, fWhip and Sausage got pretty close pretty quickly. They were partners in crime, if you will, each often helping each other out with various schemes and pranks, such as fWhip helping Sausage get back at Pix for stealing Sausage’s villagers, [fWhip e9, 7:18], even before the proper foundation of the WRA [fWhip e10, 17:25]. Which is to say, they were very close, even before everything went down. After fWhip steals the Codfather head— which he seems to be happy to deflect partial blame onto Gem for, trying to avoid any accountability— the WRA together gear up to create a sort of trap vault, to secure the Codfather head.

The tentative rise of Xornoth began before the vault was constructed, with fWhip having an encounter with the demon happening just before the vault plans were solidified, in his episode 17. In that episode, he makes a log of things he knows about the demon, including a list of things the demon seems to like, which includes two notable entries— “I think [the demon] likes MythicalSausage? And, they really like the idea of the dragon being killed […] they really dislike the dragon. I think their goals are […] the death of the ender dragon, it really keeps coming back to that, and they keep saying, if we kill the ender dragon, they’re gonna be free” [12:43].

This, combined with the need to create a secret vault, would ultimately result in the items being hidden in the End. fWhip, tasked with finding the location of the vault, decides on hiding the items this way, saying “With everything, especially the demon being so scared? Of the dragon? I feel like leaving the Codfather’s head with the dragon, as like a final form of defense, might not be a bad idea. Because, then Jimmy will never be able to get it. He’ll never be able to get it. Nobody’s gonna be able to take out the dragon” [17:21]. He presumes that everything will be safe with the dragon, that nobody will be able to take it down.

Meanwhile, Sausage seems to have almost made friends with the demon. When fWhip visits him to bring him some firearms, he says “Xornoth is uh, is planning some things, it’s great! […] For the demon! For armageddon!!” [fWhip e17, 30:20]. fWhip becomes, understandably, somewhat nervous, yet even here he still seems to… deflect. He laughs, nervously, telling them to have fun, before heading home. fWhip flies off, saying “What a weird guy— people say I’m the evil one. Quite worried about him.” fWhip sees that something is… definitely wrong, with Sausage, and yet he still can’t bring himself to properly have that confrontation. He’s avoiding it, maybe just hoping that things will turn out alright.

Another moment right in this era that I think about often, that I’m not sure where else to put, is the moment where Sausage and Gem have a brief stand down, when Gem says that she’s the most powerful wizard on the server, to which Sausage bites back that she only is for now [fWhip e18, 32:40]. This happens right around when Sausage was starting to get corrupted, and Xornoth promised him great magical power— power that Gem had said he would never have. And I think often about this moment, in the context of the WRA as siblings, right— you’re fWhip, and you’re standing there as your younger brother and older sister are doing the magical equivalent of holding guns to each other’s heads, and just… how do you react? What do you even do? He’s not sure, which leads to that horribly nervous little song he sings, and it’s just… god. It’s so much. Caught in the middle of all the things he’s been trying to look away from, unable to do anything as the two most important people in his life are a hair away from taking each other out.

Finishing up the final preparations on the WRA vault, fWhip expands on his reasoning to hide the Codfather head in the End: “Right now, the only way out of the End is either by killing the dragon, or by jumping into the void […] there’s a little bit of a demon, on the server right now, who keeps trying to tell people to kill the dragon to unleash it upon the world. And, there’s one thing I’m pretty confident in: Jimmy does not want to free Xornoth. And, well, at this point, neither do I. So, if I put the cod head in there, I think Jimmy’s gonna find an ultimatum where he’s like, hm, nope, I can’t get it back. Or, if he does, and he wants to bring it to the overworld, he has to unleash the most evil thing, on this entire server, into the open. So, uh, hopefully he doesn’t do that. I think he’s smart enough” [fWhip e19 9:43]. He tells Gem about the plan later in that same episode, to which she agrees that it seems like a good plan. The idea is foolproof. Surely, Jimmy won’t risk the entire server’s safety, all for the cod head, right? It feels reasonable enough to assume that Jimmy wouldn’t willingly doom the world by releasing the demon, and that’s something that he banks on— it’s the perfect way to get rid of the Codfather head, in a way that Jimmy can never get it back. Surely, nobody would be so foolish. Problem successfully solved!

Right?

Wrong. But… it wasn’t just Jimmy.

The collapse of the Wither Rose Alliance, in fWhip’s episode 20 [4:10 - 7:28], is what finally forces fWhip to really face what Sausage has become. Xornoth demands a sacrifice to allow the WRA to escape the Nether, and Sausage, imbued with the power of Xornoth, takes Gem out quickly. As fWhip is left alone to face an invincible Sausage, Gem pleads with Xornoth: “I was sacrificed! You have to let fWhip out!” Of course, it’s to no avail, and fWhip is forcefully dragged out of hiding to face Sausage once more, being taken down. fWhip and Gem reconvene in Mythland, where fWhip hides Sausage’s dog Bubbles in the ground. Sausage returns, demanding to know where Bubbles is.

This moment, right here, is one I find very chilling. fWhip, a character who so often avoids direct serious conflict, one who worries for people on the sidelines, takes his stand. While Gem demands their stuff back, he says “I told you, [Bubbles is] gone until you get rid of the demon.” He knows this isn’t good, that Sausage is making a mistake siding with Xornoth. He tries the last ditch effort he can think of to get his little brother to snap out of Xornoth’s control.

It’s not enough. Sausage begrudgingly returns their things, and as the two sort through their jumbled items, Gem mutters that they can’t be allies anymore, after this. fWhip agrees, with a haunting certainty, “Sausage, you chose a side… you chose a side. […] We tried to save us all, you chose.” The two stand on the bridge in Mythland, opposite Sausage, and fWhip says it seems like their endeavor that day may have been their last, as an alliance. Sausage shouts for them to leave, and as they take off, Sausage swings, hitting fWhip.

Gem and fWhip fly off, without Sausage. As they make their way back to their lands, fWhip says, in a shaking voice, “Gem, it’s back to just you and me here,” to which Gem assures that they’ll be fine, that they’ll stand up for each other. He quickly accepts her words, saying “Yeah, it’s— it’s all good, it’s all good… it’s all good. He— he took the powers of the demon to kill us, there, that is— that is one too— one too far. That is— it’s one too far.” He’s afraid, having just firmly ousted one of his oldest allies— his own brother— from his oldest alliance, despite knowing that it was the only thing he could’ve possibly done. There was no other option… and yet, he barely gives himself a single sentence to essentially mourn that loss, before he’s trying to pave back on the mask of indifference— look away, avoid, avoid— it’s fine, he says, it’s all good, as if he didn’t just have to do the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life.

But it’s not over yet. Not even close.

(Continued under the cut. This got Really Long)

In that very same episode, a meeting is held [16:30 - 18:03] where fWhip and Gem happily tell the others about how they hid the Codfather head in the end. Everyone else is, of course, terrified. Scott tells them that Jimmy’s just gonna kill the dragon to escape, and that if Xornoth is released, it’ll bring about an eternal winter. Gem and fWhip, realizing they’ve messed up, devise a plan to prevent the Cod Alliance from killing the dragon— they need to heal it, keep it alive at all costs. Gem insists to everyone that they have to be a team, that even though they’ve messed up, that they can fix it.

It’s now or never. They head into the End.

[End scene from 19:20 - 22:57] fWhip immediately flies around to the main island, before stepping down onto the bridge in front of Jimmy. He begs, pleads for them not to do this. “Jimmy— Jimmy, I’m sorry. Jimmy— Jimmy— I’m sorry, Jimmy, we need to not kill the dragon here.” Jimmy demands the Codfather head, and fWhip immediately agrees to return it, reiterating that they must not kill the dragon. It’s this— this moment of being immediately and forcefully thrust into the face of the problem he caused, the problem he’d been trying to avoid, by hiding the Codfather head away in a place where he was sure that Jimmy would never dare to go. It’s this moment of fWhip pleading with Jimmy, to please, please not do this— they’ve lost so much to this demon, they can’t let this happen. He can’t let the demon be freed because of his mistake, he’ll do anything to prevent it from happening. The absolute, terrified resolve of a man faced with a problem he can no longer run from.

Jimmy says he’s gonna kill the dragon, barging past fWhip, up the main island. Chaos breaks out, and fWhip leads Jimmy down, beneath the portal frame. Jimmy says it better not be a trick, and he assures it isn’t, voice panicked. He returns the head, and begs them not to do this, in a soft, shaking voice, “We gotta keep the dragon alive, don’t— don’t let— don’t let Sausage kill it, don’t… […] Chaos, chaos is coming, we can’t— we can’t let the dragon die.” The fear, and absolute certainty… he can’t let this happen. Can’t let his mistake ruin the world.

Jimmy, uncertainly, says “fWhip, I think, whether you like it or not, this dragon is dying.”

fWhip desperately attempts to prevent the dragon’s death, to no avail. Chaos, as the two sides wage war in the end, with Jimmy caught conflicted in the middle. Sausage and Joey, corrupted by Xornoth, cheer for the carnage.

From the moment the Codfather head was stolen— perhaps even from the moment Jimmy started a confrontation with Sausage at all, all that time ago— it was too late. Xornoth would be released.

In a single episode, fWhip’s entire world is turned upside down. The WRA is shattered, the world is fast approaching an eternal corruption, and… he doesn’t know what to do. Gem says they can fix it, that she has the dragon egg, but… what else can he do but to just… shut down. He turns away from it— from Sausage, from Xornoth, from everything. He avoids it all— doubles down on the construction of his city, Eastvale, resolutely looking away from everything else.

With Xornoth freed, and Sausage well and truly corrupted, fWhip becomes extremely cold towards Sausage, to the point of being openly defensively hostile. The brother that he knew… that isn’t Sausage, anymore. One of the best examples of this can be seen in Sausage’s episode 32, 12:54, where Sausage and Pearl go to invite fWhip to their arena. fWhip answers the knock on his gate with a drawn bow, immediately and coldly asking what they want with him, even as Sausage still greets him as a friend. While fWhip is willing to speak to Pearl, he refuses to even entertain the idea that Sausage isn’t here to hurt him, shooting him a few times throughout the conversation, to the point where Sausage is sent away from the gate so that Pearl can speak to fWhip alone.

And… god, isn’t that just so much? You’re fWhip, and whatever thing is possessing the person in front of you, he isn’t your brother anymore. He’s not your friend anymore. He’s not safe, and you’re not safe with him here, even though… he used to be one of the safest people for you to be with. Not anymore. That’s not him, anymore.

And, it’s not unwarranted, with Sausage later saying to Pearl “I try my best around him, but sometimes I just wanna choke him out, Pearl” [15:24]. Yet… Sausage still greets fWhip as a friend, at first. Still tries to talk to him, insists that he’s “not evil today,” and… well, Sausage really did still care very much about the WRA, even while corrupted.

In Sausage’s episode 33, he opens by reading his last will and testament, knowing that soon enough he’ll be taken by the corruption. Within his will, he writes out things that he wants the other emperors to have, should he not return: “To fWhip, you can keep all my deepslate redstone ores… I don’t know what you want them for, they’re kind of useless to me, but… I kept a lot, […] Gem, you can have my great staff of Mythland. Uh… in your hands, it’ll probably be very effective. And to the Wither Rose Alliance, you can have access to my iron farm still” [1:07]. He still thought about them… still cared about them. The fact that Sausage kept collecting deepslate redstone— something that fWhip loves and cares for very much, for the sole purpose of giving it to him, even though they were on such horrible terms… I think about that. He loved them, even still. Even through the corruption, he loved them.

Gem never turns her back on Sausage in quite the same way fWhip does. It was she who cured him, in the end— killing him, at his own request, voice corrupted as he struggled against the influence of Xornoth. She finds him in Mythland, after he’s free from the corruption, and asks if he’s okay, saying she’s so glad to have him back again. He shakily asks her if he can be back in the alliance again, now that he’s cured, and Gem says “We’ll have to talk to fWhip about it, how about for now, you just… heal up over here” [Sausage e33, 33:25].

Gem knows that she forgives Sausage, that it wasn’t his fault. But… she also knows fWhip, and she knows it won’t be so easy for him, that it’ll take time. It has to be his own choice, in the end, to forgive Sausage for everything he put them all through.

Gem brings fWhip around to see Sausage, now that he’s uncorrupted. [Sausage e34, 24:00 - 34:25]. Once fWhip realizes that Sausage is there, he draws his bow, asking coldly why they’re here. Sausage asks what’s going on, and Gem says she’s brought him fWhip. Sausage is immediately distracted by Gem’s wizard hat, and fWhip happily jumps on the bandwagon of teasing Gem. Gem tells fWhip that Sausage is cured, and while fWhip is skeptical at first, having to kill Sausage himself to make sure he’s no longer unkillable, the three seem to fall back into their old patterns. Gem sends the two running into the river, lightheartedly chasing them with her sword, and as they both climb out giggling, she says “I missed this.”

This scene, this moment of the WRA, finally back together again after so long, it’s so… god. They’ve been apart for so long, they haven’t been able to hang out and laugh with each other, and this is the first time in so, so long, that Sausage has been able to hear that light in fWhip’s voice again— that he’s been able to speak to fWhip on any terms that aren’t cold and callous and unloving. They have each other again, they have their family back, unsteady as it is.

Sausage asks if he’s back in the alliance, and Gem says it’s up to fWhip. He seems… uncertain, but says that Sausage can be tentatively back— like he’s still nervous, still feels like something could go wrong. The three of them agree that Sausage owes them both three favors, and then he’ll be back in the alliance for real.

In Sausage’s episode 35, fWhip cashes in his first favor [9:30 - 10:17]. He asks Sausage to come by to help him with something, and as Sausage flies in, fWhip immediately shoots him with a flaming arrow. Sausage flies away, circling around before making his way back to land near fWhip. fWhip greets him with that old harsh coldness, a curt “Hi, can I help you,” how fWhip used to speak to Sausage, while he was corrupted. Sausage says he didn’t come to fight, that he’s good now, and fWhip lets out a slightly nervous laugh, saying “oh, right, right… sorry, sorry, I’m still just a little… it’s gonna take a while, it’s gonna take a while— you can’t just expect me to like— just like, forget, instantly, right? It was just— you know,” fWhip trails off, and Sausage says that fWhip hit him in the face, to which fWhip laughs, slightly, before restating his initial greeting in a much more friendly tone.

And it’s just… god. Isn’t that so much? Isn’t that So Much? Like, you’re fWhip, and you see your own little brother coming, and your immediate instinct is that you have to protect yourself. That you aren’t safe, that he’s gonna hurt you, prepare to fight back— god. Could you imagine what it must be like to be feeling that way? To be trying to reconcile the feelings so ingrained in you now, with the person now before you? He’s trying— he’s trying so hard to let Sausage back in. But… it’s not that easy.

I think this essay has definitely gotten long enough, but I do wanna leave off with one final moment. In Sausage’s episode 41 [11:25 - 14:22], fWhip finally feels able to fully accept Sausage back into the alliance. He tells them that he wants to make them all a new meeting room. The three end up falling back into their old antics, playfully attacking each other, and Sausage ends up getting killed. fWhip picks up a bunch of his things, including a splash potion of invisibility that he had. fWhip cheekily says he’ll keep the potion, and Sausage asks for it back, to which fWhip starts to walk off to where he wanted to show them anyway. Gem follows, and in a disapproving tone, says “fWhip, give him his things.” fWhip turns around, says “Okay, here you go,” and splashes the invis on them all, to which Sausage indignantly says “I can’t believe this!” fWhip immediately starts laughing, with Gem giggling as well, and both fWhip and Sausage quickly realize how silly Gem looks while invisible, with her massive hat floating in the air.

I point out this moment because it really encapsulates why I love the WRA so much. They’re such a chaotic bunch— acting like three siblings who love to tease each other, who get into fights and have falling outs and still, in the end, they make up again. They find each other again. They never stop caring about each other, even through everything. It’s a really sweet little moment— the WRA, finally, truly whole again.

First of all, thank you for being one of the few people with a brain on my dash in regards to Top in Only Friends. I swear, everytime I see you post something I'm like YES SOMEONE WHO CAN THINK CLEARLY.

Secondly, I wanted to point out something I haven't seen people talk about with the car sex scene. Whilst we can debate all day about the consent issues and Boston's manipulation, it is VERY clear that Top doesn't actually want to be there. There's a bit where (and excuse the rather pornographic language XD) that Top makes a face and seems to be (*ahem*) hammering up, and the second I saw that I was like, he doesn't want to be here, he's just letting frustration out, he isn't even thinking of Boston, in his mind it's not Boston he's with. Like, even then they were first stripping each other and whatnot, Top looks so full of doubt and anger.

I'm not defending what he did, but I do wish more people would realise that manipulation and gaslighting like Boston is doing can REALLY make people fuck up. I mean, if someone can listen to that kind of ear poison and NOT react, then well done to them, but we aren't all that strong, you know?

i'm just calling it like i see it! but thank you <3

you make a good point about top letting out his frustration. besides actual pleasure and connection (like with mew), top has two modes when it comes to sex: shutting down and frantic. this was both. while i don't think that top would have rushed out to find someone to fuck if he "found out" and boston wasn't coming on to him, it definitely wasn't about boston

and it definitely wasn't because he's a good lay lmao

don't u think top would have re-sampled ur wares earlier if that were the case, u fucking dickhole

anyway. it honestly seems like top never wants to be around boston. the throughline of topboston's relationship is that top is irritated, angry, or uncomfortable around him - the only thing that changes in that scene is that top is also heartbroken. i think his anger here is at least a little bit about boston, but definitely mostly about mew.

personally, i'm Team Top Didn't Do Anything Wrong. i will defend what he did, because i don't think he thought he had any other options and had been convinced by boston that it didn't matter (that nothing mattered, that he didn't matter). sexual assault, coercion, and rape will never be "cheating." believing someone's lies will never be worse than lying to get someone to fuck you.

there's a lot of stuff that top "should" have done instead, but that's always the rape culture argument with shit like this - and unfortunately, that kind of thinking is going to plague top for the rest of the series. his lying to mew is going to be an issue, but i can't pretend like shame isn't going to be a big factor in how top navigates these irrevocably altered relationships. also kind of think he's going to try to dump mew in the next episode but we'll see🤔

great to hear your thoughts!💗 (also it's very cute that you say "excuse the rather pornographic language." you should read my fics sometime😂)

I've seen people talking about religious imagery pertaining to Will and Mike so I figured I'd collect what I can on El.

She walks on water in the Void, a clear reference to Jesus. But there is a stronger throughline in the show, which is angel imagery that mostly appears around Max.

We are introduced to Angela in s4: she is El's foil. Angel. Someone who preaches about looking up to Helen Keller for being an inspiration as a disabled person but in reality she looks down on El who has developmental problems due to her past. There's a lot of focus on seeing and hearing (and being seen, being heard) during this season. Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing and this is what El specifically points out about Max during the piggyback scene: "She can't see me. Can't hear me."

At the end of s4, El and Lucas overhear Max's "confession" about her "sins", another link to Christianity.

And when she tries to piggyback, El wears white in Max's mind and she is framed by clouds.

Then Vecna finds Max in the Snow Ball memory so she is trying to recall a second happiest memory. It's about El. (The images start to focus on her the same way they did for Lucas earlier and the only thing you hear said out loud is Max's "Is Mike a good kisser?" Talk about queer coding.)

The attempt fails but El still appears, as if... Max had prayed for her. Max is in disbelief ("Are you real?") and El clutches Max's hands together, like in prayer:

The Dear Billy flashback shows Lucas when you can hear the line with "angel" from Running Up That Hill. (And you can faintly hear it when he and Max exchange notes in The Piggyback.)

We are told how Max feels about Lucas and the show uses the word "angel" in relation to her first love interest. But we are also shown that El appears to her similarly. And it's not a new association!

Max sings Angel by Madonna around El in s3. Here's an interesting part of the song that's not played:

That sounds... a lot like 4x09.

Going back even further. When Mike showed El around in his room, the first thing that caught her interest was a statue of a woman with wings:

And about "you can fly, you can move mountains": as much as we may poke fun at it, El has been associated with birds during the entire show. It's probably the most common animal motif around her. Meanwhile "you can move mountains" is a biblical phrase:

Matthew 17:20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

(And that's why there's a mustard raincoat in s3.)

Just finished North Woods by Daniel Mason in an effort to diversify my reading a little bit (and on a rec from a friend who only read litfic) and like. It was fine. The prose was very nice, and some of the characters were intriguing. I just kept hoping that it would all come together more interestingly and satisfying in the end. And then it was...fine.

I'm discovering that as a rule I personally tend to be unimpressed with the kind of novel that's really just a short story collection or a few novellas masquerading as a novel. To me it seems they are always desperately reaching to be greater than the sum of their parts, and they always fail.

Not that books like this can't be good (I liked Cloud Cuckoo Land okay*) but I don't tend to find that the loose connections between narratives really add that much. Like sure, that's a way to explore themes across narratives in a way that you might not be able to do with a more insular story. But I guess I find myself more uncharitable than other people I know with the whole "oooh and the storylines were all connected!" like yeah I know. because the author made them all up and made them connected. Which like, yeah, that's how all fiction works, but like. "They're all connected" isn't enough. They're all connected and therefore What?

Not that books like this don't usually have a "therefore What" in mind, but I have yet to read one that I feel actually accomplishes this as well as it ought, since that's usually their whole Thing™

Something that North Woods did do particularly well with its multiple narratives, in my opinion, is the variety of voice and tone that really embodied various distinct characters and writing styles in a way that felt natural and true to the different formats while still remaining engaging. That's one of the things that was enough to keep me reading to the end, and it's pretty impressive in its own right.

But as I went on, I was only really reading to finish, and then the big finish was. well. spoiler alert but they're all ghosts together I guess. so.

Okay so we just kind of stomped on some of the creepy and subtle ambiguity that lent a lot of charm and interest to the various stories by just completely ripping aside the veil, as it were. That's not an inherently bad choice depending on where we're going with this, but I guess nowhere is where we're going now that we're here. Why demystify your mystery if you're only going to make it boring and not really reveal anything new?

And the whole time I was waiting for what the whole thing with the panther was going to lead up to. Yes, there are two times where a (the?) panther explicitly comes into play, but the other mentions of it are woven so subtly and exquisitely throughout that for a while I thought that was the main throughline we were following, just as much as the house/woods. It's even on the cover! And for what? That it was there throughout? for What????? the vibes??

In the unlikely event that someone who sees this post has actually read this book, maybe you're going to be like "daisy, that's because you are stupid and don't have reading comprehension and are missing the obvious" okay great well then tell me. I am genuinely asking.

But also I do have to say skimming the goodreads reviews there is a lot of "it has themes of connection because the stories are all connected. this is very profound and also impressive"

And also! I'm going to say it! Some of the storylines are kind of shallow and melodramatic! This could have been interesting if we actually delved into the character more instead of just kind of skimming through their life story, hoping that the combined weight of the other interesting-enough pieces will sink the surface-level stuff into some level of profundity. Very pretty nature writing, though.

Anyway I don't feel bad being uncharitable to this book because I'm pretty sure it's a pulitzer candidate or something and has plenty of good reviews. (And there are a lot of good things about it!) Mostly I'm using it as a poster child for its structure, because the whole loosely-connected-narratives-across-history/place thing I feel like keeps cropping up in the kind of books that my mom's book club reads and that people say are really good but don't really do it for me. (And I feel like this style of book is getting more popular? maybe that's just me?)

Anyway if you're still reading: do you tend to like these types of books? why or why not?

*Cloud Cuckoo Land in my opinion was weakest when it tried to sell us on the connecting threads as well, but that's an idea for another post