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#but it felt like a regression that goes to my actual point

pocketsizedquasar · 9 months

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thoughts about jon, gender, n hair

aka i've literally wanted to write a fic centered around this concept for like over two years but. well. anyway. i still might write the fic at some point but lord knows when that'll happen so in the meantime here are my jon jarchivist headcanons centered around hair and gender, ft. my personal flavor of jon: persian, w/ a white grandmother, n amab nonbinary transneutral/transfemme

⁃ jon's hair was always kept short as a kid. short hair was for boys, his grandmother had said, and besides, she didn't have the desire nor energy to learn how to care for his thick persian curls; the shorter they were, the less tangled and unruly, the better.

⁃ jon explored some more fem/gnc presentation in college, some of which included growing out his hair. he attributed it back then more to just the fact that he was exploring his queerness (in a bi and ace sense) in general & that he spent a lot of time around georgie (also transfemme), and didn't really think about the actual gender accompanying it -- he wasn't actively thinking much about his own gender. questioning and coming to terms with his sexuality was already a lot.

⁃ but he liked the way his hair looked and felt long. he liked the quiet rebellion of it. he liked the way georgie ran her fingers through it. he liked how many different ways it could be worn long -- in ponytails and buns and braids and just loose down his back. he doesn't remember much of his mom, but he's seen in pictures her long, dark, curly hair, just like his now, and he likes the reminder.

⁃ he keeps it long after college, though upon getting hired as a researcher at the magnus institute, he has a bit of a crisis over whether or not to cut it, re: standards of white cishetero "professionalism" and decorum and masculinity, all of which he's doing his best to perform. maybe even early on in his research days he cuts it a bit and decides it makes him feel so bad (for some inexplicable reason) that he decides to just leave it long, though tidy and brushed and straightened and pulled high up into a tight bun so it looks neat and out of the way and functionally short anyway.

⁃ similar thing happens when he gets promoted to archivist. i personally like him deciding not to cut it here because i like him being allowed to keep one (1) thing, though i def understand other hc's where he does cut it short for S1 / being the archivist. he's still very much keeping it pulled up in a tight bun and out of the way, and removes anything else remotely feminine about his appearance -- earrings, more fem clothing, nailpolish, etc.

⁃ i read mossy's @coulson-is-an-avenger "shopping for gender in a british wal-mart" fic like 2.5 years ago and i still love it so much and it's still canon to me basically re: he tries a skirt Once to work at the sort of peak sweet point where he's settled in enough to feel comfortable trying to wear a skirt but not yet paranoid enough about Prentiss. sasha talks w him about gender and femininity and stuff, though he's not quite ready to confront it yet.

⁃ then prentiss/season 2 hits and he regresses again hard into self-defense mode; the performative masculinity goes Harder. his hair is still long but it's messy; thick curls and flyaway strands frizzing about his sleep deprived and paranoid face.

⁃ by the time s3 rolls around, everything else in his life has gone to shit, so mostly he's just like "fuck it" re: his presentation in general, including his gender presentation. there's also a sense of just.. "this it the one thing in my life I have control over," so he sort of starts just wearing whatever. even if he's not really acknowledging the actual gender feelings to himself. but his hair and his clothes are One thing he can control about himself, one thing the watcher can't really take away from him. so with s3-s4 it's like. yeah he feels like he's becoming less and less human and yeah he's being kidnapped once a month and yeah the world is going to end but at least he can wear a goddamn skirt.

⁃ i do think there's also an element of it too where, there's obvious anxiety and concern about him being a visibly brown and trans/gnc person in fucking London of all places, but as time goes on i do think there's a bit of like. even if i face violence for this what does it matter. i hardly leave the archives anyways, and even then, would that really be anything? in the face of everything else that's happened?

⁃ in the safehouse jon and martin (who to me is a trans man btw) talk about gender a bunch and Jon realizes they want to try using both he and they pronouns and maybe jon decides they want to do some more feminine things, want to try wearing skirts and maybe painting their nails again and martin braids flowers into their hair and things are good

⁃ and then season 5 and the apocalypse hits.

⁃ for the first little while in the safehouse jon's hair is still long. but before they leave, he cuts it, for several reasons -- first like, if keeping it long and presenting femininely was partially about control for Jon, this is them letting Go of that, of what he perceives to have just been an Illusion control. yeah it might make them a bit dysphoric but so what, my body was never mine tobegin with.

⁃ and i think he's also doing it as a mental preparation for leaving the cabin, after jon and martin have had the initial talk about eventually leaving. long hair is a liability; hair can get pulled on and tugged on when being kidnapped and grabbed at; hair can be drenched in shampoo and twisted by plastic hands; hair can be tangled and snag on the walls of a coffin; it can be full of dirt days and days later; hair is a hassle and a hazard and an illusion of control and above all it was a comfort to jon and this is no longer a world where you can trust comfort, martin.

⁃ martin walks in on jon in the bathroom staring at themself in the mirror with a pair of scissors. they ask martin to cut it for them. (martin gets a haircut too, in a show at solidarity and some levity. also undercut martin rights)

⁃ anyway, Somewhere Else Jon wears flowy dresses and grows his hair long and leaves lipstick stains on martin's face when they kiss and hikes his skirts up above his knees when they work in the garden and their hair is long and dark and thick and curly and he likes it; likes the way it looks and feels, the way martin runs his fingers through it, the way it reminds him of his mother and the way it makes him smile at the person they see standing in the mirror.

⁃ and it's good. it's really good.

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patentedsun · 2 months

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Rapid fire Fairy Tail rewatch thoughts. May or May not expand upon each point later on.

THIS IS LONG AS HELL BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHEN TO SHUT UP.

for reference, I've reached tartaros so far. I am aware of the canon happenings after that tho.

The female cast is so good idc what anyone says obviously the fanservice is awful BUT I will say, in the earlier arcs, it actually felt decently balanced because of Gray's whole stripping shtick + Natsu's cunty vest wasn't particularly modest either LOL.

Erza is such a wonderful character. I've seen comments that she goes downhill like 100yq onwards but. Um. 100yq characterisation.... that's a whole post of its own.

I never expected to like Lucy so much. idc that it takes her like 200 episodes to win a fight solo because when she FINALLY DOES IT WAS THE BEST MOMENT OF THE SERIES BY FAR. characters who's defining traits r kindness and compassion <33

Interesting how Lucy is the traditional shounen protag (underdog, skills develop overtime) because the rest of team Natsu sans Wendy were all like ... already kinda OP established mages even at the beginning.

I know there are debates ab who really is the protag and imo the narrative skews towards Natsu more BUT. it's bizarre how unexplored he is for a main character. Like yes he is my favourite character other than Lucy but his inner psyche is barely explored it's so weird. He doesn't really have a character arc either??? I'll expand on this more once I finish post tartaros (lolll not looking forward to that) and once again it seems like he's completely regressed from what I've seen of 100yq.

I fucking love all the ships.

I don't agree with comments that Natsu can't be traditionally romantic. Like, I definitely don't think he would ever have the natural inclination to be that way as a part of his character on its own. BUT considering iconic rainbow sakura moment I fully believe he would do whatever it is that would make Lucy happy. And if that includes red roses and candlelit dinners he would absolutely try his best.

Nalu moments r seriously. so good.

I totally see why Juvia stans don't like gruvia. But unfortunately I like them. And I've slightly rewritten them in my head so that juvia doesn't get completely flanderized LOL.

the Natsu Erza Gray sibling relationship goes soooo hard.

Just in general there's something beautiful about the way Fairy Tail handles it's numerous platonic and romantic relationships. Nothing feels secondary yk. Everything is given its due time (except maybe NALU goddammit).

I LOVE THAT FEMALE CHARACTERS HAVE DEEP COMPLEX RELATIONSHIPS IRRELEVANT TO THE MALE CAST. Lucy and Levy, Lucy and Yukino, whatever combination between Erza Lucy Wendy, Lucy Flare, Wendy Shelia, Wendy Carla etc

Even when the relationship involves a man in some kind of way like eg Lucy Cana or Erza Kagura it's still not like... in a bad way. The friendship itself is still there, it's just that the inciting incident tends to involve a dude.

Speaking of Lucy having so many deep female friendships is a big reason why I like Nalu so much lol. Like I literally do not care ab ships in media but fairy tail.... just has that something...

Love how often everyone changes outfits.

This show desperately needed a mini arc somewhere with just Natsu Lucy Happy going on a low stake job, where Natsu actually opens up ab his emotions and his relationship with Igneel.

Needed more Natsu and Igneel flashbacks in general.

Wendy triple combo abandonment issues are not talked ab enough holy shit. Grandeeny, Mystogan and then her entire guild???!

Lucy's relationship with her dad was objectively so well written. I skipped starry skies arc sorry the pacing was destroying me so I can't speak on that. But everything else was just BEAUTIFUL.

The fact that she returns to him just to tell at him. The fact that he comes to her with money problems and she STILL stands her ground. The fact that it's HIM who has to better himself and earn HER forgiveness.

Even after it seems like they're on ok terms, Lucy mentions in tenrou that they don't keep in contact, which is soo... realistic...

and then his death... Shout-out to Natsu who actually is emotionally quite mature (as the author himself seems to have forgotten) and dealt with it wonderfully. He gave Lucy her space, he let her vent, he stopped Happy from interfering too much. + Lucy being conflicted ab it and clearly grieving what could have been instead of what was. sighhh. .

idc ab no deaths but I do wish they didn't do fake out deaths as often. Because when actual loss sticks, it's done super well imo. Ultear, Aquarius, I haven't hit this part yet but Igneel... (yes I'm ignoring 100yq)

the episodic fillers r INCREDIBLE.

Rogue and Frosch are so special to me.

Wish they expanded on Jellal and Meredy's relationship a bit more it seems quite wholesome.

I love Virgo.

Really hate the muted colours Ft2014 onwards, but I do like that Lucy's hair became blonde and not yellow.

Pacing 2014 onwards was GOD AWFUL. I WAS SO SAD because I think the story beats in eclipse arc is actually super good but it was DRAGGED OUT SO MUCH nothing had the impact it should've.

Snow fairy, FT, Masayume chasing you will never be forgotten.

Lucy underutilizes Gemini so much it drives me mad. They were terrifying under Angel so like... cmon...

idc what anyone says GMG and edolas were top tier.

Edolas Natsu X Edolas Lucy... yes

objectively speaking gajeel is a top tier character too

Someone pointed out that Natsu didn't reallyyy hang out with anyone other than Happy pre canon and it changed my life. Every time I notice him and Lucy casually hanging out now I start screaming.

HAPPY IS SUCH A GOOD CHARACTER IDC. His edolas character arc was incredible, his relationship with Lucy is just as (if not more) fleshed out as his one with Natsu and that's part of what makes them such a great trio.

Whenever he goes LUUSSHIEEE . my heart ...

OST top tier no notes

the writing was actually so tight up until GMG part 2

I generally don't care ab the powerscaling issues but laxus v jura... no.

The anime kinda fucks up his face a lot but manga Natsu was genuinely soooo adorable in every single panel (once again IGNORING 100YQ).

Wendy also great character arc.

Sting's whole design is SO GOOD and ten years too early. the fur lined vest, the crop top, the one dangly earring, the scar, the loose fitting pants, good God now that's a Look.

Seriously I love Nalu so much...

That's all for now folks. If you want me to expand upon anything just lmk bec believe it or not all of this is a summary.

#fairy tail #natsu #natsu dragneel #natsu appreciation #lucy heartfilia #nalu #pro nalu #seriously i can write an essay ab each of these points #lucy heartfilia appreciation

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utilitycaster · 6 months

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The answers Marisha gave in this 4SD felt a lot more realized than in the past, which is good! But it still makes me feel like this character concept is incredibly ambitious and when juxtaposed with the various "I don't want to think anymore"/"go with the flow" statements I'm not sure she realized that.

The biggest example is that Laudna has two conflicting traits: she is extremely sensitive to betrayal, and she is very quick to trust even after experiencing a number of betrayals in her life. And when I say "conflicting" I mean that they are in conflict with each other, not that it doesn't make sense for a character to be a complicated person with traits that frequently work against them; in fact that's in my opinion a fantastic way to create a compelling character. But it feels like the why is only just starting to get explored in any capacity, and because of that even good choices raise more questions: why is this only coming out now; why so young a regression; why has it peeked out so weirdly and inconsistently in the past; why haven't the repeated betrayals in the past two months affected her mindset and made her more closed off. It once again makes me really wish we'd gotten a sustained outburst after the party reunited, because that would have made far more sense - a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me situation.

I agree with the opinion that Laudna conceptually just fits far more with being an actual child herself - her desire to befriend children frankly comes off slightly weirder (not line-crossing or anything, just a little off) than it would had she died younger, as does her approach of dolls, and her failure to do anything with Delilah would make a lot more sense if she was at an age to be much more reliant. It would also make her inability to just blend into a city much more reasonable; no one is going to rent to a lone 11 year old. It really does feel that when the creepy child idea was rejected - which is a valid choice - it wasn't reworked sufficiently to fit someone who died in her late teens or early 20s.

I also don't really get the idea of her childlike nature being without malice. A pretty consistent theme for the various traumatic childhoods the characters of Bells Hells (and, tbh, past parties as well) has been the cruelty children are capable of - Ashton even says it in 3x78. Delilah being stuck with someone without malice would honestly lead to a situation in which Laudna was very trusting of her, which isn't the case, which again goes back to the conflict of betrayal as a trigger vs. being so quick to trust. Given that Laudna was frequently bullied and rejected as a kid, one would think she'd be aware of this. The specific example of Delilah calling Ashton a child and Laudna making him a doll still works wonderfully, but the overarching theme falls apart in places.

I think things have been on an upswing as of late, but ultimately we're at a point where, without some retcons I don't think Laudna will ever truly make complete sense because it's just such an intensive concept that did not get the work that required, and still feels reliant on a now-rejected premise.

#cr tag #laudna #didn't want to distract from the main post but honestly i again think the book coming out is debatably worse #when i think of successful supplemental material (eg: midst appendices; nine eyes of lucien/VM and MN origins comics #they are 1. optional to understanding the original material; they enhance it but aren't required #and 2. do not have any real twists from the source material merely expansion #backstory should explain current behavior but you need to establish current behavior first

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theladyragnell · 1 year

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Hi! Question for you once you've had a chance to finish S3 of Ted Lasso: I'd love to hear your perspective on how S3 could have unfolded in a more fulfilling way. No pressure, of course, but I enjoy reading your insights. :)

Okay! I am rolling up my sleeves.

EXPRESSING-OPINIONS-ON-THE-INTERNET CAVEAT: I am not a media critic, and not everything in this post will be cohesive, well-thought-out, and non-contradictory. I do not for a moment pretend that my opinions are Correct, they are merely my own.

SECOND CAVEAT: At this point, with where they left arcs, I'm about 80% sure that depending on how the WGA strike goes (crossing my fingers for them) and any corporate retaliation for that, there will be a spinoff or continuation sans Ted. More of their choices make sense if that is true, even if I don't love the thought (let shows end!!!), so this is all changes I would make assuming s3 is the final season.

The thing about this season, for me, is that any given episode or moment was largely really enjoyable for me! Sure, a few quibbles, and the whole Roy and Keeley thing we will get to in a moment, but if I ignored the fact that I was watching a season, most things worked for me. Looking at it as a season, though, it was too busy, in a way that meant the show dropped a lot of things I wanted to see more of.

So, when pondering this question, I think that there's no way to keep everything I love while getting rid of only the things that annoyed me or that didn't feel right to me. And in the end, I'd rather miss things that weren't there than be annoyed with things that are present, so my take on s3 would streamline a lot of things to engage with others.

Oh boy, this is already long, time for a cut.

Change #1: Roy and Keeley do not break up. There was simply no reason for this, and especially no reason for it to happen off-screen. They can still fight and have difficulties, and Roy can deal with his mental health, but it's just unnecessary drama and I never understood it. This also prevents Roy and Jamie's weird last-episode regression to fighting over her and forcing her into shitty positions.

Change #2: Most of Keeley's plotlines change. All of the KJPR plots and characters were interesting, but they also busied the season up too much. So I'd have her actually building up a one-woman business without Jack (or, tragically, Barbara), maybe doing the Shandy thing and grappling with that for longer, or her dealing with the Establishment the way Rebecca does so often, trying to make them see her as a businesswoman and not a footballer's girlfriend.

Change #3: Beard and Jane break up. We get to carry over the threads from s2 from the Beard episode and from Higgins expressing his concern, instead of treating the way Jane treats him as comedy. We also get to counteract this show's everyone-deserves-not-just-forgiveness-for-everything-but-also-to-be-in-your-life-again message with one instance of someone setting out a boundary and sticking to it.

Change #4: Many of Nate's plots change. As with Barbara, I would really regret losing Jade, but I think there are better uses of Nate's screentime--he was set up to be a real main character in s2 and I felt like I hardly saw him in s3. What I really wanted was for Nate to learn how to have power over people responsibly, I think? I'd have chosen either for him to grit his teeth and stay at West Ham (perhaps while joining the conspiracy to overthrow Rupert) or, when he left, for him to somehow end up coaching a kids' team, and learn gentleness in authority that way. It would pick up this show's really genuinely cool theme of "once one person makes a point of stepping out of the cycle of abuse and trauma it can ripple out around them" in interesting ways.

And while there are many other tweaks I'd make (more Sam, his last focus plot was SO goddamn miserable; eliminate everything about the psychic; goodbye to Rebecca's boat stranger), I'm going to finish with the last big one, which is

Change #5: Ted gets to do something besides reinvent total football, pine for his son, and make speeches that should have been edited down to a third of their length tops. He just seems so checked out this whole season, just talking about how none of the work he's done is on him, all focused on Henry in the wrong ways, so that going back to Kansas felt more like a horrible sacrifice than a choice that will bring him fulfillment or contentment. He was always going to go back to Kansas and his son, much as I wasn't wild about that, but it doesn't feel like a new beginning for him, just like he's going back to his old life with a little more knowledge of football and more knowledge of how to model good parenting and relationships for his kid (while not, from the way I interpreted that last expression, dealing any further with his own mental health). It felt weirdly dark for this show.

(Also I know this show loves its book theming, and I know it's The Wizard of Oz (see: a song from The Wiz playing over the credits to the penultimate episode), but have they considered that in subsequent Oz books Dorothy and her family move back to Oz? Things to consider.)

#anyway this is purely about changes #not about complaining about some other things that bothered me this season #so hopefully it is not too negative for anyone who's feeling good about where things ended!#poetryincamelot #answered asks #ted lasso spoilers #i super do not want to get into Discourse please let's not #mostly people do not do that over here #but recent and divisive show finales can be touchy subjects

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alovelyburn · 1 year

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Rambles about the Millennium Falcon Arc Part 1

I said I wasn’t going to do this one next, but I changed my mind because it’s Valentine’s Day.

So, it’s probably not surprising that this is one of the bits I’ve been looking forward to tackling the most. I am a predictable goldfish. Despite that, I did kind of wonder what I’d actually have to say since I always felt like it’s a fairly straightforward section, so let’s see how it goes.

Later addition: I couldn’t shut up.

Rambles about the Millennium Falcon Arc Part 1

1. This opening reminds me of the beginning of the Last Unicorn. It’s not actually the same at all but it still reminds me of it - this dreamlike enchanted forest with creatures just outside the edge of your vision. People discussing whether those things are really there...I think about this a lot -the way the shadows and silences in the world post-Conviction aren’t really empty anymore. THAT reminds me of the unforgiven demon spirits that came to Griffith in the dungeon.

But it’s kind of interesting how Zodd went centuries without people seeing his apostle form (well I assume he killed most of the people who did) and suddenly he’s being quite brazen which I think speaks to the way the world is changing and the new set of rules that Griffith is bringing with him. He’s about to bring all the things in the shadows into the light, so the drive to discretion has faded out a bit.

The hollows of trees, the ground beneath graves, the whispers of winds, the lull between waves, the depths of wells, the darkness of attics... secretly, at some point their silence ceased to be mere silence. Like a folk tale told by elders to children, as if it might have been there all along, something surely breathed within the silence.

One of the things that doesn’t get talked about a lot when discussing how Griffith is a dick for bringing the monsters and such back into the world is that per the discussion in Elfhelm, the world he created was really recreated – it’s the world that existed before humans lost faith in the supernatural and started to drive those things into the astral plane. And also, because of the way Berserk’s worldbuilding works, where the physical world and the astral world kind of overlap with some things (e.g. the tree in Flora’s forest) existing in one but not the other, the above passage is very relevant.

“As if it might have been there all along, something surely breathed within the silence.”

I mean they were there all along. They were just a step removed from where humans were, and so they couldn’t be perceived by those who exist wholly on the physical plane.

2. I think I paid less attention to Casca in the past than I have been this time... because she’s just kind of off in the corner doing kooky things most of the time. She does have a bit more characterization than I remembered – I guess it’s basically age regression since she acts kind of like a toddler or something. I... am not gonna get too much into Casca’s situation right now since obviously the main event is Griffith showing up like a ex with a glow up but her situation is on my mind a lot. Maybe I’ll get into it when she and Guts go off alone.

And I still miss Godo. Gruff old bastard.

This next little sequence I’m just going to rearrange slightly to make it easier to comment – you’ve all seen it anyway. I just moved the two panels of Guts thinking about Griffith out of the way of bit with Erica trying to get him to stay.

This is a kind of weird moment to me because Guts didn’t actually promise to stay he just half-heartedly acknowledged that if he did stay Casca would probably calm down a lot. I have a lot of conflicted thoughts about Erica and her constant push to have Guts stay with her/them, because Guts literally only knew them for a year so I’m not sure why she feels like he’s supposed to live the rest of his life with her.

I guess the real answer is “because she’s a kid. “

But even so, that moment kind of has the feel to me of like... Guts saying something kind of vague to avoid having to decide in that moment, but since he’s talking to a literal child it ends up being taken to heart in a way that’s difficult to walk back.

3. One of the problems I have with the “Guts just hates Griffith and wants him dead” crowd is... when he thinks about Griffith it’s never about killing him. He thinks about maybe becoming a monster to be more like Griffith. He thinks about Griffith’s flowing silvery hair. He thinks about how much he should want to kill him even though his instinct was to drop it. He thinks about abusing or abandoning Casca to get closer to him, or become more entwined with him or chase him, but he never... imagines inflicting violence on Griffith. He doesn’t fantasize about Griffith’s death, that’s just his fans. Guts himself can’t even bring himself to think the words, most of the time.

What I really think is happening, and I will defend this to my death, is...

... what he really wants is for Griffith to be Griffith again. He wants to be able to get back the things he lost without realizing he had them. But it doesn’t matter because Griffith’s still a demon and Guts can’t turn back time, so he just gets mad instead, because that’s what he knows how to handle. As Godo said, he runs into his rage because it’s easier to handle than his grief – over the death of the Hawks and the loss of Casca’s sanity, but most of all over the loss of Griffith, the person he upended his life to get closer to – the person who no longer exists.

Which is why seeing Griffith in a human-esque body throws him off. It’s easier to hate Femto, who is visibly demonic and has obvious physical markers to separate him from the person who was, and is, Guts’ primary fixation in life. But when he looks like himself, that line gets blurry and Guts responds with epic ambivalence... as is about to play out during their meeting.

All that aside, the fact that his first instinct is to drop it is very telling, in my opinion. Because a person doesn’t need to talk themselves into doing something they unambiguously want to do, they need to talk themselves into doing things they feel ambivalent about, or conflicted about. On one hand they may want to do the thing, but on the other hand, definitely don’t want to do the thing. It’s like when you don’t want to go somewhere but you know you should, and you assume you’ll be glad you did it after it’s done, but in the moment you’d rather just watch tv and doomscroll, so you have to get yourself revved up to put on pants and leave the house.

I guess my point is...

After he sees Griffith in his human form, the desire to go after him changes. He feels like he should do it for a number of reasons. Because of everything Griffith did, and how outraged and hurt he is. Because of his grief and frustration... and because he’s been hunting Griffith for years and there’s no way he can just stop now right when he finally has a chance to accomplish his goal. There is a bit of sunk costs in there - something Griffith knows well - mixed in with that genuine drive and anger, and hate.

But... as much as he knows that, as angry and hurt as he genuinely is, he struggles to hold onto that in the face of the one person who has always meant the most to him – for good or ill.

I do think that changes a bit, mostly as a result of this very meeting, but it never does go back to the way it was – the certainty he gained from all that black fire and white hot rage is dimmed by his ambivalence.

That said, even when he was faced with Femto his feelings were more complicated than that. Puck lampshaded it obviously, but even more than that you can see a slightly smaller scale version of the following scene all the way back in Black Swordsman –

Guts being crushed by Griffith’s initial dismissal of him. (He even does that thing where Griffith dismisses him and he’s like, ...WHAT WAIT... and tries to follow him), Guts being like, “Griffith you fucker, look what you did,” and Femto being all, “Hey Guts, I’ve got some good news: I don’t care,” and Guts being driven by Griffith’s lack of fucks to give... more than anything else, really.

So, you know, the change in appearance puts a foot on the scale but it didn’t create the issue to begin with.

Oh yeah. The other thing I wanted to say, because I’ve been thinking about it since the last writeup, is...

The fact that Guts perceives Griffith’s facetuned 2.0 – the version people recognize as being a tier above even the high tier of beauty that he already had as a human being – as “just like he used to be” is pretty telling as far as the way Griffith is in Guts’ mind: filtered through the eyes of love and idealization and hero worship, seen from the ground as Guts looks up at the pedestal he always had Griffith on.

The sheer sensuality of the imagery is also... quite notable to me, especially in light of some of the phrasing that has been discussed re: later scenes.

4. This whole part of the scene is so weird to me, honestly. Like the way Rickert is talking and Griffith’s just silent. It... gives me the weird impression of Rickert talking to a statue or something. Or a mirror. In some ways it’s actually pretty appropriate – Griffith was always the slate the Hawks projected their dreams and hopes and fantasies onto. The only one he really allowed to “know” him was Guts - even Casca picked it up by chance, really - so it is perhaps appropriate that Guts is the first person he speaks to on panel. I also think this serves a narrative purpose, but more on that in a moment.

I bet the readers lost their fucking minds.

As a sidenote, I’m a little devastated that we lost the “reunion at/on/in” titling scheme for the Elfhelm visit. They did drop the phrasing on the color pages, but still.

One time I read someone asking how Rickert was able to stop Guts given that Guts is definitely stronger than him and like... I just figured Guts didn’t want to trample him. Because it’s Rickert, I mean if it were anyone who wasn’t Rickert, Casca or Erica I’m sure he would have... well cut them in half if we’re being honest. But there’s no way he’d manhandle a Hawk that easily.

I can’t imagine how confusing that must be to Rickert. But again we see here this separation Guts has between Griffith as he is now and the Griffith he knew. Like he struggles to maintain it now because Griffith looks like Griffith, but he’s actively trying to maintain that separation... I imagine because it makes it easier to maintain his focus on vengeance instead of pining for what was lost.

In the deluxe version, that last panel is corrected to “Don’t talk about me in that same voice.”

Which is interesting – it kinda brings me back to exactly what Griffith’s talking about – the day they first met, when Griffith speed analyzed Guts’ personality and Guts was super pissed off about it (because he was right). And I do think that’s a lot of what’s going on here – “don’t talk to me in that same voice” and “don’t talk about me in that same voice” aren’t really the same thing. Well I’m sure you know that.

But basically, for me, when it was translated as “to” the feeling was something like, “don’t come here acting like you’re Griffith and using his face and smiling his smile and talking with his voice.” Almost like rage over the demon who replaced his friend.

With “about me” I feel more like he’s angry because this moment echoes the moment Griffith is talking about - when they first met, and Guts was a wild dog, and Griffith just stood there and analyzed him - and hes doing it again like nothing changed, but it has. It fucks with his head. I’m having a bit of a hard time articulating this for some reason, but look at Guts’ face when his internal monologue starts (“that same face”). He’s essentially frozen in place. He’s struggling. And just like back there on the tower, his first instinct is to stare and then he has to work himself up... in this case by the sheer hubris of Griffith showing up here all chill and acting like Griffith and pushing all of Guts’ emotional buttons.

It feels a bit like... “You’re acting like nothing’s changed, but everything’s changed.”

But it’s debatable how successful he is at revving himself up here. I mean he’s pissed, sure, but hes also just standing there. Rickert may be “holding him back” but in a page or two we see how effective that is if Guts really wants to get through, because Guts just shrugs him off basically.

As much as Guts is struggling with this situation, though, Griffith’s tone is interesting isn’t it? He’s so distanced and calm – even more than when they first met. Back then, he had a lot of intensity and playfulness whereas here he’s just kind of distant.

Once, years ago, someone told me that she had met up with an ex that she used to be crazy in love with... and she said she could still see everything about him that she had loved so much, but it had lost its hold on her. She didn’t ... react the same way to those things, even though the things hadn’t changed and she still thought they were charming.

That’s kind of the feeling I get from Griffith here. It’s not necessarily something specific to Guts though – it’s kind of how he is with everything, even his ambitions.

So like. About this scene.

Is he here just to see Guts and see whether Guts can shake his heart, or is he here to see whether he feels any guilt over the Eclipse?

Rhetorical question, it’s the first one. But I’ve seen a lot of people argue that rather than come here to see Guts specifically and test whether Guts specifically still affects him, he is instead here to see “The Hawks and their graves” and see whether he still “has some scrap of emotion left” or regrets his choices. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad faith argument - it’s almost the same thing, just phrased in a more... uh anti-Griffith way I guess and focused on the Hawks as a whole instead of Guts specifically. Usually this I think comes from people who place less weight on Griffith’s feelings for Guts than, say, I do.

But I’m going to argue against that perspective.

First of all, Griffith does literally say he came to meet with Guts. Maybe people think he’s talking to Guts and Rickert, but I don’t think that bears out from the scene itself. Remember when I noted that Guts is the first person Griffith speaks to on panel after his reincarnation? That’s a bit of a narrative trick – it drives home how focused he really is on Guts, because he’s sort of an ephemeral half-presence until Guts shows up and he starts solidifying so to speak. But that’s not all - Griffith really only talks to Guts at all for most of this scene – he only really acknowledges Rickert’s presence once he’s finished his business with Guts, and even then it’s half-afterthought as he’s taking off.

Second, Guts is the thing that always undermined Griffith’s control of himself and his ability or desire to focus on his vision/dream. This is obviously hammered home like 90,000 times during the Golden Age - that’s really what Griffith’s side of the narrative is about – this tug of war between Guts and Griffith’s lifelong ambition. Even when he actually made the Sacrifice, the only one he thought about before making the choice was Guts.

That being the case, the scene just makes the most sense as Griffith checking his Guts issues not his Hawks issues, because he doesn’t really have Hawks issues. If he wants to test his own heart, the best possible trial is coming face to face with this person that he desperately loved and couldn’t think clearly about. Because if Guts can’t hurt him anymore, can’t control his heart anymore, what could? Literally nothing.

There are also visual markers later but everything in its time.

And Guts’ face when he says that is priceless. He doesn’t know how to process that – he doesn’t know what to do with himself if that’s true. And honestly, imagine if Griffith had followed that up with, “as it turns out, this was a terrible idea and I miss them and I miss you.” Guts would have dropped the whole thing.

Don’t get me wrong, It’s not that I think Guts would be fine with it or suddenly not care that Griffith fed the Hawks to monsters and raped Casca. That’s not what I mean. I think he would have struggled with himself over it, and felt guilty about it, but ultimately I do think he would have dropped it.

Because the thing with Guts is that, since he operates on a system where whether he cares about what happens to someone depends on whether he personally likes them, he is always capable of letting something go if he likes you more than he likes the person or people you did something to. I once had a tierlist for this actually, but my position was basically that if someone at S tier hurts someone at A tier, Guts might not like it, but he’s able to let it go if you give him a good enough reason to do so. But if someone at B tier hurts someone at A tier, that’s when he can’t get over it. Basically, if you’re only hitting people he likes less than you, you can work it out even if it’s hard.

And this is relevant because despite many fans’ insistence, Griffith, not Casca, is the top dog of the tierlist. This is extremely evident by the way he lives, the way he prioritizes, the way his inner dog behaves. When he’s chasing Griffith he never thinks about how he should be there for Casca, but when he’s protecting Casca, he’s always twitching to go back to chasing Griffith. He physically and sexually assaulted her becausee he wanted to become closer to and more like Griffith. More on that when it comes up obviously but the point is...Griffith is the top of the tierlist. The only competition he’s ever had was Gambino, who is dead. And that being the case, I do think he would forgive Griffith if he had any reason to, any reason at all.

And if anyone thinks Guts is incapable of letting go of the Eclipse, i mean it was Miura himself who said if Casca weren’t with him, he’d eventually move on. That’s why Miura kept her around.

But even more than that, I do think that even more than the Eclipse itself, Guts’ rage and pain stems from the way Griffith doesn’t care about it, doesn’t regret it, wouldn’t take it back, dismisses it, dismisses him. Until the most recent meeting, that was always what set him off going back to the Black Swordsman arc and I... the most recent chapters aren’t by Miura. Like I appreciate the opportunity to find out where the story was going, and I accept the broad plot strokes as ‘true’ but obviously the details blur a little, or a lot.

Another thing is, Rickert’s face. Rickert is aware that Griffith is talking about Guts specifically, because he’s aware that Griffith has always been weird about Guts – he’s right there with the others when Griffith found out that an immortal mega-warrior is about to confront Guts, and all the captains stopped what they were doing to watch Griffith for panic attacks.

He’s also the one who put it out there that Griffith’s self-destruction was probably about Guts’ departure:

But also... what Griffith says – I came to know for certain whether anything will shake my heart as I stand before you in this new body of flesh” – so the word he’s using that’s being translated as heart is kokoro and it’s a little more complicated than just heart, it’s like mind and spirit and emotions – I pulled this quote from here

So it’s interesting – I think in context heart is the right choice in English – certainly more accurate than something like ‘shake my spirit’ or whatever – but he’s talking about Guts’ potential to destabilize him mind and body, heart and soul - to shake him to the core. Which is not only an accurate explanation of Guts’ impact on Griffith pre-eclipse, it also explains the look on Rickert’s face. Because that’s a lot.

Also this page – the emphasis put on Griffith’s “freedom”, the prominence of the panel itself – it speaks to the reader’s assumed understanding of how much and how deeply Griffith had felt for Guts. Because it serves as the moment when the Griffith we knew – who perhaps the reader expected to see again now – is confirmed to be gone.

At least in theory.

The funny thing about it, though, is that while Rickert and the reader know that Griffith was basically obsessed with Guts, Guts doesn’t know that. So when he says he’s free (of the hold Guts had on him), Guts reacts to it as though he’s saying he’s free of guilt over the Hawks. Which in fairness I guess he probably is, but the point is Guts doesn’t really “get” what he’s saying, as usual.

Also, this is what I mean! I’m not saying he isn’t mad at Griffith regardless, but until Griffith blows him off, he’s letting himself be restrained by Rickert – there’s rage, but there’s also a little hesitation, and I think – in that moment when Griffith says he came to see whether he still cared – a bit of hope mixed in there, too. Hope that coming back to the world has brought back more of the person he was – that he won’t be a monster anymore. And it’s evident on his face – Miura was such a master of facial expressions – that’s not even really rage in that bottom panel its something of a plea – a desperation to find something in Griffith that he recognizes. It’s pain, and the need to have Griffith acknowledge that pain and have some kind of reaction to it.

To go back to the my-ex-doesn’t-affect-me-the-same-way metaphor, its like Guts is the ex in that equation and he was kind of hoping they could get back together, but nothing he says or does can make Griffith react to him the way he used to.

It reminds me of that quote from Miura about how Griffith brings out Gut’s will to fight, but also his loneliness.

Which brings us to this:

In all the discussion about whether Griffith has any feelings, it’s kind of odd how no one ever discusses that Griffith never actually said he didn’t have any feelings. Because the conversation was like

Griffith: I came to see whether you can still destabilize me, but as it turns out, no. Guts: Are you saying you don’t feel anything about all that shit you did? Griffith: All I’m saying is that I won’t betray my dream.That’s it, thats all I’m saying.

It’s a trap I I fall into as well – referring to his emotionlessness. To me though it’s always been more about having his feelings blunted than completely eliminated. In any event, it’s a bit of an evasion. Because he never says yes, exactly, I have zero feelings about you or anything else, he just implies that he is no longer controlled by whatever he has going on internally, if anything.

Which, if you think back to the bit above about Guts’ misunderstanding of Griffith’s point, makes the conversation a bit more interesting, because Griffith’s final comment – I won’t betray my dream, that’s all – becomes more of a direct statement about the power Guts has over him:

“Are you saying you don’t feel anything?”

“What I’m saying is that you’re not going to derail me again. That is all that I’m saying.”

And now some visual markers.

How does this series of images confirm that the scene is about Griffith and Guts not Griffith and the Hawks? Well, that’s why we keep going back to Griffith’s calm face while Guts fights for his life against Zodd. We remember the way Griffith reacted to Guts being danger, so his nonreaction serves as an indicator for how much he’s changed.

This is.... one of the things I think people lose when they think he’s a sociopath or a serial rapist or whatever, because Miura did the same thing with Femto’s rape of Casca – he established that Griffith has a history of protecting Casca from sexual assaults, or in the case of Wyald of wanting to so much that he damn near jumped into the fight despite being unable to walk or hold a sword. And while he does seemingly make some kind of move on her in the wagon, when she tells him to stop, he just stops. Yet, the first thing he does as Femto is rape her himself. It’s a narrative shout to the reader that things have changed – he’s changed. If you think he raped Charlotte and tried to rape Casca in the damn wagon you miss this point entirely and if you think Griffith didn’t care about Guts you miss what’s going on in this scene. It’s here to tell us that he’s changed. He’s empty now, he doesn’t care about anything – those boundaries that once confined him, those feelings that bound him, have no pull any longer. There’s literally no other reason to keep going back to that empty expression.

But, the thing is, much like his vague “I’ll not betray my dream,” which may or may not mean what Guts thinks it means, the look itself may be misleading, too. Because...

His dearth of expression is undercut as his face doesn’t change at all even after the story takes a moment to point out specifically that he does feel something. I’m not getting in deep into whether the feelings are his or the baby’s at this specific second because it doesn’t matter for my point which is that Griffith’s face doesn’t change even when he’s feeling some type of way, which means we never really know whether he is or isn’t.

As a sidenote, that actually isn’t too different from his human self, it’s just that back then he’d reach a point where the situation escalates too far and he starts sweating and bugging out. But at first he tended to be pretty stoic.

Which again seems to imply to me that the major change is in the intensity of emotion more than their existence or nonexistence. He reacts, but it never escalates.

Apropos of nothing, I love this panel. Geez Zodd. ...sometimes I wonder what makes some apostles look so bestial in their human form whereas some of them look completely human (e.g. Locus, Rosine, etc). I imagine it’s something to do with choosing their forms or temperament or whatever, but it’s an interesting question. I have so many questions about Apostles in general...

Anyway skipping the fight for the most part since it’s just like grunting and commentary from Rickert.

And this, which is one of my favorite images in the entire series.

There’s the famous “... ... ... ... ...” of significant silence as Griffith contemplates the meaning of his beating heart. And then....

And the fact that something has changed in Griffith’s reaction gets highlighted covering his eyes with his hair – if you look over the way Miura portrayed his hair situation, you’ll find that he did a lot of covering Griffith’s eyes (usually one) with his hair in moments of internal struggle.

So here’s where Casca enters the story with...

I’m not saying Guts is a terrible person for the things he says to Casca sometimes – I do think in this specific instance its how high his emotions are running and what’s going on at the time. But it’s just. Interesting isn’t it? Just the way he insults her kind of foreshadows how he treats her as a burden for... much of the rest of the series, really, but especially until Farnese and Serpico turn up again.

One day I’ll write a thing about my perception of this triangle between Guts, Griffith and Casca – which more or less comes down to “most of them have always been worried about losing the rest of them to each other,” with the sole exception being Griffith’s arguably not caring about losing Casca to Guts so much as he cared about losing Guts to Casca. But really the relationship between them begins with Casca being terrified to lose Griffith to Guts, and then Guts steps back and pushes Griffith and Casca together despite how he feels about it, and then of course during the rescue he worries about losing Casca to Griffith and then them to each other.

Now, what’s going on with this whole situation is kind of different but it also plays on that, because Guts doesn’t know that Griffith is carrying the remains of their son in his body so he interprets Casca’s reaction to Griffith as, well, her reaction to Griffith. Which, considering how that particular relationship ended, can’t be easy for him to see.

As evidenced by his anguished reaction to Casca reaching for Griffith’s face.

And now we proceed to some of the most important pages, I M O, mostly in terms of Guts’ reaction to Griffith because I just wish people would read more closely and look at the art when they’re interpreting things, but anyway woe is me, moving on.

So Griffith’s like, fuck worrying about this baby, I’m out of here. And Guts’ immediate reaction is...

“W... wait! Where’re you...?!”

I mean look his immediate priority isn’t taking a shot at Griffith’s back, it’s not talking smack, and his face isn’t even angry, not even when Griffith first gives his reasoning:

It’s... complicated.

I mean, again, I’m not saying he doesn’t want to beat on Griffith or kill Griffith, I’m aware that he does, just that there’s a lot more going on there and in this moment– in this moment - when he realizes that Griffith is leaving, he isn’t concerned with revenge. He just. Doesn’t want Griffith to leave. Which...

Consistency!

Because I think even at this moment, even now after Griffith said he didn’t care (well implied) and all of that, he still has a corner of him that wants to believe this can be the beginning of something instead of the end. Going back to the exes thing, it’s a situation where a guy (Guts) breaks up with his boyfriiend (Griffith) because he’s going to college and having “experiences,” but it causes a huge fight, but one day they decide go to lunch and catch up but they go into it with different intentions because the guy is kind of hoping they can work it out, but the boyfriend has already moved on with his life.

This becomes even more evident in a few pages but for now...

As noted, he doesn’t even acknowledge Rickert on panel until he’s finished dealing with Guts and is ready to get to the next thing.

And it’s only then – after Griffith decided to take off in the middle of their reunion and blew him off when he objected, that Guts finds his anger again.

And I’ve seen some people wonder why he extends this offer to Rickert but not to Guts. I think that’s a pretty easy one to cover, though. A few things.

First, Rickert isn’t a sacrifice. You can’t bring Guts around the apostles and Griffith’s supernatural mojo even if he were willing to go, he reads as food to them.

Second, Rickert wasn’t in the Eclipse. As such, there’s still a chance that he can deal and put it aside – and in fact Rickert didn’t really decide what to do until the last minute, so yeah there was presumably a chance that it could go the other way.

Third and arguably most importantly, Guts is incredibly dangerous to Griffith. He’s the Achilles’ Heel that took him down twice in the past. Even after his ascension he was unable to make himself hurt Guts. Now Griffith has come all this way to make sure he didn’t care anymore... and ended up realizing that for whatever reason, he does. There’s no way he’d invite that into his world even if there were a chance that Guts would accept, which there isn’t, which is the last thing.

Fourth, why waste his breath?

“Wait, Ariel, didn’t you just say you think Guts kind of wanted to make up with Griffith?” Yeah, and I meant that, but I think in order to bridge that gap, wide as it is, Guts needs things from Griffith that Griffith isn’t giving him - arguably isn’t even capable of giving him. Because unless Griffith could tell him he regrets it, that he made a mistake, and that he still cares about Guts himself, there’s no ground to gain there. And he won’t. So there isn’t.

It’s like a roller coaster with Guts and his feelings about Griffith – the anger comes and subsides and comes and subsides, largely dependent on what Griffith is doing.

I feel like here and also to a lesser but still significant degree in the meeting with Femto back in the Black Swordsman arc, Guts’ initial reaction to Griffith is... anger but almost like an anger that’s slightly hesitant – he’s easily discouraged in this case, he’s blocked by Rickert and all of that. And then he looks for something of the original Griffith – its like a hostile interrogation – look at you up there putting on godly airs, what do you mean you don’t feel anything, feel something, how can you say that, what do you mean I don’t matter?! And when that fails to provoke the response he wants and Griffith inevitably basically says go away insect, that’s when the real anger comes... mostly to swallow the pain.

I see a lot of people saying that this is Griffith admitting he was an evil monster the whole time and literally nothing about him has changed. I think that’s a bit of a stretch – he’s talking about how Guts is the only person who would know that he’s ruthless when he has to be, but of course when he did that around Guts in the past, he was visibly shaken by the need to do so and asked if it made him a terrible person.

My point is I don’t think he’s making a comment on his dearth of emotion as a human person – he’s just saying that even despite having done awful things, he isn’t going to stop. It doesn’t really matter whether he feels badly about it or not -- I don’t think he does, but it also doesn’t matter that he doesn’t feel guilty just like it didn’t matter that he did feel guilty in the past. Griffith is, and has always been, able to cut some throats and keep it pushing. And Guts – only Guts – would know that about him.

It’s a sort of similar situation to another thing people use to make that “Griffith was always a sociopath” argument – Rickert saying that NeoGriffith is “different, but somehow more Griffith than before.” As in “oh he masked off and revealed his evil and Rickert realizes that this demon guy is more of Griffith’s true self than he’d seen before” I guess. Which I think is s silly interpretation, but I guess we’ll get into that when it comes up. But, preview I guess, I think it’s clearly Rickert comparing NeoGriffith’s embodiment of the White Hawk image – the impression Griffith left (and attempted to leave) of a large than life aloof hero driven primarily by his dreams” – to human Griffith, who was those things but in a less “pure” form due to his human frailties, self-doubts and attachments.

But I also think his saying that, his claim that the current heart-poor version of him is the same as he always was, is part of the reason Guts is able to “let him go.” Because Guts does this thing where whenever he gets more information about Griffith he tries to integrate that information into his views, and it ends up changing everything about his perception of Griffith’s personality and his behavior. And you can literally see it happening on the page:

Originally, he was confused about why Griffith kept risking his own life for Guts, and Griffith said “I have no reason, it’s just for you” and Guts reworked his understanding of Griffith and their relationship in his head.

And then he heard Promrose, and he recontextualized everything again - suddenly he was wrong, they weren’t friends, he was just being stupid. This is where he develops this view that Griffith is “the boundless hawk,” who is “always taking” and "would never come down to the land where we crawl.” At this point he’s chasing Griffith the way his child self used to chase Gambino - I’m not saying Griffith’s his metaphorical father or anything, I’m saying Griffith becomes the hero that he wants to be seen, valued, and validated by.

Then during the rescue he starts to understand Griffith again and begins to realize that Griffith wasn’t cruel, wasn’t cold. He wasn’t anything like Gambino, he really did care, and Guts was wrong about him the whole time. This is when he gets the closest to fully understanding Griffith’s motivations - to the point where just before the Eclipse actually occurs he is finally starting to see how much of Griffith’s... self rests in his hands - that maybe his absence is what caused Griffith’s fall. But then...

After the Sacrifice, Guts pulls a Berserk fan: he can’t understand how someone could care and still make this choice, and all the things that made him dazzling become evidence of his ability to be heartless.

That brings us here, because ever since the Eclipse, in both his meeting with Femto and this meeting with NeoGriffith, Guts searches for reasons to recontextualize his understanding again. He demands to know how Griffith feels, whether he cares, does he regret anything, how can he be so calm about this, how can he be so dismissive. It’s anger, but he’s also trying to understand so he knows what to think about both Femto/Griffith as he is now and about Griffith as he was, then.

The issue is that when Griffith says, “I dont care about you, I don’t care about them, I’m just going to go conquer things and no I don’t feel about about it,” and then follows that up with “You of all people should know is and has always been the way I am...”

Guts kind of gets his answer. And if he operates under the assumption that Griffith has always been this person - the person who could rape Casca just to hurt Guts, the person who could straightforwardly say he doesn't care about all the people he fed to demons - then honestly what is there to hold onto?

I mean, he’s wrong. Griffith obviously has been changed by the loss of his... softer pieces. I don’t want to keep calling it humanity because of all my ranting about Berserk’s humans recently, but you know what I mean. But even if he’s wrong, he isn’t aware of it, hey. And that facilitates his ability to kind of let go, at least to the degree that he does which is marginal anyway. And while it doesn’t really eliminate the ambivalence entirely, but it does let his emotional conflict settle a little.

tl;dr: he’s just being wrong again, but what else is new.

Anyway!

So now I’m going to take a moment to talk about what I didn’t talk about before, namely whether Griffith’s emotions derive from the infant.

I think they do, and also they don’t.

The thing is, way back before there were any demon babies, Femto had already failed to attack Skull Knight specifically because Guts would have gotten caught in the attack. And, given that when Guts asks him directly if he has zero feelings he doesn’t answer the question but rather evades it, I think it seems probable that Griffith does retain some emotion – it’s enough that, no matter how vague and distanced, it made him hesitate and thus saved Guts’ life. This is also, I think, the reason Femto is such a petty bitch around Guts – the guidebook even notes that Femto goes out of his way to do things to humiliate or hurt Guts, “perhaps due to the complicated feelings he harbored prior to reincarnation.”

That said, it does seem likely that Femto/Griffith’s emotions are extremely blunted – frozen so to speak – and that the child acts as an enhancer, or that its feelings mix in with his, or its impulses influence his actions, or all of the above. In that sense you could say the baby is the chain that holds him, but I don’t see how his own feelings could be completely void without a retcon which, I mean, maybe there’s a retcon, I have no idea.

Also people like to say the manga states directly that the feelings all come from the kid, but it’s Griffith that says it, and it’s not exactly unGriffithlike behavior to deny his own feelings or explain them away.

So right now smart money for me is on “Griffith has feelings but they are dulled and the infant catalyzes them and influences his behavior,” but I’m open.

Casca magically sensing her kid so fucking weird.

“I was... I’m a Hawk too.” I love that even after everything with Griffith, they really... still identify that same way. Even way in the future when Rickert confronts Griffith in Falconia, he doesn’t disavow the human leader he followed, only the demon that leader became. Guts’ reaction is a little more complicated, but even he conceptualized them as the Hawks with Casca as the leader and himself as the Raider Captain going to seek the enemy) when he first set out.

I love the footprints in the snow. I mean I realize Miura made it snowy because of the bit in a few pages and that obviously the snow would involve footprints, but ever since the snow duel, footprints in the snow have sort of represented paths and choices for me, at least when it comes to Berserk. In this moment, Rickert is kind of faced with the same decision Guts is dealing with – to go after revenge or to protect the girl. And Rickert is who he is, which is why he obviously struggled with it less than Guts does.

I really wonder what he would have done if Zodd didn’t collapse the cave.

Because even though he says he won’t leave her again, that’s what he said when he set off for the Tower to begin with, and then he was like yeah idk maybe I should ditch. Even now he’s thinking about other places he could drop her – other elf dwellings - and Puck even picks up that he’s considering just locking her up again.

Then... when they finally started for Elfhelm... he decided to focus on her and get her to safety, but he was obviously struggling with the desire to drop her off there and leave. People like to say he chose to protect her over pursuing vengeance, which he did but I do not think that was ever going to last and what’s more I don’t think he *really* intended it to. He was never going to like, settle down in Elfhelm with her. He may have considered it, he may have even told himself he would... but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

And I do think it’s evident that he knew that on some level.

No point here, just lolz.

Okay we’re in the home stretch, this is a long rambles session, sorry about that.

Wow look at all that simple and uncomplicated pure hatred.

But seriously, we come back around to what I was saying earlier – even though Guts hates him and wants to kill him, he also wants.... him back in his life?? I don’t know how else to put it. Guts feels dismissed and deserted. He abandoned Griffith and thus was abandoned in turn. You don’t describe yourself as abandoned/deserted by someone unless you feel their loss - but more than that, he explicitly draws a parallel between the way he abandoned Griffith, who desperately wanted him to stay (and engaged him in violence to that effect, for that matter), and now, when Griffith has abandoned him despite his vioiently desperate attempts to make him stay.

Also, in a minute I’ll explain this, but he views the loss of his friend as his own fault – a result of his own actions, his decision to walk away. Because again, there was a part of him hoping for a reconciliation. I will die on that snowy hill.

From there...

So I went back to the Japanese on this because sometimes the specifics of the Japanese phrasing clarifies what’s being said/done for me. As I always say, I’m not fluent in Japanese, I do my best, I’m not perfect, correct if necessary but...

What he says that’s translated a “I won’t lose you” is “I wont forfeit” with furigana that says “lose.” Also as is typical in Japanese it leaves out the pronouns but I do think that kind of changes the narrative just slightly, and no I’m not going to say he’s not talking about her, he’s obviously talking about her.

It’s just...

He’s thinking about the way he abandoned Griffith, which now leads to him being abandoned by Griffith, which leads to him kind of reflecting on that relationship - the distance that's between them, the destruction of that relationship that resulted from his having left Griffith behind. Then he looks at Casca and remembers her reaching for Griffith, which evokes that old fear of loss.

Which brings him back to how he'd abandoned her, too. And this is why I find the use of “forfeit” important – because forfeiting is to suffer a penalty as a result of a mistake or general wrongdoing or breaking of rules. And he’s using the same terminology for what he is not going to do to Casca... as he does for what Griffith has done to him.

So basically what I’m getting is that he perceives his relationship with Griffith as something he lost as a result of his having made a mistake/committed a wrongdoing and, recognizing that he almost did the same thing to Casca, he decides he isn’t going to repeat that mistake.

And I mean, again it’s about her, but not unlike the time he said he wouldn’t lose the flame and it was translated as him not wanting to lose Casca, it does kind of change the narrative in a negative way. Guts’s arc regarding personal relationships is that he goes from someone who values no one and is valued by no one to someone who is able to recognize that there are people he loves and needs, and people who love and need him. And his ability to face that and deal with the reality that his actions affect those people is what ultimately spurs him to change his behaviors.

-Guts leaves the Hawks, and as a result he loses Griffith AND the Hawks.

-He leaves Casca, and as a result when he comes back to Godo’s cave she’s run away and he nearly loses her.

-When he leaves to go get her, he doesn’t bother to look back at Godo, and when he gets back Godo has died.

It’s a repeating pattern - a series of actions that trigger losses that ultimately bring him to the point where he decides he can’t keep doing this or he’s going to end up with no one and nothing. And even though the outcome is the same: Guts decides he isn't going to throw Casca away because he won't lose any more people he loves, making it about losing her specifically makes it read as though he’s motivated by his romansu. And you can tell people read it that way because people who read it in english thinks he’s... motivated by his romance with her.

But that... misses the point of his journey and wastes the buildup of all those losses. It isn’t just about her. It’s about him and the way he treats people, and his growing understanding that he has to change.

Finally, before we go...

It’s kind of fascinating the way Griffith is still remembered as the savior of Midland – their guardian angel.

I guess this is a bit out of nowhere, but people’s hate for Sonia is so bizarre to me. If there’s anything I understand even less than disliking a character because they did something mean to a character I like, it’s disliking a character because they like a character I dislike. Sonia herself is just an innocent psychic teenager who can hear the whispers of the world.

I don’t know that I will ever have anything interesting to say about Silat, so...

I’ll leave you here.

...is that a magical horse? Inquiring minds want to know.

#berserk #berserk meta #rambles about berserk #ariel talks about berserk

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averseunhinged · 7 months

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klaroline fic rec friday #1, i guess? meant to start this up for months, but i'm verbose, and time management is hard.

fine china and dull silver by @yespumpkindoodlesthings

in my dotage, i've been less into the constant hardcore angst consumption of my youth and have pivoted slightly toward fluff. but i'm super picky and it can't be fluff for fluff's sake. like my favorite characters are usually some level of The Worst, and if they're going to gently bake a cake, it has to be a murder cake. if you know what i mean.

this is one of my favorite secret good blorbo fics in this fandom, as well as being a secret good season six. pumpkin doodles is great at a lot of things, but they're especially good at maintaining a certain level of assholery even while fluffing up the place. klaus and caroline are very sweet together in this, but they're still klaus (a complete dick, but he's trying) and caroline (anxious and overcompensating, but she's learning). they're filled with a lot of love, even as they power through some of the major plot points of s6.

it jumps off from friendsgiving, which was the point where i too was like oh fuck this show. it just felt like such a regression to s2 for caroline after her s5 character arc. she came so far and learned so much and suddenly we're back to the menfolk discussing whether she deserves to be loved despite her sin of, like, having some level of expectations for the people in her life.

as for klaus, his TO storylines are cleaned up pretty tidily at the beginning in a way that feels relatively natural without putting anyone through all of that. you understand his problems aren't gone, but having caroline around, someone whose moral compass he actually trusts, goes a long way with him.

and the rest of the ensemble is great, too. everyone still has their foibles (elijah is stiff, damon is irreverent, hayley doesn't care about anyone who isn't designated as pack/family, stefan lacks self awareness, etc.), but it's easy to swallow. everyone is still awful in their own ways, but it feels pleasant to read.

it also touches on the idea that caroline could be devastated that stefan would abandon her without having romantic feelings for him. he's her best friend. he saved her from all the people she should have been able to trust, but who wanted to kill her for something that wasn't her fault. he had faith in her and she put her faith in him. and the previous two times he disappeared off the face of the planet, it was because he was actively being harmed and came back all the worse off for it. it would be soul crushing to find out he gave up on her while she worried about him constantly. that's a much more interesting story,imo, than the watered down side romance it became.

small spoilers under the jump

my favorite part is when caroline figures out that she can't follow through on the impulse to turn her humanity off, because there's someone in her life who very much needs her to be present, who loves her and is notorious for holding onto the people he cares about so hard it can crush them.

“I can tell when you’re actually terrified,” she said. “You want me to stay because if I go off the rails, you go off the rails?”

“Something like that,” he said, noncommittally. He wasn’t going to tell her that he thought it would be uniquely dangerous if both of them abandoned Caroline’s moral code.

“Which makes me responsible for your behavior,” Caroline said.

“Someone has to be responsible for me,” he said. “Elijah’s really given up--and you’re so much more talented and energetic than he is, really.” She started to laugh and then her laughter turned to rough sobbing. He pulled the car over and wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m your tower of strength, huh?” Caroline said, through tears.

“Yes,” Klaus said quietly. “I need you.”

“I didn’t think anybody really needed me,” Caroline said.

he won't abandon her and he needs her to not abandon him, even when it would be easier, maybe even kinder in a way to let her turn it off.

#klaroline fic rec friday #there's verbose and then there's this #oops #fic recs

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joycew-blog · 1 year

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I have so many thoughts about the finale!!! First off, I am so happy that Rick regressed!!! It's of course terrible for Morty and the rest of the family, but it feels way more realistic and interesting. The path to recovery is hard and will have roadblocks. You can't fix decades of bad habits in just a couple of episodes.

That doesn't mean that Rick hasn't been trying tho! Him helping Jerry with the Fortune Cookies, the whole Roy thing, Analyze Piss, that was still the real Rick! He still went to therapy, he did genuinely try.

But Morty being mad at him just triggers things in him that makes him go back in his old ways. It was a less bad reaction than in the past, cause last time Morty called him out on his crap Rick decided to replace him with two crows and before that we got the Vat of Acid episode (there might be more, but esp the Vat is so vivid in my mind of the bad crap he did to that poor kid). He wouldn't have made a robot that's actually kind to Morty and have him have a good time. In that sense I guess Rick knows his limitations, that he can't make Morty happy right now as he is.

But instead of discussing that with him and being emotionally open about it, he goes behind their back and replaces himself with a robot so he betrays their trust....again! (Cause he probably thinks it's better if he's not around while he's like this, but at the same time he's proving the point that it's better he's not around by putting out a robot that's 'better' than him. It's a self-fulling prophecy and he does this all the time.)

As for Morty, someone, anyone, please give this poor kid a hug! He just wanted a nice Christmas for himself and his family. He never gets a break and when he does it's just too good to be true!

I think when he broke down in front of the President it was more than just Christmas being ruined. His trust was betrayed, again, and the things he enjoyed the past episode probably now leave a bitter taste in his mouth since it was not his real grandpa. He probably thought at that moment that Rick would rather build a robot to be nice to him, instead of putting in the effort himself...

And then of course Curtis drives the knife even deeper by betraying Morty afterwards...

And Robot Rick! He was so kind and he tried so hard. I felt for him so much with how he felt so guilty about betraying the family's trust. And him trying to be honest about it made my stomach twist cause I knew it would just go badly...

And when it did go bad the family immediately went out to destroy him. They must be really traumatized from the robots and clones and the crap Rick has pulled them through with it…

Seriously Robot Rick was the final hero in this episode and I wished he didn't die...

And god the final couple of minutes...

They are going on adventures again, but dang the reason for it will be so different! For Morty the most, cause what will happen if they find Prime? And what does Rick mean he is on all the location that were pointed on his map?! Like, he's on all of them at the same time, or are those places he has been/has mini-homebases?

And the classic Rick ramble at the end. Normally they are done for comedy purposes, but in this scene it just felt....dark and sad. This is what Rick really is, an obsessed, traumatized person wanting to find the guy that killed his family. It broke him down to his core, the search for him even more so than the killing of his family. Even years later he still can't let it rest!

And now he's dragging his grandson along him with it...

This episode is the exact reason I love this show. Just when I think I lose a bit of interest they do something that's made me hyped up all over again!

I really am hyped and curious to find out what they are going to do for season 7!

#rick and morty #rick and morty season 6 spoilers

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just-an-anxious-little-mess · 1 year

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Plural community, I need your help

(This is going to be a long post but please, I would really appreciate it if you took the time to read through it. Thank you very much, continue)

Hey, hello. I'm reaching out to the D.I.D/OSDD/Plural community in general, I need you guys' help. I have a slight suspicion that I might be an OSDD 1-b system but, my mind just keeps hammering in my head that I'm faking everything, that I'm just actively pretending to have all these symptoms and red flags just so I can sorta "fill the void" of feeling extremely lonely. It wouldn't be the first time I did that to myself- making me think I have a disorder when in reality it isn't true.

So I just need to know... how did you figure out you were a system? What signs should I be wary of? How can you even tell at all? This specially goes for systems with little to no amnesia barriers, since that's my case.

Some of the symptoms -or I guess things I've noticed that made me second guess- are:

I've been through childhood trauma (starting at age 8).

I can't remember my childhood/pre-teen years, specially from ages 10 to 12, only some bits and pieces. That time is a big ass blurr.

I've always referred to myself as "we" ever since, well- I can't really remember when.

I've had times in which I sort of turn into a child, but I can remember everything that happens. Is like there's two versions of me at that moment- the "child" me who's currently in control of the body, and myself, who's always in the back fully aware of what's happening and ready to jump in if anything occours. I thought that was age regressing, but I'm having second thoughts.

I've had times in which I feel like I was some characters of media I like, and I fully feel like I'm... Them. But again, still can remember everything that happens. I recall this one time when I was really distressed about something and suddenly, bam, felt like I was a character and I completely calmed down.

I've had these voices in my head for the longest times, I call them parts of myself. Like one of them particularly is keen of keeping me stable, grounding me if I'm having a panic or anxiety attack, reassuring me everything's gonna be okay, etc. Another part likes to argue about everything I do, having more of a negative outlook of things (this part is actually the one that keeps telling me I'm faking everything). Another part is the child one I was talking about earlier, I can feel her anger and pain and confusion about everything that happened to me.

I am so used to having internal arguments about everything, and I mean everything. I talk myself through my issues by discussing with these different parts.

These past few days, every time I try to do some research about OSDD I feel this awful feeling that I shouldn't, this feeling of panic.

Some reasons of why I think I'm faking everything:

Again, no dissociative barriers between almost everything that I've listed so far.

I have to kinda force myself or force my brain to be able to "listen" to these voices, and they quiet down when I'm focused on something else or I completely forget about them. This leads me to believe I'm imagining it all. If it were truly some sort of dissociative disorder, I would not have control of when I hear them.

If I am truly a system, wouldn't I have noticed it earlier? All of my life I went along living like a singlet, never questioning if I heard voices or not, never showing a symptom. Sure, the whole POINT of a system is to never let the host know, but still.

When I was about 13 I started doing my research on D.I.D (because I'm a huge psychology nerd), and I convinced myself I had that disorder. Even going as far as pretending to have it online. Yeah, I know, I was an asshole. That's why I'm worried I might be doing the same here.

Because of personal reasons, I lost my friend group and ended our relationship with my previous partner. That's why I feel extremely lonely, and that loneliness might lead me to make myself believe I have someone in my head, anyone. That way I won't be alone.

Not proud of this one, but I have to admit... I wanted to be a system when I did my research back in the day. The thought of not being alone anymore, of having someone else to step in like no one did for me when I needed it, of having someone else by my side... I really wanted that. And I'm afraid that desire is clouding my vision of whether I have a disorder or not.

If you got this far, thank you. It means the world. Please, I am open to any answers or advice you wanna give me, I'm desperate at this point. I just really wanna know if I'm faking it or not.

Thank you, sending love.

(Ps. sorry for any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, English is not my first language)

#d.i.d #d.i.d system #osdd #osdd 1b #osdd problems #plural system #alters #mental health

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matan4il · 1 year

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hello alice! it’s miya here & yes it’s been a hot minute since i’ve been in your ask box! i recently just had 3 surgeries that were basically two in my nose & then i had to get my tonsils out again so i’ve essentially been recovering from that & not in the mood to talk mostly. I do however hope all has been well with you.

since the finale is right around the corner, I wanted to talk to you about buck’s growth this season. we know in the beginning that buck was upset about not getting picked as interim captain despite the fact that he was not clearly ready, the couch theory & how actually death experiences can reset all the progress you’ve made.

i’ve see a lot of folks saying buck has regressed back into old habits & i’d say that’s not true. Buck agreeing to be a donor in the beginning was something he did because he’s buck but the influence around him saying yes was mainly what connor said to him about him being such a good person & what not. now after he dies buck realized he can’t live based off of how others see him & make decisions solely off of that which is why things quickly ended with natalia. i thought it was funny how she said she needed a minute to think & not 10 seconds later she left 😭. Buck didn’t necessarily chase after her for the sake of getting her back but i think he wanted her so badly to understand & it’s like there is already someone in his life who understands & sees him for who he really is and that’s eddie. it’s hard to see someone who buck may feel like kinda has to accept him for all he is cause that’s his best friend as a potential partner but i think there is a possibility we might see that in the finale.

we know the entire 118 is in danger, now granted we have no idea what that means & since we logically only have 45 minutes to tell this story, there is a possibility of things not being completely wrapped up. i wanted to also point out that the only two people (technically 3 if you count chris) who know that buck does not have a couch is Bobby & Eddie. two important people in his life who buck would quite literally lay his life down for. Buck told eddie that “maybe he does not want to pick the wrong couch again” & then he later on told bobby that “im afraid im gonna keep on making the same mistakes” it’s clear buck wants to go about things differently but it’s a matter of how?

i think he was on his way there but then he died and suddenly life got confusing for him. sometimes i think people downplay the fact that buck’s heart stopped & how he genuinely felt like he got away with something when he woke up in the hospital. of course he is going to go around making the most of life. now the way he goes about it may not be the way we want it to happen but it does make sense for bucks character. he wants to treat every waking moment as a gift & that’s things are a sign cause he feels like he’ll never get that lucky again & that’s ultimately very sad.

i think we’ll definitely see buck in s more bigger leadership position next monday however the biggest difference is that his team will be a witness. his team doesn’t know how buck took charge when the tsunami happened or how he saved eddie’s life during the shooting & i’m still on the fence of if eddie knows that. i hope they see what he’s capable of but I hope buck see’s that he’s already had these skills in him it was just a matter of tapping into them.

the couch theory idk.. they have been making it a point to show buck, chris on the couch & then chris and eddie with a space open for one more as if we wouldn’t notice but idk we will see. maybe buck takes eddie home after everything & he falls asleep on the couch after putting chris to bed & everything kinds of falls into place

anyways sorry for my rambling. i have had all of this on my mind for a while lol but again I hope all is well with yous and that life has been treating you good. ❤️

Hi darling! OMG, 3 surgeries? That's so much, especially over such a short period of time. I hope you're doing better now? And thank you for the kind words and for caring. I'm not doing so hot at the moment, but hoping it'll get better. *HUGS*

TBH, I'm not sure what I think. I do expect the finale not to wrap everything up, because they have so many balls they've been juggling up in the air, the bridge collapse will take up a huge part of the ep, so I really don't know how much they can condense into this and address all of the threads that they opened this season. I do absolutely expect that there will be circles that they'll be closing, like Buck moving from feeling dejected over not being considered for the position of interim captain in 601, to acting as captain in the field when the 118 (with Bobby) goes down. And since 601 linked Buck figuring his own life out enough to be able to take this position by linking to the metaphor of the couch, I very much expect to see some return to that, although all may not be resolved in 618. Kind of like how 414 gave us the talk between Buddie to resolve Buck's immediate sense of guilt over seeing Eddie getting shot in front of his very eyes, but it didn't resolve the "make sure you follow your heart" thread that was opened in 413. Eddie still needed to go through it at the beginning of s5 in order to choose himself and be able to break up with Ana in 503. Similarly, Buck was just starting things out with Taylor in 414, and he needed all of s5 to break up with her, even though it was clear they were wrong for each other from the start, and especially as their first kiss was born from Buck's distress over Eddie getting shot in front of his own eyes.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me! I'm looking forward to screaming over 618 with you once it airs! Sending tons of love and good healing vibes to you, lovely. (as always, here's my ask tag) xoxox

#ask #mementosforthebrain #buddie #911meta #911 on abc #911 abc #buddie meta #911 meta #911abc #9-1-1 #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911onabc #911 #edmundo diaz #evan buck buckley #911 speculation #911 spoilers

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alex-and-coffee · 5 months

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So. I need to get my thoughts out on the last Doctor Who special. I've seen posts with takes that I very much disagree with and didn't want to derail them with my thoughts, so here we are.

(Also. These are my personal thoughts and so they are going to be very self centered. That said, I am open to discussion if you wanna add your two cents.)

(Also also. This became an ESSAY lmao I had more to say than I thought so I'm putting in a read more so it doesn't completely take up your dash haha)

I will first say that I do agree that not mentioning Martha and Yaz weird. They were important to the Doctor and I can't think of a reason why they weren't mentioned among the others. Also, the ending to The Giggle wasn't great. It was anticlimactic, rushed, and made the Toymaster seem like he wasn't an actual threat? It felt more like someone was pulling his strings tbh. There are probably more things I could say about it but this post isn't about my criticisms of the episodes.

Another quick note, I like the bi-regeneration. My interpretation is 15 is the regeneration of 14 after he's lived his life, but instead of regenerating at the end of 14's life, he's regenerating early because of the Toymaker.

To start with the first thing that has me ruffled is that, to me, Ncuti shone in the role as the Doctor. He was charismatic, joyful and fun - we're getting something different and exciting. We got time with him before his first official episode and that made me very excited for his run as the Doctor (I will add that after seeing the trailer that I am worried about the Christmas special because goblins eating babies? Antisemitism anyone?).

This episode was the happy ending for 14 and the exciting beginning for 15. I don't understand where the complaints of 15 being undercut or being overshadowed by 14. To me it functioned as a soft reset - we got 14 settling down with the Mott-Noble-Temple family to rest and heal from his trauma while 15 goes and starts his adventures without all the baggage of 9-14's runs. Healing isn't linear either, and he still has that history so it can be referenced to and can come up later, but 15 is truly happy ("fixed" - though I hate that they phrased it that way) in a way that he hasn't been in NuWho (I haven't seen classic Who so I can't say anything about it). People don't change until the pain of not changing outweighs the pain of staying the same. If we didn't see that change happen in the Doctor, then I wouldn't have bought a transition from Jodi's Doctor (who represses absolutely everything) to Ncuti's Doctor, who's been magically "fixed".

I've seen several posts about how 14 regressed on 13's happiness and made the Doctor sad again, which. I would say misinterprets 13 in a pretty fundamental way. Her smile and happiness is a mask 13 hides behind. She's hurting and bottles all of it up to shove out of sight in the hopes that if she ignores it it will go away. She's running away just as much as her previous regenerations, which is shown in the way that she doesn't share anything personal about herself. She doesn't talk about her history with anyone she travels with, she even brushes her hurt off when Jack, who has been with her through some of her shit, asks if she's ok. (This. might not be the best point bc it feels like Jack excepts her to be ok, and 13 does have people pleasing tendencies, but still. They're friends and he does care about her. I think getting thrown into prison to break her out demonstrates this point.) Even when the fam corner her and ask if she's ok, it never continues into a productive conversation - either she deflects or it gets awkward fast because they don't know how to reply to what she's said and it never goes anywhere. She's such a repressed mess I don't know how anyone interprets her as genuinely happy. (Just to note before anyone thinks I'm hating, I do love 13. She's pretty high up on my list of favourite Doctors.)

Now (the main reason why I wanted to make this post), to explain why I think Donna is kind of the perfect person for the Doctor to go to to stop and rest and heal. (Disclaimer - 10 and Donna are my favourites. While I love them a whole lot, I am trying to be fair when I think about this. Please keep that in mind.)

Of the NuWho companions, after crossing off the people that are dead, not on this Earth/universe, and left of their own volition; you are left with Donna and Yaz.

(I'm struggling to keep things kind of concise, so I'm going to make a list that is hopefully comprehensive.)

I'm going to start with Yaz, and I do like her, but I'm gonna outline why I don't think she would be a good option.

Yaz is young. She's in her early 20's, and as someone who is also in their early 20s, I'm gonna straight up say that helping someone rest and recover through lifetimes (multiple!) of trauma is not something Yaz is going to be equipped to handle.

Yaz has only just started her life. She's driven and loves the adventures she's had with the Doctor, so much so that she stayed with the Doctor after everyone else left. Yaz would get as restless as the Doctor, resulting in either more adventures or resentment.

Yaz is in love with her. We get the scenes where the Doctor says she would but can't, and in them Yaz looks heartbroken. If the circumstances were different then maybe they could have, but they're not so they can't. Yaz needs time to heal her heartbreak, which she can't really do if the Doctor is still around (and whether or not the Doctor is 13, they're still the Doctor and would still be difficult for Yaz. Also difficult for the Doctor bc she did love Yaz but her fear and trauma was unfortunately too much for her to risk it).

Just to repeat, I think Yaz should have been mentioned in the episode. It doesn't make sense for someone who the Doctor has explicitly stated they loved not to be mentioned.

And here are the reasons why I think Donna was the good choice.

Donna and the Doctor make each other better during their run together. Donna reminds him that he can do good, even if the impact is small. The Doctor shows her that she matters, and is brilliant.

Although he doesn't know it at the time, the Doctor is given an opportunity to save Donna and return her memories, undoing one of the things he has massive guilt over.

Donna is someone who has settled down. She has a house, a husband, a kid. She knows what it's like to go a bit crazy being stuck in one place (even if not for the same reasons). She has the ability and experience to help the Doctor through it. She is also someone who will enforce his rest and healing while knowing what it's like to want to be doing something.

Donna also comes with an added support system because her family is pretty close knit, with a particular spotlight on Wilf ('I'd be proud to have you as a father', anyone?).

This so pretty long and if you're still here then thanks for reading! Mainly I wrote it to put my thoughts out there so I don't explode. If you have any thoughts about this and are gonna be nice about it, then feel free to add to this post :)

#doctor who #doctor who special #the giggle #long post #discussion #im kinda nervous posting this bc i dont want people to be rude about my opinions and interpretations but. im gonna explode if i dont post i #here we go i guess lol

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hypocrisyofandrewdobson · 2 years

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This isn't about Dobson but rather Labelle. I saw her comic about age regression out of context without knowing anything about her and I felt validated by it and it's really upsetting to know what kind of person she is. I had an extremely traumatic experience as a kid which caused me to develop a kid persona that I'm trying to work through and get help for but I've aways avoided the community because they make me uncomfortable, I don't like how people act there and knowing that Labelle is probably a predator I'm definitely keeping it that way. Honestly age regression is a symptom of mental illness in adults, mine's related to my PTSD and a lot of people who truly have age regression symptoms are victims of child abuse and SA so it's really gross to me that she's found herself in that community even if I don't align with them.

First of all, let me say I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with such a terrible experience along with having to learn to cope with that experience throughout your life. It’s one of those things no one should have to go through, and I wish you all the best with it.

It’s unfortunate when someone will latch onto communities simple for pity points, or to use as a shield for their shitty behavior, or to do so to make themselves look better than they actually are. People like LaBelle, Dobson, Peet, ect do it all the time, and it’s a big part of why so many people take issue with them. Because it can make people outside of those communities assume the worst of the group because of the actions of the extremist few, or the ones using the community as a mask or shield.

I also understand not wanting to be involved in certain communities despite being or enjoying what the community is about due to their actions. It can really suck when you can’t bond or talk to people with similar interests or issues due to what’s considered “acceptable behavior” within those communities. It’s a very “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” sort of thing.

The best advice I can give(and I’m just some rando on the internet, so don’t take my words in too high regard or anything) is try and find solace in your friends and family, people who know and like you for yourself, and take comfort with them. You shouldn’t ever let a community or group you technically belong to dictate what you’re allowed to do or not do. Same goes for anyone wanting to label you something just because you’re a part of a community. There is never a “this is how (x) people are SUPPOSED to be/act/think/ect, and if you don’t, you’re not a real (x).” We’re all human, and we’re all different, shaped by our thoughts, our personalities, our environment, and so on.

And always take comfort in who you know yourself to be. You don’t need random people on the internet’s validation or condemnation to dictate who you know you are as a person.

Because you know yourself better than anyone else on earth.

#bit of a more serious post from me this time #mental disorder #ptsd #mod thoughts #mod advice #ask #anonymous

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weirdthoughtsandideas · 1 year

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The Love Story of Jim and Yam

Part 2: Mutual pining, comphet regression

This is a three part analysis about Jam, every part covering one season. So, read part 1 here if you haven't. Friendly reminder that this analysis is built on non-canon views and headcanons, and thus will not always be what happened in "canon".

Season 2 starts with them as close as they always are. Sometimes I personally always have noticed is the LESBIAN FASHION they have early in this season.

One example out of 100. But seriously, they wear every single possible lesbian look ever in the span of like 6 episodes I swear.

In the start of this season, Jim is still dating Nico. But we slowly see how she feels like something is off.

This starts when he sings Linda to her. She looks rather uneasy as he sings it. Of course - in the context of the scene, a reason Jim is nervous because she just left him a terrible voice message and now he comes and sings a song to her? A love song, dedicated to her no less? Of course she's now very embarrassed - to the point where she can't even seem to focus on the song at all. It's even that she forgot about the song...

And in all honesty, even if she was focused on other things like deleting a message on his phone, she did not seem that impressed with the song - and I think she also feels guilty about not feeling as touched by it as she should be. Sure, it could just be due to the voice mail thing making her nervous and distracted, but I also think there's other things involved. "Oh no, he is my boyfriend and he did a really adorable thing, come on Jim where is the butterflies? He is your boyfriend and he loves you, why aren't you into it more?"

Jim absolutely does not want Nico to think bad of her. To the point that she can't admit her mistake to him, in case he would think bad of her. It's both that she as a person just does not like conflicts, but I think comphet also plays in here. She loves the idea how having a boyfriend sometimes more than... having one. Which eventually makes her realize that... she really only likes Nico as a friend. It's actually funny how quickly her love for Nico died down. Like it just happened all of a sudden. Maybe Jim realized something about herself...?

I recall they also said something about how, on the phone, when they aren't seeing each other, they feel like they want to be together, but meeting up in real life they feel more like friends. Which I feel is, that apart they romanticize the situation, but then it's not as romantic as they thought they felt. So they mutually decide to break up. After this breakup, Jim more and more starts to get out of the comphet field. And the further the season goes, the further she's into the "I don't need any man" thoughts - she's glad she has her gal pals over a boyfriend.

Yam on the other hand? She regresses back in comphet for a while, although not until the last chunk of the season. In the beginning, she still helps Jim with all of her weird boyfriend shenanigans and supports her through it all - she is there to give some moral advice to Jim when needed, too. But at the same time, she is actively supportive of Jim and Nico breaking up, even if she does not say it out loud. Example: This is Yam when Jim flirts with Nico...

Or even... when she stands next to him...

Hmm...?

She was aware she had feelings for Jim in the first season, but I think it has hit her more this season. However, admitting you're in love with your best friend is not really an easy thing, and she is not even sure if Jim feels the same. So she has to put those feelings down in favor of keeping her friendship with her - a friendship she cherishes more than anything in the world. So, with her pushed down feelings, she decides to go all in into her singing. And while Yam blossomed with her singing last season, this season is really when she goes off with it.

One thing I remember distinctly from her performance in the singing competition is that she said "this is a love song and I don't feel in love". I do think this is a half-lie. She's saying this to Jim, who if she said she was in love, Jim would ask who, when, what, etc. But I also think there is a truth in it - Yam does not want to admit she's currently in love, both because the one she's in love with is right in front her, but also because she has convinced herself she is not. "You can't be in love with her, so just don't be". But Jim tells her to think of a time when she was in love and Yam says she only can come up with "one example".

Yam does not sing Yes, I do to Ramiro. No matter how much the show wants to frame it as that. She sang it to "no one". Yet people are convinced she must've sung it to someone, that she must've sung it to a boy. Even when Yam says "I wasn't inspired by anyone" or "I sang the song to no one" she gets to hear that she's lying, and Jazmin even says that she'll find out and tell everyone eventually. Now, I do believe that her initial choice of song wasn't due to any special reason. I fully believe she chose it because she simply liked the song and did not sing to anyone in particular. But I do think that, when she performed, she acted as if she was in love to get into the love song, and thus thought of the time she felt in love. And, was that with Ramiro? Ramiro, who she argued with so much? Even when they dated, in fact then she argued even more with him? The dude she was ready to break up with at any moment? Was there not any other person she felt more love with? Also with this, I think Yam is growing more and more tired over people always thinking she has a crush on a boy, that she's thinking of a boy, that she should find a boyfriend... and eventually this takes a toll on her and makes her fall back into a comphet phase - thus, back to dating Ramiro.

In season 2B, Ramiro has started to become less self-absorbed and is on better terms with Jim and Yam. They become such good friends and, in the middle of denying her feelings for Jim and everyone expecting her to like and have crushes on boys, she decided "okay... why not give Ramiro another chance?". However, just like in season 1, they bicker a lot and I recall Yam even threatening to break up with him over some tiny thing at one point. However, it's a bit more stable this time. Maybe because they perhaps tried more than last time... but, it's clear to me that it's more that they like the idea of dating more than actually dating. I, side note, often switch between bi!Ramiro and gay!Ramiro, and so occasionally I wonder if he's even into it either or just pretends because he "wants" to, or it's some sort of beards they have with each other. I will discuss them more in S3.

I've discussed Jim and Yam alone, and with their boyfriends this season. But how are Jim and Yam with each other, then? The answer: They have a huge mutual pining.

I will never get over the couple's costume of the century that is the jin/yang outfits.

During a lot of this season, they are often off screen and the others wonder where they are. Several times they enter a scene like "here we are, we forgot the time" and the others slightly raising their eyebrows but shrugging it off. I've been thinking of how, for example, Luna and Nina know everything going on in each other's lives, but Jim and Yam does not really know what's going on with them (do they even know of Luna's necklace mystery or that they dressed up at a retirement home to find information on a dead man?) - at the same time, Luna and Nina does not really know what's up in Jim and Yam's lives either. And it's likely that there's some unknown things Jim and Yam talk about or do off screen, stuff we'll never know of, and we only know they were late or had to go due to some reason. What did they do on the way to "get some supplies" during the episodes of everyone cleaning up Roller, for example?

It's possible a lot of the time they sneak away together as an excuse to spend more time together. They can't get enough of each other. At this point, both of them have realized they feel something deeper for each other than just friendship. However, they start thinking opposite ways. Jim realized more and more that she's not interested in men, while Yam is starting to consider "okay, maybe I should give men another chance... I have no luck in women anyway..." This will all fix itself in season 3. Right now, they have a mutual pining that they don't realize the other one has too. And when we end the season, they're as close as ever, sharing a hotel room... with Delfi and Jazmin too, but due to it seemingly only being two beds, I guess Jim and Yam had to share one.

Also! I could not fit this anywhere else on the analysis, but: Yam's suit! For a while, she had been talking to Jim about how she did not really want to wear a dress. It was actually a whole thing that also was sort of in the background in favor of other things. But Yam had expressed how she'd rather have a suit than a dress. And then!!

SLAY!

Her wanting to wear a suit instead of a traditional "girly" dress, makes the impression she wants to explore herself and experiment what she likes and don't. I mean, I gotta say, both her and Jim have a range of different outfits - one day they look like retro punks, the next they wear brightly colored overalls. It's clear they like gray, white and black, but then they like red and blue in both light and dark shade. The next day they're in flannel, the next day in striped buttoned shirts... they're experimenting with their style and expression and it's very nice to see how you can determine the kind of style they have, even if they wear such different outfits every day.

And I think, with that, they also explore their identity. What they like, how they wanna express it... and who they like.

Get ready for season 3, where I personally think is when the girls actually started dating.

#this part was hard I felt like I was not making sense half of the time #jim x yam #jimena medina #yamila sanchez #soy luna

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risingsouls · 1 year

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🦎[What do you think could be done to improve Super as a series?]

🦎 for my work thoughts || Always Accepting!

[Hoo boy. That's a big question because I would change so damn much. But I think I can sort it down to three main categories:

Tone Whiplash

Taking the interesting concepts introduced and keeping them interesting

Make it feel less like a parody (which is sort of a combo of the two but)

Probably one of the biggest issues I have with Super is the tone whiplash we get from Z to Super. For me, Z evolved from Dragonball's fun, comedic, and more whimsical tone to Z's well-implemented balance of seriousness when the moment called for it while keeping some of the fun and humor from DB. In other words, the series felt like it matured with the characters to put it a different way. Then Super comes in and it feels like it's more interested in reviving much of DB's comedic tone, relying more on jokes and fan service rather than actually continuing the story with a tone similar to what we get in Z. Moments that deserve anything other than a laugh feel passed over if not disregarded in seconds. The characters we watched grow and mature and change feel completely regressed to either what we see in DB if they were there (big examples being Goku and Bulma for this) or their characterization goes full tilt into One Attribute to the point od the character feeling totally flat or their motivations and actions just don't make sense because of it (Vegeta is a good example of this one). And all of this is, as I said, either for a laugh or because of fan service (and I don't just mean the sexy kind, either; excuse my tinfoil hat here, but I've been convinced for a long time that Super's writers are absolutely actively taking cues from fan material and reactions far more than they did with Z because I know there were issues with that back then too) makes it feel like you're watching a completely unrelated series if not just a fan made series. If you're not prepared for it, it's a really big slap in the face and jarring.

The next thing that absolutely sucks with Super is they really do actually introduce a lot of neat concepts and plots but....do nothing with them or ruin them by the end of the arc. Super is a bottomless mine for new concepts from God Ki In general, gods of destruction, angels, and the new universes to new forms(?) like Ultra Instinct, Beast Gohan, Orange Piccolo (both stupid names) and Ultra Ego. But we get next to zero explanation of them, and if we do, it's conflicting or even completely retconned later in the series. Again, it feels like it's all done just to do it and bring in a new form or power or whatever without making it feel relevant or giving any understanding as to why it's special from what we already know and understand. Similarly, pretty much all of the main arcs start our with interesting premises. However, most of the time, by the end, it becomes a huge train wreck and the whole thing just felt like a waste of time (the Goku Black arc which doesn't deserve the hype the fandom gives it I'll say it and the Granolah arc are good examples for basically the same reason). In every arc, it basically feels like there are no real stakes, and, if there were stakes like in the ToP, they get ripped out from beneath us by the god of gods saying they only made the tournament to see if the winner would wish back the other universes from being erased. And even with the concession of Zeno apparently claiming that he would erase all the universes if the winner made a selfish wish, it just makes the entire arc feel pointless. And this feels like it happens in every arc: if the plot had any teeth, by the end, they've been completely ripped out.

And finally, it just needs to not feel like I'm watching or reading a parody or poorly executed fan fiction. As I said this kind of puts both of them together and is just big on how poor the writing is most of the time, from the plot to the characters themselves. I mean shit there's not even blood. And I guess I get they're trying to appeal to a younger audience but listen. I was watching Goku beat the tar out of Frieza at 6 and I liked the series just fine, blood and not constant jokes and all. And maybe I'm just asking to much of this series but damn. If it felt like there was half the effort put into Super as was put into Z (which don't get me wrong could have used a little more effort and care itself in places), this could have actually been a halfway enjoyable series. But as it stands, I can barely handle a few episodes at a time or more than the monthly manga chapter to sate my curiosity and see if anything I want to see in this series comes to pass.]

#.:ooc:.#.:ask:.#cxldtyrant #thanks for this!#i probabalt could have hit on more #with more specific examples #but for the sake of length ill leave it here

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basedkikuenjoyer · 1 year

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Edge of the Limelight: Okiku’s Saga

We’ve had some fun ruminating on the edges, but we’re at a good point in the main story to recap the fil rouge. Also hit 900 posts so neat! Need a good milestone. This all fell into place around a simple observation at the 3/4 mark of Wano. Yamato’s flashback was the trigger. I’d seen it enough times; you kept undercutting this whole “I wanna be your nakama” bit, you’re clearly building an organic bond with Momo, and it wasn’t exactly subtle you & Kiku are mirror opposites. What’s the opposite of Yamato’s arc? It hit me like a brick, time & theatre. An unassuming young woman out of time who went from Poster Girl to Samurai like it was nothing. I rushed back to re-read, most of the basic idea fell into place before Usopp slides into this tale.

Kiku’s story is told in an order that makes it almost impossible to fully get on a single pass because she’s such a proper guarded Wano lady who’s instinct is to downplay herself. You’re regressing into an old role that was not healthy for you, that time with Tsuru allowed you to grow into a confident young woman who can fend for herself. My 90s Shoujo-loving ass just felt stupid for needing that long. Kiku wasn’t actually a particular favorite until that fateful re-read. I liked her but she got lost in the noise. And that’s the point! You’re the real star, a little prodigy fate is finally handing a second chance, but accidents of birth won’t allow you to make the most of it in this country. The Lady and The Samurai are both masks. Underneath both the real personality leaks out. She’s an actress, a bit of a diva even. Even from that point, that re-read it clicked. If you keep your eye on the unassuming waitress, get her story is sometimes about the notes you don’t play, Kiku’s the keel holding it all together.

Mind you, she’s not exactly a slouch on the surface read to begin with. None of this is harder than people who could pick out the clues she was trans early. She’s not the type to show her scars, but the “play” she’s only fated to be a small part of is an ensemble of people grappling with what she bore 20 years ago. Sort of an Everything, Everywhere, All at Once vibe. So many faces showing who she was, who she’s becoming, who she could have been, who she’s expected to be. Most just one accident of birth away. Yeah yeah...she didn’t feel that important. That’s the bit! She’s nothing but a footnote in this sweeping historical epic. But Luffy met her first and really, really liked her. She’s not in the limelight a whole lot, but makes good use of the time she’s there and is at least on stage more than anyone. The most consistent thread. Winnow it down to just her story and Wano still works, but goddamn when you actually look at just her story through the spectacle does it start to look like a familiar pattern. The tenth has a story that goes unspoken because at this point you shouldn’t need it spelled out. That’s why it makes sense to me.

I still can’t shake how well a fussy big sister type with a military background suits a Quartermaster role. How well being introduced shoving a hand over Luffy’s mouth and getting the two most reckless doofs on the crew to actually take stock and pay attention, the jack-of-all-trades angle, being the baby sister of the group and taking on the emotional toll of dealing with the traitor all suit that. How well that pairs with Izo all those years ago trying in vain to talk down Ace. That was all there at 1024. Gotta take it on faith I guess, but I and the couple of friends I filled in the gaps with agreed on two things to look out for at that point. Something that “flips” Kiku & Yamato back in the conclusion, and a “how we got here” flashback building on Kiku’s deep well of moments we know you spent time with the Straw Hats we didn’t see. Not to mention a potential big one with Shanks. We saw the first part with Ryokugyu and was it even that subtle?

If you’ve been around a while you know I’m just scratching the surface. Even then, I was ready to move on when the other shoe didn’t drop, but offered a rough outline for how Egghead could bend around and still make the other half happen. Beauty of the type of twist. We’ve stuck to that and it’s getting weird by this point. Enough I somehow have more confidence in the idea there’s at least value in entertaining this thread at 1084 than I did 1064. And that was after Law had boobies. We’ll have fun with Egghead in general tomorrow.

#one piece #okiku #post-wano musings

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buckys-little-belle · 1 year

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hiii love Ive never really done one of these before so sorry if it’s weird T T

So basically I’m just wondering how u knew u were a little? And if anyone can be one? And like how do u get into littlespace and stay there?

The reason why I’m asking is bc I’ve known about it for a while and have loved the idea but I’ve never been able to get myself there. Bc of some trauma I’ve been through i feel like it would be really healing for me,, but also it just seems like fun and something that I really connect with. I’ve had times where I felt little but it always goes away after I finish reading a little fic or etc. one of my friends made me feel little once but it also didn’t last very long. Idk basically I’m just asking is there a way for me to start regressing? And is there a possibility that I just can’t do it?

<33 Lots of love

- 🌷

Hii! Not weird at all!! Don’t worry!

Just to preface, I'm not an expert, so please not my words aren’t the only possible facts, and please anyone who could answer these questions, comment! or reblog! but I'll do my best.

Can anyone be a little? I'm honestly not sure, to be honest I haven't gone deep into all of the brain stuff surrounding being a little, but to me I think yes. I don't think that there is a specific thing holding some people back from being a little, I genuinely just don't, and maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. I think some people might struggle to truly get into the headspace, it can be a tricky thing to do/control at the beginning, and I often find myself struggling with controlling/getting into the headspace. (By controlling I mean not involuntarily slipping into your little headspace, like when really loud noises happen or someone is mean, and your brain just copes on it's own, something that isn't a bad thing, but can be scary when you aren't able to control what headspace you are in, and when.) So short answer, I think anyone can be a little, but again I could be wrong.

How do you start? SUCH A GOOD QUESTION! I always see some interesting answers to this, which is fine, to each their own, but for someone who's just starting to regress I suggests simply doing activities you enjoyed doing when younger, for me it's coloring. I picked up coloring as a hobby through a tough patch and found my headspace to be so peaceful, little did I know I was actually regressing. Honestly, just embrace your kid side, just do a thing you love and LET YOURSELF ENJOY IT! Don't hold back, don't get mad if you don't feel little, don't try and force anything, just let yourself find joy in whatever you're doing, and let whatever happens happen. Eventually you'll find something that helps, it'll most likely be a few tries before you find what helps you slip, and tools in helping you stay there, it's really all up to little you, just let them flourish. I have been struggling lately to regress, stress and anxiety plaguing me, so I pulled out my bin of Barbies, and the first few times nothing happened, I just enjoyed doing their hair and making sure they all had some cute outfits, but eventually a few days later little me took over, and played with barbies like I did as a kid, and it was great, it just took some time, and that's okay!

Is it possible that you're not one? Maybe? But from what you've said, you seem to have slipped into that headspace, and to me that's a good sign that you are one. It took me a while to realize that I had been slipping for years at that point, my friends always treated me like a little sister, and that helped me feel safe enough to be a kid again, and it seems that maybe you've had a similar experience and that's a good first step.

I do hope that these answers helped, even in the slightest, and if you have any more please, please ask them! I'm an open book and will always be here to answer questions. Also, good luck, please come back and let me know how things go, and feel free to come back and just chat whenever, you're a very sweet anon tulip, and I hope to see you again <3

#anon #🌷 anon

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