Okay, I’ve been thinking about something lately

All the time I see people make statements about Percy that start with “Percy would never…”

Some examples I’ve seen: “percy would never kill someone/something in front of his mom” “percy would never yell at someone he loves” “percy would never get drunk” “percy would never let his child go to camp-half blood”

Now if you passionately believe one of those, hear me out. I’m not necessarily saying I disagree!

I’m saying… who would have ever thought Percy would torture a goddess and choke her on her own poison? And…. enjoy doing it? If someone had said that on tumblr pre-HoH, every single comment and reblog would have been “PERCY WOULD NEVER!!” I mean, who would have thought Percy would do a million things he’s done? He’s done some very not so ‘silly little guy’ stuff. He is an extremely complex character. In his own head and to some people, he’s sweet and fun and silly, but to many people he’s reckless and scary and dangerous. Some people see him as someone who’s very gentle and relaxed, but some people see him as someone who’s quick to get very angry and cause destruction. And the truth is, he’s all of it. It depends on his mood. Consistency does not apply to him in many aspects. He has consistent traits, like loyalty, humor, and bravery, but his actual actions and reactions are NOT consistent. I understand why we think Percy would never do certain things. We think we know based off of his past and his history with his mom, or with Gabe, or with Luke. And I’m not saying I think he would do those things, but unless he specifically states it, we can NOT, ever, infer what Percy Jackson might or might not do.

Like for instance, the drinking thing. I am not saying percy would be a big drinker, if one at all. And he probably does have an aversion to the smell of beer because of how the apartment used to smell when he was young. But we have no evidence that Percy associates all alcohol with Gabe. Alcoholic drinks aren’t just foul smelling hard liquors. There are a million different forms that you can consume alcohol in - some of which don’t even smell like alcohol, and barely taste like it. And in The Chalice of the Gods, it’s said that Sally drinks a glass of wine every night. And Percy thinks Sally hangs the freaking moon. So if his mom drinks, he definitely doesn’t believe that alcoholic beverages = the enemy. And here’s the thing, if Annabeth and Piper and Leo were all drinking and having a good time, like college students do, and they go “Hey Percy, come sit and have a drink with us!” there’s a very good chance that he’s so comfortable with his best friends, and just wants to let loose and be a college kid, that he wouldn’t even think about Gabe. He’d just be like “Sounds fun! Count me in!” But I don’t know. That’s the point. I don’t know. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. I truly think it could go either way. And even if he does drink, maybe he never - not even once - gets drunk. Maybe he’d drink in college and as a young adult, but when he becomes a father one day, he decides he doesn’t want his children to ever smell so much as a drop of alcohol on his breath, and therefore completely stops drinking. Or maybe he doesn’t ever like it, even in college. Or maybe he’s like his mom, and he and Annabeth just have a glass of wine with dinner. Who knows?

Not us. That’s what I’m saying. WE don’t know.

I’m not saying we can’t have headcanons based on what we know about him. I have a million. But the point is, I feel like we can’t try to pretend like we actually know what Percy wouldn’t do. As a fandom, we analyze him and his choices WAY more than he ever thinks about a single choice. He definitely does not think about his life and his actions as much as we do. (I’m not saying that he’s dumb or doesn’t contemplate his life and his actions, but he doesn’t nearly do it to the degree that we do.) Us, we pretend like it’s simple math. (Our first mistake, since math is consistent and full of rules, which is the exact opposite of Percy’s character.) We go “okay luke did this and gabe did this so therefore percy would never do this.” But Percy doesn’t think that way most of the time, especially not in heat of the moment matters. The only thing we 100% know about Percy is that he will always be loyal to his loved ones. But even then, we don’t know what that loyalty will look like. Is it sacrificing himself for someone? Is it murdering the enemy? Is it manipulating someone else? Percy lives in the moment. He doesn’t often think too much before he acts. He just acts. Whether it’s in a life of death situation, or his after school activity for the day. He is unpredictable, like the ocean. It’s one of his defining traits.

Honestly, I think that’s why annabeth is so drawn to him. With everyone else, she can read them super easily and know their next move. But with Percy, she has no idea. Which is frustrating to her, but also exciting. It’s a big part of her initial attraction to him. It’s also why many of us like him so much. We don’t know what’s coming next, and we never know what he will do in a situation. Like, how could we possibly know what he would or wouldn’t do when HE doesn’t even know? Half the time I don’t think Rick himself even knows.

We become so sure that Percy wouldn’t do something because we understand his character so well, right? But I think the truth is, the minute we become certain about what Percy would or wouldn’t do, is the minute we don’t understand his character at all.

Thank you for reading my analysis of Percy on why we can’t reliably analyze Percy

For the Hell of it - 5 - Uncomfortably Honest

Character: Jason Todd x civilian! Fem!oc

Rating and Warnings: PG, discussion of past partner abuse (not Jason).

Word Count: 1,639

Summary: Jason and Andy talk about vigilantes who kill people. Andy wonders why he knows so much about these things. Jason wonders why she

Masterlist

Jason typed on his laptop, one handed, with his lips pursed and an irritated spike in eyebrows. His other arm hung in a grey sling with the ends of a bright red cast visible at his wrist. 

Andy sat next to him and restrained herself from grinning at his grouchy face. He had been in a rotten mood since he broke his arm a few weeks ago. ‘Fell off his bike’, he said. He couldn’t do his normal night shifts and was stuck doing admin in the meantime. She’d even gotten texts from him in the mornings. Things were getting dire. 

She’d demanded he join her in the library. If he was just going to be at home sulking over a laptop he may as well come sulk over a laptop with her.  

Outside it was raining, but there were no external windows in the study room, or any windows at all. The only lighting was yellow tinged from old fluorescent tubes. The old oil radiator ticked in the corner. She’d covered the large table they shared with reference books and loose notes, while Jason had only a slim laptop he hunched over. 

He took a disinterested bite from a stale croissant. He sighed and looked at her. 

“What are you working on? That essay on Dumas?”

She shook her head and finished scrawling out a sentence. “History paper today. I’m translating primary sources on the Reign of Terror.”

“Yeah?” He pushed his laptop away, happy to be distracted, and leaned his elbow on the table to face her. “How’s that?” 

“Linguistically fascinating. Thematically… really fucking grim.” She made a face. It was easy to forget the content sometimes as she focused on syntax and word choice. “I don’t mind three or four public executions, or even five or six, but I’m starting to think this is getting out of hand.” 

He snorted. “Not on board with the death sentence?”

“There isn’t a government on this planet I trust with the right to execute its own citizens. Or any other planet for that matter.” 

“Hm. What about the capes?”

She stared at him. “I don’t think they should be executed either? Jason, do you think-?”

“What? No!” He huffed a laugh. “I’m asking if you think vigilantes should kill people. They say that Batwoman with the red hair does sometimes.”

“Not my business.”

“Oh, come on!”

She shrugged. “What?”

He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “You live in the most cape infested city in the world, and the most crime ridden, in a suburb literally named ‘Crime Alley’, and you don’t have an opinion?”

“Do you?”

“I asked first.”

She sighed and leaned back. “You can be really intense sometimes, you know that?” It was like getting hit with a floodlight in the dark when he turned it on. It made her feel naked. 

His brow lowered. “Do you really not care?” 

She opened then shut her mouth. She hated the idea that he might think that about her. 

“What do you want me to say here?” she asked. “That I think criminals should be gunned down in the streets? Of course not. If you ask half the pricks in the Diamond District they’d probably tell you living in Crime Alley is evidence of being a criminal.”

“Probably.” 

“But what do the other vigilantes do? Leave you for the cops? How many people did the GCPD kill last year?”

“A few hundred,” he said. His expression was just as serious, but less troubled. She still felt like she was under a swinging interrogator’s lamp, and her indignation rose.

“And if you’re lucky enough to not get murdered by the fucking cops then welcome to the prison industrial complex, doing its best Hotel California impression. I hope you weren’t planning to do anything more than underpaid menial labour for the rest of your life, because you are never getting a better job than that. Congratulations. You have received Gotham’s mercy.”

“What else should they do then?” 

She heaved a sigh, letting old grief and anger fall away. It was hardly Jason’s fault. 

“I don’t know.” The Red Hood had saved her life once, and that guy had sure as hell killed people before. She didn’t know if he still did. The police hated him. That wasn’t the heart of the matter for her. “I never said I have all the answers. I’m not running around in a funny hat trying to save the world, I don’t have to have the answers. 

“Funny hat,” Jason muttered, with a quirk of his lips. He leaned back in his chair and studied her. “You feel pretty strongly about this.”

She threw her hands up. “First I don’t care enough, now I care too much? What do you want from me? And don’t think I didn’t notice you demanding my take while refusing to share yours.”

“I think Gotham’s vigilantes are too disconnected from the people they claim to protect. Association with the police has alienated them from some of the city’s vulnerable. I think the vigilantes forget that they’re criminals too.” 

It was her turn to stare. That wasn’t a stray opinion formed from half remembered headlines, that was a belief with conviction. Not that she was surprised he had a concrete position, she knew he was smart and thoughtful. For someone who, until now, had never expressed even a passing interest in Gotham’s crime problem, it was… not what she’d expected at all. 

“Yeah… I guess so,” she said, uncertain.

He ducked his head. He tapped a stray key on his keyboard.

She got the strangest impression she’d just seen something of his heart, displayed without pretence. She wondered what burned such an opinion into him. She thought about her own unplanned rant. 

He faced his laptop, idly scrolling through a text file. She stuffed a bite of her croissant into her mouth while deciding if she wanted to share something of her own heart. If she could bear it. Jason could mock and scoff with the best of them, but he wasn’t cruel, and there were things he didn’t make fun of. 

She screwed her courage to the sticking place and took a deep breath.

“I have a friend,” she said, into the silence that had enveloped them.

He looked at her questioningly. 

“Let’s call her… Stacy. She was abused by her partner. Not violently, but… it was still bad.” Her voice didn’t shake, and she was proud of that. “He controlled her money and made sure she had no one to turn to except him. She escaped, eventually, but not without getting an assault charge and six months behind bars for throwing a lamp at him while trying to get out. In the eyes of the law, he’s squeaky clean.” She bit the inside of her cheek. Her eyes felt damp, the traitors. 

“If someone in a cape and a mask had smashed through the window that night and killed Kieran for what he did to- to Stacy-” Her voice failed. She looked away to try and regather herself. 

Jason took her hand. She clutched on tight. 

“It probably wouldn’t have been right. But it would have made me feel safer.” 

“What’s so wrong with that?” he asked gently. 

She laughed and it was bitter and more pathetic than she liked. “Because he’d say the same thing. Why won’t anyone think of poor little Kieran’s safety?”

“Because he’s a liar.” 

“I know.” 

“Stacy deserved better,” Jason said, his voice unshakeable. 

She risked looking at him. He met her eyes and there wasn’t a hint of pity or disgust or discomfort in his face. He was calm. She saw understanding shining so staunchly in his eyes it was confronting. Her gaze dropped.

“I know,” she whispered. If she said it enough, one day she might even believe it. She took her hand back and sniffed. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.” She laughed weakly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all that on you this fine Tuesday morning.”

“I’m a big boy, I can take it. Thanks for telling me.” 

“I’m gonna get a refill,” she said, pointing at her empty water bottle and getting up. “Do you need-?”

He waved her off. 

She left the study room. She took a deep breath after the door closed behind her and headed to the bathrooms to wash her face and try to calm down. She was patting her face dry with a paper towel before she noticed she hadn’t even brought her water bottle. She laughed at herself, and knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jason wouldn’t call her out on it. She stared down her reflection, with her splotchy cheeks and red eyes. Kieran would have called her pathetic and melodramatic and attention seeking. He’d have told her she was misremembering. 

She smiled at herself and walked out with her head held high. 

She siddled back into the study room without a word. Jason was tapping away at his laptop and didn’t make any kind of fuss over her looking like a mess. She picked up her notes and tried to find her place. 

“What’d you say his name was?” Jason asked about ten minutes later, not looking up. “Kieran…?”

“Mcleod,” she replied without thinking. She paused. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Just wondered if I knew him.”

“Doubt it. He’s in Newark. Runs some stupid tech startup.” 

Jason grunted in reply. “You gonna eat the rest of that croissant?”

“All yours.” 

They fell back into the quiet and easy camaraderie they usually shared. Most of her drive to get work done had melted, so she just made notes to flesh out later on.

Jason, however, was deeply focused on his work for the rest of the afternoon. The staccato of one handed typing played a steady beat like a war drum.

Next>>

For the ship ask - Dan/Blair and prompt 22!

Dair + 22 …in a rush of adrenaline.

a lil remix of 4x15

“Oh, I don’t – I don’t really think it’s a game –”

Blair looks at Humphrey sharply. Because she knows that, but some things she has to keep saying. Because if she keeps saying them, then they’re still plausible, and she can still be waiting for someone else and not be free to…

No. No, she’s not going there. 

“Waldorf –” he tries to start again. 

She shushes him, holding up a hand, wondering if she just heard—

“Someone’s coming,” she whispers. “Come on.”  

She sets her hands on Humphrey’s shoulders and pushes him towards one set of curtains along the wall.

“Hurry up,” she hisses, rapping her knuckles on his back when she realizes one of the approaching voices is Chuck. 

Dan makes a long suffering face, but does as directed, and they manage to hide just in time. 

Well, hide barely. The alcove they’ve shut themselves into is barely big enough to hold the two of them. Blair tries to step back to create some space between her and Humphrey—because he is right there—but her bare back hits cold stone after two inches. 

She glances up at Dan, and sees he has no luck on his side either. 

Damn it. But it’s quieter now. Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe Blair could be in the clear after all. 

“Five minutes, Raina.”

Blair freezes. Or maybe not. 

“I’m only here because I refuse to make this anyone else’s business.” 

Too late for that, Raina Thorpe. 

Dan takes a breath, opening his mouth like he’s about to say the same thing, and in a panic, Blair shoves her hand over the lower half of his face. Did he ever know when to shut up?

The movement causes the curtain to slip slightly, a gray sliver of light cutting into their hiding spot, illuminating Dan’s scowl at her necessary evasive maneuver. 

She narrows her eyes in challenge, calling his bluff, because second to her, he is probably the last person who wants to be caught eavesdropping on this conversation. 

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to. You went…” 

It suddenly occurs to Blair that she doesn’t want to eavesdrop at all. She closes her eyes, like it’s some solution for closing off her other senses. 

It helps, in an odd sort of way. Raina and Chuck’s voices dissolve into the background, beneath the roaring in her ears, adrenaline making her heart pump faster and louder. 

Her hand is still over Humphrey’s mouth—a preventative measure—and she can feel his pulse too, its furious pace on par with her own. 

His lips part under her palm, and her eyes fly open. They really are in very close quarters. 

That same sliver of light cuts across his face, reminding Blair of the reading she did on Michelangelo for Art History last week. Light and dark, in abrupt juxtaposition. But on Dan’s face there’s still color to be found. Like his eyes—the darkest part of his face—still have a softened, amber warmth to them. 

Her hand slips, showing the curve of his lips, warmer and pinker than stone, more complex than the black and white of marble. 

She’s kissing him before she realizes that’s what she’s doing. One second, her fingertips are on his lower lip. The next, it’s her tongue. And Dan kisses her back before she realizes it’s what she wants him to do, his mouth opening up under hers. Completely quiet but for the pounding in Blair’s chest. 

Dan presses her back against the wall, and the shock of the cold stone on her skin makes her break away. 

Dan gapes at her, chest heaving, mouth hanging open, frozen like he’s scared she’ll run away. 

He knows her well then, because she really wants to, even if it means barging in on Raina kicking Chuck’s heart into a ditch. But even more surprising, Blair finds she doesn’t want to run at all. 

Pulse still racing, she forces herself to take a breath, sets her hands on Dan’s chest, over his own thundering heart, and leans in.

Kiss prompts!

Would they play D&D?

Most people would be surprised to find out that Captain Price is a forever DM if they didn’t know him. But he’s been playing since 3.5E, and while he doesn’t have much opportunity to play anymore, it wouldn’t be hard to convince him to sit down for a session if he had the time. He’d usually choose to play pre-written modules, but tweak them as he’d see fit. He misses it a lot. However, he will never—repeat for emphasis, NEVER—DM a game for the 141 ever again.

Laswell played with Price a couple times before the job took over both their lives. And actually, Laswell and her wife both played, mostly because the Mrs. batted her eyelashes and convinced Kate to try it out. Their minis, a half-elf ranger and a gnome druid, still sit on a shelf at home cuddling romantically. Laswell knows why Price won’t DM for the 141 from his own firsthand account, but was not there for the catastrophe.

The first time Alejandro played, it was because Rudy made a bet with him about something unrelated and won. Rudy used to play as a kid with some other children from his neighborhood, and he liked DMing partly for the power and partly because he’s always been a cinnamon roll who likes to make sure everyone has fun. Alejo meanwhile played a human fighter, because Rudy told him it was the easiest to play. Alejo fell in love instantly with the game, but none of Los Vaqueros ever have time.

Graves played a TON of D&D in high school but quit cold turkey right before enlisting. He is horribly embarrassed by it and will deny even knowing his old campaign buddies. Phil thinks that Real and True and Good soldiers don’t do cringe shit like that, because they’re doing the COOL shit in real life. He’s been meaning to throw away those dice for years, and keeps telling himself he could probably make ok money if he just sold them instead. He played a human paladin all the way up to level 20.

He likes D&D a lot, but Gaz actually prefers Blades in the Dark or Monster of the Week. He has a lot of opinions about the virtues of d6 gaming systems over what he thinks is an overly-complex ruleset that involves dice with so many goddamn sides, and really, D&D doesn’t support as large a variety of playing styles and—hey, where are you going?? Anyway, he likes to play tieflings, and vacillates between bard and sorcerer. (Also he secretly and desperately wants to play Honey Heist with the 141. Ever since That Fateful Night, he knows it will never happen. It continues to disappoint him.)

Ghost has played once. Only once. Soap convinced him, and by convinced I mean he annoyed Ghost about it into submission. And Ghost wants to play again, actually, but he will literally jump off a cliff before admitting it, because it was That Fateful Night when Price ran the session for 141 which would go down in history as the worst time Price has ever had including active combat. Ghost played a half-orc barbarian, and secretly read through the entire PHB the week leading up to the session.

And finally, and perhaps not surprisingly, Soap is the reason Price will never DM for the task force ever again. Soap is a rule of cool kind of man, plays dwarf and halfling barbarians almost exclusively, and is practically allergic to the PHB, which is ironic because he’s so FUCKING good at minmaxing. This clashes with Price’s very rules-lawyery DMing style, and Soap doesn’t know how to not pick a fight over dumb rules like having to roll survival checks when he wants to know what time it is in-game.

Soap was not, it should be said, actually trying to come to blows with Price—taking the piss out of people is a Scottish love language—but Price had been tired. Price had been on his last cigar. And Price already spent too much goddamn time with these men. The fourth time Soap declared that he wanted to do some especially dumb bullshit that he would absolutely need to make a cascade of d20 rolls for, Price just folded up his makeshift DM screen (a couple of manila folders) and hit the fucking bricks. No one brings up That Fateful Night, but no one will ever forget it.

Bonus: Valeria would shove any D&D player she ever met into a locker. And honestly, they should thank her for it.

a collection of funny things that should have been in Supernatural because i said so;

At least three episodes of all the hunters that have the whole system with Sam at the bunker but it’s like a police show comedy [i’ve only seen like three total episodes of Brooklyn 99 and four seasons of Psych but i think it’d be great]

Dean gets to follow his dream (like what Michael trapped him in) and take after Ellen and the roadhouse, whether it be by using that giant ass bunker as a bar or he just buys one, or even builds one [with magic or his hands]

Hunter doctors- like official, legal doctors. basically so that way if anything possibly supernatural is going on- you can see a doctor who knows about that type of stuff and can hopefully help it [like a witches curse, or how Bobby Dean and Sam had the carvings on their ribs] and they don’t make you pay if your a hunter for obvious hunters-don’t-get-payed-reasons

and obviously garth and some other people starts a whole monster healing underground medical aid/er (also probably at the bunker or smth)

a section of the bunker turns into this child-teen room where anybody under like 20 goes and can stay permanently. so like if a parent was killed on a hunt, they show up and are taken care of, they can learn more stuff, practice, and maybe have a shot at a semi-normal, at least no hunting, life [Jody and Donna help out there a lot]

there’s also adult rooms, obviously, same gig

game night at the Dean-Cave, lots of tournaments and anger

movie nights [for any hunter that wants to come] with a huge projector screen that they bring out to the main area with the stairs and whatnot, they’ll move tables, build a whole ass fort and watch shit

jack defeats god but instead of him disappearing it’s a complex jack-sorta-splits-in-two thing where his current conscious still runs things as ‘god’ but the ‘other half’ is essentially him but physically and mentally a four year old (like completely- not what Jack had before as a mix of 4 years old and 20 years old, just pure 4 year old) and it’s pure chaos

dean tries to redo everything with Jack (because he was a dick majority of the time) and obviously Cas and Sam were alrwady Dad Material TM

Dean, Sam, Castiel, Jody, Donna, Eileen, Charlie [both worlds because she didn’t die in my mind] Kevin [also not dead] and some others will hold classes for different things

Dean: Cooking (and lots of fighting) Occasionally does cool ‘home-made’ things, like his EMF that was made out of a Walkman, stuff like that. Teaches Latin and the different warding stuff

Sam: Healthy balance in life- both mentally and food wise. Also teaches lore and how to defend yourself, but mainly tries to get people to know how to lead a normal life, to enjoy things. Also teachers Latin [and backwards exorcisms if you need the demon]

Castiel: Lots of fighting techniques, but he also does a lot of history [not hunter-history, just like. normal history, but parts that have never been recorded since he’s seen a looooot] Teaches about free will and choosing your own path- not one that you were raised into or something of the sort [like hunting] he’s one of those teachers who get way off topic and he starts talking about Dean and everything [the ‘students’ place bets on when he’ll confess]

Jody & Donna + The Kids: [Jody & Donna] Teach how to stay out of trouble, fighting methods, but mainly how to lead a good, death-less life and be happy. they also teach you about police-loopholes and such so if they do stick with hunting they don’t get thrown in jail and such. Teaches healing and first aid. [The Kids] teach, again, fighting techniques, tracking stuff, running away from stuff, lots of medical stuff, Patience and Kaia teach others how to control their ability’s [with Gabriel]

Eileen: Teaches ASL and teaches how to use your other senses if you couldn’t use one [or technically how to sorta focus and zone in on the other senses] Also lots of lore and fighting techniques.

Charlie: Teacher how to hack into ‘un-hackable’ things, create fake credit or debit cards, fake IDs, etc. She holds role play and games like DnD all the time

Kevin: Teaches confidence and such, how to not let people take advantage of you [cough cough Dean was not so nice to him whilst translating] How to stand up for yourself and not be a doormat. Also teaches school stuff if anybody was interested

Rowena: Witchcraft, obviously. She does a lot of the warding stuff than the others because she knows a lot more about everything. Occasionally teaches how to seduce your way into information (or magic

Gabriel: How to trick people and such into getting them to do what you want them to. Probably some tips on going underground/undercover. If a kid has powers he helps them entirely

The Turkey Hat

“It’s 20°C on the Island today, what is wrong with you?” Scott frowns at me from the kitchen table, and I flash him a wide smile as I slide in beside Alan, who’s deep in a game on his tablet. I lean over to check his score, otherwise ignoring Scott to really let my morning attire sink in. “Nevermind, don’t answer that,” he rolls his eyes.

Our older brother never seems to realize that his reactions are a prime example of why I do what I do. I wouldn’t be Gordon Tracy if I didn’t keep people on their toes. My brothers should know by now to expect the unexpected. He’s stopped eating his toast in favor of staring at the eyes sewed onto my hat, intentionally misaligned because truthfully, have you seen a turkey? Outside the dinner spread, their eyes are widely spaced and they walk so clumsily, it’s easy to assume turkeys are dumb as a doornail. Especially when they stare for seconds at a time up at the sky in the rain because their eyes can’t focus on the raindrops.

True fact. 

“What’s wrong with you?” I shoot back at him. “You’re eating breakfast on Thanksgiving.” The large turkey has already made its way into our oven, sending the aroma of the roast past the pool and into the Island proper. 

“You really shouldn’t skip meals, Gordon.” He pointedly takes a large bite of his toast and jam. 

I shrug. “It makes the feast taste better.” He’ll feel silly when he’s full later and I’m the one still working on dessert. 

A flow of chimes from Alan’s tablet signals that he’s made it on to the next dungeon, and in the brief moment between levels, he glances up to see what the discussion is all about. “Yeah, I am with Scott.  You look ridiculous.”

“So,” a warm laugh comes from the doorway. “How’s that different from any other day?” 

Virgil grins tiredly at me and detours on his way to the coffee maker to ruffle my hair. As the top of my head is currently blocked by the stitches on my hat, he instead wiggles the spirals at the top of my head that are supposed to represent turkey feathers. I try to duck out of it since I just spent a stupid amount of time last night sewing them in. Virgil should know better. So rude. 

“Yeah, ridiculous is not the problem. I want to know why you thought it would be a good idea to wear a beanie when it’s almost summer. In the tropics. Are those earflaps, what do you even need earflaps for?”

“Aesthetic, obviously. Virgil knows.” 

Behind the counter, preparing his coffee, Virgil says, “Uh-uh, leave me out of it.”

What a traitor. He walks around in flannel all day, and he doesn’t get the amount of flak I’m getting. Plus, all of this is his fault anyway for teaching me yarn crafts in the first place. 

It was a ‘why not’ hat, but I also wouldn’t have slaved over it if I wasn’t excited for the holiday, for John coming home in a few hours and for alerts to be turned towards the GDF, for the array of foods to be displayed across our table. It’s still an important holiday for us, half a world away from where it’s celebrated, and in the wrong season, under a different sky. 

Thanksgiving is a complex holiday with a dark history. I grew up knowing it, mostly because growing up with Johnny as your sibling means not getting a choice in the matter. He valued transparency in that sort of thing, so even before I was old enough to probably “get” it he’d shared what the colonists actually brought with them to the New World and how they treated the Native Americans already with their homes built upon the soil. 

But I like Thanksgiving. I always have, because it was always more for me than its roots. The history that matters is the one that we built together - us and our family. And so Thanksgiving is cranberry sauce, and Grandpa carving the turkey with the electric knife. The smell of pies baking in the oven, and us kids fighting over the wishbone at the end of the night. Heated discussions over the value of inners versus outers, flaky biscuits or regular, dark meat or light, apple pie or pumpkin. 

And every year we’d go around the table before our meal to say something we were thankful for, a tradition that continues to this day. 

For me, the true test of a tradition is whether it’s broken by the winds of change and whether it can shift with them. The first year after Grandpa died, I remember Dad trembling as he carved the turkey, but he still picked up the knife. And the year after we lost Mom, Virgil and John teamed up to make all the pies as she would, reading from her recipe book. After my accident, Scott and I split the wishbone, and when he won the larger piece, he leaned across the table towards my hoverchair to brush the hair off of my forehead and told me not to worry, that his wish was the same as mine. 

And I still know John’s arguments towards outers, the dressing that’s made from the same ingredients as stuffing but is cooked in a casserole dish, as well as Virgil's arguments in favor of the inners, the stuffing cooked inside the bird itself. Scott favors white meat, Alan dark, and everyone’s wrong about pies because the best Thanksgiving dessert is actually pumpkin rolls. 

Those moments matter. 

To me. To us. 

Virgil drowsily sits beside me while drowning himself in his cup, and Alan’s already moved on to level 10, and Scott has scooched away from the table to check on the turkey he had to put on early in order for it to be ready by dinner, and John has checked in, barely batting an eyelash at the turkey on my head. 

“For the record, it’s 20 degrees in the states too,” I retort while the activity continues around me. 

 “Yeah. Fahrenheit, you monster.” Scott throws a kitchen towel at me. “It makes sense there.” 

I catch the towel and crumple it to throw it right back. “Well if you want me to make sense,” I say, enunciating every word. “I can’t just quit cold-turkey.” 

The chorus of groans is music to my ears. 

“Out, get out of my kitchen.” 

*****   (The US’ Thanksgiving Day is the 4th Thursday in November, this year it’s on the 24th, and I am sure a good number of us are already trying to calculate/solidify where we are going, who’s going to be there, how large a turkey we need, when it needs to defrost, how many hours it needs to cook, what other items need to be made for the more picky eaters in the fam, what sides to make... it goes on. :D. Happy Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving/Dinner/ to my US friends who celebrate, and to everyone else, know that I am thankful for you)

Can I just say I love Tulia ✨✨ She is so badass and sweet and finally Jean gets someone! How would you describe her personality tho? Like it changed slightly in each book?

Also what is your fav Aot and jjjk book you wrote? They are all so unique and different, like I’ve never seen stories like those before since most stories follow similar themes and plot

Awww yay I’m glad you like her!!! I do change which aspects of her personality I focus on depending on the storyline of the book but overall (with the exception of pomegranate ink because everyone’s just goofy in that and the first half of endure because she was still a kid) she’s a pretty mature and self-assured person who’s very kind and wise. She does have a shorter temper though and her judgement can be clouded when she gets angry, and she can be reserved with people she doesn’t know. She is a pretty good judge of character though! And yes her and jean are so cute together I love them.

Hmmm I think for aot it would be a tie between ship in the harbor and endure. Endure is like a comfort because it’s (so far) the longest story I’ve ever written and the one most people have read and I feel like I learned a lot from it. However ship in the harbor is definitely my most creative and has the most complex characters (especially Y/N in that story she’s probably one of the most interesting characters I’ve written) and it really makes me go out of my comfort zone. It’s also going to end up as my longest story once I finish it so that’s cool. Honorable mention goes to the 13T series even though I don’t like the writing style anymore just because I like the mythology I came up with for it.

For jjk I feel like all of my fics are very different and I like them in different ways. Pomegranate Ink is very lighthearted and fun (although there is angst planned for later on dw!) so it’s good to just feel good. I think icoamd has the best worldbuilding for sure and it has the most to be explored — for example, my favorite relationship in that story is between Y/N and a character that hasn’t even been named in the story yet. And then I love h / h because it’s the kind of fic which is almost even better when you know what’s happening due to how many plot twists are in it.

Thank you!! When I’m coming up with plots for my fics I have two methods: if it’s a canon au, I look for ‘holes’ in the story that the author did not necessarily explore to the fullest. I think the best example of that would be promise Y/N being an MP which there are no main characters in aot who are MPs (i guess besides annie and hitch but annie is only there as an MP for a season and hitch isn’t really a main character). If I’m coming up with my own world building, I try to think about what I want to happen in the story and then come up with plausible reasons for it — like in icoamd, I wanted Megumi to be Y/N’s guard but for it to be a very forbidden relationship, which meant she had to be engaged but with no chance of falling in love with her husband, so I made her future husband wayyy older than her. Then the question became why is she marrying someone so much older than her?? Because she’s a royal, marrying for an alliance to stop a war made sense, but then there had to be a reason for the war (which there is, Y/N just doesn’t know it yet). From there it comes down to research and referencing history to try and be somewhat accurate.

Your post about Chuuya falling for Rampo’s bait? I can totally relate. Chuuya is my favorite character, and I have been pretty sad with the way Asagiri keeps portraying Chuuya, there is an inconsistence in how he treats his character that annoys me to no end, Chuuya don’t deserve a half assed baked plot, he is smart, the most powerful character, and Asagiri keeps nerfing him in the most ridiculous ways possible, making him look like he is dumb and that the only times that he can or not shine is when he is with Dazai, and this makes me extremely angry, because Chuuya is one, if not the most, complex character in the series, hell, he has two novels to himself! But just because he is a “villain” and not the protagonist you have to keep ruining his image just because of the plot? Even when there were other ways? If you read the manga, you know that Asagiri again did this kind of think with Chuuya and oh boy, I’m at my limit, if you create a character as powerful as Chuuya, you must know how to deal with him without killing his history, personality and core. Sorry if there are any mistakes, english is not my first language and this topic makes me really frustrated, because I really, really love Chuuya.

****warning vague manga spoilers ahead. I tried to keep it fairly lowkey****

Finally I'm reaching my people. Knew I wasn't the only one who is fed up with this (pardon my language) bullshit (sorry if the swearing makes u uncomfortable I have no filter I try but it helps me get my point across)

You are absolutely right my man. Asagiri pulls that shit where he has Dazai walk all over him in the Lovecraft fight, have them share a touching trust moment, then Dazai ditches him. Then pulls a complete 180 and writes Stormbringer detailing this epic backstory about how powerful he is and all the people he meets and loses and the battles he overcomes and then fucking chapter 101 happens and Chuuya is apparently weak and just a tool in that Dazai bullshit.

I truly don't think Asagiri has a lot of villain/hero stuff because the "villains" are also compelling and loyal and the "heroes" have complicated pasts and aren't complete saints(and for that Asagiri will be a fantastic author) But if that is the case then why is Asagiri always putting Chuuya down. I have no idea what Asagiri is doing with Chuuya. I have in fact read the manga and I hate hate hate hate how it is going. fingers crossed that Asagiri/Dazai have an actual plan to fix that nonsense.

All in all Asagiri wrote a really compelling character with a fanastic backstory, incredible power, and a personality people can relate with(who me?). I have connected with Chuuya a lot(ask me about the ways I relate to him istg. if I tried to list them all right now this would definitely be rambling.) I just wish I could see the character more, especially in a more flattering light, instead of put next to people like Dazai and Fyodor(cough cough literal fucking geniuses cough) so that he looks stupid.

There aren't any mistakes I don't think. You probably speak English better than I can and it is the only language I speak lol. I will rant to you all day long about Chuuya and how my boi deserves better. thank u for the ask, I love an excuse to rant(with that being said sorry for all that ranting. I can be extra my bad.)

Hello hello! I was wondering if I could please request headcanons for Simeon, lil brother Luke, asmo, beel and dia with a reader who can and will infodump about mythology and history at any chance given? Thank you!

(Feel free to decline for any reason, stay safe!)

-🧸 Anon

I focused on Greek mythology since I know a lot about that, hopefully that's okay!

Characters- Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Diavolo, Simeon, Luke

Gn!Reader

Warnings- Swearing, my personal rants about mythology, certain historians, excessive use of petnames

Category- Headcanons, Request answers

Asmodeus

go on, babe, tell him about the French Revolution while he does your nails.

Asmo gets very attached to learning about human-world history. It annoys Lucifer to no end, though, since he starts calling guillotines and anarchy romantic.

He's absolutely fascinated by the idea of multiple gods, and loves learning about the various jobs they have. (He's very upset about Zeus, though. Just Zeus overall.)

Absolutely loves hearing you talk while he focuses on his skincare, his latest cosmetic masterpiece, or even just while you hang out. Getting to learn about your interests is lovely!

makes you talk to him whenever he’s trying to sleep, explaining that he likes your voice and enjoys having you talk, he finds it calming!

Beelzebub

Beel may not have the best attention span when it comes to non-food-related things, but he’s happy to at least hear you talk, even if he zones out!

He starts wanting to make (eat) historical dishes, so they’ll probably become a thing whenever it’s his turn to cook.

as he mentions rather frequently, you being around often helps his hunger, so having you happy to talk about something for long periods of time is definitely helpful.

He’s always happy to listen to you, even if he doesn’t understand everything in the myths. (To be fair, between the differing versions and family tree, they’re fairly complex.)

Diavolo

he’s so confused. Human history is so complicated, thanks to the much shorter lives. Plus they have like a war and a half, and you have how many again?

Of course, he’s also fascinated. all of the intricacies are thrilling to hear about!

He takes notes, because of course he does.

finds as many history and mythology books as he can find and insists you read them to him, happily curling up by your side with his paperwork.

Sooner or later you’re gonna have to sleep, but until then, he’s an absolutely fabulous listener.

Simeon

mhm mhm this all makes a lot of sense! Ignore his fragmented, panicked texts to Solomon asking what the difference between a tyrant and a dictator is, at least he’s trying to learn!

Simeon is a very sits-on-tables kinda guy, which’ll lead to a lot of funny situations, as he’ll fall off of the table, screaming the whole time. He jumps whenever he’s surprised, shocked, or startled.

He’s happy to supply you with Celestial Realm history in return, even though it’s not nearly as interesting.

He’s the best at not zoning out, literally ever. It’s a bit unnerving

Luke

why were there so many murderers? he asks. is it because they got cool names? he continues. Please help him.

he’s confused, mostly by the family trees. (“I don’t think even Asmodeus would come up with that! That’s horrible!”)

look! miniature cakes shaped like historical objects! He made them for the Devildom History teacher, and you of course! There’s even little constellations in the back of some landscapes!

Mentions at one point that Hestia sounds like a lovely person. He’s right, you know.

Just absolutely loves having you talk while he bakes. For newer recipes, stick to simpler tales until he’s reached the decorations.

An actual continuation (finally) of this. Ellie belongs to @nocompromise-noregrets (I love) and any errors of historical authentication belong to me!

Maya makes the same half joke, half serious treatise to her students every year - about the importance of just treatment in history - that you might need to see the past as complex but also recognising that you are allowed to bring your own experiences, your own complexity to the study - it’s just you need to give that complexity to your subjects as well. 

“I won’t say don’t get attached, because well, I’d be telling on myself” 

And it’s true. She has gotten attached - sometimes she thinks it’s not enough of a word to sum up how she feels about the triad - she’d joked in the talk with Lalla about feeling as though she was meant to find the coffer but sometimes it feels like she was, in the years since - and she’s lived them, the three of them. Their letters, drawings and small keepsakes - things actually held by them. They are in her heart, in ways Maya cannot describe. 

So yes, she’s attached. 

She takes a deep breath, walking out of the car outside of Welles Hall, goes through meeting Ellie (who she likes very much - talking archival stories is easy - after all that had been Maya’s other job, way back when) and then to the box and the documents. She’s talking out loud through it, because that’s how she tends to work. 

“The handwriting absolutely matches that of John Norwich - more than that it has his specific seal. As well, he liked to write in a mix of languages to demonstrate his learning - especially Greek and Latin - you probably know all this, working here but he had a very specific obsession with Ancient Greece and Rome and…” 

Maya reads. And she stops. Wonders if you can dig up a man who has been dead for 400 odd years and kill him again. Somehow, somehow she finds the historian in herself and pulls it up. 

“It fits. I’d hedge around and say I’d need to take a few weeks but, honestly - this is real and it makes so many things make sense - I can talk you through my thoughts, email you a summary before I make the formal report - I know my Norwich expert friend is going to want to have some input and study this or I can do both but I can tell you - this is genuine.”

She takes another breath. 

“I know Mandy will know an expert on historical safety, but if she’s not back I can recommend someone as well. But it fits - the five years we don’t know about in Thomas Cromwell’s childhood, the hints in letters - the way Mary Tudor asked for him after Thomas Seymour tried to abduct her and then afterwards said he had ‘understood, as few could’ let alone the way King Henry…god, he suppressed all mentions of John Norwich, banned his coat of arms and we’ve never been sure why, when the others condemned for treason were not given such severe treatment.”

“Wasn’t there something else? Something about court, about Norwich…” Maya attempts to make her brain work. 

“That’s in the papers” Ellie said, “He says quote “I plan to reclaim my property and further, to enrich myself in the eyes of the King and his grace, my patron” and apparently he did confront Cromwell - he goes on about it, in nauseating fashion.”

“Thomas was sent away from court just before Norwich was arrested after he was apparently very ill…which, it looks like trauma. It looks very much like trauma. We’ve never been able to fill in the gaps of that time, of why Henry and Anne became even more protective of him afterwards but now, now we know.” 

Maya takes a breath. It’s going to be awful but she’s determined.  

“I’d like to come to the meeting about how to deal with this, if your bosses wouldn’t mind. I can speak to the authentication if nothing else. And I’ll sit with this and make up my notes if you want to get back to work?” 

Okayy so i have finished Neon Genesis Evangelion (thank you @fullmetalswift for sending me to this trip)! I watched the anime series and The End of Evangelion and i have a Lot of somewhat conflicting thoughts. I haven’t really watched any anime other than Ghibli movies and Akira so that probably affected my experience. Under the read more because long and incoherent:

- Overall i think despite its flaws this was a phenomenal series that 100% deserves its place in popular culture and anime history and it’s not overrated at all. Conceptually it’s one of the most interesting pieces of media i’ve ever seen and when its writing is good it’s very good

- That said i definitely had some issues with it and they grew bigger towards the end

- First of all some ~problematic (i hate that word) qualities that hurt my enjoyment. I already mentioned this several times but the constant objectification and hypersexualization of all female characters, even child characters, was really offputting. This is particularly prominent with Asuka and Misato which is such a weird thing because i thought they were also the best written characters in the series! I read that the creators meant to criticize otaku and how female characters are portrayed in manga/anime and i can see that sometimes, like that scene where Shinji falls on naked Rei and where some other show would play it as sexual tension but it’s played as deeply uncomfortable and unsexy here. I feel female characters are overall written sympathetically and as complex people but somehow still objectified, like the creators wanted to have their cake and it too

- Related thing was the heavy focus on sex/sexuality that left me with conflicted feelings. I’ve rarely seen teenage sexuality depicted in such an open and semi-realistic way. On the one hand i thought it was really interesting and i definitely don’t have any problem with exploring it, on the one hand i felt it sometimes veered into gross fetishization. I feel like i don’t know enough about japanese culture to evaluate how the creators approached this aspect in the story. Like 95% of all media i consume is american and americans have very puritanical relationship to sex and nudity and they tend to view all nudity as sexual and all depiction of underage sex and nudity as inappropriate (unless it’s 30 y old CW actors playing highschooler lol), whereas here in Finland we have pretty neutral and blunt relationship to them. Nudity is often seen as neutral and nonsexual unless the naked person is specifically doing something sexual and for example it’s common to see uncensored pictures of naked kids because children’s bodies are seen as inherently nonsexual (as it should). So basically i feel many scenes would be seen as normal from finnish perspective but as sexualization from american perspective, and i don’t know what japanese perspective is like to make judgments of how the writers/animators meant them to be seen.

- I am however totally making judgments on Misato kissing Shinji. Utterly terrible writing choice on so many levels that singlehandedly ruined her character for me right after i had started liking her. That scene made me so angry i was happy when she died right after and almost made me to stop watching the movie (which i’m happy i didn’t because the second half of End of Evangelion was easily my favorite part of the whole series!). No idea what they were thinking but it comes across as grown male writers projecting their fantasies. Then there’s the apparently infamous opening scene where Shinji masturbates to unconscious Asuka. Again, i don’t have a problem with depicting messy sexuality but i felt it came across a bit as writers trying to be edgy and reducing Asuka as a character to object, and it all left bad taste in my mouth in the beginning of the movie

- The other major thing i had a problem with was pacing. Towards the end of the series everything happened really quickly with no space for breathing or development, the opposite of the first episodes where i enjoyed Ghibli-like vibes of characters and their surroundings just existing. It was a bigger problem to me than the finale being confusing (more on that later). Good example is the Kaworu episode where we meet him, Shinji develops a crush on him, finds out he’s an angel and kills him in what feels like few minutes. Conceptually, all this is incredibly cool and interesting (it’s telling that Kaworu is seemingly one of the most popular characters despite his appearance being so short) but it happens so extremely fast it doesn’t really resonate emotionally. Just one episode more with this storyline would’ve changed a lot. I assume these pacing issues were mostly because they literally ran out of budget lol

- Now on to the things i liked (all this complaining when i loved 90% of the show lol)!

- I love love Shinji for the similar reasons many viewers seem to find him annoying. I thought he was incredibly realistic and sympathetic character and really acted like actual teens in his circumstances would. Very refreshing to see characters actually having realistic reactions to constant trauma and abuse. I don’t know was Shinji written as bi from the beginning but whether intentional or not i feel his character reflects well common experiences of self-loathing and isolation in lgbt youth as well. I absolutely adored Asuka who is only slightly exaggerated version of a brash but secretly insecure and depressed perfectionist girl. Whoever wrote these characters remembered what it felt like to be a teen with too much pressure on you. Almost every other character was well-written too and i realize how they are so iconic from machiavellian Gendo with his shades to otherwordly Rei. I liked Rei much more towards the end when she became more “inhuman”

- I can’t say enough how much i loved the second half of The End of Evangelion. After almost disliking the first half it brought everything together to me and left me stunned. I can see why this is one of the best rated movies on letteboxd. The ending, the whole human instrumentality sequence, was so beautiful and powerful and disturbing and had probably the coolest animation i’ve ever seen. It’s enough to bring it to among my favorite movies and i get chills just thinking about it

- I’ve understood NGE has essentially two endings; the original series which was heavily influenced by budget and production issues, and the later movie which is more in line with original plans, and both are controversial and it’s debated is End of Evangelion meant to replace the series ending. Despite that i thought the endings essentially complimented each others, with the series ending dealing with more psychological aspects and the movie ending plot aspects. They fit together well - until the very end. I found it interesting the last scenes are tonally completely different. The series ending is quite optimistic, with Shinji accepting his place in the world and wanting to connect with others, who all congratulate him. Meanwhile the movie ending is quite dark and has a bitter undertone. You could interpret the ending meaning nothing has changed, characters haven’t changed at all and everything has been meaningless and there’s no hope for anyone. The series is about growth; the movie is about rejecting growth. Really curious what is the reason for this stark difference. I’m uncertain which ending i prefer. I like the more positive tone of the series ending but the bittersweet movie ending is beautiful in its way. I think it’s a brave narrative choice. I think almost any other show if they had a similar storyline about all the humanity merging together and reaching the painless state, they would have framed the main character rejecting it more triumphantly and showed them afterwards making steps towards healing, experiencing positive emotions too and being able to connect even without instrumentality. Instead, in End of Evangelion there’s an implication that Shinji and other characters still suffer, that they suffer much more than they experience joy, and perhaps they will never be able to connect with each other. And still - it was worth it. Life in suffering is still better than endless peace without individuality. Maybe.

- I wasn’t lied to when i was told NGE is extremely dense and complicated in it’s symbolism and themes, i don’t even know where to start. Biggest things that were really prominent to me 1) religious symbolism, especially mystical traditions 2) trauma, especially parental trauma. 3) oedipal themes, somewhat related to previous and 4) human connection and the lack of it. The whole series hinges on how our parents mess us up, from Asuka’s mother and Misato’s father to Gendo obviously. Shinji being in danger of becoming like his father but eventually (mostly) overcoming it is the core of his character arc. Parental relationships are twisted and intense and uncomfortable. Gendo views Rei as both his wife and daughter, Shinji feel attracted to Rei despite or because of her resembling his mom, Misato feels attracted to men who resemble her father, Shinji even accuses Kaworu of betraying him like his father and so on. Everything is tied together by deep all-consuming loneliness and isolation that seems to permeate the whole universe. Shinji eventually accepts he wants to change and connect with others, but at least in the movie seems ultimately be unable to do so. I read that the director had depression and it shows, that bitter hollowness is all over the story. On the other hand, despite how depression makes you feel that everything is hopeless and nothing will ever change, admitting to yourself you want to change is already a big step and it makes me feel that if you watch the story outside of Shinji’s headspace it’s much more hopeful. I believe he and every other character just like real people can change. So i choose to view the ending in optimistic way

- I had further thoughts but i forgot what they were everything blurs together and i can’t form a coherent though lmao

I am so depressed. I feel like I’m not supposed to be.

I have my own place in which I live with my boyfriend, I have a full time job, I have a car, I’m not broke (as of right now), …

My place is expensive. It’s my first apartment. It’s in a good area, only about six minutes from work if there’s no traffic and I’m driving the speed limit. $985 + utilities for 2bd 2b. Decent size. I need the room because I like things. We also have two cats who need space to have fun. I would move somewhere cheaper but you have to have at least three years renter history for most houses, this is the perfect area to be (I know it very well), I don’t want to move to a “worse” complex.

I’m starting to really hate my job. Minimum wage is $11 and I make $14.something. Great. Not really. Still a joke. But I get insurance for like $60 a check. That’s the only thing I’m worried about. I would leave my job in a heartbeat if I was guaranteed that plus more than what I make. I’m too worried about quitting because what if I hate a new job even more?

I feel like my boyfriend and I’s relationship is not as great as it was before we moved in together. He fell asleep awhile ago and I just wanted him to watch me open a package. He fell asleep as I was showing him stuff. I’m constantly rushed to do things. I wanted to get a tattoo today at I place I’ve never been to (absolute flop, not my type of place, and wait time would’ve been long for even a half dollar sized tattoo) and he said he didn’t want to be out that long. …I’ve never been there and I don’t know how it works? How am I supposed to know? He doesn’t have tattoos. He got his wish and I went straight home after I spoke to the people.

My car is going to die soon. It sucks. I was supposed to have Bluetooth but it has not worked for as long as I had it (four years?). The back window has wooden stakes in it so it won’t fall down. To turn the heat on the passenger side, you have to turn the air on and let the actuator click. The car was free and my dad is paying insurance on it right now. I feel like I can’t complain. Now more recently, it has been making the worst noise when accelerating.

Federal taxes came and I currently have like 300/900 that I got. I never knew what being broke felt like until I had my overdraft protection on, having zero to -50 in my account. My credit card is/was maxed out to $500. I paid off $170 recently and I don’t plan on using it again any time soon.

Therapy is not working for me. I feel like I need to be on medication. Therapist asked if I got tested for ADHD. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was autistic, had trash mood swings, etc. Probably have anxiety. Probably depressed. I feel like I’m not deserving of anything because I don’t have any real reason to be. I am so miserable. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t think it’s working. I’ve only been to three to four sessions.

I don’t have friends. Like. At all. I miss my old best friend. Someone who I was friends with went through something and basically chose online friends/closer friends over the rest (me) and I feel like I’m shut out of their life now. It’s so hard to fit in and make friends. I hate going home sad and lonely and doing the same thing every day.

I hate everything. I hate when people say “it’s going to get better”. …tell me where? I am miserable. You don’t know me. I feel inadequate. I don’t know what I’ll gain from writing this. Better than my Twitter/X diary. I’ll probably post all of that stuff here, too.

I’m into the radio episodes that were recorded in early 2016, which is also when John Robins recorded the version of his 2015 show Speakeasy that’s on Bandcamp, and he keeps talking about that tour and how it’s going, which made me want to listen to it again. So I did, and I’d forgotten just how good it was. I mean, I remembered listening to his Bandcamp shows a year ago and thinking This Tornado Loves You was my subjective favourite, but Speakeasy was probably objectively the best one. But it took this re-listen for me to remember why.

This definitely feels more polished than his two previous shows, like he’s figured out how to do some things he’d been trying to do. Those things, I think, being to make the callbacks more casual and consistently spread throughout the show so they feel like they’re the point. Also, the theme felt really coherent in this one, while in the previous one, I can see what he’s trying to explain if I pay attention, but it takes a bit of effort.

In this one, the theme is technology and how it can only represent a superficial image but not the real person, and that’s a fairly complex theme for one that grew from his story about panicking because he accidentally gave his girlfriend access to his internet history. Well done on spinning that into something a lot deeper than the very obvious angle from which to discuss that incident (though don’t worry, there are jokes about the very obvious as well).

If I had to be critical, I think the biggest flaw in John Robins circa 2013-2015, is he sometimes overexplains things a bit. But fortunately, as evidenced by my entire blog and also my entire life, I’m a massive fan of overexplaining things. I like the way he’ll take a topic and hit it from four different angles before making the actual point.

You can tell that between This Tornado Loves You and Speakeasy, he had really worked on his pausing game. It’s up by at least 60%, I’d say. The way he can hold his breath after saying something and let the audience finish laughing at the initial idea, then understand some hidden implications, then laugh again. Repetition and pausing, perhaps John Robins as his nemesis Stewart Lee are not so different (not true, they’re extremely different).

I think I liked the first half better than the second half, which might be why I didn’t remember the show being quite as strong as it was, if I came away from it remembering the ending. But I did remember it being very good, because all of it was very good. The second half had larger thematic stuff, and the first half is more grounded and just wallows in the absolute depths of bitterness that only John Robins can reach. He stays in that cesspit of self-loathing bitter comedy for about half the show, and then pulls himself out for an inspiring story about meeting some sexists on a plane. It’s much, much better than it sounds.

Also, it was nice to get to hear John Robins say "fuck". There was even a nicely placed "cunt" in there. I'm enjoyed the radio show a lot, and there's some good comedy to be mined in the way John and Elis have to find creative replacements for swear words and ways to keep their stories radio-friendly, but also, this reminded me of how much harder John Robins can hit when free of those constraints. You can only get so deep into the darkness of Robins when he's not allowed to say the word fuck.

It's on Bandcamp if anyone's interested, along with his two previous shows. And I might be wrong, but I think that may have been the last one he did before The Darkness of Robins in 2017. I guess I'll find out soon, as I'm into the February 2016 radio episodes so I'll see if he talks about writing a new show and taking it to Edinburgh again in August. But I think he might have skipped that year, and let two years of the bitterness build up before unleashing them into the Perrier-winning show.

If he did have a 2016 show, I'd like to know why he hasn't released it. Because I know he has it. He's mentioned on the radio that he records all his gigs, just with the audio on his phone. At one point he made a joke about those bands that get their rare early sessions released after they die, and said maybe after he dies someone will release his recordings of Edinburgh previews, and then said that actually that would probably make people like him more because the previews always go better than the finished show. Which made me say... Well fucking release them, then! I would pay good money for those recordings, and it would cost you not very much to put them up on Bandcamp! That is the beauty of Bandcamp, you can put any audio on there and sell it, and it doesn't have to be good enough to justify the expense of hosting it, because it's very cheap. John, this also applies to Howl. I don't need you to get professionals in and film your show all nicely. Just stick a phone recording on Bandcamp.

In other stand-up that comes up on this radio show news, they've recently started a feature in which Elis James reads from the diary he kept during his first couple of years as a comedian, and I'm finding it fascinating. Apparently in his early years he'd write in this journal after every show, where he reflected on what went well and what went badly and what he wanted to try next time, and what the compere and other acts were doing that he wanted to get better at too. They're reading this out as a way to make fun of it, and rightly so because it's pretty fucking funny. But also, as someone who's done a few open spots and I'm currently trying to write a couple of new things and try them out but I'm nervous about it, I love hearing the process of a now-successful comedian at that early stage (I mean, even when he wrote those diaries he was still a lot more advanced than I am now or will ever be, but he was closer to this point than I get to hear most famous comedians talk about being). I love hearing him have a lot of the same weird types of thought patterns that I do, like trying to analyze why some particular riff that the compere tried worked and how to find the exact formula for how to know how hard to try talking to the crowd.

Dude.

The Democrat beat the Republican so there will be a recount. And lots of talk about how crummy and outdated the voting system apparatus is.

Can’t imagine why a voting system might be in terrible outdated shape or who might be responsible for such a sorry state.

But seriously, 1 vote.

1.

It really has just become a turnout game, hasn’t it. :/

I mean, I guess it has always been: How many people vote vs how many stay home vs how many you CAN get away with disenfranchising vs Party registration vs how many will actually consider multiple sides vs how much you can work the system after the vote. But it does seem to really be leaning hard on that first factor these days. Harder each election since 2000 I feel like.

All that complexity of BS and it was one vote difference.

It wasn’t even a low turnout vote in the context of a local election.

I guess that’s why “It doesn’t matter,” BSAB, and “NEVER ______” have become such huge messages these days. Just to try and lower the other side’s turn out by any inch you can. Does seem risky though. I know partisan turnout is very reliable but when it’s down to 1, seems damn risky to just pump that out. What happens if you lose 1 partisan?

I spose that’s why you gotta make your own side into a bit (or more) of a cult.

:/

I really don’t like the way our politics is being handled. I spose it was never great but it feels worse now. And the idea of 1 gives me the heebiejeebies.

Imagine a 1 vote difference in the presidential. That’s existential horror right there.

It probably shouldn’t be.

It’s not like something like half the presidents in my lifetime haven’t been elected with the minority of the popular vote :/

It’s not like there isn’t a system in place that - if I recall correctly - can elect someone with only 30% (ish?) of the popular vote to office. :(

It’s not like disenfranchisement hasn’t been the general case in our history :(((

I dunno why this scares me if I try and think about this logically.

Nothing is really different. And I clearly don’t really care about this particular case. My “side” (gah, I really hate that I am just a Democrat now) won and I don’t even know anyone in Louisiana. I hope, as a general statement of principle, that they got the candidate that they actually wanted and that it all works out for the best, but there’s nothing personal in that. So……

It’s just that 1 vote idea. 1 feels like such a tiny thread to hang by. 1 does not feel safe. 1 has no margin for error.

And I feel like we’re in full redline. We’re already past the margin for error. We’re in disaster mode. But we’re at a thread of 1. That the people who can vote and use that power aren’t, generally, taking that power seriously. Elections shouldn’t come down that close.

I dunno. I still don’t think that’s really it. I know this is a purely emotional, totally illogical, fear reaction that is being triggered by this rather than being about this. I guess maybe this is a plea to vote?

Please vote.

Please don’t let the important elections coming up come down to 1.

Please see your vote as meaningful. Yes, even your single vote does matter and can sway an election. With the margins being that narrow, turnout becomes even more important.

I dunno :/ maybe. I think it’s something else or something more in addition but that’s all my brain is throwing up. That this is scary and more people need to engage and vote.

Demystifying Evangelion - Part 1: Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-96)

(This is the first of probably three posts talking about the Evangelion franchise. I don’t know when I’ll make the other two, but they’re on their way.)

Throughout the short history of anime, few franchises have sparked more debate and discourse than Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion. One could call it animation’s equivalent to Bergman’s “Persona”, if not in depth of interpretation, then at least in volume of written work discussing it.

Between the heaps of praise, the mountains of outraged criticism, and more than two dozen death threats sent to the show’s creator, it’s hard to think of many other shows that have caused this much ink—digital or otherwise—to be spilled surrounding it. Rightfully so, as Evangelion stands out as one of the most impactful contributions to the medium. Between the stellar direction, the bleak tone of its story, the all-too relatable characters that live through it, the one-of-a-kind visual design that jumps at you in almost every frame, the soundtrack composed by the now-legendary Shirō Sagisu, an opening that’s set the blueprint for a generation to follow it and its… “cryptic” endings, something’s bound to catch your eye. It’s the kind of media that sticks with you, for better or worse.

You might spend days fuming, coping, and seething about how much you hate the 11th hour turns or spend years mentally spinning your wheels about the journey of its “hero”, Shinji Ikari and how that relates to you, otaku fandom, life or all of the above.

In case the overly-long introduction and the last 27 years of discourse didn’t clue you in already, Evangelion has garnered a reputation for being “complex”, “indescifrable”, and full of interlinking symbolism and metaphors that must be decoded to understand the “real meaning” of. Something only a real anime grenius could ever hope to understand.

I want to come out and say that this is bogus, to not use a word that would get this essay thrown out for improper language. It is the express goal of this post, along with the other two, is to tear down this myth, so that conversations about it will not stop and end about how trippy or complicated EVA purported to be.

For those who haven’t caught up with the material, you can consider these to be equal parts a primer for any Evangelion-related lectures you might attend in the near future, mixed-in with my own critiques and thoughts of it.

For ease of reading, from hereon these essays will refer to the original 1995-96 TV anime as “Neon Genesis” or “NGE”, the 1997 feature film as “End of Eva” or “EoE”, and the 21st Century rebuilds by their number, so “1.0”, “2.0”, “3.0”, and “3.0+1.0”.

Neon Genesis Evangelion, or “that time Anno read Schopenhauer while depressed.”

  Neon Genesis Evangelion is a mecha anime produced by Studio Gainax and directed by Hideaki Anno. It ran from October of 1995 until March of the following year.

Even by then, Anno had gained quite the notoriety thanks to his work in both animation, storyboarding and direction for works such as “Gunbuster”(1988), “Super Dimension Fortress Macross”(another show of the same genre), and of course, his part in animating the iconic God Warrior fight scene in Hayao Miyazaki’s “Nausicaä of The Valley of The Wind”(1984).

The show’s story follows Shinji Ikari, a high schooler who lives in a world left shaken by the Second Impact, a cataclysmic event that culled the planet’s population in half. It had been brought on by the Angels, a series of massive and disturbing monstrosities that render all mundane weapons obsolete in the face of their other other-worldly terror.

With that context, Shinji has been contacted by his estranged father Gendo, beckoning him to the city of Tokyo-III. The latter had abandoned the boy shortly after the early and mysterious passing of his mother, Yui. Soon after arriving, Shinji is picked up by Lieutenant Misato Katsuragi, but not before the appearance of one of the aforementioned Angels, who are trying to finish their half-finished extermination from all those years ago.

After being driven to safety in an underground base, it is explained that both Gendo and Misato work for NERV, a secret organization dedicated to fighting off these monsters and allegedly preventing the coming of a Third Impact. How, you may ask? Well, of course, by forcing mentally troubled teenagers to pilot a series of massive robots that bear a striking resemblance to the very angels they fight. 

  I say “forced to” for comedic effect, but the more accurate term would be “conned into”. The first episode shows Shinji reluctant to enter the uncanny and iconic Unit 01, for obvious reasons. Putting aside the mountains of baggage between himself and his father, in a matter of minutes he goes from a random kid with daddy issues to the one and only hope for humanity’s survival. It is only after Gendo parades the body of the bedridden pilot Rei Ayanami that Shinji decides to get in the robot, and if that sounds manipulative or scummy to you, then let me tell you that that’s not even in the top 5 of the most messed-up ways people get Shinji to pilot a mecha.

It is here that we get our first hint into the fact that something is wrong with Shinji. He is the audience surrogate, that much is undeniable. However, he doesn’t come with the typical “power fantasy” traits we’ve come to expect from the male leads in this role, especially for anime.

  Shinji is not a “cool” guy, much less a role model. He’s not even heroic, a fact that will only become more pronounced with each entry in the series. He doesn’t want to pilot his EVA Unit, as displayed by the many, many, many times he complains about it, and he isn’t validated for his efforts the way other protagonists often are.

His father rarely, if ever, recognizes his work or worth; his peers are either distant or even ridicule him for his shortcomings; finally, even his classmates end up unhappy with his heroics. This is shown by our main character getting the stuffing beaten out of him by one of his classmates, Toji. The added irony of this moment coming from a line that immediately preceded it, Misato’s “people will thank you for what you did”.

As the show works its way through the tried-and-tested “monster of the week” formula, it becomes increasingly apparent that Shinji is not as blameless as he’d like to let on. Sure, his circumstances aren’t ideal, and he is being manipulated by… pretty much everyone, but he’s not someone without agency.

At many points in the series, it is shown to the audience that Shinji could just leave. If he refuses to pilot his Unit, then that would be that. His father can radiate as much disappointment as he wants or Misato can give him the most motherly speech imaginable, but that’s where their ability to influence him begins and ends. They can’t force him to get in the robot. And if he ever does refuse, it’s patently clear that NERV can and will find some other way to fight that episode’s Angel. In fact, both characters remind and even suggest Shinji quit at multiple points. However, each time, he willingly chooses to pilot the EVA, and each time, he conveniently exculpates himself from the choices he makes. He’s got a raw deal, but he’s far from a reliable source to explain it.

However, he isn’t just detached from his agency, but from the whole world. Shinji is the character who best embodies the idea of the “Hedgehog’s Dilemma”, a concept the show dissects in its fourth episode.

Originally coined by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the parable states that human intimacy is analogous to porcupines huddling for warmth in the rain. They want to get closer to each other for heat, but their sharp spines prevent them from getting too close to each other, thus needing to find a middle ground between both extremes where they neither receive the warmth they desire nor are safe from their fellow mammals’ prickly exterior. Likewise, us humans seek companionship from others, but inevitably have to distance ourselves to some level due to our fear of being hurt by others’ “many unpleasant and repulsive qualities and insufferable drawbacks”, as Schopenhauer puts it.

This theory is what inspires one of the main mechanics of the setting, the “Absolute Terror Fields”. Our innate fear of others manifesting as psionic barriers that both the Angels and the EVAs use in battle.

Shinji is this idea taken to its logical extreme. His mother’s death and subsequent abandonment by Gendo have made him so fearful of others and the outside world that he has isolated himself from all of it, to an extent where even he removes himself from even his own actions. He doesn’t talk to others, he doesn’t delve into any of NERV’s machinations, and he doesn’t really try to understand what anyone else is going through. The world and the people who fill it have taken too much for him to risk being hurt again, so he shuts himself off.

Paradoxically Shinji still needs that proverbial warmth. He is dependent on it, more so than anyone else in this show, which is saying something. When he finally finds his reason to pilot the EVA, it’s because he wants his father’s validation. He leans on any and all relationships he can find to derive self-worth. From his budding friendship with Toji, who becomes another reason for him to pilot the mech; his complicated relationship with Misato, who is tasked with acting as the mother he never had; and especially his fellow pilots, first Rei, Asuka, and finally, Kaworu.

Asuka herself ends up being the person Shinji ends up relying on the most. She is everything he’s not, but at the same time, she mirrors his same dilemma.

She’s confident, aggressive and hyper-competent, our protagonist’s natural foil. While the main character struggles to take a step when Unit 01 is introduced to the audience, when Asuka gets in Unit 02, the difference is night-and-day. Her first appearance feels as if it belongs on another show, donning Gundam-sized capes, pulling out Rider Kicks and tossing entire warships around like they’re nothing. No matter what version of Evangelion you’re watching, her fights are a visual spectacle at all times, except for that one time where she goes magma-diving, but I digress.

This pulls double-duty as both spectacle and characterization. Unlike Shinji, she has tied her worth as a human being entirely to her ability to pilot the EVAs. You see, she needs to Style on those Angels with a capital S, because as far as she’s concerned, all she needs is to be the best. As long as she can prove to everyone that she’s the best pilot that’s ever stepped into an Entry Plug, then she doesn’t need anyone or anything else. This rationalization, of course, being a result of her own set of parent-related trauma.

In regards to the Hedgehog Dilemma, she’s almost as obvious a fit for the parable as Shinji. Asuka is what anime fans know as tsundere, perhaps even the most iconic and formative example of that archetype and trope. For academic purposes, let’s go over this one last time.

A tsundere is a popular archetype in anime, generally(but not always) female, who acts aloof or even hostile towards others, but hides a sensitive interior, with the outward attitude often serving as a defense mechanism for the latter. Schopenhauer’s theory made manifest in the form of abusive remarks, crossed arms, pouty faces, the occasional blush, and the trademark “b-baka” at the end of a character-establishing sentence.

Her mere arrival emasculates our protagonist, visually represented by Shinji having to use the more feminine 02 plug suit and then having to wear her clothes in the next episode. The former, combined with the usual brand of teenage hormones, leads him to be viscerally uncomfortable, however, in the latter episode, as the two begin to bond and synchronize with each other, Shinji comes to terms with how Asuka makes him feel. A pretty sweet bit of subtle and entirely visual storytelling, that crescendos in an electrically choreographed fight perfectly synchronized to the beat of “Both of you, Dance like you want to win.”

Now’s as good a time as any to wind back from the heavy-handed use of philosophical pessimism and talk about one of the more universally praised aspects of the show. The fights, and more precisely, the direction that goes into them.

The fights themselves in Neon Genesis tend to be rather simple. Usually, the Angel of the week has a specific gimmick that NERV needs to work around, but that’s as complex as it gets. There’s no secret techniques to keep track of, or even much of a power system to sink your teeth into, as is the case with many shonen anime. The mechas don’t even receive that many accessories, and no one has a cool fused form where all the toys-sorry, all the robots come together into one neatly indestructible package.

Instead, the complexity and the tension comes in the intertwining systems and machinery needed for the fight. Even the act of deploying an EVA takes a laundry-list of checks and procedures, all with their own specialized staff that need to come together in order for humanity to have so much as an outside shot of surviving an Angel Attack. It grounds the action, while heightening the stakes of every week’s encounter, but more than that, it highlights another theme that runs through the director’s filmography.

In NGE, it’s not brightly colored, individually-sold robots that join to defeat the problem of the day. In Evangelion, its the people, like you or I, who come together to combat these massive and seemingly incomprehensible problems that besiege our lives. While this may at first seem superfluous, it’s a theme that persists in other works by Anno, like namely, Shin Godzilla, a movie that I promise I’ll gush about later in a more succinct manner.

Speaking of whom, none of this would be possible without the immense skill that puts these scenes together. Despite the above paragraph, there is nothing more boring to watch than a bunch of people listing off pre-takeoff checks and staring at screens, but Neon Genesis somehow makes this a must-watch activity. Every piece of information that comes from NERV headquarters is framed, animated, and edited with an explosiveness that I’ve only seen matched by Studio Shaft’s Monogatari Series. Adding to this, the all-time great soundtrack accompanying these scenes is used to perfection. Tracks like Shiro Sagisu’s “ANGEL ATTACK” or “DECISIVE BATTLE” are forever burned into my brain, injecting the action with a militaristic tone, but all the same vibrant energy that adds to the stunningly edited sequences.

There’s a real sense of tension to all the fights in Neon Genesis, like you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Not in the sense of characters merely saying that something is impossible or that the odds are inconceivably stacked against them, but we feel it in every encounter. There’s a certain improvisational feeling to the fights in NGE. NERV’s strategies never go as planned, and sometimes even fail outright, needing to be adjusted on the fly, as if these characters are racing against the clock for the fate of humanity. And in this show, the clock is always ticking.

When a countdown appears saying an EVA has five minutes before it runs out of power, they only get five real world minutes. If a data analyst says that something will happen in 12 seconds, then you can bet your bottom dollar that precisely twelve seconds later, it will happen, not a single moment sooner or later.

However, the direction doesn’t stop shining at the fight scenes, as highlighted by the bleak atmosphere of the rest of the show. When it isn’t busy turning NERV HQ into the world’s most exciting voice chat, Neon Genesis is fantastic at getting you knee-deep into the near perpetual funk that is its characters’ downright pathetic social lives. When Gendo does his signature move of “being disappointed at his son” you feel the full bore of that abuse; when Shinji’s melted down into goop and was forced to come to a glimmer of self-actualization, you’re in there; and when Asuka and Rei are forced to share an elevator together, well… just see for yourself.

Everything goes poorly… for everyone.

CW: Suicide.

As the show nears its second half, less screen time is devoted to the monster of the week. Instead, more of it is placed on the interpersonal lives of all main leads catastrophically falling apart.

Rei is revealed to be a clone of Shinji’s mom. A reveal foreshadowed by the fact that she looks and sounds almost exactly the same as her. It probably explains why the boy is so awkward around her.

After seeing her performance as a pilot beginning to drop, Asuka’s synchronization begins to plummet. To keep it simple, synchronization is a stat in the Evangelion franchise that dictates how well you can pilot the mechs. Higher number good, lower number bad, and our German Tsundere’s number is getting real bad. With her aforementioned relation between skill and self-worth, Asuka begins a downward spiral, which in this version, she never recovers from. Her synch rate drops to zero, making her unable to pilot Unit 02, which ends up being such a massive blow to her psyche that she ends up catatonic and comatose for the rest of the show, but not of course before remembering what that bit of trauma I alluded to entailed.

Woof.

Misato begins a romantic relationship with Kaji, an ex boyfriend who’s now taken up the jobs of being Asuka’s surrogate father and double-no, sorry, triple agent spying for and against NERV and SEELE, the global shadow government that bankrolls the operation(just roll with it). It seems that despite their combined efforts to stop the Angels, both organizations have their own plans to covertly bring their own mutually exclusive apocalypses, both under the name of the mysterious “Human Instrumentality Project”. However, just as soon as she rekindles her love for the man, he disappears without a trace, implied to have been killed by one of the two groups.

Apparently, he was killed by the main character of the videogame “Secrets of Evangelion”, but literally who cares about that?

However, by episode 24, the biggest trainwreck in the show is, of course, our hero, Shinji Ikari. After everyone else finished collectively losing their marbles, SEELE had sent a fourth and final pilot to meet our hero. The Fourth Child, a kind-hearted, soft-spoken and mysterious gray-haired and red-eyed boy by the name of Nagisa Kaworu. Surprisingly, he and our protagonist get along remarkably well. So much so that historians have theorized that at some point, they could’ve been “good friends” or perhaps, even “roommates”.

Jokes aside, there’s a real interesting and sweet element to their dynamic. Kaworu is the first person to ever show Shinji the unconditional love he’s been hungering for all of his life. And the reactions he has to him are so flustered that one can’t help but see the queer undertones from a mile away, which for like, an anime from the 90s is pretty impressive.

I won’t touch too much on the subject, both because… have you looked at this? It’s already too long and if I start getting on about Shinji’s potential bisexuality, we might be here for 3000 more words. Moreover, I’m just a boring cishet heterosexual man. I can bet you actual Chilean pesos that there are people with way more interesting perspectives on the matter, people who can better express both their emotional truth and how that relates to this part of the show in way better detail than me. 

Back onto the plot, Kaworu is revealed to be the 1st Angel, sent to infiltrate NERV and cause the Third Impact. This forces Shinji to kill the only being to have ever even said the words “I love you” to him. It’s quite a potent scene, especially when you realize what it means in the broader context of Neon Genesis and End of Evangelion. Tonally, this is the lowest point in the show, even EoE’s cruelest moments, things are never this bleak. Reality has crashed down on every character. There is no hope, and worst of all, Gendo reveals that he’s about to unleash his secret plan, the “Human Instrumentality Program”, which is… something I’ll talk about in a moment.

By this point, the show had run for 24 episodes, seeing both commercial and critical success. However, as pretty much everyone knows by now, at the final hurdle… plans changed, to put it lightly.

The story of how episodes 25 and 26 of Neon Genesis came to be has been told so many different times and in so many ways that it has turned into its own modern myth. Some say that the producers at Gainax had run out of money at the eleventh hour, forcing the showrunners to improvise a new ending employing a heavy use of creative shortcuts to make up for lack of funds. Other tellings explain it as a last second script change due to supposed parallels between the intended finale and the real-life Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack that took place mid-airing. Another possibility lies in the dwindling mental health of the show’s director, the fingerprints of which can be seen clear as day on the show’s second half. I’ve even heard rumors of someone at Gainax stealing a sizable chunk of money meant to fund the animation of these two episodes.

Whether any or all of the above is true, the fact of the matter is that the last two episodes of NGE were not what anyone had intended or expected at the start of this show’s production or airing. A massive departure in terms of structure, tone, and even animation style from the rest of the show, making copious use of subtext, metaphor, and recontextualized clips from earlier broadcasts to craft a new ending. One which would forever etch itself as one of the most divisive decisions in the history of the medium.

In a way, the show’s original ending supersedes the rest of it, at least in terms of reputation. No discussion on Neon Genesis can be complete without the obligatory question of “but what about that ending, though?” At time of release, people, especially otakus, were shocked at what played out on their TVs. Following the release of “The Ending World” and “The Beast that Shouted ‘I’ at the Heart of the World”, Hideaki Anno received real death threats from fans of the show. That’s how bad it got.

Following what modern gaming platform, Steam, would call “mixed reviews”, combined with the countless unanswered questions left in the show’s text, Hideaki Anno released two movies to try to better explain himself. “Death and Rebirth”, a recap movie that I will not be talking about, and “Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion.”

End of Evangelion follows a different telling of the events following episode 24. It hits a lot of the same emotional and thematic beats as the 1996 broadcast, but does so adding a lot of what was “missing” in it in areas such as drama, spectacle, and most of all, money. However, that story is for another time. Right now, we need to talk about what actually happened in the last 40 minutes of the most influential anime of the 90s.

The End of Neon Genesis Evangelion(not to be confused with Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion)

The last two episodes of the broadcast anime cover a version of the much-anticipated execution of the “Human Instrumentality Project”. A melding of all consciousness, where everyone’s fears and insecurities, the spikes that push our little porcupines away, begin to melt away and give way to a single unified being. There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence, but for now, we’ll leave at that, as we get a more detailed explanation of the process in both End of Evangelion and the Rebuilds, and saving this for parts 2 and 3 will give us more to talk about then.

If you want to make sense of what “Human Instrumentality” is, think of it this way. While watching the show, did you, at any point, think “wow, these kids need to see a psychologist?” If your answer was yes, then good news, Hideaki Anno agrees with you. The last two episodes of the show are spent with the entire cast receiving a cosmic therapy session to prime them for the whole “melding 7 billion hedgehogs into one being” bit.

And that is where the text of this anime ends, what happens strictly within the logic of the show, the specific actions characters take, are now secondary to something else. The subtext, which is to say, the ideas those specific actions and events are written to explore, like for example, the Hedgehog’s Dilemma from earlier. From hereon, the themes of the show take over the steering wheel and it doesn’t let go until the movies.

This ending, combined with the show’s vague, but intuitable lore and the heavy use of Christian iconography is what gives the show its infamous reputation. This is where the idea of Evangelion as this impossibly deep puzzle that can only be pieced together by decoding every metaphor to decipher the “real meaning” of it comes from. Its a misguided idea, one that poisons the otherwise fascinating discussions one can have on it. In reality, the ending is pretty straight forward, once you get over the presentation of it. To the point where at many times, it gives up on all the set-dressing of giant monsters and A.T. Fields and it just tells you what it’s about. 

By the end of the world’s best therapy session, Shinji realizes that, while life is scary and his fear of being hurt is legitimate, both are shaped entirely by his perception of it. It is only because of him shutting himself off and assuming the worst that his life becomes that frightening. Shinji, and everyone else, is capable, and even deserving of happiness.

Another central theme that the show just straight up tells Shinji about is the matter of self-worth. You cannot derive validation from outside sources. Your parents, your friends, your job, and even your partners, you can’t rely on these to serve as validation for your life. Everyone has their own problems, and well, things happen, people come in and out of your life, relationships can be severed by circumstance, and even death can swoop in at the most inopportune time. The only one who can serve as that barometer is you. Whatever value you derive from this life has to come from within you, no one and nothing else aptly provide it.

All of this is communicated, directly or otherwise, through the final minute of NGE. After the collective cast of the show tell Shinji that it is up to him to correct his frightening perspective only, Shinji finally stands up from his seat and achieves self-actualization. He realizes everything I just said, but in words a 14 year-old can understand. From there, the rest of the world flows outward from within him, including his relationships with his family, friends, pilots, and peers. And it is then, and only then, that Shinji receives the validation he had so desperately sought. 

It’s a nice ending, coherent with the themes communicated by the show throughout its runtime, and the story had even left enough for you to piece together a loose chain of events for the story. It’s certainly the kindest ending Shinji gets until the final Rebuild film, and it serves as an interesting contrast to EoE’s telling of these same events.

With all of that being said, though. I have some criticisms of those final episodes. While thematically, I find the resolutions given out by the show’s ending to be thematically resonant and in line with the rest of the show, it does leave something to be desired in terms of drama and how out of left-field it comes. There’s a few teases, then Kaworu dies in episode 24 and BAM! Shinji’s sitting on the proverbial couch. It feels very disconnected from everything else we’ve seen. To use a comparison, I feel it has the same problems as the final acts of Persona 4 and 5. Where after defeating the serial killer or corrupt politician the entire plot was about, the game switches gears and it makes up a massively powerful Shadow at the eleventh hour, so that it can use it to just outright tell you the themes of the games. While I think Neon Genesis is a whole sight prettier than either of those endings, it does share the problem that on its own, it makes you wonder what the importance or connection was with what came before. What were the Angel fights about if it was going to end with the End of the World happening offscreen? I personally think the ending is fine and coherent with the rest of the show, but it by no means sticks the landing.

Conclusion:

At its core, the 1995 anime is about capturing the feeling of loneliness in our age; it’s about feeling less-than, and how we can rise above that; a show that explores how uncomfortable it can feel to open up to others, and how the change needed to do so begins within ourselves. Ideas that resonated with the post-Housing Crisis audiences of late 90s Japan, and ones that are still poignant to this day. It’s not a show where you need to pay attention to blink-and-you-miss-it types of symbollism. It’s not a show where you need a guide on hand to make sense of.it at any given point. And most importantly, its not a show about lore.

That’s what the Rebuilds are about.

FINAL RATING: Neon Genesis Evangelion(1995) - 4,25/5

Nicolás Izaguirre Gallardo.

Apple Watch Series 10 Price, Release date, Specs

Apple Watch Series 10 is anticipated to be released. But from the debut of the first Apple Watch in the spring of 2015, there is one function that has been absent from every model. According to a recent study, it is approaching. the update from May 2. On April 29, 2023, this article was originally published. Updated on May 2. Even with the Apple Watch, not every update has good news. The Apple Watch Ultra, which debuted last autumn, is reported to have an upgraded model. Nothing unforeseen about it. Less certain, though, is whether or when the Ultra will update its display technology. All current Apple Watch models have OLED screens, but it's been said that this will change to microLED, a technology that might provide more brightness and pixel density. Exciting. But it’s the time which is most variable, it appears. The earliest rumored arrival was this year, so it's really been all over the place. I've always been dubious about this because throughout the history of the smartwatch, Apple has never introduced a new Apple Watch design only to drastically alter it the following year. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has previously said that microLED is coming, and suggested that the second half of 2024 was when we should expect it. This seems much more likely, though an update to the Ultra this fall is still possible and probably won't just be a processor update. Even though the current model might last for two years, it would be strange if the Series 10 had a new processor and the Ultra, the top model, still had last year's chip. Anyway, the most recent report alters matters once again. The new display technology will arrive later still, according to display analyst Ross Young in a tweet. To view the tweet, click this link, but you must be a subscription to Young's material. The general idea is that the Apple Watch Ultra will have microLED in the fall of 2025. In other words, more than two years away, a long way off. This makes perfect sense; after all, it won't be the first time Apple has had to delay the launch of a new technology to one of its products. Another query is if Apple would roll out microLED to all of its models simultaneously or just the Apple Watch Ultra. While it's true that, in the beginning, the only thing between the least costly and most expensive Apple Watch models was their metal casings, the Ultra broke the trend by offering a whole new design. Will this imply that new screen technology will be introduced to the Ultra first and only afterwards to other models? Although we don't know yet, I think this is the most likely scenario. Of course, there is plenty of time between now and the end of 2025 for all the facts to become clear. April 30 update. A story from Mark Gurman of Bloomberg follows closely on the heels of the most recent rumor. The use of your Apple Watch will alter drastically with the release of watchOS 10, according to Gurman in his most recent Power On email. This is probably the platform on which the syncing functionality below will debut. According to Gurman, Apple Watch Series 10 is "set to give its watch lineup one of the biggest software updates since the original version— with a new focus on widgets and fundamental changes to how the device works." This is fascinating, and according to Gurman, it's been created to allow for the least amount of navigating while still providing more information. Of course, for a device like a watch, conserving time should be a top goal. The emphasis on widgets is reminiscent of the Glances interface, which was used on the first Apple Watch but has since been retired. "Apps remained core to the Apple Watch," says Gurman. Launching applications is still the most effective way to get the device's information, other from examining complexities on the watch face. The home screen is reachable with only one click of the watch's most noticeable button, the Digital Crown, to make that as simple as possible. However, it appears that with watchOS 10, widgets will return and become a focal point of the experience, maybe even implying that you will be taken to the widgets rather than the home screen with only one push of the Digital Crown. Instead of forcing users to launch apps, Gurman says, "the idea is to let them scroll through a series of different widgets — for activity tracking, weather, stock tickers, calendar appointments, and more." This is a significant shift, so if it sounds like one, it is. Such a significant change, like the Digital Crown modification, may initially be voluntary. The Watch is expected to receive significant software improvements this year, which would undoubtedly be a significant improvement. A future Apple Watch Series 10 may sync to numerous Apple devices, according to the Twitter account of @analyst941, who self-identifies as an Apple software analysis. Here's why it's important. Currently, each Apple Watch can only be synced with one phone, despite the fact that you can sync several watches to your iPhone. So you can't even set up an Apple Watch if you don't have an iPhone but do have an iPad or a Mac. That's obviously because Apple enjoys keeping you secure inside of its walled-garden ecosystem, which the firm would claim is done to safeguard the user experience. But if you could connect your Apple Watch to an iPad or a Mac, a whole new set of possibilities would open up. You can only link your Apple Watch with one of your phones if you have more than one, even if they are both iPhones. Suppose one of those iPhones You must always carry the device that the Watch is linked with in order to keep it current with alerts, for example, if you use one for business and the other for personal use. The following is what @analyst941 tweeted: "Apple Watch can finally sync across several Apple devices. I'm not sure how this will be put into practice. All I know is that Apple Watch will no longer be dependent on a single iPhone and will sync with numerous iOS/iPadOS/Mac devices. There are no specifics on how it will be accomplished or how it will operate, but it's a smart step. When the Apple Watch acquired LTE connection in some versions, do you remember how much more liberating it felt to wear it? It's also unclear if an iPhone will still be required for initial setup. A companion iPad would work, but a Mac might not, I would have guessed. I'm sure an Android phone won't soon be able to link with an Apple Watch. According to 9to5Mac, a recent claim that the Health app from the iPhone would soon be available on the iPad with iPadOS 17 may portend the arrival of set-up with an iPad. The main advantage will be the inclusion of synchronizing with numerous Apple devices, regardless of the setup process. The only drawback I actually see is one that many new users experience: information overload unless you set precisely which email accounts and other services will deliver the Watch with data. But it's simple to correct it. At WWDC in June, we'll almost surely learn something about this, though its complete implementation might not happen until the autumn release of the Apple Watch Series 10. In either case, it's likely to be a watchOS 10 feature that supports several Watch generations. Read the full article