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#the more i think about this series the less mental health points i have
misledmiseries · 1 year
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HELLLLP I'm rewatching wkm and i just realized 
the fucking da just been appointed the position along Damien, the da had their whole LIFE in front of them hahaha omg that’s fucking bleak and I'm totally not losing my mind 
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steddieas-shegoes · 1 year
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Read Supportive Uncle Wayne Series Part 1 first :)
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Eddie and Steve slept for hours, while Wayne sat waiting. He kept a few crossword puzzles by his designated chair for the times he sat with Eddie, but this time, he couldn’t focus on anything but the way Steve and Eddie kept moving closer to each other in small ways in their sleep.
He’d considered waking Steve up a few times just so he didn’t have to watch his back and neck bend at such an impossible angle.
But god, he was resting.
Wayne wasn’t interrupting any sleep that boy got.
But he watched them both curl into each other incrementally, barely moving, yet always closer together every time Wayne looked at them.
Steve’s face was almost completely buried against Eddie’s “good” hip. If you asked Wayne, he didn’t have a good hip, he just had less stitches on one side.
Eddie’s right hand was placed in Steve’s on the bed, and his left hand was holding onto Steve’s hair for dear life. Like if he let go, Steve would disappear entirely.
From what Wayne knew of Steve so far, he wouldn’t be going anywhere unless he was physically forced.
Eddie’s body was relaxed, the drugs constantly flowing through the IV probably keeping him from experiencing any major pain. He had more stitches in his body than a sweater, and Wayne had no idea how he would heal physically or mentally from any of what happened.
But Wayne was honestly more worried for Steve.
Steve, the boy who had been exhausted since he was a small child, the boy who had refused medical care to make sure Eddie wasn’t alone or scared, the boy always secretly ready to let someone down.
He knew Richard Harrington. He knew how much of a showboat he was, how he never did anything unless it benefitted him personally or led to financial gain. Wayne even remembered shortly after Steve was born, he took an ad in the newspaper for a nanny who was willing to work ‘most days of the week and some nights, minimum wage, cooking and cleaning expected.’ Within a week, Richard and his wife Anne, were gone more than they were home.
Wayne wasn’t much for socializing or he probably would have caught Steve out and about with the nanny often. God knows Richard and Anne weren’t going to run errands.
But looking at the young adult in front of him, he had to think maybe it was a good thing Richard didn’t dig his claws in too deep. He knew if he had, Eddie would have been sitting alone right now, and Steve would be at some Ivy League college becoming something he didn’t even realize he didn’t want until it was too late.
Eddie visibly tensed, his body suddenly going rigid.
Steve was awake and fretting over Eddie before Wayne could even stand up from his chair.
“What hurts? Is it your side? I was hurting you wasn’t I? I’m sorry, Eds, really. I didn’t…”
“Steve. Please shut up. I wanted you there.”
Wayne noticed when Eddie spoke, his voice was raspy from disuse. He was still tense, but he was forcing a smile for Steve’s sake.
Wayne wasn’t having that. No matter how much Steve cared about Eddie, and Eddie cared about Steve, he wasn’t about to let either of them lie about their health.
“I’ll go get the nurse.”
Steve and Eddie both turned to look at Wayne when he spoke, cheeks red with embarrassment.
“Oh, didn’t know you were here.”
Eddie was still forcing a smile, but now it was pointed at Wayne like he wouldn’t see how fake it was.
Like he didn’t know all of Eddie’s tells since he was 13 and trying to hide how scared he was about living with him.
Wayne didn’t respond, just left the room to grab Janet, who sat alone at the nurse’s station during calmer periods in the chaos.
He hurried back in while she got the doctor on staff to see that Steve was helping Eddie adjust himself a bit in bed.
“Damn bats, Jesus Christ!”
Eddie let out a loud yelp and Steve froze.
“What was that?”
“What wasn’t it at this point?”
Eddie was breathing heavily, and his heart monitor started beeping more frantically.
“Son, you need to sit still until the doctor gets in here.”
Wayne wasn’t about to watch him hurt himself more and it didn’t seem like Steve knew how to make it better or stop him on his own.
“My side hurts like this.”
“I think your side will hurt any which way you try to be.”
Steve placed a hand on Eddie’s cheek, gently turning his face so he was looking at only Steve.
“You can be still for a minute, right? For me?”
Wayne’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
“Yeah.”
Wayne’s jaw was practically on the floor.
He’d been in charge of Eddie for 7 years and had never once been able to get him to listen the first time. Not a single time.
Before he could say anything, the doctor came in, followed by a handful of nurses, including Janet.
Janet sent him a smile, but hurried over to stand next to the doctor at Eddie’s bed.
“Well, Mr. Munson. You sure are lucky.”
“I’ll feel a lot luckier when I’m not in pain.”
“Where does it hurt?”
Eddie glared at the doctor. Steve glared at Eddie.
“Mostly my side. My chest hurts a little and my left hip and leg are sore.”
“Your left side is in pretty rough shape. You’ve got about 298 stitches holding you together.” The doctor checked his pupils and his heart rate before continuing. “Go ahead and start another morphine drip, same dose as before.”
The doctor turned to Wayne.
“He’s probably going to sleep the next dose off over the next 24 hours, so you can head home. We’ll call if he wakes up earlier.”
The doctor turned to Steve, deep frown on his face.
“You, too. He needs rest.”
Steve was refusing to make eye contact with anyone at this point and Wayne was almost certain he knew why.
Steve’s father wasn’t known for being a particularly kind or loving man. One wouldn’t have to think too hard to come to the conclusion that he was harder on his son than anyone else. The doctor was speaking to him in a way that would have made Wayne’s hackles rise for Eddie, and they did for Steve too.
“I think Steve should stay.”
Wayne wasn’t going to let either of his boys go without each other if it meant they’d get some sleep.
“We do recommend that Eddie have very limited visitors.”
“If I may,” Janet spoke up. “Steve’s been here the entire time and it hasn’t affected Eddie’s sleeping. We can’t be everywhere all the time so it would be nice for someone to stay with him and come get us if he wakes up again.”
The doctor gritted his teeth together but gave a single nod before exiting the room. Most of the nurses followed behind while Janet made herself busy playing with the buttons on Eddie’s IV pole.
“Thanks Janet. What’s that doctor’s problem?” Wayne asked as he made his way to the bed.
“He came in while you were downstairs and saw the um, sleeping arrangement. He wasn’t too fond of you seeming so close.”
“We can be more careful,” Eddie mumbled, body slowly relaxing into the bed.
“Or he can just deal with it,” Janet shrugged.
She sent a wink to Steve, then turned to Wayne.
“He should be feeling a lot better now. Right Eddie?”
“This is way better than the stuff I have.”
Wayne shook his head, but couldn’t help but smile at his nephew’s antics.
“I won’t ask questions I don’t want the answer to,” Janet said as she walked out of the room. She turned to wave and then closed the door to give them all some privacy.
Wayne looked down at Eddie.
He was so pale. He’d lost so much weight in the last week, and he barely had any to give to begin with. His hair was dirty and greasy, and despite Steve and Janet giving his face and arms a wipe down, he still had dirt under his nails.
Wayne didn’t know the details of what happened. They said it was earthquake related, but he knew better. He knew if this was just an earthquake, Steve wouldn’t have stood guard by his bed for days on end.
He was just glad Eddie was alive and awake.
He placed a hand on his right shoulder.
“I’m glad to hear your voice, kiddo.”
Eddie’s eyes were glassy and his smile was much brighter than before when he responded.
“Glad you hear my voice, too. Have you met Steve? He’s my boyfriend. Or maybe not? I want him to be though. Do you think he likes me?”
Wayne looked over at a bright red Steve, then smiled down at Eddie.
“I think he likes you a lot, kid. You get some rest. Steve will still be here when you wake up, alright?”
“You too?”
“Sure.”
So Wayne stayed, and Steve stayed. Wayne watched them both as Eddie slept.
Steve didn’t fall back asleep. He looked like he needed to, but any time his eyes started to slip shut, he shook his head and widened his eyes trying to fight it.
“Steve?”
“Yes, sir?”
Wayne watched as Steve’s body curled in on itself defensively.
“None of that. You can call me Wayne.” When Steve nodded, Wayne continued. “Whoever you are to Eddie, I hope you know you’ve got me, okay? I know Eddie must like ya a whole lot for him to say any of what he did regardless of the drugs in his system. And you must like him a whole lot to not leave his side this long. But you gotta get some rest, son.”
“I take naps in the chair sometimes.”
“A nap ain’t rest. Especially not if you’ve been through war.”
“I…”
“You don’t have to tell me. I’m sure I shouldn’t know. But I been there. And I’m not lettin’ ya suffer the way I did when I came home.”
Steve’s eyes were watering and Wayne knew if he watched this boy cry, he’d be done for.
So when Steve’s first tear fell, Wayne got up and joined Steve on the other side of the bed, pulling him out of the chair and into his arms.
Steve was injured, and hadn’t had proper medical attention or pain medication, but he ignored it to fall apart in Wayne’s arms.
“That’s alright now. Let it out, son. Let it out.”
Wayne felt a tear fall down his own cheek. He couldn’t have possibly predicted this moment, but he knew he was meant to be in it.
He was meant to be here with Steve, providing something the boy needed for a long, long time.
He was meant to be someone for Steve the same way he was meant to be someone for Eddie.
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Closed Position: Deconstructing Dieter Bravo
Closed Position Masterlist ||| Main Masterlist I did a Deconstructing Dieter Bravo series for Destiny & Deliverance, so I thought it might be fun to continue that tradition with Closed Position since this Dieter does have some interesting things going on that we can delve deeper into.
I had several people comment/dm me about two things after the first chapter that I think would be fun to discuss further. Those were of course, Dieter’s plant hobby and the fluffy menace hanging around his house.
To most, these two things may seem very random and unrelated. However, they really aren’t. They do serve a bigger purpose to the story…because of course they do. When do I ever not have deeper meaning behind something, right? 😏
Plant Dad Dieter
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First, I have included some more Dieter aesthetic pictures above that I had saved. It's a whole ✨vibe✨. Second, I must thank @readingiskeepingmegoing for coming up with the new #PlantDadDieter hashtag… because it’s so on point. I’m totally going with it! 💜
On to the good stuff...what have we learned about Dieter after the first installment? I think we can safely identify three things: he spends a lot of time alone, he feels misunderstood, and he doesn’t appear to have any deep or meaningful relationships. This will be a theme that comes up a lot with him, especially starting in Week 2 when we open with him having a chat with his therapist.
How does this relate to plants, you ask? Let’s start with Dieter’s history…the man has never had a real relationship. He’s never connected with anyone, whether that be friend or significant other. He was a party boy that indulged in the physical pleasures of life while avoiding any real intimacy. Most of his relationships were based on sex and favors. We will worry about why he is this way later, but for now, just know that’s where he's at emotionally.
Dieter has never really had a bond with anyone or anything. Now that he is sober and realizing how alone he is, he’s seeking that connection any way he can and doesn’t even really realize it (yet).
Sure, being a plantsman does have perks as it is relaxing and can have a positive impact on one’s mental health. However, it’s causing Dieter to learn how to care about something - how to be selfless and nurturing with his time. He has to put in a lot of effort to keep everything alive and healthy and he quickly realizes that putting in that time and energy makes him happy. Also, the plants don't judge him or his past.
Now, for some fun stuff because some of you asked…
Does Dieter talk to his plants? He 100% talks to the plants. He doesn’t know if it actually does anything, but he figures it can’t hurt to try. It also helps him feel less alone as he does see them as living things. They do breathe, eat, and drink after all.
Does Dieter name his plants? I’m inclined to say that he names his favorites. All the others just have random nicknames that change based on their appearance. Like...the "thirsty dramatic bitch" that gets weepy and needs to be watered and turned in the sunlight daily.
Dieter’s Furry Squatter
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And let the collective aww's be heard! 🤭
So, I pulled a few pics from Pinterest of what I envision Dieter's furry little visitor looks like. I see it as an adorably fluffy young Maine Coon kitty.
👉 Fun Fact: "The name 'Maine Coon' was adopted after the state of the breed's origin, Maine, and after the early belief that the cat was in fact the result of crossing between domestic breeds and raccoons." (from VioVet)
Funny story, I did not know that fact before choosing this breed. It looks like it was mean-to-be for our loveable trash panda. 😂
Now, I am sure you're asking; how does the cat relate to the plants? The cat serves the same purpose when we think about Dieter's relationships...or lack thereof.
Again, Dieter is craving companionship. He is still reluctant, but this little nugget will eventually become a loving companion for him. It's another avenue for him to create an emotional connection with something. He will learn how to care for the kitty and build a bond. Though the little menace can be a bit sassy, like the plants, it also doesn't judge Dieter by his past. What do you think Dieter should name it? I'm taking suggestions in the comments. 😉
In an odd way, the plants and cat do help Dieter grow as a person. It's baby steps in his personal growth journey. Honestly, as Katrina gets to know Dieter on a more personal level, these are two things that she absolutely loves about him, mostly because it's two things that are unexpected and show what a sweetheart he really is. She sees the good in him even if he can't see it himself.
That's it for your little extra bit of insight...until next time.
💜Mysty
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Series Summary: Dieter Bravo, now sober, was looking to change his bad boy image after hitting rock bottom. His team hoped that having him join the nationally televised family friendly dance competition would be a good first step, if they can keep him out of trouble.
Katarina Stamos expected her last season as a professional dancer on Dancing with the Stars to go the same as it had for the past thirteen seasons. That all changed when she was partnered with the infamous Dieter Bravo.
Dieter and Katarina are reluctantly thrown into their partnership and must learn to work together to succeed in the competition. In the process they form a deeper connection beyond the dance floor that neither anticipated.
👉 Warnings: Themes dealing with intimate partner violence, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse. There will be fluff, tears, spicy language, and smut. This will be a slow burn. Read at your own risk. Dieter Bravo comes with his own warnings.
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Closed Position Taglist: @secretelephanttattoo @titlee78 @maggiemayhemnj @legendary-pink-dot @morallyinept @survivingandenduring  @wannab-urs @harriedandharassed @hisandsnakes @misstokyo7love @readingiskeepingmegoing @runningmom94 @sin-djarin @cakipy-blog @missladym1981 @guelyury @weho2kcmo @alokaerza @girlofchaos @trulybetty @rhoorl @bitchwitch1981 @madnessofadaydreamer @darkheartgatita @jazzloveslatte @timpletance @musings-of-a-rose @samiamproductions @myloveistoolittle @for-a-longlongtime  @copperhalfcent @auteurdelabre @drewharrisonwriter @burntheedges @stevie75 @bunniboo0015 @quicax3 @jackie923 @sherala007 @pastelnap
*If your blog name is marked out, it would not let me tag you. You will need to change your visibility settings for that to work going forward.
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johannestevans · 1 year
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i wanted to write a BIG essay on disability in House MD but the thing is that as it goes on the show plays and delves with the themes a bit differently - like in s1 they begin to introduce some addict stuff but not too much, and much less of the big grapples with house's own medical agency etc by his friends and coworkers
so i think i'm gonna do an essay series, set up some main themes around disability and autonomy in house
the first things will obviously be about the nature of house's own disability, firstly talking about his physical disability - yes, the lack of mobility from his leg and his reliance on his cane, and also the chronic pain that that comes with, but also specifically noting that house became disabled later in life and was previously extremely physically active
while the themes of house being an addict are extremely overstated because of the us' manufactured opioid crisis and its dehumanisation of addicts due to its racist and eugenicist "war on drugs", it's also noteworthy that he used to exercise all day every day on top of fucking and playing with substances on the side. no one minded this because his "addiction" to exercise was fun and sexy and healthy, bc he was making his own pain-killing substances rather than taking a pill
and then also talking about house's mental health issues - evidence of his autism and the way that people hate specifically his autistic traits, even when they're not actually causing them problems, and the way in which house masks and performs certain emotional responses, but more so like. his depression and his loss of identity as a disabled man, and his difficulties being OKAY with his disability when everyone around him hates disability
so apart from that evidence, the points of house grappling with this stuff will be:
house bonding with other disabled patients - in cases of chronic pain, lost physical mobility, and also mental illness and/or neurodivergence
and house specifically understanding disabled people's perspectives, or thinking about the PRACTICAL needs of the person they're treating or engaging with rather than what society cares about or what the hospital thinks is "appropriate" or "proper"
house bullying abled people for being Weird
times where house makes commentary about the injustice of the system (when he points out that the hospital is designed not to treat the poor, chronically sick, etc)
house being anxious and defensive of his own bodily autonomy (eg when ppl are trying to control his pain management or force him into systems that don't work, take over his medical autonomy, in general try to physically control his behaviours)
esp bc season 1 culminates in the stacy episode where we find that like... so much of house's trauma is not just being disabled
but the fact that stacy OVERRODE his desires, waiting for him to be put into a medically induced coma so that she could make "the best" decision for him and literally being the cause of his current disability. esp bc like...
she specifically went for the middle ground that he rejected, she was NOT a doctor
and in so doing she. invented his chronic pain. like there's a reason that in that same episode, we see the volleyball player who gets an amputation and is able to go back to sports - yes, house is a lot older than that volleyball player, but like
if he had either treated the infarction successfully or just got an amputation so that he could later work with a prostheses, house thinks he would have done much better
and so much of his TERROR around trusting others - not just stacy but wilson, cuddy, anybody else - is because of that. the one person he loved and trusted overrode his desires and created the hell he lives in where he's just in constant agony and he hates it, and the worst part is like
everyone tells him it's his fault. no one cares about what stacy did to him, that she manipulated him. every day they tell house how terrible it is that he does that to others, but when it's what happened to him and he lives in hell, it's on him because he's Mean and Too Autistic and he should just Stop Being In Pain etc
god it kills me.
BUT YEAH i think. season by season is gonna be a lot better to track the development of these themes and the way they shift and change from season to season - also idefk if i'll be able to stick with like. the last three seasons bc they just suck so ba dhfskjjgh
BUT WE'LL SEE
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soaps-mohawk · 2 months
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The amount of power you hold by making this series is INSANE LIKE I HAVE SO MANY QUESTION AND THEORIES
Like the institute, was it a bad experience? A good one? A mix? Does Omega! Reader have any specific memories that don't seem to leave? Maybe the omega's who had behavioral issues were punished but no one spoke of the punishments? I HAVE SO MANH THOUGHTS
That's what I love about reading fic series is that the readers talk to the writers and I feel like yall just sit and laugh like 'these guys have no idea how much pain I'm about to cause them' LMFAO like your the person behind the slaughter
No but really y'all have no idea what's coming. Even here very soon...y'all have no idea lmaooo
(please don't hate me I promise it has a happy ending 😬)
Institutes are not good places. I'll just clear that up right now, even though that's going to be kind of brought up here in a couple chapters. They are not good places and they never really have been. They were started in the late 19th century as a place to send omegas that had behavioral issues, health issues, all sorts of issues or perhaps were unwanted by families that couldn't support them or didn't want to have to deal with the work that goes into omegas. So think like mental institutions. They were run by "doctors and professionals" that "understood omegas" and could cure/fix/care for them.
Of course as the years went on people started to realize maybe not everything that goes on in them is so good and after some investigations and such there was a huge reform on institutes and they became more like they are in the present day in the fic. Actual institutes that "care for omegas and prepare them for pack life." Originally omegas didn't leave institutes after they were handed over, but then people realized there was money in institutes so naturally, they started dumping money into them to train omegas and then pretty much sell them off. Not directly like selling humans, but most institutes require application payments and then there's fees for all sorts of things like testing, files, anything they can legally charge for, they will.
Obviously we're beginning to realize a bit at this point that not everything the reader learned at the institute is...right. What omegas are taught and how they're taught varies institute to institute, usually based on the types of alphas that are seeking omegas from the institute. So institutes that have higher standing, more funding, tend to teach more subservience and obedience because that's where you have the rich alphas and the politicians and government looking at omegas. Lower level institutes might teach more how to serve and keep a pack since they might have the upper middle class, future family pack omegas. The lowest level institutes might also teach subservience and obedience less in an "I have an appearance to uphold" type of way and more of a "these are not good alphas picking up these omeags and we know that" type of way.
So, the reader didn't have a good experience because there is no real good experience at an institute. They're very strict, controlling, almost abusive in some instances (kneeling for two hours anyone?) Not every omega gets sent to an institute either. Some omegas live with their families until they're old enough to start seeking an alpha themselves. I think I did touch on that briefly in a chapter somewhere.
There's so much I could talk about on institutes omg. This is probably way more than you expected 😅 I just love this stuff so much.
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yuri-is-online · 20 days
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hi, thank you for answering! i really love the fyuuture kid au!! could i ask for cater!yutu? 👀 i wonder if yutu knows there is more to him, and if yuu remembered that too in the og timeline to tell their son
👀 you may. I have a separate fic I am supposed to be writing for him but I had thoughts...
notes: they/them used for Yuu, cw for discussions of mental health and suicide, but no one self harms and nothing is described. General fyuuture kid au info can be found here and the first post can be found here. More of it can be found under the series section of my masterlist.
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Yuu's memories of Twisted Wonderland are less concrete thoughts and more feelings. They know how Cater made them feel, and bits and pieces of his personality but they lack memory of the context, so their memory tries to patch up the holes. In other words, they don't remember Cater's act was an act, and they explain him to Yutu as a creative, friendly person, who likely struggled with a form of depression.
"Your father would sometimes find himself feeling despondent, lacking energy, and motivation. There is a chance as you get older that you might feel that way sometimes too, but that's not because you are a failure or because you did something wrong. I won't hate you if you feel that way and I will never judge you for it. I will always be there for you."
It's a good call, Yutu does find himself having some periods of depression as he gets older from time to time, and the early conversation Yuu had with him allowed him to feel comfortable with discussing that with his parent. The idea that his father had similar struggles comforts him, doubly so if Yuu does as well. He thinks about his dad a lot actually, Yuu's lack of memory means Yutu's over active imagination tries to fill in the blanks.
There is a part of him that thinks his father might have lost his battle with depression and that Yuu's memory loss was due to grief. He respects his father a lot, and is determined to take care of his own and Yuu's physical and mental well being to honor him. Yutu likes to think that is what his dad would want.
He loves music, he finds playing guitar and singing to be very soothing, but he's not super interested in being in a band; he is much more interested in maybe jamming a bit and just talking with his friends. Pretty much exactly like his dad now that I think about it.
I like the thought of Cater! Yutu wanting to be a psychologist when he grows up... and knowing that Yuu isn't the wealthiest person starts working part time to save up for college. He's a very driven person, and deeply interested in what makes people tick.
Cater! Yutu is one of the Yutu's who is A) in a different dorm than his dad (Octavinelle, not Heartslabyul) and B) who sort of prefers your world to Twisted Wonderland. He warms up to Twisted Wonderland after traveling into the past and actually gets to see what it's like, but he really didn't like fighting monsters or seeing what had happened to his father, speaking of which-
He tried asking about what his father was like before he was transformed into a monster, but he didn't get a lot of clear answers. Crewel tells him that he was very outgoing and peppy, a good enough student who was really into an app called magicam that isn't around anymore due to the *gestures vaguely at the apocalypse* and Sam told him a neat story about his New Year's sale and how well his dad could work a crowd. "Good with people." That's something he hears a lot, but nothing to suggest he wasn't always happy. They do have some recordings the pop music club made they pass along to him that Yutu treasures and keeps close.
Yutu had to fight his dad's monster form multiple times to try and rescue people from the Queendom of Roses. It was painful to see a monster who is actively trying to kill him and people he has come to care about and then have him pointed out to him as his dad. There isn't any life left in Cater's eyes to recognize him, but Yutu still wants it to be there. He has so many questions and no one left to answer them.
When he travels back in time, Yutu doesn't interact with Cater immediately. His mind still associates him with blot and grueling fights, so he hangs back around Yuu and Adeuce. It was a bit difficult to get used to being around them, but it helped that Deuce is very polite and his focus on being an honor student is kind of cute. Ace though...
Ace is suspicious. He tries telling those suspicions to Cater, "Hey don't you like Yuu haven't you asked them out a whole bunch you should be worried about this-" blah blah blah, look Cater wasn't there to see Yutu arrive, and he knows the froshes like to exaggerate. There is no way Yutu fell out of the sky and it isn't a big deal that he knows so much about Yuu. They're probably just childhood friends, and those never win even if it would be kind of cute- hey maybe they're related??? It doesn't matter, Cater is determined not to think about it. Which leads to a series of miscommunications where Cater tries teasing Yutu but it just makes him look like an ass for assuming things.
Yutu actually finds this sort of interesting. Now that he actually is talking to his dad, well no. Now that he has actually heard his dad open his mouth and speak it is sort of difficult to think of him as a blot monster or to be afraid. Overblot Cater never said something like "yikes a tron 3000." He thinks he gets what Yuu was remembering about him, Cater can come off as very fake sure, but there are traces of the real him in what he does and says. His dad likes the color yellow, catchy music, being praised when he does something cool, and he wants to be taken care of by someone. Someone Yutu suspects is his parent~
It also helps that he has been stealing Yuu's phone while they're asleep (he tried their password from the future it still worked rip bozo) and scrolls through Cater's magicam feed to try and get a sense for what he liked in between all the trends. He noticed the skateboard stuff and made sure to ask about it by saying something about how "oh I heard about it from Yuu, they thought it was really cool."
Cater isn't really ready to be a dad, but he is surprisingly chill when he learns just who Yutu is.
"Oh please you're here aren't you? You wouldn't be unless I wanted you." Cater sounds so ridiculously sure of himself that Yutu half wonders if he is talking to someone else. But no, it's his dad. His very creative, very good with people, sometimes a bit depressed dad who respects him enough to be honest with him. "You have to know that Yuu wants you to be here, right? I didn't screw that up for you, did I?"
"It wasn't you." He needed to say that out loud for himself, because it wasn't. Yutu's Cater was dead a long time before he ever got to see him. "It looked like you, but it wasn't you."
They like to play music together sometimes, but in typical pop music club fashion they usually just eat snacks and talk. Yutu wants to play some of the music on the recordings Crewel gave him with Cater and Cater wants to make new tracks. He is a bit disappointed that there was no magicam in the future for Yutu to tell him about, but he is just as happy to hear weird trends from Yuu's world.
Cater likes to bring Yuu in to these jam sessions sometimes. He does like to do couple stuff with Yuu on magicam sometimes, but he prefers to keep his more genuine emotions and moments to himself. He will get very embarrassed if he finds out that Yutu has been taking pictures with the ghost camera behind his back.
The future that Yutu came from scares him, he would prefer someone else take the lead on figuring out how to fix it, but if monsters begin attacking in this time? Well he has no problem taking point on that, hey he's heard kids find things less scary if they see their dad's there to protect them.
And Cater is pretty scary when he's mad about missing out on something ♡
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kevinstenhousetumblur · 4 months
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As I’ve gotten older I’ve given less fucks about what other people think about my appearance. Iʼm probably the most comfortable in my skin at this point in my life. Itʼs something I wish my younger self could have experienced.
A big part was addressing my mental health. Once I balanced out and found the right treatments, I became more self aware and comfortable with the person I am. I was definitely less comfortable with myself when I was in toxic relationships. I would still pose but I wasn’t fully comfortable with myself so emotional walls were still there.
I feel like we are a lot more accepting of violence than we are of nudity. I know there are pockets in society where this is not the case but as a whole, we should be more welcoming of nudity and those brave enough to bare it all.
I’ve done a lot of nude work over the years but what has really helped my embrace myself is addressing the emotional barriers. I think that tackling stage fright has helped in this way, for awhile I was more comfortable being nude in front of dozens of artists but completely terrified of being the central focus on stage. I think this is just an example of having to address vulnerability in all aspects of life not just the physical action of being naked.
Torso Series. Kevin Stenhouse Photographer
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marydublinauthor · 2 months
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Shot in the Dark releases May 14, 2024!! EXCERPT BELOW 👇🏼
After all these years, Jon Cliff and Sylvia are getting a NEW debut in this 4-6 book series where fairies, hunters, found family and forbidden romance collide. If you’ve read our shorts over the years here and even enjoyed the original 2013 release, you will LOVE this. @kendsleyauthor and I worked so hard on making it epic and more polished than ever before.
I know we’ve been more quiet on here as we struggle to keep up with all our platforms and personal life (mental health struggles suck y’all lol) BUT we truly can’t wait for you to read this.
Updates:
Preorder coming later this month!
If you review books, sign up to be an Arc Reader and help boost our book’s visibility! You get to read a free electronic copy of the book before official release in exchange for an honest review
Add to Goodreads and Storygraph now (also helps us!)
More to come— But for now, enjoy this juicy excerpt from JON’S POV! 💕
“Every non-human I’ve ever met only causes pain and death,” I said. “They want us to bleed by their very nature. But… you haven’t tried anything. You haven’t tried to kill us, seduce us into selling our souls, or trap us in an eternal nightmare. I don’t understand you.”
The fairy’s eyes widened, and she scoffed at me. “Well, forgive me for confusing you by not being a murderer. How can someone like you be remotely afraid of me?”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“And sometimes, they’re exactly what they are,” she fired back.
I didn’t wrestle off the tired, wry smile that came to my lips. “For someone the size of a mouse, you’ve got a lot of spirit.”
Her green eyes flickered, raking me up and down. Her posture softened like she was slowly seeing less of a snarling animal in me. “If you weren’t a hunter,” she said. “I might actually accept that as a compliment.”
“That’s a shame, then.”
“It is.” She sniffed, looking away pointedly.
The tug in my chest resurfaced—I couldn’t let her sleep thinking I might smother her before she awoke. She had to know we were going to release her. Somehow, it mattered to me that I wouldn’t stay a complete monstrosity in her eyes.
“I lied to you,” she announced, halting my train of thought.
I drew in a sharp breath and leaned away from her slightly. She didn’t appear to be priming herself to attack, but I stayed wary all the same. “What is it?” I asked.
“I…” She wet her lips and wrestled with herself. “I was there the night before you caught me. There were two humans. They didn’t see me, but I heard them. They… mentioned that hunters might be after them—”
“What?” I blurted, crowding toward her.
She cringed away, casting a wild look around the room for an escape.
“Hey.” I lowered my voice. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Look at me.”
Hesitantly, she did.
“You can tell me,” I assured. “It’s alright. What did they look like? What’d they say? Any names?”
“I couldn’t see their faces, and I don’t think I heard any names, but… I’m starting to think one of them was your monster. I’ve never been near one before, but something felt horribly wrong.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s this… ability I have. A sort of instinct.” Each word fell from her lips hesitantly as though any one of them might set me off. “I can sense non-humans and other beings that you would consider unnatural. It’s meant to help my kind steer clear of those things. Maybe I could point you in the right direction if you take me back to that old house. But if I do that, you’ll have to let me go. Does that sound like a fair deal?”
Desperate hope painted her face. It was a little heartbreaking. I considered telling her I planned to release her regardless of what she offered, but it was a tempting ability to make use of.
“Why didn’t you say something about this earlier?” I asked.
Fresh, uncertain tears welled in her eyes. “I thought you’d kill me if I told you everything. You wouldn’t have a use for me anymore. And then, I thought if I admitted I lied…”
“You thought we’d kill you for that,” I finished. “So why admit it now?”
She shrugged, mumbling, “You didn’t lock me in the microwave. That counts for something, I suppose.”
After pondering her offer, I nodded. “Okay. We have a deal. You help us at the house, and you’re free to go.”
“Free to go immediately after,” she said, pointing a finger at me. “Swear that you won’t enslave me.”
I scoffed. “That didn’t even cross my mind.”
“Not even for a second?” She frowned suspiciously. “When was the last time you negotiated with a non-human? Stars, when’s the last time you spared a non-human?” When I couldn’t come up with an answer, she made a small noise of contempt.
“Fine,” I said. “I promise there’s no strings attached after you help us. But we’re not going anywhere until Cliff comes back with the car, so we may as well get some rest.”
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royboyfanpage · 2 months
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Hello I really like your page. It's nice to see so much great Roy content and thoughts!
I was wondering your thoughts and opinions on Roy's relationship with Mia.
!! You're too sweet, tysm!
As for the ask:
Short answer? That's his little sister.
Long answer?
I'll be honest, I haven't seen all that many interactions between them in canon. I do have my own thoughts and feelings about them but, upon looking through some comics I've read, I haven't found many where they're actually talking. I have managed to find panels which show they *have* talked and have a good relationship in canon, but I've only seen them actually interact a few times and have definitely read more content with her and Connor, so if you have any reading recs I'd appreciate that :)
Because of this, my point is gonna be a lot more based on symbols and my own interpretation than actual sources, so some of my opinions may be disputed by canon content.
To start with, Roy's fiercely protective of Mia. Even from the beginning, he expressed his dislike of the thought of Mia becoming Speedy-
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-because he knows first-hand just how detrimental that role can be to a child's mental health. Speedy, to him, meant a lot of bad things. I have a whole lotta thoughts on how the original sidekicks, particularly Roy and Dick, view becoming sidekicks, but I'll try and summarise. To Roy, Speedy meant losing any chance of a normal life. Keep in mind Roy was 13 when he became Speedy- he absolutely was not old enough to decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and yet once you're *in* the hero business it's extremely difficult to leave.
And when Ollie first tells Roy that he's gonna make Mia Speedy, Roy's reaction is essentially that.
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He's angry at Ollie for making Mia become Speedy, not because of "It's my name", it's not, Roy hasn't been Speedy in years at this point. He's angry because that is a seventeen year old who Ollie wants to throw in there, a seventeen year old who'll be making the choice to, in his eyes, throw away the rest of her life before she can even vote. And Roy's absolutely right about the world being different- Roy's teen years were spent in the gold and silver ages which were definitely a lot less dangerous than the 00s. And I think there's definitely an element in that fear of "look what being Speedy did to me" in Roy's fears. While it's likely Roy was an adult by the time Snowbirds happened, considering the amount of drugs he had experience with and the different connections he'd built it's safe to say that Roy was already an addict by the time he was Mia's age. But what I don't think Roy understands is that Speedy isn't that for her. She's already gone through the shit Roy's scared of her going through and more, having been a child prostitute and meth user by the time she was fifteen. To Mia, Roy isn't a cautionary tale but rather an inspiration- someone who'd gone through a similar situation to her and come out the other end.
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After this, their relationship definitely progressed. Roy comes to trust Mia and her identity as Speedy, as well as letting her have things (that he kinda shouldn't have had in the first place, but all vigilantes are criminals it came free with the independent delivery of justice) that could help her as Speedy-
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-and trusting her with Lian who he's always been fiercly protective over
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And their relationship in the few times I have seen them together is incredibly sweet, with Mia reassuring Roy that he's a good dad and that it's not his fault that life gets in the way of his time with Lian.
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So yeah. I really hope that they get to interact in the ongoing series because the Speedys should absolutely talk more. I think that Roy naturally has a great instinct with younger heroes, and he's absolutely someone Mia respects and looks up to.
Anyway I think Roy should take Mia and Connor to a theme park for sibling bonding time <3
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Dead Seagull: Do Not Eat – Albatrosses, Seagulls, and Guilt in Our Flag Means Death
(for future reference: written 10/6/2023, ~36-48 hours after the first 3 episodes of S2 were released)
Hi, all! I, like many of you scrolling the #ofmd meta tag, have a head filled with nothing but the Gay Pirates. This has been the case since 12am PST on 10/5/2023 and will remain the case for several months to come. On my 3rd watch-through of the first 3 episodes of season 2 of OFMD, I started paying closer attention to potential symbolism so that I could maybe predict how the rest of the series is going to play out and get a better idea of what’s going on in these little guys’ brains. This post is the introduction to a short series of long posts wherein I rant about symbolism that may or may not be in the show. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I haven’t written anything even close to a literary analysis since high school, and I generally don’t know wtf I’m talking about. I’m just having a lot of very normal thoughts about The Pirate Show and I need to put them somewhere; if anyone has more ideas relating to this please add to it!! And to the best of my knowledge, the thoughts I express here are my own – please let me know if there are other analyses that say similar things that I should link to.
TWs: animal death, blood, eating animals, starvation, emotional abuse, physical abuse, gunshot injuries, suicidal ideation, canon-typical mental health problems
MAJOR OFMD SPOILERS THROUGH S2E03!!!
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What originally prompted this whole rabbit-hole exploration was the conversation that Ed has with Frenchie at the end of s2e01.
You know there's a bird that never touches ground?
It's born in the air. Never once lands. Spends its entire existence in the sky. …
As Frenchie astutely notes, this seems…kind of impossible. How could a bird be born in the air? I could see potentially never landing, but surely every bird has to come down at some point to lay eggs (or to hatch from them), right? So I did a quick Google search for birds that spend their whole lives in the air, and the first result that came up was the common swift, which apparently spends up to 10 months out of the year in the air, never once landing (or only landing very occasionally) during that time. They catch food in the air, sleep while drifting on air currents, mate in the sky, and only land to nest and lay their eggs.
So that seemed…promising? I guess? But not exactly what Ed was talking about. After all, these birds aren’t “born in the air,” and they certainly don’t spend their entire life without landing. And this still could be what Ed was talking about; it matches fairly closely, and it’s possible that whatever Ed heard was either mis-told, misheard, or intentionally exaggerated. But I think there’s a more elegant answer to what bird Ed is referencing here, and it has much more potential for analysis than the common swift: the albatross.
This is the second thing that I found while searching, and this piqued my interest much more than the last result, since - as many of you probably know, spending time reading tumblr metas – the albatross is an extremely pervasive metaphor in literature. It usually represents a psychological burden that one has taken on, most often as a result of having made a mistake that resulted in others getting hurt. I’ll go into more detail about the source of this symbol in a little bit, but the basic gist is that a dead albatross gets hung around one’s neck until whatever guilt they have is resolved – albatrosses are huge birds, so this represents an enormous weight.
Before I go on, I’ll add that, at first glance, the albatross actually seems to fit Ed’s description less well than the common swift does – albatrosses are known for being able to glide for a long, long time, but they do land…on the water. One of the first things that comes up when you search for “birds that never land” is that albatrosses spend years and years never landing on shore. There’s a similar problem here to the common swift in that no bird actually hatches from an egg while in the air like Ed is implying here. But I would argue that the albatross is indeed what Ed is talking about. Whether he misheard, someone misspoke, or a tale got distorted from it being verbally passed down, Ed is referencing the image of an albatross that spends its entire life above (or on) the sea, never once going to land.
And this fits. In the context of the conversation that Ed is having with Frenchie, Ed is lamenting the fact that he can only exist in one place, fulfilling one role – on the sea, performing the role of Blackbeard. He imagines the life of this fictional albatross as quite lonely, I think, never once leaving the place it has spent its entire life (again, this isn’t exactly how the birds behave, but I believe Ed views them this way based on how he’s interpreted whatever he heard about albatrosses). He’s resigning himself to never leaving his habitat, and quite literally never going back to shore.
“…We’re gonna sail…rob…raise hell forever…and ever…without end.”
Right. So, if I am to be believed, we’ve established that Ed is actually diegetically referencing albatrosses. So what?
Well, as another disclaimer, I’m not 100% sold on these ideas myself. Especially only having the first 3 episodes of S2 to go off of, there’s plenty of time for these ideas to be proven wrong in as few as – checks watch – 6 days. There are lots of different, potentially overlapping, potentially conflicting ways to interpret this information. I’m probably going to split this up into parts, for ease of access and reading. Because all this so far has just been the introduction :))
In one part, I’m going to talk about what is probably the most intentional reference: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the original poem that the albatross metaphor is pulled from. Beyond just the link to the “Impossible Birds” conversation, there are some other elements in OFMD that seem like pretty clear references to this poem. Based on references to this poem in popular culture, I suspect that parallels here would be non-diegetic – meant to be apparent to the audience, not to the in-universe characters. Link Here!
Next, I’m going to talk about another poem, simply titled “The Albatross” (French: L’albatros). This particular poem is maybe less likely to have inspired references in OFMD, but if there is an intentional link, this poem reflects a lot of how Ed sees himself and his life thus far. I’ll admit that I’m a bit biased toward this poem since I had to memorize it in French class in high school and it’s stuck with me – but it was also one of the first things on Wikipedia that was linked on the page of the metaphor of the Albatross. Parallels in this poem are what I would suspect to be diegetic – despite it being an anachronism, I think Ed has at some point read this poem, and he relates to the albatross/poet. [Link Here!]
Lastly, there are some loose ends that I’d like to pick up that may not tie into anything, but I feel like they’re worth mentioning, especially as they relate to the albatross metaphors and parallels. This section is going to talk more generally about birds and bird imagery in OFMD, and how these instances can support or refute my albatross theories. [Link will go here: haven't written yet :)]
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ititledit · 1 year
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YouTube swaps for @radblrthemeweeks
I watch YouTube when I want to have some downtime... And I like my YouTube to be fun.
I thought I would share some female YouTubers I've been enjoying recently, I'd love to hear other people's recommendations!
If you like Nick DiRamio or Mike's Mic, TV and film review/comedy videos try -
Jamie French
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She reviews bad and nostalgic films, including skits where she green screens herself into scenes from the films. She points out production errors, lazy tropes and is pretty fun. The series started out being "movies and make up" but the make up is easy to ignore and as she's done more movie review videos she seems to be doing the on-screen make up less and less.
Recommended videos -
Sleepover is a dumpster fire
I think I found the worst dance movie of all time
Kierra loves TV
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Kierra summarises and discusses characters and tropes in her favourite TV shows. Her channel is pretty new, only 7 months old, and while i don't watch her videos on family guy, in her other videos she has a great voice and interesting perspectives on early 2000s TV - I enjoy her videos on Gilmore girls and Sex and the City
Recommended videos
Why everybody hates Carrie Bradshaw
The manipulation of Emily Gilmore
If you like Todd in the Shadows or other deep dives into musicians, one hit wonders, artists who didn't make it, try -
Naomi Cannibal
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Naomi talks about a range of topics including celebrity culture and TV shows, but I particularly enjoy her videos about musicians careers and history.
Recommended videos -
One album wonders : label conflicts and the rise of streaming
Teairra Mari - the girl who was almost Rihanna
If you like Stuart Hicks or Architecture related videos try -
Belinda Carr
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Belinda makes videos about architecture and modern building techniques and trends. I find her videos to be very informative, even if you're not that into architecture I recommend giving her a try!Recommended videos -
Bamboo Vs cork flooring - everything you need to know
How to build straw bale houses - pros and cons
If you like day in the life, spending challenges and solo travel try -
Clickfortaz
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I love Taz's videos, she is silly, very honest and quite naïve. Her friendship with her childhood friend Moon is really lovely, but most of her videos are just Taz trying new things. She has talked a lot about her mental health and has published and performed her poetry.
Recommended videos -
I tried to bake a cake with no recipe
Living in a treehouse for 48 hours
If you like furniture restoration or carpentry like Blacktail Studio try
Transcend Furniture Gallery
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Angie repairs, restores and up cycles furniture. The videos are informative but also very calm and satisfying and I really like her work!
Restoring table tops - stripping, sanding, staining, sealing
Do you like videos of model and miniature making like Thalasso Hobbyer? Try -
KaypeaCreations
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Karen makes a lot of animals, mythical and real, and her methods and techniques are really interesting to watch.
Recommended videos -
I made a realistic mooshroom from Minecraft
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calypsolemon · 3 months
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not sure if you’ve answered on this in the past, but do you have any thoughts regarding steven’s future/development/what he does following him leaving at the end of steven universe future? i find your analysis posts about steven incredibly interesting. sorry if somebody’s asked you this question already!
It hasn't been asked before! A question of this nature is going to really involve less analysis and more just... speculation/ headcanon, but thats fine too! I'm down to indulge lol
I think the thing that would near for sure happen post-future at some point is Steven moving into his own house or apt. His road trip basically intends as much (he states the goal is to try to find a place to settle down), and furthermore I think a place of his own is something Steven needs even more than distance from his family/ gem stuff. The one thing Steven really lacked growing up was any sense of privacy, and a consistently safe home environment. It would do wonders for his mental health to have a home that he has complete control over, that is unlikely to be in any immediate danger of being wrecked.
After that is more nebulous, as throughout most of the series all of Steven's ambition hinged on gem stuff, and then once he started actually doing gem stuff, it took over his life. It's hard to say what actually interests him outside of that. Quite possibly, he doesn't even know. I can say with near certainty that I think he would avoid any career to do with music (he likes making it but I think it would be too close to his dad's rockstar lifestyle), and he would probably avoid stuff with plants too (both due to risk of bringing them to life, and because plant care was one of Rose's main hobbies). However he is a creative soul at his core, so he might end up pouring himself into other hobbies that eventually become careers. I can see him doing something like pottery or glassblowing, something that can't really be shortcut by his powers and requires a sort of controlled strength. I think it would be therapeutic to him. I can also see him doing a lot of volunteer work in his spare time; I don't think he'll ever fully rid himself of the desire to help people, but if he doesn't have to become personally involved in someone's mental health, it could be healthier output for that "need to be needed."
Despite separating himself from it for his own mental health, I'm pretty sure he would still intermittently get re-involved with little homeschool and gem politics and whatnot. I think after some time healing he would find that he missed aspects of it, and also there's likely the occasional thing that require "pink diamond's" attention no matter what (unfortunately). But thats why the physical separation is important. At the end of the day, he's not the one soley responsible for these things, and he isn't even the primary person responsible. He can just be the guy they call in once in a while. Which, I think over time, would also help assuage any potential guilt he would feel over "dropping responsibilities." He may have left, but he isn't running away from his problems like Rose. He's simply taking an equal and fair part of the work that must be done.
Also, I didn't know where to fit this, but I think the one thing Steven will never do in the future is have children. And not just because of the passing of the gem issue, but also because I think he would genuinely not feel right about doing so. He likes kids and probably ends up adoptive-uncle-ing a few kids in whatever neighborhood he lives in, but I dont think he would ever actually raise kids of his own. This is just pure headcanon tho lol.
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allaboutthedrama · 3 months
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I know that I'm pretty late to the conversation, but I've just reread all of Vampire Academy and Bloodlines (possibly for The Untitled Jill Project) and it's the first time I've reread the VA series in years.
I'm just thinking about how, in my opinion, the quality of the VA series improved as we got into the last few books, and with Bloodlines, I think the reverse sort of happened. Spoilers for both series ahead. (Yeah, the last book came out nine years ago, but you never know.)
I think I hadn't realized how cohesive the ending of Last Sacrifice was. Details from as far back as the first book came up and were very relevant. The political plotline came together in a really tight way, Sonya Karp turned out the be Chekov's spirit user, we got more world-building details, the antagonists had complex and convoluted motivations, and even when there were plot threads left dangling, those actually served a purpose. I loved the part where Adrian pointed out to Rose that her actions had consequences and even though she had gotten what she wanted, not everything else was resolved, so people like Eddie and Sydney and Jill were left in bad situations, and she was partly responsible. It created a little more moral ambiguity, which I really enjoyed, especially since YA tends to like the very neat endings where everything winds up happily ever after.
The Vampire Academy books improved the deeper into the series you got. And, although I love Bloodlines, I do think that the first three books are much stronger than the last three. Which is a shame, because the series has so much potential.
I think Mead is at her best when she's writing something of a mystery. Last Sacrifice obviously comes to mind (they're solving a murder mystery, after all). Bloodlines had that, with the tattoos, Lee, and Keith being shady all building up to a really exciting climax. The Golden Lily wasn't quite as much of one, but the clues leading up to the reveal of the Warriors were well-placed. Indigo Spell went straight back into mystery territory, trying to find Jackie's sister. And then The Fiery Heart is where, in my opinion, things start to falter. There's a lot of interesting worldbuilding information introduced, with the new details about spirit and magic coming up, and it was fun to get into Adrian's head, but it definitely felt like this supernatural romance was shifting to become a lot more romance and a lot less concerned with the supernatural. But that's not such a big deal. It's the middle of the series, we're building tension, Re-Education has been a threat hanging over Sydney since page one of Bloodlines and we're finally seeing that fear pay off.
But then we get to Silver Shadows, and while I guess figuring out where Sydney is could be a mystery, it doesn't really resonate the way 'who killed the queen' does, in my opinion. Sydney's arc in Re-Education is great, and I do like the way the books deal with Adrian's mental health issues, but some of Adrian's chapters felt more like filler. And a bigger issue, imo, was that this was when we really started to lose the side characters. Some of my favorite parts of the first few books were characters like Jill, Eddie, Trey, and Angeline, and then the ensemble atmosphere was largely gone, because Sydney was in Re-Education and Adrian left Palm Springs. The final fight and flight sequence was really good, though, so I had high hopes going into The Ruby Circle.
The Ruby Circle is probably my least favorite of the books between both of the series, and I think that's a shame, since it's the finale. We'd just had a 'kidnapped character' arc, so I think there was less emphasis on describing everyone's reactions. We saw the biggest reaction from Eddie, but as a result, he got kind of flattened out from the really well-rounded character he'd been from the back half of the VA books and the first part of Bloodlines.
The Ruby Circle could have been a really good mystery, with lots of twists that tied up a lot of the lingering questions from the series. Except that a lot of threads from the rest of the series were dropped and didn't resurface. They never caught whoever was behind the assassination attempt on Jill. I don't think we even got an official resolution on whether Lissa managed to change the quorum law. The political plots that were integral to VA weren't significant in Bloodlines, despite it all starting because of a politically motivated assassination. We also never got a resolution on the rogue spirit user who turned Lee back from being Strigoi, or the spirit users who had been sent to the psychiatric facility in Tarasov (the prison from Spirit Bound). We never found Robert Duro. The bond itself was somewhat discarded, too, whenever it wasn't immediately useful for a plot point. Instead, we just got a scavenger hunt across the country, a few fight scenes where the protagonists were pretty much guaranteed to win, and a final showdown with a magic barrier that, as we learn after, would have dropped down on its own in a few hours for them to bring Jill food, anyways.
I obviously still like the series, since I'm rereading it and talking about it nine years after the fact. But I think that there were a lot of opportunities to continue plots from VA that were lost, even when they should have been brought back into the story.
If anyone has made it this far, I suppose I should throw in a pitch for The Untitled Jill Project, which will be my attempt to rewrite the Bloodlines series from Jill's perspective, because I think there's still a lot more story to be told. I haven't got it all mapped out, but I intend to at least tie up some of the narrative loose ends I mentioned that bothered me about the series in that story. I might write up another post here soon about how Jill's characterization also suffered as Bloodlines went on, if anyone's interested.
Anyways, if anyone has any strong opinions on what I said (agreeing or disagreeing) please let me know! I'd love to talk about the series with people, since no one in my real life has read it, and I'm curious to know what the rest of the fandom thinks about how the narrative progressed in Bloodlines.
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presidenthades · 3 months
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Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 7!
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My original expected chapter count for this fic was 7 (one stanza of “The Song of the Seven” for each chapter title), but as I started increasing the number, I realized I needed to get creative with chapter titles. For this chapter, I picked the penultimate lyric “close your eyes, you shall not fall” because much of the chapter consists of Aegon helping Jace not “fall” into a further downward spiral, and there’s a certain amount of faith required by all parties that everything is going to be OK in the end.
Originally, Jace’s road to recovery was going to be even rougher than in the final version. She refuses to eat or drink anything, and her family gets pretty desperate to the point of doing stupid things to get her to eat. But I felt like that was unnecessary angst and trauma, and she’s already been through enough, so I dialed it back.
Similarly, she was going to have bad perinatal depression up until and after she gave birth, and there was a sequence where she refused to even hold Cheeseball for some time after he was born. But again, it made me feel like I was whumping on Jace and Aegon for unnecessary pain, so I focused more on the “comfort” rather than the “hurt” part.
This chapter is in Aegon’s POV because it was originally supposed to be the second half of Chapter 6 before I realized it was way too long. After I cut it in half, I debated rewriting it in Jace’s POV, but she’s stuck inside her head a lot this chapter whereas Aegon has a lot more action and growth. We return to Jace in Chapter 8 when she’s feeling more like herself but still recovering.
Orwyle is not a popular character in the fandom, which is understandable. He only gets like one minute of screen time, but that one minute made me think a lot about his character. When he’s a junior maester, he suggests a new poultice to try on Viserys instead of the traditional leeching method, and he shows a bit of doctorly compassion to Rhaenys when Vaemond’s body is being prepared. In the book, Orwyle’s defining trait is that he’s cowardly (he literally rewrites history to make himself look better to the Blacks, and he flees from the ship taking him to the Wall). But I was intrigued by how he ends up working at a mid-level brothel and teaches the girls there to read (how he gets caught later). He didn’t have to teach them how to read, but he chose to anyway (to his own detriment).
Overall I consider Orwyle as someone who’s very talented at his job (healing and teaching), and is actually a pretty empathetic person (good quality in a doctor), but he’s not strong-willed and is willing to cave on his principles to stay alive. Not exactly a villain, definitely not a hero either. So he’s going to do his job and do it well, regardless of his patient (especially in this AU verse where there’s less conflict).
After three years in the Stepstones, I’d be shocked if Aegon didn’t learn first aid (same with Aemond). He’s not necessarily interested in healing and such, but he’s capable of basic combat-adjacent medical tasks. So he knows how to clean and bandage wounds, and he can recognize common healing herbs.
I don’t think I need to explain that Westeros has a pretty poor understanding of mental health and doesn’t know what therapy is 😅. For most people who’ve undergone trauma, they would probably be told “carry on, as you were, etc” and they have to just “get over it.” But Jace is a princess who doesn’t have to worry about earning a living, has an overprotective husband, and is pregnant with a very important baby so her health and comfort are of paramount importance. So she luckily has a supportive environment dedicated to her recovery.
As is stated later in the chapter/fic, Jace fires her remaining LIWs because she’s convinced herself that it’s her fault they were injured/killed, and sending them away from her service will keep them safe. Irrational to be sure, but Jace has always been prone to blaming herself for things. She’s also worried that firing the LIWs will reflect poorly on them, hence her trying to compensate them monetarily. But the offer is insulting to Rhaena, who acts as a LIW primarily out of love. If Jace were more herself, she would’ve realized the implications of her offer equating Rhaena’s love/loyalty with a monetary value.
Initially, Jace’s list of “safe people” is very short: Aegon and Luce. Aegon is self-explanatory. Of all her sisters, only Luce makes the initial list because a) they’ve always been very close and b) Luce was there when they found Jace at the Garden, so there’s an added feeling of security. Although Aemond was also at the Garden, he isn’t on the list because their prior relationship wasn’t nearly as close as the other two.
When Rhaenyra touches Jace’s face while trying to feed her, Jace flips out because the Tyroshi grabbed her face when forcing down the dreamwine and later during his attempt with moon tea.
A little irony in Aegon offering to be Jace’s taste tester, when you think about how he dies in F&B 😢.
During Chapter 7 of the Handbook, Luce picks up three dragonglass daggers from the blacksmith. I mentioned them in the Handbook commentaries, but I’ll reiterate that she intended for Jace, herself, and Joff to each have one, as the three full-blooded daughters of Rhaenyra and Laenor. Jace clearly hasn’t been using her dagger, except to display it on her mantel maybe.
Daemon has decided to develop an emergency protocol in case any of the Targ girls are kidnapped again. I’ve been debating writing a oneshot about it.
Castle kitchens are hot, loud, messy places, and a princess would have no reason to ever go there. In a castle as large as the Red Keep, there are probably multiple kitchens. I imagine the Holdfast has a king’s privy kitchen and queen’s privy kitchen solely for prepping their food, and probably other kitchens too. I imagine the largest kitchens to be in the main part of the Red Keep, and that’s where Aegon puts Gyles and Ronnel. It’s a longer walk to get the pies to Jace and Aegon, but Gyles and Ronnel have a much wider social circle of other servants. It’s also where Aegon has his little office of petitions, and he likes being able to run out and grab pies whenever he wants.
Gyles and Ronnel are used to Aegon, so they’re relatively chummy with him. But they’ve never met Jace before, have only ever seen her at 1000% gorgeousness during her wedding parade, and have heard plenty of Aegon’s stories about how perfect she is. Of course they treat her with more respect and awe than they treat Aegon 😛.
I like to think that Ronnel does become a knight one day, and he wins a tourney in Jace’s name 🥰. And he’d probably take on a house name like Baker to honor his father.
I was trying to figure out how orange juice was made before things like juicers were invented. England had cider presses for apples, but citrus wasn’t really a thing for them back in the Middle Ages. Eventually I stumbled across the citrus reamer, which is definitely something they could’ve carved/created back in the day, but I COULD NOT get over how phallic it looked 😂. Naturally, Aegon finds it hilarious. I’m debating whether Gyles truly is innocent or if he’s messing with Aegon and has a great poker face.
I lingered on the details of how the pies are made because it’s important that Jace sees the process for herself and internalizes that pies are safe foods, they aren’t drugged, Gyles is trustworthy, etc.
I wanted to make sure that Jace wasn’t in a depressed, traumatized torpor all the time, because that isn’t how it works. She can have “good” moments when she’s moving around and seems normal, and then there can be “bad” moments when something triggers her, or she’s having an off day, and she spirals. The important thing is that she’s overall making progress, and it’s OK if she has days when she takes a few steps back.
We got more info in Chapter 8 on what Jace and Luce talk about in the garden. Luce is thinking about her upcoming nameday, which is the earliest date that Rhaenyra will allow her to be betrothed. But then there’s another year until her sixteenth nameday, when Rhaenyra will allow her to get married. Luce is pretty impatient, so she wants to figure out how much canoodling she can get away with during the year in between. So she asks Jace, because she’s positive Aegon didn’t keep his hands entirely to himself before the official wedding 😏.
Aegon is now very loath to ever let Jace out of his sight again, unless he’s 100% sure she’s safe in their room. The Joff incident in Chapter 9 probably doesn’t help.
Luce always haggles, even if it’s about how much distance Aegon has to stay behind her and Jace.
Aegon immediately gets bored of guard duty. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some form of ADHD: Impulsive, restless, moody, hyperfixation (usually on Jace, but he can get really into his sleuthing).
Hypersexuality sometimes occurs after trauma/sexual violence, hence Jace’s uncharacteristic behavior after the garden scene. And knowing Jace, she’s probably (wrongfully) blaming herself somehow for “leading on” the Tyroshi.
Luce heard the Langward knight gossiping about Jace and got upset, then Aemond beat up the knight to make her feel better, as one does.
Court life means people are always going to gossip and run with the most salacious rumor possible, and it reignites Aegon’s desire for a private life, where he and Jace can live according to their own devices without worrying about what other people think. Unless he pulls a Maegor, he can’t do anything to stop the courtiers from acting like courtiers. So he comes up with the Dragonstone solution, but it’s only a temporary solution. As Otto says in Chapter 10, they are inextricably a part of the game, and Aegon and Jace can only hide away in Dragonstone for so long.
When they were kids, Aegon came up with many plans that got them all in trouble, so Luce recognizes the face he makes 😝.
Aegon has a very soldier mindset of “just pack some clothes and leave,” without thinking about how complicated it is to actually pack a princess’ household. Luckily Luce knocks some sense into him!
I don’t know what winter roses are supposed to look like except that they’re blue, but I liked the idea of petals close together huddling for warmth. And I completely made up Valyrian roses. Not sure if they actually came from Valyria or if it’s named just for the appearance.
Despite everything that happened, Jace is STILL WORKING 😭. What else do we expect from a girl who worked on her wedding night, I guess…
KL has a well system (it’s a big deal during Jaehaerys’s reign), but I imagine the public wells and fountains get real dirty real fast, especially in poorer parts of the city. When Jace was at the Garden, I imagine the girls had limited clean water to offer her for drinking and washing because they have to walk pretty far for good water. So Jace is thinking about that as she writes her well cleaning proposal.
I’ve been thinking a while about writing an Otto POV fic, and one of the ideas I jotted down for myself was that Otto is secretly a nerd about public infrastructure and sanitation. Oldtown seems to be a much cleaner and better run city than KL. I like to think about Otto adopting pet projects that make the capital less smelly and dirty. So Otto is naturally a supporter of a well cleaning project, and I’ve mentioned before that he likes Jace. Also he’s very invested in the pregnancy being successful, so he’ll do his part to reduce stressors.
Once again, the key to influencing/manipulating Jace is not by appealing to her own desires, but by appealing to the happiness and well-being of her loved ones. Aegon knows this, and it’s a good thing he adores her too much to use this power for evil.
Aegon’s household is basically just Gyles and Ronnel, so his departure preparations are quick. I’m sure he has personal servants assigned to him who handle his laundry and such, but he probably bribed them years ago to leave him alone so he can have privacy and sneak out. And he became rather self-sufficient in the Stepstones (although as royalty, he would’ve had servants there too for menial stuff), so he doesn’t want anyone helping him dress or shave or bathe or whatnot.
Aemond is such a bro, holding down a knight so Aegon can beat him up 🥲. Aegon knows Jace would disapprove of him breaking someone’s jaw for gossiping so he’s careful not to leave any evidence on his person.
Aegon also knows how to push Aemond’s buttons, so he easily convinces Aemond to join the Dragonstone vacation. Aemond would probably have invited himself anyway once he found out about the guest list.
While Jace has been reducing the governing work she does during pregnancy, Rhaenyra has been doing more of it. In canon, Rhaenyra seems content to isolate herself with her family at Dragonstone, so I carried over that attitude of savoring domestic bliss into this verse. But here, Jace is an overachiever, and I think her example kickstarts Rhaenyra into being more active too. So Rhaenyra has work obligations, and social ones as she’s been ingratiating herself at court again. It would be difficult to pack up her entire household (much larger than Jace and Aegon’s) and disappear to Dragonstone for 2-3 months, so she can’t immediately leave like the kids can.
Like Aegon, Rhaenyra is a bit paranoid now about letting Jace out of her sight. She’s also had a longstanding petty grudge about Jace picking Aegon as her #1, so she strongly disapproves of Aegon’s plan to take Jace away, even though Dragonstone is very close and technically her castle.
Aegon is not what I’d call emotionally mature, and he’s a troublemaker by nature. So he deliberately responds to Rhaenyra with things he knows she’ll hate hearing. And in the end, he forces Rhaenyra’s hand by telling Jace “of course Rhaenyra would love for us to go to Dragonstone” 😇.
Poor Daeron is too pure for Daemon’s Torture 101 class. Meanwhile Joff has an avid clinical interest in human anatomy, and Daemon is having the time of his life. Targ family bonding!
The Tyroshi put a collar on Jace, so Daemon put a collar on him to make things fair.
The Tyroshi knows he’s never going to escape, and he’s already endured an awful amount of torture/mutilation. At this point his goal is to die swiftly, so he tries to provoke Aegon into killing him.
I haven’t 100% decided the Tyroshi’s backstory, but I’m imagining him coming from one of the powerful conclave families in Tyrosh. There was absolutely no need for him to go to Westeros and make money through usury and slavery; he chose to because he thought it’d be fun to “get one over” the Targaryens by conducting a trafficking ring in their own capital (I imagine Tyrosh having an ancestral hatred of Valyrians, even though a lot of their culture was inherited from them as a result of being part of their empire). Just in case it wasn’t clear what kind of sadistic sociopathic person he is.
Joff has been brooding a lot about Laenor’s death ever since they found Old Willow, and now her guilt is carrying over into recent events with Jace.
We will learn more about the wet nurse in Aegon’s memory in future fics 👀. She calls him “Uncrowned One” because in this verse, he’ll be another Aegon the Uncrowned.
“Three children you shall have with your wife, black or green or something in between.” In canon, Aegon has three kids with Helaena. In this verse…well, I feel like I’ve dropped a lot of foreshadowing about him and Jace 😊. “In between” refers to how there isn’t a strong black/green divide in this verse, but there’s a new faction (gold) that includes people on both sides.
“All of them shall break like your legs and wings.” In canon, all of Aegon and Helaena’s children die terribly, and Aegon and Sunfyre end up crippled. In this verse, there is a close call during Cheeseball’s birth; if the maester and midwives had chosen to save Jace, the process for extracting a stuck baby is really gruesome.
“Unless you keep this little shadow close to the sun.” Jace has gotten a lot of sun imagery in this fic, and Joff is kinda obviously the shadow. It’s because of Joff’s intervention that the birth ends well. So there’s a way to avoid the “broken” part of the prophecy, but the condition must be met.
Aegon is a skeptic when it comes to witchcraft and prophecy, but there’s a reason his subconscious brings to the memory at this moment. Don’t leave Joff behind!
Aemond finds it extremely undignified that Vhagar, the largest dragon in the world and a veteran of multiple military conflicts, has been relegated to delivering baggage.
The stained dancing slippers that Jace finds in her room at Dragonstone are the same slippers that someone (Luce) accidentally ruins in Chapter 3 of the Handbook.
Valyria is strongly inspired by Classical Greece and Rome, so I decided to give them Roman-style bathhouses, which were often decorated with mosaics and has a hot room, warm room, and cold room. The Targs (or whoever built the castle) imported this to Dragonstone, and the volcano means they can get hot water very easily. Aegon was in the guest quarters last time he visited so this is his first time seeing the family bathhouse.
Some commenters suggested that Luce and Aemond are probably canoodling during their trips to the Dragonmont. There might be some of that going on, but Aemond is a huge dragon nerd, so I can imagine him geeking out about exploring the Dragonmont while Luce is disgruntled about him being oblivious to her attempts to make out 😂.
Gerardys is hoping that Jace will be OK with him and the midwives helping her by the time it’s time to give birth. But in case she isn’t OK, he decides to put one of the Targ girls on a midwifery fast-track. He picks Baela because she’s the strongest of the bunch, and acting as a midwife can be very physically exhausting.
Meanwhile, the mysterious bangs in the tower are Joff and Daeron trying to figure out ways to light the glass candle. This involves blowing up some stuff along the way.
Hyrkoon the Hero is part of ASOIAF lore, one of the potential alternative names for Azor Ahai. I decided that he’s the main character in quite a few fairy tales/myths, and every hero needs a sidekick. I invented the sidekick Santus the Swine by combining a half-pig character in Chinese folklore and Don Quixote’s Sancho Panza (whose name is supposedly derived from the Latin Sanctus), and it wasn’t until afterwards that I thought about the Pink Dread (which never happened in this universe because Jace stopped Aegon). I guess Aemond really can’t escape the pig references in any universe 🐷.
Anyway, Aegon’s really lucky he didn’t get himself and baby Jace killed when he shoved their wagon down their stairs. And Jace not being cut by the Iron Throne is a sign, maybe??? 👀👀👀 And yes, there is much symbolism in little Aegon helping baby Jace climb up the throne 🥺.
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adamworu · 1 month
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Have you seen Codex Entry's video titled "The End of Evangelion Is (Not) A Happy Ending - An Analysis & Critique"? She makes a lot of interesting points in that.
First things first, it keeps hitting me how numerous the death threats were that GAINAX got. The contempt of man, followed by a disgusting lack of consequence has always been a central theme in Evangelion. Seeing just how painful the imitation of art to life is feels like opening old wounds. They were instrumental in EoE's conception among other things (Anno putting his feelings into film being another). The quick flashes of ire in written form really helps give EoE that unshakable bitter, pessimistic feel.
(warning for strong personal talks of suicide under the cut)
Anno's mental health worsened at the main series' end. People weren't satisfied with how it ended. They drove him to the point of contemplating suicide. If Anno's reflection of himself manifest through some of the characters, this makes Shinji's state before the infamous sequence even more haunting.
The interviewer asked 'What stopped you?' to which Anno replies 'The prospect of pain. I didn't mind dying I didn't want it to hurt.'
I didn't want it to hurt.
As someone with fluctuating highs and lows of mental health, this struck me more than I'd like to admit. During my periods of contemplating ending it all, one of my greatest fears was the pain. That death isn't the peaceful embrace from it all. That your lasting regrets die with you as your loved ones would eventually find you and become horrified at the fleshy shell that once had a name. You hear their faint screams, your strength is all but gone, and that flickering light within you is snuffed forever.
'Faced with the reality, I stopped.'
I think there's something even more painful about the end. There is no pain, but was lies on the other side...if anything?
EoE asks what if self-loathing becomes our being? Who you are affects your very being. And Shinji's self-hatred seeps into the cast, then the whole world. Considering Shinji's status as an audience surrogate, this sort of thing is very much aimed at the audience, especially those targeting Anno and GAINAX.
I personally don't think, however that EoE is an inverse to EoTV (series end). I do agree with her (Codex Entry), however that EoE is the horrifying reality of if the wrong person turns their back on humanity. EoE is more the explicit version on how humanity came to be in Instrumentality. I still wouldn't call it pessimistic even after all these years. EoTV sees the characters with more self-fulfilled arcs in the very end. There's a sense of catharsis from cast and viewer alike from having climbed a mountain of epiphany and acceptance. EoTV feels more convenient, albeit not unnaturally so.
EoE is more explicit with Shinji's flaws. They stare him in the face with no hesitation. These fears are far uglier and portray him less favorably. Less sympathetically. He views the girls and women around him as how they'd be of benefit. His ire isn't just about the realization that they're people with feelings and complexities deserving of empathy. It's also that those girls and women can as well as do hold the right to exist without him. He sentences the whole world to metaphorical death by way of relinquishment of the AT Field due to his own insecurities. His locus of control is viewed externally. His deterministic point of view harms everyone around him. The train scene is shown here and it parallels his talk with Leliel in episode 16. He blames his reality rather than hold himself accountable.
This is the importance of 'What is your hand for?' It's a gentle nudge into the prospect of free will. It's not just a doctrine of freedom, but one that argues that you are culpable.
My one and only pet peeve with the essay is the confusion of happiness and positivity multiple times throughout. EoE isn't happy, but it is positive. If we were to look at EoE as its own universe rather than a metatext, it is intensely depressing. It tells you that with your hands you can better the world around you. With the fact that it's self-aware considered, it acts as a cautionary tale, that intense self-loathing and disdain serves not just to poison you, but others. We don't all have the ability to damn the human race to metaphorical death until to bring them back because we don't exist. Shinji is understood in Codex' video to be an audience surrogate to great detail. EoE is the existence that did not want to be. Rather than being nihilistic and ireful, it grabs the audience with trembling fingers, saying 'For the love of God, be empathetic. It won't kill you! You are ruining everyone around you with your contempt for outside agency and your arrogance. Please...!'
End of Evangelion is Nyquil. It tastes strong and it tastes bad. Everyone needs bad tasting medicine if they want to get well. So drink the damn medicine.
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acoraxia · 4 months
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been meaning to tell you how much I genuinely love your takes, designs, and overall everything relating to the LMK series,JTTW and other related topics and shows. I'll be honest as much as I love the goofiness and silliness of the fandom, as much as I love reading the ship stuff. it's nice to also look at and indulge in content that sticks more to the original lore and focuses less on romantic relationships. not many people especially in the fandom do that so it's very grounding for me if that makes sense the shipping is fun but I have other interests, I wanna see different takes for the same character ya know? broaden my understanding of them, their thoughts, and their actions. I want a diverse list of hcs that may apply universally or be dependent on whatever personal AU is playing on repeat in my skull while I pace around my room maladaptive daydreaming with a fitting Spotify playlist.
your stuff defiantly helps that, I loved reading boy savior, and I fucking LOVE blind justice I really wanna look up more about Erlang now. I'm excited to read more of your aus, relationship dynamics, character analysis, and hell your insane ramblings. watching you go feral is an experience.
I hope you're getting some decent downtime and your health doesn't take a nosedive again. As soon as things calm down money-wise, I hope to send something other than emotional support for your work. not expecting an answer to this I just wanted to express my thoughts and thanks for the times your posts and art made my days a little less shit this year and send positive vibes back.
I actually got a physical copy of Journey to the West from a friend of mine as a christmas gift and I’ll be rereading it during a small one-week hiatus (for the sake of my health and for the sake of my mental exhaustion, LMK is good but it sucks to have no one to talk to about it because of holidays) and I remember thinking at some point if I was being too.. edgy? Or too emotionally damaging in my content
I say this and I know JTTW has moments that are traumatizingly horrifying such as SWK crying when smoke got in his eyes and reliving trauma from the furnace he was locked into for days. But, still, the fandom is so goofy and silly and has.. some takes. And I thought people wouldn’t like my content because of how different it was.
Thank you for the comment and I honestly hope you have fun with whatever AU your head lets you play around with! It’s very fun when stuff like that happens, it’s actually how I started thinking about Boy Savior.
And as I am typing this I might be a little sick again ngl but here’s to hoping for a speedy recovery
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