I’ve seen some talk about how there are a lot of similarities and parallels between the Eyk/Maura/Daniel love triangle and the Jérôme/Clémence/Julien love triangle and I can’t get it out of my head because it is both so true and also not. And it’s all because of how I try to break the triangles down.

The obvious route is to go for the ‘centre’ of the triangle and take it from there. Maura and Clémence are both women who potentially find themselves torn between two separate men. They are both in different kinds of dead marriages (Maura has forgotten her life outside of the simulation, Clémence is in an unfullfilling simulation-marriage), and feel some draw to another man. But then things get blurry. Because yes, Daniel and Lucien are both the spouses in their respective love triangles, but they approach their wives completely differently. Lucien is pushing Clémence away because of his impending death and guilt over living a stolen life, while Daniel is actively reaching out to Maura to help her remember and set her free from the simulation. In that sense, he seems to parallel Jérôme more than Lucien, as Jérôme is the one sitting on a truth that could change everything. 

But then again, Jérôme is not on the Kerberos for Clémence, he is there to confront Lucien. He had no intention of interacting with Clémence and rather seems to act against his own interest by continuing to interact with her. That may give him a parallel to Eyk, who is also initially here to get the ship from point A to B but is then sucked in to the Prometheus mystery and becomes part of exploring the edges of the simulation with Maura.

But to claim that Maura and Clémence are in the same position isn’t entirely right either. In some ways Maura actually resembles Lucien more than Clémence. Clémence, while clearly disillusioned with her marriage, still continuously reaches out to Lucien and shows affection to him. She wants their relationship to function in some way it appears. Meanwhile Maura cannot let herself remember Daniel because that would make her remember Elliot and then his death and that’s the whole reason she seemingly made the simulation. Maura shuts down, differently but still sort of in parallel to Lucien. They would both rather be alone in the torture simulation than risk a greater pain. To Maura that pain is the knowledge of her son’s death, and to Lucien it’s putting his heart on the line for a woman who may not love the man he truly is back.

But if we go by the logic that Maura = Lucien, Daniel = Clèmence and Eyk =Jérôme than the similarities between the triangles still don’t make complete sense. Because Daniel and Eyk are not drawn to each other in the way Clémence and Jérôme are. This could be because Daniel has the ultimate outsider-factor that comes from knowing he’s in a simulation while absolutely nobody else does, but how does that help anything unless Clémence secretly knows something about the simulation too?

But then again, everything we learn has to be taken with a grain of salt because season 1 is one big box full of questions that are supposed to be answered further down the line. For all we know the french trio have no connection to each other in real life. Eyk could be a sleeper agent for Ciaran. Daniel could be dead. Maura could’ve imagined every single person on the Kerberos including the other five. I feel like I’ve been given countless photos that I’m supposed to tie together on a conspiracy board and I have no string yet.

UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE B

Hamlet Propaganda:

Have you seen the man. Is he clinically insane or just putting on an antic disposition. Is the ghost real

Kim Dokja Propaganda:

I haven't read orv but he's fucking gotta be from what I've osmosised

He tries to remove his emotions out of the narrative soooo much, literally the most repressed guy ever. Okay so for context orv is about how this guy, Kim Dokja, has been the only reader of an obscure post-apocalyptic webnovel for years and the novel suddenly becomes reality. And at first you'll probably get the weird impression that his behavior is pretty strange for, you know, a literal apocalypse happening in his world - like yes, he is concerned with survival but he doesn't seem all that scared and he kinda treats it like a video game where he has to grind to make himself stronger and he also treats his companions like a party in an rpg. Then there's also the way he approaches the protagonist of the webnovel, from the start he just kind of describes him as a ruthless psychopath and jerk that is unfortunately a pretty useful ally. And also there's the fact that he carefully omits any mention of his past and when somebody asks if he's worried about his family when the apocalypse starts he just kinda... brushes it off? Anyway so yeah, this bastard is definitely traumatized, although I don't know how much of spoiler territory that would be, considering the fact that literally when he first reveals his trauma he's also unreliable about it. And turns out he does indeed, care A LOT about this world and the people around him. Because well, he kinda didn't care to mention that this webnovel that has become reality was like... literally his whole world before it literally became his whole world. Like, it was the only thing keeping him going for 10+ years and the protagonist that he likes to call a stupid jerk was his comfort character who he pretended to be when he felt like he couldn't handle something in his life by being himself. The protagonist is also canonically the person he loves the most according to a prophecy and he literally can't fathom the thought of him dying, even the timeline versions of him that directly oppose him. And I haven't even mentioned the Fourth Wall yet but I feel like this propaganda is a little long already

misreading the intentions of his companion (yoo joonghyuk) so many time.

YOU DON'T UNDERSTANDDD DOKJA IS SUCH A UNRELIABLE NARRATORRRRRR GOD I COULD WRITE AN ESSAY BUT I KNOW YOU LOVE DOKJA TOO BUT OMG HE'S JUST SO AAAAAAAAAAAH

Rest of Propaganda under cut!

he is the worst like actually. he starts the story talking about how normal and average he is. he is not. he is constantly mischaracterizing his friends and he's so good at lying to the readers that you don't even realize it at first. almost every single time he cries we have to be told by other characters because he never says it himself. there is literally a scene where his narration says "i wasn't crying" and then the in-universe entity that narrates the actions of people (orv is really weird and meta) says that he was, in fact, crying. honestly genuinely anything he says about himself (or doesn't say) cannot be trusted. he is just so frustrating. he drives me mad. i love him dearly. but he drives me so mad.

Dictionary definition of unreliable narrator. Does not tell the reader anything and then things happen and he's like oh yeah btw there was also this and this earlier but i just didn't feel like mentioning it. There's even a thing called the "Fourth Wall" that is able to see through kdj's bs so occasionally you get gems like,

Kim Dokja: I didn't cry

The Fourth Wall: [Kim Dokja was crying]

Imagine being so unreliable as a narrator you need a more powerful narrator to call out the actual narrator.

^ same submission, just spacing it out

This goes into spoiler territory, but; Kim Dokja is in possession of a skill called the Fourth Wall, which on the surface seems like it appears because he read the book that reverse-isekai’d into his own. However, as the story goes on it becomes clear that it’s pretty much a souped up version of his pre-existing dissociation. You cannot trust him to be honest about his feelings, his past traumas or his feelings about his past traumas, not to mention his tendency to just outright omit information that only gets revealed later on either when it becomes relevant or when an outsider POV reveals what’s actually happening.

Exhibit A: he says (in 1st person POV) that he’s not crying. The Fourth Wall immediately contradicts this (as it is literally words of the novel) by saying (in 3rd person POV) ‘Kim Dokja was crying’.

Exhibit B: Fails to mention entire actions when it shows him emotionally honest even in the slightest; we had to read from another character entirely when Kim Dokja was being physically affectionate with his companion. It’s so bad that there’s this entire paragraph about Kim Dokja describing himself hiding his eyes in his hands in jerky, weirdly specific detail and just AVOIDING EVERY WORD THAT MIGHT SHOW HE’S CRYING. The brilliance of ORV is that when you re-read the entire thing you get hints that ‘yes, this WAS hinted at the entire time’ but you have to dig it out of Kim Dokja’s repressed, depressed self-hating internal dialogue with your own two hands.

^ same submission, spacing it out (i really should've done this earlier.)

i am a simple man (not a man). i see a tumblr text post with the words “unreliable narrator in it”. i read nothing else. i reblog & tag #kim dokja okay but in all seriousness i’m just going with the musty basic example: so there’s this moment where he sacrifices himself to save this guy. as he lays on the ground bleeding out, he says “hey, you don’t like me, right? you should kill me to get some money” the guy says “no kim dokja i cant do that (going through the five stages of grief except there’s only one and it’s anger)” the constellations (twitch viewers irl) are like omg he (the guy) doesn’t want to kill his companion (kim dokja) and shower him (the guy) with money kim dokja: oh, he’s not killing me for the money. smart!

as i quote a brilliant youtube video (all of omniscient reader’s viewpoint in 6 minutes) “yoo joonghyuk sees kim dokja as a c_____”

yoo joonghyuk: companion

kim dokja: cunt

^ same submission, once again. spacing it out.

Hides his true feelings, tells the readers what he thinks is convenient for the plot and that his own personal feelings don’t matter or are not so significant. Has unreliable thoughts abt his companion and is a liar. And is also an omniscient reader.

Kim Dokja always perceived his companions in this like nonchalant way like “oh yeah we get along but really we’re just fighting to survive (apocalypse setting) it doesn’t run that deep” when they all do genuinely care for him and he does in turn. He just, doesn’t think of it as an equal relationship? Dokja’ll sacrifice a lot for them but will get seriously flabbergasted if they do the same thing, so fricking problematic. Not to mention Yoo Joonghyuk, his “Life and Death Companion” (read: husband). Kim Dokja always seems to think that Joonghyuk has it out for him, which is kinda true, but he is literally blind to the fact that he’s attached to him. Like, it’s so obvious??? Also they have hella sexual tension but that’s another thing entirely

se get some many pov changes where kdj in his pov just assumed things based on what he knew the characters would do. however because of his interference the characters have changed and he wouldn’t know that if it hit him in the face

He's an unreliable narrator because he lies to himself and thus the audience. He literally rewrote his own childhood core memory. If someone says, "this guy is my friend!" He will go through so many hoola hoops in his mind just to rationalize it. Because he fundamentally believe that no one could love him and even if they did they couldn't know him and he's just gonna hurt them. He cries sometimes in canon but a lot of those times it's not even mentioned as crying he's that unreliable of a narrator. No joke, one time this guys he has a gay thing with called him his "companion" to someone who had just killed him (long story) and this bitch thought "oh wow he's doing it for the coins (another long story) he's so smart i wish I'd thought to that. He's terrible. He literally has an exchange with something called the Fourth Wall (an even longer story) where it said "you're crying" and he said "no I'm not" but he was crying. He makes me insane because the reader is supposed to project onto him. He made me see how much of an unreliable narrator I WAS. ORV is just like that tho.

Man's Fallibility & Immortality

I found a practically perfect song, by my interpretation, to add to my Rise to Fall playlist. (I haven't cleaned up/updated the playlist fully, so I'm not posting the whole thing yet, but I think this particular song warrants its own post.)

First, listen to the song: Nothing's New - Rio Romeo

Then, what follows below is something of a tragedy-analysis, abstract, meta-thing/omniscient prose narration experiment. I don't know what it is—an outpouring of thoughts. It may strike a similar chord as my narration at the end of Simony and its epilogue.

(Simony was a prediction fic I wrote before the publication of Fall. An extremely erroneous one though. I still think it could work, but oh, how wrong I was.

The direction Soman took the plot in, just, it was unpredictable, even if I did enjoy the book. I still like Rise better than Fall though, of the duology. If Rise had just ended at the point of: Vulcan is dead, Rafal tortures his students, and the brothers gradually learn to trust each other again, that would've been nice and comforting, honestly. But no, substitutes, substitutes, substitutes! On both sides. Drives me insane. Ack! But, I have four, short fics planned that have alternate endings to Rise and to Fall, to make up for it. Well, one of them is so far a little longer, three chapters long.)

If anyone wants me to analyze the actual lyrics more closely, I'm willing to do that too!

⸻

The tales.

They are all the same.

Good winning, Evil winning.

What difference does it make after centuries, really?

Everything probably feels numb and empty after a certain point.

Like nothing matters anymore.

Undiluted apathy after that certain point.

When? I've lost track.

When losses and victories all ring hollow, and all sound the same.

The End.

That's all It wrote.

The sum of lives distilled down to ink and illustrations.

Nothing beyond that. No life, no spark.

What more is there? When nothing will ever satisfy the restless souls, not even an Ending all to themselves.

Just pages that will yellow with time even if the stories themselves are timeless because nothing changes.

Nothing ever changes.

There's no evolution.

Every tale is the same.

It becomes nothing after nothing, not victory after victory, when you're ageless like we are.

And how, if that's how it is?

Why bother?

Why bother at all?

It's a cycle that continues, with or without the brothers.

Ceaseless.

So, why should it matter?

It's the same with or without them.

Their position was always ceremonial.

After a while, anyone becomes tiring. Anyone.

And one person just isn't enough, when you have no one else.

No one else to shield you.

It gets old. The love just... fades, and wears out.

Perhaps, human love can only span for so long, and that's why humans are mortal.

Made mortal, and no one should traverse beyond that.

It always leads to hubris, and then, a fall.

An unnatural fear of death trained into them, when limits were never set, when power was never checked, when they expected to have all the time in the world.

Nothing is built to last. At least, not by the Storian.

It does whatever it pleases.

You can't extend a life past its time.

It will always end in ruin. Isn't that the lesson the storybooks teach?

A cautionary tale.

Again and again, the cycle continues.

Every failed holy-grail of immortality, every spilled cup drawn from the fountain of youth, every cursed head of lettuce, every white snake, every chalice of sleeping draught that led to execution after execution, every baptism that succumbed to primordial wickedness, every impoverished fisherman's hovel?

Why not a tale about two brothers?

One where two are felled.

To caution against mortal greed that even immortality can't peel away.

To caution against always wanting more until you're left with nothing.

Nothing at all.

Just like how you can't truly resurrect anyone as who they once were, you can't revive the soul that a person once was.

And you can't play at being God because it defies the rules of nature.

And all that we know about transience and permanence and how ephemeral everything else is.

Everything but Man, who vies to leave a legacy wherever he goes, at any price, even at the cost of his soul, not life.

⸻

Now, I do wonder if I made anyone emotional? I certainly tried this time around, to be a provocateur like Soman is. Tell me what you think, if you want.

/breathes. This icon is called killme003.png for the sake of this post because honestly, where yesterday I was rather demotivated from writing up more meta, I woke up today with the strength of all Aeons in existence (and... not-so-in-existence-anymore) for intense research. So I put my thoughts through the sternest 'let's try to shake and shoot up the perspective/logic/theory' process that I could manage, and it's still standing. If anything, I'm more certain than I was yesterday or a week ago, that MHY is doing something substantial, and vastly nuanced with this damned character. I thought I had big-brain thoughts on/for Guizhong, but I don't know if those hold a candle to the ones I have for Kafka (actually, they really do). My issue with this lady in wine though, I don't know where to start writing it all down. It's like 10 messy whiteboards that are hypotheses on her trailer, the words she uses therein, "Don't be afraid, listen to me, wasn't it you, who invited me?", "Destiny has thousands of faces, why does it choose to wear this one?", "Stealing a glance?" during someone's final moments during her spirit whisper? Like, come on, you can't tell me she doesn't play into fate somehow beyond what we've all obviously gathered. You can't tell me that there isn't a more authentic face that has been staring right at us this entire time. She borderline if not directly says it right to us, but we're almost taught to not listen anymore, to think that there's more to something, but what if writers are using that against us, what if this is an instance where we should take words at direct face value? On top of everything else, of course. Fate is "inevitable" and right in front of us always, after all.

God, imagine a being tied so intricately woven into fate (vastly differently from Elio, mind you), speaking quotes upon quotes about the inevitability of fate, and being tied to nihilism, and yet firmly holding some sort of faith into choice, and hounds us on it. I mean come on, one of the main quotes in the entire story of HSR are her words: "When you have the chance to make a choice, make one that you know you won't regret." And she directly tells us in her own SQ, and it is a confirmed truth and not a lie, that Kafka herself does not believe destiny to be predetermined. Now to what capacity? We don't know. But the contrast of this, the rich nuance in this drives me insane. The duality of this woman, the spider (which itself is already a duality of a creature) and the butterfly (not necessarily as juxtaposed as one would believe, it all depends on perspective), the curiosity/fascination opposite her boredom, the ease of her killing which is reinforced with the emotional distance of her submachine guns, and yet she speaks how we should "let morality be our (your) guide", which fits perfectly alongside the decision of having her wield a katana, a blade that was worn by those following the highest code of honor? Speaking of emotional distance, the way she speaks of humans and humanity feels so distant, along with her talk of fragility. God, I just, want to shake HVY very firmly and fiercely. The fact that her eyes are highly likely to be concealed (hello, red), the fact that her voice is altered consistently, and yet we're shown the depth and warmth of her actual voice, and the empathy it holds consistently around primarily one person (almost two).

I love writing meta, but I don't know where to begin. I don't know where to start, but I'll get there. I just wanted to show how messy my mind is, I suppose. It makes perfect sense in my head, I've seen the dots, I've connected them, I see you MiHoYo, and you're giving me everything my brain needs in terms of latching my claws into something. But my god, where do I start writing it all down.

honestly i think even with a scene with buck it could still be a sort of “i dont understand how she looks like shannon to you something is seriously wrong here” situation. i think they made her different enough but who knows 🤷‍♀️

also i think its possible that eddie has a breakdown severe enough that he goes to the hospital and during this his parents come to town to take chris with them to texas but who knows

it's the stunt casting for me!!!!!! no because i was thinking about this earlier and i actually think this storyline WOULD work for me if 911 wasn't a visual medium. like if someone wrote a "eddie dates a woman who reminds him of shannon" fic that would be totally believable because there's that ambiguity in written fiction where it's like. ok to what extent DOES she look like shannon. we, the audience, can't really KNOW we ONLY have Eddie's (unreliable) perspective to rely on.

But visual mediums are not like books and you just can't get away with the same thing. Because while visuals mediums CAN be in a certain characters "perspective" (just look at 7x04) we, the audience, still do get our own lens to see through. anyway this is a whole separate meta discussion about the differences between mediums and how it drives me absolutely bonkers insane when people act like movies/TV and books are completely interchangeable when it comes to how the narrative WORKS. NO THE FUCK THEY ARE NOT. (it especially bothers me when AUTHORS seem to think this...........but that's a separate post..........)

Re: Eddie breakdown. God that would be insane. Buck's coma nightmare version of Eddie coming true. I really DONT want them to go that route but ngl part of me finds the idea a little compelling...like Eddie being unable to care for Chris for some reason and having to grapple with that + face who he even IS as a person if he's not just Chris's Dad first. I'd file this under the category of like, things that would potentially be interesting to explore in fic but i don't really want to happen in canon

The RWBY Justice League trailer is out. AU crossover fanfiction with a budget.

I just watched it and honestly? The plot seems fine. Painfully generic, but given that I support painfully generic things whose primary draw is the niche characters/references of a particular fandom (or in this case two), it's whatever. I like AU crossover fic, so I fully understand why, for current RWBY fans, getting that on a movie budget is a dream come true. Plus a few of the scenes looks nice, like Wonder Woman going after that grimm.

On its own I'd be fully wiling to go, "Eh, it doesn't look like anything special, but I'm willing to watch it on some random, weekend night" and leave it at that, but as with all things RWBY, this film is caught up in the franchises' other problems. For example, prior to watching the trailer I assumed that this was an AU in the sense that the DC folks have always existed in the RWBY-verse. AKA, Batman grew up as a faunus. However, now I've learned that they've actually been transported here... and de-aged... and some have randomly become minorities? I don't know anything about Vixen as a character, but taking the guy whose entire fighting style is based around his insane amount of wealth--whose philosophy is embedded in enacting change that even his power as a wealthy white man can't touch--and giving him bat wings that, in this world, is a symbol of the oppressed species seems... messy.

This is just the cycle for RWBY nowadays. Fans are excited and I'm genuinely happy for them. What they're excited for seems pretty lackluster to me. Then I think about it for a hot second, specifically in the context of RWBY's history, and go, "Wait..." At this point, I actively hope that any new installments are just "fine" as opposed to "potentially offensive to a large number of viewers."

Also, this is SUCH a nitpick and a wholly own up to that, but Ruby's nonsense encouragements drive me nuts nowadays. Most RWDE folks have aired their grievances over "What's the plan, Ruby?" / "Don't let anyone else die" (or whatever the exact quotation is). Now we've got "What do we do??" / "We... fight." Like yes, right before this Ruby has another "I just might [have a plan]" line, so of course there's something resembling strategy here, but I haaaate that cheesy, 'inspiring' call to action when characters are LEGITIMATELY asking how they're going to defeat a powerful foe. As in, what's the plan, Ruby, not the hopeful outcome. It feeds into the very non-nitpick-y problem of the characters coasting by on the meta assurance that things will work out because they're Good Guys/Main Characters, and likewise flies in the face of the earlier Volumes where Ruby did come up with truly excellent plans. Remember the days of taking out the Nevermore? Team attacks against Roman's mech? Shooting Nora with a lightning bullet? The era when fans were (imo rightly) pointing out that Ruby was the team's core strategist, despite how often the dialogue insisted it was Jaune? Now we've got individual fights against the Ace Ops, blinking against the Hound + the Schnees dealing the final blow, attacking Cordovin without a thought to the consequences, risking a Kingdom's worth of lives because they'll defeat Salem ~somehow~ and it's a writing MESS, so whenever Ruby has a generic "What do we do? We fight ✊" line it hammers home that RT isn't developing combat strategies anymore. Which, you know, for a show built around its combat is a bit of a problem for me.

ANYWAY /rant over lol

Some very belated meta about Guillermo's season 4 cliffhanger (which got so long I considered splitting it into two posts, but tbh I think these ideas need to exist together)...

I want to emphasize again that I'm convinced: at least in part, Guillermo took matters into his own hands for the entire household. He's getting himself turned right now to get them all moving forward again. And I still can't get over that.

Maybe it's because I sat wondering about how that line translated for two weeks before the episode aired in English. The entire ending was hanging on it. 'Nothing changes, but I can'? 'Nothing will change [about this place? about my life?] unless I do'? Did Guillermo really think the best way to move forward in his life was to remake himself in a way that left him completely alone?

But he's specifically talking about something outside of himself. "Nothing ever changes in this house, nothing's ever going to change, unless I change it."

And that's not something he has to care about. He could look at Nandor sitting in his chair, settling down to read for a decade after driving everyone insane, and he could say 'oh, okay. None of it meant anything. All these things you supposedly needed from me, the boundaries you crossed in my life, the loneliness and fear you said you had - those were all whims to you, and you don't actually give a shit.'

Instead he asks what's next, asking Nandor to take the lead again. He doesn't express his own fears (we'll come back to this), he asks for Nandor to validate them by feeling the same: "Don't you feel like nothing ever changes around here?" And when there's no answer to 'what's next?', when Nandor claims there's nothing he wants or will want for many years, that's what gets Guillermo moving.

Because that means another ten or fifteen years of waiting, yes - but also because Guillermo knows that's not true. He's watched Nandor, watched all of them, try to achieve something beyond what they've been for hundreds of years. He's seeing them experience truly heartbreaking losses, and treat it as a factory reset. And he still has that human perspective - that short life span, that newness and urgency. So he's saying 'fuck that, not this time,' about them and about himself.

We're slowly ruling out different elements of The Reason, whatever it is, that Guillermo's convinced himself being a vampire is what he needs. His relationship with Nandor is frayed and needs to be rebuilt. He's closer to the others, but not so close he'd need to change his life for them. They no longer need his constant protection, and they get into plenty of trouble even with him there as a stopgap.

He's come out to his bio family and they support him, so it's not about being accepted as a gay man. (And it's becoming a vampire that could risk his relationship with his family, forever!) I think there's an element of sexual freedom, but he's taken steps to do that now without vampirism, and if anything his relationship with the vamps has impacted his chances to have these things. He's seen there are parts of life he's missing out on, that he could maybe achieve if he stepped away.

He knows his strength and his worth, his physical abilities. Hell, he could lose a lot of the power he has, if he goes from slayer to vampire. I don't think it's rooted in self-loathing, because we never really see him talk about himself as lacking. If anything he welcomes the opportunity to preen, he lays it on a little thick.

I thought for most of the season that with a normal life waiting in the wings, all ready for him to move back into it when the time was right, we were going to get him torn between that and the supernatural world. But Guillermo never seemed to have interest in leaving. He wasn't making plans to move in with Freddie or move back to London before the disaster happened, he wasn't using the stolen cash to scout out a new apartment. In Go Flip Yourself he was angling for a new improved bedroom.

What we keep seeing, over and over, is that Guillermo lives his life based on lies. He lives his life in compartments, curating himself for the situation he's in and the image he wants to convey. I think he truly is devoted, truly does take pleasure in acts of service for loved ones. But on the other side of that, he only gets what he wants by sneaking his way into it. Does anyone have a full picture of him? His family and Freddie can't by design. The vampires made it a point, up to now, to not care about his feelings or learn anything about him. Nandor's the only one who has even started to ask, and most of the time he doesn't think to.

("Don't you feel like nothing ever changes around here?")

But the vampires we meet, while they all have hidden depths, don't really have secret selves except for their species. They live mostly on the surface, impulsively and chasing pleasure. (I'd say at least for the Staten house, they also use it as a way to avoid thinking about things that are deeper or more painful.) They're unapologetic, and most important, they live selfishly. And the thing about being selfish is, it means being seen.

Guillermo is waiting for vampiric power, vampiric selfishness, to have the freedom to exist as a whole person

And the thing about that is: Guillermo is selfish at heart, absolutely. It's one of the reasons he'll make an excellent vampire. But one of his best traits is his empathy - for everyone, monsters included - and how much he truly wants to give to the people who matter to him. The whole thing about his photo hitting that line in opening? Is because Guillermo has to sacrifice 'hope and compassion' to get what he wants, but he's also never lacked for it. And the others are changing, he's the catalyst for their change, because of who he is and the influence he exerts on the stagnant, selfish world around them.

I don't think becoming a vampire magically takes empathy (or really any human trait) out of people. The new vampires we meet pretty much act like their old selves. Even Nadja's doll is just a younger version of her. I think vampiric craziness and selfishness is a result of immortal lifespans, and a life built on death, and a culture that seems to emphasize power and violence over connection to others - even when it works against them.

I'd still love for Guillermo to become a vampire, because I think he can bring that fresh perspective to the table. (Plus I think he and the vamps have plenty to teach each other, I don't want them to lose each other.) But isn't it interesting, that paradox of kindness and selfishness? That potential for Guillermo to embrace the most dangerous parts of himself? The chance that maybe, now, it'll be Guillermo's turn to fuck up - and for the others to remind him of what's still in his heart?

HEY. UR TRIGUN META HAS BEEN DRIVING ME NUTS FOR A WEEK. so about worm moon. ever since you've mentioned it i've been going oh strong temptation after 150 years 30 days in the desert vibes. and. the fucking specific details about the two of them are driving me CRAZY. the way they could have been there in the emptiness of vash's darkest moments when he lets his mask fall in the isolation of the desert. the inhumanity of it all is so fantastic...the way that zazie is another force of nature that loves vash but! is removed from the extreme dichotomy of vash vs knives and plants vs humans, and something older!!! it's gotta be one of vash's complexes that he and knives are? i think the oldest folks on the planet? idk what's going on with that dr but if not the oldest then def among them, and the oldest are supposed to support and guide the younger, but zazie is so much older. he can't hurt them in any way that matters! they don't really care about the specifics of the situation beyond its impact on the planet, so for once they might not be another voice asking him what side he's on. or at least it'll be genuine curiosity or needling, not because he's hurt them. they don't need him. what a relief and pain that must be. anyway idk if that's your read on the situation or where they're going but i'm real excited to see where u take it after opening tumblr every morning and heading over here to get punched in the face with trigun feels over my cereal. ur takes on nai are phenomenal.

i'm real excited to see where u take it after opening tumblr every morning and heading over here to get punched in the face with trigun feels over my cereal. ur takes on nai are phenomenal.

okay first of all this made me giggle so hard. thank you, i'm very glad my insanity is contagious and also brings you joy!

SECOND OF ALL OKAY ZAZIEVASH. HRGHH ZAZIEVASH

i absolutely LOVE that thought about zazie being there for vash's darkest moments. i've been going with the idea that zazie is technically omniscient when it comes to stuff happening on gunsmoke but has a limited attention span, but i think they would notice their favorite not-human having a breakdown in the middle of an empty desert. i think also that vash's devouring loneliness would be assuaged, somewhat, by the knowledge that zazie is always there with him in some form or another. if not in their physical form then as the sand beneath his feat and the insects buzzing past and the air in his lungs. zazie's love means he will never be truly alone again.

they don't need him.

fuck, the absolute rictus of agony this thought puts me in (in a good way). they don't need him. you're entirely right.

vash is characterized by what he can do for others (violently, in stampede). it's how he characterizes himself, to his detriment. he's the hanged man, the martyr, the saint. but we also know that in trimax when he's up against knives, he calls himself "a gunman. just a simple gunman." but we all know that's bullshit.

yet with zazie? with zazie? that can be true. zazie is the planet, zazie is as old as the molten rocks that formed gunsmoke and the first worms that developed consciousness. zazie has no need of him. they were there long before him and will be there long after, and zazie can't be killed in any way that matters. holy shit, that really must be such a relief for vash. for once, he doesn't need to sacrifice himself for the person he loves, doesn't need to bleed for them, doesn't need to do anything for them but exist and love them back. that's insane. it's like having the softest possible place to land, for vash the stampede.

like i feel like he'd have a bit of a crisis about that initially (how else can he express!! that he cares about them!! if it's not hurting himself for their sake!! what!!) but once they've settled into a routine it would be such a comfort. god. genuinely thank you so much for sending this ask in i need to lie down <- too many blorbo thoughts in too short a time

haha ok and now for a theory on something no one asked for: blake

let's get silly with it

so i wanna talk about this:

(this is from the lore drop post on patreon from march btw)

Seers dont exist in the Imperium. Reading that one little line while i was actually just looking for that post so i could see the names of the cornerstone cities has now resulted in a full theory as to what this means about blake being in the imperium.

in the first imperium video blake is there in kody's splicer group. he's barely important at all but at one point he says "i'm not a dreamwalker—" but gets interrupted. we already know blake's not a dreamwalker because in the prime universe he's a seer just posing as a dreamwalker. originally i blew this line off because i was just like "yeah, he's probably referencing being a seer!" but according to the lore, seers dont exist in the imperium. no one else switches powers between the two universes so it seems a little odd to think erik just gave him different powers in the imperium? i mean maybe that's what happened, but what if there's a different answer behind it? what if blake's been lying in the prime universe, not only about being a dreamwalker, but about being a seer? 👀

now i know what you're thinking: "ok Argent, if he's not a dreamwalker, which yeah we know he's not a dreamwalker, and he's not a seer even though that's what we've been told he is, then what is he? hm? if he's not a seer then how does he know that his listener is gonna die? how does he know about elliott and sunshine coming to close knit? you're overlooking vital details!!" and to that i put my hands on your shoulders and i give you a gentle smile. i lean in close and i whisper into your ear:

"he's a time traveller."

you pull back from me, shock and confusion evident on your face as if i just spoke blasphemy. "Y-y-you can't just say something so completely wild, so unsubstantiated, so... so...." "crazy?" i offer, the tranquil smile still painted across my face. i giggle demurely. "maybe so. maybe i have let the allure of theorizing, the hypnotic spinning of the red strings, drive me to the brink of insanity. but i don't make this statement blindly," i hold out a hand to you, and the curiosity grips you as i continue, "will you allow me to show you? will you join me in Pandemonium, where we let assumptions and meta fuel our delusions?" you cautiously take my hand and we fall together. down, down, down into the rabbit hole.

now lets get into it. in the 2022 anniversary video, during the bonus round of lore trivia when erik asked questions based on things no one could actually know the answers to, he asks a question about his original plans for the 2021 valentines video and one of the possible answers is "introduction of a time traveller boyfriend" which means that a time traveller character IS possible in the redactedverse and also something erik has considered before. also important to point out: blake's first video was posted march 2021, so is it not within the realm of possibilities that blake was that time traveller boyfriend all along? or at least has the time traveller angle reworked into his character?

and if you think about it logistically, it seems like it would be really easy for a time traveller to pose as a seer (posing as a dreamwalker oof blake you are like inception over here). he doesn't have to be able to "see" the future if he's already lived it. now of course i cannot even begin to try and act like i know anything about what time travel would be like in the redactedverse, but i would think there would be some commonality between the two... both have to do with time, whether it's seeing it or being able to jump through it. maybe they share the ability to master other magic easily, which would make blake's dreamwalking skills still make sense.

now so far the only seers we really know are morgan and his listener (please morgan return soon and give us more seer lore 🙏🏻) and so we've gotten some lore from them, like how seers are faced with the vision of their own death. in blake's case he doesnt ever seem concerned at all about his own death, instead he is desperately ready to do anything he can to save his listener from their own impending death. now that could easily be explained away in a few ways like his obsession for them outweighing his own self preservation or the fact that most people wouldnt like casually bring up the fact they've seen their own death into conversations so maybe it just hasn't come up yet, but it felt important to mention so onto the corkboard it goes.

(i was gonna bring up avior and starlight with this too but hm is it just fan theory that blake was the closeknit dreamwalker that avior was feeding on that sent them to the shadow realm or has that been confirmed at any point?? i'm getting ready to relisten to sovereign state for the first time since my initial listen so maybe i'll remember more after that oops 🫣)

also just wanna say it sure seems weird that ol blakey boy doesn't react at ALL to the inversion happening. like morgan confirmed that all the seers basically saw the vision of the inversion happening like the second the rift opened but blake was just chilling in his bestie's apartment hanging out while a vision of a horrible influx of monsters coming down to kill everyone would've just popped into his head. i get that the guy doesn't care much for anything besides his listener and he already knows about shades and stuff but like..? no reaction, not even like a gasp of surprise that he covers up like "no don't worry, it's nothing..." it seems like it would make SOME sort of an impression. unless he's already experienced the inversion happening 🤔 and that's why it's not at all shocking to him to know it's happening that night, because he's there with them and he knows they're safe and maybe it's all playing right into what he wants anyways. (ok i know logically the reason the inversion isn't mentioned until the moment it IS mentioned is bc erik wanted that drama of us realizing that elliott couldn't get help from the department bc inversion just HAPPENED and also we didn't know blake was a seer yet anyways but like work with me here let me cook)

now lastly i just wanna talk about what blake being a time traveller would mean in regards to his listener. ya'll know of the butterfly effect right? any life is stranger gamers in the chat tonight? blake's whole purpose has become this gnawing need to stop his listener's coming death. he says he's seen it happen, no matter what he's done to try and stop it. the circumstances of it always change but it ALWAYS happens at the same time. even brachium seems surprised that a seer couldn't just see what caused it and avoid it, and blake says it must be because of something beyond this plane so he can't see it. which yeah is probably what the truth is bc it makes sense. buuuuuuut we're having fun over here in fantasy land and i'd rather throw into the ring the idea that their death is caused by blake meddling with the time stream. maybe they died and he, lost in his grief, jumped back to try and find a way to stop it only for it to happen again. and again. and again. or maybe they weren't destined to die originally. maybe blake wasn't able to reconnect with them, maybe they blew him off and he wanted a do over because he couldn't stand not having them in his life. so he jumped back and tried again to reconcile and this time it worked and he was so happy but then they died, in his arms. and the cycle began.

i want more than anything for blake to be fighting tooth and nail, ready to burn down the entire world just to be able to save his lover only to learn that it was his own fault that they are destined to die. because his inability to accept that they just weren't meant to be together forced him to break time and the result was that their life now would end, always.

i just think it would be neat 🙂

anyways hi. time traveller, pretty wild to throw out there i know. but the idea hit me and all the pieces slowly started to fit into place (or maybe i just started jamming all the pieces together until they were forced to fit lol). but for real this theory is just for fun and not to be taken too seriously because it is all built off of assumptions and the random fact that erik said there were no seers in imperium and yet blake was there. now if he decided to retcon any of that stuff as he is allowed to do bc this is his silly little world and he makes the rules, then my entire theory falls apart and i wasted my monday at work putting this together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ oh well

Extremely mildly niche academic-ish rambling ahead. Might wanna skip this one. It is long and boring

One thing that does make me happy is the Latinoamerican Literary Boom was so big it actually went on to be translated in other languages. There are still authors that I feel need to have their works translated (mostly women, I wonder why) but many of the video essayist I watch keep mentioning Borges in their videos, and truly I can't blame them because his work is rad. I don't know about him as a person but he lives 30 layers of post ironic meta fantasy or some shit like that. Cortazar is really cool also. In terms of living authors I really like Juan Villoro, his writing style is very fun. The Wild Book is a children's book about literary theory, like, Theory of Reception, Death of the Author, stuff like that. It was a really fun read as a child but the themes are interesting as well.

I feel like, I don't know, it's so hard to find Latin American fantasy books these days, or at least they are not as available. The YA genre is dominated by books originally writen in English or on books written in Spain (think Laura Gallego, which I just found out has a Netflix series made out of her most famous series of novels, but I am derailing) with the exception of Benito Taibo, who is Mexican, and has one (1) high fantasy trilogy that is kinda mid. The ideas were great, but they could've been expanded, you know? Camino a Sognum had so much potential, and you can *see* that it was inspired by classic epic fantasy like Earthsea, but it needed some more *spark* to actually work. I have not read Normal Person, but I plan to. Maybe it is better made?

And it's funny, because a book like Mexican Gothic, that was written in English, is so darn good! But only if you read it *in English* because the Spanish translation did this thing where they try to "neutralize" the accent and manerismd of the characters to make it appeal to the wider Spanish-speaking world and it doesn't sound or feel Mexican at all.

I am not sure where I am going with this. I have been discovering the local literary scene lately (and I mean *local*, like city-wide local) and it is mostly so boring because no one is writing fantasy! No magic realism! It's all kind of depressing dwellings on how we are being gentrified and indigenous people keep being oppressed by the mestizo majority and corporations and the goverment keep stealing the land to make Coca Cola and we are dying of diabetes and we don't got water and Capitalism sucks. LIKE I AGREE BUT CAN YOU PUT FAIRIES IN THERE OR SOMETHING. And I guess that's why I've never wanted to read Cómo Agua para Chocolate, because it is just *too real*, cuz it's a story I know by memory and I don't wanna live it all over again verbatim. Probably a great book, but I just cannot.

I don't know man idk idk.

The funniest think about this is that my favorite book ever (like actually, for real) is a children's book, written from the perspective of the imaginary friend of a child, and it is so gracefully narrated, and the characters so well constructed, and it touches real problems like Teen Pregnancy and Childhood Depression and Anxiety while also managing to be funny and whimsical? The very premise of the book (memories of an almost true friend, it's called) is already so creative and the execution is masterful. BUT I AM THE ONLY GUY ON PLANET EARTH THAT SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE ITS DRIVING ME INSANE.

Where was I going with this. Ah yes. Youtubers talking about Borges. Well. Um. I. I think imma translate some of my own texts to English and put them on Wattpad or something. They are not the kind of thing Wattpad people are into but I gotta archive them somewhere and doing it on AO3 feels wrong since they aren't fan works. And on that note, I also wanna write more fan works.

Ugh I could be writing an essay but you got me writing a Tumblr post. What is wrong with me. I'm too bad at word weaving.

Aaaa (??????

Thoughts?

Help

I did take my meds today BTW. I don't know what is happening to me I just wanna WRITE ok I LOVE WRITING BUT WHY MUST I DO TUMBLR INSTEAD OF MY PASSIONS?

Oi I'll end it there

WHAT DID U GUYS THINK ABT THE LATEST MV IM GOING INSANE

tw for suicide, mention of alcohol

Admin Saturn: I now have a crush on kazui! The other admins have been trying to convince me that because his whole arc is showing why he's not a good husband to his wife but like bro... open marriage and a guy that buys me flowers and holds my hand and takes me on drives? Sounds pretty swaggy to me! Also he ate a bird! Thats kinda wack!

Overall based on the info we have and everything he's said in his VD (assuming its to be trusted cause he does have that whole lying thing going on), I would personally go with inno. Like unless his sin was suicide baiting her, I don't entirely see how this could turn into a guilty situation. Definitely not on the same level as a lot of the other prisoners. (looking at how guilty mahiru should be but isn't getting)

Admin Venus: I'll summarize what I talked about in my theory, but honestly, I feel like Kazui didn't do all that much wrong. He seems like he just kinda let life go the way other people wanted it to go for him, and somewhere along the way he realized he really didn't enjoy it. At some point he got "greedy" and took steps to try to change that, but his wife probably committed suicide or possibly got into some kind of accident or something. Either way, that's what resulted in her death.

Between that and him being useful on defense from a meta standpoint, I'm not sure why I would vote him guilty. I wish we knew more though, I feel like both half and Cat were pretty sparse on details relating to the actual death of his wife. Like, I understand your situation, Kazui, tell me what actually happened!

Side note though, it's really interesting to me in the audio drama that he says he wants Es to find out his sin. In the first trial, I'd thought his MV was giving nothing because he was purposefully burying details to hide them from us. After hearing that line in the audio drama and seeing this MV, I feel more like Kazui's repressing his feelings on whatever his sin is so hard that even the MVs can't quite get at them.

(Also, the fact that we still haven't seen anyone who he's romantically involved with (other than his wife) adds to the theory that he's gay for me. A lot of other people (Shidou's wife, Mahiru's lover, etc.) have gotten relevant characters' faces revealed this time, and while we did get that for Kazui's wife, I feel like who he was with would've been revealed to us unless there was a specific reason to hide it (ex. he was with a man).)

Admin Mercury here. Uhhh I really got nothing on my mind but shitposts tbh. When listening to his VD, I really got the impression he was still lying or at least being overly dramatic like the theater kid he is. Especially in this part:

(translation thanks to @/onigiriico) The way he delivers these lines seems so fake to me, but I realize this might just be personal bias talking. Idk yall, lemme know what you think ab his delivery in the comments below (PFFFT sorry)

Admin Neptune: I'm definitely team innocent. Although it seems like Kazui hurt his wife by not wanting to be married anymore, he tried to be a better person and stop lying to her. Unfortunately, according to him, this resulted in her death. It doesn't really seem like he did much wrong, especially compared with many of the other prisoners, and he helps keep the prisoners safe.

The part where his wife's image transforms into what is seemingly a man with an apple for a head (along with other parts such as the "I can't stop, I can't be normal") leads me to believe that he's gay. Assuming that the apple is supposed to represent something he feels is forbidden, this part could represent his desire to date/marry a man instead. I find it interesting that he sees this image through an alcoholic drink, and I feel like it represents something but I'm not completely clear on what.

Since Kazui says "I can't live unless I lie" as mentioned above in the VD, I wouldn't be surprised if he was still lying, but I do believe that he never actually cheated on his wife. I do wonder if he would consider "emotional cheating" infidelity, and it seems like the temptation might have been there when he says "it didn't even turn into infidelity."

hello! I’ve just wanted to say that all the meta you’ve written on mathematique has been pretty illuminating. big thanks for that! also, don’t even know if you’re still following cleanwhiteroom’s updates but fod rewrites has been pretty insane right? in many ways, but specifically in terms of overall triptych. there’s so much to unpack especially when it comes to ancient ‘riley’…..

Ahh hello!! This is so nice ahh, I'm so happy you liked the meta and found it enlightening!! <3 It was so much fun to write hahaha. And yes, I know I've been pretty quiet here cwr-wise, but I have 100% definitely been following the rest of the math and ad noc chapters, and then ALL THE FOD REWRITES?? I have been steadily loosing my mind hahah! There's just! SO much!! I've actually been wanting to do another post about the changes since ad noc chapters 6 and 7 went up, which was like....half a year ago?? Guh. But yeah I've been so busy and just not have the time, energy or motivation to sit down and write out another essay rip (also I'm currently about two chapters behind on fod 2.0, I last read chapter 43, I think? Maybe 44, I don't remember). But man, there is a lot of new stuff to dig into, isn't there? Especially in fod, but just like you said, it's stuff that relates to ALL the verses - like MAN the whole conversation with Ancient!Riley and Young, all the changes there were just fascinating - like the idea of seven arrays (or, I suppose, bundles of adjacent timelines) and then the fact that THREE of them are crucial/threatening to the integrity of the multiverse?? (or something like that - it's late here and I've been on trains for 12 hours across the last two days so forgive me for not going to check the actual chapter) So like, I think it's so obvious that I don't need to say but I'm gonna say it anyway - those three key arrays are our triptych, for SURE. And it makes me all the more curious about math in particular, because if we assume from the little snippets that cwr stuck up on tumblr back in the day for the adnoc verse that cwr is intending for Rush and Volker to end up on Destiny, I can 100% see why Ancient!Riley would be, uh. Let's say concerned to have a very traumatised pyromaniac at the helm of that verse. But then, math? Man, the more I think about it the more it fascinates me, because I'm sure this means that they're all gonna end up on Destiny, somehow, but like Volker is so much more a lynchpin in that verse, right? But then we have Rush going to Atlantis, based on the last few chapters we have of math, and from the changes we have in fod 2.0, we know that Rush's P=NP related skills are a significant reason why he's so good with using Destiny's systems and making work-arounds....so like, I've still got one foot solidly in the 'math!rush will go to Destiny' camp, and I feel like for that verse to end up on Riley's 'list of troublesome verses', Rush has gotta get to Destiny, right?? Like, man, it almost feels wrong to suggest he WOULDN'T because...well, it's Rush and Destiny, yknow!! It would feel kinda unbalanced if he got there in adnoc and fod but not math. Also, unhinged scientists have got to threaten the integrity of the multiverse somehow, and he's certainly not doing it from Atlantis, or the ancients would have done it from Atlantis. And - idk man, Rush has got a serious drive to actually fly into the collision point between d-branes and try to change something (even if he knows that, fundamentally, he can't), and it's that point that Riley seems bothered about. Volker, though? Hm. Idk, in math he seems to have pretty much accepted that he can't go back to his old life. Would he and Telford fly into it for the sake of science? Yeah, I mean they pretty much certainly would lol but my point is that the desperation to do it, compounded together by the AI's desire and Rush's, is a key component to the whole issue, yeah? And I don't get the same vibe from Volker, you get me? BUT. I may be wrong! I have no idea what's gonna happen and it's great.

ANYWAY this ended up long - but yeah!! There's so much more than this to unpack and maaaaybe one day I'll get the brain space again to do a Proper Post about it. We'll see!

Question 39. What comic plotline gives you brain worms? for the comics ask thing

Too many.

Shatterstar's origin story gives me worms of the my-brain-is-breaking-down-while-reading this variety. Mojoverse is something that I can't think of too often because if I go down that rabbit hole then I'll be thinking about how underused the setting is, a meta media satire planet going totally ignored in a day and age where franchise superhero media is the dominant cultural output (except for Leah Williams X-Factor in a really tasteless way) for the rest of the week.

Dani’s off-screen Asgard adventures, there’s plenty to dig into about joining the pantheon of a religion and a culture that isn’t yours. What did she do to get kicked out? How did it feel to reap souls for a few months as a teenager? How does that affect her connection to Illyana, always ambiguous and sometimes charged? The hellgirl and the taker of the dead? Also the idea that Dani is Cyclops’ chosen successor, she is and should be and it never ever gets picked up by anyone ever. Please. She’s the pragmatic tactician who can still follow Xavier’s dream.

Doug's storyline drives me both mad insane and mad angry because of how juicy it gets with his post-resurrection morality crisis and how Hickman stopped any and all of his development in its tracks. It's fun to have a resurrection gone wrong, where Doug-after is missing something and has to try and get it back. It's intriguing how lopsided his relationship with Warlock is; Doug both can't live without him and is eager to be rid of him, they're bffs and Doug resents him for causing his bad-future self, Doug can never truly be satisfied with his own existence once he's tasted technarchy, meaning that he'll never be truly satisfied as himself.

X-Men homoeroticism is its own category. Richly-sown fields of 'I'm sorry, what?' that make up a significant part of a character's plotline and are never ever addressed. 'Moira loves you and I....'. Sam saying he'd rather die with 'Berto if he has the choice. Kitty Pryde hanging out with Illyana the day she leaves her brother at the altar and then smooching a woman who looks exactly like her later on and having it never acknowledged again. Storm having Yukio be in the parade of love interests in her solo book but never being canonically in a relationship. 'I love you and you are breaking my heart.' No one does it like them.

That said--on to the main brainworms: Rictor's off-screen fight against his family. The guy wages a one-man war (well, two-man) on a gun-smuggling operation a) armed only with swords, b) against people who raised him. His cousins are as good as siblings to him, how on earth did he reckon with staring them in the face? How did he even manage to corral everyone with the mandatory X-Men non-fatal approach? How were his ideals tested, how close did he come to giving up, what did he think about in the long hours of the night? Apparently it's not for us to know!

Bonus mention for The Authority v4 balloon arc. The concept is great, the execution so-so, which is the perfect blend for remembering something forever. I don't think of it often but when I do, I do.

Postscript: the entirety of MTMTE/LL is brainwormfood for me, but I've posted about that proportionally far more than I've posted about other comics. Needless to say I'm obsessed with pre-war Cybertron + Megatron and Ratchet's arcs, Chromedome and Rewind's wonderful horrible toxic mutually beneficial and affirming romance, season 1 in general, and Issue 47, oh and also the way the ending sucks (in a good way) and makes you feel sick (in an effective way)

I know you're not on Twitter much, but I follow the DeanCas Every Hour account, which is usually fun cuz I can see Dean/Cas content on my timeline consistently. But the account has once again reached the end of season 14, and I just wanted to vent a little, because it has gotten to where Dean talks about Cas being "dead to him" and also wanting Jack dead.

It drives me insane cuz without fail, all these ppl start complaining about how Dean's harsh words to Cas were just "writers trying to start unnecessary drama" and how Dean was "out of line" for saying those things. And then they'll also say Dean can't really be Jack's dad, because he wanted him dead, and how could you possibly be okay with Dean saying that to Jack??

And I just want to scream. I remember those opinions going around when the episodes first aired, and they still come up again and again.

I just can't believe ppl can literally be so bad at critical analysis, and also have absolutely no empathy for the horrible situation Dean was in. It drives me up the wall every time 😤 sorry to come at you with this lol I just hate how something can be SO CLEAR, but it's like ppl seem to go out of their way to find the worst possible interpretation.

Eh... Confession: I'm always on twitter. Like, more than I'm on tumblr lately, even. But-- and this is key-- I do not do fandom on twitter. I follow some friends that I made through fandom, sure, and will even reply to their tweets sometimes. But 99% of my experience on twitter is Not Fandom. Because fandom twitter suuuuuucks. For this reason ^^

To be honest, I don't really remember those opinions ever going around, because I don't follow people who lack critical thinking skills, I guess? I don't know, maybe these are newer people to fandom who made their assumptions on the characters based on the last few seasons only? People who have never gone back to the start for a more nuanced rewatch of the entire series?

All of that aside, everyone is entitled to their opinions about the thing. Folks don't control their own personal reactions to stuff. That doesn't mean I have to engage with them, though. Because yeah, sometimes people do run circles around themselves to find the worst possible take on a situation, or yank it out of context of the literal 15 year character arc and use it as an excuse to invalidate all the rest. They're not interested in discussing the character arc as a whole, or understanding what drove him to this shocking extreme. Because it WAS shocking, and painful, and entirely justified by the surrounding narrative and the entire arc of the series. I don't particularly like these sorts of people, so I tend to avoid them.

For years I've experienced the frustration of making long essay posts on tumblr, and still having people come at me with "well, actually you neglected to mention xyz thing, so your opinion is invalid" type responses. Like, sorry I didn't double the length of the essay by including 50 references to other things I've already written and nine standard disclaimers to validate my personal read of a thing that's already 5k words long. If I have that much difficulty having rational conversations on tumblr, imagine how much worse it is on twitter where everything moves 1000x as fast, in two sentence chunks, where anyone can reply with almost no effort (and often do before their brains have time to engage), bringing out even worse hot takes based on emotional kneejerk reactions. Twitter is just an exceptionally, objectively horrible place to have nuanced meta conversations.

When I do see a fandom thread on twitter, I typically just keep scrolling, because nothing good comes of reading the replies. (and this goes for pretty much any fandom, not just spn...) The very nature of twitter just invites all the disk horses to come screaming out of the woodwork, and there's no telling who might see it or reply and pile on with all the worst takes. I'll just keep my fandom stuff over here in the quiet little dungeon I've built and stocked on tumblr.

I don't know who these people are, so I'm personally not inclined to give their arguments any sort of personal emotional weight, either, you know? there's no rule of the internet that demands I engage with those sorts of people. So I don't.

Here's something I'd love your take on: I read a meta recently (would link it but I can't remember where, ack) that suggested that Sam is able to forgive John in later seasons because a) he's had the whole "family making unilateral decisions for your own good" thing repeatedly shoved down his throat, and b) whatever John did under this umbrella in their childhoods, Dean has done far worse by that point, and Sam HAS to forgive him so by extension he can't really be mad at John anymore (1/2)

(2/2) As someone who has admittedly only seen bits and pieces of the later seasons, this seems to jive with Sam losing a lot of his characteristic early-seasons anger, letting Dean call the shots almost all the time even when he thinks it's the wrong move, and moments of sympathy for John (contrasted w/Dean's growing resentment, which is so interesting!). But! I got some big ol' gaps in my spn comprehension, so was curious if you had any thoughts on this dynamic

wow okay long answer warning! i got carried away and forgot how to use punctuation. nobody is obligated to read all of this lol and the biggest part of the answer is behind a cut. anyway!!

first things first: i think a big thing to remember with sam’s characterization in later seasons is that it’s like...not there, and when it is there, it’s sometimes flat and inconsistent. because dean became sole the main protagonist after the first 8 (arguably the first 5 or even first 2) seasons, sam sort of got demoted to “side character we don’t know what to do with” along with cas and crowley. they all had good arcs pop up now and then (sam had some fun stuff going on with lucifer in s11 and s13) but most of the time the writers either don’t know how to give him a meaningful characterization or don’t care (or both). so we have to do a lot of that work ourselves. 

so, for example, when we talk about sam losing his anger, i like to read it as him OVERCOMING that anger to avoid becoming his father (which may even be where some of the seemingly sympathetic comments come from, because he’s trying to be forgiving instead of angry), but really...it’s that the writers forgot he had anger issues. in-universe explanation vs irl explanation, yk? and i think pretty much all meta about sam in late seasons is written through that lens, whether the writer of that meta knows it or not. including this one! i can’t prove any of this shit, it’s my personal reading, i’m making it up. like there were just SO many different people involved in the production of supernatural that there was a lot of conflict and contradictions in things like continuity and characterization. (most of the writers room hadn’t even seen every episode!) so there’s not one definitive way to go about it. in many ways it makes the characters more nuanced and in many other ways it makes me fucking insane.

as for sam and john and whether or not sam forgives him, i’m actually glad you asked because this has been driving me nuts for a long time and it took me SO LONG to pin it down - sam’s relationship with john is very different to dean’s, and i couldn’t figure out WHY. it’s not that he was “abused less,” it’s not that he loved john less or was less hurt by his actions, so why doesn’t he seem as INVESTED in everything that happened to them as kids? like he says in season 14 he had to learn to let it go and that it was all a lifetime ago for him. meanwhile i think dean still deals with it every day. he’s still stewing in it to some degree 24/7. so like what’s the difference??

i think it comes down to two things. firstly, that while dean didn’t have anybody parenting him except john (and mary, but only for a very short time that he could actually remember), SAM’S parents were john AND DEAN. most of the time dean was the one raising sam, and in fact he arguably did way more parenting of sam than john did. so the person that made dean feel safe and like he could fight back against monsters, the person he was grateful to, was john. but the person who made SAM feel safest was dean. he doesn’t have that same gratitude towards john that dean does and he never will, because of how john made him feel alienated and excluded from their family growing up. dean’s resentment of john is so tangled up in this very deep and unconditional love and gratitude for him that sam just doesn’t have. 

secondly, i think dean has a serious case of “i can fix him” re: john that sam doesn’t have and possibly never had. john just never showed sam the same kind of inclusion and warmth and trust that he showed dean (however rarely he showed it, and however fucked up it was). i think sam figured out very very early on that their quest for yellow eyes was either a long shot or straight up impossible, and that they couldn’t waste their entire lives doing it, and that even if the demon died, john was never going to change. dean 100% drank the koolaid - he really truly believed in a world where someday they’d kill the demon and all retire from the life and be normal and be a family again, because that’s what john said and dean took his father’s word as gospel. sam knew better.

so i think what sam did was just disengage. partially because he felt he couldn’t afford to nurse that kind of anger and not become either his father or lucifer, and partially because even though sam loved john, still loves john, he never needed him the way dean did, because sam had dean. so it doesn’t hurt him as much to just “gray rock” it. i think if sam stopped and really dug into it he’d find that he’s still quite angry (probably more angry on dean’s behalf than his own, at least at first, because in his mind he was able to move past it and dean was not, dean had it worse, HIS OWN trauma isn’t real etc etc), but he doesn’t do that because he doesn’t want to be that angry, and possibly even thinks that if he brought it up dean would jump to john’s defense and it would cause a fight, which the opposite of what a gray rock does.

as for being forced to forgive john because if he didn’t he would also have to condemn dean...i don’t think i buy that at all. sam is fine making dean his exception and he allows dean to get away with a lot of deeply horrible shit he would condemn other people for. partially because he’s dean and sam loves him, but in my ~personal reading~ of sam, this is also because once sam became an adult the weight of everything dean did and had to give up to raise him really sank in, and part of him felt guilty (even though sam arguably didn’t have a childhood either). you know how kids take care of their parents in old age to repay them for raising them? that’s sort of how sam is with dean in later seasons - he implies multiple times that he would leave the hunting life forever and not look back if it weren’t for dean.

and as a side note - sorry, this is only tangentially related - dean implies several times in later seasons that the job is where he finds his sense of accomplishment and self-esteem and meaning - he believes the world is a better place because of what he and sam do, and even though he doesn’t always like DOING the job, he likes the outcome. it’s weird because this is as close as we see dean get to even HAVING self esteem. sam, emotionally intelligent, would have picked up on that - and since he and dean have both tried to leave the life multiple times and have always come to regret it, i also think part of sam believes you CAN’T escape - certainly SAM could never escape so long as dean was still in it, because whether he meant to or not dean would always pull him back in. and part of dean doesn’t really want to escape because he’s made his peace with it. so sam stays, and i think even if he can’t find the same meaning in the job that dean does, he finds a lot of meaning in being there for dean. (this, like gray rocking, is also consistent with the seasons where sam’s sole character trait is caring about dean lol. but i’m happy enough to read it in a kinder and less bitter/resentful way.)

it IS worth noting i think that the most forgiving sam ever was about john was in the adam episode, where he said he understood why he was the way he was and why he did what he did, and when dean said they were alike sam decided to take it as a compliment. sam in season 4 is arguably at one of his lowest points - struggling with addiction, consumed by anger and hatred and the need for revenge. he WAS like john in many ways, and i think he justified what john was doing because it also justified what HE was doing. but what he was doing led to breaking lucifer out of hell and the apocalypse that followed, which is why i like to think sam worked so hard to reign in his anger afterward - both to avoid his fate and avoid becoming his father.

in short: i don’t think sam has actually forgiven john so much as disengaged from him and moved past it. because if he DID engage with it, it’d bring up a whole lot of stuff he didn’t feel prepared to deal with. one of the risks of gray rocking things is doing it to the point that you lose touch with your own wants and needs and personality, so i think by late seasons sam’s repression, which is much more sneaky and quiet than dean’s, has settled in to the point where he’s like “yeah whatever” about dad out of sheer self preservation - because otherwise, he’d end up going crazy about it like dean does. i think it’d do him a hell of a lot of good to be able to get to shout at john and finally say his piece/ he’s really afraid of his own anger, but i think it’d be healthy for him to get back in touch with some of it.

[spn masterpost]

Just read your meta connecting the parallels bw Eddie Begins and Buck Begins and THIS is one of the reasons they drive me insane!!!!! This is how a "Buck and Eddie Begin" sort of episode could be such a SERVE bc their stories are so similar and their Begins episodes had the same effing format down to the freaking years there at the end. All I'm saying is they have the potential to absolutely break ground with these parallels. Tim I am hiding in your garage.

LOL @kitkatpancakestack omg I love it!!!! "Tim, I am hiding in your garage" can I join you????

Thank you for checking out my meta!!! =D I know, the parallels are absolutely insane. Another one I forgot to put on that list hit me last night: the skateboarding. Buck is skateboarding in 2004. And then we have him helping Eddie to construct a skateboard for Chris back in 3x12. The same sort of parallel with the surfing, which they absolutely have Shannon mention to Eddie back in season 2. It is all absolutely crazy.

I personally think the formats of both Begins episodes for them were intentional, and they're too closely connected for them just to be like "a brother or sister" to one another. (I still can't believe that was said, btw) I think (and am definitely hoping for) that this is all definitely leading somewhere good and to something that will absolutely be a surprise but a pleasant one. And when some people say "wait, how?" they literally have a whole road map to look back on. Because Tim and the writers have stitched every piece into this tapestry that they can think of that have interwoven Buck and Eddie's stories so much that to try to unravel it or for them to continue remaining separate at the end of the day wouldn't make any sense. These two characters are literally being written as two sides of the same coin but the two sides merging together to form one side if that makes sense.

So basically, @kitkatpancakestack you hide in the garage and I'll hide in the living room LOL!!! <3