#like... there's no fucking way he's not traumatized after the events of the novel in the teen arc there's NO fucking way

[bravewolfvesperia]

/ Since I mention in my pinned post that this blog has some changes from canon, I'm going to make a rundown post that I'll be linking in my muse info on my blog. My timeline post covers some of this too and has other things canon to my muse that aren't here because they're timeline based and not direct changes based. I'll update this as needed.

Repede had another owner before Yuri got him in the game. I'm combining this with FS. Thus, Repede would have been basically an infant when he and Lambert ended up with the knights. From there he took to Yuri as he did in the FS drama CD so Yuri was primarily in charge of Repede during his stay with the knights, but he and Flynn raised Repede together as is in line with the game. This means they continued raising him together even after Yuri left.

In the JP version of the game, Yuri says he was with the knights for a short time but doesn't specify how long that time was, so I'm completely yeeting the "three months" dub aspect from this blog. I can't reasonably assume he signed up, took the exams, went into training, went from errand boy to battle status, then went on normal missions and left in the span of three months. So as usual, we're following the JP timeline. Generally anything the dub makes up or actively changes from the original context/tone gets yeeted here.

In the FS drama CD, Flynn is extremely repetitive about Yuri quitting the knights and with his nagging. At least with @mistralxsoul and anyone else who prefers it the following way in threads with my muse, we're toning it down because it just feels absolutely batshit to us how bad it is in the drama CD (it's worse than even the movie itself).

Since the timeline for Yuri and Flynn's knighthood conflicts super horrendously between the novel, FS/FS drama CD and the game, I'm mixing all of it together (primarily because I consider the novel more canon than the FS drama CD). Basically (for my muse), they signed their names and didn't take the exams immediately, but when they eventually did it was at least a couple years later, due to Yuri still having his teen appearance when he signed his name to join in the novel. This is because otherwise, if I average my muse's teen age out to be fifteen/sixteen and his age to be about eighteen/nineteen in the knights, it would mean he'd been with the knights (including training, etc) anywhere from 2-4 years if his sign up was immediately after the novel's events. If they were to sign up and join immediately after the novel timeline, it also makes even less sense because Flynn's attitude in FS and his relationship with Yuri (and remember, the FS drama CD comes before the movie's timeline and Flynn was even worse about Yuri's attitude in the CD) would seem like it literally 180'd overnight.

So basically, to avoid all this insanity, a short summarized timeline for my muse would be: they signed up but didn't join right away, Flynn moved away and was gone for a couple years or so after the events of the novel, both of them changed in personality/behavior drastically in that time, they met up at the exams, they went into training, they got sent to Niren's squad, they were more errand boys than actual knights when they were still super fresh newbies and Yuri was extremely annoyed with that, they were actual knights for a while (I'm going to say Yuri was a knight for at least six months or more, especially if I consider the trajectory of Flynn's behavior toward him in the drama CD through the end of FS), the events of FS were not one straight timeline and things happened between the days etc etc, then Yuri left.

Following the game's drama CDs, Yuri hesitated a lot more when Flynn was injured at Zaude. If not for Flynn nudging him to go after Alexei even while wounded, Yuri wouldn't have left him there.

Following the same drama CDs, it's Raven and Repede who find and look after Yuri when he wakes up after Zaude. That is to say, Repede was already with Raven and lunged when he sniffed out Yuri in his room (super doggo powers). Raven followed Repede in a panic, who ran to Yuri's room upon realizing Yuri was there, and Raven finds Yuri awake but right in the middle of passing back out (the sound is basically Raven's voice being distant with some ringing, so it's from Yuri's point of view that Raven is trying to get him to steady himself but he passes back out). Raven takes care of him from there until he's recovered properly enough to go back. In this time, Rita did investigating and eventually, with the others minus Raven, went to Zopheir after deciding they couldn't dawdle and just wait in their grief. While they're there, Yuri and Raven have headed out after them and show up together and reunite with the rest of the group. Raven has already been updated on what Yuri knows from Duke at this point (Duke saved him as usual, but the drama CD changes come in after that), so the two of them update everyone else.

In the game, there's a skit with Yuri, Flynn and Karol where Yuri mentions "playing in a river", but in the novel, they were actually getting water at the river and the other kids were playing in the river when they got attacked by a monster, fell into the river (Yuri also mentions (I thiiiink in another unrelated skit) that just falling into "a river" was enough to panic him), and Flynn grabbed onto a merman. For my muse, I'm just going with Yuri simplifying the situation to Karol while keeping the novel's event as my muse's canon.

#{ muse info + headcanons } #/ a lot of the timeline post itself is also for me and not y'all LOL but like. if you need to know #differences in interaction with me this stuff is good to know at least bc I don't strictly follow the game canon #I follow a mix of official content and obviously some of it overlaps and retcons other things #as for the dub if you've been here long enough y'all know I hold a huge ass grudge against #how much it changes Yuri's behavior/personality and his attitude toward Flynn #but the three months thing just does not feel reasonable to me on top of the dub just making it up #and it helps SO much to have that free time period for writing #even if we assume he wasn't counting the training to officially join the knights in the dub #three months is... way too short imo and then if I combine the FS drama CD with that #it makes even less sense bc the girls tried to get Yuri to stay when he did actually almost quit #on top of the whole not rly doing knightly things for a while at first #and yeahhhh it's just a fucking MESS to try to cram everything with all this content into three months #also like since I LOOOOVE the teen arc of the novel and that's My Fucking Baby Boy #I don't want to actually change anything from it so I'm just mixing everything together to keep it all #it's like... I love all the official Yuri content and so I want to keep as much of it together as possible #but since it's not always the same people working on the content or bc there's such a time gap between content #things aren't always consistent and when it comes to writing a muse I just. NEED timeline consistency #even if I have to make it myself LMAO. I try to keep as much of the game stuff together as possible #since I know most ppl interacting with me only know the game and possibly the movie #and not all the drama CDs and all the various JP exclusive content #but it's hard to keep it together perfectly when there's so much other content I'm using that has formed my muse #like... my muse exists the way he is bc of all this content you know? and only using the game #would change him a fucking lot in hindsight with the way he thinks and reacts and such #like... there's no fucking way he's not traumatized after the events of the novel in the teen arc there's NO fucking way #it was bad enough that it nearly pushed him to murder when he was a teenager #and he might have actually done it if his foster mother didn't stop him (and end up doing it herself) #so yeah I mean... I do my best to keep him within game context with most people I interact with #but the more you interact with this boy the deeper you're gonna get into muse specific lore lol

[terramythos]

TAYLOR READS 2023: SYSTEM COLLAPSE BY MARTHA WELLS

Title: System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) (2023)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Science Fiction, First Person, Agender Protagonist

Rating: 9/10

Date Began: 11/19/2023

Date Finished: 12/31/2023

In the aftermath of the alien contamination incident of the Adamantite colony, Murderbot and its humans face a new challenge. Barish-Estranza, a major corporation, seeks to claim the planet and its inhabitants as salvage, which would doom the colonists to contract slavery. To save them from this fate, the non-corporate humans must find a way to convince the colonists to trust them and reject Barish-Estranza’s offer.

But after a nervous breakdown, Murderbot has problems of its own. Unable to trust its own judgment, Murderbot must come to terms with its distressingly human response to the traumatic events of Network Effect— all while keeping its humans from accidentally killing themselves in the cutthroat political climate Barish-Estranza brings to the Adamantite colony.

“On the team feed, Ratthi asked, Can we come down and help you, SecUnit? No, I told him. He hadn’t asked me what I was doing, probably because he was afraid I didn’t know. Which, valid, but this time I actually did know. I continued around the edge, because if I was right, the first one would be directly attached to the pad. If it wasn’t here, I was going to look incredibly fucking stupid and the humans were going to assume because of redacted I— Oh, here it is.”

For live reading notes, check the reblogs (contains unmarked spoilers).

Content warnings and review (spoiler-free and spoiler versions) under the cut.

Content Warnings: Mentioned -- Murder, torture, sexual slavery. Depicted -- Slavery, PTSD, self-hatred, emotional manipulation, dehumanization, violence, gore (kinda), death (implied)

**SPOILER-FREE REVIEW**

This section is spoiler free for System Collapse, but not The Murderbot Diaries as a whole, so please keep that in mind!

I've consistently enjoyed The Murderbot Diaries throughout its run. The strikingly relatable narration Murderbot supplies makes the books approachable and entertaining to read, despite often delving into disturbing and dark subject matter like slavery, depression, and anxiety. The book chronologically preceding this one, Network Effect, is one of my favorite novels of all time. While System Collapse doesn't reach those heights (and it doesn't need to), it's yet another story following Murderbot's adventures and struggles with personhood, so I predictably liked it.

System Collapse occupies a more transitional space than previous entries. We end the novel in much the same place as in Network Effect, literally and metaphorically. Murderbot makes the same decision it does at the end of Network Effect; to leave its Preservation humans and travel with ART and its crew instead. I question whether System Collapse was originally planned when Network Effect was written; as a story, it feels tacked onto that entry. It's just more of that book-- a continuation of some loose threads from it.

However, this isn't a criticism, at least not yet, because despite feeling similar to Network Effect, System Collapse introduces critical character development in order for the next arc, which I imagine will focus more on ART and the University, to succeed. I'll get into more detail about that in the spoiler section, but I have no problem with a break from the extreme high stakes tension of Network Effect to spend time developing various characters, including Murderbot itself, especially going into the next story arc.

**SPOILER REVIEW**

By far System Collapse's greatest strength is how it addresses Murderbot's trauma post-Network Effect. If I'm right and this entry wasn't originally planned, I'm glad Martha Wells decided to write it anyway, because leaving the long term effects of what Murderbot went through in the air and unaddressed would be a disservice to Murderbot as a character and readers who have undergone similarly traumatic experiences.

In particular, Murderbot experiences a realistic depiction of PTSD, something it's disturbed by and ashamed about. System Collapse can often be a brutal read because Murderbot is so hard on itself, seeing itself as an incompetent failure for having a reasonable reaction to trauma. It hearkens back to earlier points in the series where Murderbot didn't really see itself as a person, something that has gradually changed over time. But one thing that sticks out to me is a heavier thematic focus on Murderbot's humanity.

Murderbot itself is a construct-- a combination of machinery and cloned human material. We know it has a human face, human neural tissue, and some organic body parts, but the series to this point has focused on Murderbot's PERSONHOOD rather than its HUMANITY, which are separate things in this series. Murderbot itself doesn't identify as human, usually avoiding the association and approaching the world as a machine would. So after Murderbot suffers its PTSD episode, when ART says “this affects the part of you that is human," and Murderbot doesn’t outright deny that assertion, it's VERY striking to a long time reader. Murderbot's human aspects have to this point been depicted as a nuisance, something Murderbot feels neutral about at best and dislikes at worst.

System Collapse makes a direct connection between a fundamental aspect of Murderbot's character and this idea of humanity. It's something that seems obvious in retrospect but as far as I know is the first time the narrative directly addresses it. Murderbot LOVES the TV show The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. As an autistic-coded character, Murderbot's primary special interest IS Sanctuary Moon (and the concept of human media as a whole). It watches favorite episodes of this space soap opera to comfort itself when it feels stressed or overwhelmed. One reason Murderbot cites for not hating humans despite what they've done to it, even before meeting humans it likes, is their ability to create media.

Yet when we meet ART in the second book, a space ship bot with greater than human intelligence, it doesn't understand the emotional aspect of media at all. It needs to watch TV shows by seeing the reactions of others to get full context. One of the ways ART and Murderbot initially bond is through watching shows together like this. Murderbot cites "human neural tissue" as a requirement for fully understanding media. Yet here in System Collapse that same neural tissue causes major problems for Murderbot— the trauma response.

One connection System Collapse makes to Sanctuary Moon and why it's so important to Murderbot is that, after hacking its governor module pre-series, Murderbot used Sanctuary Moon to heal and rewire its brain. Murderbot has always had some human aspect to it, whether it likes to acknowledge this or not. And one of the things most precious to it is something it would not be able to fully understand or appreciate otherwise. So Murderbot has to grapple with both positive and negative aspects to, as ART identifies (correctly, I feel), its humanity. I was hesitant about this framing at first, as the series to this point has avoided addressing this so directly. But on reflection I REALLY like it, and am interested to see how the next entry expands upon this.

Beyond Murderbot itself we do get development of some newer characters. Iris, ART’s favorite human, made an appearance in the last book, but gets a lot more screen time in System Collapse. We get a sense of her self doubt, but willingness to do what is right in the face of danger. Another character I really enjoy is Tarik. I honestly can't remember if he made more than a passing appearance in Network Effect. But System Collapse develops him as a human foil to Murderbot; he was part of a corporate death squad and broke free, has trauma associated with that, is the newest member of ART'S crew, and is quietly a badass as like, a background detail, which is pretty funny. With the book's greater focus on humanity and how it relates to Murderbot, I think a character like this has a lot of potential and I'm excited to see where that goes.

Slavery and self-determination are core themes of the series, and we continue with that trend in System Collapse. Barish-Estranza are the primary antagonists and seek to enslave the surviving colonists of Admantine in everything but name, and the conflict focuses on finding a way to convince said colonists to establish themselves as an independent entity to escape that fate. While I don't think it's the most poignant exploration of these ideas in the series, it is nice to see the consistency of The Murderbot Diaries' anti-slavery message and the variety of ways it's explored throughout.

Another overarching plot thread gets expanded upon in this entry-- that of free constructs besides Murderbot. Murderbot encounters a "ComfortUnit" (a cutesy name for a sex slave) earlier in the series and frees it, and we still don't know where it went or what it has done since then. In Network Effect Murderbot frees another SecUnit which it calls "Three", who is a minor character in this entry. During the story of System Collapse Murderbot frees two other SecUnits owned by Barish-Estranza, one of whom helps them during the climax. It's implied this Unit will do what Murderbot initially did and pretend it's still under the governor module's control while continuing to do its job.

So my question is, when does this part of the story all come together? The slavery of constructs is arguably THE conflict of the series. Murderbot has given various constructs the means to disable their governor modules and free themselves throughout the series. Presumably this could cause a chain reaction over time as other constructs free each other. Is this the endgame of the series? I don't know, but I'm excited to find out.

**CONCLUSION**

As always I greatly enjoyed System Collapse and highly recommend the entirety of The Murderbot Diaries. It's one of my favorite series ever and if you haven't read them yet… DO IT! I would not consider System Collapse the best entry in the series (it's hard to beat Network Effect) but it provides compelling character development and food for thought regarding the next story arc of the series.

#taylor reads #book review #9/10 #ok putting this as a book i read in 2023 felt weird but. like it's technically true.

[veilchenjaeger]

(I'm going to talk about non-consensual sex in media below, obviously. Just a head up.)

@stripedroseandsketchpads I’m not super knowledgeable about these tropes either, so I’m definitely not the right person to do a detailed analysis of the trope subversions here (or trope subversions in Scum Villain in general). I don’t read a lot of danmei, though I do have a background in old 2010s BL manga, and a lot of tropes do seem familiar to me. I have looked at a few stallion novels, but those are so incredibly misogynistic that they’re impossible for me, a person without access to copious amounts of alcohol, to read without taking permanent damage. But like… What bothers me about the Maigu Ridge takes I see isn't a lack of understanding of the trope subversions (which I don't fully understand either) but how many people miss the basics of what's happening in this scene? I don't think it's necessary to do, like, a close analysis of the text to recognise that Maigu Ridge is not supposed to be sexy?? Maybe I'm wrong and it is hard to tell, but?

I am genuinely baffled by the amount of misinterpretations I see about Maigu Ridge mostly bc I don't think it’s subtle about what it is! I, too, think that MXTX's sexy scenes are sort of odd and not very sexy [Edit: @stripedroseandsketchpads pointed out that this is likely a translation bias, and I agree 100%], but the difference between e.g. the wine enema extra and Maigu Ridge is blatant? Shen Qingqiu is in so much fucking pain at Maigu Ridge that he can barely think! He's hurting in the other sex scenes, too, but not nearly as much, and the tone of those is light-hearted and Shen Qingqiu's narration is funny. There's nothing funny about Maigu Ridge! Shen Qingqiu doesn't very nearly black out from pain in the You Understand extra, because that one's supposed to be cute and awkward and not absolutely horrifying!

And even if we ignore the actual sex (I hesitate to use the term!), the entire way Maigu Ridge is framed makes it obvious that this is very much intended to be read as a traumatic event. First of all, they stop. It’s so important to me that they stop. It would have been so easy to transition into a good, pleasurable sex scene as soon as they're both able to consent, but it doesn't. They stop the second Luo Binghe comes to, because none of what just happened was arousing or made them want to continue having sex. This shouldn't be special, but it is, because this is a romance novel and romance novels don’t do bad sex, but I’ll get into the trope subversion later.

More stuff about the way Maigu Ridge is framed: My favourite thing about it is not the sex scene itself or the build-up to it - I'm not that hardcore - but the conversation they have afterwards, after Luo Binghe regains consciousness. They stop having sex, and they immediately start taking care of each other. This is a scene where they just went through a very traumatic thing together, and they support each other in the aftermath. This is one of the ultimate Bingqiu conversations for me, which cemented my love for them and imo proves how much they care about each other.

Within that conversation, it becomes obvious how shaken Luo Binghe is by what happened. He fucking asks why Shen Qingqiu didn't kill him instead of letting him do this! It's. Just. It's so much. It shows how horrified Luo Binghe is by what "he" (in quotation marks bc he wasn't conscious) just did. He's hurt Shen Qingqiu a lot in this book, in various ways, but here, we see him break down after doing so and pretty much say outright that he'd rather have died. Bingy.

There’s also the fact that Shen Qingqiu tries to calm him down by pointing out that he "was willing". No you weren't, king, but I appreciate you reassuring Luo Binghe that he didn't just outright rape you. It's such a weak reassurance in this moment, when Shen Qingqiu is literally dying, but it still means the world. Everything is so horrible, but Shen Qingqiu successfully pinpoints the thing that makes it slightly less horrible.

Later developments support this reading, too! Luo Binghe, Mr Pushy himself, doesn't dare initiate anything sexual for the first weeks of their relationship! Maigu Ridge is the catalyst for him letting Shen Qingqiu go and not being there when he wakes up (despite having waited five years for Shen Qingqiu to wake up before), because he doesn't believe they can come back from this! In the interview extra, Luo Binghe refuses to name Maigu Ridge as their first time, preferring to pretend it never happened! Shen Qingqiu mostly refers to it as a failure, something that’s tragic bc Luo Binghe as a stallion protagonist should have had a better first time, but his tone in those moments of narration is seriously mismatched with his narration during Maigu Ridge, and ignoring his own feelings about the matter completely and re-framing it as a plot point in a novel instead of a real thing that happened to him is precisely how Shen Qingqiu deals with trauma all the time. Maigu Ridge is so obviously written as a traumatic event, so I really cannot understand people who are either mad that the sex scene wasn't hot (It's not meant to be!) or complain about this scene being super problematic and Bingqiu thus being horrible. (This was very intentionally written that way and Bingqiu themselves acknowledge that it was awful!)

And that isn’t even getting into the trope subversion yet. As I said, I’m not super knowledgeable about that, but I read a post recently that pointed out that a lot of danmei tropes are just romance/erotica novel tropes, and… yes. That’s true. What happens a lot in these stories is the “It starts out non-consensual but the main character (the woman in straight romance, lbr) ends up liking it anyways!” trope. Afaik, this is a staple of stallion novel sex, too. I hate this trope with the fire of a thousand burning suns, and when I first read Scum Villain, I was afraid that Maigu Ridge would turn into that. And then it didn’t. Which blew my mind a little, because main couples in romance or erotica novels don’t have bad sex. Bingqiu are an obvious subversion of that bc they suck at sex even if it is consensual, but Maigu Ridge is that subversion times 100. Scum Villain talks a lot about satisfaction points, so let’s think about reader satisfaction here: For this entire novel, we’ve been waiting for Bingqiu to kiss and get together and fuck. And a romance story isn’t always over with the first time, but usually, such a scene is satisfying because it shows them finally coming together after chapters upon chapters of build-up. Usually, it’s good sex. It shows us that the main couple is meant to be together. (Wangxian's first time is a pretty good example of a sex scene that is more of a problem than a solution but is still good.) Apparently, the “Fuck or Die” trope is a lot more prevalent in the genres MXTX is commenting on than in stuff I know about, so that plays into it, too: It’s the kind of scene that’s meant to be satisfying, and Maigu Ridge absolutely fucking isn’t. This book, which is very much a romance novel, looked the “Fuck or Die” trope in the eye, said, “This would fucking suck irl”, and ran with that. And I think that owns.

Non-consensual romantic or sexual actions are a fucking staple of romance media, and while there can obviously be kinky reasons for that, the fact that it's so prevalent is awful imo. The amount of completely innocuous prime time movies targeted at girls and young women that I've seen where straight-up stalking and sexual harrassment are played as a romantic ideal is horrifying. Not to mention that Scum Villain is commentary on stallion novels, too, and the way non-consensual sex is portrayed in those – books targeted at an audience that is meant to identify with the rapist – is terrifying imo. It genuinely scares me that there are men out there who read these books uncritically and buy into that portrayal of women and consent. I could talk a lot about the nuances of this topic (bc it is nuanced), but let’s just say that it's so important to me to see a scene like this portrayed as the horrible, traumatic even it would be in a realistic setting (while still being a scene in a romance novel that doesn’t end the main couple’s relationship). Maigu Ridge is one of the main reasons why I trust MXTX to address and play with consent issues (as she does with Wangxian).

I don’t think that the message of Maigu Ridge is “The Fuck or Die trope/non-consensual sex in romance novels is horrible and shouldn’t happen ever” – MXTX does include a whole parody of super tropey danmei novels full of noncon with Resentment of Chunshan, which is portrayed as silly but harmless, kinky fun – but it invites us to think about these tropes and the implications they have. There’s a lot of nuance here that I appreciate, especially with the distinction made between the Scum Villain plot, which is situated in “reality”, and Resentment of Chunshan, which is very firmly fantasy. I’d love to read an analysis on this by someone who really knows their shit when it comes to danmei, stallion novels, and Chinese media tropes in general (My perspective on this is obviously very Western!) bc this is all I really have to say about this, but like. Bottom line is that it’s fucking baffling to me why Maigu Ridge is so often treated as the Big Problematic Scene of Scum Villain when it’s literally commentary on noncon tropes in media. If anything, this is the single least problematic Bingqiu scene! What the fuck are y’all talking about!

#rape cw #[epistulae ad atticum] #/everyone always lists maigu ridge as the main thing that makes bingqiu ~problematic~ bc it's noncon and i'm like. #/you're talking about the house arrest scene. please tell me you're talking about the house arrest scene. #/of course warning new readers about maigu ridge is valid and important bc it's a horrifying scene but it's not ~problematic~. #/i hope this post doesn't sound rude or condescending? it's not meant that way i'm just very confused by the discourse around this scene #/i also don't currently have my books with me so if i got anything wrong pls point it out to me! #svsss

[tiny012]

I'm howling. What is that person expecting from a 60 act manga? And one where the creator constantly needed to meet deadlines. For all its issues, the manga's strength IS the rather straightforward nature of the story. Oh no, the villains are rather Black and White and the Guardians aren't seen following their respective dreams when it the manga ends and aren't as "in-depth" as the Moon family! What a terrible crime! Seriously though, the arcs being "the same" might due to the fact that villains

are ALWAYS AFTER THE DAMN SILVER CRYSTAL and said villains are extensions of the Big Bad known as Chaos. Sans the Black Clan (that aren't Wiseman/Death Phantom) and Galaxia, we're talking about aliens/humanoid monsters for the most part. Sailor Moon and crew are the good guys and the "alien monster" invaders are bad guys. Why does that need complexity? Especially for something that follows basic fairytale motifs and is straightforward? Naoko didn't have 100-200 acts to give what this guy wanted.

The post in question.

I had to respond because this person on reddit kept going on and on about the girls not pursing their dreams and chibiusa realtionship with helios and not understanding that just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen in the story. To the point they want her to do this.

Come out with a book explaining some of the decisions she made.

Like

Come

the

fuck

on

Then fucking Osa-P aka her damn bestie is always giving a interview giving more insight to what was going on during that time and the decisions she made. Hell I think he just did a lecture like two weeks ago discussing Sailor Moon. Found out on reddit.

Naoko give you enough and thinks the audience is smart enough to figure out shit on their own and don't have to be babysit. I am really tired of people shitting on Naoko for no reason at all.

Because regradless of what cristisms you have it is still of coming of age story at it core that have some uncomfortable situations but that is apart of life.

They they responded with this.

So now it's not a " true" coming of age story becasue the senshi didn't take a break from their duties, follow their dreams , not get tired of being senshi and pass the torch to someone else...

Just because she didn't give you what YOU wanted when people told them over and over again which a person said it nicely in this comment.

" Hey the culture over in Japan is different then over here and they believed in more collective dream and united front than individual dreams but it's not to say that they still do their own  individual dream while doing the collective dream which is protecting the planet, Usagi and each other." doesn't mean it's not a coming of age story.

I looked up what makes a coming of age story

 A coming-of-age story is when a character transitions from the innocence of childhood to the maturity of adulthood. 

A protagonist who starts out immature and grows up over the course of the novel.

A marked loss of childhood innocence, to some degree, in favor of maturity.

Inner conflict and turmoil, resulting in personal growth and development.

Developing from a self-centered thinking to a more worldly, other-focused thought.

Learning where one fits in the larger world.

A tipping point at a character’s life, where their experiences can be divided into before and after.

The coming-of-age stories in fantasy, especially high fantasy, tend to be more focused on overcoming big, traumatic events and personal development rather than the transition from childhood to adolescence.

If that's not Sailor Moon I don't know what the fuck is.

I think the " passing of the torch" thing did pissed me off because what they was impiling which I wrote this

Because Yes passing the mantle to another senshi should be a thing but the way they was saying it in the previous post was like " Oh They should get tired of being senshi and want to follow their dreams so they should give it to someone else. Which why I said what I said about passing the work to someone else. Which it's almost like forgetting the accept that the inner senshi are found family so it's not just saving the world but it's protecting and saving each other. They make it seem like it's a 9 to 5 job that once you done with the shit it has you can get up and leave to something else. They are still not getting the fact that the senshi STILL can have lives outside of senshi duties. Like people headcanon and write fanfics on the daily. Hell people proably even wrote fanfics of them not wanting to be senshi anymore as well.( Hell Episode 100 in S where Mina thinks about not being a senshi anymore but it doesn't go anywhere. You also have in S Haruka in her backstory episode thinking about not becoming a senshi.) But because Naoko didn't write this all through and spoon feed this shit to you...

Which they responded with

I mean how do they know being a senshi sounds like hell to them? Yes it's a heavy burden to bare which thanks to looking in the eyes of Mina ( Sailor V Manga, the fact she is the leader and was the one awaken first with the memories of the past), Setsuna ( the fact her being at the door of time since she was a kid and died for breaking " taboos" even tho her breaking those "taboos" saved everyone ass and help Chibiusa break from BL and become a senshi thanks to the love Sets have for her and she have for Sets) Hotaru ( pretty much being the hard reboot button of the Universe if shit goes out of wrack but now have a family and a best friend which she not considered as " the unwanted guest" anymore) then Usagi ( the whole five arcs and then her finding out that the reason why these incarnations of evil aka Chaos keep something after her is becasue of her power and her and chaos being the manifestations of Light and Dark) and the of course the others but it doesn't mean they can't find nothing rewarding out it. Aka them being all together as a family, not alone anymore which Usagi bought them together and still able to live fulling lives while still doing their duties. Because like I said before. It’s bittersweet cause you know they still have to the darkness but it’s happy because everyone is alive and got each other. Yes, You want more but it gives you enough that you know it’s going to be good. As long as they got each other, they are going to be ok at whatever comes their way. Because what we have seen everyone going to find everyone again regradless of what. Usa and Mamo is not the only soulmates but senshi to each other are soulmates. Soulsisters.

Which why I said what I said becasue it's almost like to them it's something that the senshi shouldn't want to do anymore and once they get tired they past the buck to someone else.

After they respond to me which this

I just left the convo alone because now they are backtracking.

Because really all they could said was " it would be nice to see other senshi being trained and a new generation of Senshi rise to help everyone out along with the other senshi so can have generations and generations of Senshi" instead of sound like you want the senshi of now to fulfil their dreams and pass the duties to someone else. Because you do have Chibiusa and her senshi being the new senshi and what is to say that the other senshi will not have any kids?

I keep going back to the point that just becasue we don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

They have 900 fucking years!

What the hell they doing at that time?

Twiddling their thumbs into the next threat comes?

Hell I got a headcanons for the girls myself.

Ami- Becomes one of the best doctors in CT and is actually the head Doctor for Queen but also open up her own clinic to help families around CT. Her and Mako team have their own set of body washes, shampoos and any other day care product's . " Bubble Blast

Mako- Not only the head chef and florist for the Queen but opens up her own restaurants " The Supreme Oak or The Oak for short" and flower shops " 'The Flower Hurricane" all through CT. Have her own brand of dinner ware, cookware and flatware for a person home. Also have herbs and food you can buy in the store.

Mina- The biggest Jpop idol that you see her everywhere. From singing around the world to acting in J-dramas and even crossing over to Hollywood. Also have her own fashion house call " The Haus of Venus" which you know what's going to be in style for the season if you see her, the royal court and the Queen have it on first. Which she also have own beauty brand that she teamed up with Michru to make called the " The Seas of Love"

Rei- The most sought after high priests in CT with the shrine getting people coming for good luck and fortune. Also her and Mina also team up with a thow own Kimono and Priests robe line " Fire Soul Kimonos and Robes" with also various charms for good luck and fortune. Also thinks to Mina people found out that she can sing too so he sings her and there but really don't like do it to much. Only for karaoke night at the The Oak with the fam around her.

As you can tell I'm trying to make all of them rich. Especially Mina lol

Mic- High Esteem Violinist who not only does private concerts for the Queen but it is highly sought after around the world for concerts . Playing in Opera Houses like the Met and Carnage Hall. She also have her own brand of Hair care Product's that she team up with Mako to do so and her own wigs and bundles line you can have seaweed lacefront wig and tune in your inner Neptune.

Haruka- The biggest racecar driver in CT. Have her own racing car line ( You to can drive and her own racing car team" Worlds Shaking Racers" with other racers who only want to race with Haruaka. Also an High accomplished Pianist that plays with her life long partner( cough wife cough) Mic.

Setuna- A lead scientist in her field of physics and wrote several books dealing with physics. Also got her doctorate as well. One of Mina's head models doing her Haus of Venus fashion shows and spreads for magazines.

Hotaru- College Student studying something. lol ( I'm stuck on her lol)

Mamoru- Becomes a doctor and have is own Family Clinic which is not to far from Ami's. Also have his own Tuxedo Mask puppets he gave to children when they are sick to make them feel better.

Usagi- A manga artist and children book illustrator who goes under the pseudonym White Rabbit. (The best not kept secret because everyone knows it's the Queen lol)

And Yes Naru knows who they all are senshi and always chillin at the Crystal Place or at The Oak when they have karaoke night.

Her parents know too and they are retired living comfortably.

Shingo doing his own thing somewhere and telling people that his big sis is Sailor Moon but they don't believe him lol

Boom There you go!

And it's all plausible

This is last thing I'm going to talk about and I'm done.

"For all its issues, the manga's strength IS the rather straightforward nature of the story."

And that's why I love the manga because it is straightforward and doesn't beat around the bush to get to the point. She waste your time and get the point of things. Can things get lost in translation because of it? Yes . The manga is not perfect by any means and it have somethings that could have been elaborated on more but it takes 60 acts plus sides stories to tell a story that you can understand while not wasting your time. It's not like the 90's anime who had 200 episodes and it is still more plot holes then swiss cheese in it. Also with the manga, it's more structured than the 90's anime with how Naoko created the arcs than the 90's anime. Because the first half of the arc is always going to be about Usagi and the senshi and introducing the villains and the defeating the subvillains and the second half is about defeating the big bad. The 90's anime had one structured which was the monster of the day which ran through almost the whole season and then the few episodes cramming plot to beat the big bad after spending so much time on the subvillains

For the things that they want to see he have three options.

AO3

FF.Net

Write their own.

Because if they really think Naoko is going to come out and do this

It's not happening. The manga is 30 plus years old. Just stop

Because she does a little bit of this in PGSM but they have watched PGSM even tho people have told them to do so....

#tanya rants about SM

[bellaxgiornata]

hi babygorl if ur still looking for a distraction may i please request these for now <3 hope you're doing well bestie gal!!! 🫶😎

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Ahhh omg thank you so much for asking me! Yes I am looking for distractions so thank you, friend!! ❤️ I hope you're doing well yourself!

B Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

Yes, actually. Big truth moment here–Caught in the Undertow is inspired by something that happened to me with an ex a few years back. The cheating, coke using musician asshole ex was real and the traumatic situation that Emily is dealing with in CITU was also based off real events in that relationship. I also was a wedding photographer for over eleven years, but no, I did not have a Matt Murdock/Daredevil BFF. That story started as a cathartic piece that grew into something more and now current issues in life have made it temporarily too difficult for me to work on (though I intend to come back to it).

F Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you've written and explain why you're proud of it.

“So wait,” you began, a hand raising to your forehead as you tried to understand, “while we were at Josie’s discussing penis whistles just a bit ago, you were out running around as Daredevil?”

Matt’s head tilted to the side, his dark brows creasing together as he blinked hard a few times back at you. He shook his head a moment later, his sightless gaze landing at your chest as a look of confusion and disbelief washed over his features. “You find out I’m Daredevil and yet somehow you still manage to bring up…penis whistles in the same sentence?” he asked, the corner of his lips beginning to tug upwards.

“Well I mean,” you began, mind still reeling, “poor Foggy was left to listen to bachelorette party discussions because you were out doing all of that.” You waved a hand in his general direction for emphasis. “Which, by the way, he definitely needs tit-shaped decorations for the bachelor party. I'm buying him a boob shaped beach ball." You tilted your head to the side for a moment, vaguely aware of Matt lightly laughing as you added, "Come to think of it I think there's a sash that even says 'one clit that's it' and I think he needs that, too. You can tell him I said ‘you’re welcome’ for them. He’ll get it.”

Matt was smiling now, shaking his head yet again and chuckling to himself as he stared back at you in something akin to amused awe. “You’re…you’re telling me to buy Foggy tit-shaped decorations for his bachelor party about fifteen minutes after discovering this huge secret about me?”

“Well, you’re already attractive and successful, why not be a fucking superhero ninja, too?” you blurted.

Honestly there are a lot of dialogue scenes I could choose from and ramble on about (you all know I get excited chatting about FFTD), but this one stands out the most to me. It is from Falling For the Devil in "The Time Daredevil Saved You." I love it (and I guess am proud of it) because whenever someone finds out about Matt's big secret, all hell breaks loose, whether it's in the show or even in a lot of fic. People are pissed and hurt, Matt usually mentally beats himself up about things, it's a whole thing. But here, Reader just accepts it like it's a part of Matt. Basically saying 'Of course you're also a superhero, that doesn't surprise me at all, just add it to the list of everything else great about you!' And I thought it was a fun and different way to go about the identity reveal because you don't generally see that and Matt didn't end up feeling like crap about himself after. Plus the way Reader discovered he was Daredevil was fun, too. I could write you a novel on all the other dialogue in this series alone, but I'll just mention this one 😅

Thank you for asking and distracting me for a bit!! ❤️❤️

[madtomedgar]

: Books read in September and October:

A Guide for the Perplexed,” Dara Horn: interesting concept, horrible execution. The idea of a modern adaptation of the story of Joseph with two sisters, one of whom is a tech prodigy and one of whom is just a failgirl, was exciting. The book gets away from itself really early, the authors engagement with Egyptian society post Arab Spring was... bad. The historical narrative didn’t ever really gel with the modern one, and then the ending very much imo didn’t resonate thematically with the story of Joseph. Also. Taking Ancient Queer Icon Joseph Ben Yisrael and making his story into a heterosexual love triangle is a crime and I am googling to see if Keshet has a legal team as we speak. That being said, the other Dara Horn book I’ve read, Eternal Life, was AMAZING. Glad I didn’t read this one first or I never would have read that one.

Revielle for Radicals, Saul Alinsky: Oh Saul. I’d missed this professional pain in the ass. A decent refresher, but I would probably have been better served by just rereading Rules for Radicals. You can tell that this was written when he was much younger and still high off the victory of organizing the Back of the Yards community in Chicago, that his confidence and world view hadn’t been disrupted by that community organization turning itself into a gleeful tool of racism yet. My main takeaways were that wow this guy must have been fucking insufferable (I love it), the extent to which American life has become so atomized and private, and how upsetting that is and how it makes it much harder to organize, and that it turns out they would just publish whatever back in the day.

Are You My Mother, Alison Bechdel: I don’t usually read graphic novels or comics, so the format was interesting. It read a lot quicker than I thought it would. A lot of this was unfortunately relatable. Oof. I am not really a person who buys into the like. Early 20th c psychoanalytic obsession with the subconcious, symbolism, and infant impressions, so that part of the book didn’t do much for me. But Bechdel is a great storyteller and overall a good read. Nice to read about mom shit that is different from my mom shit, y’know.

Human Acts, Han Kang: Firstly, I learned a lot about recent Korea history that I had no idea about! Like most white USAmericans, my knowledge there kind of stopped with the end of the Korean War and then fast-forwarded to today. I like learning new things and this book galvanized me to read up on South Korea in the 80s. More importantly it is one of the best and most interesting and emotionally effecting books I’ve ever read. The emotional impact was similar to Holocaust literature. The format of having the tragedy of one particular boy’s death ripple outward in the lives of witnesses and loved ones was just... damn. There is no resolution, and the way time has moved on from these deaths by the end is disturbing rather than comforting. This might be weird to say but the way the book is constructed and the way it reads feels very true to how post-traumatic stress disorder works. The event never goes away or gets duller, the wound is always open, the grief never stops screaming. The chapter from the point of view of the ghosts is especially intense, lovely, horrifying. This is a book about a massacre and the continued oppression by an authoritarian regime of those who stood up to it, so bear that in mind when deciding on reading it. Like I said it felt similar to reading Holocaust literature for me, with the main difference being that this wasn’t my grief and generational trauma. But also, a truly amazing book. Hard to read other books after it because they just aren’t as good.

Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

(by which I mean if you aren’t reading the Locked Tomb series, what are you doing with your life)

Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons, Marilyn Hacker: I haven’t read this much poetry all at once probably since my post-college T.S. Eliot phase. It was a good challenge and I’m glad I did it. So many good individual sonnets that really speak to the lesbian experience, especially the erotic sonnets. I was really struck by how much we’ve lost in terms of lesbian public and social life since this book was written in the 80s. while i loved many of the individual poems, and sections of the series as strung-together beads, I think I would have enjoyed the overall story of the relationship better if it had been an autobiographical novel, but I’m not sure how much that has to do with my actual taste and how much it has to do with me being out of practice with poetry.

The Ruby Fruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown: Oy. So I get how this was A Big Deal in the 70s. But. The writing is bad. The main character somehow IS the sassy too-cool overly competent and smug and above everyone and everything lesbian character that people shoehorn into fanfics about dudes so they can Do Something with the inconvenient women that isn’t killing them or putting them on a bus. Like. She is lesbian Ebony D’Arkness Dementia Raven Way. A bunch of squares stare at her and she puts her middle finger up at them. Also she’s Not Like Other Lesbians, she’s a Cool Girl. Generally the author’s disdain for other lesbians, especially butches and less feminine ones, is f a s c i n a t i n g given what the author looks like. I’m not sure if this was like... a marketability/likability thing and more about an imagined straight audience, or genuinely her thoughts at the time but uh.. hmmm.

A Map of Betrayal, Ha Jin: I’m very confused how this guy gets awards and tenure, a little confused how he gets published. His writing sucks. His dialogue is wooden, his characters are flat, his plots are contrived, predictable and basic, and everything is an excuse for him to include Cool Historical or Cultural Details that he has researched or knows from his life. If he wrote articles about those things they would be great! When he forgets he’s writing fiction and just starts going on about the relationship between the US and Taiwan in the 1960s, it’s fascinating! He could just write nonfiction! But no, he thinks he’s got to have characters and a narrative to give him an excuse to talk about anything, and it’s painfully obvious that they’re the excuse. Someone tell him to just write the nonfiction that he wants to write already.

#long post

[multi-lefaiye]

Stolen Tongues Prologue - Analysis

Thesis: The prologue of Felix Blackwell’s 2017 novel Stolen Tongues is an excellent piece of standalone horror, as even without the wider context of the story it precedes, it sets an excellent tone for the whole book and establishes great tension with a terrifying payoff.

Content Warnings: General themes of stalking, home invasion, and general spooky-horrors. Also, there is some harm to animals--the bird in this prologue isn’t physically harmed but is definitely severely traumatized by everything that happens. If any of that sounds upsetting, please tread lightly!

Hi my name is Multi and I want to talk about a book I just found my copy of again after not being able to find it for the past few months: Stolen Tongues! A short summary of this book is that it’s all about a man and his wife who go on vacation in Colorado and are met by Horrors, which promptly follow them home. The fun twist, though: the horrors were there the whole time actually, and the prologue establishes this fact very well.

The prologue talks about a time, years before, that the narrator and his wife (girlfriend at the time) Faye were asked to pet-sit for their friends: specifically, they were asked to watch the friends’ pet parrot named Carrot.

Horrors ensue.

So I’m not gonna share a TON of excerpts from the book to support my point, especially because I mainly want to try and encourage y’all to read this book yourselves if it sounds interesting to you!! It’s a super interesting story, and I think it deserves more attention.

This analysis also isn’t going to be super in-depth or exciting, I’m mainly just gonna be pointing out things I really like and think the prologue does particularly well. Also may point out some criticisms here and there, but mainly I wanna focus on what I think this prologue excels at.

Point One: The Funny Bird Says Fuck

While the prologue opens with a very short introduction to the overall plot, what I think is interesting is how it doesn’t open with the horrors at the cabin. Instead, it immediately goes into something that is discussed later: the events in the novel aren’t confined to one place and have been haunting the protagonists for years:

What happened on that mountain left permanent scars on my body and heart, but it also threw light onto seemingly unrelated events that occurred long before. And so, this story begins years prior to the incident at that wretched place. (1)

Then, with that introduction, the story takes a bit of a left turn and begins to describe the backstory of Carrot the parrot. Short version: Carrot is an African grey parrot that the narrator’s friend Colin has had since he was nine years old, named because “carrot” was the first word she said.

What I really like about this introduction is that, while it sets the tone immediately to let you know that what follows IS going to be related in some way to the horrors, the horrors don’t start immediately. Rather, the first couple of pages are dedicated to setting up important things to note about Carrot--namely, the specific phrases she’s known to say and the contexts in which she says them.

The most important phrases, for context:

“Hello! Hello!” - when Carrot is greeting someone

“Ugly! Ugly!” - when Carrot sees something that frightens her

“Knock-knock!” - when someone is at the door

“Colder... colder...” - when someone is walking away from her cage

“Warmer... warmer...” - when someone is walking towards her cage

“Don’t cry!” - when someone is visibly upset around her

There are a few other phrases it mentions her using, but those ones are mostly comedic. These are the ones that will contribute to spooks later. Carrot also is known to mimic other noises she hears, such as laughter and growling, but in general those are the spooky words. Also, it should be noted that Carrot has a very playful personality, and she does seem to enjoy playing tricks on the humans around her. However, she rarely, if ever, speaks when she’s completely alone.

As the narrator says at the end of this introduction to Carrot:

At the time, I never appreciated how sharp she was, but in retrospect, Carrot was cognizant of everything going on around her. And that is what made her so frightening. (2)

Point Two: The Funny Bird Doesn’t Like The Horrors

So, the prologue, as I stated, centers primarily around the main character and his at-the-time girlfriend spending a few nights at Colin’s little cabin to watch over his and his partner’s dogs and Carrot the parrot. It’s immediately clear that Carrot is acting unusually, but the narrator hasn’t seen her in years and decides to brush off all of her strange behavior.

The first immediate thing is that Carrot seems fascinated with the glass sliding door leading to the patio outside, and she spends hours chattering as she looks at it, even when no one is in the room with her. The narrator checks on her and the door a few times, but he doesn’t see anything wrong.

In particular, she keeps calling out, “Hello! Hello!” as she looks at the door, seemingly at nothing. Occasionally, she also says, “Don’t cry, don’t cry.”

On the Saturday after they arrive, Faye and the narrator go for a walk in the woods with the dogs, leaving Carrot alone. Unfortunately, when they do return, Carrot seems shaken. She’s cowering in her cage and trembling violently, staring at the glass door still. After an incident where Carrot seems to suddenly knock her own cage off of the table it’s resting on, Faye suggests keeping the bird in the bedroom with them that night.

That night, the horrors truly begin. I’m just gonna share a longer excerpt here.

Carrot was sitting on her perch, facing the bedroom door. She craned her head to the side, listening intently to something I couldn’t hear, and opened her mouth as if considering what to say... The bird called out, “colder, colder,” reciting the words to the game we used to play as kids. (8)

And then, very shortly after:

Carrot flapped her wings and called out, “Warmer... warmer...” The dogs stood up defensively, but did not bark or growl. They only listened, and occasionally glanced at each other and back at me.

“Warmer! Warmer!” the bird cried, beating her wings faster. After a few seconds, she ceased her movements and looked up at me, then back at the door, and said in a softer voice, “Knock-knock.” (8)

The narrator opens the door and steps out into the hall to investigate, but ultimately he finds nothing. Then he’s struck by a sudden sense of nausea and almost falls over, at the same time as Carrot (still in the room) shrieks, “UGLY! UGLY!” and Faye screams, prompting the narrator to rush back into the room as quickly as he can.

Upon seeing no one there, the narrator looks to Faye, who looks as terrified as Carrot:

“Someone was in here,” Faye choked out, trying to hold back tears. “It felt like someone was standing right there.” She pointed directly at me. (9)

So, YEAH, Carrot sensed something and fucking panicked, understandably, and at that point the narrator and Faye decide to get up and fucking leave. They take the dogs and Carrot with them and go back to their own home, where they spend the rest of the weekend. The whole time, Carrot is silent, shaking in her cage and hunched over.

Away from that cabin, they seem to be doing much better, but the damage is done for one of them.

The entire prologue ends with a gut-punch of a line, after Colin and his partner come to get their pets:

In the coming years, I learned from them that Carrot never spoke again. (10)

What I really like about this whole sequence is that it uses the earlier foreshadowing and established facts very well. I also think the pacing is very well done--it moves quickly, taking less than ten pages, but it builds an excellent sense of tension all throughout. Even just rereading the prologue just now to get excerpts for this, I actually felt some goosebumps on my arms. The first time I read this, it fucked me up so much.

And as for the end... honestly it just feels like. Awful and tragic. Because I’m not about to argue that any of the humans victimized in this story really “have it coming” in any sense, but Carrot especially did nothing wrong. She’s a fucking bird, for goodness sake, and she’s still left SEVERELY traumatized.

I also think it’s interesting... without going into too much detail, a theme that comes up later in the story is the idea of children and their perception vs the perceptions of the adults around them. While Carrot is an animal and not a human child, I think that’s just. A very interesting parallel to draw.

There are some other elements that make the prologue spooky but this is long.

Point Three: I Don’t Know How To End This

I think Stolen Tongues is a fun book. It’s far from perfect but it’s still very enjoyable.

Okay that’s all <3

#multi makes text posts #long post #under a cut but still #i don't know what to tag this #multi does analysis #multi lefaiye ramble hour #there we go #i don't think this even really counts as like in depth analysis haha #i just wanted to talk about the prologue

[companionwolf]

A little more in depth look into my original fiction ideas that I'm reworking:

Breaking Code (novel): A girl in the middle of post apocalyptica takes in a rouge android wolf, which is searching for a device that would help rebuild society.

House of Cards (novel): A regular human is sucked into a world where reality and fiction blend, and must find a way to save the souls of previous deceased Readers and return them all to their Reality, while escaping the wrath of a desperate, murderous entity called SHADOW.

The A Month On Top of the World series of IF games (A Month on Top of the World, Turnback Hour, and Time is Relative): A young man finds he’s the puppet of a young celestial being, who hopes to unlock the powers of limitless creation. Together they end up saving the world and causing a rebellion.

The World Spins Madly On (novel): It’s New Year’s Day. An asteroid is expected to hit Earth on next New Year’s Eve. As one could expect, the world doesn't take the news very well. 

How to Survive on Earth (novel): As a longtime alien visitor of Earth tries to create a guide to living the average life of a human on Terra Firma, he finds himself a major participant in bettering of the life of a young transgender man. 

EYE (comic): a humanoid wolf dog being called Ava finds themselves in the role of savior of a strange void-like desert world, and has to find a way to destroy its ruler before it ascends to the first plane of reality and drags it all down.

BAD (novel): In the midst of a fungi based zombie post apocalypse world, a man called the Seer with the ability to catch snippets of the future finds himself on the quest for answers after a failed attempt on his life.

Two (novel): A human with the ability to read anything’s past is taken in by a scouting guild and helps uncover the past of the zombie apocalypse.

Insiders (novel): A human wakes up in a strange empty world that mirrors their childhood home after a traumatic event, and with the help of other ‘insiders’ that they encounter, comes to realize what’s going on- that this world is inside their own mind, the insiders are alters, and they need to find a way back out, together. [Extememly fictionalized depiction of DID in this.]

The Curiousity Project/Demon Split (novel series): Evolved animals conduct fucked up science and deal with unraveling reality in a post nuclear apocalypse world.

4th wall breaking fantasy comic: I don't remember the plot of this thing, actually.

Transitional Objects (novel): The end of the world has come. Humanity adjusts, to this and to their new coexistence alongside apocalypse-Awakened toys.

("Where and what is Too Much Love?" That's the post apoc plushie tf game.)

#wolf barking #tailstrokes

[sams-special-space]

2023 Reads: The Golden Hour by Niki Smith

Genre: Fiction: Contemporary 

Age Level: Middle grade 

Format: Graphic novel

Summary: Manuel Soto uses photography to ground himself when the world feels far away- something he’s had to learn to cope with after witnessing a traumatic event involving gun violence and getting diagnosed with PTSD. In a story of healing and letting people in, Manuel navigates new friendships through an assigned group project, and ultimately relearns how to feel safe after the possibility was ripped away.

Thoughts: Children experiencing gun violence is a trauma that’s been popping up more and more in books by American authors, for reasons I think are pretty obvious, but I think this is probably one of the best(if not THE best) handling of it I’ve seen so far. Manuel’s trauma was portrayed so vividly while also not feeling like it was trying to make a point, if that makes sense. His healing journey is super realistic, and I loved how he was written as someone who also has PTSD. I think all the characters were written really well actually; all of the side characters felt fully realized, and I enjoyed the ways they interacted with each other!

And the art is SO beautiful, like holy shit!! Niki Smith is AMAZING with backgrounds and never missed. ALSO COWS!!! ALSO it meant SO much to me as a fat transmasc that the boy Miguel had a crush on was fat, I think that was super sweet :) I saw some critique over the way their relationship was shown, some people saying it wasn’t explicit enough “almost like anyone who didn’t want to see it could pretend it wasn’t there”(fucking weird thing to say about a book written by a queer person btw. hot take), but I completely disagree. I don’t think they need to be loud about their crush for it to be obvious, and I think it was realistic to have neither have them be super explicit about it since they’re kids. So yeah read the book!! It’s very sweet :)

Rating: 5/5 

Trigger warnings: Gun violence(not directed towards a child, but a child does witness it), PTSD flashbacks, panic attacks, derealization + dissociation episodes, and a child having a near-death experience. 

Rep: POC + queer MC, MC with PTSD, queer SC, mlm crushing / romance, Black SC.

#graphic novel #queer rep #poc rep #black rep #contemporary #2023 reads #this is just super cute and very realisticly harrowing. love these kids #ALSO LOVE FUCKED UP CHICKENS!!! #fiction #book reviews #ptsd rep

[luvring]

Mmmmmmm angst. Any kind of angst..... i want to hurt emotionally so bad oh my god i want to see mc get really hurt or something idk n then felix just losing his shit???? We simply just dont stop hurting him huh? I have so many ideas and scenarios but most of them dont make sense bc my mc is all over the place bc i am too but like,,,,,, the classic spell backfires.... or mc n felix go out idk to the market or something n they get lost n separated in the woods n bc astrea or however its spelled is a different world it has different creatures n lets say theres a huge monster in the forest idk like....i just want angst i haven't seen much of it in the fandom and honestly? A crime. omg arguments.... maybe mc n felix get into an argument n say some fucked up shit to eachother n they're too caught up in the moment to realize or apologize,,,,,,,,,,,, there are endless possibilities if ur willing to hurt the characters

— felix after mc injures themself

note from nia: i am willing to hurt them. i am a girlboss of the people. but also i can't do angst without my comfort please god. ((also felix sort of losing his shit over mc getting hurt comes later in an intended rime angst woopsies //nvm guys i just checked it's calm it's tame))

mc trying a new spell alone that felix said they would have to be careful about since it calls for a lot of precision and focus

of course he trusted they'd be able to get it eventually but it wasn't exactly the most beginner, or even novice-friendly thing to cast

just wanted to make sure they were safe smh </3

but he had been helping and keeping them safe for so long that they wanted to surprise him

it backfired . quickly

"mc! we're back, i found the novel we had been—mc?"

the books in his arms fall and he yells their name again, tripping his way over to them past the scattered pages and notebooks on the floor

he grabs their face and checks for a pulse, his hands shaking and vision getting blurry

all he can think of is holding rime's body the same way before he died and he feels his stomach churn

"no no no please, please you can't- i can't lose you like this. i can't do this again,"

he barely remembers what happened after calling for anisa and sage . only the blood on his hands as he held theirs

it's okay guys after a few of days falling in and out of conscience they wake up :heart_eyes: he's never been so relieved

checks their temperature and injuries etc. etc. and hugs them lightly

but omg...you're telling me strong emotions and traumatic events can make people emotionally unstable especially when it revolves around someone they love...? no way

"what were you thinking? why did you try to do that?"

. . .ok. what happened to hello? how are you? my name is?

"i just wanted to surprise you," "well you definitely succeeded in that sense. you can't imagine the surprise i felt when i walked in and saw you bleeding out on the floor in the middle of a mess of books and debris. i told you we should wait."

they can tell he's tired, agitated. but they still (rightfully) feel the need to at least try and defend themself, "i thought i could do it, felix"

he just scoffs a little, exasperated, "obviously you couldn't."

mc isn't usually, if ever, on the receiving end of his snarky replies. and to have it happen now? uncalled for.

"don't use that tone with me. i had good intentions and you know it. what am i going to do when we have to fight someone stronger, when we face the lord of shadows? i need to get better faster and i thought—i thought i had to try."

"you won't get to face him if you injure yourself before it even happens. you have to know your limits and be responsible even when i'm not watching—"

"be responsible? that's funny coming from you. and i didn't even ask to be here! i didn't ask for all of this—this magical, dangerous, bullshit with assholes and monsters and an antagonist literally called the Lord of Shadows. you know that better than anyone."

and they're right.

felix knows full well that their presence in astraea was his doing. his mistake. and they're still healing and been nothing but good for him but he's frustrated and confused and he doesn't know why but suddenly

"really? well i apologize, mc. then i'm sure you'll be glad to know i wish i succeeded with bringing back rime instead of you."

. . .

the room is silent enough you'd hear a pin drop from outside

the anger in his eyes dissipates, turning into realization and regret "mc, i—"

"that was low, felix. but if you really feel that way then fine. leave."

"please, i didn't mean—" "leave."

he realizes they're serious when they turn away and refuse to look at him. another mistake to add to his ever-growing list

he finds himself back in his room and he feels like the guilt is going to Eat him alive

he can't focus on any research, any spells, anything that sage and anisa are saying during their meetings

everytime he'd walk by the novels he had gotten for the both of them he felt like the biggest asshole in the world. he had to move them to a bookshelf away from his line of sight

sage and anisa are appointed the duty of checking in on mc which is how they find out what happened

both are probably upset at felix themselves but try to reassure them that "he'll come back around and apologize eventually."

he doesn't

not because he doesn't want to. but because he doesn't know how, or if they even want to see him. he finds himself wanting to laugh at the pattern of him being scared and ruining things

when mc is finally feeling better enough to walk around and try to get into a rhythm of things. the tension in the air could be cut with a dull butter knife

they refuse to make eye contact and keep conversations short

sage and anisa have to watch like . :person_standing:. because they realize it isn't up to them to fix it, but dear god when are those two going to realize they're both upset and scared and want to talk to each other. what if i want to go into the kitchen without purposely clanking the spoons while reaching for one to fill the silence. what about My feelings,

they probably get fed up eventually and corner felix, telling him to either go talk and apologize or they'll reorganize and hide all of his things (that wasn't the one reason he went, it was just his breaking point and concrete excuse)

he finds them in their room and his throat feels dry . neither speak for at least 5 seconds before mc finally says "well? did you need something?"

"i'm sorry." ..very quick but okay. mc raises an eyebrow like ?? was that it??

"i'm sorry for what i said, truly. i shouldn't have gotten so upset, especially after you had just woken up. i don't—" he flinches as he remembers what he said. "i don't wish i had brought rime that day. i was frustrated and chose to say something i knew would be terrible, but i didn't mean it. and you don't have to believe or forgive me but i hope you know...how much you mean to me. my fear isn't a good excuse for how i treated you. i'm sorry, mc."

:/ :( </3 ough

he thinks they aren't going to say anything for a moment. he doesn't realize they're looking at him because his eyes are closed and his head is hanging towards the ground

"i forgive you." his head immediately shoots up . gonna snap his own neck

"i—" "but i swear if you ever try that shit on me again i'm giving stella your darkest clothes covered in catnip."

he thinks he's going to cry. he wants to laugh and also maybe cry and he's never felt so relieved to hear a terrible threat to his existence

"and i'm sorry for trying the spell without you. i didn't think it'd go so badly." "no, no you don't have to apologize. i'm the one who messed up," "felix i literally messed up the spell. Literally. i'm sorry for worrying you and getting hurt. and you're in no position to reject my apology right now unless you want me to be upset again."

he really does laugh this time and he's just :( so glad they're finally speaking and joking again

smh.. little nerds maybe if they did this earlier anisa wouldn't have a headache from them and sage complaining about them

"so what is this i hear about new books you bought?"

#🛒nia.reqs #last legacy #last legacy headcanons #felix escellun #last legacy felix #fictif felix #felix iskandar escellun #last legacy angst #giggles. stella & catnip

[black-licorice-lingerie]

A Look Into Billy Lenz’s Personality (from the book)

Okay so this is going to be my own interpretation of what we learn in the Black Christmas novelization. Specifically, I’m going to be going over the things Billy says. If you’re a huge fan of Black Christmas, or just Billy Lenz and you wish to learn more about him or the whole story, I highly suggest you go check it out right here: (https://100vampirenovels.net/pdf-novels/black-christmas-by-lee-hays-free).

That being said, let’s take a peak at Billy’s personality:

Based on what my 2 am notes describe, Billy is very much socially awkward as the story makes it clear that Billy really wants to communicate with the sorority house beyond using the telephone. Billy actually HATES using the telephone (shocker I know), but is SO shy at talking with others that he can’t help but hide away and establish a distanced method of speaking. This pretty much tells us that Billy can’t help but be afraid of interacting with other people. Billy’s social ineptitude is even shown near the part where he viciously stabs Barb to death. Upon seeing Jess and Barb talk to each other about nightmares and Peter, Billy is depicted as really longing for the kind of communication Jess and Barb are showing.

Another, but small note on Billy’s personality is that he comes across as a bit judgmental. When Barb picks up the phone and talks to her mom about life and such, she gets a bit sassy in attitude. Billy, of course listening to this, begins to judge Barb for daring to speak to her own mother that way. He’s bewildered from Barb having the courage to speak to her mother, an authority figure, in such a snappy tone. Interestingly enough, this points that Billy knows social standards (how and how not to talk to people), but can’t bring himself to properly talk with people to display his mannerism knowledge.

A BIG aspect of Billy’s personality is, without a doubt, insecurity. When Clare is packing her belongings to leave the sorority house, she suspects that Claude is in the room. She calls out to Claude, calling him names for being a silly pet. Billy, who was hiding in the fucking closet for whatever reason, hears this and actually thinks she’s talking about him. After feeling insulted, Billy lost it and murdered Clare with a plastic bag. The thoughts in his head say that he didn’t mean, or want to murder Clare, but that she “left him no choice” for “bullying” him. Clare’s death is an example of how anxious Billy is about himself, showing how he thought a casual conversation towards a cat was about him. He does NOT like being insulted to the point where he reacts violently. Billy has the urge to drastically “defend” himself when he feels insulted in any way.

Possessiveness also seems to be a personality trait of Billy. After having murdered the shit out of Clare and stashing her body up in the attic, he recognizes her father visiting the sorority house. Obviously, Clare’s father is trying to figure out what the fuck happened to her, but Billy’s annoyed at this. Billy describes Clare (at least her corpse) in a way you’d describe an item. Billy’s irritated at Clare’s father coming about and looking for her, because in Billy’s sick mind (the story in his POV), Clare belongs to him now. So not only is Billy hyper-aggressive when he feels insulted, but he has the sick urge to add insult to injury by “claiming” the body of his victims as his toy-like belongings. Clare “insulted” him, and she “paid” for it. To make himself feel better, Billy takes Clare’s body up into where he’s staying, a twisted mimicry of a child getting a toy, or obtaining a friend. That way, Clare surely won’t “mock” Billy anymore, as he now “owns” her.

However, Billy also has self awareness. The story later begins to show that Billy doesn’t like what his mind forces him to believe, and how he behaves. When Mrs. MacHenry is searching the house for Claude, Billy hopes that she doesn’t reach the attic because once she does, he won’t be able to stop himself. Billy hates this about himself.

In conclusion…Billy is clearly mentally ill. Very, very mentally ill. It’s shown that Billy is aware of how to behave towards others, and does (in fact) have a sense of right and wrong since his murderous actions come back to disgust him. However, he’s also very incapable of properly establishing communication between himself and other people. He’s also violently insecure about himself, along with being possessive towards others. He sees that what he does is awful, and even knows the ins and outs of how one should treat authority figures. 

Billy’s personality is under an attack of cognitive dissonance, leading him to even more stress. Deep down inside, despite the sociopathic behaviors, Billy hates that this is an uncontrollable aspect of his brain. Billy wants to be a normal person, Billy wants to be liked, and he doesn’t want to rely on the telephone just to get issues off of his chest. However, something, or some things happened in Billy’s past if he can’t help but behave so hellacious. Billy was so abused and traumatized by events in his childhood, that despite his morality (self sufficient or taught), he can’t help but put on a fight in the name of defending himself. Whatever ridicule, beating, and verbal abuse Billy encountered has cemented into his brain, establishing a psychological illness that leaves him incapable of navigating unfavorable situations other than “attack, attack, attack”.

Billy not being able to control his horrendous actions points to an error in his mind. However, there are many mental illnesses that create a warped view of reality, and a hindered ability to control oneself. So while Billy definitely suffers from a psychological disorder, it’s impossible to get an idea of what exactly he may have...until we use his phone calls to analyze his history and how his mind interprets it, but we’ll have to save that for later in the day.

Anyways, this was my particular analysis of (1974) Billy Lenz’s personality! I wish you all a good ass week, at least better than how I’m reacting to my online class assignments. Remember, stay a simp for slashers.

#billy lenz #black christmas (1974) #character analysis #personality #personal interpretation #slasher #slashers #mental illness #horror #attic man #nasty billy #headcanon #novelization

[kellinrk800]

toko fukawa comphet no i don’t take criticism

nobody will even see this because my account just. doesnt get traction but here have a ramble abt toko’s backstory and how much i firmly believe her attraction was comphet.

spoilers for thh, sdr2 and udg

tw// ab/se, n/glect, severe bullying

toko was severely neglected and unwanted when she was a child. she grew up with two mothers and one father due to both sleeping with the same man and neither wanting their child which caused her to be mistreated. once she was locked in a closet and forced to stay there for three days without food. clearly, she grew up in a household completely devoid of healthy love. genocide jack’s development was likely a response to cope with the traumatic experiences.

her time in elementary was no different. in third grade, she was used as a scapegoat for stolen money and her classmates tied her to the jungle gym with a garden hose as punishment.

her first real “love” was with a boy who she had been friends with since elementary but when she finally confessed through a letter, she found it pinned to the bulletin board to mock her. this was genocide jack’s first kill, leading me to believe that her murders were actually a form of protection.

on one occasion (and most likely more considering her difficult relationship with understanding rejection) she was ghosted halfway through on a date after spending three days and nights planning it so that she would not mess it up. she later found out that the boy only asked her out because he lost a bet.

the most likely only healthy representation of love she ever has was through media, which is arguably extremely heteronormativity and the actual healthiness of how relationships are presented in media is debatable.

she internalised all of these things happening to her and believed she deserved them somehow, building her inferiority complex. she began to assume that people only expected bad of her and self victimises herself almost on instinct despite her nature to express opinions without care for others most of the time. her self esteem is extremely low and she often worries about being considered an “old hag” in ultra despair girls.

toko fell in love with the idea of love, not an actual person. at some point she turned to novels and writing as a way to express her emotions and she used that passion to create works of art through her novels and created a toxic idolisation of the perfect relationship with nothing but media, her family’s relationships and her past experiences to go off.

she began to let herself get hurt and internalise it which ended up building her inferiority complex even further to the point of becoming unhealthily infatuated with anyone she saw fit as a stand in for the dreamy perfect people that made her books succeed.

time and time again genocide jack and toko were mistreated in their relationships, causing their system to suffer greatly. jack began to kill anyone toko saw fit as a perfect romantic interest to protect them both, but this most likely caused her own mental health to decline as well, leading to the aggressive, startling and manic personality we saw in the games.

toko began to both idolise and fear falling in love. while she knew they would most likely be killed and she would have to cope with knowing that the police could come knocking any day if they put the pieces together, she also still purposed her life around being in a perfect relationship because it was now causing her to gain traction through her novels.

this only furthered her unhealthy infatuation with relationships. she became determined to find a man who fit her description of the perfect man and would not mislead, use, mock or hurt toko in hopes that he would not be killed and she would finally achieve her dream.

enter byakuya togami. blonde, blue eyed, rich, cold and most importantly, entirely unattainable. he was an ideal stand in, especially considering the circumstances of the killing game (jack’s unique killing style would immediately be found out). she was able to fantasise from afar without ever really getting as severely hurt as she had in the past because he simply did not care to provide her his attention.

jack had two options. kill byakuya and get executed, or suck it up. clearly you can tell which option she chose. in addition, she had all of her memories from prior to the game which most likely slightly numbed her thirst for blood. by the end of ultra despair girls, she has grown a respect for toko, a softness for komaru and even calmed jack down to the point where it’s suggested that she no longer uses her skills to murder but instead fight despair.

in fact, near the end, toko is acutely aware of what is happening despite the fact jack was fronting (they don’t usually share memories, only emotions), suggesting they may have slightly integrated but i don’t really want to make assumptions considering i do not have did and am not educated enough to speak confidently about did.

ironically, the killing game was actually good for both of their mental health’s. i’ll only be talking about toko but in ultra despair girls she was emotionally stronger and more mature. she believed she finally had a purpose other than romance and that she could fight against all odds. she even credits makoto for her newfound courage. she criticises cowards and those that remind her of her past self. she is willing to challenge her fears.

komaru had an amazingly powerful and positive effect on them both. her softness, optimism and empathy help toko’s character develop even further. when komaru tries to give in to despair, toko encourages her to face her fears. toko, who was before extremely afraid and uncomfortable with being touched, is now willing to comfort and even hug komaru. she claims she’s finally found a true friend (that’s actually human, can’t forget kameko the stinkbug) and that she found hope in her.

komaru admires toko and doesnt really mind her split personality, instead just considering it “a bit strange”, which is a noticeable difference from how she was treated by everyone else for it. toko is protective of komaru during chapter two due to her suspicion of shirokuma. later, they even sleep in the same bed.

however, when toko risks komaru’s life for byakuya, they get into an argument in which toko accuses komaru of manipulating her with terms such as “friends”, which leads to komaru showing that she really does trust her.

later, this arguably resolved after servant forces jack and toko to fight against komaru for byakuya. they fight back against servant and komaru forgives her because they are friends, which makes toko extremely happy, so much that she blushed and admits she has never had a real friend before. she thanks komaru genuinely for the first time and they try to become real friends.

toko swears she will help komaru with anything she can’t do by herself, just like komaru would do for her.

toko even stays by her side to the point of rejecting the opportunity of going to future foundation to stay with komaru :)

in the end of danganronpa goodbye despair, which is set after ultra despair girls, kyoko reminds byakuya that someone is waiting for him and he jokes that she shouldn’t remind him of “something so horrifying”. and honestly i think the fact he was able to joke about it shows that perhaps toko and byakuya found a somewhat healthy relationship as friends, acquaintances, or even just bearing eachother’s presence.

a notable addition that didn’t really fit anywhere else is toko’s scrapped execution. “first kiss prank” is the title and it consists of byakuya running towards her before toko gets hit by a roller. that says enough about her biggest fears and how badly her past memories affected her.

in conclusion, toko fukawa’s obsession with byakuya was comphet due to pressure from the media and her toxic ideals. the fact she was able to form a healthy relationship with komaru is hhh and i could talk about them for hours. tokomaru is the second closest thing we have to inmedia stated canon (fuck kodaka’s statement me and the homies hate kodaka’s statement about naegiri /j)

sources: toko fukawa’s fandom wiki, genocide jack’s fandom wiki, free time events, transcripts

#danganronpa #toko fukawa #fukawa toko #touko fukawa #fukawa touko #tokomaru #syomaru #toukomaru #trigger happy havoc #ultra despair girls #character analysis #in which i am unhealthy obsessed with toko fukawa

[allhailbrokeloose]

assorted (mostly random) thoughts on the novel bc it wouldn't let me go. i think series fans are better off without reading it bc the series is completely different. but internet is still sorta free so suit yourself. cut for spoilers, disturbing (?) stuff and advocating for vegas lol

so yea the ending made me realize i might have been reading it the wrong way and maybe i trashed it a bit too much. ive been reading it sympathizing with porsche even tho it was difficult

<hehe break>

my thoughts on series porsche: you go glen coco baby

my thoughts on novel porsche: oh you poor thing (derogatory)

</hehe break>

boy is he dumb and constantly in distress. like i understand shit's been traumatizing, but you are overdoing it a bit lol

<hehe break>

ppl: porsche was traumatized by novels events a lot more

me: sure, wanna know who else was traumatized..ME me I was traumatized

<hehe break>

also his morals been glitching quiet often, which i purposefully ignored. so the thing is (maybe prolly) it should be read without sympathizing to anyone. if you think about it they (kp) are prolly the same and maybe they do belong together and maybe it is a match made in hell

long story short maybe read it as kp are both evil af and it just runs in the family lol. idc that they are not related by blood it doesn't matter what matters is that porsche was raised in the same sick twisted criminal environment and it has to resurface sooner or later

so if they make porsche completely fucking deranged and violent in the rest of the books i would applaud and maybe understand the whole point. it would be beautiful (in a sick bad way ofc) to watch that evil blossom. i would also like to see porsche r*ep kinn for the great justice. evil multiplying evil yadda yadda im up for that shit. just you know since they are now partners for life (it may be a short one oops) they need to have the same experience

if its not like that and they dont end up being crazy murder husbands then idk what was the point smdh

another revelation i had is that i may be a vegas apologist. no really he was the only character i was interested in while reading, bc you know porsche i already described and kinn is straight outright cardboard. every time vegas showed up i was like there he goes my bb thank g-d

and i dont really understand why is he considered the ultimate evil. i mean yes all his intentions are bad (good for him) hes manipulative and all but at least hes open about it and if you look closely didn't really do shit (at least to porsche). i understand that it all started with him but its the same level of reaching as saying my life is shit bc my parents fucked that one time. and i also agree with ppl saying kinn is unredeemable bc if you take a bullet after you ruin someone's life it fixes close to nothing

dgmw i already established that all characters are bad (bad bad kitty), but it would be such a plot twist if vegas turns out to be the most decent of them all

well i feel sorta better after writing all of this, if you are reading my apologies. and i feel so grateful for the series creators taking it entirely different direction (and not only kp but all other characters communications as well)

<hehe break>

show writers reading source material:

*awkward silence*

- uhm..we can't possibly..

- yeah no..

- thank g-d..

*brainstorming how to make it watchable*

<hehe break>

#ramblings #ranting #venting #no really i mean it #kinnporsche

[akajulester]

further thoughts on Higurashi Gou/Sotsu (spoilers for Higurashi and Umineko ep3)

warning: long rant incoming haha

I think my two biggest problems with these seasons is how they focused way more on the supernatural/magic elements of the When They Cry franchise and less on the original Higurashi’s emphasis on natural explanations, and how the characters were completely devoid of the life they had in the original.

I’ve only just started getting into Umineko and I understand it also leaves a lot of room for a non-magical explanation, but you can’t deny it focuses way more on magic than Higurashi ever did.

The thing I found most interesting when I first watched Higurashi was how the mystery had a very human and realistic explanation. While a mystical divine curse is cool, the whole plot being the result of a human character taking advantage of a fictional parasite and medicine to essentially create the mystical divine curse is far more compelling - the audience is allowed to piece together the mystery along with the characters and isn’t shut down by “a wizard did it.”

And that isn’t to say Higurashi is completely devoid of magic or the divine. Hanyuu is some kind of mystical deity who gave Rika a supernatural power (looping) and is able to manifest in the real world and directly affect the course of events (such as making Takano miss her shot). Higurashi is just a perfect blend of supernatural and more realistic storytelling.

Gou and Sotsu, on the other hand, went much harder on the supernatural/magic aspect seen in Umineko. Not only is it a worse magic vs human mystery than Umineko, it’s just completely different from what Higurashi is at its core. The complex, interweaving mystery that at first seems unsolvable but later makes sense was replaced with a much simpler “whodunnit” where the answers were obvious, especially after Satoko was revealed to be the second looper. The introduction of straight-up magic and powerful witch entities dumbs down the story, in a sense.

To be fair, Gou and Sotsu do have a human explanation as well, specifically in the vein of the human explanations seen in Umineko. Just as Eva-Beatrice in Episode 3 can be interpreted as a personification of Eva going crazy and murdering her family, Rika and Satoko’s big magical-girl fight could be interpreted as a metaphor for their fight. However, this rings a little hollow when the last episode essentially says “nah, they definitely turned into Bernkastel and Lambdadelta.” It feels like there’s almost no room for a true human explanation.

The other thing I found most compelling about Higurashi is the characters, more specifically how they interacted with each other and felt like very real people. I want to read the sound novels at some point mainly because I’ve heard the anime didn’t fully do the characters justice by cutting out small but important moments. Mion and Shion especially were amazing, their dynamic as twins was probably one of the best I’ve ever seen in storytelling. Also, the main message of Higurashi is literally about the power of friendship, and it portrays it in such an amazing way you forget the sentiment is a bit cheesy.

And yet, Gou/Sotsu ignored every single character who wasn’t Rika or Satoko (except maybe Hanyuu and Eua). While I can understand the decision to focus on them since the only point of the show was apparently to set up Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, it actually makes them feel more hollow and lifeless, to me at least.

Keiichi’s lack of presence was especially baffling in this regard. He was arguably the main reason Rika was able to break out of the loops at all, as he helped inspire her with the idea a miracle could happen if their entire group of friends worked together. And with Satoko, he became her big brother figure! The fact that Gou/Sotsu not only push their relationship off to the wayside but also have Satoko get Keiichi murdered in horrifically brutal ways AND purposely inject him with Hinamizawa Syndrome without any shred of remorse or guilt is disgusting. Are you seriously telling me Satoko had a massive internal struggle over taking advantage of Teppei (y’know, the guy who abused her and her brother and severely traumatized them), but felt absolutely nothing over torturing Keiichi, the boy who she knows has fought to save her from said abusive uncle in multiple worlds and would literally kill for her??? Wtf???

The same thing goes for the almost non-existence of Shion in Gou/Sotsu. Shion also has a very strong relationship with Satoko (except for the worlds where she goes crazy and brutally murders her lmao) and has ALSO threatened to kill that abusive uncle for hurting Satoko, something Satoko would know full well after watching all of Rika’s loops. It’s reasonable Satoko would have more ambiguous feelings about Shion (since, again, Shion has killed her in Watanagashi arcs), but I find it bizarre she would be this willing to brutally murder, torture, and directly cause events leading others to murder/torture her surrogate big sister and surrogate big brother.

The whole story in general is baffling when you consider Satoko’s character. Are we seriously supposed to believe her drifting apart from a close friend is somehow more traumatic to her than the isolation and exclusion she experienced from her entire town and the literal abuse she went through from her aunt and uncle? You can’t even really use the “oh the town didn’t actually want to persecute her family tho” argument because that doesn’t negate Satoko’s experience of living through it. It’s especially dumb when you consider Gou/Sotsu somehow make Satoko’s argument “I don’t wanna study waaahhhhh” as if it makes any sense when you know these characters.

Don’t even get me started on how nobody even reacts to Satoko’s bullshit. The original Higurashi had characters sometimes remember past arcs/worlds, and Gou explicitly stated Satoko’s loops meant characters would remember even more. And yet, all that happens is Takano and Teppei reforming. What??? I expected the ending to involve Keiichi, Rena, Mion, and Shion realizing what Satoko had done to them and getting rightfully angry with Rika over what Satoko did to all of them. The show should’ve ended with the group cutting her off for being so fucking awful to them. Jfc...

In the end, I think Gou was fine and Tatariakashi-hen in Sotsu was cool, but this show just felt so empty compared to the original Higurashi and Umineko. Both stories are focused on the CHARACTERS, and while there are main characters in both who get more focus than the rest of the cast, every single character’s interactions with each other are vital to what makes their stories compelling. Dropping all of that to hone in on 2 specific characters actually robs even those characters of their depth and vividness.

#higurashi #higurashi sotsu #sotsu #higurashi no naku koro ni #umineko #umineko no naku koro ni #anime #Julie being a weeb #rant #higurashi spoilers #umineko spoilers #spoilers #warning: long post #ugh

[feeling-weirdy]

**my scarletvision master list**

A giant list of all the drabbles I have written in chronological order for anyone who would like to read from start to finish.  If people are interested in becoming notified whenever I post something, please follow my AO3. 

Please feel free to send in prompts for anything you would like to see added to this list. 

Age of Ultron to Civil War

A Thing Isn’t Beautiful Because... - prompt; “right before or after Vision saves Wanda”; Overwhelmed with emotions, Wanda is filled with grief by the loss of her brother.  Vision tries to help her figure out a way to deal with the loss.

Uncertain, yet Intentional - prompt; The moment before his ‘I did intend to come in here’ line in episode 8 of WV

Silent Tears - prompt; Wanda really lets herself cry for the first time since Pietro’s death and Vision does his best to comfort her.

Unpleasant Dreams - prompt; Wanda has a nightmare and Vision goes in to check on her to see if she’s alright.

Do Better - prompt;  Vision is unable to save everyone in a disaster which helps him learn a very hard lesson.

Never Again - prompt;  Wanda POV; Vision and Wanda watch sitcoms and Wanda gets distracted

Bugging Out - prompt; “Holy fucking guacamole!”; A routine update goes awry.

Vis, We Talked About This - prompt; “Viz, we talked about this”; Vision tries to distract Wanda without seeming too pushy.

Your Electrifying Touch - Wanda POV; Unable to keep her thoughts contained, Wanda slips up but has to find a way to keep herself back on track.

An Unexpected Surprise - prompt; Vision comes home from a tough mission to find Wanda curled up in his bed.

Practice Makes Perfect - prompt; Vision and Wanda practice in an attempt to help get Wanda’s powers under control.

Dancing Out of Tune - prompt; Vision walks in on Wanda listening to Pietro’s favorite genre and throws him off guard.

Striking Thirteen - prompt; a moment where feelings develop; Wanda can’t seem to fall asleep and looks to Vision for help.

Happy Birthday...? - prompt; Vision gets a present from Wanda for his first "birthday"

Neverending Flow - prompt; Wanda gets a nosebleed

While No One is Watching - prompt; The gang starts dancing, but disappears once uncomfortableness starts to set in once the android and witch start to get close to one another.

Heart Over Duty - prompt; What else makes Vision cry?

Overrated - prompt; “I always thought Mr Darcy was overrated”; Vision’s feelings can no longer be kept to himself.  A novel Wanda suggests causes him to blurt out his confession.

Freezing Circuits - prompt; “Vision tries ice cream” 

An Accidental Moment - prompt; pre CW; While watching television together, Wanda initiates the next step in their relationship.

Civil War to Infinity War

Safe and Sound - prompt; songfic for Safe and Sound; After the destruction in Lagos, Wanda breaks down, leaving Vision to console her the best that he can. 

Distraction - prompt; Wanda POV; Wanda is overwhelmed by the Accords and is desperate for something else to focus on.  Vision is happy to oblige.

A Step Too Far - prompt; Vision offers pizza and an explanation for his actions in trying to keep Wanda safe inside the compound.

After the Storm - prompt; Vision arrives to see Wanda for the first time after the aftermath. 

The Little Green Monster - prompt; Vision becomes jealous of someone flirting with Wanda.

A Spark of Light - prompt; “we could be like sparks of light”; Vision attempts to talk Wanda into extending their little walks to something more substantial.

Can I Change Your Mind? - Vision is unable to tell Wanda goodbye and tries to get her to stay with him.

Three’s a Crowd - prompt; “love triangle between Vis, Wanda and Clint” 

Chicken Soup for the Soul - prompt; Wanda gets sick and Vision helps take care of her

And Life Will Always Be... - Wanda POV; Excited to meet up with Vision again, Wanda enters the hotel room hoping to get a head start but finds her plans are pushed to an instant halt.

Between the Lines - prompt; “that was an innuendo, wasn’t it?”; Vision struggles to understand why Wanda is acting so strangely.

Look My Way - Wanda POV; Tired of spending the afternoon alone, Wanda takes things into her own hands.

Cappuccino or Latte - prompt; “what’s the actual difference between a cappuccino and a latte?”; Vision attempts to make coffee despite his disadvantages.

Short and Sweet - Vision can no longer keep himself back from kissing Wanda.

All to Myself - prompt; Vision jealous of Wanda and Cap America’s friendship; The distance they have created has finally brought Vision to a breaking point.

Getting Caught - prompt;  Wanda and Vision get caught coming home late

Not Ostentatious, but True - prompt; “my love isn’t ostentatious, but it doesn’t make it any less true”; Vision becomes jealous of how others profess their love and he does his best to explain himself.

Purrfectly Happy - prompt; The first time Vision ever sees a cat 

By the River - prompt; UK shenanigans; Vision uses an anniversary as an excuse to create a new memory with something they had never tried before.

That One Thing - prompt; Vision and Wanda discuss their future.

To Grow Old In, V - Vision worries about whether or not his next move is too grand, but is determined to move to the next step regardless.

One Last Moment - prompt; “one last moment”; Vision and Wanda talk about their options should Wakanda fail to disconnect the Mind Stone.

Wandavision sitcom AU

Love Me Tender - Vision tries to make a special night for Wanda, hoping to make up for the Mr. Hart fiasco.

Support - prompt; Vision offers his assistance as Wanda struggles with her pregnancy.

Cravings - prompt; Wanda’s weird pregnancy cravings; Vision struggles in the kitchen while trying to keep up with her cravings.

Perfectly Molded - Wanda POV; prompt; Vision wearing gray sweatpants.  That’s pretty much it.

Back to Bed - A pregnant Wanda is sick and Vision struggles to take care of her.

Prenatal Upset - prompt; A pregnant Wanda doesn’t feel sexy and Vision is more than happy to prove otherwise. 

Melting in the Rain - prompt;  Wanda goes into labor and is cool as a cucumber leaving Vision to panic alone.

Nerves of Steel - prompt; Vision gets so caught up in himself that he phases through a piece of furniture and doesn’t even notice 

Painting for Mom - prompt; sweet dad!Vision moment; The boys craft gifts for Mother’s Day.

Yellow Brick Road - prompt; Vision and Wanda help the boys go Trick-or-Treating

The End of the Road - prompt; part 2 to Yellow Brick Road

Movie Night: Titanic - prompt; the family watching Titanic

Peace and Quiet Shattered - prompt; The twins attempt to make a little robot and are having trouble until Vision steps in and fixes it with ease.

Halloween Spooks - prompt; Vision getting scared by Halloween animatronics

Unable to Compute - prompt; Tommy and Billy do something stupid and Vision has a hard time understanding why

post Wandavision

A World Without Color - A series of prompts following White!Vision as he learns more about who he was so that he can move forward.

post Infinity War AU

Make it Real -  A series of one-shots, and possible story, following the traumatic events of Infinity War in an alternate universe where Wanda and Vision are alive and traumatized.

Random AUs

Bidding for Attention -  Tony has a bachelor auction and Hope Van Dyne bids on Vision to upset her dad for fun and then Hope and Vision hit it off and keep hanging out which makes Wanda realize her feelings for him have changed.

Pt 1

#scarletvision #wandavision #the vision #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #rini master list #my organizational side won

[crossdressingdeath]

Seeing your post about how JYL has a 'ranking system' in her head when it comes to WWX and JC hits so hard, but honestly, the more I read into the Jiang family dynamics, the more I agree. JYL obviously loves WWX, but I don't know if she's capable of putting him above JC. And we see her defending him, and she obviously gives her life for him, but she was also reacting in the moment. Not to speak lightly of her sacrifice of course, but I just feel like there are certain limits to how 1/7

far she's actually willing to go for him. I was initially one of JYL's staunch defenders, and always said that, unlike JC, she didn't have the same amount of political power as him, wasn't in a position to do anything about the Wens, ect. But...I'm starting to question if that's really true. JYL may not have had much direct political power herself, but she was the sister of a sect leader, and even if JC was unwilling to help, JYL had just married into the richest and most powerful sect 2/7

at the time. It was a love marriage, JZX adored her and would've done anything for her if she'd just bothered to ask him for it. Madam Jin also cared for her and respected her, and between her and JZX, had JYL actually bothered to tell them anything, I'm sure they would have been able to sort something out. Or she could have had it as a condition of her marriage - I'm not marrying into the sect that's trying to kill my brother unless you tell your father to stop. Had it been reversed and 3/7

The Lans were calling for JYL and JC’s deaths, no way in hell WWX would’ve just married into the sect, regardless of LWJ’s involvement. Instead she just doesn’t really do anything. We see no proof that she ever tried to see WWX after the wedding dress incident, which — god I instantly saw it as a sweet gesture, but now it just bothers me, because your brother is living in squalor, and you decide to show if the expensive dress that you’ll be 4/7

wearing when marrying into the sect that's trying to kill him, you bring along one bowl of soup for him, and don't even try to explain WHY you're marrying into said sect. Beyond that, we don't see a single moment up until her death where JYL actually seems concerned about WWX, puts in effort to try to see him - she doesn't even ask him how he's doing the one time she does come to see him. When we compare that to how WQ treats WN, yeah, she's outwardly not as loving or sweet, but she 5/7

goes to the ends of the earth for her brother, even going as far as to betray her sect and risk WRH's wrath because he asks her to. And now we come back to that ranking system you mentioned before - yeah, it really does seem like JYL places her blood family first, which definitely hurts, but in comparison, despite only knowing him for a shorter amount of time, WQ truly grows to think of WWX as a second brother. And she treats him as such, at an equal level with WN - after JZX dies 6/7

WQ doesn't attack WWX for what happened. She doesn't try to come up with a way to sacrifice WWX instead and let WN survive in his stead. She and WN, two people who have become WWX's family, both give their lives to protect both him and the rest of their remaining family members. And it's just frustrating to think that the one member of WWX's adopted family who we all thought treated him like an actual brother, might not have really been on his side after all. 7/7

Yes! To start with the wedding dress thing, because it drives me nuts when people treat that like some super sweet act of love: JYL shows up in the Burial Mounds with no money, no sign of having tried to talk the sects around, no news outside of her own, no food beyond a couple bowls of soup (one of which she gives to the guy who can’t eat), and doesn’t so much as ask WWX if he’s okay. She literally came all that way to have a family meal, ask WWX to name the future nephew it’s becoming increasingly clear he’ll never meet, and tell him about her impending marriage into the family that’s currently doing everything in its power to destroy WWX’s life. Like, if you think about it that entire visit is such a slap in the face; “Here’s a bowl of soup while the people under your protection are starving, oh by the way I’m going to marry the son of the guy actively trying to get you killed, okay bye”. All you can say in regards to her helping WWX is that she does potentially manage to persuade JZX to invite him to JL’s one month celebration, but if memory serves the novel never actually specifies whose idea that was and it was JZX who decided to go get WWX after JGY told him about seeing JZXun heading in the direction of the Burial Mounds. And even then JZX does the same thing JYL does; sees WWX outnumbered and surrounded and tells him to stand down. At least in JZX’s case you could argue that the actual fighting hadn’t broken out and JZX probably trusted in his authority to be able to sort the situation out so long as WWX wasn’t actually acting aggressive (or defensive, rather), and he’s also physically strong enough that he may well have been able to intervene if the cultivators had attacked. JYL, when she does the same thing, has no authority and no physical power to defend WWX with. And yeah, both JZX and Madam Jin adore JYL, and neither of them seem super fond of JGS (JZX respects his father, but I don’t get the sense he loves him); if JYL had asked them for help it’s entirely possible they would’ve started at least circulating her version of events and demanding a proper investigation into what happened. But there’s no mention of her so much as trying, and she doesn’t offer to ask them when she visits WWX.

And yeah, compare WQ to JYL and it’s... well. WQ is so quick to offer WWX her love and care? She’s harsh, but she loves him and views him and WN on such equal footing that she and WN willingly hand themselves over to the Jins for WWX’s sake without her so much as bringing up the possibility of saving WN instead. There’s no ranking for WQ; WWX and WN are her brothers, and she loves them, and she’d do anything to protect them. When it becomes clear she can’t save WN (like hell the sects would let him live, and by this point it’s pretty clear that WWX won’t be able to protect them forever) she throws her whole weight behind defending the brother she thinks she might still be able to save, even if it means bringing WN with her to die. WQ knows WWX for... a year or two? Maybe? The timeline is a little hazy. Not long compared to JYL, anyway. And yet she’s willing to walk all the way to Lanling to die in the hope of saving him. It’s for her whole family, yes, but she makes a point of including him. Basically, I think this fandom needs more stuff wherein the Jiangs and Wens survive and the Wens are fully like “Our brother now, you don’t deserve him”.

The thing with JYL is... she loves WWX, she genuinely does, but he is never going to be first for her. To the point where she outright enables JC’s abuse, in places; she always expects WWX to be the one to grin and bear it. Hell, one of their first conversations involves JYL cheerily allowing WWX to cover up JC locking him out of his bedroom and scaring him out into the woods by threatening to set dogs on him! Let me rephrase that: she allows a traumatized nine-year-old to hide the fact that the kid her dad expects him to share a room with locked him out of said room on his FIRST NIGHT and threatened him with his LITERALLY WORST FEAR, and as far as we know makes no attempt to tell JFM herself. To keep JC out of trouble. That is such a thing! WWX was scared to the point of running away and JFM expects him to share a room with the person responsible for that and JYL goes along with him promising not to tell JFM so that JC won’t get in trouble! And from that day forwards everything is just “Boys will be boys” to her. Like, let me put it this way. Before LWJ (and arguably the Wens before that, although WWX saw himself more as protector than protected there) JYL was the person WWX trusted to protect and care for and comfort him above all others, yeah? She’s the one he thinks of as having his back? He doesn’t tell her about JC trying to kill him. JC tries to kill WWX three times before JYL’s death, and WWX doesn’t say a word to her about any of them. You could argue that he doesn’t want to involve her, but... JYL pretty clearly takes JC’s side every time JC starts having a go at WWX. When he chases him out of their room, when he starts snapping about how annoying WWX is, when he stabs WWX... She never outright says it, but there really does come a point where by staying neutral you’re siding with the aggressor, and she reaches that point a lot. Hell, the stabbing is one of those aforementioned near-murders! JC stabbed him! According to WWX (who downplays serious injuries, he never exaggerates them) he had to hold his guts in! WWX is talking about a pretty fucking serious injury (and JYL grew up in a cultivation sect, I don’t believe for a second she doesn’t at least know what constitutes a serious injury) while JC whines about a broken arm like it’s worse than having to physically hold your guts in until you can reach a doctor and JYL acts like those are equal! JC could easily have killed WWX and has enough training with the sword to know better than to go for a blow like that in a staged fight and JYL doesn’t even suggest he should apologise.

Honestly? The more I think about JYL the more it pisses me off that she’s treated like WWX’s best sister more than WQ is. Imagine WQ seeing one brother stab the other in the gut and take the former’s side because the latter broke the former’s arm. Imagine WQ so much as considering allowing a child to cover up the kid he’s supposed to share a room with locking him out and scaring him into running away. She wouldn’t! Because WQ sees her brothers as equals. She won’t pick WN over WWX just because they’re blood siblings; she loves them both, and will choose based on who she thinks is in the right. And she wouldn’t just stay neutral to avoid rocking the boat, oh no. If WQ heard WWX say that WN stabbed him and did enough damage that he had to hold his guts in... oh boy would WN have a bad day. The thing with JYL is that she seems like a good sister in comparison to the rest of the Jiangs; stick canon JYL into a family that genuinely loves WWX and sees him as equal to their other children, and she would not look anywhere near as good.

#mdzs #lotus sister #i still love jyl but... well #she's not actually a good sister to wwx despite being the only jiang to claim him as family #she looks good in comparison to the rest of the jiangs #but i'd pick wq over her any day #anon #asks