#this kind of feels like confirmation that something very interesting was happening at this particular point of the tour

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

okay the cleveland gig videos are incriminating enough on their own (see: the serenading, the infamous boner moment, the post-gig all over each other acoustic performance), but the way alex talks about it is also SO LOUD oh my GOD

#alex’s FACE #that is not a platonic look to give someone #not even a little #i don’t even want to know what he was referencing with that look #this kind of feels like confirmation that something very interesting was happening at this particular point of the tour #jesus christ #milex #alex turner #miles kane #the last shadow puppets #tlsp #lulu posts

[anthurak]

Takeaways from the Volume 9 Epilogue:

--

One thing I really like about Oscar’s ‘If there was anything I wish I could borrow from you…’ monologue is that it laid out/confirmed something I’ve always felt was a major aspect of Oscar’s dynamic with Ruby that I nonetheless feel a lot of the fandom has missed: That Oscar very much sees Ruby as a mentor and an example to follow, and how their dynamic is specifically a foil to what we saw between Ruby and Ozpin. That Ruby acts as a mentor and example to Oscar in the same way Ozpin was to Ruby, and that Ruby is a far BETTER mentor and example to Oscar than Ozpin ever was to her. Which, as an aside, is a dynamic I can’t help but feel a lot of people have been misinterpreting as ‘ship-teasing’ and is one of the main reasons I’ve simply never been able to see Oscar as any kind of viable love-interest to Ruby. Frankly the dynamic of ‘Ruby is the mentor and example to Oscar that Ozpin couldn’t be for her’ is simply so much more INTERESTING than any kind of romance could ever hope to be.

--

Even in animatic form, Winter basically going overdrive on the maiden powers was a sight to behold. And her own monologue had all the self-deprecation we were expecting. Our girl is clearly holding on by a thread and it’s going to be REAL interesting seeing how she reacts and adjusts to her sister not actually being dead. As in, I can imagine a situation where Winter tries to throw herself into a heroic sacrifice with the belief that Weiss would make a better Maiden than her.

Also, Winter’s monologue giving major focus to how Penny is super-super-dead-dead-and-definitely-not-coming-back-for-really-realsies, as she is talking to the sister who she ALSO believes is DEFINITELY also dead? Specifically with the words that Penny is gone, when Penny’s last words to her were that she’d be ‘part of you’?

Yeah, there is no way in hell we’ve seen the last of Penny XD

--

The CROWN. Like it was only a few shots, but as someone who read the CFVY Books (which you totally should if you haven’t, they’re great), holy shit I was NOT expecting them to pop up here.

I mean, in hindsight it makes perfect sense that they’d be involved in Volume 10. They’re basically Vacuo’s equivalent to Vale’s criminal element and the White Fang splinter faction as Salem’s co-opted insurgency group, with Jax and Gillian joining Roman, Adam and Jacques as the latest of Salem’s unwitting patsies. It’s definitely going to be real interesting seeing the crew deal with them. Like it’s really fun to imagine Team RWBY in particular being kind of exasperated at seeing Jax’s probably doing a whole ‘With Salem’s help I shall be King!’ shtick after everything they’ve seen with Roman, Adam and Jacques.

Oh and if you don’t know, Jax has a mind-control semblance, so him trying to use that on Yang could actually lead to a sneaky callback to the Justice League crossover, ie; Yang doing a ‘Yeah, I’m not doing THAT shit again.’ XD

--

Qrow’s whole vibe through this is fascinating. Like his section may have been the one we already saw, but after seeing the abject depression and growing despair of all the other characters, Qrow actually being OPTIMISTIC hit so much harder.

--

Raven showing up at the end is… interesting.

I’ll admit that ever since we saw that specific clip a few months back, I’ve been rather conflicts about Raven showing up to deliver RWBY+J to Vacuo, particularly after Ruby’s tree vision. Like for one it felt a bit random and unnecessary. The tree already deposited the Ever After team outside of Vacuo so they didn’t exactly need help getting there. Not to mention that it kind of clotheslines the story-thread set up by Ruby’s vision; that she now has a reason to track Raven down to get the ANSWERS to what happened to Summer. Finally, it’s just kind of… random? Like where did Raven even come from to get the team?

But now having seen the clip with its intended context, I’m definitely more on board with it. Particularly hearing from Kerry and Eddy that the original ending for the penultimate episode had RWBY+J going through the portal to arrive at their memorial stone, and met by a ‘Mysterious Figure’, ie; Raven. Here it feels like were getting more set up to get answers later as to what Raven was doing at the memorial.

And really, now that I’ve thought about it more, this method kind of puts the thread of Ruby going to Raven for answers even MORE into focus. Like the story reintroduces Raven in the present right after Ruby got a vision basically saying ‘hey, Raven is important’. And now going into Volume 10, we’re pretty much perfectly positioned for Ruby to pull Raven aside for those all-important ‘Why were you fucking my mom? What happened to my mom?’ questions.

--

Finally… yeah that ending hit me a LOT harder than I was expecting. Like that ending was HOPE in its purest form and it was honestly beautiful to see. Particularly right now with the future of the show seeming so uncertain. I’ve personally been optimistic about RWBY’s future (in a manner not unlike Qrow’s vibes I suppose lol), but damn the hopefulness of that ending hit especially hard, and was something I’ll admit I needed. And I imagine the rest of us could use as well.

We'll be getting Volume 10. And 11, and 12, and however many more it takes to finish this story. At this point, I have no doubt of that.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 9 #rwby volume 9 epilogue #rwby ramblings #Team RWBY #Ruby Rose #Yang Xiao Long #Winter Schnee #ozpin #oscar pine #Raven Branwen #Qrow Branwen #rwby after the fall #rwby before the dawn #jax asturias #gillian asturias

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Multifaceted (S.R.)

Summary: Reader interrogates a witness. Spencer can’t believe what he sees.  

Request: reader where she is super quiet, shy but really really sweet and soft spoken but she has these crazy interrogation skills and tactics that shock the team and Spencer Couple: Spencer Reid/GN!Reader Category: Fluff Content Warning: Police interrogation mentions Word Count: 650

MASTERLIST

Spencer likes to think he knows you pretty well. You’d only started working with the BAU a couple weeks ago, but in those few weeks, he’d taken a particular interest in you.

Of course, that had nothing to do with the fact you were attractive (although you were). That would be shallow.

Instead, Spencer liked you because you were kind. There was an undeniable softness about you that extended far beyond your features. There had never been a moment between the two of you where he felt anything less than appreciated.

For that same reason, Spencer was worried about your first solo interrogation.

He just couldn’t stop thinking of his own. Thankfully, those many moons ago, Hotch had been nearby to put an end to his misery when he’d realized just how far out of his depths he was.

So, Spencer tries to return the favor. He doesn’t tell you that he’s watching because he doesn’t want you to think he is expecting failure.

He stands by. Just in case.

Spencer quickly realizes, however, that you are not the one who might need saving.

Behind the two way mirror, he sees an entirely different side of you. A side that is brusque and intimidating and notably not like the rest of you. Still, your charm somehow bleeds through the rough edges.

Spencer finds himself falling in an entirely different way. That stomach-sinking sensation breaks and makes way for butterflies that feel almost inappropriate.

He watches you with a morbid curiosity as his idyllic image of you dies on the metal table.

There is nothing resembling fear in you as you face evil. You are composed yet terrifying in quick, loud movements.

As you lean closer to something vile, he notices your lip and nose twitch in disgust.

He catches the way the man in the room practically cowers at the sound of your raised voice. He is reminded of the saying:

Demons run when a good man goes to war.

That is how he feels about you.

When you storm towards the exit, Spencer runs to greet you. In that brief time, he stubbornly clings to his vision of you as something soft. He is convinced, however silly it might seem, that something else has happened to explain your behavior.

Yet when he turns the corner and hears the door click shut, he is met with a familiar smile.

“Oh! Hey Spencer,” you chirp happily.

“Hey…” he mumbles suspiciously. He searches your expression for any sign of distress.

He finds none. He isn’t ready to give up just yet, though.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

You look confused, too. That is, until you realize what he meant.

“Oh, were you watching?”

“Yeah…” he confirms.

“So…” you urge him on with a wave of your hand.

He has no idea what you’re waiting for. You giggle as you notice his eyes following your hand like it would help the gears turn faster.

You snap your fingers. He snaps back to reality.

“Was it convincing?” you ask.

After a minute, he almost starts to question it, but he eventually concedes defeat.

“Wh—I-I mean, yeah!” he squeaks, “You were… very, very convincing.”

You recognize the flustered state of him. You take in pink cheeks and wide eyes that are looking anywhere but at you.

Slowly, you realize that Spencer had underestimated just how much of you he had yet to see. You capture that reaction in a treasured memory and tuck it away for a future date.

For now, you just giggle and return to the version of yourself that he was more familiar with.

“You think that’s bad?” you whisper through the side of your mouth, “You should see me when I’m hungry.”

Spencer laughs along with you, even though, if he were honest, he knew he’d like you just as much.

(Tell me what you thought about this fic here!)

Reid Taglist (Everything Reid): @mrs-dr-reid , @dreatine , @hopefulfangirl24 , @laurakirsten0502 , @dontcallmekittens , @rintheemolion , @andreasworlsboring101 , @imsuperawkward , @wentz2005 , @lovejules888 , @dashneydanger , @materialisthicc , @violetspoetic , @mslowlife 

Complete Taglist (All Works): @cynbx , @emsma11 , @mediocre-writer , @fightingdragonswithwho , @andiebeaword , @jayyeahthatsme 

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fandom #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid/reader #spencer reid/you #spencer reid self insert #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds self insert #criminal minds blurb

[bonefall]

So why's BB!Skystar like That? I'm not looking for a justification or excuse mind you, and I understand he completely refuses to better himself, but not even someone like him is born evil.

I'll get to his origin and tell you exactly how he grew up, but lemmie be clear about something. I don't think people respond to what they experience in a proportionate, 1:1, "hard times go in, bad guy comes out" sort of way.

People aren't bread and yeast. We don't follow a recipe for "becoming a bad person." You don't add trauma and then from there they choose to be a bad person because of their pain or not. No one is born evil, and the other side of that coin is that EVERYONE has the capacity for it.

Extremely privileged, charmed, blessed people with wonderful home lives can also become awful people. Violent, demanding, murderous ones. The "why" is "choice."

That answer's not satisfying because we want it to be deep and interesting. Like it makes it "mean" something, or adds some kind of "logic" to it. But you won't get it.

EVIL is simple. It feels good to get what you want. It feels good to hurt the people who keep it from you. POWER is even simpler. It is the act of making others do what you want. It's as simple as childish entitlement, indifference, or spite. Gratification that outweighs guilt.

If you're looking for some grand tragedy, you won't find it here. Nothing he went through was particularly unique and there was no grand ideology at play. His dad vanished when he was young and so did Gray Wing's. The Tribe dealt with a famine and several people died, including members of Bright Storm's family.

The only thing special about his birth and upbringing, in particular, was that he was quite privileged from the start.

Clear Sky and Gray Wing in the Tribe

From their very birth, both kits were welcomed and celebrated. They were destined for greatness from the start. Their mother was Quiet Wing, a direct descendant of the Stoneteller, Half Moon, and the father was a respected leader and political figure, Tempest Sky.

(This was before the Tribe would eventually become three camps, "Wards," united by a river. Tempest might have been considered an early leader of such a Ward.)

The older kit, a perfect image of xeir mother, was said to be the inheritor of her legacy as a relative of their founder and holy speaker. Xey were named Gray Wing. The younger, who would surely become the natural leader his father was, got the name Clear Sky. In their language, Koof Yaawrl-- Not just a sky without clouds. A perfect, flawless sky.

The two of them grew up with great opportunities. Connections are everything to their culture, and they had their pick of any amount of interests they wanted a paw in. The hunters would happily bring them along if asked. The crafters had extra patience set aside just for them. A good deployment of a mew and baby eyes could get them some extra scraps at dinner. Everyone wanted to make their little mark on such special, talented kits.

Clear Sky was a little general type. He wanted to be a leader right away. He loved hunts, he loved being in charge of other kids, he loved the way people listened to him. He wasn't familiar with the word No and was almost always the top banana of a group of other children. Even if they were older.

(Gray Wing in contrast was more of the game-creator, the "old soul," the kid who got along better with adults than other kids. Less of a leader and more of the guru, good at networking and settling disputes between people.)

While they were still kids, Tempest Sky vanished.

He was missing for days, and was assumed dead. There's plenty of ways to vanish in the mountains, but no remains were found. The Stoneteller tried to contact his spirit over and over to confirm his death, and he never came. So it was most likely that he just... left. Or maybe was taken.

Either way, they didn't really get closure for it. It was an awful thing to happen to a little kid, and Clear Sky took it really hard. A while after that, their stepdad entered the equation. Stone Peak wasn't big or strong or special, he just made their mom happy.

Gray Wing LOVED this man. After some friction, him and Stone Peak became excellent friends. They had a deep sense of respect and camaraderie. Clear Sky hated this. It was like Tempest Sky was being replaced before his eyes.

It was years before Stone Peak and Quiet Rain had a litter, well into Clear Sky and Gray Wing's adulthoods. It burned Clear Sky a new one to think that she was moving on from his father, who could still be alive. Maybe it's part of why he was so willing to throw his half-brother out into the snow, that fateful winter.

When Jagged Peak and Fluttering Wing were about half a year old, there was a terrible drought. It wasn't "overpopulation." It was a bad season. NOTHING could have stopped it. Lots of cats died.

Fluttering Wing was one of them-- along with some of Bright Storm's immediate family, Fox Claw and Petal Claw's mother during a hunting accident, and many more.

At the height of this drought, the southern river's level was so low that it became a scorched, crackled path with only a wet scratch of mud running along the middle. This dry riverbed beckoned to be followed downwards, until the water could be found again. THIS is the "Sun Trail;" a path carved by the sun.

It was Gray Wing the Wise who interpreted this as an omen. Xey believed it was their ancestors showing them the way to safety. The rest is history.

But the bottom line is...

Skystar's upbringing wasn't a supreme tragedy. He faced adversity just like everyone else, but he'd NEVER bring up the privilege that he had when he was young as something unfair to be examined. Tempest being a respected leader whose connections gave Clear Sky lots of opportunities is only spoken about in terms of Clear Sky being a "born leader" or "coming from greatness."

All of his charisma, his achievements, his command over other cats, that's all something he's "worked for." All of the adversities are examples of how strong HE is, in contrast to other cats, even if they went through the same exact struggles.

Why is he the way he is? Why is he so controlling? Why is he violent? Because he will take what he wants, and no one can stop him. He likes power more than he cares about the consequences of treating people poorly, so he cries "unfair!" if you take his toys away.

Stand by him and the rewards are sweet and delicious. Deny him what he wants, and he will crush you. He chooses how he treats you based on how much he likes you, and at the rotten heart of his behavior, is the simple choice to be this way.

#better bones au #BB!DOTC

[percheduphere]

honestly I'm more at a loss when people say sylki is canon. I am...very confused by what people mean by that. they were never anything romantic together? I honestly feel like I've missed a whole season of the show when that gets said. that's not from a shipping standpoint; that's from nothing happening that'd make them "canon"

like, to ship sylki is still to ship something that isn't and didn't become "canon". it's still wanting something that didn't happen between them

like, even if sylvie was an intended "love interest" (was she? even? on the basis of her being a woman that loki connects with?), I don't call that alone a romantic relationship between them being "canon". Like, if elizabeth bennet and mr darcy never became anything, they're not "canon". that's just something that could have been but wasn't.

they were never actually anything?

LET'S TALK ABOUT "CANON" & BISEXUAL REPRESENTATION, THE SERIES' MIDPOINT & THE THEME OF BETRAYAL, AND THE SUBJECTIVITY OF ROMANCE

I've been sitting on this inbox comment/ask for a long time because I wanted to make sure I respond in a way that feels productive, kind, and doesn't step on other fans' joy. Having said that, as a Lokius shipper, I think it's really important for Lokius shippers and Sylki shippers to unite on at least one subject and that's positive bisexual representation. This isn't meant to be a harsh reply--I understand what the anon is saying from their point of view--but I also want to delineate between canon and personal interpretation/taste.

I also want to note that it's unfair to disavow Mobius and Sylvie's impact on Loki, Loki's impact on each of them as a result of his individual relationships with them, and thus the impact Mobius and Sylvie have on one another separate from Loki. Doing so really halves the overall richness of the story, and taking this into account is why my metas are so annoyingly long. This one, in particular, is a mess but hopefully I've managed to wrangle it into some kind of coherence that addresses the anon ask that is respectful to Sylki. Fear not, Lokius shippers, I discuss Lokius in this post, too. But first, let's talk about canon and bisexual representation ...

CANON AND BISEXUAL REPRESENTATION

Canon is often defined as: 1.) what is actually written in text (as opposed to subtext), AND 2.) what the creator(s) verbally confirm.

I've said before and I'll keep repeating: the most important aspect of art is art's relationship with the reader/viewer. Individual interpretation is what escalates a medium to a deeply personal and, at times, spiritual level. Art is supposed to make us think and feel. We're supposed to interact with it and do with it what we will. This is particularly important when we consider that much of consumable art is hampered by the demands of capitalism. Fan-interpretation democratizes what people without power want to see and hear, whereas canon (especially mass media canon) often self-censures to sell to the widest audience.

From the creators' standpoint, Sylvie has always been intended to be Loki's romantic interest, and Loki was always intended to have romantic feelings for her. This is what the creators tell us. Whether or not one likes Sylvie and Loki together is subjective.

As for the text, the plot between Loki and Sylvie has the markers of a romance, albeit one that doesn't come into full fruition. By full fruition, I mean a happy ending with each character affirming one's love for the other and committing to being together. Now, a relationship doesn't have to be successful or reciprocal to be considered romantic. Heck, it can be absolutely toxic and still be romantic. Whether or not the plot is convincing in its execution of romance, however, is also subjective.

What romance requires is: 1.) at least one of the characters desiring the other, and 2.) at least one of the characters willing to sacrifice for the other. Sacrifices don't have to be big, either. They can be small and cumulative.

Canonically, Loki fulfills both of these romantic requirements for Sylvie. (More on Sylvie below).

Subtextually (that is, not canon as defined above), Loki and Mobius fulfill both of these requirements for one another.

I'm gonna soap box for the next two paragraphs, so you can skip over this if that's not your jam. Both romances, canonical and subtextual, can exist concurrently without erasing the existence of the other. Even if Loki and Mobius had miraculously become canon in S2 (it's Disney, this never would have happened but let's explore the hypothetical), that doesn't erase Loki's former romance with Sylvie in S1. To erase that history is bisexual erasure, which isn't okay. Likewise, quashing the importance of queer subtext in order to "kill the other ship" isn't okay either, as it reinforces optical heteronormative romance in mass media and is also a form of bisexual erasure.

What's more important than either ship "winning" is the positive portrayal of a bisexual character. This means a character who demonstrates genuine love and devotion to people of more than one gender. If we accept the canon AND the subtext (we don't have to like it; Sylki's not my cup of tea personally, but I accept it as real), Loki fulfills positive bisexual representation, however restrained that representation may be. The social goal is to get to the point where a media juggernaut like Disney allows its franchise characters to experience relationships with more than one gender canonically and positively. We're not there yet and I'll probably be dead before Disney ever gets there, but Loki can be seen as a historical stepping stone distinct from Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens) and Steve Bonnet and Edward Teach (Our Flag Means Death).

(NOTE: Polyamory is a whole separate subject matter, which I'm won't get into here.)

ON SYLVIE

There's fan dispute over Sylvie's interest in Loki. I've previously written meta on Sylvie's sexuality and how she responds to Loki's romantic advances here. In S1, while she starts off frustrated, I think Sylvie slowly develops interest and was cautiously hopeful that she and Loki could figure out their futures together. Loki has been consistent about wanting to be with Sylvie and supporting her up until the necessary plot conflict of the series midpoint (S1E6; the S1 finale). This midpoint is the root cause for why Loki and Sylvie's relationship becomes strained. Again, this doesn't mean that the romance never existed--the plotpoints are there--but it does mean Loki's character development got in the way.

So let's talk about the series' midpoint and the interplay of Mobius, Loki, and Sylvie's mutual impact. The three are so deeply entangled that it's worth untangling their cause and effect on one another.

THE SERIES' MIDPOINT & THE THEME OF BETRAYAL

I keep stressing in my other metas that the series' midpoint (S1E6) is the most critical. Structurally, midpoints are where the story turns. Midpoints occur on multiple scales: at the episode level (typically in acts 3 or 5, depending on how the screenwriter divides their screenplay), at the season level, and at the series level. Midpoints are what provide the overall narrative and character arcs with movement.

As a whole, there are 3 key midpoints in the entire series:

1.) S1E2/E3 - When Loki betrays Mobius for Sylvie (midpoint of S1)

2.) S1E6 - When Loki betrays Sylvie for the "bigger picture" (midpoint of the whole series)

3.) S2E3/E4 - When it's revealed HWR betrayed Renslayer; Victory Timely is brought into the mix, and Sylvie reluctantly joins the TVA (midpoint of S2)

There is another betrayal that runs near-concurrently with #2, which is Mobius's betrayal of Renslayer (it begins in S1E4 and continues into the S1 finale). Thematically, we can take Loki's betrayal of Sylvie and Mobius's betrayal of Renslayer as mirrors of one another because these are the only betrayals that are motivated by good rather than selfishness. The selfish betrayals of #1 and #3 bookend betrayal #2 to highlight the beginning Loki's readiness to become a hero in S1E6. Where S1 focuses on Loki exploring who he is, S2 focuses on the hero Loki will become. S1E6 therefore serves as Loki's turn, his launching point to get to where he lands in S2E6. The story is really well-structured!

The poetic irony is that Loki's S1E6 betrayal was not an act of villainy, but an act of character growth.

There is plot set-up for Loki's betrayal of Sylvie, and that set-up is 2-pronged: 1.) from Sylvie's end, her misinterpretation of Loki's intentions, and 2.) from Mobius's end, the provision of unconditional friendship. Building up to these prongs are S1E1 - S1E3, in which Loki's self-interest and impulsivity are emphasized. S1E4 pivots Loki from self-interest and impulsivity to consideration for others and caution. Sylvie did not bear witness to Loki and Mobius's interactions in S1E1-S1E2 and S1E4 in the time loop chamber. She has no context for why Loki would hesitate killing HWR. I'll discuss this more under "Prong 2".

PRONG 1: SYLVIE'S MISINTERPRETATION

In the scene below (S1E5), Sylvie makes an assumption about what Loki wants and Loki admits via subtext that ruling a timeline actually won't make him happy.

Sylvie smiles in response, implying she understands what Loki means, however Loki often speaks in double-meanings (he cannot be trusted) and Sylvie has doubts (she cannot trust). From Sylvie's point-of-view, Loki has discussed the desire to rule with her 3 times (writers' magic 3s again). Above is the third. The previous 2 are:

1.) In their first confrontation in S1E2, when Loki offers Sylvie the opportunity to be his lieutenant. (Can't find the gif of this. Grr ...)

2.) On Lamentis (S1E3) in the scene below:

By S1E6, Loki has no interest in rule.

He's honest when he says he's worried about the greater ramifications of killing HWR. Sylvie doesn't believe him. The question is how did Loki arrive at this point in his character arc? Why slow down now? Why worry about the consequences now?

The answer is in S1E4.

PRONG 2: MOBIUS'S UNCONDITIONAL FRIENDSHIP

It's established in S1E1 that Mobius knows Loki better than Loki knows himself and consequently better than Sylvie knows Loki. A lot of Mobius-haters despise Mobius's cold confrontational tactics but it is those same tactics that force Loki to self-reflect. And to be clear, Mobius uses cruelty in S1E1 because 2012 Loki would not believe in, let alone listen to, softness and compassion. Cruelty is a language 2012 Loki understands, therefore Mobius communicates with him on that level to get him to listen and start thinking about the answers to the hard questions.

Not exactly the gif I wanted, but close enough. In this scene, Mobius wonders why Loki, who "has so much range", wants a throne. He then asks Loki, what's next? The implication of these questions is that Mobius knows Loki will never be satisfied. He knows, deep down, a throne is a poor substitute for what Loki really wants: love, acceptance, and companionship.

Mobius's tone is mocking, his note that Loki has a wide range is complimentary, and the question is serious. Further, and this important, Mobius gives Loki respect in conjunction with his cruelty, his compliments, and his seriousness by acknowledging Loki's intelligence ("I am smart"; "I know") and his potential to be more than a villain ("That's not how I see it"). Understandably, this strange, dizzying mix of seemingly contradictory truths puts Loki off-balance.

Their tenuous allyship becomes a friendship in Mobius's eyes near the end of S1E2. Mobius is practically squeeing about Loki's multiple breakthroughs and how well they work together to Renslayer:

And Loki genuinely looks excited to help Mobius. Look at that fist-pump. Mobius doesn't see it, he's ahead of Loki, so his enthusiasm isn't an act. The seeds of mutual trust (rather than doubt) have been planted.

Unfortunately, Loki's poor impulse control and need to hedge his bets out of self-interest lead him to betraying Mobius. Both Sylvie and Mobius take Loki's betrayals poorly.

The key difference is that Mobius cannot resist the desire to trust Loki, to want to be his friend. This desire creates Mobius's doubt in Renslayer, which in turn leads to his betrayal of her.

Forgiveness isn't easy. It requires the ability to accept disagreements and another person's shortcomings. It requires good will, faith, and a willingness to move on. It requires compromise and, at times, letting go entirely.

Mobius torturing Loki with the Sif memory loop was awful. His personal hurt is directly tied to the below admission, which informs Loki what Mobius thought of their relationship:

And that revelation startles him. It forces him to evaluate his actions that led to Mobius saying such a thing (impulsivity; self-interest). Loki, who doesn't want to be alone, desires Mobius's friendship.

So when Mobius returns to Loki with an olive branch ...

Loki offers Mobius an olive branch of his own by affirming the friendship Mobius believed in but felt betrayed by.

Thus, Loki and Mobius accept each other's olive branches. They forgive each other and repair their relationship from there. This is critical thematically because Loki and Mobius each extend olive branches to Sylvie and Renslayer respectively, both of whom reject those olive branches more than once. Sylvie and Renslayer represent opposite ends of the chaos versus order ideology, for which neither is willing to compromise. Loki and Mobius also start out at opposite ends before meeting in the middle.

Sylvie unfortunately does not know anything about Loki's interactions with Mobius and how those interactions have impacted Loki's motivations. She doesn't know that Loki wants to "slow down and think about this" because the last time he acted on impulse, it turned out he almost threw Mobius's friendship out the window without realizing he had his friendship in the first place.

For her, the seeds of doubt have already been planted: Loki betrayed the TVA to pursue her, Loki expressed shock at Sylvie's desire to "walk away" rather than taking advantage of the "ultimate power vacuum" once the TVA is destroyed, he expresses the desire to rule 3 times. Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable for Sylvie to assume Loki would betray her for power even though she had hopes to the contrary. Romantic tragedy? Absolutely. Believable? Depends on who you ask and what your personal taste is.

There must be some kind of sentiment on Sylvie's part, however, because she chooses not to kill Loki. Instead, she kisses him goodbye and throws him through a time door.

Mobius's friendship is therefore the catalyst for everything that unravels between Loki and Sylvie in S1E6 (the series' midpoint). I think it's safe to interpret Sylvie's tearing into Mobius in S2E4 as not only due to being in the TVA and having all her traumas brought to the surface, but also due to experiencing jealousy. This level of anger matches Mobius's outrage about Sylvie in S1E4! Note, however, that this interpretation of Sylvie's interaction with Mobius is subtext. Subtext goes many ways!

THE SUBJECTIVITY OF ROMANCE

Are Loki and Sylvie a believable romance? It depends on your taste.

A fictional couple's overall successful reception by the audience (which is rarely if ever 100%) is contingent on a few things:

1.) Character development

2.) Story execution

3.) Chemistry between the actors

Reception and interpretation of the above are all subjective. In addition to these elements, another important factor is couple trope. Depending on your preference, some tropes might be nope while others are yum. You might even like most tropes but the actor chemistry, character development, and/or plot are just not doing it for you.

Loki and Mobius follow the tropes of:

Opposites attract/Complementary set

Sunshine and cynic

Enemies to allies to friends to lovers

Sherlock and Watson

Slow burn

Ride or Die

Loki and Sylvie, on the other hand, follow the tropes of:

Exceptionally similar but with key differences/Matching Set

BAMF duo

Enemies to allies to lovers

Bonnie and Clyde

Fast and passionate

Ride or Die

Loki and Sylvie's romantic dynamic may be compared to the following couples in other media:

Batman and Catwoman

Jack Sparrow and Angelica Teach

Benedict and Beatrice

If you notice, they all have very similar personality traits. They also fight and fight a LOT. It's part of their charm and can add to their chemistry.

Personally, I didn't feel any chemistry between Loki and Sylvie, I didn't feel like there was enough warmth between them, and I really wanted Loki to be loved by someone who makes an effort to understand him rather understanding his core traits off the bat by being the same entity. Loki and Mobius hit all the right story beats for me. Tom and Owen's chemistry as actors is remarkable. I'm also a sucker for ball of sunshine and cynic dynamics.

But that's just me. That doesn't mean I don't see what the creators tried to do with Loki and Sylvie in terms of plot, character development, and couple tropes. Some people felt chemistry between Tom and Sophia, others (like me) didn't. Whatever the case, the canon exists and the romantic tropes are there. I just feel the subtextual romance between Loki and Mobius is stronger and that, again, is my subjective judgment.

#loki #lokius #mobius #loki series #loki season 2 #loki meta #my meta #asks #sylvie #loki analysis #my analysis

[sokovianfortune]

hello . i would like to talk about my own sexuality/relationship headcanons for the wbn trio since it’s a topic of conversation today :3

jack and elsa are both bisexual. this is a semi-recent discovery for both of them, given that most of elsa’s sexual partners have been women and most of jack’s sexual and romantic partners have been men. had they been asked about their sexualities pre-special, they’d both probably identify themselves as some flavor of gay (here meaning same-sex attracted, rather than an umbrella term like queer!). there is a reason why i have referred to the two of them running into each other in the maze as The Bisexual Jumpscare.

jack is also asexual! he’s not particularly sex-repulsed, he just largely views sex as a bonding activity and a way to make his partner feel good/express romantic love. this is fine by ted because uhh. i mean. let’s all be honest with ourselves here, it is very doubtful that my man has a libido anymore or the hardware to make it happen.

on the other end of the spectrum, you have elsa who only rarely indulged in sex as a way to scratch the human need itch. most of her past partners were one-night stands and she never stuck around for long, either way. but, once she and jack got together, her libido went fucking haywire and now she’s constantly (willingly!) dragging him into ulysses’s old bed chambers. good for her. good for them.

ted only the other hand is Gay gay. he did have a wife pre-transformation as per comics canon but, at the time they were married, he hadn’t really realized or even explored that particular facet of himself. workaholic scientist, yknow. he was operating under the typical “oh i guess i have to get married now because that’s what people Of My Age do.” there also might have been some period-accurate comphet involved, depending on how old he actually is.

ironically and perhaps to metatextually lean into monsters being queer-coded, becoming what he is now, while obviously a traumatic experience at the time, eventually allowed ted the freedom to explore this facet of himself and become comfortable with it.

jack and ted call each other husbands. they are not legally married. it just kind of started as a bit one day and it stuck. at what point did it stop being a bit? they don’t know and have not addressed it. jack would love to wear a ring regardless but he’s very worried about accidentally severing a finger if he forgets to take it off before the full moon.

on the hand, if anyone refers to jack as anything less neutral than elsa’s partner, she Will start gagging. she is forty one years old, she is nobody’s fucking girlfriend. wife is also off the table. she’d get married for practical tax reasons or something maybe but it would have to just be signing a paper in a courthouse with one (1) witness. an actual wedding ceremony (having to bear her stupid soft feelings in front of everyone she knows!!!) would be akin to a particularly humiliating trip through the nine circles of hell for her.

i call them the people’s polycule but they’re really more like a poly v with jack as the midpoint. ted and elsa are decidedly not romantically interested in each other at all but they Are besties united by their love for their beloved little bow wow. i know we have confirmation of the “she’s not into dogs” line but my headcanon is and always will be that the thing ted says to jack to make him laugh at the end is only kind of a joke about being willing to try opening things up if he wanted to.

(jack immediately dismissed this as A Joke and that was when ted knew he was in for a whole lot of yearning. god help him.)

#werewolf by night #mcu #jack russell #elsa bloodstone #ted sallis #IDK meta time i suppose. i’ve thought about this A Lot and this seemed like as good a time as any to put it all out there

[tabithatwo]

there's a reason that so many people are intensely anxious about whether yellowjackets decides to keep classifying jackie and shauna a "vague teen-girl homoerotic-ish friendship" or to follow through and cement what that type of relationship actually is and actually means. and i've seen a lot of conversation about why it doesn't matter and if it doesn't matter to you, then i'm so happy for you (and jealous of you L O L) but if you're curious to understand WHY it matters fucking DEEPLY to so many people, gather around and buckle up while i attempt to explain it

first let me tell you why we're all acting like animals with lesbian-television induced zoochosis as we wait for 2.02: all signs point to this episode being the big one for jackie in particular (and for jackie and shauna as a relationship), so there's an assumption that the teased makeup scene is in this episode. that scene is what a lot hinges on.

(if you are on board with the narrative arc and already set on the make or break moment of that scene, you can skip ahead to NOW MY FINAL ACTUAL POINT a few paragraphs down)

there's been a distinct narrative arc ramping up to a big reveal (i already have very strange and mixed feelings about sexuality being used a reveal, but for a character like shauna, in a show intentionally meant to capture the tricks we play on ourselves in our minds, i would be absolutely on board with it) that said, the moment is now.

since the pilot, we've been on this journey of shauna's sexuality. sex is central to her character in a way that it isn't to any of the others. we meet her in 2021 masturbating on her daughter's bed, she goes on to have an affair with adam, we explore her boredom in her sex life with jeff, we see it improve post affair/murder. in 96 she has sex with jeff in the pilot, she grapples with the results of that sex for the rest of the season, she's quickly on board with the orgy/murder/shroom fest. (there's more to her and sexuality - rabbits representing her and jackie etc, but that's another post for another time.) suffice to say, sexuality is central to shauna.

in 2.01 shauna's sexuality is again central and even more explicitly sapphic/jackie central. "the thought of you with someone else always scared me. but it also turned me on. someone else's tongue in your mouth. their smell on you. I used to think that made me some kind of pervert." this show is smart. it's thoughtful. that's why we love it. giving us this line in 2.01, after showing shauna watch him with only one other person in the entire show (jackie in 1.01) is not an accident.

likewise, "say it" used in 2.01 by hallucination/ghost jackie, paralleling shauna's "say it" in 1.01 (asking jeff to say he loved her) is not accidental.

(gifs from 2.01 from @yellowjacketsgifs)

this show is very thoughtfully and intentionally weaving the jackie shauna romantic, sexual, obsessive love threads. i'm not going to go into exploring every moment between them that is sapphic (there are plenty of threads doing that, most people who follow me have seen it and understand it, i'm operating on the assumption that the people interested in this post understand that already).

2.01 gives us adult shauna referencing sexual arousal related to jackie. it then shows her being fucked by jeff in front of a painting of herself that is disfigured and decaying. and finally, we get the confirmation that shauna is cannibalizing jackie in 96 (leading to jackie's own disfiguration and decay). we've been led to understand shauna as a sexually driven and deviant character, and a lingering almost-reveal in 96 to jackie's corpse/hallucination/ghost hangs over us.

if this confession doesn't happen, if they walk back the gay, if they refuse to cement the realness of their romantic, sexual love in this moment, it's hard to understand why they'd build this perfect narrative arc just to ignore it and go on to cement it with something else later. anything is possible, but it really lends itself to a forever vague depiction. confession may be too narrow of a word, but what it encapsulates to me is something that you cannot ignore even if you want to - an i love you, a kiss, an i wanted you and i couldn't have you. (even the beginning of one of these, followed by an interruption that delays this heightened narrative arc would mean not losing hope.)

there have been constant interviews with the writers walking the gay back and forth, acknowledging and dismissing it in the same breath, and if that's happening to mask a reveal coming at the peak of this arc, then that makes sense. but if that's the language being used and no reveal is coming, it feels that this is the language we will always get for them.

NOW MY FINAL ACTUAL POINT- it fucking matters if they keep it vague. yes, that's how it goes in a lot of real life relationships like this. yes, it's common for young sapphics to have these relationships and never call them what they are. but that's the very fucking point i'm making.

these "friendships" do not happen to straight girls. i've seen some people say "i'm a lesbian, but even i had platonic friendships like this." and to that i say, i also didn't understand that straight girls don't do this shit for a long time. but they don't. there is no homoerotic tension in a friendship between two heterosexuals.

but women are told time and time again that there is. that everyone thinks girls are pretty. that all female friendship is just intense like that. that it's a part of growing up. and it's gaslighting. it's a thing we tell young girls to keep them in a box, to force them into comphet, to push their feelings down and away, to not rock the boat. it runs so deep we don't always realize we're doing it.

saying it's fine because there are cemented canon lesbians in the show is a cop out. and i understand the urge to say it - we're used to taking the scraps we can get from lesbian media and saying thank you. we don't bite the hand that feeds us, because not much food is coming. and i'm thrilled that i'm watching acknowledged lesbians on my screen, that i get to see their relationships. i love tai and van and tai and simone. but that doesn't fix this. saying be happy with what you got doesn't make sense here. this isn't a situation where jackie and shauna read as straight and viewers are trying to mash them together with no cause. if you think that, i really don't know what show you're watching. it's clear, it's intentional, it's direct.

and so many sapphic women have been constantly told, both in media and in their real lives, that what they had or have with women was less real because it was complicated. was less real because comphet or bisexuality or confusion existed along side it. was less real because they don't look or seem gay. because they never called it what it was. because they were young.

that, in media, it's enough to watch two girls engage in sapphic love without ever calling it that. without showing the audience what it was explicitly. masking it the same way society does and allowing for room to argue that it was platonic. that, in real life, it's enough to experiment. to think quietly about your attraction to women. to smother it, because every woman feels that way.

shauna is the pinnacle of comphet. everything about her screams it. and that's never an accident in creating a character. it includes nuanced and intense depictions. to pretend that it isn't possible for a show this smart to cement the reality of their relationship, while allowing shauna to retain the repression that comes with it as a characters is silly.

they can call it what it is in a million ways. and they are tight-roping the line so very carefully, leaving a small scrap of doubt. if they don't tip it over that line, it's intentionally holding shauna and jackie, both as individuals and together, in the purgatory hell that so many women who see themselves in these character have had to claw their way out of.

and the prospect of that from a show that you love, a show that knows how to depict lesbianism and sapphic love when it wants to, a show that is intentionally curating this entire dynamic in jackie and shauna, is painful.

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets spoilers #jackie taylor #shauna shipman #jackie x shauna #shauna x jackie #yellowjackets meta #long post

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.206 thoughts

[Mazel Tov]

(Contents: Character analysis - Feng/Soul/Language)

And with that, the Medaka Box shiritori arc is concluded, and man what an arc it was! I think it's a bit unfortunate it had to come after the Golden Week break, that kind of took the steam out of this finale a little bit for me, but damn it was still so good!

Might just be recency bias, but I think this might be one of my overall favorite arcs. It facilitated two different major character arcs (Nico and Feng), gave Ichico some much-needed characterization, showed just how much personality the current antagonists can have, had easily my favorite concept for a fight so far, and elaborated on the power system in a very fun and interesting way. This finale was especially fitting because it managed to touch on all of those concepts, like it was reviewing everything that happened up to now

Starting with Feng, seeing him continue to play the lone-wolf card only to rescind it and actually thank Nico for helping him is just so satisfying, as it illustrates the major change in Feng's character that we've been hoping for all along. By offering his strength in return for the new heights he was able to bring that strength to, Feng directly acknowledges that he wouldn't have been able to reach that level alone, at least not so quickly, and suggests that he's finally begun to learn what Fuuko was trying to teach him about fighting for the sake of others. He hasn't necessarily internalized that lesson yet, but this was an absolutely necessary step on the way to completing that particular character arc

Of course, Feng is still Feng; when he notices a twinge of doubt and weakness in Language, he derides her "what kind of buffoon would think of anything other than victory during mortal combat?" Of course, there's tons of valid answers to that question, but I think the important thing here is that this line suggests that Feng's overall focus, self-improvement and victory, remains unchanged, and that's okay. Feng wants to be strong and defeat others, that's what makes him happy, and he's not wrong for it. What was wrong was his approach, which made it seem like his goal was wrong. Now that he's on a better path, his goals no longer seem like a justification for cruel behavior, just lofty aspirations

This line also harkens back to a major theme of this arc: imagination. The ability to visualize the outcome you want is vital to creating it. This principle was applied very literally in the shiritori battle, where one's imagination was necessary to conjure viable attacks or defenses, so when Language had the thought "this can beat me," that was as good as confirming that she had already lost. I think this is also why "living" conjurations would damage the user upon their destruction; while a wall or a meteor would still be constructed from the user's soul, those things can't be "hurt," but a dragon or a yokai or a god can. They are alive, and being killed is much easier to empathize with than something being broken. You can imagine what it feels like to be cut or burned, so since it's a part of you, the destruction of that piece of your soul is inherently shared with you. Basically, if Language had been able to think something to the effect of "I can still save this," she might have been capable of turning things around, but instead she admitted defeat before she'd even realized it

Speaking of, the look on Soul's face as Language apologized for losing was so utterly human. We've seen UMA have feelings before, but Soul was heartbroken there. His eyes widened by surprise, fear and sadness as she called out his name, how they narrowed with resignation and acceptance upon hearing her admit defeat...it was like seeing Fuuko watch her friends die fighting Sun

The Master Rules have died before, and presuming they win, they'll come back for sure, but that doesn't mean it has to be easy on them emotionally. It's hard to say how the Master Rules feel about each other as a whole, but Soul was definitely affected by Beast's death just as much as he is here by Language's. Whatever they think of him, I think it's very clear that they're Soul's friends and family, and I'm very interested to see how Language's death spurs him into action next

On the subject of the Master Rules dying, I've seen some criticism of Language's core just being her head popping off of her body, but it's not really that different conceptually from Ichico's soul being her head, is it? They both even have the hair tentacles. I think this is meant to further convey just how close to human the Master Rules are, something I imagine is going to be expanded much further upon in the near future, so I'm not going to go much further into it now aside from the surface level symbolism

Language does clearly have a much more nuanced level of sentimentality than most any previous UMA, though. We've seen Burn express his desire to meet God, Clothes jumping through hoops to justify helping Fuuko to himself, and Spring actively wanting to be accepted by humans, but Language had a personal, vested interest in one person. Language viewed Nico as her rival, and used that rivalry to propel herself to greater heights (another way this arc ties into Feng's themes, by the way), but she also loved him. She wasn't waiting for billions of years just to get revenge, she was waiting for someone who could make her feel fulfilled. If she just wanted revenge, she would be cursing him as she died this time around, but instead she sends him off with congratulations and well-wishes. She died with a smile on her face and told Nico to have a happy marriage; how can that possibly be taken as anything other than an act of humanity?

I can only hope that we see that level of humanity from the other Master Rules, but fingers crossed it won't be for a little while. After this arc, I could sure use a breather chapter or six!

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #4y1a reviews

[witchlingcirce]

🚨TEAM BLACK TRAILER & SPOILERS FOR HOTD🚨

Oh… MY…. GOD. This is literally all I could have asked for this is one of the best things I’ve seen in so long I’m so HYPED!!

This shot… I’m literally heart broken this 💔. This is obviously at Lucerys funeral and honestly it’s just…. TO MUCH. The tears in Jaces eyes, them burning Luke’s clothing because there wasn’t a body, baby Joffrey. This scene looks absolutely stunning but also so gut wrenching. I FEEL LIKE ILL DEFINITELY CRY 😭.

DRAGON TWINS DRAGON TWINS DRAGON TWINS DRAGON TWINS

Everyone knows that I manifested this, HARD. Whoever gave them a new, better wig bless you. To the person who actually put them into nice clothing, BLESS YOU TOO.

Baela is literally Laenas twin like… SHE LOOKS SO GOOD.

I’m so happy there finally getting more scenes and lines, I was praying for this. DRAGON TWINSSSS I LOVE YOUUUU

MOOOONNNNN DANCERRRREEEEEEREE

She looks almost exactly like what I imagine a young Vhagar would look like. VHAGER IS HER MUMMY CONFIRMED!!!

It’s hard to see in this particular shot but I do like that they kept her a paler green colouring!!!! I don’t think you guys understand how much I love moondancer. She like two moments in the book and I decided I would Stan forever.

BAELA TARGARYENNNNNNNN GETTING her own moment is something I am actually so hyped about, THATS MY WARRIOR PRINCESS.

You know I have a feeling that maybe after Rooks Rest and seeing what happens to a certain someone she mayyyyy cut her hair, like book Baela. Kind of like the thing, hair holds memories yk?

Cregan stark is NOT BLONDE WHO CHEEEEREEEEEDDDDDDDDDDD

I understand that the north storyline this season will probably only last three episodes max (damn you eight episodes)! NONETHELESS, I am beyond excited.

Can we talk about how Jacaerys is free from the ugly wig??? THANK THE HEAVENS!! There doing my boy right. Seeing him a decent amount in the trailer made me so hyped, I always thought he deserved to be seen more in the first season since YK, he’s the Heir’s heir (hahah) but I’m so glad there stepping up there game this season!!!

RHAENYRA RHAENYRA THE WOMAN YOU ARE! Whoever made her costumes and hair this season BLESS YOUR HEART.

I think it’s obvious she’s most likely wearing a Visenya braid and she is STANDING ON BUSINESS!

Before when I was talking about the posters I was discussing how it seemed that they gave her back her cunningness and determination from the books and I am SO HAPPY THEY DID. Because THAT is a queen of he seven kingdoms THATTTTTT is MY WOMANNNNN!!!!

Also this is a side note: but I like how she refers to Aegon as Alicent Hightower’s son, not her brother or half brother but as ALICENTS SON!!!! I feel like it probably has to do with them not being close, but it also it makes it feel like Rhaenyra doesn’t consider him a true son of Viserys. Very interesting, can’t wait for there beef to get more intense.

Rhaenyra… Rhaenyraaaas EMMA D’ARCY YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS PERSON. I’m in shock, whoever made there outfits this season did they GOOOOOODDDDDD

LOTS of theories on who’s she’s looking 🙉

1. Alicent Hightower

There was a bunch of leaks going around that there would be a final meeting between the two. I think this is an outfit that she wears in the earlier episodes so idkkk buttt If it Rhaenyra why are you looking at her like that… TOXIC YURI CONTINUES.

2. Mysaria

I feel it being Mysaria would be very interesting. Maybe it’s her pleading ‘loyalty’ towards Rhaenyra. And then later on (if there keeping it like how it is in the books) helping Daemon blah B&C.

This is Corlys definitely telling Rhaenys not to get involved and Rhaenys telling him she has to do what’s right for her house and what’s right for Baela and Rhaena 💔💔💔

THERE GOING TO BREAK UP MY HEART THIS SEASON.

Anyways guys I’m so excited, I’m so happy that there finally giving team blacks kids moments to shine and also letting Rhaenyra be book Rhaenyra… JUNE 16th can’t come sooner!

#asoiaf #game of thrones #house of the dragon #a song of ice and fire #hotd #house targaryen #valyrianscrolls #rhaena (daughter of daemon) targaryen #rhaena of pentos #baela and rhaena #baela targaryen #rhaenyra #rhaenyra targaryen #jacaerys targaryen #jacaerys velaryon #cregan stark #corlys velaryon #rhaenys targaryen #rhaenys the queen who never was #team black #lucerys velaryon #moondancer #hotd trailer #hotd season 2

[aihoshiino]

Since you haven't yet, could you please tell us your thoughts about the recent interview with Ai? After all, it seems to reveal a lot of interesting things about her.

For those who haven't read it yet, this is referring to the four-page in character interview with Ai that was published in the January 2024 issue of Da Vinci magazine!

Off the bat, it was really interesting to get such a direct and length look at Ai's public persona as it exists in OnK. Ironically enough, despite so much of the series being about people who are unable to get past her 'Ai of B-Komachi' mask, we actually don't get a ton of time spent with it as readers — we mostly see Ai in her private life, with Saitou, Miyako and the twins, where she is considerably more unfiltered and explicitly not on the job and we even get peeks directly into her POV from our perspective as out-of-universe observers. In fact, apart from the Da Vinci interview, the only other time we see Ai 'on the job' to this degree is a really quick exchange she has with a TV presenter just before her first post-hiatus performance. So it was really interesting to chew on!

The thing that stands out to me most from the interview is kind of a confirmation of something I've been saying for a long time — which is that Ai is a lot more honest than a lot of people (both in universe and in the fandom!) give her credit for. A lot of her answers are surprisingly frank and in line with what we know to be her true feelings and her more honest way of expressing herself elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, she's absolutely full of shit in plenty of spots here (EL OH EL ABOUT B-KOMACHI'S 'IRREPLACEABLE BOND') and her answers are still very polished and pretty, but there's a lot more of Ai herself here than I think even she herself would want to acknowledge.

This matches up with how Ai describes herself in 45510 — that, even though she's afraid of opening up, she does want people to know her as she really is and to accept her as such. It's interesting to see that expressed, even indirectly, through the interview like this.

It was also super cool to see a lot of my more incidental headcanons/personal interpretations confirmed! In particular, seeing Ai talk about Kana so warmly got me really excited. I'd always liked to imagine that she felt pretty fondly towards Kana and that she admired her hard work and dedication at such a young age so seeing Ai talking about her so effusively was really cute.

Less sweet was the confirmation that Ai's shitty home life in Ayumi's house stretched way back prior to Ayumi beginning to physically abuse her. Reading Ai calling herself a 'nasty brat' (almost definitely her mom's words) and then talking about her feeling so unwelcome at home that she'd sneak out of the house in the dead of night and wander around near the traintracks, daydreaming about being able to run away… it pains a really horrible image of what growing up in that house must have been like.

Speaking of parents, though… uh, wow, holy shit, Ai's dad! This is the only direct mention of him we've ever gotten and it definitely raises more questions than it answers. Prior to this, he'd been such a non-entity in Ai's life that I just kind of assumed he'd either passed away when she was very young or that he'd never been involved in her life — Ayumi is consistently referred to as her only parent to the point that, once she's out of the picture, Ai's only other option for stable family is, specifically, her mother's relatives. The idea of Ai being cared for by her dad or his side of the family is just never addressed as a possibility, so it's clear that past a certain point he was unable or unwilling to care for her.

The Da Vinci interview does imply she saw him occasionally — she describes their shopping trips as something that 'didn't happen often' — which supports the idea that he and Ayumi divorced or separated when Ai was quite young and he wasn't really involved in her life. It's honestly kind of depressing that he's the center of her happy childhood memory because like… man, it really says something about how abjectly unrelentingly dogshit her life was that "my dad sometimes took me to the grocery store" was happy enough in comparison to everything else in her life that she thought of it as a cherished memory.

Overall, the Da Vinci interview was a really nice surprise! We don't really get a lot of additional info about Ai from that time period specifically — a lot of the new reveals about her as a character tend to come from periods of her life prior to the timeline of the story, so getting a little extra peek into her final days really was a treat.

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #ai hoshino

[celecaster]

Bleuler (1911, p. 121) classically confirms this perspective when he notes that the primary symptoms of schizophrenia ‘find their expression in language,’ but ‘here the abnormality lies not in language itself, but in what it has to say.’ Unlike in aphasia, that is, where patients struggle to communicate normal thoughts that others would articulate in normal sentences, in schizophrenia the meaning itself is distorted. Yet it is clear that we cannot separate ‘what language has to say’ (meaning) from ‘language.’ More specifically, it is an inherent aspect of language that it conveys content of a particular kind, which carries information about the world and from which we can learn. [...] If having and conveying such content is an inherent aspect of language, such loss therefore is a disorder of language, though crucially not an aphasic one. [...] ‘words are really something like condensed actions, situations, and things. [They are] linguistic substitutes for reality’ (Jung, 1910, p. 223) – in short, the specific currency of human thought.

I don't have any Smart Analysis to make of this but this is probably the first time I've ever seen anybody else articulate the idea of language not merely being an 'expression/manifestation' of 'thought', rather language in itself is functionally 'thought'.

I'm schizotypal (finally coming out) and face hebephrenia with surprising frequency [ Like I'd argue I might pass the 'threshold' for schizophrenia now; arbitrary distinctions aside though my psychosis is more than likely a direct consequence of my ABI so it doesn't necessarily 'count' for schizophrenia ] and I've also had aphasia [ from the ABI... I would say guess which aphasia but my long-winded way of speaking makes it obvious! ] so I feel like my opinions and interest on the matter are definitely steeped in personal experience, which can be good or bad. I do think they both felt 'distinct', but that the lack of awareness associated with hebephrenia may not necessarily be that... well, 'severe'? Of course I am aware this can vary by individual.

Its central claim, that the human-specific form of rational thought and language arose together, makes the prediction that they should also fall together. It follows that schizophrenia could be re-conceptualized as manifesting a breakdown of the linguistic frame of thought and hence that it can be illuminated in linguistic terms. The hypothesis of this article is that schizophrenia is a breakdown of how language configures thought in the normal brain, viewed against an un-Cartesian background theory of what language is. Language circuitry in the brain is disturbed, resulting in forms of thought that cannot be shared anymore and lose objectivity, including thoughts about other minds, leading to a breakdown of normal social cognition and communication that depend on the linguistic frame of thought being intact.

Interesting stuff! Fits very well into my understanding of the ipseity disturbance model and my own little schizotaxic pet model.

With consideration SODI (Self/Other Differentiation-Integration) difficulties, schizospectral experiences is something I think ought to be a breakdown of associations/connections, ergo, the failed 'reality testing' is not towards the self or the world as independent structures but towards the relationship between them. I believe this accounts for the particular and unique schizospectral experience of the lack of 'mine-ness' [ as I often describe it, 'as if the core from which reality is experienced falls apart' ]:

It seems the particular issue, and one that makes it distinct from dissociation/depersonalisation, is that it's not so much that external experiences are experienced in an impaired way in and of themselves. It seems almost as if the experiences are 'realer' than the subject (AKA the self), like things are happening 'to you' but also not really because there is no 'you' for the things to happen to, manifesting as and resulting in the ambivalence and hyperreflexivity typical of impaired ipseity.

In terms of 'thought as language' this is relevant when we consider the basic structure of language as both implicitly coming from the first person [ eg when I say 'There is a tree over there', it is embedded within the meaning that the person who perceives the tree being over there is me, despite myself as the subject of this perception not being relevant or meaningful ], and that we further make distinctions between second and third persons even when we do not explicitly acknowledge it [ eg The person I am talking to is automatically the second person without the need for me to say I am talking to 'you' ].

When the distinction between different 'persons' is impaired [ Again, as within this framework the irrational beliefs associated with schizospectral phenomena isn't because of a failure to evaluate a 'thing' in itself but rather the relationships between things ] the way this manifests in language such as through pronoun confusion (among other aspects of disorganised speech) does seem to reflect that there is something fundamental about language in itself as part of the etiology and not just the thought 'expressed' through language.

Anyway, this article does go on to attribute specific core positive symptoms to specific linguistic difficulties [ eg a deficiency in 'speech production' corresponds to formal thought disorders ] which I'm not entirely 'convinced' of but also not particularly opposed to. This is more out of a sense of intuition than something I can prove so I'm going to be mostly 'neutral' on the matter but I suppose there is something a bit too 'rigid' to me about the claim that each particular positive symptom corresponds to a particular linguistic difficulty.

Regardless, the focus on pronoun/person confusion and deictic shifting sounds very sensible to me and maps well with my own hypothesis of SODI difficulties being a core feature of schizospectral experience.

It is a crucial claim of un-Cartesian linguistics that all of these forms of reference co-vary with specific grammatical configurations (Sheehan and Hinzen, 2011; Hinzen and Sheehan, 2013, Chap. 4; Martin and Hinzen, 2014); that no further forms of reference, in some non-linguistic world of thought, are known; and that in animal cognition (‘non-linguistic thought’), none of these forms of reference are seen (Hauser, 1996; Fitch, 2010). These findings together suggest that our language capacity is what avails us of these forms of reference; that when the limits of grammar are reached, these limits are the limits of thought as well; and that when grammar loses its grip on thought, thought must disintegrate.

RECURSION POSTING [1]

[1] Things that only make sense to me because nobody knows what I mean by my 'recursive' theory of language and cognition

If I hear the sentence ‘Mary smiles’ uttered, then it is a matter of context if she also wears red shoes, or the speaker has a hoarse voice. This distinction disappears (everything becomes context), if the sentence is not understood as a proposition that as such defines a notion of context as what is irrelevant to its content. A disturbance in a language-mediated propositional competence therefore predicts a disturbance in the understanding of context: while the patients generate speech syntactically, their ‘ability to organize verbal messages into meaningful grammatical units may be relatively fragile and subject to disruption’ (Hoffman et al., 1985, p. 199). Tone of voice or the sound form of a word then become significant and relevant to content, rather than being demoted or inhibited as part of the context, predicting distractibility and derailment. This is in line with results documenting difficulties of integrating word meaning with grammatical frames, as well as patients’ relative lack of sensitivity to grammatical constraints (Kuperberg et al., 1998, 2006). Where the boundary between content and context is shaken, speech will also fail to exhibit a literal-non-literal distinction, predicting the ‘concretism’ of schizophrenic speech.

Nothing else to add to this, just found this bit fascinating.

Anyway. Cool read. The article didn't cover negative symptoms but I think there are some ideas that can be extrapolated that follows the same principles.

This is my first time hearing of 'un-Cartesian linguistics' [ I don't even know what Cartesian linguistics are ] but I'm glad to have come across it; even without direct/concrete evidence I always did 'feel' that schizospectral phenomena and cognition intersected with language in a way that wasn't as incidental as usually accepted, and this framework not only gives some good insight into this particular topic, it has also given me a name for the model in which language as cognition is the basic premise.

#d #r #sx #also I'm not saying this view of language is necessarily unique #I'm not a linguist nor do I read a lot of stuff involving linguistics despite my supposed interest in it #This is just my personal first time seeing this affirmed not saying this is the first time it has been #this is me collecting my thoughts it's not an 'academic essay' so do forgive the disorganisation #schizoposting

[veliseraptor]

Soft/hard head canons for Shen Jiu 🙌

finishing off the last few of these in my inbox...this is an interesting one because like with other characters I feel like my headcanons for Shen Jiu in particular are less "hard" and "soft" than "malleable and story dependent" outside of, like, what we know textually. but let's see what I've got.

also sometimes as usual I don't know that I have headcanons one way or the other until I run into someone contradicting them, which I think has happened here but struggling to think of something specific...

hard headcanon: While the personality change from Shen Jiu!Shen Qingqiu to Shen Yuan!Shen Qingqiu is undoubtedly pretty drastic (and I really can't think about that plot point too long, it makes me feel Real Bad), I think a lot of the original goods' behavior is more self-fulfilling than inevitable or unchangeable. I mean, this feels like a definite theme in SVSSS generally (and in MXTX's works as a whole) - that people are not definitively and unchangeably Bad, that change is possible for people, even seemingly awful ones. (I mean, the entire arc of Luo Binghe's character transformation, for one.)

I actually think a lot of Shen Qingqiu's behavior was self-fulfilling prophecy - I mean, this is pretty firmly textually canon as of the Shen Jiu extras, I believe. He decides that people are going to hate him and therefore he acts in a way to justify and confirm that hatred. I love a self-sabotaging, self-isolating bitter asshole! I really do. That then calcifies, but not actually as much as I think Shen Qingqiu believes - he seems convinced that all his fellow Peak Lords will hate him forever so why bother trying, but we see in canon that they actually turn around on him fairly quickly when his behavior changes, which suggests to me a willingness to change their minds that I don't think Shen Qingqiu would believe in.

It is so firmly entrenched in Shen Qingqiu's head that he is loathsome and rotten and there's no changing that, that he can't imagine anyone seeing anything else. Given that, his expressed hostility is a way of warding people off at least from seeing any vulnerability, because it's not like he has anything to lose: in his head, he never had their affection or even respect. I think Shen Qingqiu would always be kind of bad at being a person and not terribly sociable, but I do think if he made an effort he would get more of a response than he would expect or believe would happen.

Also I think that at least one of the reasons he continues to push Yue Qingyuan away so hard despite the fact that he cares very deeply for him is because he wants to see if he'll keep coming back. Even if it's just out of guilt, and that's the last thing he wants, at least he does still come back, and that is, pathetically, better than nothing. Which just makes him angrier and makes things worse. Good times!

soft headcanon: The Ning Yingying question is one that I feel like I have a few different potential reads on - by which I mean to say, the particularities of the accusation that he was somehow inappropriate with her. The firm part of it is that I don't think he actually would make sexual advances on her (or any female students); my read on Shen Jiu is pretty firmly gay but sex-repulsed to the point that he's situationally ace. Where I do have headcanon variations is what, exactly, did happen - whether there was a misread somewhere by Yingying that got blown up as the forming picture of Shen Qingqiu as a lecher became more defined and absolute (i.e. reinterpretation of a past event that maybe felt funny in retrospect even if it seemed innocent at the time, or even something that felt a little awkward or inappropriate at the time but wasn't meant sexually, but that then becomes something bigger), or whether it was entirely false rumor, boosted by Shen Qingqiu treating his female disciples better than his male disciples and being particularly fond of Ning Yingying.

If the latter, then why doesn't she say anything? That seems like a pretty clear answer to me: in PIDW she's very much pushed into a passive role, and Luo Binghe is a strong enough personality with enough force of will that I can see her not feeling able to contradict him, and/or I can see her being convinced that it doesn't matter what she remembers, everything else is true and bad enough that one more thing is just going to ensure that Shen Qingqiu can't hurt anyone else, and/or that it's only fair if upsetting for Luo Binghe to have his revenge.

Basically: while I pretty firmly don't think Shen Qingqiu (original flavor) made any advances on Ning Yingying, I can see a few different ways that situation might have played out leading to it becoming another point against him at the trial.

I also wobble on how far I think the abuse went with Qiu Jianluo - whether it went all the way to rape or just ("just") the threat of it up to the point when Shen Jiu killed him.

#conversating #thebeingofeverything #wow i was like 'do i have headcanons' and then wrote a short essay #OKAY ME #shen jiu #svsss #aggressively headcanons #lise memes

[lady-harrowhark]

I’m more asking for confirmation than anything else since I don’t have a copy of htn or ntn I can check, but do we have any concrete evidence that John is still capable of performing full resurrections? Or were the original resurrections the kind of thing that were only possible in the aftermath of 10 billion deaths + 9 planets worth of thanergy being released (much like how harrow’s parents supposedly performed a type of resurrection in the aftermath of murdering 200 children)

I've been paging through, and I don't think we do have any concrete evidence... I also don't think we have any concrete not evidence though either...

I think most relevant to this question is this passage from when John is showing Harrow the 500 he's going to send to the Ninth:

No, I haven't truly resurrected anyone in ten thousand years. But at that time... I set many aside, for safety... and I've often felt bad about just keeping them as insurance. They've been asleep all this myriad, Harrow, and it's frankly a relief to my mind to wake them up.

So if we take this at face value (never a given with John), he resurrected them back ten thousand years ago, but will be waking them up now.

Which, of course, aligns with what he says in John 5:4 of NtN, "...resurrection is different from waking up."

That difference is something I've been mulling over since I first read it, and I don't have any great takes at the moment. It's definitely something I have flagged to keep an eye out for on my next reread though! I think your point about needing that massive amount of thanergy sounds very reasonable, especially compared to Harrow's conception, which he also refers to as a type of resurrection.

Also just as I was typing this I got curious and went back to the avulsion trial scene, where it says Gideon "died" and then pulls the "gotcha!" (except in hindsight it seems it was not a "gotcha!" at all lmao). Very interesting wording here, no?

"Ha-ha," said Gideon, "first time you didn't call me Griddle," and died. - Well, passed out. But it felt a hell of a lot like dying. Waking up had an air of resurrection, of having spent a winter as a dried-out shell and coming back to the world as a new green shoot. A new green shoot with problems.

So we've clearly got this resurrection vs waking up thing again, but I'm really curious about the comparison to the "green shoot," with green being so heavily associated with Alecto (e.g., Varun calls her "green-and-breathing thing"). And especially because it's used with this context of "A new green shoot with problems," because that particular turn of phrase sounds very much like Camilla's description of Nona getting dressed looking like a "worm with problems." (Is this anything? Am I reaching? Am I having fun while reaching?)

I'll also just throw in the verbiage around John saying he "switched [Alecto] off" as compared to, say, the NtN epigram poem's "sleep, I'll wake you in the morning" (and further: "Annabel, good morning.")

I feel like things are kind of coalescing around the difference between a true death and being brought back to life vs a sleep or suspended animation state in which one isn't actually dead, and therefore is simply waking up (I can't let myself go down this tangent right now but it does sound suspiciously like the whole cryo project... moving on!). It makes me wonder if it's not so much that John hasn't resurrected anyone in ten thousand years as much as it is that no one has truly died in ten thousand years for him to resurrect; therefore he can only wake them.

Which seems incompatible with necromancy at first, but is it? We know something's fucky with the River. Perhaps crossing the River (or whatever verb we want to use for that) constitutes a true death, and if something's stopped it up, the thanergy stays pooled up and accessible for necromantic purposes rather than crossing or being cycled back into the River or dispersed or whatever happens to it. A death magic dam, essentially. And if a soul can't finish its journey to a true death, he wouldn't be able to resurrect them, hmm.

I don't know how well that meshes with the 200 dead Ninth children, though, if that's also a resurrection, other than what Harrow says during the pool scene: "The infants alone generated enough thanergy to take out the entire planet. Babies always do - for some reason." The incomplete explanation is conspicuous here, but so is the reference to "taking out the entire planet", now that we know what we know. So that may actually track. (Is John's baby finger bone crown meant to be like... a tribute? Thank you for your service and all that? Yuck.)

Two more incomplete musings and then I really will stop! I've been harboring some thoughts about whether the Ninth (and specifically the Tomb) may have a more direct connection to the River (and the barathron specifically) than other locations do, and if that's the case, perhaps that's also at play in achieving a resurrection, whatever form that may take.

The other thing I'm thinking about here is the whole Alecto/Anastasia/tomb-keeper line situation. If the tomb-keeper line is carrying a bit of Alecto's soul, is this more of a direct, one-to-one passage down the line? Or, over the however many thousands of years since that vow, has it branched out from that central family tree and dispersed amongst the generations? What I'm getting at here is essentially, if many or all of the 200 Ninth children housed a bit of Alecto's soul, taking any/all of them out would be a small scale planetary death... which could account for why babies generate so much thanergy (again, the phrasing of "enough to take out the entire planet" seems significant). It feels reminiscent of the way Lyctors flip planets as well, turning them thanergetic... if killing a planet creates thanergy, could killing bits of a planet (and the children carrying them) create a necromancer?

I swear when I sat down to answer this, I only had the first two quotes in mind and then I just kept pulling at threads and ended up unraveling a whole sweater, so apologies from getting away from what you were asking. But thank you for providing some good food for thought!

#i'm imagining me and anon as janet and michael (respectively) in that one meme #'i was able to obtain confirmation!' 'you sure? you have confirmation and not a thousand word stream of consciousness essay?' #'that is correct! i have confirmation. i do not have a thousand word stream of consciousness essay.' #'excellent! please give me the confirmation.' 'here you go!' [posts This] #nona the ninth spoilers #tlt #tlt meta #anonymous #ask

[tidal123]

Why you should watch the cdrama Love and Redemption, part 2

2. Fun cultivation system!

Ok, this isn’t particular of LnD , rather a common background for Xianxia(Chinese costume fantasy) but I just find it to be more than a little bit interesting. Let me explain:

Simply speaking, in ancient Chinese fantasy world everything can have a spirit. And anything that has a spirit can cultivate, which refers to increasing your spirituality and transcendence by some means, resulting in greater power, abilities and even achieving immortality. (I get this feeling in Chinese mythology there is generally no hard distinction between an immortal and a god. A god usually is an immortal that have taken on some deity duty, approved by some other god or The Way.)

This is such a fun systems of the cultivators because you could be a unconscious rock and one day some passer-by immortal carelessly dropped a spiritual artifact on you, and suddenly, you started to accumulate spiritual energy which slowly formed into a consciousness and, from there, you can continued on your way to ascend. Or, you could be an animal behind someone’s courtyard who got hold of a practice to cultivate(foxes, snakes and ferrets seem especially good at that) and gained more and more spiritual power that you reached higher intelligence and transcendence level, gaining a human form and eventually even godhood. So here, you have the crazy upward mobility pathways from a rock to a god. How fun is that!

But it’s not all fun. There are going to be tests. The easiest way to explain this is to say, the ascend has invisible stages, like periods of climbs and plateaus. There is supposedly a trial, roughly translated as ‘thunder-test,’ that those who ascend in power must endure periodically when they are about to reach the next stage, in which they must either pass, or perish. Who knows, gaining power has its inherent perils!

The old stories in the bygone times often demonstrate that a good cultivator will have a much easier time from the trials than an evil cultivator, and the scale of the trial is only going to increase as stages increase. In the show LnD, one of the side characters, Purple Fox, is said to have passed thirty-six trials, which indicates that she is very likely not evil, as the increasing intensity of the trials would most likely have wiped her out otherwise, after so many rounds.

(It is interesting to note, a fox spirit was said to gain an extra tail each time it passed a thunder-trial, and once they gained nine tails, they become extremely powerful and basically a god-level being. This is not explored here in the show but it’s a well known thing in this genre.)

The thunder trial, however, is not so much a punishment for the wicked, since it didn’t really follow any particular conduct, good or bad, as it is simply a natural consequence of power stage increasing. It is occasionally depicted as carried out by a dutiful minor god, but most of the times, it is just depicted as something that naturally happens without interference. I find such kind of setting more metaphorically interesting, not just because it in a moral sense tests the power for its worthiness. It also alludes to the undercurrent of real world, often unseen but very real, that leads to an evil order’s instability and eventual self-destruct. It kinda confirms to the belief that the Way of the Universe on a grander scale, select kindness and reject evil, and in this sense the universe isn’t indifferent. Nor is it blind.

You might wonder what the heck this post is talking about. Isn’t this all just some background setting for fantasy? But this thunder-trail system really is metaphorically interesting if put on a grander scale. Consider the discovery of nuclear reactions, definitely a new power stage for humanity. But what did people do with it? They made nuclear weapons first way before any effective NPP.

No surprise here. It is always easier to release energy destructively than to harness it constructively. Not malicious tho, I want to stress. It is a fundamental law of physics. Nuclear is just one most obvious example. At our current stage of development, humanity could already cause great destructions to itself and the world by multiple means, including climate change, biologicals, wars, general systematic failing of society leading to hybrid disasters, etc, just off the top of my head. With power stages increasing, the chance for a civilization to destroy itself only increases, as each mistake becomes more expensive. It’s like building skyscrapers on an earthquake-prone ground, whatever is unstable will be shaken loose, inevitably. (So what is true stability? Is it oppression? Is it total control? Is rigidity stable?)

Returning to topic here, the Xianxia cultivation is really interesting to me in many ways, and I’d recommend you all read stories or watch shows/movies related to this type of Chinese fantasy. So why not watch Love and Redemption, which is imho the BEST as it’s both a continuation of traditions, introducing new concepts and not blindly-confirming to either. (LnD didn’t really talk about thunder-trial in particular but it touches on something underlying, the importance of acknowledging both the work of the Yin and the Yang.) Besides, it is full of exciting plots, martial art magic, and has a kinky-soft gender-role subversive main couple that is my absolute favorite (and so many queerness it’s insane!)

Go watch Love and Redemption. You won’t regret it!

This post is Part 2 of my LnD recommendation series. Part 1 here.

#love and redemption #cdrama #chinese culture #tv recommendation #recommendation #tv shows #tv series

[littlespoonevan]

I've followed you for a while (for gallavich actually but your buddie fics convinced me to finally watch 911!) and we've always been of the same mind about the likelihood of buddie happening in canon. But after Buck fell asleep on Eddie's couch and now all of 6x13, I now feel like it's inevitable that the show IS actually going to make it explicitly romantic. How're you feeling about canon buddie these days?

ahh hey bud!!! i'm honoured i was able to convince you to watch the show lmao 🥰

okay i'm gonna try and organise my thoughts bc my brain has been going in a lot of different directions these past few weeks. so. i don't think i'll ever be able to confidently say buddie canon is happening until we get a very deliberate Moment with either buck or eddie where it's clear something has changed for one of them.

by that, i mean i need another 'just make sure you're following your heart, not christopher's' eddie-face-journey-esque moment where eddie looks at buck or buck looks at eddie and we know (and by we, i mean the whooooole general audience, not just the fandom) they're looking at each other differently

and it's not that i think everything that's happening right now isn't deliberate, it's more just that it's not quite confirmation in the overt sense for me???? particularly as far as them being attracted to each other etc. (i know they love each other, i know they're a family but are there feelings, y'know)

however

there has been a lot happening in the past two episodes that's been making me go 👀👀👀

firstly. the couch. that fucking couch metaphor has me by the thROAT and has done since 6x01. and genuinely i cannot explain the narrative of 6x12 as anything other than proof that eddie is the couch. like. i have an english degree. i legitimately analyse texts for a living and there is no other way to interpret this whole thing other than the idea that the couch that buck has been quietly searching for all season (which is repeatedly conflated with a romantic partner and happiness), is eddie.

buck wants to pick the right couch. margaret chooses for him but it's Not Right. buck goes to eddie's and falls asleep on his couch in seconds before opening up to him and effectively highlighting to us that his safe space is at eddie's house. it's just???????????

(also the fact that oliver said the other couch will be gone by the end of the season my mind is sPINNING)

next. the buckley-diaz family of it all in 6x13. i've said a few times this week that this ep felt like a speedrun season 3 (i'm also currently rewatching s3 which i think is why it's on my brain). as in, we have buddie and chris paired off while the other couples have their own plot. we did have that quite a bit in s4 and 5, don't get me wrong, but it was rarely something that wasn't tied to an overarching plot like the shooting and eddie's subsequent breakdown. whereas these were fun scenes just because. so we had the season 3 dynamic back but there was so much more weight to it because of all that's changed since then.

there are plenty of posts about it but their family unit was emphasised A Lot in 6x13. both in the scene with chris' homework and the baking for chris' class scene. like it's heavily established in this ep that whether it's at buck's place or eddie's, the three of them spend their days together. and not in an organised, 'let's have a movie night' kind of way. as in, they exist in the same space together the way any couple and their child would and that's so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also the baking for christopher's class scene literally dO NOT get me started i can't believe they did that askjdfhsa

on a smaller scale, buck and eddie's dynamic had a very Particular energy about it in the poker scene. i don't necessarily wanna say flirty bc i legit haven't rewatched since i first saw it tuesday morning when i was barely awake but there was a sort of tension there that i'm very interested in tbh bc i don't think we've seen that in a long time??? also i'm soooo suspicious of captain mehta's re-emergence and how arbitrary the whole poker thing was in the first place @ 911 i have questions!!!!

finally. i can't quite articulate this yet. but something about the episode titles is making me very askdhfs

mixed feelings. performance anxiety. lost and found. love is in the air. it's just. like, yes every episode title has multiple meanings but also every episode title has a level of suggestiveness that has me paying attention. lost and found bc of the tsunami connotations and chris asking buck in his dream if he can help him find his dad. and love is in the air bc it's giving me buck actually vibes and we all know i fully believe buck actually is where buck's story post-abby really begins and i will clutch at every romcom coded metaphor this show throws at me askjdh

TL;DR at this point i think we're going somewhere. like, i feel as though we're on the precipice of something and all it would take is one tiny moment to fully tip us over the edge. if and when that moment comes, i can't say for sure but gOD i'd love it if it did ✨

#anon #asks #911 related #season 6 speculation #long post #is this even coherent who can say lmao #listen i WANT TO BELIEVE but for the sake of my sanity i need to cling to one tiny shred of doubt

[suffarustuffaru]

hey so not too long ago, i saw a post from rz twitter that said that during the first loop where subaru meets otto, when subaru met the witch cultists and were chanting something to subaru before they left, that these cultists left because some outsider (who's therefore an enemy to their witch and its prophecy) was nearby. And the tweet said how that "nearby outsider" was actually otto who stayed behind because he was worried that subaru, (whom he met only as a customer in that loop and otto had already fulfilled his job) would succumb to danger. And despite frufoo's warnings, it's heavily implied that otto had in fact died in that loop waiting for subaru to come back. And the replies were saying that it's common knowledge?

First of all, is that true? I can see how one would come to the conclusion that the cultists left because otto, an outsider, was nearby. But i haven't seen proof of the implication that otto died from that loop. Secondly, with this perhaps being true, does that confirm that any loop in which otto was nearby and subaru is in danger, that otto risked his life for him? Some ppl say "but the whale incident!" But like you said way earlier, otto came back to him after pushing him off, and it's implied that he died trying to save subaru. There's no loop i can recall otto leaving him to the dust, even when he doesn't know who subaru is. And thirdly, Otto get some self-preservation skills, you barely knew the guy and already risk your life for him. What the fuck.

HAH anon your ask intrigued me so much i immediately went to the anime to try and confirm this. and bc the anime is the closest bit of info i got wjdndn i dont have arc 3 ln or access to arc 3 wn (i do not understand japanese either, sadly) but!! while the anime doesnt explicitly confirm otto died in that first loop his character debuted in, i think its definitely a possibility that he died to the witch cult there. (if anyone knows the lore on this for sure though feel free to add?? yeah)

also regarding about whether this is common knowledge or not—id argue its kind of not, at least in certain circles, bc im gonna be completely real i had to double check the anime to see how well i remembered it bc its 1. been a while since i’ve watched season 1 in full and 2. when i was looking at it on my first watch i was focused more so on what the hell was happening to subaru, rem, emilia camp rather than otto, who at the time seems like just some random guy who wont appear ever again. but also maybe im a little too used to people misinterpreting rezero over on reddit ajfbdnd bc some people STILL completely forget that otto went back after pushing subaru off the wagon. and some people still forget ottos died for subaru even though its super obvious in arc 4?? so i dont think ottos involvement with subaru across loops is really common knowledge? or at the very least its not common for Certain portions of the rezero fandom bc i see ottos whole fixation on subaru gets glossed over at times. but i do genuinely think moments like the first loop with otto are probably easy to sort of miss if youre not paying attention. but also again i might be a little bit brainwashed by rezero redditors misreading things bc the amount of people that forget otto went back for subaru in the white whale loop made me doubt my own memory of that scene to the point where i rewatched it in the anime just to be sure wkdndnd. i dont really see any english rezero people talk about this loop in particular too unless theyre referring to you know, rem arlam and emilia camp dying. but anyway moving on for now…

alright!! lets go over this scene i suppose. the anime doesnt go into like. Specifics, like how the tweets you mention do anon, but it does have some interesting stuff.

in the anime, the first loop with otto happens in episode 14 to about the beginning of 15, but the focus is of course more so on subaru, rem, arlam, etc, bc rem left for the mansion and subarus trying to get there quickly so he pays otto to do that. otto takes the time to warn him before they even set off, not only for his own sake but also for subarus:

but you know, bc ottos desperate for money bc hes in debt, he takes up the job. but once otto and subaru actually get to the road leading up to arlam and the mansion, otto stops bc frufoo’s frightened and shes warning them of danger—

but subaru being subaru jumps off anyway and leaves. he says this quickly before he goes:

otto replies by trying to call out to him desperately as he runs away:

your point about ottos self preservation is super interesting anon because otto DOES have self preservation skills. he almost kind of prides himself on it, sometimes—as a merchant, especially from a merchant family, hes been raised to treasure it. to go for things that work in his favor. especially with his bad luck fucking him over too. and he can be slightly morally ambiguous at times, so he is Very aware of self preservation and staying out of trouble. but at the same time, leaving behind innocents does kind of weigh on him bc. well hes still human. that and the further into rezero you get, the more clear it is that ottos self preservation skills just get thrown out the window the moment he sees subaru. like otto takes a significant amount of time on screen to complain about danger or trouble hes found himself in, or go on and on about how the moment he sees danger, hes just gonna turn around and run—but its just COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT SOMETIMES. he has plenty of chances Every Time to turn around and run and the moment subaru enters the picture, he doesnt take it. the only exception to this was him leaving subaru in greed if, but thats because he saw that subaru didnt give a shit about him and even then. he made that choice FOR subaru’s sake too, bc he recognizes that greed if subaru is just gonna micromanage everything and deal with it on his own. otto knows he’d just be another burden to subaru, so he leaves to lessen the load.

main route otto though? yeah youre absolutely right his self preservation is way beyond dead at this point. his self preservation is absolutely gone when it comes to subaru. this first loop is an example of it—while of course ottos you know treating subaru like a stranger bc thats what they are, he goes out of his way to warn subaru repeatedly. at first it looks like its mostly just for his own benefit bc hes Also in danger here, but then he says that he cant just accept taking subarus money and items. he talked about how hed accept subarus payment just a few minutes before this?? and we know in retrospect that he desperately NEEDS money bc hes in debt??? and subarus giving him an out right now to just leave and not look back but he still hesitates and frantically tries calling after subaru??? he has EVERYTHING to gain from just taking the money and subarus things and just leaving, but we dont actually see him leave on screen.

and then right after this, we cut to subaru running to arlam. of course, the witch cult stops him, and in the anime, all they do is circle him, then bow (to foreshadow how the witch cult + petelgeuse think that hes one of them, im assuming), and then they disappear without saying a single word.

its interesting to note though that when they leave, they run towards the direction subaru just came from. which is where otto was.

and then subaru keeps continuing on to arlam and the mansion where he finds out that the witch cult Basically wiped everyone out there. episode 15 continues this loop and then quickly ends it bc subaru is having a mental breakdown finding everyones corpses and then he promptly proceeds to die to puck (iirc?) inside the mansion. and thats all the details the anime gives about the ending of this loop. so no clear hint like the white whale loop that otto Died from this, but i think the implication is definitely there if you choose to read into it. (again, im not sure if the ln adds more details to this or not, but iirc the anime doesnt touch on this much.)

its strange that the witch cultists that find subaru just. up and leave in the direction where we Know otto likely is, bc 1. the cultists move Fast and 2. only a couple minutes passed at most, so its likely that otto is Still There, even if he did start trying to leave. even then though, i think its in character for him to still be there and try to wait for subaru. or, at the very least, otto waited there debating with himself on whether he should just leave or not. waiting there satisfies both his self preservation and the guilt he’d feel if he just abandoned subaru—he doesnt go any further to minimize the danger to himself and frufoo, but he doesnt completely leave just in case subaru comes back or if otto decides to move forward and check on subaru or something. but then we see subaru find everyone at arlam and the mansion dead, and we the audience know the surviving witch cultists left in the opposite direction (where otto is) after killing everyone at arlam, so—i think theres a connection there. as in: yeah. if otto was still there, hes probably dead.

additionally, of course later in arc 3 we see that otto gets captured by the witch cult. this time he was captured bc the witch cult caught him hurrying to get to another location for its job offer, so the witch cult captured him to interrogate him on what exactly he was doing iirc?? so in that sense yeah he was caught by the witch cult for being an outsider getting into witch cult territory while they were in the middle of doing shit (and he likely wouldve been killed if ricardo and the others hadnt rescued him) o.O

but yeah thats all the animes got regarding the first loop (aka ottos official debut into the main story as well)!!!

“There's no loop i can recall otto leaving him to the dust, even when he doesn't know who subaru is." also anon youre so right for saying this bc. yeah i cant recall any loops either bc every time otto is there near subaru. hes risking his life for subaru. hes so incredibly ride or die that its concerning. it kind of boggles my mind that some people overfixate on how he pushed subaru out of the wagon in the white whale loop and YEAH that was fucked up, but not only does he feel bad and die trying to go back for subaru later, but when you watch that scene in the anime and think about it from ottos perspective. yeah some guy you just fucking met is yelling at you about how you apparently forgot about some person youve never heard of in your life, hes yelling at you to go back and TOWARDS THE WHITE WHALE when all youre trying to do is save both of your asses, he starts trying to wrestle with you while youre both being hunted down by the whale, and then he starts rambling to himself about how maybe its his fault the white whale is chasing after both of you while you keep hearing the white whales deranged thoughts in your head the whole time bc of your dp??? its a miracle otto didnt push subaru out of that damn wagon sooner and its a miracle otto even decided to go back for subaru after all that T^TT any person in ottos shoes would be RUSHING to push subaru out of that wagon.

but like. once you think about it - yeah Every Time in the main route that ottos been near subaru and theyve gotten into danger? otto actively puts himself at risk for subarus sake. and he doesnt always die or get hurt for it, but we know that he ALWAYS goes out of his way to help subaru. hes been like this since his debut in arc 3, practically, regardless of whether or not he actually died there. bc he still Lingered around and tried to warn subaru not to leave.

so what im saying is that so much of ottos screentime is spent helping subaru in some way.

#rezero #ask #otto suwen #natsuki subaru #ngl if otto was a girl literally no one in this fandom would be ignoring how fixated and concerningly ride or die he gets about subaru o.o