#this is a lot of word vomit and character analysis but i just wanted to share what's been rattling in my brain since I watched last night!!

[monstrology]

thinking about that final scene of Justified: City Primeval episode 5 between Raymond and Raylan.

*I'm sure there's nuances to this I'm missing without reading the book, but this observation is mostly Raylan-centric because of that.

Raymond: So what do you want to know about the Oklahoma Wildman? It's all there. I left my old case files clean. Raylan: I ain't got those kinda questions. I want to know what's missing. Why I think I can't trust anybody. Why it's all a shit sandwich. Raymond: Look at you, still giving a fuck. Raylan: I try. Raymond: Ah, you remind me of me, man, when I started out. Except you're old. Raylan: I ain't gonna sleep at night if this son of a bitch wins. Raymond: Back in the day, first started out, guy I tangled with....Freddy Keck was his name. He was cute. You know, Freddy shot through my front window one night, not to kill. More like, "C'mon man, let's do it." Like it wasn't nothing--cowboys and Indians. Except Freddy was for real--a stone killer. Raylan: How'd you get him? Raymond: Eh, we couldn't. Raylan: You didn't get him? Raymond: I said we couldn't. Raylan: So what happened? Raymond: Showed up at my house one night. Raylan: He got tired of the games? Raymond: I know I was. But he says, "We're gonna sit and have a drink." It was all a big mix-up. Said if I had any sense of humor, I'd see how comical the whole thing was. He's chattering away. Yeah, he walks behind my bar, reaches down, and then... [pop noise]. Shot him. Raylan: He drew on you. Raymond: Eh, I shot him. Raylan: He had a gun on you. Raymond: Eh, I don't know. Raylan: You don't know? Raymond: Think it was a church key. Raylan: He had a bottle opener in his hand? Raymond: Yeah. What I remember is he's still talking. Hole in his chest, eyes wide open, still talking. I don't know what he was saying or who he was saying it to. I didn't care. The guy would never shut up. Anyway, I cleaned my fingernails with the bottle opener, and that was that. And I sleep just like a baby.

And it reminds me of everything about "Fire in the Hole," episode 1 of the original show. Boyd and Raylan sitting at a table, reenacting the confrontation between Tommy Bucks and Raylan. Tommy, who Raylan tells Boyd, had the gun under the table. How did Raylan know when to pull? Boyd asks.

Tommy went first. "He pulled first, so I was justified." And then Boyd goes to pull on Ava and Raylan shoots him first. Right in the chest, slightly off target.

And there Boyd lay, "hole in his chest, eyes wide open, still talking," like Raymond's Freddy, at least for a little while. Until he heals and then we spend 6 seasons with the most talkative shitkicker in Kentucky. A guy who never shut up.

Presumably, Freddy dies from his injuries and Raymond goes on to live his life supposedly unaffected. He sleeps like a baby. And Raylan implies that he won't sleep until Clement is caught, feeding into his personality of relentless pursuit as a marshal that we've seen throughout the original show. Regardless of his own personal struggles with his love interests or his daughter, Raylan prioritizes the mission of his job over all else. He's particularly insulted by Clement because he went after Willa, which ironically made Raylan push her away so he could go after Clement.

Raylan goes to sleep at night at peace because Tommy pulled first, his shot was justified, and Tommy received the justice Raylan believes was deserved for what happened in Nicaragua. Of course, there's a whole list of consequences that follow that at his job and from Detroit, but he justifies it for himself.

"But what troubles me is, what if he hadn't?" Raylan asks Winona at the end of Justified ep 1. "What if he just sat there and let the clock run out? Would I have killed him anyway? I know I wanted to."

What if there was no justification? What if the criminal in front of him, whom he knows deserves retribution, doesn't commit another crime upon him that it justifies his own violent act? He wants to shoot Clement, he wanted to shoot Tommy. He just needed a reason, first. To stay morally sane and just within himself.

For Raymond, there was no solid justification. He didn't know if Freddy was reaching for a weapon beyond a past history. Freddy was in RAYMOND'S house, behind RAYMOND'S bar. If Raymond had a weapon there, Raymond would know it. Even if Freddy had a weapon on his body, his movement wouldn't be towards the bar, but to his person. He comes up with a bottle opener to open a drink for their sit-down, but Raymond pulls on him anyway, without looking for the proof, without the justification to return fire.

Raylan continuously, confusedly, tries to insist Raymond's narrative fits his own moral code. "He drew on you. He had a gun on you." Raymond denies it. He had no clue. He couldn't get Freddy the legal way, so he got them the violent way, instead.

And he sleeps like a baby.

Raylan, who wondered if he would have killed Tommy if he hadn't pulled first, sits here ~15 years later and the first thought he has about a situation like this is still "they have to pull first--it's justified that way." I doubt he would have slept like a baby, not because he doesn't think Tommy deserved it regardless of pulling first, but because it would have shaken his own morality, the conception of himself that he's built in contrast to the criminal background he grew up in and worked around. It troubles him that he even questions his morality, without having acted on it.

Of course, Raylan is dubious by consistently nudging criminals towards making decisions that thus make pulling justified, but that's the gray side of law enforcement for you. There's also the question of Raylan's trajectory had it followed the book and his shot had killed Boyd. He apologizes to him as he lay bloody and fading away, and yet his survival suggests a subconscious decision to spare an old friend's life regardless of who pulled first--technically, Ava was the one with the loaded and aimed weapon and Raylan was defending her, after all. Raymond, meanwhile, cleaned his nails with the item that accidentally killed Freddy, unconcerned for the nuances of the incident.

All of this just highlights a stark difference between the two, Raylan and Raymond. And even though Raylan doesn't mention his past at all during this story and insight into Raymond's history, you could hear the echoes of Raylan's past in it, looking at all the parallels of two men in similar circumstances with different outcomes.

#justified: city primeval #raylan givens #justified #this is a lot of word vomit and character analysis but i just wanted to share what's been rattling in my brain since I watched last night!! #they said let me remind you of the ghost of raylans past aka boyd crowder #excuse any typos or formatting i wrote this on the tumblr text block

[nemastraea]

Doormat extraordinaire: Andrew Graves is down horrendous for his own sister | Part 1

Or as I like to call it, actual literal word vomit attempting a proper character analysis!

Here's a link to the AO3 version for archive purposes: The doormat extraordinaire has a bit of a romantic streak,

Content warning: This will heavily feature spoilers from Episodes 1 & 2 of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Trigger warning: Abuse, cannibalism, child neglect, codependency, harassment, incest, murder, self-harm, and suicide. Disclaimer: I will occasionally reference an extremely normal essay from Sufficient Velocity commenter Leyleyfication (here). It would be a lot easier to read this essay first as Leyleyfication does a pretty good job establishing the following: - Ashley is dependent on Andrew to assure and validate her of her own insecurities, and - The game heavily implies that Andrew wants to fuck his own sister.

Anyway: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! A game in early access where a pair of siblings are stuck through a seemingly never-ending quarantine together, desperate not to starve to death. When their cultist neighbor dies in a ritual gone wrong, they rationally resort to cannibalism. Fun!

I am definitely going to assume that you read Leyleyfication's extremely normal essay (I am on my knees, begging you to read that). Which is why this essay immediately starts with, "yeah, Andrew definitely wants to fuck his sister" as its baseline.

What I will be adding to that funny little cauldron of fucked up sibling dynamics in a horror visual novel are the following: Andrew's fixation and sexual attraction manifests as his desire to control, dominate, and possess Ashley. And it is framed as a fatalist attraction and the totality of his existence (for worse or even worse).

Because of Tumblr's limit for 30 images per post, though, I'm going to have to split this extremely normal and reasonably lengthy essay into... multiple posts! Yeah! I have no idea how long this will fucking go!

So first things first: how can we tell that Andrew is even attracted to Ashley in the first place?

Nemlei (Devlog 05). Note the hickeys above and below Ashley's choker and her left inner thigh, and Andrew's left hand creeping into her right thigh.

As Leyleyfication points out, the game primes us to believe that Andrew is a pushover and Ashley is his abuser. This occurs in the Steam page as it explicitly says Ashley is "in fact, very bad" and Andrew is a "doormat extraordinaire." Moreover, it's very easy to tell that Ashley is, on some degree, obsessed with Andrew:

She's happy to hear that Julia broke up with Andrew over the phone;

She repeatedly accuses him of finding the Lady from Room 302 attractive and he 'tried anything with her;' and

Her flashback to wanting to punish her friend Nina ("the Bitch in the Box") for crushing on Andrew.

Episode 1, dream and memory. Leyley previously said that Nina should know better than to 'steal from another woman,' referring to herself. The implication that Andy is hers is toyed with after this moment, when she says she'd put Andy back in the box.

The game does prime us to think that Ashley is Andrew's abuser. It also suggests that Ashley projects an unrequited and incestuous love onto Andrew. Before we consider Episode 2's narrative, Episode 1 gives the initial impression that if Andrew comes to reciprocate her feelings, it's more of a reaction and subsuming to her will. That it may not be something he wants for himself and independent of Ashley's manipulation.

But again, I do believe Andrew wants to fuck Ashley. And always has been. He just frequently vacillate between 'subtle' and 'really fucking obvious' tells that completely take advantage of the game's third person limited POV.

Keep in mind that both Andrew and Ashley are extremely unreliable narrators. We aren't going to get information they personally do not care about and that is on top of our own choices as the player.

(A digressive example: you will not learn that the founder and CEO of Toxisoda's company was a former surgeon unless you interact with the television in Andrew's Episode 2 dream and memory of their blood oath. Otherwise, it neatly ties into the surgeon that Mrs. Graves conveniently says she was directed to regarding the siblings' quarantine in the main story.)

When it's really fucking obvious

When you play as Andrew in Episode 2, his post-dinner argument with Ashley carefully frames them both. They are cramped in the foreground and Andrew's left arm is conveniently blocked by Ashley and the kitchen knife, as seen here.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, you can interact with Mrs. Graves for her to pointedly comment on the siblings being inseparable.

At this point in the game, their physical closeness is something we're used to by now. After all, we've already seen Ashley on his lap at least twice; Andrew slept in her bed in Episode 1; and Ashley confirmed they've shared the same motel bed multiple times in the one-week interim between Episodes 1 & 2.

But the game abruptly shifts to Mrs. Graves' POV when she enters the scene and not only do we see the two as physically close, but we notice a few more details.

Episode 2, common route. The first picture transitions from Andrew's POV to Mrs. Graves as it introduces us to her entering the scene.

The contrast of how spacious the kitchen is from Mrs. Graves' POV to Andrew's cramped POV is obvious. More importantly, Andrew's fingers loop through Ashley's belt loops when the two are huddled together. When Mrs. Graves clears her throat, the two don't really separate.

Ashley pivots on her left foot so that her body is turned to their mother, not Andrew, but she doesn't step away from him. Andrew, meanwhile, recoils from Ashley and withdraws his hand. But he isn't turning his body to face their mother like Ashley does here. His attention, at least in this moment, is still towards Ashley (and, yanno, the sink).

Episode 2, common route. Two things to consider in the second picture: Andrew hides Ashley's bite mark on his cheek with his left sleeve and he conveniently moves the pillow from behind him to his front.

The 'tell' isn't so much as the two are unusually physically close. Again, we're used to that by now. But it's how the two siblings react whenever Mrs. Graves comes into the picture. Ashley doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not people assume the worst of her or even her intentions regarding Andrew. To Ashley, their proximity is normal and anyone who sees that as a problem is not worth an explanation or reason.

But Andrew is at least subconsciously aware it's 'not normal.' As far as these moments are concerned, Andrew instinctively tries to do damage control by either putting space between them or keeping his hands occupied so they aren't visibly touching Ashley. Still, he either does not mind or actively appreciates his physical closeness with Ashley.

When it's really fucking obvious (but only in hindsight)

In Episode 1, Ashley passes out after trying to clean up after the apartment. Regardless of her passing out in the living room, the bathroom, or their parents' room, she will wake up on the couch with her head pillowed by Andrew's lap.

Episode 1, Ashley's POV. Andrew's hands often hover over Ashley's head, but more than that—

I personally didn't notice this until I replayed Episode 1, when I basically have the hindsight of Andrew's fixation with hair. But yes, his fingers idly twirl through the ends of Ashley's hair as they watch TV. It's implied that Andrew can and will do this when Ashley pillows his lap, awake or asleep. He does not recoil from it when Ashley does wake up and later on, in Episode 2, even continues to brush it from her face.

Episode 2, common route. Ashley fell asleep at the passenger seat, so Andrew had to have transferred her to the back seat to pillow her head again. Though, technically, she's more cramped at the back seat than if he'd just reclined the passenger seat.

So far, we've seen that Andrew has a natural tendency to not only be physically close to Ashley, but to hover over her personal space and be in constant and direct contact with her. Whether it's by having her head on his lap, twirling her hair through his fingers, or even constantly grabbing her by the head in various states of comfort, playfulness, or outright threat (but let's put a pin on that for now).

The weight behind this candid contact shifts when Episode 2 draws a pretty explicit parallel between Julia and Ashley. Assuming that you interacted with Julia's landline and heard Ashley's voicemails, you know (and Andrew knows) that Ashley draws that connection herself:

DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't? You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that. He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything. I am the secrets you'll never hear. When he lies in bed at night, and when he needs someone to hold on to... It's not you he seeks out. It is me.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and vision implies that Andrew's heard these voicemails before.

That connection extends to the hair contact as well, as Andrew goes in to hug Julia, cards his hand through her hair and requests she tie her hair up.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and memory of Julia when they're older. From the use of Andrew's present-age portrait, suggests is closer to the timeline of the game's events than his and Ashley's memories as Andy and Leyley.

From this moment, we can have one of two assumptions: either Andrew wants Julia's (black) hair put up like Ashley's, or Ashley caught onto Andrew's hair kink and puts her hair up to imitate it.

Regardless, we infer the following:

Andrew teases affection through touching and even pulling on one's hair.

His fixation on ponytails and pulling on them does not exclude his own sister. It still stands and without reservation, perhaps more explicitly since he can do it so candidly, as we saw before.

The last of that Julia-Ashley parallel is self-contained within Episode 2. But only if you end up in the Burial route regardless of Ashley's platonic or incestuous vision.

Episode 2, common route (first picture) and Burial route (second picture). It's worth pointing out that Andrew is actually disinterested and moody during his conversation with Julia, and only perks up when he mentions Ashley or feigns care for Julia (since he extends his care of Ashley to her as well).

The game ends up drawing parallels on how Andrew treats Ashley, for better or for worse, with his ex (which is definitely worse, poor Julia). In doing so, the game blurs the lines between romantic affection for Julia and 'platonic and familial' affection for Ashley.

Y'all, this isn't even getting into how Andrew respectfully gives his parents space and only crowds them when he threatens them with his cleaver. In his mind, Ashley and Julia are in that same space of physical and romantic displays of affection; something he reserves only for them (only without reservation for Ashley) that does not extend to anyone else. His ex-girlfriend, and his sister. Shit's wild.

When it's obvious BUT it's violent!

That isn't to say that his hair fixation (hair kink?) is completely innocuous, though, as it rears its ugly head (pun unintended) in Decay. Which is what that previous pin was for! Yay!

You end up in the Decay route if Ashley doesn't trust Andrew with keeping an eye on their parents. Here, Ashley sleeps on their parents' bed by herself and has an alarming vision: an unknown party chases after her through the in-between and when they catch up to her, it's Andrew. Ashley has nowhere to run and Andrew eventually grabs her and threatens to kill her.

Whether or not Ashley can defend herself depends on Andrew expending all of her gun's ammo when he deals with the hitman, or not. But that outcome divergence will matter much, much later (so that's another pin for us to come back to).

The sequence of events actually mirrors the way the siblings ambush the Lady from Room 302 back in Episode 1. There, Andrew closes in on her and grabs the Lady by her wrist and uses his front to pin and restrain her. With his cleaver to her throat, the Lady is completely at his mercy.

Episode 1 & 2, common route (first picture) and Decay route (second, third, and fourth pictures). Note that Andrew restrains the Lady from Room 302 by the wrist while with Ashley, by her hair.

Andrew asserts control of the person and the situation through violence. Whether it's by killing them (the wardens) or by threatening physical violence (the Lady from Room 302 and Ashley). It's always on the table for him. As Leyleyfication puts it, "He's so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence [here]."

That violence includes Ashley. It's always on the table where Ashley's concerned. The game even juxtaposes when Andrew threatens violence and physical assault 'playfully' versus when he's seriously out for blood:

When you interact with the wall of call girls' numbers and Ashley jokes about leaving her number on the wall, Andrew 'jokingly' threatens to backhand her for even thinking about it.

When you interact with their parents' latched window for a second time, Andrew 'teases' slapping Ashley if she doesn't find a way to open it. (Ashley jokingly asks if it's on her ass or at her face, and assumes it must be the face when Andrew says she'll have to find out.)

The two other times that Andrew exerts violence against Ashley are both in Episode 1 & 2. We can remember when that happens in Episode 1, when Andrew's had it with Ashley's fits and threatens to kill her:

Episode 1, common route. Y'all, Andrew was choking her hard enough for his grip to bruise.

It happens again in Decay when he confronts Ashley about repeatedly calling him Andy and therefore, breaking the promise he coerced her into from Episode 1.

Episode 2, Decay route. Another thing to keep in mind is that Andrew's outburst is preceded by Ashley prodding him about his current state and insisting that Andrew was fine with 'Andy' during their home invasion.

In Episode 1, Andrew resorts to harming Ashley because he's fucking had it with her accusing him repeatedly of trying anything with the Lady from 302 and, in her eyes, his 'infidelity.' Where she accuses Andrew of not loving her enough that if his eye catches another girl, he'd leave her behind or flip on her. In Episode 2, she's poking and prodding on his boundaries on 'Andy' and whether or not, once again, he's with her on their now-committed life of joint crime.

If I can give another example, it happens in Andrew's common route memory of Nina's death and his blood oath with Leyley.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, Andy expresses immense exasperation at Leyley's tantrums over him 'thinking about that bitch again.' When he goes to grab the kitchen knife, cleans it, and returns to Leyley on his bed—he's briefly considering killing her.

Andrew threatens Ashley violently whenever he intends to confront her on her perceived brattiness, for lack of a better word. And keep Leyleyfication's essay segment on Ashley's insecurities and need for Andrew's validation in mind here—when Ashley does this, she wants and even needs Andrew to comfort her. But her aggression treads Andrew's patience and really, his tolerance of her behavior.

When Ashley's anger, clinging behavior, insecurities, and possessiveness of Andrew slips his control and tolerance, he resorts to violence to coerce or even dominate her.

I think (or hope, if it's clear enough) it reinforces what Leyleyfication points out:

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don't mean in the sense that I'm saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this.

It also reflects on another aspect of why Andrew resorts to violence: in all three situations, Andrew remarks on Ashley's behavior and her sake. If she acts up again once they're out of the apartment, it'll cause trouble for him while they're evading authorities. If she's going to call him Andy from hereon out, what's the point of running away with her. If she expects him to leverage keeping 'her secret,' he won't because it's for her sake.

Andrew rationalizes his attempt to control of Ashley's behavior as being for her sake. But really, isn't it him confining her behavior to something he can tolerate and personally handle?

I'd also like to point out that Andrew admits that he noticed Ashley push for calling him 'Andy' during the home invasion, and he did not argue with her on it while they held their parents hostage and readied to sacrifice them. We can infer that when Andrew calculates his use of violence, that can also factor when, where, and how he exerts it.

--

Well, that's where I can reasonably end this half of my word vomit! Now, onwards, to part 2!

#lia's conspiracy board #The Coffin of Andy and Leyley #TCOAAL: Andrew Graves #TCOAAL: Ashley Graves #ship: coffincest #character analysis

[floatinginzerogravity]

Character Analysis of V/ Timeline of her getting back her memories/ whatever else is in here

Rewatching Murder Drones for the 5th (6th? 7th? I lost count) time right now. Got a lot of thoughts about V that I haven't seen anyone else mention, so I'm throwing them down here Be warned, senseless word vomit ahead. Something I find particularly interesting is V's memory throughout the series as well as how she treats N in relation to it

So, an analysis of her and N's relationship in the first episode. The disassembly drones have absolutely no memory of their time in the mansion at the start of the series, as well as their previous relationships That being said, scraps seem to carry over, like N's crush on V, and I think scraps of that also carried over to V. (Not in the form of a full blown crush, but more like she senses she cares about N for a reason she doesn't quite understand) And how does V respond to these phantom memories? Push them away and don't think about it, hence, the dismissive/avoidant way she treats N in the scene pictured above. And the memories are only phantoms and barely present, which makes it easy for her to simply focus on her programed mission, including trying to kill N when he "rebels like an angsty teen" At least, that's my two cents on it.

On to episode 2! First thing I'd like to point out is that she broke the chain somewhere between the gap between the beginning and the end of the episode (2:34)

(16:54)

She probably had her first encounter with Lizzie while N & Uzi were out investigating the J-solver. Speaking of the Absolute Slover, V doesn't recognize it at this point in the story, which is interesting because she (seems to) fully remember what happened with Cyn by Cabin Fever.

As a side note, while her "wanna do an autopsy?" thing can be brushed off as simply V being V, it could also be that she does recognize the solver and wants to get rid of Uzi. Do I find this likely? no, this is 100% me overthinking. moving on

Okay, this scene This has a very high possibility of being V trying to intimidate Uzi, but she's also kind of right. Nori had the solver, she was dangerous. But the thing is, she wasn't dangerous to Cyn's, and by extension, the disassembly drone's, mission. My theory is that V simply got lucky when hitting the mark on the Uzi's mom thing, but some things regarding the solver are starting to leak through and she just happens to pin it on the Worker Drones due to Uzi being a Worker Drone. Additional notes on the V scene at the start of the episode:

I find her bubble wand funny Also, she seems very okay with this for being a prisoner(?) Probably just likes messing with Uzi, if I'm being honest

But then there's the fact that she keeps up the whole "prisoner" thing even though she's fully capable of escaping. This is at least partially so she can go through with her murder plan in episode 3, but also partially so she doesn't have to leave N behind (especially, after the incident with Uzi) showing the first signs of her actually caring about N (with the show having prepped us to look for it beforehand using the mansion flashback) On to episode 3, AKA the first episode where V actually does stuff!

Ptff, V's little glance away

"Oh no, emotions, what do I do?"

(War flashbacks)

So, V 100% has most of her memories of what happened with Cyn by now, at least enough to have a good view of the picture

This scene is actually the first time we've seen V be somewhat vulnerable. Neat! Also, just last week she was pretending N didn't exist, and now she's asking him to run away with her? slow clap V, slow clap/hj

V just walks into the prom and is immediately ready to murder

also, what happened to

LIES

ptff, her disgust at the prom queen crown

she is so out of her element it's hilarious

V: wtf is happening THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I have reached the image limit, this shall be continued through reblogs

#Murder drones #v murder drones #murder drones theory #murder drones analysis #serial designation v

[sailorblossoms]

is simon your favorite character?

it's actually Baz! Whenever I think about this series I'm never not thinking "but what does Baz feel about this?" ... did Baz do something wrong? I can see that, but you're simply going to have to find another bitch to care. Might as well call me Simon because you won't ever catch me giving more fucks about anything or anyone not Baz-related.

(I write so much about Simon because he's far less direct/more "confusing" with expressing himself, and most of these posts are me figuring him out in real-time. Said this before but another big motivation is simply spite, or having an itch to scratch. Behind a lot of those posts there has been an "I don't think this or that part about Simon is being caught because it's going by assumptions and not what he's actually putting down on the page, the fact that he's not doing obvious exposition doesn't mean it's not there," or "this is clearly motivated by wanting to fuck Simon, which is neither something I'm against or any of my business, but I can't image caring more about Simon fucking than on Baz's feelings, and actually neither would Simon, and perhaps there's a character analysis or two that can come out of here" or because I have Things To Say about good ol' comphet and the specific way it manifests in the "I'm not ever looking to process shit" guy, etc. It just happens more often, because when I feel Baz is being done dirty I'm putting out word vomits on his name too. Also, Baz being done dirty sometimes requires an analysis of Simon...)

#snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #simon snow trilogy

[blue-rose-soul]

Love your au! You have so much interesting analysis and all your takes always feel really in character.

I was just curious, what would some of Lucifer’s bonding attempts look like? Would Nicaise—once she arrives— try to encourage Alastor to get to know Lucifer? Even if she doesn’t know the real relationship between herself and him?

Thank you so much! I'm glad you think so. I do try to keep true to the characters, but I worry I tend to be a little biased, so I appreciate you saying this.

(Forgive me, but I'm going to blabber a little bit before I properly answer your question.)

So, as I've been going along, I haven't really had a set timeline for the Devil's Bastard AU because I've mostly been thinking of scenarios and how things would go in response to the asks I've been receiving. As a result, the timeline for this AU has been kinda wibbly wobbly. At first, Alastor knew and he was keeping it a secret, then he didn't know but Lucifer figured it out. Then Nicaise became a real character in the AU and she got involved in events, and there was something about a dog...

As of now though, I'm getting a sense of how I'd actually like the timeline to go.

First being that nothing comes out until after the finale. Nicaise meeting Charlie in Heaven is sort of the catalyst for everything, but it's not until after she falls from Heaven that any secrets start coming out. Once it's known that Nicaise is Alastor's mother, and he makes the connection that Alastor was born later that same year, the gears in Lucifer's brain start turning and he starts wondering about the missing time from the night he and Nicaise met. That leads to him doing some digging on Nicaise's life, (my mental image is talking to someone he's on good terms with in Heaven who has access to records of mortals' lives on Earth), which in turn leads to him finding out that Alastor is in fact his kid.

I think once Lucifer finds out, there's no way for him to try bonding with Alastor without revealing that he's Alastor's dad, and once Nicaise learns that, it doesn't take her long to realize she's Alastor's mom. Even if Nicaise hadn't realized Alastor's on her son by her own at that point, she's able to piece together what happened based on what Lucifer's told her of their first meeting and Alastor's behavior towards her. So in any scenario where Nicaise sees Lucifer trying to connect with Alastor, she's already going to know the reason why.

(Okay, now to actually answer your question! Apologies for the word vomit.)

Lucifer definitely fumbles a lot when it comes to trying to form any kind of bond with Alastor. With Charlie, he seems to try to bond by showering her with gifts and offering to simply take care of her problems for her. It's a bit of a shallow foundation for a relationship, but Charlie at least seems to appreciate that he's trying, even if she's a bit uncomfortable with it and wants some actual support. But Alastor is proud, independent, and seems pretty uninterested in grandiose displays of wealth, preferring a more moderate lifestyle. If anything, Lucifer's attempts to bridge the gap by giving gifts would just be taken as him rubbing his power and wealth in Alastor's face. Alastor does compare Lucifer a lot to the man who kidnadopted him; a rich white man who had a fondness for champagne and caviar.

Nicaise's feelings on the matter are a bit complicated. As much as she likes Lucifer as a friend, she knows he's not really Alastor's parent at the end of the day. He didn't raise Alastor, didn't even know he had a second child until recently. She dresses both of them down when their behavior becomes unacceptable (insert a mental image of both of them on their knees with bowed heads while she's standing over them with her hands on her hips) but Nicaise isn't about to force her boy to see Lucifer as a father figure. Instead I see her telling them that as long as they're going to be under the same roof they're going to be civil whether they like it or not. (Cue Vaggie breathing a sigh of relief.)

Sadly, she doesn't really know Alastor either, not anymore. Not since Heaven took away her 'painful' memories. She knows she died when Alastor was still young so she encourages Lucifer to give Alastor space, "Let him come to you." It's a struggle for Lucifer because after his shutting himself off left his relationship with his wife and daughter so threadbare, it's hard not to feel like he's just giving up on his son. But over time they do reach a point where they can at least coexist in the same space. This is probably the real starting point for Lucifer and Alastor to form any kind of bond.

Of course, there's still the matter of whatever ulterior motives Alastor has for the hotel. The fact that his mother is now there... Is something he will have to figure out along the way.

#ask #anonymous #Hazbin Hotel #the Devil's Bastard AU #Alastor's mother #Nicaise (Hazbin Hotel OC) #Alastor #Lucifer Morningstar #I think once she knows the truth Nicaise will make Lucifer and Alastor sit with her on the couch and tell her stories about her life #Charlie gets involved because she loves sharing feelings and secrets and Nicaise likes her #Alastor realizes abruptly partway through that he's getting assimilated and starts looking for an exit route #also sorry for going on a tangent anon!

[littlemissclandestine]

hiyaa I saw your blog and I loved your Adler hc!!! I love you blog and pls keep doing more Cold War content! I want to know who’s your favorite ? Do u have an oc or which oc you like

Hello Anon! 💜

Hope you're happy and healthy, sweet.

Thank you ever so much!! That means so much to me! Feels so nice to know there's people out there that appreciate those hcs and my blog! Mwah 😘

As for Cold War content and churning that out, i've been obsessed with Russ since goddamn July last year when it was a free PS+ game 😭 so i don't think this obsession is going anytime soon and also will probably get worse when Black Ops Gulf War drops.

Long story short, when I first played the campaign, I hated it. Literally thought it was complete and utter garbage to be honest. It was far too short, the characters were underdeveloped, the story wasn't gripping for me etc. I chose the Duga ending first lmao bye Adler (the catharsis though) But i left it for a week...then things started to change. I kept thinking about Adler and I spiralled so fast 💀

So, in terms of who my favourite character is...i think you know the answer 😌 I literally have a character analysis of Adler on google docs that's just pure word vomit that I might release one day. But I also love Bell. The Adler and Bell dynamic is so beautiful yet so tragic. I could talk about it all day *sighs*. Each character has their own kind of skillsets and intrigue so it's hard to pick but they are my main ones. Park and Sims are growing on me A LOT too 😭

In terms of OCs, I have about 4 COD OCs I am working on right now and 2 other ones for different video games. Will I share them? Eventually. I'm just scared of putting them out there for the time being. They're just so precious to me. What OCs do i like? Well for me, it's got to be Aleks (@alypink) and Jade (@sleepyconfusedpotato). Though, I've seen many that have caught my eye and i absolutely adore!

So grateful for the ask my lovely!! They always make me happy. Take care of yourself and best wishes 😊💙

#Star answers asks! ( ˃ᴗ˂ ) ✰ #i love asks man #i appreciate ya ;) #black ops cold war #cod cold war

[thedarkeyedcaptain]

Just wanted to say, Oathbringer has some really heavy themes.

I absolutly love your blog and your thoughts, and I am so excited to see your interpretations of some of the events! I really respect you analysis!

That being said, there have been times where I have had to take a break during Oathbringer. I just wanted to say that if you have to take a break, return the book, and then come back to it later, that is okay! We will all still be here later!

Remember this project is for fun, not a responsibility, so as much as I loooooove your content, please remember not to feel pressured to process more than is comfortable. ❤️

(Oathbringer is an amazing book and I think you will really enjoy it, I dont mean to be intimidating, 55 hours of Oathbringer is just a lot for 2 weeks. I wanted to remind you that 2 weeks is an artificial deadline. You can take as long as you want.)

first of all this ask is so kind!!!! thank you a lot <3

I am also so glad that you like my interpretations and analysis ! (I mean, I do do it for fun, but it's always nice to get confirmation from people that have come farther than you yourself haha feeds a bit into my ego ngl XD )

It's actually been really interesting for myself too because at my first readthrough I didn't think that much about kaladin (since I was too busy kissing the floor shallan walks on lol), I mainly dismissed my mixed feelings towards him due to the reluctant hero archetype he embodies that I don't really like. it's only after the end of wor (that fucking moash scene 😭) that I went slightly feral for his arc. *slaps his left ass cheek* this bad boy can fit so many parallels.

now I can actually pinpoint *why* Kal is my least favorite pov character (cuz I'm afraid that hasn't changed lol)! which is cool. I was a bit nervous at first since my interpretation of him isn't necessarily the most charitable (especially considering this is literally a kaladin sideblog 💀) but I'm glad that people seem to agree or at least find it interesting <3 I really love it when people somehow engage with my analysis (tags, answers, asks, rbgs, etc, be it to agree or disagree) and I do try to always respond (though sometimes it takes a bit bcs i need to translate word vomit into sth actually coherent or I haven't really thought about it before)

I have also been told multiple times by now that I need to read row, which I am hyped about !! ^^

wow. okay. I feel like that went away from me for a bit. I apologize for that lol

the two weeks are actually because I'm listening to everything on Libby, and you can't really extend the stormlight books because they are so popular. with words of radiance for example (which I bought, bc for some reason that is the only book in the series that isn't available at my library??) I took about a month I think, so almost double that haha

but I thought it over and I'm probably gonna either make a free trial run at bookbeat or sth so I can listen to it with more calm or just straight up buy it as well. rushing through oathbringer specifically will probably be no good rip

I've actually recently discovered popcorn thrillers so I'm taking breaks from oathbringer by reading some relaxing *checks note* patricide and child kidnapping!

thank you again and I hope everyone reading this has a marvelous day <3

#this was actually great timing cuz i couldve used a lil pick me up abt rn haha <3 #speaking to the stormfather #out of character.

[mldrgrl]

Hiii! Huge fan of your Hanella series! Im doing a The Fall rewatch atm and love the moment Stella comes over and kisses Archie Panjabis character in front of that guy. Idk how to describe it… Possessive isn’t the right word for the moment but I find the confidence so sexy. Do you think Hank has ever experienced her be that bold and forward in public with him before?

Hello, and thank you. What's behind this cut is a lot of word vomit, so read at your own risk.

Please first allow me to preface the explanation that follows here with the fact that I actually put in way too much character analysis into both Hank and Stella when I was coming to the decision years ago of whether or not to continue with these stories or just keep it as that one-shot, one-night stand that reluctantly became two. I did not in any way expect the overwhelmingly positive response to the pair as I got and I wasn't going to continue if it was only to make them international fuck buddies, becauase...boring. If I couldn't find it in them to build up a relationship within the series, I wasn't going to do it. So, I sat with it for quite a bit, stewing on their strengths and weaknesses and what would pull them together, but also keep them apart. So, these are my opinions on The Fall and Stella, but in now way a judgment of them, because they are what they are. There are honestly plenty of things I don't like about both Stella and Hank as characters, or how they respond to certain things (even within my own series) but if I stopped them from doing things that I don't necessarily like or agree with, it wouldn't be truthful for the characters.

That being said, I don't feel the same way about the moment with Reed as you do (and trust me, I know I'm probably in a minority of one when I say that). What Stella was doing in that moment was meant to intimidate, to take power, to have an upper hand over the guy speaking to Reed, as well as to seduce. That scene actually makes me sad and uncomfortable to think that she would put another woman in that position of having to deal with unwanted advances - and actually she was caught between either accepting the kiss to get a guy to leave the table, or embarrass Stella by pushing her away. It's stomach-churing for me. Whenever it comes up in a rewatch, I cringe at how awkward it looks and that I don't want to see someone who doesn't want that kiss, to have to take it. It's predatory. If Stella was some guy coworker of Reed's who did that, I would feel the exact same way. The only real point in Stella's favor that I can give her is for what follows - she respects that when Reed says no, she can't, she doesn't try to convince her otherwise, she leaves it at that. Let me reiterate here, this is not me passing a judgment on Stella or anyone who got something different out of that scene. It's how I feel about that scene and what needs to be explained to answer the question.

So, in terms of that above motivation, the thing is that she's never had to take power over Hank or seduce him. And that's one of the reasons why Stella's hang-up about public displays of affection as well as overcoming those hang-ups are a theme throughout the Hanella universe - because this relationship is different for her. She keeps that overt boldness private for them, because it's for them and not for anyone else and she doesn't have to weaponize it. I think part of what makes their relationship work in my mind is that they can inherently cancel out the more unappealing aspects of their personalities, but they've still had to put in the work to get past their baggage.

One of the things I remember that I leaned on heavily to develop Stella's character in this series, and move past The Fall, is the conversation with the doctor (whose name escapes me because all I could think of when I saw him was JEFFREY FROM COUPLING!!!!!). I remember that quiet conversation with Doctor NotJeffrey being the most telling about how lonely she is and how hard she's worked to push people out of her life. And those were the kinds of things that I knew that I could work with - knew that I wanted to work with. That, combined with the last shot of her alone in her kitchen after the whole ordeal is what made me believe that she was capable of more than fleeting one-night stands and could be ready to form a connection with someone.

I also think the Working Hard stories within the series are probably the closest to any public boldness Hank has gotten from her, but because they're both in on the game and she's given herself permission to have fun with it.

I'm sorry for the long ramble and I know you probably wanted me to say yes!!! one time he was waiting for her at a bar and she walked up when he wasn't looking and grabbed his dick through his jeans and cocked her head to the side and he knew it meant 'let's get out of here' and they fucked against the brick wall in the alley and then went back in and had a drink, but I really, really do take these two very seriously and I do have reasons for why they are the way they are.

Too seriously, I know.

[imminentinertia]

(I added an image description to the gif)

Now that everyone's forgotten about it it's a great time to word vomit about Last Twilight, yes? But it was only recently I finally managed to finish the last episode of Last Twilight and I have Thoughts and I needed to digest.

I also have A Very Personal Frame of Reference for how I judge media dealing with blindness. What I have read about Last Twilight has been a lot of delight, a lot of disappointment with how the story went, analysis of colours and outfits and dialogue and narrative elements, but I haven't yet seen much about the depiction of vision loss. Soooo *cracks knuckles*

(I bet I've missed some posts about it, though. I'd like to be pointed to such posts)

As for me:

I had an older relative with severe vision loss thanks to untreated glaucoma (get your eyes checked regularly once you hit 40! Glaucoma is treatable).

I grew up with two friends who had lost an eye as small children - one also had severe vision loss in the remaining eye, the other had a well functioning eye. Actually I know more people my age who have lost an eye and I did then too, but I was close with these two and I guided the near blind one often.

I have a younger relative, someone very close to me, who gradually went from perfect vision to near blind. That's the most important person from everyone with visual impairment I've known, in this context.

Let's just say I had a beady eye (sorry) on Last Twilight when I first heard of it, since I have a fair bit of experience as friend, relative, guide and activist when it comes to visual impairment. I've tried moving about with a white cane and I've learned braille (I don't remember much, though). I've provided the audio commentary when watching films with blind people, more times than I can count (and I've explained several times, with various degrees of impatience, to seeing strangers that yes, blind people can enjoy the cinema). I know a fair bit about this, I believe.

Which means I'm rarely terribly impressed with media depictions of visual impairment and it's something I tend to focus on.

As for Last Twilight:

HOLY SHIT SEA'S AMAZING ACTING

(I added an image description to the gif)

If anyone tries to claim he's not doing a fantastic job, they're objectively wrong. One may argue that artistic quality is subjective as it's invariably judged against a set of agreed upon conventions rather than true objective measures, but if you hold Sea's acting up against any agreed upon good acting and find it lacking, you need to look again.

I noticed him slipping (eyes focusing when they shouldn't) twice. Slightly. In the gif above, if a seeing character was delivering that line, the actor would focus on Jimmy when he turns his head. It's natural, there's movement and seeing people's attention is drawn to that, especially when it's this close to us.

Sea doesn't. He fucking doesn't. He looks like Day is concentrating and listening and feeling and he fucking doesn't even glance Jimmy's way even though that's what every cell in his human body wants him to. And that's just one of a million examples of how instruction, coaching and Sea's talent and effort offers up a Day that seriously seems visually impaired.

Sometimes, when a seeing actor is playing a blind character, they get instructed to - or choose - to go so unfocused that they look empty-brained. Some plaster on a vapid smile and/or Stevie Wonder head movements (you should know that Stevie Wonder turned blind very quickly after his premature birth, and he has no idea of how seeing people move. Adults who go blind are unlikely to move like him). Sea, however, looks like his brain is focusing but his eyes do not.

Day is intelligent and goofy and angry and bitter and worried and snarky-funny and sad and delighted and all of it shows on Sea's face, while his eyes look the part. It's so well done, I'm in awe.

Sea also moves exactly like my near blind younger relative and it's fucking uncanny. It's like seeing them. The often hesitant steps, the slight lean forward, the way Day uses his hands and fingers to figure out where he is and what is close to him, it gave me goosebumps. The way Day uses the remains of his sight to look at things is so like seeing my relative that I literally gasped the first time I saw it.

All the awards for Sea, please. And quite a few for Aof Noppharnach and the visually impaired acting coach. By the way, I never caught the coach's name, so if someone knows it I'd love to know.

HOLY SHIT A NEAR BLIND CHARACTER GETS TO BE COMPLEX

(I added an image description to the gif)

That doesn't happen as often as one should think. When the story is about being/going blind, the blind character is often either a super brave little ray of sunshine, or terribly tragic. Day is neither. He is all of it. He is human. He's so well written it makes me need to chew on my fists, he has all the dimensions.

Mork is arguably a bit less rounded, but Mork wears quite a few masks, and he is absolutely a human being, not a pretty cardboard cutout.

HOLY SHIT A NEAR BLIND CHARACTER GETS TO DO REAL NEAR BLIND PEOPLE STUFF

(I added an image description to the gif)

It doesn't happen as often as one might think. Fumbling somewhat, using a white cane (often in a completely meaningless way), wearing dark glasses all the fucking time - those are the staples of token blind characters, all too often. One of my favourite scenes in Last Twilight is actually when Day reads Morks contract, because it showcases a visually impaired person using his phone as a reading tool, perfectly real-looking. Well done! Kudos! Standing ovations! Now stop him there and don't let him do the stupid unnecessary breakup

Running with a seeing guide and using a phone for lots of text to speech/speech to text purposes. Going to events, libraries, bookshops, markets, parties. Going out to eat, watching a film. Day does all this with a caretaker's help for some, but not all of it. Blind people do things like this. They're not special little miracles for it, they're just people who hopefully have access to decent assistive products. Entirely too often main blind characters don't get to do many of these things. Entirely too often they're just vehicles for some inane moral of the "stay positive" variety, unless they're in a tragedy.

For the record, in the scene where Mork uses a white cane inexpertly, to put it mildly, it's quite obvious to me that Aof was aiming to show us Mork's sheer desperation. Mork's personality has extremes, and trying to put himself in a blind person's shoes and making it a lot of people's problem seems like something a distressed Mork could in fact do. The result is that he looks like a Bad Blind Character, but that's fine, just like the actors portraying those characters Mork doesn't know shit about what he's doing.

HOLY SHIT THEY DIDN'T MAKE DAY PERMANENTLY BLIND. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT

(At this point it's probably no surprise that I added an image description to the gif)

Yes. Well. Day gets his vision back in order to live properly happily ever after. I was mad as fuck about that for a while, and about the incredibly stupid breakup and time skip. I'm still mad about the most useless breakup plot fuckery ever and the time skip, and the general clunkiness of the final episode, but I'm not mad anymore about Last Twilight not showing that blind people can have true happiness.

It's about the audience, eh. To an audience of almost exclusively seeing people (I assume), losing one's sight is a frightful thing and doesn't make for the happiest of happy endings, and Day's condition is actually treatable. So production gave him his sight back. It would have been a notch braver to not do that, but a sweet romance isn't necessarily here to be all that brave. They did a lot of good work with showing how Day could manage many things on his own, with the right aids, and when the vast majority of the audience can be assumed to be seeing, showing how near blindness isn't crippling may be good enough.

After all, people are ignorant about blindness and will offer to help only to grab hold of the blind person's arm and drag them along, which is BAD, but if you've seen that guy on Last Twilight do guiding right maybe you'll do that yourself, if your assistance is needed some day. Maybe you'll listen to what the blind person is saying instead of assuming they lost their brain along with their vision.

And it's always a hell of a lot more convenient to see than to be blind, so when you have a condition that can be fixed, go ahead.

Except for that one fucking doctor making it sound like Day had three months left to live while it was just another few months until his vision would go completely, and everyone in the room (Day, mum, Night, Mork) just accepting that, I think Last Twilight did a really good job of showing that while there are great inconveniences to losing one's vision it's not being sentenced to sitting at home and feeling helpless, like Day starts out. It did a great job of dealing with an overprotective mother and a terribly guilty-feeling brother, too.

I would have liked Day to stay blind and end extremely happy, and I think it's bit of a waste of a character to heal him from the very premise of the story, but I'm not angry. Not anymore.

Although I greatly disliked the happyhappyhappy seeing ending, I was annoyed with most of the dad arc and the speedrun Night/Porjai romance, I loathed the breakup part and I hated how Day never took responsibility for his own actions leading to the accident where he got the cornea damage (although I will grudgingly admit that it's actually something that lends a whole lot of realism to Last Twilight and to Day), all in all, I honestly loved this show. No show is flawless, and Sea's gorgeous acting alone is enough to make up for a lot.

I recommend this blogger on how to write blind or visually impaired characters, if you'd like to know (a lot) more.

#last twilight the series #last twilight meta #visually impaired characters in fiction #immy mutters about things

[pencil-urchin]

Doodle of my Mirialan OC, Iria. She's a scholar--Peofessor of Cultural Anthropology/Archaeology, with a minor in Art History: all centered on what she calls "The Culture of Warfare" and how it defines and shapes those cultures which engage in war.

She also put herself through school as an exotic dancer in a not-very-nice place, like you do.

(Hold on because I'm about to word vomit)

***

She has a list of other skills and knowledges, but I don't want anyone crying "Mary Sue!" so a quick note:

All but a handful of her knowledge and abilities are skills I currently have or had at one point, and I promise I am not anyone's idea of a "Mary Sue."

These skills and achievements include:

-Multiple Advanced Degrees (I have an Associate's, a Bachelor's, and 3 Master's degrees)

-Art (I am a professional artist, and although I have a long way to go and a lot of room to improve, I have worked hard to get where I am, and obtained both an MA in Visual Development and an MFA in Concept Art in the process)

-Martial Arts (I stopped one test shy of a black belt when I was 17 because I started college)

-Fencing (I started fencing when I was 21, which is how I met my husband; we were both competitive until and somewhat during grad school, but now we mostly just coach)

-Music (clarinet and vocal primarily, then violin and piano for a short time)

-Writing (creative and academic, my second degree was in Literary Studies)

-Multilingual (I have studied Spanish, French, Latin, and Russian)

-Organization schemes/data analysis and curation (my first Masters was in Library Science, and I was a librarian for over ten years)

-Handling of rare/historic artifacts (I studied special collections, collection management, and rare books in my MLS)

-Cooking (my husband and I love cooking together)

-Fashion (as part of my MLS I worked in a designer and historic fashion archive)

-Metalwork (I have taken metalsmithing classes, worked as a jeweler's apprentice, and even got to try blacksmithing once upon a time)

-First Aid (through my first two years of grad school I was Healthcare Provider certified to offer assistance with CPR, use of a defibrillator, assisting with someone choking, etc)

-Emergency Response (for a while in my late teens, I participated in a program meant to prepare young adults for Firefighter I training, which included a rigorous exercise routine, specialized training in the use of emergency equipment, and learning the most basic foundations of Fire Science)

-Acting (listen I don't think I'm good, but I was in Improv as a kid, love to RP at the game table , and was even a mime once)

-Field Ecology (loved this class, caught so many snakes, frogs, turtles, and lizards: I do not do spiders or insects, and therefore neither do my characters)

Skills I ABSOLUTELY do not have that my OC has:

-social grace (I'm an awkward weirdo)

-physical grace (despite all I have done, I am so clumsy)

-beauty (I am a swamp witch without the swamp)

-confidence (see above)

-dancing (I did dance and drill team when I was in junior high, did swing choir in high school, did the "shimmy" belly dance workout, and took a pole-dance workout class once which was an absolute blast, but JFC I am NOT a dancer, I promise)

***

I'm sure there's more, but you get the idea. A multifaceted character with a collection of experiences that seem disparate isn't different from what we are IRL when we break ourselves down into a list like this. In addition to all the positives, I'm also old (35), neurodivergent and mentally-Ill.

So yeah, not a "Mary Sue."

#art #digitalart #artist #concept artist #digital painting #original character #original art #oc #mirialan #star wars #multifaceted #not a mary sue #art by a woman

[psychewritesbs]

Hola capaa~~ argentina y entusiasta de Clamp, JJK y Sonny Boy sos todo❣️❣️

I absolutely love all your psych analysis!! I was wondering if you’d like to write a little about Gojo’s relationship with Megumi, like what he views him as. I know there’s a lot of discourse about whether megumi views him as a father/brother/uncle/mentor/guardián but I’d like to read about Gojo’s probable view.

Saludos de CABA❤️

Hola hola! Mucho gusto ♥!

Dear CABAnon... I just need you to know that your ask is an amazing question that required so much fun and multilayered brainrot.

So thank you for the ask and thank you so much for your kind comments. I will write in English in case anyone else wants to read this word vomit but will say hello in Español at the end of this post.

I'm also so glad you're a CLAMP enthusiast too because I'm going to drop clamptastic moments to illustrate points. My heart rejoices in knowing you'll get it.

So without further ado...

Gojo + Megumi. Let's brainrot...

Also... I may or may not have written a whole analysis post only to realize that I wasn't necessarily answering your question so I ended up deleting most of what I had written.

Hence the delay...

Ok procrastination, attention deficit disorder, and my overall slow temperament might have had something to do with it too. So thank you as well for your patience! 😂

ANY-WAYS!

I've written about my thoughts on this relationship from Megumi's perspective in the past, but I feel like my thoughts could use some more nuance given everything we've seen of this dynamic as of late.

What I'll start by saying is that Gojo isn't a character I spend a lot of time brain rotting about, so I may only scratch the surface of my interpretation of him, or perhaps even mischaracterize him a bit *gasp*.

That to say that in order to answer your question, we kind of have to peel back the layers of this dynamic.

So let's start by taking an in-depth look at Gojo:

Gojo Satoru is human af

Ok so... names have meaning in JJK, right?

So given how popular he is in the JJK-fandom, I am assuming it is common knowledge that his name, and the kanji in his name, alludes to an enlightened being.

In other words, Gojo is a bodhisattva--an enlightened being who is able to enter Nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion for others and their suffering.

But here's the thing...

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

Carl Jung

What is interesting about Gojo is that, despite his exalted spiritual status as the personification of a bodhisattva, he is actually VERY human.

For one, in relational dynamic to others he keeps others at a safe distance. Like that's literally part of how his Cursed Technique manifests, which is a beautiful example of how Cursed Technique can be a metaphor for the sense of self.

Second, Gojo CARES SO MUCH AND SO DEEPLY, it is actually shown how his emotional entanglements are one of his main weaknesses.

Now, for context, consider that emotional entanglements are a form of self-related attachment and that, in very simple terms, the goal of enlightenment is to transcend attachments that might hold the sense of self back from Nirvana.

Third, Gojo is a direct product of the society he is a part of since he does carry the burden of The Strongest / The Chosen One.

It's almost like Gojo's clown externalized persona is an attempt to add some much needed comic relief to the self-definition others have given him. An attempt to lessen the heavy burden of what it means for others to think of him and define him as The Strongest.

Now, what does strength/power mean in JJK? Overwhelming sense of self which is the byproduct of self-knowledge.

So I headcanon that it is precisely because he knows he is The Strongest, that, true to his character archetype as a bodhisattva, Gojo seeks to alleviate the suffering of others. Thus, his actions in an attempt to alleviate suffering are the result of his nature.

And here's the fun twist: Gojo seeks to do so through "power".

Now let's add Megumi to the mix.

Issai shujo to tomo ni

To answer your question, in addition to understanding Gojo's nature as a compassionate being driven by his attachment to others, we have to consider his actions and motivations.

Gojo bringing Megumi under his wing is an interesting rabbit hole for many reasons.

So let's start with the idea behind the theme issai shujo to tomo ni (“together with all sentient beings”—regardless of what hell one might fall into).

Consider that "it’s not enough for a bodhisattva of the Mahayana to just uphold the precepts. There are times when you have to break them, too. It’s just that when you do, you have to do so with the resolve of also being willing to accept whatever consequences might follow" (source).

To put it in JJK-words, how is Gojo abusing his position of power to further his own agenda?

Basically, it's a major red flag in terms of how Gojo might initially see Megumi as a means to pushing his own agenda for seeking power in order to fulfill his function as bodhisattva.

It's just that Gojo, as the adult in the dynamic, consciously and willingly manipulated Megumi into something that was beneficial for the both of them.

In other words, this is a red flag because Gojo, the adult, acted like a child and gave Megumi, the child, an adult choice.

This might loosely remind you of this fantastic meme and the context behind it:

(Source: noa-ciharu's fantastic talent for shitposting).

I just wanted to use the meme because it's about someone taking advantage of someone else's lack of psychological maturity.

As a side note, this also made me realize just how much JJK is exploring the idea that people's vulnerabilities get exploited by those who are in positions of power.

The thing is that Gojo could have just as easily ignored Megumi or reported him to the authorities. But he didn't do that, did he?

Instead he took Megumi under his wing and groomed him to become a tool that could help him change the Jujutsu-scheme of things. You could look at this and think "that's awful!" and you can also look at this and think "yes, it's shady, AND Gojo was also looking to help Megumi maximize his highest destiny and potential." More on this in a bit.

This is relevant because it says a lot about Gojo's "humanity" and the lengths he will go to for the sake of his goal and desire to alleviate the suffering of others.

Again, Gojo gave Megumi a choice Megumi should not have had to make. I have a 9 year old nephew, so I'm all for giving children choices so that they can develop their own sense of self. But the choices have to be age appropriate.

In other words, the adult in the room, Gojo, anticipated and used Megumi's innocence and love for Tsumiki as leverage to manipulate a specific response from Megumi that would benefit the both of them.

Which brings us to the next layer...

Noblesse Oblige

I think that because I come from a last name De los Reyes, I LOVE and deeply resonate with this term.

It's so...

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Voltaire

This is where the rabbit hole gets fun because, were it not for Toji's last words to Gojo, Megumi and Gojo might have never crossed paths.

And is there anything more clamptastic than the idea that inevitable emotional entanglements are the result of fate bringing people together?

The question this brings up for me is... even though Toji gave Gojo the choice (here we have choice as a theme again) to do as he pleased, can we consider this to be a curse that Toji put on Gojo seeing as these were his last words to him?

So the fact that Gojo chose to follow through with Toji's last words is the stuff of tragedy given we've already seen that Gojo's weakness are his emotional entanglement to others. And now that Sukuna has taken over Megumi's body... well... should we brace for tragedy?

But I digress...

The point of this layer is to introduce the idea that perhaps Gojo is someone who fosters strength / power in others through self-knowledge, both for the sake of his own agenda, and also because of the idea behind noblesse oblige--with great power comes great responsibility.

In other words, consider Megumi's theme in the sense that it would have been a complete waste of the talent he was born with, the prized family jewel worthy of one chosen by fate, to be squandered away in a lifetime spent fighting bullies.

Did Gojo see Megumi's worth only in terms of his family's name and his Cursed Technique? I think initially that might have been the case.

There's definitively something to be said about how Jujutsu society as a whole is a microcosm for the toxic Capitalist zeitgeist that permeates our world where our worth is measured against what we can do rather than for the mere fact that we are alive.

But... that's the thing, even if Gojo, as a product of his environment who is ironically seeking to upturn the very system that gave him the power that he has... Gojo is still Gojo, and Gojo is human af.

And for someone who is as enlightened as he is...

To blind himself to this truth about himself, to keep others at a safe distance in an attempt to lessen those emotional entanglements... well, it is kind of tragic, isn't it?

My precious student

I could have literally written this section only and called it a day but like... where's the fun in not word vomitting?

I have to say that I am loving how Gege is starting to tie loose ends. Promises he made early on in the manga are starting to unfold before our eyes.

For Gojo, the Hidden Inventory arc sets the stage for seeing just how much Gojo cares and the lengths that he will go through to alleviate the suffering of others because of how deeply compassionate he is.

So there is no doubt in my mind that Gojo CARES for Megumi deeply and holds Megumi in high regard both intellectually and emotionally.

Like... even if the way he recruited Megumi can be considered shady, I personally think it's in Gojo's nature to care deeply.

As a result I personally like the idea that Gojo came to care for, know and understand Megumi deeply. I should probably open a thesaurus to find a synonym for deeply, I've used that word like 5 times already.

I also think that Gojo sees in Megumi a mirror of himself given their fate has been somewhat defined by their respective Cursed Techniques. There's actually a lot of parallels in their behavior if you look closely.

Now, one of the biggest questions in fandom has been what life was like growing up in the Fushiguro household and what it was like to grow up under Gojo's tutelage.

So I love that Gege has finally given us a sneak peek at that dynamic because it sheds light into the answer to your question.

To me the panels above might show how Gojo approached fostering Megumi's talent. I could be wrong, but I get major "let's go for a walk so I can teach you something" vibes.

And like... I can't imagine how Gojo could have possibly avoided getting attached to Megumi if he basically saw him grow up. Whether he was around every day or came and went is the stuff of head canons.

But I definitively think there's a lot of love between these two characters and that Gojo sees Megumi not just as a student whose power he needs to foster through self-knowledge, but also as a protégé that was entrusted to him.

Now... given emotional entanglement is one of Gojo's major weaknesses, it makes me wonder what Gege is going to do once he lets Gojo out of the prison realm.

It makes me wonder what lengths Gojo will go through to alleviate Megumi's suffering.

Spanglish alert!

Merci a ma chérie (@justafrenchlondoner) for being a sounding board to help me answer this loaded question. We both loved the brainrot that ensued because of it.

Finalmente...

EAAAAA! Mucho gusto CABAnon!

Así es! Soy entusiasta de clamp, JJK, y Sonny Boy! Me encanta q t gusten a ti tb! The trifecta of perfection if you ask me. Lo único differente es q soy Mexicana pero al fin de cuenta, esa diferencia importa poco :)

Espero halla podido contestar tu pregunta... jeje... con eso d q me fui por una tangente q ni al caso me tardé un poco mas de lo esperado pero la vdd disfruté mucho contestando tu pregunta.

Espero escuchar de ti y tus pensamientos al respecto d nuevo!

Saludos desde mi pedacito en el Desierto de Chihuahua, victoria la psicoloca.

#ask the mental gymnastics anime girl #god I love jujutsu kaisen #1 out of 3 asks answered #2 more to go!

[punishing-eden]

Thoughts on the Latest Archon Quest...

Aka why Neuvillette is the best boy, a stan's Essay...

⚠️MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ARCHON QUESTS AND STORY QUESTS⚠️

>>>TDLR at the end

Tags: Rambling, long post, not really an essay, but just want to say a few things, idk will this make sense, I can't write essays this just a word vomit.

Please note that this is just MY opinion. I am not here to slander, theory craft, or be in an argument. I just want to give my two cents and thoughts about this game and the story.

══════════════════

I have recently got back to Genshin mainly due to Furina. I actually like everything about her, from her colours to her characterisation. The lastest Archon Quest solidifies her as one of my favourite Genshin characters.

Firstly, I want to talk about Fontaine's plotline as a whole, how everything ties up together on the end. Then, why I find Neuvillette such an endearing character through out the arc.

Previously, after going through Sumeru's Archon Quest, which; I find it more enjoyable and better written than Inazuma's arc, I had expressed my concerns regarding the AQ's plotlines in the Hoyo survey.

This concern feels a bit silly to type it out now after the fact, but during that time, at least to me, it felt like a main concern.

The main concern was about the over all theme of AQs: the people vs Archon. I fear that it would be overly used and recycled. That, it might get predictable, and what's the point of me continuing the quest if the story is basically, help people accept the archon, or help the archon accept the people.

In otherwords, if each nation has a unique crisis of their own, I personally would find it more engaging to continue and see.

In general, Fontaine did not disappoint.

Firstly, I want to say, I enjoy watching Tartaglia getting yeeted. Lol.

As for the story, I think the pacing improved, although there are still some areas in the story that I think could be better. For instance the Fotress of Meropide arc, and the Spina arc. But, I think it has improved in terms of linking the events and foreshadowing something bigger for the grand finale at the last act.

Not to mention, the AQ seems to finally address, or acknowledge the anomlies of Teyvat, like the Descenders, Skirk, and a bit about Celestia.

It's not a lot, but enough for me to be satisfy. Because, in the past, these lore bits are just crumbs. And, now it feels like the actual agency/story is moving forward to something.

As for the story itself, I like the concept of the prophecy. For some reason, it reminds me of Noah's Ark with the flooding, punishment, and the flying ship in Meropide.

The prophecy aspect feels unique. Paired it with Furina, the archon who we all perceive as a stereotypical Marie-Antoinette-quese, and dramatic personality, to be incompetent in the time of crisis. I was at the edge of my seat to see how can she solve this problem.

People might say, "Well, the traveller is going to help her, of course!" which brings me to my next point.

For once, the traveller feels powerless. A stark contrast to the usual, "Only the traveller can do this.", or "The traveller is so strong they can bring an end to this.", and I think this makes the stakes higher, more exciting.

Heck, most of the cut scenes show how the casts were the ones who take initiative to solve problems. Like, Clorinde and Wriothesley at Meropide, or Navia saving the traveller when the clockwork meka went haywire.

Overall the story felt like a roller coaster of emotions, packed with tension, mystery, and drama. The last act was just so bittersweet for me.

I love the moments between Focalor and Neuvillette. I think it kind of shows how much connection they both had through out those 400 years.

Also, Focalor is really pretty!!!!??? Like, can this be a skin option?!

In regards to Neuvillette, I am not here to do an expert character analysis, but to kind of just tell you how I interpret Neuvillette's character, and in what aspect did I enjoy him the most in the role of the story.

Do note that I play in the Japanese voice over, so the characterisation and interpretation is different than the English voice over.

What I like the most about Neuvillette might be the fact, how simple his character is. If I were to boil down Neuvillette's core character it would simply be: benevolent.

His character is of a benevolent Hydro Dragon (I don't know can this statement be use to describe to his past self.) Not only to Melsuines, or to other people in general, but I also think it is how he sees the world.

Such as, his relationship with Furina, I actually think he's being very patient with her (Save for the trial, because everyone was desperate at that point). The time when he was ask how he would 'hunt' his 'prey', Neuvillette states he would use the most gentlest way as possible. Visiting Callas's grave after being confronted by Navia. Heck, this guy even goes out of his way to make the small talk just to not let Paimon feel awkward.

Despite how simple his characterisation is, it is also complex in a sense. In his SQ, we get to see how Neuvillette has his own concerns and issues settling in Fontaine. And, it is not soley his benevolence that is causing him the issue, rather, it was the circumstances that happened in the past, and how he interpreted the whole situtation and it's aftermath. I think the SQ did a good job in showing how complex he can get, if given the right conflict and situtation. *cough cough* we will not talk about a certain SQ *cough*

I think the narration for his SQ did a good job in focusing on Neuvillette as a character, and the emotional side of him. I might be a little empathetic, with the cut scene and the information we learned, I was able to connect with Neuvillette emotionally by how well the cut scene wrapped up the story. I felt the melancholy and bittersweetness.

Whereas for Wriothesley's SQ, just to compare, it was interesting to say the least. But, I couldn't connect with him in an emotional level as I did with Neuvillette. And, I think if the Devs could just show a bit more vulnerability of Wriothesley's character (his past is the most interesting part about him.) it would be a better connection with the character, instead of info dumping about his past in the most anti-climatic way.

I actually really enjoy Neuvillette's and Furina's relationship. As I said before, I find Neuvillette being extremely patient with Furina with her antics, despite he sometimes make comments on how she handle things, I still think he holds Furina close (Not in shipping way), after all it was her that gave him a place in Fontaine.

The part where Neuvillette finally meets Focalor, and knowing what was being set in stone; Neuvillette will regain all his original powers to end the crisis, and Focalor getting guillotined to get rid of the heaven principle's influence on Fontaine (I think Focalor is the only one, by far, was able to actually spite Celestia). That scene, I find, moving, and it really shook me, especially when Neuvillette made this expression:

He might not be the most expressive character, but...gosh that expression conveys so much of his emotions.

My interpretations is: I don't think Neuvillette wanted Focalor to sacrifice herself, and felt there could be another way. There are so many things he wanted to say to her, and to even ask her.

But alas, he never got a chance to before Focalor was guillotined.

The more I write about this particular scene, the more questions and new possible interpretation comes to mind:

Why did Neuvillette feel upset when Focalor executed herself? If, essentially, she's a different "person" to Furina. Could this mean, regardless of Focalor and Furina, he still sees them both as one entity?

Who, or what, is he grieving (I interpret him as griefing in the admist of powering up) for? Was he grieving because he felt sympathy for what Furina and Focalor had to do?

To be honest, I don't know, so I can't conclude an opinion. Maybe when he got a second act to his SQ, it could provide more insight for me to have an opinion.

But for now, I believe everything Neuvillette does comes from a good place in his heart even if it doesn't seem like it at the beginning. He could have got his power up and simply reclaim Fontaine and not care about the people, like Apep, but he didn't and chose to fillful Focalor's wishes. Even so, he still worries about Furina's well being after the fact.

After all that has been said of my impression of Neuvillette, I find his benevolence, and his lack of conventional human expression very endearing. I also enjoy how we began to gradually see him become more expressive. I enjoyed his relationship with Furina because they are kinda like a set, in my opinion, like a dynamic duo type of characters.

That being said, I hope the devs can continue with their good work, and I am excited to see what the Teyvat journey ahead would be like.

>>>

TLDR: Teyvat's Fontaine arc is nicely written. It has showcase improvements in regards of the overall story telling of the Archon Quests, such as pacing, flow, and themes. Although, there were a few parts of the story that I feel could have been done better.

It's nice that the story also finally addressed the anomalies of the Teyvat world (as they play a much bigger part), thus giving more information to the lore, and help to bring agency back to the main story.

In my opinion, Neuvillette is a greatly written character, and I enjoy his character throughout the Archon Quests. In my character study/writing perspective, Neuvillette's characteration, I find, is very interesting, and I couldn't wait to see more of his character in the future.

Thank you for reading of you made it this far!

#punishing eden #genshin impact #neuvilette genshin #furina #fontaine #Esaay

[away-ward]

Hello! I feel like you should make another post about will that focuses on his growth. I feel like the will post that you linked is more about his relationships with other people and not how he grew throughout the series. My thing is that I have a really hard time believing he grew at all especially when a lot of people infantilize him bc he is considered the “golden retriever” of the group. The reality is will is just as terrible as the other horsemen and he is capable of doing a lot of bad things.

Also I feel like a lot of people think he is completely submissive bc he likes being dominated by emmy. I don’t think thats true bc while he does like being dominated by emmy there were instances in nf (like the greenhouse scene) where he was the dominant one. My thing is I feel like a lot of people take one of will’s personality trait and just run it to the ground.

I also saw another post (not yours) saying that in the 10+ years will and em have been together they probably never talked about emmy’s abuse bc will never asks about it. I just don’t think that is true at all bc it basically just undoes all of will’s “growth.” I mean a big part of will and em’s story is that she was abused. It kept her from doing things that she wanted like being with will, will beat up martin bc he was abusing her, and em sent will to jail bc of the pictures of her bruises and bc she signed those papers. Its just not very believable that they never talk about it and to say that they don’t makes it seem like will never really grew out of his selfish and oblivious ways and that em should’ve never been with him to begin with.

It’s so easy for me to hate will bc of the way he acts in NF but at the same time I want to at least try to like him bc I love emmy and willemmy. So it would be interesting to see your pov of his growth to see another side of will that I don’t see bc I’m blinded by my dislike towards him.

Hey hello!

That Will post is more about his relationships, as it was a response to an anon. It’s definitely a rough effort on my part, as well. I’m not polished when it comes to character analysis, so a lot of the time it all comes out in a big jumble of thoughts and ideas – word vomit, essentially. But at least I’m in the right place for that, right?

Right???

Thanks for asking for a post. I feel a little less insane knowing it’s something that is wanted and not me just flying off the hinges. I’ve started writing it. It’s going to be long, and it’s going to take me a minute to organize. But it’s started, and will hopefully be coherent when I'm done.

Truth is, I’m a lot like you. I don't think there’s a lot of growth on the page, but this isn't unique to Will’s story. This could be a side effect of PD focusing more on the suspense/mystery and action aspect of the plot, forcing the romance took a back seat. Corrupt, since it was written as a standalone, is a bit more balanced.

In Corrupt, Rika and Michael solidify their relationship pretty early on, and then we get to the part where Michael is “nice” to Rika (nice is in quotes because it’s a very loose term. Nicer, maybe. Well, he’s not trying to hurt her in ways she wouldn’t like anymore…).

In the rest of the books, even when the MCs admit that they love each other, that seems to be left the end, until they get past the final action scene, that we get one or two moments to see what their relationship is going to be like. Nightfall is of course a struggle, because there’s nothing that comes after it. There’s no chance to see Will’s “growth” in the following books.

The reality is will is just as terrible as the other horsemen and he is capable of doing a lot of bad things.

Will is absolutely just a bad as the rest of them; that’s why he fits in with them. As I said in the original post, there’s really nothing redeemable about most of these characters if you’re looking at them too closely.

But then what are we here for, if not to put them under a microscope?

My thing is I feel like a lot of people take one of will’s personality trait and just run it to the ground.

Unfortunately, this is probably going to continue happening as the fandom grows. I’m sure you’ve probably experienced it with other characters and series. The more voices there are, the less nuanced the conversation gets?

I like discussing characters, but I have no interest in getting into the Thunderdome to get my point across, to be the “right one.” So, I try to find spaces where I can have those nuanced conversations, and maybe laugh about the characters when it’s the right time. Sometimes it’s okay to reduce Will to Emory’s himbo, golden retriever boyfriend. Sometimes we need to acknowledge he’s probably a little deeper than that.

It’s so easy for me to hate will bc of the way he acts in NF but at the same time I want to at least try to like him bc I love emmy and willemmy. So it would be interesting to see your pov of his growth to see another side of will that I don’t see bc I’m blinded by my dislike towards him.

Boy, I truly feel this whole paragraph. Yeah, I hated Will when I first read Nightfall. But I’ll ask you,

Setting to one week because I have people who come in over the weekend and I don't want them to miss the opportunity to vote, but I'll try to have the post up earlier than that.

All that said, I understand what you’re saying. I do typically take a more hopeful, positive view of Will than most. Maybe I'm too soft, or gullible. I'm going to do my best to explain why, but I've never hoped to change anyone's opinions. My goal is just to be heard and understandable.

Thanks for your patience with me! Have a great weekend, everyone.

-KO

#asked and answered #asked and answered 188 #willemmy #the will post

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hello! I just wanted to start off by saying that I love all your TWST analysis posts. They're so insightful and well-thought-out. They've made me consider a lot of characters from new angles too (something I appreciate; I absolutely adore reading a take on a character I hadn't considered before and being like "...Dang."). I read your critiques of TWST as a dating sim and dating sims in general and I have to say... Sweet Snapdragons, those were some of the most validating takes I've read in...probably ever. I'm aro/ace and, since I don't feel romantic attraction, I place a greater emphasis on the platonic and familial bonds in my life. Personally, some of my favorite things about TWST are its nuanced views on romance (showcased in the Ghost Marriage/Phantom Bride event) and the lack of overt romance in the game as well as the focus on other types of love and relationships. I can certainly understand why so many people want a TWST dating sim and I'm by no means trying to shame people for that. Heck, the TWST fic I'm working on has a romance element to it (mostly I just looked at my OCs personality and picked four potential love interests based on who I thought she'd gel the best with), but her platonic relationships (and those of the other characters) are just as important and her bonds with her family, whom she's currently separated from and desperately wants to get back to, are probably the most important ones for her. I don’t think I would've been able to make my story or my MC work if the source material was a dating sim, especially the Harveston event since none of her love interests are present for that one. I 100% agree with what you said about TWST offering fans the creative freedom to make so many unique OCs and takes on bonds (platonic or romantic) with the boys because there aren't rigidly defined routes or guidelines. Again, I'm not trying to shame anyone for what they like and I sincerely hope this doesn't come off that way. It was just...amazingly gratifying to read similar takes from someone else, especially someone whose opinions I've really come to respect. Thank you for taking the time to read this rambling. Have a great day!

[Referencing this post and this post!]

Hi, I’m glad that you enjoy my own ramblings so much 🤣 and that those ramblings have helped you in some way. I often feel like I’m alone (or at least in the minority) when it comes to a lot of my TWST takes, so I’m really happy that other people feel gratified and validated by reading the thoughts that I put out into the fandom.

I agree with you, I really enjoy that TWST has really nuanced views on romance (I happened to write an analysis on that if you were interested and haven’t already taken a look!) and that it stresses the importance of friendship and familial love too. A lot of us love TWST because it offers us so much freedom of expression and freedom of interpretation when it comes to its characters and its relationships. I always love seeing what kinds of creative things the fandom comes up with! ^^

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us! And please feel free to do it again if the urge ever hits you, the inbox is always open for word vomiting 🥰

#notes from the writing raven #feedback for the writing raven

[celinolesunshine]

THE ANALYSES OF FICTIONAL WORKS VOL. ONE:

THE WORK BEHIND THE ANALYSIS:

A NOT SO SUNNY WORLD (PREQUEL) BY @pixelchills ON AO3

MASTERLIST

Welcome to the analysis! I'll be working chapter-by-chapter on this fic, and while some are condensed I'll have all of the sections linked up above as they come out for the ease of access!

TW: MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM, BODILY INJURY, PANIC ATTACKS AND GENERAL OVERTHINKING/ACUTE ANXIETY, MINOR CHARACTER DEATH, BODILY FLUIDS (both urine and vomit are mentioned briefly in some chapters), AND TOPICS OF SEX AND SEXUALITY, INCLUDING THEMES SUCH AS AROUSAL AND PLEASURABLE/PLEASURING ACTIVITIES AND AWARENESS.

This will be pasted across every analysis in order to generally blanket the contents of the work versus creating trigger-specific warnings for each chapter. This is just upfront so you know what to expect, even if the various themes are only mentioned in passing across the work.

spoilers under the cut!!!

FIRST CHAPTER: SUNRISE

I want to start out by basically saying that HOLY SHIT. From a writer’s perspective, the establishment of Sun’s humanity in the beginning of chapter one GRIPPED me like a vice. It was SO IN CHARACTER and wonderfully, like, put together?! Reading him discovering his own body and his own voice and the fact that he could touch things and they were soft made me want to CRY, because it seems like it was portrayed in such a.. Sun kind of way. 

Solar is hinted at briefly in this chapter, establishing the foreshadowing for his (however brief) involvement in later chapters. This didn’t seem stilted or odd in general; I liked the setup! 

FAVOURITE SECTION FROM THIS CHAPTER: 

He was put down to a soft surface. Oh, it was warm, and so cosy! He immediately rolled on his stomach and rubbed himself on the soft comfort with giggles.

Wait! He stopped and sat back up. Was that his voice? He let out another laughter. Oh! Laughing made his head feel happy. Could he talk?

"Haa..hhaah...Haalloo?"

He could! The words were coming from his mouth. He touched it. Felt his tongue, and teeth, and the insides of his cheeks. Tongue was slimy, cheeks were soft, teeth were hard.

The dialogue was BEAUTIFUL??!! It was realistic, which isn’t something that a lot of people remember to do. Overall this paragraph made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.

#a not so sunny world #pixelchills #the analyses of fictional works #TAOFW #holy shit #fnaf security breach #security breach #fnaf #daycare attendant

[bookwyrminspiration]

genuine question how are you so comfortable giving long answers to things? I said something like “I am tormented by thoughts” on a discord sever I’m in and someone asked to hear them so I word-vomited like four paragraphs worth of character analysis and now I want to profusely apologize to everyone ever.

if this is a weird question you don’t have to answer; you just seem very sure of yourself and I’m mildly jealous (/lh).

It's not weird at all! And hopefully I can give an answer--probably a long one--to help you not feel like profusely apologizing. Update: yep! a long one! so you get a cut to preserve dash space :)

I'm thinking about this in the context of asks, but it applies to other things as well. The origin for me giving long answers was, in part, because I'm naturally a verbose writer. I fumble and forget things orally, but when I write things down that's when I can really organize myself and communicate most authentically. And I have a lot of thoughts and questions about things, so me giving longer, thought out responses to things is my actual reaction. That's part of it

The other origin was that, for me, sending asks is a really stressful thing! So when I sent asks, I always noticed that I was more excited to do so when I received a more substantial response. It was more rewarding to me, the anxiety worth it when I saw the evidence that what i'd done had prompted thought and effort from someone else.

So that's another big part of why I do things the way I do! Someone put in effort to share a thought, trouble, or something else with me. I want to respect that effort and give them something in return for doing so. To be clear this is not like a "they did this and now I owe them :/" it's like a "i want to show I care about them and their effort, and I can do that with my response! be thorough with their ideas!" I don't want anyone to feel like I'm brushing them off or feel inconvenienced by them, so I give that substance to try and show that I take them seriously and evaluate their words

(note: this is not to say that short responses are bad and inconsiderate. if you do those/like those, that's fine! great! they're just not for me most of the time)

It also helps to remember that since this is all written down (as you're talking about a discord server) people can pick and choose to engage. I'm not taking anyone's time who doesn't freely give it. People can ignore and skim through my posts and read only what they want to. I use readmore's and tag things for convenience, and that way I'm not being obtrusive (or at least minimize it, but people can let me know if I'm being obnoxious and I can adjust my approach!) The worst thing that happens is I forget to tag a particularly long post and people spend an extra second scrolling past.

But you're correct, my verbose nature is something I'm very sure of! It's a trait people recognize me by and can come to associate with me, and it's a genuine part of who I am. I write a lot. I sometimes explain things too much because I'm not sure I'm getting my point across. It's less about the long posts and more about being comfortable with things about me that aren't sanitized and dulled down to be more enjoyable to others.

Sure, if I wrote shorter posts they'd take up less space and be easier to read through. And sometimes I do make shorter posts and responses! But if I stopped doing so because I was worried about bothering people, I'd be denying a big part of who I am. I talk in writing a lot! that's me! I don't want to ignore me and I have things to say, so I say them. If I get distracted from the point people can redirect me and I'll start talking in a new direction, but it's still me

I think that's my attitude and thoughts around long responses. I deserve to indulge and express myself, and doing so like this doesn't harm anyone. It at the very worst briefly inconveniences people, and there are ways to minimize that. So my self-expression of my natural tendencies is more important to me and more genuine, so that's what I prioritize.

As for being comfortable doing it, it's a matter of just doing it and practicing. I felt bad about it at first, but not bad enough to stop. I'd make comments about how I'd drag and drone, but as I answered more and more things with long responses, as it came to be something people know me for, I stopped worrying about it more because it became normal to me and everyone around me

I have long responses. People know that now. They know if they want someone to really think and explore something, I'll do it! They know I'll fact check and quote things and be enthusiastic about practically everything. It's me! And I like me, so I want to keep doing that. i want to keep taking up space!

it definitely isn't effortless at first. If you go back through my blog you'll see differences in how I word things as I adjusted to match other people I interacted with at the time, but as I let myself develop that presence and do things more authentic to me, I grew to where I am now. And I will continue to grow and change!

But yeah. I have a lot to say and I want to say it! So I do! People can choose to engage or not, but I'd rather be authentic to myself than try to accommodate others when really I'm not harming anyone.

that got longer than I was expected but my advice is to keep taking up space and talking how you want to without apologizing. even when you want to. sit with the discomfort and evaluate things and you'll get used to it, and then it won't be uncomfortable anymore and you'll be able to talk how much you want to freely!

I hope some of this answers your question or helps <33

#quil's queries #solreefs #sending asks for me is really nerve wracking #so I want to recognize people who go through that effort! #and the way I do that is with my long responses and showing Im' paying attention to what they have to say #that's really the origin #that and practically always having a lot to say #i'm repeating myself at this point but those are the key things my responses came from #I don't know how much of this can or will be useful to you. but you asked so! big response!