#<- not really important to the plot but very important to me

[thepersonperson]

Thoughts on JJK's ending and my Dream/Delusion Theory being wrong.

Original Theory

Follow-Up on Characters Feeling OOC

(Written using TCBscans. Click images for captions/citaitons.)

Preface

I want to say that this ending could’ve worked if it were given more time. The majority of my complaints are the rushing which I mostly blame exploitation at the hands of the manga industry and predatory contracts.

Here are my original thoughts on JJK 268 when it released and JJK 269 when it released. I've basically reverted to those opinions.

Examining JJK 268–271 as Presented

When the last chapter of Umineko came out, its author Ryukishi07 very much spat in the faces of fans. He mocked them mercilessly and it was glorious. Every single criticism he lobbed at them was warranted because he targeted the fans that refused to see the love he put into his work or engage with the story on its terms.

“Without love, it cannot be seen.”

Ryukishi gave you all the tools to solve the mystery. He told you exactly how to do it. And yet some weren’t satisfied. They wanted everything neatly handed to them in a bow. Ryukishi denied them that simple ending in favor of sticking to his vision and rewarding the fans that accepted Umineko for what it was.

I have my own issues with the ending, but none of my complaints are related to that. I can also say with confidence what happens is completely in character, it’s just not something I personally vibe with.

When I read JJK 268–271 I feel that same creator frustration. I see Gege’s fatigue with fans who care only about the surface level presentation and nothing else. There’s been so much fun setups and follow throughs. So many subtle characterizations and symbolism that goes unnoticed by those who are unwilling to see the love Gege puts into his craft.

“JJK fans can’t read.” This is a fandom joke that is very true. A massive part of the fanbase ignores subtlety and gets upset or confused by Gege following through on it. The entire Sukuna battle was like that. You could pick out all the reasoning behind their actions if you paid close attention.

But then we get JJK 269 where Gege does something he's never done before—over-explain everything bluntly in a way that adds more plot holes and hinders character development. It feels like Gege is going “You don’t understand what I put down? Ok fine! Here are the answers!” It feels like getting to tell those fans off was more important than everything else.

Instead of doing a Ryukishi where he tears into uncharitable critics and rewards those who gave him a chance, Gege just abandons it all and makes an ending that won’t fully satisfy anyone. 

With my theory, I decided to look past everything I hated. I decided to trust that if a mistake was made, Gege would call it out like usual. I decided to trust that the inconsistent locations were intentional because Gege has not once ever flubbed them. I decided to trust the clever set up and follow through that’s always been there, even when Gege’s health problems were at their worst.

I decided to look at Gege’s work with love and my heart was trampled for it. My post now serves as glaring proof the ending is botched and nothing makes sense. All the plotholes I found solutions for are bigger than ever. JJK 269 in its entirety is utterly pointless narratively. It could’ve been spent on political fallout, grief, or villain backstories, but instead it reads like a defensive Reddit post.

JJK 271 isn't Satisfying

JJK 271 made everything about JJK 269 worse and then added some more nonsense. Sukuna’s last appearance really sucked for me. I found his entire interaction with Mahito to be grossly OOC.

Mahito is a character who finds humans disgusting and doesn’t care about their opinions or what they do. They also don’t like Sukuna. When Jogo believes that the age of curses needs Sukuna to work, Mahito says they can surpass him. The very idea that Mahito would be upset by Sukuna becoming more human goes against their entire established character.

And more continuity errors!

This conversation is actually their 4th. Here are the other 3:

Sukuna warning Mahito not to touch him.

Sukuna punishing Mahito for touching him.

And Mahito telling Sukuna to shut up and watch him be even better.

Their relationship was antagonistic and Mahito desired a world without Sukuna. Why would Sukuna be with them in the afterlife?

And if Sukuna was going to change his mind it should’ve been with someone he cared about. Jogo and Gojo would’ve been great candidates. Or you know…it could’ve been Uraume themself. In the way Yuji voiced his feelings to Megumi and reached out to him, Sukuna could’ve done the same with Uraume. It could’ve been a thing that expanded more on their relationship and how it came to be. But Uraume doesn’t even get to voice how they feel about anything.

What we get is Sukuna talking to someone he doesn’t like about his emotional issues he has been suppressing and then deciding to live for a person whose history we know nothing of.

I knew him being an unwanted child screwed him up. But that kind of stuff takes a long, long time to unpack. And Sukuna, up until this point has given no indication he was ready to acknowledge his trauma, just like Gojo. Even in the end Gojo can’t admit to Toji and Geto traumatizing him. Sukuna knowing his heart and being so casually open about it just flies in the face of the subtle characterization that existed up until that point. (I wanted Hidden Inventory Arc type reveal you know! But tell not show is prevailing seemingly out of spite.)

He dies stubborn and hateful towards Yuji. He lies to him about feeling nothing and not liking flowers. For him to turn around in death and go I was wrong the entire time no problem to someone he has an antagonistic relationship with is extremely OOC because it wasn't earned. 

And since when did Sukuna fear his own curse? When was that ever hinted? All that was suggested was Sukuna having a rough childhood and being exploited by others until he had enough.

Even for all the characters that survived, this isn’t a satisfying ending. Their coping with trauma is unrealistic and contradicts earlier characterization. Their relationships are not explored further. All their arcs or goals are neglected, save Yuji. Nobara didn’t even get to meet up with her childhood friends like she always wanted to. Just the mom letter.

It’s also jarring to see that a series that began with mourning, a series that made itself different by having children deal realistically with traumatic things, end where that heart no longer exists. We have so many characters who are explicitly motivated by their trauma. And we get to see them cope with it in their unique ways and still choose to chase joy through the hurt. 

And these final 4 chapters? It’s gone. Yuta being so distressed over everyone treating Gojo like an object and not acknowledging his personhood? Gone. Megumi, Yuji, and Nobara sucking at dealing with death? Gone. They all act like none of it really mattered and won’t affect them for the rest of their lives. Those who were lost are forgotten quickly and their efforts are not remembered. (At this point, everyone ignoring Choso hurts worse than Gojo tbh.)

The Totally Not Kenjaku surviving decapitation and brain eating makes no sense if that's real. And the implications from that are horrible. All Gojo wanted to do was mourn Geto’s body. All we wanted was to see someone mourn him or acknowledge his efforts. I was hoping they’d be buried together. The idea that Geto’s body is possibly being used by a the master manipulating rapist while everyone is ok with that sickens me. (Does any remember Choso?! But hey, let’s kill all the incarnated culling game players who were victims of manipulation or outright helpful to the protagonists’ victory!)

It’s also why Mei Mei surviving and going unpunished or criticized for her treatment of Ui Ui sucks to see. And I guess while we’re at it. Kusakabe really did tell a 15 year old to his face he should’ve died. (And he was wrong about that like the higher ups. Yuji and Sukuna were a backup plan and the fingers were getting stronger all on their own. Gojo was the only adult who took productive action against it.)

The revolution really did die with Gojo. His dreams were good and noble. Resetting the Jujutsu Society and its exploitation was needed. But he gives up on them and asks to be forgotten. It's done in a way that feels like Gege is addressing his fans directly and telling them to get over him too.

I knew Gojo was suicidal, don’t get me wrong, but he was characterized as someone who had a hard time understanding that others did care about him. I was hoping for the revelation his intuition was wrong via a funeral or mourning. That didn't happen and it breaks my heart. 

Yuta tried to empathize with him. We see it with the Yujo plot that goes nowhere except to disrespect Gojo’s body one last time. We don't even get to know if he was cremated or buried or how Yuta felt about that experience. It is extremely hard to see this all as anything but Gege expressing resentment for Gojo’s popularity.

And I’ll give Gege credit for that. The only theme that stayed consistent was Gojo being seen as an object to be exploited by everyone, except Sukuna. (I’m not even sure if I can include Yuji and Yuta in the cares deeply for Gojo anymore. It’s so OOC for them to be like this that I want to ignore it.)

The balance of the world changed when Gojo was born. We had several chapters dedicated to how this impacted various people's lives from Toji to random curse users. His death should be just as impactful.

But you know. Kenjaku was proven right. The cycle of curses will continue on because the systemic problems were never dealt with. 

The conditions that allowed for Yuji and Sukuna to be created still exist.

Reflection

I understand why people like myself want to reject this ending. It doesn’t feel like Gege put love into it. All the fun little quirks this series had are flattened and discarded in what feels like spite. Not even the final battle has the fun energy that was present just 4 chapters ago. 

I’ve decided that I’ll accept these last 4 chapters for what they are, but reject everything they stand for. They’re more interesting to discuss and pick apart than actually read…which ironically is how I feel about Umineko’s final chapter.

And speaking of Umineko… My favorite thing about the reaction to my Dream/Delusion Theory was this—the people who said, if they can’t handle what’s in the catbox, this is their canon. 

The fans who love the series and want to weave their own tales based on this in a way that helps others cope, please tag me in your creations. (Especially you @rosemaryreality!) It’s all incredibly Umineko and I’m forever grateful I got to experience the Rokkenjima Incident in real time.

Very important to Umineko’s themes, there was a common sentiment type across those that were dismissive of my theory vs those who were receptive to it—their perception of the mangaka, Gege.

To those that believed Gege was a bad writer, the idea that he could be clever and put love into this series was impossible to them, and therefore my theory was impossible. To those that had faith in Gege as a writer, my theory was solid, even if it needed a little tweaking.

I had the most fun with those who cited manga at me to make corrections like @runabout-river. Or those who wanted clarification on the holes I missed.

The ones that were entirely dismissive? It was boring. Their arguments mostly amounted to “Gege bad”. (I won't post screenshots here because I don't want them harassed, but they are there if you want to verify them.) Not a single person offered me an interpretation where the events were literal and took place in reality using manga panel citations in a way that tied it all into JJK’s themes and characters.

That disappointed me immensely. I wanted someone to prove to me my reasoning was wrong with a similar methodology. Instead they drew rebuttals stemming from their perceived flaws or outright dislike of Gege.

This is quite literally what happens in Umineko. It’s a murder mystery that can only be solved if you consider love. Both the love within the characters themselves and the love the author has put into his creation.

Is it magic or is it a simple trick? Is it a delusion or is it reality? Depending on how you answer and solve the mystery, your interpretation of the story itself changes too. 

I wound up being wrong of course, and Gege really did screw up everything in the end. But while that delusion was real? I had a blast.

I’ll be forever grateful to everyone that proved Ryukishi right about Umineko’s core theme.

[rimurutempest]

My quick Senpai wa Otokonoko review

So, overall the show is pretty cute, but it kinda annoys me with the weird chibi cuts. It's not the worst thing ever and a lot of the time it is cute but in the latter half of the show it feels cheap and overused. Especially since when the show doesn't do that it looks really good.

And the plot developments in the final episode are…annoying kinda? What's the implication? That crossdressing is genetic? That mom being so horrible is understandable cuz she was shocked that her dad crossdressed? Overall the show worries itself over relationship drama that is overdone in anime. as i said at the start, i'd rather the kid just decide who he wants to be with and through that deal with the problems it brings (the issues with dating someone who crossdresses or is trans or whatever are so underutilized in anime, wandering son is really the only place that gives it a real go). I feel like the first episode sets up a story that isn't delivered on, and honestly the "i'm a boy that likes girl things and i want you to accept me" just feels like a copout. Mom just going along with it when previously she'd been explosively against it? They didn't want to put the work in to make an adequate story imo. They just wanted a quick cute thing that uses stolen valor to further tantalize people with the concept of a real plot.

I must say, I do like grandpa saying that sometimes you have to let people go to just be yourself. That's true and important.

I don't think the show is bad though. It was immensely fun and enjoyable. It just feels very "not allowed to say trans." 3/5.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

“Why is dialogue so emotionally exaggerated in Japanese film?” one reddit user asked.

The response HarryMcFann gave is an incredible primer to understanding Japanese performance style and the media influenced by it (I’m looking at you, BLs and Kdramas).

“Not claiming to be an expert or have a definitive answer here, but these are my two cents based off of what I know about Japan and Japanese film. This is a very general overview. It’s important to note that culture is complex and full of nuances, but this should give a general understanding as to why Japanese films are somewhat exaggerated.

As u/scytheavatar pointed out, Japanese film is influenced by Japanese theater, but that doesn't fully answer your question. For example, you may ask about Western theater as it relates to Western films, and so on (Western theater is exagerated, but films today aren’t). So let’s look at Japanese theater.

The three main forms of Japanese theater are Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku, and each of these forms influenced Japanese films in different ways. Now what is important to note here is that back in the early years of cinema, those in France and the rest of the West saw film as a new form of photography, while the Japanese viewed film as a new form of theater. Just think about that for a second, and what the implications are. Back in the late 19th and early 20th century the big thing about photography was it’s ability to capture realism, and that realism was a huge concern for many Western filmmakers. The famous French film critic, André Bazin, wrote extensively about how he believed the essence of cinema is its ability to reproduce reality (there were, of course, Western filmmakers who rejected this notion, such as the Soviet formalists and German expressionists, but going into that would require a lot more words). In Japan this was not the case, and from its inception, the Japanese rejected the Western idea of cinematic “realism.”

How did this manifest itself in early Japanese cinema? One thing the Japanese directly took from theater was the presence of a narrator. Japanese silent films were always accompanied by someone called a Benshi (fun fact, Kurosawa’s brother was a benshi), who would narrate the film. Japanese silent films would then have few intertitles, because the benshi would be there to explain the plot, and so on. What’s more, audiences would often attend a film based off of which benshi was performing. The benshi where local celebrities in many ways, and they would try to one-up one another. So naturally, to give a good show, the benshi would have to exaggerate in order to give more life to the performance (these guys would voice characters and play all the different roles). Directors would make their films knowing that there was going to a benshi present. So popular was the benshi, that much of the resistance to transitioning into talking films was from those lamenting the loss of the benshi narrators. Japan actually finally made the transition into talking films much later than the rest of the world.

It is also important to understand that “realism” is a relative term (cue some 15-year-old calling me pretentious). Yes, Western theater is also exaggerated and not particularly realistic, but traditional Western theater really doesn’t compare to Japanese theater. In fact, the famous German playwright, Bertolt Brecht, based many of his ideas of modernism in theater on traditional Japanese theater. This is why Ozu is seen as the most “traditional” of Japanese filmmakers while also being viewed as an early “modernist.” (It’s all really confusing and requires a bunch of quotation marks). Anyway, the Japanese don’t really have the 4th wall in theater the same way we do here in the West. In Japanese theater, audience interaction is huge, and stagehands (albeit often wearing black) walk freely on stage and move props and scenery around the actors, and so on. The key difference here between Japanese theater and Western theater is that while the West try to disguise and mask the artifice of the stage, the Japanese embraced it. A quick example of the way a Japanese actor performs in theater would be the Mie. The Mie is a powerful and emotional pose struck by an actor, who then freezes for a moment. This pose is more for the audience than the drama of the play, and often times reveals important information about that character. This idea of the artificiality of the performance in theater can also be seen in Japanese film.

Finally, it is worth noting how the Japanese view nature vs how the West does. In the West, we look at the natural as being something untouched by people. Interestingly, this isn’t really the case in Japan. In Japan there’s a belief that something only becomes “natural” when it has been in some way shaped by a person. Weird, right? To quote Donald Richie:

“To most Japanese, the Western idea of “realism,” particularly in its naturalistic phase, was something truly new. All early Japanese dramatic forms had assumed the necessity of a structure created through mediation. The same was true of Japanese culture in general: the wilderness was natural only after it had been shaped and presented in a palpable form, as in the Japanese garden, or flowers were considered living (ikebana) only after having been cut and arranged for viewing. Life was thus dramatically lifelike only after having been explained and commented on. Art and entertainment alike were presentational, that is they rendered a particular reality by way of an authoritative voice (be it the noh chorus or the benshi). This approach stood in marked contrast to the representational style of the West in which one assumed the reality of what was being shown.”

I want to make it clear that not all Japanese films are like this. If you watch films by a director like Hirokazu Koreeda, you will not see the same sort of exaggeration.”

[chemblrish]

The atomic radius, shielding, and the lanthanide contraction

As you hopefully already know, there are several trends of the elements' properties that you can squeeze out of the periodic table. The one I want to focus on in this post is the atomic radius.

The shorter and simpler explanation is as follows: if you move from the top to the bottom, the radius increases, which is simply the result of more electron shells (“layers”) being added to the atom. Moving left to right, the radius decreases and that is caused by the growing positive charge of the nucleus attracting the valence electrons more strongly like the swole doge and therefore shrinking the atom.

But chemistry is a science, and the sciences are beautifully complex, so let me tell you about this one intricacy affecting the radius. We’re going to need some knowledge of the electronic structure of an atom, but I'll try to fit all that you really need to know inside a single paragraph.

The compact version is this: inside the atom, there are little pockets of space where electrons can be, so to say. Those pockets are called orbitals and they have all sorts of funky shapes. The s orbitals, for example, are ball-shaped, while the p orbitals look roughly like balloons attached to the nucleus. (They're sometimes described as dumbbell-shaped. What sort of dumbbell looks like that. They're balloons.)

[source]

Back to the radii! I'm going to use the second period as an example here, but there's nothing special about it. It just happens to be quite a simple case. Lithium and beryllium only have s orbitals, so that's not very interesting, but the rest of the period has both s and p orbitals.

As we move from lithium, across the whole period, and to fluorine (there's no need to engage the noble freaks), three important things happen: the radius decreases, each next element has one more proton in the nucleus than the previous one, and also each next element has one extra valence electron. Duh. The number of electrons "inside" doesn't change, it's only the outermost shell that gains electrons.

But remember, an electron is not a marble sitting in one point at all times. When it comes to electrons in atoms, it's better to imagine them as lil clouds of negative charge in the shape of their respective orbitals. As a result, the core electrons obscure the nucleus from the valence electrons. Not entirely! But the attractive force felt by the valence electrons isn't just equal to whatever Coulomb's law would give us - it's a bit smaller. This is called the shielding effect and the charge that valence electrons actually "feel" from the protons in the nucleus is called effective nuclear charge. The atomic radius is therefore a tad bigger than we could assume without acknowledging shielding (but the trend of a decreasing atomic radius across the periodic table still stands, of course).

So, what about the lanthanides, those poor, misunderstood outcasts thrown under the periodic table?

God I love pubchem's periodic table it's so pretty!

There's no plot twist here, they don't break the trend. Cerium is the biggest one, lutetium the smallest. So what gives? See, lanthanides begin filling up their f orbitals, whose shapes are so absurd even I am afraid of them.

[source]

Because they're so ridiculous, they are supremely bad at shielding the positive charge of the nucleus, which in turn makes the lanthanides significantly smaller than they would be if this effect didn't take place - so much so that we call this phenomenon the lanthanide contraction. Actually, the f orbitals suck at shielding so bad that the radii of the (d-block) metals of the sixth period are very similar to the radii of the elements in the period above them - even though they should be much larger!

[source]

Really. Chemistry is like psychology for electrons. Everything that happens here is caused by these guys' weird behavior.

[the-sinful-voice-witch]

Stephanie Brown and Damian Wayne

Damian's drawing of people who loves him personally offended me when i saw the lack of Talia (but fucking Ra was there! So ridiculously absurd), Duke, Jason and more importantly in my opinion the lack of STEPHANIE BROWN! Barbara and Rose Wilson never had the bond he had with Stephanie not even Cassandra and im specially Salty about Maya because all the fuss about the "adoptive sister" That showed up right in the messed up new 52 as if Stephanie wasn't literally the fucking first big sister figure he had, this is so insulting giving the fact that STEPHANIE WAS HIS BATGIRL:

The Batman's no-daughter and Damian first big sister, Steph is a Bat member that is placed along Batman's children but she was never adopted and we could say she is kinda in the same position as Barbara, they can only become official daughters if they become daughters in law.

I firmly believe that Damian can't be placed along all the people that personally wronged Stephanie because... Damian has been an arrogant jerk with absolutely every hero he has met, he looked down on his own father at first, the fucking Batman! So he literally didn't discriminate Stephanie, because even if he tried to insult her saying he was disappointed to see she wasn't Cassandra, when he actually met Cassandra he tried to undermine her as well so to me that comparation doesn't have the same weight as when she was constantly compared to other heroes by other certain characters.

The little time they had together in the Batgirl run was way too precious, the teasing and the banter and how they worked together was so good! Stephanie was so good to him! She got him to be able to behave like a kid because she noticed he didn't even know how to play, she got him to play with him in a bouncing castle, she wanted him to smile, they worked together to save Dicks Batman and i always laugh when Damian teases her about "not having a big chest", Damian dear you were so fixated on that for no reason... Maybe Steph was also his first platonic crush... I think the second was Supergirl 😂😂.

(I miss them when they were like this... I miss them everyday 😭😭😭😭)

DCeased wasn't exactly one of my favorite comics regarding plot but it has a special place in my heart for being currently the only alternative universe that represented this sibling relationship as it was always meant to be until the disappointing death that was supposed to be solved by Talia and never happened as if they forgot.

That universe gave us a beautiful present and that was the very first time someone (wonder girl Cassie) officially acknowledged Stephanie as Damians big sister and not to mention the hug! 🥺🥺🥺 he actually let himself being comforted in her arms and hugged her back, when he saw her he even called her "Steph" Not "Brown" Or "Spoiler/Batgirl" and oh my god she became his Robin 🥲 and to me she is just the perfect Robin to his Batman after all... She was also the Batgirl to his Robin.

Another thing i want to point out, when Alfred was murdered Dick still didn't have all his memories, Jason was just too angry and Tim didn't do much, Barbara isn't that close to Damian so I think they totally should have used Stephanie here, Damian really could have used a big sister... Again wasting her character but I guess they wanted to use only the closest people to Alfred and sadly it looks like Steph isn't one... But she is an important person to Damian no matter how much DC wants to erase her, she will never dissapear! I can't believe Barbara and Rose Wilson and that pop out of nowhere post new 52 Maya are in that drawing of people who makes Damian feel loved BUT NOT STEPHANIE!! Even the horrible RA is there?! But not his mother or HIS FIRST AND IN MY OPINION BEST BIG SISTER FIGURE STEPHANIE!!! DC YOU HAVE A LOT TO ATONE FOR 😤😤😤😠😠😠😠

Fortunately the author of the webtoon family Wayne adventures has a better understanding of this and gave us the precious moments they deserve:

In my head this is Stephanie with her 3 best boys, the ex, the little platonic brother that might had or might not had a platonic crush on her and who i think is her very soulmate ❤💜

[starsonablackboard]

some cotl sketches of me trying to find the lamb in my style and get used to drawing them. overall im pleased!

also a (very wordy) list of random headcanons if you're interested

im quite late to fandom so none of those are particularly original but hey, all in good fun

• the lamb was born after the start of the sheep genocide. they feel quite young to me (and pretty much every plot important npc calls them some versions of a "child" at one point or another. granted, most of these npc's are centuries old gods bUT----) and it would've taken a good lot of years to wipe out an entire species, especially one as prolific as sheep. living in constant awareness alertness mistrust and dread did a number on their psyche. i picture them generally pretty apathetic and passive, yet perseverent and focused on survival. at least before their first death • the lamb was malnourished and all in all weakened when they were killed. not like they've ever had the opportunity to consistently eat and sleep well, but also i don't think the cultists troubled themselves much with basic needs of soon-to-be dead lamb. so the lamb sickly thin and their fur is brittle and overall they do not look good. of course the red crown gives them strengths and stamina far beyond any ordinary mortal's, but their body still locks in in this state (the lack of need in food or sleep also affects this) • their eyesight gradually goes to shit, because this much eyebleeding isn't good for you, surprisingly enough. it distorts and weakens their sclera so they slowly become more and more farsighted. at first it wasn't a problem since every time they die their body returns to its basic state, but the more time passes and the better they become the less they die, and it's good, but it also makes the affects of any injuries more and more permanent. the red crown sometimes transforms into glasses, but only when the lamb are on the cult's grounds and preferably alone. in crusades they rely on their experience, skill and of course magic. and their eyesight isn't so bad that they can't see a sword in front of their face. not yet, at least • the scar encircling their neck is the only one that doesn't go away with dying, since it is how they appeared before narinder for the first time. they cover it with the bell choker and do not like touching in this area since the scar tissue messed with its sensitivity, making it practically nonexistent, and it feels weird and unsafe • their nails became claws after the resurrection, not because it makes any sense but just because i think it looks cool • they are really really tired of washing the blood off their face

[rowanisawriter]

10 years, 10 stories

2024 is my 10th year on ao3. i’ve been writing for a lot longer than that and have had some years where i didn’t write anything at all. in a way ao3 is like a timeline for me or a diary, i can track my adult life with it. i wanted to pull like 10 stories that i’ve written over the course of these past 10 years that i think kinda define me

1. fantasy and fallacy (young justice/dc)

this isn’t my most popular young justice fic but it is my favorite. i wrote it a long long time ago and copied it into ao3 when i first got my account. looking back on it now it’s when i started developing what i think is now my true writing voice, focus on emotions and atmosphere rather than dialogue or plot strictly speaking

2. runner (assassin’s creed)

this is the first thing i wrote that felt experimental, free form before i understood what that really meant. i write like this all the time now and love it, but it felt really novel to me at the time

3. lucky one (avatar/legend of korra)

i’m still proud of this fic, i always remember the feeling i had writing it, how i was exploring something really emotional and strange. it’s about the relationship between siblings, jealousy, maybe even hatred. i have a complicated relationship with my own siblings and this story helped me untangle some of the feelings back when i was in the middle of it

4. heretic (bg3)

this story connects a lot of my favorite things about my writing—religious themes, selfish and power hungry characters, flowing and rhythmic prose, it feels like one of The stories for me tbh

5. self aware (mass effect)

i think this is my most important story because i wrote it after a 6 year writing break, when i had completely given up on ever writing anything again. i had just had my baby, i was fighting for my life with post partum depression, covid etc, it felt like the world was ending. so i wrote this and in some ways it fixed me, it fixed everything

6. butterflies (dragon age)

i’ve written so many dragon age fics but this one is important because it was my first multichap ever! i realize now i like these short multichaps where each chapter has its own theme (usually the chapter title) and now i do this all the time but butterflies was the first

7. real world (stardew valley)

not sure where this one came from lol i have a lot of feelings about being a parent, about the life i chose when i became a parent, how tiring it is, how unprepared i was even though i wanted it, all of that is distilled into this fic that i very much wrote for myself

8. starry-eyed (bg3)

i like to read poetry but haven’t written any before, so i try to infuse my writing with the rhythmic style i like to see in poetry. starry-eyed feels like it hit that rhythm i look for while still holding onto some semblance of plot lol i’m very proud of it

9. the fall (hades)

weird writing, allegory, symbolism, mythology, these are my favorite things to read and it just so happens the bible is full of that lol so i rewrote lucifer’s fall as a short thanzag fic and rereading it now feels so natural, i feel like i was born to write like this

10. glass slipper (classics)

i usually prewrite an entire story before posting it. for this one, i had about half down and a vague outline for the rest and it was an experiment kind of, to post and just go with the flow, and it worked, i didn’t abandon it, i felt connected to it the whole time while people read and liked it, and now i feel like i trust myself more as a writer tbh

[shift-shaping]

I think this is a really important part of the article from yesterday that people are overlooking. I absolutely understand the frustration people feel about the lack of choices brought over from Inquisition, I'm also frustrated. However, they have said not just here but I believe during the dev Q and A a while back that some choices are consciously being saved for future games.

Rambling thoughts below cut, feel free to ignore

I get the sense that Veilguard is going to be a very focused game, and the focus is on Solas and the Veil.

Here is my suspicion.

I think that this game is going to set up Mythal to be a major force in the next game by decisively finishing the roles of Solas and the Inquisitor, and by tearing down or at least significantly altering the Veil. That game is when we'll see the Well of Sorrows and Kieran and the payoff for whoever we left in the Fade during Here Lies the Abyss.

Veilguard doesn't necessarily need to address any of those things if the writing is careful enough. Maybe we don't actually see Morrigan for very long, maybe the Well hasn't actually done anything yet, maybe we just don't get a chance to talk about who was left in the Fade.

This is not without precedent. DA2 carried very little over from DAO, and easily could have given us a much more stripped down list of choices than what we had. Did it matter if we sided with or against Zathrian in DA2? No. I don't think that one even got a one-liner. They easily could have asked us 3-5 questions about our choices in Origins and the game would have been functionally the same.

That all being said: what frustrates me personally is that while you can strip out many of these choices and have what is functionally the same game, the subtle continuity of your decisions from one game to the next has always been a big part of the appeal of the series for many fans.

For example, there's a minor quest early in DA2 that involves Renvil Harrowmont, the last member of House Harrowmont still alive if you chose Bhelen to lead Orzammar. This is a very small quest that, like most quests in DA2, kind of just results in you fighting more random bad boys in the streets.

But that's not the point, is it? The point of tiny cameos like this isn't the overall impact they have on the plot of any specific game, it's about the continuity they create for your world state. The little one-liners and brief cameos and bullshit quests actually do matter to fans because they reinforce that this is the same timeline they've been playing in, and give the impression that your choices are affecting people. Knowing that even these little things won't be present in Veilguard is frustrating and a bit sad.

[vodkacheesefries]

big spoilers for dragon age the veilguard from early access players beneath the cut.

Also lengthy rambling/opinions.

proceed at thine own peril

In theory I'm okay with things being boiled down into a handful of simple questions to help new incoming players establish a background for their game.

HOWEVER, we're only getting three, and those are:

Did your Inquisitor disband/keep the Inquisition?

Did they vow to save/stop Solas?

Who did they romance?

That's it. This is. A choice.

I get it. it's been 10 years since Inquisition came out and longer since DA2 and DAO. A lot of people probably haven't played the early games, and there are hundreds if not thousands of choices across all three games that including them in Veilguard would be difficult.

But there are a handful of choices/decisions that it is absolutely wild to me that they aren't including in Veilguard's questionnaire. At the bare minimum I was hoping for the following:

What was the fate of your Grey Warden?

What was the fate of your Hawke?

Who drank from the Well of Sorrows?

Did your Inquisitor disband/keep the Inquisition?

Did your Inquisitor vow to save/stop Solas?

That's it! Only two more questions than we already have, and two of them are the same as the ones we're getting. All of the important story choices, and small choices that you could make in the prior games boil down to the fate of your character in that game so there's no need to get more detailed than that.

For example, obviously if your Warden survived the final battle, the dark ritual took place, so there's no need to ask more about it. Obviously if Hawke was left in the fade, they didn't go to Weisshaupt, and Alistair/Loghain/Stroud stayed in the Fade. Obviously if Morrigan drank from the well of Sorrows, your Inquisitor isn't going to be linked to Mythal, but Morrigan is.

Those feel like arguably the most important story beats from the previous games and I feel like that still keeps it simple enough and doesn't rely on importing potentially thousands of choices you made across the three prior games, while still explaining just enough without having to explain too much to new players.

(side note: I suppose if we want to get extra fancy we can add a question for "Who did your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor romance" because callbacks to those relationships have always been fun, especially if we're getting any sort of cameo of past companions. Which at this point, I don't think we are.)

As far as past player characters returning, I get why that's hard to do because there's so many different endings for the Warden, and even Hawke post Inquisition. Would I like for them to show back up? Sure. But I'm okay if they don't.

TBH the most I've been hoping for is that maybe somewhere in a level/mission you're on, maybe with Davrin, you could find an easy to miss crumpled up letter/codex entry on it talking about how if your Warden was still alive they found a cure and disappeared into a well deserved retirement and to not bother them with anymore end of the world bullshit ever again.

Hell, I'd even accept it if it mentioned they'd started hearing the Calling and went to the Deep Roads and they're sorry they couldn't do more. I just want to know what happens to them. It doesn't have to be a pivotal plot point or anything.

Crumbs.

I am begging for crumbs, Bioware.

PS: I know it sounds like I'm being incredibly critical of the game, but I am actually very excited for it and I do think I'll enjoy it, despite any ties, or lack thereof, to prior games. I'm a big fan of being critical of the things you enjoy.

Now if you want me to get really critical because I don't like something, ask me how I feel about Inquisition because WHOOO boy I could give a Ted Talk about how much I dislike Inquisition.

[evilios]

Jennifer Saint's Hera was mediocre.

This book should have been a short story OR it should not have been about Hera. I'm not sure why the concept was to write a novel because there's not enough narrative weight or consistency for a novel. I'm also not sure why it had to be a myth retelling reimagining.

A text based on another text is by definition working with intertext that is irremovable but Saint's Hera is simply much less interesting and complex than her mythical counterpart. She follows the usual for the genre biases and fails to introduce something new to Hera's characterization.

This book is not complex; the conflict is basic and shallow. Hera's and Zeus' domains of power are not explored deeply enough for it to be intriguing. The fact that Saint felt the need to alter a very important aspect of Hera's mythical landscape (her marital willingness and the consent of her intercourse) tells me she was not going for conflict complexity.

Hera's emotional landscape isn't really explored: Saint gives her exactly two emotions, anger and jealousy. Near the end of the book, her titular character even says that she doesn't know how to feel much but anger. Every other Olympian Goddess is just trying to convince Hera to submit, apparently. Hera is hostile to Demeter over petty offence. Zeus is genuinely ridiculously flat as a personage: Saint refuses to interact with Zeus as the prominent and positive cultural figure, instead reducing him with her own lack of understanding of his character.

Out of positives, there are some cute scenes I liked but they feel fleeting in the general narrative. I enjoyed the scene of Hera recognizing that she's being worshiped. I'm not sure why she assumed she wouldn't be, or why she's so "behind" on knowledge available to all the other Gods, or why she's so bad at being a Goddess when everyone else seems to have caught on, but it was a cute moment. Aphrodite is pleasant, overall, though she has little presence. Athena is pretty cute. Artemis is way more sympathetic than the titular character who also dislikes her. Apollo is plain.

I enjoy Hera as the mother/nurse of monsters. If that part with Echidna and the rest was the only narrative in a story, I'd probably actually enjoy the book. But, alas.

As a literary media, the book stops being a proper novel around the middle. The sole consistent narrative is Hera's becoming as the queen, which ends with Typhon's death as a plotline. After that, the books goes on as a set of disconnected myths. It is not a novel: it lacks plot structure. It's a collection of myth reimaginations with a shifted POV.

Overall, it's a "meh" book to me. It doesn't do much damage because it's not bold enough to try at something new: nearly every concept Saint introduces as a change to Hera's myths has been presented before. It's not really a retelling, the stories are changed too much in factual/functional ways. It's a mediocre reimagining with some cute scenes/interactions that follows in the steps of the same biases as other books of the genre do. I did not find the ending meaningful or inspiring. I understand what Saint was trying to go for but it did not at all feel empowering or strong because of her shallow execution.

[vellichorom]

I really like your headcanons for Cori and totally agree with them!

And if you don’t mind my asking, what did you dislike about the recent episodes of Chikn Nuggit? Because personally I dislike a lot of it too…the whole shift to lore has been kind of jarring for me and I also think things were resolved too easily.

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH, THAT MAKES ME VERY HAPPY!

& OMG THANK YOU FOR ASKING because god i've been pissed. with one episode they made me hate that stupid yellow dog

HERE'S THE THING, RIGHT. i don't even mind the shift from slapstick shenanigans in youtube short format to something that illustrates a bit more lore. in FACT, i thought the way they were going about it was very interesting! having chikn realize his ultimate power & being due to a moment of vulnerability & having been manipulated some by bezel therein,

however,

this is all cheezborger's fault. for some fucking stupid reason

LET'S BACK UP A MINUTE. cheezborger got the girl! she's all excited about it & prioritizing her girlfriend above all, as i think we all do when we're excited; we make whatever we're excited our entire worldview for a bit, it happens!

chikn, at least from my perspective, sees this - sees that all of his friends are busy doing stuff without him or have their " significant other " where he does not - with cheezborger, his best most important friend, caught up in the moment, & he feels left out. he feels like a " third wheel " &- with all of his friends occupied with something or someone else, he's all alone & feels bad. i've been there a few times, i get it. in that moment of vulnerability does bezel take advantage & PUSH chikn to realize his power & potential, to control his friends or control the world & make things how he wants them to be.

suddenly the plot goes from " chikn suffering from third wheel grief " to " chikn coming to terms with the fact that he's a god & his powers have unintendedly warped his friends. we're taking all the nonsense seriously suddenly " okay. interesting. so chikn ascends to god form & starts fucking up the whole world because he believes that's what he's MEANT to do. the conclusion of his spiraling is realizing that he was meant to cause chaos & rip apart the world? ok. i think we jumped a bit far, how & when did he decide that

now we're leaning really hard into the ' i have to do this because it's my DESTINY ' trope. okay. did you come to this conclusion after deciding you don't need your friends? or realizing that you're the god of everything & therefore such menial things don't matter? did bezel coach you more than we see through the shorts? i don't remember there being an episode dedicated to chikn's sudden snap of character, thus we just never find out where that leap in logic came from.

so the world's ending but fwench fwy & iscream manage to trap chikn for 5 seconds. chee intervenes & tries to get through to him, despite all his bullshit ramblings of " go away i'm a god this is my destiny, " this WORKS. chee pulls him from his divine spiral & all's fine now.

except chikn, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE MIND YOU - NOT IN PRIVATE, blames cheezborger for it. he's like " you ditched me & that wasn't very nice, you need to make time for all your friends "

LIKE OH OKAY. BUZZFEED YOU JUST KILLED THE VIBE.

cheezborger's excitement for her new girlfriend might have been the tipping point & the technical catalyst of this all, but not at any fault of her own. she did not do this maliciously or purposefully & i hate the way chikn says she " ditched " him. no she did not you horrible mutt she politely declined your offers to hang out because she was busy with her girlfriend, & YES IT CAN BE UPSETTING WHEN YOUR FRIEND CAN'T HANG WITH YOU BECAUSE THEY GET CAUGHT UP IN SOMETHING THEY LIKE, BUT SHE DID NOT DITCH OR ABANDON YOU SHE JUST GOT BUSYYYY

it's circumstances. chee didn't do anything " wrong ", things just happened & chikn couldn't take being apart from his friend or not having what all his other friends had & downspiralled + got manipulated by bezel.

chee gets called out in PUBLIC for " ditching " chikn when she really didn't & this is turned into a big lesson about " managing all your friends " ( kiss my ass buzzfeed your usual social lessons aren't going to fly with this one ), in essence blaming chee for the apocalypse despite the initial start of the arc having gone unaddressed since the beginning.

OH & GET THIS, we blame chee for being excited but bezel, THE ONE PUSHING FOR TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD & ACTIVELY MANIPULATING CHIKN TO DO IT, gets a literal slap on the wrist chikn nor anybody else calls him out for being a gigantic prick, he's just like " i fowgive u let's be fwiends " & we leave it at that apparently. are you fucking for real. that straight up smells misogynistic & straight up shitty regardless. this COMING from the stupid little youtube shorts series all about validating everyone & equality & being kind to people too just feels a PARTICULAR kind of rancid.

& yeah whatever it's a rinkydink silly buzzfeed show where every character is named some woobified or joke rendition of a food product ( chikn nuggit, cheezborger, fwench fwy - so on ), BUT I FEEL LIKE THEY WERE DOING A VALUABLE SERVICE & DOING PRETTY GOOD FOR BEING A RINKYDINK SILLY YOUTUBE SHORTS SERIES !!!!! they had such good intentions & good lessons in mind...

& then this happens. it just puts SUCH a bad taste in my mouth now, you know? & it's honest to god so disappointing! & INFURIATING

that ending was a total BUST & relaying it back now, THE PLOT OF THAT ARC IS ALL OVER THE PLACE. it can't at all decide what the point of itself was & ended SO poorly. i'll forgive the pacing because this is a youtube shorts series MEANT to be done relatively quickly & chikn nuggit isn't necessarily a show you're going to expect a masterpiece of, right. it's endearingly imperfect

but god that ending. this entire arc. fuck it all man fuck that dog

oh wow i wrote down a lot but YEAH. VERY UPSETTING. hopefully this was an entertaining read or i just look insane to my friends

THANK YOU FOR ASKING! been LOOKING for an excuse to be upset on main

[arsonistbunny]

when i was a teen i used to spend a lot of time on french habbo hotel (terrible idea do not do that. french or not) and there was a guy that started harassing a girl. and this is important to the plot: i had no idea how to react to this but i wanted him to stop. so i just started to write really fast about baguettes. started telling him all about the prices of baguettes which were under 90c at this time and how easy it was to find them in france because there's really a bakery in every neighborhood. i also cited the base ingredients that i knew: "wheat, water, salt, probably other things". and i just kept writing so much that i drowned out his own messages and he got pissed (and most likely very bored) and left.

then idk if the girl was my age or roleplaying but she was like "thank you my hero!!!" and i was just like "np 👍" and we probably talked a little but then i also left and she might have wanted to spend more time with me but i was busy trying to fancy out my little habbo appartment. sorry. home decoration before hoes i guess

[spoonmoment119]

hello sorry if this is a silly question but who is gillion ?

AUDJSKJFJDDN OK NO NOT A SILLY QUESTION AND IM ACTUALLY SO GLAD YOU ASKED

okokok so Gillion Tidestrider is a dnd character played by charlie slimecicle in the Just Roll With It: Riptide campaign ^_^ he is a fish man dedicated to DESTINY 💪 he’s a very emotionally driven character and.. not always the brightest….. but if there’s one thing he knows it’s DESTINY and….. being wet…… i guess….. he is a co-captain of his pirate ship along with two of this friends Chip and Jay !! you can watch it on the Just Roll With It youtube channel and also on spotify and a few other places maybe i think. ANYWAY it’s super fun and if youre into dnd or just wanna see something silly i highly recommend watching it 👍

[ambrosiagourmet]

I really really appreciate seeing people explicitly talk about Kabru’s PTSD & survivor’s guilt and name them as such it’s really nice… not that people necessarily need to use specific terms to discuss his character well but it’s genuinely nice to see it recognized that he isn’t just a Funny Hater Guy or an Overbearing Asshole & also that his fucking canonical trauma is absolutely foundational to his motives and character

[fromtheseventhhell]

I want to make a longer post about this someday but: I think Arya's TWOW arc is going to include her coming to terms with her identity as a Lady. This has been an ongoing conflict with her since her first chapter and I think her flowering in winds is going to mark a turning point. The theory of her having an apprenticeship with the courtesans holds a lot of weight and the idea of Arya going through puberty among a group of unconventional women she's fostered a positive relationship with is just too perfect. It would really have an impact on Arya reconciling her personal idea of what a Lady should be. There's also a lot that she could learn from them in terms of courtesies, communication, appearances, body-language, etc. that would elevate her current skill-set and ways her relationship with them could push the plot.

Not to mention she will undoubtedly reclaim her identity as Arya Stark, and her being a Lady is inseparable from that. Arya Stark is a Lady Stark and being a Lady is a social position, not a measure of how well someone preforms feminine tasks. She shouldn't have to relinquish her position because she doesn't fit patriarchal standards. That's not to say that she's ever going to be the perfect example of a traditional Lady but what I think will happen is that she becomes capable of playing the part. She plays several identities throughout the series but she's always been Arya underneath, so I think it's appropriate that she learns to adopt a "persona" that's part of her. Her remembering Ned putting on his "Lord's face" (+ the various examples of other characters being separate from their ruling persona) makes me think that Arya will be donning her "Lady's face" when she makes a return to Westeros.

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

so far, the biggest conclusion I've gained from the responses to this post is that we desperately needed more timeline interactions like in 2020 and I do not understand why they're only relegated to birthdays now when they're such an important piece of Milgram's overall storytelling 😭