#*choices meta

[gaiuskamilah]

i'm so fascinated with rheya's story and the concept of her as their goddess, because it's such an obvious rejection of christianity. of course, this is no surprise considering that the book lead is a jewish man and the series has multiple times subverted the antisemitic tropes associated with vampires. religious themes are prominent in bloodbound, and the treatment of it and its distinct parallels to a certain point of view of christianity i think can't be denied.

rheya is referred to as a goddess throughout the series. she's a priestess and arguably the goddess phampira made flesh, which already draws parallels to jesus, who was a spiritual leader himself. gaius augustine is roman and her most devoted follower, converting (turning) people across the world in a similar way the roman st paul the apostle did. gaius also shares a name with st augustine of hippo, arguably the most important philosopher in christian history and theology.

to be a vampire in bb is to drink the blood of another vampire, and all are descended from the priestess-goddess rheya. this immediately evokes similar Eucharistic notions - as in john 6:53-54, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day."

rheya herself has inspired canon organized religion. the chapel built by dracula is highly reminiscent of catholic and orthodox churches:

in the bonus scene in the dark solstice, serafine is also shown to be praying to rheya. this in particular caught my attention because of how it was worded:

"when the First shall return to us... when the Order will burn... when we may once again be free" it's a very messianic prayer and in itself mirrors the christian belief that one day, jesus will return and enact his will and his kingdom onto the earth.

the whole passage can be compared to the lord's prayer. "when the first shall return to us... when the order will burn" - "hallowed be thy name / thy kingdom come / thy will be done / on earth as it is in heaven" which talks about second coming of jesus, and in this case, rheya. vampires are waiting for salvation, waiting for and asking for "deliverance from evil".

despite all this, bloodbound actively rejects rheya as god made flesh, rejects the notion of her as their savior, and arguably even the concept of a savior. mc denying that rheya is neither savior nor goddess is akin to denying that jesus is the savior and is god:

and this even extends to her name itself - rheya apostolous. "christ" is not jesus' actual name, it's a title that means savior. and while we can take "rheya apostolous" as a typical first name-last name thing, i choose to view "apostolous" as a title - and apostolous means "apostle", a follower, not a savior or a goddess.

and again, knowing that the book lead is a jewish man makes this approach make more sense. through christianity has undeniably jewish roots and jesus was jewish himself, judaism denies that jesus is the messiah. this approach to vampire lore as well as the care that was put into it in order to subvert antisemitic tropes rife the concept of vampires makes bloodbound such a refreshing take on the vampire genre as a whole.

[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[ulgapodatkowa]

I have so many thoughts but I at least want to address the "for the new unicorn" note. because first of all it's so incredibly gratifying for izzy to finally be accepted into a community. it was shown before that the crew cares for him in some way but it was the first time he really saw that. that he isn't useless and alone, that he still has a place on the ship. even more so the crew WANTS HIM to be on the ship. and also that they want him to embrace his disability which doesn't make them think any less of him.

but also the choice of words. because inherently it rings queer, unicorn as a symbol of queerness. and even if it may have a negative sound when you use it differently here it is extremely positive. izzy is not only accepted to the crew, he's also accepted to the queer community, to the family. the unicorn on the revenge was also the one that was leading the ship, so one can argue that they want him to take that role in their dynamic.

and you can see that he does so immediately. he puts himself together and starts helping the crew. he's still bitchy but no longer violent and cruel. he helps stede and lucius immensely because that is what he does now. he's part of the family. twat.

[thecapturedafrique]

An excellent start to what I already know will be an excellent series! I also love how you point out how it’s often the Black LIs that get paired off with an alternate, which makes it that much more sinister when they’re the only one to be paired off.

And the fact that PB declined to give Chris an alternate LI despite him being part of the OG lineup tells us that the racial element (hidden beneath the term “popularity”) has been there from the jump. 🤧

A Brief History of Alternative Romances in Choices

Series - TRR's Alternative LIs: The "Romances" that Didn't Happen

TW: Mentions of OH2's handling of Rafael (though not in detail), racism.

To be clear, this introductory essay isn't directly related to the rest of this series. TRR operated very differently to the other Choices series' when it came to alternative LIs, so a lot of what I'll discuss here won't actually apply to its specific romance mechanics.

Still, it is important to explore what it means to give an LI an alternative romance in PB, and for that we need to look at what the approach to such romances were. Both in the past, and after TRR became popular. Looking into this gives us a general idea of which specific LIs got an alternative romance, why just them and not others, and what such developments said about the way the writing team viewed a particular character.

The Choices App was introduced in 2016, with three stories that were likely meant to cater to different audiences. Out of the three, the crime drama Most Wanted was the only series that focused on a single romantic pairing.

The other two - The Freshman and The Crown and the Flame - presented players with multiple romance options for their main character(s). TCaTF split its narrative between two main characters - Kenna Rys and Dominic Hunter - exploring both Kenna's fight to gain back and then expand her kingdom, and Dom's discovery of his heritage as a member of the Fire Tribes. Even though Kenna and Dom could be paired romantically, they had other potential LIs. Notably, Kenna had 6 (Dom, Tevan, Raydan, Annelyse, Val and Diavolos) and Dom only 2 serious contenders (Kenna, Rose, Sei, Will Jackson all had romances with him. Of these four, Rose was eliminated early on in the series, and Will was a last-minute addition at the end of TCaTF3). TCaTF didn't seem to focus much on the love lives of these LIs outside of Kenna and Dom, until Book 3 in 2017 - and of the cast only Raydan and Tevan seemed to get hints at other potential romances (with Aurynn and Zenobia, respectively).

Unlike MW and TCaTF, The Freshman's focus zeroed in on just one character. It was the first series to feature a customizable MC, whose experiences and choices alone would move the story forward. The original three-book series featured romances with three LIs - Chris Powell, James Ashton and Kaitlyn Liao. By the third book, two more were added to the roster - Zig Ortega and Becca Davenport.

You could choose a boy/girlfriend by the end of Book 1, and change partners in Book 3 if you weren't happy with your first LI and/or wanted one of the newer ones. The first three books didn't really have any alternative romances for the LIs themselves, but all that was about to change (for two LIs) in The Sophomore (released in 2017).

(Screenshots from the UnruleLee Gaming Youtube Channel)

In TS, the MC had the opportunity to pair James and Kaitlyn up with other side characters if she wasn't dating them. Kaitlyn begins to show an interest in Annisa, the new keyboardist in her punk band. Similarly for James and Reyna, a member of the editorial staff of Hartfeld's student-run newspaper. Both pairings only resulted in long-term relationships if the MC encouraged them enough, and she had both free and paywalled opportunities to do so.

What is noticeable at this point is that there are three LIs that are not given romantic alternatives - Chris, Zig and Becca. Though members of the fandom did headcanon certain pairings that had some potential in canon (such as Zig with his roommate Aaron and Becca with Madison), the narrative itself never indicated any romances for these characters, preferring perhaps to focus on their romance with the MC.

A possible reason for this could have been popularity. At the time, some in the fandom theorized that Chris was the most popular of the OG LIs, and that Zig and Becca garnered popularity quite quickly when they emerged as options in TF3. So there would be a lot more investment from the teams in charge of the book to focus their writing on their MC-centric routes.

James and Kaitlyn received criticism and sometimes outright hate from fans - some of whom complained ad nauseum whenever options to help them with their professional lives or personal development came up, while being largely accepting of the more popular LIs' conflicts. So it is possible that the writing focused on giving these two LIs other romantic options, in a way they didn't need to for the other three.

However, giving James and Kaitlyn other love interests didn't affect their overall writing. The Freshman series handled the balance between all five LIs with a deft hand, ensuring that every LI had adequate growth, development and attention within the narrative. Whether they were single or paired with the MC, all of them had unique stories that allowed the characters to make mistakes and learn from them, to confront their fears and conquer them, to deal with their problems in a realistic way.

James' story wasn't simply stuck on Reyna - he spent most of TS honing his writing skills and developing a novel, and later co-writing a play with the MC. Kaitlyn's story wasn't simply about romancing Annisa - it was about dealing with her insecurities, building her band from scratch, getting over her fears of Natasha sabotaging her again, being comfortable in her own identity. Their romances with Reyna and Annisa felt like bonus side stories that we could get if we were interested enough...not the be-all and end-all of their stories.

Alternative romances for LIs didn't happen in all books. Many didn't bother with one, especially those that wound up being one-book stories. Some books that ended with an elaborate wedding for an MC and their LI also seemed to do away with this too, mostly by eliminating other love interests or making their presence scarce (for instance, in RoE, the other two LIs for "Katie" virtually disappear when she make her choice, only featuring in brief cameos and mentions). Alternative LIs often featured in series' that were successful enough to get three books, so more often than not, two-book series' like #LoveHacks would barely even have the time to develop new characters to date any LI.

The books that did end up following this route often lasted long enough for at least three books (with PM and ATV standing as exceptions), and likely had more than 3 LIs. In certain books the pairing was paywalled, and in others you could choose a number of free options to encourage the romance.

After a while a pattern seemed to emerge in who got such romances. Sometimes the alternative LI was given only to the "forgotten fourth/fifth" of a series (the extra LI who would get the least attention) - sometimes the "lucky" LI would be a character that was NOT a late addition to the roster of LIs, but an OG LI that just got so little attention and buildup it became obvious that they were given an alternative because the writers couldn't be bothered to imagine what their romance with the MC would look like. One can confidently say this because very often the "alternative romance" was written with more thought than the romance with the LI or any of that character's individual problems, and it started becoming very obvious that the writers felt more comfortable imagining the playthroughs where such LIs could only be friends with the MC.

Once the Choices app found its "core demographic" and started churning out more books, there were more and more cases of the writers indicating who their favourites were, early on (through providing a higher frequency and quality of diamond scenes for certain LIs, and through their interviews before the book releases). Which resulted in those characters getting more popular and others less so. And it was this "popularity" that often impacted writing choices and treatment.

Such a system of storytelling results in a vicious cycle, where a team will either assume already that one particular character will rake in more money, and give them a head start over others...or where a writer - through intentional or unintentional bias - could push forward a "favourite" front-and-center to the detriment of other LIs.

Here's a list of books that wrote alternative romances for certain LIs (except for OH, but I will get to that one in a minute). See if you can figure a pattern in at least most of these books:

High School Story 3 (2018) - Caleb Mitchell (Jade Ali), Emma Hawkins (Luis Marino), Aiden Zhou (Cameron Levy)

High School Story: Class Act 3 (2019-20) - Skye Crandall (Lilith Vidal)

Desire and Decorum 3 (2018-19) - Luke Harper (Cordelia Parsons)

Perfect Match 2 (2018) - Sloane Washington (Khaan Mousavi)

Across the Void (2018-19) - Zekei Sentry becomes a love interest both to the MC as well as their sibling Eos Elara.

Endless Summer 3 (2017-18) - Quinn Kelly (Kele), Sean Gayle (Michelle Nguyen). (Technically, almost every LI does get some potential in terms of alternative romance...but Estela and Jake's pairings feature mostly in the AUs shown by The Endless (Sean x Michelle, Estela x Zahra, Jake × Yvonne are all shown - among other AU romances). Quinn and Sean's romances, however, are solidified in the MC's handfasting ceremony with their LI, where the couples could share a romantic look and Michelle even leans on Sean's shoulder.)

In theory, the alternative romance could sound tempting. It allows the MC to demonstrate care and concern for an LI regardless of their romantic interest, or lack thereof. It may potentially give the reader the surface comfort of seeing an LI they rejected lead a happy life with someone they can love. It seems like a win-win situation for everyone.

But it becomes apparent when you comb through both the romantic and friendly versions of these characters' stories, that something is not quite right. I will take two LIs here as an example.

(Screenshots from Abhirio's YouTube Channel (D&D3) and Danni Stone's YouTube Channel (PM1))

Sloane Washington's major character points in Book 1 involve her love for coding and astronomy, as well as her strong bond with her mother. Book 2 (2018) does very minimal work on either of these; once Khaan enters the picture, almost every diamond scene she gets focuses solely on the possibility of a romance with him. The narrative doesn't even focus the reunion with her mother Kim on her!

Likewise, many, many complaints emerged during D&D3 (2019) about the way Luke's wedding was handled. His mother - who is supposedly very close to him - only features in letters about his brother Ezra's gambling addiction, doesn't have a name and never even attends his wedding. On the other hand, his alternative romance with Cordelia was explored in excruciating detail, to the point where the two are given a wedding and the promise of a future child. It is almost as if the writers couldn't bear to envision him marrying their precious MC.

There are two major things that become apparent the more you observe the above list of LIs who got alternative romances.

One, the LIs that don't get "alternative LIs" are often white and male (Chris in TF, Micheal in HSS, Ernest in D&D, Meridien in AtV) with a couple exceptions. The writing takes care to weave their issues and conflicts into the MC's larger narrative and try their best to ensure that we become invested in whatever they have going on in their stories. A good example of this are Ernest's larger storylines about his stepson Percival and his destroyed house in Book 3. On certain rare occasions (especially when there is no default white man in the LI cast), an ambiguously brown man who can be easily exoticized fits into this role of "Creator's Pet" just as well. The writers spend enough time on perfecting their romances with the MC that there is literally no time for anything (or anyone) else.

Two, in all but two of these books, the LI that gets their 'alternative romance' most often...is a black love interest. On the rare occasion a white character is included in such a list, it is often a canonically queer white woman (only if she is an LI tho, because white female side characters have attention and love practically showered upon them) who ends up in such a position (Emma and Skye from the HSS series'). But besides that, it is usually the black LI - who btw is often one of the first people we interact with and written as the most approachable - that bears the brunt of a narrative that makes it clear that it isn't interested in exploring their story on their terms.

That is why Luke's mother never gets a name or his younger brother is hardly seen. That is why Sloane is sidelined in her own reunion scene with her mother. That is why most of the romantic playthroughs featuring these characters feel so scarce on the details or the nuances, while their white male (or ambiguous brown male) counterparts chew scenery in their own and everyone else's playthroughs.

In narratives like these, the "alternative LI" is no longer the sweet, sensitive, "they deserve happiness" route that it pretends to be...but more a sign that the writers are uncomfortable with writing said LI in a romance with the main character, and the audience they most want to cater to is uncomfortable reading it.

When the intent behind such a supposedly-nice gesture becomes so rife with bad faith, what is the end result? What happens when an 'alternative LI' - a route that seemed to promise happier futures for certain LIs - becomes more of a tool to punish them for lack of popularity? What happens when the company that created this system stops pretending to value the diversity they claimed to pride themselves in??

What happens - is that you get a story like Open Heart 2.

A lot of the stories I mentioned above were written within the space of 2017-2019. In fact, most of the books in the list came out in 2018. During these years Choices was gaining popularity in the choice-based storytelling business, and romance stories were on the rise. Many Choices Books at this point had at least 3 LIs - 2 male and 1 female - and some had more. And most of the writing teams managed to get away with treating their LIs of colour (specifically their black male and female LIs) badly without significant backlash.

At the time of OH2's release (2020), the book had four LIs in its lineup. Ethan Ramsey - like most white male LIs - was meant from the start to chew scenery. Comparatively the other LIs: Jackie Varma, Bryce Lahela and Rafael Aveiro were at a disadvantage and often it felt like the team seemed to work more on writing them out rather than incorporating their stories organically into the narrative. Rafael particularly seemed to suffer from this in the first book, and by this time making one LI the "forgotten fourth" became accepted as the norm. So when OH2's cover showed every single LI except for Rafael, there was a sense of mild alarm.

It soon became clearer, however, that something more insidious was afoot. The book itself began with a funeral, and Rafael was missing in the first chapter. When Rafael stans finally did get to see him, in Ch 2, they would be hit with a nasty surprise - the LI who was utterly devoted to their MC and introduced them to his beloved Vovó, would be shown dating a childhood sweetheart without any explanation or warning.

(Screenshots from Gabbieschoices YouTube Channel)

When asked about the sudden shift, PB's response was cryptic...but also ominous to a fandom who had already seen all kinds of unfair, horrible treatment meted out to a wide range of black characters by then:

For all intents and purposes, the relationship between the MC and Rafael appeared to be over, with very little by way of closure. Even the few diamond scenes they would get later would show friends-only options. As the book went on, it became frighteningly clear that the narrative was planning to do away with Rafael. At one point, Rafael even spoke of leaving the city altogether, and there were hints towards a far, far worse manner of departure in later chapters.

(Most people who were playing at the time remember PB's plans for OH2 Ch11-12, and the backlash, response and hiatus that followed. If you weren't there at the time, PB's Statement following the backlash - "Representation at Pixelberry" - briefly alludes to the issues that people in the fandom had with the writing decisions OH2 took at the time)

As most of us know by now, this ended with significant changes in the existing story - ensuring that Rafael lived, reinstating him as an LI and having Sora break up with him so they could disappear from the book altogether. Post 2020, no further attempts have been made the "alternative LI" route for LIs.

Part of this could be attributed to the change in format. With the introduction of VIP-access and single-LI books, the need to prepare an alternative romance for an LI has reduced greatly. Other factors too could have contributed: the extra romances becoming too much work, possible fatigue among fandom towards such pairings leading to less revenue from diamond options featuring them, certain books having only one or at most two LIs.

No one in PB has spoken of Rafael's treatment or the inclusion of Sora in OH directly...but since OH2 featured the last ever alternative romance till date, it would be safe to say that perhaps even PB recognised that the Sora story crossed a significant line. In any case, this practice hasn't been adopted in recent books in a while.

At the outset, one could argue that the Rafael and Sora situation is extremely different from the "alternative romances" I have listed so far. Unlike all the others, the intent behind introducing Sora was to deny the player a Rafael romance altogether, rather than present Rafael himself with an option. Whatever the problems with the other LIs, at least they got a romance with the MC!

However, I do think the Sora story was rooted in what the alternative LI route had become over time. It may have started with good intentions - with the idea that perhaps if the numbers showed certain LIs being ignored, it may be kinder to give them happy futures with other people who would love them. As long as the alternative romance was just a part of the character's larger story (as is the case with James and Kaitlyn), it felt less harmful and more sweet.

But when the ability to rake in finances becomes a marker of a character's worth, when the writing itself rigs the game from the start of a series, when both PB and fandom find themselves incapable of examining their own biases with regards to said characters...the purpose of such romances becomes warped.

At such points, it becomes more about establishing that this character's romance with the MC is not worth exploring. About delivering the message that it's okay to drop this LI - that as a player, you had more chance of getting your money's worth if you did drop them.

To be more clear, the Sora story is a culmination of what happens when a certain type of LI is set up to fail from the start. There are less opportunities for them to win the reader over, less time, less options to bring in money. In such an environment, the "alternative romance" becomes about considering certain types of LIs "less worthy", and spending far less time developing their MC-route - because as far as the "data", "money" and "finances" are concerned, they hardly have one!

The culmination of such a system, is that the worth of an LI can be brought down so much that the writers become comfortable with killing a non-main and non-white LI. Sora, as an alternative LI, was a way to write Rafael himself out as a romantic option, not a route meant to move his own story ahead. Sora is what happens when PB pushes forward favouritism and racism to the point where the writing is emboldened to take such steps for LIs of colour (particularly black LIs) they deem unpopular.

Which is why - in the present climate - the elimination of such a system is a marginally better prospect. If we cannot trust such a seemingly "nice" process, what's the use of having it around?

This essay series isn't about all of PB's stories, however. It is about TRR. Still - it is essential to explore and understand the original intent behind using these romance routes, and the history of how such storylines developed over time. Considering that TRR released from 2017-2018, analysing the significant patterns of that time places the writing of TRR's alternate romances into context.

TRR's approach to the alternative LI route has been different from other books, in very specific ways. One of the most prominent ways was that the narrative featured romantic options for the three OG LIs, and briefly attempted one for a fourth (the closest parallel to this in another book would be Endless Summer). Even popular love interests were presented with romantic routes, in case the MC wasn't going to marry them.

Does this mean that TRR managed to avoid falling into the same rabbit hole of bias and favouritism, that the other books did? Not by a long shot. The same problems just manifested in very different ways - and in this essay series, I will discuss those problems, romance route by romance route.

Next - Liam and Olivia: When You Prefer the Side Character to the Main

[gale-force-storm]

Thinking about the fact that, to pull Gale from the stone and get him in the game at all, you have to decide to try to touch an extremely dangerous looking swirling mass of unstable magic. Something that is, objectively, a terrible idea

Like, the options it gives you are to either touch the sigil or leave, and if you leave you just... don't get Gale in the party

You have to take the risk. You have to let your curiosity override your common sense. You have to look at this unstable, possibly dangerous malfunctioning magic sigil and go "...Ok, but what if I poke it?"

In short, to get Gale in your party, you have to do exactly what he would in that situation, and indulge in a moment of reckless curiosity. And I just think that's delightful

[direquail]

I think what bothers me most about how John is talked about in the fandom is the implication that a different (implied: better) person would've done things differently and somehow more right than he did.

When the text goes to lengths to explore how suddenly coming into an incredible amount of power in a fatally constrained situation cannot lead to a good outcome.

If you're putting John in dialogue with the concept of the "magical girl", which Muir has said he is (a little tongue in cheek, but)--these are young, often profoundly unready people, who often get taken advantage of by the people who give them their powers. And like, yes, John is not a teenager, but I think that's part of the point, is that at no point is a person really prepared to become as powerful as he did--even before he merged with Alecto. Even when he was fully in control of his powers, even when they were given with honest intent and trust, even when he used them with the best of intentions and tried to do the right thing, there was no way for him to be prepared, especially given the situation he was in.

And it's funny to talk about how bad John must be in bed, but also, this isn't a scenario where John is some self-deluding Elon Musk-like villain or loser. He is genuinely trying to do the right thing, in terms of rescuing the Earth's population, rescuing the Earth Herself, and doing it ethically (see: M--'s insistence that they perfect the cryo containers until they could transport pregnant women).

I really do think this is something people are blocking out, because it is one of the uncomfortable parts of Muir's message with the series. But ESPECIALLY because the people "critiquing" him as an embodiment of patriarchy and empire are failing to see that part of Muir's critique is of human vulnerability to power: That is, that power corrupts.

And this even has echoes with Gideon & Harrow's story! Harrow begins the series in a deeply unequal dynamic with Gideon! And she does horrible things, not just because she is traumatized, but because she is traumatized and has the power to act her desires out on Gideon. She might have the motive (trauma), but that's not enough without the means (power).

And, yeah, I do have a semi-salty angle on this because people are frequently loath to think critically not just about axes of oppression but individual relationships of power when it applies to them and to people they like. ESPECIALLY when there is a very vocal segment of the fandom that is enthusiastically pro-harassment. It's very convenient to villainize John and actively dis-identify with him, because otherwise, you'd have to face the question of whether you'd do any better in his place. But the thing is, the mission of revenge he embarks on is a lot closer to many peoples' hearts than they'd like to consider.

That's the whole point.

[casscainmainly]

God this panel kinda drives me crazy. From Batman & the Outsiders #17, Shiva asks Duke about his suit, whether it was his choice. And how does Duke respond? He... doesn't. He parrots what is clearly something Bruce said to him, but never clarifies whether it was 'his choice' at all. Because both him and Shiva know it wasn't. And he acknowledges that his suit, with all the Batty-ness (ears, symbol), was specifically designed to make him like Batman.

Then Shiva suggests dark red, which is what Duke wore in We Are Robin and has connotations to Robin as a whole. Duke's reaction - can we let it go? - can be read in many ways, but to me it suggests Shiva's words hit home. He does miss the Robin colours. Becoming the Signal wasn't his choice, but becoming Robin was.

(And throughout this run, Shiva says both Cass and Duke are being held back by Bruce. With Cass this is a clear allusion to being Orphan over Batgirl, so it's not farfetched to read this conversation as being about how Duke was denied Robin to become Signal).

Duke-as-Signal is a symbol of 'people like Batman', but Duke-as-Robin was a symbol of youth, of community, of diversity and of choice. He was a Robin formed without Batman. I know there's no going back, but having Bruce choose the name, the suit, and the time of day that Duke goes out makes the Signal such a fraught identity. I love the yellow, the suit, and the daytime aspect, but I just wish they were Duke's choices, not Bruce's.

[fuckmeyer]

the choice between Edward & Jacob is not a question of which relationship is healthier or which partner is best suitable for Bella. neither is correct. neither is best. neither produces a happy ending for Bella. at the end of the day this is still a vampire novel. any choice Bella could make would yield, at best, a bittersweet happily ever after.

if she chooses Edward, she gets the terrifying Breaking Dawn ending: a girl who rejected her call to grow up has hung her love & her eternity on an emotionally stunted partner who hates himself marginally less than he loves her. she's a teen mom with a kid she never wanted who perpetuates the generational trauma passed down from her parents. by keeping this child, the Cullens have set the stage for an uprising/cold war against the Volturi who are likely to take revenge in order to maintain power. Bella is living in a tenuous "dream come true" wrapped in a nightmare & doesn't realize it.

choosing Jacob is the true coming-of-age ending that rips the stitches out of a wound that never fully healed. even if we ignore the fact that she ends up with a man who sexually assaulted her (we must bear in mind Jacob's character is influenced by smeyer's racism, but it did happen), they can't have a secure romantic relationship. based on the high imprinting rate of the pack, Jacob will likely find his imprint in his lifetime & will lose himself to the imprintee. he will no longer be her Jacob. he will inevitably abandon her (whether he wants to or not), & she must reconcile with the reality that she will always be inadequate to Jacob's imprint. & say he never manages to escape the vampires? he will presumably not age for a long time, meaning the relationship Bella always feared with Edward (her being an old grandmother while he stays forever young) remains a possibility. this is the story of a girl who slaps a Band Aid on an open wound & calls herself healed while flinching every time she sees the shadow of the knife that cut her.

if she chooses neither (team therapy), her healing requires her to lose or be at least partially disconnected from everyone she cares about. Bella must spend the rest of her life shut out from one world while never fully existing in her human world ever again. she must always keep secrets. she can never go back home. even in the unlikely event that she manages to escape the Volturi, the threat of being hunted by vampires will never leave her. in addition, she must face her worst fears (aging, losing Edward) while always keeping in mind the immortal life that could have been hers, if only.

even the "healthiest" option produces scars that will never quite heal.

Twilight is a horror. Twilight is a vampire novel. Twilight is gothic. Twilight is fiction. neither Edward nor Jacob is a "bad" choice because neither will give Bella her happily ever after. the choice between Edward & Jacob is simply a matter of which horror story you prefer to read.

[khruschevshoe]

We do NOT give Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith their props for their character growth in the Parting of the Ways. Rose is absolutely amazing, an absolute ferocious beacon of hope and stubbornness and bravery in the finale, the absolute reason why the Doctor lives and the world is saved and an equal hero to Nine, but she has a moment of doubt. A moment of hesitancy.

And Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler step in and help her save the day. Both Mickey and Jackie give up on their idea of Rose and their hatred of the Doctor and help her pull open the TARDIS. Even within this one episode we see them struggle with their feelings and decide to put them aside and help do this because Rose is right- this is a better way of living your life.

Doctor Who is about ordinary people making extraordinary decisions and making themselves extraordinary and this doesn't just apply to official companions (who I love with all my might)- it applies to the people they love, too. We see it over and over again in Davies' era, with Jackie and Mickey and Sylvia and Tish and Wilfred and Francine and Harriet Jones and every one-off character as well, from Lynda-with-a-Y to Jabe to Gwyneth to Novice Hame to McDonnell to Sally to Chantho to Nancy to all the rest.

Doctor Who is at its strongest when the story is focused on the strength of the bleeding, beating heart of humanity (and character in general, in its non-humans), when the characters drive the story, when at the end of the day you understand why, for all of the world's flaws, the Doctor comes back over and over again because of people like this- not just his companions, but the Jackies and Mickeys and all the rest of the world.

[mzminola]

Ned was doomed before the beginning of the story; the direwolf has already choked on the stag antler in time to be found as an omen, Robert & Ned's fates are intertwined, Jon Arryn died from what he swallowed and Robert chose Ned to be Hand of the King, there is no way turning down a royal offer like that works out safely, and no way accepting it works out safely either. Ned was doomed, the gods just gave him a heads up.

But he became doomed in a particular way the moment he swung the sword down on Lady's neck.

The gods said hey, you're doomed, but here's the symbol of your house given mortal form to aid your children, and Ned killed one. His king gave a cruel, unfair order Ned disagreed with, that would hurt a child under his protection, his own daughter, to end the life of a creature that had done no harm, not for meat or furs to survive the winter but merely to satisfy the royal family's sense of offended dignity, and Ned carried that order out personally.

Ned killed Sansa's protector. He killed a gift from the gods.

Of course his own life ends on the royal executioner's block, a sword swinging down.

[beescake]

back in the day we had pantskat

now we have sagg sollux

[biceratops7]

*bracing myself on my knees and trying to breath, nursing a cramp*

I got here as fast as I can. I just wanted to point out that THIS…

Is one of the gayest fucking lines of television I’ve heard in my life.

Even if the presence of the song itself somehow wasn’t a flashing spotlight enough, the literal voice of God directly draws attention to it. Telling us that in universe, a nightingale really is in fact singing in Barkley square, and to know its music is sweet regardless of if we can hear it. Just like there are really in fact angels (one fallen but we’ll let it slide) dining at the ritz, and they’ve been falling in love regardless of if they’ve been allowed to openly pursue that feeling.

And hell, maybe it’s BECAUSE of the traffic that the nightingale finally sings. Perhaps it wasn’t ready until it was sure no one else could listen.

[thecapturedafrique]

I adore every single bit of this and we’ve talked about Hana so much that I don’t have a ton of commentary to add, but I really love how you point out that the skills which Hana does enjoy to some degree are rooted in being ones she can share with her loved ones. And seeing how few passions she is allowed to express and explore in canon just makes me seethe about what TRR3 could’ve been if PB had cared enough about depicting Hana’s journey of self-discovery to actually show it in full.

It’s still crazy to me now how the other side of the fandom was able to convince me that Hana lacked depth when she’s now the TRR character I’ve developed the most head canons for, including my own MC! Thank you again Lizzy for not just illustrating all the potential she has, but everything she’s already been shown to contain. This essay utterly destroys any idea that Hana is just your average Mary Sue by revealing how canonically complex she is despite PB’s too-frequent attempts to water her down to skills and sweetness alone. I know I’ve undoubtedly said this before, but we in the Choices fandom are truly lucky to have you! 💕

Skills vs Passions - What's the Difference?

(Read the rest of the "Hana Lee: A Study in Erasure" series here!)

Previous: China, Cordonia and "Home"

I had mentioned, way back in my first essay of this series, that descriptors used for Hana are vastly different from that of the other LIs. The three male LIs got descriptors that emphasized their personalities and loyalty to their loved ones.

Hana's descriptors, on the other hand, came down to two things - what the MC could be physically drawn to, and what the MC could use her for.

Hana can be dedicated, devoted, open minded, explorative. You don't have to look too far to see a consistent display of these qualities in Hana, throughout both series. Yet none of these words - nor the many others that could even slightly capture her personality - are used to describe her.

What the team views as appealing in Hana, boils down to two things. What the MC can find fuckable if Hana is a love interest, and what the MC can use her for if she isn't (though to be honest, even the MC that romances her still benefits disproportionately from her labour).

Her looks...and her skills.

Ironically, even with this lack of care and forethought, Hana's story still manages to retain some nuance when it comes to exploring the things she learned. They are not things she randomly became perfect at. Nor is the process of how she became good at those things, identical.

Most times, there is a story behind how she became that good at those activities, a process that Hana often worked and struggled towards, before she could be the "Jill of All Trades" of TRR.

Her journey to acquiring all of these skills is not the same. If we do not acknowledge the differences in those journeys, we are doing her story a grave disservice.

Acquired Skills.

(Note: In this section I will be leaving out Hana's more intuitive skills, such as stealth, cunning, deep research and resourcefulness, and focusing more on the ones she had to learn. This is because her intuitive skills fit better in a different essay that I will be working on soon)

There are several things the above screenshots share in common.

One is that they are all things Hana learned as a part of her training to become the perfect debutante, the perfect noblewoman, the perfect courtly wife, the perfect hostess. In the Cordonian Waltz scene in TRR1 Ch 7, Hana speaks of being pushed from an early age to learn all the courtly and social arts. She speaks of being "groomed [every day] to bring fame and fortune to my family", primarily because they were devastated she was not a boy and the only way she could possibly be of use to them was by acquiring these skills. These weren't just hobbies she was encouraged to cultivate - they were things she had to do well, do perfectly, whether she liked doing them or not.

Another - and perhaps easier to miss - similarity between all these pictures is Hana's expression in them. Neutral. Unmoved. Bored. None of these activities actually appeal to her, or are things she is happy doing.

We will find out later on, that that was exactly the point. In her parents' plan for Hana's life and future, Hana's own needs and identity are practically a non-factor.

One of Hana's major epiphanies about her childhood, is the recognition that what she wanted, should have mattered. That her needs deserved to be met just for being her needs, not because it served a purpose for anyone else. On more than one occasion Hana tells us that "enjoying myself never factored into my parents' expectations of me".

How damaging can this obsession with making your daughter the perfect noble wife - to the exclusion of any other possible life - be? Let's find out:

Hana isn't just expected to excel in skills that mean very little to her. She isn't just forced to prioritise - again and again and again - the enjoyment of others over her own. She isn't just made to consider the needs of some nebulous future husband, to the point where she cannot even ask herself what she wants.

Over and above all this, she is never allowed to be her authentic self. She is never even allowed to figure out what that authentic self would be. From an early age she is deprived of toys and pets and real consistent friendships, ensuring a complete isolation, ensuring she doesn't even have the opportunity to safely indulge in pretend play. (That she manages to scrape together whatever she can find to make her "toys" is only a testament to her own tenacity; she should never have been put in such a position in the first place). Her parents robbed her of those early, exploratory years.

She has been told how she must be and what she must do; she never has the freedom to decide whether that is something she is even comfortable being. In the context of this scene Hana may be using this skill to help another woman, but the fact remains that even in expressing her femininity, Hana is constantly expected to perform - as if her authentic self was never good enough.

It is no wonder then that the moment she finds herself no longer answerable to her parents, Hana fears that she will discover she's nothing more than a "collection of skills...with no one underneath". TRR3 shows Hana in a full-blown identity crisis once she is completely outside her parents' influence.

In her post "How Parents Fuel Identity Crises in Their Children" on the Good Therapy Blog, psychotherapist Beverly Amsel talks about the effects controlling parenting can have on a child's sense of self thus; "When a loving parent is so certain that he or she knows what is right for the child and does not consider that the child may have valid, different ideas about what he or she wants, needs, and feels, there is no space and no invitation for the child to develop the ability to express his or her own self with separate ideas, feelings, and needs. Over time, as the child grows to adulthood and is exposed to more ways of thinking about things, there is typically a good deal of confusion about identity, thoughts, and feelings. Unless there is an opportunity to develop a separate sense of self, there will likely be a lot of anxious thinking about what is real but little ability to think for oneself in a self-reflective way."

Fortunately for Hana, her time in Cordonia does seem to present those sort of opportunities. There are story threads in TRR3 that address this identity crisis. But does it culminate into something that benefits her, or only the people around her?

Things She Does For Those She Loves

Before we move into passions, it's important to acknowledge a category that toes the line between acquired skill and interest. These involve activities that she's not entirely passionate about, but still derives some enjoyment from doing.

Her enjoyment of these skills is usually less about the activity itself, and more dependent on her fondness for sharing or socializing through it. Despite her mostly-isolated childhood, Hana is by nature a very social person. She is enthusiastic (though initially a bit wary and fearful of rejection) about making friends, loves sharing her knowledge and skills, and does not hesitate to reach out even to people who don't treat her well and accommodation them into whatever she's doing (eg. every single time she included Olivia in something in TRR2). So it makes sense that there are certain things she enjoys doing because it involves her helping someone, or allows her to spend time with them, or helps her relive precious memories.

On some level, you see this with some of her skill scenes. Often a scene will end with Hana following up a confession about her lack of interest in a particular activity with a line about how sharing that knowledge makes her happy. But you also see this enjoyment in other contexts.

Another context where she truly enjoys doing things, is when they're of a competitive nature. She thrives on the thrill of outwitting opponents and friendly rivalries. A great example of this is the dance-off she does with Maxwell in TRR1 Ch 18, where she enjoys pitting her skills against Maxwell's so much that they both agree they'd be great as a dancing duo. You also see this whenever she's competing in games with her trusted friends. This is perhaps why you see at least a handful of sequences where she expresses an interest in sports.

But perhaps the activities she enjoys the most - that aren't for herself - are ones that have her share space with someone she loves and trusts. Cooking and baking rank high among these skills. Baking began as a domestic skill that would serve her well in a noble household, but she loves sampling batter/dough and practically glows on seeing the other person's enjoyment of her craft. Her creating her own recipe for hot chocolate is especially interesting because it's a skill that she values highly, and that she only shares with people very close to her.

Hana's interest in fashion design also has interesting origins. She is skilled in embroidery and knows fashion trends well, and has learned from her grandmother to make her own clothes. Of particular note is the black-red-gold qipao/cheongsam that was the last dress she ever made with her grandmother. Her attachment to the dress is so strong that she experiences intense distress when Lorelai threatens to take it from her in Valtoria. She also loves designing dresses for loved ones - for the MC herself, we see her conceptualize and design dresses at least twice (a traditional-inspired outfit in Shanghai which is appropriately titled "Hana's Heart", and a blue and white dress for their engagement photoshoot).

Through these examples we can see instances of Hana finding joy in things she didn't have as much interest in, just through the process of sharing that experience with someone else. It's great, on the one hand, because Hana is no longer alone and she gains a renewed perspective on something that came from a very painful part of her life.

On the other hand, "I find this more fun now that I'm doing it with you" comes with its own downsides. If you use it too often, you're in danger of using it as a copout that centers the person she is teaching rather than her own journey.

And if you're a writer that makes efforts for her story with great reluctance...such an explanation will rapidly change into an excuse to be lazy with that journey.

Passions

Among the many, many, many skills Hana was made to learn in the bid to make her the perfect debutante and the perfect noble wife...just a few rank as ones she does wholeheartedly, joyfully, passionately. But they are perhaps the most important.

After all, these are skills that Hana had honed for herself. They're meant for her consumption and her enjoyment, and she often shares them only with people she trusts.

Not only are these things, interests that she enjoys and lovingly cultivates...but she is also fiercely protective of them. She will not allow anyone - not even her parents - to turn something so personal into a public spectacle that she's uncomfortable with. This is most clearly seen when she tells us about rebelling against her parents for piano performances. At a very young age, Hana recognises the value of her music, and she pushes back against any attempts to cheapen it or turn it into some warped form of social currency. She takes ownership of her gift, and from that moment on anything she does with that talent is done on her own terms.

Like music, reading was a skill cultivated to make her an attractive prospect for noble matches - only for Hana to find pleasure in the act of reading herself. Here again, building a passion for reading allows her to rebel in her own unique way. She smuggles in books that she knows her parents will find either too frivolous or too objectionable - often by hiding the books, or modifying the purpose of the book to them so it would sound appropriate.

We must remember - this is a woman who still feels nervous breaking rules even a year after she has left her parents' home. It would take such a woman considerable amounts of imagination and courage, to be able to do what she did in an environment as restrictive as her's. For Hana to be able to do this, she must have really valued the joy that reading books had given her.

Flowers are an extremely important part of Hana's life. Symbolically, they are part of her mother's House Crest, and personally, she is someone who is naturally drawn to flowers. In TRR2 Ch 4, she confesses to devouring the words of The Language of Flowers, and knows the symbolic meaning of each one by heart. She can even make her own bouquets. During the Costume Gala in TRR3, she dresses up in a heavily floral gown as the Goddess of Spring.

One of the most captivating sequences that captures her love for flowers in the TRR2 Conservatory scene, where she takes the MC to see the spectacle of a night-blooming flower unfurling under the light of the moon. It is especially fascinating that her already latent passion for flowers grew further with the help of another passion - reading.

Another thing you will clearly notice about each of these "passions" is that when she speaks about them, she is expressive. Liam confirms this in his Diplomacy scene in TRR3, where he tells the MC that her passion always shows in her eyes.

The proof for what Liam says here is in every one of these scenes. In the scenes compiled under the "Acquired Skills" category, her expression rarely changes and her tone is indifferent. In contrast, we are exposed to a variety of moods when she talks of these things that she's so passionate about.

She seethes with anger at the memory of her parents forcing her to perform the piano to crowds, whispers conspiratorially about forbidden literature, loses herself in the scent of flowers. These are moments where Hana acknowledges her individual pleasures, and expresses pride over the way she guards them from people who will not respect what those things mean to her.

These are things she knows forwards and backwards, but not because she was forced to cultivate and perfect those talents. They're things she knows because when Hana Lee is truly interested in something, she will plunge herself into it, body and soul. These are things that gave her comfort at a time when she had no one, and they form the happiest memories she has had for her childhood so far.

These are passions that are so intricately a part of her that it is impossible for her to give them up. Not for her family, not for her friends, not for her wife - no one.

Conclusion

The base of Hana's story has always been rich with possibilities. There were various ways the writing team could have written it to benefit her story. At the hands of a skilled writer who loved the character for who she was rather than for what the MC could gain from her, the writing of these talents could have been used to further enrich Hana's journey and give her a chance to find herself. Unfortunately, the writing team at the helm of TRR were neither.

Over and over again, the writers used Hana's plethora of talents to make her useful to people, rather than turn the focus of that arc back on her. The MC learns these skills and goes up the ranks, the MC benefits from Hana's offers of help, the MC is the one who becomes a Duchess and Champion of the Realm. Even on a level of resolving her issues with her parents, the writers have her prove that she can still be useful to them without getting married to a man. In the eyes of her writers, her skills are still meant to make her useful to someone - just that the person at the center changes from her parents to the MC.

Because the MC is positioned as someone who "enlightens" Hana to how harmful her situation was, and because the narrative expects Hana to be forever grateful to her - the MC is allowed to use her and take credit for Hana's hard work (eg. The windmill move during the polo game) and get away with it.

When you put all this evidence together, and then go back to the descriptors I put up at the very beginning of this essay, you will see what the team's intention with her, always had been. To create a woman the MC could be attracted to, a woman whose skills the MC could use to advance her own interests...while still being viewed as her hero and saviour. Despite being one of the few people to get the most detailed account of her upbringing and struggles, the MC still chooses to view her in the most simplistic ways, still praises her for her skills and "perfection" rather than support her in any consistent way (more on this in other essays).

The fandom wasn't much better in this respect either. Lots of TRR fans still see no real distinction between the skills Hana had to struggle to learn, and the interests that made her truly happy. The writing team itself contributes to this inaccurate conflating of her interests and skills by having multiple characters label her 'perfect' over and over.

This results in a situation where those hard-earned skills and those moments of joy are conflated together, and spoken of like they are the same thing. But they are not. To speak of the two as if there were no difference, is to ignore completely the difficult, even disturbing, history behind how she acquired them.

The skills the MC grinningly labels her perfect for, are skills that emerged from a very traumatizing environment. Her joys - that many in this fandom so mockingly placed alongside the things she forced herself to do - were perhaps the only opportunities she had to take back her agency and claim something for her own.

To pretend that the two are one and the same is a gross misrepresentation of what was actually depicted in canon.

Next: "Perfect!Hana": Author Bias and the Importance of Framing (coming soon!)

[pretty-weird-ideas]

Episode Seven and White Tears

The trial's allegory is not just a lynching, it is a lynching for a Black person entering a relationship with a respected White man, and proceeding to leave him. It's not a murder case, as seen through the show, there's actually very little emphasis on the murder in the episode in regards to Louis. The emphasis is on his "seduction", his "ungiving nature", and "refusing to give his body". It is a public humiliation and lynching for turning a respected white man down. The crime isn't hurting Lestat, it's hurting his feelings.

Lestat doesn't speak to the audience about the pain of his throat being slit. He speaks of loneliness, the audience chants and jeers about how cheating was justified if Louis isn't putting out. Santiago isn't talking about the murder, he's talking about how much of a sexual deviant Louis is the second he is introduced. The show is telling us what's important to the case, and what language hurt and stuck out to Louis the most. The deciding factor in the eyes of the audience, the story that Sam and Santiago are trying to tell, is that the crime is heinous because Louis turned down Lestat.

The audience isn't mad about the murder, they're mad about Lestat's emotions, they're mad about the betrayal, and they are mad that Louis and Claudia didn't put up with things. The case built against the two of them isn't based on violence, it's based on white tears. Louis isn't called a monster for slitting Lestat's throat, the audience member calls him a monster for turning down Lestat's advances.

The show is clear that the trial isn't really about the murder, it is about Louis not "giving enough" for Lestat. It's about Louis asking Lestat to turn Claudia and literally bargaining his happiness where he literally gets on his knees and says "I'll be happy for you, I will never leave you if you do this for me". It's never been about the murder, it's quite literally just shaming Louis for not "loving a good man who might be abusive".

At the end of the day, the trial as framed and written by Sam is building a case off of Lestat's tears, not actual physical harm.

Like my skin is crawling but also the show is so chilling with how it portrayed the "He's a good man so hold your tongue and endure! Lest you read as ungrateful".

Anyways someone take the laptop from me before this becomes my life.

[burr-ell]

What I love about Spy x Family's recent chapters concerning Martha and Henry—two secondary characters with little direct connection to the plot as we've known it—is that Endo's taking the opportunity to once again hammer home what the story's actual stakes are. The idea of potential conflict between Ostania and Westalis isn't just window dressing for a wacky wholesome badass family gimmick—the previous wars are real events that various characters lived through, and all of them are in some way affected by it and have good reasons to want to avoid another one. This is primarily an action-adventure/slice-of-life manga with a lot of sendups to spy movies and pop culture of the 60s, but I think those things hold much more weight with the thematic underpinning of the horrors of war and the ruin it leaves behind.

[mikkeneko]

While writing that Dragon Age 2 post the other day, I made a narrative connection I had never made before.

I was writing about the Templar route, and about how the game makes no bones about how the Templar route is the evil route, it's clearly narratively marked as such. Because the structure of the game sets itself up from the start to make Hawke have some sympathy for the mages: they are the child of a mage and the sibling of a mage. This is an issue that Hawke cannot exempt themselves from having opinions on.

But that said, yes, you can choose the Templar route. You can decide that the tragedy of your family being ripped apart by the mage plight has hardened Hawke's heart against them. You can join forces with the Order that has hunted your family members their whole lives. You can choose to tighten the iron fist, instead of choosing to break it. You can become the ruler of Kirkwall. You can kill your sister.

And then I realized: That's Meredith's story.

Meredith, whose sister was a mage, the sister who died from it and ripped her family apart in the process. Meredith, who hardened her heart against people like her sister and dedicated the rest of her life to punishing others like her. Meredith, who joined causes with the Templar order who made that happen. Meredith, who took over the city.

You can choose to become Meredith. The game lets you do that. But you have to know -- as you climb over her corpse to ascend her bloodied throne -- that it's not a 'good' choice.