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alagaesia-headcanons · 11 months ago

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I have a proper update for Clear Horizons!

(For my new followers, here's an explanation of this fic!)

I've finally finished drafting the section that was giving me the most trouble!!! I'm not entirely out of the woods yet, but it's a significant and gratifying mark of progress. The part I'm working on is after Murtagh and Orrin first meet, but before a scene I've planned where their relationship takes a turn and reaches a new understanding. So in that span they have a lot of chemistry and care for each other but they're also still hesitant and guarded. It's a very tricky dynamic to write. It still needs more depth, I haven't gotten to that emotional development scene yet, but I'm now finished with the first week Murtagh spends in Aberon with Orrin.

My main breakthrough with the frustrations I was having with that was to cut two of the scenes I already wrote and move them to a later point in the story. Then I reconsidered what I wanted the first week to cover. The writing progress went especially slow, even by my standards, and the section ended much longer than I expected it too. But I think both were worthwhile. This section is crucial for laying a lot of the foundation everything else will build upon. The prolonged time I spent with each piece gave me the room to untangle the needs of the story and the detail throughout numerous consecutive scenes gives clarity to the major cornerstones. (I pray I'll still feel that way when I go back to edit it later lol)

I optimistically think the pace will pick back up again when I carry on with the rest of act 2. This should be one of the only continuous spans of time that's fully rendered out with such intensive and thorough detail. I think just two other points in the story might get a similar treatment. I'm approaching the rest with a more selective focus that helps move the story along.

I have a plan for how I should proceed now, which has numerous parts. First and foremost with concerns to Clear Horizons, I'm going to take the opportunity to pause writing the actual fic and shift back to note taking, with the goal of hammering out Thorn's character arc. Unlike my last desperate bout of note taking, I've been prepared to tackle this from the outset. In this whole process, Thorn has been by far the hardest part for me, for a myriad reasons. It's very important to me to give him a character arc with meaningful significance to the story, and initially I had no idea how to accomplish that, but I realized that I had to start without it if I wanted to start at all. So I drafted all of act 1 aware that I still needed to figure out my intentions for Thorn and I would have to add in more writing to integrate that.

I can tell this is the right time to do that. I'm glad I didn't let it stop me from jumping in; it feels more approachable now then it did then. I still anticipate that it'll be very tricky, but now I have some ideas to guide me and I believe I can do this. I also hope it will fill out some of the other gaps in the plans I do have. My last note taking stint helped a lot with the other main character arcs. Orrin's specifically is the strongest right now, I think it's in a really good pace. Murtagh's is far improved, though it feels like it still has some pieces missing. As I wrestle with Thorn, I'm going to pay close attention to how that can contribute to Murtagh's arc because they naturally should weigh on each other quite a lot. I hope figuring out my intentions with Thorn will provide much of the connective tissue I'm missing right now.

Before continuing with the main writing, I'd also like to edit the rest of act 1 that I haven't gotten to yet. It's a pretty arduous process, but I know it wouldn't be smart to put it off much longer. It's very valuable and I should at least edit up to the last section of act 1. It might be more effective to wait on that one because I think it will be overhauled the most after Thorn is properly added to the equation.

There are some other things I want to add in act 1 too. While making those notes, I recognized key aspects of both Murtagh and Orrin that deserve more exploration. I plan to take the first two sections, one about each of them, and divide them both in half so there's four sections, then I can add those details throughout them. I think it will also improve the pacing. That's currently not my priority, so I don't know if I'll do that before returning to writing progress, but it's in the plans.

On a different track, I want to take a small break before getting back to that grind. For a significant length of time now, Clear Horizons has held my attention largely uninterrupted. It's eclipses my other creative impulses. I don't feel like that's inherently bad, I often set aside my other interests for a while to pursue inspiration for a certain thing. But given how long I think Clear Horizons will take, even from this point, I don't want to do that the whole time. It's already been a long time since I've drawn anything, and longer still since I've worked with clay. I have a stretch of time off around Christmas and I think I'm going to force myself to not work on writing during that and enjoy other things. Since I have quite limited free time in my day to day, part of me gets frustrated feeling like having a lot of time and not using it to work on this is a waste. I need to remind myself that a project like this is not a sprint, it's a marathon, and taking breaks will benefit me in the end.

(There's a very high chance I'll make some Eragon related art anyway lol. And also Hubert. Maybe I'll show you guys Hubert.)

I also hope the mental break will push me to answer the asks people have sent me too! I'm sorry it's taken so long, I promise I won't forget! Clear Horizons honestly has been the biggest distraction from that. That being said, since it occupies so much of my mind, I always adore taking about it. Of course I still welcome all kinds of asks, but especially anything about Murtagh, Orrin, them together, or my fic specifically- and I'll also probably answer any of those right away because I seriously can't resist lmao (This isn't a headcanon blog anymore but this ship is the sole exception, I have so many feelings)

I really hope you guys will love this when it's finally complete. Part of me is nervous, but I'm doing my best to trust that the act of putting so much devotion into it will shine through on the other side ❤️

#clear horizons chatter #eragon #inheritance cycle #murtagh #orrin #yall this is Long ahdjdhsjfk #if you read it all youre a real one #ill also be considering how to share more wip content going forward!#(justice for hubert)

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missmrah · 2 years ago

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what did u think of greywaren

I don’t normally get this kind of ask so this is actually exciting for me! Even though I’m still working through a lot of my feelings (and will probably require a re-read at some point to fully process), I’ll try to summarize my current thoughts without direct spoilers… warning: some of my takeaway is not exactly positive.

I think, for me at least, the plot of The Dreamer Trilogy, and especially Greywaren, often required too much willing suspension of disbelief.

It suffers from existing within the established universe of The Raven Cycle while attempting to vastly expand upon it. New and then subsequent revelations regarding Dreamers/Dreams, the Mods/Visionaries, and *spoilers* about Ronan himself that were meant to advance the plot and up the stakes, often felt cheaply contrived. Worse, sometimes these contrivances actually felt like Stiefvater was coming just shy of retconning the events of her previous works, retroactively adding to the narrative to the point of making it nearly unrecognizable.

This meant that as I found myself constantly having to reevaluate my understanding of how this universe operates it wasn’t generally in a way that I felt the storytelling had earned; there weren’t enough satisfying moments of, “OMG, I should have/didn’t see that coming (that’s so cool)?!” Instead, my response was more often, “Oh… yeah okay. I guess I can accept that.” To be clear, this didn’t ruin my enjoyment, but the fact is, I might have genuinely loved the events and twists in Greywaren if there had been a little more groundwork to make them feel less unprecedented (an example would be the nature/origin of the Visionaries, which introduced about a million questions and the only explanations we were given were the ones convenient for the immediate story, which unfortunately I remain unconvinced made much sense within the context of the universe?) For me, a little extra thoughtful foreshadowing would have gone a long way. (To be honest, I felt this way sometimes while reading Blue Lily, Lily Blue and also The Raven King). Ultimately, if TDT had existed independent of TRC, the extended scope of the world and the magic that exists in it wouldn’t have introduced so many glaring gaps in consistency… but therein lies another problem: if it hadn’t been about the Lynch brothers I might not have read it in the first place.

All of that said, I actually did really enjoy Greywaren, and I came around to some of the story choices that at first I had found hard to swallow. Stiefvater’s dedication to character exploration and development in both TRC and TDT is what really makes her writing shine and both these series bring to life a compelling cast of characters that practically spill off the page with their raw and messy emotions, at once loveable and agonizingly human and so very deeply and beautifully flawed. In the end, I find that the heart she brings to these characters and their feelings and relationships with one another is more than enough to make up for the confounding plot twists that occasionally lead to somewhat bewildering or unsatisfying payoffs. But really, so what if I’m not overly attached to the world building? Let’s not pretend my investment in these novels was ever for anything other than the emotional journey of Ronan Lynch et all—and later Hennessy and co as I came to love them too—and in that department I think Greywaren absolutely delivered. (I might have liked to see more Adam Parrish, and more mentions of his dreamt motorcycle too… but this is why we have fanfic!)

I hope this wasn't too long, sometimes I get carried away xx

#greywaren #the dreamer trilogy #the raven cycle #ronan lynch #sort of a review #sort of me just rambling #thanks for the ask!

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desmondkane-of-ao3-fame · 1 year ago

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So how would Skara and willow become an actual couple? I’m only asking because you have a few different answers.

Unfortunately, I'm not certain what to say, because if you're asking me 'How canonically would Skara and Willow get together,' it's kind of difficult one to answer.

The reason I've given so many answer's as to how Skara and Willow become a couple is because A) People asked often for different variations of it, and B) The show itself doesn't give a lot insight into their relationship, so a lot of speculation's can be made. We know Skara bullied Willow in the past, and we know now the two are friends, but a lot of specifics and nitty gritty details are less clear. The show never even gives a hand-wavey explanation for why Skara and Willow became friends, for Titan's sake. It can make for pretty fun speculation fodder and fan theorizing, but it also means creating a perfectly 100% show accurate answer to how Willow and Skara start dating involves a great deal of headcannoning, and also would involve explaining how Huntlow would break up since it's fairly obvious the intention at the end is that the two are in some form of romantic relationship.

I dooooooooo have something of an idea, a potential outline for a long-term Skarlow focused post-timeskip fanfic I'd be happy to see someone tackle, but with life, GS, and another project, there's too much for me to ever do it myself. So if you would like to take up the challenge of writing it yourself, feel free to take the idea and do it yourself. Hell, I might even beta-read it for you.

It starts from Skara's perspective as it follows her developing feelings over Willow while the pair are at Hexside. Over the years, Skara can't help but grow fond of her team captain and friend, eventually realizing she likes Willow a lot more then she should. She refuses to act on her feelings though, both because of her past as a bully and the fact that she's dating Hunter, so Skara mostly just vents to her bestie Viney about it all. After Hexside, Skara becomes a teachers aide and thinks she's fully gotten over her feelings for Willow until Hunter's 21st birthday, where he proposes to her in front of all their family and friends. Willow runs off, panicked, Luz and Amity follow after, and the party attendee's, unsure what to do, try either to help cheer Hunter up, or slip away before things get bad, which is Skara's method. Later, she hears that Willow broke up with Hunter, and a tiny, selfish pang of hope in Skara's chest reminds her that she hasn't given up her feelings for Willow. Even if she wishes she really had.

Later through Willow's perspective, we see how her relationship with Hunter was like. How she always liked him, cared about him, but never felt the same way for him as she did for her. How she always saw Amity and Luz and her dad's and wondered if she would eventually feel as happy with Hunter as they seemed with their partners. And how she never wanted to hurt Hunter, but after he proposed to her, she just didn't know how to react other then to panic. Essentially, she'd always love Hunter, but never felt in love with him, which leads to a lot of her personal conflict in the story. How she never wanted to hurt her friends, but now seems to have created this painful awkwardness in the Hexsquad because she could never be honest with Hunter or herself...

The main focus would be on both girls and their complicated emotions, both regarding their respective situations and, after a while, their feelings for each other. It would also feature a number of subplots, such as Skara being a teachers aid, Boscha and her relationship with Maya, and Hunter's own journey of self discovery after the breakup.

Not all the details are worked out perfectly, but I think there's at least something here, ya know?

#the owl house #skarlow #willow park #skara #toh #cute #the owl house fanfiction

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berri-hopefulspouse · 4 years ago

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Okokokay, I’m awake, lemme explain this particular post because uh. It was like 2 AM when I posted it and I was hardly awake to explain it properly. I might write about the event itself in the future, but I have a LOT of projects going on rn so I need to uh. NOT SUBJECT MYSELF TO TEMPTATION. Lmao. ANYWAY. If you want the full explanation behind this post- it’ll be under the RM for the sake of not angering all of my followers :’)

TW: Internalized Manipulation, Internalized High-Expectative behavior, Suicide, also for uh. A generally Long ass fucking post.

Basically...Ren has a secret. One they had completely forgotten about until their memory was retrieved post TTH- or rather...a few weeks following the memory retrieval. One secret that...as far as they know- they’re taking with them to their own fucking grave, rather than tell anyone what happened.

Sure, they had a crush on Makoto. Sure, they were always too afraid to tell him how they felt- both out of fear of rejection, but for another...much more guilty reason.

See, when they ran away from home- ran away from their family...it was because they were controlling, yet neglectful. The family they “loved” never really gave them the emotional support they needed at a time when they were suffering- and in some people’s cases, only added onto it. They ran away because they were tired of being bound by their family’s stubborn expectations, and were tired of feeling like they weren’t good enough to do what everyone else was doing.

The problem was... They never truly resolved that trauma by running away. They had NO idea at the time how to do what they needed to give themselves that emotional support that they needed desperately growing up. Which of course, resulted in them taking that same sort’ve controlling, high-expectative behavior...and turning it on themselves.

Joining as many clubs as they wanted, studying late at night, getting double shifts to pay the rent of their apartment...They did everything they could to stay on top. It was a habit they didn’t know they were doing to themselves- they just saw it as being hardworking to maintain the idea that they were doing alright on their own. And of course, she- Junko- was no help to this. Manipulating them to work even harder- and that if they fall from the throne they were building for themselves, that they’ll be left alone. After all- for the first time in years, as a result...they were relatively popular. But not because of economical status, or because of beauty- or anything relatively of the sort. Because of their intelect. Their talents. Their ultimate...they were appreciated for something they could DO for others. And it was that, that gave them what they thought was the emotional support they craved since growing up- and they would be damned to let go of that now.

Ontop of this, they never really told anyone about being transmasc. They never told anyone they were AFAB. Everyone just assumed they were AMAB and nonbinary- which they agreed was fine with them.

They were elected student council president, due to their uncanny ultimate to figure out that something was wrong with their class- and have the compassion to sit down and talk with others about it. When a student was struggling in a class, they’d either personally tutor the student or have someone they know who excels in that class tutor them. They were advocating for the luck students classes to be more personalized and catered to their talent, much like how all the other students had their classes personalized and catered to theirs. They did everything in their power to make a difference, to make an impression that they knew would never leave the class- unknowing that them just...being themselves, would’ve been more than enough.

However...it was all too much for them. It was draining, it was exhausting, it was driving them crazy. They hardly got any sleep, they hardly had time to take care of themselves due to their various after-school activities and jobs they maintained. It was at this point they realized something was horribly, horribly wrong with the way they were living, but...that seed of internal expectations had burrowed itself too deep. Basically threatening themselves that if they couldn’t manage this- what they perceived to be a “normal” school life, albeit with some disadvantages- then they were just...weak. They HAD to keep themselves busy, because that’s how they make a difference in this world!

For being an empath...they’re terrible at taking care of themselves.

Despite themselves, they felt that sinking emptiness that they felt back home starting to return to their heart. So what do they do? Pour themselves further into their classes, their work, their social life- what little of it they maintained after class- their clubs, their student-council presidency.

Even then, that wasn’t enough. They tried on their life. They broke under that pressure, and they have the scars to prove that. It was the first time anyone in their class knew that something much deeper resided within their class president.

...Yet, at the time, Makoto was the only one who yelled at them for it- both out of his own naivety and his own sense of guilt.

Skip to a few months in the future- a good 2 weeks before Junko’s perceived plan would go into full effect, and a few days before the supposed fuzzy memory they’ve had in the past came into fruition.

Makoto and Ren had been getting closer, yes. Ren wanting to learn and, as a result, be better to themselves- so they could in turn be better for their class. Makoto just wanting to help, seeing as he looked up to them.

Still, they didn’t hang out that often- both due to their own class schedules being all over the place, and Ren never having much time out of school. Sure, Kyoko would be helping pay their rent- which let them have the option to quit one of their jobs...but they still had to afford food each month, so they still kept one job- both for the experience and because they felt they had to. They didn’t want to ask the school for more help than they “needed” to.

So, when Makoto was hosting a small sleepover with several of the boys from his class- including them- they were a bit excited. Due to their business, they never really had the time to really...hang out with other people. Develop an actual social life. They never had the chance to hang out with friends outside of class, and never had the chance to do normal teen things- like sleepovers and school drama and shit.

Naturally, of course they went.

They had...such a fun time that night. Goofing off with the boys- even some of the more reclusive and uptight boys would eventually loosen up around Makoto. Of course- it wasn’t like usual more “Feminine” sleepovers- the boys would mostly be playing a lot of video games, eat snacks, what-have you. Makoto would try to get them to watch anime, only to be teased for it. Ren had to break up that little spat before it got out of hand- wanting just as much to protect Makoto.

Soon enough, everyone was falling asleep. Most of the others didn’t want to sleep in Makoto’s room themselves- saying that was too “gay” for them-- Only to get ribbed at by Ren as a result, despite what they tell themselves about being a straight enby (a contradictory statement in and of itself). So, Ren, wanting to prove a point to them, decided they’d stay with Makoto. Unaware of how flustered they were at the thought, Makoto headed back to his room with them in tow- ignoring how the boys were calling out various...unsavory one-liners. (Much to his dismay, seeing as Makoto would eventually have to drag Ren by the arm- lest they start an actual fight in his house, his parent’s would fucking END him, Ren stop it--)

At the very least, it was calmer. The two sat, talked for hours, goofing off and watching anime until close to 1 AM. By then, they’re still watching anime through his laptop- Makoto braiding their hair out of their eyes so its easier for them to see.

This entire night, they’ve just been feeling so...so flustered around him. So flustered, so confused. They just want to do something about the feeling, they want to understand what it is they’re feeling...this feeling that they’ve felt since they first met him- and has only intensified over time...has intensified over the course of the night.

So, they do something impulsive. They do something they didn’t think they KNEW they were doing until they did so. They kiss him- genuinely and caringly. Its then they did realize how they felt- someone not so straight, not so ‘perfect’...and for that brief moment it was okay. For that brief moment, being perceived as who they actually are...was okay.

And then that moment was broken, hearing a knock on their window- one of the boys had gone to investigate what was going on, and was peering through the window.

And that sudden panic, that fear of losing what they have- of losing the respect of their class...it held its grip on their heart. They start freaking out, mumbling to themselves about how they were going to be made fun of. Makoto tries to calm them down, tell them its okay- that it’s fine- trying to insinuate that he kinda felt the same way.

But, they leave. They flee with one last final word to him;

“...You don’t even know.”

A message to themselves- about what they know about love- and to him...that he doesn’t know what would happen if they loose that social status.

...The following day, they pour their heart out to Junko. They explain everything that happened- and they’re told of the device that can wipe memories. That can, essentially, erase the past. Of course they’re reluctant- their good morals and goody-two-shoes nature makes them hesitant. But, when she reminds them of what would happen once rumors starts to spread... They agree its for the best. That no one else should remember what happened that night. But to ONLY erase that night.

...Little did they know, that a few weeks down the line, there would be so, so much more erased than a single night.

So, by Monday, everyone has seemingly forgotten the whole event. They swore to themselves that day to never tell anyone- especially him- about what happened...both because of the event itself...but because of if he found out what they did following it- they didn’t know if he’d ever forgive them.

Losing their social status...losing that emotional support from their class...at the time; nothing else was worth it. Nothing else; even love.

After all, they’re expected to be little mx. perfect.

When their memories are finally retrieved... Or rather- the weeks following it, as an after-effect- they remember the whole event. That guilt they carried with them about what Junko did to them only multiplies when they remember their other massive, massive mistake. Sure, things turned out well in the end- they’re with Makoto, everything is getting better... He’s shown that even through their past- he’d be there for them...but even so, they can’t tell him.

It’s a secret they’re taking with them to their grave. And with any hope, that’s exactly how they hope it’ll stay.

...And they forget, that just as well for everyone else, the procedure had brought back all their school memories, as well.

Makoto won’t...say anything on the matter- knowing how their anxious self might react. If they want to tell him, they will. But if not...it’s a secret for their past self to keep, forever.

...It definitely does explain some of their behaviors though, now that he does think about it.

#[ Ren Rambles ]#[ Emotionally Hopeful ]#I spent the last hour I've been awake writing this sdjkfhskd #I might write this into an actual fully-developed story later. But have this explanation for now.#For now; have a lot of angst :'D #They had a decent school life at Hopes Peak I swear #Just. A lot of Junko meddling. ~^~;#long post//#suicide tw//#suicide ment//#manipulation tw//#high expectations tw//#The TLDR of this is; Their own goddamn extremely high expectations for themselves was their downfall. It slowly deteriorated their life #And slowly crumbled the perceived version of themselves.

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shihalyfie · 3 years ago

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I did like episode 8 of Ghost game. Ruli's interest in creepy stuff or at least thrills like go-kart racing seem to play a bigger part and Gammamon seems to like her. I like we got a bit more of their group dynamic when they were relaxing in the first part of the episode.

I agree!

The thing about these episodes is that while I understand why a lot of people see these episodes as somewhat slow, we are actually getting a steady stream of information about the group dynamic. This might be me purely speaking as a 02 fan who's intimately aware of how 02 used this kind of writing style to its advantage, but I don't think it's good to underestimate this kind of "seemingly pointless banter" because it's actually still valuable information. Especially since they said already that they want to make it a story that has interactions beyond just those between partners, so if we're making this a story of a group of six rather than three groups of two, it's extremely important that we get the foundation for the group's dynamics and inner relationships before we start building off of them.

You’ll have to forgive me for using this ask as a tangent opportunity, but my experience thinking about those loaded words "character development" always involves the question "was there actually no character development, or was it just subtle about it?” I think people really don’t tend to appreciate the necessity for apparently meaningless banter, and this is why I have a hard time when people pin certain early episodes of Appmon or the like as “filler” just because they didn’t necessarily drive home any plot revelations or say “this is what I learned today!”, because you’re still getting information about their mentalities, behavior, and interactions, which become important when those relationships are put to the test later in the series. Adventure is well-known for its “good character development” because it put said development front and center and made episodes that were unsubtle about “this is what I learned about myself today!”, but it was only able to sustain that by also filling its time with banter and other interactions, and on the same token there are definitely things out there that were big on “this is what I learned today!” but still don’t reveal much about the characters when you think about it (this is one of the biggest differences between the original Adventure and the reboot).

It’s also a source of a lot of the many disputes within Digimon fans about what works are considered to have “good character development” or not -- for instance, the accusations 02 gets of having “flat” characters with no development, whereas those who know the series well are fully aware that we actually know a damn lot about the relevant characters to borderline psychological degrees, it just has to be gleaned from said interactions and watching their behavior over the course of the series rather than expecting the series to say it unsubtly to your face. Or the really infamous cognitive dissonance disputes over Xros Wars, where depending on whom you ask the series either is all style and no substance, or arguably has too much it’s juggling at once -- in fact, it's provably untrue that there isn't any character development nor coherent arcs for any human or Digimon character in Xros Wars, and I've seen people even unpack full meta analysis on them, but because almost every moment in the series is dedicated to "advancing the plot in some way" and very little downtime or explanation of home life backstories, there's a bit of added detachment in that you have to unpack all of those character arcs as they pertain to the fantasy isekai world in a very cerebral manner, instead of personally relating to them much. Added to the huge number of things it has to juggle at once and spread thin a bit, it leads to a viewer more used to the Adventure model of character development often mentally clocking out and being unable to emotionally connect to its contents, so that’s how the series ends up so divisive over whether it had “good character writing” or not. And then on the flip side you have Hunters, which is nothing but the character dynamics and banter, but doesn't advance beyond the initial setup, which basically puts it on the other extreme.

I’ve seen a hell of a lot of things within and outside Digimon that I can say truly are devoid of character substance in either the character arc or the banter/dynamic sense, and I can at least tell you that most Digimon works (including the aforementioned both sides of Xros Wars) have put quite a lot of care into establishing their characters in some way, it’s just that whether this is the style of “character writing” you prefer is going to depend on your personal taste. Whether it's about going forward with Ghost Game, or whether it's about going back and re-evaluating older Digimon series or even other works in general, I think it's important to remember that "character development" has a variety of meanings that range from "how much the character changed over the course of the narrative" (you can have a well-"developed" character who doesn't change at all, you know!) to "how much we know about the character's mindset" to "how much one can relate to them". Personally, as a 02 lover, I happen to be in the camp who likes Ghost Game’s current style of laying down banter and dynamics first before doing something with it (which by extension is basically the Adventure/02 model, I’ll fully admit to that), and it’s probably a big reason I’m so attached to Appmon as well, so all of this is amenable to me. Whether they’ll do something with all of this information in later episodes is still up in the air, but I can at least say that we’re definitely still getting a lot to work with from these early episodes alone.

#digimon #digimon ghost game #shiha's ask box #ask-anguirus

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utilitycaster · 4 years ago

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Actual Play: How it works

This is a collection of how I think of actual play as a medium, because TTRPG actual play is a unique one - a combination of improvisation, a rule set, and randomizing elements. This isn’t fully comprehensive, and I may add to it in the future as I come up with more ideas. I’m also thinking of providing some examples/more in-depth stuff for the items in separate posts, so please let me know if that’s something you would want.

Most of the observations here heavily skew towards D&D and Pathfinder actual play, as they are what I know best. Other systems I’ve listened to (PbtA, Cortex, Savage Worlds) fit in here as well, but this may not apply to all actual play, particularly GM-less games or games that are primarily played as one-shots.

Finally, and I say this only because it is a recurring problem on the social media that I happen to find incredibly irritating: you are also welcome and encouraged to have other opinions, disagree with me, dislike all of this, etc. If you have things to say, my inbox is the best place; this is too long for multiple reblogs and this is a sideblog so replies are tricky. However, if you are the kind of person who is inclined to say things like “Actually, there was an exception to this rule! It’s in the backmasked audio at 06:59:32 in the outtakes of episode 192c of Dungeons and Discotheques! :)” I would like to provide you with this actual play line quote from Adaine Abernant in Fantasy High: I think that you feel like you have a lot to offer, and please take this the right way... you don't.

Onto the thoughts, below the jump!

On narrative devices and rules and the random element:

Foreshadowing is possible, but limited to specific circumstances. A GM can (and should) foreshadow! The point of foreshadowing is to set expectations, and GMs should have hints that indicate things about the world that the party may encounter later, provide potential plot hooks, or otherwise provide the party with information. Similarly, players can do things that nod towards as of yet unrevealed elements of their backstories. However, it is impossible to deliberately foreshadow plot resolutions, because it is unknown what they will be. That doesn’t mean that in retrospect things may happen that echo back to earlier events, but the intent to foreshadow was not there - it’s a happy accident.

I don’t want to say normal narrative rules don’t apply because what are the normal narrative rules, really? However, I think an important thing to emphasize is that narrative satisfaction is not guaranteed. This is especially true if the cast has agreed character death is an option, but even beyond that, an unlucky or lucky roll can seemingly cut an arc short or take things in a weird and unforeseen direction. Because there is an element of randomness, randomness will occur. This, along with the character agency I discuss later, is one of my favorite things about actual play. It strips out the need for a moral or message or specific beats - not that those can’t arise, but they can’t be forced - and as such it can make for unusual, creative, and very true-to-life stories even in a fantasy setting.

On character role, viewpoint and agency:

Actual play stories have an ensemble of viewpoint characters (the PCs). This is perhaps the clearest restriction that exists, at least in all of the game systems I’ve mentioned. There is no good way to depict NPCs acting on their own unless the PCs have a way to observe them, unseen (magical or mundane). It is extremely difficult to have one player play multiple PCs, and if a player leaves there is not a good way to recast their PC. This doesn’t mean NPCs can’t do things with each other offscreen that have implications for the story, nor that PCs can’t come and go or become NPCs, but it does mean a good GM is very careful about NPC interactions because it gets very boring and non-collaborative very quickly to watch someone talk with themselves.

The PCs hold a level of agency that characters in other media do not. Statements about how the characters have a mind of their own in original fiction aside (sidebar: I am team ‘they don’t, you just didn’t realize that the way you wrote their personality and the way you wrote your plot conflicted until you actually started writing it out, which is very understandable’) PCs do in fact have a mind of their own separate from the GM and from each other.

Something I like about this is that unless you are coming up with conspiracy theories regarding the interpersonal dynamics of the players themselves (in which case I think you’re both a creep and a weirdo (derogatory)) or if the GM is not respecting player agency (which I feel is usually very easy to see; see below for more on that) you do not get cases of “these characters are together simply because the author felt like pairing them off” as can happen in scripted media. Any romantic relationship is, inherently, a mutually agreed choice between the originators of these characters, and more generally any plot or relationship necessarily needs to have something that appeals to all characters involved. It may be as simple as “these are my friends and I want to keep hanging out”, but, despite this being improv, it’s a medium where saying “no” is always an option.

With that said there is still room for players to be uncooperative or selfish. It’s rare, but it does exist, and I’m personally of the opinion that it’s in part the GM’s responsibility to have a conversation with that player and to not play into their attention grabbing. That said, with one notable exception, all the accusations I’ve seen about this have seemed to me to be more “I don’t like this player/character/ship/arc and I am going to claim they are stealing focus, despite it being justified,” and not genuinely about a player being obnoxious.

Agency separate from the person who creates the world is perhaps the most unique element of actual play and at this point I’m going to talk a little about how a good GM fosters that.

I’ve said before that when a GM has things happen that are not at least mostly a direct response to character actions, they are typically either world-building or a hook, and can be both. I think of this sort of as a variant on Chekhov’s gun, actually; the gun doesn’t have to go off, ultimately, in actual play, but it is saying the following:

This is a world where there are guns hung on the wall sometimes.

Someone else might do something with this gun.

You can attempt to do something with this gun before they do.

And then the players decide how they want to interpret it and what they want to do, and the dice indicate the level of success in doing so.

A good GM should encourage the players to explore and be creative, and more than anything, reward agency. This doesn’t mean rewarding it with success; rather, it means if someone explicitly indicates they want to interact with an element of the world, you should give them the tools such that eventually, they can try to do so. You can also give them reasons in-game why they should change their mind, or make it so that it’s almost certain to fail if that is reasonable, but if you are trying to flat-out shut it down without providing an in-world reason why, the cracks will almost certainly show.

One important thing to remember about GM-ing: GMs will probably come into the game with some ideas of what’s going on in the world, and some level of understanding of what the world looks like. That will be influenced by the players, both in terms of the consequences of their actions and choices, and also by what the players are interested in. Which is to say: even if there is a session zero, and the GM states a specific premise, that can change! Characters develop, player interests change, dice rolls do weird things, and so a good GM absolutely must if not kill their darlings at least remove, recycle, and adapt them based on the direction of the game and motivations of the characters. Even in a plot-driven campaign, the players and GM and what makes them happy needs to drive the story, because fundamentally, this is a game that should be fun. Which brings us to...

On the Watsonian and the Doylist in actual play:

Stepping back for a second: the context in which people are creating fiction influences them. End of sentence. It’s ridiculous to think it doesn’t. This means everything from political events and worldwide trends, to the media the creator is consuming or has consumed, to personal life events. There are always going to be in- and out-of-universe explanations for choices in fiction.

In actual play, the players and GM know the underlying rules of the world, and it’s difficult to truly split the party and have everyone not involved leave in a way that feels fun, so everyone always has information that they can’t really use in-game. Also it’s a fully improvised medium that is primarily theater of the mind, so unconscious choices, misunderstandings, and accidents are frequently not edited out, and people are human. Which is to say I think it’s important to take this into consideration in one’s analysis; it’s not that you can’t incorporate a Watsonian reason for something that happened, but Doylist reasons are given a weight that they may not have in an edited work.

Three of the Doylist reasons beyond the misunderstandings and accidents I wanted to cover are metagaming, awareness that this is for an audience, and character knowledge.

Metagaming exists in many TTRPGs, and it’s not actually inherently bad. When a DM in D&D says “that just hits” you get an idea of the AC of the creature, and you know your own attack rolls, and you can make decisions based on that, when, in a ‘real’ fantasy battle scenario, you probably wouldn’t gain all that insight from a single hit. The rules of the TTRPG are considered part of normal acceptable metagaming. There’s also the more general one; if you start the first session in a tavern, there is an unspoken expectation that the PCs will interact and form an impromptu group and not just quietly drink their ale and leave - basically, the rules of improv still apply. This is a good thing. And finally, there’s the acknowledgement that you are people with feelings and this is a game and so if someone is upset you stop, or you have discussions about consent between sessions that inform actions in-game. Metagaming just gets obnoxious when someone rolls a nat 1 and then argues that this is obvious information and they should know, or looks up every monster in the manual when you encounter it instead of playing true to the character’s knowledge.

In actual play, the ‘hey fellow tavern-goers, would you like to be a group’ form of metagaming, the “oh right this is a story and we should move the story forward,” is even more important than in home D&D games. This is where I recommend listening or reading some Q&As or watching some after shows, because you’ll hear players talk about this. A 5-hour shopping episode or extensive foraging can get boring to watch or listen to (and unlike accidentally boring or frustrating things, are pretty easy to predict and avoid). On the flip side, a risky choice might seem more appealing when you know there’s an audience who would love the payoff.

I am personally, perhaps unsurprisingly given what I said about player dynamic conspiracy theories and randomness (or, outside of this post, my strong dislike of certain popular fan theories), not a big fan of creators catering to audiences’ every whim...but it’s unavoidable that they will take the audience experience in mind.

Finally, character knowledge, which is the opposite of metagaming - when a character knows something the player doesn’t. This is sometimes covered with, for example, GM statements like “you would know, as a person with history proficiency, that this country is actually in a regency period.” If the character had, in improv, before the GM had a chance to say that, mentioned the king, that’s just because the player did not know that and had made an assumption.

Personally I find going deep down the rabbit hole with things like this - “why doesn’t this character, who CLAIMS to be from this country, not know this?”, or clearly OOC statements - tends not to actually spark any interesting theories, but that is, ultimately, an opinion.

A few final thoughts on different formats of actual play

True livestream/live-to-tape (Critical Role, Into the Motherlands, and the second season of Fantasy High): the main thing to keep in mind is Doylist explanations are even more important because there is quite literally no editing. Also, there will possibly be some of those more boring stretches or even a little OOC metagaming discussions within the structure of the game, because there’s no way around it.

Editing, but primarily just to remove long explanations/math and doing soundscaping (NADDPod, Rusty Quill Gaming): Pretty similar; a lot of them even make the choice to leave in OOC metagaming discussions, so it’s mostly that there are fewer cases of people slowly adding numbers.

More extensive editing and possibly some predefined other elements (TAZ, most Dimension 20 shows): this may fall into a more traditional story structure. It’s not to say that there won’t be surprises, because the players do still have agency, but the ‘rails’ might be a little more apparent; there might be some DM monologuing done after the fact (beyond just cleaning up the audio) or choices that were not scripted per se, but not exactly improvised either (think how D20 tends to have pre-set battle maps and earlier seasons had a pretty strict RP/Battle structure.

Somewhat relatedly there are broad story structures, which is more of a spectrum, ranging from sandbox (Critical Role) to very clearly GM-driven missions (TAZ Balance and, to an extent, Amnesty); nearly all of the other shows here fall into a structure of “here is your overall goal, how precisely you get there is up to you although, like any GM, I will provide in-story information on where it may make sense to go that will often funnel you towards specific places.”

I do have a theory that since TAZ Balance in particular was an entry point for so many people, it takes them time to adjust to the more sprawling, unpredictable, and difficult-to-organize stories other actual play can have, but ultimately it is a matter of personal preference and all of these still fall into the category of actual play.

#long post #today in: unsure if anyone wants to read this but that has also never stopped me not even once #and writing this was fun

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out-of-this-dimension · 3 years ago

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Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others. We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox. Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better. Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all. Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually. However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular. Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive. I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64. I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return. I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies.

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story. I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars. Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky. Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it. An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault. Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure. Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault. This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids. We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma. We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma. That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him. While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels. If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels. Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are. But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.

- Revise the scene with Tricky. I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done. And why is he suddenly king now? Did his parents die? He seems not affected by this at all? Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it. Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big. As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out. Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously. And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved. I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again. I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive. This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids. I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that. Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask? I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”. Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest? I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off? They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back. Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing. Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning? Or maybe back in Katina? And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force. It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival. Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen? I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission. I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals. Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies. While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well. While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray. Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”. As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion. Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there). But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this. He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids. Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo? Are they safe somewhere else? Where do they go? How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs. A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me. While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out. I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be. “But why, Amalia? Why are you disappointed by that?” 1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes. 2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy. And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures. Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later? Where were the Krazoa in all of this? Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers? It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much. Which I mean, sure. Family, kiddo game. I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant. As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins. Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations. Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast. Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened). I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it. I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria. Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault. Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible. It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it. Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion. Why? Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level. Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team. Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria. The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short. It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware. I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place? I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic? Also where is my revised Adventures music? Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t?

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign. I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints. I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign. Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels. Self-explanatory. Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points. I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers. It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good. Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly. I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it. And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault. But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot. For variety’s sake.

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind. So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future. I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading! Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s? Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!

#star fox assault #starfox assault #super long #queue'd

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translations-by-aiimee · 3 years ago

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Mistakenly Saving the Villain - Chapter 5

Original Title: 论救错反派的下场

Genres: Drama, Romance, Xianxia, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 5 - Wrong Answer

Readers who have read novels such as transmigration, quick transmigration, and system plotlines, know that if the fate of the character in the story must be changed, it should be prevented before the character's tragic fate has occurred. However, Song Qingshi interpreted this as the event having already occurred, and was meant to save the character who had already suffered a tragic fate. This train of thought meant that his decision was a thousand miles off.

In the original book, Yue Wuhuan only appeared three times:

The first time was when the shou protagonist had just been sold to Golden Phoenix Manor. When he saw the unbearable scene of Yue Wuhuan being played with by the guests, his three views shattered.

The second time was when the protagonist's naive illusion of the future was destroyed and he was forced to accept his identity because of the ridicule and humiliating remarks of Yue Wuhuan.

The third time, Yue Wuhuan was taken out by Jin FeiRen on the Langgan stage to treat the guests and was accidentally torn to pieces by the demon tiger. Jin FeiRen concealed the actual explanation of the demon tiger's madness and treated it as a deliberately arranged game for the banquet. With this extreme fear, he shattered the last trace of the protagonist's dignity, making him completely surrender and become a plaything.

In short, Yue Wuhuan was a small supporting role with little substance, leaving the plot early, using his degeneracy to offset the beauty of the protagonist. His beauty was only like that of a beautiful flower that was about to wither. How can it be compared with the pure and clean flower bud that had not yet bloomed in the dawn?

This was a super simple multiple-choice question that every reader could figure out!

If the system was a living thing and watching over the exam being taken, it would be so angry that it would have come out and beaten that foolish Song Qingshi to death.

Scholar-Tyrant Song didn't know that he had drifted so far from the original goal, but he was still eagerly confident, trying to do his best and vowing to get a perfect score!

On the way back to the Valley of the Medicine King, Song Qingshi had recalled all the memories of his original body and integrated it with its massive knowledge of medicine and alchemy. There were rare and exotic herbs and miraculous medicines in the cultivation world. However, similar to traditional Chinese medicine, even if the medicine worked wonders, the science behind the effects of these medicines was still a mystery.

Modern medicine conducts systematic research on traditional Chinese medicine to find out the monarch-minister-auxiliary relationship within its components, extracted the useful ingredients in each concoction, and then developed medicine that was easier to take and had even better results.

A female scientist won the Nobel Prize for this, benefiting the world. Song Qingshi focused on modern medicine, leaped away from the traditional path of immortality, and quickly found new ideas for solving problems for many areas that the original body had failed to properly study. He used the Tiangong Pavilion to make modern scientific instrument substitutes, and then analyze the effective ingredients in the immortal medicines, purify them, research them, and even artificially synthesize them. . .

In Song Qingshi's mind, there were countless experimental schemes in an endless stream, and there were tens of thousands of books and inexhaustible medicinal materials in the Medicine King's Valley, as well as abundant research funds.

He was overjoyed, like a mouse that fell into a vat of rice. He wanted to kiss the system if he could.

Song Qingshi fully understood why the original body lived here, staying in such a cultivation paradise. He could live here for the rest of his life!

He could immerse himself in the ocean of intense studying and research every day. He could dedicate his life and soul to his favourite medical god. No one could send him back!

Song Qingshi looked at Yue Wuhuan in his arms. The more he looked at him, the more he loved him.

This was the big treasure that had given him everything! He would do everything he could to save him, just like his parents used to treat him before; indulged, spoiled, loved, and giving him all the good things he needed so that he can live a happy life like a prince in a fairy tale!

Song 'a father's love is like a mountain' Qingshi was full of ambition. He suppressed his excitement and immediately placed Yue Wuhuan in the side hall of his bedroom. He did everything by himself. First, he poured the elixir carefully with the crane-mouthed pot to re-invigorate the breath of life. Then he changed into white clothes, put on a homemade mask, and found a pair of extremely thin animal leather gloves. After he finished disinfecting the wounds, gently cut off the blood-soaked gauze and feather skirt on Yue Wuhuan's body with scissors, rinsed the wounds, and then sutured them with very fine silkworm thread. Then, he cut off the shackles and treated his ankle wounds.

Song Qingshi's movements were extremely gentle and quick, barely touching any skin, but Yue Wuhuan's body was extremely sensitive. He twitched slightly and groaned a few times before falling asleep again. Song Qingshi took the opportunity to take some blood samples for analysis, and also performed a full-body scan of him with his mental probe. He was a good-tempered person, but after seeing the disastrously ruined dantian and meridians in Yue Wuhuan's body, he couldn't help but curse darkly at those beasts. He scolded them repeatedly, thinking about how he was going to explain this situation to him once he woke up.

Song Qingshi was not good at communicating with strangers. He was able to make do when discussing his interests, but his thoughts often went blank when forced into small talk. For example, when everyone watched the popular men's group selection variety show together and argued over who was the male god?

He answered sincerely that it was Asclepius, the god of medicine. . .

Song Qing hasn't understood why everyone said he killed the conversation.

He thought hard for a long time and remembered that when his Lou Gerhig's hadn't been as advanced, he worked in a hospital for an internship. His senior brother knew that Song Qinshi was afraid of social interaction and would end up a stuttering mess when he tried to have conversations with his patients. He taught Song Qingshi: "Push down all of your feelings and act like a medical machine. First write down their case in detail and their treatment plan, recite it with a smile, and then end with a comforting sentence." Song Qingshi took this secret technique, practiced many times in front of the teacher, and, finally, he could talk to patients without fear.

A hospital is a place for treatment, just like how the Medicine King's Valley is a place for treatment. What's the difference?

After Song Qingshi had this epiphany, he replaced Yue Wuhuan’s bed sheets and bedding with the white ones commonly used in hospitals. He ordered the valley servant to make several sets of patient clothes, put them on by himself, and then tied roots on his wrist to represent the hospital information band. With a red wristband and a sign on the bed with "Special Care" and the instructions for how to care for him, Song Qingshi instantly felt calm in this makeshift hospital environment.

He wasn't comfortable with the type of care that the valley servantswere giving and took on nursing himself. He was careful and not afraid of getting tired. He wiped down Yue Wuhuan's body and washed his face, fed him medicine and water, and even replaced the bedding to deal with all kinds of filth.

When Yue Wuhuan woke up three days later, he was confused. He didn't know where he was. He stared at the white veil on the top of the bed in a daze for a long time. He finally realized that he was still alive and he hadn't been this relaxed in a long time.

He closed his eyes, faintly recalling the slight fragrance of medicine lingering from his dream and the hands that had gently released all the restraints for him. He took a deep breath. He didn't want to wake up and face the never-ending nightmare.

After who know's how long, Yue Wuhuan threw his eyes open, remembering where he had smelled the fragrance of the medicine. He slowly turned his head and looked at the round table next to him, but saw that Medicine Master Xianzun was attentively making changes to the cursive writings on the table. He was frowning, his expression serious, as if thinking about something bad. There was also a familiar spirit bead in the silver plate next to him, and it became obvious that he had been given to another guest to be played with.

Yue Wuhuan’s phoenix eyes shrank. The rumors of the perverse and evil deeds of the Medicine Master Xianzun appeared in his mind, but he was not afraid. Whether he was willing or unwilling meant nothing under the control of the spirit bead. Besides, his broken body was no longer worthy of being cherished. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and struggled to get out of bed, but a sharp pain came from his shoulder, which made him dizzy and he fell right back down. Song Qingshi never had any distractions when he was researching. He heard the movement and found that the patient was awake. He was afraid that Yue Wuhuan might have moved his body and reopened the wound. He quickly reprimanded him with a stern tone: "You, go to bed right away! You are not allowed to get off for ten days!"

This stern technique was a secret taught by the head nurse of the hospital. It had a good effect on treating patients who didn't follow the doctor's advice.

"Ten days?" Yue Wuhuan was stunned. He couldn't help but look at Song Qingshi up and down. The more he looked, the more he felt that his appearance was deceiving. He had been with guests for many years, and he was used to seeing many lustful scenes, but he never would've guessed that this person had such prowess in the bed. . .

Seeing that he hadn't gotten back on the bed, Song Qingshi put down his pen, walked over and picked him up with his own hands.

Yue Wuhuan remained unmoved, stretched out his hand and gently hugged his neck. Hot fingertips touched his cool skin, as smooth as cool jade, and the clear and clean scent of medicine wrapped around him gently like if he was in a dream. Yue Wuhuan couldn't help but shake for a moment. He chasticized his heart for still not knowing how to behave, then resumed his usual posture, and breathed out ambiguously: "I hope that Xianxun will take pity. . ."

"Don't worry, I will." Song Qingshi put him back on the bed carefully, then pulled the blanket up. He wrapped him up tightly, and solemnly told him, "The valley is wet and cold. You have a mortal body so be careful of the cold and stay under the blanket. Keep your hands and feet tucked in and don’t kick off the sheets."

Yue Wuhuan had never seen this trick in bed before and was at a bit of a loss.

"You;re a patient now. Let me tell you about your situation." Song Qingshi turned back to the table, picked up a stack of paper covered with words. He nervously pushed the non-existent glasses on the bridge of his nose, and read with a smile, formulating his tone. "The patient is Yue Wuhuan. There are three lacerations from the right shoulder to the chest, which are 18 cm, 14 cm and 12 cm long. The right shoulder bone is fractured, and the suprascapular artery has been ruptured. The right elbow has a skin contusion. The left and right wrists have skin tissue bruises, the left and right knees are bruised along with the left and right ankle tissue. The buttocks skin has soft tissue lacerations. There are signs of drug abuse in the body and potentially drug addiction. Do you understand?"

Yue Wuhuan only felt that his stiff smile must look increasingly forced. The more he thought about it, the crazier everything seemed. All he could do was nod his head and pretendto understand.

"Very good." Song Qingshi felt that what he said was both detailed and easy to understand, and began to recite the preliminary treatment plan. "Your dantian and meridians have been destroyed, and your body is seriously damaged. Your body is too fragile right now to use stronger medicine, so you cannot take Rejuvenation Pill, Gather Breathe and Disperse Pill, All Creation Pill or the Bone Growth Pill. You need to be treated with mortal medicine first, and then treated with the Six Meridian Rejuvanation medicated bath. Then you'll take the Rising Dragon Pill and Nine Revolution Blood Lotus Pill."

Yue Wuhuan finally understood what he was saying. These pills were common immortal medicines, and he had also taken it when he was seriously injured.

The All Creation Pill and Rising Dragon Pill were worth thousands, and he had heard that the poster of Jape Pearl Tower's Lord had used it for his own treasure.

He didn't know what the Six Meridian Rejuvanation medicated bath was, but the Nine Revolution Blood Lotus Pill was the treasure of the immortal world. It is made of ten thousand year-old blood lotuses. There were only nine in the world and only few know where their locations. He only knew that the master of Xuanji Palace had used it and ascended to Fen Shen; the lord of Fluttering Snow Fortress turned against his Daoist companion and killed him and his wife to win the treasure; one appeared in the Qizhen Pavilion auction, and it was won by the owner of the East Sea Langya Pavilion with hundreds of thousands of high-grade spirit stones. For some reason, Jin FeiRen wasn't able to participate in the auction. He always brought it up as one of the greatest regrets in his life.

If it were described in mortal terms, it would be like saving a beggar on the side of the road and saying that you would give him precious delicacies, golden houses, jade horses, and billions in wealth. FInally, you tell him you'll give him the fade seal of the country and all lands under the heavens. Only an idiot would believe these claims.

Yue Wuhuan laughed but his heart was cold. He basically confirmed that Song Qingshi was just toying with him.

He had also encountered many such sweet talkers, pretending to show compassion for some and pity for others. All he wanted, though, was to coax his slaves to play this game with him. He only lusted after his dirty body, in the end.

Song Qingshi finished off with some final closing words: "Don't worry, as long as you follow the doctor's advice and cooperate with the treatment, you'll be cured."

"Okay," Yue Wuhuan's phoenix eyes showed a bit of flattery, and he replied in a sultry voice: "This slave depend on Xianzun for everything. . ."

"I almost forgot." Song Qingshi looked into his eyes and suddenly remembered something. He put on the animal skin gloves again, picked up a luminous bead the size of a goose egg and placed it in a strange, long, tube-shape lampshade. Then he sat on the side of the bed, leaned over and looked at Yue Wuhuan. He gave him a serious warning: "This may be a little uncomfortable, please bear with me."

Yue Wuhuan smiled self-deprecatingly. He let the phoenix eyes show waves of desire, and he relaxed his body, waiting to be played with.

Song Qingshi stretched out his hand and opened his eyes, illuminating the inside of the eyes with the luminous bead. He carefully observed for a while, then whispered: "The problem of the lacrimal secretion system is not visible on the outside, so I still have to do a colored dye inspection..."

Yue Wuhuan: "???"

#mistakenly saving the villain #mistakenly saving the villain translation #chinese bl #chinese novel #english translation #yaoi novel #song qinshi #yue wuhuan

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not-delicious-milk · 4 years ago

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yuuji’s wounds in shibuya

it occurred to me today that during the shibuya arc, the wounds that yuuji receives and the location he receives them in are actually pretty significant.

i’m putting it here so nobody asks me about it: nobara also receives significant wounds, but that’s been a running theme tied to what i assume will be a character arc focused on personal appearance as a female jujutsu sorcerer. throughout the story she continually receives wounds to the face, which was excellent foreshadowing for her (probably) near death experience in shibuya, and will serve as setup for future arcs.

i. just a scratch

in their fight against awasake, yuuji receives a gash to the side. when megumi runs over to see if he’s okay, yuuji responds that it’s “just a scratch.” it doesn’t seem to be debilitating, so he’s probably right, but what’s important to note is the continuation of the theme of hiding pain from each other.

ii. crack

not once, but twice yuuji receives a wound in the exact same place: across his face. once from choso, and once from mahito. that can’t be chalked up to coincidence.

the orientation is reversed, showing how yuuji’s position is reversed but fundamentally, the same.

when fighting choso, he’s fighting someone taking revenge for the murder of his brothers -- yuuji’s murder. morally, it’s the same as yuuji trying to kill mahito in revenge for junpei’s (and nanami’s) death. when fighting mahito, he has to kill transfigured humans, and later admits that he isn’t so different from mahito after all.

the arrow placement in the second panel here further points out the hypocrisy in yuuji’s conviction -- he has been playing with people’s lives, too. not just through sukuna’s rampage, but also by his own hands. choso and the transfigured humans stick out as prime examples, but there’s also the indirect deaths caused by his consumption of sukuna’s finger.

the “crack” that appears across his face, in both instances, represents the cracks evident in his conviction, but the wound also splits his face. i don’t have to remind you that the “ryomen” in “ryomen sukuna” means “two-faced.” well before he started resembling sukuna in his fight vs mahito, gege was already showing their similarities.

yuuji isn’t exactly doing okay right now. he’s running on adrenaline and cognitive dissonance. simultaneously, he believes that he is a murderer who deserves nothing less than death, and that he needs to save as many people as possible to redeem himself. these are conflicting ideals that he’s trying desperately to consolidate, and it’s splitting him in two.

iii. liver

this is a turning point in yuuji vs choso, shifting the fight firmly in choso’s favor. shortly afterwards, yuuji accepts his impending death and chooses to sacrifice himself to ensure that choso falls here, to save his friends and gojo.

he fails.

the liver is the site of blood filtration in the body. when blood passes through, toxins are flushed out and it leaves the liver in a purified state. itadori’s injury to the liver is the moment when he clears all distractions from his mind and decides that he will die here fighting choso.

additionally, the liver has a few interesting symbolic meanings. in greek mythology, it was thought to be the source of passion and emotion, specifically anger and wrath. it is the source of bile in the body; the theory of four humors attributes yellow bile to the liver, and with it a short temper and tendency towards anger.

in this fight, choso is fighting out of a desire for revenge and immense rage. it’s only fitting that his fatal attack strikes yuuji’s liver, the symbolic source of anger in the body.

iv. baring his teeth

to bare one’s teeth means to indicate one’s hostility in a threatening way. the term comes from the way wolves bare their teeth when doing the same.

oh? wolves? where have we seen that before?

this is the moment when yuuji’s overwhelming hostility translates to stalking mahito like prey. and mahito? mahito is terrified. yuuji has asserted his dominance and doesn’t even need to run after mahito, taking a leisurely pace as he moves to kill his enemy.

it’s significant that the skin on his cheek is what’s damaged, revealing what’s underneath. it suggests that this is only revealing a side of yuuji that’s been here all along, rather than a sudden development. it’s also mahito who pushed him this far, being the one to tear his cheek open.

in this intimately personal moment, where it’s just yuuji and mahito, yuuji’s innermost thoughts and impulses are shown without a second skin to cover them up. he’s laid bare, and it’s not just his teeth that are exposed.

this, of course, is immediately ruined by kamo’s arrival.

v. blood on his hands

in contrast to the injuries that revealed more and more of his innermost self during his fight with mahito, kamo’s -- and kyoto tech’s -- arrival is accompanied by injuries all over his body, completely covering him in blood. every other injury he has sustained is obscured by it, overshadowing it in significance.

this is significant, because “covered in blood” is exactly how yuuji appears to outside observers. up until now, the only people he’s come across since his breakdown were close friends and mortal enemies, people who know his true self. but now, with the arrival of the proverbial puppet master and members of the greater jujutsu world, yuuji is covered in blood.

i’ve said it a few times before, but it’s important to note that nobody, nobody has been made fully aware of sukuna’s rampage. kusakabe openly stated his desire to see yuuji executed after seeing that sukuna took over his body and destroyed some buildings. yuuji told todo that sukuna killed a lot of people, but didn’t elaborate on the point, and todo didn’t really seem to grasp the magnitude of what happened.

nobody knows. but yuuji does. he knows and he hates that nobody else does.

now suddenly in the presence of people who, for the moment, are protecting him and putting trust in him, yuuji is probably only seeing the blood on his hands. and if they’re made aware of what he’s done, the others will only see the blood on his hands, too. he is, figuratively and literally, covered in blood, and not just his own.

with choso’s appearance and extremely loud declaration of relation to yuuji, further explanation of the situation will undoubtedly be demanded from him, and he’s probably going to confess to what he did with no reason to hide it. the kyoto forces might end up splitting between those protecting yuuji and those trying to take him out now while he’s wounded.

but that’s only a speculation. for now, all i can do is sit back and marvel at gege’s writing and art, and how it can be interpreted in so many ways even with only 134 chapters at the time of writing this.

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rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

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Tangled Salt Marathon - The Alchemist Returns

Strap in folks, cause this is going to be a long one. In truth, there are very few flaws in this episode, but in order to explain them I have to really get into some character analysis first.

Summary: Varian comes to Rapunzel for help in finding the remnants of the mystical golden flower, which may hold the key to stopping the Black Rocks. Working together, they venture through the old tunnels beneath Corona. Meanwhile Cass and Eugene work together to figure out who drugged the castle’s populace with a truth serum.

Behold! The One and Only Time Frederic is Called Out on His BS; and Nothing Comes of It.

Rapunzel finally, finally stands up to her dad and points out both his abusiveness and his poor leadership. It doesn’t affect the narrative in anyway. Neither character learns anything from this nor changes their points of view. This conversation might as well not have happened given how the characters behave in later episodes/seasons.

The only reason this scene exists is to give Rapunzel motivation for stealing the flower within the episode. A goal that she changes her mind about towards the end. Thereby walking back on such motivation and putting us back at square one with her development.

Rapunzel Isn’t Being Truthful With Herself Nor the Audience

So people aren't always one hundred percent truthful about what they want and their goals. Especially if it involves admitting something about yourself or a loved one that you don’t want to acknowledge. Fictional characters are meant to give the illusion of being real so they can sometimes mimic this behavior.

Throughout the episode Rapunzel keeps on assisting that she’s doing this ‘for Corona’, but we’re given context clues along side that to tell us that her real reasons are about her relationship with her father.

Unfortunately, the show has a bad habit of not communicating information clearly and also has a history of expecting the audience to take what the characters say at face value. Ergo, it’s easy to miss Rapunzel’s true motivations and thereby fail to fully understand her actions and decisions throughout.

Once Again, These Prophetic Dreams Go Nowhere

Dream Varian mentions Rapunzel has a ‘destiny’ but the show never spells out what that destiny actually is nor why she needs to fulfill it. Sure there’s a big quest for the moonstone in season two, but the rocks stop being a threat by then so really, she doesn’t actually need to go on that quest. In fact, she would save a lot of people at lot of trouble if she did nothing at all. That’s poor storytelling. You need something driving the action; a reason to motivate the hero.

Secondly, we never get an explanation for why she randomly has these dreams in the first season but for none of the others. Nor why Varian is at the center of the them when it’s other villains she needs to actually be warned about, like say Zhan Tiri.

No, the real reason why this dream sequence exists is just to reiterate Rapunzel’s internal conflict. She wants a relationship with her Dad, but he’s a male Gothel, and she’s now caught in the middle of his and Varian’s conflict because she failed to take responsibility when she needed to. And is still failing because she doesn’t want to shatter her illusions about Frederic.

Shoving the main protagonist’s driving conflit into a subtextual dream sequence is lazy. Especially since we get no official resolution to said conflict. Rapunzel never acknowledges the problem here, never follows up on any type of action, and she never faces any true consequences for ignoring the issue.

She carries on believing in her fantasy version of Frederic, even as he continues to do harmful things, and the narrative just rewards both her and him for it.

There Should Have Been an Episode Showing the Audience Varian’s Side of the Story

What happened to Varian in between Queen for a Day and this episode is told only through context clues. Nothing is stated outright, meaning the audience has to rely too heavily on inference and are left to piece together what happened on their own like a puzzle. That’s poor writing.

Even something as simple as ‘how much time has past’ (its three months btw, S1 is six months long and QfaD is the meant to be the midpoint) is left up to the viewer to keep up with rather then being clearly stated. This is made even harder to do by the marketing team showing most of the episodes out of order.

You need to clearly relay information to your audience. That means repeating said information in a variety of ways over the course of the story. Have those context clues, but also have more overt hints, and direct reveals interspersed along with that. Especially when dealing with the motivations and goals of the character driving the main plot.

Even if you attribute the lack of a Varain episode to the ‘twist’ in this one, (a twist that was revealed in QfaD anyways) there’s still no excuse for why we didn’t get a flashback episode afterwards to fill this hole in narrative out.

Don’t Pretend Ignorance Rapunzel

Nigel literally repeated the rumor to her face last episode. She knows her father is lying about the rocks and attacked her for the scroll. She knows from the letter that those same guards were chasing down Varian for said scroll. She knows about Corona’s laws and what would happen to Varian if the guards caught him.

There is zero reason for her to be acting like this is new information. Let alone have any right to feign concern after three months of ignoring his plea for help.

That’s what I mean about the series not communicating clearly and wanting the audience to take things at face value. The show deliberately has the characters say things that contradict established events to try and get the audience on their side.

The episode is trying to telling us, ‘See! Rapunzel is innocent in all this cause she didn’t know, but she’s trying to make up for it now’. Yet, if you’ve been watching and paying attention to the details, you know that’s not the truth here.

Good writing is about communicating ideas to your audience. But this show can’t decide on which idea to communicate. Is Rapunzel at fault or no? You can’t have it both ways. Either she screwed up and thereby caused the conflict in question now or she didn’t. If she didn’t, then events shouldn’t progress like they do. If she did, then it needs to be acknowledged and she needs to held accountable by the narrative.

More Hints into Rapunzel's True Motivation

I can’t stress this enough. Rapunzel’s reasons for stealing the flower has nothing to do with Corona. That is an excuse. It’s about trying to find out what her Dad is hiding from her and why he’s lying to her. This comment right here is what compels Raps to go along with his plan.

Also...

Varian Isn’t Lying Here

I also want to make it perfectly clear that Varian is being upfront with Raps. He tells her his plan is to steal the flower and why. She’s the one that makes the assumption that this entails them only taking one petal and the assumption that ‘all our problems’ only means saving Corona. Even though saving Corona and saving Quirin are the same problem. (more on this later)

It’s important to understand Rapunzel’s thought process and her true motivations in order to make sense of her actions later in the story.

Rapunzel’s internal conflict is her need for autonomy versus her fear of rejection. The ‘for Corona’ and ‘one petal’ excuses are used because she thinks they’ll play well with her Dad. In order words, they’re reassurances to her that should she get caught and have to face her father’s disapproval then she could counteract his arguments with his own belief system about ‘putting the kingdom’s needs first’ and ‘following your own inner voice.’

And yes, both Rapunzel and Frederic are big fat hypocrites for this, but Rapunzel hasn’t acknowledged that fact to herself and is trying to convince herself throughout the episode to believe in her own excuses.

Why Do You Care About Treason Rapunzel?

For context, treason is the highest crime in any country. It’s punishable by death, even in the real world. Now each country has its own legal definition of what constitutes as treason. Here in a America, in Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, treason is specifically limited to levying war against the US, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. And only during a time of war. Legally, a time of war has to be approved by the US congress. Technically, congress hasn’t declared war since World War II. This is why certain people haven’t been convicted of treason like acts both in, and out of, later US conflicts because the definition is arguably too narrow and specific. But it’s intentionally that way to help prevent false accusations and to keep people in power from murdering their political opposition.

Before the US, treason just meant opposing the ruler of the land in any way. The founding fathers committed treason just by signing the Declaration of Independence. They all would have been executed had the US lost the revolution. Here in Corona, that old definition still stands. Simple theft of royal property, a non violent act, is considered treason and we already know it’s punishment. Eugene stole royal property and was almost hanged for it in the movie.

Now Rapunzel though, she is royalty. This stuff she’s stealing is technically her own property. She’ll inherit all of these things once Queen. Moreover, we all know that Frederic wouldn’t harm Rapunzel let alone kill her. She’s not in any real danger here. So why does she care?

Remember that Rapunzel’s internal conflict is personal autonomy versus her fear of rejection. She only hesitates in her pursuit of answers when reminded of Frederic’s possible disapproval. That’s why she stops under his frowning picture to say this. “Treason” only means possible rejection or disapproval from her father. The worst thing she faces is another argument with him.

Meanwhile, Varian’s life is very much at stake here. He is risking everything, quite literally, to save his father. But his life was arguably forfeit as soon as Frederic decided he wanted the scroll. What’s to prevent the king from claiming that as his own property even when it’s really not? If he’s already sent guards after Varian and the scroll then that’s precisely what he’s already done.

The series is acting like Rapunzel is the reasonable one here because she questions stealing, but the reality is she’s being selfish and willfully obtuse. Multiple lives are at stake here, including the one of the person she is talking to right now. Breaking the law, defying her father, in order to save those lives shouldn’t even be in question at all.

Corona and Quirin Aren’t Conflicting Interests.

Quirin and Corona are both facing the same problem. Solving one will inevitably mean solving the other. Any distinction between the two is solely created within Rapunzel’s own mind.

She does this to to hide her true motivations and conflict from herself. The show does this to try and villainize Varian over Frederic.

There’s a clear bias in who the series wants you to root for and so it skews the perception of what’s actually at stake by creating a non-existent competition between Quirin’s life and the country’s safety. Even though Quirin, Varian, and Old Corona are all apart of the kingdom. They’re all Rapunzel’s and Federic’s responsibly too. Saving Quirin’s life should be more than reason enough to steal the flower on it’s own.

But this is ‘Rapunzel’s show’ and according to the creators, that means that her personal feelings are more important than actual human lives. Not really, but that’s their mindset and approach to conflicts in the show.

Rapunzel’s True Motivation is Revealed

So we’ve followed the hints, but here it is stated outright. This was never about Corona, the rocks,Varian’s safety, nor Quirin’s life. This is about her need for autonomy. Her own personal quest for assertiveness. She’s been bullied and abused by two steprate parental figures now and she’s growing tired of it. Which is understandable and valid, but it shouldn’t be made more important than everyone else’s problems. Everytime Rapunzel says ‘for Corona’, she really means ‘for herself.’

Rapunzel Shouldn’t be the Only Person Solving the Obstacles Here

Varian is just as smart as Rapunzel, if not smarter. This has been established throughout the show both before and after this episode. Meanwhile, Rapunzel is more physically adept than Varian. This whole sequence in the tunnels should have been both Rapunzel and Varian teaming up and complementing the other’s skill sets. They need to be on equal footing in order to sell their conflict later on. But the show deliberately down plays Varian’s competence in this episode in an effort to make Rapunzel look good.

‘Girl power’ shouldn’t mean making the character perfect. It especially shouldn’t mean making other characters weaker in comparison. Women want equality. That means we want to see female characters treated as people. That means we want female characters to be flawed while still contributing to the plot same as the male characters. That doesn’t mean we want to be paraded around as the only competent person in the room. We want to be on the same level as the boys not above them.

Over idealization and glorification of ‘strong’ female characters is just as problematic as damsels in distresses.

Writers like Chris Sonnenburg grew up during the heyday of Third-wave Feminism. Right on the cusp between second-wave and third-wave points of view as women really started to challenge Hollywood’s portrayal of themselves as homemakers and love interests. They wanted to be the heroes for once. Starting in the 60s and reaching pick popularity in the 70s and early 80s, film makers responded by making female characters who could physically fight but either failed to give them any sort of depth and/or made them the only archetype available.

Chris, and several other male writers who lived during this era, have internalized this approach by default without actually examining how it came into existence nor why women would no longer be satisfied by this portrayal of them, if they ever were. All we’ve done is trade one stereotype for another, as male creators fetishize what was once meant to be an attempt to empower ourselves.

Had Chis actually brought more female writers onto the show and listened to the criticisms from his female crew, he could have better avoided problems like the one above. But instead he dug in his heels and insisted that he already knew what we wanted. He doesn’t.

Why Would You Assume This Eugene?

Varian hasn’t actually done anything wrong yet. His worst crimes are drugging people with a magic potion, which is what Xavier did without consequence only two episodes ago, and attempting to steal a magical healing flower that the king has been hoarding from his subjects anyways. A king who has been persecuting Varian unfairly and they know this because of Quest for Varian.

Eugene of all people should be sympathetic towards Varian’s plight. He’s been there himself. He should also know that the rumors about Varian attacking Rapunzel are untrue because Raps told him about the events of Queen for a Day herself.

Meanwhile Cassandra was actually there. She knows Varian’s problems and is supposedly his ‘friend.’ She has even less reason to be hostile towards him.

But once again, the series has the characters respond to things that contradict established events in order to create a bias in the audience. “See, Eugene and Cass doesn’t trust Varian and neither should Rapunzel. See, how evil he really is?” It tries to tell us. In order to convince us to excuse Frederic’s behavior so that when the series does just that through Rapunzel choosing his side we’ll be on board with it. You know, unless you have been paying attention, already have a developed moral code, and the reasoning facilities of an adult.

Rapunzel Lacks Empathy

Keep in mind, ‘for Corona’ really means ‘for herself’. The only competition between Quirin and the kingdom is one that she’s fabricated in her own mind. Varian not caring about the island punctures holes into her excuses. Even though Varian is a fourteen/fifteen year old who holds no responsibility for the safety of a whole country. Especially one that’s mistreated him. Of course his father’s life is going to be more important to him.

What Rapunzel is really asking here is, “Why don't you care about what I care about?” “Why aren’t you concerned about my feelings over your own?”

Which makes sense for her character. She’s a woman who has been trapped in a tower her whole life. She lacks the experience needed to be an empathetic person. She’s never had to grieve before. The only permanent death she’s known is that of her abuser. Her trauma over nearly losing Eugene and Pascal was the fear of loss, not the actual process of living without someone. Rapunzel has no framework of reference in order to truly understand what Varian is going through.

Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is understanding how a person feels. Rapunzel may be a sympathetic person but she’s not an empathetic one and there’s a difference between being ‘nice’ and being kind. The show presents to us a woman who needs to learn that difference. The problem is that she never does.

This is actually a brilliant conflict and point of characterization. It’s taking what we already know about a character and expanding upon it to give us believable flaws that impact the story. I actually like this conflict. I like this portrayal. I initially preferred the series over the movie because of this.

I want Rapunzel to be flawed. I want her flaws to to inform the plot. I want to like her as a character. But I can’t. Because the show never acknowledges these flaws, never has her grow as a person. She remains unempathetic and selfish till the end even as she gains more experience, and the show acts like she is justified in hurting others.

This exchange is the quillivant of a rich person who donates money to environmentalist causes trying to shame a poor child for daring to ‘waste water’ in order to take a bath, even while ignoring their own factories spewing pollutants into the local river. The show tries to claim that classism is okay so long as it’s perpetuated by the creator’s favs.

Varian is in the Right

First off he never claimed that he was only going to take one petal. Rapunzel just assumed that. Also, he’s right there is no difference. Once again Rapunzel has fabricated a distinction in her mind in order to have an excuse to sell her dad. She only hesitates now because taking the whole thing means there’s more risk of getting caught and less possibility of weaseling out of punishment through deniability.

Never mind that Frederic doesn’t own the flower anyways. He stole it from Gothel first, outside of his land’s borders. Never mind that him taking the flower actually causes harm to others while stealing it back does not. Never mind that breaking a law to save a human life is not only justifiable but preferable. Never mind that the king is essentially hoarding medicine from the populace, thereby breaking the social contract of a leader towards his people and becoming a despot instead.

No, Varian hurt Rapunzel’s feelings so he’s evil don’t you see? He placed his needs above the main character’s wants and desires, ergo the series treats him as a villain.

Look, I’m not saying that Varian is without fault nor that everything he does is justifiable. But the show (and certain fans) goes out of its way to demonize the character even when he’s doing what’s actually morally right. This isn’t the point when Varian falls to the darkside, that’s yet to come, but it is the point where the series starts to play favorites with its characters at the expense of teaching coherent lessons.

Inconsistent Messages

Yes, how dare he do the exact same thing as Pascal and Max did two episodes later. Don’t you know, he’s the villain; even though he actually has more reason to use the truth serum than they did the mood potion.

The problem of centering so much of the conflict on Rapunzel’s personal feelings means that Rapunzel and the show has double standards for how characters are treated. Friends of Rapunzel gets free passes. Lack of friendship means you’re now the enemy and can’t be excused. Even though in real life that is what we call nepotism and an abuse of power.

Authoritarianism Vs Consequentialism

When you mention the word authoritarianism to someone they automatically picture in their head armed men in uniforms marching in the streets attacking innocent people on behalf of a dictator’s orders. Yet, that’s not what authoritarianism is. That’s fascism, which can spring forth from authoritarians gaining political power but it’s not the only manifestation of this philosophy.

Authoritarianism is the belief system that the ‘authority’ is always right, even when wrong. An authoritarian will find any excuse to follow and believe in their chosen authority even when that authority has failed them or others.

The opposing philosophy here is consequentialism. That’s the belief that right and wrong are directly linked to consequence. To their minds something is morally wrong if the action has a bad outcome for others.

To illustrate the difference let's look at a near universal rule.

“Murder is wrong.”

Now both the authoritarian and the consequentialist will normally agree with this. But the ‘why’ to them couldn’t be any more different.

To an authoritarian ‘murder is wrong’ because the authority has deemed it so. That authority can be anything that the anthoritian has personally chosen; God, the government, their parents ect. It’s completely arbitrary and subject to change on a whim. The authoritarian lacks consistency and conviction and will often have multiple chosen authorities that will contradict one another. If one of those authorities came out in favor of murder then there’s a strong chance that the authoritarian will change their position or belief as oppose to denouncing their chosen leader.

Meanwhile, ‘murder is wrong’ to the consequentialist because there are clear irreversibly bad consequences for doing it. It removes a life from the world. All possibilities for that person are now forever snuffed out. It hurts those left behind. ect. The consequentialist is consistent in their beliefs so long as the consequence remains the same. They can’t be swayed by mere orders. That’s not to say that consequentialism is incorruptible. A consequentialist can easily become a knight templar if they are forced to weigh consequences against each other. Then it becomes ‘murder is still wrong unless it achieves this arbitrary goal’.

In truth, morality is a sliding scale for most people and you normally hold more than one ethical belief system. However history has proven that authoritarianism is the more often dangerous and corruptible philosophy as it relies heavily on peer pressure, groupthink, and yes, abuse. Most authortians don't come from healthy loving homes. Either they were abused or are abusers themselves. When conducting studies on authoritarianism psychologists and sociologists use questions about parenting in order to pinpoint who is and isn’t an authoritarian as most people aren’t going to just come right out and claim we should go back to feudalism and the divine right of kings.

An out of control authoritarian is a bully with power. An out of control consequentialist is just a vigilante.

Frederic and Varian are the representatives of the two sides of these opposing belief systems and the representatives of what happens when people with those belief systems become corrupt. By having the main character choose between the two of them and siding with the her father, the authoritarian, the show is now validating this philosophy.

Breaking an unjust law shouldn’t be presented as a bad thing here. Blindly accepting Frederic’s rule shouldn’t be the end result of all this. Excusing his abusive behavior shouldn’t be the finale outcome of the story. There’s not a single thing that Frederic, and by extension Rapunzel, does that hasn’t been done by corrupt governments in the real world. Their reasons for doing so be damned.

Given the current political landscape and the increasing push to give real life anthortirans more power, this was absolutely the wrong message to put into a children’s show. It’s not that children will grow up to become authoritarians themselves by just watching the show, but it can condition them to go along with authoritarian abuse if they are now familiar the excuses abusers use to validate their actions. Especially, if they are already trapped in an abusive environment and are being fed these excuses by their current abusers.

I've already seen this toxic thought process played out by younger members of the fandom who are only just now forming their moral codes. “Accept what’ve you’ve been given.” “It’s okay, your parent (the authority) loves you and knows what’s best” “Hurting people is alright because they’ve been hurt you need to ofter up understanding”

NO!

Theses aren’t good lessons. These are the lies fed to you by abusive people. And the show repeatedly validates, justifies, and excuses both abuse and political corruption. Whether the creators believe this philosophy or not, they just approved of it anyways through their own incompetence.

Varian has Every Reason to Not Trust Rapunzel

This the third time in three months that Rapunzel has backed out of helping him. All for increasingly flimsy reasons. She’s making a lot of promises here but not offering up any concrete solutions. Remember she’s not ready to confront her father yet, and neither of them know that she’s the sundrop herself. So what is her plan here? How is she suppose to recuse Quirin and prevent Varian from being unjustly punished if she can’t stand up to the one person who is responsible for causing these problems in the first place.

Can you really blame Varian for going through with what he does here given how she has treated him thus far and would most likely continue to treat him? Yet that’s precisely what the show wants you to do because ‘stealing is wrong’ even though in this case it actually isn’t.

This is Out of Character

Once again, both Cass and Eugene have no reason within the current narrative to be so hostile towards Varian, yet. They’re only doing so now to create bias in the viewer. For Eugene this is especially out of character. I mean we’ve already seen Cass place her ambitions of above others people’s needs both before and after this, but Eugene is constantly written as the heart of the show. He’s suppose to be the most empathetic and caring person in the group, and yet here he is trying to arrest an orphan who’s only stealing to survive. Sound familiar? He of all people should be the first to defend Varian not attack him.

Excuse You, Raps!

You know very well what he is. He’s a child. A lost, lonely, grieving, and desperate child who’s been let down by everyone who is responsible for him including yourself. But far be it for the show to actually point this out by stating it plainly and show you for the self centered ass you really are.

Scenes Like This are Why Varian Should Have Been the Deuteragonist

His story maybe connected to Rapunzel’s but it doesn’t revolve around her. He has his own stakes and conflicts that happen to intersect or oppose with Raps given whatever point in the narrative we’re at. As such we gets scenes like this one in his lab where he is the sole focus and is pushing the story forward. No other character actually gets this.

Eugene’s arc has little to no bearing on the overall plot and Cassandra’s solo scenes in season three do nothing to further push the story nor give new insights into her character, as her given goal and motivation is too dependent upon Rapunzel herself to be shown separately.

Out of all the main characters, Varian’s conflict is the only one that holds enough tension to maintain a separate story line. He needs this focus in order to make sense of what's going on with the larger picture and to resolve his conflict in a satisfying manner. Had the the creators been smart enough to follow through with Varian’s story till the end instead of dumping it at the last minute in season two and hastily rewriting a half-arsed resolution it in season three, then we’ve could have gotten the Disney equivalent of a Zuko vs. Aang, Loki vs Thor, or even Duck vs Rue/Fakir arc. As is, we’re only left with the table scraps of several loosely connected stories none of which are very satisfying to watch.

Conclusion

I still like this episode and Varian’s arc overall but I can't in good conscience call it well written knowing now where it all leads to. Nor can I in could good conscience recommend the show knowing the awful morals it touts. And that makes me angry. Angry that I was fooled into thinking that this show had depth and maturity. Angry that I ever once held this show up as being good. Angry that I invested myself into believing that this show would finally give me a decent Disney anti-villain that I could like. Angry that trusted the creators not to be raging arseholes who made poor creative decisions based off of ego and questionable ethics...

I started this marathon so that I could vent my feelings and gain some closure, while also opening up a frank discussion about how bad creative decisions can lead to bad lessons in children's media. This show has many of the same problems as a lot of current tv series do but all condensed down into one place and there are things to be learn from that.However after this series of reviews are over I doubt I’ll ever watch the show again. It’s honestly not worth the time.

#varian #rapunzel #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #review #character analysis

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thewritingof-therose · 3 years ago

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Hi! Last week, with the publishing of the 20th chapter of Hasard, I reached the 100 kudos on the fic, so to celebrate it, here’s some kind of bonus chapter where I talk a little about the conception of the story, along with comments about each chapters.

Enjoy!

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So… 20 chapters and 100 kudos already. To be honest, by the time I started imagining this story, I wasn’t really expecting to be able to celebrate that milestone of kudo on a single fic and even if I already celebrated the 2000 kudos in general this year, if we make a quick calcul based on the numbers of kudos and all the fics I’ve published, at the time I’m writing those words, it’s the same that if each one of my fic had only 20 kudos… So yeah, finally reaching the hundred on a single one makes me so happy \o/

Anyway, here’s some trivia and fun facts about Hasard and the first twenty chapters of the story.

First of all, some history:

I had the idea for Hasard in May 2018 as I was watching the tv show Lucifer (I am not up to date with it, please don’t try to spoil me this show ^^’) and I imagined one scene that just… shaped the entire story and it took me less than a few hours to know that I would write it. Even if I wasn’t sure how long it would be and that there had been some changes. And no, I won’t tell what scene kickstarted it all because she still has to come and it could be quite a huge spoiler.

Following it, my brain quickly went into developing the full story and a few things changed. On the top of my head, I can say that Maiev was meant to be more on her own, almost a complete independent Hunter that would have also been resented by the other Hunters, along with a way more black and white view of the demons. She was meant to be more aggressive against all demons and really thinking that they all deserved to die, but I softened that side of her as I shifted the world building with the presence of hybrids.

At first, the hybrids were meant to be a really rare kind and I wanted to keep that status for a few select characters because it could have brought some really good story for them. Then, as I kept working on the worldbuilding, I came to the idea that actually, hybrids were extremely common, but at the same time, the demon’s presence was still a secret from most of the world because most hybrids started centuries ago and their blood and physical attributions were weakening the more they were reproducing. So, about 80% of the world is made of hybrids of all kinds of generation (who is my way of scaling the demonic influence on their life) and the 20% left is shared with the full demons and full humans.

Full demons are simply people who don't have a single drop of human blood in them. Usually, they are born from two other full demon parents or they just appeared like that (that’s the mytho). They are extremely powerful and good magic users, but now, they are rare. It was easier to be a full demon millenia ago when they ruled over the world and the few that are left in the current world of Hasard, survived either by hiding really well, manipulating their way to stay alive, or simply because they accepted to work with the humans and they went on.

My best example of a full demon is Velen.

The full humans, are the humans who either had never gotten a single drop of demon’s blood in their bloodlines, either they purged the bloodline after making sure that there had been at least 10 generations since the last time a hybrid was born (technically, every child following it would be considered as an hybrid, but the other parent would be a full human to weaken the demon’s blood which each new generation). Full humans are rarer than full demons and they tend to be bad news as almost all of them are associated with the Priesthood (who’ll get some more explanation later.)

I haven’t presented yet one of them to give an example, but one is ready to show up in the Second arc of the story. Won’t say who to not spoil the surprise x)

As for hybrids, there are two kinds. The one born from a demon and a human, and or hybrids (two hybrids will keep creating hybrids and technically, as long as one of the parents has human blood, the bloodline will stay a hybrid one). And the second one hadn’t been introduced yet. We have characters that are that kind, but it’s some worldbuilding elements that will show up later and so, I'll keep it to myself for now. Feel free to theorize though! And usually, most hybrids will simply call themselves demons instead of showing signs of weaknesses by not being a full one.

For the title of the story, it had been extremely hard for me to find one. Ever since I started preparing everything, it had a codename and it was “Modern AU” and it stayed like that until the very minute of the publishing of the first chapter. I was already going towards “Le Hasard Fait Bien Les Choses” but I was bothered because it was French, and no matter what, I couldn’t find a good English idiom that would have all the nuances of the French one. The only thing that comes close to it would be “Fate is a funny thing” and yet, I’m not entirely satisfied with it. So, after a long debate with myself and help from other people, I came to the conclusion that I had to keep the French title if I wanted to be happy with it.

It might not help much to get people interested, and I’m considering adding “Fate is a Funny Thing” after it but I’m debating it.

I think that's already a lot, so let's move to the trivia per chapters:

A Muffled Shout In The Night

Oh boy, first chapter! I was so excited to finally start the story but I was also really stressed. I tried to give away a quick summary of how the universe was working, along with my two main characters + showing up the first supportive characters towards Maiev. Trying to present all the cast (so adding Illidari and more about Illidan) right in that chapter wouldn't have really worked so, instead, I went to show that a more "Legion-y" timeline could be expected thanks to Khadgar and Velen's presence in the chapter.

I kinda hope that I succeeded to already show Maiev's obsession towards the Betrayer through her first lines.

Though I will be one hundred percent honest with you. The end of the chapter with Illidan running away, don't expect much from that interaction. I kind of always forget about it unless I'm reading back the chapter… I only needed a reason for them to stop fighting and the chapter to carry on.

But who knows, maybe I'll tie it to something one day.

Two Black Coffees And A Meeting, Please

When writing it, I always knew that Drelanim was on the other side of the call (or at least another Hunter) but as I read the moment a few times, I realized that I could have gone for a completely different way. One that would have probably surprised everyone.

But yeah, in another universe, it's Illidan who calls Maiev because he's in front of her place as they decided to meet for breakfast there. It would have been quite nice and unexpected for the story, especially that Illidan would have gotten right away the reveal that Maiev was actually the Warden as she would have complained about the wounds of the night.

In the end, I went on with my first idea and made them meet for good in the chapter.

And, like with the first chapter… the "current problem" that he talks about to Kor'vas went nowhere… I'll more than probably get him to acknowledge some uninteresting side story for it at some point.

Memories Of A Rainy Day That Will Never Be Forgotten

For that one, one word: Ouch.

By the time I started to write this chapter, I was also preparing the Advent Calendar of 2019 and I had decided on telling Naisha's story, and I had to realize that I still had to foreshadow some elements from it to make it work. Of course, the title is fully referencing the day she died and the demon that Maiev killed right at the beginning of the chapter was similar to Naisha, putting Maiev in a stabbing mood. And it led us to another necessary addition for the Calendar's chapter: Malfurion.

(I'm also wondering how many people guessed right away that Malfurion was the one Illidan was calling…)

Brother, My Brother, Tell Me What We're Fighting For?

Even if Malfurion had more of a cameo than anything in the Calendar's story, I felt the need to introduce him to put the bases of the twins' relationship. I always knew that he was a doctor and that he was mostly helping Illidan when he was getting in trouble, and as their backstory is different from WoW and that they are both demons, I didn't want to go on the canon path for them.

I cannot tell much about it because we'll get fast to their backstory (Second arc) but here, Illidan and Malfurion mostly grew up in a world where it was them against the rest of the world. They were born during the glorious days when demons ruled the world and they saw it change through the millennia that followed. After everything, they would be devastated to lose the other and suddenly be the only one left. This is why they are way closer than they could ever be in canon (and also Tyrande isn't part of their backstory so it helped them keep a good relationship). Sometimes, they part ways for a few decades. Malfurion goes back to medical school somewhere and makes sure that he's up to date for it, or Illidan just moves with his clan to experience new things. But they stay in contact and always come back in proximity of one another.

The end of the chapter was my obligatory "shock reveal/cliffhangers" before a break. But well, I wanted to keep the Legion's existence in my sleeve for a little longer, but I realized that it would allow me to make them into a concrete threat as the story will progress + allowing Illidan and, mostly, the Illidari to be a little more presents into the story.

Actually, the chapter's name comes from a song from the occidental version of the first Pokemon movie. It's a line from the song that plays when the Pokemon and their clone fights, and i used it mostly for the brother's mentions and because it would totally be a thing said by one of the twins in their past…

A Flower Arrangement Made With Your Face In Mind

At that time, I wanted to make a chapter to develop a little more the supporting characters of the cast, and as I was taking back the writing of the fic after a four or five months break, I thought it would be nice.

So, we got a little side dish of Illidari for it and that’s pretty much the only chapter (until now) where Illidan or Maiev barely appears in it. Yet, I threw some worldbuilding and foreshadowing in it and I still like it, so it isn’t really a filler.

I’ll probably do more chapters like that in the future, but I’ll see with the pacing of the story.

Willingly Accepting Your Death Isn't As Easy As I Thought

I don’t have much to say about this chapter. I still really like it and especially Maiev and Velen’s interaction.

Along with showing that we were far from a potential romantic relationship, at least on Maiev’s side x)

A Laugh That Will Echo Through The Ages

Oh my God, that chapter! I could probably talk about it for hours but we would quickly reach the spoiler territory so I’ll see what I can tell without shooting myself in the foot.

I loved giving Khadgar some more identity and I like his relationship with Maiev. In the story, they are around 10 years apart, with Khadgar being the youngest. He’s like an honorary younger brother to every Hunter and even if Maiev won’t admit it, she’s kinda thinking the same.

If he had been in the spotlight for this chapter, it was actually because I was thinking of writing his backstory for the Calendar of 2020 but in the end, I scrapped the idea and wrote something else. But It’ll happen at some point.

You Were In My Dream Last Night, And I Found You That Morning

A simple and nice chapter to calm down from the action heavy that was the precedent. I do throw some crumbs of foreshadowing and backstory, mostly for Maiev, but we will have to wait quite some time for the full one. Even if to be honest, before I release it fully, there will probably be some people that will stitch everything from my crumbs.

Illidan’s dreams are meant to be a plot point all through the story, and I decided to start them with this chapter. And of course, we can see that it’s the first chapter where Illidan, even if he isn’t conscious of it, starts to like Maiev more than he should have at that point.

A Red Dress And Heels To Hide The Knife In Plainsight

I loved writing that one. Showing that Maiev had more hobbies than hunting demons, along with showing how you had to act to get her to do things that she would refuse to do otherwise. Most of the time, if Sira gently asks if she wants to go do some shopping, Maiev always has something else to do. Not that she hates shopping, just that she thinks there’s better things to do.

I could probably go more about Worgens and their existence, but it would spoil some part of the story :/

And honestly, I had an alternate version of this chapter where Illidan saw Maiev and Sira hurrying in the streets, followed them and he would have eavesdropped on the conversation about him. It was obviously bad because it was confirming that Maiev was at least a Hunter (which he won’t know until a while by that time) and it would have been totally an excuse for smut x)

A Warning Falling In Deaf Ears

With this chapter, I’ve been working on mixing the idea of chapters 5 (to concentrate on rest of the cast) with more of the main story. Like that, I show that there’s more than Illidan and Maiev in this universe, but at the same time, I’m still progressing their story by sharing the chapter between the two. I really liked writing Kayn like that and I think that one of my favorite things to write in this story, it’s Illidan and Malfurion interacting.

A Touch So Familiar, Yet So Strangely Threatening

I remember writing that chapter and suddenly realizing that it was going to be longer than the precedent, and i thought for a moment that I had to cut it in half, but I couldn’t find a satisfying way to do it, and it would have fucked up my outline, so I just carried on with it until I had told everything that I had to.

With that chapter, I’m trying to show that Maiev can be really crazy when it comes to the Betrayer and his followers, but I can assure that she wouldn’t wound any of the Hunters, even if they cannot really be sure about it. And the little dialogue with the B-word made me laugh and yes, Maiev already called the Betrayer a bitch to his face. In 13 years, it would have been weird that she didn’t think of it at least once.

For the rest of the chapter, I just wanted to show that Maiev and Illidan were becoming comfortable with each other + setting up a reason for her to be worried about Illidan to show him her good side.

Screaming Under The Full Moon Won't Change Your Fate

The one thing I keep from this chapter, is that I can’t wait to dive more into Velen and Maiev's relationship.

Otherwise, yeah, if Illidan were to go into a fight only wanting to use magic, he could kill Maiev without breaking a sweat. But he likes the challenge and feels like it wouldn’t be satisfying to annihilate her with just a spell, so he’s fighting blade against blades, unless Maiev is really close to kill him.

A Fateful Call That Only You Can Be Blamed For

I have nothing much to say about it. It was one chapter that I really wanted to write and publish, because it’s the one where Illidan just let his guard down around Maiev for good, and now that he won’t try to trap her into admitting that she is the Warden, it allows him to see Maiev in another light.

That anyone can guess what it is.

Oh yeah, just that I threw some good crumbs of the fact that Illidan is a self-loathing addict in my fics and that it’s one of the reasons he falls so hard for Maiev after this chapter. But it’ll be a good talk for either another chapter, or later.

Going Separate Ways For A Night But Not The Life

Nothing to say, it was a transitional chapter to show that Illidan really believes that Maiev isn’t the Warden, and that there’s more than the fight to them.

Stab Me Once, Shame On You. Stab Me More Than Twice...

A fun little chapter. Velen is more modern than most people can believe and once again, I like writing about the interactions between Illidan and Malfurion. Of course, if you go back to read this one after chapter 20, you might see that I already knew how it was going to happen from this chapter, as the 20th got his title in this one.

I just hope that people read the story from the Advent Calendar 2020 to know what happened in the middle of it.

And From There, Fate Laughed At Them

I could talk for hours about Cordana in my AU. I just love what I’m going to do with her characters and I hope that my readers will like it too.

But to give some crumbs, Maiev and Cordana have been best friends since high school and she’s the first long-time friend that Maiev had made in her life and thanks to Cordana, she met with Sira and the group, but most importantly Velen. Cordana is a hybrid of sixth generation, so her demonic attributes are almost non-existent, but she kept some supernatural ability from her legacy. She knew from a very young age that she wanted to hunt demons and protect people, and met with Velen early to prepare her future job. Once she discovered that Maiev had some natural abilities to hunt demons, she saw them as the future “Best Best Friend and Hunters” and convinced Maiev to give a go to the hunt. She was forced to move out in another city but she kept contact with Maiev and the rest of the group. In terms of strength, abilities and hunting score, she is right behind Maiev.

Otherwise, I will add that I had a lot of fun writing the conversation between them about Illidan and how he would be better than the Betrayer *winkwink*.

I didn’t make it clear in that chapter and it won’t be important, but Khadgar has a crush on Cordana.

Cordana meant well with the message, and even if in real life, I would condone such action, here, I needed it to move things around because yes, neither Illidan nor Maiev would make the first step if it wasn’t for Cordana.

During the fight, at the beginning of the scene, Illidan totally complimented the Warden on her abilities but don’t try to make him admit it.

Last thing: my nickname is Fate. I’m the one laughing.

Games, Games, All Is Games

I don’t really have anything to say about this chapter.

Sometimes, Cowardice Allows The Survival Of The Smartest

To be perfectly honest, I regret how I handled Cordana’s week in the story because I’ve barely done anything with her but I can explain where the problem is. I knew that I wanted Illidan to discover the warden’s identity on chapter 20, and I planned all my updates around that one fact, but when it came to the outline, I wasn’t sure what to tell between the chapter 13 and 20 to reach that point and thanks to the Calendar, I moved things around that one and I ended up having the idea of making Cordana appears (She should have come in person in the story much, much later). And as I needed chapters 18 and 19 to build up to the reveal, I ended up completely stuck and making her appearance too fast and if it wasn’t for the message, she would have been useless to the story. But I realized it too late and I couldn’t rework my outline in time.

But well, i’ll give her a better mini-arc in the second arc of the story to atone for it.

Otherwise, I hope that the feel of the countdown to the reveal starting by the end of the chapter had been caught by some people x) It’s obvious to me, but well, i’m the writer.

Step By Step, Tick Tock Said The Clock

Just a build up chapter for the 20th. Even if I really like it and that I’m preparing the ground for future plotlines but I’ll let you guess which one it could be x)

I know I haven’t make it clear in the chapter, but Malfurion knew that Illidan was lying when he pretended that his problem was the Warden “may-be-may-be-not-a-hybrid/demon” but as he also know that his brother is a “stubborn motherfucker” he let it slid.

And yes, somewhere in my mind, there’s an alternate universe where Maiev accepted Illidan’s invitation and that they would spend the evening at her place. Without a reveal first.

Any Last Wish?

I don’t really have something to add to this chapter. I succeeded to write it just as I wanted.

I just had a long debate with myself as to how I wanted it to end, as I had the choice between cutting it right as Illidan is saved by the Warden (maybe not revealing her identity before the next chapter, or it would have been the last line) or just as I did, by them reaching her place first. I chose the latter because I want Chapter 21 to start with a really specific scene and I thought that it was better than a cheap cliffhanger.

The last thing I'll add, is that for the story to go well, I had to make Illidan be the first to be aware of the identity of the other, mostly because he can be the one to change his mind more easily about wanting to kill the Warden. If it had been Maiev discovering that Illidan was the Betrayer at this moment of the story, he would have died.

And now, because I'm not done yet, here’s some info about the bonus chapters that were published independently from the main story!

AC Day 8: A Morning

First calendar, in 2018, and I already knew that I was going to write Hasard. It had no name by this time, but I had written that small scene to try out a few things and see how it’ll work.

There’s a really high chance that I end up rewriting it for the main story, but I think that a few elements will change. We’ll see.

AC19 Day 24: Hasard: Naisha

Probably the worst (in terms of feels) chapter of the story yet.

Naisha is probably the character who had a story and fate the closest to canon and I wanted to keep it like that, as it allowed to shape even more the hate between the Warden and the Betrayer. Honestly, she wasn’t deserving of a death like that, especially that if the Betrayer hadn’t intervened that day by trying to kill Maiev, Naisha would have survived.

Actually, in any other universes/storylines possible, she would have survived. Unfortunately for her, she fell right into the feud and became a victim of it.

At this point of the story, Illidan isn’t even completely aware of what happened that day, and he has no idea who Naisha was. All that he knows is that he thought to have killed the Warden, only to find her, even more angry in the following week. He just knows that he had killed the wrong person, but he had no idea who. Maiev herself doesn’t know for sure that it was the Betrayer the culprit, as she couldn’t see clearly in the rain.

Of course, it’ll end up being brought up in the story :)

AC20 Day 8: Hasard: Malfurion’s Hellish Day

It should have been Khadgar's backstory actually for that Calendar. But even if I have a good idea about it, I realized that I wasn’t completely inspired and that I was missing a few details to be able to write it. So, in the end, I went desperately after another idea and thanks to Melowen, I think, she got me on the idea of writing about Malfurion.

In the end, this chapter, meant to be a funny one with Illidan and Maiev forced to be in the same place for the same job, with Malfurion, aware that it would be a catastrophe to let them discover the truth, ended up shaping the last chapters currently published.

And if you are wondering, no, Illidan wasn’t trying to trick his brother in giving him the secret identity of Maiev. He was just trying to get his brother approbation about the woman he was starting to crush on.

The line: ‘“Yeah, everyone tells me that I look like a famous actor,” Malfurion faked a chuckle, glancing at the woman.’ is a reference to my Bodyguard AU where Illidan is an actor.

Alright, that’s all for the trivia! Thanks for reading this bonus chapter, and the main story until now, and I hope you’ll keep enjoying reading Hasard!

Rose

#world of warcraft #illidan x maiev #long text

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hopevalley · 4 years ago

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Season 8, Episode 1: Open Season

Work was busier than expected on Monday, but the deep dive into the first episode of S8 begins now!

Scene 1: Narration, Elizabeth and Nathan, Lucas

The awkwardness between Elizabeth and Nathan was...palpable at first lol.The best part about the non-narrated part of the scene is twofold: Nathan interacting with Jack is a well-needed and very nice touch, and of course it’s always nice to see that Nathan is patient concerning Elizabeth’s situation and reassures her that she can let him know when she’s ready to go to dinner with him.

My problem with the whole thing is that...if she hasn’t spoken up about wanting that dinner date yet, and she’s not saying yes she’d like to get dinner with you now, it’s like...any sane person would assume at this point in the story that Elizabeth isn’t interested in Nathan. Worse, Nathan isn’t the kind of man who wouldn’t take a hint. I’m pretty sure this is why the opening scene felt just a little bit off. I think they ought to have let Elizabeth be a little more enthusiastic about the idea while still failing to commit to it.

To be fair to the writers, I can’t imagine it was easy for them to figure out how to open this season after such a long time gap. They let a whole winter elapse between last season and this one. How do you explain literally no major development with the love triangle in that amount of time? Especially after the way the last season ended?

Random consideration: the camera focuses on Elizabeth’s face a lot and makes her wedding ring clearly visible.

Boom, the flashback with Lucas. I think having him leave out of jealousy was a better idea than having his mother fall ill (we’ve certainly seen that enough at this point), and maybe we should also consider the fact that while Lucas was gone, Nathan didn’t really jump on the opportunity to woo Elizabeth himself.

I wonder if we’ll get an explanation for that or not. What makes Lucas so sure that after 4+ months, Elizabeth hasn’t started courting Nathan? Maybe he kept in touch with someone in town? Or he just knows Elizabeth well enough to know she wouldn’t feel quite ready to commit in that time frame anyway?

I did really like Lucas’s opening scene with Elizabeth. Honestly, he was quite likable, here: admitting he was wrong, admitting his shortcomings, apologizing. All good things. “I’m ashamed I let my jealousy get the best of me... The worst of me.” That’s such a good line.

It didn’t feel equal in enthusiasm to the Nathan scene, but I’ll have more thoughts on that later. I do believe it was on purpose.

Scene 2: Clara and Jesse’s Fight, The Café

I like the concept of some marital discord for Clara and Jesse. Marriage is easier said than done and like any serious relationship, it’s a lot of consistent maintenance. It starts out pretty well, with Jesse sleeping in the other bedroom. At this point I fully expected to find out Clara kicks in her sleep or she snores a lot or something that’s funny to hear about but really difficult to actually deal with in real life. Color me disappointed later, but I’ll get to it.

Scene 3: The Mercantile, Ned, Florence, Carson

This just set up things with Faith’s situation so there’s not much to say, but as always I do love Florence. I hope she gets some good scenes this season. And I love Ned so I hope the same for him.

Henry coming in to mail a letter was interesting, though. I’m not sure it’ll mean anything in particular later, but...it’s possible. Then again, maybe he’s just here to set our expectations regarding Faith’s return (of course it’s a long trip from Chicago) or Carson’s worry (a bit unreasonable unless he expected to hear from her at a specific stop).

Scene 4: Nathan, Dylan

Dylan is such an incredible scumbag. The spurs were a nice touch. He says things almost fondly (“She’s growing up... My little girl.”) and then wants nothing to actually do with Allie.

The guy’s actually a pretty good actor. The way he segues into being glad for Allie’s sake that Nathan wasn’t the one killed. If the next words out of his mouth weren’t a demand for go-away money you’d almost feel those words were genuine!

Scene 5: Lee and Rosemary’s Return + Faith’s Return + Dylan Part Two

Lots of energy in this scene, both good and bad. I always appreciate what Lee and Rosemary bring to the show. I genuinely just don’t care that much about Faith. I’m ready to ship her with Cowboy Brett Brewer. He gets a name, which makes me wonder if he’s gonna show up again. :3

Lol at Carson’s jelly face:

I MEAN...

Not a fan of Faith’s outfit...but to be fair we’ve never really seen Faith outside of uniform. That just doesn’t strike me as something she would wear to travel in...?

Dylan approaching Jack and Jack speaking to him was so hilarious to me. “A puppy!” It’s extra funny after he looked afraid of Rosemary. Nathan intervening was undoubtedly for the best, but I can’t imagine why he would have approached Elizabeth or Jack. He doesn’t know who they are, or their connection to Nathan. Maybe too convenient. Might have been better to have him approach someone else entirely--like Opal.

Scene 6: Nathan and Allie

It’s great Nathan’s officializing the adoption but he had literal years to do this and only chooses now, when there’s a threat? Legally Dylan doesn’t have a leg to stand on even in that day and age (he did the abandoning in the first place + Nathan is a lawman)... It kind of ruined the cute moment for me, and I think it will come back in a bad way later.

I don’t mind Nathan’s inability to confide in Elizabeth in this situation. At this point, she doesn’t need to know, and the situation is just weird enough that he probably doesn’t think he needs to dump his own problems on her.

Scene 7: Carson and Faith

I’m the jerk who just chanted “BREAK UP BREAK UP BREAK UP” during this scene in my head. I just...don’t care about Faith and Carson.

Scene 8: Bill and The Gals

I hate that they keep retconning Bill’s ability to cook well with every passing season. In season 2 and 3 he was more than satisfactory. In S4 he made dinner for Dottie and it was really nice. Now he’s godawful and doesn’t taste his own shit before letting other people try it? Come on.

This is the kind of stuff the writing team needs to cut out of the story. It’s not funny.

Worse, outspoken Fiona lying to Bill? I just don’t see it. At least Molly told him the truth...but I still am just SO tired of seeing this shit. It makes me think new writers only watched the last couple of seasons instead of all of them.

Also, if Bill is literally running the cafe most of the time, if he was bad at cooking, then...the place would have shut down ages ago. What they should lean into if they wanna do a cooking joke is that Bill isn’t good at creating recipes from scratch. Maybe he doesn’t have a strong sense of taste (my husband has this issue so it’s the first thing that comes to mind) so he’s likely to over-do things like spice or sugar or salt on accident. There’s also a lot of room for jokes about his “taste” in things that can come of it (women, clothes, et cetera).

Scene 9: Lee’s Pants

Good scene, 10/10, wouldn’t change a thing. I hope this pants thing becomes a running gag. This is the good kind of humor I want in my life. And I like that Jesse wants to emulate Lee. It’s wholesome.

Scene 10: Rosemary and Clara

The ribbon as a tissue was funny, but it was just SLIGHTLY too over the top for me.

Scene 11: Faith and Carson Again...............

“Were you jealous of that cowboy?” I think he should be. The cowboy is better. I don’t give a damn about these characters. And I genuinely hate that the strumming is Carson’s Thing Now. At the very least we should get some Carson and Bill doing a duet together which would be cool.

It just felt like it was shilling Paul and had nothing to do with the characters.

Scene 12: Mmm Money

This is arguably the most interesting scene in the episode. Lucas nodded at Nathan. Nathan went to Lucas for money. Lucas didn’t need to get the scoop to find out why Nathan needed it to loan it to him. Elizabeth is officially the least interesting part of the love triangle.

They treat her like she’s such a prize to be won, but I’m starting to worry that she’s become the new Lorigail on the show.

Anyway this scene had some gay vibes and I liked them.

Scene 13: Rosemary and Elizabeth Catch Up

YES. GOOD SCENE. It starts off fun and it gets serious, and the transition feels really natural. “Did he have reason to be [jealous]?” I’m genuinely glad this is in the episode. It needed to be. I hope Rosemary continues to ask the hard questions.

Elizabeth needs to face either dating one of them, or dating neither of them so that everybody can get on with their lives. If you’re not that enthusiastic about either of them I’d say...maybe don’t date either of them idk.

Scene 14: Nathan and Bill Talk

"If he sees you with me, then...” The problem with this scene is uh...twofold, let’s say.

Issue 1: ThEN HE WILL WHAT, NATHAN? WHAT HAS HE EVER DONE BEFORE THAT WAS SO BAD if he’s not a hard criminal? Maybe an example would be useful here...?

Issue 2: The old Bill Avery would have heard “if he SEES YOU with ME” and mentally been like, “all right so it’s only bad if he SEES ME” and spied on Nathan.

Nathan wanting Bill to stay behind in case Dylan doubles back isn’t a terrible idea, but it almost comes across more like...the writers just want Nathan alone.

Scene 15: Oil

I like the discussion and that Hickam gets to do something. I feel like Henry is low-key advising against shooting the well, and that Lucas and Hickam will end up doing it and causing an issue. It’s just setting up for the future and it’s nice to see those kinds of scenes in the series again!

Scene 16: Jesse and Lee

I’d like this scene more if I felt it gave us ANY insight into the problem Jesse and Clara are having. It mostly comes across like Jesse gets home and does nothing at all until bedtime and Clara is lonely. Could have been a better scene. It’s mostly just repetitive right now.

Scene 17: Nathan Cancels the Date

“Tomorrow’s Saturday.” Nathan’s like uhhhhh. This actually works really well to do what it’s supposed to do. By that I mean, he seems “off” so Elizabeth realizes he’s a bit stressed and leaving town = mountie business = dangerous.

I kind of wish Rosemary and Elizabeth would talk more about this, but maybe that’s coming in an episode soon...?

Scene 18: The Barbershop

Just a cute nice scene that shows a good friendship between Fiona, Clara, and Faith. I like this stuff. Keep it coming, Hallmark!

(Skipping Scene 19 because it’s just Nathan riding around...)

Scene 20: Lee and Rosemary Scheme

I really enjoyed this little bit where they decide to buy something for Clara and Jesse and we don’t get to see what it is. Super wholesome and very fun!

Scene 21: Nathan gets Ambushed

This scene was absolutely wild. Probably one of the best scenes like this that they’ve ever done. Dylan taking Nathan’s hat, “Take care of my little girl” after he takes the money and Nathan’s gun. It was super good.

Also, not too fake that Nathan was on the ground that long. If you got roped off of your horse you’d have the wind knocked out of you super hard lmao.

Scene 22: Bill & The Girls

Clara and Fiona are so cute. Bill playing the “Dad” figure to them both is really nice and it’s good for him. “I’m a lawman. I get to sneak.” What a Bill response.

(Skipping Scene 23 since it’s just Nathan finding his horse.)

Scene 24: Lucas visits with Elizabeth

Lucas and Elizabeth are flirting via a nursery rhyme. I...don’t like that LOL. But Lucas’s “Helen Bouchard taught me to read and after that I was on my own.” She really sounds unloving. This was a pretty decent scene, though.

Also, Grand Isle Louisiana had a major hurricane in 1909 and 1915.

They also seem to have been hit by more mild hurricanes in 1916 and 1917, but the 1915 one was a Cat4, so...the most notable.

Scene 25: Rosemary and Lee in the Dress Shop

This tries to solve the issue of Clara and Jesse’s marital problems, but it doesn’t actually do that. “Let Jesse read when he gets home.” “I’ll talk to Jesse.” Meh.

Scene 26: Barbershop

“Why do this when you’re so good with women’s hair?” I fully expected Fiona to say, “That’s where all the hot gossip is, of course.” I do like her gumption, though!

Scene 27: Nathan Finds Dylan

“I had to let you ambush me, so I had grounds to put you away.” COLD BUT EFFECTIVE. I appreciate this.

Imagine getting to be this smug. I wish it were me.

Anyway, long-term thoughts on this are mostly that...there is just no reasonable way Dylan’s story is over yet. It’s too juicy of a storyline to let go this easily. Allie is going to find out what Nathan did and she’s going to struggle to come to terms with it, especially after her grandfather really did try to turn his life around. Why couldn’t it be the same for her father? Why couldn’t she get lucky like that?

I hope it feels satisfying, whatever they choose to do. Otherwise this was just wrapped up too neatly/too quickly.

Scene 28: Nathan Returns

Very good scene. Nathan’s in a good mood and he does my favorite trope of all time when one person in the relationship has a child: “Why don’t we all go?” You already all know each other, so why not? It’s wholesome and good, and it shows he doesn’t care how he gets to spend time with Elizabeth, as long as he does.

Also, it takes a lot of the pressure off of her for the duration of the date and at its conclusion. This was a cute and good scene, one of the better they’ve had, I think.

Scene 29: Jesse and Lee Talk

This was a nice attempt at a talk, but it really comes off like Jesse has stopped loving Clara for no reason. That his romantic interest in her is what is causing the failure in their relationship.

The problem is: WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS CAUSING IT. NOBODY EVER SAID.

I agree that love isn’t “just” a feeling or “just” an emotion. It’s ALSO a choice. Marriage is a commitment you choose to continue every day. That is all good.

“Choose love. Then you feel it.” is probably some of the worst dialogue they’ve put in the show, though. Yuck. It left a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like it’s shaming people who legitimately fall out of love or who are in bad relationships. “If only you chose to work harder.”

I don’t think that was their intention at all, but it really soured the scene. I would have MUCH rather have had Lee get Jesse to talk about what’s wrong and then offer him pointers on how he could do better. Maybe he’s stressed out and losing himself in books, or he wishes Clara would sit and read with him because that’s something he always wanted. Or maybe Clara would be down for reading time if he read to her while she did her sewing.

There’s so much they could have done here to really send this home, but it didn’t work very well. At the very least Lee could have said, instead of ‘choose love’: CHOOSE COMMUNICATION. Make sure she knows you still feel that way about her.

The biggest thing is like, Lee could also be very encouraging in saying like, the honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever but just because things settle down doesn’t mean the love is less.

THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD STUFF THEY COULD HAVE WRITTEN FOR THIS but they chose “Choose love. Then you feel it.” WTF. That’s awful advice.

Scene 30: Jesse and Clara

Him bringing her flowers was a nice touch, and her getting him the book was also nice. The tandem bike was SO unexpected to me and I loved it. It’s just goofy enough that it works. The best part is that they know it’s not going to fix anything, but it’s still a fun and nice thing to do, and that’s wonderful for Rosemary and Lee. They both like to make the people they care about happy.

Scene 31: Mama Bouchard

MILF ALERT.

Elizabeth is just so shook at all of this she doesn’t say a damn thing for so long it made my palms feel sweaty.

“Someone ought to take an interest in your writing, don’t you think?” I rewatched the episode to understand the tone, and it’s a little hoity-toity/uppity, but she actually doesn’t sound condescending. It’s good for an editor to meet the author, after all, and meet to talk about their writing/book. This has always been custom, even in the early 1900s. Authors didn’t usually get their work published by an editor they’d never met (though of course, you will find some exceptions).

From the little we saw, Helen seems fine. The preview for the next episode tells us she’s UH, AN EDITOR DOING HER JOB, so I’m not looking forward to the editor being the bad guy, but I guess I’ll have to deal with that when it arrives. (To be clear, Elizabeth has never proved to the audience that she’s a Good Writer, let alone a Great Writer. She’s also not experienced which means her work probably NEEDS SOME WORK.)

Anyway, Elizabeth is immediately rude as HELL. Nobody can make an excuse for this. Helen isn’t THAT big of a deal. There are other publishers. Your father is filthy rich. If she changes her mind about your book you can pub to someone via your father if you have to. Like...Helen wouldn’t have taken you on if she didn’t see any potential in you.

Even if it was a big deal, Elizabeth has NEVER been a flake. EVER.

This is a classic case of a writer forcing the character to go out of character in order to bend to what the plot dictates.

If I were Nathan, I’d drop Elizabeth like a brick.

How to fix this scene? I’ll honestly have to think about that for a while. This was the first hint of truly bad writing this season. The bit with Lee and “choose love” was careless writing, but this scene with Nathan is just Bad.

The thing is, I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. I know they put this in there so that it looks like she’ll choose Lucas because she never even goes out with Nathan, and then BOOM. I know it’s meant to be this big thing about how she’s scared to feel anything for Nathan because Lucas is the safer option and also a good man (so why would she fall for the more frightening option?).

But this was not the right way to do this type of scene. I hope to God in the next episode someone says something about it. Allie could tell her it was rude and it hurt Nathan’s feelings/you shouldn’t have said yes if you didn’t want to. It’d be fully in character for her. Rosemary could also say something similar. If they do, I might be able to forgive this...but if it’s not called attention to by the other characters, then it’s a massive failure as a scene to me.

Did I miss anything? Do you want my thoughts on something in particular? Shoot me a message HERE and I’ll do my best to answer!

#when calls the heart #long post #season 8 shenanigans #season 8 spoilers #episode write ups

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melien · 3 years ago

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VII and XXXI for whatever you want! also, hope your day is going well :)

7. whats the biggest risk you’ve taken with your story? did it pay off?

Answered here, but I guess another risk I took was stopping posting legacies and instead focusing more on character development, photoshoots, edits etc. It's becoming pretty tiring to do the same thing for years, and I already had a lot of characters who really needed more attention from me (and it brings me more feels to focus on the old beloved ones instead of constantly having the flow of new ones and not being inspired enough for them)

Also, dabbling in TS4 is a bit of a risk - I used to underestimate it before, but it's pretty good for recreations and quick photoshoots, and it runs way smoother than TS3 and is awesome for dress-ups and edits. And, to be fair, I doubt I'm going to post any different sims in TS4 - it's all the same stuff, just in another game (I personally like seeing people having multiple versions of their sims in different games). I aspire to have followers who follow me for my characters and not strictly for the game I post, and a lot of other people have been playing TS4 (some even completely switched to it), so I convinced myself it's completely okay if I post both games and try out something new for me.

31. drop some random trivia about your story

So I guess I'll just talk about how it all came to be, in case anyone's confused😅 My blog might be a bit of a mess right now, but there's a simple explanation to my two universes.

Universe #1 - doesn't have a set name yet, but I call it multi-legacy verse so far, because it connects my legacies. It all started with me wanting to do a cas legacy with the Fletchers (my first and oldest one), where I'd basically post heir/spouse duos and talk about their new storylines that evolved from the old ideas. But I understood it's all way more complicated than it seems, because apart from the main heir line, there are so many side characters and sub-branches. Besides, I thought of expanding my spare lines and giving them kids because it could be a bunch of fun, and also giving relatives to some sims. With time, I added sims from my other old legacies (their revamped versions) to the tree, and there's still a lot to do in terms of this. So now it's slightly out of control😅

Right now, I have ~160 characters on that tree and counting. It actually brings me a lot of fun to work on every generation, think of their story and who will be connected with whom in which way (it's usually quite awesome to have gens with a lot of characters and develop their relationships, nothing can top the feeling of some friendly or romantic or other type of ship clicking, or some plot clicking due to the character's surroundings). I also set a purpose to write a bio for all the important characters. Obviously, I doubt I'll ever post most of these stories, as many of them sound pretty ambitious (idk, maybe the most promising ones, we'll see how long I can go without writing), but thinking of them fills me with so much joy and ideas, and this is what matters the most. Also, any questions about this or any particular characters are welcome.

Oh and yeah, I finally feel comfortable enough to show the tree! Still a huge WIP and many things are subject to change, but so far I'm proud of how it's going. I may also create a separate post about it later.

Universe #2 - Rickverse. Unlike the huge multi-legacy tree, it's focused on one generation. Basically, it's a story about young romance, friendship and stuff like this. What's special about it is that these characters have been my ocs since I was 11. I wrote about them throughout my teenage years, but then my love for them sort of faded. However, last year I recreated a few of them sims out of boredom and understood that they absolutely deserve a new life and a more developed story. Like in the previous case, I doubt I'll fully write it because there's still a lot to consider, but I'm glad to talk about them, post their photoshoots, and maybe do mini-stories (one AU is currently in development).

Thanks, sweetie! ❤️

#text post #replies

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ramblefang · 3 years ago

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TOH s2 ep3

I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep up the liveblog thing, but the first few seconds of this episode already has me thinking things I want to write down.

But really quick: some post-episode 2 thoughts. Nothing too big, just follow-up thoughts on Luz learning alongside Eda and Lilith given how the episode ended. Seems like Luz being the teacher is pretty much done already, and the adults—with their experience and wisdom better contextualizing what they’re learning about glyphs—may more solidly have the edge at teaching. Though, Luz may still have plenty to contribute; she’s proven to be mighty creative in her own right, so she’ll likely pick up on “glyph writing” pretty quick.

00:06 - So these first few seconds seem to be a flashback. I was initially tipped off by the, like, blue tint and the, like, hazy effect at the edges of the screen. But I also rewinded since I started writing, and this hooded figure does have Eda’s staff and the hand grasping it certainly looks like hers.

00:14 - Oh, it’s all confirmed just seconds later. Okay then.

00:27 - An intriguing cold open that was. My first guess is that that was how Eda met King. But it could also be introducing a new character.

01:10 - Looks like Lilith explained things to Luz between episodes. These notes (especially the confusion) reminds me of trying to wrap my head around Homestuck shit.

01:38 - Huh. Lilith looking a tad unhinged. Last episode left us with the impression that she had a decent direction when it comes to these glyphs, but maybe exploring this uncharted territory is a bit much for the rule-obsessed perfectionist

01:49 - I must say again that I really appreciate Hooty having a good relationship with someone.

02:53 - Demon lore! Sounds like this might really be about King and Eda meeting, based on this King focus and the title having something about the past (didn’t commit the title to memory)

03:53 - Hmm, so King’s story doesn’t match up with the expert’s understanding of history. I wonder if it’ll turn out that King was just the big fish of a very small pond. Alternatively, King’s story might be prehistory. Eda did appear to have found some ancient ruins in the cold open.

04:20 - Ooh, indeed, this could be dealing with delusions. The appropriate way to handle someone experiencing delusions isn’t really something I’m familiar with. And it’s still uncertain if that’s really where this is going; King’s story could still be real (at least in a fashion)

04:25 - But in the moment, I do appreciate Luz’s approach to things. Delusion or not, it’s not like King is hurting anyone. Well, it is correlated with some toxic behavior (like that time King took credit for the story that he wrote together with Luz), but I’m unsure if I’d pin that stuff on delusions. Those things can be addressed without necessarily stressing King out over his “delusions”.

04:55 - Uuh. I have no idea what to expect from Hooty coming with. I’m honestly kind of scared.

05:00 - And based on those sounds and the pulsating flesh left behind on the door, yeah, I was right to be kind of scared. But the “Porta-Hooty” is cute.

05:30 - “Again” Eda says. Huh. Quick guess is that Eda manages an elaborate charade to keep King happy.

05:37 - A flying bathtub huh. That caught me off guard. I guess that’s the back-up for when Luz takes the staff (whose name I do not recall at the moment.)

(Apparently it is Owlbert.)

06:18 - This does appear to be the location from the cold open, so it’s probably real. I wouldn’t expect that young Eda was already orchestrating an elaborate charade for King. It’s also uncharted, so more credence to King’s story being at least partially true—but it also works for my idea that King was the master of a very small pond.

07:07 - Not sure if significant, but that door is keyhole shaped.

07:27 - Ooh! Prehistory! Or, well, prehistory as known by Lilith. Pretty sure actual prehistory is, like, “before history was recorded in a way we could dig up.” And this is literally language that could, probably, record history

08:30 - Hmm, so there’s something sneaking around these ruins, reminiscent of something sneaking up on young Eda in the cold open. I had thought that would be King, but it could be something else. It could also still have been King in the cold open, and it’s just something else now—it could even be Eda.

09:20 - Oh, so “apple blood” is basically an alcoholic beverage. It’s practically just a euphemism here.

09:30 - And the positions have flipped. These ruins are enough evidence to fully trust King’s story, despite his hazy memory. Luz still sounds the way she did earlier in the episode: simply humoring him.

My present theory is that the true extent of King’s story is that he lived here. But that does not mean he was the ruler of this place; he may have just used the art in these ruins to incorrectly fill holes in his memory.

10:20 - Hmm, the mummies of a bunch of vaguely insectoid...soldiers? The main thing I’m getting is that they don’t look much like demons. Also one is skittering around still, so maybe they aren’t exactly living? Like, maybe they were automatons in the first place?

10:50 - Ooh, a surprising fleshiness to this “monstrosity”. But, I mean, zombies are a form of automaton in my book. Or they can be at least.

11:12 - That sort of flesh warping ability is always fun. The kind that means you can never be pinned (especially by impalement) and also functions as a healing factor

11:24 - So now I’m guessing that by Eda’s exclamation of “Again?!” before, she’s had to protect/save King from these things before. Not only from the cold open, but other times that King has decided to visit this place.

11:40 - Eda has fought this thing before and knows, with certainty, that it can’t truly be defeated. I wonder why King wasn’t aware of it though.

13:02 - I was right about it being King in the cold open, but oh my God I wasn’t prepared for how cute baby King would be.

14:10 - A fair enough explanation for King’s memories. Though, it doesn’t explain the art in the ruins which does, indeed, bear a resemblance to King.

14:43 - Again, I’m not familiar with how real delusions are handled, but I can say that this probably wasn’t the safest place for this conversation

15:09 - Considering I initially agreed with Luz, it’s appropriate for me to reflect as I did agree with her approach. Perhaps there is more nuance to dealing with delusions. Luz theoretically could have been honest while still avoiding outright contradicting King’s delusions; in the bluntest terms, she could have outright said she doesn’t believe that he’s the king of demons, but would be willing to treat him as if he was anyway. The main thing I still agree with is Luz not pushing King on his delusions: more because it wasn’t her place to than anything else—Luz simply doesn’t have the full picture for her to be able to. Eda did though, so if anyone was going to challenge King’s delusions, it was her. Still could have been done somewhere safer though.

16:28 - Establish something that is true and positive regardless of the delusion: the delusional person having support. It can act as a safe foundation when one’s reality otherwise seems uncertain. Provide something that is at least as comforting as the delusion.

16:55 - Curious. The “monstrosity” is restacking the stones, King’s make-believe soldiers. It’s true enough that it didn’t attack baby King, as King was already in the ruins before Eda arrived. It specifically attacked Eda. Even on this latest excursion, it had never attacked King directly: it was simply imposing enough for King to agree to run from it.

18:30 - Eggshell? Was King born here? Maybe, rather than having been king himself, he is an heir?

20:32 - I would let him keep it. Yes. I like the monster.

20:42 - I like the symbolism of the horn as, like, King’s memory? It was damaged by his delusion, but now it’s whole again. King is more complete than he was before.

20:49 - Oh, they did bring the monster! Right there in the background. And King named it “Jean-Luc”? At least that’s how I’m assuming it’s spelled, after Jean-Luc Picard. I wonder if, coinciding with King’s further development, they can revive it to work outside of the ruins.

Closing Thoughts

Through season 1, I had thought that King trying to live up to being “the king of demons” functioned well as an analogy for toxic masculinity. He was trying to be tough and controlling, because that was how he thought he ought to be as a demon king—much the same things that toxic masculinity pushes on men to be “real” men. So making it through these his delusions makes room for King to mature and be more genuine to himself.

#the owl house

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goneseriesanalysis · 4 years ago

Text

Sam Temple

Ok, so I’m going to start by working through my opinions on the different characters of the series before I delve into other topics such as representation and plot. Here are my opinions on your main man Sam (I’ve only re-read Gone so far and will be doing a new one for each of the books).

Also I feel like this goes without saying, but just in case: Spoiler warning for Gone down below

Original Opinion: I thought Sam was a boring protagonist with little to no personality asides from surfing and being ‘in love’ with Astrid.

New Opinion: While I still think Sam is an underdeveloped protagonist, I enjoyed his character much more than I remember, and have more thoughts on him than I realised.

1.) SAM’S APPEARENCE AND CHARACTER: We get some indication of who Sam is, and his role in the story, in the first chapter. He describes himself as sticking “to jeans and understated t-shirts, nothing that drew to much attention to himself.” While this description is reflective of Sam’s reluctance to become a leader later in the books, it kind of reminds me of every boring protagonist of every ya book/film/tv show ever. It’s a little cliché and as soon as I read this I groaned out loud and prepared myself for the most basic protagonist to ever grace the page.

We then get a little insight into his personality and his relationship with the citizens of Perdido Beach:

“everybody knew who he was, but few people were quite sure what he was.”

“He was a surfer who didn’t hang out with surfers. He was bright but not a brain. He was good-looking, but not so that girls thought of him as a hottie.”

We get the idea that Sam is the underdog. Nobody really knows him, but they all expect him to be there when something goes wrong. This is a really good indictor for his role in the rest of the story, but the description still gives us almost no insight into who Sam is as a person. The best word I can think of to describe his personality is ‘protagonist’ - he could have been so much more if he had been given just a little bit more development.

The next paragraph explains the school bus incident, where we again get absolutely no information on his personality. It’s almost as if Michael forgot that the hero had to be an actual person too. We get told that Sam has one heroic moment and then goes back to being his normal self, but what is his normal self?? I still have no idea.

We get some more description of Sam when Caine is introduced in Chapter 14 “He had dark hair and dark eyes, not much different from Sam himself” - and this is reiterated by Astrid in Chapter 38 “Astrid was struck by how alike the two boys looked superficially.” “Where Caine hid his arrogance and cruelty behind a smooth, controlled surface, Sam let his emotions play out on his face.” But even here we still get very little idea as to what he actually does look like, a weak point I have noticed in Michael’s writing is his vague descriptions. I do really like Astrid’s comment on how they display their respective emotions. Sam’s strength in morality, his lack of deception, is also a weak point in his leadership - he is too easy to read and therefore manipulate (this isn’t really shown in this book but I remember this becoming apparent with the town council). Caine’s weakness in morality saves him from this weakness but leaves him open to betrayal and mistrust (and rightfully so).

2.) SAM’S HOME: We next get to see Sam’s house in Chapter 3, which is described as being a “small squashed-looking one-story house with a tiny, fenced backyard and no real front yard.” From this description, and other information throughout the book, we get the idea that Sam and his mother are relatively poor. However, I would prefer to have been shown this instead of being told. Sam’s monetary situation never seems to affect his decisions and opinions which is a little disappointing as, from someone who has grown up poor, I know that it is something that really does affect your whole worldview. The only indicator we get that this situation has affected Sam in any way, is his comment on how wasteful the kids are being with food during the first night at the plaza - but he never actually acts on this - that job falls to Caine and later Albert.

It would have been interesting to explore how Sam could have reacted to Caine’s wealthy upbringing as opposed to his own. Them both being jealous of each other’s lives for different reasons (Caine for his lack of parental love, Sam for his lack of financial security) would have added depth to their relationship as well as Sam’s character. I’m also interested to see how Sam reacts to Albert basically reinstating capitalism in later books. As I remember, he was never overly opposed to it, but it will be interesting to see if his reaction is a direct result of his childhood.

3.) SAM’S FEAR OF THE DARK: This is plot point that is introduced to establish Sam’s powers, and it doesn’t have any other relevance in the story. This is disappointing as, with the final villain being nicknamed “the darkness” it could have been a really poetic and fitting ending for Sam to conquer both his innate fear and the villain at the same time. However as I remember it (possible spoilers for fear and light), Sam has very little to do with Gaia - Gaia mostly interacting with Diana, Caine, Drake and Lana. His ability to produce light in order to counter act this fear is a really nice inclusion though, and reflects how Sam’s leadership is a safety net to those living in the FAYZ.

4.) SAM MOTIVATIONS: We first get an idea of what it is that motivates Sam when he talks about attacking Tom in Chapter 13, “I thought he was trying to hurt my mom.” Sam’s powers are triggered by fear, his first instinct is to protect those that he loves, and he will resort to violence if it is necessary. This idea is shown again when Sam steps in to protect Bette. His first instinct is to de-escalate the situation (and, interestingly, he looks to Howard to help him with this), but, when that fails, he resorts to violence. I really like this inclusion as it gives insight into Sam’s basic motivations and also explains how he was so quickly willing to murder Drake after Drake went after Astrid. Sam’s attack on Tom is heavily reflective of Sam’s relationship with Drake in the first book - Sam burning Tom’s hand foreshadows him burning Drake’s arm.

One thing that bothers me with this scene, however, is that Sam shows little to no emotion when talking about his stepfather - and this is never expanded on. It seems out of character for Sam, one of the kindest characters in the book, to feel almost nothing towards his stepfather, and with no explanation as to why this might be. We get no indication of their relationship prior to the incident, which would have been a good chance to further develop Sam.

Later in the book, when Tom is brought up again Sam says that he felt a rush “I thought, oh, my God, look at the power I have.” - And this again is never expanded on. Sam’s main fault is his unwillingness to shoulder the responsibility of being a leader, and he never really experiences a corruption of power in the way that this line hints. I think Michael may have just added this is to highlight the differences between Sam and Caine, but it feels out of character, especially seen as it is never brought up again (at least in this book, I can’t remember if this is featured later on in the series)

5.) SAM’S POWERS: I mentioned before how Sam’s powers are first introduced to us through the flashback to Tom and his fear of the dark. But the first time we actively see him use them in the book is during The Fire and later at the powerplant. During both of these situations, Sam is unable to fully control his power and can only summon them through fear. His core motivation is to protect rather than attack. I also find it interesting that Sam is technically the first person to kill someone in the FAYZ, but I don't really have anything else to say about it :/

The first time we see Sam voluntarily use his powers in in Chapter 28, when Astrid manipulates him into using his anger instead of his fear. I find this interesting, because, despite the change in emotion, Sam’s motivation largely remains the same. The use of his power here comes from his anger at Drake having hurt Astrid, his anger that he wasn’t there to protect her.

This then changes in chapter 33, when Sam seems to gain full control over his powers. This time, when he summons his anger he focuses on his mother. I have a few issues with this. Firstly, Sam gaining control of his powers seems rushed for plot convenience, especially when you compare him to Caine, who was more willing to use his powers and yet took months to master them?? Is this a hint that, if Sam were willing to go as far as Caine, he would be the more powerful one - or is it just lazy writing?? It seems that Sam and his powers were pushed aside for other storylines, which is troubling considering he is the main character. The other thing that bothers me about this scene is that Sam’s anger at his mother is not further developed (are you noticing a theme??) It would have been nice if this had come up again properly in the poof scene.

The poof scene would have been an excellent scene to develop Sam’s character, instead, for me, it fell flat. We don’t get much perception into Sam’s thoughts other than that his first instinct is to reach out to his mother, but this provides us with very little indication about who he is as we know that this has also been every other child’s first instinct. Him being the first one to refuse is indicative of his strength and hints that the anger he felt at his mother was more than a fleeting emotion, but it would have been nice to go into more depth on his feelings about his mother and Caine. A strong, emotionally charged verbal stand-off where Sam and Caine both vent their feelings towards their mother/the gaiphage would have been an excellent ending to the big fight - as Sam’s true strength is his compassion as opposed to his use of his powers. This could have also had a fantastic payoff in later books, where Gaia could have used this moment against the boys.

6.) WHAT MAKES SAM A HERO: I’ve already mentioned that Sam’s main strength is his kindness and compassion, which is nice to see - especially in a male protagonist (whether this continues in later books I can’t remember). His adversity to becoming the leader is his biggest weakness, as it often prevents him from doing the right thing in time sensitive situations. I found that this line from chapter 11 nicely sums this idea up “In a closet off the main room he found a grey-green military shirt, many sizes too large.” - possibly referring the idea that Sam is not ready to become the leader/ hero just yet. His hesitance, his insecurities, making him unfit to lead as of yet. Also nicely reminds you how he is just a child.

Then, there are multiple moments throughout the book where Sam is just shown to be the sweetest person and these are my two favourites:

“I’m not supposed to cross the street. // It’s ok. I’ll watch while you do, ok?” - Chapter 5

“Astrid, tell me if this is crazy: I’m thinking if there are any leftovers, we could send them up to Coates.” - Final

The reason people follow him is because in a world where he could be anything, where the old rules just don’t apply anymore, he still chooses to be kind and honestly I love him for it. His line “It is our world. So let’s make it a good one” contrasts Diana’s line “We didn’t make this world, we’re just the poor fools who are living in it.” And really just highlights how good he is. He deserves so much more credit than he gets from the ungrateful cretins whose lives he saves on a daily basis. I just wish Michael had developed him further past being the protagonist.

Another fantastic Sam moment is the bit where he escapes from the collapsed apartment building. If you are ever re-reading the series and wondering why Sam is the protagonist, please just read this moment again and tell me you don’t get chills

“Diana tripped backwards from the blow and sat down hard on the stone steps.

Caine could see her face with a sudden, terrible clarity by the glow of a brilliant column of blinding, green-white light.

That light could only have one source.

He lights was light a spear aimed at the sky. It arced upwards from the midst of the rubble of the apartment building.

‘No,’ Caine said.” Chapter 45

7.) OTHER:

These are just a couple of things I noticed, but can’t really make an infirmed point about

Is Sam’s light being green a reference to the gaiphage, or just a random addition??

I noticed that the first few freaks we learn about other than Sam just have a variation of his power. Is this lazy writing or does it have some significance that I missed??

So there are my opinions on Sam from the first book. I’m sorry that this was so long but I have just so many thoughts. I think I’m going to do separate posts for Astrid, Caine, Diana and Drake and then I’ll pair up the others before moving onto relationships, representation and my likes/ dislikes.

Thank you so much if you read this, and please feel free to give me your own opinions and interpretations :)

#the gone series #sam temple #Gone

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