#Thematic Themes

[visenyaism]

correct me if i’m wrong cos i don’t watch dune.. but i’ve seen people call paul a tragic character. except isn’t he a whole white coloniser tricking indigenous poc into believing he’s a prophet to serve his own interests? that’s inherently evil that cannot be a tragic character imo

so yes that is correct that is what happens. the tragedy is that he is a sixteen year old boy who gets a vision of this happening and he is TERRIFIED and absolutely does not want this to happen at all. He does not want the holy war he does not want to be the chosen one he initially very much wants to fight alongside the fremen as equals trying to liberate themselves from their current colonizer without becoming the messiah because they have common political cause.

And then the entire second half of the first book (and the second movie) are about the concessions he makes to himself bit by bit by bit (well it’s the only way to save his mom and sister. well it’s the only way to prevent nuclear war. well he does want his revenge. well maybe he IS special.) Until by the end he has lost 100% of his humanity, fully wants to be the messiah and is willing to manipulate people into thinking so, and has declared himself duke of arrakis in his father’s name and made a play for the imperial throne.

you’re right that it’s evil. the book and these movies agree with you. the tragedy is watching a child who desperately wanted to avoid this slowly completely lose himself to it anyways. i don’t think “tragic” and “evil” are inherently mutually exclusive.

[zevranunderstander]

i dont think i will ever be over dragon age 2. like. bioware made an epic fantasy story about a chosen one having to save a country and stop the apocalypse and then they made the second installment of the series be about the sociopolitical climate in ONE city through the lens of a family of refugees fleeing from the war of the first game and just. made it about political tensions and class dynamics and the influences of living in a church-mandated state and the growing tension over an occupied piece of the city and political killings and interpersonal conflict and power and its story is ENTIRELY character-driven. it has easily the most iconic set of companion characters. the premise of living through a story told over the course of ten years and knowing from the start that something really bad will happen in the end was so fresh and exciting. the fact that the acts really built on top of each other andhow much the city changed over time. and the game was so mature in terms of the topic of fighting against oppression in so many ways (im usually generous and say that the short development time left some things a bit wanting), and as much as some people say that the game treats mages and templars as being equally bad, i don't think that that is actually true about the game and it very earnestly tries to grapple with some pretty complex political dynamics.

and then the game completely flopped financially and was almost universally hated for its queer themes and its sympathy for "terrorism" and a lot of the things that stemmed from basically having no production time at all and then the studio just made another epic fantasy story about a chosen one that has to save the world from the apocalypse

[theoldkyokodied]

If you follow my main you had to know this was coming… anyway. Enjoy these bloodweave doodles :)

[miikpal]

galleria

speedpaint under cut

[sparrowposting]

Larian really pulling a reverse uno by focusing hard on astarion's prettyboy flirt vibe in all the marketing and then making his arc about reclaiming bodily autonomy

I love them for it. It's everything I wanted from astarion. I'm obsessed with him.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Turtle Takedown Teamwork.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[ingoodjesst]

have you put the pieces together yet, detective

[lovegrowsart]

it's pretty wild to me that people don't see that aang running off to save katara in CoD is his luke in empire strikes back moment, where he runs headlong into his want and attachment and he's narratively punished for doing so and not learning his lesson - aang runs after katara despite guru pathik's warning, like luke runs after leia and han from yoda on dagobah despite yoda's warning; similarly, as a result, things go to hell in ba sing se like they do on bespin - aang enters the avatar state before he's ready and gets killed, and ba sing se falls to the fire nation, luke fights vader before he's ready, loses a hand, and symbolically commits suicide after vader tells him he's luke's father.

the difference between their character arcs is that george lucas and co. actually went thru with luke's hero's journey and understood the fundamental difference between attachment and love, whereas I don't think bryke understood this difference and then dropped this from aang's arc pretty much completely and replaced it with aang digging in his heels into his want and attachment and he gets rewarded with energy bending from a lion turtle, the avatar state from a random pointy rock, and his forever girl from the self-indulgent white men that couldn't bring themselves to give their hero a compelling character arc that meant he might not have gotten everything he wanted at the end.

[3hks]

Dark Thematic IDEAS (in the form of quotes) to Explore

"Don't trust blindly"

"Rules were meant to restrict."

"Things are not always as they seem."

"Heroes and villains are just titles."

"There's no such thing as 'right' or 'wrong.'"

"Heroes don't exist, and they never did."

"In this world, self-preservation is the key."

"This world is nothing but cruel."

"What is justice? It's different for everyone."

"Sometimes, sacrifices are in vain."

"People take advantage of others, and there's nothing one can do about that."

"'Good people aren't real."

"One can't save everyone. No one can."

"Don't expect heroes to suddenly show up when one needs them because they won't."

"It's survival of the fittest, no matter how one looks at it. The weak will always lose"

"Everyone is going to leave at some point."

"A 'happily ever after' only exists in fairytales."

"Perfection is a lie. There is no such thing as a perfect person, a perfect life, or a perfect world."

"Death, loss, and failure is inevitable."

"Sometimes the suffering is just not worth it."

"There's no god looking out for us."

"Not everyone wants the same things as you do. Not everyone wants a better world or love. Not everyone even wants to live."

"There is no perfect time for anything."

"Selflessness doesn't exist--everyone wants something from you. You can't give something without expecting something else in return."

"Forever? What forever? Everything is going to come to an end at some point."

"You can't get everyone to agree with you, which is why the world will never work together."

"There's no dodging the future and no hiding the past."

"You think that people were just born evil? Satan was once an angel too."

Apologies for making you all wait and then releasing something so small. As most people are probably aware, finals are coming up and unfortunately, I have to take them early so I'm trying to cram (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ) The next few should be better, if you have anything you want me to post about, let me know! I'd be more than happy to comply!

Happy writing~

3hks ^^

[mr-president]

“Yeah. I do.”

[clanborn]

i think asc is setting up for froststar (with the caveat acknowledging that the erins will write without regard to actual setup most of the time. and they could also be cowards. so take with a grain of salt). wind had a lot of emphasis on frostpaw standing up for herself and growing confidence and doing this in the context of a leadership role, especially in the windclan scene. sunbeam like specifically notes how frostpaw takes charge of the situation and seems to have really grown into herself. and riverstar and the cats of the park leading her on this journey in order to grow these skills. and i think it makes sense with the extremely religious angle this arc has taken with “evil = defiers of starclan and nonbelievers” and riverclan becoming a mess specifically because they are without starclan’s guidance. so i think it makes sense in this context that riverclan’s chosen leader would be the cat who’s been specifically led by starclan this whole time. and the fact she has tried both a warrior and medicine cat role and has some trouble fitting into both. “look beyond the obvious choices.” frostpaw warrior-healer-prophet leader of riverclan

[dmbakura]

It's actually very manipulative to talk shadowheart out of killing the nightsong and becoming a dark justiciar. She's always been loyal to shar and forcing her to betray her and send her into a crisis of faith is borderline abusive. And shar punishes her for it so it's clearly a bad choice <- what "ascended astarion is actually the good ending because its what he wants" copium sounds like to me

[jackdaw-and-hattrick]

Still obsessed with @starry-bi-sky ‘s Childhood Friends au so here’s a quick ghost design I did for Danny and Jason as teens.

[mayasaura]

There's a stanza from Annabel Lee that's been tickling my brainstem for a while, and it feels even more relevant now that we know how John and Alecto are bound together, and that their love was and still is mutual:

But our love it was stronger by far than the love    Of those who were older than we—    Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above    Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

That's the heart of it, isn't it? The source of all of John's power, the reason he's God, it's because his soul is connected to his Annabel Lee's. To end all of this, they'll need to be dissevered.

I'd say that the angels have already tried and failed, and the demons look like they're winding up to take a shot. Odds are that'll go about as well for them as it did for Augustine and Mercy. But there's someone the poem doesn't ask. It doesn't account for Annabel.

I think that may be why it matters so much that that Alecto still loves John, and where the true horror of love comes in. If Alecto's soul is going to be seperated from John's, Alecto has to want it. No one else can do it for her. Annabel Lee has to become the subject, and not the object.

[carouselcometh]

The Glass Coffin Mocktail! In honor of my most beloved and favorite Saw trap 5ever :)

[theminecraftbee]

some smallishsona social links i've thought up:

XIII (DEATH): zombiecleo. i know this is the obvious choice but also i'm not immune to obvious choices. cleo is a "florist" that joe knows. florist is in the world's biggest scare quotes; between the fact they're the one who's willing to give the team weapons and fence stuff they got from the other world, and also the conspicuous full-body burn scars, joel is VERY willing to bet that cleo is not, in fact, a florist. he's not stupid though. he's not about to like, ask if she's in the yakuza or something. because then they would kill him. he is ALREADY unwillingly at constant risk of death by shadow monster, he doesn't need yakuza coming after him, thanks.

cleo's social link starts out about their begrudging willingness to do joe a favor by handing high-schoolers various weaponry, but also their continued attempts to explain that they're making a mistake. (joel KNOWS okay it's not HIS fault there's a demon in his head and his life is full of tarot cards now, give him a break.) however, as the social link continues, it reveals details of cleo's life, the story of how they ended up with those burn scars, and how they can move past the tragedies of their past.

V (HIEROPHANT) xisuma. this one feels a little obvious, went back and forth on whether this should be tfc instead but landed on xisuma. a man joel meets in a tea shop who is very concerned about joel's mental state, considering how joel came to town in the first place. joel thinks this is extremely rude, thanks, especially since if it hadn't been for the fact it was tea, not alcohol, joel would be half-convinced xisuma had been trying to drink his problems away.

the social link focuses on xisuma trying to mentor joel very badly, and also the reveal that part of why xisuma is so concerned for joel is that he wants to make up for his failures to take care of his younger brother. at the end of the social link, xisuma starts to reconcile with his brother and family, and joel maybe reluctantly admits it's nice to have an adult with nothing supernatural going on with them that's somewhat concerned for him. not that he needs supervision or anything, but...

XVI (TOWER): doc. was going through the suggestions people gave me and was surprised to realize just how UBIQUITOUS this was as a suggestion. however, yeah, this fits his character archetype to a t. doc is a disgraced scientist who is willing to give joel his inventions to test; joel's courage social stat needs to be like a 4 before he can even initiate this social link, and joel first finds out about doc from rumors in town about a madman scientist who got someone killed in a lab accident. the inventions provide various perks in battle, though, and frankly by the point in the story joel has high enough courage to start this one his attitude is starting to become "fuck it we ball", so.

doc's social link starts with doc leaning into his terrifying reputation. however, as the social link continues, it becomes clear doc is actually trying to make a working version of his clean fuel generator that couldn't possibly ever cause an explosion like the one he faced again. in the end, it's revealed the original design was sabotaged, and there was nothing doc could have done to prevent the tragedy--except, maybe, be willing to share his plans with others to catch the sabotage, because joel helps doc figure that out.

this social link MAYBE has some thematic relevance. don't worry about it.

I (MAGICIAN): scar. one of joel's earliest social links and teammates, i'm debating if he was one of the people who was teamed with grian before joel arrived. scar himself has a largely magic-based garu persona. he's also the party's early healer, although he later gets supplanted in this role when impulse joins as the actual party healer, and his build is actually more focused on heavy-hitting magic and status effects. (think ann, or reload mitsuru). i think if i go with my current theme for the team's personas (mythological lovers/mythological figures related to love or bonds), i might make his persona majnun?

anyway, he's very VERY scar, a fast-talking, smooth-playing, optimistic kind of guy, who DEFINITELY won't end up having a mid-story breakdown about whether or not he's wanted or needed on the team, absolutely not, no way, it's not like that's the magician's role in a persona game or anything. as a social link i think scar's social link is about him dragging joel into his school black market schemes and the two of them hitting it off during this, but also, a bit, about scar confiding his loneliness and feelings of inadequacy as something more than the comic relief. he's one of the earliest available social links, second only to skizz, and ends up being one of joel's closest links, magical tarot powers be damned.

VII (CHARIOT): skizzleman. joel's earliest social link, who develops a persona thanks to joel having to rescue him from the other world. a cheerful, friendly guy with a slight sense of distance under the surface, skizz works to keep himself strong and the people around him happy, sometimes to the point of excluding his own emotions. he's an agi user, although his persona is largely focused on physical skills rather than magic (he's the team's physical heavy-hitter), and i might make his persona patrolcus? (all of these personas are things you can argue with me, btw.)

skizz's social link is about him trying to find ways to lighten the moods of the other people in joel and skizz's apartment building who were moved in there because they didn't have elsewhere to stay, and his ability to remain cheerful despite often being rejected in this. it's also a social link about digging more into the history that lead to skizz feeling alone enough to be Vanished and in need of rescue. because he's so plot-central in that way, though, his actual SOCIAL LINK is more lighthearted shenanigans about the various schemes skizz comes up with to try to get other people to cheer up, and eventually ends with joel and the others turning it around to give skizz that same cheerful stuff.

anyway these are the guys i've definitively assigned to what social link now i am having SO MUCH FUN with this au,