#Think about it. She's a really good manipulator from what we've seen specifically in this episode

[weremadeofbadcode]

Just caught up with tmp. I think Celia is aligned with the web.

[butterflydm]

2x8 - some thoughts this morning (mostly about rand)

The contrast for Rand between this and last season's finales.

Facing Ishamael alone in the dark vs alongside his friends in the light.

Going off by himself after the confrontation (with no one in Fal Dara being aware of his actions) vs being heralded by all of Falme.

Moiraine willing to kill him because she doesn't trust him not to fall to the dark vs being willing to do whatever it takes to support him because she does trust him.

And within this episode itself, we have Lanfear telling Rand she's the only one who cares about him (manipulative technique to try to keep Rand emotionally isolated and dependent on Lanfear) vs that beautiful ending of him being supported by all these people who genuinely care about him (and not the guy that he was 3000 years ago).

I loved the placement of where the heron is on Rand's palm. I always thought it was in the middle and it felt kinda awkward to me but it looked really good the way that they did it.

book spoilers through the shadow rising are below

I am sad that the /wot subreddit freaked out over Rand's power progression getting smoothed (just like they did last finale) because they were doing so much better for most of this season. Alas, sigh. /wotshow is somewhat better, at least.

But, yes, about Rand's power progression. One of the big things about book 4 is that Rand is desperate enough to learn the One Power that he is willing to use one of the Forsaken as a teacher. That means that Rand needs to not be a powerhouse badass. The books mostly handled it by powering Rand up at the end of each book and then depowering him back at the start of the next one, but a lot of that was buyer's remorse on Jordan's part, imo, as he realized he'd accidentally made Rand too strong for the next part of the story. If Rand had already had those big power moments from the books, then it would be jarring that Rand is desperate enough to let one of the Forsaken that close to him (especially after everything with Lanfear); this isn't a book so we can't get Rand's internal justifications for the choice. The viewers need to believe that Rand NEEDS Asmodean. We've seen that Rand has raw strength, but his control is shaky and he doesn't have anyone to learn from.

The show turning Rand's growth into something more steady is good, imo. Right now, even as untrained as he is, Rand can run circles around non-channelers without thinking about it (killing Turak and his entire squad), but he's unprepared for facing other channelers because he lacks finesse and control. So... he needs a teacher and Logain didn't work out.

Enter Lanfear's way of contacting Rand while not contacting him. This actually feels like a clever way to handle it -- that Lanfear might use Asmodean as her proxy to stay informed about Rand while covertly helping him out, since she's kinda in time-out right now.

Also -- I've had a thought about the plotline that Ingtar didn't get... what if it goes to someone else? Mostly, I am wondering this because Lanfear specifically said, "Light protect you, Rand al'Thor" at the end of the episode. There are none who walk so long in the dark that they cannot seek the light?

I've also had a thought about Siuan. I know there are a bunch of theories out there that basically boil down to "she wasn't acting the way she really feels in her heart" and most of them don't really do anything for me. I just don't feel like the evidence is there and Siuan's actions are reasoned out and clearly explained in the episode.

...and then we learned in this episode that Ishamael did not want Rand in Falme. Not yet.

So everything that Lanfear did in 2x7 was entirely of her own design. The only thing she did on Ishamael's behalf was deliver Mat to him. But she and Ishamael were not working together to bring Rand to Falme.

So I think that there's real potential that Ishamael has continued screwing with Siuan's dreams this season; because we can reasonably guess that he was the one who gave her the idea of Moiraine taking the Dragon to the Eye of the World, and we've seen both Ishamael and Lanfear playing around in TAR this season, and compared to the tiny bit we got about Compulsion, we have gotten a LOT of exposition about TAR and multiple scenes set there.

Rand believed that Ishamael wanted him in Falme, but he was wrong. Ishamael didn't think he was ready yet.

...but if Rand is locked up in the White Tower for months? Shielded from the One Power and helpless? Completely isolated from anyone he cares about? Maybe then making a deal with the Dark One would start looking a lot more tempting.

And all of sudden... we've got motive (Ishamael wants to break Rand emotionally), means and opportunity (TAR/dreams, which we know he has access to), which were things that were missing from the other theories that I've seen.

Briefly: the 'it was all a ruse by Siuan' theory lacks proper motive imo -- attempting to trick Rand in this way is just as likely to backfire and make him unwilling to ever trust Moiraine again and Moiraine should absolutely know that by now; and the 'Siuan is under compulsion' theory lacked proper opportunity because we saw how Siuan brushed Liandrin off in 2x6 and she's been traveling all season so Traveling or Skimming to find her in order to Compel her would be more difficult, for the same reason that Lanfear didn't Travel when she was trying to chase Rand in 2x5.

I am also thinking about how the various changes that the show made will affect some storylines in the future. Renna, Seta, and Suroth's early deaths definitely impact a storyline later on and I definitely want to unpack that at some point (did Suroth die? I will double-check when I do my rewatch).

I really want to talk about how much I deeply loved the choices they made with Mat's storyline but I think I want to do my rewatch first, because I'm pretty sure my brain blanked out for parts of it because I was so happy. Everything about Mat in this episode was just so beautiful.

But there has been so much Mat foreshadowing for Rhuidean and certain other future things that I do find it confusing when people say that the show is going to skip those things for him. Maybe the fact that Ishamael's 'past lives tea' was confirmed to be a lie will make some of those people think twice about their assumptions?

Oh! The glorious contrast of Ishamael, LTT's BFF in his past life, being the "betrayer of hope" and then Perrin giving Mat the Horn and telling him to take it to Rand, saying, "you're his only hope". That's so good, that's so tasty, I can't wait to dive into the Ishy-Mat compare-contrast.

I plan to write up a post about my thoughts about where we might go in s3, and I'll post that next week sometime. This weekend is for my rewatch and my deep dive, and I'm really looking forward to it. So much happened in the episode that I know there's a lot that I missed talking about last night.

[andbrokenmemories]

So it's weird how like. The Kennet girls are good at everything, aren't they? [pale spoilers ahead]

Like that's obvious, it's textual -- it's very textual, other characters being in something like awe over it over and over and over across the story. The girls are very good at this, and they have a deep well of power. This comes up continuously.

what's weird is thaaat a lot of the fanbase seem to like, enjoy that. Enjoy having protagonists who can play around with magic in a way Blake never ever could have. I kind of get that, I won't like shit-talk it too hard. (I do like Verona, y'know?)

But it's an interesting fact. Because Wildbow's the underdog protagonist guy! At least in action scenes, that's his whole thing! Taylor and Blake have to eat shit and die to claw their way to victory, and often those scenes work for me. And it's one of the things I think WB gets the most praise for? Like, from his established base. It's a conscious choice to not do that for Pale. He like, introduced the idea that this kind of wild practitioner would be especially powerful. He made that up for this book.

I wonder what that decision looks like -- after Ward, and Ward's issues, especially, since that seemed to be the first break from this. Underdog protagonists seem to be the default, for him; the thing he has most experience with. I've seen posts from him describing his process -- put characters against the wall without having a pre-planned out for them, so WB himself has to puzzle out exactly what they can use to make it out alive -- and he seemed to derive like... An actual enjoyment, out of it?

Yeah, there are fights in Pale where they're up against the wall... even one where, with Dire Consequences for us all, Wildbow had them lose because he couldn't see a way for them to win!

But it's not the same. I'd honestly say they usually lose because of their like, lack of full maturity -- their child soldier-y emotional rawness and uncertainty -- their lack of cohesion, as the book usually plays it. Lucy cannot stop John from joining the Contest because she can't hold her nerve against him. The girls cannot stop the murder plot from coming to fruition because they lack unity, aren't working together as a team. Emotional stuff. The girls have more tools in their box than any Wildbow protagonist before them, by far, but they can't always use them properly to get the W, for emotional reasons, for character reasons.

In theory, that's an interesting direction (maybe, possibly), and I should be relieved that Wildbow is trying something fresh. In practice... I've said I don't like Pale's fight scenes. I think Wildbow is plainly worse at this than the content of his previous works.

Part of this is seen in the Contest. Or, at least, how Wildbow Posts about it. If you can't tell, a specific WoG lives in my brain: Wildbow said once that he kept the story going past Break because he genuinely did not believe the trio could beat Maricica. I can imagine him doing his typical calculus for this, and what led him to that conclusion, maybe. For example, we've heard a lot about the ability of the Fae to manipulate stuff, aaaand to have the girls come along and undo all of that with minimal information to begin with wouuld sort of. Damage our belief in Faerie significance. Still, though -- cards on the table, here -- I think this was a Dumb and Bad choice. (It's a sidenote to this post, but I think it's very strange that, in-story the straw that breaks the camel's back is shown to be the Alabaster allowing shit to go on rather than throwing in with John, effectively a betrayer revealed moment -- a thing that, even if sorta his intention from the start, he could simply say 'aw beans i never really planned this out far enough' and just drop. for the sake of wrapping up a better story. and naturally i believe this would have been better also because it means we never would have fucking gotten White Woman Animus!! i digress. i digress.)

Maricica had weaknesses the story gave us to nibble on, and those weaknesses... are just kind of dangling threads, now? As of where I hopped off? like, guess she can't be that inexperienced with people if she became a goddess and started a cult and helped with all that red heron shit lol

So it's that thing I said, about fight scenes being more character driven. But then also, he's clearly thinking about this the same way as ever! As shown by his weird logic with framing the story going past Break as a thing he Had To Do, for Logical Reasons, or at least that weighing on the decision. a thing that is silly and i disagree with on it's face. right?

And then this shows in the sheer quantity of fight scenes -- if the girl's main limiter is internal emotional context and stuff........... uh... why are there so many fights? Why wouldnt the story naturally curve towards. having fewer fight scenes when theres no other way to square things away. that progress character arcs. whyyy do i care about fight scene 129 when i know how strong these girls are. whyyy are we fighting so many random others, and dedicating genuinely long segments of story to them, rather than montaging that shit? Getting it over with? If it has to be there at all? (for reference -- I just tried to think of a Random Pale Fight i fully don't think mattered. i selected the random like. angel summoner guy? with the fortnite constructor angel. that's a part of the musser invasion or whatever. this is a character with literally no substance, just a musser-side goon. From him entering the ongoing! fight to Lucy getting out of dodge is 4.6k words. Plague 12.7, the Mannequin fight, up to Mannequin leaving -- that's almost the entire chapter -- is 6.9k words. on the worm wiki, i saw there's a brief 'major events' summary of that chapter. i couldnt tell you the major events of the Pale chapter, of which that section of fight is like a third, maybe. lucy gets a bit more upset. lucy gets in a few quips against musser-side characters that actually matter but actually dont matter much to how that broader conflict is resolved. i guess.)

Wildbow writes any random fight the girls get into as being worth as many words as his fights in the past! the scrappy, pay-offy ones. bleh. My point in all this: you cannot simply set your protags up in the way I'm positing, here, and then continue to use the same vocabulary of every other serial anyway. it straight up doesn't work. it's exhausting. The Future is An Eternal Slaughterhouse 9000 Arc. Look, thats a criticism that boils down to 'web serials are too long'. And I'm not sure I care too much about web serials being too long! I have read longer web serials with longer fight scenes! I have written fiction with a longer average word count per chapter than Wildbow, at least during Worm! its a real criticism, but its not one im amazingly interested in personally. But the Kennet three could've had weaknesses to play around -- or at least, more weaknesses. We are in a Post-Pact world, and in this Post-Pact world, the magic in Pale really barely feels like it, uh, relies on discourse and presentation. like at all. And that seems like an option to give these characters obstacles! An option Wildbow gestures at during the Musser meta-arc!

but what struck me getting that word count comparison earlier, skimming that fight? The girls just aren't operating in that world. There's never a thought for presentation -- maybe sometimes, for a slight edge. But it never really matters, certainly not after the blue heron. They're using glamour as a workhorse tool, covering goblins in it for brief misdirects to get an edge in a fight; they're calling on the same shrine spirits over and over. They don't build up tools over a portion of story then cash them out for a satisfying win, they're just... strong. They have more items in their bags than Wildbow probably knows what to do with. Strong enough for just Lucy to dunk on any random set of practitioners, but not strong enough for the story to just skip that part, and not strong enough to just solve the plot until it's time to go fuck up Charles and end the story.

I know you could argue that I'm making this up, or that it's what some people prefer to what Pact was doing. But I just think it's not even what wildbow is good at! (and i always theorize that when wildbow is writing kind of bad, it's probably because he's not actually engaged or happy with what he's putting himself through. did he read a specific thing that made him personally excited to make the girls so versatile? I don't really know, but I don't get that vibe.)

And I have a couple of specific things I want to point out to try and prove this is like. a thing at all, to wrap up on: First, Glamour is used as this very, uh, soft magic thing, this very basic narrative tool. A pure mechanic of, like, mental states. If you're shaken, if you're uncertain, your glamour gives out on you -- if you shake your opponents, make them skittish, your glamour is better at misdirecting them. This is fiiine? But too vague for what Glamour is. Wildbow simply failed to properly present tradeoffs to one of his character's main action verbs, one that literally had those tradeoffs in Pact. And one last example to try and prove this: they dont even wear the hats and cloaks anymore duuude. Like, in my eyes: there was a very simple to read gambit being made, with the hats and masks and cloaks? You are awakening early, you will always have awoken early: You accepted an early shield against what that meant. A constructed image in place of the image of a fully-fledged adult, masking that youth; Whimsical and inherently magical, inherently wild. It's a very basic tradeoff, and one the story promises you it knows: even if they really would rather not have to go through the whole song and dance of suiting up, if it's tactically suboptimal or else they mature out of it and realise it's not for them, they will never be able to escape it -- not without giving up power. A mark accepted that cannot be given up. A mechanical restriction on their powersets to make up for some of their advantages, that also has some character relevancy. The Good Stuff.

except yeah it can. be taken off. it doesn't super matter. not really. they do plenty of magic without all the stuff on or even any of the stuff on -- it's rarely presented as an obstacle. it doesnt really matter. Because then, you see, they couldnt mature out of it and do cool stuff! it'd be. annoying. frustrating. they'd have to like. deal with changing past the natures they made for themselves. they'd have to. be characters. with character issues. that present themselves in fight scenes. you know?? what are we doing.

[inposterumcumgaudio]

Could you rant about Arthur and Sally’s relationship? It’s my favorite part of WHF and I’d love to hear your opinions about it

So before we get into Sally and Arthur specifically, I need you to understand something about how shit was. How shit still is in some places, where people are less terminally online and where there's generational ignorance.

Now you and I understand that a wide age gap in a relationship is a red flag. We've seen enough r/relationship_advice posts to know a guy who goes after young girls does so because they are easy to manipulate and mold. But we only know this thanks to the hundreds of nineteen-year-old girls posting about how mean their 30-year-old boyfriends are being to them and everyone else telling them exactly why that is.

In the world that these girls come from, the attention and admiration of an older man is quite flattering. Especially if you are a very pretty girl, but this man is telling you how smart and mature you are.

But I need to make sure this is understood too: I do not believe Mr. Hastings was grooming Sally. I don't think he was out trying to bag a teenage girl.

What I think what happened is, Sally enjoys the attention of men - older or otherwise - as she sees it as her greatest power in the world, especially since she thinks girls aren't worth her time. Arthur remembers specifically that boys would stop to watch her go by and she "always got a kick out of that". And without her mother to try to dissuade her from being so cavalier with this charm, she uses it indiscriminately with every man she meets. Including Arthur's dad.

Now Mr. Hastings should have had the good sense not to think anything of it. But again, it's a time where we don't have reddit for him to know about power imbalances in relationships. It's a time where you have to pick your partners based on geography which means even the prettiest girl has to compromise and pick the best of her options. And he's also a widower so there's not really any conflict as far as he can see since he's not married and Sally is sixteen and therefore leaving school soon which more or less makes her an adult as far as anyone thinks in the 40's.

It shouldn't have happened, but I can see how it did.

And I can see why Arthur gets so angry with her about it without ever really blaming his father for his part in it. To his thinking, she treated his father the same way she treats all her "friends" (all male "friends" because she thinks she's not like other girls) so it's no wonder Mr. Hastings took it to the logical conclusion.

And the thing is, you never actually see Sally blame Mr. Hastings either. She'll say she didn't have a choice, but she never says Mr. Hastings forced her. She doesn't blame herself either. She says sometimes things just happen whether you want them to or not. Which I think means Sally doesn't think of this situation as rape so much as a misunderstanding or, more likely, a transaction that she was only just then told what the exchange was.

Because her whole existence is transactional. She only does things for people if she can expect to call in a favor later. The way she frames it is that she had no choice because her housing hinged on pleasing Mr. Hastings. But she does indeed find somewhere to go, once Arthur finds out.

So this is the crux of conflict surrounding their relationship.

But I actually think this is tangential to their core personality flaws which would have prevented them from ever being happily together, Mr. Hastings or not. It's just the thing both of them fixate on to sabotage themselves.

They're both stuck on the vision of each other as children. And it's literally as they turn sixteen and are about to embark on adulthood when everything changes. The stakes are higher now, but because they diverged at that point, they can't really see each other beyond what role they played for each other as children.

To Sally, Arthur is her safe space because she can expect him to give her whatever she wants without expecting anything in return. He's the only guy in her world who "doesn't want just one thing" and seems to see her as more than a pretty face. She has all these memories of hiding away with Arthur somewhere and commiserating over their shared misfortunes.

Arthur, on the other hand, remembers all these same moments of deep friendship with Sally, but also remembers that "she was always so wonderful when she was there, but a girl like Sally always has so many better places to be, and better people to be with, or worse people that she prefers anyway for some reason. And sometimes she’d just hide in Percy’s old room in the attic and not come down."

He'd always played a role of convenience for her. Maybe that was okay when they were children, when a gangly dork would not get to hang around a popular pretty girl at all otherwise. But they're not in school anymore and the situation's a lot more serious, even disregarding that Arthur's feelings about Sally have matured.

Meanwhile, Sally's feelings about him really haven't. She thinks of him often, but only in terms of her missing the comfort he was when they were young. She never supposes about how he might have changed or who he might have become in her absence. To her, he exists in stasis and (if he'd just forget about the thing with his father) would be exactly the same as he ever was.

The great irony is that when they meet again, Arthur is the one who needs something. And if Sally could just have given it to him without asking for something in return first, they might have had a shot at more. Probably not a successful relationship because they are who they are, but it wouldn't have mercifully ended at her apartment door like it does.

I think it's the kiss that does it in, really.

Arthur has spent all this time playing court eunuch to her Queen of Wellington Wells, all this time with her charming every guy she comes across (including his dad) and never giving that same kind of attention to him.

And only now, when he's off on some fool's errand to make a trade with her, does she finally favor him with that kind of gesture.

He can't trust it. As frustrating as it was to be ignored as an option and as much as he always wanted it, to be acknowledged as one now? It makes him just another one of Sally's "friends" and how committed to any of them was she? It's part of the transaction.

It's really quite unfortunate that this is also the one time Sally ever wanted to do something for someone with no expectation of a returned favor, but necessarily couldn't. If she could have got the Letter of Transit for Arthur without asking him to fetch the cod liver oil, she would have. And if she could have done that, it wouldn't have been a transaction at all and then Arthur maybe could have felt secure in and special for that kiss.

It's better this way.

[clydesavage-thefox147]

CW//Suggestive Content?

I don't think we realize just how dirty Janus' Spotify Playlist is. We've overlooked it so much. In this little analysis post, I wanna point out the handful of songs that show the sluttiness behind the Snake-Man because damn this playlist shows he can't keep it in his pants. You thought Remus is dirty..you haven't seen Janus...

First is "I put a spell on you" By Nina Simone. This song is believed to be about the poisonous and hypnotic throws of love. The dedication and devotion of love. Specifically a jealous love. Of wanting someone who doesn't want you. I'm not exactly sure who this could be directed to. It could be directed at Roman but I think there's another song that hints to that. Could be Virgil but again, there's another song that could be that as well. Overall a sexy song regardless, come on, it has the word Daddy in it ffs.

Second is "Evil Night Together" by Jill Tracy. This song is believed to be about seduction in the darkness of life. The art of manipulation through allure and enticement. Feeling of intimacy beyond ordinary and the unknowns of seduction. Embracing darker parts of yourself instead of holding back. This song to me seems directed at Roman and what Janus did during SvS. Enticing him with the happiness of the callback and the positive praise he's always wanted. Keeping Roman on a leash of temptation for the betterment and self-desire of Thomas achieving his goals and dreams. With lines like "Who's gonna make you a hero?" It only just further shows that.

Third is "Cabaret: Don't Tell Mama" from Cabaret, which features Liza Minnelli. This song is about a young women who has an active nightlife working as a nightclub erotic dancer and performer. She doesn't want her conservative mother finding out about her exploits so she pleads for no one to snitch. It's interesting here because Liza Minnelli is in this and Roman wanted Liza as a wedding performer..and Liza wears an outfit very similar to something Janus would wear...I think you see what I'm going for here.

Fourth is "You're a Cad" by The Bird and the Bee. This song is believed to be about a woman falling for a man, knowing he has a bad reputation. She knows this man wants to be better but she doesn't see a point in him doing so since it's never enough. Even hinting that she could be worse than him, making them perfect for one another and partners in their chaos. She taunts and teases him "Tug at your line" , "Wait by the phone", "You're reckless with my heart" all lines alluding to the fact of attraction. She could and would waste her life on someone she knows is bad for her, she doesn't care. This song is 100% directed at Virgil. With lines like "So now you want the whole world to notice that you've come around, now you expect we'll see how you're really so much better now" and "What's the point pretending that you could be a better man? Just give in since you always end up right back where you began" all hint to Janus being aware of Virgil's departure from the Dark Sides and his attempts to be better and change but he knows Virgil will always fail. Virgil in response with "Ignorance" on his own playlist shows that he thinks Janus is blind to his change. But yeah, very "loving" song towards Virge dontcha think?

And fifth and finally is "Criminal" by Fiona Apple. This song is believed to be about a woman who used her sexuality to exploit and manipulate a man. She feels regret for doing so even if it's what she had to do. This song is basically the musical equivalent of saying "I've been a naughty boy, punish me". Another song seemingly directed Roman. Showing Janus does feel bad for doing what he did to Roman despite it being for the greater good. He knew Roman was sensitive and insecure but that's how he knew to get to him for a betterment. Yes, he knew it was shitty but it had to be done. It also hints to still lingering feelings. Like "oh I'm so bad to you, a villain you say, well why don't you punish me since you like that" You could say it's also directed at Patton with a line like "I've been careless with a delicate man" but that could be Roman or Patton honestly.

So with all of that said, it seems Janus is quite the whore. I mean 2 songs directed Roman in a provocative manner. And 1 song directed Virgil. And just the overall seduction and temptation of these songs shows his slutty nature. Snakes are even common symbols for sexuality. This snake man knows how to play his deck and dick right...or dicks if you believe that lol

[toaarcan]

(please excuse my English I actually speak German) hello, huge Fiona fox fan here I have been reading lots of your rants about fiona, on how her character had lots more potential and that her relationship with scourge is heavily abusive (on which I really agree btw) and since their not many fiona fans here I just wanted to ask you since I literally have no one to talk to. In sonic the hedgehog issue 179 on page 14 sonic says a specific line dialogue that's been driving me crazy. He explains to tails that he hooked up with Fiona hoping that he would move on, but ALSO because he was still getting over Sally stating that "Fiona was there*. Which kind of feels like that even if Fiona had genuine feelings for sonic he would have been still thinking about her. Now I am really wondering could this be a reason Fiona cheated on him, since she felt again like getting burned? We never saw the process of Fiona meeting secretly with scourge, but I heavily theory that A. He could have lied to her at a lot of points and B. That just maybe he could have told her about sonic maybe not truly loving her. Either all of that is true or I'm just going crazy but what's your opinion?

Your English is better than my German, to need to apologise.

You're right about that, while Sonic says his primary motivation for getting together with Fiona was his terrible plan to help Tails, it's also pretty apparent that Fiona is a rebound girl for him. The timing of when the relationship started is much too obvious for that: He and Fiona start their relationship in Issue 155, the same one where Sally's forced marriage to Patch is announced. I have no doubt that this information stirred up all of Sonic's hurt feelings from Issue 134 and drove him toward the course of action he took.

Now, that doesn't justify what he did, what he did is still an awful thing to do to someone, but it does explain it a little better.

I don't think Fiona knew what was going on in Sonic's head during their relationship. If she did, she almost certainly would've brought that up as a point against him, instead of only referring to her traumatic backstory.

(Sidenote: I think her betrayal makes a lot more sense if you reorder some of the stories in the 170s so that Eggman's attack on Knothole comes first, and reopens all of her old wounds. Then it makes total sense for her to snap and accuse Sonic of being too weak- instead of a dumb "I think being good is weak and being evil is strong!" logic that so many shallow villains have, she actually has a point, and an obvious example, that after everything Eggman did to them, a repeat of what Robotnik did to her, the FF still let him go when they easily could've captured or killed him)

That said, I think it's likely that Fiona realised she was a rebound and this pushed her closer to accepting Scourge's advances.

I think Scourge lying to her should be taken as given. Probably about Sonic, definitely about himself. However, I don't think he knew for sure how Sonic felt, simply because Scourge doesn't understand Sonic at all, ironically enough. We can see as much from his attempt at a "One bad day" speech, he fully believes that Sonic is only a bad day away from turning out like Scourge himself did, but Sonic has arguably had a rougher life than Scourge ever did. We've seen him have plenty of bad days and never once has he turned into Scourge.

Scourge thinks everyone is worse than they actually are, in essence. I have no doubt that he presents his flawed perception of everyone to Fiona, why else would she, a character who owes her whole life to the support she's received from other people (first Nic, then the FF) suddenly turn around and declare that "You can't count on anybody?"

It's an idea that fits so little with what we know of her character and history that it more than likely came from someone else, like the known liar and manipulator she's suddenly 'romantically' entangled with.

That said, him not knowing about how Sonic felt doesn't mean he can't tell Fiona that Sonic doesn't love her. He is, after all, a liar, and likely playing to Fiona's fears and anxieties. If he realises that Fiona believes Sonic is using her as a rebound, he would absolutely have agreed with the notion despite not knowing whether it was true or not.

This is part of what frustrates me with Fiona's character: There's the pieces here to make something absolutely fantastic with her, and Archie just... didn't do that. Her existence pre-155 is largely an afterthought, from 155-171 she's "Sonic's shady girlfriend" and then post-172 she's "Scourge's girlfriend", and that's all she's allowed to be. Even her one outing as an independent villain (with her own team, because of course the character who believes you can't trust anyone has immediately gone and gotten herself another team) turns out to be setup for her getting Scourge back.

Whether you prefer her as a hero, villain, or somewhere in the middle, Fiona has enormous potential as a character, and Archie never used it.

[teaveetamer]

more on like. FE misogyny is like. Thinking about which characters are what gender and why. Like there's a reason why seteth has a daughter and not a son. There's a reason(s) why dimitris retainer is a man. Why Hubert, an underhanded and manipulative person, who nonetheless plays second fiddle to byleth (you) is a man instead of a woman. These are all very interesting decisions with a lot to think about irt gender, misogyny, narrative, and it's fuckin annoying that taking note of it is seen as evidence in itself of misogyny. Much of it has to do with female characters not allowed to be unappealing. (Tho this leads into why I enjoy Leonie for being allowed to be genuinely unappealing wrt to jeralt after remire). Reading your and Ezra's stuff on fe misogyny is really great cause I get to finally see people talking about this from like, a cultural and marketing sort of perspective.

To your last bit, anon: I think that's something a lot of people misinterpret when they read discussion of misogyny in media in general (and occasionally my posts specifically). Acknowledging that the world is kind of a fucked up place is not an endorsement of the world being a fucked up place. Arguing that pointing out misogyny is the ~true~ misogyny is like having a pipe burst in your house and insisting that every plumber who comes over to fix it is actually the cause of the leak.

Except it's not even that, because that assumes their own house is actually going to be affected by the leak. Most of these people don't have their lives affected by denying the existence of misogyny. It's more like your neighbor has a pipe burst and you're chilling in your window taking pot shots with a BB gun at every plumber who pulls up to the driveway to help fix it, then patting yourself on the back for "keeping your neighbor's pipes safe" when they all flee in terror. As your neighbor is literally sitting in six inches of water wondering why tf no one seems to be coming over to help with that pipe.

But anyway circling back to the first part of your message, yeah there are a lot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways the genders of characters play into stereotypes and archetypes we've come to be familiar with. There's a million examples of characters who just would not work the other way around, largely from an appeal/marketing standpoint, because of gender expectations. Sylvain the male shameless flirt is seen as a cool player but if he were a woman he'd be a slut. No one wants to marry "used goods" which is why we don't have a ton of female shameless flirt characters in FE.

A dad (Seteth) protecting their daughter (Flayn) to the degree where he'll try to screen and control the people (especially the men) she speaks to is seen as endearing and an extension of paternal duties, if a wee bit overprotective. A mother doing the same to her son would be seen as a creepy harpy engaging in emotional incest and stunting her child's natural development. Men find it humiliating when they're treated like children, but society expects women to be treated like that. That's why we don't have a whole lot of mommies with shotguns in FE.

If anything the idea of overcoming the overprotective father and being the one to usher a girl into womanhood (this sentence felt gross to type ew) is a power fantasy in itself. The fantasy of a woman being kept pure by some mechanism until a worthy person (i.e. the protagonist) is ready to claim her. There's stories through the ages of this kind of thing. Noble virgins (or devoted wifeys with husbands lost at sea) dutifully staving off waves of suitors until the right one, the worthy one, swoops in, proves their worth by some means, and sweeps her off her feet. If you think about it, that's really part and parcel of Hubert's role in the Edelgard-Byleth-Hubert trio. He's the clinger-on who the virginal woman rejects endlessly to show her purity and devotion, until her proper suitor comes. Her appeal would probably disappear like a puff of smoke if, say, she'd been FWB with Hubert for years before the story started and Byleth was just another notch in her belt.

I could probably make a whole post on that last one too tbh cuz you can point to a lot of really varied examples with the same undercurrent. Like, I'd say a story of a woman having tons of meaningless sex with people until her Worthy Man(TM) unlocks the key to her heart and opens her eyes to the beauty of making love (or whatever) follows the spirit of the trope even if it doesn't follow the letter of it. It's still a woman keeping some piece of herself (in this case her ability to form emotional attachment to the men she sleeps with) held back, exclusively to be shared with the Worthy Man(TM). What makes someone the Worthy Man(TM) can range from having the strongest bow arm to being the only one who understands the ~true~ her and makes her feel comfortable... but I'll stop here for now.

[waffleweirdo]

I finished tbf season 2! It was all around great, and I'd say overall it has been my favorite season by far!

All of the new characters were great, even if I do think Xiao Kuang Juan maybe overstayed his welcome a little bit.

Out of the new cast Lang Wu Yao and Xie Ying Luo were definitely the highlights. Lang is really cool, but also very interesting alongside Shang as his partner. Specifically their different beliefs in violence in service of the greater good. I can totally see how they'd get along and they have interesting differing opinions! Plus I'll be honest I'm a sucker for bard characters, seriously when Lang started singing the theme song it was just really cool.

Xie Ying Luo started off as a fairly simple villain, which there's nothing wrong with. Her plotting nature, and somewhat playful interactions with Shang made her enjoyable right off the bat, and in managing to steal part of the index she really proves herself as being a genuine threat. But what makes her really stand out is her overcoming the Seven Blasphemous Deaths and her search for purpose. I'm not even quite sure how to describe it, but her determination to defy it was just really impressive, and even if she was a villain her resolution with Shang felt really satisfying and was great.

Honestly I don't have a ton to say about Shang other than that he continues to be just so awesome because there are genuinely too many great moments! But the fact that he was so powerful he made crossing the wasteland of spirits easier for everyone on accident only causing himself more trouble is really funny. And my biggest takeaway from this season is his talk with Xie Ying Luo and his definition of strength. The idea that the strongest person out there is someone who can spare all their opponents and never be worried about them seeking revenge is just wonderful.

Lin Xue Ya was about the same for me this season. Getting to see his frenemies relationship with Shang cemented was nice, and seeing his usual antics is always fun (though its a bit funny that two times out of two he's sort of failed in the end when manipulating the villains, and seeing him pout is pretty funny).

The season as a whole really gave a greater focus on the sorcerous sword index which I thought was cool. Now that we've seen first hand the trouble it can cause the whole premise is really interesting to me. Essentially in a world filled with all the legendary swords and magical items that you hear about in stories there's just an insane amount of dangerous artifacts everywhere, and someone needs to make sure they don't destroy the world. Which I think is just really neat. This season did tone down the typical pulp adventure elements a bit, which I did admittedly miss at times, but overall I still really enjoy where the narrative went, and I'm excited for more!

[a-slight-sweet-fiction]

More (incomplete, still-developing) thoughts on what happened in Father Kevin, in which I'm cautiously optimistic about this episode, despite its issues...? Spoilers ahead.

I've seen a lot of people VERY unhappy with this reveal, and especially the way Kevin TALKED about it. I didn't exactly love what he said, either, and from everything I'm seeing from everyONE, it did NOT hit most people in the way the writers may have wanted. The transcript isn't up yet, and I literally do not have it in me to re-listen to the episode yet, but in a way it did come off like he was saying, "my father wasn't that bad and I now understand why he was the way he was, and I'm now going to become exactly the same person in YOUR life and act the same ways, without any reservations." Which, if that's the way he meant it, is AWFUL. Kevin is in a loop with himself, and we know canonically his father poured boiling caramel into his hands and had him drink it, and he's sublimated the experience of that (and god knows what else) to the point where he remembers it as a happy memory, but then immediately launches into a story about watching a bird die, then solemnly says, "I still don’t know who killed that starling."

If this is a stable time loop, and Older Kevin is STILL headed in the direction of repeating it...then I'll say it, even as like, the Kevin fan of all time: narratively, Boy Kevin straight up SHOULD have killed him with knives. Like, bye! BUT...this arc was so heavily about change. And I also think it's possible that this is the first time Kevin has been able to UNDERSTAND that he's in a horrible abuse loop with himself (a topic I want to make another more specific post about later, because I think there's a lot to explore there).

And there are (presumably) variables that weren't present last time, people who have given Kevin more emotional and physical tools to work with. He very likely wouldn't have had a Tamika last time this happened, or Carlos or Cecil giving their forms of advice and gentle parenting, or like, Harrison offering to each him how to use knives back in Fridge-worthy. ...Before I say this next point, please know that I see Lauren as a really complicated character, and someone who has also been victimized by the Smiling God and the beliefs of her society, regardless of how the cycle started. Like whether she opted into Smiling God stuff intentionally or got forced in like Kevin, you really can't live in that belief system without being harmed by it, even if you're almost at the top of the food chain. No Smiling God worshipper can really win, the way things are. But I think it's another good sign that Kevin has FINALLY extricated himself away from Lauren in a direct way. In the past, we see him almost always with her, and whenever he is, he seems more trapped in his worst ways. It's a deeply toxic relationship in his life, defined by fighting for control of her or to keep control of himself, where they're pitted against each other in competition for the love and favor of their god. And she has always been an agent and in some cases a representative of the Smiling God, as far as we've seen.

And in this episode, Boy Kevin stabbed her (a rejection of her control and manipulation of him), and wasn't strong enough to get away, but Older Kevin (with his understanding of gods and, I hope, newfound understanding of HIMSELF) was able to take that vulnerable piece of himself back from her, and told him HE would raise him (also a rejection! One the two of them agree on!).

And finally, the way Cecil said he still didn't like Kevin's smile, but noted that Kevin seemed like he was being gentle, also gives me a lot of hope.

TL;DR:

I still think Kevin has a chance to heal and grow and change. I definitely get the worry that this could loop into him just eternally being stuck. (Which...to be blunt, narratively that would SUCK. I would really like for Finknoriams NOT do that, at least not immediately after acknowledging it's possible for people to change and giving the audience hope that Kevin will figure out how.) But I think there's still a way Kevin can win, without looping again in the same horrible way OR killing his adult self with knives.

[flightfoot]

While I know it is not a popular take I do think people might be rushing the turn on Felix. There's even less evidence of a real change than there was for Chloé. Why? Because he's an accomplished liar. That is literally the first thing we really learn about him. Nothing that comes out of his mouth can be trusted, especially when he is doing his 'sweet and innocent' game.

What really happened in emotion? He showed up to wreck Gabe and free Adrien. He got to dance with Marinette and saw her love for Adrien. His plan backfired due to LB's shenanigans but... Why did it fail? What caused him to freak out? Losing control. (Believing he had) the rejection of the others hurt him too, but he was going to argue the point until he seemed to be fallible.

At this point he flees.

When he returns what is he up to? Freeing Adrien? No, he's after Kagami now. The 'Mirror' Marinette who is just like him. Someone who can(will?) Love him just like Adrien has love. All he needs to do is free her... Which goes messily? Again there's the look of being contrite-ish, but, he's an actor how do we know it isn't a game?

Then you find out he got his hands on Kagami's amok, and, who knows what might have happened. He says he gave it back... But he's apparently got a silversmith on speed dial because fake rings are another thing he does regularly, and suddenly Kagami is very much going all in on this boy. We've seen how she reacted to others who wronged her, this turnaround at the end of ep19(after he has had her amok) is uncharacteristically sudden.

As mentioned in another ask, he hasn't really repented. It's much more of simply already having what he wants, or adjusting his plans. In no way does wanting to free Adrien conflict with any number of other ulterior motives.

Sure he might not be playing the third party for selfish reasons, all I am saying is: If he was actually still playing a selfish angle... How would it look any different?

It is true that Felix is an accomplished liar who is good at acting contrite in order to get people to trust him, even when his actions have pointed against that. But while it's true that any words or actions that he takes that could conceivably he used to manipulate people can't necessarily be trusted, there has been at least one case where Felix has shown contrition for wrong actions without there being any conceivable alternative motive: when he cried after destroying Red Moon.

There were no witnesses to that event as far as we know. No one for whom he needed to put on an act. And yet, he cried and apologized for making the Red Moon, and having to destroy her because of how dangerous she was. He broke down afterwards, sobbing uncontrollably on the rooftop.

I wouldn't say that Kagami's going all-in on Felix, not just from what we see in Pretension at any rate. They just met up and held hands. Which... honestly with how she's still been carrying a bit of a torch for Adrien, and with this guy who looks just like him devoting a ton of attention to her specifically, and being straightforward, not hesitating, as she likes, I can see why she was fine with taking his hand.

I do agree that it's good to keep in mind at least the possibility of the ring Felix gave Kagami back in the theater being fake, but right now I'm gonna run with the assumption that it's real.

[allycat75]

Sorry, this one is long. But the subject has given much to work with.

Proof People's Sexiest Man Alive 2023 really does hate himself, just from other quotes in the SMA article:

"I feel like I have a bit more freedom to take time away from the industry and still find projects that will satisfy my creative appetite when I return" I am sure based on the phoned in performance from Ghosted and on the reviews of Pain Hustlers, it sounds like you must be starving.

"My mom will be so happy," he says. "She's proud of everything I do but this is something she can really brag about". How she feelin' about that incel group also being proud of you?

Of Boston "We've got a lot of good schools. Let's give education a plug, that's damn sexy." I have read the few interviews your "beloved" has given and never before have I read so much and someone said so little. But hey, eyebrows are sexy, too. You can probably talk about that.

 "I love the idea of tradition and ceremony, I had a lot of that in my life so the idea of creating that, I can't think of anything better." So I guess some new traditions are never being seen with your one and only without it being breadcrumbed and/or trolled, surrounded by a bunch of people, staged and scripted, all while you look miserable. Oh, and also talking about how you like to be alone and your dog is your soulmate.

Values most in a partner is "vulnerability and humility." I am sure your acting teaching family is thrilled she feels she is such a great actress that she doesn't need classes or coaching.

"I don't like to argue, I don't like to raise my voice, or any forms of manipulation," Yep, I know the feeling Christopher.

"It's wise and mature to be able to say "I'm sorry I made a mistake,' to be vulnerable and not always be looking for the argument or take things to an argumentative place. That takes a lot of maturity and I find that very sexy." I am sure that was the exact thought process when your baby posted her shower pic to deflect from the criticism she was getting for her problematic behavior. And did we miss the "sorry"? But only if it is accompanied by behavior change. Otherwise, it is just one of those pesky manipulations none of us likes.

 "I love love". And that is why you feel comfortable taking a big dump on it with this disaster. If you are faking it, you have made love a joke, but if by chance it is real, you have shown yourself to be the absolute worst partner ever.

"The tough questions, you know what I mean? I [asked] a lot of tough questions as a kid," he explains. "'God made everything everything?' 'Is the color red to you the same as the color red to me?' I was a high strung kid and emotional so I'm anticipating those questions to be loaded with a lot of anxiety. And I think [as a parent] not only can you give a good answer to the specific question, but the tools to navigate tough questions like that." I'll just let the reader mull this one over, but I am curious to know the possible answer if asked "Dad, what do I do if I am forced to fake marry someone who represents the exact opposite of everything I have claimed to want in a partner? It will require me to use my family and friends in dumb schemes and stunts that will distract them from their daily lives and make thousands of innocent people look and feel crazy. It may even cause me to compromise my integrity and core beliefs by aligning me with those who represent the most base of our society."

But in all seriousness, there are some huge red flags here and this is unsustainable for a normal, happy life. Please study the lessons of this disaster, because the real tragedy of this mistake would be to just move on. Get help from professionals and seek to understand patterns that you keep falling into. I find the ABC method works well:

Good luck!

[bloodgulchblog]

(Hopping onto Ai oc thread) Why not then make an clone similar to what Halsey did? Use a current spartan washout like Fhajad-084.

If it's because ONI will not allow it, ONI would be willing to turn a blind eye if the potential outcome will be a solid playing card in their arsenal (i.e: S-II project before they went after Halsey), right?

Mostly for ONI-internal reasons.

What Halsey did to create Cortana was super not-allowed, and ONI in the last decade-ish is very into pretending that they are "better" than that. Hypocritical, perhaps, but the thing Parangosky herself nailed Halsey to the wall for after the end of the war wasn't just the Spartan Program (general) but specifically the human flash cloning. And Osman (the one currently in charge) is her protege, who also feels strongly about this. (The books this comes from are pretty hypocritical in general, but hey.)

Halsey had to clone her brain twenty times to get the one viable candidate she used to make Cortana, and they were whole-body clones she harvested. (The Weapon was made from one of the three less viable candidates she froze and kept, apparently?) They were manipulated so that the brain grew fast at expense at the rest of the body (so they wouldn't have been viable outside the tube they were grown in) but they were still very much whole clones created for the purpose of organ harvesting and flashing her own memory patterns onto in order to make an AI, which is much different than the single-organ cloning the UEG is okay with for medical purposes.

Based on what we've seen, I really really do think that ONI is more okay with turning a blind eye to the murder of an otherwise inconvenient person than they would be with doing that again.

I actually don't really buy that they care that much about the rights of theoretical clones. They just care about the inconvenience of public reaction if it gets out. (Genetic manipulation and shit like that is an extremely sensitive issue with colony world populations due to historic abuses corporations tried to get away with by operating away from Earth, that's why the Mortal Dictata exists in the first place).

Also, it's really really really expensive.

All told, not worth that much for only seven years uptime, no matter how good the seven years is.

....Plus I think, in an out-of-universe perspective, that going back to the same well with the cloning again would be uninteresting to me. It was already done, you know?

[trainsinanime]

Netflix Tomb Raider

Right, let me try to get my thoughts a bit more sorted after watching the first episode.

Let's start with the obvious: First, I had a headache while watching this, so take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt. Second, I didn't like it very much, and this post will mainly be discussing why.

But first, let me say what I did like: I think Hayley Atwell is a great voice for Lara. I think the mansion fight was good. I think this version of Zip could potentially be fun.

With that out of the way, there are two main things: The story, and the way it's executed.

The story takes place after Shadow but mostly references the reboot game itself, tying it closely to what happened there and its characters. That means it inherits all the flaws that game had, but then it also doubles down on them. Even things that had gotten less annoying by Shadow are now fully back.

That means Lara is fully defined by her father figures and her relation to them. She's not doing any of what happens for fun, she's doing it because she hopes daddy (times two) will be proud of her. It takes only two minutes before she first hears praise from a father figure here. Nineties Lara Croft doing what she thought was right for her own reasons? Nah, can't have that. We're modern and emancipated and that means our heroine must be fully dependent on men. I am not fond of that.

This continues throughout the entire episode. Between Roth, Jonah, Zip and a random gentleman thief, Lara gets told over and over by men what to do and how to manage her emotions and heal from her trauma, and she gets chastised for any decision she makes herself. We could talk about whether that is sexist, but just as important is whether this is fun. For me, it's not.

The story also demands that we care about Lara's feelings about her dead mentor Roth, and her friendship with Jonah or Zip (but not that one random Spanish woman who was on screen only so the episode could pass the Bechdel test). Having played the games, I promise that I absolutely do not care about any of these relationships, and the show does nothing to make me care on its own terms either.

The opening features a scene where Roth insists that they steal an ancient box, and that they murder someone over it. Then he manipulates Lara into thinking that murdering this guy was absolutely necessary. The show seems to actually agree, but come on, the choice was, "let that guy kill Lara", "kill that guy" or "give that green box back to the guardians of the temple you just stole it from". You can't argue that murder was the best or only option here.

At the end of the day, the problem with the story is that I just don't care. The setup is plain old adventure story: At the start, Roth steals a thing (and Lara is also there). Some years later, someone steals it back. Lara will have to learn what that thing is and prevent disaster. Okay, but how do you make me care specifically? After all, we've seen this dozens of times. You make me care by making me care about the characters and their tribulations. Sadly, the tribulations are "sad that Roth is dead", and I cannot relate to that at all. The "all the men in my life are shouting at me telling me that I'm doing the whole being sad thing wrong" could be a nice conflict, actually, but the story doesn't see it that way. It insists that Jonah is right and Lara must learn to agree with that, instead of taking Lara's thoughts seriously.

That's the story. The other issue is the execution, and here's where I'm getting really controversial. All the reviews I've seen have praised the animation and the look of the show. And me, personally…

I just hate it. It's ugly. It's uninspired. Characters look stupid, and they're not particularly expressive, and they move in uninteresting ways through uninteresting environments. Frankly, Neo Yokio looked better than this.

Is something wrong with me that I just don't see the genius of this, or is everybody else insane? I had the exact same confusion around Netflix's Castlevania already, a show that has the same drawing style and in my opinion insufferable quippy dialogue, but everyone seemed to love that too for some reason.

Aside from looks, I also think the voice acting and dialogue aren't great. I love Hayley Atwell, "Agent Carter" is severely underrated, and I know Jonah's voice actor can deliver great stuff, he did so in the games. Both are trying their best here. But the dialogue direction seems to always be, "could you make it a bit more robotic, please?", especially for the minor characters. It doesn't help that the dialogue is just a giant heap of chlichés that we've seen over and over again. Maybe that is true to the Reboot game, but doing better was always an option.

Also, just a random aside, don't think I haven't noticed that Lara grunts and groans and expresses pain and distress all the time while the men (in particular Roth during the fight scene) generally don't. All more ways in which the job of the men is to be stoic and correct, and the job of Lara is to suffer.

All in all: I can't wait for the next reboot and for this era of Tomb Raider to be over.

[navree]

I love House Tyrell too !! ❤️❤️❤️ That’s who really knows how to play the Game of Thrones - looking at you Olenna 👀 -

Speaking of House Tyrell, don’t you think that what Margaery was accused for, I mean adultery and disloyalty because she too enjoyed the company of handsome men, was very similar to what Rhaenys was accused for? 🤔 Was the concept the same for both of them? Are they really guilty? Honestly, they seem to have many similarities - like being shrewd and maybe even manipulative politicians - and I would love to read your thoughts ❤️

There's some similarities, but not a whole lot. The main thing with the accusations against Margaery is that they're not whispers at court like it seems to have been with Rhaenys, these are legal accusations of treason. Margaery is currently waiting to be tried, in what amounts to a Westerosi court of law, for committing high treason against the king, her husband, by engaging in affairs with other men. These are allegations being made publicly and specifically with the intent to prove her guilty of a crime. In Rhaenys's case, these appear to have amounted little more to the occasional rumor, certainly never anything as formal as what Margaery's going through.

There's also the place they're in as queens when any allegations of impropriety are being made. Margaery is the wife of a king with very little authority, since Tommen is like eight years old and isn't anywhere near power right now, and she herself has no way of cementing any power the way a queen typically would, since she's sixteen and it is generally frowned upon for sixteen year olds and eight year olds to consummate a physical relationship. Rhaenys, on the other hand, had been Aegon's wife for a while, and was very clearly favored by him, and had cemented her place in his life as his preferred romantic and sexual partner in a way that was clearly visible to everyone. That's probably why there wasn't anything beyond the occasional rumor of her liking comely young men, because it wouldn't have been able to get that far with an authoritative king who wouldn't take those accusations against his wife sitting down.

So on that front, they're both in very different situations, with Margaery's being far more precarious, but the original concept is kind of the same, since the idea of "this powerful woman is actually a secret slut" is something we've seen not only throughout history, but still being done to modern female politicians and leaders today (that or calling them frigid robots).

Is Margaery guilty? Honestly, no. It's been a good while since I read AFFC, but it seems to be pretty clear that all of this was made up out of whole cloth and all orchestrated by Cersei because she wanted Margaery out of the picture in order to forestall the coming of Maggy's prophecy. She convinces people she knows to claim that Margaery was unfaithful, or that they were unfaithful with Margaery, and all of those people recant their charges. The only one who doesn't is the Blue Bard, who is very explicitly written as having been tortured into confessing to the point where he's gone mad as a result of the ordeal. No one was concocting any rumors that Margaery was unfaithful or promiscuous before Cersei decided to do her thing, and it's pretty clear not only to the reader, who has access to Cersei's thoughts, but also to a lot of the people in King's Landing, that these allegations just straight up aren't true.

Is Rhaenys guilty? A bit harder to say. Unlike ASOIAF, F&B is not a proper narrative, where you can get into people's heads and see their thoughts and motivations. It's a history book, without the access to inner monologues and closed door conversations and private accountings that a narrative with POV and characters can have. And this section of F&B is, as I've said repeatedly, really just not one that has a lot of information about the people it's talking about, and certainly never anything from their perspective. So, while we can't ever know for certain whether Rhaenys did or didn't have affairs, I'm pretty certain that she didn't. The main point of evidence just seems to be that a) she patroned singers who happened to be young, we know that her patronage had a distinct propagandist bent that was her primary motivator and b) that Aenys didn't really act like Aegon, but those rumors about Aenys are explicitly stated to have died away the second Aenys was able to bond with Quicksilver (and in general, I'm willing to cut a toddler going through a mental breakdown because his mom was very suddenly killed in action some fucking slack).

As to whether Margaery and Rhaenys are similar, maybe. They're both intelligent and they both possess a clear understanding of the political landscape, and appreciate using politics to shape how the kingdom is run as opposed to a more militant approach, and they're both well loved by the populace and appear to know how to use that to their advantage. But we don't really know all that much about Rhaenys, and meanwhile with Margaery, since we're not in her head and we view her through people who have a pretty distorted view of the world (Sansa and Cersei), so we don't necessarily have the clearest view on her either. I think Rhaenys is also just a bit more settled, she enters the history books already as a woman in her mid-twenties, where Margaery is still just a teenager, and as such has a bit more mastery over herself and the world around her than Margaery currently does.

[ablogofsapphicpanic]

Okay I am only going to do the ones listed here bc I do have more but I'll keep it semi short (not really) and I will be discussing multiclasses. I am drawing from A LOT of sourcebooks.

Elain - I also like divination wizard for her because I'm actually playing with one in a current campaign and it works really well for how vague and unclear her visions are. I feel like you could apply a level or two of druid but there's nothing extraordinarily magical about her interest in plants so I think the divination ultimately works better.

Lucien - I like clockwork soul sorcerer / college of eloqeunce bard for him. A clockwork soul sorcerer is fun for him to me because I typically class Eris/Beron as a draconic sorcerer and it allows Lucien to fall under the line with the inheritance of magic, but the magic of the clockwork soul lends itself well to the spell-cleaving aspect that he would get from Helion. As for the multiclass into bard, I think the silver tongue/unsettling words are something he does very well as an emissary and we've seen he's sassy as fuck.

Cassian - I think eldritch knight fighter works really well for the Illyrians in general because their main weapon is still a sword but they pull magic into melee fighting which is good for the flavor of Illyrians. The war magic is really cool bc when you cast it lets you make a bonus weapon attack which is pretty self-explanatory

Nesta - I actually go back and forth on her a lot between a necromancy wizard and a death cleric. Both have their bonuses but I think ultimately a death cleric fits because it is a power drawn from a god/otherworldly being and it has more in depth stuff like ignoring resistance to necrotic damage and it does also give proficiency with martial weapons which lends itself to the Valkyries and the warrior training she has

Azriel - I do like assassin rogue that MB mentioned but there is the way of the shadow monk which feels more spy to me. Part of the reason I prefer it over the assassin rogue is the assassin rogue is more focused on actual killing and disguising yourself to hide whereas the way of the shadow literally has hiding and traveling in shadows which is his whole shtick.

Feyre - Another multiclass coming in. Ranger with no specialty bc it was out of necessity but if you want to argue she was skilled enough to have hit a level require specialty, I'd go with simple hunter because there's no magic involved with what she does. When she becomes fae, it's tempest domain cleric all the way. It gives fun flavoring that could apply to the magic she inherits from the high lords and doesn't restrict her to one type of element or anything. Only thing it doesn't really give is the shapeshifting

Rhys - Sorcerer fits really well if you go with aberrant mind. It's basically a daemati. It's got all the cool spells and obviously outside of the class specific spells you can equip him with ones for all of his less specific spells, and even the shadow manipulation. There is also the shadow magic sorcerer but ultimately if I had to choose I'd pick aberrant mind and have him with darkness and stuff like that.

If you want any others, feel free to ask! I love to blab about DND

What dnd classes would the acotar characters be?

Elain - divination wizard/some kind of druid?

Lucien - paladin/fire sorcerer mix to get the radiant damage?

Cassian - fighter with maybe a little barbarian

Nesta - could be some kind of warlock related to the cauldron

Azriel - rogue

Feyre - I have no idea as she can literally do anything

Rhys - sorcerer? Idk like feyre he's difficult to categorise

Any ideas?

This really is a question for @ablogofsapphicpanic who has a well written dissertation on the subject. I will defer to her wisdom though I personally think Feyre is a ranger.

And that everyone is gonna be so excited for me and @velidewrites next acotarss gate installment

[ramshacklefey]

As sympathetic as many of the characters in the League of Villains are, I'm frustrated by the number of people who seem to view them as a righteous group of plucky underdogs. This isn't about people who just think a character is hot and make horny art of them. It's about sincerely trying to argue that we should be rooting for them because they have some genuinely good points about flaws in their society.

Thing is, these characters do reveal serious flaws in their society. Shigaraki was able to be adopted and manipulated by AFO because everyone assumed that a lost child was someone else's problem. Touya was abused and pushed to a mental breaking point as a child because of Enji's relentless pursuit for a power that would make himself feel better. Toga was ostracized and treated as a freak because her quirk is deeply alarming to people. Jin fell into homelessness and despair because his boss fired him for something that was an accident. Spinner grew up smothered by anti-heteromorph prejudice. We don't get a lot of details about Magne's backstory, but knowing she was trans, we can guess at a lot. The members of the League are all deeply damaged, traumatized people who have, in various ways, been let down by society.

It's easy to sympathize with them because we can all see how, in that position, what they decide to do might seem like it made sense. It's easy to sympathize with them because the problems they face (neglect, abuse, and bigotry) are all things that affect our own society. There's a sense of justice in wanting to tear down a system that's caused you to suffer that much.

But however much we can sympathize with their pain, we shouldn't forget the choices they've made or the actions they've taken. And we shouldn't ignore the fact that their choices and actions are moving them further from the things they really want.

Shigaraki isn't trying to reform society. He doesn't want to tear the current system down so that he can build something better. He wants to tear things down for the sheer sake of destroying them and taking out his rage and pain on everyone else.

Jin's death hits hard because the reason he ends up dying is that he won't give up on his friends. Hawks sees Jin's loyalty and kindness to his friends and realizes that he has a good heart deep down. But Jin's final act is to brutally murder a hero for trying to apprehend Toga and Compress. Their lives weren't in danger.

Touya wants revenge on his father. Understandable, but one of the first things we learn about him is that he's responsible for several random murders. We see him kill a band of petty thieves simply because he decides they aren't powerful enough to be useful to the League. Those murders have nothing to do with his relationship with his father (well. Everything he does has to do with his relationship to his father, but you take my point). And his desire is specifically for vengeance. It isn't enough for him that Enji's crimes and cruelty be exposed. He's not just trying to say, "This man is not the person you think he is, and you shouldn't hold him up as an ideal figure." He wants Enji to suffer. He wants to inflict as much pain as he can.

Toga just murders people because she likes them. Her idea of loving someone is to literally consume them.

And their end goal isn't a better world. It's chaos and anarchy. They want to destabilize society and then provide the arms and ideology that would turn it into a libertarian dystopia. Thing is, that wouldn't actually get them what they want or need.

Take Spinner for instance. We know that in the chaotic times just after quirks appeared, heteromorphs faced intense and dangerous discrimination and hate everywhere. While it's true that heteromorphs still face discrimination and even violence, especially in rural areas, we've also seen that knocking out the social order only makes that worse (think of the woman who Deku saves. She couldn't get into any shelters because she's a heteromorph, even though she was in the middle of the city).

Touya is certainly getting his vengeance on his father, but it isn't getting him what he actually wanted which is acknowledgement from Enji that he is good enough. Having Shoto fight him instead of Enji is one of the worst outcomes he could have gotten, because it is still a refusal to acknowledge him in Touya's eyes (Strictly speaking, it was actually an acknowledgement of the fact that he is probably stronger than Enji, but Touya clearly doesn't see it that way).

Toga, I think, really wants acceptance for who she really is. Her quirk frightens people, and it seems inherently villainous. But the actions she's taking only make her more terrifying to others, and I think she's also mistaken to think that her violent and murderous actions are an expression of her "true self."

And Shigaraki... well he's probably the most difficult case. All he wanted at the beginning of the story was destruction. But it's hard to get a read on him in any accurate way because of the extent to which he's been molded and manipulated by AFO into his current state. I think we can get more insight into him by looking at what desires and motivations AFO played on. As a small child, Shigaraki was angry (and rightly so) about the way his family treated him, and then at the way the rest of the world ignored him. AFO fanned his anger and resentment and actively twisted his experiences until now he can't escape the idea that there's nothing good in the world at all. But we also know that he's wrong about that. The only hope for him at this point is that Deku can show him that he's wrong.

The hurt and anger that the members of the League live with are real and valid. They've each experienced things that would turn most people bitter and angry. Those things make them deeply human and sympathetic. But it's possible to sympathize or even empathize with someone's pain without giving them a free pass to become violent murderers and terrorists.

One of the most important themes in the story is that people aren't defined by the things that happened to them in the past, but by the choices they've made in response. The League serves as a vital foil to the main characters because they've made opposite choices at nearly every turn. Trying to wave those choices away and make these characters out to be basically good people whose actions are justified by their situations (as opposed to being explained by their situations) destroys that theme.