#about how the narrator says he erases everyone else

[squuote]

I do love the concept of the mind control aspect of tsp could very much be a real and existing thing that the narrator saw and was like yknow what that would be make for a great story. and then proceeded to take that entire office building and put it into a video game. and make that story about only one employee while erasing the rest. silliest shit ever

[witchofthesouls]

I do think it's a good thing to point out: violence is always the answer to violence when it's the system that creates the violence.

Megatron in every continuity was right that it needed to be a violent overthrow because the upper castes would not listen and would not change.

The title of Prime is a god-king status above the caste system entirely, but it does beseech its own violence just by existing.

Even if Optimus is a good person, that doesn't erase the damage and cruelty Primes are apparently known for. He is patient and he is imperfect and the tragedy of it is, does he even know that he's changed? How much of the difference is he aware of from his time before the Maxtrix to what he's become as a direct result of it?

Skyquake said he'd never side with a Prime. Not that he'd never side with Optimus, or the Autobots, but A Prime. The idea. The symbol. The Decepticons are fighting to be free from the shackles of a lineage of god-kings endlessly creative in their cruelty who, by some irony, they are compelled to follow by the nature of the relic.

Ratchet is a very good example of the hypocrisy. He was medical- upper middle to upper caste- and in TFP, we know Iacon hoarded a lot of resources. We see his prejudice plain as day just from how he describes Orion Pax and Megatronous. Hell, I'd say he flat out hated Megatronous for teaching a young Orion to speak his mind. He doesn't understand the righteous anger that the gladiator carried, and I don't think he cared.

Tl;Dr: there's a reason the Decepticons are more appealing, honey, most people just don't want to think about it too hard

Uh, I don't know if you're new here, anon, but yeah? Keep on cooking!

I don't know if this is a response to the reblog from nukeli about shattered glass, but under my 'analysis' and 'tf headcanons' and 'gladiator soundwave' and 'cybertronian culture' tags, I do talk about the roles of violence and how it's cemented within Decepticon culture as well as the 'appropriate behaviors' of low-caste vs high-caste of the Golden Age, especially between Orion Pax and Megatron and how it essentially fucked them up after the disaster meeting. Plus, I have posts about the potential cultural damage caused by the Quintesson occupation on Cybertron since they were the ones to implement the caste system.

Ratchet is such a great example of the show's use of unreliable narrator and how he encompasses a higher-caste sensibilities, especially when you take in his background. Compared to Orion Pax, who literally bypassed all the regulations and went from uneducated bumpkin from the middle of nowhere to a cushy and prestigious position underneath Alpha Trion, Ratchet had the correct frame and went through the right channels, so he never had to deal with the kind of discrimination others would speak about. I think of him like that prideful, racist grandpa who the "but you're not like them" locked and loaded. There's a lot of those instances across the show, but I really enjoy it since it fleshes out the story and the character. Ratchet isn't subtle. Not at all. And no one calls him out on it, so it's super telling on what kind of society Golden Age Cybertron was.

Personally, I thought it was really interesting when Skyquake had said that, especially with how Aligned/TFP done the Thirteen since Megatron literally took his name from Megatronus Prime, the direct opponent of Prima, and had tried to legitimize the movement with the Primacy. That's how I read Megatron's demand since it was proof of real change, but there was no way the High Council was going to allow that. Instead, they decided to take advantage of Orion Pax as a way to break the Decepticon movement and send a message to everyone else. Orion wasn't meant to be a Prime. He was just a figurehead, a token of empty promises, until it went off the rails, and he actually unearthed the damn Matrix.

Going back to Skyquake, I guessed that the TFP!Decepticons do have devotees to outlawed sects along with atheists as Megatron has no issues with getting Primal Artifacts, even if he needs to commit corpse desecration to a Prime of the fucking Thirteen to use the Artifact. (Which is another wild event under that mech's belt. It's a good thing they don't have balls because nothing could carry his.) So Optimus was basically barking at the wrong tree. But a majority of the Decepticons would be like that since Optimus represents Prima's reflection of a Prime and civilization. That distinction is really important because after the death and exile of over half of the Thirteen Primes, very few were actually left to guide the fledgling societies. Each Prime represented different Aspects and Domains, so with none able to challenge Prima... is it really a huge surprise it went wayside?

Prima was the Firstborn and Eldest. He was literally the God-King as the Prime of Light. Megatronus Prime was the only one who could truly challenge him, but he laid down his weapons and chose self-exile, and with death of Solus and Liege Maximo, Onyx, Micronus, and Thirteen joining the Allspark to kickstart it, Nexus separating himself, and Quintus, Amalgamous, and Vector leaving... Alpha Trion and Alchemist weren't enough to stand against Prima, who had a vision on how Cybertron should be.

My point is that the Decepticons stood against Prima's Champion by fiercely declaring their own leader. Megatron would have been an uncrowned Prime, a call to return to the long past before city-states, or a symbol a future without them.

[delusinalandpassionate]

SUUUPER long ask sorry.

What I find so fascinating is that, everyone, whether dante or her family, display her as this “prideful,” and having this “self importance,” that puts her above everyone. But, every memory we get of her is undoubtedly soft or full of, usually, love. You could say this is because of her natural softness with Quixote, but, she’s shown to be this way with Bari, too! She’s shown to pity the bear and even Dante later on. Faust informs Dante her level of agression then was because of Cassetti’s taboo and not a general read of her character. Even in Barber’s and Priest’s narration, she does enforce them, yes, but it’s always never something “prideful,” whispering at Priest he missed a line, and apparently watching over Barber, which leans into OUR Don’s and Sancho’s habit of acting like she.. isn’t apart of the world. (Giving her Gubo makes so much sense, on several levels, but especially Dongbaek accusing Gubo of acting like they aren’t one of them. Dongrang’s “you don’t need to keep acting like a guest.”) The sinners affirming she never, ever talks about herself, much rather sharing and wanting to hear OTHER’S stories. She’s always felt distant from the sinners, even more so than those “emotionally closed off,” like Outis, and that’s because she doesn’t let anyone in. And it seems she’s always been that way. I mean, she was willing to completely erase who she was in efforts to live someone else’s story. Even meta wise— she isn’t even the protagonist! She’s the person who watches the hijinks occur. She does not own this identity or story, she’s manually removed all her agency and autonomy. Something she ultimately did because of loathe of herself and love of someone else. Dante doesn’t want Don to face herself because it means they’d have to face her. Despite, how frail she seems, how even warm I’d say Vergilius sounds making the deal with her, her talk about “watching over Hong Lu,” with the implication that to just be there and try, and how that’s being taken from her, even now, because no one can seem to accept her, but Quixote. She can’t even accept herself. She’s someone who longed for family and love, but the entire world seems sure on seeing her as something prideful, evil, terrifying— and even as a human she was a one dimensional annoyance at worst. I wonder if she truly loved her family, the sinners, but was still unable to convey that? Did they read her wrong? Was she always prideful and distant? Or was she scared of not being loved? Is she truly that terrifying or has she learned to harden herself up to keep things in order for her helpless master? Has she taken up the burden of being the “bad guy,” to ensure he gets all he wants on a silver platter? The dichotomy of love in their relationship and what is ultimately terrifying, a lack of autonomy to even live her own life, be his ideal instead, simply on pretense he’s the only person to ever love her. Someone she cannot deny, quite literally, all for him.

THANK YOU FOR LONG ASK, I'm glad to see people to be that passionate about Don!

And I like the idea of her being less prideful but rather distant, which creates a feeling of arrogance. And I agree that most of her memories are full of love, just I think all of her love reserved to Don Quixote.

About Bari, she seems rather suspicious about her and flashbacks and agrees to her company only because of Don Quixote. You could argue using last Sanson play, but we still don't have a confirmation about who we're spoken here yet.

About Bear...I don't think it was piety, more like pragmatism.

About Dante... yeah, she looked at them as they were pietful it makes me wonder why...

About Cassati...well, . She's honoring this taboo, but this taboo is rooted in hierarchy in which she is much higher than Cassati, and if she believes in importance of taboo, she should believe in the importance of her status. We can compare it's to Don Quixote, who is letting Sancho ignore lines between their statuses while she calls Cassatti all insults possible.

And when I made point about her correcting Barber and Priest, it was not about pride, but more about their discomfort around her.

But I adore the idea of Sancho being an observer and the idea that she does not fit in and that she's not even trying. I thought a lot about Gubo's identity as a traitor in this story and how it paints Don, but him being never "one of them" now makes a lot of sense.

And with that, I think Sancho's problem is not even with thinking that everyone is unimportant. It's more like there is no one as important as Don Quixote, and that includes herself.

In a way, Don Quixote made a great thing becoming her family, but at the same time, he became the center of life, even if by accident.

Maybe she became a "bad guy" to make sure his dream will happen. But it still centering one person and his happiness while ignoring pleas of others. Sancho may not be purposely cruel, but she was ruthless archiving whatever Don Quixote wanted.

And that's why I think that her life as "Don" gave her a new perspective. Or understanding. About Don Quxote and most important about herself. She had a chance to have a life that wasn't centered around one person(she just didn't remember it was), learn other kinds of joy, and create relationships.

It's interesting that Dulcinea said that Sancho's eyes once were bright and starry until cold disinterest settled in them. And that means that from the beginning, there was something in her that could be Don Quixote.

[vqlisms]

whats ur qifrey was revived from death (forbidden magic?) theory

YIPPEEE (EXPLODES)

ok so the first time we hear about the forest of thristas has nothing to do with qifrey. in chapter 20, its explained that the forest was originally much more bright and living, until a brimmedhat named thristas began using the site to run experiments trying to bring people back from the dead.

next time we hear about it is chapter 30. this is the chapter where we get the qifrey flashback/nightmare and explanation of why he’s so afraid of water, and beldaruit tells coco about qifrey’s experiences with brimmedhats. in this flashback we learn that qifrey was found by knights moralis and beldaruit while following a lead about a brimmedhat being in the forest of thristas. they find a stone tunnel in the forest, in which beldaruit finds fresh blood along the floor. assuming that its a brimmedhat’s blood, the knights put the blood into a magical compass, then follow it to the roots of a large tree. beldaruit excavates what they expect to be either a corpse or a hideout, only to reveal a coffin (beldaruit notes that it doesn’t have “our mark”, and that it doesn’t smell of rotting flesh despite being completely waterlogged). the knights remove the top, expecting a trap, only to find a child qifrey. everyone panics, but qifrey is alive, so they bundle him up and try to get information from him. all that he says is “It was taken, by a witch…” and the blood on the right of his face implies that he’s referring to his eye. beldaruit, out of the flashback, explains that qifrey’s memory and any additional evidence was erased, his right eye was stolen, and he was buried alive.

according to beldaruit, there was no sign of forbidden magic found in qifrey’s body. the council of magic security wanted to erase qifrey’s memory and have him live a normal life, but beldaruit took him in as his apprentice. qifrey kept sneaking out to search for brimmedhats, but eventually stopped after visiting the tower of books, with beldaruit assuming that he stopped because he realised that to restore his memories and eye would require forbidden magic.

in chapter 40, qifrey and olruggio have The Talk wherein qifrey explains why he’s restarted his hunt for the brimmedhats. during which, he says what’s shown below: “The forbidden magic that the Brimhats were researching in Silstas [Thristas]… I have to stop those plans…! I must recover the eye that they stole from me, and destroy it before anyone finds out…!” already, this implies that whatever experiment they needed his eye for was successful to the degree that qifrey needs to destroy it so that no-one else knows about it.

then, after olruggio accuses him of lying to the assembly and witches when he first arrived, qifrey explains further. the last time he and olruggio snuck out, the time when they challenged the tower of books, of memories, qifrey was the only one to go inside the tower. the tower holds a copy of every penned document in the world, no matter how short or informal. qifrey explains: “The records from Silstas [Thristas] were magically destroyed, so there was barely anything left. But after seeing the note fragments that’s still existed, I was able to remember. They experimented on me, with a new type of magic.” olruggio confirms that qifrey is not talking about any kind of magic from the lost era, and the narration calls it “Disorderly and full of potential. New possibilities flowing from chaos.”

now that’s out of the way, here’s the actual theory and my evidence!

qifrey was found in the forest of thristas, which is commonly known to be where the brimmedhat thristas experimented with forbidden magic from the lost era that could resurrect the dead. this experimentation killed the forest, and the brimless witches never mention knowing for certain if these experiments were successful or not. qifrey’s coffin was not waterproof or airtight, but it was buried, so theres a decent chance that he was buried for a good while since the ground near the coffin didn’t seem disturbed in any way before beldaruit excavated the coffin. qifrey was found alive in the coffin despite it being nearly impossible, and was later revealed to have been experimented on with a completely different magic than resurrection. this implies that the site is now being used for new magic that is known to be dangerous and chaotic, so resurrection magic was either no longer of interest to the brimmedhats (doesn’t make sense with how small the brimmedhats numbers are, they’d need all the members they could keep) or they succeeded in reviving the dead.

i think that whatever magic the brimmedhats whipped up to revive the dead works throughout the forest (perhaps in the water? it’d be interesting irony to the magic lake from the first chapter and add an extra layer to qifrey’s fear of water…), and affects animal and/or human organic matter, which would explain why qifrey’s blood was still fresh only in the stone area sheltered from the elements which would’ve swept it away otherwise (also the plasma in blood is majority water, and he was likely drinking water from the forest of thristas while with the brimmedhats…). qifrey was probably killed just after they took his memories and stole his eye. qifrey, since the brimmedhats had finished their experiments on him and he didn’t remember enough to be a threat, was then buried in the first convenient place without care for what happened after. the brimmedhats were either uncaring because they finished their experiments or in a rush to leave because they didn’t want to be caught, both of which would explain why they destroyed all of their research and buried qifrey in an area that they knew could revive the dead. the coffin wasn’t airtight because where the fuck are brimmedhats supposed to get a good quality coffin for a kid when they have no social support and are in hiding. that good ol forest magic keeps qifrey alive until beldaruit and the knights moralis find him however long later.

again, we’re still probably missing information that’s relevant to qifrey’s backstory, so the How It Happened part is probably definitely inaccurate, but i do for sure think that qifrey’s having been revived is being foreshadowed. at this point the theory is less of the been-revived part and more of the what-happened part lmao

[paradoxcase]

Harrow the Ninth audiobook, through to the end of Act 1

I had to regenerate the audiobook again because I made a mistake editing the chapters file last time, whoops, and the Act 1 mp3 ended in the middle of Harrow getting all riled up about Ortus being passive-aggressive. I'm really enjoying Ortus being a little shit again in this book

I listened to a bit of the previous chapter again, because I also wrote down the timestamp I stopped at wrong, and I note that Harrow experienced temporal lobe pain when she saw Babs' knife, but I'm not sure this makes sense? This happens to her when she sees or hears something that she should remember from Canaan House but which she erased with the brain surgery, but as Gideon correctly points out, she doesn't have any memories of Babs' knife, she never saw him fight with it. And she doesn't react this way to other things that she just generally doesn't have knowledge of that Gideon as the narrator has knowledge of and comments on, like every single time she sees a pommel

When Harrow points out that "bone frenzy" is kind of suggestive, Ortus goes on a rant about how he wouldn't want someone who giggled at things like that to even read his poetry, which kind of makes me wonder what Gideon's relationship was to the Noniad, if she had any at all. Like, I can't imagine she would have read it of her own free will, but it sounds like Ortus liked to recite it for everyone regardless of whether or not they wanted to read it and now I can just imagine Gideon making dumb crude jokes about "bone frenzy" and Ortus indirectly implies that Gideon is a moron and it goes completely over her head and she has no idea he even said that

The Wake letters don't sound nearly capslock enough in the audiobook, I expected something more shouty and a little unhinged

At some point on the Erebos, John is referred to as "the god of dead kings". What dead kings? I don't think anyone in the Nine Houses remembers or has any records of any dead kings, or anyone who ever used the title "king" other than John himself. There might be dead kings outside of the Nine Houses, but John isn't their god

Mercy's voice is exactly right, A+

Sarpedon voice is good. I can't tell if it's a different accent, or if I'm just imagining things

John tells the people on the Erebos that "our enemies have once more raised their hands to those who would be at peace with them" referring to BOE's recent attack, and calls them "those who cannot forgive [us for being necromancers]" which is massively ironic after reading Nona, actually

The dead languages on the stele are mentioned, and I ask again: what dead languages? Supposedly everyone in the Nine Houses doesn't remember any of the languages that were around on Earth, except for English, which has supposedly been spoken unaltered for 10,000 years, and I guess Maori, which I get the feeling only John knows any of. So what dead languages exist in the Nine Houses?

John talks about "the first method" of FTL travel "destroyed something to do with time and space, making it not useful for anything else". I guess he means that method that the trillionaires used to escape Earth?

The lava metaphor for the River was actually Cassiopeia's originally, I've never been so disappointed

I mentioned this before, but John categorically states that non-Lyctors cannot survive in the River at all, regardless of whether or not there are hungry ghosts there, but this definitely doesn't seem to be the case in Nona

John says Pyrrha's trial was in Lab 3, but I remember it being in Lab 2?

Ianthe sees Some Shit in the River prior to when the ghost ward exploded and the ghosts started appearing. I'm kind of curious what she saw, now

During the River travel segment, John and Mercy seem to think there are fewer corpses in the River than expected, and that this is worrisome. I wonder if this is a precursor to whatever caused the River to completely empty of ghosts in Nona

Abigail and Magnus are back! Yay!

In the Canaan House scene where Teacher is introducing them to the trial, Harrow says to Ortus: "The choice [of cavalier] is beyond me now, unless you can conjure me the spirit of Mattias Nonius, in which case I will take on his services" and about the Sleeper, "in the worst case scenario you can simply declaim to it", I love that this is exactly what happens on both accounts

Harrow has this weird doublethink about what she remembers from Canaan House - like, on the surface, it seems like she made the River bubble to be her replacement memory for what happened, but that doesn't match up in some cases. We know at the end of the book that the River bubble is happening in real time, whenever Harrow goes to sleep (or passes out) and she doesn't have direct control over what happens there, because the ghosts are really there and are able to make their own decisions on how to act. But she seems to remember Corona's death at the very beginning of the book when she tells Ianthe that Corona is probably dead, even though she hasn't experienced that part of the bubble yet. Also, she has very clear memories of killing Cytherea at the beginning of the book, and these aren't accompanied by brain pain so she must not have tried to remove them at all (sensible), but Cytherea isn't in the River bubble at all, so it's not at all clear where she fits into the false memory. I can't think of a reason why Harrow couldn't have summoned Cytherea to take part in the bubble, although that might have been a bad idea since maybe Cytherea still has Lyctor powers in the bubble for the same reason that Wake and Nonius had powers there. But Harrow still has these very clear and pain-free memories of things that actually happened at Canaan House mixed in with the fake memories that don't logically make sense together with them. This sort of raises the question of why she couldn't have allowed herself to have, say, similarly contradictory memories about Camilla's survival, since she specifically wanted to follow up with her and Camilla's death in the River bubble was not super plot relevant

Augustine voice is fine, but I don't feel like it's particularly distinctive

Augustine is worried that G1deon will "put two and two together" about the BOE attack, but I'm not sure I know what he means. I think this was in the context of G1deon having complicated feelings about Wake, but it's common knowledge at this point that Wake is dead. Or does he mean like, G1deon might draw the conclusion that BOE only attacked John in that manner because Wake was no longer in charge and that might make him feel bad about killing her?

I like G1deon's voice, interested to see how this gets modified to become Pyrrha's voice

Harrow describes G1deon as looking like a poorly-made construct, which makes some sense, because he was only John's second attempt at making a completely new body and the first time he just used Hollywood Hair Barbie as model. But like, on the other hand, John surely knew what G1deon looked like before the suitcase nuke. Did he actually have a stronger mental image of Hollywood Hair Barbie than of his own best friend? Or did G1deon just already look like a poorly-made construct naturally? Or did John actually somehow have his Hollywood Hair Barbie with him when he created Alecto's body and that's why it turned out well? Did John bring Hollywood Hair Barbie to the cryo lab and sleep with it at night? Or was Alecto right about her body being hideous (from a human perspective) and Harrow's opinion that she is hot is just Harrow being a weirdo?

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Mapleshade

Apparently some parts of the warriors fandom can't wrap their head around an unreliable narrator. She's not an innocent victim or a pure evil villain. She's complex. She was selfish, she took advantage of people but she was also cheated on by her mate (who by the way face little to no repercussions for having a half clan relationship with Mapleshade) and forced to leave her kit's bodies to be buried on RiverClan's territory, where she'd never be able to see them again. Mapleshade is a cat that never learned how to face the consequences of her actions. She arguably went insane from having her whole life be torn apart from her in a single day. Tbh I'd argue that if she was a tom, more people would be sympathetic towards her.

a woman will murder 3 people, use a dead guy's name to protect her and her kids' reputation, groom a kid into becoming a xenophobic dictator and people will still claim that she's an innocent justified victim. i love her and think she's a very interesting character (with her killing people partially to avenge her kits) but god, half the fandom doesn't read the books and it shows.

Angela

*LONG PROPAGANDA*

Angela is an AI made to run a facility (think of an scp facility thats the shortest explanation i have), from the second of her creation she was unloved and abused. People hate her because of the things she did, but they fail to realize WHY she did any of the those things. (spoilers for lobotomy corporation and library of ruina from this point) sure, she did a lot of bad things. she was generally pretty mean to everybody and ruined the big "plan" everyone was working towards for literally thousands of years. However. can you blame her? from the second she was created she was unloved and abused. her creator made her in the image of someone else, then hated her for not being that person. he made her fully sentient and intelligent only to then say "a machine must behave as a machine" whenever she acted like an intelligent being. he trapped her in a timeloop and made her experience time slower than everyone else, AND erased everyone elses memoried with every reset. Which left her alone, unable to make real progress towards the company's goal (completing the goal was also the only way for her to escape the timeloop or even LEAVE THE BUILDING) without just losing her progress anyway. The only people who didnt leave angela every loop was her creator and also a different guy who sort of helped make her, but her creator then felt bad about what they were doing and erased his own and the other persons memory, leaving her fully alone and expecting her to train his memoryless self. angela doesnt get to forget, if she feels bad about what theyre doing she just has to keep doing it. Until, after 10,000 years (which felt to Angela like 1,000,000) , they DID actually complete their goal. And Angela, wanting to be free, realized that she had no part in the end. She was meant to be destroyed with the facility. When she found this out, she started a big battle with all the other people in the facility. Eventually they had to agree to only let half of the light reach the city (not explaining that its complicated, just trust that it was the goal they were working towards) and Angela got to keep the rest. She still couldnt leave the area, so she started a library where the facility used to be. At this point another character shows up and befriends her. Through him, we get to learn that 1) literally nothing she did while managing lobotomy corporation was her own choice. everything there followed a script, and if she acted against the script the loop reset. when she was first started, she was shown to be super kind. but being kind was against the script, she literally wasn't allowed to not be an asshole. 2) now, she does have free will. and she chooses to kill people with it. she invites people to her library to turn them into books and when asked by almost everyone around her if she thinks that's morally okay, she justifies her actions again and again. she has to turn people into books to turn human, which will finally ACTUALLY grant her freedom okay, that last part is pretty bad. but, literally all she's known for ONE MILLION YEARS is hurting people. Shes finally doing something for herself, and in order to do that people have to be hurt. for her entire life, The Script and her creator told her that hurting people is Okay and Necessary if it achieves their goal. Besides, by the end of the game she realizes that she doesnt want to hurt people and literally gives up her goal to turn them back into humans from books. even after all her work. when she was So close to achieving what she wanted. In summary, Angela did a lot wrong, but I think blaming her for any of it means you really don't understand her.

regarded by many people as a wittle uwu baby must pwotect, a badass girlboss who did nothing wrong to her surroundings or the literal spawn of satan. no in-between

[squeakygeeky]

7 Days Before Valentine: Novella vs Drama

This write-up will contain complete spoilers. I know not that many people watched 7 Days Before Valentine, but I think you might still be interested in how things were adapted from page to screen, so the basic premise of both is that a guy who just experience a breakup gets visited by a 'cupid reaper' for seven nights, who gives him the chance each night to erase someone from existence in the hopes of changing things enough to make the breakup not have happened. Ultimately it's a story about acceptance.

Overall I'm actually calling this for the series, because the novella is very short, but the series is able to flesh everything out and really delve into the characters and the implications of the character's choices on everyone at large.

7 Days Before Valentine is based on a novella by the same title by Patrick Rangsimant. I've also read My Ride, I Love You and My Imaginary Boyfriend by him. I enjoy his writing and he's actually a doctor so you can tell from his writing that he's experienced a lot of things in life and his work tends to have a philosophical bent. This work was definitely the serenity prayer as a BL. He tends to write mostly dialog and introspection, a bit like I write actually. It's straightforward and a bit bare, so the vibes of the story and the series are very different. The overall ominous weirdness of the series came from the director/screenwriter, but I think the way it's very theatrical did suit the talky/thinky source material.

The series is also based on another novella, 7 Days Before Halloween, but that one doesn't appear to have an English translation or maybe hasn't even been published yet. The story we get for Q in the series (who goes by the slightly less cute 'Cue' in the novella) is all in there so I can't say how close that was to what we got in the series. Cue doesn't go into his backstory in the series.

The narrator of the novella is nameless and definitely feels like more of an Everyman compared to Sunshine. He's a little blase about erasing people from existence but feels like he could be anyone struggling to accept a major life change, which is the point. I don't remember him being described physically at all and we don't get any details of his life. This makes him way less frustrating than Sunshine, who begins the novel as a self-absorbed and selfish actor, but also not particularly memorable as a character, and it's less that the narrator experiences general character growth and more that he learns to deal with this specific life crisis.

There's no flower shop/bar in the novella. I was hoping we'd get some explanation for that guy who seems to be another supernatural entity like Q, but nope. Also, having the kid from the flower shop as a character gave the show the chance to point out that romantic love isn't the be-all-and-end-all of love, which is pretty unusual for a romance series and was a nice touch.

There also isn't any exploration of what erasing a person means for the world at large. For example, in the novel erasing the politician the couple argued about just doesn't work to fix things, while in the show Sunshine manages to create a whole dystopia. I think that aspect worked well in the series. Both do have the main character fixing things by wishing himself out of existence, only to be brought back by someone else's wish, but of course we don't get the explanation of that in the novella the way we do in the show.

There is a little romance between the narrator and Cue in the novella, but more just that they meet at the end and recognize each other. Yes the show was a slow burn, but I did like the way Q in the series progressed in his attitude, from antagonism to protectiveness to love towards Sunshine, and the way they both opened up to each other. The climax of Sunshine wishing Q out of existence in order to release him from being a reaper was just so perfectly devastating. In the novella it's much less dramatic since the narrator gets the opportunity to make a normal wish and wishes for Cue to be happy. In both cases this does lead to them having a new meet-cute as regular mortals, it's just 1000x more satisfying in the show both because they'd already fallen in love and lost each other at this point but also because we got to see how things clicked into place with a reaper version of Sunshine having been the Q to mortal Sky, who needed to learn his own lessons about loss and regret and letting go.

I think the bizarre oppressive atmosphere of the show really paid off in the final episode, because everything felt clearer and lighter and yes, the colors, and that added to the impact of Sunshine straightening his shit out and the whole last minute reunion. Anyway, I SWEAR THIS WAS GOOD GIVE IT A CHANCE.

[alexbutrandomthoughts]

Thanks for answering my ask....If you don't mind me asking (again), what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....

OKAY SO I MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN THIS WAS IN MY DRAFTS CUZ I WAS BUSY IN UNI AND THEN IT JUST GOT ERASED FROM MY MEMORY I AM SO FUCKING SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN TO LET IT STEW FOR SO LONG

1) Haikyuu!!

Honestly this is just a comfort show for me. No matter how many times i rewatch it, it's always like the first time, even if you know what's about to happen, you still cheer and clap and groan in every match. Just AGAIWBAIWBSKBDIS such a good anime, i bawled my eyes out when i finished the manga, honestly this will go down as one of my favorite anime ever (update: watched the movie, it's good but man i wish we had whole season)

2) Undertale/Deltarune

I cannot beat the weird kid allegations, toby fox has me by my (totally legit) balls. Istg toby fox drugs his games, or else idk how to explain how am i keep coming back to this (lies this franchise and story is just pure masterpiece)

3) Fnaf

Yeah definitely doesn't help the weird kid allegations. Well you know what they say, when you start getting into fnaf you sign off your life into eternal servitude. I would describe my relationship with Fnaf as - toxic ex i keep coming back to. Somehow 8 years of this bullshit and we're still going. Counting animatronic toes and reading yet another wtf is this book

4) Bungoe Stray Dogs

Sighhhhhh. The gayssssss. THE GAAAAAYSSS. But nah honestly it just has everything to get me on the board. The drama, mysteries, pretty WOMEN, silly characters, gut wrenching angst, and of course gay ass mfkas. The manga is better though. I don't consider this a masterpiece (not by a lOng shot) but it a good show to watch and talk about, the characters are all fun and silly, cliche at times but nonetheless entertaining and the fan work is just CHEF'S KISS

5) Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

This is a relatively new one but GOD. DAMN. HOW DOES JUST MAKE THIS MASTERPIECE. IT'S SO GOOD. THE EMOTIONS THE PLOT THE CHARACTERS. HOW DOES ONE EXECUTE EVERYTHING SO PERFECTLY AND JUST LEAVES YOU CRYING AND SOBBING MESS BUT IN A GOOD WAY. Genuinely consider this one of the modern classics that will be talked about in years to come. Exploring the how would an immortal perceives time, is not something everyone (or anyone) really explores in fantasy stories but damn frieren absolutely slays with it. Not cherishing the people she was with only to realize how much they meant to her when it was too late, and they're already gone, is just so. UGH. AND THEN SHE SLOWLY LEARNS TO CHANGE AND APPRECIATE THE WORLD AND PEOPLE AROUND HER WHILE GOING THROUGH THE OLD MEMORIES IAISBSJSBSNSNKS. anyway. I do recommend frieren (they better announce that second season)

6) The Apothecary diaries

Also one of the recent ones. What can i say when we get an imperial china not china setting, with inner palace politics, hierarchies and murder mysteries, packed with probably the greatest female protagonist we had in how many years? How can not love it? Maomao my personal spiritual animal. She is just such a compelling character and breath of fresh air in anime community cuz god knows we need more of em. She just feels so real compare to what we usually, she is just one or the girls and that is beautiful. There are of course others aspects of this show that i like but honestly she is probably the main reason this show is just UGH so good

7) Stanley Parable

Okay, this is a bit of an odd one, but hear me out. This game is so GOOOOD. I remember playing way back when, and it was just so different than anything else that was coming out at the time. The meta narrative of this game was truly amazing, the amount options we had and so many interesting dialogs, the THINGS TO EXPLOREE. I also just loved the narrator, he is so goddamn funny, the banter with Henry (even though it's one sided) is still great

These are the ones i can think of, honestly, there are probably others but i cannot remember them rn

[katie-the-bug]

Last post about Left Behind, I promise.

I'm as surprised as you are that the book isn't over yet.

Anyways, for those just tuning in, our cast: Rayford Steele, pilot and newly minted evangelist; Chloe Steele, getting evangelized to; Bruce Barnes, source of spiritual guidance and exposition in unequal measure; Buck Williams, newly promoted magazine editor and reporter; Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist and the only character I like; Hattie Durham, Rayford's emotional sidepiece who's moving on to better things, and by "better things" I mean Nicolae.

In Chapter 20 Buck sees Chloe for the first time and is immediately "stunned." Oh god no.

In Chapter 22 Chloe becomes a born-again Christian. Or, technically, she recounts how she became a born-again Christian to Buck, who's deliberately gotten himself a seat next to her on a plane. She decides that Buck's sitting next to her is, rather than Buck being creepy, God answering her prayers. I don't know quite what kind of example this is setting but I don't like it.

In Chapter 23, Nicolae becomes secretary-general of a revamped United Nations, which the authors think means King of the World. Earlier in the story he had set a number of conditions to his accepting the role - such as disarmament of member states, his election being unanimous, and the UN being moved to Babylon (which has for some reason been rebuilt in this universe) - all of which are enthusiastically met. In a better book this would be evidence of a far-reaching ability to manipulate minds, but as it is I can't tell where Nicolae's Antichrist powers end and this world's endemic insanity begins.

Nicolae also discusses plans to create a one world religion as though religion is in any way the UN's business. What do the authors think the UN does?

Throughout the second half of the book Bruce has been emphasizing how horrible the coming years will be and how most new Christians will die horrible deaths. The characters have discussed this multiple times, but if they're anxious about it for longer than a few minutes, the narration doesn't show it. Usually I'd criticize such a thing, but this is, in my experience, pretty on-brand for Christians. I've heard several of my Catholic school teachers treat the persecution of Christians in America as an inevitability, before getting on with the curriculum as though they haven't just given a bunch of twelve-year-olds a new reason to be anxious. (I am bitter.)

After wrestling for a few chapters, in Chapter 24 Buck finally says the magic words (in a bathroom, immediately before a press conference with Nicolae) and becomes a True Christian. The immediate consequence of this is that he can now sense that Nicolae is evil despite having no hard evidence for his misdeeds.

Almost immediately afterwards Nicolae shoots two guys in front of an entire press conference, so I really don't think Buck sensing his evil was necessary.

And immediately after that Nicolae uses his powers to erase everyone's memories of the event - except Buck, who is protected by the plot God. Nicolae had previously something about how the people present will "understand cognitively" that he is in charge, even without remembering it, which sounds like the authors just wanted Nicolae to do something bad without it affecting the plot. Cowards.

At the end of it all Buck tells the Steeles and Bruce that Nicolae is without a doubt the Antichrist. All I can think is that it would be so funny if he were wrong, the Antichrist were someone else, and Nicolae just had powers for no reason. It wouldn't have made for a good book, but the book wasn't good anyway and it would at least be funny.

That's Left Behind for you. My posts about the next books in the series will be spread out a bit more because I'm going on vacation and won't have access to my computer all the time. Still, expect a considerable volume of posts about this over the next month or so, because these books are just so easy to make fun of.

See you in the next book!

[thesungod]

The way they had to character assassinate Percy and Annabeth though? ''oopsie we did a mistake and forgot Bob'' like? And yeah the Calypso thing was already bad in itself but Bob literally gave his own life for Percy and Annabeth. And I thought Percy's fatal flaw was loyalty lmao? That anon who said it seems like Nico's fatal flaw is loyalty has a point. At least Nico never forgot about people, heck, he was the one who helped Bob first by giving him a place in the Underworld after his memory was wiped out, and that is pretty much why Bob decided to help Percy and Annabeth in HoH, and that is pretty much why Percy and Annabeth survived. Literally Nico's out there trying to help everyone in need even when the Argo gang was arguing about whether or not they should have saved Nico from his jar. I mean? I get that you have to do something to further your intended plot, but you also have to make it make sense within the narrative, otherwise, it just comes off badly written and sloppy.

Also, I have not finished the book but where are the Little Bob and Damasen?

And with Apollo thing... I mean, what was the point of 5 books Apollo series if you were gonna erase pretty much every development that we've seen? Lowkey was going to say 'Luke was right' if i am being honest.

It’s sooooo funny to me how Bob was like

and Annabeth and Percy apparently decided they were built different.

what really gets me is that the solution to make Nico and Will have a nice trip to Tartar Sauce and not make anyone ooc (Percy and Annabeth, Apollo) was to make it a secret quest.

Other people don’t know they are going until it’s too late. Boom. Done. I’ll grant that maybe it was logistically impossible not to let Apollo know because he’s the sole narrator of ToA, but they could have at least spared Percabeth.

Re: Nico & Loyalty, it was always implied (implied. not plastered across the entire book and written on walls) that he was an impressively loyal person to the people he loved, especially fellow outcasts. Actually, mostly fellow outcasts. He was even stubbornly and devotedly dedicated to his father despite Hades being a um, *bad* father for most of the series.

That’s why I never see him becoming this walking meme that is loved by everyone, tbh. I’m not saying he has to be unhappy, but I was very okay with him always being kind of a weirdo and only having Will and a few true friends while being somewhat (not terribly. just somewhat) feared/treated with awe by anyone else. It’s the vibe he was giving in ToA and I loved it😭

Book Jon Snow vibes :(

The Apollo thing is just… plot convenience. There was clearly no time for him and that’s okay ig. I won’t retcon the entirety of ToA just because he was napping throughout tsats.

[another-dr-another]

welp! process of elimination means that account two goes with {But… we know that isn’t true.} and account four goes with {We know no one did anything incriminating when leaving…}, and ofc otori's the culprit. woooooo -iris

Maeda, narrating - That’s right! 

Maeda - I think it’s all solved… yeah!

~*~

Maeda - That’s what happened!

Maeda - Everything fits- everything we’ve been saying, all the evidence, all the reasoning…

Maeda - And it leaves us with only one answer-

Maeda - Ōtori has to be the blackened!

Ōtori - !!!

Maeda - …Anyone have any counterarguments?

Ōtori, anguished - …

Hatano - …

Maki - …

Ōtori - …The coffee doesn’t add up.

Ōtori - I know what you’re going to say. There’s no evidence of anything else happening. I get that.

Ōtori - But, you’ve also said that I nearly destroyed the evidence that implicated me. Do you think you’d be half as convinced if all you had was the knowledge I went to the dining hall, and didn’t mention it?

Ōtori - If you ask me, someone else could have gone in there, and just gotten rid of the evidence. I mean, did anyone check, like… the laundry room? Or any other random place like that?

Taira - …

Ōtori - …There could be something we missed, or something that got hidden, or destroyed.

Ōtori - The difference between Maeda’s burns, and Iranami’s symptoms, should tell you that there’s something else that killed her.

Ōtori - …If none of you agree with that, then all I’ll say is this;

Ōtori - We need to start solving Higa’s case, now. Because if we run out of time, and you all vote for me, then only one of us is going back up that elevator, and it’ll be whoever really killed Iranami.

Maki - …

Maki - Damnit…

Hatano - …Stop trying to throw us off. It… it’s wrong.

Ōtori - I’m not. I get it- I was weird. I’ve been suspicious. I won’t deny that. 

Ōtori - The coffee does not add up.

Tomori - …And no one has any other evidence?

Maeda - …

Tsurugi - …

//Tsurugi is looking at Maeda. Maeda doesn’t notice. He’s looking at Kobashikawa, who’s looking back at him.

Maeda - …

Maeda - I think… Ōtori’s really giving up on proving his innocence.

Maeda - I think he knows that Kobashikawa didn’t have any involvement last night, so he’s not going to try to bring it up anymore.

Maeda - …Which is fine, honestly. I completely agree- Kobashikawa had someone watching him. He didn’t go anywhere but his room. There’s no way he could be connected to what happened last night.

Hatano - …

Hatano - I still think you’re lying.

Ōtori - …?

Hatano - I mean, what?

Hatano - Do you know about the coffee? Do you understand whatever was put into it, could you testify about how it’s supposed to work?

Hatano - Are you going to confess to that?

Ōtori - …

Hatano - …Of course not. Because you’re an asshole, who’s just been lying to everyone.

Ōtori - …

Ōtori - I’ll say it again. I’m not going to confess to a crime that I didn’t commit.

Kobashikawa - …

//He starts to write something on his whiteboard- then erases it, and sets it down.

Ōtori - …

Maeda - …Yikes.

Maki - …

Maki - Well, I guess that’s it, then.

Maki - It’s… we’ve reached a stalemate. The answer we have is good enough… but definitely not something we should vote for-

Maki - Even if we had any reason to vote now, which. We don’t.

Maeda - …

Ōtori - …

Tomori - …

Tomori - Okay… where are we starting on Higa’s case?

Maeda - Uh… for this one, we started by identifying any suspects… I think…

Maki - …Did you come up with any suspects?

Maeda - …

Maeda - No…

Maki - …

Kobashikawa - …

Kobashikawa - You guys said… that you thought he was strangled, yeah?

Tomori - …Yeah…

Maeda - …Tomori, uh-

Maeda - Do you want to explain our reasoning? Or, should I…

Tomori - …

Tomori - You can. I don’t think I remember all too well.

Maeda - Alright.

Maeda - …Uh…

Maeda - …Honestly, I’m kinda lost here, too.

Maeda - I don’t think we have much evidence for what happened to Higa… there isn’t a timeline… and the fact we were all in the room means we can’t truly rule out anyone.

Maeda - There is the stuff I heard last night… but I’m not really confident enough in that to say anything. I think I’d lead everyone off if I brought it up now…

Maeda - …Sorry, this isn’t too related-

Maeda - Maki, didn’t you say you were going to try to determine who died first?

Maki - …

Maki - Sorry- I don’t think I’m willing to move on from Iranami’s case yet. 

Maki - There’s evidence we haven’t discussed yet, right? Or am I fucking insane?

Maeda - …Does she know-

Maki - Tsurugi. Feel like sharing what you know?

Maeda - Oh-

Tsurugi, standing - Finally!

Maeda - HUH.

Tsurugi - Took a lil while…

Maeda - …Where you just waiting for someone to call on you?

Maeda - I swear I tried to do that…

Tsurugi - Uhm-

Tsurugi - Now that you’ve reached a point where it looks like you can’t prove what happened, I was willing to help…

Tsurugi - We can’t be voting wrong, right? Confidence is cool!

Maeda - …

Tsurugi - …

Maeda - …Okay. So, what happened?

Maeda - It won’t be that easy.

Tsurugi - Hm…

Tsurugi - It’s not- well, first off, it seems like it’s always the murder weapon that gets everyone caught up. Do you all feel the same?

//It’s silent.

Tsurugi - …Okayyy~

Tsurugi - Uh…

Tsurugi - …

Tsurugi - It’s not… that there wasn’t a murder weapon… but…

Tsurugi - Hm.

Tsurugi - …I guess, it’s that Ōtori wasn’t really wrong with his reasoning, when he said there’s evidence that could’ve gotten missed.

Tsurugi - If all the evidence we have points towards an answer that seems too weird, that means that whatever happened didn’t leave any evidence, other than the fact someone died!

Hatano - …Stop it.

Tsurugi - …

Hatano - …

Tsurugi - …

Tsurugi - I’m sorry…

Tsurugi - I’m not at my best right now, so my behavior isn’t really what it should be…

Tsurugi - But, I want everyone to vote properly, and understand what happened, so I want to keep explaining.

Hatano - …

Hatano - I thought we decided you didn’t care?

Hatano - Is it because we proved Ōtori was the only suspect? Are you standing up for him, to toy with everyone?

Hatano - Like when you acted like you were looking for a way for Inori to avoid execution, or told Yamaguchi good luck with escaping his execution…

Hatano - Maybe you’re just waiting for us all to die… just trying to prolong it-

Hatano - Make it hurt as much as possible.

Tsurugi - …

~“Do you think there could ever be a circumstance where voting wrong is the correct choice to make?“~

Maeda - …I don’t think that’s how he feels… but I think if I tried to prove that, I’d make things worse.

//Maeda looks at Ōtori, who’s visibly confused- then, at Kobashikawa, who’s similarly lost.

Maeda - Someone should explain to them…

Maeda - …Maybe after the trial, if we can avoid it.

Tsurugi - …Okay.

Tsurugi - Anyways, it’s hard to explain… I don’t want to come straight out and say it… sorry…

Maki - …

Maki - Tsurugi?

Maki - Is Ōtori the culprit?

Tsurugi - …Oh…

Tsurugi - You know, I really get stressed about answering stuff like that-

Tsurugi - But I guess now, it’s best to be clear?

Tsurugi - …Yeah, okay-

Tsurugi - No, he isn’t the culprit. Not by my understanding, at least.

Maeda - God damnit.

Maki - …Not too confident?

Tsurugi - Uh… I’m as confident about this one as I was the previous two cases, and I was right then.

Maki - …

Kobashikawa - So… Iranami was killed by someone other than Ōtori, with a murder weapon that doesn’t leave any trace?

Tsurugi - Yeah.

Uehara - …Perfect.

Hatano - …

Hatano - That can’t be true!

Nonstop Debate: START!

Truth Bullets:

Iranami’s Bleeding Kobashikawa’s Testimony Tsurugi’s Autopsy

Hatano - I don’t believe any of it!

Hatano - If there’s no evidence, {you can’t prove what happened, right?}

Hatano - Whatever you’re gonna say happened, that couldn’t be it.

Hatano - I bet you just want to persecute Higa’s case, so you’re trying to make Iranami’s case weird!

Tsurugi - …You are going to hate how this goes.

Tsurugi - Hatano, {there’s proof that Iranami’s death was abnormal!}

Tsurugi - Hear it out, okay? 

Ōtori - Besides, {you weren’t able to prove I was the blackened}…

Tsurugi - …Maki?

Maki - …?

Maki - Oh- Shut up, Ōtori!

Ōtori - …

Tsurugi - Really…

Tsurugi - It should have {been obvious Iranami’s death was weird}... I understand if people didn’t see the case the way I did, but-

Tsurugi - No one can argue that this was a normal death!

~*~

Maeda, narrating - This is… so far from being enjoyable.

Maeda - It feels like a rock, paper, scissors situation… 

Maeda - Hatano doesn’t like Ōtori or Tsurugi, Tsurugi’s defending Ōtori from the idea he’s the blackened, but… not from poisoning the coffee, I think? 

Maeda - And that’s just because he believes it’s the truth- but also, I don’t think Tsurugi’s… mad at Ōtori for poisoning the coffee, because he’s automatically sympathetic…

Maeda - Even though Ōtori’s been lying to everyone, which is really unsympathetic.

Maeda - And no one wants to talk about the autopsy, or- really, it’s mostly Tsurugi and Hatano’s fight… and I don’t want to bring up that Kobashikawa left last night, or what Tsurugi said in the hall,

Maeda - And I’m still surprised that Tsurugi outright said Ōtori isn’t the blackened!

Maeda - Ugh…

[randomnameless]

The lore is actively contradictory on all side so just ignore it and go for what the narrative is trying to tell you. It seems to me that the people who wrote scripts and the people who wrote the background details are two different groups anyway. 

Reblogging this because it’s part of the recipe that made discourse so unbearable : unreliable narrators.

The Nopes (iirc?) writers said it in an interview, every side has their “truth” and reasons to fight, and every side has to have “convincing” reasons to fight, else we’d be playing as Hans and while I may be one of the few losers who’s happy he’s finally in Heroes, Hans is no lord material.

So because Lords are “Lord material”, they can’t start a war for “enjoyment and excitement” - and they have to do so for reasons.

Now, are they right or wrong, it’s up the player/reader to find out and... That’s where unreliable narrators kick in and all that whatchamallit and nonsense and hysteria about protagonists being heroes or not etc etc etc.

ASOIAF is a book where each chapter is narrated/lived through/seen through the eyes of a person. And so, each narrator has their own bias, rational (at times?) thoughts and come to their conclusions.

The reader, who has access to more chapters and sometimes read events lived through different characters has a better and larger “picture” of the state of the world and what happened than each narrator taken separately.

Cersei’s pretty sure her brother killed her son, if we only follow her narrative than that’s it, her bro killed her son. But when we read that chapter, through the eyes of said brother... well, he wasn’t the one who killed him, and in another’s character’s chapter, it is revealed who killed Cersei’s son and how! And surprise, it’s not the person Cersei thinks is the killer!

Come FE16 (and Nopes) and we have multiple unreliable narrators... who say things that are contradicted by the background, or lore, or hell, even what we heard and managed to piece from the various books around.

Clout really really really thinks Dimitri needs him to be saved from the evil lizard lady,

because his people are so “backwards” that they need a church and an evil lizard lady to continue being backwards and traditional and chivalry blows anyways - and Dimitri doesn’t embrace his country’s values, of course not, he just want to be saved from all that.

But Clout is completely (?) wrong - Dimitri never expressed once the need of being saved from the evil lizard lady he accepted as a refugee, and whatever duties he has, it’s not because the evil lizard lady placed them on his shoulders, nope, his duties are his because Dimitri is royalty (something Clout also is, by the way!) and wants to act in a manner befitting a “good” kind (something Clout can’t give a fuck about, apparently).

So it’s not a problem of lore contradicting itself - Clout thinks something that is completely false, is he aware of it? IDK. But his narrative follows his train of thought, even if the “lore” or background of his very own route, in Nopes, but AG and arguable the entirety of FE16, contradict him.

Should Tyrion’s POV be ignored because Cersei thinks something else?

Hell no!

Supreme Leader in... general

Supreme Leader walks on the very fine thread between knowing what she’s saying and parroting in her narrative is completely wrong - but convenient to reach her goals - and completely believing it.

Being Fodlan’s main waifu and cashgrab, IS (KT) cannot frontally and completely tell the player that nope, Supreme Leader is wrong.

Nopes erased it (partly!) because it really looked bad for their waifu, but in FE16, Supreme Leader doesn’t really like nabateans.

So yes, she offers a “peaceful” way out to Rhea in the last chapter of CF when she’s seeing the city in flames... twenty lines after telling everyone Rhea had to die, and starting this route with telling Billy following her means the death of the Archbishop.

And that’s where discourse fuses, is Supreme Leader full of contradictions, is she lying, did she change her mind, etc etc

On the non CF routes, Supreme Leader declares war against the Church of Seiros, okay... but then Rhea is captured, and Supreme Leader doesn’t say a thing, but the narration says she’s started to invade the rest of Fodlan.

Who should we call “unrebliable”, the 3rd person narrating the game, Supreme Leader’s words or, idk, Harrison Ford?

On top of that, FE16 played a lot with the concept of a red hearing, the world, cats, NPC characters and even characters you are told are super special awesome keep on telling you “Rhea BaD” for the ultimate twist (or touiste, if we want to be ridiculous), askhually Supreme Leader is Flamey!

Wow, no one saw that coming right?

Sad thing is that, apparently, some people in the dev team really liked their waifu, so the “touiste” doesn’t work at all, because Supreme Waifu is still uwu, and Rhea is fridged and the morale of FE16 is about everyone learning to love and appreciate Supreme Leader (or at least forgetting the war, mumbling about IdEaLs and calling her good intentioned but misguided at best).

And that’s where everything fall to pieces - unreliable narrators are a thing, and you, as the player, know some stuff and gleaned some information here and there, the lore “more or less” fits - Until it comes in contact with Supreme Leader.

Characters bend themselves to absurd degrees (ffs Dimitri isn’t brining up Remire or the Demonic Beasts at all during the parley??? We’re only left with a mild “people suffer during the war y’know? uwu sacrifices to make a better world”), like Claude suddenly remembering Petra and Dedue existed so maybe Garreg Mach isn’t that place of intolerance and the CoS isn’t the reason why people of Fodlan are xenophobic (unless we’re supposed to say that Rhea’s doesn’t follow her own Doctrine, but it’s like that guy on twitter telling pope francis he isn’t christian enough or something like that) but still he agreed with Supreme Leader goal of, uh, removing the Church and, uh, getting rid of crests and nobility and  the lizard illuminati - ah the last one is a Nopes exclusive sorry

to avoid pointing their fingers at Supreme Leader and her rhetoric, that’s why fans did it for, now, 3 years on various social media - crust system, the existence of the lizard illumanity, the control of the lizard illuminati on the world, chivalry bad, Faerghus bad, imperialism good actually, let’s bring civilisation reforms to a bunch of people who don’t want it - etc etc

Tldr : Unreliable narrators are a thing, and a good piece of media is supposed to give balanced POVs or to make the audience realise that this character you’re following is not an omniscient narrator, but someone with his own biases, and is sometimes confronted to another unreliable narrator. And that’s okay!

But in FE16, we have unreliable narrators, lore and... the confrontation never happens, because one specific unreliable narrator can never be wrong.

It’s like ordering a roasted chicken, you see it being prepared and all, and the waiter tells you it’s a turnip soup. And suddenly, everyone in the restaurant, even on the cooking team, tells you your roasted chicken is a turnip soup. And the narrative suddenly says it’s a turnip soup.

But fuck it, it tastes like chicken, you saw the chicken being roasted and prepared (and saw someone pluck out the feathers!) it is a chicken! But no, the restaurant wants to push for their specialty, the turnip soup, so you ordered the turnip soup.

The lore is actively contradictory on all side so just ignore it and go for what the narrative is trying to tell you. It seems to me that the people who wrote scripts and the people who wrote the background details are two different groups anyway. So Dimitri, Edelgard and Claude all agree that the Church should go and the only reason Dimitri doesn't help them is because Dimitri is afraid of the consequences of turning his back on Rhea rather than anything else. So yeah, the Church has to go and that's okay. That was kind of the thrust in original Houses except rather than the Church needing to go, it was that the Church needed to be reformed under Godleth's watch along with all of Fodlan

The lore is actively contradictory on all side so just ignore it and go for what the narrative is trying to tell you. It seems to me that the people who wrote scripts and the people who wrote the background details are two different groups anyway.

What? No, that's... that's not how it works.

When you build a world and have a narrative to tell, you damn make sure it all makes sense. This isn't a new game studio that is getting its feet wet in story-telling. This is a big-name development company with lots of experience under their belt.

You cannot just take an established story with an established message, freshen it up a little, and pump it back in with your new message without some serious overhaul. You need new lore! New establishing histories! You know, for things to make sense.

Hopes is a narrative branching off of an already pre-established world. You cannot just say "Well, Houses wanted me to realize the Church wasn't perfect but not evil either" and THEN turn around and have a different story but in the same world say "but this one says it needs to die".

Both Hopes and Houses exist with the exact same histories, they are not exclusive to each other. So they need to line up and make sense.

I don't care if there were two different people who wrote the scripts. They do have quality control, it's not like the different groups aren't chatting with each other. They either didn't put enough care into it or just didn't care at all. OR, the lead dev had an agenda to push of his own, which he sort of admitted in an interview? Like, compare his interview with the Houses' lead dev. It's basically:

Houses' lead dev: "Yeah, so, we wanted a twist so we made your girl lord the bad guy."

Hopes' lead dev: I thought Edelgard was the hero because she united everyone.

Obviously I'm paraphrasing here but that was the impression I got from them.

If you want me to believe your message, then you damn better use your medium to prove it to me accordingly. Other stories get shit on for bad story telling for the exact same reason.

Imagine if Lord of the Rings told us the Ring was evil but then we only ever see it sit there and look shiny the entire story. Or that Sauron is the Dark Lord but then we only ever see him giving children candy and caring for baby chickens. That's essentially what Hopes did.

Or like... Rings of Power. Rings of Power is essentially to Lord of the Rings what Three Hopes is to Three Houses. And the Rings of Power shits all over Lord of the Rings world-building with ridiculous stuff, like changing the lore of mithril, changing the lore of Galadriel, changing the lore of Sauron, changing the lore of.... fucking everything.

And now it doesn't fit with Lord of the Rings at all unless you've only ever seen the movies, and even then it's bad.

the only reason Dimitri doesn't help them is because Dimitri is afraid of the consequences of turning his back on Rhea rather than anything else.

That was one reason, not the only reason. He listed quite a few other reasons too, like

My people are pious and will not accept a new church by force

My rule is on a thin knife and rejecting the Church after they helped us will make my people doubt me even more

If we accept the new Church then we are essentially accepting Empire rule.

The world needs stability first before we make sweeping reforms

Lots of people will die this way

It's disingenuous to suggest that Dimitri fears the consequences of turning his back on Rhea specifically. It makes it sound like he fears Rhea's retaliation, rather than the very real and honestly understandable reason that his nation is very unstable right now due to recent events.

That was kind of the thrust in original Houses except rather than the Church needing to go, it was that the Church needed to be reformed under Godleth's watch along with all of Fodlan

So then, if that's true, then Hopes isn't using Houses' worldbuilding and is using their own to justify their own personal message rather than the original source material.

Which is a big no-no for a spin-off game designed for fans.

[balillee]

tommy's character gets far too much shit.

hi tumblr. i'm gonna need a few bitches to spread this post everywhere, essentially because i want someone, or just tommy really, to see it. so if you really want, you can screenshot it and post it on twitter, reddit, link it everywhere - go absolutely buck wild. i know he reads the VODS comments a lot, but they're chock full of people just insulting him, his character, his writing and everything about his story in the dream smp simply because they don't understand it and because they refuse to acknowledge his character's perspective (mainly because they only care about the pig). reading that many critical comments on something you've created can only make you feel worse about it eventually, and in light of all the awful techno apologist takes on his character, i wanted to basically just word vomit about how wonderfully crafted c!tommy is, as well as compile some other tumblr posts about his character.

there is a massive fuckin community of people who enjoy the character of tommy, because the character is incredible. i myself have made post after post after post commenting on and analysing tommy's character because i find that there's so much to pick apart. but that enthusiasm for his character only seems to be found on tumblr. reddit and twitter seem to hate his character, the VODS seem to be filled with comments from people who only care about techno's perspective (and treat techno as a reliable narrator, which, is the furthest thing from the truth - that guy lies through his teeth all the time), and the smp wiki is a hellscape of godawful takes and mistruths, not even on just tommy's character.

c!tommy is brilliantly acted and brilliantly written, and almost everything he does is either justifiable or has been rectified or admitted as a mistake. you can clearly make connections as to where he got his conclusions from. you feel what his character experiences, as a member of the audience, vividly.

if you look in the more objective sense, c!tommy, and this is especially in the context of him being the youngest character, is a scapegoat. people claim he's awful and destructive when in reality he's a lot less destructive than most characters on the server. a moment that comes to mind is where he diverts schlatt and quackity's attention from pogtopia by breaking part of the flag in manberg, and then replacing it so as to buy tubbo some time - he literally monologues after it about how he doesn't want to destroy but instead rebuild, and how he feels as if nobody else seems to understand that.

his arc in season two was incredible. it was very character driven, and it gave a spotlight to his motivations. at the start we see him in new l'manberg, and he's enjoying his time there, he's skeptical of his friend's presidency, but his main goal is to get back the discs so that he can stop dream and eliminate that threat. he made one screw up that didn't even matter to george, and he paid for it tenfold, even after dream had spent a while with puffy griefing the server and framing it on tommy - what tommy and ranboo did was convinient. then, in exile, we see c!tommy straight up get abused. he's gaslit and conditioned into being c!dream's friend, and in his brain he teaches himself that those acts of abuse are moments of bonding, and it eventually brings him to the point of wanting to end his own life - he's been torn away from his friends and his support system, and nobody will visit him consistently anymore because they only showed him pity, and all he had left was dream, who had hurt him.

but he doesn't die there, because while he didn't understand the full gravity of it back then like he does now, he recognises that dying isn't an escape, and he can beat dream, even if he doesn't know how. so this is where he goes to techno's place, and here's where the fandom starts to misinterpret the situation wildly.

it's the problem similar to when your parents tell you that they're owed something back because you put a roof over their head, despite that being Not How It Works. techno took tommy in and severely mistreated him emotionally. sure, and i understand this, c!techno is a bad communicator who isn't really that empathetic to anyone who isn't phil or wilbur, but that doesn't excuse the blatant lying to c!tommy's face, the guilt tripping, the friendship buying and the degrading. the day before the festival, tommy finally does something violent in his interrogation of fundy, and only then does techno tell him,,,,

that tommy's not equal to him, that techno doesn't respect him all that much, and that they're not friends.

from techno's perspective, and at the time, this was viewed as a positive development in their relationship. oh, he's starting to warm up to tommy! this friendship could really blossom!

no. from a more objective standpoint, what techno has just said to tommy is : 'i respect you only a little bit more now, because while you're starting to act more like me, you're still annoying and a burden.'

and i haven't even touched on the whole 'erasing the words 'Destroy L'manberg' from techno's to-do list' thing, because that instantly refutes the point of 'techno was upfront with his intentions the whole time' - because he wasn't! he may have said it the first time, but you also know what else he did? he repeatedly told tommy that they'd 'air the details out later' whenever the discs were brought up, and from a tommy viewer's perspective at the time, it was framed as if techno was no longer going to do that.

and i also haven't dared touch the 'i would have fought them all for you', because that's major guilt tripping if ever i've seen it.

so, the day of the festival comes, and here's where c!techno and his apologists completely misread c!tommy's thought process, and why he makes the decision he does.

tommy instantly regrets valuing the discs over tubbo, and it's framed as the culmination of tommy having become all the people he said he would never want to be like. and what does he immediately do? he tells tubbo to give up the disc, and he sides with tubbo. he puts his value in his friends, and, by proxy, l'manberg. and when he betrays techno, he tells him 'i'm sorry'.

from a more objective standpoint, tommy's time with techno is him valuing the discs over almost anything else. so, in leaving techno to be with tubbo again, he is valuing people above the discs. so when, on doomsday, techno says his 'discs aren't people' line, what he doesn't realise is that he himself fueled tommy's valuing of discs above people when attempting to fuel tommy's vengeance against tubbo and l'manberg. techno doesn't realise that he was an unhealthy presence for tommy, and an even worse influence.

what techno also doesn't seem to understand is that tommy never hated tubbo or l'manberg - tommy recognises, now at least, that his exile wasn't a product of tubbo, but a product of dream's manipulation, likely in part because at the time, especially with dream lying about tommy blowing up the community house, tommy was the only one who could see it because he had experienced it firsthand. so when techno sides with dream, it's like kicking tommy in the teeth.

and i want to mention that betraying someone doesn't necessarily make the person who was betrayed good, or in the right, or even justified, because tommy was entirely justified to leave techno. you know who else was betrayed? schlatt. but i don't see many schlatt apologists around angry at quackity for joining the rebellion.

tommy stole the axe of peace? good. it was a moment of tommy defining his self-worth, instead of having it defined by others. gone is the age of c!techno belittling him and deciding how much c!tommy should be respected. NEXT!

here's a moment i wanted to talk about that will forever be funny to me.

'i am a person.'

techno's very famous line from doomsday. techno says to tommy that discs aren't people, and that tommy should value people, despite not understanding that by leaving techno, he did just that. and what does tommy say in return, which has been omitted from every c!tommy-critical analysis, and every animatic?

'yes you are, but so are we.'

an acknowledgement of techno's hurt, to which tommy has already apologised for. a statement that says 'your hurt does not excuse, nor justify, the hurt you have inflicted onto us.' an acknowledgement that tommy has already learnt the lesson techno seems to be trying to 'teach' him. but you can't teach him anything by destroying.

c!tommy has had almost everything he has ever owned or built either taken from him or destroyed. ranboo even points out that the only two things of tommy's left standing are his house and his hotel, and if i'm honest, his house is dissheveled. it's a labyrinth of terror due only to how many times it's been torn apart. l'manberg being blown up didn't teach anyone anything about anarchy, or about valuing people over possessions. logstedshire being blown up didn't teach tommy to be obedient.

i could honestly ramble for ages about how nuanced tommy's character is and how much depth and complexity there is to his character's process and his relationship with others, but more than that, c!tommy is forgiving. he invites almost everyone who hates him to the grand opening of his hotel - if that isn't an indicator that he just wants friends, and not to be treated like the embodiment of evil, then i don't know what is. he holds grudges, but he doesn't really actively hate anyone, other than c!dream. but, we'll let him. c!dream deserves nothing but to be pummeled into the floor.

tommy doesn't spoonfeed his character nuance, and he doesn't really spell it out for his audience. he'll mention things like trauma and triggers in passing, but a lot of analysis on his motivations has to be picked up from what is said in passing or from what can be seen in between the lines.

i'd be here for hours if i were to talk about everything i love about c!tommy, because honestly he's one of my favourite characters, and there are so many angles you can look at his character from in terms of his age, his relationships with others, his motivations, his personality, his character arcs etc etc. so instead of doing that, i'm going to compile some much more specific analysis posts below to skim through because they highlight so many good aspects of his character.

^^ A thread about the 'yes you are, but so are we' line.

^^ About how shit the VODS comments are.

^^ A comment on how c!Tommy is actually pretty peaceful, and is actually less destructive than most characters on the server.

^^ Possibly the best c!Tommy analysis thread I've ever seen in relation to his trauma, which gives multiple perspectives.

^^ About how c!Tommy is treated as a scapegoat, and how, from an objective standpoint, he is no more violent than any other character, it's just that the little violence that is committed is blown far out of proportion.

^^ Tumblr user flypaw being a bad bitch, as per usual.

^^ c!Tommy being incredibly intelligent, and talking about wanting to rebuild and not destroy. A very underrated monologue of his.

^^ Something short about c!Tommy and c!Wilbur's relationship in Pogtopia.

^^ Less about c!Tommy, more a meta on L'Manberg. Really interesting to think about.

^^ A take on Doomsday.

I'll add some more posts in a reblog in the notes, but if anyone's post(s) is on this and they want me to take it off, let me know and I'll do that for you! Feel free to add your own banger c!Tommy takes or ones that you've found.

[sublime-beyond-loss]

Here’s a big ‘ol post of insane ramblings that gets into some stuff about the skip button ending and what it means to make meaning out of a game that insists it’s meaningless to play it

On today's Stanley Parable TED talk, Imma gonna propose the theory among the many I have that, despite appearances, the skip button ending functionally does not happen because its consequences are erased by the reset, like how the consequences of the other endings never really stick. Imma also going to talk about why that is a tragedy in itself.

In a sense, that by the narrator invalidating literally the entire point of the game, and himself, the skip button brings us to the end point of a game played out and with nothing left to say, before the reset hits and the status quo is restored. There's some ambiguity involved on if the narrator remembers the skip button in the same way there is ambiguity in what he remembers from the other endings, but he does remember the first visit to the memory zone at least. Considering that he didn't remember the review section the first time around though, his wonky memory maybe does mean he forgot the skip button anyway. When we return to the memory zone the second time, it's back to the way it was before its desertification, as if the skip button passage of time did not happen, and when we do return to the desert version of the memory zone for the epilogue, it's the figurine version of the shack with the staircase leading to one of the figurines now filled up with sand, as if the original version was either replaced or never existed. The epilogue states it takes place many, many years later, as if you had to get back to that end point in time that the skip button showed. That glimpse of the end now plays out in full. The narrator is gone in this version not due to skip button shenanigans, but because he said he was done after 'one last run of the office' and has indeed moved on.

In the end, I think the encounter with the settings person and the creation of TSP sequels is something of a commentary on the New Game Plus mechanic in many games. It makes me think of Dark Souls 3 where there are multiple endings where you can bring about the canonical end and/or rebirth of the Dark Souls universe, but even then, there is nowhere else for you to go as the player but back into the same game, as though it never ended, despite you bringing about an end to that universe. To you, the player, that end never really comes. The end is never the end as you boot the game up again to play it once more. The epilogue is an end point for TSP where everything is played out, there's no messages left to impart, and everyone has moved on except for one character who, like you, does not want to let the game go, and like any game, there's nowhere for the player to go but back into the same content.

Now, time to get into how none of this diminishes the horror and tragedy of the skip button ending, even if the epilogue is not actually a consequence of it like it might seem at first glance. First though, the game doesn't actually seem to be condemning you for going through with the skip button sequence like it might seem at first glance, considering the narrator's own vindictiveness toward you doing it. One, if it really wanted to be a condemnation of a player pushing forward at the expense of a character's suffering, waiting would actually have an affect on it. It would be quite the gut punch if it turned out that if you had just waited a bit, things could have turned out differently, but you just had to push on as fast as possible to get to the next bit of content, but since that isn't the case, I don't think that's what the game was actually going for.

Two, if the 'solution' to skip button ending is to simply restart from the pause menu and never push onward to experience the new content, that doesn't really work either. Restarting there puts the game in a state where the narrator is constantly begging you to go to the memory zone, and there is a tragic element to that, that you cannot prevent him from self-destructing aside from denying him what he wants, but you also lose out on most of the randomized elements of the game because the starting area is effectively gone until you complete the skip button ending. If it really was meant to be the solution, I don't think it would cut out all of the randomized office layouts and randomized narrator lines for the rest of your play time.

And beyond even that, by resetting the skip button ending while its happening, you are effectively being no better than the game itself with how the resets routinely destroy any character development the narrator goes through, good or bad, depending on what ending route you go down. You deny him a chance at self reflection and self actualization just as much as the forced resets do, but even by refusing to reset the skip button ending, the results are the same, because the game eventually does it for you. In the end, the skip button is messy, horrific experience for everyone involved with no solution.

And that's why the existential horror of TSP really comes out for the skip button ending. You could say it's a blessing if the narrator doesn't remember his time trapped in that room, but there's also something really awful about the idea that he went through some of the worst suffering a being can experience only to have all of that suffering invalidated as if it never happened in the first place. Only the person who can remember the skip button happening, Stanley/the player, can carry the proper response to the horror that played out and what the narrator went through, and yet that is still someone who can never truly comprehend what it was like to experience that. To have that whole ordeal erased, something he consciously experienced every second of as those eons passed by, the utter invalidation of it is as awful as him remembering it. And if he knew the entire time that a reset would hit at some point and he would forget everything, that every thought and feeling he'd have in that room was doomed to oblivion and meaningless in every sense of the word, while still knowing that he has an ungodly amount of time left to wait, it's amazing that the dude didn't go batshit insane much faster. Goddamn is the skip button scenario just a fucking abyss of existential terror lol.

Plus, people sleep on the sensory horror of that skip where the fire alarm is going off. My very first thought playing that for the first time was, 'oh god, how long has he been listening to that?' Once again, it is amazing he didn't go batshit insane faster. And consider the idea that the darkness that takes over once the lights go out was only left bright enough for gameplay sake. What if it really was meant to be genuine pitch blackness and he was left in a state of pure sensory deprivation for a very, very long time. The skip button sometimes gives off a bright glow in a few of the skips, so maybe it wasn't pitch blackness for him, but imagine that fucking yellow glow of the worst mistake of your life being the only thing you get to see for hundreds of years.

And if you take into account the theory that he's not actually trapped in the room and it's more of a matter of him not wanting to let go of Stanley and leave, until he finally does as the skips continue to lengthen, when put into the context of the reset erasing everything, it's even more tragic. Maybe while he was on his own he learned that he doesn't need an audience to exist, like he initially thought. Maybe he worked through some of his flaws and came out better for it. Maybe he learned how to create for himself for a change. If our glimpses into the outside world during the skips are a reflection of his mental state through all of it, it was probably a messy, painful experience, but there's still a memory zone at the end of it all, so he survived whatever trials were thrown at him, even if there isn't much left in the end. He would have had thousands and thousands of years to create anything and everything. Millions of new stories building on what he could have learned over the years, but none of it matters the second the reset hits. All of it and any development he went through is erased in an instant.

And maybe him making the choice to move on at the end of the figurine ending is him setting off on that same journey the skip button forced upon him, only under better circumstances. And maybe going through the epilogue and starting a new game is you resetting his chance at progress yet again, or maybe not, since the figurine ending remains the only ending you cannot replay even after a patch added ways to replay the other single-instance events within the game. Maybe there is nothing wrong in coming back to a game you enjoy and dwelling within it despite it being the same content loop stuck on repeat. And maybe the narrator, as a representation of a creator figure and all of the good and bad that comes with it, can still enjoy coming back to his creation and being the narrator for you, even if there is nothing new to discover. And maybe it suits him just fine not having the weight of needing to create new content for this game that he feels has run its course. Maybe there is no actual judgment involved when the game asks you to keep making sequels and let The Stanley Parable keep spiraling in upon itself, like any other game out there that you replay despite there being nothing new to gain from it, because TSP has always been a game where it is possible to find deeper meaning outside of what the surface level message may or may not be.

I think, in a way, TSP is an expression of exactly what I love about video games. In this world where everything is temporary and nothing stays the same, where even our memories are flawed recreations of previous events, most forms of media are the only thing you can experience over and over again exactly the same as it was the first time, and with video games in particular, you can get a new experience out of the same content in a way you cannot when re-watching a movie or TV show. People (even me sometimes) often get caught up in the idea that The End Is Never The End is an inherently bad thing, that the loop the game is stuck in is a bad thing, that the game denying you a conclusive ending is a bad thing, even though I've personally had way more fun deciding which existing ending is the most satisfying one to end my runs on. It used to be the zending, but ever since I figured out that you can pause the game during the freedom ending and exit out there, that's become my favorite place to leave it off. Who would even think to try pausing the game during a cutscene that just took control away from you in a game that usually doesn't? Much less use it as a point to exit out of the game? Emergent gameplay like that is satisfying, and the figurine ending gives you a place to chop things off with the narrator saying 'okay, I'm ready to move on', allowing you to decide the ending to stop playing on, or you just keep going instead, or you can hit up the epilogue and keep the sequels rolling. It is a way more satisfying and meaningful choice to give you a bunch of endings and let you decide which one is 'your' ending then to definitively say THE END and roll credits.  

Just the fact that the game hints that there are loops of the game that you never see gets the imagination going and you essentially create your own version of those loops in your head by speculating about them. Hell, even the narrator has a thousand different interpretations through all of the fan content that's so different and varied and yet still very much him. And where one player might view him as a controlling, egotistical, vain creator that's fun to piss off and deserves every second of it, I myself view him as a messy, complicated, and often very relatable creator figure who is as likable as he is frustrating. If someone ran roughshod over a book I wrote, that I put my all into, if it existed within the interactive medium that is video games, I'd be just as pissed as him to see something I’m passionate about disregarded and destroyed by the reader. On the other hand, I wish the dude would relax a bit and not get so bent out of shape on some paths. Especially with the new version of the Playtest ending where he is written to be a bit less of a vindictive ass like in the original version. We were having a pretty good time playing those games and vibing right up until he gets hung up on his story as per usual and quite literally takes the ball and goes home.

But boy howdy is TSP a game that makes me feel like it welcomes letting me have my interpretations while also making me feel like An Idiot Who Completely Missed The Point. Of course, then I remember this is the same game that implies the character you're playing as is about to get very intimate with a bucket, so I think it's okay if I really am An Idiot Who Missed The Point lol. I always feel like I'm 12 steps behind the actual thought process that went into the less silly aspects of the game and that's probably part of the reason why I'm still dwelling upon it months later and keep coming up with big theory posts and weird art projects. The big irony is that my mind works in the exact opposite way these pieces of media do, in that they are willing to leave many aspects of themselves ambiguous and for the one taking it in to come to their own conclusions. I love to dive deep into any ideas, stories, and concepts I have and explain everything about them until there is not a single aspect left that's gone unexplained. I could never make a Stanley Parable or Shadow Of The Colossus, because I'd want to explain everything about the civilization that made those ruins that cover The Forbidden Lands.

It's very common for people to come away from TSP thinking its very pessimistic about people, video games, life itself, and maybe it is, and I enjoy it exactly because of the existential topics it delves into, especially now that I am able to appreciate them better than I could at the release of the original, but it's the exact same reasons why those existential themes resonate with me now that I also like viewing the game in a more hopeful light, despite everything. When everything is meaningless, when all of us and everything we create is doomed to be forgotten and lost to the void in the grand scheme of this universe, playing this game that tells you that playing it is meaningless puts it at very bottom of the meaninglessness totem pole. Where the struggle to make my own meaning within the meaninglessness of life often has me befuddled, it is so much easier to do so within a meaningless digital simulation, and so I take the less easy path and create positive meanings within the pessimism of this game, (Well, maybe not always, because I have probably a million different interpretations of what's going on in this game at this point and not all of them are happy fun times lol)

Perhaps this is a form of escapism from the bleakness of life, something that the game itself calls out, even if it's couched in the black comedy of the narrator still being stuck on the Steam reviews possibly hundreds of years into his solitary confinement, but hey, nothing's going to fix this inherent nightmare that is existence, so fuck it, we paraBALL. Within this tiny point on the grand timeline of the universe that I exist within for a few brief milliseconds, as I try to comprehend this piece of art that will one day disappear along with the human species, I see it claim that it is meaningless to play it. It almost spitefully contradicts itself to make itself impossible to pin down. It creates mysteries within mysteries and refuses to give you any answers. And I interact with it regardless, making my own meaning out of its contradictions. It kicks and screams and tells you it's pointless to play it and you can only win by turning it off while at the same time creating a horrific existential scenario where a key character in all of this is forced to confront the fact that he is fictional and can only exist while you perceive him, only for the game to go on insisting that you should really just turn it off and stop playing while this same character then says he is ready to move on to something else, despite needing your perception of him for him to go on existing as a fiction. But, hey, the fact that I like to imagine he does move on to better things perhaps means that within my perception of him, within my own interpretations of him, he does. Out of all these contradictions, I make my own meaning with my own contradictory theories. I embrace the paradoxical nature of the game and enjoy taking away different ideas from the different events that play out. Maybe I’ve won The Stanley Parable, or maybe I’ve lost it, or maybe I’m doing both at the same time, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[featherfur]

Oh you know what else is awful :Re people's reactions to JC's childhood? A lot of JFM apologism consists of 'that's just how (Chinese) fathers are'.

Like maybe MXTX was trying to get at something, what with the yunmeng siblings having terrible coping mechanisms and poor communication, when she wrote JFM.

Why does everyone just assume JFM was a good parent just because WWX puts him in a good light? Of course he does! WWX's other option is sleeping on the streets so of course he regards JFM as kind and charitable!

But that doesn't erase the fact that JFM is a neglectful father who babysits his 'easiest to get along with' child when he feels like and leaves him for his wife to abuse when he does not to WWX, and a neglectful father who ignores his heir who is desperate to for validation, or a neglectful father who leaves his eldest daughter to raise the other children while making major life decisions for her without consulting her. Just because this is 'normal' does not make it right.

look, im not here to tell anyone who to like or who to hate but there is a Lot of JFM apologism that absolutely reeks of misogyny. And I don't say that lightly.

Saying "thats just how fathers are" doesn't... make him a good dad. It really doesn't excuse anything, it just says that you think it's okay for fathers to be bad parents because it's just what happens. Instead of like, acknowledging that it's not a good thing to be and that a good parent should yknow, be a parent.

Both Madam Yu and JFM are both horrible parents they're just on opposite sides of the spectrum. JFM is no less neglectful and abusive just because he isn't screaming. He doesn't parent any of his kids, he just exists with them and relies on the fact that his wife taught his son and daughter responsibility and hopes that WWX will learn it through osmosis or by his wife. He's a glorified babysitter at best and while WWX does put him on a pedestal, we also see JFM being neglectful in canon multiple times, and WWX is not a reliable narrator. Just because he says that JFM is great and wondrous, doesn't mean that he is especially when we then get scenes of proof that he just sucks. (Also a lot of those moments of him being a good uncle are just... JFM letting him get away with shit.)

And honestly like, if your kid goes around wondering if you actually like him then you've failed as a parent. No matter how good you are to the other kid. You don't get to just choose a kid to care for (which he does in like the worst way). I get that people like characters that are good to their fav and the MC but sometimes man,,, idk I don't like him lmao. He's not a good father even to WWX and it irritates me when ppl act like he was, or blame JC and Yanli for JFM being a shit dad. Or when they blame Madam Yu for Fengmian being a shit dad. Like no, look. I get it. You hate your wife (who you signed up to marry) and you feel like you got the short end of the stick. The person you loved went off to die in the wilderness and abandoned you. You're upset.

You're still a fucking parent. You don't get to ignore and belittle your kids because your wife sucks, because you're unhappy, because you didn't marry the person you wanted. Not to mention you're a pretty shit husband too, you give no shits about the rumors that are hurting your wife and your kids because heaven forbid you make a point to be like "Yeah no Wei Wuxian isn't my kid, my kid is the one in purple. The one with anxiety. And I wouldn't cheat on my wife." It's also the reason I get very aggravated when modern au's have JFM suddenly be a great dad because he's single. No he was a shit parent before WWX and if the reason is because he doesn't like his wife then he's a shit parent anyway. Madam Yu is more likely to be a decent mother, traditional and strict as hell, without a husband letting her name and her kids get dragged through the mud and everything her son has being put in danger because JFM can't be bothered to tell the kid he brought home that he has to follow the rules.

This doesn't even go into the stereotypes of mothers and how women are punished and hated a thousand times more than men because that's "just how men are".

I just,,, so much of the apologism is just refusing to admit that father's should be good parents. So unfortunately the more ppl try to apologize for him and insist he's secretly a good dad, the more i despise him and understand where Madam Yu is coming from. But people are welcome to make their own decisions, and at the end of the day they're both horrible parents and really should not have been allowed to be near kids as anything more than actual aunts and uncles so that the kid can go home and get a decent family dynamic

[vrishchikawrites]

a rant about mdzs and fandom

Hi Dee :") As a long time follower, the recent influx of asks and some takes have gotten my mind rolling LOL

Regarding your recent ask (re: the XianQing fanfic), I agree that if WWX or LWJ were married to someone else, they would invest the time, effort and patience to make the relationship work especially if they are compatible. It's not that both of them can't be happy with other people; the most fundamental aspect of their relationship is that they are most happiest with each other. They choose each other in their entirety regardless of distance/separation. Both LWJ and WWX won't choose anyone else because deep down, they've already chosen someone and that is each other. WWX doesn't fit as a fandom nor can he be shipped with anyone else in canon BUT I think his character at its core is often modified extensively to fit the mold. 

RE: WEN QING: I don't know what's with the MDZS fandom reducing WQ to a love interest. She literally shows 0 interest in canon in WWX and while you can twist that in fanfiction, it's always great to see Wen Qing's character and love being erased for a homophobic trope on her and WWX (pls note my sarcasm @CQL I SEE YOU). I would argue that the same thing is done to WN however he's infantilized.

Some of the recent anons have been using fics and claiming them as canon, which is so wild to me LMAO In fandom and fanfiction, anything goes. Characters are modified to be shippable, and people want to see their characters to be pushed into different scenarios + to see how they will thrive in a different environment/cast etc. Fandom for me at least is an enhancement, exploration and experimentation of canon. I will admit that MXTX's works and lead pairings are very well-written to the extent that I don't ship them much with anyone (95% main pairing + 5% of what ifs HAHA). 

Ship and let ship, but I'm definitely someone who has a low threshold for when people argue that the canonical gay romance is worse and less valid compared to a fanon ship that neither of the main pairing would ever show interest in canon. 

I have a question for you regarding characterization, its subjectivity and validity. Would some works technically have poor characterization or should we take it as the author's interpretation of the character? I typically ignore it honestly but sometimes, I have difficulty accepting different characterization especially when the characters are modified immensely. 

Sorry for my long rant, Dee! I've been kinda sick of the trolls LOL I'm taking a fandom break, but I hope to hear your thoughts about this! You're one of my favourite authors and I always enjoy hearing your takes and understandings on MXTX, her works and overall fandom. 

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My thoughts

Rant away, lmao. Everyone has their frustrations with the fandom, of course.

About your question, I believe there needs to be some flexibility when it comes to characterization because fanfics pleases characters in different situations and humans respond to their circumstances can be somewhat unpredictable. There are also ways to interpret a character depending on what *layer* you wanna focus on.

Every character has different layers. You choose what suits your writing style and plot. I typically make characters a little more serious than they are in canon. Not to say that is a better way to write it, canon will always be the best way, but I don't have MXTX's talent for lighthearted narration.

The key is to find the right balance between plot, your interpretation of the character, and the core traits in canon. You can change the outward personality a bit based on what the plot demands but it is best if the core established in canon remains intact.