#all of them show why their character needs to be here

[swoleas]

Since Veilguard was released, there is this genre of Dragon Age fans popping up who are explaining Dragon Age lore, who have been talking a lot about Qunari lore. Disappointingly, they've just been taking Bioware's qunari lore at face value for every single game, no matter how much the Qunari lore for each game retcons the lore from game before it.

And I feel like, it needs to be understood that, Qunari were designed to be "Militant Islamic Borg" -- the intent behind them is to be this oriental technologically advanced people who are violent and expansionist savages and made specifically to contrast the rest of Thedas, meant to be White and European. They are routinely called barbarians and savages, real world slurs used against people from the SWANA region, by characters the players are meant to see as sympathetic and intelligent, like Solas. The lore starts and ends with this. And even with Gaider not working on the game, each bit of new Qunari lore introduced is built on 2 things: Racism and Vibes.

Trying to explain Qunari lore without even examining the deeply racist framework within which Qunari lore exists is inadvertently reinforcing the racism and the orientalism and xenophobia in the writing. You cannot separate them.

I have been seeing people calling Qunari society "inherently violent" or "teaching violence" and that this is why they are written as having had the Antaam branch away and go to the South and join the ancient Gods. And No. That is not correct in any sense. But if you rewrite the lore of the Qunari in every single game, of course that would be your takeaway. The real reason they are written this way is so you can have a faceless orcish brute enemy archetype that you can kill in Dragon Age: The Veilguard without any guilt. It's literally not deeper than that.

Why is it that Bioware is so resistant to having us go to Seheron or go to Par Vollen and walk amongst Qunari society and view them in a context where they are just living their lives? Is it possibly because it will draw attention to how alien and inhuman they are intended to be? Is it so they are not humanized in a way that makes every previous inclusion of Qunari seem jarring and uncomfortable to see?

In Origins, we meet Sten, and though he exists to expound on this group of people who exist in Thedas, the Qunari, and introduce us to this bit of world building which isn't directly relevant to the main story, but fleshes out the world beyond Ferelden. The writing was still racist (after all "militant Islamic Borg" refers to their Origins iteration), but you got so little information that you could infer that there may be some nuance there, especially given the way Sten is written in a way that humanizes the Qunari. Later lore shows him as being someone who cares deeply about the world around him and, as Arishok, about diplomacy. And all this not conflicting with his belief in the tenets of the Qun.

And in Dragon Age 2, the game pivots into making them one of the major causes of conflict in the story. This is the first introduction of Qunari as faceless brute enemy archetypes which you can kill without guilt, without explanation of why you can kill them without guilt--at least not immediately. You do not walk into DA2 knowing who Tal-Vashoth are and why they are attacking you--only that they're violent and they yell things in a foreign language at you.

The Arishok in Dragon Age 2 is stubborn, dogmatic, and violent when opposed or crossed. He shows up, sets up a military compound, and stays there for years. Your only representation here is a military leader and his subordinates, contrasted with equally violent mercenaries who the game promises are of a completely different ideology. All shirtless muscular men, who speak in a growling menacing dialect.

Then Bioware turns around and goes. Just kidding! Those weren't the real Qunari; they're a violent offshoot! We promise they are nuanced, you just haven't met those ones yet. They give us Tallis in Mark of the Assassin, but she's an elf, and one who had to pick between slavery and the Qun, and picks the lesser of two evils. Sure, she's sympathetic, but you get the impression that Hawke feels betrayed to find out that she's Qunari, and interrogates her on this--which, is partly, I guess, you, the player, clicking the dialogue options to learn more, but Tallis is on the defensive, trying to convince you Qunari are people, just like you and me.

Inquisition introduces another Ben-Hassrath, like Tallis, in the Iron Bull. And on the surface, his inclusion is quite a lot like Sten in Origins. They both showed up because there was an unknown threat in the South that they were ordered to investigate. Unlike Sten, though, you are given the option to convert him away from the Qun. Not only that, but the game drills into you how there is no free will under the Qun. But then contradicts itself with Bull telling you that under the Qun you DO have the choice to change your role under the Qun and that there is even a word for it, Aqun Athlok, which means transgender, but, in a society where gender is directly related to the role you perform in society, that implies less rigidity and more open-mindedness than every other character wants you to believe.

However, beyond dialogue with Krem and the Iron Bull about gender (and later Taash in the Veilguard), Bioware is not interested in exploring the implications of the existence and acceptance of Aqun Athlok in Qunari culture.

And in the end, if Bull becomes Tal-Vashoth, that's framed as the outcome that is overall most positive--the outcome where he can keep his romantic relationships (whether that's with the Inquisitor or with Dorian), his friendships with the Inquisition and the Chargers, and his individuality. It's reinforced in banter with his companions and dialogue with the Inquisitor. And it all sounds a little too close to how white savior types talk about Muslims who leave SWANA and leave Islam to come to the more enlightened and liberating West.

By the Veilguard, the Qunari lore is already so wishy washy that sure I guess now we have to believe that the Antaam (literally just the Qunari military) broke away from the other Qunari because the other Qunari weren't expansionist and violent enough. I guess that's what we are going with. And that's the reason why, as a gameplay mechanic, we see the return of the Qunari as a faceless brute enemy archetype. And this time, instead of them clearly speaking in normal pitch but in a foreign language (like in DA2), they communicate in inhumanly deep, animal-like grunts and growls. Even when they're not being hostile to you, and you pass them by in Treviso just hanging out? They are still hollering and growling in monstrous deep voices, without a trace of a thought out and well-enunciated language. And how racist do you have to be for you to be more racist than the DA2 Qunari?

I don't even want to get into whatever scraps you get through Taash and their personal quest because it's so irrelevant and detached from everything it feels like putting a bandaid over a stab wound. Nevermind Taash introducing us to a brand new and innovative genre of Qunari who can sniff things out like hunting dogs. Thanks for that one Bioware -- "but nooooo, Nairuz, they're part dragon it makes sense in the lore" -- the ancient Elves can also turn into wolves and dragons and even monsters, but you don't see them growling and sniffing and prowling like animals.

All this to say. Stop trying to make sense of Qunari lore in a way that validates and justify the decisions Bioware made, when they made those decisions out of Islamophobia and racism and orientalism. I am tired of seeing this lore be uncritically parroted by Dragon Age lore accounts.

[rainsinheaven-if]

DEMO TBA - Q1 (Jan/Feb) 2025

First update will include: Prologue and Chapter One

Warnings: Blood and injuries, sexism, profanity, temporary character death, child neglect, parental physical and emotional abuse, optional sexual content, and more. Suitable for ages 16+. List will be updated in the future.

This game is in early development and a work in progress. There may be future changes to location names, plot etc.

You’ve never felt loved by your family before.

Born a twin but feeling more like a shadow, you’ve watched your younger brother, Nolan, receive all the love and praise you were denied. But no matter how unkind you are to him, Nolan’s loyalty and kindness towards you remains unwavering. It’s as if there’s a bond pulling you back everytime you think of leaving it all behind.

Now a mysterious illness has swept through Valorian Kingdom’s royal court, leaving many nobles, including the king at death’s door. The Oracle’s prophecy offers a single hope: the Crown Prince must gather five lost souls to join him in a dangerous journey towards Coven’s Swampy, an ominous and foreboding area hidden deep within the mystical forest.

You are chosen to be one of those five.

As you venture deep into the forest, the journey will push you to the limits of courage and loyalty, forcing you to question everything you believe about family and love. This might not just be a journey to save the day, but a journey towards self-discovery for you and everyone in your group. So when the journey ends, will there be anything left of the person who first stepped into the darkness? 

Customize your MC! Change your appearance and control your personality. MC starts out as female, but there will be transition options.

Grow a relationship with your twin! Choose to either continue being unkind to your twin brother or getting to know him instead. Your MC's relationship with him may affect some major events.

Develop relationships! There are six romanceable characters - 3 male, 2 gender selectable, and 1 non-binary. Or you can avoid romance and keep it all platonic.

Learn and improve your skills! With the option to choose to either be a mage, knight, or both, you can learn and improve your skills to become better at what you do.

Find yourself! Journey through the mystical forest to not only find a cure, but to self-discovery. There are plenty of secrets to learn about that may or may not change the way you think and feel.

More to be added…

Below are the six romanceable characters in this story. You can choose to flirt with everyone, but at one point, you'll have to decide on one. Also keep in mind that there are other important characters as well that are not listed here.

Ver/Vera Forrest | Gender Selectable | 21

Playful and energetic with golden-retriever-like energy, V is always ready for adventure. They never fail to be there for you when you need someone to rant to, or a shoulder to lean on. Their cleverness and sneakiness keeps them out of most trouble due to the way they were raised. And it’s exactly how they are raised that has made them hide their burden under their positive enthusiasm.

You are best friends, so why don’t you know any of her secrets? 

Oliver Astoran | he/him | 21

With a cold demeanor, Oliver holds a strong desire to protect the people he cares about, especially those whose kindness is exploited. Your unkind treatment towards your brother causes him to despise you. You are always able to press on the right buttons to rile each other up. He shows a strong sense of determination that marks his mental and physical strength. But perhaps there’s something more to the reason behind his behavior than what the eye sees.

Will you ever be able to see him in a different light, or will it just be fighting, fighting and more fighting?

Ethos Van Winston | he/him | 22

Occupation: Prince, Heir to the Throne

Burdened by the responsibility of being heir to the throne, Ethos is reserved, guarded, and serious. As a child, he was once carefree and one of your closest friends. But after an incident that left unspoken, lingering tension between you two, he now elicits a melancholic presence. His warm side is hidden away somewhere, and you wonder if there was more than just the incident that made him change.

You weren’t the reason he changed… right?

Theodore Eaves | he/him | 24

From a young age, Theodore’s life has been defined by duty and training. He’s mature for his age and has a tendency to act like an older brother to you and the group. He’s well disciplined and stoic, rarely having time to express vulnerability. His focus on duty has left him oblivious to romantic interest, despite his admired reputation due to his looks and status. His obliviousness goes further though, for reasons that he himself hasn’t fully discovered and understood.

Will you ever get to see a vulnerable side of him, instead of just that brotherly figure?

Mattie | they/them | 19

Curious as ever, Mattie often gets themselves into trouble. But with their charming personality and resourcefulness, they’re able to get themselves out of trouble. They are playful, enjoying the work of teasing others and instigating drama to get chaotic, and hopefully flustered, reactions. His skills and knowledge about the forest have proven him to be a good asset, but there is more to him than what meets the eye.

For someone who is so bright and playful, they can’t surely have anything to hide, right?

Yaran/Yara | Gender Selectable | 22

Nobody is sure they know who Y is. They seem ambitious, cunning, and deceiving; doing risky things to achieve their own goals at the cost of someone else’s pain. They are unpredictable, popping in and out of your group - sometimes being a guide, but other times hindering progress. Despite their ambiguity, they are charismatic and mysterious enough to leave your group intrigued. All there is to do now is truly learn who they are and what they have hidden inside.

Who is Y and can you trust them with anything, especially your life?

Demo | ROs Profiles

music inspiration

This is my first attempt at creating an interactive fiction game and using Twine Sugarcube. Please be patient and kind <3

Shares are appreciated :)

[dark-raven-666]

At what point do homicipher characters fall in love with reader- ik they don't understand the concept, but still u know what i mean

Im craving mr. Crawling x reader fluff its not okay

homicipher men falling in love

Warning: spoilers

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Mr Crawling

He immediately likes you, he's very friendly and sweet.

But then you pet him... That sends him there. Love at first sight? More like love at first pet!

Follows you around and protects you.

Stays up all night and watches you sleep. Poor man doesn't realize how creepy it is, he thinks he's just protecting you.

If you choose the option to take him back to your world he'll be an adorable house husband but boy will he mess up.

The first time he heard you flush, he thought the toilet was attacking you and he fought the bowl. It took you hours to get him off the bowl and explaining what flushing is. He still doesn't trust it.

Mr Scarletella

You out the bodies in the ghost house, and this guy thought you were feeding him.

I feel like he loves you but not in a human way or in an Innocent way like Mr crawling. It's more possessiveness, wanting to own you than love you.

But if you somehow get past that he would fall deeper and deeper when you show him affection, please kiss his cheek.

Showing other ghosts attention and love is a bug no no for him, you're his and his only. Why do you need the other ones? Braiding Mr chopped's hair? He has hair too, come play with his. Letting Mr crawling? He tolerates pets too!

Over all jealous and posessive.

Mr Chopped

This one takes a bit longer to fall in love, yes he likes you as a friend at first and you two shave fun, but when you recuse him from the hooded child, pick him up and protect him...

How can he not fall in love.

At first he thinks it's just friendship but the more it happens the more he feels in his non existent heart .

After a long time he trust you to brush and braid his hair, but don't cut it! Only the hairdresser can do that!

Over all cutie boyfriend, loves naps with you and loves to Yap.

Mr Gap

Love? What's that?

He enjoys your company yes, especially if you're our here giving him your hair and fingers for stuff.

After a while he stops talking all your fingers, because he sees how much it takes of your energy to regenerate them.

He takes one finger in return.

Hair? Well, I guess he'll accept a small strand.

When you ask him if he likes you, he frowns and asks how come?

You explain how he treats you differently (better) and he says he just appreciates the many things you do, plus you're really fun to jump scare..

Never actually falls in love he is only capable of "appreciating you". Or that's what he says to keep face.

Yeah he loves you, try hard enough and maybe he might give you something for free once. Maybe appear in the gap of your sheets and cuddle. He has to initiate it though.

Touch him without consent and he's disappearing for a while. It will never be the same again.

[silent-sanctum]

"Jotaro Kujo is Weak at His Core"

As a writer and avid character psycho-analyzer, I find this concept fascinating because I wholeheartedly agree with what OP has quoted from a "What opinion would get the community to do this? *Insert Johnny getting torn apart*" post.

Before I begin, I know some people will see this, misread it, and immediately say "lmao did we watch the same show? He's strong, badass, and can kick anyone's ass. Like do you know Star Platinum bro?". Trust me, I've seen the replies to this post and they said this same exact thing.

And I'm here to say that to said people, if you truly are not the illiterates I'd like to term you as, you'd take the time to realize that when we say "he's weak", we're not referring to his physical prowess because we know he's one of the strongest characters in the show.

If you don't like to, then you're just proving the accuracy of the last sentence: "You can't stand seeing your edgy badass image of Jotaro as vulnerable."

Pushing that aside, I'd like to expand on OP's opinion/headcanon with some depth to it and explain how exactly he's "weak" outside of being a skilled and strategic fighter.

I've learned that to be holistically healthy, one needs to develop and maintain all optimal functions of oneself: Physical, Emotional, Social, and Mental.

Obviously, Jotaro excels in the physical category. He's conventionally attractive, taller than the average male population, well-defined with a muscled build, fit as hell, street and book smart, and highly in tune with his environment making him adaptable in any circumstance.

He's "strong" in that aspect we all know at a superficial level.

However, we start to see the core problem once we strip this good-hearted man of his physical appeal:

Emotional? He believes he doesn't need to express them to others because why should he. He refuses to process them and instead keeps them behind a locked wall of stoicism and aloofness.

Social? Can't communicate to save his life. He's reclusive and doesn't know how to socialize outside of work. Guarded and skeptical around others. Too much of a workaholic to bother making new acquaintances (if he even knows how) outside of familial connections.

Mental? At 17, he went on a death crusade over Asia and the Middle East, almost died numerous times, and most likely lived with unresolved PTSD that carried over into adulthood, and further deteriorated his already poor social and emotional skills.

What do we have then? If we look past that powerful exterior of a man, we have inappropriate emotional expression, poor socialization, and constant fatigue of dealing with bullshit that relates to his trauma.

And this is what we mean by his "core": His mindset. His inner machinations. The soft spot his enemies would need to target in order to defeat or kill him, strategy-wise.

I. Emotional

We pretty much already know how this man handles emotions. And this may come off as "irrelevant" to the dudebros and the meme riders who believe "haha feelings are for pussies, I advocate for edgy autistic Florida man who don't give a fuck, elopes with dolphins, and berates women".

But believe it or not, he has them, just like any other human being on the planet. I said it once and I'll say it again: Not everyone will wear their heart on their sleeves. Some will convey emotions publicly with no issue, while others would prefer to keep to themselves.

But how does this contribute to him being "weak" at his core?

Essentially, it's similar to how someone with depression may behave (not everyone, some of them). One may appear friendly, sunny, and bubbly to everyone around them, not knowing they're actually suffering from a void that eats them up from the inside when alone.

For his case, it may look like he doesn't care about what happens to him and everyone around him, considering his nonchalant and aloof behavior, but beneath that cold exterior, he cares way too much for his family, friends, and allies. He feels too much to the point where once his allies are endangered, he would sacrifice his well-being without a second thought.

And that's an issue to him.

To him, emotions make him vulnerable and in his circumstance where enemies are actively hunting him down trying to find his weak spots, his emotions should be kept behind doors because he doesn't know how to regulate it on the outside so it's either total stoicism or lashing out.

I found someone saying this line about him that fits him so well: "He's a good person who doesn't know how to be a good person."

This is a man who means well and truly wants to help out of the goodness of his heart, but because of his inability to convey his emotions properly and is unable to pick up emotional cues, it can lead to shit tons of misunderstandings due to inappropriate tone & expression, and that can change how someone views him in the long run, thus leading to unintended deterioration of personal relationships (which contribute to the social aspect of his weakness).

The emotionally-reserved character here with the poor communication skills is the girl. She's a CEO who just received a call, came out from work, and meets with her husband, asking him to accompany her to a doctor's appointment.

I found a visual representation of what I just said above. Just to give context: The show is about a married couple who struggles to keep their relationship afloat, having to navigate through family politics, work & life balance, and miscommunications so they could find why they loved each other in the first place.

Observe how she thinks she views herself VS how others actually view her as.

Other's POV: Demanding, brash, and insensitive Her POV: Anxious, hesitant, and confused

Now remember what Araki had written about Jotaro? "He doesn't believe he must reveal his emotions to others because he thinks everyone can figure him out, leading him to be a victim of misunderstandings. Others think him to be cold-hearted, rebellious, and insensitive."

II. Social

With emotions as our base foundation to poor communication skills, this leads us to his weak socialization aspect.

In a recent quote reblog about how he was raised as a child may have contributed to his tough persona, I mentioned something about his need of "Security".

Growing up, it was mostly just him and his sweet pacifist mother Holly. Joseph couldn't have visited often (he hates Japan) and his dad is a busy musician with a packed schedule on tour. As a kid up to early adolescence, he was coddled by his mother and raised as a good student. Everything was going great for him.

[In popular headcanon] Once he passed puberty, the change to his Part 3 MC era began. People began picking fights with him and bullying him, and he began to see the world as a threat to his safety. Knowing his mother, he wouldn't rely on her to defend him against these dangers. She was too kind, too friendly, too loving for her to deal with the harsh life he now has to deal with.

So he had to be the stronger one for both of them. He already had the physical attributes for it, so why not use it to his advantage?

He got on the popular delinquent trend back in 80's Japan, integrated a couple of cool masculine-esque personalities as his own from his favorite Western and Crime media, and is then able to project this menacing aura everyone should be afraid of, to ward potential threats away from him and his mother.

But Mijin, how does this make him weak? What does this have to do with his need for security?

Think about it: The poor guy's already introverted, doesn't feel comfortable with his emotions that he can't express properly, and now he has to be skeptical with people around him because he realized how shitty society can be, which leads to intimidation that wards off not only potential foes but potential friends as well, making it look like he's anti-social.

On the outside, people are likely to think that he likes being this way when in reality, he seeks a reliable support system on which he can lean onto. Everyone with a sound mind wants that subconsciously because we are social creatures. It's part of our nature.

He's constantly fearful of his surroundings, growing even more vigilant as he ages, but he doesn't look afraid because he chooses to put on a brave face to challenge said fears instead of acknowledging he's scared. I read somewhere in an ask that's not mine that in the manga, some panels actually depict Jotaro shaking/trembling in a mix of fear and adrenaline during some of his fights.

He wants to be around people who he can trust. People who he can lower his defenses with. People who are capable of protecting him just as he is capable of protecting them. People who can face his intimidating aura and challenge it to stand on equal grounds with him or to remind him of his place when he goes too far with certain things. Hence, why he seems comfortable being with the Crusaders.

For once, he wants to feel safe.

To not feel like he has to be this strong pillar of hope that everyone depends on.

To be someone being protected, instead of the other way around where he was always the strong protector. He wants a life of normalcy where he can just be a marine biologist and a professor with a loving family he can come home to.

But that can't happen. The inner circle of friends he counted on is either dead or far away, leaving him even more fearful of the world around him. This results in even more guarded skepticism, always watchful of who's an enemy Stand user and what their Stand could do. Because of his cautious nature, this leads to minimized socialization with others.

With little to no solid support system he can count on, he has no one he feels completely secure with because he believes danger will always come to hurt and/or kill those near him. He doesn't want to burden others with the issues & responsibilities of dealing with Stand users. He wants them to live the normal life he could no longer have.

He doesn't trust in the capabilities of his loved ones when it comes to defending themselves against the amount of potential threats and dangers he has faced, and yet he cares about them dearly. So, he commits to what seems to be the most practical solution in his mind: Self-Isolation.

To be a distant beacon where danger is attracted to and away from those dear to him.

(As we see in the beginning of Part 3 where he willingly locks himself in jail as soon as he sees himself as the threat, and in Part 6 where he stays away from his family once he realizes his enemies were targeting him).

"Your family is your weakness."

All this leads him to become what Araki always envisioned him to be: A lone hero.

III. Mental

Now onto the last part, this part of the essay will focus more on the popular headcanon the community has made about him: "Jotaro has PTSD."

Considering what he's been through at only 17, it would be no surprise that he'd acquired major trauma after those 50 days. Think about it- he gets injured more times than he can count, almost dies numerous times, sees his grandfather get "killed" in front of him, and all this combined with the constant reminder that his mother's life is also on a time limit. A failure to kill DIO meant a failure to save Holly.

The amount of pressure and risk he had to endure for her (and there will still be people who adamantly believe that he hated Holly because he said "bitch" to her twice in the first two episodes).

Now, remember when I said about him having this mentality of over-independence when dealing with stressors? It was still manageable during Stardust Crusaders, but because of what had transpired in Cairo, that mindset carries on to the rest of his adulthood, more so if we consider that he most likely didn't get any therapy or treatment for his trauma.

It might be normal for a teenager to hold onto this stubborn notion of "I can do this by myself" and it's all casual, but with trauma now involved, that notion warps into a persisting belief of "by doing this myself, no one else will get hurt" (i.e. refusing help, doing solo fieldwork, self-isolation).

But Mijin, you keep saying "mentality" this, "mindset" that. What are you talking about?

There's an old Tumblr post I found that talks specifically about this in great detail, but to put it shortly: Jotaro has always wanted to do things by himself because he believes that not only will the task be done with, there would be no one else involved with it, making it better for him to cope mentally if ever shit hits the fan (tying back to poor emotional expression and insecurity in bonds).

If any injuries were to be inflicted, he would be the one to receive them, and he alone, because who knows how he'll react and/or cope when his allies are harmed instead of him over and over again? (refer to the trauma of Jotaro surviving Cairo while the majority of the team that went with him died a.k.a "survivor's guilt")

(Also, refer to how he had exhibited great distress when Jolyne was about to be struck by a rain of knives that Pucci sent)

This might also be the reason why he's more self-sacrificial as an adult: Will be the bait during the rat episode instead of Josuke, takes the brunt of Sheer Heart Attack's explosion to spare Koichi, dives straight onto a path of bullets to save Jolyne, etc.

The only possible solution so he could snap out of that belief he holds on to is that strong, reliable support system he internally needs. People who can help him without sustaining fatal injuries in the process [social]. People who he can approach to release any pent-up frustrations and inner conflicts [emotional].

If he had found those people, then he might have been able to deal and/or cope with his trauma better instead of letting it linger and change his outlook in life [mental].

But we all know how his life went in canon. One moment he's a kid playing ball with his mother, then in his last, he dies by having his head bisected by a time-altering Stand.

Jotaro is a person with a gold heart and a rough exterior. Someone who wants to help and protect his loved ones from the unpredictability of the world the best that he can. But even then, his best wasn't enough. His fear was masked with an air of strength and capability, perhaps as compensation for everything else he lacked:

Adequate processing of emotions.

Stable connection with familial, platonic, and romantic bonds.

A sound mindset that stems from effective coping for his PTSD.

We could only hope in headcanon land that he had a better chance at life in the Ireneverse where he finally could develop his inner core better and get that long-deserved break he had always wanted.

[night-triumphantt]

I have some thoughts about the arcane ending w nowhere to go but uh, if ur not here for some critique keep it pushing loll

Now that I’ve had a day to digest I’m actually v disappointed w the way the story gave up on its revolutionary messaging. The focus of season one is the piltover and zaun plot, the oppression of Zaun and its impacts on the characters, it is how vi and powder are orphaned, it’s why viktor is disabled, it is why the undercity struggles, Zauns independence is what silco was fighting for, vander and silcos ideological disagreements are based on it etc etc. the tensions between the two cities is rising and rising and then it just, fizzles out and pivots and makes viktor the main antagonist without any recognition of how he got here. And don’t get me started on how there’s zero consequences for cait who is?? Still an enforcer??

The plot highlights through Vi that the enforcers are an oppressive arm of a system w how she was treated as a CHILD and even as an adult and she betrays her ideals, to do what she thinks is right bc she thinks she has to take out her sister and bc cait asked her to do so as an enforcer. And then in doing so she betrays her ideals so aggressively that she is now the exact thing that hurt her, an enforcer, traumatizing a child, utilizing the gas on the undercity, excusing the consequences. And when she faces Caitlyn, cait obfuscates and says she wouldn’t have missed even tho that’s not *better*. Bc ok let’s say she didn’t miss, she just kills jinx in front of isha? and she just gassed the city w what we know is toxic gas? And then she discards vi bc vi isn’t going along with what she wants. Cait then is never shown reckoning w the biases and cruel things she’s done and said after that. There is ONE conversation w her and Vi and it’s framed as Ambessa is the issue which, she is partially but like, topside enforcers were all behind her and Cait was quick to lean into all her preconceived notions of zaunites. (Speaking of making what’s her name a mole was stupid and imo done just to make it so Cait doesn’t have to have that convo w her?? Idk)

Also, Vi goes on a drinking spree in which we never actually see her reckon w what she did as an enforcer, (it’s mostly framed around Cait) and then she hurts isha and,,, nothing?? No sorry?? Nothing. Vi has no plot that shows us her thoughts, her reckoning w what she did, or anything. In my opinion it’s bc the writers wanted cait/vi to work and if Vi actually had to think about what happened and what she did then they wouldn’t have worked out. Vi w/ no one to protect who has to rebuild her identity and really decide how she ended up where she did, I would have loved to see it. Her and Jinx’s convo where she says u don’t need me to protect u was actually rlly good, them reconnecting as equals & Vi seeing how jinx became a symbol of the undercity, fighting for it together, finding how she lost her way, like, cmon. Jinx not ending her story w yea actually u should die previously suicidal character, (don’t worry, this is a good way to die) and instead doing the hard work of rebuilding, and seeing a future for herself that isn’t painted in tragedy, surrounding herself w ppl who love her and help her grow (while silco loved her he could not help her grow bc of his own unhealed wounds) using her ingenuity to rebuild w ekko, like, ugh. These are very rough thoughts that got kinda, long, but yea in conclusion, while I loved the characters, the refusal to *commit* to the political message they started hurt the show a lot, and I’m rlly sad for what could have been.

I have a lot more thoughts about sevika and Mel as well but I’m mostly just bummed.

[erinwantstowrite]

bear with me here because i'm gonna ramble about something i've been thinking about for a while... and i'm not complaining, i'm just noticing

sometimes i think we've leaned so far into the vigilante side of the batfam that we miss out on what really makes their characters: detective work. we need more mysteries in their lives that don't lead up to some big bad "we already know who's doing it" or an "end of the world" or "yet again: this fucking guy." we need more stuff where spy movie music plays in the background and dumb adventures that don't lead up to some huge grand event with a big name villain. the shock factor stops being shocking or interesting in any capacity if we're like "Gah! the Joker! ... Again!" or whatever

does that even make sense? like "yeah sure they're blowing up a building again and there's hostages. oh look they're gonna poison the water supply." these aren't bad and that's not what i'm getting at because obviously this is a classic for comics. you need to have characters/antagonists that show up more than once and who can make a story better by being in it. and i did say to bear with me- that's because im tired. so like i hope im getting this across the right way? it's just that sometimes i don't wanna see a huge explosion, i want these motherfuckers solving a regular murder or a disappearance or regular corruption in a local office without it being tied to a grand reveal like "actually this person knows you as a long lost relative" or "they were at that circus can you guess which night they went?" that kind of thing? if you get me? like... more of the small time stuff makes the big stuff important, it makes it stand out more. at some point, the format gets repetitive even if you're switching up the villains. you can make these situations/mysteries still fun to solve for the characters and fun to read for the audience if you do it right

the concept of a detective dressed as a bat and having a sidekick in traffic light colors is inherently goofy as hell??? but that is what is so charming about it??? i think we have lost the balance between them being silly while also being intelligent with important conversations that criticize the world as we see it and teach lessons and can go over dark topics. nowadays it's always end of the world problems or just straight up the most gruesome true crime you can think of?? or they can ONLY do the dark stuff and the criticism without offering a balance of the good in the world. or we keep coming back to the FUCKING JOKER-

like yes they are vigilantes and with that comes a different level of their work, but their brand should be a mix between a black and white detective film that can get very nitty gritty and a classic spy movie, that kind of thing. at the end of the day, it's what makes them so different from the superheroes. that's what appeals to me.

seeing them in the big superhero groups is fun, don't get me wrong. it's always funny to see them standing next to people who are so powerful they never really fit in with anyone but each other, who chose to step up and use their powers for good. the Bats' specialty is Gotham and yet here they are stopping a god or whatever. and they do stop the god or whatever, all the while being an important leader and strategist to their teammates. they're important to have in these cases. but if there's a world ending event every time i pick something up, it's not as fun

the fact that they are so very human and not fantastical is why i like reading them. it's what makes the joke of people, even Gotham citizens, theorizing about them being cryptids, funny. they're fucking weird but that's because they're detectives. people who love to solve mysteries usually have a fatal flaw of curiosity. they forget the bounds between social interactions sometimes because they're used to working through problems or being intertwined with partners that understand them. but they're very much human. so human that it hurts them in many ways. and idk i've just been thinking about it lately and idk what point i'm trying to get across actually

it's just that in my eyes that's how it really is for Batman- a black and white movie narrated by a very serious man who took up a job to help people, one that has a deeper commentary on the world and viewed outwardly as pessimistic but actually has a deep hope for his city and who tries to help even the people who have wronged others. He's a stationary man in the belief that him being a constant can serve to soothe others and help them move forward. He stays in the middle of the path so he can tell everyone what is up ahead. he blends into the Gotham rainy night to serve justice but in a way that saves both the victim and the perpetrator. (the way he tucks a Robin into his cape is the same he does for Gotham with his mere presence.) and his background is actually so important to his story and yet people still somehow gloss over the lesson from it? he lost his parents because of a man who was on the opposite end of the spectrum to where he was in life. and yet he chose to help the people like the man that killed his parents. he could have done anything else with his power and money, but he instead is choosing to bring as many people up with him as he can. He's Mr. Serious that no one else can get a read on. and yet he walks into a room and he's already piecing together your life and what you're going through because he thinks it matters. he comforts people who have lost something or someone or themselves. I picture Batman and I don't picture a man trying to save the world, I picture a detective walking around a crime scene and trying to save at least one person every time he puts on the cape. and he put on the cape and became a vigilante because then he could go out of the bounds of what laws have been set up- and specifically, Gotham has other people in power who are corrupt, keeping the system that way. that's why Batman being a billionare and throwing himself into helping people at the risk of his own life is so important. he knows that if you are alive, you have something or someone to lose, no matter who you are. the dude is a bleeding heart but he doesn't know how to express it, in fear that if he gets too close, if he moves down the path with them, he'll be lost again

and then he's met with someone who should be a complete opposite, but isn't at all, because they're two sides of the same coin. his partner in crime, his son, a boy that is nothing like the black and white world that he sees. and that's the point in his life where he first sees that potentially getting lost is worth the risk. Robin is color and passion that needs guidance to move forward, but can not do so unless the stationary man learns to move with him. the kid is loud and reckless and you'd think he's from a different genre from the detective but they aren't so different, really. not when you look close enough. Dick grew up moving from place to place and seeing the world, knowing so many different people from different cultures. He's been learning to fly and jump and embrace the free fall his entire life. He's clever and he's sharp, and he thrives in the action and adventure. it's that perspective that compliments the stationary man. one is steady and the other pushes. he's the same genre but a different generation. and Batman introducing him to the way of life he chose for himself was another way he could save someone. because let's be real for a second? Dick would have gone down a very dark path had he not had Bruce, who understood, who saw not just himself in the kid but also saw who the kid has been his entire life until now. he saw Dick's parents, he saw the family he had in the circus, he saw the joy he had in what his family was doing. he saw the grief and the fire and the color that Dick's world was made of. because to Bruce, it always matters. Dick had to come to terms with Bruce's perspective to help anyone who they come across, to always give more chances, and it kept Dick from losing his color

what gets me is that the man who lives in the black and white world can actually see many different shades of gray (because black and white always needs the medium), whereas the boy in a world of color and light can get so focused on the bright that he can become single minded. and yet the boy sees a world of color and delves deeper into the lives of the peolle they come across and can be much more open minded, and the man in the black and white world sometimes forgets the shades of grey are right there. they are just like each other. they can exist without the other, but do they want to? because the black and white can be built up into the colored image, like the inking and shadows drawn on a comic book page before the colors are added in. they meet in the middle to complete each other. Bruce has been passing the story over to the next generation for a long, long time, even before his story was complete. and just like with the first Robin, it was so for every Robin afterwards. they each color in the lines differently, but that's what makes Robin so special, so unique. they are an art style that branches into their own life, but can not forget where they started: tucked into Batman's cape and the inky black of his world

and so detective work really frames their hunanity to me. the mysteries they get their hands on, the glimpses into the lives of Gotham citizens that they swore to protect, it's fascinating. it's what makes their story stand out compared to the people who can lift trucks or cast spells or run around the world in seconds. so yeah ig that's what i'm trying to say? that i want to read more of that? in both canon and fanon. cause even the small time villains we see can be like. AWFUL people and it takes out the fun of their gimmicks. and if it were any other day this would be a more coherent post but alas, it is not any other day

[postcardsfromheapside]

No. I wasn't missing the point of most criticism. Literally, I saw post after post of people saying they wished the characters could be mean to each other. Some posts were more specific, like "I don't like Taash," (and I'm sure you can imagine what THAT'S about) and some were more ambigious but cited DA2 and how everyone was bitchy toward each other.

I honestly don't care where you work and what you do, because hopefully most of us after the age of 30 have experienced an adult job where we have to be reasonable with our coworkers, even if we strongly disagree, or outright dislike them. I had the suspicion that most people who think that there is "no conflict," or "low conflict" or "bad writing" in this game haven't experienced this kind of setting in any capacity. What I'm now hearing is that you might have, but you didn't absorb any of the dialogue, or switch out your party to listen to banter, which is an essential function for picking up information in any DA game.

I walked around Arlathan with Lucanis and Harding, and they have a whole ongoing conversation in which she threatens him with one of her special arrows. And he agrees that if Spite should take him over, she should do something about it. Harding isn't frightened, because Harding isn't a pushover, but she's not taking any shit either. Did you walk around with just the two of them right after recruiting Lucanis? Did you frequently visit the rest of the companions so that you could see just how much Lucanis and Davrin *didn't* get along? Neve mentions what sounded like a knock-down drag out fight.

**Just because this isn't explicitly mentioned to you doesn't make it bad writing - it means you haven't had the time we had with Inquisition to play the game over and over and switch out your party so you can see everyone's interactions with each other. You will actually have to play the game multiple times and switch your party out a fair amount in order to see these interactions. Or wait for people to post them to tumblr. You can complain about how unfair this is, or remember that Inquisition has 10 years on this game, and it's been out for just shy of a month.**

Why in the absolute fuck would Davrin manufacture conflict between himself and someone he could easily conjecture isn't pro-slavery based on the fact that within five minutes he could find out she's from Dock Town, she's a private investigator working with the Shadow Dragons, and LITERALLY WHEN YOU GET ONTO THE DOCK WITH HIM, her first priority as she's running back to Minrathous is to say "if the dragon wrecks havoc, the Venatori will take over." Davrin isn't an idiot, he could pretty well surmise that she's not "pro slavery" with only the barest of interactions and Rook saying "yeah Neve's cool."

Why would Neve yell at you? Why is it bad writing for the writers to give Neve a personality you don't agree with, because you're uncomfortable with how she reacts? Neve's an adult who is used to working on her own and people not showing up for her - she says this MULTIPLE TIMES - it's actually a large arc of bonding with her, as a friend and a lover. She's not going to scream at you, she's so far past the point of being loud about disappointment, she's on the other side, for one, and for another, she does in fact understand that the entire North of Thedas is on fire and blighting Treviso is pretty fucking bad when it has no major defenses. Rook doesn't endlessly apologize. She came back after a short pause and while I didn't have her healing abilities after that, it didn't take long for me to boost my bond with her back up and feel like we were friends again.

This honestly feels like you're having a personal reaction that you need to examine, and it's not something to do with the writing, since the game mechanics and the dialogue don't actually bear out what you're putting down here.

All of the companions who have conflict initially have to figure out how to trust each other and it sometimes takes most of the game for them to do that. If you didn't spend the time listening to their banter as they work their way through it, that's not Bioware's problem. That's you. And...I don't want to have repeated conversations where I go into Emmrich's (my romance) room and "vent"? I didn't do that with Cullen. I didn't do that with Anders. Why would it suddenly be a thing here? But if you listen in to people's conversations, they do express dismay and doubt and fear about the various quests they've been on. Again, it feels like you didn't spend the time eavesdropping or taking people out and listening to banter.

I have no idea what you're talking about with flirting. I flirted with every companion at first even though I knew I was running for Emmrich, and all of them responded according to their personality. I romanced Cullen in Inquisition, and he was pretty quiet initially, until you get to Skyhold, and similarly, most of the companions here retain a certain reticence until the game progresses. But if you're looking for people who get flustered - Lace and Bellara absolutely do! And Emmrich isn't flustered, but he's taken aback a few times before he collects himself and flirts back - though whether you'd actually recognize it for flirting, I'm starting to wonder. The fact that you can't tell with Neve is actually making me tilt my head at the screen, and I say this as a self-confessed disaster who is very very bad at knowing someone is interested. Even I can tell what's going on in DA romances.

This is probably a lost cause, but I urge you to either spend time playing the game again, or watch someone else who really loves DA (and is Veilguard positive) play so that you can watch without being in the thick of it, and hopefully experience more dialogue and different choices.

No, I'm not done yet, I'm house sitting and she left me snacks and soda and not even god could keep me from venting my spleen at this point.

"I wish the companions were meaner to each other in this game, like in DA2."

While I think there's a larger argument to be made discussing the similarities between DA2 and Veilguard, I need everyone to get so close to me right now about a glaring difference:

DA2 involved a ragtag group of assholes with their own agendas coalescing around Hawke's personality or exchange of favors. There was no larger "goal," except maybe Varric's expedition - everything else is encountered as circumstance. You wend your way through your companions' stories while a city winds ever tighter into itself, a spring about to literally explode.

There's zero reason for these people to be nice to each other. They have no point in being around each other except Hawke. They can bitch at each other all they like.

Rook becomes Varric's second in command (I've seen one post say it's about 6 months before the events of the game) with an explicit purpose: find and stop Solas. Harding and Neve are recruited as experts in their respective fields for this particular goal. When it all goes to shit, Neve recruits another expert, Lucanis, to deal with the fallout, and Harding finds Davrin, *also* an expert in his field (monster hunting). When Rook has to make a particularly consequence heavy decision, two more are added to the crew: Emmrich (Fade expert) and Taash (dragon expert). All of these people are extremely competent, and know from the jump that they have one particular goal in mind.

They join ready to work together on Day 1 because if they don't, there's simply no other alternative. It's lights out. Even when they mistrust each other, the direness of the situation is not lost on them. Infighting serves no purpose. That's why the struggle is directed inward: clean up your own house, so we can move as a single unit.

Honestly the fact that what people took away from this game was "I wish my friends were meaner to each other" and not "wow, I wish we all worked together to keep evil dictators from taking over" is fucking mindblowing when I sit back and reread this.

[bringthekaos]

Alrighty, here we go. Act III.

Mostly Jayce and Viktor centric, but with some wider thoughts as a whole thrown in. As usual, this is all my opinion, you’re free to disagree with me. Just don’t be a dick.

I am torn. I’m appreciative of the visuals and the JayVik crumbs (even though Christian Linke’s comments post-show have soured it to queerbait for me). But mostly I am disappointed. And I so badly didn’t want to be. I had such high hopes (and that’s probably my fault. I expected too much). They completely massacred Viktor’s character. There was such beautiful setup in season one of his background as a Zaunite living in Piltover. So much of his lived experience came from that—the oppression, the inequality, the xenophobia, the inaccessibility. It formed his opinions and his values, and that’s why he was so adamantly anti-weapon making. That’s why his number one goal was always to help the people in need down in Zaun. They showed us that he was a tinkerer and a builder, that he valued the ingenuity in machinery. They gave us that cute little boat from his childhood and the fucking Hexclaw.

Viktor was supposed to be a Zaunite champion. He was supposed to embrace Techmaturgy as a direct opposition to magic/Hextech. He was supposed to undergo his transformation into the Machine Herald of his own volition, with his own agency and bodily autonomy (yes I know it also stemmed from severe depression and one could argue that it messed with his decision-making, but still… he did that shit on his own). And there were so many opportunities to go this route in Arcane, and it would have worked!! If Viktor augmented his hand and his leg, but it cost Sky her life, he could realize the cost of magic, and turn to Tech. He could have been exiled back to Zaun, where he was supposed to be, and then the shitshow really could have unfolded—having one of Hextech’s creators now working for the other side.

And I know they had to change it so that he could be a bigger part of the overall narrative, as his original lore was rather disconnected. But there were much cleaner ways to go about it than disrespecting his entire character arc by turning him into a grimdark edgelord ethereal magic Jesus who no longer notices or even seems to care about the oppression and class warfare going on in his birthplace. Like. I’m sorry, him “curing” Salo? OG Viktor would have taken one look at a representative of the very oppression he stood against and blown him to kingdom come. (And yes, I also realize that he did it in Arcane because he was “under the influence” of the Hexcore, which only wanted to “infect more people.” But that’s another problem I have. This was never really made all that clear. And watching him go from “we will not be building weapons, that’s not why we invented Hextech/there is always a choice/we were meant to improve lives, not to take them” to making him turn human beings into weapons?? I don’t care that they tried to salvage his character by suggesting he wasn’t in control, it still undermines everything about him. And GOD, original League Vik had so much DEPTH. He was a hypocrite, he was still partly human and so he retained pieces/parts of all the things he preached against, which made him a wonderful contradiction. And he had a sense of humor and whimsy too! He enjoyed sweet milk, he cracked dry jokes and was sarcastic as fuck. He had a personality! And now he’s just… empty space man blinded by forced apathy.

And I think all of this is part of a larger problem—they wanted to use Arcane as a stepping stone to future shows, and as such, the class warfare and systemic oppression plot from season one was completely abandoned. They tried to solve it with “well they have to band together to face a bigger enemy.” Which in my personal opinion is a cheap cop out. There are always bigger fish, that doesn’t change the fact that Zaun has been living in Piltover’s filth with Piltover’s boot on their neck for generations. They’ve suffered injustices most of us can’t even comprehend. And then suddenly we’re supposed to believe they all band together to face this threat, stand side by side with their oppressors because Jayce made one speech about it? With no proof? And then all they get from the deal is one Zaunite seat on the council? And they’re okay with that? I never expected the show to solve systemic oppression, but I also didn’t expect them to abandon it this spectacularly.

The Noxus/Black Rose plot was clearly thrown in to set up future shows, and to show Netflix/investors/whoever that this massive financial investment has a future. And it destroyed the Piltover/Zaun story. I think this could have been a totally isolated story just about Piltover and Zaun, and been completely successful. In fact, I would have definitely watched future projects despite them not taking place in the setting of Arcane. And I’m not at all saying I don’t like Ambessa and Mel. I was very intrigued by the story of a warmonger like Ambessa facing her comeuppance, not just for her warmongering but for her affair with a damn MAGE. And her daughter trying desperately to break the mold her mother has set for her, while also struggling with who she is and these new, incredible powers she has. That shit is juicy as hell, and honestly should have been its own show. But throwing it into Arcane in season 2 with absolutely no hint of the Black Rose or its impending approach (beyond “the people who killed your brother don’t think the score is settled”) in season one, it just felt like the aforementioned cop out to get Piltover and Zaun to get along. And in doing so, they steamrolled Viktor to make him a bigger player in the narrative.

Did I like the final astral plane scene with Jayce and Viktor? God, yes. Is it one of the most beautiful confessions of love and eternal devotion I think I’ve ever fucking seen? Also yes. But it kinda feels like a bandaid on a bullet wound. I got the love I always knew remained between Jayce and Viktor, but I paid for it with Viktor’s entire character. Not to mention Christian Linke keeps pouring salt in the fucking wound, denouncing JayVik and “bromancing” them, and then also suggesting in one interview that Jayce and Viktor are actually fucking dead, and in another that Viktor will be back in future projects (with no mention of Jayce, which suggests that they’re turning him into Sky 2.0 and that he’s dead but Viktor isn’t). And that completely undermines the entire ending of season 2’s “intrinsically entwined/always you/in every universe.” And I know, I shouldn’t listen to this dude’s opinion on the matter, he’s not the only one making this thing, and honestly it was the easiest unfollow/mute of my life. But how hard is it to just shut the fuck up and let people enjoy things? To not comment one way or the other, let people think what they want, and rake in your millions in the process? Haven’t you ever heard of rainbow capitalism, my guy?

Ugh. I’m very sorry for being so negative, I didn’t want to be. I still love the show, and I’d still like to keep writing JayVik, even though it’s just been made near-impossible (I’m actually really glad that I never finished Oasis now, cuz I can go back to that and expand it well beyond what I originally planned cuz… it’s all I have left). I’m just mourning my cyborg wife, and the fact that goddamn SMEECH had what Viktor was supposed to. Hopefully the more time goes on, I can reconcile these changes and embrace them, cuz I love this fandom, I love this ship, and I don’t wanna lose it.

Anyway, I will still be sharing art and memes and posting analyses, because you can like a piece of media and still be critical of it.

[ckret2]

I'd been meaning to do this since I found your account but today I read through the entirety of your Goldielocks fic (or at least, what's available) and all I can say is WOW !!!!!

You're really fucking good at writing these characters, capturing the lighthearted-yet-somehow-serious tone of the show, and the stuff you make up for worldbuilding fits right in with canon stuff. As a lover of making things canon-compliant and in-spirit-of-canon, this fic is like a dream come true. You're an amazing author !

I really look forward to your post-TBOB edits of the eclipse arc and the flatworld arc, I can already kind of guess where you're gonna go with it, but it's still exciting to think about what direction you might take things.

I'm also wondering, are you planning on changing anything about the Death Valley girls, what with the info we got about ciphertology and the like ? Or keeping them relatively the same ?

(I stayed up till almost midnight reading this - I'm so glad I don't have to be anywhere early tomorrow)

Thank you!! I've discussed my TBOB edits of the eclipse arc already, you can see some of them here if you want.

For the flatworld arc, I actually think basically nothing's going to change. Spoilers, but: Bill's world was never gonna be like Flatworld. It was gonna be a big reveal late in the fic ("big" for the characters, not the readers lmao) that Bill's world was actually pretty okay—like yeah, a few flaws, but not "barely-exaggerated satire of Victorian-era ableism/sexism/classism" flaws—and everything the kids read in Flatworld that made them pity Bill was 100% bullshit. It was going to turn out that Bill's world is actually...

... pretty much fucking exactly like Euclydia ended up being in canon—up to and including baby Bill getting medical trauma over having a super-rare cool-ass eye mutation that lets him see the stars of the third dimension.

I was gonna have Bill go "oh yeah, that's why I drove the author insane, I was that pissed at him for making my home world look that bad. I didn't correct you guys because I thought it'd be useful if you pitied me."

I did this because, before TBOB came out, I knew that no matter what I wrote about Bill's home dimension, probably a good 20% of readers would just push it to the side and automatically assume that his dimension was exactly the same as Flatland—like, occasionally readers were making comments about my fic talking about how triangles ***ARE*** oppressed in his home dimension like it was a canonical fact and taking it as a given that I was writing that. For that 20%, it seemed to me like the best way to ensure it got through to them that whoa, this isn't Flatland would be to have the characters assume his dimension is exactly the same as Flatland so that I could say, in story, "no that's totally wrong."

Post-TBOB, a lot fewer readers are gonna make that assumption. But having the characters assume his dimension is a lot worse than it really is is still a part of the story—it ties into the narrative of them slowly growing to expect him to be something more sympathetic/heroic than he actually is, a la Dipper's assumption that the Axolotl poem is a prophecy about how Bill will help save them—so there's no reason for me to take it out.

So yeah, tl;dr: Flatworld doesn't need to change because it was always going to be wrong.

I'm only gonna change the Death Valley girls a little bit. Everything I've currently written about them stays the same; except I'm also gonna mention that, yes, they are a Ciphertology sect, and yes, all the girls in the cult are Cipherwives.

So now I also get to crack jokes about Bill being both flattered and a little creeped out that even after he mostly ditched the cult they just kept inducting new recruits as "cipherwives" whether he showed up or not, like wow, you're just gonna marry him off in absentia to some lady he's never met??? What if he doesn't wanna marry her? What if he doesn't like her haircut?? Every time he shows up he finds out he's got a new wife! He loves the attention, but jeez, girls! At least send him a letter with his new bride's picture and wait for him to mail back an "OK" or something!

[srslylini]

The way season 1 ended she was at a point so low she was ready to blow up a city (and like she did, she blew up the council). The start of season 2 showing her cathartic wasn't actually bad I liked that direction. It felt like they wanted to show her in a "nothing state" which depression also feels like.

they showed her as not caring about anything anymore (literally just walking through every scene in the music video sucker while everything just HAPPENS around her). The meeting with Isha, while still being a little bit odd since it felt like well they randomly put them together but that's something you can overlook, was amazing. She still just didn't care, played with her life.

Her reaction to seeing her sister being an enforcer? Gut punching. Extremely painful. The fight with her STILL being more in a nothing like state, just shooting the dude with her back turned to him felt very s1 which is good because again, Jinx in the end was like??? done.

and then.... act 2 happened. Suddenly they used Jinx's mental state as a Plot device. In season 1 it would ruin missions and her freaking out would happen no matter if "the plot needed it or not" if you get what I mean? The first mission we see on screen? fucked up because Jinx lost control. This happens throughout the first season, it doesn't just come when ever the writers need it to happen.

In season 2 it does. Suddenly in situations that should freak her out she doesn't. Suddenly they use it as a plot device. Why was she very calm and relaxed upon meeting Vander as warwick with Vi? Why did she not freak out when Vi and her fought in the mines?

Do we all remember what happened in season 1 episode 3? And how Jinx immediately lashed out as soon as a fight occured? What happened? Also why was she suddenly so very chill with Enforcers in act 2 and beyond? The joke with the Enforcer and her god damn fucking pants was so out of place I cannot even handle to think about it anymore. The fight with Warwick was good and I liked that in the end they again showed that she is ready to kill herself, at least there is continuity here but that is also never addressed and also... happens for Plot and plot only

it happens so warwick can see the bomb and so they can have him recognize her, like okay arcane writers? And then after that she is simply fine with her second father figure showing up again? You are telling me the girl who had such a mental break down last season over her sister returning would be absolutely fine and 🥺family🥺 upon seeing Vander? Where was the sense? Where was her having to deal with Silco and Vander in her mind? i don't WANT to see her tortured, duh, but they set that up and showed this happening to her in season 1, so this is just, I dont know, a plothole? You are telling me the same girl who blew up the council in s1, and like LOOK AT HER in that scene, is all cuddle cuddle with her past family whose death she always blamed herself for and was scared off?

Then Isha dying, and god do I have my problems with that but that's another thing, and THEN having Jinx never mention her again? Are you KIDDING ME? like it's not even just not mentioning her as much as it is just also Isha not appearing in her nightmares etc. That is NOT how they set Jinx up as a character. While the scene with Jinx in the prison with Silco turning up was chillingly heartbreaking it also didn't make sense if you take into account how they wrote her seeing things this season. In the one scene where she talked to Silco's chair she says he doesn't show up and then when she is in pain over Isha being caught suddenly he stands behind her? I mean maybe I missed something here but I literally sat there like huh.

In season 1 it happened not because it was needed but because it wasn't. As it should be. In this season it only happened when the Plot needed to move and that's just so incredibly weird to me. Especially cause I already saw people misinterpreting the Silco and Jinx prison scene. It was her subconscious telling her to kill herself not Silco trying to be "a positive influence".

And then or course, we have this tragic character Jinx. Who was shown to have a wish of death all throughout season 1 with how careless she was with her life (for example when she threw around the bombs in her hide out) and then throughout season 2 as well. Who saw a breath of life for a bit, taken from her.

To have a character like this ACTUALLY die by killing herself and then to paint it as a GOOD thing? This isn't a tragedy. This is straight up suicide glorification. I did not cry when I watched this scene, I did not feel sadness and grief. I was beyond mad and disgusted and might be for a long time to come.

I need more ppl to talk abt how awfully Jinx was treated this season. I am soooo angry and upset

[plaidos]

Hi! I’m not a follower but I came across your post while browsing the arcane tag and I was curious bc I’d only heard positive things about the show re: representation so far. I went ahead and rewatched the scene you shared the image of and here’s what I’d say—

i don’t remember much about the character on the left, I think they’re only in there for that brief scene where we see them react as some rando gets thrown out of the brothel theyre standing in front of. They’re not treated like a joke, they just exist.

the one on the right is a yordle which is a race from LoL/arcane, which is why she looks “funko pop” esque. side note, she’s not the only yordle in the show and not all yordles are in the undercity. she’s only in one scene but has a somewhat important role. She’s not treated as a joke at all. When she seductively curls a finger at one of the side characters and he shies away and grimaces, I took that more as a kid (like a 13 year old) being creeped out that a lady old enough to be his grandma is trying to pull him into the brothel.

the whole scene this is a part of is just us being introduced to the city (“the undercity”) the main characters live in, it’s dark, it’s grimy, it’s the underbelly. We see shots of a lot of different types of creatures, different types of people, different races. The primary thing being portrayed here is how dangerous and non kid friendly the place is, as we see lots of criminals, shady characters, and ofc the aforementioned brothel.

all that being said, I’m not trans so I could be missing something here, but I feel like the screenshot is somewhat taken out of context. I myself had to go back and watch the scene to remember what happened.

Also, I really love the show and I think it’s a shame people are shying away from it because it’s based off league. Ofc you don’t have to watch anything you don’t want to, but it’s a great standalone story and I have a lot of friends who watched it despite hating league (and league players) and still enjoyed it!

Anyways sorry this was kind of long and I hope you don’t mind that I dropped into ur inbox despite not following u.

what you’re missing is that it is a joke. like, you’re telling me how you “took the scene” but you’re just wrong, sorry. like you don’t need to explain the scene to me! i went and watched it. and it’s transmisogynistic for all of the reasons i’ve described. just because there isn’t a massive punchline about her being a man in a dress doesn’t mean it isn’t transmisogynistic. like the audience is supposed to think that this huge muscular trans woman and her gremlin friend are disgusting and scary. it’s awesome that you didn’t and you thought this was just, oh cool, nice body types moment! but why were these specific women chosen for a joke about the seedy underbelly of this city? why these specific women for a joke about how scary this place is?

you have to stop closing your eyes when trans women point out the obvious. it is a transphobic joke. anybody trying to argue with me on that in my inbox will be blocked.

[aryesdanger24]

I'm done with comparisons here.

I need everyone to understand right here and right now.

Everyone had a good ending that befitted their character arc!

Spoilers below for the ending of Season 2 of Arcane, be advised.

We can be mad about Jayvik dying and not getting an absolute confirmation (though some may argue it is pretty clear) .

Some can be mad that there wasn't enough verbally said to add that romantic nature to CaitVi (once again, some may believe they have done more than enough)

IT ISNT A CONTEST!

I personally we are fortunate to have an ending that truly feels complete in some way. It was a good ending overall for everyone expectation wise.

Most of the time we get a physical show of love to confirm anything gay whereas lesbians often say some soft confirmation of love to be 'official' but this gave what media needed.

Lesbians showing a very physical and verbal show of their love while men are having their soft confirmation through verbalizing their love.

It's wonderful, even if you are unsatisfied by the ending for your ship (if you have one) that's why we have fanfiction, to explore what could have been.

You got a problem with the finale, write a what-if spinoff or write how it should have ended or what happened after the official ending.

Stop comparing Jayvik, CaitVi, and Time bomb. It's a waste of your time when you could be writing what you wished would happen in fanfic.

Be happy that the ending is something you can work with, be happy the possibility exists with a solid world built to utilize.

Heck, don't like the world? Build an AU (alternate universe) for them! Make them coffee shop owners, have them be military personnel, make them crazy European tourists!

Do something constructive and add to your Fandom instead of tearing down someone else's.

Getting mad at someone else's ship or flaunting about your own having a better ending is a waste of time and just literally detrimental to the show itself. Respect Arcane and what it was able to accomplish without push back, it is able to walk firmly because previous shows and their small steps.

So, in short, behave yourself. This may be the internet but your words stay forever. Don't try to bolster the status of your ship by pulling down someone else's.

If you feel called out by this, evaluate your recent behavior.

If you feel offended by this, really think about why you feel this way, because it probably isn't because of my language.

Yes yes, I know comparing shows is how we understand and make progress, but I am specifically talking about unhelpful dissertations or memes that specify a ship.

It's fine to write a logical explanation of why you prefer a different ship. It's absolutely fine to explain how something could have been better or evaluate the show and what it has done and could do better.

What's not fine is bashing it because your ship didn't have what you deem a good ending.

Not all people have good endings, not all characters will achieve their good ending despite how good they may be. That's simply the truth of reality and sometimes an author wants their story to mirror their idea of truth.

Respect the show and the work people put in it, and respect that someone else's joy does not deserve your anger just out spite.

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

Does a bad ending ruin a good story? A comprehensive guide to my feelings on the Arcane finale

*Spoilers for Arcane season 2*

So. You just finished the show, and you're staring at the screen in bewilderment. Perhaps you’re even with some friends, shouting words of confusion to the rolling credits. Try as you might, you can barely hear them, because a single thought echoes in your mind and pushes away any other:

“What the fuck just happened?”

If this happened to you, then boy oh boy, we're on the same boat. If it didn't, well, I'm glad for you friend! We might not have been looking for the same things from this story. But this is my post, meaning I will give my opinions (which are objectively correct because this is my blog and I'm the mayor here) on everything that Arcane broke and failed to deliver in its last 2 episodes.

Let's start with characters, and why none of it mattered.

Jinx symbolized the fear we all have of not belonging somewhere, of not having anything to call home or anyone to call a family. Her anger stemmed from wanting to carve a place in a society and a world that had so harshly rejected her (i.e., Vi leaving her). Her existence was a huge middle finger to all that refused to let her live, a fight to build herself something wholeheartedly hers (hence her being an inventor). It was proof that despite the world telling her she was better off dead, she would never stop fighting to prove it wrong.

… and she died.

She died, and that means all the suffering she went through to exist simply amounted to nothing. She left nothing behind either, no trace of a legacy, something that would have left her mark on that world. Isha, the child she raised as a daughter, died. Silco, who she taught love and care to, died. Vander, who she brought back from years of trauma and torture, died. Jinx fought so hard to live, and in the end, it was as if she hadn't lived at all.

Viktor is most certainly the character that made me the angriest, because of how attached I am to the person he is in season 1 (and even the first two acts of season 2 to an extent). Everything that made him so beautifully complex… gone, in about 10 minutes. There was NO reason to make him the surprise ultimate villain. Viktor had always, always been a pacificist. That's why he was so adamant Hextech not be used as a weapon. That's why every time there were chances to test hextech to hurt, he tried to learn how it could heal. Yes, his fusion with the hexcore had changed him; but NOT into a man who didn't care for human life. He wanted to help all the hurt done to his people. People like him, living day to day in the undercity, but who had never gotten a chance to crawl out of their hell. His community was about HEALING, not controlling. The very IDEA that he would accept killing innocents and ally with Noxus, the warmongers, is so ridiculous I could genuinely laugh if it didn't make me so angry. The show needed an easy, black-and-white showdown to conclude a story that would have needed so much more time to tell. And they chose Viktor. Because it was the easy way out. It was the perfect foil to the return of the Golden Boy. And that PISSES me off.

There is this really shitty concept in popular media that the handicapped/chronically ill character is always in the pursuit of being “cured” and that they need outside help to realize “that their imperfections make them perfect”. Fuck. You. As someone with chronic illness and who just finished beating blood cancer, fuck you. That realization, that you're you with every part of your being, even the ‘bad’ ones, cannot come from outside. It's YOU who needs to learn it. It's you who needs to discover how your body and your mind are so much stronger than you previously thought them to be. Not your lover, your family, your friends, or God forbid your able-bodied lab partner. You. Others may tell you as many times as they want your illness doesn't define you; it won't matter until you, yourself, have understood why and have accepted it. Having someone swoop in and “fix” Viktor with a “you don't have to change uwu” is just….. so reductive I can barely find the words for it. That was VIKTOR’S path to find, and not Jayce’s role to find it for him.

Also… Viktor wasn't trying to ‘fix’ his leg; he was trying to find a cure to a deadly illness ravaging his body and no doubt the bodies of many in Zaun. The HELL is the message here??? That he should have just rolled with it because the deadly illness was part of him??? Again, as a cancer survivor. Fuck right off.

Of course, I can't just ignore the hideous get-up they put him in at the end. The man who laughed at Jayce's narcissism….you want me to believe… he would put on that fucking edge lord costume and not DIE of embarrassment??? The design makes no sense from a narrative standpoint either: if his cane has become the sceptre, why is he still keeping it? He doesn't need it anymore to walk, and it's a reminder of his weaknesses as a human that he apparently hated so much. Why the hell does he keep it then? And the hexclaw. Where did that bad boy come out from?? Did you all see a secret extra bonus scene where he steals it from the lab, because I sure didn't. It doesn't add anything to his sets of powers either it’s… it's a fucking laser gun. WHY. And oh sweet god that mask… there would have been so many ways of designing a mask more meaningful than the one from LoL. This one is just. A piece of metal he spawned in embryo. Get it? Because he's made of metal now and also hiding his face means no more humanity? Get it?? Of fucking course you do, because this was the easiest and worst possible way they could have integrated the mask.

Viktor and Jayce had a fantastic dynamic in that Viktor had started out as the loner, the underdog scientist from the slums; while Jayce was the leader figure, living in comfort that made him attachingly naive, his face plastered on posters stroking his ego. The shift is delightfully slow, as Viktor gains in confidence and determination to see his invention through no matter what, while Jayce is confronted with harsher and harsher truths about the world he so blissfully ignored. By Act 2, they have fully switched roles: Viktor is now the leader figure, a symbol of the future for the people, while Jayce is desperately alone, both physically in the hexcore anomaly, and mentally in being the only one who has seen the devastating future. Excellent stuff. What would be a great way to push these parallels further and to show the complexity of these characters, and perhaps how they can balance each other out? Well, Fortiche sure didn't know, now Viktor is the bad bad guy and Jayce is mister hero. Zaun bad, Piltover good. All nuance, gone. Proving that indeed, the man from poverty and inequality turns out evil, while the one from comfort and wealth turns out to be the hero of the story. The whole “giving a warm speech to the bad villain about how you care for them, somehow immediately changing their ways, and dying together to save the world” can work well in shounen anime where friendship is magic, or in the Ben 10 live-action movie (yes, that's the plot, I thought that wasn't deep when I was like 7 years old so imagine now), but not in a show like Arcane. Not with the ethical and moral nuances they have accustomed us to.

And now, let's explore...

Plotholes and incomplete storylines galore.

Ekko’s tree and the contamination of Zaun from Piltover? Fuck that. The huge showdown between the two opposite yet sister cities, like Jinx and Vi, that has been built up for two seasons? Fuck that. And for what?

For the Noxus sequel teaser.

Mel’s plotline about finding her mage origins had NOTHING to do with the main plot. Absolutely nothing. It added 0 twists or intrigues to the story, and served no purpose except making her a deus ex machina for a broken ending. All it was there for was to lay the base for a following show on Noxus and the Black Rose. Time that could have been spent either giving Mel a proper arc related to the plot, or giving all the other rushed character arcs more development.

Finally, and I deeply regret having to say this, but… the end of Vi and Cait's relationship was majorly disappointing to me. As an LGBTQ+ person myself, who feels attraction to women, it was a delight to have such a realistically portrayed w/w relationship on screen. Popular media tends to portray m/m relationships as these doomed, sinful feelings between two repressed guys, while w/w relationships are shown to just be all sunshine and rainbows and teddy bears, because two women together are a cute little accessory to have on screen. It’s non-threatening. But not Cait and Vi; their bond was raw, and rocky, with violent lows and passionate highs in a world that seemed to want to keep them apart. Their separation and the introduction of Maddie showed the reality of a w/w relationship, where fights and cheating ARE things that happen, because they're two adult women with different beliefs, objectives, an trauma. Putting them back together, as if nothing had happened, without giving us anything about how their relationship would have evolved from the breakup? I'd never thought I'd say this, but it's too easy. How about Caitlyn's literal descent into fascism??? We’ll just ignore that? Vi will just ignore that?

As with everything else, this last part of Arcane destroys all the complex emotions that exist between these characters, the resentment, the anger, the frustration, built upon years of different social conditioning… gone. Because they had 2 episodes left to wrap it up, and there was no way to make a coherent and natural transition to them getting back together with that kind of time. And can I just say. The decision to have Vi, symbol of Zaun, go down on Caitlyn, symbol of Piltover and enforcers, in a prison cell that has held innocent Zaunites and represents their complete lack of freedom as individuals by a cop state that oppresses them….. yeah, bad. So bad.

And… the multiverse. Yup, they went the multiverse route. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing: the concept of multiverses itself is interesting in a vacuum, and quite a few properties have managed to make it work coherently. But it has been terribly overused and bastardized in serialized content in the last few years, for the simple reason that it's extremely practical. Why make a new, original series when you already have worlds and characters that are developed, and come with built-in fans? It's a money-saving hack! Why dedicate yourself to an ending that is meaningful in its finality and wraps the story properly when you can just say “It's just one ending in the multiverse!”. It takes away any accountability to the fans, and leaves the door open to a potential other version of the story! The perfect combo!

…except in practice, it comes off as lazy in a medium where that trope is overly saturated (don't start me on Marvel), and like a cowardly way of escaping from the responsibility of really taking the time to craft a good, solid ending to end your story.

So, with all that said: does it ruin Arcane for me? No, absolutely not, and I don’t think it should be for you either. The intricate artistry and raw talent that went into making the first season (and I would say a majority of the two first acts of season 2) is undeniable, and will stay undeniable. Nothing can touch that story. It will forever be one of my favourite pieces of animated media, which is saying a lot because I'm currently getting my master's degree on that topic.

However, it does give Arcane, as a whole rather than two separate seasons/entities, a very bittersweet feeling that is hard to forget. Thinking of what could have been, just if a little more time had been given to the minds behind the masterpiece you so loved… it's its own form of heartbreak. Academics have even compared it to experiencing a form of death of a loved one, before they ever got to reach their fullest potential and live the life they deserved. It may sound dramatic, but the feelings you feel in this moment, watching the horrible end of a fiction you have so much love for, are real. No one can take those away from you. You're allowed to grieve the loss of something that meant a lot to you.

Tldr; No, Arcane is not a bad series because of its rushed and incomprehensible ending. As they say, it's all about the journey, not the destination, even if that's one of the parts we tend to remember the most. And I don't know about you, but this was one of the best journeys I've ever been on.

[superstargaycare]

HES SO FUCKING RIGHT.

He’s so right on every single point he’s making. I’m completely new to this fandom, but I’ve been watching this show for years. And from what I’ve seen on here, he’s spitting on every single point he’s making.

Apparently nobody can do no wrong in these shows, unless you’re a women

This is an issue in every single fandom, but it’s SO prevalent here. I’m sorry to the VAs that have to deal with the brunt of people’s misogyny. Earth is one of my favorite characters. I was skeptical when they first introduced her, but they’ve crafted such a compelling and emotional story arc with her. Kat and everyone else on the team is doing an amazing job.

I know this fandom is probably made up of mostly actual children, but the lack of media literacy is insane. These characters have genuine depth to them. It’s so obvious the care that the VAs put into them. So I can only imagine how frustrating it is when people start to shit talk all over it based on a single moment. I’m not preaching “be nicer to the fictional characters!!” bc these guys don’t exist, but the people who write them do. Maybe just take a moment to wonder why you hate a character so much, and wonder if those really need to be outside thoughts. YouTube and Tumblr are public platforms. If you wouldn’t say it to the writers’ face, maybe rephrase (or just don’t say it at all).

We don’t owe you good writing

There’s a little part in me that self-indulgently wishes they’d stayed doing those badly rendered 3D model thumbnails. Because at least then people knew what they were getting into. This show will NEVER be a well-written masterpiece. It’s well written at moments, for sure. Honestly, most of it is well written.

Not just “well written considering their resources” or “well written for a forever series”. No, just full stop, this show is good. But people desperately need to remember that this is five nights at Freddy’s roleplay. This is a story told thru fnaf vrchat. There is genuinely no need in the world to take it so seriously.

I know the bad writing moments can be disappointing (nexus fan over here). But that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. There are still real people behind this series, so please just try to be more considerate of what y’all put out there.

Hey guys please watch this clip created by JustALilKid taken from Davis' stream.

This community has gone so downhill one of the main, iconic and good people, Kat, is considering quiting.

All because we're greedy pieces of shits.

We gotta get our shit together friends, this is not fucking okay. Why do the VAs and ordinary people in the fandom keep having to deal with this crap?

Why can't people just keep hate to themselves?

What pleasure do they get out of saying in the public:

"Oh this is absolute garbage blah blah".

I'm sorry once again for opening my mouth, I don't know if anyone else will make a post about this. I have to thank my friend @sili-redwing for pointing this out on a group chat we have.

[doctorprofessorsong]

I've been waiting to really have some time to type out my thoughts about the Ody3, and now I have managed to sneak away, so here you go.

Doctor Odyssey is not being presented as a love triangle, but instead as a throuple. A basic tenet of polyamory for a lot of people is: one person cannot meet all my emotional and physical needs.

And to be crystal clear, that's also something the show has expressly outlined. The captain said it. Out loud. About a throuple. So it's not like this is unintentional.

With that, here's why this throuple story is balanced and conveying clearly that they each meet separate and important emotional needs (physically they've all said it was awesome so let's assume the sex is good)

Avery - Avery is an interesting character because she is very smart and largely defines herself by academic accomplishments. In fact, she is considering med school but doesn't have a burning need to be a doctor. She just feels like it's what she should do. This wars with her nature to pursue pleasure. She wants to see the world. She isn't interested in settling down. And she has a fear of commitment that stems from being hurt while envisioning a future where she has "fixed" herself and has kids and a spouse. She also froze her eggs, which takes commitment, but didn't say kids as her bucket lost goal.

Tristan - Tristan is all heart. He's touchy and feels deeply and openly and unapologetically. He openly loves, appreciates being wanted, and tbh is a himbo (honorific). He also is terrified of being left because of his mother who love bombed and abandoned him over and over again. He craves something stable while also being absolutely terrified of getting it and either losing it or losing his taste for it. He wants kids but isn’t willing to risk his heart unless he knows his partner is all in on him which is basically an impossibility at the front end of a relationship.

Max - Max is smart and he knows it. He loves learning new things with an enthusiasm most people don't appreciate. But that's both an attribute and a drawback for him because Max hides behind his knowledge when he's scared or hurt. Rather than be vulnerable, he falls into a pattern of professionalism and authority (earned or not). He longs to let his hair down, but stepping out of his self-imposed role is terrifying.

So knowing all that, let's look at them ttogether.

Max and Avery - these two absolutely thrive in an academic or cerebral challenge. They challenge each other and push each other intellectually. They are attracted to the other in part by those sexy brains. But they have no idea how to cross the divide on an emotional level. Avery has no clue how to tease Max out of his rigid walls (something she seems to acknowledge when asking Tristan to help with the throuple idea). And Max also can't figure that out. Also, Max encourages Avery's instinct to define herself by academic achievements (not purposely so much as because they are too alike here)

Max and Tristan - Max and Tristan have similar life goals but it's the way they connect emotionally that is the key to the balance for both characters. Tristan can reach Max, like he did in the mid season finale. He breaks the ice around Max's heart. Max, meanwhile, gives Tristan and stability and maturity he craves. And Max feels like he's a constant. He may retreat behind his walls and rules, but you get the feeling that if he lets that guard down, he would be a steady partner.

Avery and Tristan - these two like each other. They're close. They care about each other. Yet they didn't find a space without Max. I think it's because they are both too prone to having fun (Avery) and running away from commitment (both of them). Tristan has historically held Avery up as an idea while not seeing the person. Avery has either dismissed Tristan or recognized she isn't willing to give him the steady commitment he craves. They are GREAT for each other. They care about each other and support each other and connect so well. But neither of them is in a space where a healthy relationship can form on their own.

When you put them all together, you start to see both how they fulfill certain needs in each other but also how they fill in the gaps. No pairing stands alone. It's unbalanced. But together, they work so well.

Interestingly, we're shown that. They are best when they are together and on the same page. Things feel unbalanced when they aren't on screen together. Even when they work well together one on one, eventually coming together as a triad is like an emotional home base for them.

[homestuckreplay]

Today Is A Gift, That’s Why They Call It The Present: Who Is Jade Harley?

Character Deep Dive 4 – 11/26/2009

Jade Harley, the silliest and most unknowable of Homestuck characters. Jade’s first pesterlog appearance was way back on page 110, and her existence and involvement in forces beyond our real world comprehension has been teased ever since – but it took hundreds of pages and months of real time waiting for Jade to finally become a point of view character. Just like with Rose and Dave, what we learn from Jade’s pesterlogs isn’t a complete picture of who she is. Jade is excitable, bubbly and supportive in her conversations, aware that she’s seen as mysterious and working to cultivate that. As a point of view character it’s harder for Jade to maintain her own mystery, and we see a fuller spectrum of her emotions, as well as a picture of her day to day life. In many ways Jade’s life is easier than her friends’, but she has a few of her own challenges.

Organized by the list of Jade’s interests given on page 789, here’s a discussion of what we learn about Jade during the early part of act 3. It's about 5k words below the cut and only covers up to page 916 of Homestuck.

1 - You are an avid follower of CARTOON SHOWS OF CONSIDERABLE NOSTALGIC APPEAL.

Jade doesn’t spend a lot of time on this interest, but she surrounds herself in it by falling into her plushy pile before she uses her computer. She has posters on her walls for Squiddles and Green Slime Ghost, both of which were invented internally to Homestuck, unlike John whose bedroom posters are all for real world media. Jade also has a large number of Squiddle ‘Tangle Buddies’, and a squiddle and (blue) slime ghost are symbol options for her shirt.

Owning so much merchandise, Jade clearly isn’t embarrassed by this interest. As Rose’s shirt is a doctored Squiddle, Rose may have previously shared this interest, but moved on from it – Jade describes these shows as ‘nostalgic’ on both page 789 and 790, so she’s trying to hold onto these articles of her youth. They also give the sense of an eclectic taste; as they’re unfamiliar to the reader and no wider fandom is established for them, they feel like cartoons found only on budget TV channels or dusty corners of the internet. MS Paint Adventures being the only modern media we see her consume only enhances this.

Jade’s nostalgic media extends beyond board games, as her fetch modus options are common childhood board games. As well as retaining these childlike interests and playfulness, Jade is described by the narrative as ‘silly’ – a silly girl with silly antics and a silly name (p.760), a silly flute refrain (p.769), an awfully silly idea (p.774), and a silly girl with silly fortune telling knickknacks (p.802). As well as setting up a contrast between Dave (regularly described as ‘cool’, which by some logic is an antonym of ‘silly’), this feels like it diminishes her importance, casting her actions as entertaining but ultimately meaningless. Between pages 838 and 860, the story flips back and forth between the peril of Rose’s imminent meteors, and Jade whose only goal is to feed her pet.

There’s a surface impression that life is easy for Jade. She has a large, comfortable house, a sylladex she’s confident with, a guardian who she doesn’t hate and isn’t outright cruel, toys, space, safety from danger, mastery over all her own hobbies. From day one, John had to struggle with sylladex mechanics and retrieving his own arms, but Jade is unaffected even by the inconvenience of stairs, and is later shown as having more knowledge than the player. It almost feels like she’s spoiled by the narrator with this easier existence, which isn’t necessarily good for her, just like being spoiled by a parent might not be good for a kid. Ultimately, if there’s no sense that Jade needs to learn or overcome anything, she becomes less compelling – so I’m invested in noticing where she has room for growth.

2 - You have a profound zeal for marvelous and fantastical FAUNA OF AN ANTHROPOMORPHOLOGICAL PERSUASION.

In addition to her cartoon show posters, Jade has two pieces of furry art on her walls, plus a picture of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff as furries. This of course was a gift from Dave, the friend Jade sometimes discusses her furry tendencies with. These plus her FurAffinity account show an enjoyment of the furry aesthetic, but her relationship with being a furry is complicated, and something she adopts far less uncritically than her other interests.

Jade insists that she does not have a fursuit as they are ‘raggedy synthetic tufty piece[s] of crap’ and that dressing up like an animal ‘seems ridiculous’ (p.802). We don’t learn whether Jade has made a fursona or makes furry art of her own (vampireprincess007, the FurAffinity account Jade is looking at on page 834, doesn’t seem like a username she’d pick), but we get a sense of the ways Jade distances herself from the furry community. She thinks of combining the ‘finest qualities’ of humans and animals, wishing for ears and a ‘proud snout’ to ‘assist… in the hunt’. She also seeks a ‘more visceral sapience’ that is ‘untouched by the concerns and burdens of the upright’ (p.797). When she imagines being an animal, she wants to ‘run wild’ or ‘purr and frolic’ (p.802).

Jade collects Manthro Chaps, dolls with assortments of human and animal body parts who may have hands and flippers, snouts and mustaches. They have human names and attend events such as balls, need vaccinations, and take care of bodily needs in animalistic ways. Much like Jade’s desire for animal senses and experiences, Jade’s Manthro Chaps are a true physical merging of the human and animal. Jade does not want to wear the trappings of an animal if she can’t also have that biological change, and if she can’t develop that instinctive behavior of eating bugs, hunting, and losing the language and inhibitions of human existence.

Jade has a pet named Becquerel who is also her ‘best friend’ (p.791), and while we don’t know his species, it’s possible that spending so much time with him has fed into the desire to live like him. He also may not be a regular animal – both Dave and the narrator refer to him as a ‘devilbeast’ (p.382, 800) and he eats his steak not just well cooked, but irradiated. This could also be why her rifle’s ‘cross-hairs would never settle on an innocent creature’ (p.790). Jade is likely an animal lover in general, as she has this deep and considered understanding of how it must feel to be a different creature, and is very in touch with the natural world.

3 - You have an uncanny knack for NUCLEAR PHYSICS, and not infrequently can be found dabbling in RATHER ADVANCED GADGETRY.

Jade’s forays into gadgetry are all over her room, and she’s downplaying her own skill with ‘rather’. So far we know about Jade’s Wardrobifier, Atomic/Electic Bass with portable amp, Sonar boxes transmitting her music into the atrium, Cookalizer, Refrigerator, and Lunchtop. Her house also has several Transportalizers, although their designer is unknown. Jade’s orb and spire bed, the atomic cabinet beneath her room, the strange flat window device whose design she borrowed from her grandfather, and a host of other objects on her gadgets table are unknowns but it’s clear that just like Rose with her knitting, Jade is prolific, dedicated and puts a lot of time into her hobby.

Jade doesn’t feel constrained in the design of her technology. Sometimes she uses squares and cubes like those in the Skaianet labs, sometimes she’ll play on common designs by giving a refrigerator a rotary interface or adding extra heat settings to a cookalizer, and sometimes she’ll invent something with no relation to existing tech. Jade hits all the design notes – smooth and sleek vs greebled, futuristic vs retro vs encased in a lunchbox – so she’s willing to try different things.

We learn that for Jade, ‘experimentation is not a particularly exact science, and [she] lean[s] heavily on SHARP INTUITION for consistently and eerily optimal results’ (p.790), so she’s basically living the scientist’s dream of fucking around without having to find out. It’s a lot easier to take risks and experiment with an intuition that guarantees success. To what extent does Jade understand the theoretical principles of nuclear physics? When she can’t get something to work, like right now with the window device, what’s her troubleshooting process like? Is she used to working through this emotionally? Jade did claim to have worked on a present for John ‘for years!!!!’ (p.442) so I think that even if Jade has an intuitive understanding of design, she still has to do the work to put these gadgets together, which can be time consuming and technically difficult.

Jade’s interest in gadgetry is tied to an interest in music. Like her friends she is highly proficient in an instrument, but Jade’s is ‘heavily customized to accommodate a high level of musical virtuosity’ (p.821) – its ‘advanced setting’ has two sets of strings and three keyboards, which Jade can apparently handle from a musical perspective. I think this is something she’s worked at, because when she attempts to play the flute, the narration comments, ‘Maybe you should try playing an instrument you actually know how to play instead’ (p.770). If Jade’s music was entirely based on her intuition, picking up the flute would be easy. She’s also limited by her own physical form; the advanced bass cannot be played ‘in person’ (p.821), so only having two arms and five foot something of height feels like a bigger limitation in this hobby than her brain.

Despite being generally competent with technology, Jade is surprised by its misuse, shocked and angry when carcinoGeneticist trolls her despite her blocking them and logging out. Jade is not a gamer, knowing Sburb by reputation but not by name, and saying that John and Dave are ‘way more into all that stuff than i am!!!!’ (p.442), and therefore she’s not immersed in the gamer culture that leads to cruel online behavior. It’s nice to think that Jade, despite being an internet user, has escaped the cynicism and hatred that is common online and has found positive spaces for herself.

Jade is a proficient sylladex user, easily mastering technologies she didn’t make too. While John struggles with remembering how many cards he has free, Rose doesn’t realize she can pull the leave instead of the root, and Dave has to use Y as a consonant to get the hash map to work, Jade is educating the player on correct sylladex management and can perfectly guess the memory modus on the first try. But this has limitations, too. Jade captchalogues a pumpkin on page 778 and by page 785 it’s vanished, so Jade’s sylladex isn’t a safe storage place. In fact, her house is a hotspot for other people’s strange technology as well as her own, which I’ll discuss more later. Additionally, there are some problems that Jade can’t solve with technology. Any issues with her grandfather, for example, or with her remote location. Jade sends a parcel several months before its delivery date (p.442) and receives mail via hot air balloon (p.822) but for some reason has never invented a disappearifier that could instantly take her to a friend’s house. Despite her many talents, she remains stuck at home.

4 - You enjoy sporadic fits of NARCOLEPSY;

Jade is sleeping when we first meet her, so this is technically the first interest we see her engaging in. And the word ‘enjoy’ is crucial here. Most people do not enjoy their medical conditions, and regularly, uncontrollably dropping off to sleep can cause serious problems, but Jade treats this like many intentional nappers do, slumbering ‘peacefully’ such that it’s ‘a shame to wake her’ (p.760).

Jade doesn’t know the details of her condition. When she wakes, it’s sudden and ‘as usual, [she] ha[s] no recollection of having falling asleep’ (p.768) and in a conversation with Dave, he asks ‘do you even know if you are [asleep]’ (p.829). Jade is driven by impulse and intuition, and doesn’t question those impulses much. In a more extreme example, she doesn’t question her sudden falling asleep in inconvenient circumstances, but figures out how to work around it.

When John takes a rooftop nap between battles, Jade’s silhouette appears in his dreams (p.644) and when he wakes, she tells him ‘i really think you need to wake up first!… not literally, well ok maybe KINDA literally!!’ Jade’s connection to sleep goes beyond her narcolepsy, and she places importance on sleeping, waking, and possibly the balance between the two. Jade is defined by her faith in a higher power, so she probably trusts this same power with deciding when she should move between sleeping and waking. It’s also likely that Jade’s orb and spire bed has something to do with this interest.

It’s not possible for Jade to be woken with the player’s cursor (p.762) but it is possible to both put her to sleep and wake her up while she’s playing the flute (p.769) by pressing the Z key – which highlights how quickly she sleeps and wakes, because any other button has her bouncing right back up.

Sleep is crucial for health and relaxation; gardening and gadgetry both involve some manual labor, and Jade valuing sleep ties in with her enjoyment of nostalgic television, lying down in a pile of dolls, and carrying fresh fruits and vegetables. Despite her exterior silliness and forgetfulness, there’s a strong sense that Jade has internalized her grandfather’s lectures, and knows how to take care of herself and her pet – she cares about health and safety, and even though she programmed an ‘explosion’ setting on her cookalizer, she refuses to use it. Having such state of the art technology helps with taking care of herself, but it still takes work, and by cooking steak for Bec Jade is the only kid who’s helping with personal and household maintenance. So, Jade’s enjoyment of sleep stands in for a more general understanding of daily necessities.

5 - your love of GARDENING transcends the glass confines of your ATRIUM;

Long foreshadowed by her chumhandle, when we caught our first glimpse of Jade on page 665, she was already surrounded by her plants. Jade grows a variety of fruits, flowers and vegetables, and doesn’t have much concern for their typical growth conditions. Peas, for example, grow best in a cooler climate, while squash likes it hot and humid, but Jade has these next to each other. Jade’s vegetables are best suited for temperate climates while her citrus fruits prefer things more tropical. Some quirk of Jade’s atrium or gardening methods means she doesn’t have to worry about this.

Gardening is another hobby Jade has tied to her gadgetry. When Jade plays her bass, it transmits sonar into her garden atrium, causing the plants to grow rapidly. It’s possible that these speakers are amplifiers for Skaian technology, and turn Jade’s house into a beacon, and a target for appearifying pumpkins. Some of Jade’s plants are ordinary, but her fruits have faces and are able to bounce around on the table (p.812). This is uncommon for us, but to Jade these are just regular fruits. This could be another effect of the sonar, or more generally, of the environmental conditions on the island. We know that volcanic activity creates a geothermal power source on Jade’s island (p.801) and can guess that mystic activity surrounding the frog statue creates a similar Skaian power source. And that places her as the (0,0) coordinate that all Skaian technology gravitates towards, and is maybe even the ‘default location’ for technology such as appearifiers.

Jade has plants in her bedroom, but she also has a large, four-wing garden atrium dedicated to this passion (p.780). It’s another big difference between Jade and the other kids that Jade’s interests are allowed to spill outside of her room. Her grandfather does control the aesthetic of most of the house, but giving Jade the garden atrium leads to a slightly more balanced relationship between the two.

Gardening as a hobby is something that requires regular input, something where results can’t always be seen right away, something imprecise as it involves living things that will behave surprisingly, something very messy, and something historic, engaged in by humans for millennia. Much like sleep, it links to the idea of routine, as plants often need watering on a set schedule. Plants are a way of providing food; especially on a tiny island where packages take months to deliver, Jade’s gardening must play a big part in keeping her healthy and alive, so again this ties into Jade’s responsibility for herself. Jade won’t hunt animals so this is her way of being a provider.

Jade is also connected to the messier, more unpleasant sides of nature. The player temporarily names her ‘Farmstink’, she will happily ‘squeal like a piglet and fertilize some plants’ (p.775), she’s delighted by the Manthro Chaps with their slop troughs, and she cares for a pet, which is always messy business. Clearly Jade isn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty, and understands the messy realities of giving life.

6 - and you are at times prone to patterns of PRECOGNITIVE PROGNOSTICATION.

Seemingly affecting all aspects of her day to day existence, Jade has spent her whole life tapped into a source of esoteric knowledge. Broadly, this gives her the ability to know certain events in the future, intuitively understand various games and technology, and possibly to understand the fourth wall and her place within a story. This ‘interest’ in prognostication is really more of an uncontrollable habit, and subsumes all Jade’s other interests, as it alters the experience of them so much.

Jade dispenses knowledge to her friends through pesterlogs, with varying levels of specificity. Jade has clearly given Rose a lot of information on their upcoming Sburb session – the fact that John and Rose begin play first, that it will happen on April 13, 2009, and that the game has the potential to revive the dead – and Rose describes her predictions as ‘frighteningly accurate’ (p.838). So she’s very honest with Rose, but maybe less so with John, as she gives him a vague ‘maybe this is your destiny’ (p.293) and asks him if he’s received a package when she knows he hasn’t. So not only does Jade have knowledge her friends don’t, but she’s careful about when to share it and with who.

Currently a lot of Jade’s visions involve gifts, which is funny because they don’t only relate to the present. In a flashback, Jade asks Rose about a different package, but gives Rose a future tip instead of sending her something – sharing her gift (as in talent) in place of a gift (as in present). Jade uses colorful reminders on her fingers to remember her own predictions, which is another limitation on her powers – predicting the future is great but it’s important to remember what’s been predicted, at the time it will be relevant. If Jade lost these reminders somehow, she might struggle to make sense of her predictions.

Jade’s visions appear specific in their timing and detail – at the end of conversations, Jade tells other people when they have to go, and sometimes tells them the reason (p.652, 838) although it’s uncertain whether she makes these predictions in advance or in the moment. Jade doesn’t only know that her friends will play Sburb, she also knows that Rose will lose her internet connection and that John will battle a pair of ogres – minutiae that are only available to the reader. And her predictions can understand people’s interiority, they’re not just visions from an outside observer - ‘you will have your questions answered, but they will be the ones you havent thought to ask yet!’ (p.838). Ignoring in-universe time, Jade’s predictions get more specific as the narrative progresses, so there’s a sense that she always knows slightly more than the reader or player and is staying one step ahead (even though this can be best explained by the author crystallizing their plans as they continue writing).

However, Jade’s predictions feel largely passive, always phrased like an unconscious understanding. She is a conduit for information, but there’s no sense that she could ‘choose’ to know the answer to a specific question, especially as she doesn’t know how these powers work. So if Skaia wanted to hide something from Jade or was itself incapable of knowing something, that would place another limitation on her abilities. We may have already seen this with the window device that Jade can’t get to work, despite gadgetry usually coming so easily to her.

Jade previously had an oracle’s trunk, but is slowly turning it into a gadget chest, as its contents were ‘completely bogus’ (p.802) – a crystal ball, velvet pillow, tarot deck, magic 8 ball, magic cue ball, and copy of Problem Sooth, mostly standard equipment for somebody interested in the occult. Jade dismisses the magic 8 ball as she has tested it against her own knowledge, but she is still superstitious about breaking it, suggesting a more general belief in supernatural powers, even while she sees them as inferior to her own.

Jade presents herself as all knowing, but she’s not sure why things keep appearing and disappearing around her atrium, she’s not sure why she falls asleep and importantly, she imagines John as ‘undoubtedly gallivanting around his house in a state of barely restrained birthday mirth’ (p.827) – so Jade’s knowledge is sometimes incomplete, sometimes inaccurate. But Jade turning her fortune telling chest into a gadgets chest shows that she sees her predictions scientifically, as more akin to understanding radiation or the atom than to tarot readings or horoscopes, without acknowledging the uncertainties that are still present in hard science. In fact, the way Jade talks about occult paraphernalia and fursuits are fairly similar. She is, or wants, the ‘real deal’ of everything, and doesn’t have time for what she sees as cheap imitations.

I believe that Skaian power breaks down the barriers between technology and reality, allowing creations such as Jade’s lunchtop, but also allowing Jade to see the fourth wall between herself and the readers’ computers. When we first meet Jade, she’s holding a note directed to the player, slightly offended that she will be/has been named Farmstink Buttlass (fair enough). Jade addresses the player directly during the ill-advised sylladex escapade where she gives a non-seer a chance to play the memory modus. She’s the first kid to refer directly to the author of the in-universe MS Paint Adventures - ‘looks like he was just finishing up some sort of weird tangential intermission’ (p.831), the ‘he’ presumably being Andrew Hussie. And Jade gains a sudden awareness that 413 years in the future while flying over the Pacific, the Peregrine Mendicant is asking ‘Don’t I know you?’ (p.900). Part of Jade’s prognostication involves knowing about all these different forces that are surveilling and controlling her, and being able to talk back. Jade is prepared to assert her dominance, whether that’s about knowing her sylladex better than the player does or frying PM’s command station with lightning because she doesn’t like being mind controlled. In this way Jade is more than a passive recipient of knowledge, she’s willing to look at the source of that knowledge and hold her own. Right now Jade feels like the most likely character to mess with the narrative itself – if she decides she wants to change something that’s predestined, it’s easy to see her arguing with the author directly.

7 - But you quickly realize this is only one half of your room, and is therefore host to only half of your INTERESTS to choose from.

This line from the end of page 789 is mostly a lie – the following page mostly recaps Jade’s previous interests, only adding her strife specibus and relationship with her grandfather. It is curious how Jade’s interests overflow from the page the same way they overflow from her room, the same way Jade’s introduction isn’t confined to her room and her existence spills out of the narrative. It gives the sense that Jade can’t be constrained by any force we yet know about. That’s a fun feeling – a wild card character makes everything more exciting.

Jade is a ‘skilled markswoman’ (p.790), owning four old fashioned looking guns. Two of these are long rifles for her riflekind specibus, and two are smaller and more portable. One is a hunting rifle, although it’s uncertain what Jade is hunting, as Jade’s ‘cross-hairs would never settle on an innocent creature’. It’s possible that she’s likely to encounter dangerous creatures if she leaves the house, or thinks she might in the future. Target practice is also a physical activity like bass playing or gardening, and one that can’t be taught through prognosticative powers, so it’s possible that Jade has honed this skill to have hobbies that take actual work, practice, and failure.

Although Jade claims to be a ‘great admirer’ of her grandfather’s (p.790), her actual feelings seem more complicated. He’s the person who taught her to hunt and lectures her on leaving the house without a rifle, but they differ ethically, with Jade really disliking the big game trophies he displays around the house. She especially dislikes his Typheus trophy, which he won’t move from the transportalizer even for practicality’s sake. Jade reluctantly supports his valiant knight collection, cannot stand his decrepit mummies, and seems confused by the Daughters of Eclectica, uncertain of why her grandfather likes them so much. Jade also describes her grandpa as ‘a little strict’ (p.772), giving ‘stern lectures’ (p.790), and especially ‘intense’ (p.382, 790, 916).

Like the other kid-guardian relationships, I think there’s a lack of understanding between the generations. Grandpa Harley has only been seen in silhouette, but from his home decoration, his monopolizing the grand foyer, and his apparent job title of an explorer-naturalist-treasure hunter-archaeologist-scientist-adventurer-big game hunter-billionaire, he comes across as someone bragadocious who likes to be surrounded by his own success and is in love with his own mythos, someone who has high expectations for Jade to live up to his own standards, and is controlling but in a hands off way. Needing to display so many of his achievements feels like he’s putting on the same act of coolness as Dave’s bro, but Grandpa cares about what was cool in 1909, not 2009. Jade’s grandpa has traveled a lot and been shaped by many years of adventuring, while Jade has likely never left the island or met many other people, so there’s a gulf in their experiences that’s hard to bridge. Jade can’t know what it’s like to live under the weight of her own history and celebrity, but her grandfather similarly can’t understand growing up in that shadow and in the expectations of eclipsing it.

If Jade is full on, excitable, a prodigy and a polymath, it’s clear who she gets it from. And Jade is maybe 50% between buying into the public image of her grandpa that he’s surely put across in media coverage, and 50% understanding the reality of him as a human being, the way somebody famous and star-studded can also be difficult, inconvenient, and make life harder when interacting on a day to day basis.

Final Thoughts

With a life much harder to relate to than John’s, Rose’s or Dave’s, I’m fascinated by what it’s like in Jade’s mind – to hold knowledge about the past, present and future all at once, to be certain what tomorrow will bring, and to communicate with an entity centuries in the future is a radically different experience to my own, and must really affect how Jade engages with the world. The main characters have gotten progressively weirder as we’ve been introduced to them in turn, but Jade is the only one to feel truly fantastical, guided by her powers as she is.

I can’t think of another piece of media that introduces characters so starkly, with no artifice, just a cleanly presented list of their interests. I love this framework; it paints an immediate picture of where these kids are in their lives as of April 13, 2009, leaving space for these interests to take on greater or lesser roles as the narrative progresses, but still shaping their perspectives and giving them texture from the first moment.

It’s also really interesting seeing the narrative work in introductions for these characters while the main story is still happening, allowing the new character space to explore without grinding the story to a halt. With around 75 consecutive pages, Jade’s introduction is much more leisurely than Rose or Dave’s, as they only had around 25 pages each. Slowly, and in narratively satisfying ways as Jade thinks about or talks to each of her friends, the other characters have been worked back in, turning Act 3 from Jade’s story into an ensemble piece.

As I get further into Homestuck, I’m finding myself with fewer burning questions, and more faith in the story’s method of revealing itself. But here’s the things on my mind as our fourth and final Beta Kid takes her place in the narrative.

What is Jade bad at? What are the skills that don’t come easily to Jade, or the everyday tasks where she struggles and makes mistakes?

Under what circumstances does Jade receive her knowledge, and in what form? Would she still have access to these powers in a different location? Is what Jade knows at all tied to what the player or reader knows?

Does Jade’s grandfather know about Skaia, and is this why he chose to live on this island, or is this coincidence? What exactly are his expectations for her, and what does he lecture her about beyond carrying a rifle and becoming a Daughter of Eclectica?

What does it mean for the narrative when a character knows more than the player? More than the author? How does an author even write a character like that? When does everything start falling apart?

Will these be our four main characters for the rest of the story, with WV and PM as secondary characters? Is this the end of major character introductions? Or are there more to come?