#also meaningless character regression

[terukotime]

thinking about Ace and Eden again and how i really don't want either of them to be the culprit lol. i just feel like either one being the blackened would be a waste of their potential. i know in Danganronpa that's bound to happen with some characters, but Ace and Eden both have traits and arcs that could run through the whole series, or at the very least, to the next chapter. while a big part of any killing game story is losing characters quickly and having their arcs and growth cut short (we've already seen as much with Arei, rest in peace queen), Eden and Ace have a lot of prominence in the Trust vs. Distrust theme of drdt, on either side respectively. and they both have a lot of potential for their views to change. i can totally see Eden's optimism finally starting to crack, and she begins to lose hope in trusting others and thinking they're good-intentioned, especially since she was put in virtually the same place that Teruko was in in the last trial, with everyone distrusting her and thinking she's the culprit. though Ace hasn't had much of a catalyst to alter his beliefs yet, there's still hope for his views to change. he's a lot like how Teruko began to behave after the first trial, thinking he can't trust or rely on anybody and pushing everyone away as much as possible.

[giant-ass analysis under the cut. i didn't expect myself to go on such a huge rant, but i realized i have quite a lot of thoughts on the matter lmao. there are probably a lot of hot takes in here and i know there will be people who won't agree with me, so take this all with a grain of salt, pls & thx]

while Ace's role in the trials is mostly confined to causing conflict and being a comedic relief, he's expressed being committed to investigating the scene of Arei's death. while sure, if Ace is the culprit, his desire to investigate could very well be a ruse. but for the sake of his potential, it'd be far more interesting if him being innocent results in him going on to investigate more thoroughly and contribute substantially to the trials. Arei did have potential for a full redemption arc, but her death doesn't feel narratively unfulfilled. its tragedy not only allows the audience to further sympathize with Arei and see just how nuanced she was, but it's also meaningful to the members of the cast, and will serve as a point of motivation for them, whether that be to maintain hope in escaping or giving into despair.

at least, that's how it's set up to be. i feel that if either Eden or Ace are the culprit, Arei's death loses a good deal of its weight and meaning. especially if the culprit is Eden; even if she had "well-intentioned" motivations for killing her (as well-intentioned as murder motivations can be, anyway), Arei's breakdown, desire to change, and tragically short path to redemption is rendered pointless. her want to be a good person will have affected virtually no one. her death will have only held significance to David, as most of the cast didn't care for Arei or hated her, much like Ace.

while Culprit Ace won't render Arei's death *as* meaningless as Culprit Eden, it sure would make Ace's own death feel pretty meaningless. he'd be dying in a trial where he fully believes everyone is cruel, everyone hates him, and no one cares about him at all. his shift in his belief can't really be considered much of an arc or even a regression; he just descends further into his hatred and paranoia until he dies doing exactly what the killing game expects of him. Ace, a character who has prioritized his self-preservation all throughout the series, will have thrown that away for...what? revenge against Nico? would he really place his hatred for them over his fear and will to live? Ace is impulsive and narrow-minded, but he's not without *some* sense. if Ace were to be the culprit of this chapter, what would he have contributed to the story? what would his existence have meant? what would he have provided that the story can't progress without? he'd have zero growth, zero stakes, and zero relevance to the ongoing plot, aside from unrevealed backstory (most of which will likely go unsaid in the main story if he were to die now). do i think Ace is going to play a significant role in the overarching story? no. not as much as characters like Xander and David, anyway. but he still has so much to offer as either a survivor or later victim/culprit, as we'll have spent more time with him, gotten a better understanding of him, and possibly be able to sympathize with him, like we do with Arei.

and here's another thing i've been thinking about, too: all the deceased so far have a point of significance to the story. Xander has a connection to the larger-scale mystery surrounding the killing game and a complex relationship with David. he continues to be relevant in the story even after his death and will likely always be.

Min is not only a cautionary tale to the rest of the cast, but her story follows a very cohesive path:

she's a girl committed to her academics and has been led to believe it's the only thing about her that matters ->

while not a social butterfly, she still enjoys spending time with others and making the most of the situation she's in ->

she forms a bond with Teruko, someone who has shown to value both her intelligence and her personality ->

she finds Teruko being murdered by Xander, and instead of being a bystander, she takes action to save her friend ->

she realizes that what she did has jeopardized her own life, a life that she does not center around herself. her family depends on her having a successful future, a future she has been groomed to achieve since she was little and has made several sacrifices for ->

though Teruko is her friend, Min prioritizes her self-preservation. there are too many things that are objectively more important to her than the life of a girl she's known for a couple days ->

still, she cannot shake her guilt and chooses to remain at Teruko's side throughout the investigation ->

she's desperate to maintain her lie, even if it means framing the friend she tried to save and getting everyone else killed. she fights and fights until she can no longer ->

she loses everything. her life, her future, the trust of her friends, the trust and bond she had with Teruko. Min always had good intentions. but even good-intentioned people can do terrible things.

Min's story throughout Chapter 1 alone is very digestible and easy to follow. even without knowing the greater contexts of her life, like her family's financial situation or her groomed future of being a Hope's Peak student, her motives and actions make complete sense. you don't come away from it feeling like she acted out of character or that her death was hasty or sloppily written. her death has a lot of meaning and impact on the other characters.

and that alone makes Culprit Eden or Culprit Ace unsatisfying. Culprit Eden would not only undermine Arei's death and potentially lead her into character derailment, it'd also just be Min's story regurgitated in a much less compelling manner. Teruko has already had her trust broken, and while it seems like she's slowly starting to see the value in relying on others again in the Chapter 2 trial, what good would Eden's death do for her? even if it causes Teruko to regress, what will change? wouldn't Teruko go back to being the way she was acting at the start of the chapter, undoing whatever growth was already beginning to happen? will she be unaffected by Eden's death, or at least act like it? will it somehow strengthen her desire to trust and rely on others again? (it won't.) Eden's role as the chapter 2 culprit really won't do much good for the story, regardless of what her reasons are. everything we've learned about Eden and Arei, both together and individually, will be irrelevant. the significance of Arei wanting to be Eden's friend unconditionally, something that we learn is so significant for her because of her secret, will turn out to actually be pointless because Eden will have killed the one person who expressed they'd be her friend her regardless of who she is.

Ace simply hasn't done enough in the story to establish his deeper character. with Xander, Min, and Arei, we already got glimpses into their core beliefs, their true selves, their moral standings. if those aspects of a character are only revealed after they're confirmed to be the culprit, then honestly...that's just bad writing. i don't like saying that, but i firmly believe it. not only do we hardly know anything about Ace's backstory, we just don't know a whole lot about him other than surface-level things the show outright tells us: he's fearful and paranoid, he doesn't like being a jockey, he's hotheaded and unsociable, he developed an eating disorder due to the strict requirements of his talent, he's hardly ever had any friends, he doesn't think anyone cares about him. and while a lot of inferences can be made from that information, it's still very speculative, and even a bonus episode after his execution wouldn't be able to cover enough of his backstory and personal life for it to feel justified narratively. you simply can't kill him off without letting us see another side of his character and have it better the story.

if either of them do, unfortunately, turn out to be the true culprit of the case...i will be very disappointed. i won't drop drdt or criticize drdtdev for their decisions, but i will still personally believe it to be a bad choice. nevertheless, it's not my story, and i will continue to support and enjoy the show regardless. i have a lot of faith in drdtdev's skills as a storyteller, but no story can be completely perfect. Ace or Eden being the true culprit won't destroy the show as a whole, and i'm not trying to imply that it's a fundamentally bad choice, i just think it'd be very difficult to pull off and have it feel natural, organic, and satisfying for the ongoing story. i will neither be optimistic nor pessimistic about what happens in the next coming episodes, i will simply wait and see. i just wanted to get all my thoughts out here, and hopefully i didn’t come across as aggressive or snobbish or anything. this is a free to watch series, after all, and i enjoy and appreciate all the hard work that has gone into it and made it possible.

[exo-raskreia]

hey.... i wanna know your honest Thoughts on the jjk ending? Give a rating out 10. Honestly i'm ranting. I mean the good things in the chapter were sukuna's conclusion, the flashback with gojo , queen utahime being alive yay and the nice art with everyone at the end. Usually i would wait for a story to finish before ranting/judging but my god this kinda sucked. I don't want to be too critical but god I am just disappointed and kinda mad. Overall it is an okay/mid manga ;). Gege is not worst writer but ughh. Aot or mha sure they have their flaws but my god..These should never be compared to THIS. so now we could really say that gojo stayed south. With the full chapter, this does not change my opinion cause it still kinda sucks overall even with the whole north vs south meaning. Nothing really changed in the society or lessons maybe except for yuji and sukuna. The kiddos all really went back to missions huh after everything. I have alot to say with relationships and bonds, wasted potential on many aspects but that is a whole other discussion. i totally understand we can't write a backstory for every single character but that is not what i am insinuating here and yes there should be room for a little literary interpretation . That a whole different topic... Anyways I agree with alot your rants. i would like to hear your opinions. In the end we never got to see a gjhm flashback unfortunately. Ok so let say gojo is dead dead I find it hard to believe no was like remembering or acknowledging not even his comrades ( examples shoko, utahime etc_ or the students (i mean i am pretty sure these characters would but i would like to SEE it you know) and so many hints were gearing for gojo's revival but it is meaningless... and was used for pr ngl that's sad. Maybe the anime would do better at some aspects but i will be salty anyways. i will see uta's dance ;) animated so that i looking forward to and ig the maki's massacre. it looks like it's open ending but really!? They are some loop holes but HEY FEAR not we will probably see answers to our questions in the q&a segment! sigh. I lowkey do not want a "jjk part 2" it is draining. Gege when i catch you. I think gege intended this story to be short oh well. I have alot to say but this gonna be a novel lol. Sorry for errors i was in a moment and i hoped you understood what i wanted to say. Hope the gojohime fandom would not die and looking forward to see some nice content.

Thankyou

I already went on a mini rant here. If I have to rate the ending, I'd say maybe 2-4 out of 10?

JJK really did turn out kinda mid. It has an easy anime to get into (the anime carries it mostly 🫣), to recommend for newbies, but that ending will make one hesitate to recommend it now. Maybe wouldn't even bother to.

I'm also disappointed & mad. I don't even wanna consider that Gojo is fully dead (cuz Gege went about it so terribly). Gege skipped Gojo's whole month after his unsealing then killed him off-panel a few chapters later. The north & south thing was pointless. We didn't even get to see Gojo make a choice. There were so many hints about his potential revival but they amounted to nothing.

Summed up in this image:

This Tweet sums up the terrible mishandling of Gojo's character too 😡. This other short thread pretty much says that his "death" didn't make sense for Gojo either; accepting to stay at the airport is him regressing to his teen self. It doesn't properly conclude Gojo's character arc at all. He was meant to MOVE ON from the loss of his "springtime of youth" & continue to strive for a better future with his comrades & students; the future that HE DREAMED OF 😤 (oof, don't wanna rant further on Gojo; don't wanna make this longer 😅).

Honestly, the fan theories made the story seem much better than it actually was. At least with this ending, people can finally start seeing & admitting that Gege isn't a great writer. I've certainly never thought he was 😒; I once went on a rant here about most issues with this manga, one of them being how terribly fast-paced it is. This story is the definition of wasted potential. So many missed opportunities.

Whatever Gege comes up with for the databook, it'll be infuriating. He'll try to fill in the plot holes but man, I don't think it'll be satisfying. He might not even answer the burning questions everyone has (just like Kub0 never answered everyone's burning questions about the Bl3ach ED, or more like, no one dared to ask. Maybe he himself didn't allow those questions for his interviews 😒). Hope ppl don't give him any more money, especially cuz he's still milking Gojo, such as with that Hidden Inventory movie no one asked for.

I kinda wanted a Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 ending (lol) & then on to the supposed JJK part 2, esp cuz of this sketch here but Gege fumbled hard.

Wonder if Mappa could deliver but we'll see. I only care about GojoHime's 200% Hollow Purple now. Gege made me lose most interest I had for other things getting animated. Just thinking about that ending will mostly ruin my experience... 😞

I also hope the GojoHime fandom continues to thrive. We've always lived off of crumbs... Hope ppl continue to make headcanons, fanfics, fanart, etc... I wouldn't want ppl to leave such a beautiful ship with so much potential 🥺 (I've been thru this type of thing before with Bl3ach, so despite the disappointment, I've stuck around in my ship fandoms only. I don't engage with anything else in that series. Another beloved series of mine also ended terribly but unfortunately, the fandom kinda faded or became inactive cuz it's a manhwa 🥺; if it at least had a proper anime adaptation, then...).

Let's stay strong, GojoHime fam! 🥹❤️‍🩹

[orphiclovers]

Ya ever think Pre-Scenarios Yoo Joonghyuk went to church / ya think Yoo Joonghyuk has catholic guilt?

You would never get asked questions like this on any other site. Gotta love tumblr. And of COURSE I have thoughts on this that I will ramble on in great detail.

In general, I always try to be careful to not accidentally project my western understanding onto things with a different cultural context. Especially in regards to things like Christianity, since it’s not universal and…idk it would feel inaccurate to ascribe it to characters who wouldn’t realistically encounter it themselves? Not that you can’t, but I personally try not to. That's irrelevant with ORV though, they literally made the biblical Garden of Eden be a place YJH has been shirtless in. So I’m just going to go ahead and assume that all the Christian motifs I find are intentional and fair game lol

I’ll start with your second question: KDJ’s the one with the catholic guilt, not YJH. YJH has something much more sinister going on.

He gets two main monikers in canon - ���Pilgrim of The Lonely Apocalypse’ and ‘Puppet of The Oldest Dream.’ In ORV your moniker basically reveals what your ‘story’ is all about. These two names are supposed to show what Yoo Joonghyuk represents, and my thoughts there are…

1. Puppet of the Oldest Dream

He’s the incarnation of the all-seeing and all-knowing god that created the world. 

What I’m saying is, he's a Jesus figure, alright? HEAR ME OUT. He is cursed to walk the world and suffer eternally to bring salvation to one man - at the end it's revealed that he willingly chooses to bear this burden (talking about 0th here). It’s that classic scapegoat story, bearing the sins of the world to save everyone else, but he's also choosing to do this, despite knowing it will be awful.

At the end of his regressions, when he breaks free of his chains, stops being a puppet, he finds himself lost and missing their weight. He had a terrible purpose in regression - without it, he's meaningless again.

2. As Pilgrim of the Lonely Apocalypse

He's literally called a ‘pilgrim’ - someone who goes on a journey to find god. Catholic guilt is about thinking you deserve to suffer for some perceived sins, but Yoo Joonghyuk already is in Hell. ‘Hell of Eternity’ specifically, which manifests with the Christian imagery of fire and brimstone. His ‘journey to find God’ takes him through a world of unimaginable pain and cruelty that he has to somehow find meaning in. (Both YJH and SP have different answers on what that meaning is in different points in their life. )

Needless to say, he has A LOT of imagery associated with religion.

On a more personal level, YJH is motivated by this ceaseless search for the meaning of his own existence. There's the extra layer there that he knows instinctively he was put on this earth for some grand reason, only no one ever tells him what it is. He’s cast into the world without memories and has to stumble through life blind, just like the rest of us. He desperately seeks someone who can tell him what he’s supposed to do, parent, god, prophet or anyone else. (Basically, he's an edgy atheist teenager.)

That’s why he never reaches his ‘▪️▪️’ - the cruel thing is that he can’t ever truly find his purpose, because he is driven by having an unreachable goal.

To answer your first question: Pre-scenarios Yoo Joonghyuk is busy trying to survive his shitty job and taking care of Mia. He doesn't have time for church or having a life or anything. All he can do is daydream of one day finding whoever created him and gave him life. He puts all his hopes on getting enough money to hire a private investigator and keeping this single goal in mind for years. 

He will meet his parents and they will tell him what he’s supposed to do right? The really fucked up thing is, he does eventually get there.

The investigators give him an address, which he visits but finds only an empty house. On the way back, he has a little bit of an existential crisis and starts really thinking about it all. even thinks the classic YJH ‘who am I?’ Then, not even one second later, THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE STARTS. THERE’S HIS ANSWER I GUESS!!!!!

[asher-agere]

can you do little agatsugawa head Canon please?

I absolutely can! The littlest guy ever…

Little Akutagawa

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·

ִ ࣪𖤐 Starting off with his age range! I see Akutagawa regressing to 1-3. When I call him the littlest guy ever. I mean it. There’s incredibly few characters that I headcanon as regressing younger than that. I just think his regression would be such a sensitive fragile thing, what a better way to represent that than by making him a baby regressor? It’s such a fragile state of mind where everything feels big and overwhelming because you can’t do much of anything

ִ ࣪𖤐 I don’t think he’d play at all. He never got to much living on the streets, before the mafia. He always had to fight, to provide, he didn’t have time for such trivial immature things. So now he doesn’t know how to. He feels like he’s doing everything wrong, even though there’s no wrong way to play. I think he’d be ok with coloring or maybe puzzles, the big chunky ones for babies of course. Things that have a clear way to use them! Drawing is too open ended for example, so just coloring for him

ִ ࣪𖤐 When he’s regressed he often gets really scared about his lung disease being fatal, even if he’s having a good week or so. Anytime it’s bad enough he coughs up blood he’ll just curl up into a ball and cry because all his scary thoughts and feelings are just so overwhelming… He doesn’t want to die. He definitely doesn’t want to die from something as stupid as his disease. That’s such a meaningless death. It’s not like he wants some noble death or anything, but… Especially while he’s mentally like 2 it sounds nice to be important to someone, at least in his last moments

ִ ࣪𖤐 Oops I got angsty there- Moving on! He both loves and needs soft clothes. His usual clothes are itchy and uncomfortable, he deserves some soft gentle clothes that won’t irritate his skin. He doesn’t like any complex designs, just a base color, maybe with tiny embroideries somewhere? Like wrists, ankles, a lot of baby clothes also have cute embroidery’s right on the butt. He’s definitely more open to color than he is in his big headspace, though he still prefers things to be muted not bright, it’s especially fun to use Rashomon while wearing colorful clothes! It makes Rashomon look all silly and he’ll giggle happily, even clapping his hands a little bit

ִ ࣪𖤐 He’s incredibly protective over his plushies! There’s very few toys that he can use and like actually enjoy, plushies are what he enjoys the most though! He doesn’t really play with them, but they’re his friends, he can communicate with them (Telepathically of course, nonverbal baby for sure), and they always support him and do stuff with him! His plushies are his best friends, but they’re just his. If anyone tries going near them he’ll cover them in a protective layer of Rashomon to keep them safe and aim a glare at whoever was daring to touch his friends

ִ ࣪𖤐 Absolutely hates play dates. For one if there’s a caregiver he wants their full attention, he doesn’t like feeling second best. He’ll also feel bad that he’s not playing as well as his playmate, even if they’re just like him, it makes him feel inadequate and awkward. Also he hates sharing in general. Even if he has toys that he literally never uses, those are his. Just for him. Plus he keeps his regression very private, he doesn’t like anyone more to know about it than those who need to. The idea of telling someone just to… Play with them? It disgusts him

ִ ࣪𖤐 Struggles a lot with self care and would really benefit from a caregiver that gives him a checklist for the day. It’s not that he hates taking care of himself, it’s not like an overly exhausting task for him, he just doesn’t think to do it. After living on the streets for so long self care just isn’t normalized for him. But with a checklist he can feel accomplished for doing these things he doesn’t really think about! I’m thinking like with cute magnets that he can move for how many things he’s checked off. He’d really like getting tiny prizes for doing everything on the checklist too! It’s just tough to find a good prize for him, usually the best bet is like a special kind of snack that’s tough to get so he doesn’t get it very often

ִ ࣪𖤐 Absolutely loves drinking milk, it’s his preferred form of nutrition, honestly get this boy some formula and let him have milk for all his meals. He doesn’t like flavoring or extra sugar, but he would like a little bit of honey! Maybe a few marshmallows to melt in and thicken it up a bit? The warm drink just feels so soothing on his throat... He’d hate bottles though because the milk comes out too slow, I think he’d specifically like the sippy cups with handles! (Even though Ash hates them)

·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·

Recently I’ve been doing a lot with a Disney card game I play called “Lorcana” with my parents so I’ve been listening to Disney music like nonstop it’s great- “Mother Knows Best” is really relatable sometimes huh that’s weird I should rewatch Tangled…

[DNI ID: A white box with a black border. Akutagawa to the left and a black dragon to the right. Black text reads “DNI if your blog isn’t child safe. I will block NSFW accounts” End ID]

[thelioncourts]

newsreader s3 thoughts below (saving my ramblings about sam for the last part so scroll there if you don't want to see complaining until then)

oh, newsreader. how did you fall so far?

newsreader s3 was littered with bad writing on almost every front, writing so bad that the show seemed to forget exactly what it is/was at its heart. running through the basics, every single character's story arc suffered this season, and not suffered in a 'oh they were going through it' (even though they were) but in a regression or complete lack of growth on every front.

dennis - don't have any personal investment in this guy, but we've seen him for two seasons working under lindsay's thumb, wanting and fighting for the leadership position he feels he deserves, and he does get it, but s3 doesn't show us any of how he really got there. he has no solo scenes or even any meaningful interactions leading to him getting that position that it feels unearned in a lot of ways, unearned by the story.

rob - once again, a character I didn't ever really care about YET still a character that has had a prominent story in the first two seasons. rob felt like an afterthought to every story in s3, didn't seem to have shown any growth since getting married, ready to become a father, becoming a father, etc. it felt lacking and as though his entire first two seasons were meaningless to the guy we meet this season.

helen's tv crew - I know, and understand, that helen isn't at news at six anymore so she ofc has a new crew, but there seemed to be a strange amount of focus on them. we are in the final season of a show and we do not know, and in turn do not care about, these people. and we didn't really gain anything in spending a lot of time with them. outside of the random man declaring his love for helen and the show cancellation mess, etc. no one actually did anything for her storyline (and the man declaring his love for her felt out of the blue but whatever)

the newsroom/office - yes, the setting is a character and it felt like we weren't spending near as much time actually reporting in the newsrooms or seeing the news stuff in the office. so much of dale and helen is centered in how much they both are dedicated to their work, and s1 and s2 focused on that so so much so to shift from that in s3 seems like a drastic change and a loss of character development

geoff - killing geoff walters offscreen in favor of writing kay more storyline was a huge mistake. idk if robert taylor just wasn't coming back or what, but if they simply didn't bring him back......wow that was a Choice. if he chose not to come back, I can think of several other storylines they could have given the walters that would have been so much more compelling and in character/show some growth than whatever we had to witness in s3.

noelene - by no means does noelene have to solely girlboss her way through the 1980s, but she was lacking in scenes which in turn had it feeling as though nothing had actually been accomplished in her relationship with rob which in turn also had it feeling as though the only point of her story was to point out to her husband that he can be racist and misogynistic even if he's in love with her.

nick - our recurring male escort character, oh boy. theoretically, nick could have been a really compelling story. but to do that, we needed to see how dale got to this point - risking getting caught after all of his freakouts about his sexuality in the first two seasons - because it feels very out of character for dale to have a male escort on speed dial and if I'm supposed to actually look at their relationship, I need to know a little about this guy/how this dynamic with dale was built/etc. instead it was like 'oh btw the most closeted guy on the planet has a male escort he sees super regularly byeeee'

tim - sticking with dale and men, let's talk about tim. obviously love tim, missed him a lot in s2, but honestly I think the show either needed to keep him entirely away from s3 OR needed to give us some basic closure with him and dale and show us more of tim's life. it felt like he was just thrown in to satisfy the daletim fans (which, yes, I do qualify there some ofc) and they were like 'okay, did our job'

lindsay - lindsay has always been one note and that's worked in terms of antagonism, but I would have liked to have seen more when he saw dale was really gunning for him. yes, he threatened him and whatever, but lindsay is so used to getting things his way, I wish we could have seen how insane he would be when feeling backed into a corner

evelyn - the walters storyline should have been more centered on her and should have either shown her snapping after the loss of her husband and kay having to grow up, step up, and perhaps take them away from all the stuff that reminds them of him and go somewhere new, especially because his time at news at six ended so badly, etc. OR showing kay struggling with the loss of her father and falling back into addiction and evelyn and her finally having a real heart to heart about all the ways they've hurt each other and realizing they're all they have left in the world, rebuilding that mom/daughter relationship...but alas

kay - alright let's get into it. it felt as though so much of the writing suffered because they were trying to write an unnecessary storyline for kay walters. not only did kay display no growth or add anything to dale's actual storyline, but what she did do was highlight the weakest parts in the writing. wdym that helen - who has witnessed firsthand kay's manipulation and addiction - is seemingly fine with kay and dale and doesn't tell dale any of this about kay? wdym that we spend sooo much time with kay and dale when so much of s1 and s2 is about dale struggling with his sexuality and we could have used that time to, idk, NOT push dale's queerness to the side in favor of a straight relationship no one has any investment in? wdym I had to watch kay on my screen instead of helen? just an unnecessary and forced character who took precious and needed time away from other storylines that needed more exploration.

helen - darling angel sent from heaven, helen definitely had the best s3 storytelling out of all the characters and, of course, anna torv is the most stunningly amazing actor. I feel like I do need to watch s3 again before I make too many statements about helen, but she really is everything. such a dynamic character, full of so much passion and life and emotion and talent. my true only criticisms involving helen are what I said above re: her not telling dale about kay, but mostly a writing issue regarding dale and helen that I will elaborate on below

and, of course, dale - dale dale dale. loml. I was soooo confused about a lot about him during s3. the daddy dom thing, the escort, the kay bullshit, the constant verge of a psychotic breakdown. I do understand aspects of a lot of those things, but it wasn't done well. that being said the finale almost made it all worth it, and sam. well. I'll elaborate on all of this below as I talk about specific issues with the writing choices and then gush about sam reid but.

so to clarify, all my criticisms of dale in particular have zerooooo to do with sam's acting. in fact, sam did so much with so little in those first few episodes that I'm floored by the talent, as per usual. the way that he is so unafraid to be ugly, to put all of himself out there for the sake of authenticity, to give us every emotion in its full capacity, and to do so so effortlessly.....and his physicality as an actor continues to be unmatched, it's truly something I'm always left in awe after seeing and it felt as though he was tuned in to the nth degree when filming s3. he's just so so so dynamic and beautiful and talented and I feel like we are really witnessing greatness in a way that almost does not exist on the screen anymore. that finale is masterclass, it sets the nerve alight, it's everything. he digs in sooo deep and emerges to give performances that very few actors could ever hope to accomplish at all in their careers. it's an honor to see, truly, and I wish so much that he had better material to work with throughout this whole season.

and the season, at its core, struggled because the writers seemed to forget this was the helendale show. helen not seeing dale wasn't okay until the car crash felt like a drastic and unrealistic regression in their relationship, their conversation in 3x1 about careers and missing one another and relationship status was so beautiful and then felt pointless with how quickly and unnecessarily he moved to kay. the scenes they were together were by far the best scenes of the whole season and those scenes were severely lacking. instead I had to watch the really bad line deliveries kay attempted in scenes with dale, see his totally unexplored and unexplained relationship with nick, and be left wanting for far more than we saw.

anyway. sam reid, ily forever, actor of all time. newsreader....I miss the strength of s1 and am sad we, obviously, won't ever return to that. dale jennings, I hope you find happiness in your future. I'll miss you forever.

[sholb]

cql does not do a good job of sympathizing jzx and i stand by that until his death like he is one of, if not thee, blandest and most annoying characters in the drama. jc might be grating but at least he's got depth, at least he's proactive and meaningful in his regression... i'm sure the novel does a better job at making jzx seem marginally endearing but as it stands...what even is his "character development" beyond him choosing to stop being the world's biggest cunt to jyl. conveniently at the exact moment she wants to leave jinlintai to see wwx too don't think i forgot that! whatever diegetic reasoning you can ascribe to his intentions/behavior, the reality is that he just ends up embodying the status quo and all its corruption, his passive enactment of it becomes nearly active when he is constantly seeing it and doing nothing and yet he is one of the most powerfully positioned young sect heirs in the cultivation world. and i would actually use his attempt to protect mianmian from wc and his terrible gf as example of this. he speaks up in a moment when there is nothing else to be done, when the threat is ALSO to his own life, and it's still real comrade wwx who sacrifices himself to save her. because wwx is the blueprint for true heroism, which is literally part of the story's thesis. jzx is so unwilling to meaningfully sacrifice anything. later emphasized by mianmian's defection over her loyalty to wwx and jzx's inaction in the face of it despite mianmian having been HIS most loyal servant up until that point and that he himself can't be disinherited from his own sect. that's why the "but they were just being filial/they couldn't go against their sects" argument falls flat, because the story goes out of its way to prove that justice will require sacrifice, will be punished, and that personal risk isn't an excuse for complicity. which is also why lwj, the biggest and most sympathetic proponent of wanting to remain filial and righteous even when these things conflict, comes to regret his unwillingness to fully commit to actualizing those ideals the same way wwx did, even when lwj knew wwx was right about the wens. but every mildly heroic gesture jzx makes is so impotent and meaningless in context that i don't even register his death as a tragedy on its own lol it's just thematic punishment. when i thought wwx killed him i felt sooo bad...for wwx.

[yellowocaballero]

Survival in another world begins with a death.

It’s just genre convention. Usually for transmigrations or reincarnations, although sometimes regressions follow the pattern. Isekais where the main character dies suddenly and wakes up in another world are very popular. The method of death is usually pretty simple: hit by a truck or death by overwork are the most common. It’s never important. Death was only a method, a panel or a few lines in the beginning to explain how the lead left their world to wake up in another body and become the protagonist of a story.

The story requests something of the reader: that you don’t stop and wonder about the lives left behind. The lead is usually an orphan with no loved ones, friends, career, or future. Their death is inconsequential and meaningless, because they will not be remembered. They will find love and family and a future in the new world. Please do not worry about their old life. Death doesn’t matter if you mattered to nobody. Death is good if the life was bad. 

Ways of Survival was my favorite story. Within its snow-white gardens I was Yoo Joonghyuk. Reading other isekais, I was only ever the solitary person trapped in a hopeless world. I could not follow the will of the story: I always wondered about the people left behind in the other world. 

Did these leads never come home because nobody remembered them?

If somebody remembered them…would they come home?

New fic drop tomorrow! Please keep a lookout for The Ending of Han Sooyoung: featuring one yearning and emotionally constipated man, one self insert Mary sue, and one extremely pathetic nerd.

I meant to get this posted today, but things got very busy. That's also why I forgot to mention that this fic exists at all jalksdf.

[beheworthy]

I understand that you appreciated enough things about Love & Thunder (as in Jane's scenes, Thorjane, etc) to consider it canon, but what are your thoughts on the Thor2 deleted break up? I can't help but prefer them breaking up because of the long distance, or Jane being so overwhelmed that she "couldn't imagine a life with him" after everything, than what we got in canon. Maybe my opinion would change if I watched the movie, not sure, but I'm interested in your take on it.

*takes a deep breath* Buckle up.

1. I appreciate you saying whether I'd consider anything canon or not. Buddy, my acceptance is irrelevant. Anything Marvel puts out IS canon, regardless of how we feel about it. That's the whole entire reason I can't let this shit go. Because he's CANONICALLY drilled into the ground by Marvel with nowhere to go. And it depresses me.

2. I hate both break-up scenes because I simply don't want my OTP separated. Period. But if I have to validate any one, I'd go with Thor4 because at least its idea was understandable, the issue was its failed execution. The Thor2 breakup makes no sense and regresses their characters. The two reasons you present that the movie presents:

a) Breaking up because of long distance is such a bastardization of their magical relationship that transcends realms that I just cannot. He's not a coworker or a one-night stand she tried to have a relationship with and decided it wasn't working out. He's the Prince of the paradise in the clouds that's advanced to her realm by a millennium. He's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as far as boyfriends go lol. And his mother died to protect her. Why? Because she had all but accepted her as her daughter-in-law.

You don't just break up with THAT because of long distance, that's unbelievably simplistic.

b) Jane being overwhelmed that she "couldn't imagine a life with him" is also against her character because she is such a zero self-preservation inquisitive soul that was so fascinated by Asgard's advanced technology, she would be at home on Asgard. She would want to be with him and explore his magical world she's studied about her whole life.

And ok, she was so overwhelmed that she would dump him. For what? To return to her boring 9 to 5 life and do theories of the phenomenons she could do practicals of on Asgard. That makes no sense with Jane's character.

Or she was so scared by the challenges of a life with him (even tho she was ready to die saving him a scene ago) that she just quit? That's not the Jane I know either. She takes challenges head-on and is not a quitter.

The ONLY reason she would break up with him is for him - like I said in my theory that Odin made her do it.

3. Even from a story-telling perspective, it was a terrible choice because it resets every character to their factory settings, rendering the development of Thor1 and 2 completely pointless. Jane becomes a meaningless person forgotten going forward. Thor and Odin are chilling in Asgard with nothing to do and Loki and Frigga are dead with their sacrifices for Thor and Jane amounting to a big fat 0. Why dedicate two whole movies to their romance only to break up because of freakin long distance?

You can't have the event of Ragnarok with Thor in Asgard. You can't have him on Midgard for Avengers movies. What is the point of this then?

-

Not to elongate an already long answer, but I always thought the plan was to make her the Queen of Asgard, the perfect foil for King Thor. Her love and quest for knowledge + kindness to help shirtless strangers combined with Thor's sense of justice and protection of his people would make them the PERFECT rulers. Do you know what I'd give for this to be Thor's final ending in the MCU?

Like, I thought she was written to be so fascinated with the stars beyond because that where she belongs. That's where she'll rule. That if anyone from Midgard in the MCU was meant to leave it and stay on Asgard their whole life, it's Jane because she's so far ahead of her time.

But I was Boo Boo the Fool. Her entire purpose in life was to die for him. Because Marvel's all about feminism.

[prpfz]

🕊️ my introverted, caring dude Sean has been very close to both of his parents all his life, and since now as a young adult (exact age can be discussed) hormones are raging, this also takes on sexual tones in addition to Sean wanting to regress at times, since adults sharing physical affection with their parents is less acceptable. He tries to repress all of this to no avail. If I could find someone to write both parents that’d be awesome, BUT I’m willing to write both the mom and Sean, so primarily looking to find the father character for some MxFxM fandomless incest-themed plots on discord, with proper psychology and character development (i.e no meaningless porn). Kinks to include can also be discussed, but generally they’d be all those most adjacent to the subject and themes at hand.

I’m in my mid 30s and advanced literate, wanting a partner that’s at least 21+, patient, invested and also literate in 3rd person POV. Prefer not to write with men or people not really interested in actually writing the plot. Like this and I’ll reach out!

give a like and anon will get back to you

[edalynn]

ok an entire year later how do you feel about the owl house season 3........ i rewatched it recently during that one marathon and auhhhhh honestlyyyyy idk it was fineeeee...... the second episode fucking sucks every single time i watch it (other than the luz and camila scene) but i found myself enjoying "watching and dreaming" more than i did the first time. i think the parts that really mattered were fucking amazing, like eda & king & luz reunion, luz's "death" (seriously the music and animation was SO good), the final fight, belos' death. they did the best they could with the extreme time restraint, and i do like how it focused more on just luz and eda and king instead of Those Other Guys (said with love). but i can't believe how bad "for the future" was. it somehow manages to get worse upon every rewatch LOL. what are your thoughts? also hiiiii

HIII!!! I agree entirely, the parts of the episode that mattered were REALLY REALLY good! Everything involving the main story and plot were done insanely well with how much they probably had to cut out with the series being shortened. The final fight still gives me chills and while I wish we got to see more than we did, I'm satisfied with how the main story was wrapped up, and I'm happy that the final episode finally put all the extra side plots going on with the other characters to the side to bring the main three back to the focus like they were at the start of the series. Removing the episode from the rest of the disaster that was the second episode, I actually really enjoy it and like it. That being said, SERIOUSLY. Why was FtF SO FUCKING BAD. Every time I watch it, it makes me find more things to be mad at it for/dislike about it. Easily the worst episode of the entire series, it still feels so out of place and unnecessary. And half the episode feels like it recons certain characters' arcs just to give the episode some "villains". Which is stupid because Belos and the Collector ARE STILL RIGHT FUCKING THERE. Like, there was no reason to make Kiki still power hungry as if Belos telling her to go die in a hole and her helping King because she was just so broken at the end of it all during the Day of Unity never fucking happened. She was always fighting for Belos (and herself by extent, but), so why would she still be trying to rule people? That makes no sense in the context of the story. And Boscha begging Amity to take her back? Also makes no sense. Like, yes, it makes slightly more sense than Kiki, but only for the fact that we don't really see Boscha ever get "better" yet, she mostly just became irrelevant. Although, that' not entirely true either, because we see her being disgusted by Luz and Amity being romantic in the beginning of LR, so actually I take it back. It makes just as little sense as Kiki regressing back to her old ways, now with no purpose behind it. It just reads so much like bad fanfic writing from a 12 year old that just discovered Wattpad lmao.

And obviously, don't even get me started on the Willow bullshit from the episode. I feel like I've repeated myself a million times about how that episode fully put the anchor on the sinking of her character & arc. And the fact that they used Hunter as a way of doing it, which also made Hunter extremely OOC and made half his arc and growth meaningless. Just makes me SO fucking mad.

[pttucker]

[Story, 'One Who Is Loved by All', has begun its storytelling.] Tiny flowers began blooming on the vines created by the Outer Gods, as if they were giving me their precious hidden something. Fragrance wafted out from those flowers, soon becoming lyrics to a song. And afterwards, it formed a story. ⸢"Captain."⸥ It was a fragment of a very old memory. ⸢"Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi."⸥ I listened to those voices like an entranced man. They belonged to different people, but I could accurately guess the owners of those voices with my eyes closed. I had been thinking about this for a long while. If the 'Secretive Plotter' was Yoo Joonghyuk from the original story, and just like what he had shown me, if the countless world-lines of the 'Ways of Survival' existed out there, then… The innumerable failed stories within those regression turns, just where would they have ended up in?

Wait, are all of the outer gods people from the other worldlines who finished their stories after Joonghyuk regressed???

Or maybe people who didn't?

Joonghyuk asked his sponsor a while back and he claimed that this world would continue on without him so I guess it's possible either way? Either they finished and became powerful enough to move to another worldline like Secretive Plotter (but weren't powerful enough to maintain their forms?) or they failed and ended up here automatically???

Granted, Joonghyuk's sponsor could have been lying just to get him to regress and leave Dokja since he wasn't thrilled about Dokja's influence over him...

In which case, once Joonghyuk regresses does the entire world just get shifted over to another worldline and they become outer gods?

And the Final Scenario in each "new" world is to "clean up" all of the stories that "failed" AKA kill all of the previous world's 'characters' without even realizing it? Like back when Dokja turned into a squid and the Star Stream basically tried to trick everyone into fighting?

Especially with Dokja reading that book and realizing that they're all basically outer gods to each other, as well as the fact that TWSA never really explained anything about the outer gods. So is everyone an outer god in waiting?

Also, I was pretty much joking about how Dokja's new Modifier should be something related to how much people both love and hate him (still haven't gotten that Modifier yet hmmm) but the fact that he actually does gain a story that's called One Who Is Loved by All makes me think that maybe something similar is actually a serious possibility.

Also...is he loved because he's their precious reader who reads and remembers their stories? The one who doesn't want them to disappear even if they're boring or they don't end happily.

He is the one who said this to the giants after all:

"Are all failed stories meaningless? Even if you know you will fail, isn't the story of those who have fought to the end worth it?"

[miirshroom]

An Elden Ring Word String Theory

I was thinking a bit about the anagrams of the name "Radagon". As it turns out "a dragon" is far from the only functional anagram that can be spun from this short 7-letter name. And on the one hand I understand the perspective that asks: why? Why make one name an anagram and no others? Or are words meaningless and we should look for anagrams in all Elden Ring names now? This would certainly contradict everything else I've found regarding how character and place names are selected for the sum total meaning of their syllables and translations, that leaves little room for more secret scrambled meanings. But here is an actual argument in favour of the anagrams of Radagon:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

One name split into meaningful anagrams is I think the only instance that FromSoft/GRRM would really need to bring into focus some parallels to a certain other story that called attention to a single plot important anagram. And it was in the name of the main villain of the book series. That and the way that both Radagon and Voldemort split their souls into 7 or so pieces (i.e. Great Runes) and were trying to become immortal. But a deep dive into the way that psychological alchemy can reinforce a toxic worldview dissociated from reality deserves a separate post. This one is about anagrams.

The Literary Tradition of Anagrams

Regarding Voldemort specifically, I did a search to confirm that I am correct that there is only the one anagram name, and the answer is - yes and no. If there is any other name that JKR cared to make an anagram of she only did so unofficially and using the English language. Fans have apparently found some odd plot coincidences buried in names from the mountains of sludge of possible anagrams - so who knows. Regardless, there is a self evident thing about making a declarative statement into an anagram rather than simply a scrambled name - it doesn't work across multiple languages. Which is awkward when the anagram features in a dramatic moment of the book. And so I did behold a list of Voldemort anagrams, with a few selections as below:

Tom Elvis Jedusor = Je suis Voldemort

Tom Sorvolo Ryddle = Soy Lord Voldemort

Tom Vorlost Riddle = Ist Lord Voldemort

Anton Morvol Hert = Archon Voldemort

Romeo G. Detlev Jr. = jeg er Voldemort

Marten Asmodom Vilijn = Mijn naam is Voldemort

Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder = Ego Sum Lord Voldemort

It's a strange solution to a manufactured problem. "Vol de Mort" has meaning - it is from French and translates to "flight of death". So paradoxically the "pseudonym" of the name cannot be compromised and seems to be what was selected first. The rest of the name exists in service of "Voldemort" - you can tease meaning from the name-shaped word of "Marvolo" but wasn't there an easier solution? What about "Tom V Rolde"? With that you get a whole middle initial to work with - maybe "Vincentius" or something. Perhaps "Thomas Vincent Enigma Rold" is also opaque enough with "Rold" passed off as a portmanteau of red-gold that suits the alchemy theme (that's a speculation on how Elden Ring uses it for the "Rold Lift Medallion"). There is a long literary history of authors using anagrams, and it is rare to find that they use filler words like the addition of "I am Lord". I imagine because they do things the logical way around for cause and effect and start with a mundane name that is then scrambled into the fake name. When we say that JK Rowling was never a very good writer, short-sighted anagram planning is just a drop in the bucket next to her regressive social politics, British colonial view of all countries outside of her home, and racial stereotyping word association used in the selection of other character names.

Often, but not always, anagrams are used for comedy - as in the way that Lemony Snicket uses anagrams - or a means of having a legally distinct name from some source material used as inspiration - think Da Vinci Code's "Teabing" being an anagram of "Baigent" - the man who popularized the psuedo-history that was then used for the thriller novel. Or else it's used in a fantasy and/or multicultural setting where exotic sounding nonsense names just blend into the other odd names - like "Dandelo" ("Odd Lane") the psychic emotion-stealing vampire who appears in the last volume of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. And then again in Gulliver’s Travels, where “Tribnia” and “Langden” (Britain and England, respectively) are mentioned in passing in the section of the story dedicated to the voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan. Although there is something off about a name that is used by no person in the real world, few people will pause in the middle of reading to search and find that all results point to the fictional character (or even expect to find anything when placed beside sich an obvious fake name as “Glubbdubdrib”), so no drama is sacrificed. That's suspension of disbelief at work.

A Case for the Anagrams of Radagon

All this to say that there are writers out there who like to play with anagrams. And I think that perhaps the writers of Elden Ring took that concept to an extreme. In the examples above and most others it is one meaningful English language anagram extracted per name. In contrast, I'm currently at a count of 24 different anagrams of Radagon that are all consistent with other information from FromSoft’s body of work. Because I have been playing the FromSoft word games with other character names and I am not satisfied with just considering modern English. Archaic words, other languages, even abbreviations are on the table as far as I'm concerned. There are three that seem to me particularly strong evidence that "Radagon" is indeed a name with a multitude of anagrams that were spun out into characters and meaning throughout the history of the Lands Between: "D Aragon", "A Narog D" and "Gor Adan".

The first came about when I was browsing through the history of alchemy and witch hunts. The Dominican priest (i.e. "D") Nicholas Eymericus is best known for being the Inquisitor General of Aragon and for writing the Directorium Inquisitorum (1376) an instructional guide for identifying and prosecuting heresies including witchcraft. And here can be extracted another previously known facet of Radagon - as an Inquisitor who went out to hunt the witch Queen of Raya Lucaria. I see an immediate connection here to D, Hunter of Death, who has long been suspected of hinting at something about the dual nature of Radagon and Marika due their description along with D, Beholder of Death of being a single being in two bodies. And both have the very odd decision to be introduced as an initial rather than by name. In particular, D Hunter is on a mission to hunt down unnatural creatures. D Beholder directly calls Fia a "rotten witch". The idea of an Order of witch hunters is elevated from subtext to text with witch-hunter Jerren in his pursuit of the witch Sellen. And there's the symbolism in the hammer wielded by Radagon - another major text of the witch hunts was the Malleus Maleficarum (1486) or "The Hammer of Witches". Which itself has a direct line of connection in Recusant Henricus near the Limgrave Colosseum who drops the Hammer Talisman - Henricus Institor is the latinized name of the churchman and Inquisitor who wrote that book. It was swiftly denounced as heresy by the Church for its cruelty, but escaped containment and became well known after widely spreading among the people and secular courts.

And as for “A Narog D” that is a word string that seems meaningless at first glance, but I see it as the complement to Aragon D. Its significance came up while I was looking into Tolkein’s histories regarding the linguistic connections of Gelmir and Faroth. Contemporary with the War of the Silmarils, the Narog river passed through the area called “Taur-en-Faroth” or “the Hills of the Hunters” from its upstream origin point at the Pools of Ivrin. Also found in this area was the hidden underground city of Nargothrond, which was originally constructed by petty dwarves, then occupied by elves, and then turned to a dragon lair after its fall. And then sank into the ocean along with the rest of the continent at the end of the pre-history. So with the context of an underground city rendered inaccessible by time and the Narog river, “a Narog D” would be D, Beholder of Death, who is found in Elden Ring at the underground city of Nokron.

If there’s one name that I would give special attention it is "Adan Gor". Firstly the obvious: Adan is a Spanish variant of "Adam" - presumably with connotations of "Adam and Eve" - and "Gor" is a dialect version of "God", with well known uses including Moby Dick ("And, by Gor, none of you has de right to dat whale"). To get biblical for a moment it evokes the thought of the first Man Adam created in the image of God. The character “Adan, Thief of Fire” also incorporates the image of Prometheus bringing fire to humanity, having in his possession the Flame of the Fell God, which appears like the 3D orb of the sun. A merging of religious connotations on multiple levels, with a hint of the scientific in how the orb is reminiscent of the modern images that we can obtain of the sun and its corona. Element 61, Promethium, was so named at around the time that humankind first demonstrated the terrible power of the nuclear bomb. Radagon also rearranges to “and a Gor” - further emphasizing that Radagon was made in the image of a Creator and rose to be a “god” in his own right, in some fashion.

And that's neat, but "gor" is a versatile word and I think that it can be squeezed for more understanding of the nature of how Radagon modifies the conceptual Adam. In the German Ore Mountains dialect, "gor" means "refined" in the sense of metal or "cooked/ready for consumption" in terms of food. In Old Norse and Faroese it means "the old portion of food brought from the stomachs of ruminants to be chewed a second time". In Middle Welsh it means "over" or "next to". From Irish there are several along the lines of "to hatch, to heat, to burn, to inflame, to incubate, to brood". In Rohyngia it means "upwards" and in Slovene it means "do". Altogether, Radagon is not the base form of the first man, but one that has been grown and reiterated and improved upon over time. In German "gor" can mean "has agitated" or "has seethed". Seethewater Cave is found at the base of Mt. Gelmir filled with mushrooms and pests and deliberately sealed with two stonesword keys. What is sealed in this cave are items connected to the scarlet rot with which Radagon’s daughter Malenia is afflicted.

But there are still more meanings and I am going to go through every single one from Wiktionary. From Azerbaijani and North Kurdish there are "the grave/the afterlife". Radagon is man made in the image of his Creator, but what he is created for is to watch over an afterlife - hence the strong theming of death and graves in the Lands Between (and in Dark Souls and Bloodborne games as well, as will be apparent in the next paragraph - consider this a warning for spoilers ahead). In Old English "gor" means "dung" or "feces" and in Middle English "muck" or poetically a "weapon with a sharp point" like sword or spear, or the act of piercing with this weapon. Radagon is made in the image of his Creator that was a terrible god rooted in violent bullshit. This theming comes through strong in the Dungeater and Golden Tinged Excrement. And for a George RR Martin tie-in - see his novelette “Sandkings” which is a microcosm of this exact scenario. In Carribean Hindustani "gor" means "foot". How often is it a joke that Miyazaki loves rendering bare feet? In Armoured Core V the legs parts are named after mountains - characterized by solid foundations. In Elden Ring there is an interplay between various demigods who attempt to compensate for their failing feet. Feet are associated with deep roots and origins and agency and willpower.

For Welsh "gor" is a mutation of the word "cor" meaning "dwarf", "pygmy", "little urchin", "spider", "shrew". And this may perhaps be a hint to just how long FromSoft has known that they would be making a villain named Radagon. Because these can point directly to the oddly named Furtive Pygmy (a diminutive bald man who rather resembles Elden Ring's statues of man cultivating a single golden shoot from a tangle of sunflowers). Even a nod to "Patches the Spider" as he appears in Bloodborne, where Patches himself has been something of a multiverse traveler in FromSoft games dating back to Armored Core: For Answer (2008) and may even be a deliberate callback to a character from Shadow Tower Abyss (2003), and has himself been speculated to be a form of the pygmy. FromSoft has tended to work economically like this - if they find something deep in the catalog that they can call back to they will use it. In the anagram breakdown section below I can point directly to Kings Field (1994) as providing inspiration that was pulled all the way forwards to Elden Ring.

In Basque "gor" means "deaf". This synergizes well with the long-run running theme in FromSoft games that ringing bells allow communication with the past. It can even be seen in the title of the game - the Elden Ring. Because what is a man to do who is deaf and cannot hear the ringing? He must work through proxies - and the inherent drawbacks this has for communication. This theme of deafness comes into focus in Bloodborne with Ludwig the Accursed - who according to Occam's Razor is most likely named for Ludwig van Beethoven. It is from Ludwig that the FromSoft staple of the Moonlight Sword is received, and one of Beethoven's best known works is the Moonlight Sonata dedicated in 1802. Famously, from his late 20's and onwards - shortly after writing the Moonlight Sonata - Beethoven gradually lost his hearing and developed tinnitus (persistent illusory ringing), until he could no longer hear voices or music by 1812, but continued to compose even while on the edge of being totally deaf. An odd environmental occurrence early in the Old Hunters DLC is when a snail person drops from the sky, just before the whirligig saw pickup. The inner ear has the spiral shape of a snail shell. Bloodborne is more dense with bells than any other FromSoft game - I would hazard a guess that part of the madness of the Hunters is that they develop tone deafness and become unable to distinguish between the various beckons of bells that call them to hunt monsters and the ones that call to hunt fellow hunters.

And here's one more thought to shelve and see if it makes an appearance. There is at least one proper and complete name that I have extracted as an anagram: Gordana. It is a feminine Cyrillic name from the areas in and around present day Serbia and North Macedonia and from the word "gȏrd" meaning "proud". In the 300's BCE - at roughly the same time that Alexander the Great was active - present day Serbia was at the southern limit of the lands occupied by the Celts. Before the area was conquered by the Romans. It interests me that this name ends in the suffix "na". There is a quite large subset of names in Elden Ring with that suffix. And afterall, “burning the Erdtree is the first cardinal sin” which in the Catholic tradition is: pride.

Elden Ring and a Theory of Word Strings

And it can be said that this is all a matter of confirmation bias and that I am selecting meanings. Which is true. But I did spend a significant amount of time doing the research into the intersection of language, history and science that led to these conclusions. At risk of explaining badly (see acollierastro for an actual physicist's explanation), I think the point is that it's like String Theory of physics, but applied to word strings.

If I were to show an English speaker who has never engaged with Elden Ring a list of 400 anagrams ranging from "a dragon" to "a ag dr no" then there is a preference to latch on to the immediately identifiable word strings and dismiss the rest. It is only after experiencing the game and the many linguistic frameworks that it encompasses that the possibility for other significant word strings is revealed. To my understanding, string "theory" of physics is more of a validation tool for completing elegant math on already known parameters and outcomes. String theory is not predictive - and similarly the majority of word strings generated are likely meaningless. And so the 'Word String Theory of Anagrams' is - in the case of this one trickster character themed around mimicry - perhaps only useful as a way to validate character traits and connections that are otherwise intentionally obfuscated.

To tie the topic back to the contents of the game itself there is indeed a game item which alludes to String Theory, hiding in plain sight. In one of my previous posts I discussed the symbolism behind the Cracked Pot item with regards to physics Crackpots. Well, "String Theory" has generally proved to be an unsuccessful model of physics, such that anyone currently still taking it seriously as a "theory" rather than a mathematical tool might be described as a crackpot. The Roped Pot items in Elden Ring are not crafted with pot + contents + rope as one might expect, but instead with an item called string. String leaving behind it a trail of crackpottery.

String

Boasting no special qualities, this is merely a goodly length of string. Material used for crafting items. Often carried by demi-humans. Used to make certain items easier to use.

In fact, strings have always had a central importance in Elden Ring. The trailer for the original game showed fine strands of golden light strings trailing from Marika's Hammer, and DLC trailer has provided a recent reminder of the significance of "strings" in the narrative with the golden strands being manipulated by the central figure.

And words also have a power for those who are faithful. The Cipher Pata is a weapon retrieved from the Round Table Hold and is comprised of a string of words written in golden light.

Cipher Pata

One of the weapons originating from the Two Fingers. A formless sequence of ciphers comprise its blade, and as such no shield can repel it. Deals holy damage.

The furtive inscription appears to hang in the air; the language of light spoken by the Two Fingers.

Another significant component of this Theory of Word Strings is that it is also a multi-verse theory. Notice how I did not limit to just Elden Ring in the previous section discussing anagrams of Adan Gor. This is also tied directly back to the real-world reference point - providing a framework for the existence of multiverses was one of the things that people found exciting about String Theory.

Radagon Anagrams Examined

The first 3 anagrams were presented in such a way as to tie in directly with named characters in Elden Ring. Consider that a validation check or proof of concept. The remainder of these are used as launching points to discuss whatever concepts that I feel match most closely in Elden Ring and other FromSoftware games.

Several of these were previously covered in another post, but I browsed through a second time and enough more to add that for the sake of presentation I think that it's worth keeping the whole set in the text of this post.

"rand oga" - "rand" and "oga" are both Old English/proto-Germanic meaning altogether "on the edge of terror". As blacksmith Hewg says of Marika (who is Radagon): "The sheer terror of her…". In the deep FromSoft history, there was once a minor miner NPC character in King's Field (1994) called "Rand Ferrer" whose name means "on the edge of a blacksmith". Blacksmiths are creators, and have been explicitly equated in FromSoft games as the “Hands of God” at least dating back to Demon’s Souls, where blacksmiths Boldwin and Ed drop the fist weapons of this name.

"a dog ran" "a god ran" - the dog part is self explanatory as Radagon is described as a leal hound and here we see that Radagon was a dog god who fled - to borrow the language of Placidusax’ fled god. And there is a specific dog god who fits surprisingly well - Xolotl. From Aztec mythology, Xolotl is the dark personification of the planet Venus, which is the “gold star” in Japan. Also a god of fire (“heavenly fire”) and lighting, twins, monsters, misfortune, death, sickness, and deformities. The later half of that description fits well to the afflictions of Morgott/Mohg and Miquella/Malenia. Common depiction of Xolotl is as a dog headed man, sometimes with a blade in his mouth to symbolize death. This is echoed in the knife-dog design of the wolves of Radagon, but also the design of Gurranq. I am not certain if it is hearsay that Gurranq will place his blade in mouth when executing the Ground Rupture attack with both hands, but I do know that the Cinquedea dagger can be found after platforming below the Bestial Sanctum in Caelid and the item is sitting conspicuously posed in the open jaws of a broken beast pillar that has been knocked to the ground. Another feature of Xolotl depictions is to show him with empty eyesockets in acknowledgement of the time that Xolotl wept so much at the sacrifice of the gods required to start the motion of the newly created sun that his eyes fell out of their sockets. Every depiction of Radagon shows him with empty voids in the place of eyes, and this also extends to the depiction of 5 of the 6 stone imp masks obtainable in game - which are themselves evocative of the Aztec style of stone carving. Similar to the Norse god Loki (who I believe has many other parallels to Radagon), Xolotl is also characterized as a shapeshifter, and with his shapeshifting extends even further to becoming plants as well as animals. Conflating Radagon and Gurranq/Maliketh is something that I take for granted - after all Maliketh is the shadow of Marika and Marika is Radagon. 

"Ra Dagon" - "Ra" Egyptian god of the sun and "Dagon" the principal deity of the ancient Middle Euphrates region. Also the Lovecraftian Dagon fish god thing. There is a dense mythology around the sun throughout FromSoft’s games and only the faintest hint of Egyptian mythology in places such as Oceiros (Osiris) the Consumed King of Dark Souls 3, the eye of Horus used as emblem for the LYNX pilot Joshua O’Brien in Armored Core 4, and the appearance of scarabs in Elden Ring. I am guessing that this is so that it is hinted but not immediately obvious that characters with their eye of Ra open - the left side eye, from perspective of onlooker - have a close connection to the sun and characters with their eye of Horus open - the right side eye - have a close connection to the moon. The Euphrates region is referenced directly in Elden Ring with the copy of the Imago Mundi at the feet of the bearded tree man statues found in underground areas. And then there is the Fishing Hamlet in Bloodborne which seems a nod to the Lovecraftian story of “Shadow over Innsmouth” in which the inhabitants are worshipers of Dagon - in this case with Kos taking the place of Dagon. Unpacking intent here will likely lead to circular logic, but a broad guess is that Dark Souls as a series examines the eclipsed sun in tandem with Bloodborne examining the eclipsed moon.

"naga d'or" - "naga" is Hindu meaning "a member of a race of spirits recognized in Hinduism and Buddhism that have mingled superhuman and serpent qualities, are genii of waters and rain, and live in a subaqueous kingdom", and "d'or" is French meaning "of gold". There is a particular snarl with the Naga, as with all living religions, that it is rather disrespectful to invoke them by name as a beast to be slain in a fantasy context. But there are still many ways to use the aesthetic without the name, such as in the case of Mytha the Baneful Queen from Dark Souls 2 - a silver serpent-woman perhaps as counterpart to an absent gold king. After looking beyond the specific hinduism lens, an example of a being with mingled superhuman and serpent qualities can be found in the story of Eglė the Queen of Grass Snakes who lends her name to the Temple of Eiglay. Eglė herself was no serpent, but her husband was King of the Grass Snakes and could transform back and forth between man and watersnake. In the abstract, the Elden Beast seems to exist in a plane of endless water and is a creature of the Golden Elden Ring. Though it is also tempting to guess that this might be a DLC payoff one.

"Ra Gonad" - Ra is god of all of the sky (and earth and underworld), not just the sun. Venus was born of the testicles of Uranus - god of the sky - thrown into the sea. The second phase of Malenia's fight is styled as an allusion to Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". So technically this one can work with Radagon as a link between his own father - the old god of the sky and/or sun - and his daughter Malenia.

"Agro DNA" - from the slang term "agro" meaning "aggressive". Perhaps that Radagon has an aggressive nature in his genes. He is something of a Beast.

"And Agro" - as in "Radagon and Agro" - the name of the horse from the Shadow of the Colossus (2005). Elden Ring similarly has the player form an attachment to horse. Notably, The Shadow of the Colossus was directly cited as an inspiration for Elden Ring. Perhaps even a response to it - that game is focused on preserving the life of a deceased maiden at all costs and has an inevitable grim conclusion at the end. In contrast Elden Ring lets the player choose wrong 5 out of 6 times, but there is still the 6th more hopeful choice once you learn to read developer intent - a choice that will try to break the cycle by moving past everything that has come before. Also, Elden Ring has 15 Remembrance Bosses in base game, which stops one short of the 16 Colossi that leads to that inevitable conclusion in SotC.

"Argo DNA" - Argo was the ship sailed by Jason to find the Golden Fleece. Note the golden sheep in the Altus Plateau area of Elden Ring. It is also the name of a gigantic constellation that was split into three parts in the modern day - thus Radagon's lineage is found in the stars. Afterall "It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring".

"Ag Ra don" "Ag adorn" - "Ag" is chemical short form for Silver, so "Ra dressed in silver", I suppose. One might recall that "Radagon" seems not to have been needed as an entity until going to Liurnia to confront a house of the moon (traditionally associated with silver). Also "Ag" derives from the French "Argent" and another major use of French that I've noted is in the name of "Seluvis" forming "se lu vis" meaning (probably with broken grammar) "To read one's own face".

edit: Perhaps donned silver in the sense of coated arms in the silver of skill to work memory stone. This being drawn from the Realm of the Elderlings.

"Argon AD" - "In the Year of our Lord, 18" - Argon was isolated in 1894 by William Ramsay ("Will I Am, Ram Say" - see Golden fleece above). It is element 18 on the periodic table and has a lavender/violet glow when placed in an electrical field, evocative of the visual used for gravity magic. Notable event in the year 18: "Winter – Germanicus Caesar arrives in Syria, as new commander-in-chief for the Roman East." I'm going to pull on Gideon Ofnir for this one, as he is partly named for the Germanic god Odin and also the visual of his intro screen echoes the opening of the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar: "lend me your ears, I come to bury Caesar". Much of Radagon’s concern in Liurnia seems to have been involved with refining the purple gravity magic, judging by the scholars who use in Rennala’s fight, the Alabaster Lord on the grounds, the hands using it at Caria Manor, and Radahn’s overall skill set. As mentioned in a previous post about Loki, it makes sense for Gideon to have also been around at the time.

"ad argon" - "Ad" is a Latin modifier as in the case of "ad absurdum" or "to the point of absurdity" and etc (much like this post!). "Argon" is a Greek word meaning "lazy" or "inactive". Overall perhaps stretches to "to the point of stagnation"

"Argon Da" - Argon is an obscure semi-canon character in Tolkein's Legendarium but his father is King Fingolfin who is known for wielding an icy sword called "Ringil" that he used to cut Morgoth's foot and cause him to be lamed (many characters in Elden Ring with this condition). In Elden Ring, the icy blade called the “Frozen Needle” is found in the Kingsrealm Ruins. Ringil is also the name of a mountain stream in the area called "Taur-en-Faroth" which was already discussed above, but an added note here would be that Fort Faroth is where Radagon's soreseals is found.

"A Angrod" - Another Tolkein reference - Angrod is the Sindarin form of “Angaráto” meaning “champion”. Thus “A Angrod” means “O Champion!”. The character Angrod belongs to the “Golden House of Finarfin” and is nephew of the previously mentioned Fingolfin. Radagon first appeared as a Champion of the Golden Order.

"A Do Rang" - FromSoft has a recurring thing about bells. "do" is a syllable used in the Solmization music scale: do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti. After "ti" the scale wraps back to "do" again for a full octave. So the "do" rings at the beginning and end, at the start and at the eighth note. Perhaps hints to Radagon's involvement with the 4 Belfries and the Mausoleum bells in Liurnia, at the eighth era corresponding to the octave. And it is an open question as to how many characters may have meaning embedded in their names relating to the musical scales. Dolorus could easily also correspond to the eighth. Farum to the fourth. Miquella to the 3rd and 10th.

"a DGN aro" - DGN is an representation of the Egyptian word meaning "dwarf" or "pygmy". "Aro" is Spanish for "ring". A pygmy ring. This one actually brings more to mind the Ringed City DS3 DLC, since that game also teases the Egyptian connection with Oceiros ("Osiris"). And the Ringed City being euphemistic of the City of Gold (the alchemical symbol for gold is a ring) that Spanish Conquistadors tried to find in the Americas.

"Aaron G-D" - Specifically Aaron Kosminski - a man who was one of many suspected of being Jack the Ripper, though never formally convicted. He suffered from aural hallucinations and was committed to a psychiatric facility for a separate event. I learned of these recently through the video "The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper" by LEMMiNO. Three connections here to Bloodborne: 1) One of the questions of the Ripper was "does he or does he not have medical knowledge?", which suits the medical theme of Bloodborne presented by Charred Thermos. 2) Aural hallucinations. I find this to be a theme in Bloodborne where the various types of bells are representative of tinnitus (relating to Ludwig van Beethoven being afflicted with this - see "Adan gor" above). 3) Kos. Kosm-. Kosminski. In Yiddish "Kos" means "goblet" or "cup", and may have been an occupational name for someone who makes glasses or cups. Minski has meaning of "from Minsk" which is a city in present day Belarus. The Nemiga river that flows through Minsk was buried in the early 1900's (diverted through underground pipe culverts), and its name means in Lithuanian "the river that never sleeps". As for the "G-D" this aligns with one of the abbreviations of God commonly used in Jewish print, but keeping on the aural theme these are also musical notes.

"Rán goad" - Rán is a Norse goddess and personification of the sea. Her name has come up a few times in FromSoft's body of work ranging from Ciaran ("who is Rán?") to Ranni ("Rán not/Rán two"). A goad is an English word meaning "long pointed stick used to prod animals (typically cattle)", or a Scots word for "god", or Swedish for "had tricked someone to a place and then beat up or murdered them". Taking Ranni as a manifestation of Rán, this could allude to Radagon manipulating Ranni into the state of mind where she would want to carry out the dual assassination of Godwyn and herself. Note that Ciaran's Gold Tracer blade resembles the Blade of Calling that is held by Melina (with minor differences at the hilt), who herself is noted to have similarities to the Black Knife Assassins. It could simultaneously refer to a much older event that was alluded to with the cut mimic tear quest. In the abstract, the previous "Rán" was tricked into shedding her aspect of water and adopting the persona of a fire giant - a form of ego death or murder of self to appease a god of fire.

"a grand O" - oh Elden Ring

"a dragon" - I think that the Elden Beast is a fine example of a dragon. The dragon is also a symbol of the never-ending cycle of alchemy, as both prime materia and the end product. The dragon is endlessly splitting into brother and sister parts and recombining into the divine hermaphrodite - so says Carl Jung in CW12 "Psychology and Alchemy". And the connection that I make personally is that the red-haired Rand al'Thor as ‘The Dragon Reborn' is the main character of the Wheel of Time books (1990-2013), whose name means "on the edge of a god" because that's really just his whole character arc in a few words. What does it mean to be “The Dragon” in the Wheel of Time? This is revealed quite early, but in the kind of offhand way that only makes sense in hindsight: "The land is one with the Dragon, and he is one with the land". The Dragon is the amnesiac avatar of the Creator (in this case, the author) experiencing his own Creation. When the Dragon suffers the landscape physically undergoes a Breaking and years of chaotic weather patterns - but when he achieves balance he has the Deus Ex Machina power to cause improbable good fortune wherever he goes. The last obstacle at that point is to confront the Shadow that has been the source of the suffering - see Jung again. One of the two most significant supporting characters is a blacksmith named for the god Perun - another hammer wielding god that stands a lateral shift to the side of Thor. Although Thor may wield a hammer to protect or destroy, he is not known for craftsmanship - thus requiring another aspect in the blacksmith who completes acts of creation. There may be only one author avatar elevated above the rest, but all characters that an author creates are splinters of their own thoughts. See also above usage of “Rand Ferrer'' - my guess is that this is one of the deepest literary influences for everything that FromSoftware has ever produced.

Conclusions

I believe that the name of “Radagon” and only that one name is intentionally used as a cornerstone around which much of the worldbuilding was completed. For multiple games leading up to and including Elden Ring. I believe this because it is more interesting than the belief that all of these incredibly specific coincidences are unplanned. Radagon is the villain after all, and symbolic of all of the faults of the Lands Between. If there is one thing that anagrams are good for, it is generating fantastic nonsense, as in the supposed case of "Naga d'or" or "Argo DNA". It's a shortcut to creating a surprise twist ending. It might be said that FromSoft/GRRM went hard into making a web of cause and effect to justify the twist when working backwards with the knowledge of hindsight - but in the worst case I can see this being used as a crutch. Perhaps as a prompt generator by an author who isn't sure what to do with a character and uses anagrams to inject "noise" into an otherwise formulaic story. Rather than having considered psychologically motivated reasons for their actions, it would be a way to get a character to do something unexpected to generate drama. It strips away causality and meaning for the sake of "originality".

Unfortunately, words and literature are messier and more ambiguous than the mathematical models we use to describe the physical properties of the real world. I can suspect that at least some of the worldbuilding of Elden Ring was influenced by selecting anagram word strings and spinning meaning from them, but it is still is not an explanatory theory of everything. The flaw of string theory is that it cannot make predictions and cannot be proved. As much as FromSoft may pretend that Elden Ring exists in a parallel universe to all other game franchises that they have created in the spirit of the parallel worlds predicted by string theory (and I know that this is by no means a popular theory in the fandoms), that too is a lie. There is only one universe - the real world in which a videogame company creates fantastical worlds “from software”. Which is probably why the closest I've gotten to actually piecing together the FromSoft metanarrative is by consulting my absurd spreadsheet that lists the initial release date of basically every game made by FromSoft and tracks information and trends for each date - zodiacs, tarot, moon phase, etc.

The year 2007 corresponds to tarot #7 - The Chariot - which represents "overcoming challenges and gaining victory through maintaining control of your surroundings". In a move never seen before or since, the only two original IP's that FromSoft released in the year 2007 were word puzzle games called Nanpure VOW and Iraroji VOW. And since this is the year after the release of Armored Core 4 - for which I find the "Lynx" AC's to be referenced in the "Loux" of Hoarah Loux and thus correlated with Godfrey's rise to Elden Lord - the year of word games is perfectly positioned for the origin of 'Radagon' as an entity riddled with anagrams.

[piduai]

sugimoto not kicking it was also the weakest of two options as far as impact goes but i can live with it. yadda yadda need to cater to my pissbaby audience who wants a happy ending or whatever. fine. but tsurumi's survival was not only meaningless (for either the character or the story) but also regressive and anticlimactic

[review-anon]

I had a couple of alternative ideas for the SDRA2 rewrite:

I flip-flopped between retaining or switching the original victims and culprits of Chapter 1 (Yuri killing Hajime) and 2 (Kokoro killing Emma), only to settle on only switching the latter.

I once thought of Teruya being either a culprit or victim of the Chapter 4 murder, as a parallel to his original situation in DRA's Chapter 4.

Like the original part of Kanade's plan, I was considering having Iroha as one of the victims of Chapter 3, alongside Setsuka. The twins attempt but fail their synchronized stabbing on the two separate victims. Kanade ends up killing her victim first, and ends up being the one to get executed in the end.

This leads to an uphill battle for Hibiki, as she works to regain the trust of her new companions, once they learn about what she has done.

One of my alternate Chapter 5s (especially if you combine it with Teruya dying in Chapter 4) involves Syobai somehow tricking Mikado into killing Yuki, hereby making his Utsuro-based plans entirely meaningless.

//Ooo so what ifs? Let's see...

//Yuri turning the tables on Hajime is much less believable then Emma getting killed by Koroko. I also think to avoid the whole "only baddies do the crimes" don't have Koroko regress to her adult self but a fragment of it surfaces that makes her fight back but since teen Koroko is a much better person then adult Koroko, she doesn't understand why she did what she did and as such I could imagine her just confessing during the trail as the guilt ate away at her.

//If you recall me mummerings during The After's Chapter 2, I pegged this idea of Teruya killing Shinji, but thought it didn't make sense. The whole Tower of Babel needs to be reworked slightly since Teruya getting killed doesn't make sense for Nikei's overall plans, unless he learns that Teruya was the firewall stopping the Kisagari Foundation from coming in and so eliminated him as part of his plans to fuck Mikado over, but he kept his scheming in the background and with all the other Voids dead aside from himself and Mikado, the wizard was none the wiser.

//When I was discussing this rewrite with TA, she complained about the whole double murder still occurring even if it was done in a different chapter. I don't agree with her and Bubble's claims that double murders are a bad trope, its just people are lazy af with it. The first draft with Iroha and Shinji dying to mulitiple culprits and figuring out who died first is key would have been a good idea. But THIS would be even better as not only would we have a dead Iroha and Kanade getting fucked, but it means Hibiki will have something I wanted for a long time; someone who did a murder and since they weren't first they didn't get executed and have to live with the cast. I do imagine Iroha being revealed as a Void would dampen this because its not like Hibiki killed someone innocent; she killed one of the Masterminds of the Killing Game. Maybe not until Chapter 5 when that gets revealed so we have a entire chapter of Hibiki regaining trust with the others.

//And while I like the idea of Syobai cucking Mikado by making him kill Yuki, part of me likes the idea of Nikei being the one who cucks Mikado and has him kill Yuki and this is when Nikei gets exposed as a Void (I imagine like Iroha the player finds out either in Chapter 3 or 4 that Nikei is a Void but he's not revealed to the characters until Chapter 5) And then we get an epic moment of Nikei detailing that he was scheming to fuck Mikado over for a very long time and in a very "It was Agatha All Along" moment, Nikei would reveal various moments thorughout the game which he was behind, like Setsuka's actions, how the Chapter 4 murder occurred and this one. And while Nikei knows he's gonna be executed by the Kisagari Foundation, he doesn't care as long as he gets a W against Mikado, but of course since the Masterminds never play fair, Mikado reveals Alter Ego form and start messing things around leading to Chapter 6.

//Or Syobai backstabs Nikei at the last minute revealling himself to be a double agent, so Mikado tries to change the rules to get him executed but then the Kisagari Foundation tries to get in, CRASH and then Chapter 6 occurs.

//Either way all interesting ideas.

[unholytrinityrpf]

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 ⚠️ (posting again bc I forgot my platform, sorry!) my introverted, caring dude Sean has been very close to both of his parents all his life, and since now as a young adult (exact age can be discussed) hormones are raging, this also takes on sexual tones in addition to Sean wanting to regress at times, since adults sharing physical affection with their parents is less acceptable. He tries to repress all of this to no avail. If I could find someone to write both parents that’d be awesome, BUT I’m willing to write both the mom and Sean, so primarily looking to find the father character for some MxFxM fandomless plots on discord, with proper psychology and character development (i.e no meaningless porn). Kinks to include can also be discussed, but some general keywords would be breeding, lactation, watersports, light humiliation, age regression / caregiver & little and possibly diapers.

I’m in my mid 30s and advanced literate, wanting a partner that’s at least 21+, patient, invested and also literate in 3rd person POV. Prefer not to write with men or people not really interested in actually writing the plot. Like this and I’ll reach out!

If interested, please like this post. 🙏

[mote-in-a-sunbeam]

On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam: PhD candidacy

I wrote this in the last week of September and thought it should now see the light of day.

So finally, I passed the PhD candidacy exam. Apparently, only 0.001% of the human population is capable of passing this exam. So, even in the beginning, only 20.8% of applicants get accepted to any PhD program and then only very few make it to candidacy so I feel okay that I passed this exam. However, deep down, just before I gave it, I wished they would fail me so that I wouldn't have to stay in academia (read: this department) anymore. I hoped that, finally, I would have a reason to leave this university and try to be happy. The entire process of writing this paper was excruciatingly isolating, sleep deprived, dark, and felt like I was marinating in a sauce that was made of inadequacy. I wonder if this is a structural issue, as if this university is designed in a way that fosters loneliness and burn out, or if it is defined by my character trait of doing everything I can on my own before asking for any help. I'm learning to grow out of this behavior because I used to think that asking for help is a sign of weakness/ignorance/thick brain but now I know that, in some aspects, I'll always be ignorant and it's okay tell someone "I don't know the answer to that" or "I need your help". My old behavior kind of reminds of something Dostoevsky (allegedly) said: "Walk on your broken foot and leave no trace of your hand on anyone's shoulder."

So, anyways, the barebones of my paper took shape in February or March of this year. Along with all the coursework I was taking, I worked on my paper slowly. Then, I had to give the retake of my first-year preliminary exam in June, which took another month of preparation. Eventually, I was in the final stretch of working on this paper, completely fueled by cups of Colombian coffee, instant noodles, and power naps with Stata running in the background. Despite working on this idea for so long (since February), the paper took shape at a breathtaking pace of two lines per day. The time period I worked on it was fine I think because I've heard people work on a single paper for about 10 years. And presenting the paper was also fine. However, I guess the isolation that comes from working on it all by yourself, the not-so-niceness of receiving rejections from the people reading the paper, and the exam requirement of "discovering something new" took a toll on me. I'm sure I didn't discover anything new. If anything, I found something so minutely novel that the novelty is negligible. And one of the criteria to pass the exam was showing that my paper made a "novel" contribution to the literature and "selling" it convincingly, with intelligent arguments. Technically it worked, but it got me thinking what's the point?

Thanks to thinking so much about the "meaning" of it all, I went on an abnormal number of walks during that time, trying to clear my head. The more I walked, the more meaningless everything I did seemed. I'm not saying the whole field is useless - definitely not - just the project that I worked on and more importantly, the school that I worked in. During this time, I noticed that imposter syndrome had become a constant companion.

I'd stare at my laptop screen for hours and hours, staring at the winking cursor, willing the words to come. But it felt like my brain was grimy and spotty from lack of sunshine or something. Even the peeling paint of my apartment walls seemed to mock me, "This is what six years of higher education has gotten you – lack of vitamin D and crippling self-doubt." Despite all this, I sincerely enjoyed reading papers, doing research on methods, running regressions, and plotting pretty graphs with R, and thinking about new hypotheses to test, and questions to work on in the future. I just had no idea if what I was doing was the right thing or if it was important enough and no one to guide me through the existential neurosis.

I spoke to one of the professors in my department after my qualifying exam presentation, and he said, "the time you spend working on one paper is the time you can spend working on another, better one." Well, ex-ante, how do you know if the paper you haven't even started will be better or not? If we think about it --- partly, the solution to this is to present the paper in many places, discuss it with peers and colleagues, and see what they think but if the reaction you get is that the paper isn't good then you've wasted the time regardless. And we're also assuming that they'll rationally evaluate the work we're presenting. Humans are humans. I've noticed in most conferences, the audience ask questions because they want to show off that they're capable of critical thinking, and some presenters on the other hand find it so hard to admit that they don't know the answer to something at the worry of looking stupid. (Side note: One big takeaway from the last two is I've gotten so comfortable looking stupid and accepting that sometimes I really don't understand certain concepts and that's okay because I have a whole life ahead to learn it.) And along with this, there's so much urgency, unnecessary intensity - is someone going to scoop my work? Will this paper still find a place in a journal when I'm done? A good one at that. And the reception of a paper or lack thereof is directly tied to a person. If the paper is a flop (say right question wrong timing), it kind of translates as hmmm bad researcher. And if you can't replicate the results, the original author of the paper gets a red card. Fraudulent practices. I'm totally in support of replication though.

Another piece of media that kept me going through the futility of it all while writing - Carl Sagan's the pale blue dot we call home speech. It gave me a perspective of what I was doing compared to the grand scheme of things.

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. ... Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark."

But also - I see posts on Reddit that go along the veins of "I get a livelihood from reading papers, could life get any better?" Here, I want to quote R.F. Kuang (author of Yellowface, the Poppy War) who passed her own PhD qualifying exam last year, in her Substack, she writes and I agree with her... to an extent: "Graduate students like to complain about how miserable we are. Still I have chosen to spend my life - at least this part of my life - in academia, and I am high on the discovery that despite everything I really do love it. I just love to know things. I love to stare at something I do not understand, and throw my mind at it until it clicks. I love to feel like I am on a dark spinning plane and bright shiny ideas are in orbit around me. I love to sit in a room with smart people and listen to ideas ricochet around the room, transforming, picking up speed. I love leading discussion sections. I love watching my students grow as thinkers over the semester. I love this work we do."

I know for a fact that I'm not going to publish in American Economic Review or win the Nobel Prize. And sometimes I see papers highlighted on Fermat's Library I think " wow, you need the eyes of God to see proofs like this and even ask such questions in the first place". And then I think about my work, my field - Financial Accounting? I seriously shouldn't have chosen this field. (If someone asks me if you could go back in time, what would you change? I have an answer to it now. I'll choose Applied Econometrics or Applied Industrial Organization and steer far, far, far, far away from Financial Accounting) Anyways, Financial Accounting and my paper now feels like it's just a hundred suspicions that were in fact put together as a hypothesis and everything unimportant. Barely anything good. It feels kind of wrong to call this "professional work", for some reason. So, all these ruminations and thoughts ended up culminating in the decision that academia this University is not something I want to be a part of - academia, yes; this school, no. And then, I was at peace. For my qualifying exam, I put together a decent version of my paper, went to my defense on pure adrenaline - a gallon of coffee and a KIND bar. I presented my work in a large room with four professors and one external faculty. And suddenly, I was so nervous that it felt like my chest was on fire and I was too out of it to remove my fleece jacket which could've made me feel much better or cooler at least. My presentation was supposed to be just an hour but ended up going until ninety~ minutes. I got asked questions from all corners of the room and then I flew past the last few slides, saying "I see that I'm out of time, let me briefly go over the results of my supplementary analyses and robustness checks." After that I left the campus on the shuttle, came home, ate a bowl of leftover rice from the previous day and fell asleep. Then I went to Barnes and Noble to just get my mind off the presentation I gave earlier that day, the adrenaline was palpitating despite the fact that it'd been hours. I sat under an umbrella table and started reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. Then right at that moment, my phone pinged with an Outlook notification.

A simple, plain email "The faculty have reached the decision give you a Pass." Officially a PhD candidate. Yay! 🎉 (derogatory) And I thought, oh well. Life. There were times and circumstances when this moment felt like a dream and were days I'd prayed for.

So, I'm trying to feel proud now, triumphant. But mostly, it's just a mix of confusion and nausea. Despite working on a topic I liked and passing a difficult exam, I very much hate my work - kind of like burning your favorite book. It represented everything about this school that made me feel jaded and disillusioned: the ridiculous hoops to jump through, the crushing alienation, the constant grind with so little reinforcement, and the battle royale for crumbs of validation.

Anyways, when I started writing this, the theme I aimed at was humor, maybe self-deprecating one at worst but now this is a full blow existential crisis on paper. Quelle surprise. I'll stop my rant here and continue with Intermezzo.

"Pale blue dot suspended in a sunbeam - Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." - Carl Sagan

────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────

Some months of the PhD was excruciating and put me on a self-destruction-suicide-ideation mode. Sort of reminding me of this Tumblr post: self destruction really is such a fascinating human response to various factors both external and internal. what if sisyphus could leave at any time but kept rolling the boulder up the hill just to watch it roll back down anyway. what if he kept pushing it even as the rock cut into his palms and his legs began to ache with the desire to rest for even a moment and his body became a canvas of bruises and cuts that never have time to heal. what if he did it because it's the only thing he knows how to do. the only thing that gives him a sense of certainty and control in a world that takes both and offers neither. [here]

So, in those days, a few people unknowingly brought sunlight and easiness. My many heartfelt thanks to them: Callie, Cathy, Huijhong, Kang, Liz, Mei, Pavithra, and Zeyu.

To the professors who encouraged me and helped me explore questions out of my comfort zone: Heikki, Giulio, Josef, Lisa, Jeanine, Nese, Greg, Robert, Ron, and Paul.

Blessings have always outweighed my troubles so I'm thankful to my grandparents.