#also op this was definitely not directed at you i'm just piggybacking on the point you already made

[grimrevolution]

there are two things happening when you're choosing between minrathous and treviso: 1) gameplay and 2) narrative. both of these are very different for what they mean regarding the story.

for the gameplay, no matter what city you choose, ghilan'nain is going to be there. you are the player and there is no rng. you do not need to guess nor put together clues to figure out which city is the 'right' one because there is no right one. you are choosing which city to save. this choice does not matter in the narrative because one city will always be blighted and one companion will always be hardened. this is your choice as a player. this is, simply put, gameplay.

narrative wise, rook has some of the stupidest luck in thedas. regardless of the city you choose for the gameplay, ghilan'nain is there. this is not how the narrative responds to it because the narrative viewpoint is different.

for the sake of everyone, i'm putting this under a read more.

stepping back for a moment, what do we know about thedas magic? we know that 1) there is no teleportation magic in modern thedas. why do we know this? because varric and harding explicitly tell us within the first 30 minutes of gameplay when they inform rook and neve that solas is hard to track because the eluvians help him move around incredibly quickly.

the entire reason why bellara is so important in the beginning is so the player can unlock the crossroads because that is the one thing that gives the team an advantage over the gods. when the player travels places, rook doesn't teleport; rook uses the eluvians.

2) we know that ghilan'nain and elgar'nan do not have control of the crossroads. that's why they're sending the antaam, the undead, venatori, and blighted champions to gain control of it. gaining control of the eluvians is important to them because teleportation is, again, not possible (except to elgar'nan but he can move astral bodies so we're not including him and it appears to be extremely limited)

the conclusion we can make of these points is that ghilan'nain, in the narrative, is already in the city the player (not rook!) has chosen to save. which means that in that split second of decision making, in that single flip of the coin between minrathous and treviso, rook guesses right.

this entire scheme is a pretty low stakes gamble on ghilan'nain's part. if rook guesses wrong (we're still talking about the narrative here) then she uses both her dragons to give the venatori and antaam a way to push for control in both cities. if rook guesses right, both cities are still suffering from the dragons and she gets the dagger because what mortal could stand up against one of her creations?

here's the thing, though; rook guesses right and, despite the hilariously low odds, rook wins. ghilan'nain doesn't get the dagger. her dragon is injured in the fight and is forced to retreat. because she pulled the dragon away from the city, whoever is fighting - the shadows or the crows - gain a foothold against the venatori/antaam and push them back.

her plan has failed.

this is why the narrative focus is important; she is never going to be in the other city to call back her dragon even if those companions have the dagger. they will always fail because there is no teleportation magic. the narrative states that ghilan'nain will always be in the city that you the player choose because ROOK is the lucky one. ROOK is the one who manages, despite the odds, to make ghilan'nain lose.

This post is actually important.

As many of us have said, the VG is a group of professionals. When the leader of a strike force is taken down, the rest of the force has some chain of command, or a sort of organization, in order to complete the mission.

"Why aren't the members of the VG mean to each other?" because they don't have the time or capacity for the immature bullshit that you find to be "compelling".

"You need conflict for good storytelling" - there is conflict, it's just not the kind of conflict you apparently find compelling, which tells me all I need to know about you.

Rook isn't "the Chosen One" - they are just Some Person. And that's okay!! Their team still functions despite their loss, and that's *spectacular* because you don't want the world to end if you're gone, you want everyone to still do their job and hopefully save the world. This isn't about you. It's about making sure there's hope when it's all over.

In every situation where there has been positive change in the world, it's because there have been small groups working in the shadows, not needing to be "the hero". That's why it was so funny to me to see a post where someone pointed out that there's every other "hero" of this game had a title, and then there was Rook.

Rook is the "every man." Rook is Frodo, the person who can't make it all the way (and might even fail in the end) without help from their friends.

This is such a good game, y'all. Just stop and take it in.

[genericpuff]

(disclaimer, this is coming from a heartstopper fan! i love heartstopper this is not hate!!)

i think at least part of the annoyance with heartstopper isn't just that isn't a light fluffy ya series, it's also that its another example of how the queer media that gets the most mainstream attention tends to be this kind of light fluffy ya stuff that focuses on two conventially attractive queer boys or men and it also tends to be written by people who aren't queer men on top of that, so not only can it feel very samey but it can feel like other queer people are relegated to side characters in the stories of cis gay men. and as someone who loves heartstopper i get that on some level.

btw by "written by people who aren't queer men" NOT saying that isn't not written by queer people. alice oseman is genderfluid and aroace, becky albertalli is bisexual, etc. and while i think the point is still valid there is a misogyny element in that a lot of the focus is put on things that are written by women or people they perceive as women while tumblr darlings like good omens and ofmd (written by presumably straight men) don't get the same treatment.

nah y'know what, that's fair, I can get how frustrating it can be for a lot of popular queer stories to feel samey, I've definitely gotten BL-fatigue in the past on platforms like WT and Tapas because many of them ARE the same and feel like they're just piggybacking off trends for the sake of clout (and this is a problem in the heterocis romance stories too, don't get me fucking started on how dark romance has turned into torture porn where vulnerable women are constantly being victimized by rich powerful men and we're just supposed to root for that ??), but it's one of those things where like, what might be seen as just more corny shit could very well be the revelation another person needs that they're gay / trans / etc. that the story helped them realize. there's just a point where i see these arguments against cheesy popular queer stories that teeter dangerously close to being queerphobic and, as you said, misogynist, simply because "it was written by someone who i perceive as a woman so that makes it BAD!"

and I didn't mention it in the original post because I didn't want to @ OP in any way but in the comment section they literally said "i dont think heartstopper itself is all that bad but it has pretty much aimed the direction of all mainstream gay comics towards wholesomeness instead of anything more interesting so i want to destroy heartstopper to destroy heartstopper clones" and that gives me massive ick because it implies their sole reasoning for including it was "chill and happy queer stories bad, if a character doesn't suffer enough then they're not interesting"?? why can't LGBTQ+ audiences have more 'vanilla' stories that aren't all sad and angsty all the time? are we not entitled to the same corny romcom vanilla shit that the heterocis are entitled to? why do LGBTQ+ characters - and by extension, people - have to suffer to qualify as being 'interesting'? You're already interesting, you're you! like i'm sorry, are we trying to scare people straight??? 😭 shit, that's even a plot point that's touched on in Heartstopper itself where Nick is questioning his sexuality and he starts googling shit and it's just ALL the terrifying news stories of queer kids being ostracized / bullied / murdered / etc. and as much as it's important to be aware of the ongoing issues so we can keep fighting for our rights, we ALSO need to find balance and remember to celebrate the stories that AREN'T that because we need something to be hopeful for, something we can find peace in. I don't think Heartstopper is some deeply profound piece of work, but it also doesn't seem like it's trying to be? It's a low stakes celebration of the LGBTQ+ experience that's very warm and comforting, especially for those who are the same ages as the main characters who are often being persuaded by the grown-ups around them that it's a death sentence to be gay / trans / etc.

and it's not like we HAVEN'T had popular pieces of queer representative media that explored things outside of cheesy BL, like are we forgetting about Nimona which explored both the gay and genderfluid experience in a very accessible and fun way while still being mature and not pandering to its audience over how society has made monsters out of queer people?

(and even then I'm sure there are folks who would argue "actually, here are the issues with Nimona" , and that's fine tbh, we can like media and appreciate what it brings to the table while also discussing what it lacks in, such as what we're doing now with Heartstopper! progress is a never-ending journey!!)

and also okay, not me trying to be argumentative in the slightest BUT I don't really get the argument that 'other queer people' are being sidelined for the main characters? unless there's something I'm missing here lol (I will apologize for that because it's admittedly been a while since I've re-read Heartstopper so I should probably go do that to refresh myself on it). like i say that in the sense that Heartstopper is clearly meant to be about two gay male teenagers. just like how Nimona is about a shapeshifter who is not a girl or a boy (they're Nimona!) and a gay man who are both trying to change the system that's other'd them for years for the better. that is the story Heartstopper is trying to tell and it achieves that. it also has a trans character plotline that I could see people arguing feels sidelined but I think there's a massive difference between 'sidelining' and just having a B plot ? my honest take with that is not every piece of representative media is going to be able to cover every single topic, it's just not doable for one piece of media to be a monolith for everything, the same as how one person can't be a monolith for an entire community of people. BUT that doesn't mean works like Heartstopper and Nimona can't inspire others to also lend their voices into the medium and create that representation that's needed. That's why we need ✨variety✨ and Heartstopper is part of that variety by offering a more vanilla cutesy story full of good vibes for people who want that sort of thing.

IDK, I think there's just a lot of nuance that's being missed in that poll, and in the difference between Heartstopper inspiring more people to write happy cozy BL stories vs. implying that it's had an actual negative influence on modern art and media in the same way that series like Homestuck and LO have to the point that people think it needs to be destroyed, like wtf LOL Like they're not even comparable IMO and a lot of the arguments I see people making about why it is just feel a little backwards, and those arguments obfuscate the real issue which is just "popular thing is popular and people like to piggyback off popular shit". That's a fact for basically any niche and genre, these trends come and go. Even if the whole cutesy BL trend passes one day (which it will) it'll be replaced by something else that people will also inevitably find samey and boring after a while. This is not a concept that's unique to LGBTQ+ media, it's universal.

Balance is important and I think finding that balance is as much a responsibility on the shoulders of the consumer as it is on the creator. And I don't think Heartstopper deserves to be put into the same camp as stories like LO which literally straightwashes its canonically queer characters and gives those queer identities to nothingburger characters who are easy to shoo out of the plot to make way for the heterocis ones (while still parading itself around like it's actually 'queer rep' which... it really isn't.) Like all three of the comics in that poll are vastly different, serving different audiences, with different goals and intentions. It's comparing apples to oranges to pineapples.

The worst Heartstopper has to offer is just a low stakes plot that might not appeal to everyone or feel 'samey' which yeah, valid, but in the grander sense of whether or not it's had a negative effect on queer media just for being... cheesy? And inspiring other people to write stories like it? I don't get the argument, it feels like it's severely missing the point of what we're fighting for here - to live happy little unbothered lives - but that's just me ╮(￣ω￣;)╭ I'm definitely not trying to be a dick about it in any way and I don't want anyone to think I'm not open to the opposing points here, I do agree with you on the oversaturation of samey BL stories, but it just rose some massive red flags to see Heartstopper next to frigging Homestuck and Lore Olympus LOL