#and combined with the metanarrative it fucks so had

[ossifer]

btw the only reason i'm friends with you is so i can model my characters on you <3

everyone in my novel is actually intended to emulate at least one of your traits. you didn't like june? she's you. she's your fear of abandonment combined with that very particular belief in your own superiority and higher awareness compared to others around you. so fucking annoying, right?

no, no, you don't get it. even the dialogue is based on your speech. i took notes, recorded you when you didn't realise, paid off your therapist to see his notes. every character is an expression of you. a shade, a splinter. i put your psyche in a literary funhouse of mirrors. every single person is you, filtered through the narrative lens of a perspective character much like you, more heavily based on you than the rest. fucked up, right?

my beta readers love it. they're saying that my stated intention to demonstrate how the finite range of human variability doesn't detract from the sheer individuality inherent to each of us—an individuality that is not oppositional to our collective similarity—was more than achieved. my editor says its insight into the human condition combined with the underlying framing devices makes it a metanarrative subverise piece on par with house of leaves—probably better, even.

my stated intention is just words. i did this to fuck with you. you think we've ever been friends? no, i realised a a few months after meeting you that we would never be friends. but your abhorrence is enchanting. that's not a compliment by the way. everyone who's read this final draft has commented on how well i've condensed the seedy underbelly of sordid traits inherent to all of us—especially prevalent in one individual, it seems, considering this is all you—into these characters. the many highs and lows of the human condition in one piece of fiction. not many highs to be found, it seems.

i'd muse about my being biased, but again, therapist's notes. trust the professional paid to be impartial, right? not like any do a good job of remaining that. they are very scathing notes. sigmund, twisted fuck that he was, would've had a field day.

joyce claimed that, using ulysses as a blueprint, you could rebuild dublin, just because of how finely detailed he had captured the city. you are my dublin. this is a monument to you, a critique, a blueprint of your being that includes scathing footnotes nested in a narrative voice i loathe like no other.

you didn't like it? well, of course you don't.

we both know you don't like yourself.

enjoy the royalties. you earned them. nice to know it pays to be a terrible person, right?

[mister13eyond]

It's okay that you called me Anon, don't worry. Is one of your assholes also trying to reset every single alternative universe you've created? My yes or rather is trying to cancel a certain event, completely ignoring the butterfly effect it could have. For him, chaos theory is nonsense created by humans.

OH THAT SOUNDS DELIGHTFUL AND TERRIBLE i *love* a metanarrative aware/multiverse-destroying character [chef kiss] NOT TO COMPARE TO UNDERTALE AUS but i always loved the whole back and forth happening with certain undertale aus where some iterations wanted to DESTROY the concept of alternate universes/timeline offshoots and others wanted to INSPIRE artists and lead to the creation of MORE offshoots? it's super fun, that level of self-interaction between yourself as a creator and your character as a narrative element but also a RESPONSE to your creation is SO fun!

NONE OF MINE ARE ON THAT LEVEL but I think the closest would be Zinnia- rambling/oc lore under the cut bc it got long!

SO SOME FRAMEWORK IS NECESSARY in my comic universe, angels are beings connected to the mana that makes up the universe, which they can cast as "miracles", while demons are beings made of mana who cannot draw it from the universe around them and must draw it from individuals to sustain themselves instead

As a result of this, FALLEN angels (which Zinnia is) are angels who have not only been cast out of heaven but also CUT OFF from the flow of universal mana

However, because of this, fallen angels can be something like black holes that can wipe out entire city blocks by draining all the mana and life force from beings around them. They're incredibly dangerous. As a result, not only are fallen angels RARE, but heaven also takes precautions when exiling them by shackling them. These shackles act as sort of power limiters, making it so they can only draw mana on a very small scale (and not from humans- it has to be obtained from mana-based beings like demons.) These shackles cannot be removed by the fallen angel themself, and must be removed by someone else.

Since it's pretty dangerous to create a fallen angel, and even WITH the shackles can still be risky, it is NOT done often. It's much more common for cases like Asphodel to happen- where someone is not-so-subtly encouraged to leave and not come back, but no *official* exile is made. They're still connected to the universal mana flow, but are Heavily Discouraged from using it. Like a kid who hasn't been fully disowned by their parents, but HAS stopped getting financial support in any way.

As a result, an angel has to REALLY fuck up to be exiled. In Zinnia's case, he was doing some Extremely Shady business dealings in the renaissance era- he was caught selling indulgences and making promises to certain religious figures that they'd have a guaranteed spot in heaven if they'd just help him with this particular political move he wanted to see happen, you know.... (I'm not saying he dealt with the Borgias, but i'm not NOT saying he dealt with the Borgias, you know?)

It's been A Long Time since then and Zinnia has mostly been kept from any large-scale scheming by a combination of being shackled and also generally everyone in his circle wising up to his nonsense, but he IS still pretty desperate to get his shackles off, and isn't above lying or deceiving others to do so. He's also relentlessly petty and does things like "sic a demon hunter on a demon because he pissed you off one time."

He's probably the biggest ACTUAL threat in the cast, but because he's got a poor reputation and is shackled so he can't use his power for destructive means, he's kind of undergone This form of characterization:

If he ever manages to actually fool anyone into unshackling him, he could be an Actual Genuine Threat, but since he hasn't had any success, he's just like a mean cat that lives in Damian's house and causes small-scale problems.

[butcharyastark]

Speaking of jcs, can I have a rating of the musicals/ different versions?

HOWDY, IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

keep in mind ive only watched a handful of recordings or productions compared to other ppl but i do have Opinions on the ones ive watched. [cracks knuckles] so:

1. biased maybe because i just watched it but the 50th anniversary arena tour (circa early 2023, there have been other castings last year ik but this year's one is the one i love). i had the chance to go see it bc it was in my state this month and its the latest one i've watched but it instantly blew away all the other versions i've seen. just... the great singing of 1996 london cast and great acting of 1973 movie and creative staging like the 2018 live in concert.... it had everything and there was not a single ball dropped or a single bad or even meh actor or song or artistic decision. i am usually not one to rec ppl to go buy a ticket to an event but seeing it was the best intro to musical theater or live performances i could have ever had and AHHHHHH. sm details of this will stay in my mind forever re: jcs i can't pick one thing to deacribe bc it's Everything and i'd be here for two hours if i tried. it has my FAVORITE ending of any jcs production and idk if any other production will compare to the high intensity emotions and poetics and symbolism combined with amazing singing like this one.

2. have to go with 1996 london cast recording. i havent seen it and idk if there are even any bootleg recordings of it, but the album is The jcs album i relisten to. fucking A+++. again, maybe i'm biased bc this was my first full jcs album (as opposed to random songs), but idk if anything else but the 1973 movie studio recording album can compare purely musically to me. i love how you can HEAR the acting in the emotional singing while also not sacrificing the singing itself (looking at you 2000 movie judas), and idk i feel like it so clearly tells the story in the tone even without being able to see it, and that's fantastic. every other jcs production in terms of singing and audible acting gets compared to this one, for me. this is the one i hear in my head when i remember or mentally sing the lyrics.

3. 1973 movie. carl anderson. first official filmed jcs production. 70's outfits. meta narrative. do i need to say anything else? this was my second jcs version i consumed when i Got Into It and man im glad it was. when i first watched it, it seemed kinda just alright (probably bc im not a huge fan of movies from the 70's or 80's), but the further time goes on the more i realize this is kinda just The jcs. the classic jcs. i said 1996 london cast recording is what i compare everything else to musically, but i feel like this version is the one that every other version has to live up to. simple question: is your jcs production better than carl anderson painfully crying out "he won't listen to me!" on a mountain in the desert in a fringe outfit as jesus steps out of a tour bus, yes or no? and most of the time the answer is no.

i'm not a huge fan of older movies but the acting and music in this is top tier, the costuming is fun most of the time, the sets are neat, and the underlying metanarrative about an acting group performing jcs inuniverse for a film or smth is rlly interesting. it's the only other jcs album i have saved in my music folder besides the 1996 london cast recording. 9/10

also as a judas fan this is also the judas i compare every other judas to bc... goddamn carl anderson covers every base. desperation and anger and righteousness and tenderness and pain and bitterness and longing.... he has the range. and honestly it's got my favorite version of Superstar so far. i don't think anyone else has topped carl anderson's version yet.

4. swedish arena tour (idr the year). amazing casting, AMAZING acting, fucking incredible costumes, great singing. the only reason it's this far down this list is bc i prefer other character interpretations, but like, the appeal of bisexual vampy switch jesus who flirts with most of the apostles inbetween his main love interests of biker milf mary magdalene and legolas-in-a-mesh-shirt judas... simply cannot be understated. pretty much every artistic decision is 7 or higher out of 10. it's a very consistently good production, and a very gay one. i like the swedish translated lyrics also.

5. 2000 movie. i think everyone knows by now how bad this one is but it's so campy and jcs is inherently ridiculous as both the appeal and the concept that it loops back around to being good. it's not my fave version but it was my third jcs version and it was honestlly rlly fun to watch. what it lacks in singing, it makes up for in acting. i think Heaven On Their Minds, Everything's Alright, This Jesus Must Die, The Last Supper, and Superstar are the numbers that shine here. i think this movie is actually my favorite versions of everything's alright and this jesus must die. i really like the symbolism they try to use in this one. ik i said i genuinely think the acting makes up for the singing, but this might be higher if judas actually SANG. or if pilate was less sympathetic bc i actually hate this pilate djdjfj this version gets points for being much less antisemitic than other jcs productions with the priests, and then immediately loses them by being noticibly more racist than others in the temple. also my favorite peter is in this one. his acting in the last supper is like 25% of my enjoyment of this version.

6. 2018 live concert. full disclosure, i haven't finished this one yet, but i love it so far. i love the outfits and the staging and the energy and casting. this singing is not my favorite and i'm genuinely not sure if john legend knows how to act or if they just cast him bc he's john legend (i'll find out in the second half ig bc i also didn't like the acting of the 50th anniversary tour jesus in the first half and THEN--) but judas does a good enough version of heaven on their minds which is my main criteria for judging a jcs production in personal likes and i do Love the meta themes of casting a real superstar singer as jesus christ given the themes of the musical. i like the dynamics between judas and mary in this one. i think judas is in the closet in this one which is very sad but his outfits absolutely make up for it. it is a spectacle and a half and i'm enjoying it so far. it might get bumped up to #5 depending on how the second half goes.

7. original concept album. i know it's very weird putting the origin of the whole thing at the bottom, but that's not because it's bad, it's just not smth i'm in love with as a whole. i do need to relisten to it--actually i will do that today--but it was really good the first time i heard it, i'm just not a fan of the sound of early rock and prefer the way various versions adapt the music in progressively more modern times. objectively talented singing tho and heaven on their minds goes OFF. i may have more takes after relistening, but that's it rn.

8. i've listened to a bunch of other tidbits of assorted performances, mostly judas solos, bc as i said, i judge a jcs production by its heaven on their minds performance and i went scouring through classic and modern versions of that at one point. this is not part of the proper ranking bc i haven't listened to them in full, but i wanted to mention them here at the end. if anyone wants a list of my fave recs of that to look into:

original mexican cast (1975)

original japanese cast (1976)

mexican revival cast (1984)

original russian cast (1992)

original czech cast (1994)

jesus christ surferstar (2003)

all female jcs recording (2022)

most of these albums can be found just uploaded on youtube or even spotify which is very cool, please check them out, i had fun skipping thru them.

and uhhhh there's all the versions i've watched in full, or mostly watched, and a few of the ones i've done neither! ik this is very long (longer than i intended) but i hope this is what u were looking for and was entertaining or helpful!!

[tspultradeluxe]

I think OP of that amazing tsp post deactivated but basically the rules of the universe/the continuity depend on the action of the player and its a REALLY cool take on continuity

[casgirl]

top 5 spn villains?

1. My #girlboss queen Naomi she’s like a combination of sera gamble and Margaret thatcher

2. Chuck bc like the INCREDIBLY smart metanarrative of like the villain being the writers and the story itself like FUCK everything with Chuck was soooo smart

3. Metatron he was a proto-Chuck but gets extra points for being another one of those villains who had it out for cas specifically and was homophobic about it

4. Ruby, the reveal in Lucifer rising and her face it sam im awesome speech?? SO good it gets me every time PLUS she’s sexy

5. Ishim he’s not a girlboss but he’s what girlbosses stand against. The poster boy for workplace harassment. One of the greatest homophobes the show has ever had.

[mittensmorgul]

FYI everyone, there... is just too much meta to this episode.

This is chuck actively manipulating the ENTIRE story and slapdashing elements from pretty much the ENTIRE history of the show together until he hits on a combination of events and themes that “works” to get the ending he wants.

It’s horrifying, and manic, and BRILLIANT on the part of *our* writers, but Chuck-As-Author... is desperate, and his entire story is falling down around him. He’s been pushed to “write an ending,” instead of just being able to fly off to create another universe to bother, because he CAN’T fly off or create another universe.

He’s stuck here, going through every failed draft he’s ever written, because he can’t let go of the “one brother kills the other” ending he thinks is the best ending to his story. This is why every since draft he’d ever written before was doomed to fail. The one “successful” draft? The one where Sam and Dean chose to save each other. Over and over again.

(well, with a LOT of help along the way from Cas.)

This episode started out looking exactly like an inversion of 1.02, Wendigo. Friends camping in the woods, two doomed to die at the hands of a pair of brother werewolves who’d sworn off eating humans, after one of the brothers decided he was a monster and would never stop hunting humans or being a monster. And this pinged... SO many other episodes.

The entire werewolf plot sounded so much like Cain in 10.14 when he told Dean he would never stop killing, when Dean was begging to know if he even COULD stop, before executing him. And also, Cain in 9.11 when he asked Dean why he’d saved his own brother instead of killing him. Because this had been Chuck’s recurring story, over and over again. Kill the sibling (ostensibly to save them from monstrousness), kill the lover (while trying to save them from monstrousness), live in misery forever.

CHARMING!

But then we had Lilith show up, as a MASSIVE inversion of the entire plot of 4.18. All of that was Chuck’s story, too. This entire episode not only stood all of 4.18 on its head, it gave Lilith license to critique Chuck’s entire body of work. And even HER critique was scathing.

SHE WAS A PLOT DEVICE. She couldn’t act outside of the lines that Chuck had written for her, though she could hate those lines, and actively say so. Regardless of if this was OG Lilith or Chuck having “remade” her to serve this function within this episode, she still was able to comment on the metanarrative of the entire episode.

My head is spinning, in the best possible way.

There were callbacks to s5 and Lucifer-possessed Sam killing Dean (with FIRE this time! which also felt like a direct callback to s6 and s7 and Sam’s Halluciferations), to s9 and s10 with MoC Dean killing Sam (with the first blade this time!).

Then there was the melting of the Equalizer gun, as if that would actually solve any of Chuck’s problems. He’s already been shot, you know? The damage has been done. Granted, Sam and Dean don’t have it as a last resort weapon anymore, but would either of them WANT to use it, knowing full well how it works? One of them would’ve still had to die to fire it at Chuck. And the whole POINT of all of this is that NEITHER of them should have to die for Chuck’s dumbass, nonsensical story.

Which Lilith critiques REPEATEDLY.

Hold that thought for a second. The melting of the Equalizer looked an AWFUL lot like Dagon melting the Colt. Flashback to 12.19 for that one. Chuck doesn’t want them to have too much power. It makes things too easy for them, and gives them a way to keep saving each other instead of one of them killing the other. Okay, back to where we were.

I mean, even going back to 4.18, I’ve written A LOT about this episode, and specifically about how in hindsight from a post s11 universe it all looks like a test of Chuck’s Personal Emergency Broadcasting Network. Like Chuck wanted to see just how much power and control he had over the story, by specifically engineering this outlandish sequence of events from writing himself into the story as a “prophet” to the ridiculous “Dean seeing stars and having cartoon bandaids on his face.” He wanted to test his own power to manipulate events to his own liking.

But here’s the kicker... Lilith has come back into the story in s15 despite all logic, despite all ability to predict her arrival, WITH THE EXACT SAME STUPID PRETENCE. This time it was to “seduce Dean,” when last time it was to seduce Sam.

AND YET! BOTH TIMES SHE COMPLETELY FAILED TO DO THAT.

Dean brought Chuck to the assignation at gunpoint to draw down the Archangel protecting him to drive Lilith off. Prophecy the First averted. This time, Dean... just had to be himself. Not the kind of person who would take advantage of a terrified and wounded recent college grad. I mean, if Lilith’s “performance” was really Chuck’s attempt at “seduction” it tells us SO MUCH about who Chuck THINKS Dean is, versus who Dean actually is, you know? And this is exactly why Chuck’s story has failed over and over again.

Chuck... has no idea what the fuck he’s writing.

And it’s fucking glorious.

And now? Sam and Dean are 100% aware of the fact.

Of course, Dean’s despondent over the fact. He just wanted to be free. He wanted to think his life was finally his own. But it hadn’t been, all this time he’s still be under Chuck’s thumb. And now he’s so broken he doesn’t know if it’s even possible to win against Chuck, with all his terrible storytelling directly influencing their lives in perpetuity. How do you win against God? How do you win your way free of his terrible story? When every time you think you’ve won, he just keeps writing a new, worse scenario for you?

(and honestly, even when they DO die, he just brings them back and makes them start again! there’s no escape! It could go on forever!)

I wonder what terrible thing he’ll write into their lives next week!

Oh, wait, one of the witches in the promo for 15.06 was the actress who played Sera Siege in 4.18, aka Chuck’s agent! Aka the woman who grilled Sam and Dean about facts from the books and gave them Chuck’s address! Whose name was a conglomeration of Sera Gamble and Julie Siege-- two writers of Supernatural!

So Chuck really is the monster at the end of this book, and Dabb’s final act will be dismantling his entire reign of terror over the lives of Team Free Will.

I... am entirely here for this ride.

[bladekindeyewear]

Reading Homestuck^2 as of Page 28.  I’m glad we’re resolving the lack of conversations between these two, it’s really working well so far.  > ==>

So we’re calling this a “prattle”, huh?

I’m not sure how to describe everything that’s going on here, this playful skip of depicting actions by narrating them intentionally, but I like it somehow.

Some stuff about ABBA, too, not that I’d get it as I don’t really music.

Hm, interesting discussion about these capsules.

DIRK: But beyond that, they're a convenient and effective means of subtle psychic suggestion at a distance. TEREZI: 1T DO3SNT S33M 4LL TH4T SUBTL3 TO M3 DIRK: Well no, it's not. DIRK: At least, not for us right now. DIRK: But that's because your presence as a guiding influence has been revealed. DIRK: Earlier, when I hadn't realized you were there, it was more difficult to discern.

Yep, setting up mechanics for us to play with later.  This is nice.

DIRK: That's what you get for nosing around in our secret storeroom. DIRK: I'd ask you not to contaminate the ectobiological equipment with your own genetic material, but, TEREZI: Y34H TOO L4T3, SORRY >:|

Dammit, that’s right.  You’re seeding a whole damn planet and time-traveling forward somehow so you can hijack a session, right?  I can’t see the game treating you kindly for that sort of indiscretion.

Eugh, creepy.  Terezi can still be controlled directly, and she knows it.  And there’s shit he wants to hide from her.  Euugh.

(Is it John’s corpse or something?)

> Dirk: Get this show on the road.

A “N31GH” code, huh?  Good taste, Terezi.  Very character-appropriate.

Rose is feeling ominous about getting this started, huh?  She should.

ROSEBOT: But if I had to describe it, I'd say that misgivings, hunches, doubts and so on are supported on a foundation of un-knowing. ROSEBOT: And along with that absence of knowledge comes a commensurate feeling of dread or worry. Fear about the potential calamity yet to come.

Hmm.  (Trying to parse anything meaningful besides the obvious, and Rose going for a Homestucky start-of-adventure paragraph.)

ROSEBOT: As though in this moment, luck isn't either strictly real or not real, or somewhere inbetween, but absent of meaning completely. ROSEBOT: Luck took one look at our itinerary from here on out and said you'll just have to go on without me. DIRK: Luck rolled over the other side of the dictionary and said not tonight sweetheart, I've got a wicked fuckin' headache. ROSEBOT: Exactly. ROSEBOT: Except now I'm the one with the migraine.

Mhmm.  Because what you’re trying to accomplish isn’t gonna work out the way you think it is, but that fact’s actually quite possibly a good thing for you and everyone else.  Hard to put that in a cut-and-dry good or bad, isn’t it?

> ==>

DIRK: We scanned for Sburban technology, so we know for sure this is the right planet. Wheels are already in motion and all that.

Huh.  I guess if you found the right planet to use, it WOULD already have the tech paradoxically seeded on it, wouldn’t it?

ROSEBOT: It's like the notion I was trying to describe was so conceptually insubstantial, so resistant to concrete definition within any meaningful frame of reference, that even thinking about it as an idea made *me* somehow existentially unsound. ROSEBOT: And not in the way I used to always feel, back before John made the choice to validate our canonical existences axiomatically. ROSEBOT: Foreboding I can deal with. I'm a Seer. Sooths are mine to say. ROSEBOT: But this is different.

Perhaps “Void”, but in the less “misfortune” sense?

Hm.

(Did the heroes bring Roxy on the other ship? I fucking hope I don’t have to go a whole adventure without any more Roxy.  Or fun Void heroes, anyway.  ...Crap.  We’re going to get new characters. That’s right.)

Despite what she thinks, little by little Rose begins to feel her head clear of concern, semantically dubious or otherwise. Her understanding of my ascended existence doesn't include this degree of metanarrative potency, so her doubts as to my words' healing powers are understandable.

Fuck you. Fuck you. FUCK. YOU.

You’re taking this otherwise smart, wonderful character and systematically BEATING OUT OF HER the ability to question her circumstances or doubt her path with a narrative stick.  You’re killing everything that is her, robbing her completely of her will as your title implies.  I don’t like seeing Rose vividly, constantly KILLED at the will level.  I wonder if it’s going to STOP anytime before even the halfway point of this story.

...Heh. “Chaotic-lawful”.  Hehehe. (Or H3h3h3, rather.)

As you know, I have many splinters. So many, I used to find it overwhelming to contemplate them all. Depressing, actually. It was a feeling I could never escape from. The feeling that my sense of self was limitless. That I was forced to exist as a small facet of my own potential, while drowning in an ocean of my greater persona, and all the terrible things I was fully capable of. I was trapped as a limited version of myself who was still burdened by the concern for what it meant to be good, struggling to keep himself from drowning in an overwhelming body of potential which had no concern for human morality whatsoever.

Hmmmmmm.

But that struggle finally ended a few years ago. My head isn't fighting to stay above the water anymore. There isn't even a metaphorical head to speak of. I'm only the water now.

Right, the Ultimate Self.  Essentially encompassing and accessing your whole Heart at once, every disparate definition of yourself pulled together.

(Which makes it even more throw-up disgusting that Rose is currently achieving this same state and STILL being enslaved by Dirk.  He’s not just enslaving Rose, he’s enslaving ALL of Rose, the entire concept she represents.  And deluding her utterly in the process.)

> ==>

DIRK: What's that noise I'm hearing. DIRK: It sounds a little bit like a cat being caught in a ventilation fan. A sort of... DIRK: Inhuman screeching, combined with the grinding of metal. DIRK: Are we even going to make it to the ground? ROSEBOT: Oh, no, ROSEBOT: The ship's fine as far as I can tell. ROSEBOT: That's just Terezi laughing. DIRK: Oh. DIRK: She's... enjoying this, isn't she.

Pfffffff.  :)

> ==>

Nothing familiar about this planetary body, far as I can tell.

Ah, that “to be continued...” was pretty hard to see.  Guess that’s it for now!

This is definitely going to be fun, if still at least 30% soul-crushing.  It really is really, really hard to see Rose like this, at his mental-manipulating mercy.  Luckily -- if we can even call it luck -- we probably will see very little comparatively of Dirk’s party, and more onscreen of the others in the Hero party or whichever new... humans? (Hybrids even, maybe, if Dirk’s especially ambitious?) ..make up this session’s players.

And I’ll be blogging the whole way through, I suppose.  See you then!

[tanoraqui]

It’s fine! It’ll be fine (for a while). Things the people searching for Telperinquar have which the people searching for Elwë, once upon a time in a different timeline, did not:

a metanarrative imperative to get an impenetrable, enchantment-guarded kingdom up and running ASAP, for proper ironic parallels, and a diegetic imperative to do the same for reasons of Morgoth Is Right There

a Hound of Valinor who is very personally invested in finding basically-also-his-nephew

where Elwë and Melian just make eye contact (a/n: euphemism for wild monkey sex??) for 200 years, after just a few months of that, Mairon is like, “…do you wanna see how to make some cool stuff?” and Tyelpe is like, “Yes.” And even when hidden in the heart of a random mountain in the Ered Wethrin, smithing makes noise

The people looking for Elwë were fresh-from-Cuiviénen Teleri with, like, spears and good eyesight. The people looking for Telperinquar are grief-mad Calaquendi Noldor and I’m willing to bet they have and will use nitroglycerin

(It’s not that hard to invent. They just don’t use it much because that level of destruction isn’t intuitive to people who grew up in peace with enormous instinctive respect for the natural world. But if Huan says Tyelpe is somewhere inside that mountain? The mountain as to go.)

(For the record, I think Curufin is…kind of walking-catatonic at this point. His grandfather is dead. His youngest brother is optionally dead. His father, his idol and role model, is dead. And his son is missing, presumed subject to the same torment that they can every now and then glimpse his oldest brother subject to, on rare days when the smoke clears around Thangodrim. Curufin is forging swords, armor, whatever else anyone asks of him, but he’s just. Empty-eyed. It’s his wife, Tyelpe’s mother, who busts out the nitroglycerin. I always headcanon she came to Middle Earth bc I can’t imagine Curufin marrying anyone but a staunch Fëanorian, though I also think that in order for it to have been a truly good marriage, she had a few Opinions about Fëanor’s treatment of his fifth son.)

The above combine to a scenario along the lines of,

[6-ish very angry Sons & Daughter-in-Laws of Fëanor blow in the doors, point swords at this Maia whom they can only assume has enslaved their son/nephew to nefarious purpose, and demand that he step the FUCK away from both the forge and the Tyelpe. Possibly Huan tackles him, bc some things are Fate]

Mairon, preparing to atomize some elves if necessary: Tyelpe, are these people with you?

elf!16yo Telperinquar, blinking his way out of a spark fugue post- (mid?-)coital bliss focus on his work: Wh- oh! No! I mean, yes!

Tyelpe: [pushes himself between Mairon and all the swords, with the unerring dramatic instinct inherent to both teenagers and scions of Fëanor] Father, lay down your sword! I love him!

(ALTERNATELY, for the record: they didn’t quite finish getting married, bc idk, it takes a while for a Maia to tamp themselves down to be healthy for an elf to soulbond with. So Curufin Absolutely Forbids It until Tyelpe is Properly Of Age in like 30 years. This, too, would be hilarious)

more importantly, [smash cut to 20-odd years later]

Fingolfin: I’m sorry, please repeat that?

Maglor: [sighs full of grief] Father—

Fingolfin: No no, I got that. I’ll react to that later, possibly violently. Repeat the part about how we all rebelled against the Valar, putting ourselves under irrevocable Doom unto the end of time, and then walked 30 years across frozen hell because YOU burned our ships, to find you sheltering under the wing of the first Maia you met.

Maglor: It’s not quite—

Fingolfin: Oh yes, sorry— I think I missed the part where Telperinquar is now King of the Noldor, because the Maia said so, because they, did I really hear you right, they fell in love?

Maglor: That is NOT true. Well, that is partly true. It’s a delicate family dynamic, and we’re still working out an official marriage contract. But for now—

Fingolfin: For now, I don’t know whether to be sword-swingingly furious or to burst out laughing at what I’m sure must be the state of all your senses of pride. Also, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN, FËANÁRO IS DEAD?

Fingon, dangerously: And where did you say Maitimo is?

this totally unbalances Tolkien’s themes of recurring smithly overreach and the general arc of Middle Earth Elvish power politics, but I do think it’d be tragic-hilarious if Melian was the Lieutenant of Angband who later disguised herself as an emissary of the Valar and tore heart, city, and life from Elu Thingol, who had until then lived since Cuiviénen…and meanwhile back in the First Age, Mairon is just finishing up some mountains in the north, thinking about staying because he’s just that proud of them, thinking about going because Aulë called everyone out of the suddenly Melkor-reinfested area…when he sees, just, the BEST elf, holy shit the brightness of the spirit! the pretty face! the creative potential! And that’s how the Fëanorians really collectively lose their minds for a bit, when within the space of a month, Fëanor is dead, Maedhros is captured, and elf!teenage Celebrimbor vanishes without a trace while investigating some potentially useful ores (because he met a Maia in a cave and they eloped on the spot)

[atekasey]

Alright, final day of the year, final day of me not shutting up about my favourite 2017 games. And today, I want to talk about my favourite game that came out this year, which is NieR:Automata. It's really hard to talk about what makes NieR:Automata so special without spoiling major plot points and revelations. So I won't do that, or at least try not to. Instead I'll just describe my journey in experiencing it. I'm not kidding when I say it will be long, so if you want to stop reading here, just know this: you should 100% check out NieR:Automata and play until the end of route E. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

My history with Yoko Taro games is practically nonexistent. I rented the first Drakengard game from a local rental store back when it came out, before I even knew who Yoko Taro was. I got bored of it within an hour and returned it as soon as I could, never thinking of it again. In 2010, when the first NieR came out, I remember being intrigued due to the hype I saw online about the story. However, hearing about how the gameplay was lackluster, even from fans, ultimately dissuaded me from checking it out. Fast forward to 2015, to the Square Enix E3 press conference. I wasn't into anything SE showed so far until this bug-eyed, moon-faced man comes on stage. That was my introduction to Yoko Taro, and immediately I was into his whole shtick. Hearing him talk combined with the fact Platinum Games would be working on this new NieR project they just announced got me hooked. When the demo came out, I was into the mix of character action and shoot-em-up mechanics. When the PC version was available for preorder, I bought it as soon as I could. I could not wait to play NieR:Automata.

Release day arrives, and resolution hacks aside, I was into most of what was being presented so far. 2B and 9S were fascinating characters, and their relationship was something I wanted to explore further. The narrative was presented in a intriguing enough way that I wanted to uncover what mysteries the game had. I liked how hollow the world was. I absolutely loved the music (bought the soundtrack as soon as I could). I adored the cute, rusty, trash-can-looking machine lifeforms, and enjoyed any interaction with them outside the combat. Speaking of which, I was not into the combat at all. There was obviously depth in how you could customize your weapon and chip loadout, but the enemy encounters combined with the long timing window on your dodge never made it hard enough to warrant that experimentation. To see Platinum falter with the combat design was a let down. I got to the forest kingdom before putting NieR:Automata down, as I became more interested in playing other games that were out at the time.

3 months go by, I finish my time with other, more preoccupying games, and I was looking for a new game to fill my time. During those months, the buzz for NieR:Automata continued to grow everywhere I looked. Seeing the way people talked about NieR:Automata, especially route E, made me want to go back to it. So I decided to bump the difficulty down to easy, equip all the auto-playing chips and just experience the story. I blasted through what I had remaining of route A, liking what I saw but knew I didn't see what made the story special yet. I immediately start route B, and was thrown for a loop. The first 5 minutes of route B made me afraid. Not in a "horror movie scared" way, but in an "I feel like I'm about to be emotionally fucked with" kind of way. Man, was I not wrong. Route B is mostly a replay of route A, but from a different character's perspective. The new context of this different perspective adds a seriously depressing element to all the moments in route A. I finished route B, but the emotional cost was wore on me. But none of that could have prepared me for route C.

Route C (and D, technically) took any happiness, any joyous moment, any good feeling I had possibly remaining for the characters and story and browbeat me into submission. Route C/D is a cavalcade of emotionally devastating moment after emotionally devastating moment, each one worse than the last. By the time I got to the end of route C/D, I wondered if any of it was worth it. What was the point of any of that if everything is going to suffer in an endless cycle of violence. Maybe that's the point, that existence is pain. As emotionally drained as I was, I was still glad to have played NieR:Automata. The metanarrative of the game set a very high bar for how stories are told in video games. As the credits rolled for a 4th time, something new happens that, depending on your choice, will trigger the start of route E. Route E is what I can only describe as the most emotionally uplifting climax I have experienced since the true pacifist ending of Undertale. If route C/D makes it seem hopeless, route E presents a glimmer of hope. That no matter how bad things get, no matter how beat down you get, there is always hope.

On July 1st, 2017, I completed NieR:Automata. I put my controller down, and pontificated on so many things. Mostly existential things, nothing that hasn't been pontificated on since time immemorial and by smarter people. NieR:Automata fundamentally changed how I thought I viewed life and existence. I have not stopped thinking about NieR:Automata, its story, or its characters since I finished it, and will probably never forget it. So thank you, Yoko Taro, for making this game.