#and i need to stop obsessing over those things in my worldbuilding because it drives me insane and i hold myself to an unfair standars

[hegrowth-arc]

okay so. I kind of just realized that suspension of disbelief is / should be a part of rp and writing. that sounds silly but. I get so stressed about the details and little things and whether or not they are realistic and it drives me insane, every time, when the truth is I am literally writing fiction and if aspects aren't perfectly accurate or well-informed that's fine ! also being able to create concepts with that in mind. and using creative license. I guess it's like. discovering a new way to use something ? does that make sense ? realizing something can be used in an additional way ? but really tho I am literally writing feral bois and tech-enhanced spies, I think I can get away with a little stretching of reality for my own purposes.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Analysing my favourite lines from Six of Crows chapter by chapter: Chapter 4

Same as usual: famous or popular quotes being missed doesn't mean I don't like them it just means I don't have anything new to say, and some quotes will not have explanations because I just like them I don't really have anything to analyse

“Inej knew the moment Kaz entered the Slat” - first of all I think it’s relevant that this is our second chapter from Inej’s POV and both of them have begun with the focus entirely on Kaz, the first one being the infamous “Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason”, which she immediately disproves to be factual and instead shows as something created by the opinion of the many who don’t really know Kaz and disputed by the few, herself included, who do. To some extent it’s possible that the same action is being completed with this introduction, since it’s actually less about Inej being aware of Kaz’s presence than it is about her being aware of the Dregs’ acknowledgment of him. Secondly I find it an interesting parallel between the pair, that Kaz recognises Inej’s presence despite no-one else knowing she’s there whilst Inej recognises Ka’s presence because everyone knows he’s there. This not only summarises their drives, for Inej to melt into the background and stop being noticed for her physical appearance and instead valued for her skills, and for Kaz to be seen, to rise to prominence, and to be noticed by Pekka Rollins, but also tells us about their particular gifts for reading people. Kaz reads individuals incredibly well, he explains this in many of his quotes about lock picking and blackmail and we also get the brilliant idea of the way he notices everything about a person down to their scent and the story that their scent tells (I’ve written before about the relevance of him being bothered by the fact that Inej doesn’t have a scent but in the Bathroom Scene he comments on how he can smell soap on her), he sees small details, tells, and nervous ticks and these things give him a massive advantage in the control he exercises over individuals. Inej reads crowds, she sees collective responses to people, events, or objects and uses that response to evaluate the thing that caused it, she doesn’t notice tells until Kaz suggests she looks out for them but she is able to very quickly assess Kaz’s chances of success, and how quickly those chances change, when he faces the Dregs at the Slat and leads a coup against Per Haskell in Crooked Kingdom.

“The worst part of the Barrel […] Most of the buildings in this part of the city had been built without foundations, many on swampy land where the canals were haphazardly dug. They leaned against each other like tipsy friends gathering at a bar, tilting at drowsy angles” - I love the description, I love the imagery, I have a deep obsession with worldbuilding… this is just great, like I don’t really know that’s there’s anything to say it’s just great

“Inej’s room was on the third floor, a skinny slice if space, barely big enough for a cot and a trunk. But with a window that looked out over the leaked roofs and jumbled chimneys of the Barrel. When the wind came through and cleared away the haze of coal smoke that hung over the city, she could even make out a blue pocket of harbour” - ok first of all I’m obsessed with the imagery and the description, and second of all I’m actually just going to copy and paste a post I made a while ago about the window because I find it an incredibly important detail for Inej and I think this is worth saying again:

‘I find it really interesting that Inej’s favourite part about her room at the Slat, despite it being “barely big enough to fit a cot”, is that she has her own window. I think this is important not only because all the windows at the Menagerie were barred, but also because the whole idea of a window is representative of the difference between her life in Ravka and her life in Kerch. Travelling through Ravka, she had no need or want of a window because she was part of and at one with the outdoor world, free to explore it and enjoy it as she saw fit, but in Ketterdam windows and rooftops are her way of travelling the city. They bring her a source of hope and connection to the life she lost whilst simultaneously being her method of completing jobs for the Dregs to slowly claw her back to that very life. So in a way, the window has become a physical manifestation of both a veil of separation between her and everything she’s ever loved or cared for, a literal sheet of glass between her and her world, and of a hope for salvation to return to that love and care.’

“If you had a gripe, you settled it outside where you didn’t risk interrupting the hallowed practice of separating pigeons from their money” - I love this quote so much but I also think it could be interpreted as quite sarcastic on Inej’s part; she talks a lot about how “nothing [is] sacred to the Kerch except trade” and finds a lot of their traditions baffling since their cultural attitude and religious attitude are both so different to the ones she was raised in. This could be seen as a subtle undermining of the culture that abused her whilst appropriating her own culture of peace, which is of course deeply ironic of them, and also reflective of the battle constantly waging inside her over the morality of her surroundings and the core moral code she knows she has broken and will continue to break because circumstance has left her no other choices - possibly linking to the way she specifically considers more fear of her parents not forgiving the actions she’s taken since leaving the Menagerie than what she was forced to do whilst imprisoned there

“I didn’t hurt you none. It was just words” - this is Rojax’s response to Inej punching him in the face whilst wearing brass knuckles after he insulted her, demanded money that neither she nor the gang owed him, and then tried to grab her collar. Now ignoring the money since to be fair we don’t know how much he stole and how much his pay cheque should have been so we don’t know if it evens out or not, the important thing here is that Rojax fails to identify his ability to do Inej damage by calling her “little girl” (words Tante Heleen weaponised against her), referring to her as though she’s Kaz’s property, and threatening violence towards her. I don’t think Rojax meant to affect Inej in the way he surely did, but I do think it shows so well that there’s a massive lack of understanding in the Barrel for the kind of pain that people like Inej have experienced and carry with them, especially since she herself comments on the way even though she hid the scar from her Menagerie tattoo “they all knew it was there”. I how this makes sense I’m not sure if I’ve articulated it quite right

“People were watching now, so she hit him again”

“It would’ve been easy enough to turn away when they called her names or sidled up and asked for a cuddle, but do that and soon it was a hand up your blouse or a try at you against a wall” - this again emphasises that there’s no real acknowledgment of Inej’s experience as traumatic but almost as intriguing or even erotic, and it reminds the reader of the rampant misogyny that travels through the Barrel not only in the dehumanising treatment of women and children in the pleasure houses but also in the cultural attitude as a whole. Although no-one sees Inej as a less threatening force because of her sex, it’s undeniable that the Barrel sees women as something to be conquered or won, and we also see this reflected by the upper classes in the attitudes of merchants and in Van Eck’s marriages.

“Nothing was sacred to the Kerch except trade” - laughing at myself because when I talked about it earlier I didn’t realise this quote was in this chapter

“Inej like Rojax, but right now he was just a frightened man looking to feel bigger than someone”

“Still clutching his cheek like a stunned toddler”

‘ “You look exhausted. Will you sleep at all tonight?”

Jesper just winked.

“Not while the cards are hot. Stay and play a bit, Kaz will stake you”

“Really, Jesper?” she’d said, pulling up her hood, “If I wanna watch men dig holes to fall into I’ll find myself a cemetery”

“Come on, Inej!” He’d called after her as she passed through the big double doors onto the street, “You’re good luck!”

Saints, she’d thought, if he believe that he really must be desperate. She’d left her luck behind in a Suli camp on the shores of West Ravka. She doubted she’d see either again” ’ - this conversation is so important in developing the reader’s baseline understanding for Jesper’s situation and addiction, and it’s not something I see people talk about a lot. Other than Kaz staking him and Jesper calling himself “a creature of habit”, this is the first concession to Jesper’s gambling “habit” being a genuine and debilitating addiction, and I think it’s important for us as the reader to so early on see that Inej, someone whose opinion Jesper so highly valued and someone he is evidently so close to, is unable to talk Jesper out of the card game - in fact the entire conversation to me gives the air of there having been many previous conversations where she tried and this one being one of many following where she’s all but given up. She expresses her opinion on the situation with the beautiful cemetery line, she directly confronts him in the issue by asking if he’s going to sleep tonight, and doesn’t hold back on pointing out that the addiction is having a physical impact on his health by saying that he looks exhausted, but she doesn’t make active strides to pull him away from the game. I think Inej has reached a point where she accepts that it isn’t her job to try and fix the people she cares about, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to. She desperately needs Jesper to hear what she means through what she’s saying, and if he isn’t going to then she cannot stand by and helplessly watch his self-destruction. Jesper on the other hand seems to seek support in her and her presence because of his fears surrounding failure and not being cared for by others as much as he cares for them; he knows Inej leaves because she can’t help him and can’t watch him, and he knows that her trying to help him would make little long term difference as he explains in Crooked Kingdom when talking directly about his addiction, but that doesn’t mean that the cruel, self-destructive, disparaging part of him isn’t taunting him with the idea that she’s leaving because she doesn’t care about him and because she doesn’t want to help him, and that fear/pain only makes him feel more hollow and only makes him need to play more. Again I hope this makes sense it’s starting to feel like I’m just rambling

“Inej moved aside a bucketful of cleaning supplies that she’d placed there precisely because she knew no-one in the Slat would ever touch it” - I couldn’t cope in the Barrel. There’s no way I could cope with the fighting anyway, but if I by some miracle survived it would only be for the general lack of cleanliness to finish me off

' "This place is like anything in Ketterdam. It leaks,"

Inej could've sworn he looked directly at the vent when he said it. ' - I love this so much because Kaz never mentions anything about this himself but it just so fluidly becomes part of the way he's always aware of her presence. There's also never any surprise at meeting her right outside the closet she's hiding in immediately after the conversation with Haskell so I think we get the idea that's quite routine, and it begins more and more to introduce us to this quiet dependence Kaz and Inej have on each other without addressing it; there are so many things that they each know the others does but never mention, and I think generally speaking they both know that the other knows as well but their ease with one another doesn't require voicing it aloud - if anything it may even rely on keeping it silent, since neither of them are in a position yet where they can admit to themselves the need to rely on someone/the care they feel towards each other.

"You're smart Brekker, but you need to learn patience," - this line always catches me out a little, but I think it's actually just giving us another hint to the extent of disconnect Haskell has from the real experiences of his gang members. We already know Kaz to be a patient character at least in some of the situations we've seen so far, and he goes on to prove himself as immensely and genius-ly (I have no idea what the real word for that is, work with me) patient in his processes and his plans - particularly in Crooked Kingdom when he explains that "you don't win by playing one game". Remember it's in chapter TWO of Crooked Kingdom the Kaz puts the plan to hand Wylan his father's fortune into motion, we just don't know it until after the auction for Kuwei's indenture. Kaz does have a quote somewhere about how too many people aren't patient enough in committing crimes and that's how they end up making mistakes but I can't remember it exactly (I'm working off my audiobook at the minute so I can't flick through and find it), if any one knows it feel free to comment it because it's a great quote and a really interesting reference for this! My point here is that we know Kaz is a very patient person yet Haskell, someone who would appear on the surface to work so closely with him, is accusing him for a lack of it. Because realistically, Haskell has no idea of the everyday workings of the gang or anything of the scope of work Kaz puts into it, and I htink this is just another of the many unsavoury characters building hints we have to encourage the reader to develop an immediate disliking for Per Haskell in this scene.

"But you'll get your twenty percent" - it took me a while to actually think about the money and why the total is 30 million but the main six characters are only getting 4 million kruge each because honestly I won't lie it just didn't occur to me to actually think about the maths. Like I was vaguely aware that didn't add up but I didn't really think about it. But let's talk, because 30 million kruge split between 6 crew members should have meant each character receiving 5 million kruge each (30/6=5). But Per Haskell is owed 20% of any money that the Dregs earn, so he's taking some of the money. On the surface, does 20% seem like an unfair margin? Probably not, considering that theoretically the Dregs members owe him money, live at the Slat seemingly rent free, and are his employees in a business taht has to make money somehow. Personally I odn't think it's a great business model, but I literally know noting about business and also that's not really the point right now. The point is that on the surface 20% doesn't sound wholly unreasonable, and it doesn't sound unreasonable in this conversation. It's not until later, when Kaz offers Inej and Nina 4 million kruge to join the Ice Court Heist that it really occurs to us that they're kind of getting screwed over. Because 20% of 30 million kruge is 6 million kruge. SIX. This man is about to make 2 million more kruge by sitting around in Ketterdam playing with a ship in a bottle than any of our main characters are about to make for nearly dying a thousand times over and successfully infiltrating the Ice Court. What is interesting to me is how the decision of the money is made, because it seems that we're regarding it as if the income is solely Kaz's so he's paying Haskell is twenty percent then choosing to split the remainder between his crew, which seems to make sense since he was the one who was approached for the deal and the one who was offered the money. But if the money had been offered to hte six of them, the financial implications could have been far more complex. Wylan and Matthias aren't members of the dregs, so they would have no need to lose 20% of their income. They would each take 5 million, whilst the other four took 4 million and gave Haskell 1 million from each of their hauls. SO HASKELL WOULD STILL MAKE EQUAL TO THEM. Wylan and Matthias would come out marginally richer than the others, which neither of them were particularly bothered about anyway, and Haskell would still have done nothing and successfully screwed over Kaz and the other Dregs members. And I'm not saying they would've gone for that, because I don't doubt that Wylan and Matthias would have suggested splitting the income the way they do in the book anyway, but I'm saying it's so important that ultimately the person winning here is always Per Haskell. But what's really interesting about Kaz is that not only does he never question the suggestion of splitting the money evenly when he could have easily claimed more for himself as the person who made the deal nad hired on the others, effectively putting himself in Haskell's position except with more involvement, but even when he cuts Haskell out of the business he keeps none of the 6 million kruge for himself, instead splitting it between Rotty and Specht for their smaller roles in the Ice Court Heist. Kaz represents so many things that Per Haskell doesn't, and in that way he comes to represent key things that Pekka Rollins isn't as well, since the book makes strides to show Haskell and Rollins as effectively representative for all the gang leaders. Even though Rollins appears far more involved and on the ball than Haskell, when Inej attacks him in the final chapter of Crooked Kingdom he is forced to question the last time he "felt real pain" since no-one dared to actually fight him any more. I really hope this makes sense because it's very rambly and I'm starting to think I just explained fairly straight forward maths for no real reason.

"Rich as Saints in crowns of gold" - ok I love this because it shows us so much of what Kaz, or if we assume this is a common saying then the Kerch or just citizens of the Barrel, think of the Saints and of religious iconography. We know from the King of Scars duology, the Lives of Saints, and probably to some extent Shadow and Bone that the Saints' lives were not ones of riches, fame, or power, but Kaz exercises this idea of people turning themselves into religious icons for crude, financial purposes. I actually wonder if the way he views them is a kin to the way I've talked about viewing Jarl Brum as a reader, and I think that it's really important to hear this from Inej's perspective because we're already heightened to such an opposite idea by the overall style and tone of the chapter.

"And why Pim? The thought shamed her a bit. She could almost hear her father's voice: So eager to be the queen of thieves, Inej. It was one thing to do her job and do it well, it was quite another to want to succeed at it. She didn't want a permanent place with the Dregs, she wanted to pay off her debts and be free of Ketterdam forever, so why should she care if Kaz chose Pim to run the gang in his absence? Because I'm smarter than Pim," - First of all shout out to the Inej narrator of the soc audiobook because she nailed the intonation of "I'm smarter than Pim" I love it. Second of all we get this really interesting implication of Inej's moral code here, because as I've talked about before her morality is incredibly important to her and the necessity of crossing that line to survive has wreaked havoc on her emotional and probably mental states. She sees a clear distinction between doing what she has to in order to survive and enjoying what she does and I think this is possibly her 'new' moral code to cope with the inability to control her life and stick to what she considers her core moral values.

' "What would you say to 4 million kruge?"

"Money like that is more curse than gift,"

"My little Suli idealist. All you need is a full belly and an open road," he said, the mockery clear in his voice.

"And an easy heart, Kaz"

That was the difficult part. '

"We'll be kings and queen, Inej. Kings and queens,"

"Kaz was not a giddy boy smiling and making future plans her. He was a dangerous player who was always working an angle. Always."

' "I'll need Wylan waiting at the Crow Club tomorrow night,"

"Wylan? If this is for a big job..."

"Just do it," ' - Inej throws so much shade on Wylan early in six of crows and I always seem to forget and then be caught off guard when she's just complaining to Kaz that he's useless and Wylan's like '... I'm right here,'

"One moment he made her blush and the next he made her want to commit murder,"

' "Fence it,"

"Whose is it?"

"Ours now," ' - I shouldn't find this romantic, should I?

"Move the DeKappel we lifted from Van Eck's house into the vault. I think it's rolled up under my bed," - pleaseeeeee he doesn't even have the painting up, the audacity in this boy know no bounds. I talked a lot about the DeKappel when I was writing about the last chapter so I'm not going to detail it here, but everything about it makes me so happy

"Please, my darling Inej, treasure of my heart, won't you do me the honour of acquiring me a new hat?" - first of yesssssssssss we love, and secondly I wrote a whole thing about Kaz using sarcasm as a defence mechanism and the complexity of his inability to express emotions a while ago with particular focus on this quote and a few others so if you want to you can find that on my page or I might be able to tag people on it or whatever if you can't find it because it was some time ago now

' Inej cast a meaningful glance at his cane.

"Have a long trip down," she siad, then leapt onto the bannister sliding from one floor to the next, slick as butter in a pan. '

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed and that my scattered thoughts made at least some sense <3

[ketsuarting]

This post is both beautiful and horrid so let me add on some things:

Sinners not being allowed in other parts of hell is most likely because of the same reason why heaven gets to come down once a year and slaughter them

Their king doesn't give a shit about his subjects.

Lucifer is top honcho in hell, because he is the strongest. He can literally, magic shit into existence, something we don't see any of the other sins do. Beelzebub is explicitly shown to need 'honey', Asmodeus is directly called the 'weakest of the sins' and Mammon clearly thinks there is a point in extorting others, so clearly he is no wealth of infinite energy. We don't know about Sloth, Wrath and envy (Belphagor, Satan, and...?) but PRESUMABLY they're in a similar boat.

The only thing that is keeping Lucifer from ruling hell is that he has neither drive nor a need to. He can just show up and snap his finger and voila, things are as he desires.

(just that he has no desires except for being close to his daughter, while still respecting her autonomy. Sadly cannot be snapped into existence)

Lucifer has no interest in fighting for his denizens. He has no interest in saving them from the exorcist and he probably just gave a disinterested nod when someone asked him to ban the sinners from the other rings.

Because the Sinners suck ass ✨

They do!!!

Hell, the reason why Lucifer is even IN the pride ring is because LILITH probably wanted to be there. She gave a shit! We don't know if it was out of solidarity or compassion or because she saw potential, but she CARED.

Lucifer is shown to be a recluse, while Lilith incited revolt.

The Happy Hotel is Charlie trying to prove herself to her people. To show, Hey! I am here for you! I WANT to be a good Princess for you! I want to pick up the slack that my parents left, Lucifer with his incompetence/apathy as a ruler and Lilith with her disapperance.

Presumably she CAN go to other rings, but those don't need her. They have their Sins that manage them. Mammon is generally well liked in his ring! Bee is considered a party queen! Asmodeus CLEARLY cares about his Ring.

Also: While Hazbin Hotel is not super novel with how it represents Hell (Rings, 7 deadly sins, lots of borrowed names and creatures and themes), it clearly refuses to follow any other established canon to the T and makes a point of diverging.

(the seven deadly sins not being actual 'sins of depravity', there being 7 and not 9 rings, not limbo or climbing up and down, etc etc)

That being said; at the end of the day this is a story and while it's nice to have cohesive worldbuilding, this isn't a Dark Souls game. This is a stage to make the furries have cool dialogue and fun scenes. I know a lot of people think this is automatically 'lazy writing', but you can also absolutely OVER ENGINEER THE PLOT. And these shows already do that. I am thankful they stopped before completely over complicating the lore.

(recently started watching this show with my mom and she has a really hard time following the plot because it's SO MUCH INFORMATION that you have to absorb. I have to constantly explain story beats because the show, to a degree, assumes that you have at least a passing interest in Bible fanfiction. Mind you, this doesn't make the show bad, she still enjoy the jokes, but what a lot of people critique the show for are actually very much NEEDED SHORTCUTS to make the show ACESSIBLE TO NEW VIEWERS. Not everyone wants to be an obsessed Superfan. I know. The horror. I don't understand it either.)

Having all the sinners in one ring helps condense the story. Having the happy hotel help streamlining character interactions. Having Charlie be overtly optimistic makes this show enjoyable instead of a Fuckfest of sadness and angst.

About people saying that sinners only existing on the top ring Pride in Hellavu Boss/Hazbin Hotel is lazy writing and makes no sense

I have been seeing people say that it makes no sense that sinners only exist at the top ring because in Dante’s Inferno each sinner would go to the sin circle that ruled their life. It’s worth noting that this is not Dante’s Inferno, and pointing out what happed in Dante’s Inferno and how it was supposed to work does not change the fact that taking inspiration from a story does not mean they are obligated to fallow it in a way that makes sense to you. Like the Bible, Lucifer did not in fact marry the folklore first human woman that came before Eve and became the first Demon. Nor did he have a Daughter with her.

And yes the fact that there are six other circles but their has to be an extermination every year because only Hell born can leave the top makes no sense. Because it’s not supposed to. Its more telling that their is shady stuff going on.

The vary first thing I noticed about the theme park was that if it were not for the imps running around you would think it was earth. The bluish green sky even looked like the regular earth sky you could even tell it was daytime. Hazbin Hotel everything was dark and vary packed. The second thing I noticed about the theme park, their was elbow room it wasn’t packed.

But why wouldn’t they go to the circle of the sin they were most guilty for in life because that’s how the punishment goes? Well does Lucifer care about punishing? Doesn’t anyone think it’s strange that the sinners only real torment is each other? Other then having to share space with ass holes they are pretty much free to do whatever. They even own businesses. Its like Lucifer does not actually give a shit what they did. Here’s a better question why should he care?

Thinking about it, in between Lucifer rebelling against God, being cast out and damed, I am missing the part where he agreed to be the dumping ground of the evil monsters, selfish Jackasses, or just troubled people who were just not really pure enough for heaven to want.

So why would he make the Hell born, his actual citizens, share space with creatures he wanted nothing to do with?

[bestworstcase]

do you ever think about how a lot of the lore in tts comes from demantius and nobody challenges it. like you mean to tell me calliope didn't have a book about the black rocks or sun flower in her spire archive? you mean to tell me as inquisitive as varian is, he didn't stop and think "hmm maybe smthin fishy going on here".

not only do i think about this CONSTANTLY i--well there’s a reason bitter snow does lore in the contradictory patchwork way it does. xavier’s legends, everyone’s dreams, sirin’s struggle with faith, moira’s childhood memories, sitheach’s necromancy, sugracha’s lessons, zhan tiri’s folktales, demanitus’ book, adira’s heresies, rosalia’s lectures, sorchā’s epiphanies, calliope’s…calliopeness, helcha’s piety. and we haven’t even gotten to tisiphagos or donella or the great tree or tromus or ulla or demanitus or tanith or liora or edmund yet!! lmao like--tts reveals almost all its lore through the lens of demanitus’ narrative even if he isn’t the one telling it, but it also shows us juuust enough to confirm that 1. he’s a fucking liar and 2. his genius coexists with an abject lack of good sense, and that is like CATNIP to my horrible voracious obsessed with worldbuilding gremlin brain.

(sidebar i know the common refrain is the tts lore didn’t make sense but 1. the general thrust of it is literally not hard to understand and 2. all the details are coming from demanitus who is a fucking liar who thought it’d be a good idea to put his soul in a monkey using a bastardized facsimile of a spell he didn’t fully understand without testing any of it first, why would you expect his self-aggrandizing explanation of unknowable cosmic forces that he himself admits he never found to be anything besides a clusterfuck of half truths, omitted facts, wrong assumptions, inconsistencies, and blatant misunderstandings? lmao there are holes in the sundrop/moonstone lore wide enough to drive a truck through but that’s a feature, not a bug. it’s because demanitus is a liar and an idiot.)

ANYWAY--

the doylist answer here is of course that nobody asks questions about the crock of hot bullshit demanitus feeds them because the plot needs everyone to buy what he’s selling re: the drops must be reunited and rapunzel needs to be the one to do it, because destiny. pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. like, if halfway through season two rapunzel starts questioning why the it’s her duty to blow herself up to put a couple of magic space rocks back together, the whole story falls apart, you know? is rapunzel gets back to corona and the rocks are gone and figures cass did that and the crisis is over then… where’s the conflict when cassandra shows up demanding the scroll? “oh gosh, cass, you know i’ve thought about it a lot and i really think the moonstone is safest with you, and of course we’ll get you what you need to fully control its magic! wouldn’t want anymore accidents like those red rocks—that was pretty freaky, right? so glad you’re okay!” and then zhan tiri’s whole gambit unravels in the blink of an eye lmao. rapunzel believes demanitus for the same reason cassandra gets mad about gothel; to make the plot happen.

but on a watsonian level here’s my take: rapunzel is the choke point. she’s the one being guided towards this ‘destiny’, first by adira and then by demanitus, who advise her and share their agendas with her alone. (eugene is there in lost and found but the man is utterly infatuated and so believes in her destiny even harder than she does.) after the pretend-to-be-the-keeper thing is sorted calliope would probably have RELISHED the chance to spend five hours giving team corona a crash course in legends of the sundrop and moonstone or the history of the dark kingdom (hello mind trap) or the legacies demanitus and zhan tiri left behind… but none of them were about to stick around for it. rapunzel clung to destiny to cope with feeling powerless after the great tree, and then her experiences in the HOYT reinforced her conviction. then she returned to corona and filled varian in on the lore she knew as if it were certain fact, and asked him to translate a scroll, and he didn’t ask questions because 1. she’s the princess, 2. he’s desperate to make up for his wrongdoing by helping her now, 3. doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and that makes inconsistencies tricky to spot, and 4. he is sixteen and applying critical thinking in social contexts is just plain difficult at that age. so rapunzel passes her opinions on to him as facts and varian starts from there and proceeds by digging through demanitus’ research; he lacks the knowledge and experience he would need to see the holes where demanitus lied or was just plain wrong. so rapunzel--unintentionally--acts as a gatekeeper for all of this lore and because she’s an authority in the literal sense and also in the figurative sense of being the one with the magic, the rest of the cast trusts her and so inherit her unquestioning trust in demanitus.

and then whatever zhan tiri told cassandra about the drops beyond that 1. the moonstone responds to emotion (true), 2. she needs the incantation to fully control it (true), and 3. smashing the sundrop’s and moonstone’s powers together shredded a hole in the fabric of reality and that’s how zhan tiri escaped acid hell (true), we just. don’t get to see because the two of them are off screen for half a fucking year; so cassandra may or may not know a lot more of the truth, or part of it, or a version of it equally as unreliable as demanitus’ but from the opposite direction, who knows.

apropos of nothing i wish zhan tiri had gotten a song. and an episode focused on just her and cass while en route back to corona. and character development. the usual laundry list of what-could-have-been. gremlin baby we hardly knew ye

i think more tts fanworks should tackle the tts lore not with the mindset of “it was a mess and i’m gonna fix it” but rather one of feeling out the shape of the truth obscured by demanitus’ lies and speculation. like, just accept that he’s an unreliable narrator and throw like five more unreliable narrators who disagree with him and each other into the mix it’s fine!!!!!

[aesirfalling]

From your writing asks: #1, 8, 10, 26, and 28 :) I wasn't sure if you had wanted me to answer any specific ones myself, but since it was an ask I wanted to respond properly~

I definitely wanted you to answer some specific ones yourself :^)

What themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?

I think this is obvious to everyone who’s read my more recent fics (so like... my fics from 2016 onwards?), but I like to write “realistically,” especially in regards to joys and pain. When people write about angst things like breakups and depression and physical illnesses they are sometimes hesitant (rightfully or understandably so, in many cases) to really get into the nitty gritty, and in many cases, uglier parts of them, but like, they’re a part of life and people in our lives don’t have a good time (or even many good moments at all) when these kinds of things happen to them. Those moments are still important, though, and I personally feel like embracing the dark aspects of those things makes getting through them in the end more emotionally and existentially powerful? If that makes sense. I’m definitely still wrestling with, like, the extent to which I should write such things (esp. since like, in most cases, fic readers are not reading your fic to suffer), but I think my underlying sentiment as a writer is to examine/meet feelings and life unflinchingly and with some kind of grace.

(I’ll get to the joys eventually. I swear. I have that draft of the second chapter of Lost and Found in my Google Drive. There’s Radiance and the mood in that, too. I just don’t like to write too much preemptive joy.)

The other thing I want to bring up as well is a kind of like... infrastructural realism? Or is it like, socioeconomic, worldly things? Like we’ve talked about this as well RE: how I’m covering Hope in my fics and how you worldbuild a lot around missions and such in yours. I think this is mostly a fic thing since to do this well requires a longer fic with a lot of forethought, and most people don’t have time for that. And honestly most people don’t like Hope for the structural engineering work he put into building new planets either

Favorite dialogue in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time)

Oh man this interlude is going to be CHOKE FULL of dialogue that will kill me and most of them haven’t even been written yet

But the things that I’ve already put down on my dump file are like all dialogue

Here I just wrote up this thing

Snow: Go on then. Tell me that you don’t miss the stars. Tell me that you are okay with just sitting here day by day, pretending that you don’t know anything, pretending that you don’t have regrets and wants. Tell me that you don’t care if I won’t invite you to the wedding with Serah, if Light finds another man, or if some orphanage is burning on the other side of town. Tell me - 

Hope: I don’t think you understand. I never needed anyone to motivate me.

Hope: I needed someone to stop me.

What scene was the most fun to write for you and why?

Hmm... we might have to establish a definition for ‘fun’ :P

I think in more recent memory, I’ve had the most fun writing the dialogue between Hope and E1 in the Intermission, because I relish all opportunities to write him (especially in FWWCH where I’m usually banned from writing in his POV) and writing two of him is just double the fun. I also adore all occasions where introspective idiots have to talk to other versions of themselves because it’s kind of like. The inevitable 404 error when they realize they are actually empathizing with themselves is tearjerker and heartwarming central.

What do you feel like you need to work on as a growing writer? How can you improve?

Oh lordy there are so many things. Lemme just list a few off the top of my head

1) Linguistic ability: There is definitely a part of me that is sad about the fact that leaving my home country at the age of 11 has left me in a place where I am kind of bilingual but kind of... not really “Native” in either. Like, I have this lingering feeling that I’ll never get to the level of a “Native” English speaker/writer, and I definitely hit like language ability walls all the time when I write - things wouldn’t feel naturally lyrical, I’d run out of words, I wouldn’t know how to describe something the way it should be described, the sentence structure variety is pitiful, etc. I think it’s especially apparent when you’re writing a long fic, where like you have to deal with the same things over and over (e.g. writing Hope cooking, or how Lightning physically perceives him, etc) and there’s more of a limit on where natural inspiration can take you. I should read more good prose (since that’s apparently how I get better at English) but, ugh, effort.

2) Characterization: how many times have I whined about how much I suck at writing Lightning lmaooooooo I think the general thing is like, everyone is decent at writing someone they personally relate to, but we struggle when we try to write outside of our comfort zone. Lightning is definitely the poster child of “character unlike me that I’m trying to get a hold of,” but I think I struggled even more trying to write Fang, and I’d probably struggle trying to write someone like Cid seriously. I think a large part of the struggle is trying to morph yourself into that character (or, like, dissociating from yourself and just... “becoming” that character depending on how you view writing meta??) since like, just understanding someone is not enough. Just understanding someone won’t let you write convincing dialogue where they talk and move around the way they usually do. You have to like, become them and that’s really hard when you have a strong writer’s ego (I know, shocking, coming from me.)

3) Worldbuilding: wtf am I even doing with Hope’s White Lotus thing lmaoooooo anyway a world could always be more interesting, consistent, realistic, nuanced etc. And not necessarily through more word count on the worldbuilding-y stuff. I think it’s more about understanding the factors driving the world than anything else. Like what the resources are, who has power/agency, how things are done (e.g., in our world, decisions are mostly made by individual nation states, although large corporate entities often have immense political influence). AND THEN JUST LIKE CHARACTERS THERE’S THE STRUGGLE WITH EXECUTING THEM - like just because I understand there are rich oligarchs behind things doesn’t mean I’m good at writing the Great Gatsby. I dunno, I have a perpetual sense of imposter syndrome when I try to understand and write things about the world, regardless of whether or not the world is real. I feel like a large part of this goes back to the fact that I’m still only in my 20s and haven’t seen much of the ‘real world’ as they say, although I guess I’m technically still way ahead of most fic writers.

4) General writer’s attitude: this influences themes and the heart of one’s writing. When I say that I care a lot about the grace and dignity of my narratives and my characters, it ties back into this - I want to tell human stories, and I want to tell stories that reflect on our struggles and our faith despite said struggles. It’s the kind of lens that I filter all my words through and impacts every word I write. The obvious problem, then, is that my writing’s only ever going to be as perceptive or sympathetic as I am, and that’s something that I can and should always work on. Am I too obsessed with tragedy? Am I honestly far better at posing questions than providing solutions, even when I highly value solutions? How do I become the kind of writer and person that I want to be without driving myself insane or losing touch with the people that I want my writing to speak to?

5) Discipline: Am I ever going to finish FWWCH (or H&L or any of my other WIPs lmao)? Stay tuned.

I think a lot of my self-doubt as a writer comes from just how much I know I can improve on tbh

Do you need background noise to write? If so, what do you listen to?

I wouldn’t say I work with “background noise” - I work with mood-appropriate playlists (did you know I’ve been gratuitously naming all my fic chapters after songs?), or you know, the good ole 2 o’clock cosmic silence. It’s pretty interesting to me actually, since I also have an engineering degree and like... I need silence when I’m trying to logick things like math or the correct wording for a formal writing thing (e.g. a grant or policy proposal). So my creative hemisphere wants stimulation while my mechanical brain wants silence. Figures.

[norcumii]

For shits and giggles and I honestly couldn’t tell you why, I started listening to the Clone Wars movie commentary, by Filoni and...others?

Putting aside that at least 50% of it is some form of “ALL HAIL GEORGE,” which...yeah. Fine, whatever – there’s been an interesting thread I’m trying to chase down mentally. So, er, late night musings ahead.

They keep talking about how they tossed this line into the editing, or how George is all about tweaking the story in the editing room – and how that’s all about building the final vision. How in order to get a good laugh, in this bit the droid suddenly has the intellectual/philosophical context to ask “Whhhyyyy?” as its being tossed off a cliff to its doom and that was all added several editing rounds in.

And this has been bugging me. Not just because it’s cheap humor and might be good for a startled guffaw but not once one steps back and looks at the picture because ouch, that’s...pretty ugly. Also, this is COMPLETELY ignoring my instincts to snort and be bitchy about George Lucas’ ego and Marcia Lucas saving the OT in the editing room.  

See, my first instinct is to be cautiously approving of this approach. You write a fic, you edit, you edit some more, you get a beta and you tweak depending on their suggestions, and then you post. That’s what these people are talking about, right?

But if that were the case, then why do I spend so much time bitching about how Star Wars NEVER follows through on story lines, and they never spend a fraction of the time we do trying to figure out logistics and political folderol, and – there’s got to be something I’m missing.

I had to step back and look at my usual fonts of inspiration, Aaron Sorkin and Greg Weisman – the latter in particular given how he got tapped for Rebels.

Sorkin is a masterclass pantser. I have no idea what his process is, aside from procrastinating and getting quality scripts in JUUUUST under the wire (or often after that fact). Greg’s more a note-card, organizational type. Not much useful comparing those to what sounds like “George Lucas has An Idea, we try to execute it with our spin, and then Lucas comes in and has more suggestions. If all else fails we pull all-nighters and then wing it for George.”

They’ve mentioned cutting some things, and altering others, so it’s not just a matter of these people just add to things, whereas I know the other two have talked about cutting extraneous stuff a lot. So it’s not something vague about keep cutting the fat.

Something about that notion tweaked a thought, though. The Lucas approach here seems to be taking a storyline, then going in and brushing it up – and the focus seems to be on how to buff up moments. “We have a segment here, how do we give it more punch? Ok, add a joke. How do we buff up the next segment? Apply changes to that thing.” Add in the mantra they keep repeating in the commentary, about how it always has to be new, how for instance if you have a Rancor scene, it can’t just be a rehash or similar to the classic Return of the Jedi rancor scene, it has to have a new twist.

(….OH. And a belated realization that this is one of the things they DIDN’T do for the sequel trilogy, as compared to the prequels! Episode 7 was a rehash, but there wasn’t enough new angles, whereas the prequels were taking the same structure but putting in new scenarios. Maybe? Something for me to chew on later.)

Anyway. What all this does is take a storyline, and focus on those moments.

That DOESN’T look to the greater plot.

Greg approaches a season as a storyline. He has his tiers and tentpost episodes, but it all builds along an arc. Sorkin also has season long plots and themes.

Consequences. The Clone Wars never deals with consequences. They’re so busy punching up a scene they never look to what precedes or follows it, so there’s never any fall out for things other than in a broad, hand-wavy way –

oooooh.

They got so caught up in the theory about this week’s adventure in the Flash Gordon-esque production that they never looked to the overall plot. Like how in soap operas characters would get horrible diseases, need to get organs removed (multiple times) and the like – it’s so tied up in Teh Drama of the moment that there’s never someone going around saying “yeah, uh, this character used to have a kid we might want to remember that.”

So while there’s attempts to show Anakin being disillusioned with the Jedi – see the entire Rako fiasco – there never feels like any actual BUILD there, just moments of “why would you DO that you beTRAYed me Obi-Wan!” without the context we the fans labor so hard to structure. Sure, we can see how Obi-Wan reacts in the few seconds of screentime at the beginning of that arc – hunched over in the Council chamber, with the body language of someone who’s been browbeaten and argued into a fucked up and patently absurd scheme – but we never get more than hints that this is something he never wanted to do.

And then it never gets mentioned again. We can build consequences beyond “and then one day Anakin Falls and becomes Vader!” – I wholeheartedly believe that Rex (one of the most identifiable clones out there) wore Jaig eyes on the Onderon mission entirely as a message to SOMEONE about how he might have to be clandestine, but he’s not about to abandon his identity – but it’s all speculation and personal perspectives.

All the long term consequences are drowned out in the minutia of the moment. Filoni mentioned early on about how the clones check their wounded and call for medics to drive home that these are people, not cannon fodder – while unironically using them as cannon fodder. The only times they’re not used that way is when the deaths are furthering someone’s – usually Rex’s – particular storyline. The bit about a clone calling for a medic is great for a moment, but the followthrough is never pursued unless a different moment might be richer for it and someone on staff happens to remember.

It occurred to me that this is also part of my problems with Avatar the Last Airbender. Look, I’m fascinated by the meta worldbuilding, and some of the themes, but when there’s regular breaks in the dramatic tension by yet another snot joke, I do not have patience for it. I don’t like storytelling that feels the need to step back and jam in humor on the regular every [X] minutes because otherwise executives are worried that the kids will stop caring. And maybe that’s not what’s going on, but if it rubs me that way I’m disinclined to sit through hours and fucking hours of it without an enthusiastic guide.

However, that does explain Lucasfilms’ obsession with Filoni. He seems to thrive on that sort of storybuilding. Take a segment. See how to punch it up. Move on to the next segment.

This, right here, IS one of my problems with Rebels, that was so painful but intermittent through season one. It’s even worse in later seasons – none of which Greg worked on, which. Yeah. Fuck, I am going to have to do that watch through at some point. I mean, throughout Rebels, I could see the worldbuilding and structure, but then it’d get yanked off into left field by this week’s inane gag or absurdist moment or random ass THING they need to cover because oh yeah, they’re trying for an overarching plot and should probably include the thing before it’s immediately relevant.

Back to Clone Wars. I think the problem was too much inspection of segments, and people didn’t often step back and say “where is this storyline going?” Getting too caught up in the moment to check if the scene or gag moved the overall plot and themes along. They got so concerned about doing everything with a fresh new twist they never came back to points, never raised up old elements to say “look how far we’ve come” or “here is how that thing affected people and the plot.”

It’s funny, how something with so much scope can get hamstrung by all the fiddly little details.

[jamiebluewind]

My Sides

Note: I decided to make depression a disorder that impacts me and my sides to varying degrees depending on a variety of factors.

Apathy/Rue: Over sleep, disasociation (which can be handy during a crisis), laziness, relaxing, calming down, zoning out, and meh days. Favorite hobby is doing nothing. Doesn't care what pronouns you use for them. Depression causes them to be heightened to the point of causing emotional numbness and loss of all motivation.

Appearance: Perpetual bedhead. Short brown hair with two pale baby blue hair streaks due to fading. Wears an oversized baggy mens cotton tee with a few tiny holes in it and a chest pocket (for candy). They only wear pants when they have to. Otherwise, it's tiny cotton shorts that barely cover them. Owns one pair of flip flops (that they never wear). Fuck bras and shaving.

*

Restlessness/Max: Over obsessions, compulsions, anxiety, worry, fight/flight/friend/freeze, cognative distortions, and intrusive thoughts. Just a ball of nervousness and overthinking. Loves to research, fixate on topics, theorize, plan for "what if?" scenarios, and overshare about their latest thing. Bad with directions. Has a thing about symmetry. Constantly fidgeting or pacing. Does not do chill. The most likely to cause people to say "that's fucked up" when talking about something they thought of. Most likely to have a friend or freeze response in a dangerous situation. Will bolt when in danger if you trigger their flight response, even if where they end up puts them in more danger. Will act like a rabid animal and attack if you somehow trigger their fight response. They can make Logic harder to hear, but whatever gets through can help them balance out. Apathy can block their fight/flight/friend/freeze response. Depression causes their intrusive thoughts to become much darker.

Appearance: Somewhat messy short brown hair from constantly running their fingers through it. Glasses are a bright color (blue or purple?) so they are harder to misplacd and are either on their face or sitting on top of their head. Eyebags. Long soft scarf around their neck which provides comfort and something to mess with. Long sleeve shirt that's a solid muted or soft color as to not draw attention. A cami underneath just in case. Darker bluejeans (because they hide stains, are durable, and what if period!) with a small flashlight hooked on one of the loops. A hoodie tied around their waist. White sneakers. A wristlet purse with a few emergency items. A hidden necklace with emergency information.

*

Emotion/River: Over feelings, nostalgia, empathy, love, comforting others, gender identity, and sexuality. Aggressively cares about their friends. Would move heaven and earth to help others. Is a bit of a hoarder. Gender fluctuates between demigirl, bigender, and female. Loves art and fiction. Is both childish and profound. Loves moodrings. Depression either mutes all their emotions but sadness (and sometimes anger) or leaves her comatose.

Appearance: Short brown hair is soft and a little fluffy with two bright blue streaks at the front. Bright clothes with lots of colors. Jewelery that suits their mood. Has 2 colorful pronoun bracelets. Always wears at least one mood ring. Beautiful colorful tattoos without a unified theme (although many are cute or look like they came from a cartoon or comic). Several ear piercings and one sparkly nostril. Wears eyeliner and lip tint when she feels like dressing fem and occasionally uses eyeshadow. Clothes are usually androgynous. T-shirt has writing on it that made her smile. Shirt has a crew cut on "they days" and a v-neck on "she days". Reflective rainbow colored novelty purse. Sandals. Owns one floofy long skirt. The rest of their bottoms are shorts, capris, or pants. They usually wear capris.

*

Logic/Jo: Over intelligence, knowledge, curiosity, theorizing, the logical side of beliefs, and objectivity. Loves learning and reading non-fiction, but is fond of certain fictional works. Schedules, pay the bills, and self care. Open minded. Loves to research and has a massive library of knowledge, but due to the multi-dimensional nature of their room, information sometimes ends up stored in the wrong place. Fascinated by religions on an intellectual, historical, and cultural standpoint and uses what she learns to be mindful and respectful. Can counteract cognative distortions, but can also cause or amplify fixations on her quest for knowledge. Stubborn. Depression causes them to have difficulty functioning and sometimes become distorted until they find reasons to do dangerous or harmful things.

Appearance: Short brown hair is always professional. Simple glasses have dark blue, almost black frames. No piercings or tattoos. Cotton polo and slacks. Only jewelery is an elegant stirling necklace with a long chain and a large simple diamond shaped charm (one side says "She" while the other says "They"). Comfortable professional black loafers.

*

Creativity/Journey: Over inspiration, creativity, brainstorming, certain types of problem solving, ingenuity, out of the box thinking, writing, singing, photography, other creations, worldbuilding, jokes, puns, acting, and certain types of lying to others. Frequently goes on tangents. Run on sentences. Can be a little too energetic and random. Once inspired, they can't stop thinking about something until it's done or they run out of inspiration or drive. Has a wall of books for cataloguing ideas and unfinished projects (often taking from several old ones to build a new one), but the order has no rhythm or reason (even to them). Can be heightened or hindered by Restlessness. Apathy can help Creativity with daydreams and less fear, but make it difficult for them to take action. Depression makes them barely function, save acting and negative ideas.

Appearance: Dark purple hair with several bright blue hair steaks. Ear piercings and one sparkly dermal near their left eye. Purple eyeliner. Modified a pair of comfy overall shorts (aka shortalls) to be backless with a halter top fit (instead of the traditional tank top fit) so they would have lots of pockets to store stuff while having the most skin exposed to show off their extensive tattoos. Tends to wear a strapless binder or halter top underneath to avoid boob slips. Runs around in socks indoors, but has hiking boots for outside. Tattoos are artistic with heavy symbolism as well as quotes.

*

Ambiguity/Duo: Over morally gray areas, lying to others and oneself, telling the truth to others and oneself, spotting both deceit and honesty in others, superstitions, the illogical side of beliefs, seeing the good in the bad and visa versa, sarcasm, and occasional devil's advocate. Not quick to judge. Sees gender as a social construct, but also that some people require it. Sees religion as something that is not necessary for them to be happy, but knows it is important to others and will fight for those rights (as long as it doesn't hurt the individual, others, or society itself). Balances the line of what is and is not socially acceptable. Personal truths. Has a very "you do you" attatude. Probably enjoys yoga and certain fiction, especially ones that subvert expectations and/or tropes. Depression causes them to become skewed. Because of this, some things become amplified (lies to self and others, seeing the bad in good,...), some things become weakened (honesty, seeing the good in bad, spotting honesty,...), and some things become tainted (deceit is spotted when none is there, beliefs become tainted,...).

Appearance: Right half of face is white while the left half is black. A gray part in the middle where one color fades into the other that's about the width of their lips. Hair and clothing follow the same theme with the only color being their blue hazel eyes. Hair is held back with a metallic silver headband. Button up shirt with a sheer back (similar look to this). One glove on the left side. Bottoms are pinstripe palazzo pants or culottes. Ballet slippers. Has an ornimental tattoo on their back and one on each ankle.

----

Other facts...

My sides all have their individual jobs and functions, but they also work together on certain things.

My morality comes from Emotion, Logic, and Ambiguity. They work together despite their frequent disagreements.

Beliefs come from Logic and Ambiguity. Emotion can help by attaching a feeling to each belief.

If my ego is hurt, it effects Creativity, Emotions, and/or Logic depending on which was targeted. The same goes for the opposite (such as when praised).

Having my ego hurt make Restlessness freak out and overthink everything.

Despite Emotion having main control over gender identity (mine being femfluidflux), Logic has some input. Occasionally, Apathy or Ambiguity have a say.

Creativity literally created a new type of clothing for their needs. The halter shortalls currently do not exist to my knowledge.

All the sides have a varying level of fondness for cats. Apathy respects their chill. Restlessness finds them calming as well as a good way to release nervous energy. Emotion's heart just melt from the adorableness and wants all snuggles. Logic appreciates the proven medical benefits of having a pet. Creativity loves making cat toys, taking photos, and playing games with cats. Ambiguity admires their independence and controlled chaos. Their opinions on other animals varies.

None of my sides are entirely good or entirely bad. They also balance each other. (Apathy can help Emotion and Restlessness chill. Emotion can help Apathy when they get heightened. Restlessness can help spur the others into action as well as fixate to help Logic and Creativity. Emotion gives Logic and Creativity encouragement as well as helping make sure writing hits right in the feels. Logic helps the others with facts and helps break through negative thinking and spirals. Creativity helps connect thoughts in new and exciting ways and helps Restlessness find new ways to coop. Ambiguity helps the others make the hard decisions and keeps Logic from becoming too ridged.)

[words-writ-in-starlight]

you know what also pissed me off about supernatural, though? the inability to commit to their own worldbuilding. even while clinging to a static paradigm, where The Masquerade is in full effect, they couldn't be consistent about what sort of underground magic communities do and don't exist. I know this can be blamed on multiple writers and all, but it drives me up the wall. f.ex. witches are All Evil and tend to work alone, until that episode with the familiars when you find a bunch of nice(r)

witches who go to witchbars and hardly ever poison each other’s drinks, oh and also familiars are athing. a while later spike and cordelia are witches who’ve had a tempestuousrelationship for… centuries I think, aka witches can live for a really longtime, so there’s no way the bigger/older ones don't all know each other. thereought to be SOME sort of witch ‘society’, even if it’s just loosecommunication. but no, after this you never hear of witches ever again, muchless familiars or witch

bars. then you’ve gotBela, who caters to rich people who know magical artifacts exist, but there’sno exploration of what that could MEAN – if Bela can hold down a job, thenenough of the country’s elite own and exploit magic stuff that it could –SHOULD – have at least some effect on US politics, as in who gets power.there’s never a whisper of that, but okay, this isn’t exactly the winchesterboys’ social scene. but failing that, some of these magic-obsessed rich peopleshould turn up for a

few episodes, eitherhaunted or else guilty of inflicting a monster-of-the-week on someone. heck,one of them could be a recurring vaguely-helpful character that the boys stopby and menace a bit whenever they need access to some excessively obscureartifact. you already mentioned the mess of all those Alpha Monsters who werepowerful and unkillable and stuff, and had their own dread agendas withpotentially far-reaching consequences for their respective species, and thenjust… vanished. I don’t

even remember how. andthen there’s the hunter community, which is the most inconsistent of all. firstit’s just these two and their dad, and then they start finding out their dad’sold friends were all actually hunters or oracles or whatever. so far so good;these are just Mysteries Of Our Father’s Past, and valid character/plotdevelopment stuff. but there’s Bobby, who Knows Everyone, and Ellen, whose barevery hunter in the country frequents sooner or later, and this means huntersknow each

other, know about eachother, they have a network of communication and they share intel, gossip, tradesecrets. but the moment the bar blows up there’s just no network, noconnection, nothing at all binding hunters together, even though Bobby stillknows everyone and Ellen and Jo are still around and plenty able to found a newbar if they wanted to, or at least keep in touch with at least half of thepeople who used to swing by their bar. oh and also the demons! they talk aboutcomplex politics

happening in Hell, theyhave some sort of prophesied demon queen who takes the body of a young girl andhas glowing white eyes (I don’t even remember what happened to her), they havedemon religion and spirituality to the point where Lucifer is basically DemonJesus – I’m pretty sure this is explicitly stated, Lucifer is to the demonswhat Jesus is to really devout Christians, semi-mythical status and prophesiedsecond coming and everything – and the show makes an effort to flesh out itsdemonic

characters, give thempersonality and desires and drives, and it shows distinct differences in howdifferent demons feel about humanity, and about what they do, and all that. yetdespite all this, the only demon we meet who doesn’t immediately try to murderthe boys is Ruby. no one tries to bargain honestly with the boys, no one butCrowley tries to aim the boys at their own enemies, no one begs for mercy orlies about repentance. nothing. can you imagine if those demons who told Sam totake up

his antichrist mantleand lead a demon army decided that, since their Chosen One was unwilling, theyought to convince him? what if a bunch of demons had started discreetly tailingthe boys, showing up sometimes to rescue them from really bad fights or offerup dead monsters like housecats offering dead birds? ‘hey chosen one, we caughtyou this demon who’s high up in Crowley’s hierarchy, do you want to torture himfor information yourself or do you want us to do it?’ they solemnly swear that

that they’ve stoppedkilling humans, they keep quietly growing in number, and they always scrambefore the boys are conscious enough to kill them properly. sam and dean havemany arguments about whether they were REALLY too concussed to stab theirlatest demonic rescuer and get absurdly angsty and argumentative about it. Iknow my rant has gotten pretty thoroughly disorganized and this is moving backinto must-have-a-static-paradigm territory, but I am a little bitter.

THIS IS ALSO SUCH A GOOD POINT there is just so much to be bitter about with this show, like, good god, you’d think that sooner or later they’d run out of basic narrative rules to fuck up.

Speaking of rules, I think this is a manifestation of one of Supernatural’s wider problems, which is that they just DO NOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THE RULES OF THEIR OWN UNIVERSE.  Like, all they’ve REALLY nailed down is that demons can be exorcised, but anything that isn’t a demon is pretty much at the mercy of the plot for A) how powerful it is, B) how hard to kill it is, and C) how ‘human’ it’s considered.  Like, everything from werewolves to wendigos are stated to be at least PART human, but basically their ‘humanness’ and subsequently the amount of sympathy accorded to them is predicated on how benign (or how attractive) they look in their human form.  The magic of this universe is wildly unpredictable--the Winchesters sometimes do/dabble in magic themselves, but we never really learn how magic works.  Does it require a focus?  Does it require badly-pronounced Latin?  Is it an expression of the user’s willpower?  Is it similar to what demons do (implied when All Witches Are Wicked for the first few seasons) or not?  Does it require natural talent or can anyone learn it?  THERE ARE SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT ARE TOTALLY IGNORED.  THEN there’s the question of societies in this supernatural underworld.  Like, I think I’ve expressed in my John Wick comments how much I like functional underworld societies with rules and systems, but honestly it’s CRITICALLY necessary if you’re doing what SPN does and having the society Matter.  I cringe every time I think about how clumsy and slapdash the hunting community was in Supernatural, because it had SO MUCH POTENTIAL, don’t talk to me about it, I made it work better when I wrote my spite novel.  I’m sure I can think of fifty million more incomplete universe rules, but I can honestly feel my blood pressure rising right now so I’m going to stop.

OH MY GOD GUYS, please, if you’re a writer, let me beg you right now in person to figure out the rules of your universe and then commit.  Here are some pointers.

Magic should work in a conceptually similar way to gravity: its rules should be consistent and should be able to be broadly extrapolated from the general effect, and if you’re going to BREAK those rules you’ve got to have a damn fine reason.  

The sliding scale of ‘humannness’ should...slide less, to be completely honest, work your shit the fuck out EARLY or make working your shit the fuck out a plot point (please see Stormdancer for a good example).  

If you’re dealing with questions of what makes someone human (@SPN FOR LIKE FOUR FUCKING SEASONS) then you should actively question like “Hey, my dude, can we morally kill this person for something they have no control over” unless your character took the trait ‘Callous’ somewhere in their history (which is also fine).

If you have an underworld society--or any society tbh???--WORK YOUR SHIT OUT.  How do they work together (ex: hunters pretending to be ‘the boss’ when someone calls the number on that fake business card)?  How do they support each other (ex: safehouses? maybe? this is never discussed in SPN? and I hate it?)?  What are the things people differ on (ex: whether or not to murder the Winchesters, which, like, I know you’re supposed to be against that because they’re the protagonists, but by the time I bailed I def wanted someone to shoot them)?  Is there an assumption of free exchange of favors or is there a strict financial/bargaining system?   How much does one person vouching for another matter in the community?  ANSWER SOME BASIC QUESTIONS FFS

Finally, most crucially, for the love of all that is good, Pick A Plot.  One plot.  It can have subplots (example: an overarching plot broken up by smaller missions, a la your average TV show) or multiple acts (as in a play, where you’ve got a couple major pieces that assemble into the main plot, like Much Ado where you’ve got (roughly) the matchmaking, the wedding, the vengeance, and the resolution), but it should be One Plot and you need to tie up those motherfucking loose ends.

This has been “Hey look turns out that 6K later I have Even More Complaints about Supernatural” with Moran.

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: No Game No Life

Genius gamers and social shut-in siblings Sora and Shiro spend their days owning at every game they touch, working together under the username “Blank”. But their closed-off lives change when they receive a challenge from Tet, the god of the world of Disboard, who summons them to his realm where every conflict and every decision is conducted using games, from chess to word games to video games.

Sora and Shiro find themselves trapped in a world where humans are inherently disadvantaged and  where fantastic races of all kinds are battling one another in order to challenge Tet for real and become rulers of this new world. It’s a terrifying world where countries, memories and lives can be lost by the simple luck of the draw, but for a brother and sister who live their lives through games, it’s a chance to finally take their skills and become something legendary.

Let’s be completely honest here; all anime is trash.

¬.¬

Look, okay, I’m very well aware that I spend a good chunk of my life watching shows which I shouldn’t take anywhere near as seriously as I do. Anime is a niche market for a very niche audience, and the shows reflect that. Sure, you get your Bebops and your Wolf’s Rains and your Ghost in the Shells, but those are standalone pieces of art and love and care. A lot of anime has recurring tropes, reused characters, the same settings and far too many morally questionable things for me to count.

And yet somehow a lot of it is still so good. Even in the most mundane shows imaginable you can usually find a few gems of awesomeness that raise it up into something better, be it a character, the writing, the directing or the worldbuilding. That’s the thing; for a medium which is pretty much based on and solely funded by complete trash, there sure are a lot of really cool things scattered throughout. As a hobbyist reviewer, I found my job became far easier when I stopped looking for perfection in every show and started looking for the good bits; it’s why I tend to enjoy most things I watch, even if I couldn’t necessarily call them all good. You can’t take it seriously; even most of my favourite shows. I love them all to bits, but come on, Madoka jokes are funny as heck.

Everything is trash, which makes the good bits stand out even more. That’s the philosophy I tend to live by with most things I watch, honestly.

Occasionally though, you will come across something that is pure trash.

No Game No Life is a special show that is pure, unfiltered, absolute trash. And yet I enjoyed it. T’was good stuff. Not great, but...you know, far from bad. But utter trash. See, there’s a difference. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This is a studio Madhouse production, not that you care really, because you are going to spend the first few minutes (and a majority of the show) just being absolutely blinded by the visuals. Not because they’re especially gorgeous; aside from a few magnificent backgrounds the whole show is mostly just ‘above average’ in terms of linework and animation, but mainly because the show seems to have gone with the colour palette of ‘eat ten bags of Skittles and regurgitate them onto a tie-dye T-shirt’. I’ll give it this; the show demands attention. I watched this on a big screen initially, and it certainly made an impact, though I can’t decide whether I find the show immensely creative and flamboyant, or just gaudy. One thing I wasn’t a fan of was the constant purpley-pink overlay that is over pretty much every scene; for such a colourful show it did seem to make it rather flat at times.

The soundtrack does exactly what it promises on the tin; you want an OST for your fantasy series, you want a soundtrack like this. Sweeping epic pieces when showing off the world, and fast-paced electronic pieces for the high-stakes intrigue of the games. I feel bad because I seem to remember enjoying the soundtrack quite a bit while I was watching it, but really none of the tracks have stayed with me. The opening and ending are far more memorable; despite the fact that they’re a bit more standard ‘fantasy’ tracks, they both have solid driving rhythms and memorable riffs. Also there’s a particularly clever use of the ending near the end of the series, but spoilers in that regard.

So by all accounts, I should have no interest in this series. It’s a light novel adaptation about two people pulled into a game-based fantasy world where they have some special main-character-plot-significance and gain a harem of female characters who initially start off as dismissive but who are soon won over by main character powers and bleauuuuuuurgh I’m so done with this crap. But I want to be fair, and I tried to look at this through fresh eyes (which was a necessity anyway given the first pair had been burned out by the visuals).

Is it well-written? Er...well...honestly, not a lot happens. The whole show pretty much acts as a prologue for the much greater conflict later on, and once the true game starts...the show ends. Yup, and with no mention of a second season anywhere in sight. At the end of the day all that was accomplished throughout the series was that Sora and Shiro integrate themselves into the world and potentially set off a new war/conflict/games battle. The main focus is on the games, each of the major ones of which take up a whole episode or even two to complete. It’s like watching Yu-gi-oh all over again.

Okay, so...I can forgive thin plots but are the characters any good? Well...um...

I’m sorry, but Sora and Shiro are not interesting protagonists at all. They have the potential to be interesting but they remain one-note throughout the entire show; they’re both genius game-players and possibly evil, Sora’s the outgoing one and Shiro’s the quiet one. Even more of a blow is that they are both practically invincible; they are never once allowed to fail throughout the series. Everything goes according to plan and the two always come out looking smug. It’s this kind of blatant main-character-worship which puts me off so many of these kinds of shows, the fact that the mains are always right and they will always come out on top. Sure, Re:Zero tried to subvert it somewhat, but even then it completely went back on its development near the end and still gave Subaru exactly what he wanted because...main character.

But hey, I hear you cry, Sora and Shiro are not perfect characters, for they have serious separation anxiety and social anxiety.

Okay, sure. What of it?

See, while they are shown to be NEETS and having panic attacks when separated, the show doesn’t actually do anything with it. The whole point of the show being in this world where everything’s solved by games is that they don’t need to actually face their fears or face any development in that area at all. Also, for people with social anxiety they sure do cope very well in the busy environment of the fantasy world; I’m reminded of the Nostalgia Critic Daredevil review, where he mentions that given Matt Murdock can see far better after the accident than he could even with his actual vision, then narratively there’s no point to him being blind. It’s all very well to give characters crippling deficiencies, but if the story’s just going to get around it by changing their abilities or their environment to make it so they have no impact, then what’s the point? Just have them as every other OP main character in every other fantasy anime. The closest the show comes to actually developing it is episode 9, and even then it comes right the heck out of nowhere and is resolved within the episode.

Blegh, okay. What about the other characters? Well, again, nothing really interesting. Tet is a playful omnipotent who just kind of sets the plot in motion because he’s bored, I guess? Jibril has a constant fetish/obsession with knowledge, Izuna and the beast people are blank slates, Kurami and Feel have pretty much nothing to do, and then there’s poor Stephanie Dola, who gets the most development and is probably my favourite character. She’s the true heir to the throne of Imanity, but has none of the game-playing skills to actually accomplish her goal. This is all good stuff, except that the main characters treat her like absolute crap. Constant abuse, belittling her, setting monsters on her and basically stealing all of her accomplishments, all with the supposed intent of making her a stronger person? Yeah...no. Sorry, I’m not buying that, and all the constant disregard for Steph is just unpleasant to watch.

Okay, so is the world interesting at all? Well, it could be, except for the fact that I have absolutely no idea how this world works. Oh, the game part I understand , but the actual politics and the races are just spouted out in great reams of exposition that make me feel like I should be taking notes. Here’s a tip; if you’re not going to show or have any contextual purpose for Seiren, Lunamana, Gigantes, Oompa-Loompas or Jared Letos in your show, I don’t need to know about them. It’s just information overload and makes my head hurt, and honestly for this series we only really need to know about 5-6 of the races? Out of 16. Yeah. Worldbuilding is good and all, but it should never take over the main focus.

I’m spouting an awful lot of bile and hatred against this show, aren’t I? Well...honestly, it does dampen the experience for me. But here’s the thing; this show should not work at all. Gaudy animation, tired concept, flat, bland characters, no story to speak of, and that’s not even getting into the incredible tastelessness. To the point where I do have several questions as to how the hell this was allowed to air on TV. Also a lot of it revolves around Shiro. Who is eleven. Oh hi Chris Hansen.

And yet...from start to abrupt end, the show is incredibly addictive and entertaining.

I’ve neglected to mention the games, which are honestly truly creative. Mundane rock-paper-scissors matches or word games are turned into full-on Death-Note-esque psychological battles, with the addition of magic to make them as much of a visual spectacle as they are a mental one. Despite the fact that Sora and Shiro should not be able to play as a pair for most of them (seriously, I get it narratively and the whole Blank thing but is this ever actually explained as to why they’re always allowed to play together?), the two do work very naturally off one another, and the games themselves have some awfully clever twists and turns that mean they’re never predictable. It’s about the journey and the game itself, rather than the politics and flat characters around it. Again, much like Yu-gi-oh.

And as much as the world around the games is kind of lifeless, again it’s easy to ignore due to the fact that the show is really damn funny. The comic timing is mostly spot-on, the character’s one-note personalities are still defined enough to bounce off each other well, and the references...oh my word, the references are GOLDEN. Death Note, Yugioh, Ace Attorney, Jojo; I’ve never seen references integrated this flawlessly into a show since WATAMOTE. Arguably even better than that.

And that, my friends, is trash in its purest form. If I try to describe it, there is NOTHING to recommend about No Game No Life. No decent characters, no intriguing plot, no involved and accessible world; and yet despite it it’s all so, so entertaining. And I guess this is nothing new; recent trends in the most popular shows are bringing up the same utter trash over and over again, from Sword Art Online and OreImo to Re:Zero, Akashic Records and Eromanga-sensei. I know of people who vehemently hate No Game No Life, all for good reason, but at the same time the appeal is crystal clear. We like trash, so long as it’s entertaining. Heck, two of my own favourite series in recent years are Kill la Kill and Gargantia. Honestly, you can’t get much trashier than that.

I can’t say that I love this show as much as some; the problems are just a bit too significant for me to completely overlook them. But at the same time, I can’t pretend that there is no value to this show. It may be pure trash, but in many ways that can simply transfer over to pure entertainment. And honestly, is there anything wrong with that?

I guess what I’m saying is...does anyone else want to join me in this trash bag?

My score: 7/10

[helshades]

Good morning, my love! I wondered your thoughts on whether Le Pens would succeed in the election or not? As well as how likely a Frexit would be should she win? And maybe a little curious where all the worldbuilding is, too, *sobs*

A most excellent (although slightly terribly belated) evening to you, my dear! I answer you from the pit of the Helcave, through litres of sno... tears, in this dire hour of ailment, because I have way too tardied already, caught as I was amidst my new crepe paper flower project and the various ills that befall the imprudent cave-dweller; as the Queen of the Undead (by interim) I do command many foul things, but not the viruses, apparently.

Anyway, you sobbing, me sneezing, ‘tis not advancing the worldbuilding terribly, is it? Yeah. Thing is, I miss it too, but it seems the dry spell has got something to do with the horrid lack of new material, for such a long time. While I know I’ve more than enough to go with old notes and three movies as presently, I’d like MOAR and most of all, I’d like a rejuvenated fandom: from my corner of the Interwebz, it had become gradually impossible to work amongst the collective cries for overzealous social justice—“Loki is secretly intersex!” “Stop assigning Groot a gender!” “Why is Star-Lord white?” etc.—and the depletion of our ranks, as exemplified by one notable correspondent who went utterly fruitcake after I disagreed with her on the topic of Jane Foster being written as autistic.

In fewer words, I’m always welcoming prompts, even though I’m approximatively 5,238 ones late, but the engine is due to start running smoothly again as soon as we get a trailer for Ragnarök, or set pictures, or ANYTHING—I, for one, would love to get creative about the system of government in Asgard and how there should be a popular revolution anytime soon, shortly followed, preferably, by Loki getting thrown overboard the blooming planet by an angry mob with the Asgardian version of a pitchfork (probably golden anyhow).

Speaking of usurping tarts forming a terrible basis for government, hey, do you know the best news from Frogland ever? We don’t have to worry only about Marine Le Pen getting her grubby hands over the country! Now, with added psychological torment, enter the right wing’s champion, François Fillon! Here, a good illustration of our current main source of anguish:

Note that the true exploit behind this photo-montage wasn’t to mash up good ol’ Maggie and Tête de Fion, rather to find a photograph of him smiling in the first place. In fact, I’m pretty sure that was Photoshopped—unless a paparazzo caught him right after his early morning flagellation and got him to snicker with a cry of “À mort la Sécu !”

How to better state my thoughts... Well, let’s say that it’s not only the resistible rise of fascism in Europe we should care about, but also the considerably more pregnant and irresistible rise of Angela Merkel-friendly Ordoliberalism and the blatant annihilation of over a hundred years of hard-won social struggles. More than ever, the Right intends to rob us of healthcare, labour protection and free (quality) education—the worst thing being that most of the self-proclaimed Left wants exactly the same thing, albeit on a longer term, perhaps, but that’s about it. Yesterday, we got the results of the Primary election for the Left parties—we have primaries too, now, go figure—and the two finalists are going to be Benoît Hamon (theoretically a leftist, rather on the green sides on several accounts, did confess to great admiration for Bernie Sanders) and Manuel Valls, the only recently-resigned Prime Minister, a man whose hatred of unions was strikingly palpable, and who, a mere months ago, violated all democratic principles to force an unjust labour law on the French people. If he ends up the Left’s main man, the 2017 presidential election is going to be a real blast, and the proverbial choice between Charybdis and Scylla, the sequel, now with Scylla’s long-lost little sister Manuel.

I almost remarked that if Le Pen got elected, at least maybe we’d get something good out of it when she charts Valls back off to Spain, but upon reflection, I dare say the Spanish have suffered quite enough from authoritarianism, plus I guess it would be a poor consolation indeed. Still, I wonder: could Marine Le Pen truly become France’s very own President Trump...? In reality, I suppose she could, but a lot of people who would hesitate before voting for someone who hasn’t totally succeeded in wiping out the memory of her father yet (and quite right, too) won’t bat an eyelid before rushing to the voting booth in the name of François Fillon. Especially old money and the Catholic ultras, but that can’t be all, alas.

And while we’re on the subject of European evils, I don’t really believe in the extreme right version of a Frexit. Yes, I know the nationalists and pals aren’t too warm-hearted when it comes to European regulation, but liberalism isn’t exactly incompatible with fascism, either. I would even dare suggesting that liberalism, especially the current economic model, rapidly spiralling to deregulation and a profound dehumanisation of the peoples which nourish it, encourages the rise of fascism as it drives social classes further apart, disarming the lower ones and freeing the upper ones of any guilt...

Quoting well-known left-oriented philosopher & economist Frédéric Lordon:

‘Here is the question underlying this libellous accusation: wouldn’t leaving the European Union condemn us to sovereignist regression? There is a lot to say, here: first, I don’t regard either “sovereignist” or “sovereignism” as swearwords, unless you would belittle the idea itself—which is the ultimate modern idea. And let me be clear: I don’t say modern the way the journalist stooges of liberalism use “modern” and “archaic” every few editorial; I say modern in the historic sense, as “modernity” is a period which started in the 16th century, and which stated that peoples should not be ruled by commandments issued from any cloud-borne god, or by his Earth-bound delegates—and that the peoples had to take their own fates in hand. This is what sovereignty is about, conceptually. That one would seek to disqualify such idea says a great lot about the anti-democratic principles of the European institutions, and of all those supporting them.’

‘Besides, leaving the Eurozone doesn’t have to condemn you to the shrivelled, regressive, nationalistic and identitarian version of sovereignty—indeed, the latter is entirely possible. But we do not have to choose such regression, because nothing actually prevents us, if we so decide to abandon single currency, from developing as much as we can all relations between peoples, and for good this time. Although not, this time around, by throwing them onto and against one another because of murderous economic policies. What would stop us, out of the Euro, to do the exact same thing we once did before we got the Euro? Meaning international programmes for industrial cooperation (like Airbus, or Ariane Espace), scientific cooperation, and other things aplenty? Do we really need the straitjacket of a single currency for students to travel, for scientists to travel, for artistic exchanges to take place, as well as transversal teaching programmes on national histories and the making of a European history, for developing the translation of the literatures of Europe...? Nothing actually prevents it. It says a lot about the colonisation accomplished by neoliberal obsessions that we are now only capable of thinking that the only possible internationalism has to be this of capital and single currency.’

‘To want to relinquish the Euro doesn’t have to do with monetary fetishism. It’s not about going crazy over mere currency. What we call the Euro is much more than money, banknotes and monetary politics: the Euro is a global institutional system for economic policies. This is what we should abandon completely. In order to change the E.U. “from the inside”, we would have to see organised progressive political forces come into power simultaneously in a great number of member countries. The probability to see an actual government on the radical left is already infinitesimal, so the hypothesis of 6 or 7 at the same time is very nearly ridiculous. The Central Bank or Europe has the power, totally illegitimate, totally implicit, but totally efficient, to bring down any government that would attempt to oppose any of the European treaties...’

The current, and soon-to-be-former, government has done some work, too, to encourage most people in believing that Frexit = fascism, all the while slashing social protection and beating the occasional striker to a pulp, when the genuine article has been making vibrant spiels on poverty and labour, overall nicking a lot of arguments... from the radical left. The paradox isn’t one: both extremes join on populist propaganda, therefore the extreme right had a lot to gain from borrowing facts and ideas from the far left then grind them in its own rhetoric.

‘Labour, under the arbitrary management of the capitalist regime, is odious; people know this because they’re living it, and because they are many more still to be living it. Middle classes used to give zero fuck about the ill treatments inflected to the working class, for the first two decades of the neoliberal system. Now, unfortunately, the level of the muddy waters is rising, and all suffer.’

Sincerely, if Marine Le Pen became the Présidente this May, I’m not too sure the promised referendum on a possible Frexit would get positive results, and lead to the actual Frexit, even if it’s a UKIP-friendly kind of Frexit. People seem mostly afraid of leaving the E.U., although mostly because they keep being told it’s not possible and they shall lose everything and hordes of cutlass-chewing commies are to surge into their very homes to read some Karl Marx to their children. Also, unlike the Brits, we’ve actually got Euro coins to dispose of, you know, and it will be costly.