#and i think she deserved better but she was doomed by the narrative

[darishima]

She tried asking, once, who had put her in that cage. The girl only looked up at her silently, pupils dilated wide as black voids, endless and deep, darker somehow than the dungeon around them. She said nothing at all. D’arce never asked her that again. She tried to make herself stop wondering about the answer.

fungerblr crowd where you at. hands you d'arce & girl fluff

[worldwright]

Fascinated by Gertrude Robinson. Do I agree with everything she did? Of course not. I'm obsessed with her though.

(spoilers for the entire series 👇)

Did she know the full scope of the Archivist position before taking it? I have to assume not -- I doubt Jonah told any of them its true meaning before trapping them in it.

Did she resent it? She told Jonah "the Desolation killed her cat" and there's no way to know whether that was a joke, but she certainly came to work for the Magnus Institute of her own volition. As a woman. Entering academia. In the 1960s. She had some sort of powerful drive even then, whether it was spite or vengeance or something else entirely. I doubt that drive would have been any less powerful even if she wasn't the Archivist.

Would she even have needed to be Archivist to do what she did? Having the resources of the Institute was vital of course, but from what we know, she rarely used her compulsion and only "ate" statements when she needed to to maintain her strength. Most of her investigations were completed through plain old deductive skill and some well-placed friends. And it's not like you have to be tied to the Eye to use C4.

What was her mind made of that she could commit so readily? We know that she spent upwards of 50 years on her mission. The way she burned bridges makes it highly doubtful that she had much of a life outside the Institute. What must have happened in her youth to make her so single-mindedly driven to this one terrible, lonely, painful mission?

She'd said that she wanted to save the world when she was first starting out. She did all the way to the end, really, so I assume she meant that she was more idealistic or romantic about it at first. Maybe it makes sense that that idealism, trapped in the role of the Archivist at a center of supernatural knowledge may have hardened to the cold resolve and pragmatism of her later life. Maybe she just took that goal and decided to make the best of her situation to work towards it.

Was she scared about what would happen once she was gone? Before her final gamble and learning that the individual rituals would never work, at least. For many years, she believed that she was one of the only barriers between the world and its terrible end. There were people like Adelard, and maybe some of the Hunt-aligned would carry on in the same way, but I wonder if she had any plans for the future beyond her.

On the note of Adelard, she did have friends. Gerard, Jurgen, maybe even Salesa to a degree. People that she never asked to tie themselves to the Institute. This was, of course, after the last of her formal assistants had gone. According to posthumous interpretation by the Eye through Jon's statement in 167, she never trusted them. But I can't listen to her conversations with Jurgen and Gerard and say that she didn't find any comfort in them.

Regarding Gerard specifically, I can't help but notice that they worked together for less than two years, and in the 6-8ish months after his death, Gertrude made the decision to not counteract Raina's ritual. I can't speculate on whether this was just the culmination of a theory she'd been working on for a long time, but it was also the first time one of her colleagues had died since Michael, Sarah, and Emma all went in rapid succession. And it was a BIG gamble.

There's so many other things I think about -- her relationship with Agnes, her incredible memory, her... interesting reading habits -- but mostly I'm just so glad that she didn't live to see what Jonah would do with the truth she revealed about the rituals.

[v-thinks-on]

Uther Pendragon, the conqueror, died leaving only a daughter to succeed him. And thus the young Queen Guenevere ascended to the throne. Uther Pendragon was a warlike king, and his daughter took after him in spirit, though she was not trained to lead the charge as a son would have been.

In those days, even a warlike queen—and perhaps especially a warlike one—was regarded with mistrust, and no sooner had the King’s body been laid to rest, then there was a cry for the new Queen to find a husband. But with the fearsome pride of her father, Queen Guenevere refused to surrender herself to any noble lord or prince—and perhaps wisely so, for favoring one house would mean making an enemy of all the rest.

At last, Merlyn, the renowned sorcerer, proposed a solution: an enchanted sword embedded in a stone, and who-so-ever proved himself worthy by successfully pulling it free would have the Queen to wed. The Queen called a great tournament, which drew every knight in the land to fight and to test the sword in the stone. Among them was the newly knighted Sir Kay, and with the young Sir Kay came his squire, Arthur.

(Read More on AO3)

[weirdmageddon]

do you ever think about how jade harley grew up alone and without real human contact after her grandpa died when she was like four? and at 13 years old, on johns birthday when everyone played the game, she finally met someone in waking person the first time in nearly a decade—dave—for like only a few hours probably, and then went back to being alone for 3 years??

and then to make matters worse she inadvertently caused his death during that little window of time she had with another living person?

so yeah of course she’d be hysterical bro this is like the first irl person she interacts with in like almost a decade and just hours later she accidentally fucking shoots him dead from redirected bullets

and dave knew it was gonna happen but couldnt tell her or it would create a doomed timeline because this was supposed to happen, and dave obviously knew that if jade knew her bullets would kill dave she wouldnt go through with it. and dave later reveals he was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die at the time

in the pre-retcon, wasn’t daveprite’s whole reason for breaking up with jade about feeling like she deserved better than being forced by the narrative to be with discount bargain bin bird dave instead of alpha timeline dave, the first person she ever had contact with in a decade?

i wish dave and jade could have had a reunion arc (mini version) because dave was such an important person to her, and probably to him as well, not only as one of her closest internet friends but also the first living person she had in-person contact with in about a decade. instead we got the briefest of exchanges before the final battle, after pulling them apart again through plot shit. that’s just so sad

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

Rating Non-Zelink and Non-BotW Link Ships in Legend of Zelda Games because they don't get enough love

Malink; Malon x Link: Adorable and somewhat canon depending on who you think TP Link's parents are and what timeline shenanigans you subscribe to. Link's first non-Kokiri friend turning into his soulmate is cute and finding peace after the craziness of OoT is beautiful. Also, Malon is cute as a button. 11/10, love you, funky Horsegirl.

Ilia x Link: Pretty good but feels too much like a reskin of Malink to be really fun. People give Ilia grief for freaking out about Epona but it really isn't fucking deserved. Girl get's done dirty by the narrative and the fandom and she deserves better. Also, memory loss and falling in love all over again is absolute peak. 9/10, you deserve better, baby.

Marin x Link: A child's first taste of tragic ending and hot girls being doomed by the narrative. Very child friendly "Calypso and Odysseus" feel to this one. Still, Marin is absolutely adorable and the idea of falling in love with a literal dream is heartbreaking. 10/10, would cry like a little kid again.

Link x Ruto: Okay, hear me out, this one isn't terrible. Ruto's chld-like crush on the guy who saved her life is pretty cute and being a haughty teenager about it is pretty funny. Also, she understands they can't be together, and sends him off with her love and good wishes, which is surprisingly mature of her. I'm just saying, Ruto isn't the weirdo people make her out to be. 7/10, it still feels like entrapment

Midlink; Midna x Link: TOP TIER! BEST OF THE BEST! ABSOLUTE PEAK ROMANCE! Romeo and Juliet style star-crossed lovers from literal opposing sides of reality. Allies of convenience to friends to soulmates?! PEAK! Adorable evil goblin design for most of the game and then complete knockout reveal at the end?! ROMANCE DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE?! PEAK, I TELL YOU! PEAK! (Also I headcannon that because Midna looks like a Hylian she's considered ugly by Twili standards so Link finding her beautiful warms her heart). 20/10, best ship, best girl, best love story.

Ganlink; Ganondorf x Link: Objectively the funniest Legend of Zelda ship in existence and I will take no arguments on that. Destined enemies giving the middle finger to fate and falling in love instead? Amazing. Ganondorf hates every minute of it but he's also the happiest he's ever been with this stupid twink and he hates that too. 10/10, something something the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day.

Link x Zant: Objectively hilarious as Link is seducing his enemies into submission yet again, like any self-respecting bard, but this one feels a little too Batman x Joker like for my liking. I really ship Zant x Therapy but Midna watching her rival give up his conquering ambitions for a twink is objectively hilarious. 8/10, not great but not bad.

Got others you want me to rate? Let me know! Or better yet, rate them yourself and I'll tell you if I agree or not.

[codenamethebird]

Ok here's a little (not really) analysis/theory post about Hades 2, because I'm obsessed. Its consumed all my thoughts. And I need to talk about a theme I think will (hopefully) be addressed as the game progresses.

Here's some examples of dialogue that starts to touch on this conflict between mortals and the gods. What exactly do mortals deserve? We also have literal Icarus "flew too close to the sun" here too (and probably Pandora). Chronos was able to sway many to his side with a promise of a golden age without the gods, which is presented by the narrative as a foolish venture. And not saying it isn't, or that Chronos is the secret good guy here, but I believe Chronos is taking advantage of a very real hurt that exists for mortals.

This line from Nemesis really stood out to me, because it implies that while mortals have a concept of evil, the gods don't. Which sounds ridiculous but the more you think about it makes total sense. The gods in Hades (and just greek myth in general), are kind of the worst. They are petty and selfish, they literally attack you if their boon isn't picked first, and most vitally in this context, often utterly disregard mortals.

For example, one of the things that drove me a little crazy in Hades 1, was how chill everyone was with Demeter's never ending winter. Demeter was killing possibly millions upon millions of mortals and everyone else just sort of let it happen. Maybe complained a bit because it was annoying to them, but just stood by. And that's just one example. Mortal's have a very valid reason to hate the gods.

And considering we have more areas of the surface to explore that aren't out yet, I have a feeling Melinoë is going to be meeting some of these discontent mortals. And my hope is they are going to be nuanced characters, that will challenge Melinoë not just in a fight, but her very ideals.

Because Melinoë is very deferential to the gods, waaaaaay more that Zag ever was. Unlike Zag, who was more like a bro to them and was willing to suck up to them for personal gain, Melinoë seems to genuinely mean all the respect she gives them. She praises them, defends them when they are insulted, and just generally very polite to them.

In a smaller scale, she describes Hypnos as having a wisdom about him and can somehow sense her intensions while asleep. Which as Nem implies, the version in Melinoë's head doesn't exactly line up with reality (though sidebar, I am a believer in Chekov's Hypnos and that he's going to somehow save the day and put Chronos in a never ending sleep or something, but that's beside the point haha).

Melinoë's reverence to the gods makes total sense of course. She was denied her family and a happy childhood, and because of that has glorified them all in her head. The Olympians are sending her vital aid on her holy mission for vengeance and to save her family, even as their own home is being attacked, how honorable of them!

And I think part of Melinoë's arc is that perfect picture of them breaking into pieces. Yes, they are the better of the two options between them and Chronos, but that doesn't mean they aren't also kind of the worst. That mortals deserve better than frivolous gods that can decide on a whim their fates for better or worse (love u Moros but I'm still fucked up over you and your sisters giving mortals horrible doom endings when you were bored. At least he feels bad now but still. Perfect example of gods even when not intending to having horrific consequences for mortals). And maybe like how Zag healed relations with his family, Melinoë can start repairing relations between the Gods and Mortals.

[mouthpoisons]

on viktor's doomed destiny as the magical harbinger of the apocalypse, sky being a secret mastermind, the butterfly effect, the message within the pattern, the arcane being a sentient manifestation of The Narrative and pushing everyone towards tragedy

so this started out as a halfhearted joke post that went something along the lines of ''maybe sky is such a nothing character because she was always the arcane's y/n x viktor self insert and not just after the hexcore eats her'', then it turned into me spending like a whole day examining sky scenes through this lens and acquiring a massive tin foil hat about it, and then while paying attention to sky i also started viewing the arcane as a whole as something conscious, malignant, the plot of the show itself manipulating and urging everyone, but especially viktor, towards it's end goal of him becoming heimerdinger's world ending mage. and then This post happened. because i was initially writing an analysis on sky, this post is mostly me talking about sky. i started Realising Other Shit about halfway through and i simply wont be rewriting what ive already put down. but the more i think about it and go back and rewatch parts of the show, the more this makes perfect sense and i'll definitely be coming back with a part two. part 2 will likely be about jinx because that ''use your explosive potential and maybe you can change your story'' line from vi, which we can only assume is directed at her sister, is doing cartwheels in my brain

this is massive and long and messy and its going under a readmore. enter if u dare

disclaimer because theres gonna be people who Seriously hate this and might wanna assume things about me because of it but i hope youll understand im coming from a place of pure story and meta analysis. this theory is unfortunately going to assume theres a manipulative ulterior motive to Everything sky says and does, and this is not written in any way to spite people who like sky as simply the sweet doomed lady who has a crush on viktor, skyvik shippers, etc. i honestly just think she is currently the worst written character in the show by miles and that that... cant be it. trying to attach any secret meaning to what she went through and her role in the story beyond ''fridged woman'', i promise, is out of love, despite what im about to spend a billion words accusing her of. i deeply want her ass to secretly be part of the craziest reveal in the show.

if anything im about to say stays one of the most crackpot theories about the show ever written, then i will firmly be a member of the ''she deserved better'' camp, in which you can all beat me with hammers if you want. anyway lets get right into it.

i think sky has been some kind of arcane manifestation who scouted out, has been keeping an eye on, and has urging viktor along the path he's been on the entire show, and not just after the hexcore ''killed'' her. i believe she is essentially another herald who foreshadows some of viktor's major character developmental moments, that she is the butterfly effect, that the arcane is a conscious character and she is one of the vessels it uses to manipulate the show's story towards it's end goal, which very much seems to be setting up viktor as a world ender. i also believe that she may have had one major instance of manipulating the trajectory of jayce's story in service of this

before i continue i need you to know i tried to pull up a wiki page about her just now incase theres any Extra Lore that hasnt appeared in the show and apparently all anyone could be bothered to write down for her is ''Viktor's assistant with an unrequited admiration for the scientist.'' lmfao. if there Is any missing lore, behind the scenes stuff, etc, id love to hear it, whether it supports or contradicts any of this.

ok then, whatever, what do i remember about sky. shes from zaun, shes viktors assistant, they knew eachother or at least met that one time when they were children, she's been doing her own private research, and she has a massive crush on/admiration for him. viktor doesnt pay her too much attention until she ''dies'' and then he is consumed by guilt surrounding her death. sky also has a pattern of becoming more and more ''relevant'' to viktor as the show goes on, and a lot of people have criticised this as a form of reconning her fridging, and yeah if all of this is bullshit then it might be, but if not, wow. i also vaguely remember hearing something about amanda overton being very proud of sky's character which... right now? youre kidding me. if literally any of this is true? holy shit, i get it.

as a last bit of additional context; this theory was also super inspired the other theory that the corrupted spot heimerdinger noticed at the base of the hexgate is where some of viktor's blood fell as he... divinely received the idea to build the hexcore? (that's going to be such a fucking facepalm moment for all of us in retrospect if im onto something here lol). it's one of the things that really got me thinking. he shouldn't have been in any way magical at that point. my theory is in essence a massive continuation of the idea that arcane forces have been having an effect on viktor for longer than we realise.

i'll pitch this theory primarily through some scene analysis, and mostly from season 1 since everyone else has ''wait is she being Bad here'' season 2 sky analysis on lock, most of us agree she's being strange and ominous after her ''death''. i might be the first insane person on earth to pitch that she's also being strange and weird Before her ''death''

i'll start with what might be one of my personal smokiest of guns and biggest Insane In Retrospect Moments, which has a lot of the core thematic stuff shoved into it and laid out quite plainly, then im just gonna go wherever the flow takes me. im not an essay guy. this will be messy and im sorry in advance.

in this scene, viktor is messing around with the hexcore. sky is watching behind him, and remarks that it's beautiful. viktor expresses his frustration at not being able to figure out the device, sky responds ''you will'', asks to walk him home with her, and he declines, saying that he's going to keep working on it through the night. sky doubles down, asking ''again? yknow there's always tomorrow, right?''. he dismisses her and she leaves. pretty much immediately, viktor passes out coughing up blood, which merges with the hexcore.

viktor has been established as a wildcard and a risk taker who doesnt like unnecessary stalling and delays. at this point in the show his health is starting to take a heavy toll on him. jayce has recently hit the pause button on releasing their new hextech tools (more on that in a bit). he's incredibly frustrated with the overall situation and is in tunnel vision mode. my theory is that sky very purposefully asked him to take his time, to give it a rest, knowing that he would do the opposite. this is an example of some potential reverse psychology sky demonstrates a couple times during the show. the other one is a very prominent scene in s2e6 that also got me Thinking about all this, the part where she says to viktor ''you once told me, all systems have limits'', and he responds by asserting vander is worth the risk. course vander's continued presence in the camp as viktor tries to heal him kickstarts the rest of the horribleness that happens that episode, which in the end makes viktor ''understand'' the futility of the human condition, and perhaps if he hadnt just gotten shot by jayce, wouldve been the moment he becomes the apocalypse wizard.

in this s1 scene though... she didnt really have to flex it here. the purpose this specific example would theoretically serve would be to piss off the audience upon rewatch, because we all thought she was just flirting lol

her assuring him that he will figure it out, and then a massive advancement happening instantly, is crazy. it's as if she knew what was going to happen, as if she heralded it into being. this is also her first speaking scene in the show which feels significant especially when it comes to retrospect potential

next i wanna talk about the scene where she may have, in a such a blink-it-and-youll-miss way, manipulated jayce's trajectory. this is also her first appearance in the show period

before jayces progress day speech, he asks viktor to come onto the stage with him, ''we're partners'', and sky adjusts her glasses while looking in on in the background. viktor declines, anxious about the idea of being on stage, and sky hands jayce his script.

jayce confidently reads from the script for a bit, but then changes his mind about what he wants to say, and this is when he hits the brakes on unveiling the new hextech devices, suddenly disappointing both viktor and mel, who he sought out for advice on the matter just a couple of scenes prior. his mind is assumedly comfortably made up about this. hell, enough to write a script, set up a presentation, and for mel and viktor to also be confident about how the presentation will go. the decision was extremely on-the-spot; it's a very awkward moment as jayce freezes mid sentence, we get several shots of the hexgem behind him, strange noises start chiming in the background (which do sound a lot like the mic feedback that's also going in that scene, but these ones seem.. different? certainly deliberately placed), and he suddenly decides against the tech demo. the shots of the hexgem behind jayce have the potential to be ominous as fuck in hindsight. certainly ominous enough to snap me out of simply writing a theory about sky, to thinking about the arcane's influence on the characters and plot as a whole.

this is a possible example of sky, as some kind of arcane avatar, manipulating the plot, with the goal of creating tension between jayce and viktor, and frustrating viktor with the stalling of their technology. after the progress day speech, jayce remains a lot more safety-cautious, and is given his councillor positon, which furthers the rift between them. viktor states all of this in their brief argument in the scene at the hexgate, before he coughs up blood over the railing and has his vision of the hexcore. within the context of this theory, it really feels like the arcane kind of saying to itself, ''all according to plan, he's ready for the next big thing.''

this now. on a personal I Was A Disabled Loner Kid Too Once level this scene has always bugged me and i never quite understood why most people seem to take it as ''aw their first bonding moment''

viktor cant play with the other kids because of his disability, so he hangs out on his own and builds toys. sky comes over, literally looks down on him from a cliff, seems very curious about what he's doing but only briefly, and is called away by her friends, leaving with a smile, as quickly as she arrived. she... acknowledges him, but that's about it. this scene is significant to my theory in that she appears, does her little bit, and then viktor meets singed, who shows actual sustained interest in him and his toy boat, and lets him hang out so they can ''be loners together''. this is a seed planting moment in so many ways and it even threatens to come full circle next week if singed is going to revive viktor again. this very well may well have been when the arcane, through sky, ''chose'' viktor, or at least decided that his story is to be put into motion now, and set him on the path. he literally gets up and starts following his boat down a river.

i'm also pointing out the butterflies in this and jayce's flashback scenes. i dont have much to say about them that a lot of other people havent already especially since butterflies and insect imagery started popping up Everywhere for jayvik in season 2, but yeah *vague hand wave* im pointing them out.

pausing scene analysis for a moment to talk about the idea of viktor really being The Center Of All Of This, as caitlyn said in the act 3 trailer, before i go onto the next bit.

viktor, for this whole show, has been so unbelievably doomed, and it's ramped up to the nth degree in season 2. he's felt especially at the mercy of outside forces to the point where me and everyone else are starting to get real tired of the lack of agency the story is affording him. he becomes terminally ill, he rages against the dying of the light for a bit, but then shit gets scary and he makes jayce promise to destroy the hexcore (and let him die), he gets jinx nuked, jayce revives him explicitly against his wishes, comes back from time prison and kills him again, its a mess. its infuriating. i think that viktor's entrapment by the narrative, and everything becoming more hopeless and out of his hands, is going to be extremely important in act 3. that him giving the biggest Fuck You to his arcane destiny and tearing away from the narrative with claws and teeth is going to be the moment he becomes our machine herald.

i wrote a much shorter post about this earlier, but since then i've also become confident that the bad ending apocalypse wizard viktor himself is who sends jayce back to destroy the hexcore, effectively breaking the cycle and thrusting viktor's story into uncharted waters, which he will Gloriously Evolve above, but only after singed puts him through hell and fills him with resentment for jayce.

ok back to scene analysis

viktor has already come close to breaking free of his predetermined path before. in the context of this theory, viktor's beautiful hopeful triumphant moment, seemingly having a massive breakthrough in rising above his fate and body, outrunning the boat, being immediately cut short by sky showing up and dying and throwing him into a pit of guilt, despair, and desperate need to atone, is in no way accidental. im about to spill whats probably going to be this post's most egregious sky character assassination so be warned i guess!!!!

to put it very bluntly, heres how this whole scene goes according to my theory. viktor gears up to transmutate himself again, but because he's doing so while so full of hope, in a way that's threatening to break him out of his doomed narrative, maybe even just the fact he's doing it to himself instead of jayce doing it in a frantic attempt to save him from death, sky steps in. viktor must die, physically, emotionally, before he becomes the magician.

sky takes the drastic measure of ''killing herself'' in order to curse viktor with the crushing guilt that would morph him into someone who desperately needs to pay for what he did. fix the world, no longer as a driven idealistic scientist, but all consumingly, obsessively, and devastatingly.

if sky didn't intervene, viktor presumably still would've become some form of magical purple guy, but it wouldve been... the best possible timeline? a timeline completely untainted by death? like imagine the cocoon emergence scene and that conversation with jayce but a version where he's not absolutely destroyed by guilt surrounding sky. he was so, so close to just outright winning the game.

as sky's walking down the hall thinking about how she's going to pitch her ''private project'' to viktor, she says something that's potentially a massive red flag hidden in plain sight. she says that she's been working on it for weeks, then changes her mind and says she's been working on it for a year. that's... a huge time difference? if it was months vs a year it would sound much more organic, but weeks vs a year? of course in the real life ''everything im saying here is bullshit'' world she's just figuring out how to pitch herself and sound impressive, but whichever way you look at it and no matter her intent, she was preparing to lie to viktor here.

back in my delusional mind palace, i think viktor's full transmutation attempt takes her (the arcane/the narrative) by surprise - she was formulating her next move here, but it becomes her having to throw a spanner in the works immediately in order to keep him on the path of despair, of death and guilt.

so sky's a pile of ash now. sky is a pile of ash. she wasn't absorbed by the hexcore, on the contrary it looks to be actively pushed away from it (metaphorical skin shedding?) something else is happening for her to be manifesting herself to viktor in season 2. there's also that extremely ominous freezeframe of her when viktor picks up her glasses, but i cant for the life of me get a screenshot of it.

viktor picks up and starts reading sky's journal, and i'll be honest i cant really find any hidden message in her words there apart from the idea that this wide eyed, sweet, idealistic girl that viktor has just let down drastically is some kind of persona. it does stick out to me how much sky seems to envoke a younger viktor - someone who's stuck in an assistant role when she has her own big dreams. This tragic reveal that this cute but inconsequential background character had an inner life and goals too… it's a shock! And it’s all very personal. He paid her barely and mind and now she’s dead because of him, this poor girl who was inspired, by him, to change the world, just like him. It’s like. It’s so tailor made to make him feel like shit.

the next thing that happens is viktor gets Big Mad and tries to smash the hexcore, but it goes ''nuh huh!'' and makes him fall over in a show of power over him. he's firmly stuck in this narrative now, and he wont be breaking out again for a while. the mask is off and his story is locked. he will die, one way or another, and come back to destroy the world.

viktor cant break himself out of the narrative anymore, it has him by the neck and it makes sure he knows it, but someone else promises to.

and he cant, initially. it takes betrayal through reviving him with the hexcore (exactly what it wants). it takes a guilt-ridden viktor being overtly guided along by a much more suspicious sky, for him to get so in his head about this cult shit that it approaches the event horizon of becoming all consuming, it takes jayce being trapped in a time loop desperately trying to find any possible way around this. but the destruction of the hexcore, the narrative, sky, the destruction of the arcane within viktor is the only way for him to truly gloriously evolve.

jayces love for viktor was dooming him into becoming the arcane that ends the world, and the only way to chart a new course was by truly saving him. destroying the hexcore, sky, freeing him from the narrative, at the ultimate cost of viktor's love for him.

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 12/8

@williamjakespeare asked: One of the recent posts concludes that the circumstances around Vriska's god tiering were "so much worse than anything I thought was going to happen" and I'm curious. What exactly did you think was going to happen?

Back before I knew how God Tier ascension worked, my theory was that Vriska's Quest Bed might grant her access to a special dream moon, and that Tavros's presence there might throw some sort of spanner into the works. I wasn't sure what kind of spanner, and my theories were very vague.

Vriska's a huge taskmaster, and I thought she might have given him an instruction that he was unwilling or unable to carry out. Like, maybe she told him to leave her God Tier Moon, and he was unwilling to abandon her to a fate he didn't understand.

I guess I was right. In the end, she did give him an instruction he couldn't carry out.

Anonymous asked: For the kid who was the most vocal about her 'distaste' for their guardian, having Mom be the reason that Rose snaps is actually very sweet, in a sad way. ~DJ

The above line from Rose implies that she had a lot more affection for her mother than she was letting on.

Their relationship was complicated, but if Rose viewed her as a sister, I think there had to have been some camaraderie between the two. We just never saw it on-panel, because the narrative began on the most stressful day of Mom Lalonde's life.

@elkian asked: So, fun fact about that time John joked about rescuing Rose from the Broodfesther Throes and you were going "yes it's a joke BUT IT'S ALSO SERIOUS JOHN!!!": Hussie's author note for that page is almost verbatim your reaction. Homestuck is as serious as it is silly and typically both at once.

Every time Hussie and I share the same thought, a subtle chill runs down my spine.

@gl1tchypyr0 asked: In regards to the thing about LOWAA potentially corrupting Eridan, itd be a little smart to remember what Sollux said in his conversation with Terezi about a prophet has to go blind to earn their stripes or how an angel earns its wings, Sollux states that 'angels are terrible feathery demons that paradox space uses to usher in the end' and Eridan was actually killing them even if he wasn't Supposed to. If you really think about it I actually kinda find it sad? If he was already a troubled individual Before Sgrub and then was on a planet of 'terrible feathery demons' that whisper prophecies in his earfins for an entire month that he was made to feel he Had to kill, honestly it makes me nervous imagining just how many doomed timelines there are where Eridan snapped far earlier. Not to mention the fact he's also on the Blue Team ie Derse players ie most susceptible to waking up in his sleep and seeing tentacles and eyeballs staring back at him (not that he wouldn't be /used to that/ back on alternia with his job of feeding glybgolyb so Feferi wouldn't have to). Not really defending eridan but just, food for thought kinda? About how LOWAA might have affected him enough for Doc Scratch to bring up such a hypothetical. The idea that Eridan was already pretty bad before the inevitable Sgrub trauma and then LOWAA made thinks /worse/.

Oh, don't get it twisted - Eridan's just as much of tragedy as any of the other trolls. He's certainly written to be less sympathetic, but he didn't deserve to be raised in the Alternian Empire. Just like Vriska and Equius, he could have been a much better person, if only he was raised in a less violent and oppressive culture.

Of course, he could still be an asshole if he was born on Earth - but at least he'd have a chance to be better. Alternia stacks the deck against you in ways that simply aren't fair.

@galaxa-13 asked: It is very satisfying watching you pick apart everything Doc Scratch says without playing his game. Rose wishes she could, but unfortunately she is a child and not as smart as she pretends to be. Usually it's fun to watch people theorize because of what they don't know, so it's extra fun when someone as smart as you doesn't have the pieces I already do. Just chortling to myself, "Oh ho ho, just you wait!" @elkian asked: I may have sent this before but I ADORE your Doc Scratch dissertations. What few liveblogs (and fandom during/after the run) I've followed have other strengths and focuses, so these moments where you stop everything to shred his dialogue to see if fhere's even a GRAIN of truth are novel and absolutely fascinating. I think you've done the most thorough analyses of any 1 of his convos let alone all of them and I'm here for it. Rip that shady motherfucker apart! :D

Despite myself, I am enjoying puzzling out the true meaning of what he says. I've just got to remember that he is fully capable of lying.

I do think, on balance, that there is some hidden meaning to his words - it's just hard to find. His '50% chance of ascending' statement is definitely foreshadowing something, I just can't figure out what. I think it has something to do with the reboot session, but I'm waiting to learn more about the reboot before I really start theorizing about it.

Anonymous asked: In case the 7 Gates haven’t been fully explained yet — the Gates over a player’s house are all either entry (transport to somewhere on their planet) or exit (destination of a gate on the planet of the previous player in the chain). Using John as example: Build to gate 1, which takes him somewhere on LOWAS. Find gate 2 elsewhere on LOWAS, this will take him to the matching gate over Rose’s house — build up to her gate 3, which will lead to somewhere on LOLAR, then find the planet’s gate 4, etc.

Here's my old interpretation of the Gate system, from way back in Act 4. I'm fully in agreement with you about John's path here - the problem is that when you use it to extrapolate Rose's path, things start to fall apart.

See, this ordering method implies that in a four-player chain, your own Seventh Gate is located on the Land preceding yours, rather than your own. This means that Rose's Seventh Gate is the one that got John killed on LOWAS - the one which leads to his Denizen. It additionally implies that John's Seventh Gate should have been on Jade's Land instead. It's all very confusing.

Anonymous asked: Something I love about how this god-tier immortality system is described, however it works, is that "remaining neutral" will PROBABLY keep you alive… but when you think about it, remaining neutral means not making a REAL DIFFERENCE. As a God, if you want to make a difference in the world around you -- good or bad -- you have to be willing to stake your life on it.

True! It's an interesting balancing mechanism, where each God Tier has to decide whether their life is more valuable than their personal agency. Gods who avoid Heroic and Just situations are almost invincible, but they're also completely ineffectual.

I'd obviously try to game the system somehow, but the vague, subjective definitions of Heroic and Just make this a difficult system to game.

@spyril4132 asked: with the reveal of the heroic-just system, there's now a reason you might not want to god tier immediately: sacrificing one of your selves for a heroic cause and then doing what aradia did (but intentionally)

Good point. Although, I'm not sure I'd want to rely on the Quest Slab for my resurrection - at least, not yet. We don't really know the rules are, and how they differ from normal Quest Bed rules.

Anonymous asked: "I don't really care if Paradox Space sanctions his actions - he needs to be taken down, and if that upsets the natural order, then it's time for a new natural order." i think you for sure lean more lifeways on the life/doom player axis lol. oh, the laws of the multiverse say death is inevitable? well, that fucking sucks and i hate it, so i'm gonna wedge myself into the cracks and loopholes and *make* it evitable one day at a goddamn time, life finds a way motherfucker.

Life finds a way, motherfucker!

I actually find both Life and Doom fairly interesting, as Aspects go. I think, at this point, I'm committed to giving one to my kidsona, and the other to my trollsona.

If another Aspect ends up catching my eye, we'll have to start workshopping a Carapaciansona!

Anonymous asked: I think you got it kinda twisted what's going on with Rose. Yes she is slightly corrupted by the Horrorterrors powers/boons and Scratch's… Sheer Existence. But in her mind, she's doing this to Save her session, so if she does go God Tier and gets killed, her death wouldn't be Just, it would probably be Heroic. As she probably would've died tryong to save her session, which would cancel out the corruption from Scratch and Horrorterrors. Either way she still dies, but it's the difference in Why she dies that's important. […]

See, this is the whole problem, isn't it? These terms are incredibly subjective.

I personally think Rose's attempt to save her session is extremely Heroic - but Skaia couldn't possibly approve of her assault on the game, so I don't think it would cancel out her Horrorterror corruption. Sburb itself is probably the last word on what qualifies as a Just death, so I think that's what she'd get tagged as, if she died as a God Tier in the Green Sun's explosion.

I'm also not sure if getting tagged as Heroic would cancel out a Just tag. They're not necessarily opposites - Vriska, for example, is designed to have a controversial alignment, and could easily die in a way that counts as both.

@ben-guy asked: Small correction, you referred to the Alternian empire as "intergalactic" when it only exists within one galaxy as far as I'm aware. Yes, kind of a silly nitpick, and one that I could be wrong about, but I happen to enjoy thinking about the comparative scale of space faring societies lol. If there is a quote contradicting that, I'd like to see it! Pretty sure it's merely a galactic empire tho :)

Nah, that's fair - that's the kind of nitpick I'd point out, too.

Galaxy, singular. I think I parsed the Empire as intergalactic because massively faster-than-light travel is clearly possible in this setting, via time manipulation. We don't actually know if Alternia had access to time manipulation before Sgrub - but Earth seemingly did, so who knows?

@abacusdictator asked: Found your liveblog a few days ago and furiously binged it. Happy to find another Homestuck liveblog! Especially one I can see happen in-progress! I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

Thanks - and you're certainly coming in at an interesting time!

Anonymous asked: Scratch "chooses not to lie," but he also has the privileged position of knowing in advance that Rose will misunderstand what the Scratch is, leading to her doing what he wants. If he knew that not lying wouldn't get him what he wants, or even if he didn't know for certain that it would, would he lie? If so, that basically means it's pointless to try to figure out his true meanings, because if you succeed, he'll have retroactively lied about it anyway.

Yeah, this is pretty much my take.

Does it really matter if he 'doesn't lie' if he can foresee all the truths that will mislead you? When you're playing at his level, the actual truth of your statements barely matters.

@skelekingfeddy asked: to my knowledge this has never been commented on by hussie, but i feel like doc scratch doesnt lie in part because he was made from the cueball. its a fortune telling device that predicts the future with remarkable precision and accuracy. you wouldnt expect it to lie, would you? its just that the difference between scratch and the cueball is that he can pick and choose WHICH truths to reveal at which moments. (his penchant for jokes thus probably comes from cal (‘haa haa hee hee hoo hoo’) i feel like him never lying is also a way to feed his own ego. its a self-imposed(!!!!) restriction, and yet despite it he effortlessly plays everyone like fiddles. and he KNOWS it. he CHOOSES never to lie. he VOLUNTARILY hands the people he manipulates an advantage on a goddamn silver platter, and he STILL wins. ‘Isn't it funny how during our various matches, I can tell you what my moves will be in advance, and still win?’ hes so fucking smug. what a pompous dipshit. i love him Anonymous asked: I think that when Scratch say he don't lie, he mean it, and not because of some vilainous valor but out of sheer ego. Scratch is prideful, he love beating other by "playing with cards face up" and tricking them with exact word, he doesn't tell the truth because it's "honorable", he tell the truth because he doesn't need to lie to win.

Also, this. He's just a smug fuck.

Do we know for sure if the cueball is always truthful, actually? Scratch heavily implies it here, but he's only stating it as a hypothetical.

Anonymous asked: Scratch is like a fae, he doesn't lie but you better watch out how he word what he say.

I'd be so screwed against the fae. Not because I couldn't parse their statements, but because I'm only halfway competent with human social customs, let alone weird alien ones.

@manorinthewoods asked: Honestly, I think it's great for his character if Scratch is actually completely dead of emotion inside, possibly even thoughts, and is just near-mindlessly carrying out the necessary parts of his role in the story so that his desired outcome is achieved. He's omniscient, he doesn't need to think. On the other hand, he does seem to have experienced genuine emotion, on occasions… ~LOSS (24/7/24)

A pseudo-omniscient character, mindlessly following the optimal path to their ultimate goal? This smells suspiciously like a Certified Contessa Moment...

Anonymous asked: In the trolls game all the trolls got to see and speak to their lusi after they died because they put them in the sprites. Meaning Gamzees dad coming back wouldn’t get him sober. Ideally Gamzee would be able to interact with his dad way more then he ever had in the past because his dad now had to guid him as his sprite.

Fair point. Although, we know that prototyping tends to affect your personality, and shifts your priorities towards guiding your Player through the game.

Goatsprite's sprite knowledge might have informed him that Gamzee needed to be on Sopor Slime, or game would become unwinnable.

@heliotropopause asked: "Well, no! That’s the problem! The cueball’s omniscience is completely redundant, because the MEOW code already contains an omniscience gene! According to the Scratch loredump, any ‘intelligent’ host for the MEOW code will be granted near-omniscience. Scratch didn’t need the cueball," I think it's worth considering the what exactly he meant with that- it seems perfectly plausible that the teleportation-based powerset established for bequerel would make an intelligent agent very good at observation, either by physically hopping around, or by teleporting light around to see distant places, or by sending out telekinetic "feelers"; we know bec has the capability to separately manipulate individual objects in physical contact from afar. None of this would give him knowledge of the future, or of physically disjoint spaces like the human session, so the cueball is not at all redundant.

It's possible. See, this is another situation where we're really being hampered by our small sample size. We've only seen two First Guardians, and only one of them has been a 'standard' First Guardian, unaltered by HONK. As such, we don't really know how First Guardian clairvoyance is supposed to function.

Another Guardian with human-level intelligence is desperately needed, for science. It's almost enough to make me want the Scratched Guardian of Earth to be made from a human...

@manorinthewoods asked: As an alternative explanation for the double-omniscience problem, one could say that the cueball, in being used to create Scratch, retroactively and conceptually gained his omniscience - so effectively, any use of a cueball allows you to attune to Scratch's awareness (as long as he's alive, perhaps?). This would subsequently imply that First Guardians are all linked to their components - for instance, there would be some link between Bec and all dogs, or specifically Halley. ~LOSS (23/7/24)

As this ask points out, I might just be drawing the causal arrows in the wrong direction. If the cueball is omniscient because of Scratch, rather than the other way round, then there's really only one root cause for his clairvoyance.

I'm not sure why it would work like that, but I do like the idea of Colonel Sassacre running around the early 1900s with a suspiciously powerful dog.

@manorinthewoods asked: The link between 'Skaia's final gate of defense' and 'first to find Alternia' is something I just didn't notice (because I didn't really pay attention to the words and botched my experience by not watching the Flashes), but it would imply, to me, that the gates run in reverse order, Skaia to World - first meteor in, last meteor out. This would mean that the moon which dropped on Jade was the last meteor to hit […]Skaia. ~LOSS (23/7/24)

Hey, good catch!

Jade's meteor was the last to arrive on Earth. By this logic, wouldn't it have been the first thing to leave the session, rather than the last?

That makes a sort of sense, actually. A meteor this enormous would dwarf the entire Incipisphere, so the game would probably want it out of the picture as soon as possible.

@manorinthewoods asked: You seem to have run with the interpretation that all First Guardians run on the same fundamental genetic code, identical to MEOW but using different letters. Not really how I thought of it - I interpret that every FG's code is different, although I also didn't think too hard about the FGs. No reason that they'd necessarily all have to have the same genetic code - after all, Bec's a dog and Scratch's a Scratch. You'd only really need a single gene to code for Green Sun powers… ~LOSS (23/7/24)

It does say they share a genetic sequence, rather than an entire genome. Becquerel presumably contains some dog DNA - the 'host' - which is absent in Scratch, so their genome can't be identical.

Unlike Becquerel, Scratch's hosts were entirely synthetic. They didn't have DNA - which, to me, implies that his entire genome is just an amalgamation of the BR8K H34DS T1CK T0CK HONK sequences. His DNA is just the First Guardian sequence, plus whatever is in HONK.

...what the hell is in HONK, then? If it's DNA, it has to come from some living thing, and I have a horrible feeling that Gamzee spliced his own DNA into the sequence. Why else would he call it HONK?

@skelekingfeddy asked: ‘…the fucking bow-tie! He’s wearing Cal’s Alternian clothes! The proof’s been staring us in the face this entire time, and we were none the wiser!’ look at what regular cal is wearing underneath his blue ‘CAL’ shirt :)

My guy's been pulling the long con.

@morganwick asked: "#but now that i have an antimatter pellet I can feed it to my bees. they can create nuclear waste honey without all the fission rigmarole" Minecraft, Sollux style. (Or maybe Minecraft, Problem Sleuth style?)

Sollux would be a Productive Bees specialist, wouldn't he? That, alongside every computer mod in existence.

@elkian asked: Sorry if I'm the 80th person to mention this but Vriska's 8r8k could also refer to the act of shooting the cue ball at the group of pool balls at the start of a game, known as a "break". @ben-guy asked: Fun fact: In pool terms, the "8r8k" actually refers to the opening shot that sends all the balls flying everywhere. Additional fun fact: The game of pool has a history of being used as a metaphor for causality, which lends some interesting metaphorical weight to Doc Scratch as a cue ball.

Oh, that's true - pool balls are often used as an analogy when talking about causality. Surprising that that's never occurred to me before.

I like to think that when the Felt storm a rival gang's lair as a group, they call their maneuver The Break.

@manorinthewoods asked: Oh my god, Aradia uses Jack to go to the Green Sun. That's such a cool detail. It's so fast, I didn't even see it. To be fair, although the timing is ridiculously impressive, Aradia is both a god and specifically a god of time. Although it's never stated, perfect timing is an obvious power for Time God Tiers to have, which does mean that Aradia would be a half-Flechette. ~LOSS (18/7/24)

And Kanaya's a fashion designer, too. Aradia x Kanaya when?

Anonymous asked: Hey, unfortunately the reqs list link seems to be janked out on my mobile client so I hope this is ok but if you haven't already heard of it I highly highly reccomend Jon Bois' 17776: What Football Will Look Like In the Future It's about football in the same sort of way that homestuck is about video games

Love that story - and I still have to read the sequel, actually!

Anonymous asked: Forwarding another question from the person without a Tumblr account: ~DJ. [I think the change in Equis and Nepeta's behavior is explained by "being together and solving problems together for a long time was great for Equius' and Nepeta's relationship" and "the destruction of Alternia helped Equius realize some facets of Alternian culture he believed where false" (because unlike Eridan he is able to change his mind about stuff like this). - RM]

I really want to see what Equius and Nepeta got up to for a month, as well as all the other trolls. It'd be great to get an 'untold stories of Homestuck' anthology at some point - and hopefully, that's something we'll see in some of Homestuck's tie-in media.

Anonymous asked: I’ve been thinking about Bec prototyping himself and I think I’ve got an answer that works for me - not necessarily the whole answer or the only answer, but I think it’s got something. Basically, Bec knows he can’t / shouldn’t get rid of the meteor entirely (he came down in a meteor that built the frog ruins, so even if we’re just going off what he’s experienced we can say that he probably on some level understands that these meteors landing is important) but he also understands he doesn’t have the type of power or the finesse with that power to only delay it until Jade can take the shot. After all, he could’ve just teleported the living room junk to a different part of the house, but he sent it into deep space because his doggy brain can only deal in absolutes when it comes to perceived danger to his best friend, and the only power we’ve seen First Guardians use (to my recollection) that would in any way help with slowing the meteor is teleportation. He can’t reliably teleport it back only far enough that it will keep falling, but won’t yet land, and he doesn’t have anything else at his disposal - except becoming a sprite, who we’ve seen use beam attacks, which allows Bec to push the meteor back as a delaying measure. Don’t know if he knew it would help so specifically, but even so, I can see Bec understanding it as the only option he has that isn’t either ‘send thing as far away as possible’ or ‘let thing squish most beloved person’. I do think the weakest parts of this theory are What Bec Understands, but puzzling through that devilbeast’s thoughts is hardly a new impossibility. If nothing else, we can all understand that he did this to save Jade, because he loves her, and we love him for that. -Megido (am a new anon, just spent the past couple days catching up and have enjoyed this liveblog immensely)

I think this theory is a good one, and Hussie's comments support it.

The meteor needed to be destroyed in a very specific way for the timeline to retain its integrity, and Bec should instinctively know that, born from Sburb as he is.

Anonymous asked: There are three lenses I think you can view troll romance through: the Xenopsychology lens, the Propaganda lens, and the Parody lens. The Xenopsychology lens is that trolls do in fact experience alien emotions which cannot be felt by humans. It's not just that troll society chooses to categorize the same types of feelings and relationships that humans have differently; these are genuinely unique and original emotions, like a new color that a human couldn't imagine. Describing kismesissitude as hatemance or rivalry or abuse, or moirallegiance as bromance or besties or queer platonic partnership, or auspisticism as third wheeling or mom friending or refereeing are all fundamentally incorrect, because there is no human analogue. You can take this a step further and say that matespritship is also fundamentally different from human romance, even if it appears similar. Therefore all attempts to analyze or write troll romance should be forays into xenofiction, attempting to understand things within a nonhuman framework. The Propaganda lens is that actually troll emotions aren't really any different than human ones, but the quadrant system benefits the hemocasteist militaristic empire by keeping trolls divided enough to become either fucked up killers or submissive victims by the time they reach maturity, but have the minimum support structure needed to actually reach maturity. Kismesissitude is fundamentally unhealthy, auspisticism serves as a counterbalance to keep everyone from killing each other, and moirallegiance serves to prevent trolls from having multiple close friendships or from being fully open with their matesprit by arbitrarily sequestering who it’s appropriate to have certain positive interactions with. None of this is really romance except the one that’s analogous to human romance, but trolls are raised to buy into the system under threat of death. It’s hard to form community and contemplate uprising if everyone confines the meaningful relationships in their life to like 4-5 other people, half of which are based on negative interactions. Also it’s a commentary on how human rules about love and relationships and where the platonic ends and romantic or sexual starts are socially enforced rather than wholly natural and can be arbitrary and unhealthy. Anonymous asked: The Parody lens is that this is all Hussie making fun of fandom shipping tropes. All sufficiently devoted rivalries are actually romantic love. All sufficiently strong friendships are actually romantic love. These two are so hopelessly oblivious to the fact that they actually want to get with the guy they hate, or that the other person they think just wants to be friends actually feels the same way, they need a third party to push them together. (Okay this one doesn’t work because auspisticism seems to basically be the opposite of that? Maybe auspisticism is supposed to be like, contrived elimination of competing romantic options to assure an OTP. Idk if anyone really knows what auspisticism is supposed to be, least of all Hussie.) Also because this was early 2010’s Hussie, there’s maybe a certain level on which trolls being societally obliged to polyamory and bisexuality is also making fun of shippers, although if it was I think Hussie turned around pretty quickly to actually being cool about it. Much like how light is a wave, and a particle, and a ray, all of these are true at different times. This is because the nature of Hussie's writing is that even when things are serious business, they are also jokes. And this is also why the Homestuck fandom will never agree on the correct way to understand and depict the quadrants.

Great breakdown. As you could probably predict, I lean a lot more towards the Propaganda lens, with a healthy dose of Parody mixed in.

The Xenopsychology lens isn't necessarily untrue - it's just that, as I've discussed before, the trolls read as extremely human to me. I honestly believe that if you raised a human on Alternia, they'd probably be compelled to form the same quadrants as everyone else.

I once got an ask stating that, according to Hussie, each of the quadrants are meant to be exaggerated versions of human relationship dynamics. I'd really like to check out that full quote, so if anyone's got a link, send it my way!

[beck-nightengale]

Oh, those moonlit walks would be full of them just insulting each other.

"Pathetic."

"Asshole."

Actually those walks would look more like this:

Alternate ending to the Rhalâta questline:

[absolutebl]

Wading back into the BL world after several months away, and I would like to politely request recommendations. I'm looking for completed BL shows that are as good as Bad Buddy, have a D/s element, are supernatural, and/or are about politics like Not Me. Any or all of these combined would be lovely. I prefer Thai, but any country is fine.

You're the best!

Hi sweetie! Welcome back.

Recently completed BL, as good as Bad Buddy (I rated that a 9/10) with D/s elements, supernatural (PNR), and/or politics.

Okay so I sorted the spreadsheet of doom by year (we are in October 2024) and then ranking, and here is what I got:

Century of Love

Thai Gaga

fated mates, PNR, historical element, grumpy/sunshine, D/s hinted at but not fully executed

This is a very pretty drama about a young man who fell in love with a nice girl 100 years ago, and when she died in his arms, he was cursed to live until he could meet her reborn self. Only this time around, she’s reborn into the body of a man. Or is she? I love it when Thailand gets all up in its own historical business and reincarnation and shizz. I like this pair (it’s not DaouOffroad’s fault I didn’t enjoy their first series.) Daou’s wushu is snazzy and we got a unique meet cute. (Erm… Remeet cute? Meet cute 2.0?)

Ultimately, this is I Feel You Linger in the Air + First Love Again, rather than (as one might expect) Until We Meet Again or The Director Who Buys Me Dinner. The leads turned in great performances, although Daou outclassed everybody else on that screen. It’s a good story and a great BL and I can’t find any major faults with it beyond a certain level of camp that is sadly endemic to lakorns. Also I’m going to give it credit as the kind of BL that one could safely recommend to lovers of melodrama and historical romance, without having to qualify it as “good for a BL.”

It was, to put it succinctly, a VERY ENJOYABLE show.

Cherry Magic (Thai remake)

Thai grey

paranormal, office romance, no D/s

A soft charming warm hug of a show about crushes and mind reading and self worth that really worked for me. With no-fuss execution from a consummate team (at GMMTV) and an OG lead pair (proving why they remain eternal and deserve to grow up). Look, here’s the thing,

Cherry Magic is a great Thai BL in its own right - not comparing it to any other iteration. But even when I do compare (and I've seen all the Cherries and read the manga) it stands strong. I, personally, like the Thai BL slightly better than the Japanese live action yaoi, but I think that’s because I just really enjoy Thai BL's style and I LOVE TayNew.

Also all the kissing was both present and better in this version. As it should be from Thailand.

Cosmetic Playlover

Japan Gaga

obsession, office, tsundere/sunshine , claiming, ownership D/s but nothing more than that

I loved this little show. It was a classic office BL about the older workaholic who loves his job and the younger upstart who unexpectedly loves his boss. It’s a hyung romance where everybody is extremely earnest and sweet and pretty about everything. Except our seme, who is slightly unhinged and a little obsessed in all the ways one likes best from Japan. Plus the kisses were good! I can’t ask for anything more, utterly charming unexpected gem of a show. What a great time!

Love For Love's Sake

Korea iQIYI

isekai, paranormal, high school setting, very soft, sunshine/tsundere, it's Korean so no D/s (the only one that might satisfy from them recently is bully romance Jazz for Two)

trigger suicide

Isekai-based KBL is about a man who must win a game by convincing a reserved teen outcast to fall in love with him. Of course, that teen represents himself and his own unhappiness. Like many queer narratives, this show is actually about self worth, trust, and found family, and it is VERY on the nose. But I don’t expect subtlety from my BL and I enjoyed it's truly lovely redemption arc and earnest performances.

I personally found the narrative a touch disjointed with overworked filming angles and poorer than average captions, but the consistency of tone, script, and immersion is beyond the norm for BL. You will drown in this show and like it that way. The leads have fantastic chemistry and it's ultimately highly rewatchable and utterly charming, which counts for a lot.

The Sign

Thai YouTube

paranormal, soulmates, sunshine/tsundere, high heat, police procedural, every other trope, there's even some elements of D/s in there because it has...... well, everything in it

This show is literally everything (except straight) all at once. It's BL, queer, band of brothers, romcom, erotica, PNR, fated mates, police procedural, fantasy, mystery, suspense, and slasher. It’s the king of genre mash-up chaos. Sure, it's madness but there is genius in it.

Was it a crazy unhinged mess +1 roll for damage? Yes. Yes it was.

Did it manage to hold all those tangled threads together? No it did not.

Was it also a charming, sexy, engaging, non-stop piece of entertainment? Sure thing.

I think this show is basically my KinnPorsche, and frankly I’ve been chasing that dragon naga since KP aired. Is it perfect? No. But it was balls to the wall FUN. Emphasis on balls.

I rated it a 9/10 in 2024 but doesn't contain any of your other requested criteria

Sugar Dog Life

The Rebound

Unknown

Wandee Goodday

We Are

Sorry the D/s has been very light on the ground this year. I mean there has been some kinky stuff, but nothing even approaching BB in terms of quality. I mean Deep Night was about sex work and had a poly romance but was it...... good? Not really.

I rated it an 8/10 but at least it has kink

My Stand-in

Meet You At the Blossom

Jazz for Two

Deep Night

[haru-dipthong]

THE JURI EPISODE (My utena fansub ep 7)

This is my favourite episode of the whole show. My phone background has been the shot of the falling sword ever since I first saw it. I love everything about it, so I really wanted to be sure I did it justice in the translation!

ただもし彼女が本当に世界を革命する力があるというなら私がこの手で奪ってやるさ。

But if Utena truly possesses the Power to Revolutionise the World, I’ll steal it from them.

BIG MOMENT! This is the first time one of the student council uses they/them for Utena. You may notice that the Japanese is 彼女, often translated as “she”. So why am I translating it as “they”?

In the fountain scene, Juri draws a parallel between Utena and Shiori. She begins to frame all of Utena’s behaviour through a lens of heterosexual lust/love, which makes her completely flip out as it makes her feel more alone than ever because (I believe) she saw a kindred spirit in Utena’s gender non-conformity, and sees that cameraderie dry up because of the phantasm of heterosexuality.

After the duel, Juri has rediscovered hope in herself and in the world. I believe part of this is because she realises she was wrong about Utena. Their duel is essentially over whether Utena is deserving of the ring, which, to Juri, is a question of whether Utena is really driven by heterosexual love. Through her loss she is forced to admit that she was wrong, that Utena is not motivated by heterosexual love for the prince, and there was and still is a cameraderie there. Using “they” is an admission that she was wrong, and an indication that she understands Utena a little more. It’s in direct contrast to the fountain scene when she calls Utena “a little girl”.

That’s my interpretation anyway. Anya’s interpretation is that Juri is distancing herself from Utena in this scene; that Juri has realised that “miracles are real, just not for me”. In this interpretation, “they” also makes sense — by gendering Utena as nonbinary, Juri reaffirms her position as the only girl in the duel system. She is attempting to process the idea that Utena is special by distancing them from womanhood (and therefore she, a woman, is doomed to live without miracles).

“Sure sure, there’s lots of narrative justification for it,” I hear you say, “but it’s simply not in the original japanese script!”

Well, actually, there’s justification for this too. 1. Utena’s use of 僕 (boku) is untranslatable — we lose that gendered meaning in translation. It needs to be added back in somewhere, and this is the place. It’s not a perfect compensation (boku is self-identifying while “they” is an external identification) but based on the narrative elements I’ve mentioned above, I think it’s acceptable. 2. Japanese rarely uses third person pronouns, and doesn’t have a gender neutral one. I think Juri uses it here because she doesn’t want to say Utena’s name (still a bit sore from the loss?) so I don’t see the gendering here as being important to keep in the translation.

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奇跡の力で勝てると自惚れてるがいい。

If you beat me with the power of miracles, you're entitled to your conceit. (from ohtori.nu)

If by some miracle you beat me, you can keep your shallow dreams. (my translation)

Like I said above, for Juri, this duel is about whether or not Utena is driven by heterosexual love. 自惚れる is usually translated as “to be conceited” but here, Juri is saying that she’ll allow Utena to keep pining for her lost prince with the alternative being that she will shatter Utena’s dreams. With that in mind I thought it better to phrase it in a way that extends and makes clear Juri’s resentment of Utena.

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奇跡を信じて。思いは届くと。

This was the hardest line in the whole episode. I went through several iterations:

Believe in a miracle, and your feelings will be returned.

If you believe in a miracle, he’ll love you back.

Just believe in miracles, and your love will be returned.

Miracles can happen. Your true love will love you back.

The phrase 思いは届く literally means “your thoughts will reach their destination”. In practice it means something like “your feelings will be understood and reciprocated”, and it was hard to find an English phrase that had a similar meaning while still sounding good as a repeatable quote. Anya’s keen eye for natural and polished dialogue really helped here, as they were able to pick the best sounding combination of first- and second-halves of the line. We ended up with

Believe in miracles, and your love will be returned.

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@dontbe-lasanya outdid themself again with this edit. It wouldn't be nearly as good without their help!

Be sure to follow for updates! You can find previous episodes here:

[leiascully]

X-Files OctoberFicFest Day 16: The Field Where I Died

Cut for canon abuse/murder/child death

Scully didn’t believe in past lives or hypnosis or destiny. She hoped that Melissa Riedal-Ephesian hadn’t either—there was no timeline in which she deserved the fate she had drawn. Scully felt none of the echoes Mulder claimed to sense when she looked at Melissa or the Seven Stars compound or the photographs he’d found. The resemblance was slightly uncanny, but the photograph was blurry. The imagination enhanced the line of the jaw, the slope of the nose into something recognizable.

If they were all entangled, she felt sorry for the woman. Mulder’s mesmerized recitation had relegated Scully firmly to the best supporting actress role: sergeant, first mate, partner. Melissa, as Mulder’s true love, faced tragedy after tragedy, just as she had in this life. Samantha too seemed doomed to suffer in these storylines. Scully couldn’t countenance that. Surely their souls deserved peace in some eras.

Besides, if past lives were real, Melissa Riedal wasn’t the Melissa her soul was tethered to. There wasn’t a timeline in which Mulder could let go of his sister, and that was just as true for her.

Mulder accepted the theory of Melissa’s incarnations with an easy grace despite Melissa’s own skepticism. Whether his memories had been drawn out of the deep well of his soul or fabricated by his vivid imagination, Scully couldn’t say and Melissa refused to consider. He believed the narrative that they’d been in love, when they’d been Sarah Kavanaugh and Sullivan Biddle. He believed she had been his soul mate. Soul mates couldn’t be relegated to the past tense, to past lives. Soul mates were eternal.

And if she’d thought, from time to time, that there might be glints of more between herself and Mulder, perhaps she’d been mistaken. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d confused friendship for something more. Never the bride, or even the bridesmaid���she might be a right hand, but her left remained unadorned.

What she and Mulder had was deep and meaningful. It was trust. It was an absolute faith in each other despite their many points of disagreement. It didn’t have to be romantic to be love. Would it have changed the way they looked at each other, the depth of their bond in this life? She wasn’t sure. Her connection with Mulder was unique in her experience. She couldn’t imagine feeling any differently about him, for better or for worse.

She felt petty, spending any time at all thinking about past lives when there were present lives at stake. Children’s lives, women’s lives: a whole community drawn in by a charismatic criminal. They had come for a covenant and been given false promises. The victims were her priority.

In the end, the FBI’s best efforts weren’t good enough. Bureaucracy prevailed. The conflict staggered to its inevitable unhappy conclusion. Melissa died. They all died.

It was been a long and difficult afternoon coordinating the removal of the bodies. At least she’d been spared the need to conduct autopsies: the cause of death was clear enough to be established by local MEs. Mulder hadn’t demanded she conduct an autopsy on Melissa Riedal. She hadn’t had to zip the children into body bags. Still, her body ached and there was a dull throb between her eyes.

She found Mulder in the field, staring out across the ridge, the two tattered photographs in his hands. She took them from him gently. He gazed at her, dazed, as if she were a stranger.

“We’ll have to return these to the local archives for restoration,” she said. “I plan to have copies made for the file, to corroborate your testimony under hypnosis.” She watched him. “I could have copies made for you as well.”

He looked back out over the long grass. “She said she wanted to believe.”

“I know.”

“It made her want to die. She’d already given up.”

“I know.”

Tears rolled down his face. She drew his head down to her shoulder and let him weep for all the lives he couldn’t save. She wished she could cry. Her headache built, but her eyes were dry. She held him, in the field where he believed he’d died, and wondered how many bones rested under the soil, how many souls would be weighed against their own.

[thisbarbiereallylikesbirds]

Why Tang Shen is soo interesting to me

Okay with all the Nameless Trio content I’ve been posting I feel the need to let you guys know why I find Shen so interesting. This may be a long one but I have LOTS of thoughts so please hang tight.

“If we interfere Splinter will never move to New York and buy four baby turtles”

Donnie in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) S3 E19

First of all Shen is literally the reason the story happens in most iterations. If it weren’t for her death, Hamato Yoshi likely never would’ve moved to New York, never bought the turtles, and they never would’ve gotten mutated. Without her there’d be no story. And yet she’s barely ever mentioned in canon.

Now I could talk for ages about fridging women and why it’s a stupid out-dated, over-used, misogynistic trope. And I’m not even going to pretend that’s not what happened to her. But one of the main problems with fridging is the fact that after the woman’s death sets the plot into motion (usually for some sort of love interest) she’s eventually forgotten by the plot. Women in fiction deserve better treatment than that. Real women deserve better representation than that.

However there’s another way that characters who die before the story starts can be utilized. One that I’m absolutely OBSESSED with. And that is the idea of haunting the narrative. Two of the best examples that I can think of are Mara from She-Ra and Caleb Wittenbane from the Owl House. Both characters are dead before the series begins. For a while the only way that we know about them is through what the other characters tell us. And, of course, this is a very biased view of the person. Sometimes it’s very one dimensional. 

But even though we know almost nothing about them, they linger. They are everywhere in the story. So many things only happen because of them. Memories of Caleb are everywhere in Phillip’s mindscape. Hunter’s entire life is dictated by the memory of a man who died hundreds of years ago. And even the door, the things that brings Luz the the Boiling Isles and sets the whole story into motion only is opened for her because Caleb stole it from Belos and buried it in the backyard of his family home. We don’t know much about Mara but we know that Adora is in a way doomed to follow in her footsteps. 

“In every other universe Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man. And in every other universe…it doesn’t end well.”

Spider-Gwen in Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

So we’ve talked about out-of-universe stuff. But what about what’s in the actual story? Due to the crossovers we know that all the iterations of TMNT sort of exist in the same way all the universes exist in the Spider-Verse world. They all have their own dimension. I can’t help but think of the parallels not only between the worlds but the characters who live within them. Gwen Stacy dies in every universe but one. She knows this. Unfortunately, the universe where she survives isn’t exactly kind to her. She loses her best friend. She loses Miles. She loses her father. She loses any chance at having a normal life. 

In 2012 the turtles have a conversation with Shen where she is trying to pick between Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi. Of course they don’t know this at the time, but one of the choices will lead to her death. However, it will also lead to the world being saved from a variety of threats. But what if she did know? What if Shen knew that she would be sacrificing herself? What if she knew that in every other universe she was doomed to die? In every universe but one, that is.

Tang Shen is never said to be dead in ROTTMNT. But we only see her once in a movie poster. We know she exists but she has no relevance. As far as we know, she’s out there living her best life. So what is she like? What would a person be like in the one universe where she gets to live?

I really hope this wasn’t too long but thank you so much for reading this whole thing! If you want some content about Rise!Shen then visit the Nameless Trio tag on my blog, she’s one of the three main characters in that au.

[amaltheas-garden]

You’ve really put so succinctly why Dany is my favorite despite being a dark Dany believer. I love tragedy I love doom I love when the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Her arc has been set up so beautifully and her peacefully ascending and ruling happily is just something I don’t think George would ever write based on his criticism of Tolkien. George also clearly loves tragedy. It’s a shame that discussing Dany with any sense of nuance and analysis of George’s actual themes has to be classified as “anti dany.” She’s my favorite character! I’m not anti Dany in the slightest! Cersei is also a huge favorite of mine. But people are somehow able to handle nuance in Cersei (well, more than with Dany) and can acknowledge that she’s tragic and sympathetic despite also being despicable and doing unforgivable things

Thank you so much <3 I definitely agree Dany won't likely get a smooth-sailing happy ending on the iron throne. There are so many similarities in how the fandom treats Cersei and Dany! I think Cersei gets a lot more sympathy now than when the books/show started, but Dany discourse sort of devolved into she was always an evil tyrant who loved killing people vs she's the savior who can do no wrong and grrm will make her the god empress of the universe in ADOS after the show fumbled her arc so bad. The most innovative part of Dany's narrative on grrm's part is that we the audience will be more upset when Dany dies despite her, for lack of better phrasing, turning to the dark side. Usually authors who write "morally grey" characters do so in a way where they don't make the character do anything too bad so the audience will stop liking them, or they give a villain a few appealing qualities, while still having their actions be firmly rooted in the "bad" camp. If Dany does burn KL, that action alone puts her beyond redemption, yet we've followed her entire journey and seen the immense amount of good she's been capable of. Dany's death I think is supposed to be the climactic tragedy of the series, in which the most classic high fantasy trope of the good guy defeats the ultimate big bad guy and we all clap and cheer is turned on its head. Grrm does not reward violence, he does not justify revenge, and he makes a point of denying the audience the satisfaction of violence being inflicted onto any character, no matter how deserved we think it is. So even though Dany takes the narrative place of the final villain, her death will be somber and tragic rather than a victorious moment. Someone who tried so hard to be good but was ultimately corrupted the same as everyone else in the endless machine of war, fighting over a throne that everyone hated sitting on anyway.

The anti tag imo is meaningless 😅. It could mean literally anything from "I dislike how the writers handled this character's arc" or "I dont have a problem with the writing I just really hate this one fking character" and of course analysis of a character that paints them in a negative light (with the assumption it was done intentionally by the author) which goes against the popular interpretation of said character. I think Dany is a phenomenally written character, but a lot of her fans don't like the dark Dany theory (completely fair) so I tag it as anti for filtering ease.

[recovering-dungeon-lord]

I’ve been watching the 2017 Legend of the Condor Heroes (with fanmade english subtitles, thank you for your hard work, various fansubers and especially youtube user Emycee Chin) and I’m really enjoying it for lots of reasons but one thing I can’t stop thinking about is how like. Technically 90% of the story wouldn’t have happened if not for Bao Xiruo saving Wanyan Honglie’s life.

And it would be so so easy for the narrative to focus on that. To turn it into this tragic tale of how Xiruo’s ‘soft, woman’s heart’ doomed her family. How her fatal flaw was mercy. But they… don’t really do that? Her kindness ultimately leading to her ruin is definitely a part of the tragedy of her story/character, but it’s never framed as weakness, as something that means she’s *to blame* when her good intentions are turned back around on her.

Instead, we see how each and every person who takes advantage of her kind heart is cruel and manipulative. She’s a tragic character by virtue of being a kind person in a cruel world, but the tragedy isn’t framed as an inevitable consequence of her kindness. There’s no implication that she ‘should have known better’ or that if she had been harder and ‘stronger’, she could have had a happier ending.

She’s not tragic for being kind in the face of cruelty, she’s tragic because the world is cruel in the face of her kindness. She’s tragic because she deserves better and she doesn’t get it.

Idk that might not seem like a big difference to some people, but it’s huge to me.

[xiaolanhua]

So here are my thoughts about In Blossom!

This post may have some spoilers!

I finished watching it yesterday and decided to make a post about my opinions while the drama is still fresh in my mind.

So, the drama made me interested from beginning till the end and overall it's great! It's nothing really revolutionary in terms of plot/story (historical dramas tend to have some similar stories) but it delivered what was promised: mystery, romance, investigation, a bit of thriller with amazing shots and gorgeous costumes!

About the leads:

Liu Xue Yi as the male lead really raised the level of this drama. His performance was one of my favorite things while watching it and i'm so grateful to whoever casted him as the lead because he deserves it (enough with playing the bad guy who never gets his happy ending or the girl 🥲).

At first, I was a little bit concerned about watching because I wasn't a fan of Ju Jing Yi's acting from the dramas I've watched with her but after finishing this one I think she made a solid performance (it's not the best one but definitely her best one yet) and it didn't compromised the drama at all. I've seeing a bunch of not so nice comments towards her specially because people were not happy with the actress "swapping" and although I think the "original" Yang Cai Wei did a great job I'm still satisfied with how things turned out and I like both "Cai Wei".

About the main couple:

For me, it's really poetic how Pan Yue loved Cai Wei since childhood, got to reunite with her after 10 years from being apart of each other, to think he finally married her and then "she" dies on the eve of the wedding, and how he goes insane about her death that get white strokes on his hair and goes on a mission to know who is behind her murder WHILE Cai Wei it's alive by his side but with the face of someone he despises (Shangguan Zhi) and when they start to work together on the cases, they begin to be close to each other and he hates himself for developing feelings for Shangguan Zhi thinking he's betraying Cai Wei's memory. It get's even better because he's falling in love again as she's behaving like the Cai Wei he knows so he get's even more confused and watching all of this was a delight!

They had chemistry, their scenes were fun, interesting, tender and sometimes even hot so it's a win for me actually.

About the second couple (SPOILER!!!!):

Their interactions were pretty cute and they had chemistry but it's a shame what happened to them, specially with Lan Jiang (he deserved better). I always felt that they were a "doomed" couple and I'm sad that I was right about it, my heart hurts for them both as the characters themselves and the ship that didn't sail.

About the cases and the story:

Another thing i liked about this drama is how the cases were introduced, they were directly or indirectly related to the main "mystery" and every case were solved so they didn't left any loose ends. Some dramas of this genre tend to abruptly solve the cases and they end up not adding much to the narrative so I'm glad this were not the case here.

The pacing of the drama was pretty good but I do feel like the last two episodes were a bit rushed. We can't have it all, can't we?

The ending was good as expected (not for some characters I would say) but still good. SPOILER!!! I liked that the cliffhanger did not affected the characters so it could have a second season if the producers wanted but it's not necessarily needed (My Journey to You can't relate).

Overall, it was a pleasant watch so I rate 8.9 out of 10. It's not perfect but I would totally recommend!