#and sacrifice themselves just for the sake of getting them out of the narrative

[flufflecat]

can writers stop amounting their characters to such a husk of themselves that them literally killing themselves for no reason is considered a good death

[pikahlua]

In regards to your post on Izuku’s self sacrificial traits, how do you think the dark hero arc plays into this? I thought the point of it was to sort of pull his self sacrificial nature back a bit with the whole “you can’t do it on your own” and “don’t kill yourself for the cause” thing. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive, i get that “bakugou looks up to Deku’s self sacrificial nature as a positive trait he doesn’t have” and “Deku should rely on others and not hurt himself” can both coexist. But they also give mixed messages narratively. Is one not condemning it while the other puts it on a pedestal?

THANK YOU!!! For taking the bait.

I've been ranting about this theme a bit because, from what I can tell, it might be the biggest point MHA is trying to make to answer the question "What is a hero?" Because of MHA's length, the points of the argument have been rather spread out. I think people's understanding of the argument has been distorted by the length of time between the points. Overthinking is the enemy here.

But really, why are people coming away from MHA with the message "Heroes shouldn't sacrifice themselves"? The message is coming from somewhere. The problem is it's probably coming from a conflation of concepts. What is self-sacrifice? That's the question that gets at the root of the problem here.

In the west, "sacrifice" has negative connotations. "Something is lost." "Someone suffers for the sake of a goal." "Someone gives up something." The focus is entirely on the pain experienced by the one sacrificing.

But the point MHA is trying to make is that there's a difference between "suffering loss" and the sacrifices a true hero makes. Izuku isn't a remarkable hero because he's willing to destroy himself at the drop of a hat. The focus is not on his drastic behavior but on the recipients of his drastic behavior. The point is, sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice is meaningless, but sacrifice for the sake of others, well, now we're getting somewhere.

It's the "for the sake of others" part that matters here. Izuku is a hero because he cares for others, because he wants to save others, and what he's willing to sacrifice to accomplish that is merely the measure of his conviction, of his heart.

The quality of self-sacrifice is a core trait measured just to gain enrollment at UA, the most prestigious hero school in the country. Self-sacrifice is fundamental to being a hero. Do you really think the point of the MHA story is to demonstrate how self-sacrifice is a bad thing, that heroes shouldn't sacrifice themselves? Do you think the rest of Class 1-A wouldn't be willing to sacrifice themselves should the need arise so long as it's in order to save someone?

The difference between Izuku and the rest of the world, at least at the beginning, is that he is sensitive to calls for help. He is able to perceive those in trouble that others cannot perceive. Others get confused by the context or are not in a constant state of listening for cries for help. Others cannot always tell when is the right time to act or if acting is the correct choice. Izuku never wavers in the face of such questions. He always acts, because he cannot help but act. It is who he is. It's his nature to be this way. And this is the spirit that slowly influences his classmates and the rest of society, this is the spirit Katsuki fears and later comes to emulate, this is the ideal Izuku admires in his hero All Might for which he always strives.

Heroes want to save, but some of them just don't know how--and Izuku teaches them how. Izuku teaches them that, for true heroes, to save others is more important than anything else they could ever want. It is more important than their self-perceived weaknesses, than their egos, than their desires for vengeance, than their small-time dreams, no matter how noble or justified or important any of those things might be. To be called a hero, one must be prepared to risk it all.

These are the traits Hero Killer Stain wishes to promote in society. These are the qualities he exonerates from assassination. A person who lives for the sake of "service to others" is the sort of person who has more right than anyone to "cling desperately to life." Society needs such people, and for that very reason such people need to stay alive. This is the collectivist ideal. If everyone is concerned for the well-being of others, then everyone is looking out for everyone else. If you're ready to save others and risk yourself to do so, others will risk themselves to make sure you make it out alive too, and thus everyone is protected. If you do end up perishing due to self-sacrifice, it is a tragedy, not self-determination, but then your actions still protected the whole, and the whole will continue to protect everyone in it to the best of their abilities because your self-sacrifice was appreciated and the spirit of your goodness carries on in others.

But that's a whole lot of waxing poetic about self-sacrifice. I did acknowledge that people are picking up a critical message. Where then is the criticism?

It comes from Shouta Aizawa.

Aizawa is the major proponent of rationality in this case. Self-sacrifice = good is not the end of the philosophy. It is as you say, something must balance it out.

People often think Aizawa's philosophy boils down to "I don't want heroes to be self-sacrificial," but that's not actually what he's saying. Aizawa's philosophy is to make the distinction between self-sacrifice and self-destruction.

"Being self-sacrificing isn't the same...as being suicidal. Many kids confuse the two. So I'll give them what they want. A 'death,' so to speak."

The hallmark of heroic self-sacrifice is that it's done for the sake of others. Self-destruction is different; it is for the sake of the self. Some people would take the chance to mask their self-destruction as self-sacrifice by looking for a way to die while saving others. That's not the point of heroic self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is a last resort. You save a person in trouble because you care about preserving their well-being no matter the cost, but some sacrifices are not in balance. Say someone is trapped in a room and you want to get them out, and you have a battering ram and a bomb. Should you strap a bomb to your body and explode open that door to let the person out? Wouldn't that be a heroic sacrifice to save someone? No! It's certainly a sacrifice, but it's not a heroic one. You should act to preserve ALL well-being, including your own. Use the damn battering ram.

Consider the circumstances at play in the quirk assessment test. Izuku was ready to sacrifice his entire arm, his physical constitution, for the sake of demonstrating his power. What does Izuku incapacitating himself achieve were Aizawa to let him do so? It would merely be to prove his strength to someone. No one is at risk here. No one needs saving. Izuku has no person to receive the good will of his self-sacrifice.

"Whatever you were planning...it would have inconvenienced those around you."

"You're totally useless after saving just a single person."

Self-sacrifice is still a sacrifice, which means it has costs and consequences. Who loses because of self-sacrifice? Many people. The person who sacrifices themself loses their life or well-being, which, if others asking for help are worth saving because you believe all people are equal, then you are also worth saving and in just as much need of help. Additionally, your loved ones are harmed because they care about you. And the rest of society suffers because it was better for having you in it; you can no longer save anyone else. To save the most people possible, a hero should strive to survive. A hero should strive to win.

Taken all together, you get the philosophy that allows Katsuki's team to triumph during the Joint Training Arc, which was the entire point of this match. Note how all the above logic is summed up quite succinctly by the gremlin himself.

Katsuki is dedicated to winning the match and leads the charge, but that puts him at risk of being targeted. However, he's willing to be in that vulnerable state because he trusts others to save him. That's what empowers him to put himself on the line. His goal is a complete victory, which means that self-sacrifice is considered a loss. There are costs and consequences, and heroes should do their best to mitigate them. Katsuki is doing everything in his power to reduce the necessity of self-sacrifice, but not because he thinks self-sacrifice is bad. He thinks needless self-sacrifice is bad, and so he strives to eliminate the need for it.

But that means he does acknowledge that there are times self-sacrifice is necessary. He's grown up afraid of Izuku's heart because Izuku demonstrates how easily self-sacrifice comes to him, and that puts Katsuki on the spot. Katsuki doesn't know if he is capable of self-sacrifice. Because he's so competent and strong, he's never noticed a need for sacrifice in his life. He's never had to demonstrate self-sacrifice, and if that's such a fundamental part of being a hero, Katsuki doesn't know if he really is a hero at heart.

But as I mentioned above, the reason he never had a chance to display self-sacrifice as a trait is because he lacked the ability to tell when people need saving. He looks around and sees a bunch of people who are wasting their potential. He thinks some people who seem to ask for help are much more capable than they behave.

Note how Katsuki failed his hero license exam. If Katsuki had stuck around the triage center and fought Gang Orca when he showed up, Katsuki likely would have passed. But Katsuki decided to forego battle to run around and save people. And hilariously enough, the bystanders who dock Katsuki points point out that Katsuki correctly identified them as low-priority targets to save. He's pretty good at figuring out who DOESN'T need saving. They end up docking him points because of his inappropriate tone, which is possibly the funniest way they could have said "Well you're technically right but also holy crap you're bad at this."

And that's the point. Katsuki knows saving people is important, and he perceives Izuku is the absolute best at it. Katsuki is constantly looking for a way to compete with Izuku in this realm because he has to. Katsuki wants to be the best, and to do so he has to improve in this area. Izuku pisses him off because he is extremely adept at perceiving calls for help from those who truly need it, and Katsuki notices every time Izuku is faster on the uptake. It happens at the sports festival with Shouto, which is why Katsuki considers the sports festival a loss.

Katsuki does get better at this, and that's what allows him to eventually get his hero license. Think of his behavior during the school cultural festival, where he sees his classmates trying to appease their peers out of guilt. That's people pleasing. That's ego. Katsuki won't have any of it. From his perspective, if Class 1-A wants to make sure everyone has a good time, then everyone means everyone. Class 1-A has to enjoy the festival too, and the best way to do that is to throw a badass concert. By enjoying themselves and being proud of their well-earned accomplishments, by thriving, Class 1-A demonstrates to their peers how to best win against all those tragedies that tried to bring them down. Self-deprecation for the sake of appeasing others' ill will when that ill will is unjustified is just self-gratification. It's just a way to stop feeling guilty, but the only purpose that serves is to debase yourself. Class 1-A didn't do anything wrong to the other classes, so Class 1-A does not need to atone to them. Self-sacrifice in this case brings no benefit to anyone. Instead, the classes should all be thriving together.

All of these lessons converge in the Dark Deku arc. Others express worry for Izuku's behavior because they see him as engaging in self-destruction. They want him to rest, but Izuku perceives there are people in need of help, so he can't help but save them. And not everyone condemns Izuku's behavior.

Kudou encourages it.

The problem at play in this arc is the question of power. Izuku has power, which means he is capable of saving people. And many people are in need of saving. How many people can one finite Izuku save? That is the question he is set to answer. He is facing the same question as All Might, but All Might's example was to save people while he was losing One For All. All Might had a finite amount of power that he was going to lose in time, so he decided to spend that dwindling power on saving as many people as he could. That would be the more virtuous use of his finite power.

But All Might's flaw was in rejecting the help of others when others were capable of helping him. Izuku falls into the same trap. He thinks he has to save people alone because he's the only one capable of it.

This is Kudou's spoken caveat. "Inaction is not an option," so yes Izuku needs to be acting in this moment. "That said...if there's anything that could bolster Izuku Midoriya now, it would be..."

The answer is not merely "friends." We are given the answer that Izuku needs friends at first, but this is a special type of friend. Izuku needs friends who "share his resolve," who "can match his pace...and keep running alongside him." Izuku needs comrades (nakama)! He needs friends who want to save just as much as he does. He needs friends who are just as capable as he is. That's why Class 1-A has to first demonstrate their capabilities to Izuku so that he can be convinced.

Katsuki doesn't criticize Izuku's ideals either. In fact, he openly praises them.

All Katsuki is saying here is "You're doing the right thing. Saving people, even at cost to yourself, is the right thing. We want to help. We can help. Don't reject us.

"Don't pay a price when you don't have to."

tl;dr

In a collectivist society, the ideal is that everyone looks out for each other, thus is everyone protected.

Self-sacrifice has costs to the self, to one's loved ones, and to society. The price paid must be worth the good achieved.

The virtue in self-sacrifice is that it is done when necessary for the sake of others. Anything less is self-destruction, which is harmful to society.

Heroes have a duty both to be prepared to self-sacrifice and to mitigate the need for self-sacrifice.

Rejecting the help of others who are capable of helping is to reject the collectivist ideal.

Izuku's self-sacrifice is virtuous BECAUSE IT IS FOR OTHERS' SAKES. Izuku's self-destruction and rejection of help from others are what the story criticizes.

Izuku Midoriya's nature represents the ideal of self-sacrifice because of his innate desire to save others, and Katsuki Bakugou recognizes that trait as core to being a hero and thus admires Izuku for it--but he's also afraid he doesn't have that trait for a large chunk of the story. Izuku's journey to accepting the help of others, Katsuki's journey to discovering his self-sacrificing spirit, and their mutual admiration of each other all provide the perspective for the audience to understand this ideal: heroes are those who live in service of others.

[fromthemouthofkings]

A thing about LOTR that I actually find quite charming and endearing is that a lot of our protagonists are so good, wise, thoughtful, articulate, poetic, kind and emotionally astute, they are constantly asking those wiser than them for council, discussing what weighs upon their hearts, supporting each other, reciting songs, making Very Serious Plans and listening to each other–they are so Good and emotionally literate that it almost, at an uncharitable reading, starts to feel a little bit like Ye Olde therapyspeak.

Except it never hits, for me at least, that threshold of "he would not fucking say that" such that it breaks my suspension of disbelief, which is what makes therapyspeak so annoying to me personally in writing. Partly I think it's that there are plenty of other characters who inhabit this world that clearly don't talk and behave this way, so our protagonists stand out, but it feels intentional–but also I think it's just because it feels true to the characters that they would fucking say that. They would make these choices. And it's just very interesting and comforting to read a story that is actually full of very kind, decent people. Our protagonists are not always perfect, not always in agreement with each other–but they are allowed by the narrative to struggle really really hard against impossible odds while remaining good, kind, honorable people, and they aren't forced to sacrifice that for the sake of doing the right thing. Tolkien is, in general, very very leery of the idea that you can put in bad means and get out a good end result–he emphatically does not believe in using the devil's own power against him. To a one, everyone who tries to do that fails because their choices end up biting them in their own ass.

And Tolkien is realistic about the fact that those who choose to hold true might be dooming themselves to death or failure by doing so. He's honest about the fact that it's fucking hard. I don't think anyone could read Frodo's journey in particular and come away with the idea that choosing to do the kind, decent thing is easy, or glamorous, or destined to automatically succeed. But these characters are allowed to keep faith anyway, to hold out hope, to do the kind, decent thing trusting that, even if they don't succeed, it matters that they tried.

And yeah, it's oversimplified. In the hands of a lesser writer, I think this world could end up feeling very flat. Like oh, we have our heroes who are good people, and the bad guys who are ontologically evil and a lot of boring sometimes-misguided ordinary folk in the middle. And there are major criticisms to be made for sure–like how the orcs are handled, for instance.

But still, it's comforting, it's aspirational. It's escapist in a hopeful kind of way, a gentle kind of way–self-aware, I mean, that this goodness isn't destined to win, but–wouldn't it be nice? What if we tried–what if we hoped–what if we charged out and did our best, to whatever end? What if that was enough?

I don't know that I believe it, exactly, but something something about how humans need the little lies to help them believe the big ones. Show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. Maybe it's a lie–but it's a good one.

[slugghee]

Welcome to my lengthy and disorganized attempts at analyzing Quarters 14 from the Felt I guess

(Well, "analyzing" is quite generous. It's more like me digging myself into a deeper and deeper rabbit hole for 30 minutes.)

Quarters's power is so incredibly weird to me. Every other leprechaun with an object juju directly uses those jujus by themselves. Yet Quarters's quarters must be distributed across at least 7 other people in order to function. Like... what's even the point of them being his? (Not a dig at Quarters, I find this rlly interesting even if it probably isnt meant to mean anything).

The nature of the power itself is also strangely convoluted. The quarters can switch individuals of ostensiblble thematic connection between timelines, sure okay. That fits in with the rest of the Felt's timefuckery. But then they added a luck and doom element to it. Only by flipping your coin counterpart's side can you summon then. If you flip your own side you die. Not to mention the choices of pairings. Every other Felt member's powers are pretty simple to understand, so why does Quarters of all people have so many details and caveats to his?

Then the pairing decisions themselves are quite confusing, having less to do with the actual relationship between the members of that pairing and more to do with connections between their defining character traits. For example, Itchy starts fires via his reckless speed/Matchsticks puts them out, Die has a death doll and Stitch has a lifey one -> (https://homestuck.net/official/formspring/)

But then Hussie says that some of the pairings just "don't make much sense." So is it just arbitrary? Based on the numbers they happened to be assigned and nothing more? All and any connections between character traits are just coincidences?

(Snowman, of course, gets her own special pairing with herself. Is the fact that she cannot be replaced with a different individual a commentary on her increased relevance as a character? Or just smthing to do with her space/timeline powers? And what does that mean for Quarters's power???)

The practical use for Quarters's quarters seems tailored for oddly specific situations. I guess they could be used as a last resort — at the cost of potentially ending your life, you bring in someone else to deal with your sticky situation, whether they're better qualified for it or not, in hopes that they will either resolve it or take the fall for you. It's shifting responsibility, tying someone to your situation rather than facing it head-on. That, or knowing you yourself have no use in this situation, and for the sake of the team, you bet on your life to bring in someone who's more qualified for the job. In which case it's more like a brave, quasi-heroic sacrifice (given that if the sacrifice actually happened, you'd fail to bring the replacement anyhow.)

Landing on your coin partner's side could refer to characters replacing each other's function in the narrative once one becomes defunct (for the situation at hand). (Supplantation? Being interchangeable? Or being succeeded?) Meanwhile, landing on your own side could refer to characters being treated as irreplaceable — leaving behind a space that cannot be filled and consequences that can't be ignored, letting the narrative situation fester or resolve itself without them. And whether or not either happens is a 50/50 apparently. Purely based on luck... or probably just the illusion of it.

In this interpretation I have no idea what the luck element means. Is the coin flipping heads/tails thing just there to show that there are two potential outcomes? Does the luck part not actually matter? Realistically, if a writer were to make the decision to "replace" a character in this way it would not be a random, 50/50 choice. Is this a commentary on the divide between the characters' understanding of fate and the writer's hand in it? AM I LOOKING TOO MUCH INTO THIS?? (yes)

The most important coin pairing (and the only coin we ever actually see iirc) is the one between Quarters and Clover. Clover can utilize the boons of this power without any drawbacks for himself. Despite being a pretty unimportant character in the grand scheme of Homestuck, Clover's luck is integral to his funny gimmick in the Felt (who in its entirety is majorly defined by being a funny gimmick), and thus must be sated at all times. He can call Quarters to take his place in any situation he's too lazy to handle. Though this still has the effect of ripping Quarters out of whatever he's currently doing to deal with a potentially fatal situation. Can't imagine he'd appreciate that.

The significance of Clover/Quarters's coin pairing is most likely just an logical extension of their powers and not meant to have any broader meaning. Just thought it was worth mentioning. (Though if I could figure out the significance of luck in Quarters's power, maybe I could come up with something. Unfortunately I'm pretty stumped.)

Back to Quarters (the character.) His power is not using these coins. Anyone with a coin can do that. His power is just... existing to have them, I guess. And perhaps distributing them once. (We never actually see anyone other than him and Clover use their coin so it's technically possible he's just keeping the rest to himself). Perhaps being the most knowledgeable about how they work, given he's the one that gave his own coin to Clover for tactical reasons.

Also interesting that Quarters flipped his own quarter so nonchalantly that one time. Like... did he just not know what his juju did at the time? Does he trust in fate? Was this his first time flipping one of his coins at all? Did he want so badly to get away from socially interacting with Cans and Caliborn that he flipped the coin for the chance of getting away from them, even at the potential cost of his life? (I'm going with that last one actually that's rlly funny)

Unfortunately, we don't get to see all that much of Quarters. He almost kills Spades Slick that one time I guess. His character is defined a bit more in TIDOMS, where he's a man of few words who looks perpetually grumpy, but even then he gets less screentime than most of the others. We get a quick non-explanation for his power and welp time to move on guys! (He's not even in any of the background wall paintings like come on!!)

Finally, Quarters's design stands out to me. Almost every other Felt member has a clear philosophy behind their design. Doze is hunched over and slow, Die has 6s for eyes, Stitch has stitches, etc. Meanwhile, Quarters resembles... a bird? A lizard? A skull, perhaps? I really do wonder if there's an reason behind the quirks of his character design, if at all. It's not like there's no other leprechauns with unique animalistic mouths but they usually have a clear reason for it (and Sawbuck has other elements of his design that more obviously align with his power.) In addition, the other Felt members are often seen with their portable object juju if they have one, such as Eggs with his timer or Biscuits with his oven. Even in Matchsticks's case, though he doesn't have an object juju, he constantly carries around an item related to his power (a fire extinguisher). However, Quarters is most iconicly seen with a minigun. Unlike basically every other member of the Felt who shoves their power into your face every chance they get, Quarters feels quite divorced from his own power. He's a badass with a minigun first and foremost. And I don't know if there's a thematically significant reason why but it sure tickles my brain.

In conclusion, Quarters is THE weirdest felt member. Thanks for reading this far 👍

(Also its been like 5 years since I've actually read any homestuck lol so srry if I missed anything)

[canmom]

choosing the treasure that eats you

the gods in narrative podcast The Silt Verses cover an enormous variety of motifs and subjects - and indeed, we are told how new gods are invented all the time, researched and tested by the government, competing to be the patron of companies and individuals, broken down and dumped when they're no longer needed. but they are all unified by two things: they all demand human sacrifices ('a god must feed' as Carpenter puts it in the opening episode) and they all inflict dramatic body-horror transformations (a process known as 'hallowing'), associated with their theme.

nevertheless, the idea of not following a god seems to be pretty alien to the people of this world. and you don't really get much choice: if, as in episode 7, your advertising company's restructuring decides that the weakest performers need to be sacrificed to their new 'sponsor', you don't get to opt out, it's in your contract and no doubt the police will catch you if you run. we see over and over how the gods (and their chief devotees) pick out the vulnerable, drive their believers to spiral down into life-defining obsession - by stringing them along with vague promises of some kind of final answer or fulfilment, then turn away and discard them as soon as they've served their purpose.

it is a very, very productive theme, and the writers have a gift for furnishing it with evocative words and nasty details so it doesn't get stale. so of course I reflect on the metaphor.

in nier automata, the childlike machine lifeforms search for purpose in a world that doesn't seem to offer any. the answers they find are their 'treasures': small, seemingly insignificant objects which individual machines devote themselves to protecting.

for example, one machine may devote itself to cultivating a flower (as in the second episode of the anime), or looking after a broken doll (as in the story of pathetic failmachine Plato 1728 seen in the DLC/the Deserving of Life single by Amazarashi). other sidequests lead you to encounter machines who obsess over fighting, or travelling fast (easy challenges to implement in a game engine).

the machines' behaviour seems inexplicable and even random to others, but the pointlessness is kind of the point: somewhere the chain of 'why' has to terminate. i choose this one.

sometimes i think about 'art' in the sense of a set of behaviours exhibited by humans. i don't have any interest in demarcating art vs non-art, just to understand what this phenomenon is, why it should be so compelling.

one definition that keeps sticking around in here, despite it not really working, is that 'art' is a word for the thing we devote ourselves for no other reason. you could spend your time drawing, but equally you could spend it speed cubing. we are obsessively optimising creatures so, presented with a defined scope of an activity - something like the rules of a game - we refine our skills within it, pushing the bar further and further, changing the rules as we go to keep it interesting. the art forms that stick around tend to be the ones that continue to be productive and evolve. but it's all, in a sense, pointless - and that's why it's the most important thing, because it's done for itself, not in service of some other goal.

this is not actually a good description of the thing it claims to describe. many things we celebrate as 'art' are done for extrinsic, not intrinsic motivations, like commissioned paintings. indeed, far from being purely intrinsically motivated, there are many extrinsic functions that the various activities we call 'art' perform: communication, entertainment, distraction, a tool to reason with, a safe zone to explore emotions, ideological propaganda, historical memory.

nevertheless, the idea of a thing done for its own sake, defying justification, continues to compel somehow.

art does not escape the logic of sacrifice. if you sacrifice your time, your health, your social connections in pursuit of your art - why, does that not prove the art is more important than your time, your health, your friendships? there's a romance in the narrative about burning up in pursuit of something 'great' - and if you want to undercut that narrative, you likely claim that the object is not particularly worth the effort. it's just videogames. it's just cartoons.

the slogan of The Silt Verses is the sarcastic line of Carpenter (originally her friend Vaughan, part of episode 7's corporate hecatomb): "you get to choose the thing that eats you". a very succinct statement! don't we, indeed.

not that sacrifice is always for some abstract intrinsic goal. in the story, the feeding is often done in exchange for some straightforward, material advantage - and in a sense that is the same in our world, with the threshold adjusted so you have to sacrifice a certain amount to just stay alive.

here's a calculation, because i'm fond of numbers: if you start working full-time at, say, age 21 (a conservative assumption, most people start earlier) up until the UK retirement age of 66 (currently, set to rise), working 40 hours a week (conservative, but then again most people don't actually work the hours they're paid for), the current price of a full human life is 114,793 hours to the gods of capital - pick your fave. if you sleep eight hours a night, the god of sleep gets 160,710 during that same period. harder to fit parameters on the demands of the gods of food, cleaning, caring for others, travelling to and fro, and 'being too tired to do much of anything', which certainly have their own demands.

that leaves you with a certain number to use for your own arbitrary ends. in theory, you get to choose what will eat those ones. in practice? a unified will? consistent intentions? ya joking mate. how many hours go to the god of 'responding to the thing in front of me', known by its sacred name, Aydeeaitchdee?

i used to feel jealous of people, some of them my friends, who seem to have some kind of unique vision, some sort of captivating identity to the creations that they express. the 'spark' that makes that special. i wondered - still wonder - if i will finally find my spark, a reason i'm here, a unique contribution i'm poised to make to the world, the value over replacement - the thing that all this mess was building towards all along, the thing that will make all the efforts so far feel less faltering and haphazard. but why should there be such a thing? if one day i live long enough to, by chance, find something that feels like it's an answer, it's just a retroactive reframing of the chaos - because that's what brains do. convince someone they made a decision they didn't, and they will justify it to you.

there is a song by Sassafrass, an incredibly nerdy a capella band who otherwise largely sing about norse mythology, called 'somebody will'. when i first heard this song i honestly kind of hated it (you can probably find that post if you dig hard enough). it felt like a tragic cope: facing the blatant reality that you will never be an astronaut as you (apparently) desire, to insist on narrativising your life as being part of the great project space colonisation - even if it's so remote as clerking a funding organisation or working at a scifi bookstore or attending a convention (it's from quite a specific milieu), you can claim to be one of the 'sailors' helping to 'conquer' that 'ocean'. i hated it, because why should the space program be all that? somebody will walk on mars someday - so fucking what? what then? job's a good 'un, everybody? is that really worth sacrificing shit ('sacrifice something i don't have for something i won't have') for, here and now? surely your life is about more than putting 'somebody' on Mars one day?

but considering it again today - i mean it might as well be the space program as anything else, right. you need a direction to move in. it doesn't matter what the direction, as long as it keeps you moving. change is life and stillness is death, don't you know. perhaps you drag others along with you and you get a current flowing that way for a while, until the energy driving it runs out, or it runs up against the overpressure around an as-yet uneroded bank. so we all move around and the dynamics of it all, invisible to us, build a delta, which becomes a rock, and against that flows another river one day, grinding down the rock to move it to another delta, all by the nearly-random movements of the water molecules. shit i think i lost the thread of the metaphor and now i'm just talking about geophysics

it seems... almost laughably tedious to be circling this existential drain still. in my milieu: douglas adams cracked his joke about 'the ultimate question of life the universe and everything' 30 years earlier in 1977. randall munroe uploaded 'i'll get the super soaker' in 2007. but navel-gazing has been a joke for much longer, surely at least as long as there have been people to question what the point is.

funny how it always comes back to water metaphors.

[artist-issues]

Could you elaborate on your “you can make your wish come true” =/= Disney’s true message idea? I really like it and want to incorporate the sentiment into my Wish rewrite, but I’m having a hard time finding a solid idea that makes it so different from the aforementioned “believe in yourself and it’ll come true” concept

The idea is not to believe in yourself. Thats super counter-characteristic to Disney heroes. It's all over their merch and songs, but in the actual story, the character isn't usually rewarded for doing things their own way and making it happen. They're also not usually rewarded for chasing their own dreams. They really aren't. Hear me out.

Tiana is not rewarded by the narrative for all her hard work. She's actually scolded by the narrative for being so focused on her dream, and her own way, that she forgets more important things.

Pinocchio, too. The narrative won't let him, or Geppetto, have their dream of Pinocchio being "a real boy." Instead, he has to be brave, truthful, unselfish. Again, the story puts more emphasis on "more important things" than the character's dreams or abilities.

Instead, Disney movies usually reward the character for giving themselves (what they want, what they like, what they dream of) up. For just doing the right thing. More examples and fleshing out here and here.

When I sit down to try and "script doctor" what went wrong with Wish, I change the message from: "You alone have the power to make your wishes come true, so keep trying!" to "Have faith to do what's right, and even more than what you wished for will come true."

Break it down like this:

"Have faith" - Focus on a truth outside of yourself and what you want and what you like, and keep focusing on it no matter the circumstances or how bad you feel. (Think Cinderella "finding the good points" of her stepfamily, or Belle sacrificing her dreams for her father's sake.)

"To do what's right" - This is where faith means taking action. Cinderella doesn't just daydream about things being better, she makes them better for her household by doing her work cheerfully. Aladdin doesn't just finally tell the truth: he gives up his chance at being with Jasmine and sets the Genie free. Tiana doesn't just change her mind about wanting love more than her restaurant; she breaks Facilier's necklace and won't let Naveen marry Charlotte. Faith = action based on that faith: the character focuses on doing what's right. Even and especially when it means giving up their "dreams."

"And even more than what you wished for will come true." - Usually, the characters dreams actually change. They no longer wish for a thing or a set of circumstances, like living in a palace or having their own restaurant. Instead of wanting a thing, they want a Good. Belle goes from wishing for more out of life to getting true love, which is "more out of life,"—and a way better version of "more" than just vague adventures in the "great wide somewhere. Tiana goes from wishing for a restaurant to wanting love. Pinocchio goes from wishing to be a real boy to wishing to be good, for his father. And then it turns out, that's what being "real" meant all along.

See?

The reason the "power to make these wishes come true yourself" is never mentioned is because in most Disney movies, it's not ABOUT you. The main character learns to just do the right thing and stop focusing so much on what they want. They usually sacrifice something, in the name of something bigger than themselves. And when they do that? They're rewarded.

By what? What are they rewarded by? (The narrative, yes, but what does that mean?)

The first Wishing Star Disney ever had come down to reward a main character for doing good was Pinocchio's Blue Fairy. When Pinocchio did the right thing, she literally rewarded him. And the same is true in Princess & the Frog: Tiana finally humbles herself and wishes on a Star, and instantly meets Naveen, who turns out to be better than what she wished for.

The idea is that the power to make your wishes come true is actually NOT in you. The power to make your wishes come true comes from something or someone outside yourself: the Blue Fairy and the Wishing Star represent that. It's like a higher power. Thats exactly what it is.

There's no reason for Tiana to be turned human, or get her restaurant, after she smashes Facilier's necklace. None at all. She broke the thing that could've gotten her to her goal. She gave her goal up. She thought she was choosing to "stay a frog." In fact, she also wasn't even wishing for love on the first place: she humbled herself and wished for her restaurant. Even though she didn't believe in wishing stars. That step of humility was seen and rewarded by a higher power—and the reward wasn't what she would've picked out. But it was exactly what she needed.

And she couldn't have done it herself. In fact, originally, she didn't even wish for the thing she needed, herself, in the first place. The star sent her on a journey to not only get what she needed, but want what she needed. The star did it all. All Tiana did was take one or two faith-based steps that, from her point of view, were actually giving up on her wish.

I hope that clears it up.

[magpie-come-east]

Melina for the character ask meme!!

favorite thing about them

I'm sorry. This answer is going to be really uninteresting because I do not have any strong opinions about Melina, really. It's not that I dislike her, but she never left that big of an impression on me. That is, until I did the Frenzy Flame ending.

I enjoy her role in that questline. I love that Shabriri puts forth his stupid fucked up trolley problem (burn the world to ash to save one bodiless woman) and Melina outright tells the player over and over that being kindling is what she wants. She has all the trappings of a classic damsel in that storyline, but she- as the lone sacrifice needed to change the world- begs the player not to remove her agency in this choice.

least favorite thing about them

I think my opinion here will echo many others'. But I think Melina was really underutilized. As the Tarnished's companion at the very start of their quest, she should have more of a presence in their journey. Apart from a few lines about Boc or Torrent, she doesn't express much character of her own (outside of the FF quest). She spouts exposition and is the level up mechanic that the player doesn't even interact with all that much.

The scene of Melina's sacrifice has always felt semi-flat in consequence. The tenderness she feels for the player doesn't feel earned. I genuinely didn't understand why she was so fond of my character the first time I got to that point.

Like I don't need her become the SparkNotes of the narrative in her dialogue, but I think her showing curiosity and interest in the world around her more often would endear me so much more. As she is now, she's just the macguffin I largely ignore on nearly all my subsequent playthroughs.

favorite line

"However ruined this world has become, however mired in torment and despair, life endures. Births continue. There is beauty in that, is there not?"

This is the one line from Melina that stuck with me. It's the one that I remember most out of everything. Very few times does Elden Ring look at you through the screen and dictate the story to you obviously. But this is one of those times. Melina sees hope for the world. She's pleading for the player not to destroy the world. And her reasoning feels weak. Life endures? That's all she has? But in a way its the most important consideration.

brOTP/OTP (Combining these because the answer is the same)

I mean, actually, I really like Lord of Frenzied Flame Tarnished x Melina. That friends to enemies angst is magnificent. Melina having to live with the reality that her chosen Tarnished chose to destroy everything for her sake. Brutal. The Tarnished now being hunted by the person they immolated themselves to save. Exquisite.

General Melina x Tarnished is also sweet. Fics of Tarnished befriending Melina are what made me care even a little about her in the first place.

nOTP

Eh, nothing really. I don't seek out content of her enough to know what ships exist beyond Melina x Tarnished.

random headcanon

Melina craves Rowa Raisins so bad. She wishes she had a body just so she could eat them.

unpopular opinion

I am not convinced at all Melina is the Gloam Eyed Queen. It’s a theory I’ve never really found compelling for a variety of reasons I won’t really get into- except for one. I feel like trying to connect every historical figure in the Lands Between to a current character makes the world feel smaller and incestuous. Like the only people ever of import had to come from Marika’s lineage. I thought it was neat enough we got nods to Melina being a Demigod- then practical confirmation in SOTE. But I don’t believe Melina being the GEQ adds anything interesting to either Melina as we know her or the GEQ. 

song i associate with them

Welcome Home by Coheed and Cambria (its got the LOFF vibes to meeeee)

Escape pod by Paris Paloma is a great one too!

[jkftkth]

It is actually wild to me how badly Hybe fumbled someone like Taehyung. You literally had one job, to manage your talent and there you have someone with natural talent, charisma and powerful stage presence, insane visuals to the point of not needing make up and being able to pull off literally any look, one of the most unique voices in the industry, effortless dancing ability and so much star power you can spot him in a massive crowd full of people. And what do you do, hide him, give him minimal lines, silence him, refuse to promote his projects properly, block or interfere with his opportunities, portray him negatively in content..like wtf man. I'm watching Tae continue to thrive and grow more and more popular despite serving in the military and I hope for Hybes sake he resigned with them (I really don't) because otherwise just how do you fumble the bag that badly. And it's crazy because they are currently doing the same thing to one of if not their most successful and promising gg. If Hybe fails they will actually only have themselves to blame.

i don’t like saying “taehyung you need to do xyz” because end of the day he knows more than anyone else what’s good for him, and i’m sure he’s got a plan figured out, but still. staying only means more sacrifices.

content/projects outside of hybe are so enjoyable in comparison, and there’s no weird distorted portrayal of him. at the very least, i hope he gets to do more of that. it’s important he reaches new audiences who aren’t introduced with the usual bs narrative.

as for the company, i think it’s safe to say they do everything except competent artist management. and whilst the new jeans conflict is unfortunate to watch, it also confirms (to me) how things can go down when an artist - no matter how successful - gets on the “wrong side” of a certain someone.

the power imbalance is what keeps me wary though…

[thunderberryart]

It's interesting how some of the criticisms I've seen over on r/runefactory concerning RF4's writing--specifically those surrounding Act 3--are serving as inspiration for a potential AU to explore in fanart (and maybe fanfiction as well, if I ever get around to it.)

So, you know, even as someone who adores Rune Factory 4's cast of characters and the individual character arcs everyone goes through, I am not without my criticisms of the writing. One thing I am definitely not a fan of is the fact that all three acts of the main story are essentially "save Ventuswill: Parts 1, 2, and 3." It's not that "save the Divine Dragon" is a bad plot to have, but that it never really switches up the formula enough to keep it consistently interesting across the length of RF4's story. You can easily describe the three acts of RF4's story as "Ventuswill is secretly dying! You must save her! Oh, now she's dying again! Get the Rune Spheres back from Ethelberd and save her! Surprise! She's not actually dead! Let's save her for real this time!" And because of that lack of variation, the most interesting aspects of Act 2 and Act 3, at least for me, are not saving Ventuswill, but the stuff that happens with the other characters who are involved in the plot. Arthur, who cites frequently in his dialogue how much he dislikes having been born a prince, utilizes the resources he has at his disposal to get Selphia the support it needs from the capital because as much as he may complain about his position, he knows he has a responsibility as a member of Norad's royal family and the true prince who was supposed to run Selphia. Doug, who was revealed earlier in Act 1 to actually be a spy for the Sechs with a personal vendetta against Ventuswill, feels immense guilt for having believed in a lie that ultimately hurt the people he cares about, and he actively seeks to redeem himself to the point of getting injured multiple times across Act 2. And during Act 3, we finally learn that Frey/Lest is a surviving descendant of the Earthmates who have spent literal centuries trying to find a solution to the runes in the land dying out so that Ventuswill will no longer have to rely on the sacrifices of the Guardians in order to live.

However, a post by u/KamenRiderSekai, who I believe goes by @avenger-concerto here, highlights that Act 3 does, to an extent, potentially ruin the narrative themes of Rune Factory 4's story. Even as someone who generally prefers happy endings to sad or bittersweet ones (hell, the whole reason I originally bought Rune Factory 4 Special was because I needed a more lighthearted game after the literal rain of depression that was Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights), Act 3 does feel very... out of place. A lot of RF4's themes revolve around those of loss, grief, loneliness, and self-isolation, and how you need to make the most of the time you have with those you love instead of shoving them away because life is so short. Although it was upsetting to see Ventuswill die at the end of the Act 2 despite all the crap Lest/Frey went through trying to save her, it feels... fitting, especially since Frey/Lest's ending narration solidifies that although they and the rest of the town were in mourning for some time, they resolved to move forward with their lives because all Ventuswill wanted was a bright future for her friends and for Selphia, and she was absolutely tired of people sacrificing themselves for her sake.

But Act 3 comes along and you learn that Oh, not only was Ventuswill not ready to go just yet, but we still have a chance to save Ventuswill despite the fact that she's literally dead. I get that although it has its "dark" moments, Rune Factory is overall a fairly lighthearted series, but it just seems very shoehorned in for the sake of giving players a happy ending where Ventuswill is alive and well. And when you do complete Rune Prana and save Ventuswill, there is so very little fanfare to the point that there isn't even a credits roll like the first two acts; all you get is a commemorative illustration featuring Ventuswill in her human form down in the trophy room. It makes Act 3 almost feel like one big afterthought despite the important lore it contains, especially in regards to Frey/Lest.

With all that said, KamenRiderSekai did briefly bring up an interesting, alternate concept for Act 3, one that has been gnawing at my brain off and on again since I originally first read it. Taken directly from the original reddit thread:

"A more apt arc would have been maybe the birth or succession of a new "Ventuswill", which is something I've always thought of as an alternative for years on end."

This makes so much more sense to me on so many levels. First off: Ventuswill does state during Act 1 that, when she expires, the runes her body gives off will be enough to sustain the land for another 1000 years, during which a new Native Wind Dragon will be born to play their role as she did. A new "Ventuswill" being born, possibly as a result of the influences of the Rune Spheres as well as whatever efforts the protagonist and the Guardians put in, would 100% make sense from a lore standpoint. However, it also makes sense from a thematic standpoint in regards to the franchise as a whole.

A major theme prevalent in the Rune Factory series is the cycle of life, death and rebirth. In almost every game, the protagonist loses their memories, resulting in the "death" of their past self. They wake up in a new town that takes them in, where they create a new life for themselves; eventually, they fall in love with someone, get married, and start a family with their spouse. This lines up so well with the idea that even though the old Ventuswill is gone, she is not forgotten and her spirit will live on in the new Wind Dragon who will one day guide and protect the land like their predecessor.

If I were to make this into a full blown AU, there are other things I would like to explore as well. I highlighted in a post from August about how Arthur's Another Episode reveals that Selphia's relationship with the royal family is complicated because it is not actually ruled by the king, but by Ventuswill herself, and that her death should have had more implications in terms of Selphia's political status as well as in regards to Frey/Lest and Arthur's switch... which it doesn't because a major point of RF4's gameplay is that you're in charge of Selphia and even Arthur returning to his position briefly during Act 2 doesn't affect your ability to manage the town through the Order Symbol.

There is also the matter of the Guardians; although they willingly allowed themselves to have the Etherlink spell cast on them because they wanted to save Ventuswill, all four of them had lives prior to their centuries-long slumber and with her death, it seemingly renders the sacrifices they made pointless. So, you know, there is an incredibly great potential for angst as well as character development if this becomes a "Okay, we failed to save Ventuswill, but we can speedrun the birth of the new Ventuswill" plot.

I'm sorry for the massive ramble. It is just strangely satisfying knowing that some genuinely valid criticisms of a game I adore have the potential to result in some incredibly tasty fanwork scenarios.

[mdhwrites]

What do you think of the Heroic Sacrifice trope? It's a trope as old as time: "no greater way to showcase the quality of one's character, the culmination of their growth, their worthiness as a hero, than laying down their life so that others might live."

I personally like it...most of the time. Other times it feels like it's executed for the sake of being executed. Take Superman's death in Batman v Superman - a noble act, but completely pointless because anyone with a brain writing this would see the context and go "just give Batman the kryptonite spear and have him kill Doomsday with it instead."

I'm also not a fan of the sacrifice being undone, either by the end of the story or the next film/chapter/whatever. For me, it takes away a lot of dramatic weight by simply undoing the character's choice to sacrifice themselves and have them come back fine and dandy. This is why I kinda like the way the Heroic Sacrifice plays out in Amphibia's finale: it's sort of undone, but elements are left ambiguous enough to leave the possibility that yeah, there is some kind of seriously existential consequence to come from that.

I sent this ask because I've been thinking about how, over the years, I've seen a lot of talk and fanfics about various works of fiction, lamenting and undoing a hero's sacrifice. And while most of this is obviously because it just feels better to see a character you love alive and well, some argue that, in this instance or that, it was more narratively fitting for the character to actually live instead of carrying out the trope. And that argument can have merit, if you ask me, provided you can prove it...was narratively fitting for the character to live.

So yeah, what do you make of the trope?

Character Death is maybe one of the hardest things to quantify for people because how each person feels about a death is going to come down to personal preference and the like. The only character deaths that are undone with no objection are the ones that are complete bullshit. These are usually shock deaths. Otherwise, the conversation gets a lot more complicated.

For me, I think your final sentence on this comes close to hitting the big question a writer should ask for which way to swing this. Can you make the resurrection feel like it fits within the reason for the sacrifice? It can't just be thematic to the whole story, it has to be thematic to the death itself.

THIS is actually what makes Anne coming back powerful. She dies as a culmination of her care for others and her maturity. First, that care for others has The Guardian offer her a job. Offer her a place amongst the gods. However, it is then her maturity that makes her turn it down and gives the Guardian the idea to give her her life back. For the same reasons she died, she comes back. It doesn't undercut her arc, it reinforces it.

I much cheesier example of this is the first Pokemon movie. Ash gets in the way of Mew and Mewtwo because they aren't battling like in Pokemon, they are waging WAR. So he does everything he can to stop it and loses his life in the process. When confronted with the cost, everyone has to stop and actually consider it. This shared pain of having gone so far is then what makes them cry and finding peace finds Ash his life. He did everything he could for peace and succeeded and rolling back his death fits with the idea that there was no need for this in the first place. To keep him dead would actually undercut the point because it would imply his death was necessary.

HOWEVER.

Why don't villains count as often for this? The redemptive sacrifice is made to atone for their sins... Which makes bringing them back kind of go against the point. The idea is that instead of the selfish or destructive ideals they have been motivated up until now, they no longer care about themselves and care for others. That they will throw away EVERYTHING to try and undo some of their damage. To give them back anything is pointless. The best thing to be done instead is to memorialize them. To agree that they in some way did make up for their mistakes and will be remembered fondly instead of hated.

As for my personal opinion... I am not a fan of character death. Unless it is the absolutely right thing for their character, I am usually against a character dying permanently. It is the end of all stories that could be told with them, done in a very brutal way, and that is far less interesting to me than having to deal with who they are going forward. As such, I would rather a heroic sacrifice lead to them being scarred in some way, usually literally not like they now have to deal with trauma, because just because you didn't die doesn't make the fact that you were ready to any less meaningful. If you are going to remove a character from a story and not send them off into the night gracefully to live their own life though, there are much worse ways to do it than a noble sacrifice. However, because I think the trope is unnecessary in the first place, I'm going to be ESPECIALLY critical of your work if you use it just for shock value.

Death means something, just as life does, and the passing between them should mean just as much. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I originally branched out to kind of how death and resurrection can be handled in general rather than just noble sacrifice but decided against it. This also kept Luz out of this since she didn't do a noble sacrifice. She didn't choose to die which is the whole fucking point of the trope. She just accidentally was killed while saving someone. There is a BIG difference.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[absolutely-not-my-main-blog]

It’s so hard to explain the appeal Sunny has for me to someone who hasn’t experienced the brain rot themselves because yes, it’s a very funny show, but in a way most people wouldn’t associate with me/my usual interests, so they’re scrambling to reevaluate their perceptions and figure out what exactly about it I do like, and when they try to recommend me “similar” media, they end up honing in on all the wrong things because the thing is they were right the first time about me, this type of humour usually isn’t my cup of tea at all and when other shows do it, it’s never going to hit the same because it’s not the same. People think Sunny is one thing, and sometimes it is, but it’s also a million others. It’s a comedy, it’s a tragedy, it’s a silly show with fun silly jokes and it’s an in depth character study of people with different kinds of trauma, and it never compromises or sacrifices one for the other, it just is. They do all these seemingly wild and ridiculous things, yet they always have a reason. They also make horrible or horrific decisions and do terrible things, but it doesn’t try to justify them, and it’s usually not just for the sake of being horrible (or the creator wanting to have a medium to be horrible.) Most of the time they’re more clueless than cruel, not self aware while the narrative and audience are (or are supposed to be), but more importantly, most of the time, they’re really truly just... human. Even when things get cartoonishly out of hand, they are just so ridiculously painfully flawed and messed up and over feeling and human, it hurts. And it drives me up the wall because yeah they also had an entire episode about finding out who pooped the bed! And any other number of weird ass plots and dick jokes and lists of crimes! But sometimes mixing a little bit of silliness and stupidity among the horrors and vice versa is the most incredibly human thing of all.

But uh... try saying that to a normal person without them looking at you like you’ve grown two heads because idk maybe you have, maybe the radioactive sound waves they emit through your screen while watching the show have finally transformed you, but two heads means two brains, which means more brain power to analyze all the nuance of it, so either way !!!!

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.54 thoughts

[Turnabout Academy]

(Contents: thematic analysis - Friendship: self-sacrifice/survivor's guilt/solidarity, creative choices - narrative utility)

You've done it again, Nisio, you're scaring the ever-loving out of me by making it look like your series has been canceled, and as usual, I can't tell if you're messing with me or not

On the basis that he's done this half a dozen times across this series and Medaka Box, I'm inclined to believe that Nisio is being very deliberate with skipping the latter 248 floors of the dungeon, even though it looks like he's rushing towards a conclusion due to low rankings. As the narration says, Iroha's trial on the courtroom floor was the climax to the roguelite section of the story, as it was the culmination of the themes of self-sacrifice and survivor's guilt

Karigane tried to push everyone else away so she would be the only one in any danger, Oboro sacrificed herself so that Iroha and Kasuri could continue on without losing any time, Namasu was determined to solve the collapsing room puzzle even if she was alone, and Omomuro allowed herself to experience death multiple times just so she could pass any information she learned onto Toshusai. Just about everyone that Iroha interacted with in this arc was in some way sacrificing themselves for the sake of someone else, something that doubtlessly resonated with Iroha

Iroha's goal has been complete victory through unification and solidarity, but everyone else keeps trying to pick themselves off. This is exactly what he's been wrestling with ever since the overseas trip gone wrong; all of his friends sacrificed themselves for him, and now he's watching it all happen again. Oboro likely hit him the hardest, since that was the only one that was explicitly for his sake, but he surely recognized that it was happening all around him as well

The problem isn't really the sacrifices, though, it's the lack of cohesion. His team didn't just sacrifice themselves for him, they elected him as the only one to survive without considering what he wanted. Without considering the effects that would have on him going forward. Iroha didn't just watch his friends die, he was left alone. Abandoned, in a sense. Sure, he was saved, but his salvation came with the profound anguish of isolation - did he achieve salvation through damnation, or damnation through salvation? What's the point in surviving if you're going to feel guilty about it?

Kasuri's dilemma of whether to use the pledge wasn't a matter of self-sacrifice, but a matter of solidarity. Sure, it's proof that everyone has decided to stand by Iroha no matter what, but that's everyone else rallying behind him rather than actually being with him. That may seem like silly semantics, but it's a very Nisio Isin philosophy. Iroha's desire here is to face his survivor's guilt; to make amends to the people who were sacrificed for his sake, to feel what they felt and get his just desserts for leaving them behind. If everyone bailed him out here by saying they don't care that he left people to die, that'd be like saying they don't care how he feels about it. That his guilt is invalid, that he should just get over it

But even if the court found in his favor there, the weight would never be lifted. Iroha would never feel like he's been forgiven, just that his opinion has been swept under the rug and that no one understands what he's feeling

This is why Kasuri's final decision to accept the verdict with Iroha is what ultimately saved him: it's not that Kasuri was willing to sacrifice herself, it's that she was willing to stay. She didn't cut and run by fighting on after his death, nor did she ask him to cut and run by offering to die in his place, but instead declared for all to hear that she would stay by his side regardless of the outcome. If victory through sacrifice is meaningless, then defeat through solidarity must be meaningful

And meaningful it was, as it not only moved Dekiai's heart, but lifted the weight from Iroha's. It is important to note that Dekiai did not find Iroha not guilty, but instead, she suspended his sentence - in other words, she did not tell him that he was innocent and invalidate his feelings of guilt, but left it up to him to live in a way that would make him feel like his friends' sacrifices weren't in vain. With friends like Kasuri vowing to stay by his side, though, I think there's a good chance that he understands the value that his continued life holds, at least on some level

So with that character arc complete, what would have been the point of going through the other 248 floors from a narrative perspective? The final challenge was clearly always meant to be this 13-way battle, so no one else was going to be eliminated on the way here, and any further one-on-one interactions we could get were probably being saved for this battle anyway. Nisio skipped tons of floors on the way to 250, so it's not like he ever implied he was planning on showing all 500 floors in the first place. The virtual Cipher Academy was always meant to be set-dressing, a means for the cast to have these interactions, so asking to see more of it is kind of like missing the trees for the forest. Sure, the dungeon sounded cool and unique, and I wish it had been a bit more visually interesting in and of itself, but what we got was a compelling, character-driven narrative rather than one that was mired in world-building for its own sake, and in my opinion that's one of Nisio Isin's strengths as a writer

Iroha's trial was the conclusion of this section of his character arc, how his feelings of guilt isolate him emotionally from the people who care about him. The completion of that character arc is what proves he's ready for the final battle of the current story arc, so putting off that conclusion for the sake of showing off the ideas Nisio came up with for the different floors would just be needless stalling that could only serve to dampen the emotions we feel from this character-based conclusion. I'm willing to bet that the game that's to be played next chapter will somehow be informed by the lessons that Iroha has learned here, so separating the two events would likely be counter-intuitive

Or I'm wrong and Cipher Acadmey's been canceled and Nisio just wants to get through this arc at least. Time will tell, but until we're explicitly told that it's over, I'm confident that this is Nisio being Nisio

Until next time

[seventeenlovesthree]

Quick analysis on how Taichi and Daisuke are similar - but still very different.

This will not be a full analysis, but I’ve been wanting to compare them for ages and finally got around to write down a few of my thoughts.

What do they have in common? 

Not going too much into detail in regards to the fact that they're both TURNED into designated leaders/goggleheads, because that's just the main premise that Digimon keeps using, even if all goggleheads are distinctively different, despite sharing certain attributes. 

Daisuke is the heir of the Crest of Courage, hence the narrative tells us he is Taichi’s heir as well - they both have the tendency to jump right in(to trouble) and to sacrifice themselves for the sake of protecting their friends. Despite them having their moments of fear and self-doubt, they will act when it matters, with their hearts on the right spot. Both of them are learning that there’s a fine line between blind actionism and doing something for the sake of doing the right thing. Also despite knowing that there are moments when it cannot be avoided, they both hate to let sacrifices happen (thus they tend to sacrifice themselves instead).

They're both brothers of sisters, even if we know that plays out VERY differently, with Taichi being the protective big brother (who is traumatized for having almost killed his sister, resulting in self-esteem issues towards the fear of "hurting others by being inconsiderate") and Daisuke being the annoyed little brother (who is developing competitive self-esteem issues because of it, feeling "inadequate and having to prove himself all the time"). 

They love football and see it as a valuable thing in their lives; Taichi uses football metaphors in the novels all the time and even if it isn't implied in the same way as it is for Yamato, giving it up must have been painful (hello there, depression, leaving your hobbies behind). For Daisuke, it's also something he pulls his self-esteem from, a.) by wanting to be as good as his senpai, b.) maybe even impressing him and his other friends and c.) generally having fun despite its competitive nature (which we see when he approaches Ken - sure, he wants to win and he was beaming after getting praised by him, but in general - it's just a lot of FUN).

They actually do not exactly claim to be leaders, but are seen as those by their respective groups; while Taichi is the better strategist when it comes to conducting plans, he trusts his intuition a lot and - especially the older he gets - thinks things through more. Daisuke DEFINITELY trusts his intuition and gut more the longer the series goes on, but just like Taichi, his will inspires the others and so they kinda naturally gravitate towards thinking of them as leaders (even if that takes time in both cases).

What differentiates them? 

Despite both of them having self-esteem issues as mentioned above, the root-causes and coping strategies are very different. Daisuke, as mentioned, really wants to prove himself (as a younger sibling who gets into fights a lot), he adores Taichi and Hikari. And he overcompensates by wanting to impress them at all costs, by talking big, wanting to win against Takeru in general, but also in terms of getting Hikari's affection. It may even become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because people call him names (implying him to be “dumb”), and he actually ends up doing dumb stuff because of it. So as soon as he finds another purpose (such as integrating Ken into the group), all his good qualities eventually come through, because he thinks of somebody else first and doesn't want to prove himself there. He has a good heart, he may appear to be more simple minded, but it's because he actually values his simple, peaceful life and the people he surrounds himself with.

With Taichi, I may not want to repeat everything all over again, but we know he is afraid of hurting others, of being inconsiderate, making the wrong decisions and facing the consequences, thus getting him into a spiral, making him feel weak and like a coward; because he hurt Hikari, because he was told by Yamato repeatedly that he was doing things the wrong way, because he was the reason Sora got captured due to his own recklessness, etc. He IS (and learns to be more) considerate, but his actionism often gets in the way and (similarly to Daisuke), he may not always find the right words (yet), but he means well. He HAS to make decisions to snap out of all of that, and he is (probably?) aware of that due to his past experiences. So he should also know that he cannot (and shouldn't) do everything alone (as his strategies have often proven that relying on the others’ strengths is important, such as Yamato’s fighting prowess and Koushirou’s intelligence). Yet he has a tendency to burden himself with the pain on his own and isolates himself because of it. As much as he loves his friends (and suffers from the isolation), him upholding that mask for his own and their sake (especially as he gets older) is something he has to overcome.

(On a more “headcanon-y” note, I also still believe that Daisuke’s crush on Hikari was an extension of him kinda crushing on Taichi, but being in denial about it because "That's gay", and since Hikari was kind to him, he projected onto that, because "wow, a girl who is nice to me!!!!". Especially seeing how her older sibling is actually nice and protective instead of bullying her - and Daisuke aspiring to be like Taichi may actually have an influence on him wanting to protect Hikari as well. Additionally, you may argue that Hikari is also his type physically, since Ken has basically the same haircut, but is actually a guy. Of course Daisuke’s sexual orientation is presented to be hetero and Daiken will probably always just be fanon; however, Daisuke’s character development starts the moment he wants to get closer to Ken and abandons trying to impress Hikari, so his ambitions can technically be read as performative heteronormativity. But as mentioned, that is purely headcanon based and can be taken with a grain of salt.)

[crusherthedoctor]

Do you think Sonic games flip-flopping back and forth between "serious" stories and lighthearted stories have harmed the franchise or helped it? I believe the games constantly flip-flopping between tones has caused another large rift in an already fractured fanbase. So when a new game has a darker tone, you'll have Classic era fans upset because it isn't like the games they grew up with. And when a new game has a lighter tone, you'll have 2000's era fans get upset because it isn't like the games they grew up with. Sega and Sonic Team have unintentionally made things harder on themselves by not having a consistent tone, because now they have to cater to fans of both the lighter stories and "darker" stories. I personally lean more towards more lighthearted and simple stories when it comes to Sonic, but I wouldn't mind a "serious" story if it was well-written. Unfortunately, Sonic Team consistently struggles in the writing department and all their attempts at trying to tell a serious story only gets them laughed at, so I think they should just stick with lighthearted, simple stories because it requires less effort.

I think In order for serious moments to work, the story needs to have lighthearted moments mixed in. Balance is key here. Many fans of the 2000's Sonic games believe a story has to start off serious and remain that way for the entire game, but having a balance of lighthearted moments makes the darker moments stand out and hit a lot harder. If the story is just non-stop melodrama and seriousness from start to finish, hardly anything stands out and the more emotional or darker moments don't hit as hard as they need to. Everything just slips off your brain afterwards. Just look at Shadow the Hedgehog, a slog of over the top edginess and melodrama where no moment stands out (not even the few moments of good character writing), and when it does, it's all for the wrong reasons. Or look at Sonic 06, which has some of the same problems as Shadow, but not as extreme. Blaze's sacrifice is easily forgotten by most players and even the narrative itself, as Silver makes zero mention of her afterwards, not even in the last story. If the story itself doesn't care, why should the player? Another example is when Sonic dies on-screen, but this moment falls flat because it has zero build up and the whole story has been filled with melodrama, which is why Sonic's death prompted more laughs than shock or sadness from the audience. Shadow saying "If the world chooses to become my enemy, I'll fight like I always have." is remembered well but only by people who were fans of the character in the first place. To most casual players, this line doesn't stand out.

Compared to other problems born out of the divides in the community, I don't think this problem would be that hard to rectify. All they'd really need to do is be more consistent with maintaining a relatively balanced tone in the long term. Some people will still complain, but that'll always be the case.

This is why I keep bringing up Tumblr's recent overcorrection with wanting everything to be edgy for edgy's sake because "at least it's not S A N I T I Z E D". Because when that mentality is left unchecked, we get them declaring the zombot arc Peak Writing, and we get them aggressively pushing for Maria to get shot onscreen.

[rappaccini]

There's just so much wrong with gwiles as a pairing, yeah it sucked in the comics but the movies aren't much better despite what the fans try and tell you. It's lowkey forced. Why does gwen have to be shoved back in the box of being Spiderman's love interest and why is Miles not getting his own original stories? Like there's so much to Unpack

Like one thing the movies did is completely erase the characters who are important to their respective stories? Gwens important relationships such as the maryjanes (mj especially cause hello they have so much going on), cindy, HARRY, they completely erased Harry from the story all together, are non existent. Miles's friends from the comics, Ganke, his best friend is practically a stranger, Barbara, Tiana. He also has a bunch of other superhero friends. But they had to erase them in order to push the whole "isolation from everybody but each other" thing which is gross but...sacrifice important key characters for the sake of their precious ship I guess! I just hate it!

hm i've got mixed feelings about this.

there's only so long a movie runtime can be, and given how packed atsv was, there's a limited amount of time that could've been spent on miles and gwen's social circles. gwen especially because this is still Miles's Movie. it's a movie, not an ongoing comic, so you have to condense a lot to stay efficient. and since the point of this trilogy is to be about the spiderverse and explore lots of different universes (you can't make movie one all about the spiderverse and say 'no more of that!' in movie two; once itsv was decided, it was a given that atsv and btsv would have to be multiverse movies too), the tradeoff is we only have so much time to spend in each.

and fwiw, i think gwen and miles having trouble relating to other kids and closing themselves off makes sense. they're two teenagers who've been through trauma that they think kids their age can't relate to. it's true to character for them to withdraw, and vital to the plot, so those vulnerabilities can be preyed on by the spider society.

but. there are some differences in the ways their supporting casts were cut down in the movie.

for gwen,

idk which cindy you're referring to so i'll touch on both: earth-65 cindy moon not being in gwen's backstory i'm fine with, bc that'd require diving deep into how gwen got her powers and We Don't Have Time For That. we also don't need it either, because the source of gwen's powers is irrelevant to her plotline. it gets a pass.

earth-616 cindy moon, aka the superhero gwen is friends with, being cut, is a mixed bag. it's not fucking great that gwen has no female friends anymore. it would've been so easy to swap pav out with a female hero who could've served the same purpose in the narrative.

the loss of harry osborn though, is a problem. cutting him out of gwen's backstory scrubs out the incel aspect of peter's character, which in turn removes gwen's emotional baggage about being in a relationship. removing him also gets rid of a romantic rival for miles, and the obvious path through which gwen gets her symbiote (which i bring up because gwen's comics have a whole meta subplot where a writer stand-in is angry that she's venomized because it would make her unattractive to miles. gwen not having her symbiote, and therefore her actual powerset, keeps her appealing and makes sure she can't outshine miles in a fight scene).

as for the mary janes.... gwen being cold and hostile to them at this point is true to the comics (as a result of grief and guilt, since peter was their friend too, and she was directly responsible for his death) and makes sense. a teenage girl dealing with a serious loss she can't tell people about is going to withdraw and be snappish.

em jay having a small role works for that point in gwen's arc. plus her and gwen's friendship is a rollercoaster so they didn't actually have to change anything about their dynamic.

gwen not being friends with the girls outside the band is the issue. gwen's end monologue pretty much confirms she doesn't see the mary janes as friends or feel like she could ever belong with them, and that she needs a new band that Does Understand Her. like, the shift in gwen's preference is from 'all-female band made up of alternate versions of peter's various girlfriends, who in this world get to be gay with each other and bond without a guy motivating them at all' to 'band that's almost entirely dudes and two-girls-who-are-only-here-for-a-boy, that gwen only forms for a male love interest'...

the vibe's that gwen gave up on being her own person and finding companionship with other girls and women, crawled back into the male gaze, and is relying entirely on that to give her validation. thanks i fucking hate it!

as for miles,

ganke being built up as his best friend who knows his secret at the end of itsv and then proceeding to do... nothing in atsv is just odd (like, at least bring him to the party so he can cover for you while you're stuck on the train with the cakes?). i guess there's a chance he could factor into btsv given that the spot's fucking his world up and he knows his roommate's said villain's nemesis, but who knows. either way, yeah. ganke feels underutilized so far.

however the exclusion of his superpowered friends, the champions especially, makes sense. if the central theme of this story is that miles feels lonely in his own world and wants to find other superhumans, if he has an entire team of superhumans at home, he has no need to seek out the spider society. therefore, his friends can't be here or we have to totally rework the plot.

the same applies for barbara. there's little time to spend in miles's world before he jumps universes, so she wouldn't have much of a presence, and the story's stronger if she isn't around so his isolation is consistent.

also in terms of timing, it took 5ish years to make atsv. the script was probably completed before tiana toomes was even created. she's a very new character. (just look at how gwen's still calling herself spider-woman in the movie, when she's been ghost-spider in the comics for four-ish years; there's a creative lag). so leaving tiana out gets a pass from me because the writers can't time travel or see the future.

[spiderverse miles could still have a unique love interest, but to keep the story consistent and efficient, she'd have to be a fellow spider-hero. margo kess is easily the best option here. i doubt she'll be more than a bit player in btsv, but my tinfoil hat fever dream is that she's miles's mj and that's why their spider-senses went nuts around each other.]

so the difference i'm seeing is that gwen's supporting cast was gutted to make her dependent on a romance with miles, while miles's was gutted to make him ready to engage with the plot as a whole. gwen's a part of that, but even if she weren't around, he'd still be longing to reunite with peter and find a team of heroes to join.

[elkian]

So I’ve been going back over Homestuck a bit and something has struck me:

Why does Spidermom exist? (Worldbuilding-wise, not narratively.)

Like, narratively, yes, she’s huge. She had an enormous impact on shaping Vriska’s personality and thus character arc, which in turn had similarly massive effect on much of the narrative. (Between her, Mindfang-via-journal, and Doc Scratch, Vriska was functionally raised by these three and no WONDER she’s so fucked up... anyways.)

However, from a worldbuilding standpoint, we have a giant monster that explicitly feeds on (young) trolls. As far as we can tell, she either cannot or will not consume anything else. Maybe she can eat adults, but we’ll cross that bridge in a moment, hopefully.

Spidermom is from a predator species that eats trolls. She’s functionally the equivalent of handing a baby to a tiger and expecting a functional member of society in return rather than like... the tiger acquiring a taste for human flesh. She should have been hunted, possibly to extinction, not made (actively or passively) part of the lusus system, however it may work. I can sort of see her being a stealth reverse-cuckoo situation but... surely someone would have noticed.

Vriska at one point refers to killing, in her 6 sweeps/13 years of life, thousands of fellow trolls to feed this thing. Thousands! Even if we’re being conservative and calling it 2,000 max, that’s still, what, a troll every day for 6 years solid? That is bonkers.

And it’s not like the Empire is getting a good troll adult out of the bargain! Sure, the Serkets end up being driven, ruthless, and clever... but Mindfang participated in the rebellion that lead to Alternia being forbidden to adults and Vriska personally decimated her social group and endangered them for the sake of her own ego. Neither of these are boons to the war machine or even the sparse troll society we have at the end of the Sgrub session.

Now, Glybgolyb is a slightly different story, but Doc Scratch claims he deliberately planted her! She’s not natural to the Alternian environment, it seems, and even then... it’s heavily implied if not outright stated that orphaned trolls are culled by default, but it’s similarly so that adult trolls don’t keep their custodians once they leave Alternian soil. If the Empire chilled out (lmaoooo) for all of .5 sec, they could at least add those trolls to the ranks of cannon fodder.

But a dead troll is a dead troll. And yeah, it’s not exactly like Alternian society is particularly tender or merciful, particularly to the young, but they need trolls to reach adulthood so they can kill and/or die in battle as the Empire sweeps the galaxy. There has to be a cold calculus of basic input-output or they would have gone extinct long before the Glub.

Sure, it makes sense for Lusii to be able to kill trolls, to protect their wards and themselves, but one regularly dining on them is an entirely different matter.

So why the fuck is Spidermom here? Vriska is a cheater with a cheat power, it’s not really a fair or worthy judgement of her opponents’ skill, to die to her. Hell, some would consider Tavros and Aradia to be the best sacrifices to her altar of dinner time, but they both survived most FLARP sessions with her, and the one Aradia didn’t live much past, she was fucking disintegrated, not leaving behind, as far as we can tell, much of a body for the table.

So yes: She’s key to the narrative, particularly in shaping Vriska’s destiny and personality, but if you think too hard about it, it makes no sense why an avid consumer of trolls has been granted the position of guardian of a troll. I suspect if Vriska slacked off and/or died (one possibly preceding the other), Spidermom would wander off on her own rampage and kill plenty of trolls herself. Unless she doesn’t actually need to eat that often and was just tormenting Vriska this entire time.

(Obvs the most obvious answer is “Hussie thought it’d be sick and moved on bc this story is enormous” I just overthink a lot lol)