#anyway the point is. characters i attach to being mean a lot is directly linked with me being unkind to myself.

[skuntank]

Aware that my interpretation of Diantha keeps getting a little meaner over time and I want to do something abt that. It is 1000% to do with my own self-perception shit and I realize that but even if she struggles, and has weird emotional problems like I do, and has been built up to be a very complex character in my head, I do not want to see her as a mean person bc she isn't.

[sinni-ok-sessi]

Would love to hear any thoughts on the codification of the poet-persona over time? 👀

Ok so in the spirit of the ask game, I am not checking any citations on this whatsoever, but if you want those lmk (though they uh. largely do not exist for rímur-poets specifically, because only me and Hans Kuhn have ever cared).

This is going to require some context because, as established, the number of living people who know and care about medieval rímur can be counted on my two hands. Probably without thumbs. So, rímur are a poetic form that developed in 14th cen Iceland, which look kind of ballad-y, in that they often use four-line stanzas with ABAB end-rhyme, though actually the ballad tradition in Iceland is quite distinct (on which, see Vésteinn Ólason, The Ballads of Iceland). End-rhyme was very exciting for Icelandic poets because it was only previously a thing in some uncommon types of skaldic metres, but rímur (as their name suggests) have end-rhyme as a defining feature and rapidly become The dominant form of poetry in Iceland until well into the 19th cen.

There are two very distinctive things about rímur, other than their metres: 1) they almost never tell 'new' stories; almost all rímur narratives are attested earlier in other forms, usually in prose, which can sometimes lead to the fun cycle of saga -> rímur cycle -> old saga is lost, new version is written based on the rímur -> more rímur are written based on the new saga -> repeat until the heat death of the universe; 2) as the form develops, it acquires introductory stanzas known as mansöngvar, a term which elsewhere usually means 'love poetry', although that's not really what they're doing here.

Mansöngvar are verses, sometimes in a different metre to the rest of the canto they're attached to, in which the poet speaks directly to the audience. In the medieval period, they're pretty short and often don't say more than 'look, I made you some poetry', but as time goes on, they get more and more elaborate, and the character of the poet begins to develop some quite distinctive traits. What's interesting here is that rímur were (certainly in the medieval period; less certainly later on) performed aloud, presumably by the poet, so there's definitely some questions to be asked about how accurate the poets' self-descriptions are when presumably the audience could go 'you're not pining away for love, Jón Jónsson, I've met your wife!'

So anyway, these mansöngvar are often linked to the medieval German Minnesänger tradition (er. The actual German word might be slightly different because I still don't speak German despite my PhD supervisor's pointed remarks), which is more overtly love poetry and which sometimes features the poet as an abject and despised lover of some cruel lady. This is something rímur-poets from the later medieval period and onwards have an incredibly good time with. You may be familiar with the story of Þórr wrestling with Elli, the personification of old age in the form of an old woman. There are at least two medieval rímur poets who have a whole extended passage about 'oh alas, when I was young I was a terrible flirt but now I'm old and no women like me, except oh no, I am being courted by this ugly old giant lady; Elli is the only ladyfriend for me now, wah'. it's very playful, it's very fun, it's drawing on this general sense that the poets put forward that they're poetically gifted, but romantically unlucky, which is kind of a Thing for poets across a lot of European literature (and probably more broadly, but I don't know much about that), and is especially pronounced in the earlier Icelandic sagas about poets, which usually feature poets failing to win the love of their life for various reasons (sudden attack of Christianity; sudden attack of magic seals; sudden attack of Other Guy With Sword; etc). So in evoking this, rímur-poets are situating themselves in this existing Image of the Ideal Poet, but doing so in a way that ties them into the specifics of the Norse literary/mythological tradition as well. Poets are also frequently old and tired (same, bro), and a statistically improbably number of them are also blind (although that might just be two guys we know about who were really prolific; most rímur are anonymous so it's hard to say. But it is perhaps convenient that this also links them to A Great Poet of Old, namely Homer).

The other thing that rímur-poets really like to bring up in their mansöngvar is the myth of the mead of poetry, which I will not recount here except to say that Óðinn nicked it from a giant, and also that some dwarves used it to buy safe passage off a skerry once, so it's poetically termed 'ship of the dwarves' because it's the thing that brought them safely across the sea. Every single medieval mansöngur, if one exists at all, refers to this myth in some way, even if it's just by having the 'I made you some poetry' bit use a kenning for 'poetry' that references the myth.* And poets have a lot of fun with this too! Iceland's a coastal community, they know about boats, so you get these extended metaphors about poets trying to board a boat to sample the mead of poetry and finding only the dregs because other, better poets got there first. Or they will describe the process of poetic composition in terms of ship-building: 'Here I nail together Suðri's [a dwarf name] boat'; 'Norðri's ship sets out from the harbour [= I'm about to start reciting the main bit now]'; 'the fine vessel has now been wrecked on the rocks [=I'm going to stop reciting now]'. They'll also speak of poetry as smíð, which means a work of craftsmanship, usually physical craftsmanship (obviously cognate with smithing in English), and of brewing the ale of Óðinn, so they're really into metaphors of physical craft when it comes to the intellectual craft of poetry, which I think is really neat.

*kennings = poetic circumlocutions, e.g. 'snake of the belt' is a sword because swords are vaguely snake-shaped and hang from a belt. Common poetry kennings are '[drink/liquid/ale/wine/mead] of [any of Óðinn's literally dozens of names]' e.g. 'Berlingr's wine', and the aforementioned 'ship of the dwarves' - poetic Icelandic has literally dozens of words for different kinds of ships and also literally dozens of dwarf names, so you can get a long way without repeating yourself.

So all these things that I've mentioned that poets like to bring up - old age, unluckiness in love, poets as craftsmen - become more and more tropified as time goes on, which in turn leads to these imaginative and extended reworkings of the metaphor. No longer can you just say 'I'm old and no one fancies me', no, it's 'My only assignations now are with Elli, wink wink, here's a long description of our date'. So you end up with this very codified image of The Ideal Rímur-Poet as an old man,* ideally blind, ideally unmarried, incredibly self-deprecating about his poetry, and because that's how everyone else talks, it's self-reinforcing.

*there is one (1) known female rímur-poet from the medieval period, the poet of Landrés rímur, who unfortunately didn't write many mansöngur stanzas but is doing her best with the 'unlucky in love' bit, although her lover (male) seems to have died rather than ditched her, which is a novelty.

Anyway, it's cool and weird and fun and as I say, only me and Hans Kuhn care, academically speaking.

[steflionheart]

!! might contain slight Alhaitham story quest spoilers !!

I've been seeing some headcanons about Alhaitham being deaf and therefore wearing his headphones and my mind kinda went places... 🤔

So, watching his character design closely, we can see that the cable disappears somewhere underneath his clothes at his lower back (not going where you might think, mind ya). My idea was that maybe there's some kind of a device hidden, which is attached directly to his skin or body and draws elemental energy to keep the headphones running.

And now, you're asking yourself where I'm trying to go with this... And all I'll say for now is to pls just trust me here. It's gonna be interesting 👀

So, just to keep track of stuff; we got a deaf Alhaitham wearing headphones all the time, which are actually hearing aids, which are connected by a device to his body and need elemental energy to keep running. Good.

Now, throw in only a handful of people who actually know about this or even just the fact that he's deaf in general. These may be for one, his annoying roommate Kaveh bc duh! they share an apartment and spend lots of their free time together. But also, Tighnari knows too, who checks up on Alhaitham regularly bc he knew about it back when they were still students at the Akademiya together (and yes, I personally hc that they all knew each other as students; Alhaitham, Tighnari, Cyno, and Kaveh). Not to mention that Tighnari was the one who helped Alhaitham to find the person who produced the device and headphones. And ofc— Cyno. Again, they all know each other from their time as students, Cyno is also very good friends with Tighnari —as we all know— and ofc it was part of their convos once or twice or even more often.

And yes, I know, I'm rambling and getting into too much detail here. Moving on.

Anyway...

What I'm trying to get at in general is like, elemental energy in my personal hc is linked to one's overall physical and mental energy, as in, the more tired you get throughout your day, the less physical and mental energy you have (duh!), and! that also applies to elemental energy. Which then... causes Alhaitham's device linked to his body to either not work properly anymore or even give up completely when it's below a certain, critical level.

Alhaitham being a workaholic (in his regular worktime only but still) and sometimes —read most of the time— tuning out people or his surroundings completely, he doesn't even notice this happening.

So, Alhaitham being the Acting Grand Sage and all, he and Cyno work together very closely and see each other more often now.

And I'm a sucker for their dynamics so you probably got an idea of where I'm going with this, so bear with me. Or take this as your cue to tap out if this might not be your cup-o-tea (Haino/Cytham) 😉

And here comes the interesting part, so please enjoy :3

One day at work, Cyno's there to discuss some matters about sightings of some group of Eremites going on raids and robbing sprees just for the fun of it and how to go about it.

And at first, Alhaitham's there with him, attentively listening to Cyno's reports and ideas, giving Cyno some of his own suggestions, and sharing his thoughts. But at one point, the General notices Alhaitham responding less and less while checking some of the papers on his desk. He sometimes even only reacts after Cyno repeats what he'd just said.

It gets so bad that Cyno eventually stops talking and simply takes a moment to observe the Acting Grand Sage. His eyes look tired, with dark circles around them, and the crinkles at the corners are especially distinct today. His usually upright posture with squared shoulders is gone, instead, he's lopsidedly sitting in his big chair with his head propped up on one of his hands.

Cyno takes it all in, considers all the facts for another moment, and eventually, a long ago held conversation with his friend Tighnari comes to mind.

"Remember that I told you his device is linked with his elemental energy? This means, by the time he gets tired and his overall energy levels are low, the device can shut off just like that and so his headphones don't work anymore."

"But how does that concern his elemental energy?"

"They're all linked, ya doofus. Physical, mental, and elemental energy all flow in perfect harmony through your body. Means, when one of them gets drained, you involuntarily also drain the others along with it. Easy as that."

Cyno realizes that seeing Alhaitham all tired and overworked must mean that his device has turned off and he couldn't hear a thing anymore. And Cyno should've known, really, considering that he's been somewhat preparing for these situations and has taken one or two —or way more but nobody needs to know— lessons in sign language.

So... without overthinking stuff, he moves closer to the huge desk in front of the Acting Grand Sage until he reaches it. And first, he calls for him. Several times. Saying his name over and over again, three, four, five times— but he never gets an answer or reaction. So with his suspicion confirmed Cyno then goes on and simply extends his hand. He waves it at a low level in Alhaitham's peripheral vision to get his attention.

The moment the Acting Grand Sage notices, his head snaps up, and he looks at Cyno with plain confusion on his face.

'You're tired. You should take a break.'

Cyno signs the words deliberately slow because he's still unsure and a bit nervous to make mistakes. But apparently, Alhaitham must've understood it because all Cyno gets is a grunt in response and a mumbled "Worktime's almost over, I can handle the rest without a break."

Even his words sound like he must be tired to the bone but Alhaitham being Alhaitham, he won't admit to it. Cyno sighs and shakes his head at the gray-haired man shifting his attention back to whatever reports he was reading before.

But Cyno's not gonna back up from this one.

He goes over and rounds the long desk, taking brisk steps toward Alhaitham. Once again, he lifts his head and looks confusedly at the General approaching him.

"What?"

Cyno stops right beside the high wooden chair, narrows his eyes at the Acting Grand Sage, and lifts his hands again.

'This isn't healthy for you. You should really call it a day, you can continue things tomorrow.'

But Alhaitham still doesn't budge, waving the General Mahamatra off with his right hand and returning his gaze to the report.

But Cyno's done at that moment, frustration and anger taking over.

He leans forward, grabs ahold of Alhaitham's face with both hands, and turns it towards him before letting go again and signing while still saying the words out loud.

'Listen to me! You drained all your energy, you idiot! You didn't even notice that your device turned off and you didn't hear a single thing I said to you anymore. If you go on, you'll collapse!'

Cyno's agitated, even angry at how much Alhaitham is neglecting his own well-being, his own needs, that the longer he signs, the more hectic his movements become and the louder he gets. He's pretty sure he's making a lot of mistakes but he doesn't care right now. He just wants this idiot of a man to realize that he's not doing himself a favor and that Cyno simply wants to make sure he's alright and takes better care of himself.

Because Cyno cares for him.

A whole lot.

Alhaitham just sits there and stares at him in disbelief, eyes big and mouth slightly agape in surprise. A few moments pass and then some more in which both men are simply looking at each other— Cyno with a big frown on his face and Alhaitham still very much stunned.

Something in the way he's looking at the General makes the latter hesitate for a moment longer but anger builds up again pretty fast.

He covers his face and drags both hands over it in frustration as he groans and signs. 'You're insufferable.'

Alhaitham's eyes grow a tiny bit wider and then, after another —for Cyno seemingly endless— moment, he finally clears his throat and speaks up.

"I... I really didn't notice, my bad. But uh... wh-when did you..."

His words trailing off, he suddenly shifts in his chair. He places the paper he was reading on his desk and sits up straight before turning his upper body more towards Cyno and signing.

'When did you learn sign language? I didn't know.'

Now it's Cyno's turn to be taken aback as his eyebrows shoot up with surprise. He falters for a moment, not knowing what to do or say, so he simply stares back at Alhaitham. He feels a rush of heat creeping up his neck and face as he turns his gaze away, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

The General takes a deep breath before answering.

'I learned it in case this would happen. I mean, how would I be supposed to communicate with you otherwise?'

He's signing slowly again, taking his time to remember and sign everything right. Alhaitham looks even more surprised now and his voice cracks slightly as he incredulously asks.

"You learned it... for me? I didn't know you'd care for that..."

Cyno's face now feels like it's on fire but he frowns nonetheless, trying to stop his blushing with wishful thinking but it just doesn't work like that. And Alhaitham notices. Of course, he does.

Cyno signs without looking at Alhaitham.

'Of course I care for that, you idiot. And I care for you.'

Cyno is well aware of what he's just said and what it might imply but he doesn't care anymore at this point. He's tired of trying to hide his feelings, despite him not fully understanding them yet.

But he knows that there's something deeper he feels for the Acting Grand Sage. Why else would he go to such lengths for this obnoxious fool?

Alhaitham sighs, lets his head hang for a moment, and shakes it briefly before getting up from his seat. He tries to hide it but Cyno still notices the slight upturn of his lips.

The Acting Grand Sage takes the few steps towards the General Mahamatra until he's right in front of him, involuntarily towering over the shorter man— who is still frowning, arms crossed in front of his chest, and stubbornly glaring at something to his right.

"Cyno."

Cyno hears him but he doesn't budge.

He notices the soft shuffling of clothes before seeing Alhaitham's left hand waving in front of his face.

"Do I need to sign now too, so that you'll listen to me?" the gray-haired man asks, voice low.

Cyno hesitates for a moment longer and signs a quick 'No' before eventually turning his head and looking straight into Alhaitham's tired eyes.

His gaze is soft, softer than usual. It's missing his signature sharpness of a former Scribe and an Acting Grand Sage, a man that has a mind at least as sharp as his gaze.

Cyno simply looks at him and waits.

Alhaitham can't help but chuckle, seeing that Cyno is acting like a defiant 5 yo. with a small pout on his lips. Alhaitham clears his throat before he finally speaks up.

"Thank you, I really appreciate it. And I mean both of it. You learning sign language to be able to talk to me when needed and... for caring."

Cyno huffs a breath in a futile attempt to seem annoyed but he knows he can't fool the taller man that easily. Still, he's one who at least tries.

"No need to thank me. It's nothing, really..." Cyno then quietly answers, immediately realizing that Alhaitham's device still isn't working and he can't hear him, so he quickly goes over to sign what he just said.

A soft smile appears on Alhaitham's lips as he reaches out with his right hand, grabbing a strand of Cyno's hair and gently twisting it between his fingers.

"It must've been hard to learn it all, so it really means a lot to me. Thank you," Alhaitham whispers before leaning in and softly pressing his lips against Cyno's forehead.

His hair's in the way and it's over as fast as it happened and yet, the touch sends a jolt of electricity through his whole body and a shiver down his spine.

Cyno still stands there, dumbfounded with his mouth hanging open at what just happened as Alhaitham simply turns around and walks back over to his chair. He lets himself plop down on it and picks up the paper from before.

"I'll just finish reading and taking notes on this report and then I'll wrap things up here. Would you like to keep me company until I'm done?" Alhaitham asks as he looks back at Cyno and adds, "You know... to make sure I don't collapse and all."

Cyno's face is still crimson red from blushing once more and he simply nods in response.

A soft and satisfied smile spreads on the Acting Grand Sage's face before he brings his focus back to the report.

Cyno once again crosses his arms in front of his chest as Alhaitham speaks up again.

"By the way... You should practice a lot more sign language though, you're really terrible at it."

Cyno's head snaps back to Alhaitham and anger bubbles up but he bites the inside of his cheek and just rolls his eyes when noticing the provocative smile on the gray-haired man's lips.

'No,' Cyno decides. 'I'm not gonna give into his teasing this time.'

[babycharmander]

If you think you have never stolen artwork, read this post.

So, art theft. If you've been a follower of mine, you've heard my barely-coherent rants about this before, but I thought it might be more productive to make a more coherent post on the subject.

If you're wondering about the title of the post here, it's because I feel like a lot of people aren't really grasping what exactly art theft is, and a LOT of people, even well-meaning ones, do it without even realizing it.

"But wait," you say. "I would never STEAL from an artist!! I never claim it as my own!" And that's all fine and good, but you're missing something here.

To start things off, what IS art theft? (It's not what deviantART said it was several years back, I'll tell you that much. *cough*)

We all know what art is, so let's talk about theft. Dictionary.com defines "theft" as "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny." Okay, makes sense, but what about that other word there, stealing? Dictionary.com defines "steal" as "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force."

From those definitions, we can go on to define art theft as, specifically, "taking art without permission or right." In the context of art, that typically involves reposting it (not reblogging--reblogging is different) or using it for other things.

And there, my friends, is the issue.

If something is taken or used without permission, it is stolen. Permission is the important thing here--if an artist says "oh yeah, you can go ahead and use this!" then it's not stolen. You have their permission. But if you DON'T have that, then it IS stolen. It IS theft.

"But I'm not claiming it as my own!" you say. But you don't have to claim it as your own--the act of taking it in and of itself is an act of theft.

"But I said 'credit to the artist!'" The "credit" thing is a whole other conversation, but here's the short of it: The entire point of credit is to direct people to the source of something. If you are not directly linking to where you got the art from, you are not giving credit. "Credit to the artist" is not actually credit of any kind whatsoever. (Also, Google and Pinterest are not sources.)

"But I DID link back to the artist!" Okay, now this is where it may get confusing, because you may think you're covered because you actually did give credit. Here's the problem: if you reposted it or used it without permission, regardless of whether you gave credit or not, it's still stealing.

I'm bolding this because it's a point that a lot of people get tripped up on. Let me explain it this way: If you went into your neighbor's house and took something of theirs without their permission, but you told people "oh yeah, I got this from [neighbor]'s house!" that that would still, of course, be stealing, and it's no different for art.

Another thing is that even when you credit, people don't always check the source. Very recently I found a case where someone had reposted a piece of artwork of mine to Pinterest that was deliberately made to look like it came from the source material (it wasn't meant to confuse anyone, though--the description of my original post made it very clear that it was fanart). The person who reposted had linked back to my original post. The problem? The comments had people asking if this was official, where it happened in the source material, etc. Despite the fact that the source was right there, no one thought to look at it.

Even if you link back to the source, if you did it without the artist's permission, it's still stealing, and still causes problems for us artists.

"But I just posted it to my Pinterest--" DO NOT DO THIS. DO NOT POST AN ARTIST'S WORK TO PINTEREST IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THEIR EXPLICIT PERMISSION TO DO SO.

"But this artist friend of mine says they're okay if I post their work to my Pinterest so long as I link back to them!" Good for your friend! But the fact that your friend is okay with it doesn't mean that all artists are okay with it. For me, personally, I am very not okay with my work being posted to Pinterest, and say as much on my art blog description and posts (which people tend to ignore).

The problem with Pinterest--and reposting art in general--is that we artists don't know when it happens unless we're told, or unless we find it ourselves. It causes us to lose control of our art. And because of this, our art can spiral further out of our control, because when our works get posted to Pinterest or other similar websites, people who have no grasp whatsoever on how art works will just take it as "free art" and then use it for whatever they want.

That's how a piece I spent 20+ hours on was used as a poster for a paid event, without my permission, and without any payment or credit to me.

If an artist has said nothing about Pinterest (or other similar image sharing sites), your default should be to assume that they don't want their artwork posted there.

"Well I didn't repost someone's art, but I did use it for my avatar/RPing icon/video/fic cover/photo edit--" That's still stealing. If you're using it without their permission for any reason, that is stealing. Not to mention, the artist may not be cool with what you're using their art for anyway. (Looking at you, people who use platonic art in your shipping videos.)

“I MEANT to ask them for permission, but I forgot!” This can ONLY happen if you used the artwork BEFORE you asked for permission. You can resolve this by asking for permission BEFORE you use it, rather than assuming the answer will be “yes” and using it before asking.

"But it took me a really long time to make that icon/video/cover/edit!!" How long do you think it took the original artist to draw their piece? It doesn't matter how much work you put into modifying someone else's art--if you're doing it without their permission, you're still stealing.

"But I couldn't find the original artist! I tried to find them, I really did, but I couldn't. Is it okay to use their art then?" No, because you still don't have permission, and by reposting it anyway, you’re continuing to make the artwork spiral out of their control.

"What if I found the artist, but they speak a different language from mine? I can't ask them for permission, so is it okay if I repost their art anyway?" NO!! DO NOT DO THIS!! If there is a language barrier, use Google translate or find someone to translate for you and get a hold of the artist that way to ask them for their permission. The language barrier is NEVER an excuse to steal artwork. There are plenty of non-English-speaking artists who have taken ALL OF THEIR ARTWORK OFFLINE because the art theft was completely out of control. (And this isn't just exclusive to English-speakers stealing art from people who don't speak their language. It happens artists who don't speak English stealing art from English-speakers, too, but as this post is written in English it doesn't do much good for me to rant about this here.) If you can’t ask their permission, do not use it!!

"But what about reblogging?! Isn't that the same as reposting?? Should we not reblog art at all then?" No, reblogging (or retweeting) is not the same as reposting. If you reblog art, you keep all the information that we attached to the art, including our blog name and the description attached to the art. Reblogging/retweeting actually helps us artists A LOT, so as long as you're reblogging from the original artist (and not someone who's reposting their art), by all means, reblog our art!

"What if I just want to share someone else's artwork on Discord or show it to a friend?" This one's a bit different and is not actually as problematic. If you want to share our work on Discord or whatever, just link directly to where we posted it. Please don't post the art itself, unless you're doing it alongside a link because Discord won't show a preview or something.

"What about a forum or a site like Reddit?" This one's a bit different, since due to the way Reddit functions, if you LINK to the art, you have to go directly to the artist's original page to view it. (At least, that’s what it’s like the last time I was active there.) In a way it's roughly the same as with Discord--be sure you're linking directly to the actual post rather than just uploading the art on its own--but I would also ask the artist if they're okay with it, because they may be a member of the subreddit or forum and want to post it themselves, or they might not want their work shared to specific communities. (Some communities have a function where a bot will repost the artwork to Imgur, and some artists don't want that done with their art.)

"What if I'm saving it to my computer/phone to look at later, or making it into my desktop/phone wallpaper?" IMO this is fine, since your computer/phone files aren't public, and neither is your wallpaper. It's only a problem when you post it to public places without our permission.

"What if it's art I commissioned?" Well... like... in that case, it's art you paid for, so unless the artist you commissioned laid out very specific terms for you, you should be good to use that art. Like, at most, the artist may ask you to credit them somewhere in your blog description if they drew your icon or something, or credit them in a fic description if you commissioned a fic illustration from them, or something to that effect. It's really something you should have already worked out with the artist beforehand, but for the most part you should probably be fine to use art you paid for however you like.

"What about art I requested?" This is a bit different from commissioned work. Just because the art was drawn at your request doesn't mean it's explicitly yours (unless it's like, a drawing of your original character or something). Some artists take requests more as suggestions, so the art they draw in response to a suggestion or request is still theirs. Treat this as you would any other artwork and ask the artist for permission first before you do anything with the artwork you requested from them.

“What about NFTs?” ... Okay this one I can’t really go over too much because I barely understand it in the first place, but NFTs are BAD for artists and are a form of art theft. Do not turn people’s art into NFTs. This is a crappy thing to do. (If you want more information on this one, you’ll have to look it up yourself. It’s a form of cryptocurrency and it’s confusing.)

“If you don’t want your art stolen you shouldn’t post it in the first place.” This is fascinating logic. Try applying it to something else and see how it holds up. “If you don’t want your merchandise stolen, you shouldn’t open a booth.” “If you don’t want to get poisoned you shouldn’t eat food.” “If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t walk outside.” Yes. Flawless logic. Truly.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?! I'm sharing your art because I like it! That's a compliment! Shouldn't you be happy?" Well, we're certainly glad you like our art, but the problem is... as I've said before, reposting our art causes us to lose our control over it. When we lose control of our art, that damages our livelihood. As I said before, other people have made money off of my artwork. As well, some artists lose jobs because when their potential employers check out their portfolio, they may find artwork that's been reposted everywhere online, so they cannot hire the artist because they believe they may have stolen the artwork in their own portfolio.

Your reposting an image you thought was cute to Facebook or Pinterest could cost an artist their job. Think about that.

So, tl;dr, keep this in mind: you need the artist's permission to repost or use their artwork. If you do not have it, it is stealing, even if you credit the artist.

I know this post is really harsh in places, but this is such an important thing for all artists, and there's so many misconceptions about art theft online. And I feel like one of the biggest problems is that when some people see posts on art theft, they ignore them, because they think they've never done it or would never do it, so that's why I worded this post the way I did. I'm not trying to hurt anyone--I just want people to understand what art theft is, how it affects us artists, and how you can avoid it. Thank you for reading.

[wisteria-lodge]

Archetypes: Sorting Hat Chats

I’ve been asked about my rationale for naming different primary/ secondary combinations. I did this originally as a tool to help me sort characters - I wanted to see how these types tend to be used, so I could more easily see what subversions looked like. I'll run through my thoughts, but know there’s a lot of variation within each category. But even WITH that variation, I do think that each one has its own specific energy that makes it interesting to talk about. An explanation of the terms I'm using.

DOUBLE LION “THE REVOLUTIONARY”

Pretty straightforward. The Lion primary knows something is wrong, they know it in their bones even if they can’t articulate it, and they’ve got to go out and do something about it. Probably charging at whatever power structure is directly in front of them. It’s unlikely you find a character leading a revolution who isn’t a Double Lion. These guys are intense, inspirational, single minded.

The villain version of the Lion primary tends to be the person who “went too far" or "became the monster they were trying to fight.'' But I think that the much more interesting Lion primary villain trope is the Traitor. Since Lions work from their feelings, and their philosophies can’t necessarily be articulated or linked to individuals outside of them - they can definitely have their head turned while still feeling moral about it.

One of my favorite examples of this Revolutionary archtype is actually Christian Bale‘s character from Newsies. He’s the spark that starts the unionizing revolution, but 100% needs his Badger and Bird lieutenants to keep him focused and keep him from defecting

LION SNAKE “THE ROBIN HOOD”

These guys are similar to the Double Lion - they will recognize a cause or injustice revolutionary style - but Robin Hood doesn’t go up and bang on wicked Prince John’s door. His move is the snake secondary one: confront the problem indirectly. Undermine the regime by stealing tax money and re-distributing it to the poor. Be simultaneously Robin Hood the outlaw and Robin of Locksley the noble, infiltrating and getting information. The Lion Snake is more likely to work within society (or deliberately separate from society) versus just breaking everything down.

LION BIRD “THE LAWMAN / THE VIGILANTE”

The fact that the Lion Bird can either be the Lawman or the Vigilante shows off the very clear hero/villain split you get with Bird secondaries. We also see this with the Snake Bird (simultaneously the Mastermind and the traditional Villain) and the Double Bird (either the Scientist or the Mad Scientist.) This is why I think I had such trouble naming the Badger Bird. I wasn’t leaning into the duality of the Bird secondary enough. The Badger Bird can be the King Arthur, or he can be the Mob Boss, and he’ll look kind of similar either way.

The Lion Bird also has that Lion primary conviction and drive, but they want to follow up on it with investigation, evidence, and plans. I actually think there need to be more stories about Lawmen turning into Vigilantes and vice versa. Because Lion Birds are their Cause no matter what external alignment gets attached to it.

LION BADGER “THE LINCHPIN”

This is my own sorting - although when I came up with this name I still thought I was a Double Bird. The linchpin is the pin-axle thing at the center of a wheel that prevents the whole thing from falling apart, and I think it's a good way of talking about the energy of this combination. The Badger secondary means they’re a lot less single minded than the other Lion primaries: their power comes from being part of a group. They become the emotional “heart” a lot, and have a way of quietly keeping things together just by existing. They can be leaders, but a Double Lion will lead from up front while a Lion Badger will lead from in the middle (if that makes sense.)

I do think it’s really funny that this is a common sleeper villain trope. Peter Pettigrew, Prince Hans, and Randall Boggs of Monsters Inc. all became integral to a group, and then exploit their position within it. They’re kind of the evil bureaucrat. Maybe that's a good trope for children’s media

DOUBLE SNAKE “THE TRICKSTER”

This is another straightforward one. Double Snakes are in it for themselves (and maybe like three other people.) They're going to be clever and tricksy about how they get what they want, and will not mind doing things backward and unofficially. And they won't mind if you know that's what they're doing. There’s something very unapologetic about the Double Snake which makes for very attractive characters. They are consistently voted the sexiest... and when they’re villains they’re fun villains. You know what they want, and what they want is not that complicated. I think that’s a big reason for the appeal of Snake primaries in general. They’re the easiest primary to understand and explain.

SNAKE LION “THE LANCELOT”

I used to call these guys “The Rebel,” which... is too generic, doesn’t really mean anything. So I started thinking about the Lion secondary as the Knight secondary, and I liked that. Double Lions are the Crusader Knight, riding for their Cause. Bird Lions are Grail Knights, riding for their own personal truth. Badger Lions are Champion Knights, here to help the helpless and defend the innocent.

And if that's that case… Snake Lions have to be the Knight Errant, the knight who rides for his lady. It is that simple. Lancelot might be a Knight of the Round Table, but he’s riding for Arthur the person, not Arthur the King. And for his lady, Queen Guinevere. I feel like his dilemma is one that’s common to a lot of Snake Lions: what happens when they’re forced to split their loyalty? It’s tragic, but Lancelot can’t have Arthur and Guinevere simultaneously.

(At least not until my awesome Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot OT3 which I will totally write at some point :)

SNAKE BIRD “THE MASTERMIND / THE VILLAIN”

The classic. We see a little more of the Bird Secondary split, and well… this is your stereotypical villain. They want power. They’re going to use an elaborate plan to get it. There’s a lot you can do with this sorting, but I actually do think it’s fun that whatever you do, this slight undercurrent of villain and/or mastermind… never quite goes away.

SNAKE BADGER “THE LOVER”

The Love Interest sorting. Chances are very good that if there is a love interest (who does not serve some other role in the story...) they're going to be a Snake Badger. Devoted to one person, solving problems by caretaking. This is the Badger secondary who is likely to have the smallest group, which is just going to make them look excessively devoted to their friends. This type is pretty gender neutral, which is fun. A lot of female love interests, but also your Mr. Darcys and Peeta Mellarks.

One of my favorite things about this trope (mostly just because I think it’s funny...) is that if you write a character who is not supposed to be a love interest, but who is a Snake Badger... subconsciously I think people are going to read them as a love interest anyway. Looking at you Jaskier, Horatio, and even Captain Barbossa.

DOUBLE BIRD “THE [MAD] SCIENTIST”

I think that (especially if you aren’t a Bird Primary yourself) your response to hearing a fictional Bird Primary’s motivation is kind of …huh. That seems random. Or oddly specific. You get your Hannibal Lecters, whose entire motivation is... wanting to eat people while drinking nice wine.

Double birds seem especially unusual, just in terms of society. They are Bird secondaries and they interact with the world through gathering data, but their Bird primaries mean that data can literally lead them to any conclusion, no matter how potentially wacky. These guys consciously build themselves from the ground up, and that can make them kind of detached - either in a logical way, or an unmoored way. They're written as either really stable, the rational mentor figure. Or really... not. And that’s how you spot a Bird villain. They’re not after money/power/safety, they’re after something weird.

BIRD LION “THE GRAIL KNIGHT”

This is the trope of Perceval or Galahad, questing after the Holy Grail chalice... which is really just meaning, and truth. It’s a personal quest. Grail Knights tend to ride alone, and a lot of the things that concern them are metaphysical, to do with identity, purpose, things like that. You can have extremely different Bird Lions, but I do think there is a sort of spiritual core there. Doctor Harleen Quinzel sees freedom and truth in whatever the Joker is doing, and then once she recognizes his hypocrisy, has to go build her own meaning.

I actually think these guys are pretty easy to spot because of that Lion secondary. When they change direction, they change direction, and there’s probably a period of despair between the direction changes. I’ve talked about how Bird Lions having a habit of falling apart pretty dramatically, and that’s where this idea comes from.

BIRD BADGER “THE SURVIVOR”

A rare sorting, but an interesting one. I call this one ��the Survivor” or “the Last Man Standing” because, well, they seem to be. They seem remarkably stable. This is the Bird primary least likely to be a villain, and maybe the sorting least likely to be a villain. I think what’s going on is that they are grounded and integrated in whatever community they happen to be in (because of that Badger secondary), but they can define themselves and rebuild themselves in the Bird primary way. This makes them uniquely suited to building a new version of themselves for whatever situation they happen to find themselves in.

Maybe a better name for these guys would be “The Adapter.”

BIRD SNAKE “THE ARTIST”

Like all Bird primaries, these guys are inspired by their own projects and their own worldview, but because of that Snake secondary, Bird Snakes have a more easy-going ‘take the world as it comes' kind of energy. They are “the Artist” because everything they do is art: they want to use themselves and the world around them, put all of that towards whatever their Bird primary happens to be interested in.

You can have villains like the Nolan Joker, or the Talented Mr. Ripley, who kind of turn the world into their own personal philosophical social experiment. Or Scotty from Star Trek whose meaning is solely the well-being of the Enterprise. Maybe they just like traveling, and that's all they need. (It's a way for the Bird primary and the Snake secondary exist very happily together, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was pretty common.)

DOUBLE BADGER “THE PEACEMAKER”

Badgers are interesting, because while I think they’re generally regarded as “correct,” they’re also seen as kind of boring. That’s the case with both Badger primaries and Badger secondaries, which means it is doubly reflected in the Double Badger. They often get written as simplistic, the sweet Jane Bennet type who loves everybody and caretakes everybody and just wants everybody to get along.

They are often the targets of what TV Tropes used to call “Break the Cutie.” What could be more interesting than making this character, who wants to be happily part of a community, be forced to build protective models, be all tortured and angsty? I actually think we’re seeing a return of the Double Badger as an interesting character in their own right, with people like Aziaphale, and I'm here for it.

BADGER LION “THE PROTAGONIST”

What can I say? There are a lot of protagonists that are Badger Lions. They want to help the group - so we know they're the good guys - and then they charge and make stuff happen. Lion secondaries are very useful in fiction - you drop them into a situation and stuff just happens. I also think of this as the Starfleet officer sorting - because if you’re a Starfleet officer, either you are the sorting, or can model it really well.

I will say that this is kind of the stock Protagonist sorting, the way that the Snake Badger is the stock love interest and the Snake Bird is the stock villain. There’s just something sort of generic good guy about this one, which is why I want to see it used as a villain sorting more. Badger villains - mostly people who define ‘human’ very narrowly - are insanely terrifying.

BADGER SNAKE “THE ADVISOR”

Possibly “the Power Behind the Throne.” This is another one I had difficulty pinning down. I called it “the Politician” for a while, which unfortunately came off as a little bit more negative than I meant it to, since I think this sorting has a lot in common with Lion Badger, the linchpin of a heroic team. The difference is that Lion Badger takes on that role kind of unconsciously, while the Badger Snake does it very consciously.

Their loyalty is to the group, but their skill set is all about subversion and different ways of going around the group, which is why there’s an interesting contradiction at the heart of Badger Snake. A lot of real life Badger Snakes struggle with feeling like “bad people" and it's too bad. These guys are ridiculously powerful and competent when they are sure of themselves, and I love seeing them in action

BADGER BIRD “THE KING / THE MOB BOSS”

Another difficult one, despite (or because) I really like them. I was calling them “the Architect” because “The City Planner” sounded too boring… but that’s what they do. They’re all about the community but they problem-solve the way all Bird secondaries do, by prepping, and gathering knowledge. I talked more about this in the Lion Bird entry, but Bird secondary seems to have this villain split going on, and that’s what I see here too. This is a controversial love-them-or-hate-them sorting, and I think that’s why. There’s a lot of room in whether or not you see this sorting as villainous.

[catty-words]

I’m not sure if you’ve answered this already but I’m wondering if you could further elaborate what your issue is with how Ben and Devi in season 2

boy howdy. i’ve got wine, i’ve got an intense attachment to these two characters, and i’m ready to rant. but just remember - you literally asked for this.

to really delve into why i find season two d/b a bit of a letdown, i think it’d be helpful to first establish what it is that drew me to the pairing in season one. some of it, of course, is surface-level shit, like the fact that maitreyi and jaren have chemistry that crackles on the screen and that their faces are pretty and they react to each other in really amusing and heart-wrenching ways. but, more to the point, it’s the way the characters are inextricably linked by the way their stories parallel and interact with each other that truly sent me on a spiral last summer.

devi is a snot. she loves being the center of attention. she’s insecure. she cares about being the best at school not just because it’s been ingrained in her that she should, but because she has goals and ambitions that are served by being the best. she’s pop culture and image obsessed. she’s desperate for the acceptance of her peers. and, because of this image obsession and desperation for acceptance, she feels compelled to mask the fact that she’s deeply, deeply sad.

pretty much every single one of these traits also applies to ben - all you have to do is take away the notion that being the best is ingrained by his parents and substitute sadness over a parent’s passing for sadness born out of parental neglect. and the fact that they’re so similar but have a well-cultivated resentment of each other? that’s exactly my shit. that’s literary self-hatred, poetic cinema, etc. they understand each other better than anyone else does or can because they, in essence, are an extension of each other. so there’s a ton of cool character work going on in their every interaction - the deepening empathy for others and a quest for greater self understanding.

you also have the way that, at the show’s young-adult coming-of-age core, is how horny and in need of an outlet for that horniness devi is. so, again, on the surface, d/b gets all the heat of two characters pitted against each other as enemies, which is super fun to watch and completely effective because, again, maitreyi and jaren have incredible on-screen chemistry. but under the surface, ben also gets to be devi’s safe space. because he understands her insecurity and her drive to be more than the weird nerd people perceive her as - he shares those things. which means intimacy between them happens almost by accident. devi’s not trying to manufacture it, it’s just there for her to fall into.

the characters know each other. and with that knowledge comes both the safety of being your true self and the tricky mess that is getting held accountable when you try to shirk who you really are in favor of fantasy.

so. season two. that chemistry between the actors doesn’t go away, of course, but the compelling sameness of the characters does.

what do i mean by that? well, it has a lot to do with the way ben is written as Morally Correct in his every action in season two, where devi’s a bumbling mess. he recognizes that cheating on shira was wrong, and he wants devi to know that he’s emotionally intelligent enough to Get That and mature enough to put an end to his wrongdoing. he hears that devi started the rumor about aneesa and he’s here to urge her down the path of redemption. he was scorned by devi, but he’s still going to show up in the bathroom and tend to her emotional well-being when another dude trods all over her.

i’ve gotten the sense that a lot of people found this characterization romantic and Romantically tragic, but it legitimately angers me. i don’t want the ben that’s so smitten with devi that he’ll cater his every move to helping her grow and realize how she, too, can be as Morally Correct as him. i want the ben that tells her india’s not that different from coachella & that mowgli didn’t run away from home, so stop whining and face what’s really scaring you, dummy! i wanted to see his anger, not wounded acceptance that no one loves him the way he loves them. i wanted to see him be the wretched little asshole i know and love because those traits - that acting out and being loud and not accepting anything less than what he wants from any given situation - are what make him so compatible with devi!! she’s not some swooning damsel who needs her knight ben to swoop in and help her make the right decision and he’s not some enlightened knight who’s just trying to do right by his lady love!! they’re messy!!! they’re angry!!! and they’ve spent pretty much their whole lives striving to prove they’re better than the other!!! a couple weeks of kissing would not negate the lifetime of hostility between them, nor ben’s tendency to fall back on obnoxious showboating to prove his worth to the world!!!

i feel like i keep talking around The Thing instead of being able to name it directly, but my frustration lies in the way devi becomes meeker and less in control of her actions in season two where ben becomes a romanticized ideal for whom devi isn’t good enough but hopes to prove herself worthy of anyway. because that’s somehow a far uglier dynamic than devi getting with a guy who once called her an unfuckable nerd.

[catherdrashepard]

Darrow is Not Going to Die at the End of the Series Part 2

There are probably going to be at least one or two more parts depending on how much I can stop myself from blathering on. Anyway, spoilers ahead for the following: Dark Age, Hunger Games, Castlevania, Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, Avengers Endgame, The Hobbit, Voltron, FMA, HttYD, Death Note, Madoka Magica, Merlin, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, HunterxHunter, Dragon Prince, He-Man (the new one), Yu Yu Hakusho, Persona 3. Mass Effect, The Hollow, Camp Cretaceous, and whatever else I can think of.

I last left off on talking about how my thoughts implied that Darrow could die at the end as long all the loose ends are tied. But, I don’t think that that’s really something that can actually happen. A lot of this is speculation on my part and really relies on what happens during the 6th book.

The first thing that came to mind was Mass Effect. The ending of Mass Effect 3 was...not very well received. I’m not going to say that I’m particularly happy with it either but I also think it fits the narrative. However, one thing to note, video games are different than books and the story that Shepard goes through is reliant on the player. Also, stories in games are going to be shorter than stories in books (for the most part, there are definitely exceptions) due to player involvement.

I’m going to start with Shepard’s first death, at the beginning of Mass Effect 2. Of course, being the second game, their death couldn’t be permanent unless BioWare switched protagonists mid trilogy. There are a few reasons, in my opinion, that Shepard was killed during the opening credits of the second game.

First of all, the combat changed between games (a lot between the first and second and only slightly between second and third), and I think Shepard’s two year absence gave a reason for a tutorial on the new combat system. They were dead and had to learn how to use new technology. This is also done between the second and third games, with a 6 month gap, but the combat only changed slightly. Secondly, having the main protagonist die really highlights the threat that the player is dealing with in the second game but, Shepard’s return also shows that they still have unfinished business and that their story isn’t over. Thirdly, I think the absence gives time for the secondary characters time to develop on their own. This is shown more with the characters who appeared in the first game but also it gives an idea of just how much of an impact Shepard had. I feel like this is a parallel to the time Darrow spent in the table between GS and MS.

Now to move on to Shepard’s more permanent death...although if you complete the game entirely (at least in the legendary edition; thank goodness I hated the battle readiness thing) there is a dubious ending where Shepard may or may not have lived. But in any case, Shepard is considered dead and their story is over. Whatever my feelings about this may be, this type of ending didn’t come out of nowhere. The main threat, the Reapers, have been dealt with in a permanent manner, or at least it’s heavily implied that they won’t be coming back. However, just because the Reapers are gone doesn’t mean there aren’t still things to be done. Specifically, recovery. Shepard very well could have been involved in this but it’s not necessary. Their story is over, they have dealt with the threat and it’s not coming back.

Darrow, on the other hand, has not finished his mission. Even if he does by the end of the next book, however, it’s a very different circumstance from Shepard. The threat in Mass Effect was a very large and tangible thing, whereas the problem Darrow faces is an ideology and the people who hold those views. Something like that doesn’t end with a large space weapon pointed directly at the threat; it permeates everything. So even if Darrow defeats Atalantia, Lysander, and whoever else, there’s most likely going to be more people who shared belief that Golds are best. Also, we saw how the Vox Populi felt about the things Darrow was doing. Darrow is essentially reconstructing an entire system of government and, no matter how correct Darrow is, there will always be people who disagree with him.

Assuming Darrow defeats the remnants of the Society, stops the Ascomanni, deals with Quicksilver and whatever he’s doing, takes care of Atlas, handles Apple, what’s left? Much like with the end of Mass Effect, what’s left is recovery. The difference between these two, however, is that while Shepard was not necessarily needed for the rebuilding, Darrow would be.

Now, both Shepard and Darrow spearheaded their respective causes, but (and this relies heavily on how the sixth RR book goes) defeating the Reapers was a group effort, utilising every species and as many resources as they can spare. No doubt the rebuilding of the entire galaxy will require the same. Not that Darrow’s goal hasn’t been similar in that regards, with the help of so many different Colors being necessary. It’s just....Darrow’s circle feels a lot smaller than Shepard’s.

I mean, obviously being the face of a war is going to get you a lot supporters and people to work with, but the most important players are Darrow’s close friends and family. I’m sure part of this is the fact that the books are first person with specific POVs. Mass Effect does focus on Shepard’s story, but it’s in third person and you get a lot of different information through sidequests and talking to other characters. I mean, there’s a whole codex in Mass Effect with a lot of information and there isn’t one for RR (PB should make one tho). Our knowledge of the universe and its history is more limited in RR than Mass Effect, but I think that’s mostly because the lore in Mass Effect has more of a direct impact on how the story goes.

But back to the original point, it’s explicitly shown in Mass Effect that it requires everyone to stop the Reapers. And even though we see Darrow’s army, the main players, the ones who are taking care of the big things, are still Darrow’s inner circle. As an example, Mass Effect would be more like a pyramid (ironic) where Shepard is at the top. Even if it crumbles away (they die), the pyramid will still stand. For RR, it feels more like a chain. If one of the links (Darrow) breaks, then the chain is also broken. You could re-attach the pieces but it wouldn’t be as strong as it once was.

One last thing I wanted to bring up (which I will bring up again in part 4, yes I said part 4), is technology. Both Mass Effect and RR take place in the future and therefore have better technology than we do. There is something very important about this technology though that makes it more likely for Darrow to live. The Reapers are a race of sentient squid machines hellbent on the genocide of every other sentient species in the galaxy. But they are the ONLY things with access to that kind of technology. Even when they share it with Saren or the Collectors, it’s not something others can replicate. And once they’re destroyed (control ending notwithstanding) at the end of the third game, that’s it. They could still have people who are indoctrinated (although I think that stops when the Reapers were destroyed?) or people who are just stupid and think they were right, but...those people aren’t a threat. They can’t bring back the Reapers, I doubt anyone would be able to recreate such a thing (at least not within Shepard’s lifetime even if they did live). So once the Reapers were gone...that’s it.

Now, the technology in RR is, for the most part, accessible to everyone. Assuming Darrow defeats Atalantia, Lysander, etc. their way of thinking would still be around. But with the way the universe works, I think it would entirely possible for supporters of the Society to rise up and start a conflict all over again. This means Darrow is not finished yet, even if the immediate threats are gone. It wouldn’t make sense for him to die when there’s still stuff for him to do.

I do think, though, that it is worth mentioning that the definite ending of Mass Effect is probably related to the fact that it’s a video game and especially for stories like that, a more open ended conclusion with the implication that I COULD do more would only be frustrating. With tv shows, movies, and books, I notice, having a more vague ending works better because you’re just separated enough from the story that you can enjoy the implications of more stuff without feeling unsatisfied. There’s always exceptions of course.

ANYWAY, it part 3 I’m going to be talking about Persona 3 and 5 so....stay tuned.

[ruby-whistler]

@justalads hi, hello! made a new post because didn't want to clog up everything with a suuper long string of reblogs, so i hope you don't mind!

also, i'm sorry to ask you this, but i have trouble focusing - in your next reply, would you maybe mind cutting up the big paragraphs into smaller ones? i'm nd and it's extremely difficult to concentrate at long strings of text like that, which is why i usually cut up everything i say into chunks :]

(actually had to have my friend cut up your last reply because he's a v fast reader, shoutout ani lmao)

anyways, let's continue the debate i say because there's a lot to still talk about in my opinion as well

/dsmp /rp, and of course all /lh

as for the whole was manipulated / wasn't manipulated thing, there's pretty much a divide amongst most people i know whether or not to call it that - but since that word's been misused a lot in this fandom, here is the instance most people are referring to, for you to judge for yourself, in this very (in my opinion) well-written analysis!

since i myself am very confused about the subject but i think it'd be better for you to read that first, i'll just move past that for now i think.

i attached a lot more resources this time because i remembered that a lot of people who agree with me on these things are smarter than me so, sorry for the links you'll have to click through this time but i think it could help me articulate what i actually want to say better.

i don't think i entirely get your point about it "making sense for him to progress like this". i don't know what you mean by 'make sense'. it comes off as 'he was always going to become this way because of the kind of person he was in the beginning' which, i don't agree with in general? because no, you don't just become a bad person, and especially with c!dream i find that this ignores a lot of the things that he went through.

also, i wouldn't say everyone had equal hand in what happened. "a product of his environment" means everything sort of mixed together; the way the world works; a cycle of violence, eye for an eye, and no therapy or communication.

dream's spiral isn't a result of any one character's actions. c!wilbur started the whole big wars and animosity thing, but that's only about 50% of what i'd call "the environment". there's also a lot of personal mistakes and miscommunication mixed in.

so no, i'm not saying it was entirely "other characters"' fault, what i mean is more that they contributed by you know, treating him as the incarnation of all evil, breaking his personal boundaries, overall just no one treating him like they should a person (this is overall their attitude over multiple seasons), etc..

and also another thing i meant to say was that he didn't deserve the abandonment. no one deserves to lose half their friends once (l'manberg when they turned against him for literally no good reason in his eyes), and then watch the ones who were the last remaining and the closest ones he had, leave him one by one because of an image of himself he had no control over, which was started by one and then perpetuated until he became a literal hate magnet. people did hurt c!dream, and he didn't deserve that.

all i'm saying is that i see where he is coming from, and that his spiral wasn't a result of powerhungriness, or cruelty, or any other personal flaw, but it was literally someone who cared about people too much getting driven too far by the circumstances he was put into.

and i think that is my overall statement for now.

you said i was "brushing it off as george being a drama queen" for the whole dethronement scene. i read what you said about it, and i'd like to ask you to once again watch the actual stream.

george literally tried to steal the l'mantree and got assassinated by techno beforehand. i don't see why he would be in any way in the wrong for dream taking away his kingship, and i don't think it is reminiscent of a power dynamic or dream having "higher authority".

dream thinking george can't handle himself is completely justified considering what he did and how he didn't even attempt to stay neutral. he was supposed to be a diplomatic figure who would make sure the dream smp doesn't get into wars, that was the point of pretending to be a monarchy (because the dsmp really just isn't, it's anarchy with a diplomatic representative and an army general).

here's a thread which besides other things mentions things dream did for the two of them, and besides fighting with him in one (george) or two (sapnap) wars they really weren't "loyal to him for a long while" compared to the amount of times he sacrificed things for them.

"have an equal say in things" doesn't apply when one of the three is trying to keep peace and the other two instigate conflict left and right. like i'm sorry but i don't see why dream would owe them a say in the faction he's trying to protect.

dream doesn't think of them as lower. that actually just sounds like guilt-tripping your friend to let you take care of a pet you've poisoned before and he had to rush to the hospital. peace is fragile and these two weren't responsible enough to be given the power to break it.

to say "george didn't want" it was an overstatement. he literally did nothing as a king and he had no control in the first place (because the dream smp doesn't have a government in the first place).

the whole thing about him being sad was for show because c!george is a manipulative prick who takes advantage of his friends for fun. and i don't mean this in a bad way, he's not a bad person for it, he's actually a really fun character more than anything, and he doesn't hurt anyone on purpose - but he's a jerk! he's done it before and now he's doing it again, and he continues to do it (dreamxdcoughcough-)

so no dream was. absolutely not in the wrong here, it wasn't even supposed to be public, george just made a big deal out of it.

the last thread i mentioned also talks about the whole "spirit speech" thing and, answer me a question - would you consider it justified for all of tommy's friends (even tubbo who he's been close with for so long) to abandon him just because he's said basically the same thing about the discs - like three times?

that's just the double standards though. phil and techno are still being hated on for "abandoning" a kid they barely know - and meanwhile dream's been given up on by everyone he's ever cared about before being given a chance, but people try to find ways it's his fault, like it matters.

it doesn't matter, because abandonment hurts you, no matter if the people have good reasons for it or not, and in this case they didn't. the point i'm making is this character has been hurt and has been actively hurting and it's been ignored for bias' sake.

i'm not saying they're bad people for it, or responsible for his actions. some of them are bad people independently (/hj). but they still affected him.

“if respect is the only thing protecting you from a knife in the back, then respect is nothing, right?” yeah? i don't see the point in this either. interesting to point out that dream learned this the hard way with you know, no one having respect for him as a person and only being able to fight for what he cares about via 'an axe and a shield'.

and no, dream didn't have an arising god complex. he was becoming more desperate for control because of his circumstances over the course of s2, but the god complex only happened in the prison because he had all control of everything (who he gets to talk to, what and when he gets to eat) taken away for months before being shown a smidge of power again. that's just a natural reaction to very messed up circumstances that had no buildup other than that.

the no-remorse thing - he could be remorseful and we wouldn't know. that's not even speculation, that's just saying that pretending to know whether or not he regrets things is a weak argument because we have no evidence for or against; we don't see his pov. that he doesn't show it doesn't say anything, it's a vital part of his character that he doesn't show what he's thinking.

"friends support each other" yes, and none of c!dream's "friends" ever did. it's a contrast with how much support for example tommy, tubbo, or wilbur got. not saying they weren't all abandoned as well, but no one has been alone to the point c!dream was or completely emotionally isolated for so long. his experience in this way is unique, and hence it's formed him in a way it hasn't anyone else.

dream didn't hurt george. he did create a place in the vault for his fish (that would be mars, not beckerson though), and he did do bad things to other people. he had reasons to be upset at someone who he didn't expect to do bad things doing them. it doesn't justify the things he said. it's a lot of explanation vs. justification when it comes to this server, and this is an example of this.

it wasn't a reaction to him being directly hurt by him, which is what you had implied (if i remember correctly) in the last post, and it wasn't right of him to do. also i agree he wasn't betraying him with what he said in prison, he'd done that a long time ago anyways.

"puffy does not dismiss people’s trauma just because they are adults, or if she does i haven’t seen strong evidence of it." jack, nikki and in a way the eggpire. dream is not far behind, but not the main example.

"you point out that she’s a guardian figure but from what i remember that lasted for a couple streams and after that wasn’t really mentioned in canon. if she really saw him like that, then maybe she would have checked up on him earlier and maybe would have told him off."

i'm pretty sure it was canonized by cc!puffy saying c!puffy isn't his biological mom, but that she sees herself as his guardian figure. so yes, she really saw him like that, and yeah, she "would've" checked up on him earlier; or rather "should've", but she didn't, and that's precisely what i'm talking about. that's not how you treat someone you allegedly see as being a guardian of. not saying c!puffy's a bad person, but she's another one c!dream was attached to and who failed to ever reach out to him before deeming him deserving of what he's (was, because admittedly it's gotten worse since) going through.

"she said at one point that he didn’t deserve to see her but she still cared about him."

this is what i mean when i say she has a moral superiority problem. like she's doing something extra by being a decent person. i know this might come across as cynical, and i swear i don't hate the character, but that sentence is very hypocritical, you must admit.

"she did try."

nope! she said she was going to try. that's the problem. i'm not talking about intentions here in the slightest, i'm talking about the actual consequences and effect it had on him as a character and why it's just very sad in my opinion that none of the people he thought were close to him stood by his side or even attempted to help him.

the entire original post was very clearly stated as not blaming most of these characters for acting in the way they did. it was "critical" of a lot of them in a way, but i never said anything negative about them other than describing things they did that had a negative effect.

i stand by that, because i truly believe they did all those things, and them having good intentions or personal feelings doesn't change that. it contextualizes them, but doesn't take away from the harm.

saying "it's not her fault" about puffy for example or that "it was just a reaction" is excusing those things, which is what i disagree with.

here is a thread as to why people like puffy or sapnap saying certain things is understandable but still very messed up, please read since it details parts of what i've said here in an arguably better way.

you also phrased the whole "she didn't abandon him either" part like he was the one who cut the ties which is not true. she wasn't there for him, is the point. another person he cared about who didn't prove to care about him enough to stop him from spiralling or try help at all.

if "they don't owe him anything" is your base argument against someone being hurt via being left by people they care about over and over again until they're utterly alone with no support system and unhealthy mindsets, we might have to agree to disagree :) /nm

please clarify if that wasn't the intention, because it sounds like it.

"i think that how people feel about it depends a lot on when they started watching, and who they were watching. the thing you have to take into consideration is that at the start of l’manburg, a lot of the roleplay was not very serious. the sides were messier than they are today. that doesn’t work or make sense for people who want to see it as only one thing, and are fixed in their ways so much that they’ll ignore canon to prove their point."

i've been watching since august and yeah, i agree. i've always seen c!dream as in the right at that point, so it's definitely different for the people who haven't seen that happen.

"you seem to have a very fixed view of wilbur: that he only wanted power, that he enjoyed tearing people apart, that he lied all the time, and that he was attempting to paint dream as something he wasn’t."

to be fair, you seem to have a very fixated view of wilbur too. i do think he wanted power, but also just to revolt for the sake of it - i don't think he straight up enjoyed it but it was a means to his ends, i don't think he lied all the time but he lied much more than people realize, and i don't think he just attempted, i dare to say he was extremely successful.

"you also see him as conscious of what he was doing the entire time, and sort of treating the war like a game."

i'd say a story or narrative is a much more fitting metaphor. also yeah he's so much smarter than people give him credit for, but i guess covering it up was intentional as well, because manipulation ain't meant to be obvious at first sight now is it? like for example c!dream, that man was awful at it. he's just. so bad. unironically. he did cause a lot of harm, not diminishing that, but man. his manipulation is the clumsiest thing i've ever seen, people calling him a puppeteer is such an overstatement, it's really funny to me.

now c!wilbur? he was really good at it. that's what i mean by "you need more than intelligence", because emotions are stronger than critical thinking and can be exploited easier. all the sentimentality around l'manberg is a great example.

"wilbur didn’t go around trying to recruit people by saying “dream is bad”." yeah no he started by straight up lying to fundy when they first met (if you rewatch the hot dog van video, there's really no denying that), then he lied some more to tubbo while praising him every time he followed his orders, i don't completely remember eret's recruitment, and tommy looked up to him since the beginning, and it's very easy to see that c!wil took advantage of that.

he did tell people they needed to revolt against tyranny though, that's precisely what he did and how he got them to side with him in the war. by tyranny he meant everyone in the server who wasn't european, picking dream as the scapegoat since he had the most power (not by establishing it in any way, but simply by being skilled) and it was smart to do that, not gonna lie!

"weak businessman" is just not true. he was planning to "use the tommyinnits of the world" aka, the "young and naive" (his words, not mine) ones whom he could "mold", in order to establish a capitalist empire based on stealing from people while lying to them about saving them from being sick.

this man was planning to take power from the start and he was going to use lies to get what he needed. from the beginning i have no reason to believe why he would change his goals when he proceeded to do that very thing and achieve it, just put "revolution" instead of "business" as a guise of what he was actually doing.

"you quoted revivedbur’s stream as proof it was, which is funny because despite saying wilbur is someone who lies you missed a kind of big one." yeah, as someone who mentioned people ignoring canon earlier you missed kind of a big one.

the only reason people disbelieve this is not because it doesn't align with canon, but because they assume he's lying for the sole reason that it doesn't align with the way they see canon.

the reason i believe it is not because i believe a word c!wilbur says (i never have and never will), but because it aligns with what actual evidence has been saying from the start, as well as the way cc!wilbur talks about the character. it's simply further confirmation of what many people already knew; an extension even, if you will.

people tend to take things characters say at face value and then use it as their only evidence; "if you want to hear why l’manburg was created, you have to listen to wilbur when he created it."

what they actually ignore is you know, the actions, not the words. according to his actions and all known laws of logic, he was lying since the beginning, and that is the point. and it makes sense for him to lie, unlike in alivebur's case.

"i say he cared about l’manburg because it drove him to death."

yeah he did care! cc!wilbur said so! he also said he cared about it in a twisted way and that he had an unhealthy view of possessions. he thought l'manberg his and no one else's, a weapon of power for him to use however he pleases.

unlike dream who destroyed himself bit by bit trying to take back what he cares about, because it was not power, but people - wilbur saw no more worth in it and destroyed it instead. his own death and spiral was a collateral, because that isn't a healthy mindset either.

interesting foils, actually, i didn't notice that before.

"the whole time wilbur was attempting to portray a character who was a chronic liar and manipulator, and it was all planned out from the start. purely because of the chaos of season one i don’t think this is possible."

i reckon you're underestimating cc!wilbur here. that man could play a convincing, complex, morally messed up character while roleplaying with kindergarteners.

"and, you know, if he’s saying “dream is not our enemy” that hardly sounds like forcing a narrative onto him?" i mean i don't think i need to give evidence as to wilbur calling him a tyrant right after. i was just talking about how hypocritical and downright ridiculous his later accusations are, which you didn't address.

"because what he’s saying is that dream’s actions are tyrannical, his rule is tyrannical, not him." no actually, he said right after; 'big words, that's what we use in war', about calling him that, so i don't reckon that is the case. he was calling him that for the sake of it, and later on everyone ended up believing him about that despite there being no evidence. i must admit, the man's very good at what he does. he constantly changes the narrative to whatever benefits him and somehow gets away unnoticed. that was my point.

dream didn't tell sapnap it was a bad idea because it wasn't...? wilbur was going around stealing from people while lying to them. wil was framing himself to be the victim. like the whole "drugs" bit was funny but wilbur was only making drugs to estabilish, once again, a capitalistic empire he would be in charge of, on dream's land, and he was also doing it via dishonest means.

the intentions never changed, it was simply the way it was achieved that did, which switched from just lying to straight up propaganda when people managed to stop him at first.

so yes, wilbur's definition of tyranny very much was being stopped from stealing.

so yeah, even if dream would've done the same to them, he a hundred percent would be in the right, but he didn't even do that much, which makes wil's accusations all the more ridiculous.

just because sapnap was fighting against being stolen from - and others being stolen from - doesn't make him tyrannical or a government. your teacher in school isn't a government just because she has authority of some kind?

"wilbur’s problem was that sapnap could do that and get away with it." well then that's his problem, because people should be able to get away with protecting themselves and others from people trying to rob everyone on the server of a specific item and then gain power from selling rare supplies.

also it was sapnap and tubbo, they both did the same thing, and wilbur didn't seem to have that much of a problem with tubbo, now did he? he accepted him right after he gave them supplies, then rejected sapnap when he did the same. the people he was accusing of being tyrannical were very selective, and he seemed to be also selectively choosing whoever he was "protecting" from said "tyranny". though i guess "using the tommyinnits of the server" also included using tubbo, now didn't it?

"i highly, highly doubt that was what it was written as at the time."

yeah, dream did quote the lion king, but that doesn't change the way that it was anarchy. dream's "no factions" thing he had going on also included no government by default, showcased by him having problems with people starting countries. if it wasn't anarchy, what was it then? because that's literally the only thing that fits. there was no government and even dream described it as a "family" rather than any form of hierarchy, so i don't get your point. some people are going to have better things than others, and they'll be able to protect themselves and others better, but there is no system in place, that's literally how anarchy works. their mock court with no actual laws enforced by no one doesn't count i don't think.

the fact they thought they had a reason to attack her doesn't change the fact that they attacked first, so dream had all the reasons to believe they were aggressive and was fully justified in declaring war. this makes the statement "dream attacked first" untrue as well.

wilbur knew what he was doing, he knew he was going to scam people for power. if he thought he was being mistreated he could just stop trying to mistreat others.

i do agree it became a lot of other things for other people. i think that's one of the reasons wilbur destroyed it though; it was supposed to be his l'manberg.

if the power was supposed to "let him do what he wanted" then that's quite ironic considering what he wanted was power (you know, the reason he started the drug empire in the first place), not because he wanted to "make drugs undisturbed". that is quite literally an obvious lie he used when they first started and somehow people have totally forgotten that was not the truth.

"he didn't want power over others" cc!wilbur said he wanted to have power over l'manberg because he thought it was something worth having power over. if you consider l'manberg the people, then your statement would be untrue. then again, maybe he simply wanted to have something be fully his because of his possessive nature.

"he would lie about his past actions out of a place of self hatred." is just. reaching, with all due respect. this man might be mentally unstable, but that makes literally no sense when the day before he was saying how he had "plans to make". he thinks ahead, always.

"what if one person wants the “freedom” to attack another? it’s still technically allowed, but obviously it’s morally wrong." yeah that's what i mean by not infringing on the rights of others. in that case they shouldn't have that freedom, just like wilbur shouldn't have the freedom to restrict others' freedom.

also i see the whole "words" schtick as manipulation because it was. they said they "fought with words", like that doesn't sound like a peaceful solution, more like a different approach, and it was because that is what they did.

other people believed in the ideals of l'manberg and they protected it for good reasons, but that doesn't change the fact it was build on lies by a liar and it did exactly what it was meant to do - it divided people.

i actually talk about it in this post here!

"wilbur was saying that he wanted to create something important." nope, the quote continues something like "make them think it's important because you want to have power over it, when it's not." here's the link to the whole clip.

"wilbur showed in the first war that that wasn’t his main motive" i've already said why i find this misinformation. he said it, he didn't show it, and that is because it isn't true.

the "something worth" part is just. taking things out of context to the point they're something completely different. yes, it was worth something to wilbur, and that worth was power. that's literally what that means.

the greater smp did represent anarchy and peace. that were the ideals c!dream was fighting for, and still was later on, that much was obvious if you look deeper into his character, so i'm not going to argue, other than that based on the information i have, it's incorrect.

"someone who wanted peace at the start and someone who tried to protect the thing and people he loved." see you tell me you didn't fall for propaganda and then say this. the thing he loved was his own personal power, and that was the end of it. if he wanted peace he wouldn't be starting factions and accusing people of being tyrannical while he himself was trying to estabilish an empire. i'm not saying he's an awful person, they're all morally grey, but that's just what all the actual evidence points to.

"your view shows him as lying about practically everything to everyone all the time, never caring about the citizens, and striving for conflict."

again, i don't believe he liked conflict for its own sake, but he did create division for his own benefit the way i see it.

yeah wilbur said it genuinely to tubbo when he first brought him armor; when the rule was first established. here's the post where i found it.

wilbur was never a dictator because people didn't listen to him, which is why he did the whole election thing, with his other plan than a democratic election with no democracy being this:

Wilbur: “We can either, Tommy, right – we can either become a dictatorship, okay…we can just suddenly decide, ‘right, we’re in charge,’ and we just start – we start asserting our dominance. Now the key thing to being a dictator, is we need to control the center of power…so we get an army going –”

Tommy: “What is the center of power? Is it like some cube, or like an orb?”

Wilbur: “The army! The army! The banks, you know? We take control of those, and then people will do exactly as we say, right? That’s the dictatorship route, right. The other route is the democracy route. Now, this route’s gonna be slightly harder, but I have a plan. So I was thinking…what better way of making people believe that you’re in charge than by having them vote for you, right?”

so uh, i wouldn't be so quick to say he didn't plan on being oppressive to his people. he was literally planning to start an army and take total control of the economy to "assert dominance" over his own people -because he didn't think they respected his authority enough and was irritated by it - but instead defaulted to lies and manipulation of the crowd. you see a pattern already?

"the feelings of l’manburg were more like friends than a hierarchy even though he was technically in charge." this is the thing with dream though, except there was. actually no hierarchy. the original dream smp was this but actually true instead of just being a front. no one actually needed l'manberg, wilbur made them think they did. tubbo and sapnap used to be friends before this. the friendships inside of it could've existed without, and would've probably been better off without being stained by war.

wilbur didn't fear for anyone's safety, and i don't get where you would get that conclusion. the dream smp was already safe, people like dream and sapnap were making it safe.

"people that were already in l’manburg had been affected firsthand by dream. they knew what he was capable of and so were fighting for l’manburg and each other, not because wilbur told them to." i don't find this true at all, please elaborate because i have reasons to believe this is incorrect.

the quote you’ve listed is very interesting to me, because it first of all shows dream’s “ends justify the means” mentality (that is also shown in an explanation of his motives during moments like this, which happened after the war), as well as trying to end the war as soon as he could.

the dream smp was freedom. the freedom wilbur was asking for was the freedom to take the land, take the people dream considered his friends, divide them and create a government.

wilbur was verbally aggressive with dream since the beginning, back when he was cocky. this only shows that dream was one of the few people who didn’t fall for his words. his main point in his motivation during the war was not wanting to give them independence, which would be, well, giving wilbur power over the land *and* the people. so i think from his position this is extremely understandable.

but back to the topic at hand, wilbur’s speech here means literally nothing, because it’s as untrue as everything he’s said before - in both intention and meaning - as well as being a last attempt at turning the situation in his favor using words. he said he was a peaceful businessman back when he was robbing people, and not like that meant anything when his actions said otherwise. both sides had their losses and were ready to harm the other, neither was the victim, no matter how good wil is at playing one.

dream was giving them chances over and over again. you can literally see he wasn’t hurting them because he wanted to, even despite it being war he was willing to step away at any moment should the other side surrender. and, well, of course dream’s perspective wouldn’t mean anything to wilbur, because he had his own, and he knew no one was going to believe dream anyways; he made sure of it.

i’m not saying he wanted violence, but that doesn’t mean he was good or pacifistic. he was *ready* to be violent if needed (see the armor quote again as well as the fact they literally fought), but i too would be happy if i was able to to colonize someone’s land without any resistance or conflict if you know what i mean. guess wilbur realized rather quickly words wouldn’t work on dream, which is why he got verbally violent and didn’t seem opposed to fighting him later on (during the actual war).

reminds me of exile, in a way. can’t get them to listen to you and give you what you want? get them out of the way in a different manner.

either way, point is; i’m sure wilbur didn’t want to fight, i don’t think him a fan of violence *at all* but he was the instigator and was ready to perpetuate war to get what he wanted. (see him also being willing to make an army to control his citizens, but using underhanded tactics instead to make people think they were voting for him.)

the whole “dream attacked the child soldiers and was always the one to start it” is quickly negated by the way dream constantly asked them to give up instead of fighting. it was literally wilbur who pushed them to go on and risk (and lose) their lives. dream’s said later on that he “had to” do what he did (he was being genuine here), which means he, in a way, felt responsible for stopping wilbur & l’manberg. he didn’t want to be violent, but unlike wilbur, he wasn’t going to be able to talk them out of it. it makes sense he would turn to threats and intimidation to try and get them to surrender first, i mean, what other choice was there?

l’manberg weren’t the ones forced to fight, is what i’m getting at.

dream wasn’t any more violent than wilbur, it’s just wil was better at non-violent, but still morally reprehensible, ways of getting his way, and he used them to his full advantage. neither of them wanted violence for the sake of it, and i never said that; i just said wilbur’s “pacifist” schtick was a total ruse, and never meant anything about his actual “peacefulness”, which i still find true.

as for the whole “manipulated or didn’t manipulate” thing with the vassal scene, the first link i sent here i think describes my stance quite well. but it’s very interesting to note that there’s a theory wilbur legitimately thinks dream selfish, which is why he said that - either way, the effect remains, dream was essentially shut down after trying to gain back people’s trust and help out who he considered the “good side”.

dream was very obviously making efforts, giving tommy and techno as well as the pogtopia cause as a whole a whole lot of supplies, including his crossbow which he had a personal attachment to. he expressed outwardly that he was on their side, to the point where he refused to call l’manberg “manberg” and then was caught off-guard when wilbur called it that during the vassal conversation.

dream was attached to tommy, as shown by fighting for him during the eiffel tower conflict, and also helping him overall. their relationship was always very interesting, but after the l’manberg war, their friendship never really changed - tommy scammed the discs back, that had at that point legally belonged to dream, but he didn’t seem to hold even that against him as he tried to help get back l’manberg with him. they were the sort of friends who would tease each other to hell an back and fight on the battlefield each other but still have friendly vibes… you know what i mean?

i think this is why exile hurt so much, to me. that i believe they had genuinely been friends once, before it went downhill at a hella steep inclide. but enough me rambling about what had once been my comfort duo and is now utterly unsalvageable.

either way, he was attached to the people involved, because a lot of the character strongly indicates he has a sense of responsibility (not control) over the people on his smp. it’s the reason he’d always get involved in conflicts other people started, like pogtopia.

his fatal flaw has always been caring too much after all - and not being cared about back, because sometimes, that’s just how life works. that’s what destroyed him. that’s literally the character, so saying he “could’ve just walked away” is dismissing pretty much his entire personality, but hey, i don’t blame you, just pointing it out.

the thing is wilbur did force him to make a terribly hard decision. dream could either give him the tnt, ally with the self-proclaimed bad guys, or let wilbur get back his power and go mad with ambition - not saying it would happen, but it’s what wilbur threatened to do. keep in mind dream’s main concerns about this whole conflict was schlatt going to war with the dream smp, as expressed by himself, and so wilbur saying he would genuinely do the same if he became president again was literally backing dream up into a corner.

“if dream thought wilbur was being a villain”

Wilbur: How much would you say that me and Tommy are kind of the bad guys here? We… We… I mean, we-

Dream: I don’t think you guys are the bad guys.

i… don’t know where you got that from, maybe you misunderstood something i said, but no, he definitely didn’t. until wilbur convinced him, that is.

“i’m also going to say that “villainization” and “calling out someone for hurting you” are not the same thing.”

yeah, they are. and dream was villainized.

so uh, first of all, wilbur literally said he was going to “use the tommyinnits of the world” in order to establish his capitalistic empire, then he called tommy “young”, “naïve”, and said that he likes him because he can build a foundation upon him, after which tommy questioned him and he said not to worry about it.

wilbur proceeded to lie to everyone including tommy about dream, the country he was establishing, to the point where tommy is seen confused in both the vassal scene and the revivedbur scene - asking why he would ally himself with dream both times, because he genuinely thought he was a bad person, a “dictator” they were fighting against.

wilbur didn’t reply either time, because he knew very well what he had done and he intended for tommy to think that.

during the entirely establishment he was exploiting the clingyduo not knowing anything about politics in order to enforce unhealthy patriotism onto them. he forced tommy to give up his hill-house and turn it into an embassy, guilt-tripping him by saying he doesn’t care about the cause (which was a lie) and that he can just leave if he doesn’t intend on being loyal.

and then there’s this scene:

Tommy: “Look at me in the eyes when I’m talking to you – There’s been some proper tyranny.”

[Wilbur pushes Tommy off the wall]

Wilbur: “Don’t tell me what to do, alright? You’re getting out of your comfort zone. Who’s the President? Tommy, who’s the President?”

Tommy: “How dare you, how dare you, you must respect manners, Wilbur! There are manners! There is a common etiquette that everyone must follow, my friend!”

Wilbur: “Tommy, who’s the President?”

Tommy: “…You’re the President.”

Wilbur: “Good lad, now come back.”

Tommy: “I – you’re gonna have to drop down a ladder, I’m not sure how we’re gonna –”

Wilbur: “Walk ‘round, walk ‘round, Mr. Vice President.”

and this is just before pogtopia. after this, wilbur proceeded to continue this kind of behaviour on tommy, with the whole “you’re never gonna be president” schtick - here we can see it actually didn’t start in pogtopia. wilbur had been pushing tommy down before in order to estabilish his own power and demand respect.

basically, tommy has been used by every adult figure he’s ever trusted and looked up to. which is part of why wilbur’s behaviour being ignored irks me so much, besides other things.

“when he was faced with a problem, he went for someone’s attachments as an attempt to get things back, and at this point hadn’t been called a villain. i see this as another precursor to the vault, again, the signs were there. the initial conflict of the disk war ended in general peace, it was the fact that dream never gave up those disks and continued to try and use them against tommy that hurt him.”

i disagree with this analysis of dream. he went for the discs because they were physically valuable at the time - tommy had only two, and he grinded hours for them, much like dream for his tools and armor. tommy formed an attachment to them as a result of the disc war, not the other way around.

he continued to use them for their attachment to get back l’manberg and then forcibly getting them back when the chance was provided.

dream didn’t use them once against c!tommy before he himself multiple times showcased how much he cared about them despite there being other discs at that point. dream only used them as placebo tokens to skeppy in order to get back something he was actually attached to, if i remember correctly.

dream fell deeper into using attachment because it became the only way to control his surroundings. no one had ever actually listened to him, and groups of people that had formed were too powerful for him to simply take on without reprocussions.

not only that, he became to lose control of everything - his friend’s house got burnt down and he wanted the person who did it to be held accountable? the leather of his dead horse got used to blackmail him! he was taught this from experience, not because he was “high on the power” or whatever your are implying was the reason.

“when he had then seen that dream would willingly hurt him, he began to call dream that and mean it.” he was taught dream to call dream a tyrant by wilbur, that’s literally what happened in canon. he did genuinely think he was a villain before the war, because that’s what wilbur told him and he trusted wilbur.

i am not taking everything wilbur says as truth. that man lies his mouth off every time he appears on screen. it’s just a character acknowledging what people who looked deeper into the narrative already knew. i’m not going to assume someone is lying when i logically know what he’s saying matches up with what i know to be true.

either way, here’s some more analyses on the subject you might wanna read to understand my points better and be able to more thoroughly rebut them: (1, 2, 3)

“with the sam thing, i am fairly certain that intentional withholding of food would be considered direct torture, and if that has not been retconned i would be surprised, but i don’t know.”

i… am genuinely sort of baffled at why you would think that? the prison arc is literally made to be about c!sam’s corruption, the mistreatment of dream (including mental and physical abuse) and c!quackity’s manipulation of the situation of his own gain. there is no reason to retcon the torture they put in on purpose? the prison arc is supposed to parallel exile and humanize dream. the people who have been analysing it all agree on that.

here’s a shorter (and outdated) list of the ways in which pandora’s is inhumane and here’s a longer one including things implied and more in-depth about c!sam and c!dream.

“the conditions are harsh and it’s interesting to remember that dream was the one who commissioned them in the first place (not meaning he deserves them, just food for thought)”

no, take your food back, i have heard this as a genuine excuse too many times by now. c!dream didn’t tell c!sam to physically and mentally abuse him. in fact he said that people would only be put in the main cell for 14 days max (the maximum amount of days before it becomes classified as torture by the united nations - man’s did his research), and they would have free reign of the prison. there have even been changes to the way the cell works since he’s been put in. he wasn’t going to subject anyone to the sort of thing he’s going through.

the only reason it’s happening to him is because people hate him and want him to suffer. the people of the server put him there because they thought they could use him later on, it’s a literal vault for a human being to be stored for later use, and it’s disgusting. people didn’t want him in the prison. they didn’t put him there to protect themselves. they were fully willing to kill him, and the only reason he is still alive is that they thought of him as an item and wanted to use his capabilities. (dream also buying into it, as he does with everything this godforsaken narrative enforces upon him, “i am the book”.)

i know it’s roleplay, but i’m emotionally invested in this arc, and it’s just so incredibly dark on purpose which people seem to ignore, so sorry for ranting.

“you say that you never said sam molded him into what he became, but you accuse the people of affecting dream and therefore forcing him into the role of the villain. i feel as if that is a type of molding?”

i’m saying no one molded dream on purpose, but what they all did (or should’ve done but didn’t) affected him in a very negative way nonetheless and should be acknowledged.

also, calling dream a monster or standing by while he gets ruthlessly murdered after following all orders and putting away all his armor and weapons isn’t very helpful of them.

“you saw it as skeppy “twisting his words”. this seems to be an example of someone calling dream on his crap, yeah? just because he’s twisting to defend himself doesn’t mean the other person is trying to make him be something he doesn’t want to be, it means that he’s uncomfortable or unable to deal with confrontation of his own acts and will attempt to justify them.”

no. i made an entire analysis of their interaction. that’s literally what he did, there is no softening that punch.

Dream: Anyway, um - you’re really making me out to be a bad guy! Like-

Dream: Look, we HAD to fight that war, okay? We had to fight that war, it was a necessary evil.

Skeppy: [Wheezes] No, it w- You’re telling me, you started the war too?

Dream: Yes! Because - listen-

Skeppy: You started it? It wasn’t even them, you started it-

Dream: Listen, they - they made a Declaration of Independence-

Skeppy: You one day woke up and said, “they don’t deserve that tiny piece of land”?

Dream: Well no, cause they made, they made a-

Skeppy: That’s literally what happened, one day you woke up and you said-

he continuously cuts him off while dream nervously expresses his discomfort over skeppy making him out to be the villain, and his refusal to listen. here’s my analysis of the interaction if you’d like to read it.

“i think it’s unfair to say that nobody tried to help him. people still treated him with respect and kindness for a long time and with those bonds it was ultimately him that cut them.”

no. name one bond that he cut first. george and sapnap? they left him first. sam, puffy, punz? he wasn’t as close with them, but he didn’t cut any of them off before they showed up during the disc finale ready to kill him. if that doesn’t count as them cutting attachments or abandoning him then i… don’t really know what you would call it?

“it feels a little victim-blamey to say that if only they had treated the guy hurting them better, maybe he wouldn’t have hurt them as much.” “you do say that dream is responsible for his actions, but you place the reason he did his actions on other people, effectively blaming them for how he turned out. this rubs me the wrong way because a lot of the people you accuse of doing this were people directly being harmed by him, and so it ends up sounding like they’re at fault for their own pain.”

well, it’s true, though? he was hurt and abandoned to the point when he didn’t care about hurting others anymore. that’s it. that’s his character arc. it’s not “victim-blamey”, it’s a fact. just because he ended up hurting people doesn’t negate the fact he was hurt himself first. the environment they all were a part of pushed him this far, and that’s just what happened.

the dream smp is a literal cycle of violence perpetuated by each and every one of them, and it’s awful for all of them. the problem is that they refuse to see things from others’ perspective and end up hurting each other as a result, which dream is a prime example of. that’s just the plot of the story, not victim-blaming anyone.

see the second to last line of my original post. “the entire dream smp is absolutely screwed, and every single one of them needs therapy.”

here’s another thread about that, actually!

i’m blaming the environment which includes the actions (which were often - not always - unintentional mistakes) of the individuals, i’m not saying they “brought this upon themselves” or anything of that sort. everyone makes mistakes and those mistakes might affect other people and how they act, but that’s not saying i’m blaming anyone for being hurt?

“sapnap still considered him a good guy up until the moment that he saw the space for beckerson in the vault.”

see you keep bringing this up but that doesn’t make sense at all. sapnap came into the vault before he saw that. he made the conscious decision to ally himself with tommy during doomsday before he saw that. he accused dream of not caring about him and george, and left to make his own country before he saw that. you get the point?

the vault was the direct consequence of the hurt he’d endured, so i don’t see why you would ever list it as a reason for people abandoning him? the prison is just them continuing it, although at this point they might have actual reasons, it doesn’t negate the fact that they ignore his bad conditions and even perpetuate them.

“dream was not alone until he chose to be alone. it was tragic that he chose that, but it was ultimately his choice and this is evidenced by the vault.”

people do not decide to isolate themselves for no reason. people started cutting him off first, they turned against him first, they made him the villain first, they used what he loved against him first, they told him he couldn’t ever achieve peace first. he only cut himself off only after all of that happened, and i would’ve done the same! you would’ve done the same. it was a defence mechanism that only sent him deeper down his mental spiral, but it was a reaction, not a decision he made. the vault is a physical embodiment of how deep down he went and how bad his state of mind had gotten overtime through neglect.

also, you might wanna give the vault vod a rewatch as well, and then tell me the person saying those things is mentally healthy and definitely doesn’t need help.

oh! also, a thread on attachment about dream. worth a read.

just because a response is an overreaction or wrong doesn’t make it any less of a response. nearly all of the things dream did was a reaction of some sort.

he lists his reason for starting the war as them declaring independence, so i don’t think it really matters when the official document was sent.

“he also initiated the final disk conflict, with the clear intention of murdering tubbo and putting tommy in the prison as a sort of thing for his amusement. he said multiple times that he found the struggle with tommy “fun”, and said their fight wasn’t over because he personally found it engaging to torment another person, and that was how he got power.”

oh yeah, that definitely seems like something the guy who’s only ever listed his reasons as being peace and has been mentally declining ever since would be completely honest about in front of his biggest enemy. /s

the thing is, the way dream behaves in front of tommy is starkly different than everyone else. c!dream sees him as the “hero” and himself as the “villain”, which is why the pushing of the narrative on his part is so strong when they interact.

besides, so many things he says simply don’t match up at all.

basically, he is very obviously playing a part when he says things like this. nothing he says like that matches up with anything else about his character, and that’s the only explanation. besides, this man’s evil monologues are straight out of a “how to be a scary villain” book.

no discredit to cc!dream of course, but it’s like that intentionally. cc!dream has said after this that c!dream is “reserved” not only about his feelings but also about his “plans” and “intentions”. that quite doesn’t match up with what he yells at the top of his lungs during that scene, now does it? his mask’s very convincing, to be fair, so i don’t blame you. he’s gotten good at playing his part over the years, which makes sense seeing as it was always expected of him, and other people would talk for him if he didn’t do it himself.

“there are a lot of conflicts that dream has started.”

...alright? list any other ones besides the last one?

“buying his line of “only caring about unity” and “trying to prevent chaos” … he uses this many times as an excuse for his actions, and the fact that he was still excusing and justifying his actions makes me think that he still genuinely believed he was right.”

well yes, because he does believe that. he uses the excuse because it’s true. the justification isn’t right of course, but he is not lying when he says those are his motivations, which is backed up by his prior explanations as well as actions. i am not buying anything, it’s what’s become evident from analysing him that that is what he wants to achieve. it doesn’t excuse anything, but saying that’s truly his end goal isn’t incorrect.

becoming a control freak as a result of feeling the loss of control over your own circumstances isn’t equal to dehumanizing the people you’re trying to control.

he didn’t ever take george’s personal freedom. he didn’t start using attachments because he thought it was convenient. i have literally no idea where you’re getting these claims from.

“dream’s actions during exile and the vault do not look like those of a man who is trying to get better but thinks he “has” to be something. honestly, it looks like a guy on a power trip who thinks he’s god and is going to try and prove it.”

both of those are wild misinterpretation of the character. which is understandable seeing as you’ve said already you never tried to look deeper into him, but it’s incorrect nonetheless.

he was trying to get better up until the 16th, which is when the bad things that happened to him stopped going up and instead went downhill, like, really fast. alright, that metaphor probably makes no sense, but you get the point. he had stopped trying at the point of exile, is the point. but he also does think he has to be something in order to “fix” his home.

he wasn’t on a power trip at all, he didn’t have a god complex up until the prison stripped him of all his dignity and then threw an opportunity at him, and he wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone. that’s an easily debunkable assumption, but, well, guess it’s easy to make.

“there is a clip in which dream says he doesn’t really care how others see him and he doesn’t care if they think he’s bad.” yeah, i know he said that a couple of times. that’s him going numb after he was affected by how others saw him for way too long, which is completely natural. again, a psychological defence mechanism. him saying that he doesn’t mind others calling him a villain or a monster and even seems to agree that his methods are villainous but has just stopped caring makes the situation all the more messed up. makes the character all the more tragic.

“it requires dream to be lying about how he feels all the time. not technically impossible, because he does not talk about emotions.” he is emotionally repressed. it’s not just “not technically impossible”, it’s likely and fits perfectly into his character arc in canon.

“and if a writer is telling their story in a way that only makes sense if you disregard everything they say, i feel like it’s not very good storytelling, unless that is the entire point and the character is based on that.”

see, you get the point here. cc!wilbur is literally the man with an arg around him that has still not been solved. why would he hand us everything on a silver platter? why would he not force us to dig deeper and look beneath what is widely accepted? he literally talks about unreliable narrators constantly poking fun at how the audience seems to take things the characters say at face value, and i’d say early c!wilbur is a prime example of that. it is good storytelling because cc!wilbur pulls it off brilliantly.

it’s also called “the metanarrative”, which is a giant focus of the dream smp if you look closer, especially during the time cc!wilbur has been writing it, especially the establishment of l’manberg where he constantly talks hypocritically on purpose (he said something along the lines of “dream, you can’t just come onto someone’s land and take it for yourself, are you an idiot?” during the early days along with other things e. g. blatant trump references “we’ll build a wall and make the mexicans pay for it”, which i find hilarious) and you know what, good for him. people not being able to tell things go deeper than their feelings is, you know, valid, but also fun to watch, and cc!wilbur’s a controlled chaotic crimeboy.

“people stood by dream. people helped him.” none of them did that for long. “dream still had a system up until the moment he isolated himself” his main support system left by themselves.

i think you’re sort of purposefully discarding a lot of things and misinterpreting the character. it also seems you’re strongly biased against c!dream, which, to be fair, the majority of the fandom is.

look, i don’t want to attack your feelings about characters. you think what you want. but i’m basing my assumptions on evidence and also try to bring up evidence when i think people are misunderstanding because i believe it’s important to know the full truth. however, i understand the desire to not change your opinions if you feel attached to your current perspective - it's a piece of entertainment, you enjoy it the way you want to. you asked about it first though, so i’m giving you my opinion. we can stop at any time if you feel like we’re not getting anywhere, i’m completely fine with that.

i don’t want to seem aggressive, but i feel like at some points we’re just going in circles. would you consider talking over discord chat (better at writing longer messages than tumblr messages) so we can tackle each problem individually in real-time? no worries if you don’t, just thought it could work rather well to get somewhere in our discussion.

also, sorry for the surely numerous typos in this reply. i didn't have the mental energy to go back and proofread.

either way, have a nice day.

[goneseriesanalysis]

Misogyny In Gone

 Spoilers for the Gone series down below - please don’t read if you haven’t read all the books

Also minor spoilers for the monster trilogy

TW: Mention of non-consensual s*xual activity

In one of my first ever posts about Gone, I mentioned that when I first read the series I found myself strangely intrigued by characters such as Caine and Drake, whilst disliking or simply being disinterested in female characters, such as Astrid or Lana. Now, in that post I chalked that up to being a result f the internalised misogyny that a lot of girls experience through the teenage years, but looking back I really don’t think I was giving younger me enough credit. I was reading plenty of other books at the time where I had absolutely no problem relating to the female characters. So that got me thinking as to why my experience was so different with Gone. I asked a question the other day about why @gone-series-orchid​ thought so many younger fans fixate on Drake in particular. And when I was answering the question myself, I found myself realising that it wasn’t so much a connection with that character, but more a disconnect from any female characters - the characters who I would usually relate to.

It made me realise that the issue was not with younger me, but with the writing itself. I began thinking back to various plot points, and it made me realise that women are heavily villainised throughout the series, without them being actual villains. This creates a set-up where you have numerous female character who are subtextually punished in a way that is usually associated with wrongdoers, without actually giving them the autonomy to make the decision to be bad. And so of course 11-14 year old me didn’t like them. And I instead developed an obsession with a sociopathic misogynist, which is really harmful for obvious reasons. Now, I really don’t think mg did this on purpose, but it’s there all the same and so I’m gonna talk about a few things that are irking me as I’m looking back.

Quick disclaimer that I have only re-read Gone so far so I don’t have quotes for evidence as I usually do, and I may even be misremembering some plot points. But I wanted to get my thoughts down while they are still fresh so here goes.

My first thought is that a lot of the villains we see, even the smaller ones, are male. We have Orc for a short amount of time in the first book. We have Caine, Drake and Zil. And even most of the background antagonists are male (Howard, Panda, Mallet, Hank, Turk, Lance, Bug). While you can argue that a lot of these characters are rather one-dimensional and cartoonish, they all have two things in common. Agency and autonomy. They are all able to make their own decisions (with the possible exception of Caine in Hunger). They all have their own clear and distinctive reasons for doing the things that they do and they are all relatively sane - I suppose you could argue against Drake being sane but realistically he is fully capable of making rational decisions when he needs to which would indicate that he is to at least some extent.

And this is something that any female villains just...never have?? And I literally mean all of them. I’m going to go through them one by one.

(Reminder that I’m talking about these characters specifically in their role as an antagonist - some of them do possess agency and autonomy outside of these roles but that is another topic of discussion)

So first we have Diana. Not really a villain, but certainly an antagonist in the first book. So let’s look - Agency?? No. Her role as an antagonist is dependant solely on Caine’s actions, rather than any desires of her own - even the few scenes where she manipulates Jack. She’s doing it to protect herself from Drake...another male villain. Not because of any villainous intentions that she herself has. Autonomy?? No. She is thrown around (literally) by Caine and is forced to go along with HIS schemes, despite actively voicing her unwillingness. She is even forcefully kissed by him - she has no right to self-government and no moral independence for as long as she remains an antagonist.  

Lisa - If I remember correctly, Lisa is the name of the sole (I believe) female member of the human crew. So let’s get straight into it because I barely remember her. Agency?? I don’t think so. Now, I could be wrong here but I’m pretty sure we don’t even get an explanation as to WHY she joined the human crew in the first place. If that is the case then that’s a big fat nope for agency. Autonomy?? Again, not that I can remember. I believe she is mainly treated as a romantic prospect for Zil (even though I’m pretty sure he calls her ugly at some point). I don’t think we are ever introduced to her morals and beliefs in any capacity that is separate from Zil. Sorry Lisa.

Brittany - This is quite possibly the WORST example. Brittany is the girl who was killed in Hunger and then brought back as the Jekyll to Drake’s Hyde. Agency?? No. Brittany’s role as an antagonist happens only after she has become insane. She is separated completely from her original characterisation and instead becomes a puppet for the gaiaphage’s desires. Autonomy?? NO. She is literally attached to Drake, and as the series continues she becomes less and less able to govern her own body until in the monster trilogy she is introduced to us as nothing more than a face in Drake’s chest. That he treats as a pet. I mean what the f*ck. She is also completely separated from her moral compass when she turns insane, even having that and the image of her dead brother used against her. I’m actually fuming just thinking about it. Like yeah, I wonder why little 11 year old me didn’t really like the women in this series.

Nerezza - As I remember Nerezza was some form that the gaiaphage took in Lies in order to manipulate Orsay. Agency?? Somewhat. She had a clear goal that she was working towards but points get taken away because she is not a real person. Interesting how the gaiaphage used a female body instead of a male one. However, if I have misremembered and the gaiaphage was possessing an actual kid then let me take that agency point right away. (I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a real person though). Autonomy?? No. Again, she isn’t actually real. ‘She’ is the temporary human form of a glowing pile of rocks. She does not have the ability to self-govern or have any moral independence. Also minus points for the fact that she was used to take away the agency and autonomy of two other female characters through manipulation. (Orsay directly and Mary indirectly).

Penny - Penny is the moof who has the ability to make people see monsters. Agency?? Somewhat. Penny acts purely for herself when she cements Caine, an act of revenge at that. Her goals are clear and she is established as a villain in a way that is separate from the male villains (we learn that she puts bleach in her sisters cereal). However, it is stated that the reason she does not desert to Perdido Beach in Hunger and Lies is because of her crush on Caine. Ew. It is also never really addressed that she does have a reason for attacking Caine in Fear. It’s played down to her just being crazy. (Notice how Drake and Penny are very similar, but he is sadistic and she is crazy- even though she has more justification for attacking Caine than he does for attacking Diana and Astrid). Have another ew, as a treat. Autonomy?? No. I mean, she literally gets her legs broken by Caine in Lies when he drops her off of a cliff. She is unable to move and has to be bathed by Diana and Caine. I mean why did he need to be there mg. Have another ew, that’s a Hat Trick. She cannot self-govern and her moral independence is undermined by her insanity.

Gaia - Gaia is the child of Caine and Diana, who is possessed by the gaiaphage. Do I really need to continue?? Let’s do it anyway. For fun. Agency?? No. She is possessed. By a glowing pile of alien rocks. Completely wiping away any personality or beliefs she may have grown to have. Autonomy?? No. She is possessed. By a glowing pile of alien rocks. She is also killed because of this. She has no ability to self-govern and no moral independence.

Bonus round - Lana temporarily becomes an antagonist in Hunger while under the control of the gaiaphage. Agency?? No. Autonomy?? You guessed it, no. Because she is being controlled. By a glowing pile of alien rocks.

My second point is that the two main female characters experience their character growth at the hands of men. This is not unusual in media. But it’s annoying as hell. Let’s review:

Astrid – Her main role throughout the series is to be Sam’s love interest, despite her being a much more interesting and developed character. She also changes a large part of herself in order for their relationship to continue (I know that’s not why she undergoes the change, but from a storytelling perspective it needed to happen for them to remain together because of how mg wrote them) and Sam is just fine as he is, for some reason. The character development that she goes through in between Plague and Fear is not only directly linked with LP but is also, for some reason, a secret. We, as a reader, are not allowed to see it. She also experiences a lot of character growth due to her fear of Drake and what it takes for her to overcome that. Another man. Yay. I know there is a lot more nuance to it than this but you get my point.

Diana – Again, her main purpose is to be Caine’s love interest. And she is yet another victim of Drake’s sick obsession. I’m not really going to go into detail with this one because Diana’s whole character is a result of the attraction men have to her and the way that they treat her because of this. I talk more on this is my analysis of Diana is you are interested but if I go into it here then I’ll probably cry.

Some bonus characters in this category include:

Lana – Big fat glowing pile of rocks (it’s genderless, I know, but I’m counting it), Quinn, Sanjit

Penny – Caine

Taylor – Her character doesn’t really rely on a man but it does rely on other characters (and mg) treating her like a sl*t for daring to have an attraction to one

And point number three: Women having sex = bad??

Again, not uncommon in media. But boy does it get on my nerves. For some reason women having sex or exploring their sexuality in the gone series seems to immediately have negative connotations. Now, I’m not sure whether this was intentional or not, but I do know that the same subtext is not there for the male characters. I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not overly fond of any of the kids having sex. Because, you know, they’re kids, and as an 18yr old re-reading the series, it makes me pretty uncomfy. But for any 14 year old girls reading this series, the take-away is immediately that girls exploring their sexuality is bad and wrong and punishable and I hate that. Because it’s just not true. So let’s begin.

I’m going to start by talking about Taylor. Taylor doesn’t actually canonically have sex as far as I can remember, but as I mentioned before, she is treated as a sl*t pretty much from the get go. And why?? Because she is open about the fact that she finds Sam attractive. Which is NOT a bad thing. It’s good to be open about these things, as long as you aren’t making a move on anyone who is already in a relationship then there is nothing wrong with voicing an attraction. And she doesn’t make a move. He does. And when he pulls away?? She accepts it. She doesn’t shout or get upset. She accepts that he is drunk and that he didn’t mean it and she moves on, with the exception of a few jokes. And that is a good reaction to that situation. Yet she is constantly villainised both by characters in the text and subtextually and I hate it.

Penny – Again, Penny doesn’t actually have sex within the story, and I’m not going to talk about her crush on Caine because I already discussed my issue with that. But there is one bit that makes me go absolutely feral. We learn in Fear that she uses her powers to kiss Turk whilst making herself look like Diana (she also does this with Howards although it is never stated who she turns into with him), and this is not presented as an immoral thing to do?? Which it very much is. She is literally commodifying Diana’s body – without Diana’s consent, and mg didn’t think to mention that that is not an ok thing to do?? Like she is SELLING Diana’s body for I can’t even remember what. And this infuriates me so much more because of how Diana is treated for consensually having sex within the series. She can’t even escape from being sexualised when she isn’t around I just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I’m crying now over the horrific way in which Diana is treated ugh.

Brianna – Ok so Brianna is the final one on this list who doesn’t actually have sex within the series. My issue here is how Brianna is treated for her reaction to Dekka’s confession of love. Now, as I have said I haven’t re-read Plague or Fear yet so I’m not sure if Brianna is villainised for this within the text, or if I’ve just seen some fans do it. But. She is a CHILD. She is 12. And someone she looked up to as a sister just told her that she is in love with her. Of course she is going to be confused. She isn’t homophobic – she is a literal child who probably has no real notion yet of her own sexuality. Also, she is allowed to not be attracted to someone. And she is allowed to set boundaries – that is a very healthy things to do. Most women have been in a situation where a man we have considered to be a friend has told us that he has romantic feelings towards us. We’ve all experienced that sinking feeling. This is the exact same situation. And I hate the idea of anyone reading this series to think that they have to reciprocate feelings just because someone is nice to them. Also just to be clear, this is not a criticism of Dekka. Dekka was also a child, who was dying – and she had every right to tell the person that she loved just that. My issue is with the way that I’ve seen Brianna be villainised for her reaction. I love them both and they both deserve the world.

Astrid – Ok so Astrid is the first character on this list who has sex within the series. And I really wished she hadn’t. Or rather, if it had to happen, I wish it had happened under different circumstances. Again. My ideal situation when reading a book about fifteen year olds is that none of them have sex, but that doesn’t happen with Gone so I’m going to work with what I have. A lot of tension in Sam and Astrid’s relationship comes from the fact that Astrid refuses to have sex with Sam, which is a perfectly normal and healthy boundary for a 15 year old to set. But Sam, because he is a whiny little boy with the emotional capacity of a crusty tissue is not ok with this as so seems to develop a victim complex. Now this in itself is not outside the realms of possibility, and it could have even been a good way to add some intrigue to Sam’s character – if mg had explicitly stated that Sam’s reaction was not ok. But he doesn’t. And so Astrid suddenly becomes a prude. The Ice Queen. Now Astrid’s reasoning for not wanting to have sex is because (if I remember correctly) it doesn’t tie in with her faith. She seems to associate her morality with her ‘purity’. This, again, is flawed thinking. Having sex doesn’t make you a bad person just as abstaining from sex doesn’t make you a good person. But mg doesn’t mention that this thinking is flawed, just that her not having sex with Sam is. Which only reinforces the idea that women having sex = bad, unless it is for the benefit of a man. Again, I’m not sure if this was intentional or not but it’s sooo harmful. And to make matters worse, it is only when Astrid becomes an Atheist that she finally decides to have sex. And that just makes me want to scream. Do you know what would have been a good character arc?? Astrid retaining her faith but deciding that she wants to have sex with Sam because she wants to and because she realises that having sex does not make her any less ‘pure’ – or good if you will. Do you know what also would have been a good character arc?? Astrid becoming an Atheist for reasons but still deciding to not have sex with Sam because she isn’t ready yet and having sex is not indicative of moral or religious beliefs. But it just feels like Astrid having sex was more for Sam’s benefit than hers instead.

Diana – Ok so Diana is a big one. Of course she has consensual sex on the island with Caine (even though he does threaten to have it be non-consensual which I just hate so much) and then immediately afterwards becomes pregnant with the Gone series version of the anti-Christ. So Penny literally selling Diana’s body?? Yep that’s fine. Diana choosing to have sex with a boy she ‘loves’ because she wants to?? Bad. Wrong. You must be punished. It just reinforces the narrative that women having sex is bad. Especially when there are little to no consequences for the boys involved. Again, Diana’s characterisation is reliant upon her sexualisation from male characters so it’s hard to separate her from that, but if you want a more in-depth explanation I talk about it in my Diana post.

Connie – And finally we have Connie. The mother of Sam and Caine. Now Connie isn’t exactly shown as bad for having sex – but she is the only grown woman whose sexual past is talked about within the series and she also happens to be an adulterer. Which isn’t amazing. I don’t have too much to say about Connie other than she is presented in an overtly negative light, mostly from Sam, for a situation that happened over 15 years ago. She tried her best. I don’t remember her much but I wanted to mention her because she deserves some justice. Please feel free anyone if you have more to add.

Well that concludes my thoughts on misogyny in the Gone series. I feel like I got slowly more aggressive as this went on so I apologise for that but I had a sudden epiphany and had to write all my thoughts down immediately. I still love the Gone series so much but I had honestly never thought about these things before and it’s now quarter to 5 in the am. I just want to add a quick note that this is a Gone blog but it is also a safe space for women. I love you all and please feel free to critique anything I have said or to add onto it, I would genuinely love to hear your thoughts on this. – And that goes for anyone. Thank you so much for reading :)

[mistresseast]

can you explain in more detail why you think the PT weren't good friends for akiren? i'm not asking out of hate or to start drama, i just never interpreted things that way and i'm genuinely curious. i don't think them being brainwashed by maruki makes them "bad friends", but i don't know if that's what you meant either. i'd love to read a proper explanation on this that isn't just people arguing in the notes of that post.

Hi! Yeah, I know the ~discourse~ climate is pretty touchy and not a good place to exchange ideas, so I’ll do my best to put my thoughts on this matter into words. 

Settle in, bc this one is long.

I’ll start off by saying I don’t dislike the PT, nor do I think they’re bad people, and honestly I think they love Joker a lot! Ryuji calling Akira after his fake death and talking about how his ideas on what makes a hero have changed because of Akira genuinely makes me emotional, along with dozens of other scenes with the thieves! They’re good kids who could be really good friends to Akira but that’s not what’s shown in the game. I don’t think it’s controversial to say Akira’s relationships with all of his friends are transactional. That’s kind of the point, all of his confidants arise out of deals, give and take, and in the metanarrative of the game, that’s how it works. You as the player help these characters solve their problems, and through ranking their confidants up, you get access to more gameplay perks. So it’s pretty even!! But like,,Akira, the character, isn’t the player. There’s no in-story mechanic by which he can cash in friendship points for being-good-at-killing-things prizes. Yes, he uses those abilities to not die in the metaverse, but there is no literal, in-universe way to explain how hanging out with someone translates to [insert gameplay perk here]. So you have to look at what is physically happening in the story. Akira hangs out with the PT, stands there while they have drama with another irrelevant character, and then one way or another their problems get solved and they swear to be Akira’s blood brother or whatever. Akira is a crutch for these characters, and they say multiple times that they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did without him. So all of their shit gets handled and Akira gets?? Like actually gets?? What? Inquiries about his well-being? Offers to help him? Questions about his life, his interests? No,,,not really,, But he gets access to a super powerful persona!! Yay!!! Bc everyone knows he’s just a little shadow-killing machine, right? And even the relationships he does get something tangible (as in separate from the mechanics of the game) out of, like Kawakami’s, are built on the notion that if Akira stops providing for whatever reason, the relationship will end. So essentially, Akira is under the pressure of filling whatever role his friends need him in for however long at any time, and he’s been led to believe that if he stops or fails, he will stop receiving any reciprocal care and acceptance.

(And I know this is all gameplay stuff, I know it has to be like this to codify the complicated process of human relationships, I know all of that, I’m just trying to find a deeper layer bc that’s what I do.)

This whole thing comes into pretty clear focus for me during the third semester when you visit everyone in the false reality. Everyone is happy to see him, of course, but they’re clearly wrapped up in their own happiness. Which is understandable, again, I’m not saying the PT need to be attached to Akira to be good friends, but it all still feels off to me.

If they know Joker, then they’d know it’s weird that he just shows up and starts asking these pointed questions while they’re in the middle of something. All of their other interactions with him have been led by them. Yeah, Joker approaches them bc the player has decided to hang out with them, but the other character always chooses the activity and leads the discussion. Akira showing up out of nowhere and asking them to “remember” and “move on” and whatnot should be raising some major red flags. And it clearly does, since their memories do start to return, but they’re all too scared of losing their happiness that they nope out of the conversation as soon as possible, without stopping to consider why Joker might be trying to reach out to them like that. They’re his friends; they should know he wouldn’t just be trying to hurt them or make them unhappy. After all, their entire relationship with him up til that point has been exclusively about Joker trying to help them. This doesn’t make the PT bad people, running away is a totally natural reaction in that situation. They’re just kids, and their minds have been manipulated to a point, but it’s not like they don’t remember Joker or the way they’ve grown since meeting him. In fact many of them mention how much they’ve matured recently, but they never actually relate that back to Akira, despite him being the primary driving force behind most of their personal arcs, even though they definitely remember him. Translation vagueness or deliberate nod to the idea that the PT don’t actually credit Akira with all the hard work he did after their initial lip service? Hmmm. Anyway, their failure to recognize that Joker is struggling just demonstrates to me what was set up all throughout their confidant links, that their relationships are transactional and that they don’t necessarily consider Joker and his individual needs outside of what he provides for them. And when they no longer need him bc that hole has been filled, he simply doesn’t occupy the same place of importance in their lives. 

Makoto’s flashback in particular stood out to me, bc it was from a moment where she was specifically talking about feeling like she finally found a place to belong with the Phantom Thieves (and by extension, with Joker), but then she desperately tries to brush it off. Obviously that sense of belonging wasn’t meaningful enough to her for her to want it back. And I’m not blaming her, of course, any teenager would choose to have their father back over being in a vigilante group lmao, I just thought it was telling that the devs decided to show us a scene that was originally meant to be heartwarming as an example of the harsh reality Makoto wants to forget. All of the flashbacks are from defining moments for the thieves, but that one specifically got me like *thinking emoji*

So his friends are hesitant, despite the fact that they must know something is wrong. It’s understandable, they all stand to lose a lot if someone messes with the status quo. I genuinely don’t think I would react any differently. But there is someone who reacts differently and against his own self-interest. It’s Goro, the one who has arguably the most to lose, who doesn’t turn away from Akira. He seeks Akira out and teams up with him to uncover what’s really going on, even though he has every reason to believe that prodding too deep will literally mean the end of his life. He forces Akira and himself to face the truth because he knows anything else would just be an insult to what they’ve suffered so far. He’s the only one who never flinches, and that, more than any of his friends’ come-to-jesusing (which Akira still has to initiate) is what Akira needs in that situation. For the first time (outside of the brief instances in the tutorial levels), we see a situation where Akira is actually the dependent one, the one who needs help, who needs support. And the only one who has ever provided that, unconditionally, without demanding anything in return, is Goro. I could go into how Goro’s confidant blows all of the others out of the water in terms of building both himself AND Akira as characters, but it’s been said already and by smarter people than me. But basically, despite competition being a core theme of their relationship, Goro is the only character who is portrayed as Akira’s equal. Their contests are all in the name of improving not just Goro, but Akira too. Goro is the only character who expresses an interest in Akira’s inner life and development, and as such he knows Akira better than anyone else. So when Maruki tries to trap them all in a gilded birdcage, Goro won’t stand for it and he knows Akira won’t stand for it either. That’s why he’s so betrayed if you choose to accept the dreamworld. You’re negating the basis of your entire relationship with him and going against your own principles. Out of every character in the game, the one who knows Akira best and refuses to abandon him even when that could mean his own death is Goro Akechi.

I want to reiterate: I do not hate or even dislike the PT!! And tbh I don’t really think they “abandoned” Akira. That post, imo, is supposed to be kind of hyperbolic. Unless it’s referring to how many of them literally sprint away when he comes to talk to them lol. I look at it more like a commentary on how thoughtlessly the PT act as soon as their wishes are granted. I know it’s set up linearly for story purposes, but isn’t it kind of sad how no one checks up on Akira in the week he’s going around talking to people? Especially after he’s been acting so comparatively weird? It’s not unusual that they might be caught up in other stuff, but while you’re going around and visiting everyone, you don’t get a single text or call from ANY of the thieves, for a whole week!! Goro even comments on it directly with his pointed little “I’m sure you’re just as close as you were before” comment. God, he’s such a bitch. Ultimately, the PT do get their acts together, and it’s partially out of the realization that Akira is struggling alone against something and needs their help, which I love and appreciate. I think they are good friends who want to support Akira, but they can’t understand him past the role they’ve placed him in, and until they do, they’ll never be able to be what he needs. Akira loves his friends and knows he can rely on them in most ways, but those relationships will always be dogged by the pervasive fear that he must constantly earn the right to have the relationship at all. What he needs MOST is someone he doesn’t have to perform for, and from what we see in the game, none of the thieves fit that bill. Except Goro. 

I know this was long and rambly and probably pretty disjointed but I wanted to be as thorough as possible and all of my thoughts just sort of gushed out. Obviously ymmv about all of this depending on how you interpret the game, but this is what I arrived at thanks to my analysis so this is what I have for you! Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

[cleocazo]

hey hp rp + rpc tags ! i’m popping by to make a public service announcement / callout ? regarding blatant plagiarism from the admin of @impiushq​. so far, i’ve discovered the plagiarism in question taking place in two rps under the details ELENI / ADMIN E, 18, est, she / her (  o worm#5862 on discord ). i have no idea whether it goes further than this, but where my initial concern was simply my creative property having been swiped and used in another rp, i’ve since discovered that eleni was brave enough to open her OWN rp at the above url knowing full well that her ‘interpretation’ of her character was stolen, and i think the rpc should know exactly who they’re shouting out and supporting by joining her rp. anyway. onwards with the necessary info, right ?

so the first penny drop was when i saw that petrificushq had a lily evans on an activity check with a martyr related url ( @mcrtyris​ ) which at first was just SUPER funny to me, since i play a lot with the theme of lily being a ‘little martyr’ and have used it in the past as blog title, playlist title, label, etc. i opened the blog and immediately felt as if... the layout to everything was very similar to my own and that the use of a theme made by the same person who made a previous one of mine ( subsequently changed due to the fact that it came out the themes had all been stolen, but i digress ) was... weird. fast forward to me knowing with complete certainty everything they used on that blog was stolen from me, i messaged the rp to let them know and began to search the marauders rp tags on the off chance they had taken my lily elsewhere, since they were on an activity check in that rp.

here’s the thing : i’d like for this to be the ONLY instance i had to screenshot, but as it turns out, it’s not. so stick with me, please ! 

the search ended at @impiushq​, which is an rp RUN by eleni. in it, she’s playing lily evans ( @puermiles​ ) - once again with my information. it was one thing to take my bio to another rp, but it’s another thing ALTOGETHER to open a roleplay with my information for your singular character, and it seemed to me that eleni got braver when she was finally in a space created by herself : my tag system, my musing posts, even character development things i did were taken there. 

i couldn’t work out the best way to go about this, so while i do in fact HAVE screenshots and all of eleni’s information copied and pasted to google documents in case she deletes her blogs, i’m choosing just to link the major instances because frankly : its a LOT, and all of it was stolen. screenshots just won’t do, here. i’ve gone with the oldest google doc i actually own of this information ( last edited june 17th ) because i want you all to know that my lily predated eleni’s by MANY weeks, and i’d be happy contact the first rp i was apart of with her for the may timestamp of my application, lmao. my lily potter blog has always been @flevrdelis, currently privated. the two blogs of eleni’s where she is using my information are @mcrtyris​ & @puermiles. as of now, you can view both. if they go down, i will still have screenshots & copies of both, so eleni : there’s no point in removing the proof of your plagiarism in hopes of it not being seen. 

THIS IS MY LILY POTTER TIMELINE / biography. here & here you can find the watered down copies, stolen by eleni. 

THIS IS MY STATISTICS PAGE, copied from my blog as i’m not taking it off private now. HERE & HERE are eleni’s. in the first, the first time she copied and pasted my work, you can see she left ( evans ) when she shouldn’t have in ‘meaning of names’. on top of stealing my work, here, she’s also stolen my ‘only the good seasons’ joke about tvd in character parallels, lol.

THIS IS MY INTRODUCTION, the earliest iteration of it. HERE & HERE you can find eleni’s ‘abriged bios’ / intros, which are both also blatantly ripped from me, and contain all MY jokes and information.

CLICK HERE TO BE REDIRECTED TO AN IMGUR PHOTO ALBUM, containing all instances if theme stealing, etc.

AS OF NOW BOTH BLOGS ARE DOWN, PLEASE FIND PUERMILES INFO HERE & MCRTYRIS INFO HERE.

please also note that where my go to fc for lily and the fc i was using when she would have stolen this information was melis sezen and that my lily potter, regardless of where played, identifies as NON BINARY. both times eleni has changed my lily to a abigail cowen, and has turned her into a cis woman. if you’re going to steal from me, can you at least keep what you’re stealing intact ?

look : as a wise individual has since said to me... the level of no concern that she has of the consequences for this to do it TWICE is baffling. the fact she could KNOWINGLY steal my writing ( because whatever the excuse, your finger doesn’t just slip for you to steal so much information directly from someone ) in one rp was bad enough, but that she went on to create her own and think it would never come out is... shocking. my lily potter / evans is a carefully crafted character that i’m attached to for a lot of reasons, but most especially because she’s the only character in recent years i attached so much personal information to. she’s formed out of people and situations specific to my family and me, and it’s FUNNY, but it’s also absolutely shocking behaviour. this is illegal. i don’t OWN the rights to lily potter, but i own absolutely EVERYTHING that went into her. eleni, this is illegal. it’s shockingly bad, disgusting, HORRID behaviour, but it’s also illegal, and you should absolutely be aware of that. 

obviously, i would like first and foremost an apology from eleni for this. an explanation. absolutely anything at all. but second to that, i’d really appreciate the rpc seeing this and making sure that MY creative property isn’t taken to another space yet again by this person. 

[border-spam]

Q: Do you think Typhon was an abusive father? He says he was a 'third rate dad' but doesnt explain why. Randy said he refused to touch Tyreen after Leda died. His reaction to killing his kids could just be bad writing. Troy said he thought he was a freak, but that could be Troy's insecurity. Our only evidence is what Typhon and the Twins say, but Typhon is suspicious already and the Twins are shown to be manipulative. Was Typhon a clueless father trying his best or an abusive asshat?

Hooo boy. Been sitting on this one a while. In we go. 

Was Typhon DeLeon an abusive father: A nerd essay by me, cause I’m a sad fuck.

Yeah. He was. 100%. Absolutely.

Just not intentionally, and for reasons that were coming from good places. I can’t stand Typhon but I’m going to remain relatively unbiased in this bar insulting him as much as possible cause fuck Typhon. Eww.

Bl3 left us with shockingly little information to go on when it came to figuring out how all this went down, how Typhon’s upbringing or lack thereof of the Calypso Twins warped them into the broken monstrous Gods they became, and if he was actually really to blame or not.

We have four main players in this puzzle. Typhon, Troy, and Tyreen DeLeon, and Leda Calypso. One of these characters didn’t get a single line of dialogue and was reduced to being a fucktoy attached to a womb, so poor Leda is out of the equation.

We have a third party write up on Typhon released after the game containing a lot of content that was never in the game, including some of his logic behind the choices he made here.

And finally, we have the information given to us by the three remaining characters. Typhon, and the Calypso Twins.

Breaking this down further, we have two characters at odds with each other, Typhon and Tyreen. 

Tyreen hates Typhon. Hates. It can’t be stressed enough that the only motivation the writers left in the game for poor Ty, was how much she hated her father. Tyreen however, is also a grade A dramaqueen and someone who I cannot bring myself to trust completely when it comes to her describing how Typh treated the twins. I am positive everything she says is based on a truth, but how much of it has been over exaggerated and built on after years of brooding and hatred is up to us to work out, and that’s quite hard to do.

Typhon on the other hand, is a grade A bullshitter. We learn this through his logs and through actually just *talking* to the vile little prick. He speaks in anecdotes, he relies on constantly retelling stories to communicate. I wouldn’t trust the little shit as far as I could throw him. He constantly exaggerates his accolades, his sexual prowess, likely how much his wife was infatuated with him, his skill in adventuring, everything, but he still confirms he was not a good father, so that really says a lot. 

Finally, we have the only person I actually trust when it comes to their opinion on this. Finally, we have Troy.

Something I’ve noticed after chatting with friends about this and covering old content, is how little Troy Calypso ever seems to lie or bullshit. He is shockingly honest, it’s a real surprise compared to Tyreen. He’s truthful to the vault hunters, his emotions are pretty much worn on his sleeve around Ty, and even in dialogue with the likes of Katagawa he is direct and not nearly as “flowery” in his communication as she is. 

He hates the majority of the COV followers and shows a complete lack of coddling them, and he does the same with the VH and raiders. He’s direct in his communication in general, especially when alone and out of persona.

Troy gives us more backstory about the twin’s family life than literally any other point in the game does, and he explains it genuinely, 1:1 and privately to the VH over echocom. He has no reason to lie. There is no gain in this for him, there is no grounds for me to think anything he said was false because lying in this situation wouldn’t match his established character. 

Troy does not hate Typhon. 

Troy did not want to leave Nekrotafeyo. 

Troy did not want to leave his father.

The info Troy shares with us is that Typhon couldn’t let Ty out of his sight after Leda had her “accident”, and he was overbearing in his worry for her. Troy was sidelined as a child and felt that his father just saw him as a freak while doting (unwantedly it seems) on Tyreen. This may not have been directly the case, but again, there is no reason to think Troy is making this up. He doesn’t make up things like this for pity, he actually seems quite averse to looking for pity in general.

Tyreen says Typhon kept them in a cage, that he was afraid the Bandits in the universe would tear them apart, and instead held them prisoner. This is semi factual, but definitely blown out of proportion because again, Troy doesn’t feel this way. Typhon (according to the additional info in the writeup I linked) was terrified of what corporations would do to twin Sirens -considering one is male-, and that’s a really valid concern.

They would absolutely be hunted by the likes of Hyperion if Jack hadn’t been balls deep in his mad rush for the warrior at the time. Typh wouldn’t let them leave home based on this, and while I can understand his logic, there are three main things to consider here:

Troy and Tyreen both seem to think Typhon thought Ty was a monster and that was the reason they were not allowed leave. That is fucked. There is no way they both came up with this out of the blue, and Typhon must have at some point said something or acted in a way to imply this was the reason. That is horrific. That is beyond abusive to say to children, and it was definitely a factor in how warped their mentality towards themselves over time became.

The twins were so terrified of Typhon finding the ship parts Troy was working on and destroying them, that they hid them inside their mothers grave. Again. This is horrific. This is not something young adults who aren’t abused would consider doing. Troy has never alluded to hating Typhon and still agreed with Tyreen this needed to be done. The fear there is palpable, this is not the behavior of young adults who’s relationship with a parent is healthy.

The twins and Typhon had a complete lack of trust between them. A family with this level of distrust has encountered abuse at some point. Typhon was so distrusting of his near adult children ( the twins sounded very late teens - early twenties on Nekro ) that he refused to allow them to have any semblance of a life. He refused to let them be free, because he so feared they would either be incapable of caring for themselves, or would hurt others. The twins distrusted their father so much that they had to resort to hiding their escape means from him. Even Troy, who thought once the ship was complete they’d be taking Typhon with them, didn’t trust him enough to let him know what he was working on. They were afraid of what their father would do if he found out. 

This dynamic drips abuse. If it was just Tyreen telling this information to us, I’d find it hard to take as factual as I said earlier, it would feel blown out of proportion, but Troy telling us, and the echologs existing and backing it up? Well, it’s not a lie. It did happen.

The final piece for me is how Typhon responded to Troy being dead. 

He couldn’t have fucking cared less. He did not give a flying shit. 

The one person who had shown any regret towards leaving him, who had cared about him, and Typhon didn’t bat an eyelid that he was dead. He gives an “Ah well he was a monster anyway lol” response, then immediately starts trying to baby talk his wittle girl, his ickle Starlight. It’s gross. It was vile.

It really showed where his value lay and had always lay, and confirmed Troy had been telling the truth when he’d awkwardly tried to explain how Typhon had just always seen him as a freak, while overly doting on Tyreen to the point of smothering her. 

He was a terrible father, and while his abuse came from a place of concern and love, it was absolutely abuse. 

Had he so much as tried to find his kids, had he cared about them an iota more then sitting on a dead planet jacking off to memories of his wife for nearly a decade, the twins might have stood a chance. They might have been able to be happy.

Asks are open!

[fontofmercy-archived]

Understanding BvS’s Lex Luthor: CSA and Repressed Homosexuality

(Re-posted with minor revisions after I moved accounts and accidentally deleted this post)

Lex’s motivations are quite explicit in BvS, he has a whole speech explaining why he is doing what he’s doing and what he says is consistently shown throughout his screentime. But I think there is a lot unspoken beneath the surface that most people wouldn’t think of, based on my observations I think that BvS’s Lex was molested by his father and that he’s sexually attracted to Clark, and that his issues with Superman partially stem from the duality of desiring Clark and being afraid of him. That may sound strange, especially the csa bit, but hear me out because there is quite a bit of evidence and it may give you a clearer perspective on the character.

NOTE: I just want to clarify that it is not at all my intention to equate homosexuality with CSA nor demonize CSA survivors, I’m simply observing this particular character who happens to be a villain. Lex being attracted to Clark doesn’t make him villainous, the way he deals with it because of trauma and internalized homophobia is the problem.

1.) Daddy’s Abominations?

“No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to save me from daddy’s fists and abominations!”

This is quite self-explanatory, Lex just said that his father sexually abused him. The only other possible interpretation I could think of is a more general ‘my dad made me evil because he was evil’ but that’s a really weak explanation especially since the line is equated with the trauma of being beaten by his dad and the way he is very visibly triggered saying that line. When he finishes “abominations” he immediately flinches away from Superman and shakes his hand in front of his face as if desperately trying to erase what he just confessed.

2.) Lolita + Alice in Wonderland

“Plain Lo in the morning, Lola is slacks -“

“Late, late says the white rabbit”

Lolita and Alice in Wonderland...those are interesting choices of literature for a supervillain to quote. You’d think something more threatening and/or pretentious would be an obvious choice for a traditional mastermind-type supervillain rather than two obscure (not very masculine) classics that only have one thing in common: themes of sexual obsession and pedophilia.

Lolita is the story of a pedophile who uses his power as a step-father to groom and sexually abuse a child. Alice in Wonderland, while not having explicit pedophilic content, was written by a suspected pedophile and is obsessively focused on a child that there are photographs of the author kissing on the mouth. These are the two novels Lex relates to enough to quote them casually off the top of his head.

3.) The “it’s cherry” scene

So this is obviously a sexual innuendo but the question is, why this guy? This character is utterly unimportant on his own and this doesn’t affect anything plot-wise which means this action is entirely about characterizing Lex. What are they trying to communicate here? This guy represents a figure similar to Lex’s father, an older businessman who behaved as if he had authority over Lex, and Lex’s instinct to that is to assert dominance in a sexually suggestive manner. This establishes Lex as a character who uses sexuality to dominate and make others uncomfortable, and relates it to a man who who represents his father.

4.) Two Versions Of The Same Scene

Lex caressing Zod’s face directly parallels him caressing around Clark’s face, even the framing is identical. I think these are two versions of Lex confronting Superman, one with the actual Superman where he has to keep his distance and put on a callous front, and the other with a Kryptonian corpse he can project Superman onto. The scene with Zod I think shows how Lex truly feels about Clark. “You flew too close to the sun” he’s saying this and crying as he’s creating a monster to kill Clark which makes me think those words were not for Zod but the god he feels he has to kill. There’s no reason for Lex to cry for Zod, Lex has no relationship with him, it’s much more coherent that this scene is using Zod’s body as a substitute for what Lex can’t express to the real Superman.

EDIT: Upon rewatch I noticed a small moment where the Jolly Rancher Dude (I don’t think he has a name lol?) says with a smile “You want Zod’s body?” and Lex goes “Okay”, it’s a very playful interaction and it I think strengthens the connection between Zod’s body being an implied sex symbol of Superman.

4.5.) The Sexual Tension In The Rooftop Scene

Every moment of the rooftop scene (and all of this film) is so multilayered and intense, I could talk about it for hours but I want to talk a little more about the moment in the above gif.

Seconds before this, Lex was wagging his fingers inches for Superman’s glowing laser eyes but now when he knows Clark isn’t going to attack him, he won’t touch him? Lex is less afraid of having his fingers burned off than he is to touch Clark’s head knowing that he won’t do anything. Because Lex would be happy if Superman burned him, that would prove him right and give him an easy category to put Clark in but letting himself touch Clark in an ‘affectionate’ manner is terrifying.

A straight male villain that just wanted to use physical contact to assert dominance over the hero would have touched Clark here (and also would have no reason to caress Zod’s dead body) but Lex can’t even though he’s literally trembling with desire to and we know for a fact he’s not afraid of invading Clark’s personal space in an even more physically dangerous moment.

5.) The Dual Realities Of An Abused Child

“If God is all good then he cannot be all powerful.”

Now, I’m not an expert in psychology but I will do my best to articulate this. When someone, especially a child, is abused by someone they love it creates an extreme paradox in their mind. They love this person and they have to trust them but they also have to fear them, their brains are forced to compartmentalize when this person is a threat vs when they are a protector. In some cases, like Lex’s, this can lead to someone entirely thinking in absolutes and dualities.

It’s a consistent theme in Lex’s dialogue that he thinks in absolutes. The cornerstone of his ideology is people have to be “all good” or “all powerful” when really no one is either, there arguably is no such thing as either.

It’s also a theme that he has dual views of people in his life, the most prominent being his father and Superman. In one scene he’s reminiscing about wishing his dad would come back, in another he’s emotionally describing the abuse he inflicted. And Lex does the same with Clark as explained in point 4.

Lex even seems to have a dual view of himself. In the rooftop scene he points to himself as “the evil in the world” but his speech about Prometheus at the party is clearly meant to illustrate that he sees himself as a misunderstood savior of humanity (this is even confirmed in the bonus material).

6.) Internalized Homophobia

“I don’t hate the sinner, I hate the sin.”

Two things are important to me with this line. First is that it reinforces point 5 but also this is a very, very common phrase in homophobic rhetoric so for him to say this and gesture to Clark’s body as the “sin” has implications. And yes, yes, I know he meant that Clark’s powers are a sin but things can have double meanings and I sincerely doubt that anyone making a movie in the western world’s current political climate wouldn’t realize that phrase is strongly linked to homophobia.

To elaborate on how it reinforces 5: Lex is openly saying that he doesn’t hate Clark, he just hates his power, which brings us back to the idea of an abuse victim’s dual reality. It’s Clark’s power that is the threat to him but he can still love Clark, same way his father’s abuse was a threat but he can still love his father. Note: Lex calls Clark “my friend” and “Clark Joe” and similar affectionate names throughout their interactions which I think suggests that Lex sees Clark as partially a person.

7.) Conclusion

DCEU’s Lex Luthor was a fresh, contemporary take on the character so it was a jarring difference from the Lex we’ve seen in other recent mainstream media. I also think it was upsetting partially because it took away Lex as a male power fantasy; a buff, suave billionaire who’s hyper masculine and doesn’t let anything get to him including his canonical abuse. Now we’ve got this definitely charming and silver-tongued but effeminate and deeply traumatized Lex that I think is much, much more dynamic and compelling (and definitely fits this universe) but was uncomfortable for people that were attached to the charecter as a male power fantasy.

Nevertheless we need more villains like this. That can be both intimidating and vulnerable, that are human and offer a real ideological opposition to the hero. BvS could not have been the story it is without this Lex. BvS is a brilliant and nuanced film about how fear and trauma affects people’s worldviews, which is an important thing to explore when you have a Superhero that is the embodiment of hope. It’s important to show that not everyone can have hope so easily and to humanize those people.

Anyways this post is really long and I could literally talk for days about DCEU and this film especially so thanks for reading, please be respectful in the notes.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

Dear Yuletide writer,

I’m 100indecisions on AO3. just based on numbers of requests/offers in the signup summary, it seems fairly likely that you matched with me on Avengers Academy, but it’s also slightly possible it was Silent Hill 3 or The Bifrost Incident. numbers also indicate nobody else requested or offered my other two fandoms, but I’m including them here anyway in case you or anyone else wants to take a stab at them. (there’s also this post if you want a little more info about why these fandoms are cool and where to find them.)

regardless! the important thing as always is that you have fun writing the fic, and for the most part everything that follows is just a suggestion. whatever you come up with, I’m sure I’ll love it.

I feel like…most of the fandoms I requested aren’t too likely to lead to fics with my major DNWs, probably. I wouldn’t want to see dubcon or significant manipulation in a relationship that’s supposed to be positive and healthy, for instance. I’m not opposed to explicit sex scenes of any kind, although I often end up skimming them because I’m the type of ace person who is just Not Interested in most of the physical aspects, so…you’re welcome to write sex scenes if it’s relevant but you absolutely don’t have to feel like you need to.

in general, my biggest DNW is unhappy endings. I’m thrilled to see my favorite characters go through all kinds of hell to get there, so for most of these I would be very happy to get something tagged Crueltide, but I also like things to be okay or at least hopeful by the end. if canon is the unhappy part in one way or another, I’m always happy to read fix-it fics. Between post-canon fix-its that could reasonably happen in the future and canon-divergence AUs where things are okay now because of some mid-canon change, I have a slight preference for the former, but both are good.

as for stuff I like, well, the other thing implied by my main DNW is that I do often enjoy fairly dark fics, as long as they end okay. I also like Loki a lot, as you can probably guess from my requests. if you ended up matching me on Avengers Academy Loki or Bifrost Incident Loki, and/or you want to take a stab at one of the other Loki-centric requests, the Loki fics I’ve actually written are pretty representative of stuff I like in my Loki fics, which basically boils down to “sympathetic interpretations always, with loads of angst and/or whump on the way to a reasonably happy ending”. I tend to take a somewhat lighter tone in general with my Avengers Academy fics (I’ve written several of those and only one of them doesn’t involve Loki at all, so…yeah I have a one-track mind where Loki is concerned), although I did also write a pretty damn whumpy fic for AvAc Loki. I’m very invested in the relationship between Thor and Loki as brothers, although Thorki is usually a personal squick. for things that aren’t necessarily Loki-related, I like found families and deep friendships, sibling bonds, stories about characters reclaiming their own agency from some outside force and/or figuring out how to take control of their own narratives, and probably plenty of other things that aren’t coming to mind at the moment. I’m equally good with plotty fics and little slice-of-life or introspective pieces. I will always always always be happy to see queer characters, especially asexual ones.

more detail about my specific requests, basically just expanded versions of what I wrote in my sign-up:

Silent Hill 3 (Heather Mason). I love this game and that’s mostly because of Heather–she’s resourceful, brave, and incredibly tough, and the game is essentially all about her reclaiming her agency (in a very literal, physical way) from people who used her for their own ends. Anything that gets into Heather’s head would be great, whether it’s a missing scene of some kind during the game or something afterward that explores what she does next, how she recovers from a frankly massive amount of trauma, and how she reconciles the various layers of her identity. The ways in which Heather, Cheryl the child, and Alessa both are and are not the same person are endlessly fascinating to me, and it seems like she probably has a lot of weird memories bouncing around in her head at this point--and possibly some extra trauma from Alessa’s memories of things Heather never physically experienced, as if she doesn’t have enough to deal with already. I would also really love to see something involving Angela and/or Maria from Silent Hill 2; I’m not sure how the timelines would line up (although realistically, considering the setting, that part would be trivial to handwave) but the way Heather basically said “fuck you, you don’t own me” to the cult makes me want to see other female characters find their own agency as well, and it would be really awesome if Heather found a way to help them do that, either by helping them directly or just by influencing the way the town operates. in general, I love these games for their atmosphere and symbolism, so anything you can do along those lines would be great.

Avengers Academy (Loki, Thor). I still miss this game. I especially miss Loki, who was a snarky little bastard but really not a bad dude. Mostly I’d be thrilled to see anything that focuses on him (or her, I super loved Loki’s canonical genderfluidity) developing actual friendships at the academy, with any characters who might be relevant (Steve, Natasha, America Chavez, Nebula, Union Jack, Angela, Jane Thor, really anybody). Working things out with Thor and/or the rest of his family is always good too; Loki’s Frost Giant storyline didn’t involve Thor at all, for instance, probably because it was written long before Thor was added to the game, so I’d be interested to see how things went when he found out his brother was a Frost Giant. I’m also always happy to see crossovers of some kind with other Marvel universes, especially considering AvAc was an interesting patchwork of film and comics canon; meta stuff where characters are aware of their multiverse counterparts is always fun (again, my own AvAc fics are pretty representative of what I like…and if you wanted to build off anything in those, I’d be thrilled). and hey, if you want to pick up or expand on any of the plot threads the game never really got around to, like more about the Academy’s supposed mole, the actual nature and origin of the timefog, or other worldbuilding-related stuff, that would be awesome. random slice-of-life stuff is also fun; so is expanding on any of the event plotlines or digging into in-world reasons for various gameplay decisions (way back during the Civil War event, for instance, Loki was one of the characters who could do stuff to earn points for Team Cap even though this didn’t come up in dialogue--it was almost certainly because they needed another non-event character to round out the rosters, but it would also make a fun premise for a fic). I’d also be happy to see something post-canon, showing what characters are up to now or doing some kind of reunion. I’m realizing somewhat belatedly that last year I only requested Loki because that’s the character I wanted most, and this year I requested both Loki and Thor even though my actual wishes haven’t changed, which...I’m not sure if that’s a potential matching problem or not. But just to be clear, the only character I require is Loki, and everything else is basically a suggestion. If there’s a character I haven’t listed but Loki had an interesting interaction with them, or they never spoke but you think they’d play off each other in fun ways, go for it.

The Bifrost Incident - The Mechanisms (Loki, Thor, Sigyn). I...need a fix-it. Like, for these characters specifically, but also for the universe in general, because the premise of this album is absolutely fascinating but I can't deal with tragedy, so--I need somebody to fix it. Somehow. I mean, I would also be very interested in pretty much anything about Loki and Sigyn, backstory or otherwise (especially if there’s Loki whump due to cosmic horror in general or Odin being a dick specifically, because...I am who I am), or Loki’s relationship with Thor, or...yeah, pretty much anything Loki-centric? But also I am a baby who cannot deal with tragedy so I gotta have like...at least a hint that things are going to end up differently than in canon. Or if you really don’t want to do that, speculate on this universe’s version of Valhalla or something, I don’t know. And yes, even though this isn’t a Marvel universe, I would also be very happy with some type of crossover/fusion with the MCU or another Marvel universe.

Loki: Where Mischief Lies - Mackenzi Lee (Loki). I had a lot of issues with this book and I’m not sure how much of that is just me not appreciating what the author was doing with an unreliable narrator (in part because I’m already pretty attached to certain interpretations of Loki) and how much is the author not quite doing it right, but I’d love to see something that would…make it make sense internally in terms of Loki’s motivations and actions. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a fix-it, although I’d love one of those too, with Loki reuniting with Theo and/or actually reconciling with his family. A giant crossover that includes this Loki with other major versions of Loki could be fun too. I’ve been planning for a while to write up some kind of actual review to articulate what about this book didn’t work for me, and I’ll update this post with a link when I do that, although…again, I know nobody else offered or requested this one. (if you think it sounds fun or you just want to read this book in general, my library actually has the ebook on Hoopla, so it’s worth checking to see if your library does too.)

What If... Thor Was Raised by the Frost Giants? (Loki, Thor). This is such a great little AU and I need MORE. Slice-of-life stuff with Thor and Loki growing up (and Laufey being an abusive bastard to Loki)? Fix-it where Freyja survives or somehow gets brought back? Post-canon fic picking up immediately after the end of the comic? Far-future speculation about what the present-day Marvel universe might look like with this change in its history? Literally anything post-canon about Thor and Loki tentatively reconciling? YES PLEASE. As always, biggest DNW is unhappy endings.

[mobius-prime]

65. Special - Sonic Live!

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The Last Game Cartridge Hero

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Karl Bollers

*deep breath* …oh boy.

So this issue is kind of infamous for being, well, terrible. At least, this first story is. Even I, usually being willing to put up with a lot of crap from Penders, think this story is just a royal mess. You'll see what I mean in a second.

Anyway, the customary intro page of this issue makes some kind of allusion to Sonic being about to enter some strange other zone that's unlike anything he's ever experienced before. Indeed, the beginning shows Sonic rushing to try to rescue Sally, who's been captured by Robotnik, only to be blasted by energy bolts from behind - which, as we all know from when this exact thing happened to Robotnik in StH#21, just means he'll be catapulted into another reality instead of killed. Which reality is that, you ask?

Ha. Haaaaaa.

Oh yeah. That's right, folks. It's one of these. Kenders actually recruited both his real life son and niece to be photographed and placed into the story of the Sonic comics as actual characters. Luckily this only lasts for this one issue, and they weren't made recurring characters or something, but like, damn. These children are grown-ass adults right now. I wonder what they think of this? What they think of their father/uncle respectively? If they cringe looking back at this, or look back on fondly as a cool thing they got to experience as kids? Side note as well, as I've mentioned before Ken had never played a Sonic game while he worked on the comics, nor did he own a Sega console. That's why, when Steve "dies" in the game the screen simply appears to turn off, and, if you look closely, he's not holding a game controller, but rather holding a regular TV remote sideways. Oh, Ken. Why this? Why?

Well, anyway, Sonic finds himself floating in a strange void seemingly unable to move or see anything, until the faces of these kids start looming in his face and talk about seeing him in the TV as they try to turn on their game. Sonic, worried they're going to try to turn off the TV and I guess strand him in there for longer, somehow reaches out and pulls them in instead.

Great going, Sonic! Now these two kids who have no superpowers of their own are stuck in a dangerous war zone with you. Indeed, this goes as well as you might expect. He and the two kids are able to breach back into Sonic's home zone, where Robotnik has captured the rest of the Freedom Fighters and is planning to launch missiles into space to create… some kind of doomsday device? It's not really explained well beyond "killer satellites," but either way, Sonic doesn't like the idea of this, and so he starts beating up the swatbots in his way. This stops briefly when Robotnik decides to take his villainy to the next level and threaten to shoot the two random innocent kids just because they happen to be with Sonic.

Of course, the swatbots aren't as fast as Sonic, which begs the question of how they even managed to blast him at the beginning of this story in the first place, and he beats the rest of them up and escapes with the kids. He takes them to the control center to shut down the missile launch, which has begun its countdown due to Sonic accidentally knocking Robotnik down onto his launch remote. Great job, buddy!

They manage to shut down the missiles, but just as they do, Robotnik, Snively, Sonic, and the two kids are all pulled into a strange beam of light. Once Sonic and the kids get their bearings, Robotnik begins gloating, since apparently, during the split second between when he entered and when Sonic entered, he contacted a bunch of alternate universe copies of himself and got them to build him a big mech suit shaped like himself. Apparently, they're in yet another strange zone, and Robotnik realizes he can conquer the whole multiverse from here, not just his own version of Mobius. At least… I think that's what he's implying. Honestly, it's so unclear and all the dialogue so scattered, it's hard to even properly tell. Anyway, Robotnik throws Sonic and the kids in a prison cell with several other… humans?

While Robotnik suddenly finds himself threatened by the other versions of himself, not content to be used for slave labor, Sonic has a chat with these people. Apparently, this isn't just any old zone - it's the kids' home zone, AKA, Earth! Now, this definitely isn't our Earth. These guys claim to be the designers of the Sonic games, but for one, they're decidedly not Japanese, and two, there's no mention of Sega at all. Apparently, the concept art for Sonic the Hedgehog in this world was created when they received strange interdimensional transmissions showing images of him, and they decided to make a game out of it. Not only that, but now these video game designers slash scientists have apparently created a weird prototype device that was responsible for sucking Sonic and co. into this world through a strange dimensional link. Yyyyyeah. Go ahead and try to make any sense out of this crap.

Well, anyway, Sonic and the kids notice Robotnik and Snively about to be vaporized by the angry other-Robotniks, and decide to step in and save them from certain death, or maybe just another instance of zone-hopping. Come on Sonic, this is what, the third or fourth time you had an opportunity to let this guy die and have all your problems be solved? How many other people have died in this war because you refuse to let Robotnik be killed by his own hubris? Of course, the swatbots and other Robotniks don’t like this, and so to save themselves, Sonic and the kids need to shut down the prototype linking them to this world. Turns out the way they do this… is through Sonic game cheat codes!

The code recited by little Steve here is actually a real code, something I'm mildly surprised about given Ken's weird disdain for the Sonic video games. It's the level select code for the original Sonic the Hedgehog game on Genesis (non-Japanese version). If you've got a Genesis and a copy of the first game, try it yourself and see. In this world, however, it's apparently the shutdown code for the swatbots, and thus everyone is saved. The game designer scientist guys use the prototype's dimensional link to send Sonic, Robotnik and Snively back to their own zone, and Sonic has a happy reunion with his friends, who have been mysteriously freed from captivity in the meantime.

Oh, boy. Someone needs to tell Kenders that the Sonic games don't actually depict Sonic from the comics. These kids aren't gonna have any idea what the Sonic they were traveling with is up to, because all they'll be doing is playing as a different, more turquoise-colored Sonic, battling some weird dude called "Eggman" and collecting seven multicolored Chaos Emeralds to save a planet that definitely isn't called Mobius. Shame.

The Substitute Freedom Fighters

Writer: Rich Koslowski Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Karl Bollers

So you may be wondering. How exactly did the Freedom Fighters even get captured in the first place, and how did they escape while Sonic and the others were stuck in the "real world"? This story is here to answer our questions! Apparently, while Sonic is just off derping around somewhere else, the others are watching Rotor create a new micro-cam that he can attach to his bandolier, working kind of like a body cam so they can review footage of battles after the fact and learn from them. Fortunately for them, some swatbots immediately show up to let them test out their new invention. Unfortunately for them, they get overwhelmed and dragged back to Robotnik.

Hey, look who it is! Larry Lynx has made his comeback, and he's noticed everyone's disappearance… as well as the ongoing live feed from Rotor's micro-cam. Realizing everyone is in danger, he rallies the first people he sees training - Cyril Eagle, and Sally's old recruits. They team up and fight their way into Robotropolis, Larry using his famous bad luck to make sure the swatbots lose every time, and they're able to eventually find the captured Freedom Fighters and liberate them. After finding Sonic as well, they head back to Knothole, where Sally forms the six of them into a new team, the Substitute Legion of Freedom Fighters, as a backup squad that can continue the fight against Robotnik if the Freedom Fighters are unable to.

This is cute, but it does bring up an interesting point. Clearly, the Freedom Fighters are not always able to win their battles, and it's dire enough that Sally's started forming backup teams. It's not said directly that it's in case the main team dies or is roboticized or something, but we know that's a very real possibility in this war. Makes you wonder how this war was even fought when they were all tiny kids, and if something like this has ever happened before…

Knuckles Quest 2

Writer: Kent Taylor Pencils/Colors: Pat Spaziante

Well, no need to worry about that. Knuckles is at it again! This time, he's found his way to a strange cottage in the forest, and is set upon by a bunch of vicious mythical creatures, most of which he names off and mentions hearing in fairy tales. It's interesting, because as far as I'm aware, none of these are real-life mythical creatures, which means we're getting a tiny bit of lore and worldbuilding regarding the kinds of mythical creatures Mobian children are told about in this world.

Anyway, Knuckles is totally confused about why he's fighting all these creatures that are supposed to not even exist, but eventually reasons that they indeed can't be real, and are magical projections. Once he announces this, they dissipate and he finds himself talking to an old fox wizard, who directs him to continue his search elsewhere. He then reveals that he used to serve the king in his youth, and that his name is…

…Merlin Prower? Any Sonic fan worth their salt knows that Tails' real name is Miles Prower and that "Tails" is just a nickname, indicating that this strange wizard may be somehow related to Tails. Hmm, wonder if we'll ever hear any more of him…?

[agentravensong]

I saw a play last night

It was my college’s production of “Stupid F*cking Bird” (click the link to see the Wikipedia article on it for context)

and uh

I think it might be my new favorite (non-musical) play. 

If you wanna hear me ramble about why, go ahead and click the read more. Letting you know now that there will be some general spoilers and discussion of specific scenes. Also, it gets pretty personal.

Okay.

For one, the play does that breaking the fourth wall in a thematically relevant way & rebelling against the narrative stuff that I love (see my undying appreciation for UnderTale/DeltaRune, The Stanley Parable, etc.)

But also the emotional core is very similar to Night in the Woods, one of my other favorites games. They both stress the importance of accepting the inevitable, unchangeable, sh*tty stuff about the world, and making the most of what you have in the time you have with the people you love. 

Now there are notable differences that make me slightly prefer the latter’s handling of its message. NitW has a greater emphasis on community and directly calls out capitalism as the source of a lot of the character’s problems (plus it has explicit queer rep). Meanwhile, SFB has a small cast, most of whom relate to each other in a romantic sense, and as an aroace person, seeing the characters spend most of their emotional outbursts on the pains of unrequited love kept me from connecting with them as much as I otherwise could have.

But that’s where the character of Eugene Sorn, a 56 year old doctor, comes in and triggers my feels. As the play’s oldest character, who has been married and divorced multiple times, he humorously comments a few times during the proceedings on how angsty the younger characters get over romance. So already I felt a bit more connected to him than most of the others. Plus he’s just a genuinely sweet dude. And then...

At the end of Act 1, when everyone else says they want to be loved, Sorn says he wants to love. When everyone else is spilling their guts about their deepest desires, Sorn’s only addition is, “I just want a hug, really.” 

In Act 2, he has a short scene where he points out how ironic it is that his job is to help people, when he himself hurts more than he’s ever let on. 

At his birthday party in Act 3, Sorn has a whole monologue about how he just can't comprehend how other people can genuinely feel emotions, particularly romantic love, so deeply, and how most of the time he's just performing emotions he doesn't really feel because that's what everyone else seems to be doing.

Now imagine you’re me: an autistic, touch-starved, aroace college freshman who tends to get overly attached to certain fictional characters. Someone who sees most of their emotional issues as less important than other people’s. Someone who struggles to keep up with everyone else in social situations, and often suppresses their own emotions in public to avoid embarrassing themself or being unintentionally rude.

And you see all that reflected on stage by someone in your choir group playing an old man.

FUCK, dude. Literally, during the previously mentioned Act 3 monologue, I was hopefully inaudibly muttering the word “f*ck” over and over, even before I realized why I was on the verge of tears.

So yeah, Eugene Sorn is autistic (as is his nephew, the protagonist) and somewhere on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrum(s). I mean, not explicitly canonically, but c’mon.

I don’t want to spoil any more of the play, since I sincerely believe you should check it out for yourself if it sounds like it would remotely interest you. I’ll just add that the very last scene, particularly the way my college staged it in comparison to how it’s outlined in the script I found online, was what actually made me cry. As dark as the show gets, it somehow manages to be meaningfully hopeful.

Oh hey, speaking of the script, I found a PDF of it via Google as soon as I got home from the show. Here’s the link if you want to read it! Just know going in that the show contains a lot of potentially triggering content, listed below:

Every character (except arguably one) is depressed at some point

Suicide and death are major plot points

Lots of characters consume alcohol throughout

A young female character gets into a relationship with an older man (which is not at all glorified to be clear)

The main character and his mother have a very complicated, often toxic, relationship 

One character briefly mentions having had an abusive stepdad

There’s one offhand comment that borders on antisemetic, I think?

If that’s all stuff you can stomach, then I wholeheartedly recommend you at least give it a glance. I NEED to have someone else to talk to about this. I might just look up the play it’s “sort of adapted” from to see what they changed. Tomorrow, anyway. Right now I need to get to sleep, lol.