#as well as in actually allowing her character to be challenged and progress in the story

[holdharmonysacred]

Also just saw a post having a giggle about Pearl and Vriska discourse and I think that like. If you want to try to seriously figure out why the hell that particular genre of discourse gets so bad - and hell, I’ll throw The Egg Guard in as the same genre of disk horse - then the big thing to look at is that all these characters tend to be Creator’s Pets. “Character did bad things” is almost never the actual problem, if the arguing goes in that direction it’ll be because the people making the arguments don’t know how to articulate things from a Doylist angle, the actual problem is pretty much always that Character is blatantly the creator’s favorite and the creator(s) cannot stop themselves from being self-indulgent. And that constant self-indulgence means they can’t bring themselves to Kill Their Darlings or approach the Shenanigans that Character is doing appropriately.

So you get this weird genre of character who constantly does really horrible shit to the rest of the work’s cast - horrible shit that frequently crosses the “this is too real and hits too close to home” boundary - and basically gets away with it and excused for their actions literally all the time and always hogs the spotlight and is just plain annoying if you don’t like that character. And a big part of this genre of creator favoritism is that the creators just can’t bring themselves to actually treat the more villainous characters in this genre like campy villains, so you don’t even get the fun kind of evil girlbossing. And it sucks, if you’re a writer, don’t do this shit. This is the exact kind of thing that the classic “kill your darlings” advice is meant to warn against, nothing good comes from writing like this.

[starry-bi-sky]

Who is the more well-adjusted twin; Damian, or Danyal? Why, it's Damian, of course!

And I have an explanation for this! But first I wanna preface this that this is just me like, rambling about this thought I have and it's not an attack on the trope as a whole. I love the Danyal Al Ghul au which is why i'm so deeply passionate about it, because I think it has a lot of potential to be explored. It's no secret that I've mentioned before that I think Danny's psychological development tends to get overlooked and underutilized in DAG aus, and the impact that growing up in an assassin league often goes ignored. This is just me further expanding on that.

Now lets set the stage! This is specifically for Danny who is adopted by the Fentons later down in life. Lets go twin au. At 10 years old, Damian goes to the Wayne Family, Danny is adopted by the Fentons (regardless of their affiliation with the League). By 14 years old, who ends up the better adjusted, more socially aware, spiritually in-tune with themselves, sibling? Why, Damian is! Why is that?

Because he has the actual support he needs compared to Danny. And I'm not talking about good or bad parents Fentons, because either way my opinion doesn't change. Damian would end up the better off twin, because, frankly, his family knows his background. They know he grew up in the League, they know what the League's teachings are, and they know he's a born and raised assassin. Knowing this, they can then help tackle and dismantle the teachings and lessons he has been given and ingrained into by the League. They may be a dysfunctional family, but they're functional enough to at least actively help deprogram all of the League's teachings that have been ingrained in Damian throughout his childhood.

Can't say the same for Danny.

Lets say Fentons here don't know his background -- and even if they do, the results may just stay the same if they play their cards wrong, -- Danny's now just been thrown into the deep end of a pool and is essentially being told sink or swim. Regardless of how he got there -- undercover, faked death, etc -- he has no proper support. He knows the League is meant to be secret, he's not gonna speak on it for various reasons. Whether it be some still lingering loyalty, fear of harm, or whatever. Whatever the reason is, he does not have a proper support system in the Fentons, no matter how nice they are. They can only tackle the surface level stuff and whatever Danny allows them to see -- if Danny ever lets them see it at all. For what do assassins do when they don't want to be caught? They hide. Sometimes in plain sight.

"But Jazz--" Jazz is a child. She is 2 years older than Danyal and no better at giving him a proper support system than the two adult Fenton parents, even with parentification. We don't know when she got into psychology or how long she'd been studying it by the time Danny's 14. We just know she's really into it. Even then, Jazz is not a licensed or reliable therapist, or even an experienced or implied good therapist, and should not be used as one either. It's a disservice to her character to reduce her down to 'supporting female emotional crutch'. Besides, therapy only works on people who want to get better. Danny, who'd be hiding who he really is, has very little incentive to want to, or to even think something is wrong with his way of thinking, even with exposure to the outside world.

When people's beliefs are outright challenged, they tend to double down on them, and Jazz canonically has a habit of psychoanalyzing her family and declaring what she thinks is the problem -- regardless of whether or not she's right about it. Jazz would get into psychology, try and psychoanalyze Danny, and all it would do is cause him to clam up, shut into himself further, and throw up even more walls so that she can't figure out that he has been lying this whole time. It would do more harm than good, and would actively hinder any progress he'd make in trying to open up to them. Roads and good intentions and all that.

That being said, I think Danny's development and dismantling of the League's teachings would be slower than Damian's. Much slower. Because he would be the one having to pick apart everything and figure out what is right, what is wrong, what he wants to keep, and what he wants to toss. Everything he unlearns would be stuff he has to unlearn himself. If he even gets to that point at all -- depending on his experiences, he very well could not change at all, or change very little. The League acts as a purge for humanity, meant to reign in their hubris and retain balance, they just also happen to be assassins for hire. Danny's time spent in Amity Park could as well strengthen his belief in their teachings just as much as it could weaken it, especially if it goes as canon and he gets bullied.

Regardless, being tossed to a civilian family as someone who is very much not a civilian, without any support, would be actively detrimental to Danny's overall mental health and development. Especially to strangers like the Fentons. Damian was closed off and standoffish even with blood family, and it took him time to open up to them -- Danny, with the Fentons, would be even more so. He doesn't know them, he doesn't trust them, he has no rhyme or reason to open up to them, and since the Fentons don't actually know him, they can't help him the way he needs. Once "Danny Fenton" is made, he has even less reason to open up. So long as Danyal allows it, they will only ever know Danny, and they'll never know Danyal.

TL:DR the Fentons aren't the better family option just because they're civilians, and actually that makes them the worser option between the two because they can't give Danny the proper support he needs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

[secretsofthewilde]

Well. I did say that only one person needed to ask and I'll share. So here you go @raisedbythetv89 @richtea-biscuit

The actual academic essay I wrote and submitted is available to read here (x) for now at least, but as it was written for an assignment with a set word count and parameters, I ended up having to take out the section I had originally written about Cordelia and also there are a lot of references to the set textbook readings I was given. So it might not be the lightest of reading.

Essentially the essay poses the argument that for all the supposedly progressive feminist intentions of the show, we regularly see gender and sexual stereotypes still being reinforced within the show especially through the way that the women are treated for their relationship with sex. That is to to say that while the ‘Scooby gang’ typically seems to contest gender norms, with the male characters often appearing as submissive to Buffy and the female characters themselves each threatening gender norms in their own way, the intimate relations between the characters often undermine these initial contestations. In my essay I explore this through comparing Faith and Buffy's relationship with sex during the early seasons of the show.

Below is my section on Cordelia which unfortunately didn't make it into the essay, followed by a summary of my essay points on Faith and Buffy. I'm mainly sticking to seasons 1-3 for this essay because while I do mention season 4 at one point briefly, the introduction of Riley and Tara mark a change in the nature of sex and what it means in the show.

Part 2 (which is a look at Willow) has also now been written and can be found here (x)

Cordelia Chase

Cordelia starts out as a mild social antagonistic force to our Scooby gang, she is a bully. As the show progresses though she slowly starts to build connections with them, however she isn't allowed into their group until she is depicted as having romantic feelings for Xander, rather than just sexual. When it comes to Cordelia and Xander's relationship she is the dominant one. She has more social power than him and the Scoobys, as well as being more financially and academically stable than him. She also is the only one with a car, meaning she is the one who drives them to their dates. And while this at first seems to be challenging gender stereotypes of powerful men providing for an attractive but weaker woman, the problem is that she isn't allowed or accepted into the Scooby gang until after she sacrifices her social privilege to commit to a public relationship to him. Prior to this sacrifice any relationship or attempt at casual sex we saw Cordelia make was framed as shallow behaviour from her to be scorned or done for comedic effect. We see both her and Buffy seek intimate relationships in these early season, but only Buffy's attempts are framed as sympathetic. It was only when she expressed an emotional connection to Xander that she was presented as a sympathetic character to the audience.

Buffy Summers

Buffy and Angel are the first intimate relationship we see explored in the show and so it's the one that sets the audiences' initial expectations for intimacy. While Buffy is dominant within her social groups and her general use of violence to defeat enemies is something that we would say challenges gender norms, she rarely maintains these traits (or at least they are made much weaker) in scenes that explore her relationship with Angel. Once she's romantically interested in him she routinely takes a submissive role in their relationship; she goes to him for help and advice, places his well being over her role as a slayer, and waits for him to be the one to define and initiate their relationship.

 Unlike Cordelia’s early relationship with Xander, the audience is meant to be invested and sympathetic towards Buffy and Angel. From the get go we have it established that the two love each other, but despite their doomed fate we are meant to want to see them together and therefore we are sympathetic to Buffy's attempts at intimacy with him. When they do have sex and Angel loses his soul, these painful consequences is sometimes seen to be done as a punishment for Buffy having sex, but I think it's more to do with the tragic nature of their gothic romance rather than that - because Buffy and Angel did have the emotional and psychological connection that the show requires in order for their intimacy to be viewed as 'good'. In contrast though, once they break up we see Buffy try to have sex casually with other non-supernatural students but this only results in her getting hurt. When she and Parker have sex he dumps her the following day after using her; which is her punishment for attempting to have sex with something who she didn't really love like Angel. Buffy's also interesting in that her attempt to have a not only loving but sexual relationship also sets her apart from the other slayers - Kendra doesn't have sex, Faith doesn't do emotional intimacy, but Buffy tries to have both.

Faith Lehane

Faith gets to be the sexually free and explorative girl that Buffy is unable to. While she does struggle to do so, within the first three season Buffy does successfully create and sustain a heteronormative relationship that is both sexually and emotionally intimate. While Buffy might flirt with other guys that aren't Angel, she's still easily the "good girl" who cares more about the emotional connection with a guy than sex; in comparison Faith is someone who presents very confident in her sexuality and actively seeks casual sex without any emotional connections. If Buffy is seen to be masculine because of her traits as a slayer than Faith can be seen as hyper-masculine. So she challengers gender stereotypes in that her seeking casual sex and her dominant flirtatious behavior are traits typically reserved for a stereotypical "bad boy" type of character.

When Faith is first introduced to the show as an ally to our Scooby gang, her sexual confidence and behaviours are initially something that Buffy herself wants to replicate. The only time that we actually see her engage in sex on screen however is when she initiates sex with Xander, which coincidently also marks the last episode where she is considered to be someone trust worthy. Faith is the one to initiate sex with Xander, and she remains in a dominant position of control of the scene that we observe. The moment seems to subvert the trope of the confident male "deflowering" the inexperienced and submissive women (who in this scene would be Xander). However the scene is immediately cut with Faith kicking Xander out of her apartment after he tries to initiate an emotional connection with her, and this is framed for comedic effect. By framing their whole sexual encounter as comedic, it's undermining how Faith's sexual confidence seemed to challenge gender roles and instead framing deviations from expected heteronormative behaviours as something to laugh at.

It's also important that the very next episode (Bad Girls) is the one where we clearly see the descent of her mental stability as her reckless behaviour (both sexual and violent) in one-night results in her accidentally killing someone. What was initially seen as traits of a sexually confident woman, and therefore challenging gender roles, then becomes depicted for the rest of the season as signs of her mental instability and her eventual role as an antagonist. This is her punishment for engaging in casual sex; for not having the emotional or psychological connection that is needed for sexual actions to be accepted or approved of by the narrative.

Conclusion

Within the first three seasons of Buffy we see that the female characters are able to challenge gender roles in many ways, however this isn't extended to sex. They can enjoy and seek sex out at times, however they will suffer as a consequence if they don't fulfil certain heteronormative conventions during those times.

Buffy and Faith are allowed to be powerful slayers who are in charge, but in order for their power (and how they challenge dominant ideologies) to remain acceptable it needs to be limited to their battles in the streets rather than in the sheets.

[qulrikkek]

NOW let's ADDRESS the BANTHA in the room!!!

As a filmmaker, and a writer myself, when you build up a romantic relationship between two individuals you empathize how their relationship is growing.

Now, the sparks were definitely there in episode 2!

That look, (a Medium Close Up on Bo's face) which she gave to Din, after he honored her father's sacrifice could be the foundation, on which the show builds upon.

Unfortunately, afterwards there were no real indications.

No real discussion about Bo losing her castle, no real discussion by the fire when they went to rescue Ragnar, no discussion after the Armorer allowed her to take off her helmet (biggest plot whole so far), no discussion about why she wouldn't challenge Din for the Darksaber, no real discussion about their pasts (bonding is essential, but it's lacking here)... and other minor things that pile up into frustration in the viewer and later disappointment, because GLANCES at each other are NOT ENOUGH to build a relationship up, especially if they are not emphasized (there are no lingering camera close ups on neither Bo nor Din).

And unfortunately, NO the sitting closely beside each other scene is NOT an ENOUGH of an indicator of how closely their relationship is progressing...

HOWEVER!!!!!!! HEAR ME OUT!!!!

Jon Favreau amd Dave Filoni gave too much time and importance to Bo Katan's character on screen for them to then back out of it and return to simple bounty hunting episodes for Din. (In my opinion that would kill the show!)

It actually dawned on me that they are building up Bo's character too much...

She won back too much this season...

You might ask:

WHERE AM I GOING WITH THIS?

Since we know that there will be a season 4 for sure, and we have not yet seen Moff Gideon, nor Admiral Tarkin appear...

My Predictions are that Jon and Dave will play a (NASTY) card; (Filoni is known to love drama from Clone Wars, so...)

When The finale of this season comes and there's a big battle against the Mandalorians, Bo will be CAPTURED. (Or maybe injured, but that's not dramatic enough...)

This would set up the tension and the anticipation for the next season and would also give a perfect reason for Din to realize his feelings for her.

This would also push him to become the leader of her people and rescue her in season 4!

ADDITIONALLY, this show is about family (traditional family) structure.

Bo and Din spent too much time together, for the show runners not have any goal with this. (Even though they rarely talked WITH each other, rather they only talked TO each other, NOT the same thing!!!!)

I think that if they don't make DINBO happen this season the foundations were laid for the next season! (Slow burn)

ALSO, this entire third season was about how WELL they can WORK TOGETHER, so why waste the opportunity? Why not make Bo, Din and Grogu a family? (Although it could happen that they don't do anything with this, Disney is known for chickening out of real commitments!)

But After all these things these went through... Hmmm...

Hopefully this is the case, otherwise Season 3 of The Mandalorian is a sinking ship....

Anyway, there is still 2 episodes left and the way Axe Wolves has known in the beginning of episode 6 that the Quarren and the Calamari tried to run away for love (“I know it was for love.”) I predict that he will confront Bo about why wouldn't she challenge Din, and then he would find out that she has feelings for the bounty hunter.

[satohqbanana]

How to Write Consistently

Or more specifically, what has allowed Satoh to progress far into her story despite having always struggled to write multi-chapter works? Please be advised that these things worked FOR ME, SatohQBanana. If you find that these tips aren't helpful for you, feel free to ignore it.

Also this is very long.

TIP NUMBER ONE: Brevity is the soul of wit, and this meeting could've been an email. It's OK to skip scenes - not the type of skipping where you put [insert action scene] here, but the kind where you can instead summarize what occurs. If you're going to build up a character to prepare for a fight, make it obvious that they'll win, and make them win the fight, then you can skip describing what happened in the fight.

TIP NUMBER TWO: Skipping scenes for the drafting stage? That's the devil speaking! You'll end up with a far worse issue of having to make the disjointed parts fit together like a puzzle. The past you is a different person from the current you - and you probably just need to rest your eyes and your mind for a bit, to figure out how to untangle that difficult scene.

TIP NUMBER THREE: Be prepared to kill your darlings. This is especially true if you are skipping to writing the scenes you just wanted to see play out. Doing them immediately is OK as a writing practice, but be warned that future you will find a way to ruin past you's work. Don't leave problems for the future you, who will have fallen in love with current you's work and might have to face the inevitable part of the editing process that is scrapping entire ideas.

TIP NUMBER FOUR: But if you close your eyes, you'll be able to move on. Not seeing much of what you've written can help you focus on what has not been written. Tricks such as changing font styles and font colors, saving your work chapter by chapter, and even taking photos of your work on the screen to prevent yourself from editing them are helpful. If you repeat writing the same part, that's fine. You can always edit something that exists, but you can't do anything with something that does not exist except think about it all day long!

TIP NUMBER FIVE: Rotate tasks like farmers rotate crops. It is scientifically proven that having a variety of activities in one's life leads to a healthier life. And by tasks, I don't mean WIPs. Do something nice IRL: visit a museum, go to the amusement park, study a new thing, and so on. Not only does this allow you to take a break from your creative projects, but this also helps you learn more about the world, widen your view, and increase your knowledge and wisdom that you are drawing from to write your stories.

TIP NUMBER SIX: Don't forget to lay the field fallow and take a break. It is also scientifically proven that rest reenergizes you between tasks, allowing you to do the next task very efficiently. By rest, I mean actual real rest, the kind where you sit or lie down, maybe doing some ruminating, but way away from any of your devices. You can even do activities that destress you - such as cleaning, or treating yourself to a nice meal, or reading a book. Sure, it isn't writing, but it is taking care of yourself as a writer, to make sure you don't overwork yourself into a corner and curse yourself into weeks or months of writer's block.

TIP NUMBER SEVEN: Change your mindset and establish a philosophy that will allow you to work with yourself, move around your flaws, and achieve your goals. If your current workflow isn't allowing you to write well, you gotta acknowledge that and move on to a different strategy. Be open to the notion of being wrong and be open to new ideas that will challenge your current beliefs - in fact, those might help you untangle your ideas as well!

TIP NUMBER EIGHT: Hold yourself accountable. If you must use pomodoro timers or write-by-word-count apps, do it! If you must schedule your writing sessions because you have a condition or circumstance that demands it, do it! If you must have someone waiting on you so you can get motivated to have that draft done by the end of this month, do it! Be responsible - you are the author of your work, and no one else is going to write it for you.

TIP NUMBER NINE: Do it, and do it scared! JUST DO IT! If you're having doubts, you must remember: new and uncertain things are scary, but you won't know about them for real if you keep pulling yourself away from them. Growing and accumulating rich experience takes a bit of courage and doing a lot of things you don't know is right or wrong for you. But what's important is that you try, and you do. (And you have to try to finish what you set out to do, so you can have a better idea of whether the new thing is good for you or not!)

TIP NUMBER TEN: Connect with your story truly, madly, deeply. I would advise against trying to write a big idea just because it's got really nice vibes. I need you to feel your story in your soul, and have its core themes resonate with your beliefs. Just as you are your first critic, you are also your first fan. Not only will this help you love your story even as you shape it into something else, but this will help you keep in mind its essence, even as you develop it. If multiple artists can make changes to a character's design and have others recognize the character anyway, then so can you with your story!

[thunderstomm]

Hot Wheels: Let’s Race - Cruise Mini-Redesign

Now that the new season of Hot Wheels: Let’s Race has been out for a few days, it felt like due time to add her into my old lineup I did earlier this year. (You can find those here!) Cruise very quickly became my new favourite character, I love that she poses an actual challenge and threat to the others, particularly Coop. I plan to make a proper post regarding my s2 thoughts, but I particularly enjoy that she is allowed to be a proper enemy for the protagonists. Unlike when Coop had a more intense rivalry with Axle, they aren’t in constant close proximity with Cruise, meaning they don’t have to feign any sort of politeness towards her. She is the perfect adversity for Coop, and I think her just being in the show really benefits his character and motive, and I hope to see them actually have a full conversation at some point, and for that to tie into Cruise’s thoughts about Rearview’s plans for if she wins the Ultimate Garage. She clearly likes racing, what’s to say she necessarily wants it to be destroyed? I guess only time will tell.

I designed two looks for Cruise- one is a redesign of her canon outfit, and the other is meant to match the racing uniforms I gave to the campers. Her canon racing suit is alright, but I do think it is a little monochromatic. Also, I don’t like that her leaderboard colour is purple and she has no purple whatsoever on her? So I made the base suit a dark purple instead of black, and made the lime tone a little more yellow in shade, to match Professor Rearview’s base suit. I like the stripe across the chest, clearly meant to mimic the tire tracks on her father’s suit, but I wanted to make that a little more clear. I also made the shape more akin to a lightning bolt, as a sort of opposition to the hot wheels campers wearing flames. And I added a little more detail, such as pockets and seams, for good measure.

When it comes to the question of her being redeemed, I am split. I would like to see them redeem her, I think it would make sense as a character progression for her to open up to the campers (or at least, Coop, since they’re interacting the most and there is emphasis on their dynamic) and betray her father in the end, but we also haven’t seen much from her yet indicating that she WANTS to switch alignments. Season 3 could easily change this, I’m excited to see, and honestly would love to see her get worse just as much as I’d love to see her get better. I have two theories regarding possible endings where a redemption does happen for her, which will be in my s2 thoughts post. Nonetheless, I wanted to design a camper-style racing suit for her. It’s identical to the other six in terms of design and pattern, with a flame print, and where the pockets, seams and details are. It’s in purple, since that’s her colour on the leaderboard. I kept the green as a secondary colour, thank goodness green and purple look good together. Her racer number is 07, since she would join late, and the others were assigned their numbers via the first level of the camp and where they placed. She probably wouldn’t like it, but everyone is well aware her skill outclasses the little number on her suit. I also thought about possibly changing her hair colour for the switch, but I didn’t want to give her a natural hair colour (I love characters with dyed hair)’ and making it all purple brought back the monochrome problem in the opposite direction. Maybe she’d have different coloured streaks or tips? For now, I have kept it green.

Like the other designs, I’ve included a few headcanons regarding the character! I’ve seen people actually be named Cruise before, so I don’t have any issue seeing such as her legal first name. Her surname is (obviously) Rearview, pointing clear relation to her dad, Professor Rearview. I know someone will argue that “Rearview” is meant to be his first name, considering they all have car part names, but the structure of his title and name leads me to lean more towards it being a surname? Even if we do end up seeing a flashback and they refer to him as just “Rearview”, it doesn’t invalidate it, as plenty of people go by their surnames. Long story short, her full name is Cruise Rearview. Cruise is 12 years old, and is the same age as Coop, Mac and Brights. Cruise uses she/her pronouns, and is 4’10” tall.

Thank you for reading my mini-ramble all of the way !! Feel free to ask any questions about this design, or about more of my HCs regarding her, or any other characters. I’ve been having a lot of fun with these !! Proper s2 thoughts post coming soon, I promise !! 💚💜

[sieglinde-freud]

so the way endings in awakening work is a bit off if you have the gay mod because it reads single people normally, but married people have the man’s ending read, and then his wife just. attached. and so that alters which ending you see for both of them. unfortunately, that means if i have f/f pairs, which most of them were, i dont get to see any because none of them were read. and at least with the second gen, i did almost entirely f/f pairs, which dont show up, or m/m pairs, which had nothing written, so. everyone please give it up for gerome and cynthia, the only second gen ending i got to see!

😭😭 good for them!!! anyways unorganized final thoughts under cut so i dont have to make a whole other post for it

awakening lunatic sucks! but project thabes makes it suck a little less. in all honesty i had a lot of fun, awakenings a good game to revisit, and finding a way to make it challenging while being able to use my favorite units (awakening second gen) ever was awesome. normally having all 13 (or 14 in this case, with both morgans) would break the game, but lunatic kept the enemies strong, so it didnt matter what my units had. i actually got overwhelmed a lot 😭 HUGE difficulty jump between hard and lunatic all i’m saying. and then the games like “hey now u have lunatic+ if that interests you” NOOOOO THANKS.

anyways. here are my top three guys according to the medal thingies at the end

im so proud of them :3 of all the kids really but yeah these three were huge standouts. virion actually got a change in the mod where one of his subclasses was swapped for myrmidon, so yarne got to inherit astra which was actually insane? it procced ALL THE TIME so. that was crazy. chrom!inigo and fred!cynthia are always good thats not new but they were really clutch in the last few chapters. i had them both hopping around classes for most of the game bc thabes redoes skill progression so. IT TOOK CYNTHIA SO LONG TO LEARN LUNA. ITS FROM WYVERN LORD. GOD. she went through a LOT of classes yall dont even know. also honorable mention to marc and morgan, the best rallybots ever, and dancer lucina, who was outserving everyone she was in a scene with. my girl.

like ok serving cunt on the back of the god youre about to kill? get it girl!

anyways so for second gen pairs i did: lucina/f!morgan, owain/m!morgan, inigo/laurent, yarne/brady, severa/kjelle, nah/noire, and cynthia/gerome and you know what. i think i have a great taste. a lot of these were born from being unable to do other pairings but thats ok. i liked how it turned out. though i was gonna do nah/noire anyways because they were actually like. an insane duo. honestly im surprised noire didnt get a medal thing bc i feel like her nostanking with nah backing her up got me out of so much shit. maybe its because i didnt see her ending… oh. oh wait thats probably it. well. anyways.

i think awakening is not a properly balanced game, nor are the maps made for a difficulty like this. towards the end game especially, the maps are just. flat. most of them anyways, and they just become really repetitive and bland and boring. and despite this being the game with the tactician character of all the time, they dont really allow you flexible strategies, because if youre not pair up stat stacking, you will die! and that sucks. mid game is alright, but the last arc is really weak and kinda dampered my whole experience. im glad i did it, but i wouldnt actually reccomend it to anyone unless you like to play like that (which is totally fine! its just not my thing). definitely requires some solid planning as well. all in all, not the worst fire emblem ive played but… well. im not doing it again. ok anyways heres inigo mouthing off at grima

[snigora]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I'm fricken obsessed with this book and I had to write something about it, but I’ve never done something like this before so hopefully this is coherent!

Spoilers for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I want to talk about the differences in how Coriolanus (I’m just gonna call him Snow I cbb writing out his whole first name) perceives Lucy Gray and Sejanus, and how that leads him to his conclusion about human nature at the end of the novel. Because I think Lucy Gray and Sejanus are two sides of the same coin – to Snow, they both come from the districts, they are both pacifists, and they both have a desire for freedom from the reign of the Capitol. But Snow claims to love Lucy Gray and has a constant dislike, even hatred, of Sejanus. So, what’s the difference between them?

Snow starts out the book as a sort of blank slate, not having come down on either side of the humans are inherently good or humans are inherently evil debate (although it could be argued that his actions always tended towards the belief of inherent violence – but that’s not what this is about). His belief is only completely solidified at the very end, after seeing everything Sejanus and Lucy Gray have done. Given one of the major themes in the book is control versus chaos, I believe that both Lucy Gray and Sejanus represent chaos, with Dr Gaul representing control and Snow definitively falling on that end of the spectrum in the story’s finale. Snow’s close relationship with both the chaos characters is certainly what drives him to his conclusion about human nature, and his desire to control it.

Sejanus is looked down upon by pretty much everyone in the Capitol because of his district heritage. Snow is no exception to this – the only difference between his attitude towards Sejanus and the general attitude of others in the Capitol is his desire to be different from everyone else, falsely leading Sejanus to believe that Snow is his friend (Chapter 1, p17*). Snow has no interest in actually being Sejanus’s friend, but Sejanus latches on to him, much to Snow’s annoyance. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Sejanus’s loyalty lies with District 2, not with the Capitol, which is something that Snow cannot fathom. With his prejudice against the districts, Sejanus’s defence of them is something that fuels Snow’s dislike of him. Sejanus’s trajectory of rebelliousness starts small, with going out of his way to do District 2 funeral rites for tributes who die, and standing up to Dr Gaul, to actively putting himself in dangerous situations. None of his rebelliousness is violent in nature, but it all challenges Snow’s beliefs in a way that he doesn’t want to be challenged. Their ‘friendship’ causes Sejanus to often confide his plans in Snow, which Snow desperately tries to dissuade him from doing, primarily because it would reflect badly on himself. But no matter how hard he tries, Sejanus always ends up doing what he thinks is right in his eyes. Snow values control, he says so many times throughout the book, and Sejanus is someone he cannot control.

Lucy Gray, on the other hand, is someone he sees as beneath him, because she is not from the Capitol. However, Lucy Gray does not particularly strongly associate herself with the districts because of the Covey. She just sees herself as someone who unfortunately ended up in District 12, which allows Snow to justify his continued prejudice while simultaneously falling for her. But the main difference between Lucy Gray and Sejanus is that Lucy Gray’s unpredictability and ‘chaos’ always reflects well on Snow because it draws attention to her as a tribute and as his tribute. She is also very much dependent on him for survival in the Capitol, making him feel in control of her. Lucy Gray says she believes everyone has an inherent goodness in them, and that is reflected in the ways she perceives Snow – everything he does, which we know is out of self-interest, she interprets as a selfless act. So really, she falls for a façade of Snow. She sees all the good in him and voices it often, making him feel validated. He finds her alluring because she is different, she reflects well on him as a tribute, and he sees her as a controllable sort of ‘chaos’. He starts to realise that she’s not as controllable as he’d like – that she has a life outside of him in District 12 and that’s when his affections for her start to slip, and that, along with other events, leads him to ultimately turn on her completely.

So, how do these two similar yet different people influence Snow’s view of human nature? The conclusion Snow draws at the end of the story (mildly influenced by his upbringing and Grandma’am, and majorly influenced by Dr Gaul) is that the Games must continue to constantly remind people about the inherent savagery of humanity, which he thinks people will inevitably revert to if the Capitol loses control. In Sejanus, he sees how his pacifist actions always end up with more violence – when he tries to trade tributes with Snow because he sympathises with his own district, and Marcus ends up dying horrifically; when he disappears into the arena and Snow has to retrieve him, the tributes band together to try and kill them; and when he colludes with the rebels in District 12, which causes the death of Mayfair, Billy Taupe, and Sejanus himself. In Lucy Gray, it’s how he sees her behave in the arena, seemingly killing people with ease; he believes that Billy Taupe’s death is her fault, and that he will end up like him if he stays with her; and when she leaves the snake to bite him in the woods.

Finally, the actions of Sejanus and Lucy Gray also cause Snow to realise the violence within himself. When he escapes the arena with Sejanus and is ambushed by the tributes, he kills a tribute (Bobbin?) out of self defence without a second thought. This shakes him up and causes him to start giving thought to Dr Gaul’s idea of human’s natural state being violent. When he catches Sejanus with the contraband, he ends up killing Mayfair, this time out of self-preservation. After this, he has an active role in the murder of both Sejanus and Lucy Gray, convincing him of his own need, and from there everyone’s need, to be under the control of the Capitol to keep the peace.

This turned into more of a ramble. But I haven’t had a chance to talk about these ideas with anyone yet (and I’ve only read the book once and I may have made errors), so I’m very open to discussion!

*I have the movie tie in edition of the book

[illarian-rambling]

I heard ghost ship in space and came running :)

So I’m not 100% certain how your cast fits into the ghost ship unless I’m vastly misunderstanding what you mean by ghost ship but I’m here to ask questions all the same because I love characters. Here goes:

I’m going to assume at least some of the characters are either from or end up forming a spaceship crew (feel free to ignore this if not) so I’m curious what roles they end up playing (like who’s the captain, the mechanic, the helm officer, etc)? What ways do they suit those roles and what ways do they really not suit those roles?

What’s their goal? Do they all agree on it? I feel like going out into the death void that is Illarian space isn’t something you do unless you have a plan of what you want

How do they react to the unique challenges of space? Like I love space, but the tiny living quarters, lack of natural light or nature of any kind, spending time in a small environment with the same five people, rationing, knowledge that any minor damage to your ship could kill you… it’s not for the faint of heart. Are they used to it? How do they cope (or not)?

I hope some of these help the brainstorming :)

This helps so much, thank you!

So, by ghost ship, I mean the characters for this are gonna be ghosts. Essentially, the vague idea is that some mages on Illaros found out that there's this 'mysterious wall' at the edge of their solar system, and they want to launch a ship into space to check it out while also investigating some of the other planets along the way because yay first space travel! However, technology hasn't progressed to space suit level. The ship is actually just a wooden ship with a runic engine that they're teleporting into space via a teleportation rune etched on basically a manhole cover they managed to launch up there by putting it on top of a well with a bomb at the bottom. They know they don't have the means for survival up there, so what do they do? They go to a Chosen priest and ask them to summon up some ghosts.

At this point, the gods have a vested interest in this mission. A few ghosts might be small enough to slip past End unnoticed and find out if there's anything else in the universe. But they don't want to give up their best and brightest on what's likely a suicide mission, so they pick some screw-ups with a few skills to send instead, promising them a better place in the afterlife should they succeed. Some divine magic allows the ghosts to be bound to the ship and off the mission goes!

The thing about all these fuckers being dead though, is that they don't need a lot of traditional ship stuff. Especially since it's a magic ship that mostly flies by itself. I've got five crew members planned out, each with a role.

Faalgun Falani is the captain. He was a renowned Flying City pilot until his gambling addiction got him fired and eventually beaten to death. He's an uptight sort who tries to adhere to a code of honor, even though he often slips up. Out of all of the crew, he knows the most about space and the other planets, as the Flying City travels between planets frequently. I think he really wants to get into his religion's heaven to prove that he's not a total failure. Maybe he's got family or a lover there too? Who knows!

Nyda Burningrock is an astronomer who died about 400 years before the story takes place. She's Nabafyrian and has a bit of a complex about not being an adept fighter in such a martial culture, despite her rough and tumble nature. She was actually the first to theorize that the 'stars' move under their own power more than what's accounted for by gravity and the rotation of the planet, and she found a way to predict those movements, but unfortunately, she didn't write anything down or cite any sources. Her end came when she decided to travel to the realm of the Fair Folk to observe the sky there. She lasted about 15 minutes before getting hunted for sport by a fae lord.

Kaulakri Placeholdersurname is gonna be a sort of foil for Nyda, I think. She's a halawemavish selkie and the ship's cartographer, as well as a natural historian. She has beef with Nyda because mapmakers have been trying to replicate Nyda's method of predicting the unpredictable movements of Illari stars for centuries, but again, Nyda wrote literally nothing down. Kaulakri, on the other hand, writes everything down. She's neat and orderly and unfortunately wasn't able to get her comprehensive map of the world's ocean currents organized in time before she died of a random stomach bug.

Pashananath (Pash for short) is the ship's negotiator, for if they encounter any life beyond the wall of End. He's one of the Fair Folk and grew up in the Hive (a vast compound city ruled by a powerful fae demigod). His Contribution (an important concept for fae) was music. He was quite the musician, but due to his faculty for languages, he also worked as a honeytongue - essentially a smooth-talker/jester for hire in Fair Folk society. He died very young for one of the Fair Folk when another fae decided to kill him for playing a pitchy song. Pash isn't too mad about this (fae morals are weird), even if the rest of the crew things he should be.

And finally, there's Anarac. The scientists didn't ask for him, but the gods sent him anyways. No one knows what his specialty is because he never talks. He's the longest dead out of all of them and is one of the extinct Araunian people.

With such a cast, I'm hoping there'll be a good deal of tension. I don't think they actually know much about End (besides Anarac), except that the Chosen who summoned them said it's dangerous, so they arent worried about it nearly as much as they should be. I'm hoping that Nyda and Kaulakri can have a fun rivalry, while Pash might be the son figure Anarac needs, and leading these people to success will help Faalgun stop thinking he's a failure.

I'll probably structure it more episodically, with fun stuff happening at each planet they stop to explore. I have no idea what's gonna happen when they reach End's blockade, but I guess I can figure that out later. I think the main environmental problem for a ship full of dead people would be that if they get too far from the ship, they start to lose their ability to stay corporeal, then they just fade away.

Lmk if you have any more questions or suggestions! I think this really helped me with getting things straight in my mind, so thanks a ton <3

[cosmicwishingwell]

What makes king magnifico a villain is how mean, rude and how he lacks empathy, there was no good reason to force asha on the stage and be force to watch her loved one be disappointed and broken hearted that is his wish did not come true, while asha sits there knowing that sabino will never get to live out his wish all because magnifico is living in the past OR he is just power hungry, and none that gives magnifico a "OK!" to manipulate and lie to people about their wishes, and sure the people of roses know that you forget your wish when you give it to magnifico, they also know that magnifico grants one wish once a month but that is not a clear indication that your wish will never come true, the song 'welcome to roses!' They actually say your wish will come true someday while it is safe and magnifico backs that claim up, "someday your wish will come true" is a guaranteed that it will, but we all know that was not true.

Absolutely! You've hit the nail on the head with your points about Magnifico's villainy. Here's how we can expand on them and further explore how Magnifico's actions paint him as a villain in contrast to Asha's character:

Magnifico's Moral Bankruptcy: Cruelty Disguised as Protection

Magnifico's villainy extends far beyond just his hoarding of wishes. It's the way he manipulates the system and exploits its vulnerabilities to solidify his own power:

Cruelty Cloaked in Control: Forcing Asha on stage wasn't just about entertainment; it was a power play. He shattered Sabino's dream in front of everyone, demonstrating his absolute control over their fates. It was a way to keep everyone intimidated and dependent on him, a tactic far removed from genuine leadership. Asha, on the other hand, embodies empathy and compassion. She understands the emotional weight of wishes and wouldn't dream of publicly humiliating someone for the sake of spectacle.

Lies and Deception: The Erosion of Trust

There's a difference between forgetting your wish and being misled about its fate. Magnifico's system thrives on ambiguity and half-truths. The song "Welcome to Rosas!" promises wishes granted "someday," leaving the timeline conveniently vague. This creates false hope and allows Magnifico to manipulate the system. Asha, however, is a champion of transparency. She advocates for a system where people are fully aware of the process and understand the implications of their choices.

Power-Hungry Puppet Master: Magnifico's ultimate concern isn't the "safety" of the kingdom; it's his own grip on power. The wishing system allows him to control people's dreams, aspirations, and their very destinies. He thrives on their dependence and constantly reinforces the idea that he's the sole arbiter of their happiness. Asha, on the other hand, stands for individual empowerment. She believes people have the right to pursue their own dreams and actively shape their lives, fostering a vision of a king who leads with the well-being of his people at heart.

The Glimmer of Hope: Asha's Fight for a Fair Wishing System

Asha's actions highlight the true cost of Magnifico's "benevolence." She fights for a system built on transparency, empathy, and individual agency. Here's why Asha's courage shines through:

A Voice for the Voiceless: Asha speaks out against the injustice of Magnifico's system. Her act of rebellion inspires others to question the status quo and fight for the freedom to pursue their dreams. She's the catalyst for positive change, a reminder that individuals have the power to challenge oppressive systems.

Compassion over Control: Asha's empathy sets her apart. She understands the emotional weight of wishes and the devastation of having them shattered. She embodies a leadership that prioritizes the well-being of her people, not just their obedience.

Empowering Dreams, Not Stifling Them: Asha champions a system where wishes become the sparks that ignite individual growth and societal progress. She envisions a future where everyone has the freedom to pursue their dreams, contributing their unique talents to the betterment of the kingdom.

In conclusion, Magnifico's villainy isn't about brute force; it's about manipulation, deception, and the erosion of trust. He's a power-hungry ruler who thrives on the fear of his people. Asha, the true hero, stands in stark contrast. She represents hope, courage, and the belief that everyone has the potential to achieve their dreams. She embodies the spirit of a leader who empowers others and fosters a society built on empathy, transparency, and individual agency.

What do you think? Does this response further highlight why Magnifico's actions are those of a villain and why Asha is the true hero of "Wish"?

[greensaplinggrace]

🔥Shadow and Bone

okay. shadow and bone’s portrayal of the darkling as ‘the charming, manipulative older abuser’ isn’t subversive. it’s not even subversive for it’s genre. anyone who claims it is is acting like a pretentious douchebag and gives off the impression that shadow and bone is the only thing they’ve read in their life.

a series that paints it’s main activist for the oppressed minority as the villain, has the heroes oppose him and then kill him, and then has them uphold the status quo without ever addressing the problems that radicalized him in the first place - actually making the situation worse for the oppressed minority after his death - is a series that is loyal to the genre’s regular inability to properly address real world problems or challenge societally accepted, regularly taught, and preconceived beliefs, biases, and prejudices in any way. it abides by all societal rules and standards.

furthermore, it embraces the majority of popular american media’s desire to in some way propagandize the government and/or the catholic church. this is displayed in the presence of nikolai, who functions as the white savior - a less outcast, less traumatized version of ‘the abuser’, who rolls in privilege and embodies everything the white leftist thinks is acceptable. he is one of the Good Ones, after all. 

this is also evident in the way the writing treats it’s main female characters: by shaming them for their desires, infantilizing them and whitewashing their worse actions, and often making them two dimensional victims of the ‘dark, dangerous, outcast seductor’ with no real personality anymore. when the female characters are ‘empowered’ in this series, it is usually only when they are enforcing the status quo - any other moment of power is likened to greed, selfishness, and monstrousness (which is all, of course, only ever tied to the oppressed minority and to men).

the only time the women in the series can be truly ‘good’ is when they are stripped of all personality, progression, or power - or when they are directly opposing or disagreeing with the villain. this gets to such a point in the books where the main female character’s arc of self actualization is regressed in an effort to turn her away from such ‘evil thoughts and desires’, simply because the villain encouraged her to engage with them. 

in a startling show of entirely embracing this genre’s many sexist flaws, the main character is stripped of her agency and beaten back from her growth into true womanhood and self acceptance simply because of the sins and influence of one man. he must have corrupted her, says the narrative. he is the one that put her darkness there. and so she is therefore never allowed to truly explore those darker parts of herself to reach the full breadth of her own actualization and self acceptance.

she can now never truly come to love herself because she has been ‘tainted’. and now the only true way she can be saved and happy is if she is ‘cleansed’ of what makes her other from society. the fundamental tying of everything that makes alina different and unique to something 'sinful' will forever condemn her to a life of assimilation and loss.

not to mention that - as has been stated before - the series does nothing to actually challenge any actual preconceived notions of abusers, and instead only cements the common belief that abusers are easy to identify and noticeable in their status as outcast from society and from the ‘church’. the regular dehumanization of the darkling by the fictional church as well as the socially accepted characters presents him as a monster, which only solidifies the common belief that abusers are not people, that they don't function as people, and that they are universally unliked.

the use of dark and light themes could have been groundbreaking if implemented correctly, but instead the heavy handed attempts at moralizing through these symbols only further makes the series standard to the genre by enforcing your typical puritanical roles upon characters that deserved more nuance. 

it was a basic ya novel in every way, it did nothing to actually subvert the genre, for subversion is only effective when you don’t hate the genre you’re subverting, and the author’s aversion to ya, fantasy, and the women who read it and ‘fall for it’ is clear in both real life and in what she’s written. the series’ ‘condemnation’ of the ‘dark, charming, and brooding older lover’ actually ended up making the series less subversive simply because it was not only handled so poorly that it practically condemned and shamed abuse victims instead, but also because it enforced the same standards society and most popular ya enforces today in young women or people of any minority when it comes to their determined roles.

you know what piece of media is subversive for it’s genre? black sails. you know what piece of media isn’t? shadow and bone.

send me a 🔥 for an unpopular opinion (x)

[numbuh-72]

Artist's Message/Update

Hey everyone! Artsy_Lexi here!

Hope everyone has been doing all right and staying safe out there!

I have some stuff I would like to say in regards to Numbuh 72's blog and the plans for what's to come in the future, so buckle up and grab a can of soda!

First off, I wanna thank the people who've been around to support me and my work ever since I returned to Tumblr under Numbuh 72, you guys are all amazing and I've been having a blast starting to know some of you guys, through my fellow mutuals~. I will say, ideas continue to develop in my head for stuff to draw and interact with you guys and have some fun with our characters!

With that in mind, I'm already almost to 25 followers on here! I do plan on doing a small celebration for this milestone that's already about to be achieved, so once I hit it, stick around for a DTIYS art challenge and be on the lookout for a new hashtag that I will put for my oc, Gianna Chavez!

Aside from that though, allow me to give yall an update for what I plan to do to...better organize this blog;

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I have a lot of ideas for this blog that's been running around my head for ages now and I've been struggling on what idea to do first; This would include

Alternate Universes (FNF, Roblox, Little Brother, etc.)

Finishing up OC Ref sheets, well, updated versions of them-

RP Doodles for RPs that I'm doing as we speak

LOG Data (I've been typing away for days on some of these to catch up on the stuff-)

Creating my own Headcanon for Sector V and other canon characters (Basically a universe for Gianna-)

And so much more!!!!

Don't worry though, I'm gonna be taking as much time as needed to be able to properly organize all of these awesome ideas, though I think for the meantime, I'm gonna try and focus on Gianna's main storyline that involves her improvement on the Treatment Program and how she will successfully get out of it!

Most of her adventures she will have, I plan to maybe do them via roleplays or from doing asks with all my moots and at one point, involve them in the main storyline for Gianna! (That is of course, I get consent for those that see this~)

So the LOG Data you see, those are actual reflections from roleplays that I have completed or in progress that I think are considered worthy for Gianna to report, for this is part of her program to see if she has been improving or not during the course.

I might even at one point ask for help now and then from my friends to gib ideas and of course properly credit them since they are all amazing~

As far as how I will tell the story on here, I have some ideas of doing Arcs with chapters, following with illustrations now and then, or maybe attempt to do a comic series. Who knows, we shall see~

I'm hoping though to try and get more asks in her inbox since sadly it's been empty for the most part and I was hoping people were curious to know her more while I work on some stuff on the side.

Don't worry though! Everything's all good! I'm just pushing a gentle reminder that the Asks are open for Gianna and the ocs listed that are open for questions~ <3

Now inspired by the lovely @kandykatz's way of their organizing their master posts, I might go for that way of organizing my stuff properly, or might do some twists, who knows, still gotta figure that out-

I...think that's all I have for now in what's the plan for this blog, if anything comes to mind I will edit this post or maybe do a part 2.

Thanks guys for taking the time to read! I hope to continue cooking up in the kitchen with yall and have some fun here~

[lorei-writes]

OC Thoughts: Esther Materna #1

... or why she is constructed the way she is. ;)

Contents

Character: Personal Story

Reconsidering Relationships

Chevalier

Character: Personal Story

What is their story? Are they the main character? A supporting actor? What conclusions do I want to arrive at and what circumstances do I need to enable that?

Initially, Esther was meant to be merely a side-character without too much exposition. In the first draft, she was the ill twin sister whose condition got progressively worse, to the point of her life being endangered. If the centre of the universe was her twin, then Esther was an excuse -- she was the means of pushing Viva into a dark headspace, the reason for revenge.

The second draft for the twins' personal stories came with a variety of "what if" scenarios... and the question of how to bring them towards reality. What if Esther wanted to save Viva? How would she go about it? What if she talked with Chevalier? How would she do that? Why?What if she took on a more active role? Would she dare to? Should she? And, more importantly... if she was the primary focus of the narrative, what story would she tell?

Esther's core was decided: she is the ill twin sister, loyal to the point of being willing to abandon her life. She does not believe she has much time left. To contrast her with Viva, she is not brave. However, she's willing to push herself for the sake of her loved ones.

Reconsidering Relationships

Esther's relationship with Viva was set in stone from the very beginning. However, that much could not be said about any of the other characters. Since her general design was still fairly vague, my aim was to look for any interesting interactions that could occur given Esther's core. The rest of her, as such, was fleshed out with the intention of bringing out the most out of those possibilities.

Chevalier

Esther's circumstances make her fragile yet oddly durable at the same time. She endures and she's readily willing to endure, regardless of the price she may have to pay for her loyalty.

Fragile against Powerful. Loyal despite reason against Logical. Terrified yet determined against Terrifying.

Selecting Chevalier as a close counterpart for Esther provided a set of interesting contrasts and enabled multiple paths of exploring her as a character -- her sense of uselessness correlated with her illness, the rift between physical fragility and mental prowess, emotion being the source of courage, determination that defies reason, etc. etc. Then it became the question whether that set up is mutually beneficial. Or, in other words, can Esther serve as a driver for exploring Chevalier? The answer, obviously, is "yes".

Chevalier is certain he can protect anything. As such, details of Esther's illness were decided (and modelled after actual existing illnesses) to counter that statement. How do powerful feel when they are helpless? How does a genius react to failure? Can he move on from it? How will he live knowing he cannot protect the one thing dear to him? How does it affect Chevalier's understanding of strength? How does it change how he views his role?

Further details were added to increase the number of such "unknowns" and to level the field between them.

Esther is well-versed in emotion ⇄ Chevalier is extremely logical

Esther is religious ⇄ Chevalier is (likely) not religious

Esther is observant (especially in regards to humans) ⇄ Chevalier is observant (relatively well-rounded, albeit with limited understanding of human emotion)

Esther cannot allow herself to be afraid of Chevalier if she wants to help her sister ⇄ Chevalier is not used to not being feared

Esther grows daring once not fully aware of herself ⇄ Chevalier is not used to being approached in a daring manner

Esther is generally rather reserved ⇄ Chevalier is direct in conduct (at times, to his personal amusement), however:

Esther is determined ⇄ Chevalier challenges others

... and the list goes on :)

[mdhwrites]

The Owl House had an issue with introducing characters that had minimal impact on the storyline. Boscha, Kikimora, Vee, Hunter, and The Collector could’ve all been removed from the story with little change, and their screen time could’ve been used toward other characters that needed it more than them.

So we talk a lot about story necessity I want to start this with the fact that filler and side characters often help add flavor to a story. It's something frankly I struggle with because my stories focus on progressing forward which helps me get a lot done with a small word count. Most of the characters listed here though... Actually are fine. At least until S3 for Boscha and Kikimora and that brings up the fact that different roles require less time to matter, though I want to mention that this addition of flavor and the like is exactly why no one will ever question why Viney was a part of the show. She's fun and she's the ONE time we get ANYONE actually struggling with the desire to be multi-covened but the system won't allow it, even if it's not done particularly well in that episode.

So, what are the roles of each character versus how much time do they have on screen? Well:

Boscha: Basic teenage antagonist for school things. Requires only as much time as is dedicated to teenage drama. Mostly disappears after S1 because of this except for two funny moments at her expense... Except in S3 when the show states she's actually more than what was portrayed before.

Kikimora: Basic, irredeemable, comedy villain general to allow fighting Belos without fighting Belos. Requires only as much time as is required to confront Belos AND OTHER, BETTER GENERALS AREN'T AROUND. Then in S3 is there as a standalone, one off antagonist despite her BOSS having been defeated and her not being anything new.

Vee: One off foil to Luz for character conflict for an episode. Takes up one episode and that's... it. She's fine.

Hunter: Complex, Redeemed Villain General. Requires as much time as is required for a satisfying redemption. Is actually cut short because he is not actually a villain for any time, cutting his point at the knees. Also connects to Belos but *looks at Lilith and Kikimora, both from season 1* that's redundant. Kikimora LITERALLY goes through the same fucking shit as Hunter and only once Belos has left her for dead/tried to kill her, much like Hunter, she forsakes him. She just becomes a bad guy instead of a good guy but even the breakdowns Hunter has or the depression about losing their purpose are both shared. They're almost the same character and nothing is done with that foiling frankly.

Collector: Complex, Redeemed Final Villain. Requires the time for his machinations and desires to be unraveled and challenged in a way that is thematically coherent because if you're going to redeem your big bad, it becomes about a battle of ideologies. Instead, we get one conversation with him before him being released and like... Two afterwards. That isn't enough time for him to have a machination or big bad moments. That's barely enough time for a one off villain.

That's the bigger issue with TOH. It has no idea what its priorities are... Nor does it feel like it cares. Like Kikimora is Belos' main general, effectively his biggest expression onto the show before S3... And she sucks. Meanwhile, his coven heads go unused and underutilized, staying as one off villains instead. Then their more complex characters and concepts aren't actually given the time needed because that would mean not getting the payoff of redemption or reformation of these characters. It is also just lacking ideas so it doesn't know what to do with any of these characters the longer it goes on and so keeps scraping the bottom of a well. Hence why Kikimora and Boscha return in S3 despite one effectively not being in S2 (if Boscha was important, she'd have at least cameod in Labyrinth Runners) and the other being a complete joke by the end who's boss was reduced to a puddle once already.

And that's frankly the bigger issue. These characters feel redundant and like they don't even add flavor because... They are and they don't. The show has VERY few concepts in general besides social statements. That's why most of their villains or dilemmas are them miming at a social issue and why it had to carve up more and more angst as it ran out of ideas it could just copy from the modern world. Or reused ideas even in the same season just with other basic fantasy things.

And more complex ideas REQUIRE creativity and skill. They require the elements that seem to be most lacking in the show. That's why the fandom can create a billion ideas because they're unrestrained and actually see the potential in these concepts while the show runners feel blind to the gold they are writing themselves. Again: You could have spent an entire SEASON dealing with just all of Amity's baggage towards redemption and reformation, twenty episodes, and probably still had material on the table and instead, it frankly boils down to at best a handful of episodes, at most two, before she is fully redeemed and telling her potential to go fuck off because she has the job of a bland love interest to do.

As it is now? The show is lucky that it didn't have time to make literally everything redundant, no matter how hard it tried to anyways.

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[landoftheway]

Thoughts on Lisa: The Definitive Edition

Finished all of the new content in both Painful and Joyful, and after giving it some time to sit I’ve got some thoughts about all of it. Below the cut for both length and spoilers:

The Painful

To start with, I love the new campfire scenes. They’re funny, heartwarming, and everything in between, and I actually like that they’re locked behind both the RNG of resting and specific requirements for certain scenes (having enough characters, progressing far enough, either taking or not taking Joy, etc.). It incentivizes people to actually use those rest opportunities instead of just farming mags and resting at an inn.

Brad’s Nightmare scenario is generally very good, but even I think it drags on a little longer than necessary. That said I really like both the fight itself and the lore both before and after it. It really gets across how deep the roots of Brad’s trauma go (a metaphor that I’ll come back to in the Joyful section below), and while ultimately it doesn’t change the outcome of his story it allows for both the audience to get a deeper insight into him and for him to have a moment of genuine reflection on his life, particularly allowing him to think about Lisa as the actual person she was and not the specter of grief and guilt he normally perceives her as. And while it IS possible to cheese the fight without losing anyone, I like the thematic resonance of Brad having to sacrifice the people around him and his connections to them in order to fight his inner-demons; it’s a cool way of tying that theme into a mechanical interaction the player can participate in.

The new sound and music changes are, unfortunately, weaker than the originals all around, but Jorgensen was very direct about the legal reasons they had to be made so there’s not much helping that. In the same way the changes made to the Playstation release are downright silly but also legally necessary for its release on that platform, so I get it.

The gameplay re-balancing seems fine all around. I should note that I did my playthrough on Pain Mode without using any Joy, so I stuck with the classic OP team of Terry, Birdie, and Nern, so for most of the game I had largely the same gameplay experience as my first time through. I do appreciate the inclusion of an EXP share for the party, since it made leveling everyone up at the EWC to get their level 25 abilities much easier and also helped get everyone prepped for the new superboss.

The Joyful

Much like the original release this new content is much more of a mixed bag compared to Painful, but overall I enjoyed it. To start with the least controversial aspect, I like the new Warlord abilities Buddy gets; they’re all both fun and interesting to use and definitely make playing as Buddy more engaging than how she used to be.

On a similar note, the new boss fight she has with apparitions of all the Warlords together is a fun bonus challenge. I particularly like that you can resolve it both by actually fighting them or just defending against them for several turns cause it ties into the ways Buddy is thematically different than Brad. Brad can only conceive of facing his guilt by fighting it due to both his past and having lived long enough for that mentality to become set in stone, but Buddy for all of her faults has at least the potential to see things outside of that dynamic (this being one of the crux’s of her final decision to take the vaccine or not).

The above aspect of Buddy is what ties into the more controversial part of the new content, which is the lead-up to the new ending and that ending itself. It’s worth stating at this point that a lot of this new content is very intentionally vague as to whether it’s literal or metaphorical. For example, the young Rick, Sticky, and Cheeks as well as the Dusty face all speak as ghosts of their adult selves, but in the same weird area we also see a young Bernard and Dusty that are definitely memories of the past. The setting of Olathe has always been one where the supernatural explicitly exists (fireballs, fingerbeams, etc.) and Lisa herself always kinda towed the line between shared hallucination and an actual ghost, so in that respect it’s nothing new for the game but it can definitely make what happens next difficult to parse.

The crux of the new ending is Buddy “planting” Lisa inside herself, which radically alters her dialogue with Buzzo after Yado’s death. Whether this is literal or metaphorical is, again, vague as all hell. On one hand Buddy speaks to Buzzo about things she should ostensibly know little to nothing about and Buzzo accuses her of stealing Lisa away from him, which lends to the idea that this was in some way literal. On the other hand pretty much everything Buddy says to Buzzo are either things she could have feasibly (if a bit improbably) put together or else just things she could have said just to hurt him as much as possible, and Buzzo himself is in the process of becoming a Joy mutant and completely losing his mind, so it’s also possible this is all purely metaphorical. My personal interpretation lies somewhere in the middle but leans more towards the latter; while I think there’s probably some truth to the idea of Lisa as an actual specter/tulpa/whatever, I see most of this new stuff as not things that literally occurred as depicted (i.e. Buddy did not literally collect the items that are part of the puzzle to unlock this ending).

What the metaphor of all this is is pretty plainly stated by Brad in the epilogue, and ties back into the “roots” theming of the new content in Painful. Namely, that a strong and healthy foundation is needed in order for a person to grow into their best self, and that foundation is rooted in love for others and one’s self. Brad compares this to gardening, specifically noting how it requires both healthy soil and constant maintenance, and how a failure to do so can cause weeds already pulled to come back worse than ever. In other words, you need to both connect with and love others as a foundation and find ways to address stuff like pain and guilt regularly, or else they’ll plant their roots in your head and never really go away.

Looking at the new ending through this lens, Buddy “planting” Lisa in herself pretty obviously represents making a connection to her not as a burden of guilt and pain but as a human being. This is reflected in the accusations Buddy throws at Buzzo that for all of his supposed devotion to Lisa he’s still blaming her for driving him to become the man he is now, and how that shows his failure to actually connect to Lisa as a person. Buzzo might claim that he loved her, but it’s abundantly clear he just sees her a justification to direct his pain outwards at the world around him. His accusations of Buddy “stealing” Lisa away from him can thus be viewed as her taking away his ability to think of her and “hear” her as he has up to this point. The final shot of the game is also connected to all of this: the figure holding Buddy could represent a number of specific individuals (the most notable candidates being either Lisa, Lisa and Brad’s mom, or Buddy’s mom), but more importantly it's a visual representation of Buddy having gained the ability to connect to, trust, and love others.

With all of that said, I do have a significant criticism of this new ending: Buddy’s dialogue with Buzzo is, in my opinion, kind of badly written. This was a problem in the original release of Joyful as well in my opinion, namely that the way Buddy talks is weirdly stilted at times compared to her more consistent flow of dialogue in the Painful. The things she’s saying are themselves perfectly fine (as someone who loves to hate Buzzo I particularly enjoyed someone calling him out on what a fucking manchild he is), but her phrasing comes across like it’s waffling between a bitter and blunt way of speech and a more formal and precise tone of voice. So the end result is a sequence with a great essence at its core but a weak execution, which like I said at the start is nothing if not consistent with Joyful’s original release.

TL;DR

Painful DE is great except for the music changes, Joyful DE is weaker but still pretty good which is nothing new, get the game on PC if you haven’t already.

[halfyearsqueen]

Yet Princess Rhaenyra continued to sit at the foot of the Iron Throne when her father held court, and His Grace began bringing her to meetings of the small council as well.

Send me a quote/scene from my character’s canon, and I will explain (ic or ooc) what went through my character’s head during said quote/scene! | @lcerys

in the face of all of the questions about the great council of 101 with the birth of her half brother, there was a level of comfort to be found in the fact she was seemingly progressing. she wasn't stalled in place while people debated the matter of the merit of her claim and he was actually doing things to show them that he was serious about her as his successor and serious about his installation of her as the first princess of dragonstone, even now. she can handle the questions as long as he does that. as long as he keeps defending her claim and actually seeking to progress her education in politics and as his named successor. and that has a lot to do with her doing those things and sitting and observing the inner workings of court and actually bearing witness to how it works and how ruling works. and like she's ? nine. there's that racing heart giddy sort of feeling to be able to sit the iron throne at all, even if it is on the steps of it. and like as far as she's concerned she's already on it, all she needs to do is work to climb those steps and prove herself worthy of mounting those steps. and it feels like she's already off to a good start and it ? watching the court does interest her a lot.

and again, she's nine. she gets to spend time with her father, and feel special being in such a unique place for anyone much less a girl when there is a male successor but there's also, the burden of duty that comes along with it like. the weight of the importance settles on her shoulders when she's very young and very soon after she's named heir to the iron throne. like she does watch, she does pay attention, and she does absorb what she sees and the decisions that her father makes in the petitions that are placed before him and it's ? it's comforting to have him at her back, to have those swords surrounding her while the court lived and breathed around them. and moved on around them. it's a very secure feeling, which allows her to focus on what is ahead and not what's behind or to the side. and it's a very different ball field when he starts to take her to small council. this is the place she's never been when she was just his cupbearer, like she would pour their cups and be sent away, and that was routine, and not something she ever truly thought anything of.

she's about 11-12 when he starts bringing her to meetings of the small council and it's like ? these are the lords she needs to impress and not smallfolk that are treating with the king. these are the people she needs to have not just a good report with, these are the people who need to believe in her use and capabilities as their future queen enough so they're willing to ally themselves with her against the queen's party, and against the tradition and precedence that is backing her brother's claim to the throne and like it's ? her own inexperience really does work against her at first because like, no matter how she's learning and how much sense she might make when she's allowed to speak she's still a child, and a girl. so it's very difficult at first to be able to be heard without feeling as if they're merely indulging her for the king's sake. like it is very intimidating but it also represents a near insurmountable challenge that she needs to be able to overcome if she wants to stand any chance at all of having a valid position against the queen's party. i don't think she really feels comfortable opening her mouth at first because she's afraid she's going to get sent away, unless he asks her to speak, and it's ? because she's still so new to being there while the meetings are going on it's ? she wants to be able to observe enough she can understand what she's talking about when she talks about it infront of these men, and that's definitely what leads her to dig deeper into the archives and start researching into the reigns of king aegon, king aenys, and king jaehaerys.

she already had an interest in the histories but now there's ? a pointed reason to dig deeper because she's essentially being thrown into a political field she doesn't understand all that well with the only tool at her disposal being her own observational skill. her lessons with a maester do not prepare her completely for the realities of active rule and king jaehaerys was hailed as the one who made the seven kingdoms one, and aegon the conqueror, was aegon the conqueror. and with aenys there is a lot to be learned from his reign as king, even if he wasn't remembered as a successful one. she can build a defense off of the way they ruled and the laws they passed. she can fortify herself with knowledge, if nothing else. she can always be prepared for whatever argument comes her way by having that knowledge of their reigns and how they themselves ruled the seven kingdoms.