#backstory should explain current behavior but you need to establish current behavior first

[utilitycaster]

The answers Marisha gave in this 4SD felt a lot more realized than in the past, which is good! But it still makes me feel like this character concept is incredibly ambitious and when juxtaposed with the various "I don't want to think anymore"/"go with the flow" statements I'm not sure she realized that.

The biggest example is that Laudna has two conflicting traits: she is extremely sensitive to betrayal, and she is very quick to trust even after experiencing a number of betrayals in her life. And when I say "conflicting" I mean that they are in conflict with each other, not that it doesn't make sense for a character to be a complicated person with traits that frequently work against them; in fact that's in my opinion a fantastic way to create a compelling character. But it feels like the why is only just starting to get explored in any capacity, and because of that even good choices raise more questions: why is this only coming out now; why so young a regression; why has it peeked out so weirdly and inconsistently in the past; why haven't the repeated betrayals in the past two months affected her mindset and made her more closed off. It once again makes me really wish we'd gotten a sustained outburst after the party reunited, because that would have made far more sense - a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me situation.

I agree with the opinion that Laudna conceptually just fits far more with being an actual child herself - her desire to befriend children frankly comes off slightly weirder (not line-crossing or anything, just a little off) than it would had she died younger, as does her approach of dolls, and her failure to do anything with Delilah would make a lot more sense if she was at an age to be much more reliant. It would also make her inability to just blend into a city much more reasonable; no one is going to rent to a lone 11 year old. It really does feel that when the creepy child idea was rejected - which is a valid choice - it wasn't reworked sufficiently to fit someone who died in her late teens or early 20s.

I also don't really get the idea of her childlike nature being without malice. A pretty consistent theme for the various traumatic childhoods the characters of Bells Hells (and, tbh, past parties as well) has been the cruelty children are capable of - Ashton even says it in 3x78. Delilah being stuck with someone without malice would honestly lead to a situation in which Laudna was very trusting of her, which isn't the case, which again goes back to the conflict of betrayal as a trigger vs. being so quick to trust. Given that Laudna was frequently bullied and rejected as a kid, one would think she'd be aware of this. The specific example of Delilah calling Ashton a child and Laudna making him a doll still works wonderfully, but the overarching theme falls apart in places.

I think things have been on an upswing as of late, but ultimately we're at a point where, without some retcons I don't think Laudna will ever truly make complete sense because it's just such an intensive concept that did not get the work that required, and still feels reliant on a now-rejected premise.

[caelestis-composition]

killshot anon! YEAH i totally agree w/ your view on kaeya. it's so weird to me that people will blame him for his role in a situation he was forced into as a child through no choice of his own. that itself had to be traumatic, not to mention everything that happened later. i hate when people say he's untrustworthy - like yeah, he's lied, so has everyone? it's clear he does it mostly to protect himself. not to mention that (& sadism) can be symptoms of trauma. kaeya deserves nothing but happiness

take a seat folks it’s time for a “brynn should’ve been an english major” lesson! today we’re gonna learn some literary theory; specifically, we’re gonna apply psychoanalytical trauma theory to kaeya’s backstory and current character. killshot anon i bet you never thought this would result in a whole ass essay.

disclaimer one! you are allowed to dislike kaeya! i am not saying you need to like him or his character, you’re entitled to your opinion and i’m not here to change your mind.

disclaimer two! i am in no way an expert and this is all for fun! this is just my silly little analysis of one of my favorite characters as someone who’s studied literary theory and rhetoric and can also apply personal experience. seriously analysis is like a hobby to me and this is just an excuse for me to ramble about kaeya.

disclaimer three! this contains lots of spoilers! basically for everything we know in-game, general knowledge as well as stuff from his voicelines and character story. don’t read this if you don’t want spoilers.

since this is going to be filled with spoilers and is about to get really long, everything will be under a cut. for those who wanna read my dumb super informal essay: enjoy!

final note: yeah this is over 2000 words long can you tell i like analysis

⭒

let’s start by getting a quick rundown of trauma theory out of the way. to begin, what is “trauma?” in this case, trauma is going to refer to an experience that greatly affects and changes one’s life; attitudes, memories, behaviors, mental state, etc. while not all changes may be bad, per se, the overall effect of trauma is generally a negative one, which is why it’s so significant. literary trauma theory, then, explores these changes and the impact of trauma in literature. it analyzes the psychological and social effects of trauma, explaining what those effects are and why they happen. in the context of a specific character, trauma theory breaks down said character’s behaviors, feelings, and general mentality in relation to their past experiences; trauma theory hopes to explain to others the reasons for why a character may act or feel the way they do, all based upon the character’s experiences, particularly traumatic ones. our character today is the lovely kaeya alberich, with the “literature” being genshin impact. i’ll be referencing kaeya’s wiki page to ensure i get all details correct for his character story and voicelines.

it would be good to review kaeya’s backstory before delving into the actual analysis. though we don’t know much about his life before living in mondstadt, we’re told he was sent as an agent of khaenri’ah. and by “sent,” i mean his biological father abandoned him in a completely unfamiliar land to serve khaenri’ah’s interests and fullfil his mission—what this entirely entails hasn’t been revealed. mondstadt, however, welcomed kaeya “with open arms when they found him.” crepus ragnvindr took him in as his adopted son, with diluc as his adopted brother. kaeya and diluc were “almost like twins,” so close they “[knew] each other’s thoughts and intentions without a word.” he’d began a new life in mondstadt, one surrounded by friends and family that loved him; one that was completely shattered by crepus’s death. kaeya arrived at the scene of the disaster, and was led to believe diluc was the one who killed their father to “set his father free” from the effects of his delusion. there’d always been one big question in kaeya’s life: if it came down to it, who would he support? the nation that abandoned him, but he still felt loyal to, or the nation and family that took him in and really loved him? overrun with guilt, kaeya confessed his purpose to diluc, sparking a fight between the two brothers. in this fight, kaeya receives his cryo vision. though both brothers stepped away alive, they’ve never been able to make peace with one another. now, kaeya is the eccentric and charming cavalry captain of the knights of favonius; a man who gets his way by using any means necessary, regardless of whether or not it seems right.

kaeya’s not evil; he’s morally ambiguous, and that stems from what appears to be a general distrust of others. his life is one shrouded in secrecy. from the moment he stepped foot into mondstadt, he was surrounded by secrets. even now, he doesn’t talk about a lot of things, namely his past, vision, and feelings. though he’s always willing to get information out of others, kaeya never reveals anything about himself. he repeatedly tells the player they can confide in him, but whenever you try and pry into his life, he deflects your questions with some sort of witty comment or flirty remark. anything he does reveal is vague, or spoken in some sort of “code.” for example, his “interesting things” voiceline. he tells us about the owl of dragonspine, how it “seems to look right through you, while letting go of none of its own secrets,” and then tacks on a “quite fascinating, don’t you think?” it seems like an awfully accurate parallel to himself; kaeya does all he can to get information from others, but never gives anything about himself. now, this whole thing—his relationship with diluc falling apart and his need for secrecy—could have probably been avoided if he had just come clean about his mission years ago. so why didn’t he? to start, kaeya was a literal child. not only are children unable to properly tell the difference between right and wrong, but they’ll also typically follow their parents’ orders blindly. kaeya had just been abandoned, and he wouldn’t want to risk being cast out by mondstadt as well if he came clean right away. you see, there’s this thing about trauma, something that trauma theory states. traumatized people feel a sort of shame or guilt regarding their traumatic experience; they’ll keep quiet because they don’t want to cause problems or bother others with their issues. of course kaeya wouldn’t tell the truth about his past, he doesn’t want to destroy the genuinely loving relationships he’d built in mondstadt. his fight with diluc only proves what he was afraid of: if he’s honest, he’ll be abandoned again. and if kaeya’s used to all the lies, why should he bother changing?

another thing, if he’s not going to tell the truth, then why would he have initially gone along with his father’s plans? again, he was a child. he really had no choice, and was forced into a very wrong and cruel situation. there’s a good explanation for this, too, which is also stated in trauma theory; traumatized people will still do their best to please their abusers. especially if said abuser is a parent, that will drive traumatized people to work even harder to please them. although his father hurt him by ruthlessly abandoning him, kaeya still sought to make him and his homeland proud. he was willing to be used as a tool for their gain; that is, until he found people who actually cared about him. he was an impressionable child, of course he’s going to obey orders. but as he gets older, he feels torn. does he serve those who abandoned him, or those that took him in? his father—and arguably, khaenri’ah as a whole—hurt him, sure, but he still feels some loyalty and connection to his former home. instead of revealing anything, he lets the situation play out. that way, he can’t be blamed when things fall apart.

the thing about claiming he’s untrustworthy is that hardly anyone in-game believes that. he’s adored by the older folks in mondstadt, and foes and allies alike find him easy to talk to. despite seeming lazy and uninterested in work, kaeya takes his job very seriously. in fact, his story states that crepus’s death was the “first and only time kaeya failed in his duty.” the “only time” is especially important, because it signifies kaeya still fulfills his duties successfully. he’s had a total of one slip-up, and hasn’t failed since. no, kaeya is not untrustworthy. rather, kaeya finds everyone else untrustworthy. it’s not unlikely that this is a direct consequence of being abandoned as a child. although it’s been established that kaeya and diluc were very close as children, when crepus dies, kaeya assumes diluc is the one that killed him. in order to jump to such an extreme conclusion against someone he was so close to, there had to be some underlying sense of distrust. furthermore, kaeya expresses feeling as though he doesn’t belong anywhere. he was abandoned by khaenri’ah, and then worried he wouldn’t be accepted by mondstadt. he is, but there’s still that worry. if you place him in your teapot as a companion, he tells you that your home feels like someplace he belongs, following it up with a “heh, who’d have thought…” kaeya still feels as though he doesn’t belong in mondstadt; despite the fact that he’s a high-ranking knight of favonius and rather popular, he still feels like an outsider. he doesn’t trust that anyone actually wants him around, and he finds joy in testing peoples’ trustworthiness. it’s noted in his story and through his voicelines that the beloved cavalry captain has a rather sadistic nature. he likes putting people into difficult situations, to see what decisions they will make. he does this to both opponents and allies, testing to see who’s going to back out and who’ll keep fighting; in the sake of allies, who can he trust? or who will turn tail and abandon their teammates at the slightest hint of danger? i mentioned it previously, but kaeya doesn’t care what measures he has to take so long as his job gets done and he gets the answers he wants. it’s a sort of self-preserving mindset, putting himself above the safety of others. kaeya’s trying to protect himself, which makes sense with all he’s been through. he doesn’t want to be hurt, and instead finds pleasure in threatening harm upon others. it’s twisted, sure, but it’s because he can only trust himself in a world that he believes is out to get him. he’s got as many enemies—if not more—as he does allies; of course kaeya focuses on protecting himself first, whether physically or through keeping his secrets, well, secret.

his most obvious traumatic effect is definitely his alcoholism. but he uses it as a distraction, not just to wallow in self-pity. this is seen again in his story, particularly in story 3. it’s found that when his favorite drink, death after noon, is out of season, mondstadt’s crime rate is decreased drastically. at face value, this just means kaeya spends more time working when death after noon is low in supply. but kaeya doesn’t skip work to go to taverns; it’s already been established he takes his job very seriously, so this means he actually patrols and tracks down threats while off work when he can’t indulge in his favorite alcoholic drink. he doesn’t get drunk simply because he’s depressed. if he did, there wouldn’t be a drop in incidents when death after noon is out of season. no, kaeya uses both the alcohol and fighting to distract himself. after all, it’s a little hard to think about feeling sad when you’re either drunk out of your mind or fighting for your life.

despite being so secretive, kaeya gives us glimpses of his true emotions from time to time. as previously mentioned, his flirty attitude is nothing more than a mask to hide how he really feels; and kaeya is terribly, terribly lonely. that may be why he seems so extroverted. constantly being around people should, logically, drive away that feeling, but it doesn’t work like that. when he talks with the player, he frequently expresses disappointment when you have to leave. each time, though, he dampens the weight of his words with playful or flirty language. he’s lonely, but doesn’t want you to know that, like he’s afraid of asking you to stay. he takes the seriousness of his feelings, and basically bends it into some sort of lighthearted joke. kaeya hides his true feelings—negative feelings, to be exact—so that he doesn’t bother anyone. which is, again, something that happens with traumatized people. he displays that hesitance to reveal his true feelings, because there’s a shame or guilt that comes with his past. he doesn’t want to bother others or hold them back, so he puts on a smile and amps up the charisma. one other very important thing—but very small detail—i would like to note is his feelings toward family. his fell apart not even once, but twice, and kaeya still holds familial relationships in high regard. we know he doesn’t exactly care how he goes about getting his work done. he doesn’t pay attention to what’s “right” or “wrong,” so long as he gets what he needs. but one of his informants, vile, notes that the cavalry captain has one exception: he won’t work with those who threaten others’ families. in fact, kaeya claims those who do should be hunted down and destroyed. even though his own families have caused him so much pain—and he ended up estranged from both—he still understands the importance of having people who love you in your life. because he didn’t get that.

kaeya’s not evil. ultimately, as a knight of favonius, his goal is to protect others, because no one was there to protect him. and because no one was there to protect him, because he’s been hurt time and time again by people who were supposed to love him, kaeya has taken to protecting himself. he hides any and all negative feelings with a charismatic, friendly façade, because he thinks it’ll drive away his persistent loneliness. any “bad” actions of his were hardly his fault; he was forced into a life of secrecy and lies, and then abandoned by the first people who truly loved him. kaeya’s a multi-faceted, tragic character, one that toes the line between good and evil, and that’s what makes him so interesting.

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

12.what headcanon will you keep implementing in your fics, even if canon ends up contradicting it?

Oh there are plenty that I keep on the back burner.

Membrane’s Grandparents were poor and/or farmers. 

I know in the latest issue it showed scientist parents... But I like to think the smartest man in the world had a more humble upbringing and his Dad had a very strong work ethic. 

The only thing I don’t really like about the Scientist parent idea that the comics showed really DOES mean that they KNEW what Uranium 238 was, knew that their son asked for it, and gave him a never-ending avalanche of socks for Christmas anyways and said it was from “Santa”

Like.... I assume so, Membrane...

Even then, When my parents personally did the Santa thing, Santa would give me the cool gifts, and then the lame gifts like socks were from the parents... 

I can’t help but view the gift of a sock-avalanche from SCIENTIST PARENTS as nothing but an act of mal-intent, even if the issue doesn’t frame it that way.

There’s also the issue of Membrane inheriting Membrane Labs from his parents when their faces are nowhere to be seen if Membrane just took the reigns of an already established company... Sure, maybe his parents made their son the face of their company like some sort of Wendys situation... but Membrane’s ADULT face is what the face of Membrane labs is...  Wouldn’t his parents use his cute child face for a brand? Even if the company had no branding or merch until Membrane took over the company it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

I MUCH PREFER the idea that Membrane built Membrane labs as a company from the ground up based entirely on tenacity, spite and his intelligence. 

The idea that the smartest man in the world just was BORN INTO this lifestyle of science puts a VERY sour taste in my mouth..

ESPECIALLY with the other characters in Invader Zim and in Johnen Vasquez work in general. Characters like Zim and Dib always work hard to get to where they want to be... and I like the idea that Membrane is the RESULT of putting in that hard work, but he completely neglected himself on a social and interpersonal relationship level. 

I’m sure the Scientist parents were meant as a joke to further compare to how Membrane and Dib are alike... and the generational cycle of abuse... and the mean-spirited joke of his parents gifting him socks does fit the IZ world... but I don’t like it.

If his parents were POOR or Farmers, or just didn’t have access to or couldn’t afford Uranium 238, THAT MAKES WAY MORE SENSE to me. 

Then it would seem like his parents did it more as a 

“He won’t ask for anything else.”  or “Naughty children only get socks” thing 

rather than a:

“Yeah, we know exactly what that is and have access to it... but our kid could blow his face off, so have a bunch of socks instead ya gremlin” 

I just like to think Membrane’s childhood was fairly humble, and he was a feral scientist child and really bright and his parents didn’t know how to handle him, and He was an extreme Mama’s boy. Also the Poor upbringing would explain his workaholic tendencies without having the Scientist parents. 

Sorry Eric Trueheart, you can pry “Poor upbringing” Membrane from my cold dead hands.

I will take those character designs and that Grandpa Membrane smoked a pipe though. Those are amazing. 

Zim’s Computer (and all other irken Computers) AI Brains used to be living Irkens before getting culled. 

I made an analysis about it on my old account, but I can’t find it cause Tumblr really screwed up the search engine on that account. But anyways... in two more chapters in Tech Support, we’ll get to find out Computer’s “tragic backstory” (tm) Like that chapter is coming after the current one I’m writing. 

Irken blood is Pink

I don’t care if Dark Green blood makes sense from a biological standpoint... I just need Vaperwave and Cyberpunk auestetics. It’s more of a visual thing.

I think Dib has the potential to grow into a real caring young man if he’s properly nurtured and learns how to grow and I possess a strong dislike “loser” Adult Dib.

I’m sure you know what I mean... Crackhead Adult Dib, Feral Adult Dib, Miserable adult Dib...

Nothing against those Dibs... It’s been shown on the record that Dib having a miserable adult future is probably what Johnen wants for his character. (The doodles and streams I’ve seen Johnen draw of his characters as adults as drug addicts or just working dead-end jobs wasn’t enough) 

I even like asshole kid Dib, and asshole teen Dib, but I really want to believe Dib will mellow out a lot when he gets older and learn how to be considerate. 

Maybe I’m being too unrealistic, and I know there is a MAJOR market for Rat-man Miserable Dib in this fandom... I’ve seen like so many versions of him. But it’s not for me.

I think it’s partially because Dib is exactly how I was as a kid, and I grew up to be a pretty mellow and caring person. (for the most part) 

I just want to see Dib to grow up to be chill and mostly happy. 

Zim is the most defective Irken in the history of the Irken Empire. HOWEVER: By human standards, Zim is fairly average, just neurodivergent. 

I know that I’ve seen some analysis on how Zim, “Almost works” and while I do agree, I still think that Zim is the most defective of his species. 

He’s the only one who caused the Control Brains on Judgementia to go insane and he tends to be a pariah and a liability to everyone around him. Caused the death of two Almighty Tallest and a majority of other things that take place throughout the show, comics and deleted episodes alike. The Comics even mentioned that Zim is completely delusional and has some core memory issues.

(I’ve never even explained how Zim perceives the Judgementia arc in my au yet simply cause he doesn’t want to talk about or mention it yet... ) 

But a lot of Zim’s issues or “insane”-ness as the Irken empire sees it are fairly Normal issues for humans. Zim is just marked as the “most” defective simply because a lot of his “symptoms” are actually just very normal autistic or borderline/bipolar things. And that’s probably what he’d get diagnosed with by human standards.

Zim just feels things too strongly and has a terrible delusional memory and obsessively lies to himself to try to fit the mold of what a perfect irken soilder should be (in his mind) 

I have a feeling some of Zim’s PAK errors can be things as simple as: “can’t sit still.” “first words: I love you” , “short attention span” “overly emotional” and that’s marked as major concern to the empire.

But there are more serious ones like “Corrupted Memory drive.” “destructive” “delusional” etc...

But a majority of the list of what makes Zim, Zim are VERY common autism traits...

so if you give him that human diagnosis and then just examine Zim under HUMAN standards....

He’s not that bad at all.... 

Irkens can purr, chitter, and make a variety of sounds very similar to ants chittering combined with a cat. But typically, only defective Irkens seem to make these noises, and my Zim makes more of these noises and reverts to more primitive irken behaviors when he feels he doesn’t need to keep up appearances to be “NORMAL” anymore. In Irken Standards or Human standards. 

Zim is a weird Irken and sometimes things he does is not indicative to how other irkens act or behave, even though Dib uses it as a framework for a lot of his research, but a majority of it is just wrong because it’s Zim. 

THE COMPUTER IS A CHARACTER TOO! LET HIM DO THINGS! EVEN IN THE BACKGROUND OR A SUPPORTING CAST MEMBER... PLEASE... (I will die on this hill) 

GIR is smart and extremely perceptive. Also a hill I die on. I got into this fandom writing a thousand word essay on GIR and I still stand by all those points. GIR is smart... he’s just feral. And GIR can tend to notice things other characters don’t just cause his world-view is so simple. Zim and Dib think like one of those Pipe Windows screen savers... While GIR thinks in a straight line. 

Zim would rather create a maze to go through to get the cheese, rather than GIR who would just not bother with the maze and eat the cheese. 

GIR has great moments of clarity throughout the show, such as in Plauge of Babies and Walk of Doom

“Dib’s seen us before and he knows where we live”

“But if the big splody goes fast, won’t it get all bad?” 

Anyways... I think that’s it... I probably have a whole lot more. But those are my main ones. 

[calzona-ga]

Amelia Shepherd finally got some closure.

Grey's Anatomy dedicated an entire hour to the Derek-less Shepherd family this week in an episode titled "Good Shepherd," where an impromptu and long overdue New York City reunion between Amelia (Caterina Scorsone), mom Carolyn (Tyne Daly), and sisters Nancy (Embeth Davidtz) and Kathleen (Amy Acker), the latter of whom has often been mentioned but never seen, drudged up Amelia's past inhibitions and personal battles during an explosive conversation around the dinner table. (The fourth Shepherd sister, Liz, portrayed by Neve Campbell in season nine, was "out of town.")

Ever since her Private Practice days, Amelia has been the definition of tumult -- with her share of failed romances (her recent divorce from Owen), battles with substance and alcohol abuse, and health problems (her brain tumor in season 14) keeping everyone on their toes. And as the youngest Shepherd sibling, she was often seen as the baby of the family, with her late brother, Derek (Patrick Dempsey), taking responsibility as her unofficial caretaker following their dad's death when they were kids. Those factors, mixed with Amelia's lack of communication with her family over the years, compounded her sisters' perceptions that she was still the "black sheep" of the family, no matter how successful she became or the strides she took to improve upon herself.

But a deep heart-to-heart between Amelia and her mom in Central Park provided the answers she had been seeking about her error-prone, directionless past. "Do you think I sabotage my relationships? I don't know how to love?" Amelia asked, after coming clean to her family about her divorce from Owen (Kevin McKidd) -- and her mother's response was both heartbreaking and illuminating. "Every time you fell down, you got up and came back stronger... You weren't afraid of it. And that's what made you -- out of all the kids -- the most like your father," Carolyn said, explaining that it was difficult to be around her youngest daughter following Papa Shepherd's death, hence why she handed the reins over to Derek. "You deserved a mother... and it is my biggest regret."

Following the episode, ET spoke with Scorsone for a breakdown of the Amelia-centric hour, reuniting the Shepherd family members (and finally meeting Kathleen!), Amelia's romantic future with Link (and if Owen is still in the picture) and the touching Central Park moment between Amelia and Mama Shepherd.

ET: When did you know that you were going to get a standalone hour dedicated to Amelia's story? Caterina Scorsone: One of the nice things of having an Amelia-centric episode was a lot of stuff that was developed when Amelia was a regular character on Private Practice. There was a lot of backstory that we learned about her on Private Practice that some Grey's fans haven't seen. Getting to go back and encounter her family of origin, as opposed to the family that she's built in Seattle, is great. You kind of get to see a little bit of where she came from and where she fits into her family dynamic.

You've been playing this character for almost a decade now, and I feel like the theme of this episode is a lot about Amelia confronting her past and her place in the family -- that many of them still look at her as the "black sheep." You really see Amelia work through this with her sisters and her mother, especially. Right, although she's encountering the behavior that triggered a lot of her childhood stuff to come up. I think one of the things that's beautiful about it is I think it's a really relatable, universal story -- maybe it's a bit more extreme in Amelia's case. Often we grow up and we encounter new ideas and we have new experiences and we change and evolve into a different person [than] when we were a child or when we were surrounded by our childhood dynamics. But I think there's a part of most people that doesn't notice the change happening, so when they go back to see their family at holiday times, they have an opportunity to excavate some of the dynamics that formed who they became and some of the dynamics that led to them wanting to change that dynamic. It's a beautiful opportunity to see somebody working through therapy. She's like, "Wow, I think I'm a different person but these are the conditions that formed the person that I became."

One of the most beautiful moments was Amelia's conversation with her mom, Carolyn, in Central Park, where they hash out their nonexistent mother-daughter relationship... Ugh! Tyne Daly is unbelievable. I'm so grateful that I got to work with her. That was the part of doing the standalone that made me most excited and nervous. I couldn't believe that I was going to have an opportunity to work opposite Tyne Daly. (Laughs.) Because I've been playing Amelia for so long and I've known Tyne played my mom -- I've seen all of the footage of her with Derek [in the season five episode, "Sympathy for the Devil"] -- and she was a big part of my backstory even when I was playing scenes without Tyne. Whenever I would do scenes about her, I would picture Tyne as my mom as Amelia -- whenever I had to remember something or telling a story. She was an active part of my creative life. So when Tyne walked into the lobby of the hospital where we did our first scene and I saw her, I burst into tears! (Laughs.)

When Carolyn conceded that she wasn't there for Amelia when she needed her in her formative years, that was truly heartbreaking. Have you thought about how differently things could have turned out for Amelia had her mom taken the reins more as a parental figure? Absolutely. In that moment, Amelia's mom [stepped] up as a mother and took care of Amelia's inner child and said, "Listen, you weren't given what you needed at the time when you were forming your ability to attach. I was not there." There was an absence. In terms of psychology and attachment theory, Amelia went through some incredible trauma at a formative time -- she was 5 years old and she was sitting in that store and she witnessed her father murdered in front of her. After that, her mom -- from what she says in this episode and from what I established in my backstory on Private Practice -- her mom, because of her grief, wasn't able to mirror Amelia and be present for Amelia in the ways that would have helped her process that trauma. That trauma was guided in her body and in her amygdala [nerve tissue in the brain responsible for emotions, survival instincts and memory] and created this fight or flight response that wasn't cured. I think that she probably had a viron that was predisposed to addiction, but I absolutely think that the body attachment and the trauma that she witnessed at such a formative age was a big part of the road that her life ended up going down for a long time.

It's Amelia's strength that, despite all that trauma and broken attachment, she was able to overcome and go to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and create relationships and go to med school and start getting back to medicine and have friendships. Her mom was big enough to admit her part in that piece and still be available as a mother. It's a powerful story. Nobody does things perfectly, but when you're able to look at them and talk about them, and forgive them and yourself and others, that's a pretty good job that you're doing there.

We've met the other Shepherd sisters, Nancy and Lizzie, before, but it's pretty stunning that it took until season 15 for Kathleen to finally be introduced. What did it mean to be able to have a full picture of the Shepherd family with Amy Acker now in the mix? Amy Acker is such an incredible actress. She's so talented, she's so funny and as a person, she's so kind and lovely. I had a blast working with her. I hope that she comes back and plays with us more. Working with her and Tyne and Embeth was incredible, and I'm so happy to have a complete picture in my creative, imaginative mind about Amelia's family. We're also so lucky to work with Chris -- he's so great in the episode and so funny. It was just a wonderful time. And Bill D'Elia, who was the director, and Julie Wong, who was the writer; I just feel super lucky to have this experience.

You haven't shared a scene yet with Neve Campbell, who plays Lizzie.I know! She has to come back! (Laughs.)

Shifting gears, Amelia and Link's blossoming relationship has been a pleasant surprise. Did you see them coming as a couple? What is their long-term future? I didn't see it coming. It kind of a twist that Krista [Vernoff] came to me about, she was like, "We want to try this. You're going to go back to New York and he's going to be there." Chris Carmack is a super talented guy and so it's been fun to play with him. The chemistry is really good and there's been a lot of fun, comedic beats that we've been able to play, which has been a really refreshing turn for Amelia. A lot of what she's been going through were fun at times, but there was a lot of heaviness with the Betty storyline. This has been a little bit of a reprieve from that. In terms of long-term, I honestly don't know. We're doing some fun stuff, but I also think that "Omelia" is such a beautiful and rich relationship; Kevin [McKidd] and I love working together too. We're just trying to stay as present and open and as available for what flows through [the writers'] pens. Both relationships are really interesting and fun to play for me, so I'm trying to be in acceptance of whatever lands at my desk in the next script.

Amelia and Owen have been back and forth over the years; they're currently divorced, co-parenting baby Leo and at the same time, Owen is expecting a child with Teddy. Should we be closing the door on Amelia and Owen? What do you think their relationship status should be when it all comes down to it? I would never say they're over for good. They do have so much history and they've shared so much pain and they both have their wounds and they've witnessed each through those. At this point, it's extremely complicated and they've reached a bit of an impasse at this point in their lives. At least where it stands right now, they're taking a step back and taking a breath and trying to figure it out. They can't keep ramming their heads into this wall right now, but they're just so beautiful together and their bond is so deep that I think it would be impossible for them to being nothing. They're going to either be incredibly cordial to each other or one day, they'll find each other again. I don't know. But what I can tell you is, as actors, Kevin and I adore each other and we love working together, so [maybe the writers] decide they are buddies, co-parenting babies in this new, structured way. Or could they end up re-finding each other and end up living happily ever after?

[adobe-outdesign]

Alice's Dialogue Implies Some Very Interesting Things About Her - and Bendy

Here’s something you may have missed while playing Chapter 3: if you pay close attention to what Alice says, there’s an event which is only hinted at that is actually a vital part of her character motivation. Pay attention to exactly what she says:

Alice quickly establishes that she was created twice, only properly becoming Alice on the second try. This is because the first Ink Machine had stability problems, which was why Joey ordered a second one, as I discussed more thoroughly here.

It’s the second time that she was made that we want to focus in on. Put her backstory monologue on hold and look at her dialogue when questing:

There was a time people knew my name. “It’s Alice Angel!“, they’d say.

If you somehow hadn’t noticed, Alice isn’t exactly in great shape when we find her. However, in this quote she talks about people recognizing her as the character and being excited about it - an unlikely reaction in her current state. It’s made clear by the next line that she isn’t referring to the present here:

Feels like so long ago. But those days can come back.

Now, here’s where the kicker comes in.

First, Alice says that she was “loved by all“. Combine this with the above quote about people recognizing her, and it’s implied Alice was introduced to the rest of the studio at one point. Which would explain, say, the Hollywood-style door with her name on it:

Secondly, Alice says that the angel was beautiful. Contrast this with her current-say dialogue, wherein she desires to be beautiful again:

I need its insides so I can beautiful again! Don’t you understand?

She also claims that the angel was perfect. However, during her dialogue earlier, she establishes that she’s currently close to being perfect.

I’m so close now. So... almost perfect.

Something happened between the second time she was created and the gameplay - something that, judging by the people’s warm reactions to her initially, took this “perfect“ angel and disfigured her like we see in the gameplay. But what?

When Alice starts off her speech, she says that Piper could’ve dragged her back to the puddles. She then goes over her creation briefly. and then states that she won’t let Bendy touch her again, ending with the note that she’s now close to being perfect - like she was back when everyone loved her.

In other words: After Alice was created the second time, she was (in her opinion), perfect, and people loved her. However, Bendy attacked her and brought her back to the puddles, and ever since then she’s been using parts from the other cartoons in an attempt to restore herself to her original beauty.

However, this begs the question: Why would Bendy do that to her in the first place? With the implication that Bendy is Joey Drew, we only need one last line from Alice to tell us:

Despite what Alice herself thinks, she wasn’t truly perfect originally. Judging by how she says she’s almost perfect and how only a bit of her face is deformed, I’d wager that she was originally closer to what we see on her left side - passable as the character, but much too human to be perfect. So once Joey became Bendy, he did what all artists do - he scrapped a failed drawing.

His behavior in the gameplay hints at this. He won’t bother the Perfect Boris at any point, and even seems to be rounding up the Butcher Gang to attack Alice for trying to kill Boris at the end. However, the Butcher Gang members - practically the definition of an imperfect cartoon - instantly die when in his presence.

And if the idea of a failed cartoon getting touched by Bendy and being reduced back into liquid ink sounds familiar to you, it should: because that’s the exact same thing that happened to Sammy Lawrence, right down to him telling Bendy to “stay back!“ when he appeared. He didn’t want the demon to touch him.

TL;DR: Bendy will pull any imperfect cartoon back to the puddles. This is what happened to Sammy, and it’s why Alice is deformed and obsessed with restoring her beauty.

[tell--your--world]

World Building Made Simple

Building the world for your story is often treated like a big, complicated affair. Even books that claim to break it down and make it simple go into exhaustive detail, turning what should be a fun exploration of your world into a tedious chore. This is because they focus on every aspect you could possibly imagine, from government to economy to magic systems. And while it's true that these things are important, especially if you're creating an entire realm instead of changing up the world we know, it’s also a lot of work spent on details that might be irrelevant.

What I could do now is make the same old claim about having a simple method, then turn around and present a long list of steps or things to remember that will make your eyes cross. Instead, to demonstrate that world building truly isn't rocket science, I'm going to share just three steps to a functional, engaging world. And then I'm going to show you how it works by using those steps to start a new world.

The steps are as follows:

Figure out the story’s plot and create the core cast.

Develop the world only as much as necessary for the story to work.

Add details to make the world richer and more interesting.

Each step will be explained in detail as I go through them.

Figure out the story’s plot and create the core cast.

The characters and plot are the heart and soul of your world, and almost everything you create will directly impact - or be impacted by - them. The mere act of giving your protagonist a backstory is world building, as is setting up the location and events of a scene.

Since this is just an example, I’m going to use a basic fantasy plot - three adventurers have to stop a demon from entering their world.

The protagonist is a thief living on the streets, who gets roped into the adventure against his will when local law enforcement captures him. A priest announces that he’s the one prophesied to prevent the demon’s awakening, and he’s given the opportunity to atone for his crimes by doing so. His comrades are the priest in question and a member of law enforcement who ensures he doesn’t try to escape. The priest is sympathetic and encourages the protagonist to open up to him, but the guard doesn’t believe in demons and thinks the whole thing is a waste of time.

All you really need for this step is a snapshot of the characters and their situation. If you want you can take several such “pictures” to reflect the changing circumstances, or to get an idea of what happens in certain key locations. But if you don’t know exactly how the story plays out yet, just focus on the end goal and how the cast gets together and work from there.

Now that we have our main characters and their objective, we can move on to step two:

Develop the world - but only enough to make the story work.

This is where things can start to get overwhelming. A good approach is to prioritize the things you need to know so that you answer the most important questions first. So what’s the most important thing to know about the world in our example? Is the biggest question why the protagonist, of all people, is destined to stop the demon? Or does the demon itself need to be explained first? Or maybe the prophecy that started all this?

If you have ideas for how your key plot points should be handled, by all means, jot them down. Then try asking questions a little closer to home, because those are all questions that will be answered as the story progresses; you’ll have time for them later. Instead, to avoid getting bogged down, try answering the questions that apply to the beginning of the story. Let’s take a look at the major questions for our example: how did the protagonist get captured, and why is the church able to influence his fate?

These might seem mundane compared to the question of why he’s the Chosen One, but the mundanities are what make a world feel real. Would you start building a house without first laying a solid foundation? No? Well then. Let’s answer the questions.

The first thing to establish is whether the thief was caught through planning on his captors’ part, or if he has some other problem, physical or circumstantial, that made him unable to escape. For the sake of interest, let’s say law enforcement has been after him for some time. He’s been able to elude them because he knows the streets and is small and fast enough to get through spaces the guards can’t, but constant pursuit finally wears him down.

Now we have a new question: why were the guards after him, specifically? Is it a small town where even one thief is cause for excitement, or is it something else? Does he have a reputation? Did he commit an especially noteworthy crime, or is believed to have done so? We can rule out the small town possibility, because law enforcement would probably be minimal as it is - they wouldn’t send a guard along to prevent the escape of a simple thief, even if it was believed to be the only hope for their world. Since our synopsis says he’s being given a chance to redeem himself, let’s go the noteworthy crime route.

As for the other major question - why the church is able to offer that chance - let’s keep thing simple and say the town is run by a theocracy - a government headed by religious leaders. The priest in this case probably isn’t the leader of the town, since he’s also part of the company who ventures out to stop the demon, but a sufficiently large town or a city could have a church big enough to have a sizable clergy. Perhaps the priest is reputed as a Seer, or is in charge of interpreting prophecies. He might join the quest to act as a guide, a healer, or any number of other reasons.

Add details to make the world richer and more interesting.

Once you have these basics, you can start developing other aspects of the world that aren’t directly relevant to the plot, but create a consistency and level of detail that makes it feel like a real place. If we assume the priest is capable of magic, we need to lay down rules for how magic works and how it’s different from arcane magic, which doesn’t come from divine sources. If the party encounters a fantastic creature during their journey, be it a dragon or a simple goblin, we need some basic information about the creature’s normal habitat and behaviors. If they have to cross a massive river along the way, add it to your world map (and if you don’t have a map, draw one! It doesn’t have to be a work of art; if the best you can do is a wiggly blue line for the river and some green clouds for the surrounding forest, do it! The object is to know where things are, and no one else has to see your map if you don’t want them to).

The most important thing to remember at this stage is, once you have the rules, use them. Apply checks and balances to your magic system, and make sure every spell is affected, unless you have a very good reason to change things. For example, you might rule that a long, involved ritual can do things that a simple spell can’t, or that certain branches of magic, such as blood magic, can break the rules for a price. If the party encounters something that shouldn’t live in their part of the world, there should be a believable reason why - perhaps it was driven out of its territory or imported as an exotic pet.

Not every background detail is going to have plot relevance. Some of the things the characters know or pay attention to are simply a result of who they are, such as when our thief makes a habit of looking for escape routes or valuables when first entering a room. But like any other detail, stay consistent. Once he’s been established as vigilant, he shouldn’t be easy to catch off guard unless there are unusual circumstances.

If you want to develop the world in more detail beyond the main plot, character arcs and subplots are a good way to do it. Just build up the same way you did with the main plot: figure out which characters are involved and what the end goal is, work out what you need to do to move things along, and develop from there. Just remember to stay consistent and keep the information you share with the audience relevant to either the plot or character development. And, of course, have fun!

If you’re curious about my fanworks or want a better idea of my abilities as a writer, you can find my fics on the following sites: just remember that older stories don’t reflect my current writing style, and are slated for editing.

My AO3 account:

http://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkDecepticon

My fanfiction.net account:

https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4428055/

If you wish to support this blog on Patreon, you can do so here:

https://www.patreon.com/darkstarofchaos

[science-fiction-is-real]

“The Search”, it’s problems, and how to fix it.   PART 2, OZAI

Some of us really liked “The Search,” which tell the story of Zuko’s mom and her fate.  Other’s of us.... didn’t.

My writer’s instinct tells me to fix any story I don’t like.  So here it is.

In my last analytical post, I talked about Ursa, and how she’s a total badass in the show, but is completely mishandled in the comics.  I also talked about some changes I would make if I were handed the reigns to rewrite “the search.”

Villains are SUPER important to stories so I have a lot to say about this here in part two.

While “The Search” is Ursa’s story, stories are driven by conflict, and so the villain is often just as important as the main character. When it came to Ozai, Gene and Bryke had an amazing opportunity to create something interesting, dynamic, and intimidating, and boy did they drop the ball.

So here is Ozai in terms of “The Search,” what his problems are, and how I would fix them.

Villains, as the main source of conflict, are the power house of any story, and so they need to be done well.  Watching Avatar and Legend of Korra, Bryke prove themselves to be kings when it comes to their villains. Every single one of the bastards struck a balance between being terrifying and being believably human.  (Except for Unalaq.  Fuck you Unalaq)  Ozai was not necessarily a complex character in the show. This was because he was supposed to be more of a symbol of evil than a character in his own right.  But Even Ozai's humanity is shoved down our throats toward the end.  He sure was cute in that baby picture.

But Ozai can’t be the same thing in the comics than he was in the show.  In “The Search” we see him in a more intimate setting, as Ursa’s husband and Zuko and Azula’s father.  He doesn’t get to be a mere symbolic evil anymore.  Now he has to be a walking breathing human being with an interesting personality.  Can he make the switch?

Spoiler alert, he doesn’t make the switch very well.

I don’t think Bryke and Gene recognized how cool an opportunity they had when dealing with person Ozai as opposed to just symbolic Ozai.  

Think about some of the best villains in fiction/literature:   Satan was once Lucifer, Darth was once Anakin, Frankenstein and Monster both were never predestined for their villainous rivalry.  These characters are interesting and timeless because they are PEOPLE first and villains second.  They became evil not because it was fun but because of decisions they actively made, based on complex emotions, beliefs, and desires.  

Presenting villains as humans doesn’t take away their scariness.  The opposite is true.  Seeing humanity in villains disturbs us because it reminds us 1) anyone is capable of evil, and 2) people we hate are human beings too.  Also.  When villains have complex thoughts, feelings, and emotions, this gives them strong motivations, and shows us they are actually DRIVEN to commit evil deeds.

The writers could have done this with Ozai.  But they took that opportunity presented to them by “The Search” and they flushed it down the toilet.

Ozai in the comics certainly LOOKS like a human character.  He does human-ish things, like working out, eating dinner with his family, sharing sexual tension with his wife.  But the writers forget something pretty basic about humans when they delt with Ozai.  Humans have behaviors that are driven by thoughts, desires, and emotions.  Ozai has behaviors, and those behaviors, uhm... sort of.. kind of... add to the plot, But the thoughts, desires, and emotions behind them are self contradictory, poorly explained, or just missing all together.

 Ozai’s actions are so confusing I had to go back to read the comic again just to figure out what the writers were trying to do with him.  I am thoroughly convinced the writers hadn’t the slightest clue what was going on in that evil little noggin, nor did they give the slightest fuck. They spent maybe five minutes on the dude and his dialogue.  The result is neither interesting nor intimidating.

In order to be as unsympathetic as possible, Comics Ozai basically follows the behavior pattern of “handle every situation as badly as I possibly can" regardless if it fits any type of concrete motivation.  In fact Ozai isn’t really allowed to have any thoughts, feelings, or motivations at all.  He is not allowed to show any emotion that doesn’t fall between grumpy and hateful. No other emotions allowed!  Otherwise he might run the risk of being relatable, and God forbid a villain show any of that humanity the show worked so hard to convince us villains have. As a result, his behavior has no consistency.  If this were a Criminal Minds episode, they would profile Ozai as being multiple UnSubs who are not actually working together. 

They can’t get the guy pinned down.  At first they play him off as a jealous and possessive husband.  Of course, Ozai doesn’t show any of the emotions that tend to go along with jealousy and possessiveness.  He shows no sexual or romantic attraction to Ursa.  He suffers no fear of abandonment.  Those are no-no emotions for Ozai.  But he’s jealous anyway.  He reads her mail, he forbids her to contact or talk about her family, he puts a hit out on her old boyfriend.   But then, after spending several pages being jealous and possessive, Ozai suddenly decides to ask Ursa for a quick and amicable divorce right after the plot to kill Azulon is established.  Jealous possessive types usually panic at the thought of separation with their partner, but Ozai actually seems to take glee in the thought of Ursa leaving. Which is it Ozai?  Do you want to control and possess the woman or do you hate her and want her gone?  Make up your fucking mind.

Just as confusing is how he treats Zuko. Abuse by a parent toward a child is always confusing and tragic.  But real dick parents either have no motivation at all for their abuse (other then whatever behavior the victim did to trigger it), or they believe their abuse to be a natural part of parenting.  Ozai actually gives us a more creative reason for his cruelty.  He does it to punish Ursa for her lie about Zuko’s parentage.  We’re supposed to interpret this as Ozai being a sadistic prick.  But if Ozai were really just a sadistic prick, he wouldn’t wait for Ursa to give him an excuse to pick on Zuko.  And if Ursa really was the cause of his abuse, the abuse would stop after Ursa left.  Also why does Ozai take so much glee in Azulon’s order to kill Zuko?  YOU’RE BEING PUNISHED OZAI!  Azulon is telling you to kill Zuko as a PUNISHMENT.  Either its a punishment or it was something you were going to do all along.  It can’t be both. What the hell is going on?

Ozai’s confused motivation means that he isn’t really that intimidating throughout the story.  He’s actually kind of something to laugh at.  A lot of the supposedly scary and evil things he does also fall flat under closer inspection.  When he’s jealous about Ursa’s former boyfriend he doesn’t go after him herself, but instead hires a hit man, who fails.  He tells Ursa not to contact her home town, but he seems to care little about the letters she writes her boyfriend, even though he has been intercepting them for years (until the lie about Zuko’s parentage).  He’s supposed to be seen as conniving and ambitions, but he indicates no interest or plans to seize political power until his wife dictates letter by letter how he can do it.  We don’t even get to see him fight, except against some training dummies.  For such a supposedly dastardly villain he isn’t very ballsy or active in the narrative.  Some of you may disagree with me on that, but I thought he could have done more.

One reason this one-dimensional Ozai bothers me so much is because of how The Search makes a half-hearted effort to have a discussion on abuse and abusive family dynamics.  Ozai is an abuser, but real life abusers aren't dangerous because they happen to be evil for evil's sake, they are dangerous because their cruelty is mixed in with the more human, positive aspects of family life as well.  Abusers use affection and charm to gain control just as much as they use cruelty.  Some times abusers and victims actually have strong, loving feelings for each other, which only further entangles their victims in the cycle.  If “The Search” wants to have a conversation on such a real and pressing topic, it isn't very responsible of them to portray the issue in such a one dimensional and unrealistic way.

Long story short, Bryke had an opportunity to flesh out their best villains they had, and they blew it.  Villains are the source of conflict, and thus driving engines of a story.  Villains are extremely important and need to be done with care.  Bryke blew it.  It makes me want to scream into a pillow.  

SO.... HOW DO WE FIX THIS....?

A good version of the Search could go in one of two different directions.  

One)  They could stick with the story mostly as it is, where Ozai is evil from the beginning and is the unchallenged antagonist throughout the story.  This is more time efficient.

Two) They could really take advantage of the chance to show Ozai as a human being, and give us some backstory on him and the origins of his evil nature.  They could show him as Anakin turning into Darth if you will.

But either of these routes will have some things in common that will need to be fixed.

The Current Search shows an Ozai half-heartedly attempting “schemes” and “plots,” but never in a way that truely convinces us he’s a truely effective antagonist.  The first thing Search 2.0 should do is to show Ozai taking a much more active, if not violent role in the story events.  Ozai’s main character trait it seems is his ambition.  So lets let him be ambitious.  Lets let him grab the royal court by its balls and man handle it to his liking.  Also, its a damn shame we had an action-centered comic where Ozai (one of the best fire benders in the ATLA universe) was the main bad guy, and we didn’t get to see him in a single fight.  Let’s put him in a fight.  Most importantly, in order to convince the reader that Ozai should truely frighten them, his actions need to have very clear and explicit motivations, AND must be successful at least a large part of the time--with consequences to those around him.

Included in this, I want to see Ozai do a much more convincing job playing the abuser.  I want to see him charm and manipulate as well as throw his weight around.  I want to see him actually make the audience feel trapped and claustrophobic as they relate to the family trapped under his thumb.  You may say that is too dark, but must I remind you Show Ozai burned a kid’s face off in the very first season.  We have wiggle room when it comes to darkness.

Next

Ozai needs emotional range.  Every character but him is allowed to show range.  Villains need as much range as the protagonists, including moments of emotional vulnerability and non-threatening emotions.  Emotional vulnerability doesn’t make villains less scary.  It actually does the opposite. Villains are scary when we know their evil deeds have a strong motivation behind them.  And that strong motivation can only come when characters have emotions that drive their actions.   Frankenstein’s monster is a good example of a villain who demonstrates strong, if not over dramatic emotional range.  It’s not the monsters anger or grumpiness that makes him scary, it’s his loneliness, sense of loss, and longing to be loved that do, because we know that THOSE are the emotions that will drive him to fuck a bitch up.

You may also worry that showing an emotionally vulnerable, and dare I say relatable, Ozai would make the reader feel morrally confused.  Good.  Good stories ARE morally confusing.  Tell me you weren’t morally confused when you saw Darth Vader as a ten year old child, or when someone told you FRANKENSTEIN and not the monster might be the bad guy, or when someone told you the devil himself used to work for God, OR WHEN BRYKE SHOWED YOU OZAI’S BABY PICTURE RIGHT BEFORE AANG WAS SUPPOSED TO KILL HIM.  We were morally confused when those things happened, but it made us smarter and wiser because it challenged our perceptions.  If we take the second story option this will be an absolute necessity.

What kind of emotions might those be?  Well, it depends on what type of story line we would decide to go with for Search 2.0. There are some things to work with here.  Ozai is shown having a toxic relationship with his own father.  I could imagine a story line where he attempts to take the pain and hurt from that rejection, and channel it into rising above his station, into unbridled ambition that drives him to destroy his own family while securing his own power.  It is a well established fact that Ozai is ambitious.  We could explore how Ozai feels when asked by his father to kill his own son, in the sense that Ozai takes it as a punishment--torn between protecting his own bloodline vs his compulsive need to please his father.  We could explore what sort of feelings, if any, he has toward Ursa, which is especially important considering this is Ursa’s story.

 If we want to stick as much to canon as possible, let’s recall that Show Ozai reads as a classic narcissist, by the technical definition of the word. His treatment of Zuko and Azula follows typical patterns of Narcissistic abusers, and he also does shit like usurp the throne from his grieving brother and crown himself Phoenix King.  Of course, being a Narcissist does NOT exclude him from being emotionally complex and even in some ways relatable.  Narcisist don’t experience empathy or true love, but they do experience pretty much every other emotion on the table.

Some more plot specific things.. I would get rid of the jealous husband angle.  It seems a little Cliche to me.  I think Ozai would be much too concerned with cementing his own power in the court to worry about who Ursa is writing letters too.

Lets PLEASE get rid of the plot point where Ozai decides to abuse Zuko because he’s trying to get back at Ursa.  It doesn’t make any sense to me.  We can explore why he hates his son if we want.  I have my own theories.  Maybe Azulon hates Zuko, and because Ozai wants to suck up to his dad, he hates Zuko too.  Or maybe Ozai blames Zuko for Azulon’s death and Ursa’s leaving.  Afteral if it hadn’t been to protect Zuko’s life, Ursa would not have killed Azulon and left.  Or maybe Zuko takes after Ozai in many different ways, and Ozai hates himself, and therefore hates Zuko.  Or maybe he’s just a big fat dick who needs a punching bag and learned abusive behavior patterns from his own dad.

Sorry that was so long, pepes, you are treasures for hearing me out.

Please comment if you have any thoughts

[blackchurchnewswire]

On Rightly Hitching Our Wagons (A Response to Andy Stanley) by Iain Provan

It is without doubt a mixed blessing that whatever Christian leaders say in public nowadays often gets distributed immediately and very widely via social media and YouTube – and once it is "out there," it is difficult to get it back. I wonder if Andy Stanley, senior pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, would like to "get back" some of the words he used in a sermon recently concerning the Old Testament.1 If this had been a sermon about the need for Christians to read Old Testament Scripture well rather than badly, and even about the necessity of churches devoting far more resources than they currently do to helping their members to achieve this, I'm sure that many people would have applauded; certainly I would have done so. But what Andy actually urged Christians to do was to "unhitch" the Old Testament from their Christian faith. He acknowledged that these "Jewish scriptures," as he called them, are certainly an important "back story" for "the main story" of Christian Scripture – they represent a divinely inspired description of "God on the move through an ancient, ancient time." However, the Old Testament – "or the Law and the Prophets as they called it" – was not regarded in the early Church as "the go-to source regarding any [his emphasis] behavior in the church." Those early Church leaders "unhitched the church from the worldview, the value system, and the regulations of the Jewish Scriptures," including the Ten Commandments; "they unhitched the church from the entire thing ... everything's different, everything's new." And we should follow their example: "Jesus' new covenant, His covenant with the nations, His covenant with you, His covenant with us, can stand on its own two nail-scarred resurrection feet. It does not need propping up by the Jewish scriptures." Andy acknowledged in this sermon that his comments might be considered "a little disturbing" by some listeners, and judging by the reaction on social media, he was quite right. Significant numbers did not applaud. In many ways, however, it is a mistake to focus simply on this sermon, for in doing so we run the risk of getting distracted from a larger and more important reality: that the kind of position Andy has articulated is not unusual in the contemporary church worldwide. And it is this fact, rather than the words of one preacher in one sermon, that we ought to find truly disturbing. For to regard the Old Testament (OT) as anything less than actively relevant Christian Scripture, in precisely the same sense that the New Testament (NT) is Christian Scripture, is to step outside the bounds of historic, orthodox Christian faith. It is to step aside from following Christ. And many Christians appear not to realise that this is so. Jesus and the Old Testament Long before there was a Church, there was already a Scripture.2 Its prior existence is indicated in the Gospels in what Jesus himself names on a number of occasions as "the Law and the Prophets" (e.g., Luke 16:16) or close variants (like "Moses and the prophets") – selected human words recognized as representing at the same time the word of God, and as such preserved for posterity. That is to say, they were recognized as prophetic, in the broad sense; they were recognized as "inspired." It is this canonical collection of Law and Prophets that in Jesus' own lifetime and in the history of the earliest Church "was viewed as a privileged, stable witness against which the claims of the gospel were tested and shown to have been established from of old"3 – was understood, indeed, as "the very words of God" (Rom. 3:2). In Matthew 5:17-20, for example, Jesus tells his hearers: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. In line with this, we find Jesus again and again in the Gospels basing his teaching or arguments on the OT, sometimes prefacing what he is about to say with phrases like "it is written that" (e.g., Mk. 14:27; Mt. 11:10) and thereby drawing people's attention to the authority upon which he rests his case. After the resurrection, Jesus rebukes two of his confused and downhearted disciples precisely for failing to take these same Scriptures sufficiently seriously when trying to understand their present experience: How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christhave to suffer these things and then enter his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27). The central importance of the OT Scriptures is emphasized again shortly afterwards, in Luke 24:44, when Jesus advises all the core disciples and others that "[e]verything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms." If the disciples, after the resurrection, want to understand what is going on in the world and in their lives, they must attend to these OT Scriptures. Jesus himself sends them there. The Apostles and the Old Testament The remainder of the NT reveals that the earliest Church took this advice very seriously; we would of course expect this of disciples of Jesus. This comes to expression clearly in the famous words of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV): "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." The primary reference here is of course to the OT, since the NT does not yet exist; and we notice immediately how impossible is any idea that these "Jewish scriptures" are merely "divinely inspired backstory" but not at the same time a "go-to source regarding ... behavior in the church." The OT is inspired Scripture designed precisely so that it is useful to the Church in "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." It is the very canon (or measuring-stick) of Christian faith and practice in the first century AD. We see this played out in the book of Acts, where Christians are described as sharing with Jews a commitment to hearing what "the Law and the Prophets" have to say (Acts 13:15) and to believing it: "I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets," affirms the Apostle Paul to Felix in Acts 24:14. Various of his letters to the Christian churches of the first-century Roman world illustrate the seriousness with which he took this idea. Everywhere in this correspondence he grounds his teaching in the pre-existing Scriptures. For example (and this is important especially in the light of Andy Stanley's advice that Christians should not obey the Ten Commandments), Paul applies the Ten Commandments to the various ethical situations with which he is confronted in the emerging churches (Rom. 7:7, 13:9, Eph. 6:2-3). For Paul and the other apostles, it was impossible to speak of Christ without speaking of him 'in accordance with the Scriptures' of Israel that already existed – Scriptures that "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:20-21) – which the Church at its origin received ... as the sole authoritative witness ... These Scriptures taught the church what to believe about God: who God was; how to understand God's relationship to creation, Israel, and the nations; how to worship God; and what manner of life was enjoined in grace and in judgment.4 Indeed, the apostles largely spoke of Christ only in relation to the OT, as Martin Luther once astutely observed, noting "how little Paul and Peter report the individual acts of Jesus in their letters: Paul wrote gospel by making mighty sermons out of a very few passages of the Old Testament."5 Click here to read more. Source: Christian Post