#bc the story requires those plot points to happen. bc the general narrative has so much more gg on in the background

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

oh to have a patron god who unconditionally loves you to bits.....

//

[iridescentoracle]

okay so. potentially controversial opinion i guess but apollo justice (the game, though actually also the character) was kind of a mess. i wanted to like it, there was a ton of potential, but the execution just did not work for me at all. but it’s been haunting me for weeks and (unlike dual destinies, which also didn’t really work for me but i cannot for the life of me figure out why) i know exactly what i didn’t like about apollo justice and how i would fix it if capcom decided to remake AA4–AA6 and inexplicably put me in charge. fair warning this is at least 80% complaining by volume about what they didn’t do/what they did do that i hated though.

like, okay, here’s the thing. it’s a new story. phoenix has had his arc, we’re moving on to a new main character, he isn’t the protagonist anymore. it makes sense to move him into a mentor/boss role while our new protagonist takes over as the plucky young newbie who doesn’t really know what he’s doing. the problem is that everything about how the game does that kind of sucks.

like. AJ phoenix gets totally shafted for the sake of not letting him be a good mentor, so that apollo has to figure things out on his own, but apollo isn’t really treated right by the narrative either, because the plot is so much about phoenix that apollo is like. weirdly peripheral to the whole thing even though he’s nominally the protagonist. like it’s super obvious that the whole reason phoenix isn’t an attorney anymore and is all ✨ mysterious✨ and ✨secretive✨ is literally just so that apollo doesn’t actually like. have a good mentor who can teach him things? like the entire plot/backstory is just a post-hoc excuse bc the starting point of the game was clearly someone going “well we’re not allowed to not have phoenix in the game, but we can’t let him be someone apollo can actually rely on, so we have to find some excuse to make him weird and mysterious and uncommunicative and also not a lawyer just for good measure bc otherwise he wouldn’t leave a kid hanging like that” and everything else was built up to justify that.

but as if it’s not bad enough that it all requires shattering phoenix’s perfectly good reasonably-happy-ending from the previous game, by extension everyone else gets screwed over too?? like, maya was very explicitly traumatized by the kurain channeling legacy to the point of briefly not wanting to identify herself as a spirit medium. pearl was sheltered from some of the worst of it but was aware of enough to blame herself for bad things happening to the point of trying to run away. the credits definitely made it seem like they both bounced right back after all but frankly i was not convinced they weren’t going to both collapse as soon as the figurative camera looked away again and the most plausible short-term outcome to me was that they would wind up both moving in with phoenix for a while in the near future like maya all but said she wanted to do!! she called herself “the assistant manager at Wright & Co. Law Offices” and said she “[didn’t] want any more to do with [the Fey clan],” that is IN the TEXT i am not reading too much into things here those are her words! i’m fine with her potentially changing her mind again and resuming her training again and moving back to kurain after all when she’s had some time to recover from everything but like. when she’s had some time. she deserved more than two months and i hate so much that she didn’t get it.

on the flip side, again, i get the choice to deliberately not-include edgeworth in this one but i swear to god it should have taken him and phoenix like. maybe four months to finish getting their act together and that’s being generous and counting the month it takes him to wrap things up in europe and move back to japanifornia. i’m pretty sure edgeworth figured out how he felt when he got the phone call from larry about the bridge if he hadn’t already by then and i think phoenix simultaneously realized and refused to realize how he felt during the year he thought edgeworth is dead, bc neither of them can just be normal about feeling things ever, so give them a second for phoenix to stop repressing shit and also mention that he’s absolutely not going to get back together with iris when she gets out of jail and they Will sort themselves out and they Will kiss and i give it like a year tops before they get married. they have a courthouse wedding obviously and get the judge to officiate. 50/50 chance they wind up proposing in the middle of a trial and get married during the next recess.

and in canon there’s not time for all that to have happened bc the next game requires phoenix to have promptly turned into an arrogant asshole and then gotten royally fucked over by the universe and become a totally different person (again, at that, because he’s already a completely different person in the flashback to his last case, why does he act like the paynes that whole time i hate it), but like. this is what i’m saying. phoenix getting screwed over by the universe/writing also screws all his friends over too.

so i just. this game does such a disservice to phoenix’s entire character, and all of his friends, and also the entire first three games and anyone who loved them. it’s not all bad and the person phoenix has been turned into—“has been turned into,” not “has turned into,” because the hand of the writers is so visible, i can’t engage with this game on a fully watsonian level for the life of me because phoenix’s hoodie might as well say DOYLE CHOSE TO DO THIS TO ME. this is a fictional character being written by real people and the real people wrote him in a manner entirely incompatible with his original characterization and i cannot get past it—is fascinating but it isn’t phoenix. i love the plot but i hate the execution. i like the ingredients but the recipe sucks.

but it could have been so good. and at this point i’ve mostly worked out how.

you have the exact same scenario with the gramarye trial, is the thing, up through the point where phoenix wins the poker game and shadi enigmar/zak gramarye asks him to be his lawyer, and phoenix accepts—and then phoenix, like, gets a phone call from maya or pearl bc it turns out one of them just got hurt, or they’ve both come down with some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning or something, some temporary emergency that’s just severe enough that they need more help/care for a day or two than phoenix could give while also handling a case, but that won’t actually last all that long.

so he turns down the case apologetically bc oh my god i’m so sorry actually, family emergency, i gotta go right now, best of luck, and shadi/zak moves on to defense attorney number three: a different, brand new character, another rising star defense attorney around the same point in their career as phoenix, and that’s who winds up using the forged diary page and getting disbarred and turning into the bitter jaded inscrutable asshole mentor who years later will manipulate apollo into exposing his own boss as a murderer, and then technically hire apollo but not actually, like, teach him anything or help out in any meaningful way, etc.

but meanwhile, three facts about this series of events:

8yo trucy is still the unwitting catalyst for the lawyer defending her father using forged evidence that destroys his career, and her father still vanishes and leaves her behind

within a couple days, pearl and maya are basically fine

phoenix wright’s best friend was once a kid barely older than trucy is now who suddenly found himself with no family, and as a result was taken in by someone who had a deep and abiding grudge against both him and his father because of what they did, through no real fault of their own, to him/his career.

and since phoenix did meet shadi/zak and turned his case down, he has every reason to be curious about how the trial went, and to pick up either from the general news coverage (which, considering what a big deal phoenix’s disbarment in canon was, i assume there is A Lot Of,) or to realize bc his personal curiosity/almost-connection means he actively looks into things, that there is a kid who has been left behind and who currently has no one to take care of her. and you cannot tell me that phoenix would look at this kid whose best-case scenario is currently getting swept into the foster care system bc god forbid she actually winds up getting taken in by the only adult even vaguely associated with her at this point, bc phoenix has seen that story before, and not decide on the spot to adopt her himself

and so just like that, we have

phoenix accidentally escaping the whole gramarye trial entirely unscathed

but still adopting trucy

pearl and maya still living with phoenix a couple months post-T&T instead of immediately getting packed off back to kurain

no changes that actually significantly impact apollo for most of the game bc all that’s really different for him is the name of his inscrutable jerk mentor and the fact that he’s gotta wind up meeting/being-befriended-by trucy a little differently

so by the time the actual present-day plot of the game kicks off, phoenix and company are still out there doing their thing with phoenix getting to be his best self and living his best life. he still gets his adorable adopted daughter who he loves dearly. we still don’t actually see maya or edgeworth or pearl in this version of the game but there’s allusions to them all being very present in his-and-trucy’s lives—trucy brings us over to their apartment at some point and we see a stack of steel samurai dvds in the corner and a laundry basket with unidentifiable clothes in suspiciously familiar shades of purple/pink/magenta, details like that. we only see phoenix himself for like, maybe five minutes total over the course of the first three and a half cases and it’s a little tantalizing but he gets to be the one who bursts into the courthouse with the decisive evidence that lets our protagonist win the last case.

and meanwhile, apollo’s current boss is shady and inscrutable and used to be a lawyer and can even be involved in some ✨ secret mission ✨ that he won’t talk about that turns out to be the jurist system, so we can hypothetically keep whatever the intended message of that whole thing was (which, argh, what do you DO with the jurist system. what is the intended message. i get that it’s satire of a then-contemporary development in japan’s legal system but i can’t figure out for the life of me what the satire is actually meant to say), and then at the end of the game Apollo’s Shitty Mentor is proven to have been innocent and will be allowed to take the bar again if he wants to but he’s not entirely sure bc at this point it’s been so long that he might just prefer to move on entirely now that his actual disbarment/disgrace isn’t hanging over his head bc he honestly did used to be a pretty stand-up guy but the last seven years have been rough and he doesn’t really like the person he’s turned into and maybe it would be healthier to treat this as a fresh start and try something entirely new so he’s going to take some time away from the whole legal system first to clear his head before he figures out whether or not he actually wants to dive back in.

and apollo’s like “well that’s totally understandable and sounds great for you but goddammit do i really have to go back to the endless nightmare that is job applications, i hate this actually” and phoenix (who is also in the defense lobby where this whole conversation is taking place) is like “why don’t you come work for me?”

you could even have it end on a joke where apollo is shocked about the offer bc he applied to work for phoenix six months ago and phoenix is like ???? i never saw that?? and it turns out apollo applied via email but phoenix still sucks at computers and only checks his work email like once a year.

seriously though i do not understand what we’re supposed to think about the jurist system. is it supposed to be that fucked up? i’m not actually sure how we’re supposed to feel abt that tbh but it sounds like maybe it’s not supposed to seem like an actually better alternative? like it felt to me like it was being framed as a triumph for our belovèd hero, isn’t this great that he was able to arrange things so everything would turn out all right after all etc, but it was so obviously fucked up and unethical—like, oh, yeah, having one guy in charge of assigning the defense attorney, the judge, and the jury sounds totally fine and like it’s actually going to be more reliably ethical than the system that’s already in place, for sure, not to mention the possibility that edgeworth was pulling strings to help phoenix make it happen and be involved, because nepotism and people in law enforcement/the justice system pulling strings to put people they like in positions of authority that they probably shouldn’t have specifically so that they can do things like “rig a jury,” on purpose, is fine bc i like these guys who are doing/benefiting from the nepotism so therefore it’s not wildly unethical and an obviously terrible idea, oh my god—that it feels like it has to be on purpose?

and like in practice it just… the jurist system as it’s actually implemented is worse actually. it’s genuinely worse and less ethical than the established system where the judge was about to let kristoph gavin off scot-free for the crimes he wasn’t already convicted of.

that said it’s like. very funny on a conceptual level. yet another thing that makes sense if the games are set in japan bc sure of course fictional kinda goofy japan has a more ridiculous version of the thing that’s being implemented in real-life japan right now, but when localized the implications are buck-fucking-wild

because. okay. japanifornia exclusively has bench trials or whatever they’re called for some reason. i have questions about why that’s legal given the existence of the sixth amendment but sure fine the japanifornian legal system is deeply fucked up in many new and interesting ways and that is clearly just one of them. but you’re telling me that the entire concept of trial by jury is strange and new to a lawyer? like. did the entire country just. ditch the sixth amendment before apollo was born? why is this a brand new concept instead of, you know, how things work in every other state. i have so many questions that do not need answers. thank god these games are old enough to have gotten localized it’s so much funnier this way.

ANYWAY. SO. yeah. make apollo’s inscrutable asshole so-called mentor someone other than phoenix wright, have way less of phoenix in the game actually bc he’s off living his best life and having a thriving career with very little reason to think about how kristoph gavin exists, and meanwhile write apollo with All That Backstory in mind from the start though 95% of the actual info should still be saved for game 6, we’re just trying to write apollo so he’s not completely flat and frankly pretty forgettable at times and also including foreshadowing so the khura’in thing isn’t a very obvious retcon when we get there, and turn klavier into an actual person, and that’s like. 95% of my frustrations with the game fixed right there (the other 5% is “i still can’t tell what we’re actually supposed to think/feel about the jurist system” but like. i can’t tell what we’re supposed to think/feel so i don’t know how to fix it).

well okay also the like, pacing and focus would need to be fixed so apollo’s incrutable jerk mentor isn’t the protagonist for half the last case to the point i forgot apollo existed, etc, but like. that’s the next level down of problems you know?

AND bonus points: splitting “phoenix” and “apollo’s inscrutable jerk mentor” into two separate characters automatically fixes yet another of the worst He Would Not Fucking Do Thats of the game, i.e. phoenix just. not telling trucy and apollo that they’re siblings and their mom is alive. bc apollo’s shitty mentor is the one who actually interacts with lamiroir offscreen, this phoenix never does, so apollo’s mentor is the one who has the opportunity to figure out who she is and that trucy and apollo are half-siblings, and they’re not his kids, apollo doesn’t even work for him anymore by the end of the game so what does he care whether she tells them, and meanwhile phoenix isn’t inexplicably hiding that information because he also doesn’t know. still relies on her continuing to hide her face professionally in the meantime (instead of being deeply stupid about the fact that she is super famous, twice, and if she goes around being Very Famous And Popular Singer Lamiroir someone will notice that she is very much also Very Famous And Popular Believed-Dead Magician Thalassa Gramarye and between the existence of the news and the existence of the internet her kids will inevitably find out, jesus CHRIST parts of this game are so badly written), but that’s a given

i have a whole bunch of other thoughts—mostly about klavier gavin bc he should be such a good character but he just doesn’t work, but also i think the structure of the last case would have to be pretty significantly modified to fix the pacing/structural/focus issues where our nominal protagonist is basically irrelevant for the bulk of the case, even while the plot would remain basically the same, but i haven’t figured out how the structure would be different bc that requires figuring out how to handle the whole jurist system thing—but that’s like. the coherent parts/the bulk of it, you know?

i think (really this is just a detail, not a major plot point, but it would have a pretty major impact thematically so it feels bigger than it is? so) the other main thing i would change—and this part isn’t actually real criticism bc it’s not, like, bad that they didn’t do this, and if they were going to make any changes there are a lot of things that should be higher on the list, but listen. zak and valant should’ve been brothers.

because like, first of all, the extra complexity of the relationship if they’re not just two random guys who met bc they were functionally coworkers/fellow students, and instead you have these two brothers with the same mentor and who are both in love with the same woman, and they both know that one of them is better at magic and their mentor’s favorite, and he’s also the one who the woman they’re both in love with loves back and has a kid with, etc? a favorite/least favorite child dynamic occurring spontaneously, presumably in adulthood, in their professional lives? like. it makes everything about their relationship with each other, and with magnifi, and zak’s relationship with thalassa, and valant’s relationship with trucy, way more complex and interesting without actually having to change anything else.

but then secondly, on top of all that, suddenly this is a game about siblings. zak & valant, apollo & trucy, and kristoph & klavier. suddenly you have these three different sibling relationships that are all very different but two of them actually get to be siblings but are super fucked up, and the last pair meet entirely by chance without any idea who the other person is or should be to them but wind up with the healthiest happiest relationship of the three? like, the tragedy of it, that apollo and trucy were separated by fate and literally no one knew they both existed except their own mother, who thought apollo was dead before trucy was ever born, and if not for whatever series of coincidences resulted in apollo happening to work for the man who ruined trucy’s father’s life and getting roped into that whole mess they might never have met at all, and as it was they lost however many years they could’ve had each other, etc etc, and yet despite it all they’re the ones who actually manage to be happy and, like, unconditionally positive presences in each other’s lives, while valant spends however long resenting zak for being magnifi-and-thalassa’s favorite and more talented and all that which presumably put a strain on their relationship bc being resented that deeply by someone that close to you for things that you don’t even actually control can’t feel good, and kristoph and klavier… [gestures vaguely] idk whatever they would feel about each other if the writers remembered klavier was supposed to be a person. and aside from the klavier bits all of that is in the game already, implicitly or explicitly, just waiting for someone to rewrite like three lines of dialogue so zak and valant aren’t Just Some Guys to each other.

anyway a lot of the other thoughts i have are like. details. it probably never gets established explicitly but phoenix probably never gets to know kristoph gavin that well, and conversely kristoph doesn’t care about phoenix bc he might not even know he would’ve been passed over for phoenix before the other guy. ema is friendlier bc even though she is still upset about being a detective and does still think klavier’s annoying, she doesn’t actively resent him for getting phoenix disbarred. also she’s already good friends with trucy. the biggest plot-difference that isn’t just a natural result of phoenix not getting disbarred is that i think phoenix has to be the one who gets hit by the car in 4-2 instead of that happening to apollo’s jerk mentor bc no other human being on the planet could get thrown thirty feet by a car and hit a telephone pole with his head and still only wind up with a sprained ankle out of the deal.

[graylinesspam]

how do you decide which story arcs to cover from the clone wars in your sleeping habits fic? like, is it a general sense of “this is where i want to end and these are the stops we’ll make along the way” or the opposite, like the journey is more important than the destination in the long run? i’m trying to plan out my own fic and i can’t help but what to do both at the same time and it is ✨not working✨

This is an excellent question!

Sleeping habits is a particular kind of story. It's basically the grown up college version of a drabble (which i have always been very fond of writing). When i set out to write SH I did so specifically to give a platform to the rock tumbler of headcannons in my head. I had so many different version of the clone wars rolling around that I could never nail down exactly what I thought about it.

Star wars is just one of those works that has such an open world with so little fleshing out. I kept going back and forth on details about the clones and their physicality/culture/language. and the same for Ahsoka's Togruta characteristics. So i decided to dedicate one fic as sort of one universe, one shelf where i could organize all of my thoughts without necessarily committing to them. (sort of a multiverse situation).

When it comes to writing each chapter it's basically off the cuff. I pick one headcannon about one character and then i just write my way to that. Usually along the way other details will emerge about other characters, setting, ect. I basically start with a reaction and build a situation in which that would happen. (think very one bed formula).

The great thing about this writing method is that it makes you ask a lot of questions in the process. Instead of starting with a clear plan, it makes you come up with a bunch of new details to answer questions you haven't even thought of.

Lets take the chapter "With flying colors" for example;

The only subject I intended to write about was Ahsoka climbing up a troopers back, like a feral little shit, in order to get up a cliffside. I picked it purely because it would be funny and the last chapters had been sort of slow and sweet.

I asked myself what planet would Ahsoka be really comfortable navigating? Well, Felucia is similar enough to her home planet.

What characteristics would Ahsoka have as a plains hunter? Quiet, swift, barefoot, able to climb trees quickly.

Which led to a study on trench foot and maart's whole character. As well as fleshing out Vere's character.

Who should Ahsoka climb? well, Jesse, because i'm trying to write about more clones than just Rex, Fives, and Echo. Besides, he'd have a funny reaction. That meant Those three would have to stay back at camp, which meant Kix and Anakin were coming bc Ahsoka isn't going anywhere without either Anakin or Rex.

So I had to come up with characterization for all three of them. which brought in the hunting aspect, the jedi council test, the inclusion of the commandos (to keep Anakin out of the spotlight), And even Ahsoka waking up with a cricked neck from sleeping in Anakin's armpit.

And then of course how would all characters involved react to the events described.

This writing method is, in part, a character driven narrative. Meaning that every writing decision I make takes into account a characters personality, feelings, and reaction before I even consider an actual plotline. This is not an ideal writing method for all kinds of stories. Some stories require a plot driven narrative. If you have a clear plotline you want to accomplish you may want to write the plot first and the characters second.

In SH all the locations, timeline, or tie in to a certain time period or episode of the show is an after thought meant to serve the place that the character is in rather that the character serving the plot.

But if you look at "A Series of Interviews" for instance, it is a fleshed out plot where the characters involved are tools to get from one plot point to another. And thus a narrative driven storyline.

My first piece of advice to you is to decide whether you're writing for the characters or for the events before you decide how you want to plan the rest of your story.

And tell me about it, I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts/questions.

[flo-milli-shit-hoe]

MEGA ATSV SPOILERS

okay, so, im using this post to coalesce all my thoughts about this movie character by character, and no this is not proofread/edited

LAST WARNING FOR SPOILERS (also this post is just long asl)

Miles:

MY DAYS!!!! he is such a cool character. his entire struggle is about trying to fulfill others expectations and growing to find himself despite those expectations. AND GOD if that is not the teenage struggle. he doesn't want to disappoint his parents, but he also want to live up to being spiderman. AND he's still struggling with the grief of not being able to see his ppl (gwen, peter, etc) again bc they're in other dimensions.

ALSO, I love how his character represents the struggle of morality (get it? morales, morals- nvm). everyone in the world has different morals and different ideas on how to enforce right and wrong. a major point in this movie is what happens when you force your morals onto everyone else

Gwen:

ALSO ANOTHER COOL CHARACTER!!! like im still mad that she kinda betrays miles by never telling him the whole story. BUT OMG her character is such an interesting exploration of identity and trust (and also how much hurt you cause even when u think ur doing the right thing; bc girl why didnt u tell miles what was going on).

her dad unknowingly hunting her the whole time is such a cool part too. like it speaks to how parents can make their children feel unsafe with uninformed opinions and biases, aka all his comments of how dangerous spider woman is even though he doesn't know the full story (i.e. spouting homophobic things around you child not knowing they're gay; or supporting the criminalization of things like weed despite stats showing that such a petty offence is used to put undeserving ppl behind bars (btw these r just random examples))

Hobie:

ISTG I LOVE HIM SO MUCHHHH!!!!! his character is such a good tribute to what a punk ACTUALLY is. especially in a time where skinheads and sharps are such a pervasive problem in the community (also fuck all the yt ppl who ruined the term skinhead, you appropriated british-jamaican culture and put it with nazis, i fucking hate you). despite all the disdain everyone held for him and his idc attitude, the one thing hobie was consistently is KIND. he barely knew miles for more than 20-mins and still helped him when shit went south bc that's what punk is meant to be. its community support, kindness, and righting the wrongs made by the establishment.

Pavitr:

I ALSO LOVE HIM TOOO!!!!! his character is so happy-go-lucky and positive (and honestly the opposite of most peters that we see). im sad we didn't get to see more of him and his universe except for setting up the plot of spot and miles being an anomaly.

Miguel:

THIS BITCH!!!! I LOVE AND HATE HIM!! he's such a well developed antagonist. esp bc he's not actually a villain, he's just another spiderman. he's such a good analysis on what happens when a person thinks that suffering is inevitable/is required to develop as a person.

AND YES WE FUCKING KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BREAK CANON! i keep seeing analyses of his character that keep asking 'well how do we rlly know what happens?' he tells you, the movie tells you, EVERYONE TELLS YOU what happens. the only reason he is the way he is, is bc he broke the canon and got punished by the narrative for it. now, this isn't to say that what he's doing is right (trading lives for one another), just that it makes sense from his perspective.

Jessica:

another adult that i kinda hate.

but i get it, she has a baby and her own home dimension to protect. but damn, this isn't the way to do it. she's another wonderful example of what happens when ppl believe that suffering is necessary (like yes, suffering happens, everyone will suffer; but the whole thing about being a hero is to prevent suffering when you can!!! not to enforce your ideal of what morality is).

both her, peter, and miguel represent one major part of the generational divide between gen x and gen z. SO MANY ppl in gen x (jessica, peter b, miguel, any other older iterations of spiderman) believe that struggle is required, and that things shouldn't improve so that future generations have to struggle like they did. but ppl in gen z (miles, gwen, hobie, pravitr) are suffering from decisions we didn't make, being tasked with fixing these problems so future generations DONT suffer like we have to.

Peter B:

my dude, you fucked up, you have to accept that before you keep trying to apologize. stop shoving your fucking baby in everyone's face

once again, a perfect example of why you can't try to enforce your morality on everyone (except he's not as clear cut as jessica and miguel bc he switched sides in the end). i think he (and gwen) knew what they were doing was wrong lowkey. but didn't understand just how cruel it was until it happened to someone (miles) they cared about personally, which is a whole commentary in and of itself. and honestly, i think he still wouldn't have realized it if miles went along with it instead of fighting to save ppl.

Mile's parents:

they act just like my caribbean father and aa mother istg

they are the best outcome of 'your parents are ppl too'. they sacrificed so much to get miles to where he is and want to make sure he doesn't waste his opportunities in life. they're the perfect example of well-meaning parents, and im SO GLADDDD that they start learning to listen to miles. im so excited to see how their relationship with miles develops in the next movie.

Gwen's dad:

a perfect example of what happens when you jump to conclusions like its the olympics.

(like most cops) he doesn't investigate the other factors to peter's death and just goes with the most obvious lead, spider-woman. which, eventually, costs him his daughter (quite literally... he fucking shoots at her). BUT, it was SOOOO refreshing to see him grow because he realized that his job was ruining his relationship with his daughter.

The spider ppl of the first movie:

(this category is like penny, noir, spider ham, etc.)

you sometimey bitches pmo. like the first movie was a wonderful example of how to fix the spiderverse w/o all the shit miguel is doing. yet, here yall are betraying miles.

i have nothing else to say

if you made it this far

SHOUT OUT TO THE WRITERS OF THIS MOVIE!!!!

ESP BC THIS CAME OUT DURING THE WGA STRIKE. YALL DESERVE ALL THE LOVE, YOUR JOB IS SO HARD. AND YOUR WORK IS SO IMPRESSIVE!!!

SHOUT OUT TO THE ANIMATORS TOOO!!!! YALL PUT SO MUCH LOVE AND CARE INTO THIS MOVIE. ITS PHYSICALLY PALPABLE HOW MUCH YALL CARED ABOUT GETTING EVERYTHING JUST RIGHT.

(though it does suck that you can't watch this movie if ur photosensitive, which def defeats the 'everyone can be spidey' thing and it's just ableist)

[inklingofadream]

6, 18, 19, 25, and 35 for the weird writer asks!

What is your darkest fear about writing?

My mom finding it, wildly missing the point, and deciding that enrolling me in talk therapy is non-negotiable lol

Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.

Gonna scroll it back to Till Things Are Brighter, which no one whose followed me in the past year has read because I last updated in ~February 2021~ but which is still the work I'm most determined to finish

I hadn’t meant to tell you so much. [Growls] There’s too much of a risk of Magnus pulling it out of you and accelerating his plans, or out of my dreams since you’ve made it a proper Statement , but apparently knowing when to stop asking questions isn’t a power granted to any Archivist. Next time you can’t stand not Knowing, just ask me to write it out. Statement fucking ends.

(From the end of chapter 9, for any who want to read my beloved magnum opus bc of this passage lol)

(cut because I am at heart a rambler)

So I knew that in order for various plot events to work I needed Daisy to meet with Gertrude, and I realized that it didn't make much sense for Gertrude to meet with this mysterious lady telling her all this stuff with little if any context to why it's important and not eventually getting fed up and taking a statement by force. That wasn't in my original plan, because it introduces a couple complications, but I actually ended up with a lot of affection for the chapter as a whole.

The handy thing about forcing a statement out of one of your characters and including it in the narrative is that it's an excuse to break the writing rule that people almost never just state their emotions in plain terms. The format by definition requires honesty and usually some explanation of the character's emotions either generally or at the starting point, sometimes complete with their assessment and feelings about those feeling in hindsight. So I got to use it to incorporate stuff I couldn't otherwise!

But Daisy gets pretty mad about having her statement taken every time it happens in canon, she just doesn't have the full details for Jon and can't take it out on Elias. She can't afford to take things out on Gertrude, either, other than peacing out. And I don't generally like including swear words in my writing but... nothing else fit. So Daisy got One Swear, for a treat!

Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

Ahahaha, I started writing in second grade. My best friend and I were going to make a novelization of the Rankin-Bass Santa Claus in Comin' to Town Christmas special with her doing illustrations and me writing. It was never finished and lost to time because my family moved the summer after second grade :( I wrote other things throughout elementary school, but sadly never found such a willing cowriter. The draft of the story that made my mom point out that people might not be interested in reading a story that interrupts the action every time a character is introduced to tell you their age, hair and eye color, favorite color, height, and hobbies is a happier loss X'D I did Nanowrimo for the first time in 7th grade, and did finish the story (it's still around... somewhere...) but it was handwritten so I don't know the wordcount. Probably more in the 20k range, but whatever. Did it again successfully on a word processor in 9th grade (also around... somewhere... in printed form even though the computer it was saved to is long gone). Those would probably be better if they were Mary Sue stories, I think if I reread them they'd probably be mostly very boring.

There's a local day event thing for teenage writers in my area called Teen Author Boot Camp, my best friend since toddlerhood got me into it and the first year we went we got 1st (her) and 2nd (me) place in their first chapter writing contest (year redacted bc you could def dox me from their FB). That was probably the last gasp of me successfully writing as a teen. I went again as many years as I was eligible, because it was hugely fun winning aside, but never won again lol. I started reading fic around the time I started high school, and wrote some a few years after that (it's all MCU/Marvel fic, don't go that far back on my AO3, some of it I probably still stand by but some is for sure Bad). I spent most of high school with major burnout writer's block. I started writing again slightly before listening to TMA, but that was what got me back into writing recreationally in a big way. Since I think 2019? maybe 2020 idk, every year I've had an end of year wordcount on AO3 that's... honestly a big embarrassing lol.

I have a fistful of original ideas (fiction and non) that I want to get around to, but right now those are on hold until I finish the final paper for my Bachelor's, which has sadly NOT been blessed by the inspiration gods... fic gets to happen because on a conscious prioritization level I can post it for instant gratification which original writing can't do and on a less conscious level because the chronic health issues that blessedly got me accommodations on that paper interfere enough with my brain on most days to make academic writing hard where fic just isn't. I'm finally in a decent enough place that I'll hopefully be able to get past that, and once that's out of the way original writing (and hopefully improvements in health once that stress is gone) here I come!

What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

My Daisy Tonner is femme but mostly can't express it because it's impractical at work. She always painted her nails because it lasts decently and doesn't detract from how her colleagues view her. She has a bunch of more feminine clothes that she doesn't wear much because she doesn't spend that much time not working. Basira doesn't really know all that about her because by the time she was in the picture Daisy was too Hunt-influenced to pay much attention to unrelated things, which got worse over time.

Or for an OC, Cece who shows up in Little Archive is biromantic asexual and has freckles and moles because projection thy name is Ink

What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

When I was a baby teen writer I would absorb anything that seemed to have a decently informed source and for a long time I had this quote from Elmore Leonard hang on

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

taped to the side of my bedside table where I saw it all the time. Anyway screw that guy, I love exclamation points! Avoiding them outside of a non-personified distant third person POV is janky! It sounds weird! It distances you from the character! What about dialogue?! Anyone transcribing mine would have to use a bunch, that's how lots of people talk!

[iamanartichoke]

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

[akari-hope]

People REALLY need to learn the difference between the enemies to lovers trope & the rivals to lovers trope. I see people listing the comparatively innocuous criteria for rivals to lovers as “enemies to lovers” ALL THE TIME, and that shit spreads and it’s so inaccurate. Idk I just keep remembering the catradora discourse & people forgetting that abuse requires one party to hold power over the other and also they spent 4 seasons trying to kill each other bc they were on opposing sides of a war,

2/2 as bitter enemies. People gush over enemies to lovers all the time, but the second it isn’t just witty banter and enemies behave as enemies do, they’re torn to shreds. ESPECIALLY if they’re traumatized lesbians.

truly. like i like rivals to lovers, that's great, but i hate when people say enemies to lovers when they mean the former. if they're just trying to outdo each other that's rivals. enemies to lovers doesn't always have to involve trying to kill each other, might not involve malice on both sides. in spop, adora certainly holds no malice for catra. but it does involve characters trying to cause the other's downfall.

tangentially related, but it also bugs me when people can't seem to reconcile legitimate conflict in narratives. the misinterpretation of enemies to lovers is a great example of the larger trend. a narrative must have SOME form of conflict. and most times a good narrative (or at least one that doesn't fit on the simplest plot chart) has more than one. conflict is the lifeblood of a story - if you don't have any, you don't really have a plot. even genres that are typically not as dramatic as others, like slice-of-life, still have SOME kind of conflict within each episode.

and i feel as though many people have...forgotten this? like i can guess where it probably came from (but that's another topic for another day), but it's kind of baffling. that there are these people who will proudly proclaim that english or literature or what have you was their favorite subject in high school, yet spout off that two characters having a point of conflict between them in a narrative is "problematic". i find it fascinating in an upsetting sort of way. generally these are also the same people who will cry foul if a gay person isn't shown to be a perfect angel, or dies, or whatever else. it fosters this entire idea that narratives must conform to the exact morality of reality, which is pretty subjective and not possible to come to a universal consensus on.

and i want to specify, there IS a place for discussions of that. there is absolutely a time and place to say what stories should be told, and the impact those stories can have. but that does NOT then mean that everything that happens in a narrative must abide by a perfect, non-problematic standard.

in addition - the general consensus on enemies to lovers is entirely uneven, especially when considering the popularity and reception of wlm/mlm enemies to lovers ships, but this post is long enough as is and that's a conversation that deserves its own space

[tmae3114]

So all of your posts about Tales of Arcadia made me want to watch the show, so wanted to ask if you'd recommend it? I tend to be a bit unsure with starting new shows (I already kind of know what your answer is gonna be, but I'm more curious in what you'd have to say about it)

HELLO ANON, I APOLOGISE FOR THE EXTREMELY LATE RESPONSE TO YOUR ASK AND I HOPE YOU'RE STILL HANGING AROUND SO YOU CAN SEE IT!

Short answer: yes, absolutely, I highly recommend Tales Of Arcadia!

Long answer bc you said you're interested in what I have to say: Tales of Arcadia, all three installments, is an amazing franchise. The plots are solid, the characters are complex, the character development is consistent and compelling, and it has one of the best grasps of continuity and consequence that I've seen in basically anything. Along with all of that, the visuals are stunning. Also, on a note of purely personal preference, they blended fantasy and sci-fi in the same setting and that is something which I love a lot and think there is never enough of. We've got magic and aliens! That's a great combination!

For a quick synopsis of what to expect, trying to ensure I spoil as little as possible, Tales of Arcadia currently has three installments - Trollhunters, 3Below, and Wizards. They're all set in the town of Arcadia Oaks in California and each show follows a different aspect of the otherworldly things going on there, while maintaining on-going worldbuilding and, at a few points, interconnected plotlines.

Trollhunters follows the adventures of Jim Lake Jr, an average teenager who finds a magic amulet and becomes its next chosen wielder, thus inheriting the mantle of Trollhunter. We follow him and his friends as they discover the hidden world of Trolls beneath their town, who Jim is now charged with protecting. On the surface, it seems like a pretty typical Chosen One storyline, but where Trollhunters differs, imo, is that it does not at all shy away from, and actually explores, a lot of the things that Chosen One Teenager narratives usually don't acknowledge, like how the duties of being the Trollhunter affect Jim's ability to keep up with his "normal" life and how keeping such a secret impacts his relationships with those not in the know. Even if the rest of the ToA franchise didn't exist, I would highly, highly, highly recommend Trollhunters!

3Below, the second series in Tales of Arcadia, pulls us away from the magical world of trolls to a sci-fi world of aliens, still within the same setting of Arcadia Oaks! This show follows siblings Aja and Krel Tarron, royals from the planet Akiridion-5, who were forced to flee and live in hiding on Earth, under the care of Commander Varvatos Vex, when General Val Morando performed a military coup and took control of their planet, gravely injuring their parents in the process. Aja and Krel are actually first introduced in Season 3 of Trollhunters and Season 1 of this show runs concurrently with Trollhunters Season 3, with one of the episodes showing us Aja and Krel's perspective on what was happening in their introductory episode! The integration of aliens into the existing fantasy world of Trollhunters is done masterfully and Aja and Krel are just as compelling protagonists as Jim! Their sibling dynamic is a delight to watch and, again, excellent plot, continuity, and character development!

Wizards is the latest installment, picking up right where 3Below leaves off. Our protagonist this time is Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan, a wizard apprentice who, much like Aja and Krel, was initially introduced in Trollhunters S3. The plot this time is that our heroes are now trying to stop the efforts of an order of evil ancient magic users who are trying to end the world. Also, there's time travel and seeing how events in not only Wizards but some from Trollhunters started! I'm saying the least about this one not because I have less to say but because saying all I want to say about Wizards would require not only possibly spoiling the show itself but also its predecessors! I will say that Douxie is every bit the compelling protagonist that Jim, Aja and Krel are! And it's very impressive on the part of the writers that they were able to give him just as compelling a story and character arc as the other three, given Jim had three seasons, Aja & Krel had two, and Douxie got one ten episode season!

So, yeah! That's what I have to say about Tales of Arcadia! I highly recommend you watch it because it's fantastic but also I would recommend you have tissues to hand because this franchise can get heartwrenching at times

[injanery]

A beginner's guide to Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is among the most widely-read and influential novels in the world, bringing together centuries of accumulated folk tales and popular elaborations relating to the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China (220-280 AD). The amalgamated version we read today is usually attributed to the fourteenth-century playwright Lo Kuan-Chung. Later editions added to this work, however, and by the seventeenth century the most widely-circulated version had acquired the immortal opening line: 'Empires wax and wane; states cleave asunder and coalesce.'

Partly because the book relates to such an omnipresent phenomenon as the rise and fall of states, it continues to capture imaginations on a global scale. Chinese and Japanese culture has drawn heavily on the themes and lessons of the Three Kingdoms in poetry, artwork, theatre, literature, and politics. In China, the novel has been adapted into multiple serialised television programmes, as well as a string of blockbuster films. Japan has developed many video games based on the book, and the British studio Creative Assembly also released their own Three Kingdoms strategy game.

For the casual reader, however, the book can present a bewildering challenge. The most popular English edition tops out at 1,360 pages, despite being heavily abridged. Following all the countless narrative threads from start to finish requires multiple readings, especially as some of them seem insignificant at first. The reader is also given a dizzying list of names to memorise, including geographical locations and, for individuals, as many as three different names which may be used interchangeably. The writing style is also not what most Western readers will be accustomed to: for example, detailed descriptive passages are used sparingly, and much of the scenery is not described at all. It is a shame for this remarkable story to go under-appreciated for such superficial reasons, but it does require some demystification. So what, exactly, is the book all about, and why does it still matter so much?

***

Until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912, China was ruled by a millennia-long succession of imperial families. The history of the country is usually split into chunks named after the dynasty ruling at the time, such as the Zhou (1050-256 BC), the Han (206 BC-220 AD), and the Tang (618-906 AD). Each dynasty ascended to power after a period of upheaval and civil war, and ended in the same fashion after descending into weakness, corruption, and inefficiency. This process gave rise to a sense of inevitability and a feeling that all regimes have a limited lifespan—hence the inclusion of the line 'Empires wax and wane' in the edition that was circulated shortly after the fall of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 AD).

The events of Romance of the Three Kingdoms take place during and after the demise the Han dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) and before that the Zhou. The influence of Confucianism, a deeply hierarchical, patriarchal, and ritualised philosophy of social order formulated in the time of the late Zhou dynasty, can be felt throughout the Romance. Women, for instance, only become key actors when they are used as pawns to seduce enemies and destabilise states, or when they attempt to meddle in politics and thereby doom their own cause. All main characters have a deeply hierarchical view of the world, and among their followers, loyalty and sacrifice are the most prominent virtues. Nowhere are this themes more visible than in the opening chapters.

Readers are presented with a Han state that, through decades of misrule, has fallen into chaos. Instead of listening to learned advisers, recent emperors have let power fall into the hands of a group of eunuchs, leading the Heavens to inflict natural disasters and supernatural events upon China, and a visitation by a 'monstrous black serpent' upon the emperor. This sets the tone of the whole story: real events interspersed with fantastical elaborations and dramatised innovations.

We hear from one of the emperor's ministers, who informs him that the recent happenings were 'brought about by feminine interference in State affairs'. The social order has been neglected, leading to a general decay in the moral standing of state and country. Into this power vacuum comes a popular rebellion inspired by a mystical movement: the Yellow Turbans. The causes, composition, and objectives of the rebellion are left unexplored, and for the authors these details are inconsequential anyway—it merely serves as a narrative tool to demonstrate the extent of government weakness and set the scene for the introduction of the tale's central heroes.

The Han government puts out a call to arms to defeat the Yellow turbans, and among those to answer the call is Liu Bei, a shoemaker who claims descent from the Han royal line and, together with his sworn warrior-brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, goes on to found the Shu-Han state in south-western China—one of the Three Kingdoms. Liu Bei is the character with whom the authors seem to sympathise most, being portrayed as an empathetic and just ruler who surrounds himself with able advisers and noble warriors. His virtue, however, often becomes a detriment when competing with less scrupulous opponents.

Another to answer the call was Ts'ao Ts'ao, later the founder of the kingdom of Wei in northern China and an altogether more ruthless, cunning, and suspicious character. Although he takes on a villainous aura at times, his state would prove to be the base from which a new dynasty was ultimately founded.

The Yellow Turban rebellion is successfully defeated by this coalition, and the eunuchs too are deposed from their over-powerful position in the royal court. Into the power vacuum, however, comes another menace, Dong Zhuo—gluttonous, cruel, barbaric—who seizes possession of the young emperor Xian and therefore the levers of power. Another coalition of regional warlords, including Liu Bei and Ts'ao Ts'ao, is formed to challenge Dong, and at this point we meet the family behind the third of the Three Kingdoms—Sun Jian and his sons, Ce and Quan. Their kingdom would be called Wu, based south of the Yangtze river.

The coalition against Dong eventually breaks apart and fails, and he is instead killed by his own general when members of his court hatch a plot to involve the two of them in a love triangle. With Dong gone, China once again descends into a violent power-struggle. The list of petty regional lords and pretenders to the throne is gradually whittled down until there remains a triumvirate of challengers—Liu Bei's Shu-Han, Ts'ao Ts'ao's Wei, and Wu under the Sun family. What follows is an epic, winding tale of political and military intrigue, plots, assassinations, battles of wit, moral dilemmas, and an ever-changing web of alliances and loyalties. Each kingdom has its moments of triumph and disaster, and their rulers all declare themselves to be the sole legitimate emperor.

***

There are perhaps four key moments that define the direction of the story following the founding of the Three Kingdoms. The first is the Battle of Red Cliffs (208 AD), fought on the Yangtze river between an alliance of Liu Bei and Sun Quan and the vastly more numerous invading forces of Ts'ao Ts'ao. Liu’s strategist, the legendary Zhuge Liang, prays for a favourable wind, enabling the allies to launch a daring fire attack and burn the Wei navy. This victory halts Ts'ao's momentum, but Shu and Wu eventually fall out over territorial disputes, and one of Sun Quan's generals later kills Liu Bei's beloved brother, Guan Yu.

Liu's rage at the death of his brother prompts him, against the advice of his followers, to invade Wu. The result, the Battle of Xiaoting (222 AD), is the second key turning point in the story. Wu's forces again deploy fire tactics to destroy the invading army, and the defeated Liu retreats to coalesce and focus his efforts against the more expansive kingdom of Wei.

From 228 to 234 AD, the unmatched Shu strategist Zhuge Liang leads a series of northern expeditions against Wei, and these campaigns comprise the third turning point. Although Zhuge uses his superhuman strategic abilities to achieve some remarkable results on the battlefield, none of his expeditions inflict a decisive blow, partly because Wei had by this time found its own talismanic strategist in Sima Yi. A long rivalry ensues between these two great minds, and while Zhuge is portrayed as having the edge, he is always foiled at the last moment by natural causes or by political failures in Shu following the death of Liu Bei. Zhuge's own demise then removes the greatest external threat to Wei's dominance.

Another key player to have passed away by this point is Ts'ao Ts'ao. Like the Han state before it, the kingdom of Wei was now in the hands of far less capable figures than its founder, leaving the way clear for the final key moment in the tale: Sima Yi's coup against Ts'ao Shuang and his seizure of power in Wei (249 AD). Sima's descendants go on to conquer Shu-Han (263 AD), declare their own dynasty (the Jin, 266-420 AD), and finally conquer Wu (280 AD).

And so it was that none of the Three Kingdoms survived to unify China. All of them ultimately became microcosms of the same dysfunction and decay that afflicted late Han, and they suffered the same end. This is the great irony of the Romance. However, it also helps to explain the enduring popularity of this tale, for it concerns not just the fortunes of states, but something much more intimate—the apparent powerlessness of human effort when stacked against the will of the Heavens and the crushing inevitability of fate. As the book's concluding poem states:

All down the ages rings the note of change, For fate so rules it; none escape its sway. The kingdoms three have vanished as a dream, The useless misery is ours to grieve.

[bonnissance]

critical ranting about holby under the cut (bc I am also sick of long holby text posts bc reading is hard)  

But I have Thoughts(tm) I need to air because there are many things that really really get my goat about Serena’s current story and almost all of it is due to the fact that her entire narrative arc has been constructed to give Jasmine Burrows a storyline.

To begin, I hold that this narrative arc is an example of poor storytelling. As I’ve vague discussed before, I think Elinor’s introduction+exit=the fall out of her death was very poorly constructed and executed. The pacing is wrong, the rhythm of progression is beyond clunky, and the “you fill in the blanks” between the plot points the writers are handing to the audience are too large and frequent to be of any benefit to the narrative.

They reintroduced Elinor far too briefly for anyone to actually care that the character die, because, of course, the point wasn’t that Elinor died: it was that Serena Campbell’s daughter died. Following that, they left out crucial and oh so very important scenes in Serena’s story. For instance, discussing Elinor’s condition with the Doctors and Edward, their decision to turn of the ventilator, and preparing for the funeral. Nevertheless, those plot points were left out of Serena’s narrative as a deliberate decision.

So too was the choice to leave out any depiction of Serena’s grief at home. Which in itself, I shall concede, is understandable given Holby is a medial drama situated in a work place hospital and generally only includes out of hospital scenes when large concentrations of hospital employees are there at the same time such as Albie’s and work functions, etc.

However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as the trio’s house and now Dom and Issac’s domesticity. Those scenes are included because they are essential to the story those characters are telling at the time. Zosia’s early story is inherently connected to her personal life. As is Dom and Issac’s storyline necessitates the blurring of profession and personal and how Issac’s abuse alters depending on the situation. Thus, Holby has a history of included non-work place related scenes when it furthers the story they have chosen to tell.

Yet the deliberately decided against including allowing Serena to grieve in the safety and comfort of her own home, just as the arguably essential scenes above mentioned scenes were left out of scripts. In fact, that entire section of Serena’s storyline was barely even acknowledged. Now, we all know that Russell would have knocked those scenes out of the park. So leaving them out wasn’t the writers factoring in to a lack of ability on behalf of their performer. Nor do I believe they left them out because the writers were unable to write the content. On the contrary, I think Holby’s writer’s room to be more than capable of producing that type of content and doing it rather well.

It then follows that the writers made a deliberate decision to they breezed over what ought to have been a significant point of character development in favour of inserting her straight back onto the ward. To ensure that her grief and every unhealthy coping mechanism she uses to get through the day would be on full display to her colleagues, and to the audience. The writers forced Serena back onto the ward, to the same physical location of her daughter’s death, in order to deliberately blur the lines of the character’s personal tragedy with her professional existence.

They explicated unhealthy coping techniques that directly affected Serena’s behaviour towards her colleagues, and they did it without providing her with an adequate support network. 

They created an unhealthy inter-generational dynamic between Serena and Jasmine that, at times, epitomises the ‘old queers are predatory and dangerous to young women’ trope. They glazed over Serena’s panic attacks and fugue states in favour implying she’s drinking on the job. They justified the narrative shaming of Serena reaching out to the one person in the world who understood what it meant to lose their daughter: Elinor Campbell, without bothering to make it clear that problem was never Serena wanting emotional support from Edward. The problem was that she continued to try and engage with him after he made it clear he was in no way prepared to provide Serena with the care she was requesting. Once again leaving Serena without a support network as well as implying her desire for the support was unreasonable. 

They continued pushing the mentor/mentee dynamic between Jasmine and Serena to unprofessional and unhealthy levels. Now, while there is certainly examples of emotionally abusive behaviour between Serena and Jasmine, I avoid using the term “abusive” to describe their entire relationship. I don’t believe the mistreatment occurring has been sustained long enough to warrant the term. (It bears mentioning that this classification is based on my own personal experiences with emotional abuse and that I have little interest in expanding on this reasoning should anyone take issue with this statement.) Instead, I would classify this situation as incidental grooming between two people who have positioned another in an unhealthy and toxic position in their live. 

Granted, they both agreed to a mentor/mentee dynamic. However, Jasmine in no way deserves to be belittled and bullied in the work place, to have Serena use her as a project to help process her grief, or to become the focal point of Serena’s need to make sure what happened with Elinor never happens to anyone else. But nor does Serena deserve to become the source of Jasmine’s validation, to overcompensates for Jasmine’s already developed sense of unworthiness, or become a maternal care provider which Jasmine so clearly wants her to be. Both of them are using the other in horridly unhealthy ways and desperately need counselling to process their own emotional traumas. 

But once again, the writers don’t bother to make clear the actual issues in these exchanges, nor handle the fall out of these situations with the degree of seriousness issues such as these actually require. Instead, they continue to escalate things between Serena and Jasmine, which we know cumulates into Serena telling Jasmine she wishes Jasmine were dead, because this was their intention all along.

Despite the fact that Elinor was Serena’s daughter, the point of killing off her off was not to give Serena a storyline. Elinor’s death and the resulting grief, which has irrevocably changed the character at the very core, was not about Serena at all, because this entire narrative was constructed to give Jasmine Burrows a storyline.

And that fact makes me furious. 

Because Holby gave us the story of a middle aged woman discovering her same-sex attraction in a situation where her desire was mutual and returned. They gave us a story in which that character was about to embark on a healthy, fulfilling, sustainable relationship that satisfied her emotional, physical, romantic and sexual wants. They implied the character was going integrate that romantic relationship with her other filial bonds and, for the first time in possibly her whole life, have her emotional needs actually met.

Then they took that character, who in universe was finally finally about to be happy, and decided to add to the other numerous instances of suffering the writers have already put her through by killing of her daughter. Killing off her daughter in her place of work only to cut short her grieving and send her right back there to suffer in the public eye.  

And they did it to give a new and barely formed character a storyline. The fact remains that Jasmine had literally millions of plausible storylines they could have gone with; so many options that would have ended with substantial character growth. She could have stopped drinking and studied harder, she could have taken up running, gotten a boyfriend or a puppy, learnt tact and become an actual decent doctor, and the character would have grown. 

Christ, she could have stubbed her toe on the edge of a bed, sworn on the ward, and gotten a dressing down from her boss about appropriate workplace vocabulary that character growth would have carried the same weight as the storyline she’s now had to endure.

They writers have irrevocably written Serena into a corner, because that character will never be the same again and there is very little they can do with her now, without actually letting the audience see the some of the most important narrative points. Moreover, they have also cut off almost all of Jasmine’s further storylines, because unless they give her a surprise pregnant with Ollie’s baby and then she miscarries after deciding to keep it (which I wouldn’t put it past them tbqh) there’s not a lot the writers can do with her that will have the same intensity and significance as what they’ve already put her through. 

In short, the Holby writers took a queer mentally ill abuse survivor and guttered her from the inside out for the sake of another character with barely touched potential. They treated that character with a level of disrespect and disregard I’m not sure I’ve seen since The L Word drowned Jenny Schecter in her neighbour’s pool and nobody really cared. Because they gave us Serena Campbell, implied that she (along with and everyone she represents) deserves to be happy, only to turn around and burn her beyond recognition for daring to hope. And they did it because they wanted to.

[courierdusters-a]

// expanding on the storytelling styles thing bc i found my words for it. like... elle really does function the best when plotting is involved — does best with serial rp, versus episodic

memes are very episodic. they aren’t always continued forward or wrapped into a narrative, although they can still help develop interactions, chemistry, etc. and they’re quick and easy for everyone on both sides

but elle is so very reactive. context matters so much that it makes doing off-the-cuff stuff, even with characters she knows well and has established CR with, difficult. it matters what canon point she’s at, where she is, how she’s meeting someone, how they’re coming across, how she’s coming across, the events that have happened most recently for her — so on and so on

i’ve been able to be regularly active on dicepools because i don’t have that struggle with those problems with these other muses. it’s easier to conjure up scenarios around memes that can be shuffled around like magnets on a fridge. plus, the general convenience of a multimuse, where i can swap between muses based on where my brain happens to be at on any particular day

elle is a very important character to me — and i’ve been able to do stuff with her off of tumblr during this time, where the format is different and built more towards what works better for her. but there are still a lot of things i want to explore with her here, but feel bad because i don’t know how consistent i’ll be able to be with it. and a lot of the things i want to explore require her to be a part of my other muses’ stories, which i think is really something best suited for a multimuse, y’know...?