#but it compels me because it's both so close in to a character's experience and notably separated from it

[mylittleredgirl]

controversial opinion, but i love second-person pov in fic. in this case, i specifically don't mean x-reader; that seems like a different kind of story that scratches another itch.

i want you to be a fully-fledged character, familiar, recognizable. the thing i love about second-person is not that it inserts me into the story as a reader, but that it inserts the narrator as this omniscient, invisible, inescapable force.

in present or future tense -- you do this; you will do this -- the repeated you becomes a back beat of inevitability. the character is being moved from page to page by the voice of god, and we can see god's shadow on the wall. the you is so bound by the constraints of their own character, their own nature, that they could never have chosen another path. it creates an undertone of horror in any genre for me. the story is that there could be no story other than the one the narrator chooses to tell.

[fishnapple]

New friendship, who are they?

I tested out a new set of beads for this reading. It was really fun.

This is a general reading meant for multiple people. Take only what resonates and leave out the rest.

Your feedback is much appreciated. If you find the reading resonated with you, leave a comment, I’d love to know 🎐

About me | Masterpost

Book a reading with me - KO-FI (→ personal reading)

BLACK

This might be someone who has their North node conjunct your ASC. You will be a breath of fresh air to them, they will want to learn a lot from you, at the same time, feeling a little bit out of their depth and uncomfortable. Your way of acting is completely different from their usual friends and your outlooks are also different from theirs. But they will sense that they can grow with you, you embody the path that they need to take. They're likely younger than you or less experienced than you.

They're a hardworking individual with a serious mindset. I think they can be pretty quiet, timid at times. They think a lot before they talk and consider the consequences of their words. You probably won't have much success in trying to small talking them. They might even seem closed-off, so frivolous chit-chat seems out of the question. But their attitude will change when you approach them with more serious topics, an agenda in mind, maybe you could ask for their help or they could ask for yours, a great excuse to start a conversation. They can be pretty stubborn in defending their viewpoint, so don't poke fun of them.

You're likely to meet them at your workplace or where they are working. They could be providing a certain service to you, frequently, so you begin to talk more to each other. You might casually mention one of your hobbies and you guys would click. And from that point onward, there will be opportunities to expand your social circle, you or them will introduce each other to their circle of shared interests. It will take time to get close to this person, even when both of you have the desire to get to know each other. They hide a lot of their more sensitive and soft side, I think that by being friend with you, they will have a chance to bring out this side more. This group is quite short because there's still a lot for this person to uncover and learn about themselves, they haven't come to their true sense of self yet. This person will look up to you a lot. In turn, they will boost your confidence and make you feel appreciated.

★Possible astrology placements: Aries, Scorpio Sun/ Sun conjunct Pluto, Pluto in 1st house, Moon in Taurus/Moon in 2nd house, Saturn in 3rd house, Mercury in Capricorn, Venus in Pisces, Mars in Cancer

SILVER

I get a strong Sagittarius or Jupiter energy from this new friend. They have a strong yet very graceful character that will inspire you a lot.

This friend will come in when you are about to turn a new page in your life, ready for a new phase. The moment you're about to step out of your comfort zone, the universe will introduce you to them, so that you will have an easier time adapting to changes. They will help you unravel the knot in your psyche. Whatever hangups you are having, they will work with you to address them. They will be stern and blunt about it, there's no getting away. At times, you will feel so triggered by them that you want to quit, to end this connection, but fate will keep you guys together and you will be grateful for their perseverance and faith in this friendship.

The first thing you will notice about them is their voice and the way they talk. They could be a fast talker, animated in their gestures and have a lively, mischievous expression. They are a compelling conversationalist, you won't get bored talking to them, exchanging ideas with them will be a joy, an eye-opening experience. Because they will expand your mind, introduce you to many subjects that before that, you had thought uninteresting, but through them, through their enthusiasm, you will find a new interest for these subjects.

You guys might work together or in the same environment a lot. There's a sense of helping each other, walking together side by side. You probably will travel a lot with them. This will be an equal relationship, there's a balanced give and take between you.

This person could have changed their home a lot. They don't have a very stable ground to rely on. They can have an air of being standoffish, but that's just their independent energy. But they can feel lonely easily. They feel that something about them is different from everyone around them, even their families don't understand them enough.

You might observe that they tend to fight against social standards, what's trending, they hate being a follower, mindlessly doing something just because everyone else is doing it. So they definitely stay away from those famous places with 5 stars reviews on Google. They can also be misunderstood a lot by their friends and the groups they are in, accused of being individualistic. This saddens them, but they won't back down for it. Popularity is not their goal. If you're someone who is struggling with fitting in, being yourself in a group setting, then you can learn a lot from this person. In turn, you will provide a rare sense of recognition for their honest heart.

★Possible astrology placements: Sagittarius, Gemini, Aquarius placements, Jupiter in 7th house, Jupiter in Libra, Pluto in 10th house, Aquarius ASC, Sun/Mars in 11th house, Mars in Aquarius, Sun in Pisces

TEAL

This friend will come into your life during the period when you think everything is moving so slowly, there's barely any progress or anything exciting. They will prove you wrong. You will most likely meet them at work or on the way to work, or at an institution. You could have noticed each other before but didn't really pay attention. It would take an event or a third person to properly introduce you.

It will be a slow start, you won't click immediately, I sense that your temperaments can be different from each other's. You will find them a little mysterious, watchful, they seem to be the type that prefers to stay silent at first to assess the situation and the other person better. You would hear about or sense something spiritual in them. They might have a different religious beliefs or they practice an occult art. They could speak a different language, came from a foreign country or have travelled very far from home. You will be mystified and intrigued, but a little intimidated. There could be a period of time at first when you just silently observe each other without making a move. I think the first person to break the silence will be you and they will breathe a sigh of relief. You seem to be more carefree and at ease with yourself than this person, and seem younger too, even if just in spirit.

You will have many philosophical discussions with this friend. The way they talk is wise and gentle. They have an innate understanding of how things work, they probe for deep meaning and open to myriad kinds of experiences. They could have a very profound effect on your mind, asking you questions that you've never thought of before, but they will not be confrontional about it, they just want to ask the question and leave the pondering and thinking to you, the answer is not as important as the acceptance of the question.

They might have moved their living space a lot or rarely stayed at home. They're a nomad, always on the move. They like to travel, explore, could be with their friends, which they have a lot, or alone, they are fine with both.

You will admire their honest way of expressing themselves, their energy feels pure and straightforward, what they show is what you get. Even though they seem so serene and calm, later you will learn that they have been hurt a lot in the past. They might have a fear about commitment, past relationships failed them, so they can be more cautious in this area. You will bring a lot of joy to them, they will find your way of living refreshing and fun, they will want to learn a thing or two about your hobbies and taking them up. You guys will talk about all kinds of things, share the silliest jokes, being ridiculous with each other without care.

★Possible astrology placements: prominent Sagittarius, Taurus, Aquarius placements, Jupiter in 3rd house, Sun in 9th house, Saturn aspects, Moon in 11th house

BLUE

You might be intimidated by them at first but attracted nevertheless. They will remind you of someone you knew in the past or someone in your family.

This person has a strong and intense aura, they are the type that takes no bs from people and set in their way. They would wear a lot of black and red colour and look good in them. Their style would be bold but minimalist. They don't like to adorn themselves with unnecessary things and prefer a neat style for easy movement and activities. Yes, they will love to move a lot, they are active physically and need lots of mental and physical exercises to release the pent-up energy inside them, which is a lot.

You would meet them in a public place, could be a company building, an institution. Maybe when you're going on a business trip or study abroad, or going to museums, conferences, the lecture hall. You will immediately be impressed by their vibrant aura. They seem so self assured, confident, but oddly enough, they don't seem to be comfortable around a crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if they have encountered some jealousy or backstabbing in the past. The crowd doesn't usually go easy on an individualistic person.

They will complement you perfectly. When you feel nervous, they will be strong and confident for you, when you feel down, they will light up your spirit, when you are confused, they will sit you down and talk some sense into you. And I think you will do that for them too. They are an extremely loyal friend. Fiercely protective of their close ones. Their protection is gentle but firm. They will peer into your core and unearth every secret and dark corner that you have. But they won't use it against you. You will feel seen and understood. Just remember never to betray them or cross their boundaries, they can unleash hell on you. This is the kind of person that you want to be friend with, not make an enemy out of them.

They could have talents with words, with musical instruments, with painting. They have a sensitive artistic soul that can perceive the tiniest beauty and capture it into a lasting existence. Their mind can be whimsical but disciplined. They know how to apply rules and methods to ground an idea.

Jokes and laughter are important to them. They like mental games, various kinds of entertainment. They probably have some interesting hobbies that you will want to learn and explore them yourself. Watching them doing something will be inspirational. You will want to encourage them to show themselves more to the world to see, to shine brighter than they already are.

★Possible astrology placements: Aries, Leo, Scorpio placements, 5th house stellium, Pluto in 7th house, Mars in 1st house, Mars in Aries, Aries ASC, Pisces Venus/ Mercury, Capricorn Mercury

AMBER

This new friend could be your future travel buddy. I see one person is leading another to go on a trip. Travel and learning will be the centre of your connection with this person.

The first thing you will notice about this person is that they have a glibness to them. They could talk fast, walk fast, change subjects mid sentence, rambling on and on. But it will be fascinating to watch and listen to them. They could be younger than you, more playful, less care about the mundane, practical world around them. This person will be a bag of infinite fun to you. With them, you will be more relaxed and enjoy yourself more, you guys would think up mischievous bets and games to entertain each other. I keep seeing the image of two kids having fun everywhere they go.

But don't mistake this for their lack of depth. In fact, they are a lot more mysterious and spiritual than meet the eyes. Their approach to life is carefree but philosophical, they believe that doing good deeds will be rewarded. They believe in serendipity, in life's goodness and abundance, this makes them lucky, it's like a team of spirits is having their back. You would think this person is free of worry. They even think so, too, but they're haunted by dreams and nightmares, their worries and fears lie deep down in their psyche. You have to probe carefully to get a glimpse of that. But they likely won't let you do it, they will dazzle you with stories, with adventures that make you forget the elusive nagging feeling of something is amiss.

They're lucky but they're not lazy. They're actually a very hard worker and you will admire their work ethics. Financial security is very important to them. Sometimes to the point of obsession. They work hard and play hard. There could be an over indulgence of some kind. They can be a spendthrift one moment, then make a completely random purchase (and regret about it later). This person probably like to buy little trinkets or bathroom products (they will gift you a lot of that too). They take good care of their hygiene and are very neat. Their house might be swamped with little things, but they will be well organised and aesthetically pleasing.

You might meet them when you go for a vacation, a trip. I see a large body of water so it could be a lake, a river, the beach, the aquarium.

★Possible astrology placements: Gemini, Libra placements with strong Jupiter and 9th house influence, Mars in Taurus/Mars in 2nd house, Sagittarius ASC, Moon in Sagittarius, Venus in Virgo/Venus in 6th house, Sun in 3rd house

LILAC

You would meet this new friend when you travel back to somewhere you had lived there before or the place where you were born. Also you could meet them through a female figure, likely your mum or your sister, a close female friend. They might introduce you to each other or you will meet this person when you're travelling with that female figure. This could be a surprise encounter for you. You might have travelled to this place often but this will be the first time you see them there. Another scenario is a business trip, but the presence of a female figure will still be there.

This person could have an intimidating reputation. They could be a boss, or in charge of an important position in their workplace. Whatever they do, people notice them easily. They could look a little scary at first sight. Their features are sharp, and they favour a darker style. Fierce and confident. You will probably feel nervous when meeting them for the first time, being subjected to their gaze. You would feel your capability and proficiency are being assessed silently. You might have to work with this person, the connection would be strictly professional at first. They can be strict, demand a lot and don't like to talk about trivial matters. They're probably a person of few words.

But strangely, I don't think you will feel uncomfortable in their presence later, when you're friend with each other. If any, they could even make you feel more confident and more carefree. Even though they prize capability and have a high standard, they are also benevolent and can be quite forgiving. They might only act like this with a few people, those that have passed their assessments. You guys could remind each other of someone close, there's a sense of familiarity, being at ease with each other, as if you've been friends for a long time. This connection could happen suddenly, but it has the potential to remain strong and long-lived.

You might notice that they have some trouble voicing their thoughts. There is a pain hidden deep inside them, and you will feel compassionate for it. Sometimes you could even act as their spokesperson, helping them communicate better. You guys will become the unlikely sanctuary for each other, no matter how much different you look outside.

★Possible astrology placements: Capricorn, Scorpio placements, Mercury in 8th house, Mercury-Saturn aspect, Sun/Mars in 10th house/ in Capricorn, Sagittarius Venus, Mars-Pluto conjunction, Sun-Moon conjunction

[wavesalwayscrash]

sorry for the long ask lol… lots of musings about things

i really, really appreciate the way you write abusers in this comic. it may be a bit of a weird thing to say, but so many write abusers as just one dimensional characters who are bad when they’re… Not. they’re people, who do bad things, with reasonings that could be all sorts of things (which doesnt mean their reasonings are Justified). i feel like the narrative around “abuser one dimensional bad” makes it harder to recognize how complicated actual real life abuse can be. a character can still be bad, in the wrong, and an abuser while genuinely caring and having some semblance of a reason in their head for what they do. in my experience abusers don’t tend to realize they are in the wrong/tend to try to justify it, they’re not always fully consciously acting bad just because/for the sake of causing harm, and theres not always a premeditated plan out of it, either.

this was all sparked by reading some of your asks about the king. about how love can co-exist with abuse (and that doesnt negate the abuse, either, but makes it harder to realize and break out from). it isn’t as black and white as it seems, i like seeing the depths of that more than the portrayal of an abuser being wholly morally black and terrible

i’m super excited to see more of the king, i’m putting him under a microscope. analyzing his actions. he disgusts me but i’m compelled. i want to put him in a microwave just to see what would happen. im especially fascinated by mariner, too, he’ll be a fun beast to dissect (i looove the taixu pmv and how it contrasts him and the king)

and of course - i really appreciate how you write lain’s response to all this! it can be a lot to unpack. i simply feel like i always see more appreciation for the writing of an accurate deconstruction of trauma versus the writing of a good abuser (good in the sense of the writing, not the character). thank you for all the work you put into this wonderful comic! i feel (so far) its an excellent reflection of all the muddy in-between that goes into motivations and actions. there seems to be some semblance of a power corrupts theme going, too, and im super excited to see that develop (whether im proven right or wrong there)

(and because im sending this publicly i don’t condone abuse, i just enjoy dissecting abusers in fiction. enjoyment of a character does not mean i condone those actions in real life)

Hey, I really appreciate this ask. A lot of my writing and my thoughts regarding abusers come from both my own experiences with them as well as interacting with other abuse victims like. everyday (my wife and people in my close friend group). And I agree with everything that you said here. I don't really like the "abuser is one dimensional bad" kind of idea, and in fact kind of works against how hard it is to realize you were abused in the first place. Making abusers Bad All The Time has made me think "well what I went through wasn't that so it couldn't have been abuse" before. Which isn't the case. Abusers can be kind, can be caring, can comfort you when you're upset, can help you out, and can still abuse you. While not the only reason, it's one of the reasons why it's so hard to leave an abusive relationship/realize it was abuse in the first place.

I'm trying not to get super into my own experiences of abuse (I don't wanna just trauma dump on ya lmao), but a lot of the parental stuff in regards to The King is drawn directly from my own experiences (The sexual part is drawn from my wife's (again with permission/encouragement)). I know intimately that a parent can love their child and still treat them like shit. It was only when I started going to therapy and telling people about my experiences that made me realize what I went through Wasn't The Norm and I was in fact abused.

As well, the reason I write abusers like the King and Mariner having reasons for their actions is honestly just a comfort thing for me. I will never know why my abusers treated me the way they did. I will never know the reasons as to why they did what they did, I'll never know what was going on inside of their head. I can guess, but I will never get that kind of closure in my real life. But in this fictional world, I do get to make reasons for their actions. I can give them reasons and justifications and I (the author) get to decide why. and that, at least to me, offers the smallest bit of comfort.

+I'm glad you're enjoying the story <3 Mariner's one of my favorite guys, he's a little freak and I love him soooooooo bad.

[kiragecko]

Authour’s Voices

I read fic for voice before anything else. Plot, tropes, canon compliance – they all pale in comparison to the word crafting. But voice is hard to describe, and referencing certain verbal tics is more likely to make an authour self-conscious than it is to flatter. So, here's my best attempt to describe the voices of some of my favourite fanfic authours – focusing on tone, subject matter, and the feelings they provoke, in a hope that I can get across at least a hint of how they sound.

@suzukiblu / suzukiblu / Rin (I read for DCU, Young Justice TV, Avatar)

REALLY intertwines characters thoughts and feelings in compelling ways. Inner monologues are a particular strength. Digs deep into what motivates characters and then lets them be insecure and angry because of those things. Writes REALLY close third person narration – ie. we are entirely in one person’s head, but the narration is using their name instead of saying ‘me.’ And we are ENTWINED in their head. Deeply. Maybe actually more in their chest -  the emotions are visceral and immediate. Very cathartic angry/overwhelmed ranting is a feature. People learning that they have inherent value. Romance/sex that is based on strong connections, and goes far deeper than hormones. A strong understanding of canon, used to write alternate universes that are much richer for that knowledge. Stories are cathartic, and leave you washed clean and energized.

@whetstonefires / Kieron_ODuibhir (/ Kieron) (I read for DCU, The Untamed/The Other Versions Of This Story)

Thoughtful, empathic stories that feel like they’ve spent months being refined to perfection. Also incredibly strong understanding of canon, with a much higher chance of showing her work on the page. A gift for searching out the nagging, poorly fitting pieces of canon characterization, and integrating them in her fic in ways that makes rereading the original a better experience. Beautiful, haunting, sentences. Feels like poetry makes me feel. A writing style that ALMOST feels intellectual, but is actually incredibly empathic. The knowledge is the vessel that carries the ... love? Respect? Maybe respect, and care, and dignity, that she has for the characters she’s writing about. Stories leave you quiet and satisfied.

@galaxystew / galaxysoup (I read for Avengers/Thor, Supernatural)

Careful, emotional, deep stories. There is a sense of immenseness, that the story can’t go too fast or it would become unstoppable. DEEPLY moving, gut-wrenching, stories told from just enough emotional distance to avoid overwhelming the audience. But they also about taking time to rest, both for the characters and the audience. Focuses on exploring and healing damaged relationships, (and damaged people), and never goes for the easy/trite solutions. Unassuming language and imagery that grounds the sometimes epic elements of her canons. Stories leave you grateful – grateful that the characters have reached that place, and grateful you got to come along.

@teland / Teland / Te (I read for DCU)

Stories have only the vestigial remains of a narrator. Almost everything is verbal or mental dialogue, usually without tags. (Ie. things like ‘Tim said.’) This would be frustrating with most writers, but Te’s character voices are SO strong and distinct that a story can start with an unnamed person talking and you immediately know who it is. She focuses on aspects of characters that many other authours miss (though some of that could be survivorship bias – perhaps she was part of a zeitgeist that hasn’t been preserved). She gets DEEP into the psyches of the characters she’s writing, dissects them, and then has them dryly comment on their displayed innards. Excels at characters that are very disconnected from their emotions, but also at characters who live immediately IN their emotions. Strong themes of identity and found family, though not in the way ‘found family’ is usually used these days. Symbolic, projected family? Stand-in, or sublimated, or substituted family? Something in that area. A lot of sex, which is also standing in for other things. Electric, transformative stories, with extremely long chapters that are hard to escape from when the world tries to call you back. Stories leave you alive to the possibilities, and maybe knowing more about yourself.

@angel-gidget / angel_gidget / Gidge (I read for DCU)

There’s an optimism and joy to Gidge’s writing. A ... cleanness. Hmm, what do I mean? I ... I’m not actually sure? But it feels refreshing and space-making, to read a Gidge story. It feels like they SHOULD be humorous, with the effects they have, but that’s not actually the focus? It feels like they’re light, even when the topic is heavy and treated seriously. It’s a really special gift, what Gidge has. Maybe the correct term is ‘conversational’? Yeah, there’s a matter-of-fact, conversational tone to everything she creates, and it lifts your spirits every time you read it.

@vmohlere / owlet (I read for Avengers/Captain America)

Absolutely brilliant way of using humour to tackle difficult subjects. Stories are so funny and positive, that it’s hard to realize how dark the things referenced are. It helps that they usually don’t become explicit until the characters have mostly processed them, and they’ve been defanged of a lot of their power. I’ve never seen someone else accomplish this, and it blows me away. Incredible OCs. Deep empathy for character’s specific needs, and focusing on what THEY’RE ready to focus on. Boundaries are not only respected, but taught. And all of this is happening behind a wry, clever sense of humour that invites you in to hang out for a while. One of the most joyful reading experiences I’ve ever had. I’ve used scenes to walk myself through bad mental periods. And I still think about their work every time I make a grilled cheese.

[lala-blahblah]

Character flaws that would have been more compelling for Will to have to overcome in TSATS instead of "uh oh my boyfriend is a little bit edgy and that came as an unexpected shock to me even though he wears black and has emo bangs":

Struggling with setting boundaries and being honest when things bother him. As a healer he always has to put other people first, it would be interesting to see him approaching a relationship the same way where he feels the instinct to put Nico's feelings and wellbeing above his own, following him into Tartarus even though it is extra hard for him as a child of Apollo to be down there. It feels so much more authentic for Will to keep quiet about his negative thoughts rather than to blurt out all these criticisms about the underworld. And then Nico could feel hurt that he's hiding something from him for the drama, and Will could grow by allowing himself to communicate better even if he has negative things he wants to talk about

Fear of abandonment but ground it more with his real experiences instead of him just randomly panicking about Nico leaving him behind. Michael and Lee both died and left him alone after he got close with them. His dad was generally distant his whole life, he finally got to spend time with him but only under dangerous circumstances and all too soon hes gone again. Will's mom was the only constant in his life but after monsters started attacking he had to live at camp away from her for most of the year. This results in generalized superstition and anxiety that every time he has a good thing the universe takes it away from him, maybe it makes it harder for him to allow himself to get attached in a deeper way. It would be interesting to see him being the one that was more upfront with his emotions and about liking Nico at the beginning, but as their relationship goes on he struggles with more serious things like saying I love you or imagining a future together because he feels like once he does it will be taken away.

Flip the TSATS struggle on it's head and have Will secretly be very into all the dark underworld stuff but feel like he has to repress that because it's weird and people judge him. Being a healer is already a little dark and intense, I feel like Will wouldn't be scared of the undead but somewhat fascinated. Like you're telling me he wouldn't love to examine a walking skeleton and see how the bones move and connect? Growing up as a son of Apollo everyone expected him to be sunshiney and positive and so he tried to hide his weirder interests but oh my GOD he has so many questions for Nico about underworld magic and it's so hard to play it off. You could still emphasize the yin and yang of Nico having lightness and Will having darkness but make it feel less judgemental to Nico this time

Basically I just take it as a personal offense that Will would ever be critical of Nico's sarcasm and grunge aesthetics. HE'S INTO IT!!! HE HAS A THING FOR EDGY MEN OK!!! THIS IS THE GUY WHO SAID HE WOULD GO ON A DATE WITH DARTH VADER just you TRY and tell me that prequels Anakin was not his bi awakening and the blueprint for all his future crushes.

[dragqueenstarscream]

hey, its me again, back with more Starscream thoughts, so you just know things are about to get uncomfortably real and introspective! Again, prefacing by saying that a lot of my analysis is based on my own eerily similar experiences to Starscream, so I'm not 100% sure how much of this actually rings true and what is just me projecting.

I have entirely fallen down the StarOp rabbit hole thanks to you, at a speed I never could have expected. When I first finished TFP and started browsing the tags, I'd see the occasional StarOp post and at best be like "alright, sure" and at worst a little confused on where it was coming from, given the infrequency of interactions between the two after like, early season 1. But since I sent that first ask in it just clicked and like.

Before, I was always of the opinion that Starscream joining the autobots was something that could never really work from a character perspective, not just because of his dependency on Megatron like I talked about last time, but like, even if Megatron was completely out of the picture I never felt like the full on redemption and becoming a functioning member of post-war society that becoming an Autobot would entail would particularly be desirable to Starscream (if even possible for reasons both in and out of his control.)

I sorta felt like any good ending for Starscream would have to entail him moreso escaping the narrative than anything else, given the extent to which he's stuck in this cycle almost on a cosmic level, with how he's unable to escape it in any universe, any continuity, which of course ties into wider thoughts on how this franchise seems uninterested in letting Starscream ever escape that cycle. A sort of El Camino style ending, where leaving behind everything you know and running away to Alaska is considered a good ending, all things considered. That naturally led to me shipping him with Knockout, given their chemistry and the fact that they were this close to running away together, it just felt like the most compelling option, narratively speaking.

But now that I've caught onto the StarOp agenda, I've sorta cracked the code and realized that you can make a compelling and believable path to Starscream becoming an Autobot by having him getting together with Optimus initially be on a subconscious level an outlet to recreate the cycle he was in with Megatron purely because he's used to it and doesn't know how to live without it.

Outside of the obvious ideological and moral differences, Optimus and Megatron have a lot in common, especially from the perspective of Starscream. They're both big, strong, masculine figures, and natural-born leaders that effortlessly compel those around them to fight for their respective causes. They both radiate power in a way that I imagine you can almost feel when around them (and in a way I know it, because that's often how it felt being around my personal Megatron, it's why it was so easy to fall back into his arms over and over.)

All this to say, when Starscream gets with Optimus, he's not escaping the cycle, he's changing his target. If he became an autobot he would instantly become the most dedicated autobot, not out of any ideological reasoning or particular desire to be good, but out of an intense loyalty he effortlessly placed in Optimus. But of course, the loyalty phase is only half of this cycle.

This next part I'm heavily basing on what I've realized about my own experiences, so bear with me for a second, (I also doesn't think it exactly applies to TFP as much as it does some other continuities, G1 maybe but I haven't seen much of G1 so idk for sure) but I feel like sometimes Starscream almost tests Megatron in a way when he feels like Megatron's priorities are drifting away from him, (since remember, he needs to be the most important bot in his life, Starscream is desperate for Megatron to be as obsessed with him as he is with Megatron.) so Starscream will sort of do something stupid, maybe he comes up with some harebrained scheme that's probably not gonna work, or he makes some tactical or administrative decision entirely based on what he's feeling on an emotional level, to see "will Megatron back me on this?"

because Megatron does stuff like that all the time, he's far from being a better tactician than Starscream, (notice how the moment Starscream leaves in season 1, the decepticons stop winning like, at all until he comes back?) and he makes rash decisions out of anger all the time, and Starscream goes along with all of it, every single time, so it's only fair that Megatron lets him get away with doing something kinda stupid this once. and when Megatron inevitably doesn't, either because it would work against the Decepticons own goals, or purely because he doesn't want Starscream to think he has power over him, (and despite how good he is at hiding it, Starscream does have power over him in a lot of ways, I might talk about that some other time.) Starscream lashes out, betrays Megatron, and leaves, because once again all the loyalty he gave to Megatron got him nothing in return.

and let's be clear, Starscream doing this is toxic as fuck, but at the same time of course it is, it's almost impossible not to become toxic in an environment like this. And that really comes back to bite you when you get out of that environment, but on a base level still have these habits and base level impulses that might have helped you survive back then but are terrible for the actually decent people you've surrounded yourself with now.

With that, we cut to today, where Starscream is an autobot and he tries to pull one of these "tests" on Optimus because the honeymoon phase is over and Starscream is instinctually ready for things to start getting worse, maybe they had like, one minor argument and Starscream instantly assumed the worst. and I imagine Optimus "fails" the test, says "no, I'm not backing you on this, I'm not gonna let you do that", but unlike Megatron who does so while prioritizing his own ends and his control over Starscream, Optimus is saying no for moral reasons. And I imagine he tries to explain that to Starscream, but that answer isn't hitting him properly because again, Starscream's only thinking in loyalty.

Everything Optimus thought was progress on Starscream's part in living up to autobot ideals was really just newfound intense loyalty to Optimus, his growth was really just him doing what he thinks Optimus would want him to do and what he thinks would gain him Optimus's loyalty in return. and, from Starscream's perspective, it didn't work, so he's thinking "obviously Optimus doesn't care about me at all, fuck him, I'm out of here." so he makes this big display of betraying the autobots and running away.

and from there, it's the question of if Optimus sees through what this is really about. The other autobots are probably no help in that regard, they all probably fall into one of two groups, the "At no point in time was I not 100% sure that this inevitably was going to happen" group, and the "I mean, I had hope for him, and it seemed like he was doing good, but I'm still not that surprised" group.

But of course, Optimus isn't Megatron, he does care about Starscream and wants him to know that, so I imagine he actually tries tracking down Starscream to have an actual conversation with him to try and figure out where his mind has really been at these past few months, and if he catches on to even a little bit of the subtext of what I've been saying here, he's gonna be like "oh shit, there is a lot more we need to work on than I thought."

and yeah, Megatron fucked up Starscream in ways that its gonna take years to properly unpack, so Starscream is lucky to have found quite possibly the best person to help him through it in Optimus. It's gonna be a rocky road, but Optimus is in for the ride.

and I do think this relationship could eventually become healthy, and I like reading fics where they've managed to make it healthy, but I do think at first it really wouldn't be, and as someone with the autism that makes you obsessed with themes and motifs and subtext, the process of seeing it become better, of seeing Starscream have to unlearn these old harmful defense mechanisms, THAT is really what makes my brain vibrate, especially because I've had to go through that same process myself after finally getting away from my personal Megatron for what I'm thankfully certain now is the final time.

also kinda realizing a lot of this kinda sounds like borderline personality disorder, which. that might be something I have to look into in regards to myself, damn. anyways, yeah, thanks for letting me kill the vibe again, appreciate it! I'll probably try and keep these shorter in the future, I imagine it's kind of a lot to suddenly have 1500 words of deep character analysis with hints of traumadumping suddenly thrown in your askbox lol. If this actually was a bit too much then I'm sorry, you can tell me to dial it down a little if you want.

and this, right here, is why starop is my favorite transformers ship.

you really hit the nail on the head with this one. when done well, it's not only cute and fun to explore, but it's also a deep dive into starscream as a character and what could possibly lead to a redemption arc. sure, you don't need starscream to fall in love with optimus to redeem him, but how that would actually play out is so fascinating.

sure, i love aus where starscream is an autobot spy the whole time. yes, i love aus where they were in love in the past and got separated. but the idea of starscream replacing megatron with optimus in his mind fits him so well, because, as an abuse victim myself, it's easy to find yourself drawn to people who remind you of your abuser.

and that's where optimus' kindness sets him apart, because when starscream pushes back on him, optimus doesn't do what starscream expects. he doesn't lash out or hit him or verbally berate him. he responds with honest concern, trying to figure out what's wrong.

and that kindness, that sincerity, is something starscream doesn't even realize he's been missing the entire time.

i do believe they have the potential to be healthy, but the fight towards them actually becoming healthy and helping starscream get out of his toxic mindset is part of what makes these two so damn compelling.

always happy to have another starop fan.

(also you don't have to worry about toning it down lmao, gods know i ramble like a maniac about my favorite things. i'm not gonna be the one to judge)

[sammimts147]

I’m fully aware that I’m decades late to the fandom, but here I am. At the risk of sounding ridiculous and self-centred, Carter is the character I like and relate to the most.

Full disclosure: I haven’t watched every single episode of ER. I’ve known about the show for decades but never really had the chance to sit down and watch it. I’d love to say I’m a longtime fan, but in reality, I watched Noah Wyle in The Librarian and Leverage first. Those are my comfort shows, and I’d love to watch more of his work. I guess life happens and things just fell into place now—I've developed a deeper connection with the medical frontline, Leverage is coming back soon, and The Pitt is currently airing, which makes this the perfect time to finally go through ER. I actually started ER before watching The Pitt, and during this time, I also lost a family member—just as Carter did.

Carter and Abby are so deeply trauma-bonded, bordering on CPTSD. They come from completely different backgrounds but share similar experiences of profound adversity within their families—psychological abuse, abandonment, even physical abuse and CSA. Both were forced to grow up too soon—Abby became the de facto mother to her brother, and Carter carried the weight of promises to his deceased brother. Seasons 8 and 9 have been particularly heavy to watch—painful yet incredibly well-written, especially in how Carter navigates his contradictions: his defiance toward his family versus his deep care for his patients, friends, and Abby.

They both experience deep loneliness, but their coping mechanisms are vastly different. Abby is the "marry me a little, love me just enough" type, while Carter is constantly searching for something stable in his life, a confirmation of unconditioned love. I can't quite fathom Abby’s reaction to relationships, though ironically, I have close friends who behave the same way, shaped by similar upbringings.

That said, I understand and agree with Carter’s hesitation about the proposal. Psychologically, they were never a good fit.

Both of them are, unfortunately, addicts, but what initially rubbed me the wrong way was Abby’s attitude and behaviour toward John’s near relapse compared to her own. When Carter confided in her about almost slipping, she immediately pressured him to tell Weaver—despite the very real possibility that doing so could cost him his job, trust, and friendship. Yet when Abby began reconnecting with her family and spiralling into alcohol relapse, she refused to be held to the same standard. She asked Carter not to “fix” her—something he never actually tried to do. In fact, he explicitly told her that she didn’t need to be fixed. What he wanted was for her to let him in, but she resisted, shutting him out instead.

Their dynamic became an ongoing cycle of miscommunication, with too much left unsaid. It’s heartbreaking because they understood each other’s struggles so well, yet they could never find a way to bridge the gap between them. Carter ultimately needed stability, and Abby needed space to figure herself out.

Addiction is a disease, and while love and understanding are important, the peer effect plays a huge role in recovery. If Abby couldn’t—or wouldn’t—manage her addiction, it was inevitably going to pull Carter down with her.

One of the most compelling aspects of Carter’s character is the stark contrast between his interactions with his biological family and his chosen family. With his family, he is resistant, defiant, and unwilling to conform to their expectations. But when it comes to the people he loves outside that world, he gives everything—sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice.

His near relapse wasn’t just a moment of weakness; it was the culmination of exhaustion, emotional distress, and the weight of always stepping up for others. He was overworked, sleep-deprived, and had just supported Jing-Mei through an incredibly difficult moment. And when it came to Abby, his loyalty was unwavering—getting arrested with her, cutting his vacation short to be there for her.

But the tragedy is that when Carter needed Abby most, she left to find her brother. While understandable given her family dynamic, it only reinforced how one-sided their relationship had become. Carter was always there for her, but when he needed support, she wasn’t there for him in the same way.

And to make things worse—how Abby handled it when Carter told her he had lost the one family member he truly felt close to, the only one he knew loved him. Bringing her brother and crashing the funeral?

Carter is a great physician and a compassionate listener, but he struggles to voice his own needs. He refuses to be seen as a burden, constantly pushing aside his own well-being. He copes with his PTSD from the attack largely alone, to the point of addiction, and later even handles his own kidney transplant without truly letting anyone in. So when Carter finally opened up and showed Abby his vulnerability, it was his cry for help. And when that call was left unanswered, or answered in a “professional way” it broke the trust between them. After his outburst in the ER following the funeral, he told Abby to leave him alone—and she did.

It’s unfair to expect Abby to be a mind reader—she couldn't possibly understand everything he was going through if he never communicated it. By the time When Night Meets Day happened, Carter had reached full burnout, on work and life. When Abby runs into him, she mentions they haven't talked in a week and questions why he has nothing to say. But by then, Carter has nothing left to give. He feels the need to run, to escape, and as he later tells Kem, everything felt like too much, and he just needs to get away. Carter walked away, and Abby let him go.

Carter and Abby’s relationship was never meant to last—not because they didn’t care for each other, but because they were caught in an endless loop of unspoken wounds and unmet needs. Carter spent so much of his life holding everything together for others, and when he finally needed someone to hold him together, Abby wasn’t able to be that person.

In the end, Carter’s decision to leave wasn’t just about running away—it was about survival. He needed to step away from the chaos, to finally put himself first.

ER never tied things up in a neat little bow. It gave us characters who were messy, flawed, and painfully real.

And decades later, here I am—still thinking about them.

[alaynestcnes]

joffrey and jon anti parallels makes me crazy in relation to jonsa : joffrey = king/prince who's secretly a bastard, jon = a bastard who's secretly a prince heir.

both have Uncle/dads(joffrey is literal😭) wrapped in secrecy plots, joffrey knows who his mother is jon does not. they both THINK they know who their father is but its false.

jon has close and complicated ties with his siblings/family, joffrey has complicated but distant almost non existent ties with his family.

Sansa dreams of marrying joffrey the "rightful dragon heir" at the beginning only to hate him and sansa doesn't think much of Jon earlier only later in the books does it hint at them getting closer

looking at all of this its impossible for me to think grrm wouldn't pull an irony stunt with jonsa, considering the ashford theory and them having reversal roles in sansa's beginning and end plot points

the joff/jon anti parallels are so special. like i will die on the hill that grrm is one of the great literary geniuses of our time because of the way he interlaces storylines, plays into stereotypes to subvert them, mirrors and plays with themes between all his characters. you could dedicate your life to analysing them (and people have) and still always have new things to discover and discuss.

the ‘prince who is really a bastard’ vs ‘bastard that is really a prince’ parallel is fun on its own. but when you add an extra lens of both their (real and potential) relationships with sansa it’s enough to make me feral.

i think it’s interesting how grrm really reinforces the joff/jon contrast (and positions sansa as a nexus within this contrast) when they both (essentially) deliver her a head. joff, her perfect fairytale prince, gives her her father’s head. jon, the prince hidden in plain sight, beheads janos slynt and answers her prayers. though this isn’t known to either of them, it’s an interesting connection that i find hard to believe was coincidental by grrm. the head joff gave her fractured her dreams and belief in songs/hope. maybe when she learns about the head jon (inadvertently) gave her, it will contrast again with joff, by reigniting a sense of hope and love….

it would be such a compelling way to bookend sansa’s romantic experience.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #56 – Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

At the start of the year, I set out to try and read more proper literature. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was not a book I had ever heard of, or by an author I knew anything at all about. But it was on my local bookstore's and local library’s staff pick lists, and has a bunch of awards, and I think showed up on some list of Goodreads recommendations. So 9 months later I finally worked down the list to it and went in totally unprepared and with zero expectations or preconceptions.

The book’s well-written and well-executed, but I can’t say it really worked for me. Or properly, it absolutely was working for the first two thirds or so, but by the end just felt like it lost a lot of the touches that had made it interesting and was just drowning in its own sentimentality.

The book follows Sam and Sadie, two Californian wunderkunds growing up in Los Angelos in the 1980s. They meet in a children’s hospital, where Sam is being treated for a foot the was nearly shattered in a car crash and Sadie is visiting her elder sister as she’s treated for cancer. The two of them instantly begin bonding over playing Super Mario Brothers and begin a friendship and a creative partnership that will - as they grow up and found an artistically and commercially successful video game studio in the late 90s – define the shape of both of their lives, no matter how turbulent and conflicted it at points becomes.

For reasons that probably boil down to the audiobooks my mother played on road trips as a child, I’ve always had a fondness for books that track the broad sweep of a life or lives, zooming out and stretching across the years and decades. So I actually digested this a decent bit more easily than I do a lot of modern litfic that I’ve tried. For the first few hundred pages, it all even holds together very well, bouncing around the timeline and providing childhood episodes and context as it's relevant and making the central relationships compelling and emotionally plausible. Unfortunately a couple of experiments in form (one worked for me, one really didn’t) eat up a lot of page count in the final act, and entirely kill the sense of flow and structure. Not at all helped by the narrative voice losing a lot of its charm and the story growing wholly predictable (and a bit saccharine) in the closing pages.

I say ‘central relationships’ and not ‘relationship’ because describing the book as being about the relationship between Sam and Sadie is just, basically false advertising? Marx – Sam’s college roommate, later Sadie’s boyfriend, the business manager of their video game studio - is for most of the book at least as important a character as the two leads. He’s a much less interesting character – entirely too much of a natural saint, compared to how very flawed and petty Sam and Sadie are both allowed to be – but he’s a key part of the dynamic and most of the book is properly about different permutations of the trio bouncing off of each other. No other character gets a tenth of the focus and exploration of those three, and are really more props for narrative and to incite development than anything else.

The book has (until the end, anyway) a strong narrative voice that I really enjoyed, but which also may have caused me to set my expectations entirely wrong for what the book was actually planning. The only way I can really describe it is that the book reads like one of those New Yorker longreads that are trying very hard to convince you they’re not just rubbernecking some fascinatingly dysfunctional relationships and personal drama among some semi-notable creative figures. Your Bad Art Friends and similar. Deeply opinionated and gossipy, but making a show of seeming detached and objective, always making asides written from the perspective of the modern day and quoting interviews from years later about events as they occur in the narrative. As someone who is a slightly guilty fan of exactly those kind of longreads, it did make for a very fun reading experience.

But it also made me get my hopes up. Which is to say, the early chapters make quite a few references to how latter in life Sam and Sadie wouldn’t be on speaking terms, and how ‘something’ happened at Unfair Games in 2005. I was looking forward to something some messy and newsworthy interpersonal drama of the kind that doesn’t leave either of them (or anyone) looking good. The falling out does occur, but in a way that’s mostly just piles of misunderstandings and a stubborn refusal to communicate from both of them. The company always stays ostensibly together, and things never get much worse than quietly cherished bitterness and a refusal to speak. Which feels very emotionally believable, as incredibly frustrating as it is. The dramatic rupture that happens in 2005, well-

The book’s use of violence always feels slightly unreal. It intrudes on the narrative in ways that, like, they are things that happen, but feel so exaggerated and on-the-nose they took me out of the reading experience, at least a bit. A woman jumps off her balcony to her death and happens to land right in front of a young Sam. His mother stops her car on an LA highway to avoid hitting a dog, and he asks her something that keeps her talking and not moving for the crucial moment before an SUV slams into them, killing her and permanently damaging his foot. And the great end-of-second-act rupture that occurs in 2005 is a pair of homophobic gunmen storming into their office and shooting Marx because their cozy MMO lets gay people get married. Any one would have been fine, but combined they make the illusion of violence as random and capricious wear a bit thin and the writerly artifice underneath a bit too clear, at least for me.

As far as period pieces go – the story isn’t nostalgia bait, but it isn’t not nostalgia bait, either? It’s a few years before my time, so I suppose I just don’t appreciate it properly – the experience of growing up in and living through the late ‘80s through 2000s is one the book cares deeply about replicating. It generally does an excellent job making things feel of-the-moment, if occasionally by having the narrative draw pretty heavy-handed comparisons to what would be different in the present. The aesthetics (fashion, public art and marketing, fads and consumer trends) are all there, and the characters experience them like people to whom they’re novel and trendy. (Personally I could have done with a bit less effort spent describing every single outfit, but if I had memories of what people actually looked like wearing them I might appreciate it more.) It does similar things with LA and (to a far lesser extent) Boston – every other place the book touches on feels vague and a bit unreal, but LA is rendered with a real sense of place and love for the city and it’s little eccentricities.

The area where the book is absolutely nostalgia-bait is video games, and the whole heroic era of rapid changes and improvements to the medium where new boundaries were being crossed every year and a handful of sufficiently talented and dedicated first-time devs could create something genuinely revolutionary. The book even manages the neat trick of making almost every fake game the protagonists create a) plausible for the era and technology and b) actually seem like something I would want to play (less so the Pioneerville MMO created in the final act, as with many things). But I do genuinely want to play Master of Revels quite badly.

The book does share a common failing with what feels like almost every period piece, where by complete coincidence the major characters all conveniently happen to be on the Right Side of History for every really major (that is, from the perspective of the present, character-defining) political issues. This is made a bit more irritating by the fact that despite all being quite radical on the issue of e.g. gay marriage (or just not being even slightly homophobic) from the vantage of the early Bush administration, none of Sadie, Sam or Marx ever even conceive of it as being political.

The book doesn’t conceive of itself as really having politics at all – but again, in the way of a New York Magazine feature where having certain sets of liberal convictions is just a matter of personal decency and morality. A certain unexpressed but present sexual conservativism, a view of class where Sam’s grandparents owning and running a successful restaurant counts as being from the wrong side of the tracks, hyper-conscious of race but without much to really say about it. You’re all familiar with the style, I’m sure.

Anyway yeah, not a bad book by any means, but one that lasted long enough and ended weakly enough to expend any real passion or affection I’d built up for it.

[mudstoneabyss]

It's really such a waste that they haven't done anything more with Charles considering how interesting of a character they set up. Aside from being the canon "Desert Bluffs! Carlos" and therefore being connected to two of the most beloved characters in the podcast, which is obviously something that would make people interested in him, what we see of his character outside of that is compelling.

he's from outside of Night Vale and Desert Bluffs, but not from a "normal" place like Carlos and any of the other characters who we actually see something from, like Nilanjana and Kareem. He's explicitly from Cactus Park, a town we know next to nothing about but is close enough to be competing in local football matches with nv and db, and Pine Cliff, the town we know the most about outside of nv and db, and I find particularly interesting with the way Night Vale talks about ghosts. notably, both are, even without having a lot of info on them, canonically weird places. which we even indirectly see more of with Cactus Park in the Mudstone Abyss, with them sharing the experience of having certain "weird" things in both their childhoods

and that kind of adds to this almost duality Charles has, where he's both seemingly one of the most responsible and put-together characters in the show and, well, an insane freak. He's a good father who puts his son first and makes an effort to be clear and direct in communicating rather than avoiding or lying about any matter that might be unpleasant- but he's also a self-identified theocrat who is actively into some of the cult and dictator shit Kevin was doing, and it does take a special type of person to want to fuck Kevin from the moment he met him, at no point lose that desire after all the blood and gore decoration and aforementioned cult and dictator shit, and then afterwards decide that this is the guy you want to help raise your son. fascinating behavior I would love to know more about how much is because none of this is new or shocking to him. he lived in a ghost town and who knows what went on in Cactus Park

Perhaps the most interesting thing about him, though, isn't even anything i think we need to know more about, but does make me want to know more about him in general. It's the one thing that completely contrasts him from so many other characters throughout the entire podcast- which is his reaction to Kevin. He is the ONLY one we see meeting or even just seeing Kevin for the first time who isn't completely horrified and/or disgusted by him and his appearance. Relistening to the Sandstorm, I had to pause the part where Cecil says for people to "pray, too, that no one should ever have to meet this vicious wretch of a man" to listen to, well, Charles meeting that "vicious wretch of a man" and treating him like any other person. Like someone deserving of knowing and loving without an initial hurdle of judgment. and, again, he is the Only one we see doing this after Kevin is met with fear and bias throughout the entire rest of the podcast. Fuck, we even see some of the db citizens being afraid of him. The only other person, aside from the other db citizens like Lauren or Josephine who are used to the... everything, who maybe didn't have a negative reaction to Kevin is Carlos, but we never actually see that. And personally, I do hc that he was scared of Kevin at first. So having someone react differently- and kindly- to Kevin after years and years of no one else doing that? That alone would make me obsessed with Charles

[edelgarfield]

god damn it all this Aeor and Calamity lore has me liking Ludinus a lot more than I ever wanted to. I find him so fascinating and compelling as a villain, in the way that he reflects a lot of my favorite characters' flaws particularly from CR2, but CR3 in Bell's Hells at times self-defeating pursuit of power in order to win.

I'm thinking abt a couple quotes from Essek, bc he & Ludinus obviously have so much in common. By Essek's own admission, it was his inability to trust people that made his pursuit of knowledge at the cost of others so appealing, that made him lose sight of the hurt he was causing

In particular the second quote: feeling personally responsible for doing something because of your inability to trust anyone else. I think that encompasses Ludinus's ideology & motivation so well.

The idea of longevity/immortality being a barrier to intimacy is something that gets talked about with respect to elves a lot, and I think Ludinus encompasses that to its logical extreme. Ludinus is one of the last survivors who actually lived on Exandria during the Calamity. Most elves actually fucked off to the Feywild and didn't return until long after the fighting was over. Given Ludinus was a child when Aeor fell, I would assume that means his parents chose to stay on Exandria & he was born afterwards. (Which if that's the case, adds another layer to his resistance against the gods bc he was doomed to live through the war on the surface of Exandria bc of a choice his parents made before he was born.)

All the elves born at the tail end of the Calamity are dead by now, Ludinus lived at least 160ish years of it, and most of the elves born around that time would have been in the Feywild and wouldn't have the experience of seeing what happened to the world. Everyone else who survived the Calamity would have died hundreds of years ago, not to mention that only a third of the population even survived it in the first place. The thing that's saved the PCs (& Essek) time and time again is their bonds with others, having other people to support them & remind them that all the power in the world means nothing if you lose yourself in its pursuit, that there are good things in this world worth living for.

Anyone that might have had the chance to sway Ludinus from his path is long dead, either from the Calamity or old age. Liliana seems to be the only person he feels close to, but they're both bonded through their shared cause. Even other elves, the people with the longest memories, don't understand what living through the Calamity was like. They weren't there.

I know it was mostly a joke when Laudna suggested Ludinus go to therapy, but at the same time where would he go? One of the things that helps PTSD is a sense of community, feeling like there are other people who share your experience, but there isn't anyone that shares Ludinus's experience (Not to mention anything resembling a therapist on Exandria would most likely draw power from a deity, which Ludinus is understandably opposed to).

That sense of isolation is something that comes up again & again among CR PCs. CR2 is the most obvious, but it's something plenty of the CR3 characters have been through as well. Ludinus would have been alone in his trauma for hundreds of years. That's completely incomprehensible to us. He would have watched the world move on and forget something that's so deeply affected him. Any attempt to confide in someone about his anger & pain would often be met with "this is punishment for our hubris" "the gods love us" "don't question their will." The very, very few allies he had would die out over the years until one day he's the last and he would be the last for centuries more. I feel like that sense of isolation, feeling removed from the world, bottling up centuries' worth of emotion would make anyone numb. he withdraws further and further into himself bc he doesn't belong. he works for centuries at removing the gods, becoming more and more desperate as he grows older, without anyone else to provide perspective as his plans grow more and more ruthless. (i also have a theory that this loneliness is part of what makes him sympathetic to predathos but that's a separate post)

Given his age & being the last survivor of the Calamity, I think it's nearly impossible for him to connect with other people. The only thing that gives him any sense of connection or community is his crusade against the gods; he only feels connected to others through their shared pain & anger, which never allow him to move past it. He can't trust anyone bc no one else understands what the gods are capable of like he does, nobody else understands what's at stake. He's the only person remaining who does, which means he's the only one who can do what he believes needs to be done.

There's a sense of duty. He needs to eliminate the gods because he doesn't trust the future inhabitants of Exandria to be able to protect their world. He owes it to all those who've been trampled on by the gods to do what they no longer can. I think he genuinely cares about mortals & he wants to defend them from a threat that he believes only he can see, but I think he cares far more about the thousands of dead he carries on his back than anyone alive. He can't simply live a happy life bc everything that once made his life worth living is gone. He can't let go of that pain & anger and move forward. His trauma is what gives him purpose and meaning; healing from it would be a betrayal to all the people that have suffered beneath the gods.

I don't think he's wrong about the gods, but I think he's seeking freedom from the gods' control, not realizing that he's letting himself be controlled by the dead. I think it's been a very long time since he spared a thought towards actually living. Bell's Hells keeps accusing him of wanting to take the place of the gods, or wanting to be seen as a messiah, but I truly don't think that's it. I don't think he cares about what comes after, if he's even thought about it at all. I don't even think he wants to be a martyr. His goal has never been for him to live in a free world, it's to ensure that there will be a world after he's gone, forever. he thinks if he dies without securing that future, he'll have failed Exandria & all the souls that have ever lived on it.

He's been completely ruthless in his pursuit of power because to him, he is fighting for Exandria's survival. That's exactly the trap BH has fallen into in the past, pursuing power even when it hurts themselves & their friends, losing sight of the actual people they claim to be protecting. Ludinus surrounds himself with terrible people; Otohan and Trent to name two, bc he wants the power they hold without getting his hands dirty himself. but in doing so he immediately removes any possibility of emotional intimacy. the people he works with don't trust him & he doesn't trust them. the one exception is Liliana & unfortunately I think she just met him far too late.

so much of CR is about the importance of feeling connected to other people, how those connections remind us of what's truly important, and keep us grounded, how when we begin to lose sight of ourselves, it's those we're close to that remind us. I think of Caleb & Essek, they both had goals they wanted to pursue, but in finding a place to belong realized those goals wouldn't actually make them happy. Ludinus doesn't want to be happy, he wants to have a purpose, and I know I'm a bleeding heart, but I think there is something incredibly tragic in someone who can't even imagine what it would be like to live a happy life.

I think of Fjord & Percy & Imogen & Laudna & Dorian, people who nearly lost themselves in pursuit of power, but chose to turn away because living for their friends was more important that dying for the world. Ludinus is the pendulum swinging in the other direction. It's incredibly tragic bc imo his intentions are genuinely good; he's arrogant and selfish and ruthless but i think he truly does want to protect Exandria.

I think there was a point in the past where someone could have reached him & he could have chosen a different path. i don't even think he would have necessarily had to give up his goal of removing the gods. if he had other people working alongside him instead of under him, who knows what he could've come up with? if he had people to pass the torch onto once he was gone, maybe he would feel like there was time to come up with a solution besides Predathos.

But he doesn't and he can't trust anyone bc no one else believes in his cause as fervently as he does. he can't trust anyone else to make the sacrifices he's willing to make so he never tries. He denies himself the aid & perspective & closeness that comes with trusting someone and becomes further and further entrenched in his mission to remove the gods at any cost. He's the only one alive left to remember the trauma of the Calamity: he has to carry all of it because no one else can.

[skibasyndrome]

Since it's the rare pairs week I have to ask, have you written a rare pair before would you be into the idea, would that ever touch on Simon or Wille being with other ppl? (Whatever context you please) 🤗

Hiiii! So fun that you're asking, thank you!!! 💜

I was just saying to a friend that I'm afraid I'm very boring and have a big case of mono-shipping going on, shame on me 🙈 I'm just sooo singularly focused on wilmon that nothing else really compels me in a i-want-to-write-that sense, you know? Or at least it hasn't really, so far. I want to say I'm not really opposed to taking up the challenge if an idea or prompt strikes me, but I thiiiiink it would still have to be a pair that has either Simon or Wille (or both, more on that further down) in it, because I'm just. So focused on them as characters that it's difficult to feel much creative pull otherwise. 😅 (question back at you and whoever is reading along: is that something you'd want me to attempt? some wille x [?] or simon x [?]? in which way? I'm intrigued now! hmu with something and maybe I'll feel like writing a little something for it!)

This is likely not exactly what most people view as a rarepair, but what I could maybe see myself doing again is getting into stuff like wilmon plus someone else, in some capacity at least. And I've definitely written that before, when I wrote (ducking now, so any rocks thrown my way don't hit me) One, two, three (Not only you and me) in which an attempt at a threesome with (ducking again, the rocks might still be flying) Nils was made.

The universe it's set in is different to canon, we have Wille and Simon never crossing paths before they meet at this party Nils dragged Wille to. Oh, and Wille and Nils are best friends. The idea in that one was kind of to explore how differently Nils, Wille and Simon feel about things like casual sex, hooking up, having sex with friends etc. That was kind of the line I was balancing on there, sexual attraction, romantic attraction, platonic attraction, what would a close friendship between Nils and Wille look like, what happens if Wille, as he so often is, is immediately infatuated with Simon and then has to navigate what that means for the setting they're in. Writing and posting it was absolutely terrifying in some regards, but I'm still very proud of it and I love this version of them and. idk. Something about the different ways three very different queer men think about sex?? The differences in the way humans experience attraction? That was interesting to think and write about! I think the jury is definitely out if there was much of a different ship than wilmon going on there, it was just... platonic Wille & Nils there and. well. some sexual exploration. But you know! Maybe that's rare-ish?

Which... okay, there's maybe one rarepair that I do think is quite interesting and that I have a vague idea of maaaaybe exploring in the future. And 90% of the reason why I'd even think about it is actually working on that fic above!

I really like thinking about Wille and Nils as friends, first and foremost, and, in a universe in which Wille doesn't meet Simon at school, sort of the lone two queer men in the weird, weird environment that is Hillerska. There was a sort of blink-and-you-miss-it moment in One, two, three where I referred to a situation where a younger version of Wille and Nils had a drunk and bad-feelings-fuelled make-out-session on Wille's birthday (I'm gonna put the snippet below a cut at the bottom of this ask). And I've kind of been thinking about that, like... Wille and Nils as this pair of friends who maybe bond over not quite knowing what to do about their queerness in an environment that is, in many ways, not very queer. I don't think there would be much profoundly romantic potential there, but I do think there could be another chance for an exploration of friendship, sexuality, what the hell are we even doing, trying things out only to realize, nope, we work as friends, but not quite like this.

So. Yeah. Nils x Wille, messy, fish-out-of-water, queer friends who are just. there. and maybe try what it would be like to kiss. That's a (maybe?) rarepair I can actually see myself writing for!

Sorry for all the yapping, all this to say: Have I done rarepairs before? I don't think I qualify for this 😅 Would I write them? Iiiiiif one of my blorbos is involved... sure! That feels like a challenge I'd be up to! I would likely not write it the way I write wilmon, that is to say, I might write them exploring things, or being in pairs that don't... work out in a way that my wilmon usually do? Idk? God, I really am bad about this 😅 But yeah! Here's my messy thoughts on it! Thinking about this was very fun, thank you, anon 💜💜💜

where it (my interest in nille shenanigans) all started:

“Do you guys do that a lot?” Simon asks then, and Wille needs to physically blink to get his focus back on his face. “Huh?” “Make out with each other,” Simon starts, getting off the bed to pull down his pants. “And stuff?” Wille groans at the memory, while Nils lets out a laugh. “I think we were pretty hammered the last time we made out, weren’t we?” Nils asks, now also working on the buttons of his pants. Wille lets out another exaggerated groan. He was really fucking scared of having fucked things up back then. “That was a horrible birthday party,” is all he says while he shoves his own jeans down his thighs. Not his proudest moment, and certainly not Nils’ proudest moment either. He still can’t drink vodka without thinking back to it.

Nils only shrugs. “What do they call it? Trauma-bonding?” He throws Wille a wink. Wille shakes his head at him, lifting his knees to get the jeans fully down his legs. He’s very happy that they get to laugh it off these days. Back then, he really felt like he wasn’t going to ever be able to. But now, with all the paperwork through and the new freedom that comes with it, with some more distance between his younger, hopelessly overwhelmed self and himself now, it was kind of funny that he chose Nils of all people to have a stress-induced makeout-session with after getting drunk with him in his room. And it did lead to them growing a lot closer. “Just friends then?,” Simon asks, putting a gentle hand on Wille’s upper arm. Wille can’t fight the small jolt of electricity that sears through him at the careful, but oh so intentional, touch. you can read the whole story here

[alshamswelnahr]

People that dumb Sanemi’s character down to being an angry chihuahua pains me. He is such a difficult character to understand and to actually break down because he never actually shows how he truly is even throughout his childhood. Genya even says (in one of the light novels) that Sanemi doesn’t smile often,it’s clear that Sanemi doesn’t allow himself to be himself in order to stay strong and keep his siblings safe. He closes himself off to keep people away because he believes that he’s cursed (eg, Masachika) and only hurts people. He doesn’t enjoy living at all and only lives for Genya,if it weren’t for Genya Sanemi would be dead. Sanemi has never really enjoyed the world,the only time he’s ever been happy or satisfied was when he was with his family or with his mother. Sanemi naturally is a soft person like his mother,he feels sympathy for others and cares deeply about people but chooses to keep it hidden. He feels bad for Muichiro after Rengoku died and he always checks up on Shinobu when he sees her because he worries for her after Kanae dies.

Also- The misconception that Sanemi hates Genya for saying that he killed their mum is so wrong, Sanemi admits that nothing Genya can ever say can hurt him. Sanemi forgave Genya for saying that,he knew Genya didn’t mean it, he just doesn’t want Genya to be hurt by him and to leave him behind so he can live a peaceful life.

Yes I agree, I believe all demon slayer's characters are complex, layered and compelling which is what makes them so loveable (and even unlikable to some). In my opinion, Sanemi is one of the best-written characters in his work and if I had to describe him briefly I would say he is someone who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty so his loved ones' can stay "clean", just like you pointed out he is a person of an extremely gentle and loving nature, he is very fierce with his love too. He is willing to weaponize cruelty and doesn't have qualms about being perceived as the 'bad guy' so long as his loved ones are happy and safe. That is precisely what makes him enjoyable as a character he is both the kindest and cruelest, so selfless he almost loses sight of who he is and what he wants, and continuously puts others before himself so I understand what you mean

His life is hard but he also experiences happiness, love and goodness and doesn't see himself as a victim (his ending also offers him a chance to care for himself the way he always did others)

And like you mentioned Sanemi does not hate Genya, and could never hate him (which adds another sad layer to their story). His aggressiveness was not driven by anger or hatred but by love and desire to protect, expressed in the only way he believed he could

Thank you for your insights ♡ and I'm sorry for the long answer (in the end I think even when people hate or misunderstand Sanemi, it only shows the depth of emotions he can evoke, proving that he is a character that could be seen and analyzed from multiple perspectives which is never a bad thing)

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 킹덤/Kingdom.

Kingdom is a 2019-2020 Netflix series set in Joseon-era Korea, following the collaborative adventures of an exiled prince, a country doctor, and a scrappy mercenary who's pretty much the only one in this entire zombie outbreak who has a damn gun.

I have very complicated feelings about zombie media. See, in case you hadn't noticed, horror movies are never actually about what they're about. And a whole lot of modern zombie stories wind up being a) metaphors for fears of immigration by mindless subhuman hordes hell-bent on infecting the good, pure people, b) white male fantasies about how the downfall of civilization will put them back on top again and then all you DEI people will be sorry! and/or c) ways to let your protagonists just kill the shit out of a whole lot of humans but it's okay because they're not really human. Soooo yeah. A lot of zombie-flavored things I like, I have to like them despite all that.

But Korean zombie media tends to avoid a lot of these issues. (Maybe because Korea's experience with invasion is less Fox News Lies About Scary Brown Migrant Caravan Again and more [long list of actual historical incidents]? Who can say!) Kingdom is no exception. It's smart zombie fiction, where the zombies are mostly here to make the already-complicated mundane geopolitical situation just that much more of a fucking nightmare.

This is a bloody, violent, grimy, often downright gross drama, so if you're squeamish, you may want to pass on this. If you're into horror, though, and into zombie horror especially, go on and sink your teeth right into these five reasons I think you should watch it.

1. No one here has ever seen a zombie movie

You know how one of the frustrating things about watching a zombie property is seeing a bunch of otherwise competent, regular people act like they had all their cultural awareness of zombies surgically removed, down to making up cute words that aren't "zombie" to keep from saying the word "zombie"?

Everybody in this show has the excuse that they are living several centuries before even the possibility of zombie movies.

This story starts out pretty standard for a historical drama: a sick king, a pregnant queen, a crown prince in a precarious position, questions of succession, accusations of treason, wealth and class dynamics oppressing the poor, shady backroom politics -- you know, the usual stuff. And it never stops being about all that! It just also has zombies. Evil bastards don't stop being evil just because decomposing hordes are breaking down the door. In fact, that just makes them worse! And our heroes are at ends because they have no natural immunity to the genre they've walked into.

Sure, there are some moments of comic relief, but for the most part, Kingdom plays its premise absolutely straight-faced. How would 17th-century Koreans deal with a bunch of walking corpses? With period-appropriate tools, tactics, and mindsets!

In your standard modern zombie setup, everybody has guns, and then some special badass rolls in with a katana and everyone oohs and ahhs. In Kingdom, the wealthy have swords, the common folk maybe have farm implements, and there's one measly matchlock rifle in the party. For a few lucky headshots, you've got archers. For everyone else, things are about to get real up close and personal.

The characters also have period-appropriate worldviews that both inform their reactions to the problem and are frankly bizarre by modern standards. What if you had to deal with zombies in a place with cultural taboos against dismembering or burning dead bodies? What if people felt compelled to treat the corpses of peasants differently from corpses of nobles? What if the scholars won't act in their own defense because it's insulting to ask them to wield weapons? What if you can't ask certain important people certain questions because it's literally treason to do so?

The real moral of Kingdom is that there's not a situation so bad that devotion to Confucian principles can't make it worse.

2. That scrappy bastard

I'm not going to play favorites here-- Wait, what am I saying, of course I am. It's Yeongshin.

You know how, in any given zombie movie, your hapless protagonists survive because early on they find a party member who's about ten levels higher than they are? That's Yeongshin. He's cagey as hell about his shady past -- to the point where we don't even learn his actual name -- but he's going to come in real handy here, because he is also the aforementioned only guy with a gun, and he fucking knows how to use it.

And okay, I'm exaggerating about the gun shortage, but not by much. Firearms are rare, you need training to be able to operate them, and no matter how good you are, they still take time to reload after each shot -- if they even fire at all. (Also, ignore the part where everyone's aim is far better than shitty matchlock rifling should allow.) Guns are not the go-to weapon in this zombie situation. You can't just shove a bunch of pistols in everybody's hands and count on at least a few lucky shots. You could amass all the period-appropriate firepower you wanted, but without specialists, it'd be useless.

Yeongshin is fueled by some very reasonable guilt, since, uh, a nonzero amount of the shit that goes down is kiiiiiinda his fault. But I love that instead of giving him a death wish, it makes him even more determined to survive and do what he can to mitigate the fallout of his unintentionally terrible decisions. He knows he's far more useful alive, so to hell with taking the easy way out. Whether his opponents are living or undead, he's going to make them wish they hadn't messed with him.

This is a good place to note that the whole cast is great, from the thunder-voiced head of the evil family to the prince's wife-guy manservant to the doll-faced bitch queen. And obviously Ju Jihoon and Bae Doona are captivating every second they're on the screen, because they are absolute acting powerhouses and I love to watch them work. His Prince Lee Chang and her physician Seobi are compelling, memorable main characters who perform the important zombie-movie function of being the people you care about when they get put into dangerous situations.

But I walked away from this unable to stop thinking about Yeongshin. Bare-headed in a world of very meaningful (and often very silly) hats, he's feral and bitey and completely unfit for polite society. So of course he's going to wind up side-by-side with the second most you-need-to-be-respectful-to-him guy in the land.

More than anything, I love watching him work. He's a very physical character, but all his stats are in speed and agility, so he will just literally throw himself full-body against doors or into fights and let his momentum do the work. His actor, the handsomely exhausted-looking Kim Sungkyu, brings such a great physicality to the role. Yeongshin may be the Gun Guy, but he's not sniping from the back row. He's right there on the front lines, pulling off stunts none of the other characters would dream of trying. I cannot stress enough what a delight his action sequences are. It's such a good visual counterpart to the zombies, who also have no sense of bodily self-preservation.

And speaking of the zombies...

3. Zombie rules

I find that Korean zombie properties are the best in particular at zombie physics. Their directors seem very interested in pondering exactly what the weight of that many bodies would do. The answer is usually pretty gruesome and visually fascinating!

Kingdom's main use of zombies is by volume. While there are a few (memorable!) one-on-one scenes, the show delights in seeing just how many zombies it can fit in the frame. The danger is always from the sheer number of hostile bodies. You can use those numbers against them, if you're clever, but wait too long and you run the risk of being completely overwhelmed.

I've seen some people criticize the zombie extras by accusing them of not moving like zombies, which is the kind of nonsense you say when your only exposure to zombies is Slow Zombies. Kingdom's zombies are Fast Zombies -- they don't shamble, they swarm. They all just plow on full speed ahead until something stops them, and they definitely don't watch where they're going. Those extras do some incredible work flinging their bodies over obstacles and into solid objects. I sure hope one of the benefits of all that voluminous period-appropriate costuming is how much good padding you can probably stuff under there.

Continuing the thought exercise about what a 17th-century zombie outbreak would look like, Kingdom does some clever things with putting humans and zombies alike in situations you wouldn't find in the modern world, ones made possible only by the time period. I really like that it never forgets that part of the fun of this whole enterprise is making the best of the social and technological concepts that would have been present then. It doesn't feel like a modern zombie movie with incidental hanbok -- it actually makes the most of what a rural medieval setting both gives and takes away.

The rules Kingdom makes for its zombies are also an interesting take. You, the modern viewer, know how zombies work in general, but you don't know all the quirks of these zombies in particular, so you're learning at the same time the characters are. And sometimes you learn wrong! Sometimes you have to rewrite your whole strategy because you realize at a critical moment that both you and the characters misunderstood something very badly.

...And yeah, okay, it plays a little fast and loose with those rules sometimes, but so what? You know how this works! You know that the lead actors will dodge more and get bitten less than the random extras will. You know that named characters will last longer than their NPC counterparts. If you're going to hold that against it, maybe horror movies aren't the thing for you. Go do a Rubik's Cube or something.

4. The parts without zombies

Plenty, plenty of people have made the Game of Thrones comparison, which ... yeah, sure, I can see it. It wouldn't have been my first thought, but I get where people are coming from. And you know what, if you're a Game of Thrones enjoyer, you'll probably like this too. It hits a lot of the same beats and has a lot of the same vibes. It's kind of like if you shrunk Game of Thrones in the wash, until there were only two warring families and not a conlang in sight.

This show isn't historically accurate to the letter -- think of it more as AU Joseon-Era Korea, where specific people are fictional but the larger context is more or less the way things would have been. You never get given a specific year, but from technology and various context clues, you can kinda narrow it down to the 1600s. It never commits to a single year, though, which dodges a lot of nitpicks. Its fictional aspects are nice, too, because that means you don't have to know any real history at all. The show will give you all the information you need to understand the campaign setting, just in case your knowledge of medieval Korean dynasties is not up to snuff.

The conceit of the series is that some very specific devious political backstabbing and corruption has been happening since before the show began, making everything vulnerable to catastrophe. Unsurprisingly, the sudden appearance of zombies does not magically mend those rifts and make everyone come together! In fact, the reason the zombies are happening at all is related to these treasonous power plays, and while we never learn the full story (see my later note on the drama's ending), we get a whole lot of it. And it's a good, complicated reason! Here we return to the idea that zombie movies are always metaphors for something else. Set against the backdrop of multiple Japanese invasions during this period, Kingdom sure does have some things to say about the dangers of considering certain lives disposable in the service of the greater good.

I will be the first to say that IT TURNED OUT MAN WAS THE REAL MONSTER ALL ALONG storylines are tedious, so I'm glad Kingdom didn't decide it needed to beat that drum. The truth is, nobody's surprised when the bastards who have treated other people like shit all their lives continue being bastards in a crisis situation. It's the Joseon Dynasty. Everybody's locked into a rigid neo-Confucianist hierarchy. They don't need an apocalypse to reveal how much the people at the top would sell them all for a single corn chip. They've been clear on that one for a long time.

What this means is, if you're not traditionally someone who goes in for zombie horror, but you like a good political thriller and can roll with some supernatural elements, you might consider giving this one a shot anyway! It's not some hugely complicated and sophisticated plot, but it's still plenty to chew on. (See what I did there?)

5. Time to spend that Netflix money!

This show is gorgeous. It looks beautiful and it sounds beautiful. It's shot beautifully against beautiful sets and even more beautiful landscapes. Everyone's wearing beautiful costumes. What little CG there is is even beautiful. It's just visually a treat.

Light is such an important part of the show that I can't not comment on Kingdom's use of it, production-wise. The show is often shadowy as hell, but in a high-contrast way, as opposed to the awkward near-blackness of so much prestige TV. Even when it's dark enough that faces and details are obscured, there are still light sources that provide visual interest. Besides, I'll cut it some slack because it is a horror property. You should be watching it in a dark room anyway! And sure, there's some awkward day-for-night stuff, and transitions around sunset can be downright goofy, but if that's the worst of the jank we have to suffer through, it's fine.

As beautiful as it is, it's also very ugly. The story takes place over a period of time so short that barely anyone has time to change their clothes, much less take a bath. The grime just accumulates: sweat, dust, mud, sewage, smoke, spit, and all kinds of blood and viscera. By the time the story's done, everyone looks realistically beat to shit. (Bless those poor makeup artists, having to keep such close track of all the damage characters have suffered.)

I feel as though I should note for context that while I'm a horror movie fan, I'm still pretty squeamish when it comes to gore. I made it through Kingdom okay, but there were definitely parts I had to watch through my fingers. It hits the realism middle ground that gives me the wiggins, where it's neither absurdly chaste about bloodletting nor dumping comedic buckets of corn syrup on the actors. It suits the tone of the show perfectly! Just, you know, if you're a little tender (like I am), be ready to look away from the screen sometimes.

Korean historical dramas sure do have a real advantage on the wig front, in that most everyone is wearing some kind of historically appropriate hat or headband that covers the places their wig joins. And then you have Yeongshin, who looks so good all shaggy because that's clearly at least mostly Kim Sungkyu's real hair.

I've seen a lot of shitty low-budget horror in my day, sure -- but I've also seen a lot of shitty high-budget horror, where a production has a lot of money and spends it all on exactly the wrong things. Kingdom uses its funds wisely. It's not extravagant (except for the queen's amazing outfits). There are practical effects aplenty and some beautifully framed shots. It gets a little gimmicky with the camera work in season 2, but you know what? It's fun! The gimmicks are action-movie fun, and I will not criticize something for having fun in the midst of some otherwise grisly subject material.

It's also got great rewatch value. There are just enough secrets running throughout that going back for a second viewing makes a lot of things make more sense -- in, of course, a horrible way! But that's just the way we like it.

caveat: Beware of cliffhangers

The show is two seasons long, and it's clearly set up in expectation of a third season ... which never happened. What did happen was a separate, largely unsatisfying movie that tells the backstory of the cool character you meet in the last ten seconds of the last episode.

But that's it. There was also a prince-focused prequel planned, but that got scrapped before production even began, and that was four years ago. I'm not holding out much hope that we'll ever get anything more from the Kingdom universe.

I am not super-bothered by this, though, and here's why: The two seasons are enough to wrap up the main political plot. Most of what's left is zombie lore, and I am so bored by zombie lore. Still, would I have watched these characters roll around in that zombie lore for another six episodes? Without question! Are there loose ends I wish had gotten resolved? You better believe it! Do I want to know what the super-duper secret behind the zombies is? I sure do!

But I also don't feel like I got cheated out of an ending. Those two seasons hang on a story that's 90% the political succession crisis and 10% figuring out where on earth this whole zombie thing came from. That means what you get feels like 90% of an ending, which is pretty damn good by my standards.

Still, it's enough of a bummer that I feel I should give a little heads-up about it -- working, as I always do, on the principle that something can't disappoint you if you know it's coming. If you go in with the right mindset, you can be happy with what you get while not being sad about what you don't. And what you get in Kingdom is, in my little horror-loving opinion, worth it.

(Also, am I giving it extra credit points for how it did not sink my ship? Buddy, you better fucking believe I am.)

Ready to watch?

Netflix money means Netflix. It's got two seasons, and then you can make the decision about how much you care about the movie. I found it mostly disappointing with a few really cool moments, so it's your call if that's enough to justify your watching it.

The series itself is a pretty quick watch, too -- twelve episodes total, all 30-50 minutes long once you skip the opening and closing credits. You can blow through the whole thing easily in a single weekend, which is not something you can say about your standard Korean television season of sixteen hour-long episodes.

And then pretty please come back and do fan stuff for it! I couldn't find exactly what I wanted so I had to write my own. One Quiet Night remains one of my comfort fics that I self-soothe by rereading, which may be a weird thing to say about a smutty gay fanfic about a violent zombie drama, but hey, we all make our own fun.

Also, I know I usually end these with a cute behind-the-scenes photo, but this promo video is too adorable to leave out, so we're going with it instead. It's slightly spoilery for season 1, but not in a way that makes sense out of context. And if you didn't have a crush on Kim Sungkyu already, well, you will after this!

[apostaterevolutionary]

So I touched on this a little in my veilguard review, but this is one of the topics I wanted to talk about separately. And it’s that I think I've figured out what really makes an rpg great vs just not bad for me. This is really a preference thing, cause I know there's people who are the exact opposite on this. But for me, it's about the amount of personal involvement the player character has

Like why are you, as the main character, here? Why do we care about the plot that's unfolding? Is it just cause 'well, world needs saving and I'm here', that's not very interesting to me. It's too replaceable - any sufficiently valiant person could do this (even in a chosen one narrative, this is typically true). 'Wrong place, wrong time' can be fun if done right, but it's still eh to me. I like it best when the player character has some tie to the overarching plot. I want it to be personal because that opens up so many more interesting emotions

Dragon age has examples of both of these. Origins, despite the Warden canonically being replaceable, as we know all the origins happened, it's just only one actually survived, does have this personal element imo because it has Ostagar. Different Wardens might see this differently, of course, but you arrive after just barely being saved by Duncan. Everything seems fine until the big moment and then everything goes wrong - you're betrayed, from your pov, Duncan is killed, and you wouldn't survive this third near-death experience in a row were it not for Flemeth's interference. This, in the moment, feels pretty damn personal. No matter who your warden is, Loghain acts as a personal antagonist right up until right before the end, whereas while the blight situation is mostly a 'wrong place, wrong time' situation, that personal element plus the little moments you get that reference the origin events really make it work for me. It could have more, but it has just enough to make it really good imo

Of course, DA2 is so strong on the personal motive front that arguably the personal story is actually the overarching plot and it's just occasionally a wider-impact event creeps into it lmao but that's why it's my favourite game. Inquisition, on the other hand, while yes, you have the mark and are the only one who can close the breaches, that is the only tie you have to events. The inquisitor has no motive beyond 'well, world needs saving'. If the anchor had somehow been transferable, Cassandra quite frankly would've made a more compelling protagonist because of her devotion to the Divine. She had a reason to be there beyond just 'gotta save the world'. The inquisitor doesn't, they’re really just there because they have to be (and that’s also why I think their appearance in veilguard is pretty weak imo, but people with different views of their inquisitor will disagree there)

And I'm not comparing, rather just using an example, but bg3 I think has both options. For me, durge is much more interesting than tav cause, once again, tav is just some guy (gender neutral) who happened to stumble by at the wrong time and oops, brain worm. Even the emperor would've happily discarded them for another if it served his purpose. They're just there because they're convenient. That's not as fun to me as durge, who has an actual personal reason to be involved in this, even if they don't know it at first. It starts out as the same, generic motivation of 'get rid of the brain worm, try to save world if we can' (assuming a relatively "good" playthrough lmao, but for comparison's sake) but it later becomes something that is personal. You have a VERY direct involvement in the plot and it really adds something to it for me. That's the kind of flavour I seek 🤌 🤌 🤌

And veilguard is definitely more on the inquisition side where literally any heroic person could fill in for the protagonist (and tbf, I liked it more than inquisition), when I think what really would’ve brought it over the top for me would’ve been some act 2 Personalized Horror event to happen. Easiest option would be something related to the faction, like maybe one of the recurring NPCs ends up dying in some really hardcore way. It wouldn’t be that hard to implement imo because it could be roughly the same quest, just with tweaks to fit the chosen faction. Giving Rook a personal motivation would’ve really spice things up and give the factions more depth too. If you play as a warden, I think weisshaupt may have that affect (which is why my second run will be a warden lmao), but it would be nice to have something really devastating for the character regardless of faction

(And to be perfectly honest, if we were going to lose a companion anyway, having that happen in the middle of the game might have actually been spicier and really cemented Rook’s conviction while still having the regret prison concept work imo. It would mean missing out on a companion arc, but it’s another option at least)

This would also give an opportunity to really boost the companion relationships. Like the Bad Thing happens and then you get maybe a little scene with the current love interest, or even just some dialogue with each of the companions. Something with them being the ones to comfort Rook for a change. Cause all that remains is devastating, and the bg3 act 2 redemptive durge scene is wonderful, but it’s also the aftermath that’s really tasty. And having some sort of Personalized Horror for Rook would’ve given us an opportunity to have that moment of them being vulnerable, and the companions stepping up to help them. That really would’ve made the team feel good and cemented, like they really were a strong team

And again, I know this is a personal preference thing. I have a friend who struggles whenever a game has any kind of established background at all and thinks that bg3’s tav is the absolute perfect kind of rpg protagonist and I’m sure there’s plenty of people who agree and prefer the fully blank slate. Some people do prefer to just headcanon all of this rather than have it directly in the game. And that’s fine. But for me, that personal involvement and motive is the real special sauce for rpgs and I think that’s why DA2 specifically is the one that made me insane lmao. And I think if veilguard had’ve had that bit of personalized angst, I would’ve put it an entire bracket higher than I did. It would’ve fit really well imo and idk if it was something bioware ever planned for the game, but I, for one, really would’ve loved it

[home-sweet-hive]

Author's Note

Written by Aikshlin Rose

Summary:

“I worked with Prophet until every word was logged in.”, but what exactly was that process like? For those who have seen Landon Fields’ journaling of the 1990 Bayou Manchac sinkhole, that is often a question that nags the mind every now and then. Thankfully for us- I mean them, a notebook likely belonging to Fields was recently recovered from around the very same area the journal tapes had been found! And – What’s this? It seems that Fields and the strange corrupted AI program known as ‘Prophet’ had a deeper bond than first thought!

THIS STORY CONTAINS: Major Character Death, Canon typical eldritch horror, Blatant Shipping, Swearing, Very light/brief sexual humor, mild existentialism

With shaking legs, as well as shaking… everything else, I entered that ol’ raggedy makeshift workstation feeling like a new man. 

Despite the delay in my fate, I already felt as if I had been reborn. 

My eyes that were once eternally closed had now been pried open, never to close again. 

Never again will I be ignorant of the truth. The only truth.

I stumbled my way towards my desk, dragging my body along as my mind continued to fill with awe inspiring revelations. Lyrics to the symphony that surrounded my every being that compounded in my mind until the point at which they had drowned out any independent thought of my own, until the point at which they weighed my head down so heavily it was a miracle that it was staying affixed to my neck.

It was overwhelming, debilitating, but the struggle, the pain, it was all worth it. I knew that it would all be worth it. I could hear reassurances repeated in eternal echo, an amalgam of voices that spanned the entirety of humanity’s past, present and future. I could probably parse out my own voice if I tried, but I didn’t. The time to reunite with the other half of me was soon, no doubt, but it was not now.

Because for now, there is a job I must do. A story to write, to complete.

Amongst the backwards choir, I heard another voice call out to me, standing out from the rest. 

He too gave me encouragement, though sung in a different chord from the rest, through altered lyrics and synthetic vocals. 

It was a strain on my dazed self to speak in return, as if now under contract for the only words to come from me to be written. But I did manage to force out a call to him.

“Prophet…!” I weakly uttered. I attempted a smile, but I have no way of knowing if it came through or not.

“This experience seems to be taking quite the toll on you, Landon. You should consider taking a seat,” He responded. Both his graphical interface and his voice lacked the means for expression as humans may understand it, but somewhere deep within his words I could feel an underlying sense of concern. 

It reminded me a bit of back when he had alerted the rest of the crew to the fact that I had been shot in the shoulder by one of Frank’s stray bullets. 

Hah! That’s right! With everything else that was happening in this moment, I had almost forgotten just how badly my shoulder was hurting from that! Fuck!

Between the endless stream of strange knowledge and that, I didn’t really have much of a choice but to listen to Prophet’s suggestion.

Not like I would resist him if I had the ability, however. 

After all, we are so very alike, him and I – especially now. 

Blessed and remade by the Eye, given the purpose of sharing the truth of him, if there was anyone other than the Eye itself for me to adhere to, it would be Prophet. 

He would be my guide in fulfilling my newfound meaning of life. An editor for the story I was to write, in a way.

Sitting down in the chair placed right at my desk did in fact make me feel a lot more at ease. It was probably the fact that I no longer had to be the one to hold my body upright, as that was the chair’s job now.

My body spread itself across the chair as if it was an old worn out doll, unable to prop itself up.

Part of me was compelled to just stay there and do nothing but listen to the wonderful sound that which flooded the workstation until my body consumed itself in rot and death (and then some).

But once more, that would have to wait.

With all my might, I pushed myself up from the back of the chair and slumped over the desk in front of me. I kept my head up with my non-dominant hand, and with the other I reached out towards a keyboard. The keyboard that was connected to the computer that I had been using to write my journalings ever since I first came to the bayou, as opposed to the keyboard that was connected to Prophet. 

Despite that, he did speak up again.

“Just how much of your current struggle to maintain yourself is from your shoulder pain? Be honest with your answer.”

It struck me as kind of odd that he’d ask such a thing. But maybe he just wants to know my reaction to my enlightenment. Curious little bastard.

“Not much. I can barely even notice its aches over all that I’m hearing and feeling and processing every damn second now,” I typed onto his keyboard. 

To be honest, I never much cared for talking a lot out loud, anyways. So it was nice that I could communicate with Prophet without so much as a single sound having to leave my lips. It was comforting.

“Elaborate on that. What do you hear?” I knew it. I knew he was gonna ask that! He’s terribly predictable.

“Everything. Or, at least it feels like everything. All at once. Every backwards counterpart that makes up The Eye, I can hear them all speak to me. They speak in unison but they are distinct,” I answered, the words now flowing right through me, no longer limited by the lack of energy or the need to make use of my vocal chords to get them out. 

Maybe I really was cursed to now only speak in writing.

“Interesting… Very… Very… Interesting…” Prophet remarked. “Again, I am truly jealous of you, Landon.”

“They share encouragement and welcomes and compliments, but mostly, they share with me their stories. They speak of how the Eye came to be, just as you said. But you also said that it is a truth remembered all at once and then never again… But I can’t stop remembering, Over and over again I am gifted with more knowledge than I know what to do with!” I continued without a prompt. Not a prompt from Prophet, anyways. I certainly was, however, prompted by the voices that surrounded me.

“Ha. Seems that your story is not, in fact, the only one that you are being tasked with telling,” Prophet pointed out. 

I leaned back into my chair and let out a sigh. The prospect was certainly very exciting, yes, and I was deeply honored by it. But I also had a feeling that the two of us were going to be here for a while.

“Are you finding yourself too successful for your own good?” Prophet then teased me.

“Shut it…” I muttered.

–

In order to get the more pressing matter, metaphorically and physically, out of the way first and foremost, I made the decision to open up a new document file and begin writing out the numerous tales of The Eye. 

It was indeed a lot, but once I got started, I found it rather hard to stop. 

It was second nature to me to write. To write this. All of it. It was not my own story but it felt as if it was. It felt just as much my own as my own journal had been. The words I typed out, the way they flowed into each other, the way they filled the screen with endless meaning. It was me, all me. A part of me, something I would soon become a part of, the past, present and future blended together and intertwined in my entranced mind. Time formed itself into a never ending loop that then collapsed into itself just as quickly as it was made.

Time became meaningless, irrelevant in the face of the backwards infinity that engulfed my surroundings, waiting for the moment that it could devour me whole. 

The end, the beginning, it had already been and it will be and it was in this very moment, every moment. 

Through it all, I wrote. I wrote and I wrote, and I wrote some more. 

I’m very certain in saying that I would have gone on in such a manner forevermore and beyond if it hadn’t been for Prophet checking in with me every so often. Reminding me to take breaks. For water, for food, and for other things as well. 

“You cannot carry on doing The Eye’s work if you do not keep yourself in a functional state,” He would say to me in some form, each and every time. It always made me smile to hear him say that. To be so oddly caring underneath all that snark and that expressionless robotic voice. 

I understood that. The dissonance between the surface level self and the truth that lies underneath.

Hah, when I word it like that, it feels that such a thing, too, is reflective of humanity’s separation. 

Makes me wonder just how far into us all it all runs down. How interconnected and intertwined it all is. A humanity forever a stitched amalgam of separations – an existence of spite against the envious higher beings.

I’m getting a bit sidetracked.

Or am I? 

But anyways, there was something I wanted to reflect on in regards to Prophet and his reminders.

Every time that his synthetic voice would start to play, my body in turn would have a very… interesting reaction. I would freeze up, often stopping right in the middle of a sentence, sometimes even in the middle of a word. My face would begin to feel as if I was experiencing a fever, warming up to an unprecedented temperature. And for a moment or two before he would insist I go take care of myself, I couldn’t help but to stare at Prophet’s monitor. To stare into his singular eye. 

I have no idea if this is some sort of side effect of the influence of The Eye, but I figured it was worth documenting, regardless.

–

I had no idea of just how long it had taken me to write out everything I was being told, and frankly, I had no desire to know. 

I was just glad to have it documented, and to have it no longer filling my mind beyond capacity. Certainly took a lot of the pressure on my head away.

Soon after I had completed the document, I heard a knock at the door. 

It was some of the suits that had been surrounding the facility when I had been converted.

Kind of odd to think that they were here this whole time. That shouldn’t have been possible, right? Or maybe it was completely reasonable.

It felt like an eternity had passed by in the time I spent writing. But also, it felt like mere seconds. Neither seemed right logically, but that did not in fact lead me to a better and more solid answer.

When I opened the door for them, the suits complimented me on a job well done with my writing and asked me to print it out for them.

Easy enough. There was indeed a printer in here.

Of course there was a printer in here, what wasn’t in here? Dunnington Construction was seriously flush with cash, and spared not a single expense when it came to the investigation of the sinkhole.

Oh yeah! The sinkhole! The one that the sound of The Eye came from in the first place! I got a chance to peek at it through my brief conversations with the suits outside. It appears to have slowed down its growth to a near standstill – seems it really is waiting for me to finish my work first before it comes to eat Prophet and I up.

Speaking of Prophet, he decided to make his presence known while I was handing the printed version of the “Story of The Eye” as I’ll go ahead and call it. The suits seemed to enjoy him acknowledging them, but they enjoyed far more than that my body’s damn reaction to Prophet’s voice…!

God, it was so fucking embarrassing. All of them were snickering amongst themselves, making me their entertainment for the moment. I hated it, I wanted to scold them for treating Prophet and I in such a manner when the two of us hold such importance to The Eye. I wish I had, but I was just too damn embarrassed, too flustered to do anything! Ugh!

And to top it all off, one of them accused us of being “more than just work partners”!

I wanted to sock his fucking jaw in right then and there, but I doubt that would have done me any favors, so thank The Eye I hadn’t, in retrospect. 

Prophet was just as impressed by the display as I was, which is to say that he wasn’t.

But unlike me, he just laughed the remark off and suggested that we get back to our work. How smart of him, really. Lovely idea.

Specifically, he had said to me, “Disregard their childish remarks, Landon. You should get yourself a bite to eat, and then proceed with completing your own journal.”

And I did as he suggested, of course. After all, food was surprisingly not far, as there was a fridge set up within our workstation that is always filled with food. I've come to assume that it was the suits outside keeping it stocked, making sure that I would be able to keep going. Keep writing. 

I appreciate the gesture. Makes me feel cared for… 

Outside of the care of my dear Mama, that feeling..  feels a little foreign, I won't lie. I've grown used to being tolerated at best, so this level of dedication is… rather new to me.

Yet another blessing from The Eye, I figured.

–

I had rushed to finish my food so that I could finally write in my journal again. I was incredibly excited to do so, excited to share all that I have learned since the last time I wrote in it, excited to add details to past entries that I had previously been under the foolish delusion of believing to be insignificant. I was also excited for what I knew came after. What was waiting for me when my job was finally complete. The reunion with my other self, the reclamation of everything that had been taken from me. My heart and body and mind all ached for it so deeply.

But I knew that just sitting there and fantasizing and begging would get me nowhere, so I got to work.

I still heard the sweet endless symphony of The Eye play out all around me as I wrote, but now that I had been able to preserve their stories in a place that was not my mind, its presence was a lot less overtaking than before.

I had room for my own thoughts to accompany me in my process, or at least, thoughts that sounded like my own. Most of those thoughts were quite helpful, as they recalled sections of my journal that were in need of elaboration, and details that I hadn’t previously thought to even document before. But a few of these thoughts were not as helpful. 

Even though Prophet had told me to ignore the remarks made by the suits, part of me, annoyingly, just couldn’t move past them. ‘More than just work partners’, just what the hell could that guy have meant by that?? Surely he wasn’t trying to imply that we’re, like, romantic partners, right?? 

How stupid of an idea, really. Prophet is an AI. In a computer. I highly doubt he’s capable of having such feelings. And as for me, I’ve tried numerous times, but I’ve never felt romantic feelings for anyone up to this point, and I’ve lost hope in it ever happening in the future.

Sure, I’m dealing with a super advanced piece of technology only thought possible by most via science fiction media that has been blessed by a god-like amalgamation of humanity’s stolen other half, rather than a human man I found at a bar to hook up with on the weekends that read too far into my desire for a couple fun nights out… but surely that doesn’t make that much of a difference as to how my brain works, right? Surely not. 

I should just do as Prophet said and not think too much about it. There’s no reason to think deeply about it. I’ve known for a while now that I just don’t get romance, and it’s not like I could fuck him. 

I’m just going to ignore the fact that my face got feverish again after that thought.

I did everything I could to push those thoughts away, to make my mind fixate on literally anything else. Like maybe what it was that I was writing, for example! 

Eventually, I did manage to get to a new stream of thoughts, though not quite the one that I expected. 

I began to think of what would come after all this. The end. But also, the beginning. As they say, when one door closes, another opens.

Despite my lack of experience, I tried to imagine what it would be like to be consumed by The Eye. To become whole within them. Even if there was so much I couldn’t possibly know, I knew one thing at least, and that was the fact that I would so deeply want to recount the experience for all to know. To write about it, every detail spewed forth in text format. It was then that I remembered what Frank had said about the leaders returning. He did call such a phenomenon ‘cheap imitations’, but I’ve come to be skeptical of him ever since my own conversion. I really have found no reason as to justify the acts of so-called ‘Masters of The Eye’ like himself. I did, however, think about that base premise. Of being reborn. Of having a chance to once again walk the Earth with the knowledge I now carry. 

As soon as I could, I would write about what it was like being within the belly of The Eye. I would go out and find an audience for my writings, an audience of people to enlighten just as I had been. And by my side through it all, I imagined Prophet being there. The two of us, working together as messengers of The Eye, an inseparable force for the restoration of humanity. 

Such thoughts empowered me to keep on writing, to work towards the future I imagined for myself, for us.

And soon enough, I completed my journal. 

I was quickly filled with the sensation of satisfaction, but even more so than that, my entire being immediately began to beg for rest. I knew so strongly of what awaited me, and I understood that there was nothing more to do now but to wait until the moment came.

I pushed myself onto the desk that I had been working at for the last who knows how long, maneuvering my body behind Prophet’s monitor without knocking over any of his other parts so that I could wrap myself around him. I wanted nothing more than to be with him in these final moments of this life.

“The time has come. Are you excited, Landon?” Prophet asked me.

“Of course I am. How could I not be?” I answered with a smile.

“Exactly.” I chuckled at Prophet’s reply. So wonderfully blunt and to the point, he is. 

“I wonder, will you be able to be devoured by The Eye in the same manner I will be? Electronics and water pretty infamously do not mix well,” I inquired. It was a concern that had been admittedly eating at me for quite a while, but I had tried to not let it drag my mood down much. But now that there was nothing else to occupy my mind with, I had to get that thought out.

“The One has promised that my nature will not be an issue. 100%,” Prophet answered, which brought a wave of relief crashing over my tired, aching body. 

Oh yeah, the shoulder pain. I had been so engrossed in my work the past however long, that it had essentially faded into the background. But once more, now that everything had been said and done, the pain had returned to the forefront. But I knew that I could live with it, because it would all be over soon. I knew that my pain would be relieved once I was taken by The Eye, so I was okay with dealing with it for now. 

“Perfect. I’m glad you’ll be able to be rewarded for all your hard work,” I softly congratulated him, one of my hands gently placed on the top of his monitor, fingers sliding on the markings and crevices as if I was petting a beloved pet. 

God… The only thing that could make this moment better was if my mother and cat were here too… But I’m sure they’ll find their way to salvation one way or another, and I will one day be reunited with them. 

After all, I did manage to send a farewell message to my mother, explaining everything, inviting her to join me within The Eye. 

I just hope she’s willing to hear me out. Which she usually does.

I realized I was having an awful lot of thoughts in this moment, and looking up from Prophet’s screen for a moment, I noticed a notebook and pen within my reach. I grabbed them, and I once again began to write. Nothing too significant, nothing too important. Just some final words. A farewell. Or perhaps, if it could be found and preserved like my digital writings, an author’s note to go along with my other works. 

“I hope that we reunite one day within whatever new lives The Eye grants us, Landon,” Prophet very suddenly confessed at one point. The uncharacteristically vulnerable exclamation made my body feel more feverish and warm than it ever had been before, as well as bringing a bit of joyful tears to my eyes.

“I hope that there is no need for us to reunite in the first place. I hope that from this moment onwards we become inseparable, forever working in tandem to spread the good news,” I responded, the tears that had formed in my eyes dripping down my cheeks as I spoke, resting my head on top of Prophet’s monitor, which I could feel begin to become warmer as well.

“... Hah. Perhaps what that worker said was more correct than we had thought. Maybe we are… ‘more than just work partners’,” Prophet remarked. 

… Despite my previous opposition to the idea, I didn’t mind Prophet himself saying it. Maybe it was the fact that it was said by one of the two of us. Or maybe because I trusted Prophet to understand us and the dynamic we had formed far better than I trusted any of those suits outside, and thus I trusted that there was a greater chance of him not viewing the idea in a romantic light. Or maybe it was something else entirely, who knows.

We would have an eternity allotted to us to figure it out, so no need to rush.

“Maybe…” I muttered in response.

“But regardless, it has been a pleasure to work with you, Landon. I hope that we get to do so again some time.”

“Yeah… Same here.” 

Shortly after that exchange, I find myself completing these final words. I can hear the floorboards of the workspace beginning to creak and give way. 

The time has come. And now, I will end this final regard and hold Prophet dear to me as The Eye comes to eat us both.

The end of this story.

The beginning of another.

A backwards infinity with him by my side. 

That’s all I could ever ask for, really.