#but she's also very interesting to analyze in the context of the show

[thedevotionaltour]

karen is MY special white woman. my problematic fave. because i understand why she sucks. i think in order to be allowed to be a karen fan you have to actually understand why she sucks. if you don't understand why she sucks then you're a bad karen fan i think.

[felikatze]

ISAT and Ludonarrative Harmony: Combat is a Storytelling Tool

Or: How Siffrin is stuck in the endgame grind, forever

Please Note: This is primarily aimed at an audience that already played In Stars and Time, because I am bad at explaining things, and it's good to already know what the fuck I'm talking about. I tend to only bring up game elements as I want to talk about them.

Spoilers for.... all of ISAT! Especially Act 5!

(image to show how i feel posting this and as an attention grabber over my wall of text)

To pull a definition of ludonarrative harmony out of a hat, game writer Lauryn Ash defines it as follows:

Ludonarrative harmony is when gameplay and story work together to create a meaningful and immersive experience. From a design implementation perspective, it is the synchronized interactions between in-game actions (mechanics) and in-world context (story).

It is, generally speaking, how well game mechanics work hand in hand with the story. I, personally, think ISAT is an absolute masterclass of it, so I want to take a look at how ISAT specifically uses its battle system to emphasize Siffrin's character arc and create organic story moments. I want you to keep this in mind when I talk here.

So, skills, right? If you've played any turn-based RPG, you know your Fire spells, your "BACKSLASH! AIRSLASH! BACKSLASH!" and the many ways to style those.

Well, what does casting "Fire" say about your character? Not all that much, does it? Perhaps you'll have typical divisions. The smart one is the mage, the big brawny one is your tank, the petite one's the healer. And that's the barebones of ISAT's main party, but it's much more than that.

Every character's style of combat tells you something about them. Odile, the Researcher, is the most well-travelled and knowledgable of the bunch. She's the one with the expertise to keep a cool head and analyze the enemy, yet also able to use all three of the Rock-Paper-Scissors craft types.

To reflect her analytical view of things, all her skill names are just descriptive, the closest to your most bog-standard RPG. "Slow IV" or "Paper III" serve well to describe their purpose. The high number of the skills gives the impression there were three other Slow skills beforehand - fitting, considering the party starts at level 45, about to head into the final dungeon. She's also the oldest, so she's the slowest of the bunch.

Isabea, the Fighter, has all his skills in exclamation points. "YOUR TURN!!!" "SO WEAK!!!" "SMASH!!!" they're straightforward, but excited. He's a purposefully cheerfull guy, so his skills revolve around cheering on his allies. He's absolutely pumped to be here, and you see that from his skill names alone.

Mirabelle, the Housemaiden, is an interesting case. She's by all means the true protagonist of this tale - She's the one "Chosen by the Change God," the only one who survived the King's first attack, the only one immune to his ability to freeze time, the only dual-craft type of the game - just a lot of things. And her skill names reflect that facade she puts on herself - she can do this, she can win! She has to believe it, or else she starts doubting. This is how you get "Jolly Round Rondo" and "Mega Sparkle Heal" or "Adorable Moving Cure." She's styled every bit a sailor scout shojo heroine, and her moveset replicates the naming conventions of "In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"

Even Bonnie, the Kid, who can't be controlled in combat, has named craft skills. And they very much reflect that Bonnie is, well, a kid. "Wolf Speed Technique" or "Thousand Blows Technique" are very much the phrasings of a child who learned one complicated word and now wants to use it in everything to seem cooler than they are, which is none, because they're twelve.

Siffrin's skills are all puns.

You have an IMMEDIATE feel for personality here. Between "Knife to Meet You!" and "Too Cleaver by Half," you know Siffrin's the type to always crack a joke no matter the situation, slinging witticisms around to put Sonic the Hedgehog to shame. It's just such a clever way to establish character using a game mechanic as old as the entire history of RPGs.

This is only the baseline of the way the combat system feeds into the story, though.

The timeloop, of course, feeds into it. Siffrin is the only character who retains experience upon looping, whereas all other characters are reset to their base level and skills. And it sucks (affectionate).

You're extremely likely to battle more often the earlier in the game you are - after all, you need the experience (for now.) Every party member contributes, and Siffrin isn't all that strong on their own, since they focus on raw scissor type damage with the addition of one speed buff. (Of course it's a speed buff. They're a speedy fucker. Just look at him).

At first, the difference in level between Siffrin and the rest of the group is rather negligible. Just a level or two. Just a bit more speed and attack. And then Siffrin grows further and further apart. Siffrin keeps learning new skills. He gets a healing skill that doubles as an attack boost, taking away from both Mirabelle's and Isabeau's usefullness. He gets Craft skills of every type that even give you two jackpot points instead of one - thus obliterating Odile's niche. Siffrin turns into a one-person army capable of clearing most encounters all on their own.

Siffrin's combat progression is an exact mirror of story progression - as their experience inside the loops grows, they also grow further and further away from their party. The party seems... weaker, slower, clumsier. Always back at their starting point, just as all of their character arcs are reset each loop. Never advancing, always stagnant. And you have Siffrin as the comparison post right next to them.

I also want to point out here a change from Act 2 to Act 3 - Siffrin's battle portrait. He stops smiling.

Battles keep getting easier. This is true both for the reason that Siffrin keeps growing stronger even when all enemies stay the same, but also for the reason that you, the player, learn more about the battle system and the various encounters, until you've learned perfect boss clear strategies just from repetition. Have you ever watched a speedrunner play Pokemon? They've played this game so many times, they could do it blindfolded and sleeping. Your own knowledge and Siffrin's new strength work in tandem to trivialize the game's entire combat system as the game progresses.

(Is it still fun? Playing it over, and over, and over again? Is it?)

You and Siffrin are in sync, your experience making everything trivial.

As time goes on, Siffrin grows to care less and less about performing right for their party and more and more about going fast. A huge moment in his character is marked by the end of Act 3; because of story events I won't delve too deeply into, Siffrin has grown afraid of trying something new. And his options of escape are closing in. They need an answer, and they need it fast. He doesn't have the time or patience to dumb himself down, so you unlock one new skill.

It doesn't occur with level up, or with a quest, or anything at all. At the start of Act 4, it simply appears in Siffrin's Craft skills.

(Just attack.)

No pun. No joke. Just attack. Once you notice, the effect is immediate - here you have it, a clear sign of how jaded Siffrin has become, right at every encounter. And it's a damn good attack, too! The only available attack in the game that deals "massive" damage against all enemies. Because it doesn't add any jackpot points (at least, it's not supposed to), you set up a combo with everybody else, but Siffrin simply tears away at the enemy with wild abandon. Seperated from the rest of the party by the virtue of no longer needing to contribute to team attacks (most of the time. It's still useful if they do, though).

Once again, an aspect of the battle system enhances the degree of separation between Siffrin and the static characters of his play. You're incentivized to separate him, even.

Additionally, there are two more skills to learn. They're the only skills that replace previous skills. You only get them at extremely high levels, the latter of which I didn't even reach on both of my playthroughs.

The first, somewhere in the level 70 range, Rose Printed Glasses, a paper type craft skill, is replaced by Tear You Apart. It's still a pun about paper, but remarkedly more vicious.

The second is even more on the nose. At level 80, In A While, Rockodile!, a rock type craft skill, is replaced by the more powerful Rock Bottom.

I didn't get to level 80. If you do, you pretty much have to do it on purpose. You have to keep going much longer than necessary, as Siffrin is just done. And the last skill he learns is literally called Rock Bottom.

What do I even need to say, really.

Your party doesn't stay static forever, though.

By doing their hangout quests, side quests throughout the loops that result in Siffrin and the character having a heart to heart, all of them unlock what I'd call an "ultimate" skill. You know the type - the character achieved self-fulfillment, hit rank 10 on their confidant, maxed out their skill tree, and received a reward for their trouble.

These skills are massively useful. My favorite is Odile's - it makes one enemy weak to all Craft types for several turns, which basically allows you to invalidate the first and third boss, as well as just clown on the King, especially once Siffrin starts racking up damage.

But the thing is. In Act 3, when you first get them, yeah, they're useful. But... do you need them? After all, they're such a hassle to get. You need to do the whole character quest again, you can't loop forward in the House or you'll lose them. If you want to take these skills to the King, you need to commit. Go the full nine-yards and be nice to your friends and not die and not skip forward or skip back. Which is annoying, right?

Well, I sure did think so during Act 4. After all, a base level party can still defeat the King, just with a few more tricky pieces involved. Siffrin can oneshot almost all basic enemies by the time of Act 4. It's this exact evalutation that you, the player, go through everytime you return to Dormont. Do I want this skill, still? Would it not be faster to go on without it? I'm repeating myself, but that's the thing! That's what Siffrin is thinking, too!

I also want to take a quick moment to note, here - all skills gained from hangouts have art associated with them, which no other skills do. This feature, the nifty art, hammers home these as "special" skills, besides just how they're unlocked.

Siffrin also has one skill with associated art.

Yeah, you guessed it, it's (Just attack.)

At first, helping the characters is tied to a hefty in-game reward, but that reward loses its value, and in return devalues helping Siffrin's friends every loop. It's too tedious for a skill that'll make a boss go by one turn faster. You, the player, grow jaded with the battle system. Grinding experience isn't worth it, everybody's highest levels are already recorded. Fighting bosses isn't worth it, it's much faster to loop forward.

Isn't this what all endgame in video games looks like? You already beat the final boss, and now... what challenge is left? Is there a point to keep playing? Most games will have some post-game content. A superboss to test your skills against, but ISAT doesn't have any of that. You're forever left chasing to the post-game. That's the whole point - to escape the game.

As most games get more difficult as time passes, ISAT only gets easier. The game becomes disinterested in expanding its own mechanics just as I ran out of new things to fight after 100%-ing Kingdom Hearts 3. Every encounter becomes a simple game of "press button to win."

The final boss just takes that one up a notch.

Spoilers for Act 5 ahead boys!

In Act 5, Siffrin utterly loses it. His last possible hope for escape failed him, told him there's nothing she can do, and Siffrin is trapped for eternity. So of course, they go insane and run up the entire House without their party.

This just proves what you already knew - you dont need the party to proceed. Siffrin alone is strong enough. And here, Siffrin has entirely shed the facade of the jokester they used to be. Every single skill now follows the (Just attack.) naming conventions. Your skills are: (Paper.) (Rock.) (Scissors.) (Breathe.)

To the point. Not a moment wasted, because Siffrin can't take a moment longer of any of this. Additionally, his level is set to 99 and his equipment becomes fixed. You can't even pick up items anymore! Not that you needed them at this point anyway, right? Honestly, I never used any items besides the Salty Broth since Act 2, so I stopped picking items up a long time ago. Now you just literally can't.

Something I've not talked about until now - one of the main equipment types in this game are Memories, gained for completing subquests or specific interactions and events. They all by and large have little effects - make Odile's tonics heal more, or have Mirabelle cast a shield at the start of combat. For the hangout events, you also gain an associated memory that boosts the characters' stats by 30. It lets them keep up with Siffrin again! A fresh wind! Finally, your party members feel on par with you again!

...For a time. And just like that, they're irrelevant again, just as helping them gave Siffrin a brief moment of hope that the power of friendship could fix everything.

In Act 5, your memory is set to "Memory of Emptiness." It allows you to loop back in the middle of combat. You literally can't die anymore. Not that Siffrin could've died by this point in the first place, unless you forgot about the King's instant-kill attack. This one memory takes away the false pretense that combat ever had any stakes. Siffrin's level being set to 99 means even the scant exp you get is completely wasted on them. All stakes and benefits from combat have been removed. It has become utterly pointless.

Frustrating, right? It's an artistic frustration, though. It traps you right here in Siffrin's shoes, because he hates that all these blinding Sadnesses are still walking around just as much. It all inspires just a tiny fraction of that deep rolling anger Siffrin experiences here in the player.

And listen, it was cathartic, that one time Siffrin snapped and stabbed the tutorial Sadness, wasn't it? Because who enjoys sitting through the tutorial that often? Siffrin doesn't. I don't, either.

So, since combat is an useless obstacle now meant to inspire frustration, what do you do for a boss? You can't well make it a gameplay challenge now, no. The bosses of Act 5 are an emotional challenge: a painful wait.

First, Siffrin fights the King, alone. This is already nervewracking because of one factor - in every other run, you need Mirabelle's shield skill, or else you're scripted to die. You're actually forced to fight the King multiple times in Act 3, and have to do it at least once in Act 4, though you'll likely do it more. Point is: you know how this fight works.

You know Siffrin's fight is doomed from the outset, but all you can do is keep slinging attacks. Siffrin is enough of a powerhouse to take the King's HP down, what with the healing and buff skills they have now, not to even mention you can just go all in on damage and then loop back.

(And no matter which way you play it, whether you just loop or use strategically, it reflects on Siffrin, too. Has he grown callous enough not even death will stop their mission? Or does he still avoid pain, as much as he can?)

This fight still allows you the artifice of even that much choice, not that it matters. The other shoe drops eventually - Siffrin becomes slower, and slower. Unsettling, considering this game works on an Action Gauge system. You barely get turns anymore. The screen gets darker, and darker. Until Siffrin is frozen in time, just as you knew he had to be, because you know how this encounter works, know it can't be cleared without Mirabelle.

And, then, a void.

Siffrin awakens to nothingness. The only way to tell you've hit a wall is if Siffrin has no walking animation to match your button inputs. You walk, and walk, until you're approached by.... you. The next enemy encounter of the game, and Siffrin's absolute lowest point: Mal Du Pays.

Or, "Homesickness," in english. If you know the game, you know why it's named this, but that's not the point at the moment.

Thing is, where you could damage the King and are damaged in turn, giving you at least a proper combat experience, even if its doomed to fail, Mal Du Pays has no such thing.

You can attack. You can defend. But it is immune to all attacks. And in return, it does nothing. It's common, at least, for undefeatable enemies to be a "survive" challenge, but nope. The entire fight is "press button and wait." Except, remember the previous fight against the King? The entire time, you were waiting for the big instant death attack to drop. That feeling, at least for me, carried forward. I was incredibly on edge just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And, as is a pattern, Siffrin is, too. As Siffrin's attacks fail to connect, they start talking to Mal Du Pays.

But he gets no response, as you get no attacks to strategize around. The wait for anything to happen is utterly agonizing. You and Siffrin are both waiting for something to happen. This isn't a fight. It just pretends to be. It's an utter rugpull, because Siffrin was so undefeatable for most of Act 4 and all of Act 5 so far. It's kind of terrifying!

and it does. It finally does something. Ma Du Pays speaks, in the voice of Siffrin's friends, listing out their deepest fears. I think it's honestly fantastic. You're forced to just sit here and listen to Siffrin's deepest doubts, things you know the characters could not say because it references the timeloops they're all utterly unaware of. This is all Siffrin, talking to himself. And all you, all Siffrin, can do, is keep wailing away on the enemy to no effect whatsoever.

So of course this ends with Siffrin giving up. What else can you do?

And then Siffrin's friends show up and unfreeze them and it's all very cool yay. The pure narrative scenes aren't really the main focus but I want to point out here:

A) Mirabelle is in the first party slot here, referencing how she's the de facto protagonist, and Bonnie fills in the fourth slot left empty, which shows all characters uniting to save Siffrin

B) this is the only instance of the other party members having act specific battle icons: they're all smiling brightly, further pushed by the upbeat music

C) the reflecting shield Mirabelle uses to freeze the King uses a variation of her hangout skill cut in, marking it as her true "final" skill and giving the whole fight a more climatic feeling.

It's also a short gameplay sequence with Siffrin utterly uninvolved in the battle. You can't even see them onscreen. But... it feels warm, doesn't it? Everybody coming together. Siffrin doesn't have to fight anymore.

At last, the King is defeated. Siffrin and co. make for the Head Housemaiden, to have her look at Siffrin's sudden illness. Siffrin is utterly exhausted, famished, running a fever. And this isn't unexpected - after all, their skills in Act 5 had no cooldown. For context, instead of featuring any sort of MP system, all skills work on a cooldown basis, where a character can't use it for a certain number of turns. The lowest cooldown is actually Siffrin's Knife to Meet You, which has a cooldown of 1. In universe, this is reasoned as the characters needing a break from spamming craft in order to not exhaust themselves.

Siffrin's skills in Act 5 having no cooldown/being infinitely spammable isn't a sign of their strength - it's a sign that he refuses to let himself rest in order to rush through as fast as possible.

Moving on, Siffrin panics when seeing the Head Housemaiden, because seeing her means one thing: the end. Prior to this in the game, every single time you beat the King, the loop ends when you talk to the Head Housemaiden.

Reality breaks down, the whole shebang. It's here that Siffrin realizes - they don't want the loops to end, because the end of their journey means their family will leave, and he'll be alone again. The happiest time of his life will be over.

Siffrin goes totally ballistic, to say the least.

As it turns out (and was heavily foreshadowed narratively), Siffrin has been using Wish Craft to subconciously cause the timeloop because of their abandonment issues. It's rather predictable if you paid attention to literally anything, but it's extremely notable how heavily Siffrin is paralleled to the King, the antagonist they swore to kill by themself at the start of Act 5. The King wants to freeze Vaugarde in time because it is, in his mind, "perfect," for accepting him after he lost his home - a backstory he shares with Siffrin.

Siffrin has become the exact antagonist he swore to kill, and it's shown by how the next fight utterly flips everything on its head.

Siffrin is the final boss.

In a towering form made of stars, Siffrin looks down at their friends. His face is terrified, because of his internal conflict; he can't hurt his friends, but he can't let them go, either. The combat prompt is simply changed to "END IT!"

This fight is similar to the previous, in that you just need to wait a certain number of turns until its over. However, this time, it's not dreadful suspense. It's... confusion, and hesitance.

You have two options for combat: Attack your friends, or attack yourself.

And... you don't really want to do either, I think. I certainly don't. But what else can you do? It's Siffrin's desires clashing in full force. Attack your friends, and force them to stay? Or attack yourself, and let them go safely without you?

Worth noting, here - when you attack Siffrin's friends, you can't harm them. Isabeau will shield all attacks. And when you attack yourself, Mirabelle will heal you back to full. And the friends don't... do anything, either. How could they? Occasionally, Mirabelle heals you and Isabeau shouts words of motivation, but the main thing is...

(Your friends don't know what to do.)

None of them want to harm Siffrin. Both sides simply stare at each other, resolute in their conviction but unwilling to end it with violence. It's of note that this loop, the last one, is the only loop where the King isn't killed. Just frozen. And now here is Siffrin, clamoring for the same eternity the King was. Of course everything ends in a tearfilled conversation as Siffrin sees their friends won't leave him, even after the journey ends, but I still have to appreciate this moment.

Siffrin is directly put in the position with their friends as his enemies, forced to physically reckon that keeping them in this loop is an act of violence, against both their friends, and against himself.

It's a happy ending. But... what does it mean?

Of course, ISAT is obviously about the fear of change. Siffrin is afraid of the journey ending, and of being alone. However, ISAT is also a game about games. Siffrin is playing the same game, over and over, because it's comforting. It's familiar. It's nice, to know exactly what happens next. These characters might just be predictable lines of dialogue, but... they feel like friends. Have you ever played a game, loved it, put countless hours into it, but you never finished it? Because you just couldn't bear to see it end? For the characters to leave your life, for there to be a void in your heart where the game used to be?

After all, maybe it became part of your routine! You play the game every day, slowly chipping away at it for weeks at a time. For me, I beat ISAT in four days. It utterly consumed me during this time. I had 36 hours of playtime by the end. Yeah, in that week, I did not do much more than play ISAT.

And once i beat it, i beat it, again. I restarted the game to see the few scenes I missed, most specifically the secret boss I won't talk about here. I... couldn't let go of the game yet. I wanted to see every scrap I could. I still do. I'm writing this, in part because I still do. It's scary to let go.

Ever heard the joke term of "Postgame Depression?" It's when you just beat a game, and you're suddenly sad. Maybe because the ending affected you emotionally and you need to process the feelings it invoked, or you search for something that can now fill your time with it gone.

The game ends, for real this time, the last time you talk to the Head Housemaiden. But Siffrin gets... scared. What if everything loops back again? And so, his family offers to hold his hand. They face the end, together.

For all loops, including the ending, you never see what happens after. After they leave the loop for good. Because the loop is the game itself. It's asking you to trust that life goes on for these characters, and it holds your hand as it asks you to let go. There's a reason for Siffrin's theater metaphors. He is the actor, and the director, asking everyone to do it over one more time. He's a character within the game, and its player.

There's a reason I talked about endgame content. This, the way it all repeats, there's nothing new, difficulty and stakes bleed away as you snap the game over your knee - it's my copy of White 2 with two hundred hours in it. It's me playing Fire Emblem Awakening in under 3 hours while skipping every cutscene. Are you playing for the sake of play, for the sake of indulging in your memories, because you're afraid of the hole it'll leave when you stop?

Of note: the narrative never condemns Siffrin for unwittingly causing their own suffering. He's a victim of circumstance. It's seen as endearing, even, that Siffrin loves their friends to the point of rather seeing the world destroyed than them gone. But Siffrin is also told: we'll stay with you for now, but we'll part ways eventually. And one day, you'll have to be okay with it.

Stop draining the things you love of every ounce of enjoyment just because you're afraid of what happens next. I'm not saying to never play your favorite games again. Playing ISAT a second time, I still had a lot of fun! I saw so many new things I didn't before, and I enjoyed myself immensely, reading the same dialogue over and over. But... it makes me look at other games I love and still play, and makes me ask... is this still fun? Do I still need to play this game to enjoy it? Even writing this is an afterimage of my enjoyment, but it's a new way to interact with the game, to analyze it through this lens. Fuck, man, I write fanfiction. Look at me.

All of this, fanart, fanfic, analysis, is a way to prolong that enjoyment without making yourself suffer for it. Without just going through the motions of enjoyment without actually experiencing any. But one day, the thing you love won't be fun to talk and write and draw about. And it's okay. You'll have new things to love. I promise.

In the end.... I'm certain I'll replay ISAT one day. Between great writing, art, puzzles and unresolved mysteries, it's my shoe-in for game of the year.

But I won't replay it for quite some time. I've had enough, for now, so I let my love take other forms.

Siffrin is never condemned, because love is no evil. Be it love for another person, or for a game. And please, if you're overempathetic - it's still a game, at the end of the day. The great thing about games is that you can always boot them up again, no matter how long its been.

A circle within a circle indeed.

To summarize:

The repetitiveness of ISAT's combat, lack of new enemies, and Siffrin's ever increasing strength eventually allows you to snap the combat over your knee, rendering it irrelevant and boring. Though this may seem counterproductive at first, it perfectly mirrors how Siffrin has also grown bored with these repeated encounters and views them only as an obstacle to get past. The reflection of Siffrin's own tiredness with the player's annoyance increases the compassion the player has for Siffrin as a character.

Additionally, the endgame state of the combat system serves as commentary on the state of a favorite game played too often, much like how Siffrin has unwittingly trapped themself in the loop. Despite the game having no more challenge or content left to over, a player might return to their favorite game anyway, solely to try and recreate the early experience of actually having fun with it. This ties into ISAT's metanarrative about the fear of change and refusal to let go of comfort even when the object (here, your favorite video game) offering that comfort has become utterly bereft of any substance to actually engage with. Playing for the sake of playing, with no actual investment to keep going besides your own memories.

Later on, stripping away even the pretense of strategy for a "press button and wait" format of final bosses highlights the lack of options at Siffrin's disposal and truly forces the player into their shoes. Truly, the only way to win is to stop playing.

[rabbitsrants]

PROOF THAT SHINRAN IS ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN ROMANCES OF ALL TIME - PART 4

symbolism

disclaimer: gosho's imagery is subtle and therefore often overlooked, so in order to highlight it, i'll be referencing the work of suzanne collins, an author who tends to spell out her metaphors more

sharks

chapter 882-884

how the case begins:

how it progresses:

this isn't gosho's first time exploring the theme of sharks in the manga:

chapter 311

both shinichi and haibara relate to sharks, they're self-admittedly drawn to blood and darkness. but why?

haibara was born into it, she didn't have a choice... and even though she's no longer a part of the black organization, she still carries the past with her.

shinichi on the other hand? he seeks it out. he directly confronts it, because he wants to defeat it. his unfaltering idealism is what pushes him to be a shark.

ran is very idealistic too, which i talk about here. so why doesn't she act like a shark?

"Finnick knows then what Haymitch and I know. About Peeta. Being truly, deep-down better than the rest of us." - Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire Chapter 19

the closest that gosho comes to spelling it out like this, is haibara's line about ran "i'm up against dolphin, one of the most loveable creatures in the ocean"

ran's defined by more than her virtuous nature, she's also unbelievably compassionate and sensitive. that's what makes her a dolphin.

her unmatched kindness is constantly displayed throughout the whole manga.

sometimes it irks shinichi:

chapter 787

sometimes it hurts him:

but most of the time it baffles and touches him:

chapter 258

now i'm going to say something that might be controversial: from what i've gathered, shinichi doesn't just appreciate ran's tender heart... he depends on it.

and i'm not saying that lightly, i'm aware that ran's caring nature affects a lot of dcmk characters - it's the reason why vermouth calls her an angel, why haibara refers to her as a dolphin and sees her as a sister figure, hell, it's the reason why kogoro's able to function most of the time.

but i'd still argue that nobody relies on it the way shinichi does, which brings me to the next symbol i want to analyze:

cherry blossom

flowers can represent a variety of concepts, depending on your source and in what context you use them for your writing. the same rule applies to cherry blossoms.

gosho's used it as symbol for justice in the past:

chapter 687

it's interesting to look at it through that lense, but i don't think that's what the cherry blossom represents for shinichi.

after doing some research, i came to the realization that cherry blossoms are widely believed to symbolize hope and the beginning of spring.

i think that interpretation makes a lot more sense for shinran. especially if we examine their first interaction:

chapter 924

shinichi shows ran his deduction skills to impress her... ironically he ends up impressing everyone but her. shinichi's condescension leads to a full-blown argument:

but then something completely unexpected happens... despite the fact that they don't know each other, despite the fact that shinichi insults ran, despite the fact that ran's completely put off by his arrogance, despite all of that... she offers him a cherry blossom and along with it the kindest smile he's ever seen:

and i just can't help feeling like ran's cherry blossom is symbolically very similar to suzanne's dandelion:

"I found him staring at me  from across the school yard. Our eyes met for only a second, then he turned his head away. I dropped my gaze, embarrassed, and that’s when I saw it. The first dandelion of the  year. A bell went off in my head. I thought of the hours spent  in the woods with my father and I knew how we were going to  survive.  To this day, I can never shake the connection between this  boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the  dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed. And more  than once, I have turned in the school hallway and caught his  eyes trained on me, only to quickly flit away." - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games Chapter 3

"What I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that." Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay Chapter 27

and clearly, only ran can give that to shinichi...

let me further elaborate by revisiting the shark analogy:

the most beautiful dolphin in the sea sees a shark like him, calls him out on his bluff and instead of avoiding him, she actually welcomes him. ran shows him genuine affection, despite having so many reasons not to. how could he not fall for her?

for someone like shinichi, a cool shark who's able to recognize other predators in the sea from such a young age, seeing the innocence and warmth of a dolphin is pivotal for him, because it reminds him that there's so much more to life than constantly familiarizing himself with other sharks (in his childhood by reading and later by investigating them)... there's good too.

to summarize... shinichi sees a delicate cherry blossom, a gentle dolphin and holds on to her for dear life. he desperately clings to the promise of hope and spring, he depends on her affection and warmth. he needs ran, because without her winter would never end, he'd never escape to coldness of the sea, he'd freeze.

which explains why

a) he's so protective of her

b) ran's smile serves as a compass for shinichi throughout the whole story - while his mind is busy chasing sharks, shinichi's soul is persistently searching for the same smile that strummed his heartstrings all these years ago. which is why he immediately notices when ran's not okay (even though she's very skilled at concealing her pain) and why he always tries to make her feel better

and that's ultimately why

a) shinichi's keeping his identity a secret

b) he's so focused on getting his old body back

without ran, shinichi wouldn't have a constant inner conflict as conan, without her, he'd lack purpose and as a result, detective conan would be empty and lifeless.

ran's not just a love interest y'all...

she's the heart of the entire manga.

visit the shinran library for more

[lilislegacy]

an analysis: piper calling percy unimpressive

(warning: i wrote this at 1 am)

so basically

remember how we all despised piper mclean when she had the audacity to call our beloved percy “unimpressive” and we all lost our shit on the inside a little bit?

i truly don’t think she meant it in the way we think she did. i think we’re all just defensive of our boy.

piper clearly states that she is comparing percy to jason. first of all, jason is her boyfriend, so of course she’s biased. second of all, hera was manipulating piper to be obsessed with jason. so other guys and girls are automatically unimpressive to her.

and here’s the big thing: piper does not call him unattractive. she does not call him ugly. she simply says he’s not her type. piper is clearly attracted to the “good boy” look. jason is literally your all-american boy. he’s tall with light skin, a sturdy build, neat blonde hair, and blue eyes. part of why annabeth doesn’t trust him is because she is unsettled by his “perfect” appearance. jason is also obedient and well-mannered. he’s your standard good boy.

and the fact of the matter is: percy looks like a “bad boy”. and often, he acts like one too. him and jason are contrasts of each other. a symbolic representation of this: their features. percy has a darker complexion, messy black hair, unique green eyes, and a “sarcastic troublemaker smile.” he’s muscular, but in a leaner and more trim way. he’s tall, but he’s not a towering muscleman by any means. not that jason is either, but don’t forget, percy is a whole one. inch. (GASP) shorter than jason (which to me isn’t even noticeable, so her pointing it out as a flaw just proves that she’s so incredibly biased towards jason.) their other big contrasting feature: their personalities. jason is respectful and well-mannered. very obedient and under control. percy, however, makes jokes during inappropriate moments, talks back to people of power and authority, gets angry quickly, and loses control easily. i mean, literally right after she says this, percy starts insulting the roman god Bacchus and rapidly escalates a situation because of his natural instinct to be disobedient. piper is horrified by him doing this, especially because jason would never. does it make US all love percy very much? yes. but piper isn’t us.

THAT SAID, even she can’t actually call him unattractive. she even went as far to state that she can see why annabeth likes him, which means even her magically-obsessed-with-jason brain can still recognize his attractiveness and see why girls find him appealing. she calls him “cute in a scruffy way,” meaning she thinks that he’s got a disheveled attractiveness to him. she also once said that his pleading eyes are like a cute baby seal’s - even she can’t deny that his eyes are wonderful. so even though piper calls him unimpressive, i think rick put in a lot of clues here showing us that she acknowledges him as a conventionally attractive person, even if she’s not personally attracted to him.

let’s sum it up, shall we?

what does it say about percy? absolutely nothing. piper calling percy unimpressive is an inaccurate and unreliable source when it comes to analyzing percy’s physical appearance, especially if you don’t consider the context. this was rick’s way of showing piper’s clear preference towards jason, just like annabeth has a clear preference towards percy. and even though she said this, rick also made her give us several hints that percy is handsome, just not in a way she’s inclined towards. rick wanted love triangles to be completely out of the question with these 4. he wanted to make it very clear that annabeth had no interest in jason, and that piper had no interest in percy. so since piper is so drawn towards jason, percy had to be very different from him in her eyes.

jason is your a superman, percy is your batman

jason is your captain america, percy is your iron man. some even say spider man.

so put yourself in piper’s shoes: after hearing percy jackson’s name non-stop for 6 months, hearing him compared to jason, hearing of all his accomplishments and how heroic he is - i mean, the guy was literally honored on olympus and offered godhood - she was expecting a stereotypical good-boy hero. a hercules. a superman. your standard muscular blinding-white-teeth-smile hunk. the conventional, well-mannered good boy. and instead she got a wild and untamed, trouble-making bad boy. percy has an edge to him. he’s intimidating and unpredictable. he’s sarcastic and witty. he just looks like he’s up to no good. she wasn’t expecting any of that. that’s not what we’re taught a hero is supposed to be like or look like.

jason is appealing in a “he’d be a respectable and sturdy husband” way.

percy is appealing in a “he’s gonna fuck up my life but i so badly want him to” kind of way. (even though once you get to know him, you see he’s literally the world’s best boyfriend. piper even gets jealous of how loving he is towards annabeth.)

she had this exact idea of what he would be, and he wasn’t that. hence her calling him “unimpressive.” but it says nothing about his attractiveness.

i rest my case, your honor.

thank you for coming to my ted talk

disclaimer: i am not saying percy is actually a bad boy or a bad guy. he is a sweetheart. he has the biggest heart ever. he’s a cute little cinnamon roll. i am simply talking of first impressions from outsiders, and how he appears if you don’t know him.

[theninth09]

people dont actually believe that theo killed his sister, do they?

like okay. the entire pack and probably theo himself think that hes responsible for her death, but the pack hates him and doesnt trust him for valid reasons and theo is traumatized and holds guilt over her death so hes probably convinced himself that he did kill her. i just dont believe thats true.

in s5b when hes with stiles in the tunnels (i forgot why they're down there but whatever) and stiles tells him "oh yeah, the guy that killed his own sister when he was nine?" and theo argues back "yeah. i was nine. i had no idea what was going on." and that he also still believed santa exists so obviously he believed the dread doctors when they told him she wanted him to have his heart.

first of all: this is s5b. hes long dropped his act and he has no reason to lie in this moment. he knows that stiles wont fall for his lies and hes stopped lying and transitioned into threatening and intimidating anyway. theres no good reason for theo to lie to stiles here: theres no actual benefit that would come from that.

and his behavior points towards him telling the truth. instead of deflecting or making a joke, or any of the stuff he usually does to get his way, he starts explaining and defending himself. he seems almost agitated that stiles claims that he did kill tara and argues why he didnt.

and ofc stiles doesnt believe him and tells him "i think you pushed her. i think you liked it." which is, sorry, utter bullshit. i understand why stiles says this (yk. theo killed his bffie and all that) but i think stiles is purposely turning everything that he knows about theo into something evil. he doesnt want to believe that theo was a victim of his circumstances, because that would make him human, that would explain why he became the person that he is. its easier to fall back onto the "hes just purely evil" argument, because then he can hate theo for what he did.

stiles is smart. thats his whole thing. thats his whole thing with theo, that he was "smart enough not to trust him" as theo says to the sheriff in s6a. stiles knows that theo was a child, that its likely that theo got manipulated and groomed by the dread doctors. but, i think, he decides not to care about that, to ignore that. he hates theo and he wants to hate theo, but if he starts looking at the reasons for why he did what he did, he'll begin to understand him. and while he'll still never forgive theo, that will reduce this fury he has for him because, newsflash, theo was a CHILD.

people argue that tw doesnt show us enough of his back story to back this up and yeah, i kinda agree. we dont get enough of his story because teen wolf ALWAYS does this. with every character. they insinuate something, they start something interesting that could give their characters depth and then they abandon it and its like the characters just forget about it. all this show has is small details for fans to focus on if you want to analyze anything, because this show is objectively not good enough to actually do that.

+ theo is a side character. he wasnt even meant to stay as long as he did and cody did his best to work with the material. if your argument is that theres missing context and only vaguely shown stuff, im sorry but thats so stupid. thats not a good argument for in canon. "oh but we never see theo do this or that" HES A SIDE CHARACTER. he wasnt even supposed to come back! and tw is not a very good show! obviously they added more depth to his character in s6 because cody came back. like yeah theres stuff that doesnt make sense (like the show saying he didnt have a heart condition), because his back story got added as an afterthought in s6. you cant only look at s5 and judge his character based on that. his depth comes from s6 and its not the characters fault that the show has bad writing.

and if you simply dont like theo, cool. i dont like a bunch of characters in tw. but i find this argument that hes actually evil and deserved getting tortured and whatever exhausting and annoying.

if you dont have empathy for his character in s6 bc you just hate him, fine. i dont care. but if you're talking about this in a more analytical way? fuck off. he was a child, the show points towards him getting groomed and abused by the dread doctors and guess what? even during his villain arc, hes still a child. yes he should take responsibility for what he did, im not excusing any of that stuff. but theres reasons for why he did all that.

and again, dumb tv logic reasons, but most of the villains getting away unscathed, fucking peter hale and deucalion being allowed to just kinda wander around while theo is in an eternal time loop of torture? like this technically erases the packs rule of not killing because i dont think its weird for me to argue that getting non-stop tortured without the ability to die is objectively worse than actually dying. and yeah, tv logic, but if you think that (in canon, not just bc you personally dont like theo) he deserved that, idk. weird. very weird.

[uniquepeanutcreatorfire]

Hazbin Hotel vs. The Purge

Today, I'm going to examine and analyze HH's annual extermination by comparing it to another fictional event that I feel is similar in terms of ethical dilemma or morality, the annual purge in The Purge movie franchise. For those who haven't seen the movies, the purge is a 12-hour annual event where all crimes are legal.

Let's start with the purge and what's known about it:

Cause(s): Multiple wars led to an economic collapse and rising social unrest.

Rules: Here's a screenshot-

Outcome(s):  As a result, crime and unemployment rates plummeted to 1% and there's a strong economy. It's seen as a way for people to release their violent tendencies and aggression.

Implication(s): Lower, working classes are specifically targeted as they don't have the protection that upper classes can afford during the purges.

Sounds simple enough (there's more to it, if you don't want to watch all the movies, here's a link to the trilogy explained).

Now moving on to the annual extermination in HH.

Cause(s): This is confusing. The pilot initially presented that the exterminations were due to overpopulation in Hell. However, the actual show doesn't show any hints that the population is rapidly increasing, or overpopulation is causing any issues in Hell. The first episode stated that Heaven started exterminations to ensure sinners never rise against them. I don't see how that's possible since there aren't accessible ways to Heaven from Hell. Lucifer, a former angel, had to get permission from Heaven to get a temporary portal for Charlie so how do you think sinners are going to get up there to be a threat in the first place? Also, I wanted to point out that Charlie's plan to send sinners to Heaven only makes sense if overpopulation was actually a problem. Since there isn't anywhere else to place sinners other than the Pride ring. However, the narrative suggest otherwise.

Rules: It's not clear what the rules are for annual exterminations other than the exorcists can't kill the royal family or hellborns. Is it on a set date and time? Do exorcists go inside buildings? We see that the exterminations take place outside. This begs the question why don't sinners just hide and barricade themselves to avoid getting killed? There could be news broadcast reminding sinners of an upcoming extermination so they can be prepared.

Outcome(s): It's not clear how the exterminations affect Hell's society since the show never gives a glimpse of that. If overpopulation is an issue, it doesn't seem to help at all. Sinners don't seem to care and go on about their business. Let's not explore those who may have lost friends or loved ones. There are also the overlords who lose souls.... poor them, I guess. We can't forget the most important thing...... it's makes Charlie sad.

Implication(s): Heaven apparently never thought this would build hatred towards them, very smart. This is why Adam ended up dead. I want to bring up Lilith being the one who empowered sinners. Since she's been removed from the equation for seven years, what's the point in Heaven doing exterminations anymore? The only message I get from it is "genocide bad". But why is genocide bad in the context of the Hellaverse? There have been killings in HB/HH that are considered no big deals (including humans the imps kill on Earth that contribute to HH's problem further). There's also the black market for angelic weapons that's never brought up. I'm just not invested in the sinners as a whole to care.

Conclusion: The extermination is an interesting concept that can be explore in many aspects like The Purge. It's just not much thought went into it which makes it less compelling.

[ladymacbeths]

macbeth related posts/articles/essays masterlist

hi! here's a list of almost every single anaysis Thing I've come across in like two months of being insane about the scottish play. Most are about lady macbeth/the gender theme btw.

‘He has no children’: The centring of grief in The Show Must Go Online’s Macbeth - Gemma Allred: on the misogyny that frequently surrounds conversations around Lady Macbeth

this post by @amillionmillionvoices: Same topic as the previous one, but goes more in depth, explains ladymac’s motivations as mostly coming from love not self-serving ambition.

this post by @dukeofbookingham: also explains the prior point very prettily— that ladymac is (mostly) motivated by love, but also makes the case that many of it is guilt born from not fulfilling societal expectations

On the character of Lady Macbeth - Dr. Emil Pfundheler: paper that explains the same point made in the previous post, using the text to explain. Written in 1873 so explains gender as a dichotomy, but once you take that out, its points are very good.

Characteristics of women: moral, political, and historical - Anna Jameson: aka Why Lady Macbeth is not inherently evil— same topic and the other two, but focuses a bit on the fact that she is A Woman. Not my favorite, but worth reading I suppose. Also includes analyses of many female Shakespeare characters. It does include some very bad history in the beginning— Gruoch did not orchestrate Duncan’s murder. That’s something Hector Boece made up.

Lady Macbeth: “Infirm of purpose” (from The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare) - Joan Larsen Klein: on how she both fits and doesn’t fit the idea of a reinassance wife— doesn’t fit because she isn’t aligned to god (this read more like a Christian analysis than a feminist one if I’m being honest), but fits them because she behaves like one, only subverts them because she’s like, the evil murder girl version of the Wife. The essay right after this one is also very good.

The Hysteria of Lady Macbeth: required reading if you wanna play her Btw not kidding. Analyzes her character thru the lens of freudian psychology. Screws up the text of the play a bit but provides an actual in-depth explanation of how sonnambulism works. Note that "hysteria" is not a current psychological diagnosis, but a symptom of other conditions. Still extremely interesting.

The Macbeths - G. K. Chesterton: analysis of their relationship, makes some interesting point on the differences of the nature of their ambition and desire to kill the king

Shakespeare’s tragic frontier; the world of his final tragedies - Willard Farnham: this one is long but oh boy does it go deep. Talks about the lore of the witches, explains historical context to find out how the real events were so screwed up, makes an interesting point about Macbeth’s conscience against Lady Macbeth’s, and lastly talks about the tragic world of Macbeth compared to other tragedies.

Women’s fantasy of manhood: a Shakespearean theme - D. W. Harding: exactly what it says on the tin, using ladymac and her skewed (and I’d call romanticized) idea of what a man is that she pushes on Macbeth. So yeah, talks about the gender theme. Also talks about Goneril from Lear, Cleopatra, and Volumnia from Coriolanus and how they fit the theme— although ladymac is the only one who goes downhill from it.

Unnatural women in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth - Elizabeth Klett: I’ll be honest I didn’t love this one a lot. Basically talks about how every woman in Macbeth defies gender roles. Doesn’t go too deep however. But the book has a ton of essays analyzing female characters in classic lit.

[stephpotterart]

I had a thought about Nandor and the perceived himbo dumbass nature of him, and now I'm thinking and I have to write it out.. It's kind of stream-of-consciousness, so please bear with me 😅

Yes, I love the occasional dumb-as-a-post nature of him, it makes him a big, less than scary (you know, to a point) teddy bat of a Vampire. But... it's also not accurate for his history?

Like, absolutely you can be highly educated and still dumb-as-a-post, but I don't think that's what's going on with Nandor.

Let's just... look at his overall behaviour for a moment. Nandor gets into periodic, strong, obsessions that come on like a wildfire, then burn out. We can see the evidence of this with his sudden desire to join Jan's cult with extremely little evidence and knowledge of what he's getting himself into. Yes, the brainwashing came once he was there, but it was mild, fairly transparent, manipulation that got him thinking about it. He latched onto it and pinned his entire persona and future upon the cult at the drop of a pin. There's also the same behaviours circling with his relationship with Gail. When he is with Gail, she is everything, and nothing else matters much - not how his friends feel, not how much Gail has continually hurt him in the past, his focus is purely on her and almost worshipping her.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this behaviour, other than the fact that it has continually caused Nandor to break his own heart.

I'd argue that these examples, and other behaviours shown by him throughout the current five seasons, point to a prevalence for hyperfixations, and undiagnosed neurodivergence of some form. Which form that neurodivergence takes, well that's up to interpretation. Which, means that once a hyperfixation ends or is ended for him, that interest just dies off. It can come back, but it's not the all-consuming interest that it had been.

So with this in mind, lets look at his human history, with the neurodivergence in mind, for context about his intelligence and his education.

Nandor was born in the 13th century, in an Islamic nation, and likely to a family of renown or nobility. If he was not, then he himself earned that ranking, renown, and nobility for his family. But, lets just say that he was already born into a family of some privilege.

Whether it's through his family's ranking, or his show of military prowess, Nandor ends up ruling his country... at the age of seventeen. This is not placement for a man of little-to-no education. Whether it was from a very young age, or not, Nandor would have been surrounded by tutors from the reaches of both his Kingdom and the rest of the world, in order to best prepare him for what his life would be. Whether it was from a tender age, or once he was already designated as future Supreme Viceroy, Nandor would have been in classes whenever he was not training on the field of battle.

Nandor would have been educated in multiple languages, beyond his own native Farsi. He would have been taught Latin, and Greek for certain. He would have been educated and well read in the Classics, in order to learn statecraft and political strategizing. He would have been incredibly well-read (I would argue that much of the library in the Vampire Residence, other than the outright pornography which is likely thanks to Laszlo, is Nandor's centuries long collection), and able to analyze those works in order to show comprehension of what does and does not work as a ruler. And he must have been successful, as he clearly ruled from the age of 17 until at least his turning at the age of 41. Even without years as a Vampiric Viceroy (debatable if he was ruling as a Vampire, or if he joined the Ottoman forces once he was Vampire and had been exiled from his homeland), that's 24 successful years on his throne.

Back to the languages for a moment; even though the show canonically ignores that Nandor was born during the Mongol rule of Persia, he would have likely been taught Mongolian as well. Along with the exposure to Mongol culture, and the opening of Mongolian empire, comes tutors from further lands. Nandor would have likely been taught Medieval French, Italian, and it's not out of the question to suppose that he was also taught Middle English. It is the knowledge of Middle English which may explain his troubles with modern English. Not because much of Middle English was retained by Modern English, but... imagine you already learned a language, and now you're expected to learn it again just because the people decided in the late 1400s that they were changing the way they speak in that place. That would personally make me give up on learning it perfectly, which I rather suspect Nandor, who would be highly capable of multiple languages at that point, did as well. He can speak just fine, he just didn't care to put the level of effort into the acquisition of those skills the same way as he had previously. If he drops words here and there, it doesn't matter - you can still understand him just fine, and well, that's how it works in all these other languages!

Nandor would have been educated in more than just languages and the Classics. He would have been taught world history (as it was known at that point), he would have been taught arithmetic, astronomy, and other 'sciences' as they existed at that time.

There is no reason that Nandor's education would have slipped through the cracks. it simply would not have been allowed, especially not for the Supreme Viceroy.

So, Nandor is a highly educated man, who happens to be neurodivergent as all get out. He must have had his interests. His hyperfixations. Hell, it's right in his epithet: The Relentless.

Let's pause for a moment and look to Laszlo Cravensworth as our main point of comparison with knowledge of 'the sciences'.

Laszlo is from the 17th century at earliest, and 18th century most likely. He was a noble of some standing, hence why it was unthinkable that he marry a "common, peasant, girl with no family name". He, too, would have been highly educated to the standards of his time. All of that said, it's rather clear that Laszlo's general knowledge of the sciences does not exceed passed the mid-19th century (arguments can be made that it peters out around the 1930s if we factor in psychology and include the advancement of cinema from the 1890s on).

This means that Laszlo didn't keep up with the advancements in the sciences after a certain point, right around the time it was advancing faster and faster, and the ability to keep up became more and more difficult, given the inability to attend classes during daylight hours, etc. Let's also not forget that Laszlo dabbles in the sciences, viewing his knowledge as more of a novelty than anything necessary. He absolutely knows how to use his knowledge, but it's all good fun!

Nandor wouldn't have had the luxury to view his education as a novelty or as fun. It was essential to his title, his rank, and his continued rule.

Leap of faith here, but I'm going to assume that for a good deal of time, Nandor continued to view his education in this way. Especially with an eternity in front of him, he'd have to keep up with the times and keep learning, as best to blend in, and as best to rule should he ever rise up and crush the world under his boot once more.

I suspect that he only started to loose interest in keeping up sometime around the mid-18th century. Perhaps even as Laszlo was coming onto the scene. Not because of Laszlo, but because he was already settled more into his existence. He didn't really expect to rule again, even if he still boasts and brags, it doesn't appear to be in Nandor's nature now to even want that level of responsibility, not really, if he ever did. He likely had it thrust upon him and was just expected to continue.

If he simply burned out, it would be completely understandable that he'd no longer keep up-to-date with how knowledge changes and things advance. But, maybe something happened that made him want to abandon all that work and effort to keep his education as finely tuned as it had been?

It was mentioned that a joke was cut from Season 1 that Nandor had been in a threesome/throuple with both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. We're not positive of the years, but we can assume it was at least during the Revolution, and a bit after (he does canonically mention Washington as America's First Gay President).

But, lets go out on a limb and assume he was with them, or at least Benjamin Franklin, earlier than that. Maybe he was around during Franklin's experiments with electricity.

Maybe Nandor was present for Benjamin's kite experiment in 1752.

Nandor, at this point, would have had at least 470 years of knowledge regarding the natural world, history, languages, sciences, and religion. Introduce the power of electricity and the behaviour of lightning, and now he has dots connecting in his mind, he has context for some of the things he did not understand when he was learning originally. His interest is piqued, his mind engaged, and now he's finding another hyperfixation.

And he has questions.

Perhaps Nandor starts asking multitudes of questions, excited by eletricity, electrical fire, and all the historical and religious (as much as he can voice without saying certain words that make his tongue burn just as painfully as 'sky fire') implications of this discovery.

He askes so many questions, and no one can answer them because the research doesn't exist yet. His excitement and curiosity, without the ability to learn why annoys him and makes his obsession a flaw to those around him. They think him obtuse - he can't think of anything else, and when he's frustrated he breaks things. He doesn't mean to, but between his Vampiric strength, large hands, and a temper... sometimes small instruments break. Eventually this becomes detrimental, and not as sweet or naive as his interests were once viewed. Benjamin starts to see Nandor as the volatile Warlord from history, and not as the innocent and curious man he had met originally. He starts to see his curiosities as burdensome and annoying.

Without meaning to, Nandor's curiosity and hyperfixation has caused everyone around him to withdraw, as they look at him with derision.

Annoyed, the people around him start to tell him to find something new to pass his time with. Viewing him now as more volatile and violent than they had, they start making comments about him being better at fighting and warfare than with books. He's obviously the Brawn and not the Brain.

It hurts Nandor. His interests are disregarded, his questions met with disdain. He's treated as a hapless child and not the well educated and knowledgeable man that he is.

He's seen as only the beast with too many questions for his own good, for his mind to contend with.

He's seen as uneducated, without ever thinking of his human history and how that is simply not possible. He's seen as better for the battlefield than for the classroom, no matter that he is now more at home in a library than he is with a sword in his hand.

He's accused of simply having "random, fleeting, interests", that won't last long enough for him to actually learn anything that he'll retain. It's easier to insult him than admit his questions were worth asking, but that they have no answers for him. It's easier to turn him away than admit to him that they too don't know. Easier to blame him for a crime he hasn't even committed, than ask if he'd like to help or lend a thought given his years of experience.

So, relegated to the only the soldier and not the diplomat, or the scholar, Nandor stops asking questions. He stops allowing himself his interests and his hyperfixations, at least when it comes to furthering his education, so that does not upset those around him.

He stops furthering his education, beyond what he manages to glean and absorb from his daily life as an immortal being. He makes himself smaller because he's been told he's not smart enough to be asking those sort of questions. He's been told he's too much, even in that aspect of his life, as he's been told time and time again by the people around him that don't view him as anything other than a luxury to be used and abused, and ultimately abandoned when he no longer serves their purposes.

Even if Nandor abandoned all further learning, beyond what he acquires organically and accidentally, in approximately 1760, that's still a scholarly history of nearly 500 years.

Nandor is not stupid. He's not dumb. His reference materially is simply out of date, or in out of date languages. He hasn't been given a reason to want to continue his education after 500 years of learning.

I bet if you asked him any medieval knowledge question about, say, botany… he'd have an answer that is accurate. It might take him a few minutes because 762 years of knowledge and memories in that neurodivergent filing cabinet of a mind (that's how i refer to my own brain), but he has the answer.

Nandor is not stupid, or uneducated. He's not simply the Brawn without the Brain. He's just out-of-date, and neurodivergent. He might be dumb-as-a-post when it comes to social cues and modern slang, but it has nothing to do with his intelligence or his extensive education. He just needs someone to listen and care enough to nurture his curiosities, rather than dismiss them.

He just needs the right questions to be asked, he has the answers.

Just... don't give him very valuable and breakable instruments if you're not able or willing to replace them when he accidentally damages them.

Sorry for that wholeass essay, I just... I have feels for Nandor's depiction.

[mysterialistic]

Over-analyzing the Yingdu Chapter [PART 1]

This is just an analysis and theories based on all the stuff we've seen so far for this chapter. It's a long one so bare with me please!

[also, english isn't my first language. Excuse my bad grammar.]

Ok, first things first: the synopsis. I'll leave the image with the official plot for the Yingdu Chapter because it'll help make things a bit easier to understand.

To me this synopsis makes two things very clear.

Number one is that we're going to see how Cheng Xiaoshi died, aka, probably starting the season with the whole context of this scene from season 2 (one of my theories is that CXS died during a dive, but that's for another post lol):

And, of course, this scene right here too:

We're finally going to discover what's the photo LG uses. Given the fact that the synopsis mentions "back to the begging", it's probably a picture of LG and CXS when they met in high school or when they're in college, which, I must point out, they're still attending during the time they go to Yingdu. For the photo to be from their college years makes more sense if we take this into consideration.

Now, the second thing that the synopsis makes clear, is that this is Lu Guang's first attempt at saving Cheng Xiaoshi. Why? Well, for that we need to get into the recently released teaser.

The teaser shows us that Lu Guang is having some sort of nightmare. Some believe that this is a real thing, but to me it seems way too abstract (also it makes sense considering all the drowning symbolism they've shown us). The nightmare could possibly start with the flashback of Cheng Xiaoshi's death, leading to Lu Guang falling into the water, sinking as he's surrounded by photos (btw, the pictures have pieces of the postcard with a building that CXS places on the table during the teaser, but we'll discuss that in a minute), then he appears in this weird place with a clock and the word "Bridon" written with red strings (threads of fate?)

Lu Guang once again falls into the water and then he sees a white light, tries to reach it and Vein appears saying: "you want more punishment?", which aligns with this text on the teaser:

Lu Guang wakes up scared, extremely nervous, very different from the composed LG that we know. To me this reaction is due to this being his first attempt at saving Cheng Xiaoshi. He doesn't know what to expect, he just broke his rules and someone knows it. Even worse, someone wants to punish him for doing so.

Now, let's go to another interesting point of the synopsis: "However, a photo with clues about CXS's parents appeared at the photo studio". This right here is tricky.

The "however" to me implies that this is something that has never happened before. A mysterious deviation of the "path of fate" that Lu Guang "retraces" (like the synopsis says). Now, what is this picture that contains clues? Apparently, it's this one:

It's a building)? And this probably also contains some sort of letter or note with information about Cheng Xiaoshi's parents, specifically his dad who's name is mentioned by Liu Xiao as he interrogates the grown man.

Another interesting thing to point out is that one of the texts on the teaser says "HE may be in Yingdu!" I'm pretty sure it's CXS talking about his dad.

Something that caught my attention is that in this section of the teaser, where they show CXS placing the postcard in the table, he and QL are fighting)? Is she maybe suspicious about this sudden clue? Does she have a bad feeling?

Ok, Tumblr doesn't let me put more images, so I'll continue in PART 2

[genericpuff]

Re: RS’s relentless sexualization of nymphs: I seriously think she misunderstands something critical, and she confuses a nymph of Greek mythology with the nymphette trope.

If she assumes that all nymphs are supposed to fit the trope of the nymphette, that could be why she thinks that nymphs basically have no other roles in the city besides seductive personal assistant and sugar baby (cause it seems like that’s all she wants nymphs to do).

She made it clear from the beginning that she viewed nymphs with a very limited scope, and Leuce’s character assassination further proves it.

listen ok

that's just

that's some fridge horror level contemplation that i don't even know where to begin to dissect

sigh

Okay, context for anyone unaware: it's pretty much been proven outside of clear confirmation from Rachel that a lot of her influence in how she writes Hades and Persephone (and her stuff prior to LO) came from Lolita, which is quoted in SEVERAL places to be her favorite movie/book. Now the problem with Lolita being someone's favorite piece of media is that you have to stop and ask why. Is it because it's a genuinely compelling work that makes you analyze certain behaviors that the creator is trying to send a message about? Or is it because you think it's a romance? For Rachel, it really seems to fall into the latter camp, especially when you see how aspects of the book are put into Hades and Persephone - a huge age gap, the infantilization of Persephone, the fetishization of innocence, etc. This is something that goes back even further than LO if you look (it's also apparent in The Doctor Pepper Show), but LO is definitely a shining example of it, especially in how subtle but obvious it is when you really look at it critically and compare the two. A term that's often used in the book and movie adaption is 'nymphet', which is the term the main character (who is a GROOMER AND A PEDOPHILE, btw) uses to describe young girls, including the 14 year old who he's attracted to.

Granted, I don't want to assume that's what Rachel did here, I feel like it does enter the territory of reaching, BUT it's still very interesting food for thought especially when we know what we do about Rachel and her obvious misinterpretation of Lolita as some kind of romance. That's some fridge horror shit, thanks for cursing my eyeballs, anon.

[candyskiez]

I like hearing ppl infodump n u seem like a cool bean. would u be willing to talk abt shou from mp100(?) a bit with just a lil context added in for someone who only has a passing familiarity with the show. side note: plural mob be based

SLAMS DOWN ON TABLE. Before I get into this I want to say this is not a Serizawa hate post. Because I am reading what I wrote and it sounds like it at points. It is not. I was writing what I think Shou feels about him. I love Serizawa and I love them being friends, this is me talking about Shou having complicated feelings about his trauma. Okay? Okay.

Okay okay so. Shou is the son of a guy who tried to take over the world, and his entire life was spent trying to stop him. And then someone did. Someone stopped Claw. His dad got locked up. And Shous whole life had been built around trying to stop him, he had zero time for anything else other than occasionally visiting his mom (who left when he was a kid. We don't know what happened. We don't know if she tried to take Shou with or not. All we know is that Shou kept her presence hidden from his dad. We don't know how Shou feels about his mom or if he lives with her after his dad gets locked up. We know he had adults who were also rebelling in claw (the organization his dad ran), and he seemed to trust them a lot. I like to imagine they're a weird family and like. I imagine there's some Shit there. I like to imagine at least one of them was kinda giving up on everything, not really caring one way or another about what happened to everyone because they're just. Done. But then this wide eyed idealist of a kid comes by and he wants to stop his dad, holy shit the boss has a kid, and the kid is taking all this on himself. Maybe they didn't think they could fix anything but they had to save this kid. Did they believe Toichiro could be stopped at all? What were they like? We don't know much about them. How many of them were just in it to protect the kid? In hopes that maybe that idealistic, weird little boy that stumbled over to them would come out of this still a good person? God. I'm sorry I'm emo about found family. Don't mind me.

And I'm just. Okay. Okay. I think so much about how we get to know what other claw members are up to after everything, but...not Shou. Besides in fan books and stage plays, we uh. We got very little. And that makes him very interesting to analyze.

I just. Always think about how Serizawa stopped Shou from hurting Toichiro and how Serizawa got a happier life. Does Shou ever resent Serizawa? I think so much about their potential claw dynamic. Maybe he was one of the few who was kind to him, but was so disgustingly *loyal* to his dad it made him feel sick to look at. Serizawa would bring him snacks if he looked upset but would always respond to any criticisms of his father with the same unwavering Faith in him. Serizawa would comfort him after he lost a training session, Serizawa shielded the man who hurt him the most. Serizawa was a victim, Serizawa turned a blind eye to him. He needed to save Serizawa, and Serizawa never saved him. Did he feel responsible for Serizawa?

I think he felt like it was his responsibility as Toichiro's son to be the one to stop him. He needed to save everyone. He needed to make things right. He wanted his dad to go back to being who he was before things got really bad. I feel like. At first, Toichiro was an okay dad. And that's why it hurt so bad when everything went to shit and he started being so fucking horrible. Because Shou knew he was fully fucking capable of not sucking and he CHOSE to treat them like this anyway. He couldn't recognize him. He was a stranger with his dad's face and he had no idea what he did. Did he ever think if he could just fix Toichiro his mom would come back? Everything would go back to normal if he could just make Toichiro be a good person again? How long did that thought last?

I just. I always think about how aimless Shou strikes me as being the few times we see him in season three. He doesn't know what to do now. He had this whole purpose and plan. And then it didn't work. He didn't stop his dad. Mob did. His dad's alive. His dad changed his mind, but he's arrested. His mom and dad aren't together. Everything feels like it's tied up in a neat little bow for everyone except for Shou.

Of course we know that's not the case, but Shou doesn't know. Shou doesn't know that Serizawa was fucking panicked about disobeying Reigen even when their lives depended on it, Shou doesn't know that Mob's haunted by that battle. So from his eyes, it's very likely that he thinks he's the only one who hasn't moved on.

He goes from being always so dramatic sounding in all his lines in s1 and 2 to in season three just sounding...so much less? I don't know how to describe it. He sounds so much less...well. Everything was over for him, y'know? He built his whole life around carefully avoiding his dad and saving everyone and being the hero and then. Everything's done, and he didn't have a plan for what he'd do after. It all seemed like the end of Everything, and that'd be it! Nothing after that. But it's all over and he still has to live. Now what? Now what does he do?

How is Serizawa a functioning adult with a JOB now? Minegeshi joined when they were a teenager, how are they just...okay now? How did everyone, EVERYONE else get to move on, but Shou couldn't? Everyone else got their nice little ending, and Shou has nowhere to go. Does he tell his mom everything? That his dad tried to kill him but suddenly decided fine okay murder is wrong now, not soon enough to never have done that to him? Does he ask if he can stay with her? Will his lackeys want anything to do with him? Will Ritsu Everything's done and nothing's over, not for Shou, but everyone just fucking moved on. Everyone seems to be a better person than him now. Everyone seems to be fine in a way Shou just isn't.

Not to get back on my Shou and Serizawa bullshit but. Do you ever think about Shou seeing him again. And having no fucking clue what to think. Serizawa is just ...fine now. Suddenly he's no longer the guy who trailed after his dad and did horrible things for his dad without a THOUGHT. Suddenly he's smart and responsible now. Suddenly he's soooo good now. Where was all that when he needed it? Where was this functional, kind guy when he was TWELVE and trying to stop fucking terrorists. Where was this guy he would've done ANYTHING to have on his side when he was trying to save everyone from the man who raised him. Where was he. Why did he change now. Why had EVERYONE changed now. Why was Minegeshi trying for Mob, not Shou. Why was Serizawa trying for Mob, not Shou. Why was Toichiro trying for Mob, not Shou. Why didn't he MATTER. Why had NO ONE cared that he was in hell, that he wanted things to be okay. What's that one line. "If [Serizawa/Toichiro] has truly changed, it means he was ALWAYS capable of change. It means that I just wasn't worth changing for." And like. Objectively that's not what happened, objectively there were other factors and Serizawa and Toichiro are on very different levels, but Shou is like. Barely thirteen. He's BARELY thirteen. He is a child and all he's gonna see is that nobody cared when he needed them to. And now he's lost and has no idea what to do and everyone's just fine. Like he didn't almost die. Like his dad didn't try to kill him. Like he wasn't in hell for twelve goddamn years. Like he hadn't tried to save everyone. He's thirteen. He's not handling this well.

I feel like he just. Has no clue how to be normal. He doesn't know who he is now. He doesn't know what to do. His whole life orbited around stopping his dad and now his dad is different and locked up and he can't see him all the time, and things were so much worse back then so why does everything feel worse now. He doesn't know who he is now. He doesn't know what he wants now. I think so much about he says hes never using his powers again. Is he just trying SO hard to be normal. That's what he decided he wants now. He wants to be a normal kid who has friends and that's the only way to do it. He didn't have a Reigen in his life who'd tell him like he told Mob that powers are just another attribute. Maybe one day he'll talk to his lackeys, and maybe they'll hold him and tell him that that's his choice but that his powers aren't a curse or a weapon, they're just a *trait.* Or maybe he won't. I don't know. It's just so fucking. God. Shou, man. Shou.

Maybe one day he comes to spirits and such for Ritsu and sees Serizawa. Maybe they fight. Maybe they don't. Maybe they'll talk. It's just. God. Shou has so many loose ends in his life. Is he just trying to leave claw behind by never using his powers again, like he might think everyone else did? He went from "I need to save the world" to "I need to be a normal person." Did he shave his hair to look normal or did he shave it after he had a long talk with a friend that made him reevaluate things. What happened to him. If he has the spirits and such crew still, maybe he'll end up realizing that his powers are just another part of him. Maybe he'll realize they're not a curse or another thing his dad shoved on him. God. Aughhh. Sorry for being ill about Shou and possibly ooc about him but. Aughh.

Once again this is not an anti Serizawa post. I love Serizawa. Shou however probably has some Issues and I like to address them and try to give him more closure. Because I love him. Again, sorry if this is ooc, I'm still trying to get a grasp on him. If anyone who has a better grasp on him wants to add anything PLEASE let me know. I do not fully understand this guy yet but I would love to try to

[sophiebaek]

Bridgerton TikTok Stats & Analysis 🐝🌸🤍

I’ve been observing the numbers of Bridgerton’s tiktok engagements and I see some pretty interesting things! For context I’ve just been certified for Social Media Management!

I’ll be going over the character videos that have been posted on the official tiktok! These will be listed by when they were posted.

1. Pen

12% of viewers liked

26% shared

Top commented words: Julie Andrews, Lady Whistledown, beautiful, Bridgerton

My thoughts: Interesting that Penelope was posted first since she is the “love interest” in a Bridgerton’s story; she is LW and has been a core character throughout the show though. She seems to be headlining this season compared to s2 where it was very much seen as Anthony’s story.

2. Colin, Eloise, Pen

16% of viewers liked

0.37% saved

Top commented words: Eloise, Colin, Penelope *Note: Eloise is the subject of the majority of top comments*

My thoughts: Not surprised this posts has the most views as it has the characters that will most likely take the bulk of screen time (Colin/Pen, Pen/Eloise)

3. Colin

15% of viewers liked

0.47% shared

Top commented words: Colin, Bridgerton, Whistledown

My thoughts: The male lead of the season having the least amount of engagement is…interesting, worrying? I have lots of thoughts about Colin as a character and how he’s been handled by the show (not well), so this is not surprising to me though.

4. Anthony & Kate

15% of viewers liked

0.6% saved

Top commented words: Viscountess, Kate, Anthony

My thoughts: Their second largest engagement are the Saves; I think this is due to the large amount of tiktok edits this paring has and it’s no doubt that they are a draw-in for the show as they were last season’s leads.

5. Benedict

Note: Benedict’s stats are due to change since his is the most recent post (as of writing this post now his video is currently at 3.9M views)

17% of viewers liked (highest rate of likes)

1% shared

Top commented words: Sophie, season, man

My thoughts: probably the most interesting (and surprising to some) of the bunch! His video was only posted a day ago and he has a larger viewership than both of the season leads (second behind Eloise) Benedict seems to bee the talk of the Ton! If he is the s4 lead, interest seems very promising ;) Also props to my girl Sophie for being mentioned even though the show is keeping her captive somewhere!

Leaderboard (by views):

Colin, Eloise, Pen

Eloise (didn’t analyze her) (4.6M)

Anthony & Kate

Benedict

Pen

Colin

[lucky-clover-gazette]

captive prince book 1 highlights & annotations

chapter 3

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

The Regent keeps him around. No idea how the Prince got him in the ring, but that one would do anything to piss off his uncle.

context: laurent wanted damen to lose—we know this because of the drugging. but i suppose that annoying the regent with govart's loss was a consolation prize? and he would have been... equally annoyed, if govart won? laurent cannot possibly think that the regent cares about govart's well-being, but maybe govart is a reflection of his authority. honestly, not too sure about this one.

craft note: “piss off” is a great anachronism here

Laurent might talk like he’d been raised on the floor of a brothel, but he had a Veretian courtier’s mind, used to deception and double dealing.

maybe try to make it sound like less of a compliment

‘I wouldn’t have thought of that. He has a mind for details.’ ‘Yes, I’m learning that,’ said Damen.

Maybe he just wanted another chance to fight something. Preferably an insufferable yellow-haired princeling.

‘Today, in the baths, you will serve.’ ‘Serve?’ said Damen.

he is technically serving cunt. a cunt named laurent

Laurent reclined against the tiled wall, settling his shoulders flat against it.

laurent lean #2

Laurent rearranged himself against the wall into a position that looked even more indolently comfortable than the one before.

laurent lean #3. also, this line is very funny

Those sweet blue eyes gazed at him.

normal reaction to an implied death threat

'Your little speech about fair play fooled me about as much as your show of obedience.'

context: laurent can’t conceive of damen being a decent person without an ulterior motive. given the fact that he's spent the past seven years in the regent's court, i can't really blame him

For Laurent was all of a piece: his body had the same impossible grace as his face. He was lighter built than Damen, but his body wasn’t boyish. Instead, he possessed the beautifully proportioned musculature of a young man on the new cusp of adulthood, made for athletics, or statuary.

damen has no idea how much it would probably mean to laurent to be seen as definitively non-boyish

The water was hot when it pulsed up from the ground, and hot when he poured it from the silver pitcher. The air was hot. He was conscious of it. He was conscious of the rise and fall of his chest, of his breathing, of more than that.

craft note: awareness of non-sexual physical sensation (heat, breathing, etc.) helps to build up tension. also, the repetition here is neat.

He remembered that in Akielos he had been washed by a slave with yellow hair. Her colouring had matched Laurent’s so closely they might have been twinned. She had been far less disagreeable.

damen likes blondes mention #3. another favorable comparison towards laurent, although he does get points off for being a bitch

‘Don’t be presumptuous,’ said Laurent, coldly. ‘Too late, sweetheart,’ said Damen. Laurent turned, and with calm precision unleashed a backhanded blow that had easily enough force to bloody a mouth, but Damen had had quite enough of being hit, and he caught Laurent’s wrist before the blow connected.

the girls are fightingggggg

craft note: i really like “damen had had quite enough of being hit.” it’s a massive understatement, which for damen’s characterization and the book’s sense of humor works perfectly.

He felt the tension hit Laurent’s body, though the tone didn’t change overmuch from its usual drawl. ‘But my voice has broken. That was the only prerequisite, wasn’t it?’ Damen released his grip, as though burned. A moment later, the blow he had thwarted landed, harder than he could have imagined, smashing across his mouth. ‘Get him out of here,’ said Laurent.

the amount of times i had to re-read this conversation and previous dialogue, to understand what the hell was going on between the lines...

context: damen previously made a flippant comment about not assaulting people whose voices haven’t dropped. it was meant as a dig towards the court of vere, which enables csa.

laurent wants an excuse to torture and/or kill damen while his uncle is away—knows that the court would see this retribution as justifiable if damen were to attempt an assault of the veretian prince.

laurent brings damen to the baths in order to essentially make his case for his revenge. he needs to create circumstances in which retribution is justified, and since sex = power to laurent—just another strategy—he sees a way to make that happen by teasing damen. he does not expect to feel anything while enacting this plan, as he is very used to dissociating during these kinds of situations.

laurent: “don’t be presumptuous” = “stop assuming we’re going to have sex, even though it was my plan to put us both in this intentionally erotic situation. i’m more uncomfortable than i thought i would be with this and i’m deflecting.” 

damen: “too late, sweetheart” = “i am smug about the fact that this is making you uncomfortable. also, you’re hot, and i might as well enjoy the view.” 

laurent: “but my voice is broken, that was the only prerequisite” = “by your own joking admission, i now have every reason to assume you’re going to assault me—and your obvious arousal does not help your case.” 

damen, who has absolutely no intention to sexually assault laurent, is shocked by this and pulls away.

He had resisted the provocation to violence exactly because he had known he would end up suffering consequences. And now here he was, for no better reason than that Laurent, possessing a pleasing shape, had left off talking just long enough for Damen’s body to forget his disposition.

i love the implication that laurent is only attractive as long as he isn’t talking. damen is great at backhanded insults too!

‘I should have done this to you the day you arrived,’ said Laurent. ‘It’s exactly what you deserve.’

context: damen is not just some random akielion to laurent. laurent knows that he is damianos, and that damianos killed auguste, leading to seven years of abuse, sexual assault, and isolation for laurent within the regent's court. what he does here—having damen flogged to near-death—is still bad, but at least there’s more depth to the badness than damen or a first-time reader would understand.

from damen's pov, and for a first-time reader, this entire situation is sadistic and impersonal. but with full awareness of laurent's perspective, i can understand that it is essentially cathartic revenge. losing auguste to damen's blade forced laurent to experience the kind of trauma that changes a person forever. the person he has become is a reflection of that trauma, and damen is the ultimate scapegoat.

also, flogging is not exactly cruel or unusual punishment in this world—in fact, damen mentions that he's done it himself to akielion soldiers. it's notable that instances of damen's subtle hypocrisy appear in these earlier chapters: the flogging, parallels between kastor's rule and the regency, and akielion slavery. pacat is methodically building a house of cards with damen's unreliable narration from the start.

(when i call damen an unreliable narrator, it's not because i think he's a bad person or protagonist. he's an unreliable narrator in the same way that holden caulfield is an unreliable narrator: heartbreakingly earnest, ignorant due to inexperience, and within the ethos of the novel, ultimately Good.)

‘You are cold-blooded and honourless. What held back someone like you?’ It was the wrong thing to say. ‘I’m not sure,’ said Laurent, in a detached voice. ‘I was curious what kind of man you were. I see we have stopped too early. Again.’

this first book really is just the two of them playing a high-stakes game of “are you a good person” chicken

‘I was on the field at Marlas,’ said Laurent. As the words penetrated, Damen felt the world reshape itself around him. ‘They wouldn’t let me near the front. I never had the chance to face him. I used to wonder what I’d say to him if I did. What I’d do. How dare any one of you speak the word honour? I know your kind. A Veretian who treats honourably with an Akielon will be gutted with his own sword. It’s your countryman who taught me that. You can thank him for the lesson.’ ‘Thank who?’ Damen pushed the words out, somehow, past the pain, but he knew. He knew. ‘Damianos, the dead Prince of Akielos,’ said Laurent. ‘The man who killed my brother.’

i went into the context for this already, but i do just think it's insane that laurent is both torturing and gaslighting the person who ruined his life. like, remember the guy from the princess bride? "my name is inigo montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die." laurent is essentially doing the same thing with damen here—cathartic and premeditated revenge killing, karma's a bitch, an eye for an eye—but instead he's like "my name is laurent of vere, you were present in the battle where someone else murdered my brother (i know that you know you actually did it), prepare to be tortured and possibly killed based on my own unpredictable and sadistic whims. whore."

[fumifooms]

I feel we talk and speculate about post-canon Marchil. But what about pre-canon Marchil? They may not yet know much about each other's personal lives by the time the story starts. But from the start we could already see that they have some level of rapport and are able to bounce off each other quite well especially given that they see each other as the saner party members.

But we know its not how they started especially given Chilchucks disdain for elves, and the fact that the previous mage/sorcerer of their party supposedly almost broke the party up with their love agendas.

How do you think it played out from there and getting to the start of the manga?

Pre-canon and early Marcille & Chilchuck

Yes, very interesting topic!! There are a good few moments that are telling imo. I don't have any fun way to introduce it all so let's just go right into it, it's gonna be a long post though.

Pre-canon

We do see how they start out:

Like you said, Chil, like the other party members, was very hesitant at first on trusting her, that she’d be a good fit for the party etc, though he doesn’t seem to be taking it any worse than Shuro and Namari (which is interesting since Chil’s distrust of elves is more prominent).

The distrust of mages for their party specifically was due to their old one, implied to have stirred drama by being a marriage seeker with every man in the party yes. We don't know the details but it does paint a certain picture I suppose, I really hope The Adventurer's Bible 2 is gonna have new info or pages about the old party members... Doing an analysis of the party configurations pre-canon would be interesting too, for example there’s the buzzcut guy that’s implied to have betrayed Laios and it’s soo cryptic but intriguing and implied to be a significant moment for Laios, would be worth analyzing the crumbs of info we get in canon... But yes yes point is that's one side of the coin, which is eased when the party gets used to Marcille and she earns their trust by being friendly and nice, BUT there’s the other side of the coin to it where magic has been used to persecute half-foots historically, especially by elves, so there’s that bias that remains even for a good part of canon for Chilchuck, and it's stated the most explicitly when he and Marcille argue over dark magic in chapter 34.

To go back to the pictures above, the panel that shows Marcille "working hard to befriend everyone" contextualizes the extra comic in Chilchuck’s Adventurer’s Bible section(the third picture above) to be set during that time of integration into the party for her. We see they indeed had already their comedic dynamic schtick down by then… And I think that makes sense. Even at the start of canon Chil is still adamant about not making friends and keeping emotional distance, so though I’m sure he was much more standoffish and quiet at first I think going from "I don’t know you and I’ll avoid you" to "I’ll engage with you but I’m not gonna be friendly about it" isn't a big jump and it would happen naturally with time as they get somewhat acquainted.

Chilchuck does value having a good professional dynamic, so he wouldn’t want to be rude or shoot her down, and it’s also that will to help a coworker be efficient that gets him to go out shopping for a pouch with her and makes her able to bond with him on that occasion (Yes I do want to make a fanfic about it hehe. He doesn’t like to wait after people but still went with her for a pouch isn’t that sweet). Considering the way she acts with him in that extra comic, she was already very open and didn’t mind overcrowding him and seeming eager and whatnot. Imo she already looked favorably upon him from the get-go because he’s "a kid" and thus sweet and cute™️, but I still think especially with the added context of the pages on her perspective that she was extra trying to be friendly and encourage engaging with her. Even at their "on good terms for work but no actual relationship" stage at the beginning of canon, Marcille worked to get there and to have that good (decent) of a dynamic with Chil.

Although I don’t think it was especially hard either, I just think it took a while for people to acclimate to her. A lot of the prejudices in Dungeon Meshi are eased and challenged through exposure and contact, like getting a scared dog to see you as safe. "Oh, this guy isn’t so bad after all, guess there are good ones -> guess they have a point -> guess that maybe they’ve always had a point and were never all that evil" etc etc, it’s more nuanced and has variations but hopefully you see what I mean, how prejudices are tackled in Dunmeshi is a very interesting & layered topic for another day.

Ah yes there’s also the extra above in which Chil says how awkward it is to wait with Toshiro and Marcille for the others to arrive, and though it certainly could be mostly about how Toshiro and Marcille don’t get along and that's what makes the air tense, I do think it shows a good level of distance and disinterest between them. It’s often referred to in canon that, previous to canon events, they all truly just had a coworkers dynamic.

Even just hanging out outside of work for a drink was very uncommon. The closest thing to a friend Chilchuck would see someone as in the party would have been Namari I imagine, since it’s shown a few times that those two did go out to drink after work a couple times and got along well (as per the extras about it and some small canon moments).

I think it’s very central to their dynamic at that point that their relationship is professional. According to the timeline it’s been around 1/1.5 year that Marcille has joined Laios’ party at the beginning of canon, and since they dungeon dive regularly that’s a good amount of time to develop a dynamic with a coworker. So yes I think a good way to frame their relationship is that they’re two coworkers, who have been working together well for a while but never developed it into a proper friendship, either from lack of interest or failure to do it, like two cashiers sharing the same shift. They have a bond forged in forced proximity and casual familiarity accumulated over time, which does make their relationship a bit unique and interesting since they would have never become friends under regular circumstances. They're like that sweet & salty sandwich that you have to give a chance to, that'll surprise you and have complementary flavors if you try it out despite seeming disastrous.

Early canon

Their early dynamic is super interesting though!! Both see each other as capable, which I do think is the foundation of their relationship early on, since Marcille thought of him as a kid too closed off on himself and Chilchuck saw her as a somewhat annoying person (afaik) and an elf mage (both which make her more distrust-worthy for him) which doesn't make them very friends material at that point. But like I said, they do see each other as capable not only in their job but with their respective strenghts:

Early on we get the sense that they of course have worked with each other for a while and have a good grasp on the other’s character though, and what they say is insightful on how they think of the other. Above, the excerpt is when Laios and Chilchuck come back with the dead Kabru party’s wet food. "She’s right that wasn’t okay to do. Not good I didn’t catch that, that’s Marcille for you." implying he sees her as sort of the moral compass of the team, that she’s strict on such things but seemingly he values it instead of being offput by it. On her side she says how "he’s usually the most mature here." This is in the kakiage chapter so she still fully believes he's a kid at that point, so it's interesting to see that she still recognizes his maturity demeanor wise.

There is respect there, however how kneecapped or begrudging it is. I think the "you’re the next most normal person in the party after me and you have common sense thank god" dynamic was mostly forged right from the beginning of canon but not before that, since Laios while yes still having some of his questionable leadership previously (since his part was losing faith in him before Marcille joined) was more stoic and controlled, so 1) there is no great evil to band up against in the party, plus there were just more people, so 2) less reason or occasion to seek specifically each other out. But then without Toshiro and Namari they were the only person the other had when Laios started showing his interest in monsters and whatnot, the whole party dynamic got thrown upside down which made them gravitate towards each other more than they usually did. And then Senshi came into the picture but Marcille and Chilchuck had already traumabonded like kittens /j and Senshi turned out to also have an interest in monsters. I do feel like pre-canon they simply didn’t interact as much, more one-off moments and short shallow interactions and the occasional deeper, pleasant enough conversation than anything, so canon events is what really kickstarted it into something more than (acquaintance level emotional distance) coworkers.

And on that note, I think that the true shift in their relationship starts after the red dragon arc, when their goal becomes more convoluted and they’ll have to stick to each other’s side through truly thick and thin. It’s right after that Chilchuck gets a shift in character and motivation where he admits that he cares about them, and when the characters start being overall more vulnerable with each other.

I think about this page a ton for example.

"Still, that Marcille…" Maybe I should check out how the original phrased it, the ‘that’ does add a lot, but even without it there's a very impersonal feeling to it. Like they really are just starting to get accustomed to each other after all and sizing each other up, which isn’t all that wrong considering the context of finding something very important about her out that would shift everyone's perception of her, but it does definitely show distance imo, even with this being after the dragon arc at chapter 29. He thinks of her as silly and sketchy at that point as per the scene with Leed... It's rocky, it's rocky, but they do hash things out together and continue to respect each other's perspective and points, as seen for eample how they strategize together when they meet Shuro and Kabru's parties. And yes, that's super interesting!! The scene after his talk with Leed where he admits he cares about the party member is the point where Chilchuck stops pretending to only be in it for the money and he lets himself bond with the others more, so it makes sense to me that he'd have processed the whole "Marcille dark elf" thing and moved past it, but it does show a lot of trust in Marcille that even despite her dark magic show he goes to her for strategy talk and like, doesn't worry about her doing faux-pas and getting themselves killed or in jail unlike with Laios or Senshi which he feels the need to monitor lol.

I think the bicorn chapter is the chapter that truly cements them as having a relationship in its own right. He opened up about himself and let her in on personal aspects of his life, and that makes him finally ready to fully drop the wall of "coworkers only, no friends nope, our relationship starts and stops at when we enter and leave the dungeon". And of course by the end he's straight up saying he'll introduce her to his family lol <3

Conclusion

So yes overall they do seem to know each other the way longtime acquaintances would, and they have a good grasp on each other’s character, but their vision of each other is severely kneecapped by other factors, Marcille seeing him as a kid and him having a bias against elves and mages and also just optimistic nosy people lol. Chilchuck is only interested in working with her efficiently, without making friends, and besides him being a coworker whose skills are very needed Marcille is only interested in him in a gossip curiosity way and in a ‘Aww I should make an effort to include the kid in things, he should open up more!’ patronizing and infantilizing way. You can’t really bond as an equal with someone you think is a kid after all, so early on it’s more of a caring after attention/interest she has for him, and the process of her growing to see him as an adult is very slow and gradual. They're tough to feasibly work with in a shipping sense early on, like yes ok they have very funny chemistry but at what cost... But I sure do love slow burns and complicated people growing to love each other through learning about them through thick and thin and compromising to better themselves and make it work, so!!

It’d be interesting to have marchil (wether platonic or romantic) fancontent exploring their pre-canon relationship, especially if we were to try and have them learn to know each other more and form a deeper bond and all, but it literally took all of canon to get them there. It took them having to do a desperate emergency dungeon dive with initially only 3 party members, where they don’t have any choice but to spend a lot of time in almost only each other’s company and have to forgo the usual boundaries, when fighting for each other’s lives and learning things about each other like being a 'dark elf' or a 'father of three'. It took 57 chapters and a lie-detecting virtue-detecting monster for him to open up about his wife and family, and who knows how long it’d have taken without that monster or without it having attacked him, serving as evidence that he’d been lying about it. Who knows how long he’d have been fine lying, y’know?? And learning that he cheated on his wife made her esteem for him tank, it’d have made them more tense with each other if anything if the bicorn hadn't proven his lie wrong. Beause it's def implied too that Chilchuck would have said that lie if super pushed int otalking about his wife, which would have happen with or without a bicorn appearing in their path right then.

In the end it’s like how Laios said, thank you Falin for being eaten, and thank you everyone for being the gender that you are, because if any detail had been different the adventure either wouldn’t have happened or would have happened very differently (worse). Best marchil slow burn is canon real?!! Jk there’s so much that could be done with them both pre-canon, during canon and post-canon, but yeahh they’re such complex characters with a complex dynamic that making it both organic and IC would be so hard. I do like the take that he is attracted to her to some degree though, and I feel like Marcille has a general curiosity and interest in romance and maybe experiencing it herself, so I wouldn't say that spontaneous interest would be impossible, but the biggest obstacle is Chilchuck's wife situation tbh because the man is planning on staying faithful and celibate right up to at least divorce if not his grave lol.

Now I do want to write a canon divergent thing where Chil refused to try and tame the bicorn and the party kept on thinking he’d cheated on her and the new dynamic with Marcille though… Eventually she wants to understand him and ask about it, and it keeps getting worse, before it starts getting better because this time around exhaustion caught up to him and he didn’t need the bicorn to make him admit he hasn’t… The whole end thing of his arc would have to happen pretty differently man, whew, especially since he has a complex where he doesn’t see himself as a good man, not virtuous or moral, cowardly and selfish etc etc, so without having a monster with its objective monster senses going "ew you’re a virtuous husband I hate u" it’d have been harder for him to truly consider that maybe the situation isn’t quite as hopeless as he thought and he should at least try blablabla. But Marcille is the next best thing to a bicorn, she can psychoanalyze him and hype him up, I have faith I have faith. Most feasibly though I feel like pre-canon fics with them would be ficlets of moments in which they unexpectedly interacted and went the small extra mile of going beyond small talk and both try to connect a bit, learning to know each other just a bit more, piquing interest or curiosity or making them re-evaluate each other, that’d be fun.

Like you said it's not a topic that's often analyzed and all, so I ended up going all out and being somewhat rambly... Apologies apologies, hopefully this wasn't hard to follow along with, and was good food for thought and had good points! Maybe it feels a bit far from your initial question that was only about going from their first meeting to the start of canon, but I feel like only analyzing their early relationship in that scope and consider the first hurdle in them growing closer fully over and done with doesn't encapsulate the core of their issues with each other and how they deal with them and eventually overcome them. It took a lot of time and insistance and efforts and for their prejudices to be challenged and proven wrong many, many times for it to truly stick and for them to be truly comfortable and open with each other. Early marchil truly has traumabonded retail coworkers energy to me lol, speaking from experience and traumabonded being meant as an hyperbole.

[mastermindmp3]

If you just want the song analysis, skip to the next banner. However, I do think the context added by my rambling is at least interesting.

Hey, so remember how yesterday, I opened my analysis post with a comment about how I try to analyze the songs without analyzing Taylor Swift's life, because I feel it's limiting to my ability to understand the song. It's not a form of analysis I'm very good at either, frankly.

I feel like that comment goes especially so for But Daddy I Love Him. Because I was certainly there for the rat-filled fortnight, as in, he literally played guitar for Phoebe Bridgers at my show. And there's a lot I could say that has already been said, more eloquently and by people far more qualified.

I'm a biology student, not a sociologist. But as an Indigenous woman, there is a level of hurt that comes from the people we admire tolerating racism within their spaces, and how that can often play into revealing a pattern of behavior. On the opposite hand, I can see the annoyance (and indignation) that she was held more accountable for his actions than he was. Indeed, I believe that this is what the line "[My good name] is mine alone to disgrace" refers to. On the other, other hand, the whole situation leaves a powdery, bad taste in my mouth.

And now to never talk about that again, because I don't feel qualified to give you a conclusion on it. I'm still listening to the music, after all. The rest of my analysis will be from the perspective of the song as a story, not as diary, my preferred modus operandi.

I wanted to say all that as set up in: I didn't know what to think about this song. I was unsure what angle I wanted to talk about this song from, because divorcing it from the backlash was hard. She literally says "Scandal does funny things to pride," and we'll talk about that later.

Initially, I thought about covering against the grain readings. Recontextualizing the song completely, giving it a new meaning. I thought about maybe covering the history of forbidden romance as a genre (and its many evolutions, from ironically, interracial love stories to queer romance.) I even thought about talking about the Little Mermaid, tying the song into one of the pieces of iconic fiction, and tying that back into the idea of forbidden romance as a queer reading of straight fiction (Howard Ashman, the lead lyricist for Disney, ostensibly the heart of the Disney Renaissance, was a gay man whose partner accepted his Oscar after he had passed due to AIDs.)

And... none of that worked. There are like, five versions of this post in my google docs that will never see the light of day.

Sitting in standstill traffic trying to leave last night's Hozier concert, I finally came to a conclusion. Well, I didn't. Jean, who's previously helped me on both Little Tortured Poet's Department and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys, made a comment that "Without the rest of the album, [But Daddy I Love Him] reads like any 2003 emo song about a sleazy bassist. Sure, we know better, but the singer doesn't."

And that got me thinking: TTPD is an album that is very much in conversation with itself, and Taylor's discography as a whole. I said, "How much does not knowing that wider context change the song?" That's an angle to analyze, baby!

alternative title that wouldn't leave my mind: Dark AU!Love Story, don't like don't read

But Daddy I Love Him is, out of the whole album, the song that benefits from context the most. It is petulant, petty, the speaker digging in her heels on the subject of true love. Indeed, Scandal does funny things to pride. I jokingly referred to it as "Dark Love Story," but the songs are foils ( and likely intentionally, since both songs have to the singer begging "Daddy" to let her have her lover. It also makes sense to foil one of her most popular songs, so that general audiences are likely to make the connection. )

We, the audience, know that the Speaker's romantic interest isn't good for her. We don't like him, because likely, we've already listened to the previous songs on the tracklist, and he's already clearly hurt the singer. The prelude (in the CD and Vinyl booklets) refers to the album as one story, which helps set up this framework in the listener's mind.

However, even in the context of the song, there are scant hints of this. The Speaker, with her rose colored glasses firmly on, still refers to her lover as "crazy."

There's also an interesting tie to her older works, known affectionately on Reddit as Car Lore in the use of cars as metaphor for romance. To quote the seminal essay by u/Alex_Demote, "But for Taylor, being in a car is often the same thing as being in a relationship."

Here, the speaker's lover "[floors] it through the fences" at her request and they only hear "screeching tires and true love" His actions are incredibly dangerous. Even if she's told him to slam through the fence, anyone who actually loves her would say no. A joy ride isn't worth risking your life.

By literal laws of physics, screeching tires are tires that aren't moving. Whether the speaker knows it or not, this romance won't go anywhere, or if it does... well.

I'm an Aston Martin that you steered straight into the ditch (imgonnagetyouback) / Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street (Red) / You were driving the getaway car, we were flying but we’d never get far (Getaway Car)

Though, do we know it's a car? Obviously, this is Car Lore I'm applying here, but our only other references to a land vehicle (aside from the Aston Martin, which is The Speaker) are in So High School, which has it's own parallels to But Daddy I Love Him, see below, and in imgonnagetyouback:

Whether I'm gonna be your wife or / Gonna smash up your bike, I haven't decided yet

And here comes my main point: Driving a car through a fence is reckless, yes, but not likely to be fatal. A bike? A bike? It's only with the context of the rest of the album that the danger our speaker was in comes into clear view. In the song itself, the Speaker only knows he's a bit of a troublemaker, but doesn't mind. She is either blind to the truth of the matter, or looking past it. After all, my boy only breaks his favorite toys. She'd rather burn her whole life down.

But, at the end of the song, her parents "came around" and while the "wine moms are still holding out," the Speaker seems quite happy to be "his lady." Time does give some perspective, but this song doesn't: though the final chorus could be reframed as about a new lover (as she says "Fuck 'em, it's over,") it still reads like everything worked out with her "wild boy."

Like I said on Down Bad, the songs on TTPD are slices of time. This song is the Speaker in a state of blind love, a poisoned honeymoon phase, and without the rest of the album of hindsight, the song just reads... Mean. The teenage prank of "I'm having his baby," refusing to "come to [her] senses," and even referring to herself as "not growing up at all," slamming through fences that someone else will have to fix. It's the exact kind of pettiness that a sixteen year old might pull.

Hey, speaking of sixteen: So High School. If But Daddy I Love Him is a dark take on forbidden love, So High School is its antidote, is that quintessential Boy Meets Girl, and plays deeply into high school cliches. It's also the only other mention of a land vehicle, to my knowledge. The speaker's infatuated with how her lover, "Got [her] car door, isn't that sweet?"

The other, very teenager-y love song on the record is so opposite. It's cheerful, and most importantly, the singer realizes it too. So High School serves to further contextualize But Daddy I Love Him as the speaker's attempt at a rebellious stage, and the rest of the album is her showing how it all crashed and burned.

Conclusion? Her daddy might love him, but he does NOT have land vehicle proficiency. And context can give far more perspective than time ever could.

also hey WDYM GET BACK HERE—

[voltstone]

okay can i say a thing about esther in fics

So, this isn't something I loathe, or take great issue with, or anything, since I understand why this character is the way she is in a lot of fics, or any fandom interpretation. A lot of times, in fandoms, characters will change roles depending on the fanwork context. So if you want to explore a specific type of abuse with Enid, obviously Esther is going to fit that role.

I also have a lot to say with Murray, but I'll cool off with that for now. However, a lot of the same applies.

Anyway, I...do wish there was more nuance to Esther within the fandom? Or a better appreciation as to why she is a problem. Especially since she's a direct foil to Morticia, because both mothers ultimately have the same issue, it's just Morticia handles it with grace, and Esther doesn't.

Esther is an overbearing mother.

That is emotional abuse, which often stems from a genuine care for the child, but through a very warped perception that is so because of insecurity and/or entitlement.

I get it. I get why she's written to be physically abusive in a lot of fics, or do other things. It's a way to tell the stories people want to write, and I can't say that I won't be responsible for that. For context, the project I'm working on now has a lot of medical abuse where...it's really, really bad. Far worse than what's presumably in the show. And it's something done out of insecurity.

...can't really be a good judge of what or how I handle her, since I'm the writer of that. But. Whatever.

The point is, as someone whose personal experience with maternal abuse was never a physical one, and was purely emotional/mental, it does feel like a lot of the fandom doesn't understand how devastating those are, and equates physical abuse as...the worst kind. When in reality, they're not comparable, and it ultimately depends on the people involved. Some people can better defend themselves against mental abuse over physical, others it's the opposite.

And then you just have the additional context. Like what...is actually happening.

It's an oversimplification that I think really misses the point in trying to analyze what the show tries to say about Esther and Enid. Enid is a people pleaser. Enid does want to please her mom, but she acknowledges and pushes back against the pressure she's been put in. Very emotionally intelligent in that regard, probably because she had to be. And because she physically cannot wolf-out for the bulk of the show, Enid chooses to prioritize another thing that her mom may like: finding a "mate", of sorts. With or without a possible issue in comphet, this may be why Enid is so overbearing with Ajax. Because she's trying to compensate for not being able to frolic in the forest, beneath a full moon, as a saber dog thing.

Meanwhile, Esther is overbearing...because she is also compensating for something. When Esther hands Enid the pamphlet for summer conversion camps, she says outright that a cousin of Enid's had the same problem.

This is a familial issue. And may be indicative of something genetic: the Sinclairs, for whatever reason, have a predisposition for late-blooming. And Esther doesn't like it. Maybe because she's a late-bloomer herself, or, she saw what happened in older generations and wants to "save" Enid from it. By doing things potentially just as bad.

And she foils Morticia because Enid is not like her. The same way that Wednesday is not like Morticia. There's friction of interests. There's friction in communication, and in how to articulate love for each other.

However, Morticia actually accepts Wednesday. She doesn't understand her, but she tries. She leaves Thing to watch over her. Leaves the crystal ball. And leaves the necklace that Wednesday wears, because rather than physical touch, she doesn't mind the touch of cold obsidian. Ergo, by the time of season's end, Wednesday understands better how to communicate with her mother because her mother understands how to show her love. So she lets Morticia...kinda sorta embrace.

Esther meanwhile cannot get through to Enid because...she does not restrain herself. She's overbearing because she's being overruled by insecurity, and perhaps entitlement. There is an interesting implication with her wearing a wool vest--making her a literal wolf in sheep's clothing--, and that brings another layer of nuance.

And that's what...I really just want. I want more nuance and complexities than just "Esther evil. Esther hit Enid. Esther sell Enid off to be omega whore, or something."

So. Yeah.

I'mma go back to writing.