#but they weren't . and so we end up with a character that is SUPREMELY not self aware and ... not really in the fun way

[cdroloisms]

I like messing around with the characters who have nothinburgers of lore its a fun playground

see c!eret doesn't even have nothingburger lore it's just. sighs. inconsistent. especially with what i'm preeetty sure was creator intent, especially near the end of things.

i can take the lore at face value, right, and tell you that c!eret was a character that got supremely fucked over by a vindictive harassment campaign, canonically at least partially fueled by jealousy (as well as c!wilbur obviously being. triggered as hell over the final control room and the loss of control he felt bc of it) that had very real ramifications in character (and outside of it, honestly). and i can tell you that the consequences on the character made them rewrite history in their own head and then like, literally, where they had to redeem themselves of their single sin that they got tempted into by the devil manipulated by c!Dream into committing, when from the beginning while c!Eret was partially motivated by self-interest she ALSO just thought that the FCR was the best way of returning the server to peace??? and either way ... it was a war like yes i'm sure there are ethical and moral ramifications to being a spy in a war yadayada but a lot of the assumptions that emphasize the FCR as being something ~supremely fucked up~ relies on the idea of L'manburg's side in the Revolution being So Much More Moral than the DreamSMP side, never mind that the FCR existed at a time where physical violence with long-lasting ramifications such as canon lives literally wasn't a thing yet and was explicitly a means of stripping them of their gear. that they returned to them after the war.

and it's just so crazy to me, because the actual FCR which became twisted into c!eret's Single Crime is just nawt that big of a deal at all but did become the major talking point for the campaign to treat her fucking terribly on the account of Being A Traitor Hey New Person Did You Hear That Eret SUCKS Because He Betrayed Us !!! but what does feel like more of an issue include a lot of the later actions, such as the excessive gloating towards L'manburgians in ways that were kind of meanspirited (but were hella funny shoutout to the prank war) and then the...kind of tyrannical actions lol umheyyyy do we remember the taxes. also just the knights of hope were ... well they sure were! (i wish wegot that lowkey yesssssssss go hunt c!dream like an animal please ^_^") mexican lmanburg negotiations cough cough anyway. TURNING LOGSTEDSHIRE INTO A MUSEUM EXHIBIT????????????????????GIVING TOURS THERE???????? HEY LOOK HERES THE POLE WHERE THIS KID WHO IS OUR NEIGHBOR BTW TRIED TO KILL HIMSELF. LIKE WHY. WHY DID THEY DO THAT.

i don't mind any of this, btw--if i were to give a kind of short explanation to c!eret's character i'd say that she tends to have good intentions overall, but drank so much of the lmanburg kool-aid that it became a whole new thing and also in general has a tendency to act in her personal self-interest and have a pretty short-sighted, self-centered view of the world more often than not. they're not evil, and they certainly don't go out of their way to hurt people, but they also push the blame onto c!Dream a lot, including in ways that don't make sense, and does things like the museum exhibits abt exile and the casual taxing of everyone just cuz and expecting all of dream smp to follow them in supporting a coup against the country they're allied with For Their Redemption Quest in ways that suggest that they tend to prioritize themselves and their wants over a more reasonable. consideration of the people around them. also he got SUPER fucked over by c!wilbur and continues to center their story around him because he thinks that he needs to be redeemed through him, and the thing he thinks he needs redemption for he simultaneously blames on someone else and also just wasn't. A Grand Crime For Her To Need Redemption For. she took the lmanburg story said 'what if i was the main character doe' made a new lmanburg koolaid chugged it and tried to make the whole server fall in line. essentially.

the problem is that i don't think that the character was ... meant to be written like this, and therefore there aren't that many satisfying conclusions. also just in general plot points kept getting set up with little follow through. (i'll limit any cc criticisms here, but i will say that the fandom was an obvious driving point in what happened with the character.) the biggest problem for me was the frequent retconning--it's kind of bad practice in general to Take Back rp frequently, tho c!eret is mostly forgiven bc most of the retcons did happen with solo lore (not ... all of them tho)

but yeagh. i appreciate what is there for c!eret dont get me wrong but ... i do wish it was utilized in a slightly different way

[drconstellation]

Aziraphale-Beelzebub Parallels

Aziraphale's Edinburgh Journey: Part 2

I've already written a series on how Crowley and Gabriel act as parallels and foils to each other in S2. Their other halves - their partners - also act as each other's parallels. I mentioned this briefly in the second post in that series, but here we need to expand on this.

We also need to talk about Maggie.

I think most people identify that there is good case for a many parallels between Aziraphale and Maggie as well. But when you consider Aziraphale-Beelzebub-Maggie together in a character triangle, Maggie suddenly starts to make a lot more sense. And I believe there is one more peculiar element thrown in that she is reflecting back to us as well about Aziraphale that has made her particularly hard to understand on top of all that.

But let's look at the Aziraphale-Beelzebub related parallels first.

They hold the highest ranking position

Beezlebub holds the highest ranking position in Hell under Satan, as the Grand Duke. They leave a vacancy at the end of the series, that we are yet to see filled.

For most of S2 the Supreme Archangel is missing - and it is only right at the end that we see Aziraphale step up and accept the offered role.

Two things to mention here:

One might argue that the Metatron is higher in ranking than the Supreme Archangel, but for purposes of this discussion he doesn't seem to have much to do with the day-to-day running of things like the Supreme Archangel would. Gabriel was also the one who appeared on the tarmac at Tadfield Airbase opposite Beelzebub when things weren't going to plan in S1.

Secondly, this is where I would like to start introducing the concept that we are being shown Aziraphale's future story in S2. Such as Aziraphale's future role as Supreme Archangel, however long he holds on to it.

I don't know how difficult it will be to demonstrate this as we go along from here, but I'm going to try and point out places where I think we are being shown glimpses of the future - foreshadowing - and a lot of them come through Maggie. Not all, though, there are exceptions, but we'll discuss them in due course. Such as in the next parallel.

They need words of affirmation

Crowley isn't the most loquacious character but he's not shy of boosting his angel's ego when it's needed. Whether it's encouraging Aziraphale to go big on stage in 1941 or supporting his detective efforts in Edinburgh Crowley is still going to put in a good word or two for Aziraphale's sake.

AZIRAPHALE: [over phone]: I think I've found some clues. And do you remember the statue of Gabriel in the graveyard in Edinburgh? I'm looking at it now. CROWLEY: Mmm, good job. AZIRAPHALE: Oh, do you really think so?

We know Beelzebub needs words of affirmation as well because they ask Demon Josh this:

BEELZEBUB: Do you ever think, wouldn't it just be nice if someone told you what a good job you're doing? DEMON JOSH: In hell? BEELZEBUB: Yeah.

Hang on, just a minute...Demon Josh...?

The demon who appears to be acting as the Personal Assistant/Secretary to the Grand Duke of Hell?

There is an old thread that points out that Greasy Johnson's name is basically another form of Jesus Christ. The TL:DR version is that Joshua aka Oily Josh is another form of Jesus.

So Beelzebub has Demon Jesus as her assistant.

Remember I was trying to tell you we are seeing future echoes of Aziraphale's story in S3 here? Jesus as the right hand of the Supreme Archangel, perhaps?

They give gifts

A S1 crossover, Beelzebub gives Gabriel the Tardis-like fly storage container, and Aziraphale gives Crowley the thermos of holy water in 1967 to stop the crazy caper he was planning to steal some. Both acts were done unprompted at the time.

They enjoy music

We've seen Aziraphale with his phonograph in action several times, and in S2E1 we see him in the midst of listening to the Shostakovitch records he got from Maggie when the arrival of Gabriel interrupts him.

We learn Beelzebub also has an ear for a good tune when they mention they like the song they hear in the American bar during the recap scenes of their meetings with Gabriel in S2E6.

They make an offer of "betterment" to Crowley

Beelzebub's offer to Crowley that he could be a Duke of Hell if he finds Gabriel for them, all while he is lounging across the two horned thrones in S2E1, is widely seen as a prominent piece of foreshadowing for S3.

Really, the only question should be is will that be just a plain Duke or will he somehow end up in the Grand Duke of Hell position opposite of Aziraphale?

Aziraphale also made an offer to Crowley - to restore him to angelic status.

At the time, neither offer was accepted with any enthusiasm - especially the latter.

They have a date at Gabriel's statue

I have pointed out elsewhere that this is a triple-parallel with a shot from Before the Beginning, but then I remembered that the parallel with Aziraphale looking jealously at angel!Crowley was written after this date pair with Gabriel's statue.

I intend to talk about the significance of the statue in Part 4: Judgement Day, as it makes a bridge between all three seasons and it needs some thorough and lengthy discussion around it.

They go to the pub

This is another triple-parallel between the two pairs. (I think @kayleefansposts first brought this up but I can't find the post it comes from now, even though it wasn't that long ago.)

First, they both meet in a cafe:

Then they meet in a pub:

And lastly, they meet - well, lets say with alcohol on the table and an option of food?

Their partners make a reference to the absurd creativity of humanity

For some time I wondered why when Crowley came back from the pub with Aziraphale, he plucked the Jane Austen off the shelf and shouted that inane line at humanity: "You people, I will never get the hang of you lot."

Eventually I realized it was a parallel moment to when just before Gabriel miracles the jukebox in the Resurrectionist to play Every Day the first time.

GABRIEL: What's that? BARTENDER: A classic 1960s jukebox. You don't see many of them these days. You just put your money in and tell it what you want to hear. GABRIEL: Oh… You people. Amazing. [hands over money] [miracles] Ha!

Both incidences are inspired by their partners - Aziraphale inspires Crowley to look for Austen's novels and Gabriel miracles the jukebox to play the music that Beelzebub likes.

Their partners accidentally leave them on their own

Crowley was only going to take the human shopkeepers to safety, then return - but he got sidetracked with Muriel all the way up to Heaven. Thinking he would be back soon, Aziraphale didn't plan very far ahead, and that eventually led to a problem - and a long, anxious wait for the demon's return.

On his way out of Heaven, Gabriel was on his way to Hell and Beelzebub - we presume. But as soon as he put himself in the fly, he forgot, and headed to the next most memorable location in his remaining working neurons, which happened to be on Earth. Beelzebub was left wondering where he was - and very alone down there in Hell while their minions were out searching for him. @noneorother shows what happens to the thrones while they wait.

So, about Maggie, then...

Understanding Aziraphale and Beelzebub as a parallel pair helps us to understand Maggie a little better, as Maggie is actually a mix of the two characters, reflecting both of them back at the same time. I think that is why she sometimes seems like an angel and a demon at the same time - because she actually is!

I believe this would also explain the "ugrency" spelling mistake, as well as putting an emphasis on the word urgency itself for us. What is becoming urgent?

For example, Maggie always wears a combination of colours from both characters. Here we can Maggie is wearing Beelzebub's signature colours of orange and light blue, but with a white background as the angelic component.

At the ball, she wears a blue blouse - blue is a colour associated with Heaven - but its a dark, demonic shade of blue.

She tries to give a gift to Nina, that doesn't quite work, but the thought and effort is there. She's very forgiving. And she says she says she'll still be there when Nina is ready to start seeing her again; she's reflecting the future Aziraphale to us.

She doesn't want to leave the scene of danger with Crowley when its offered (sounds familiar, doesn't it? Let's go to Alpha Centauri - No! I Can't!)

She's done with being scared, she's ready to stand up and be brave and fight.

She doesn't want to leave Aziraphale on his own (even though Aziraphale still has faith Crowley will turn up any minute now and have a plan - !!) She comes up with ideas on how to fight back. This is someone who steps forward and takes control. These all look like future echoes and set-ups for parallels in S3 to me.

There's another line that no one ever talks about that I've always thought was a foreshadowing line that Crowley says to Nina:

NINA: He's never hosted a meeting, ever. Why the change of heart? CROWLEY: He's unpredictable. He's discovered his civic obligations.

The parallel to this comes from Maggie, when Crowley goes to tell her its time for the meeting/Ball, she says she never misses a meeting. If that's not part of fulfilling your "civic obligations" I don't know what is.

If there was one aspect of Beelzebub I would perhaps just mention here briefly, but not discussing at length because I want to do it elsewhere again as well, is that they twice show restraint of their power and authority - they don't pull Crowley in for punishment as a traitor, even though they could (they pulled him down to Hell for a chat pretty easily) and they don't bother to rip out Demon Josh's tongue and send him to the dung heaps that day for being talkative and annoying, even though we get the impression it happens on a regular basis. In contrast, Aziraphale and Maggie both step up a bit and take some authority on themselves towards the end.

The lists above are not exhaustive of all the parallels between the three characters, but I hope it helps to get you started in thinking about them in a different way to how you might have been.

Next we try to tie the past<-present->future parallels together as we start getting our hands dirty.

The other posts in this series can be found here:

Part 1: Detective Aziraphale Part 3: Stocktaking in the Basement Part 4: Judgement Day Part 5: I Know Where I'm Going

[queenvhagar]

Initial thoughts on HOTD season 2 episode 1 "A Son for a Son:"

Alicole

Maybe an unpopular opinion but Alicole seemed to appear out of thin air so quickly with not one but two sex scenes in one episode... Like when did this start? Who started it? How did these characters suddenly get to this place of complete sexual liberation in this way based on literally everything we know about these characters and this world up until this point? Alicent is a deeply religious widow of the king who has lived decades in servitude to the realm without much thought to her own desires and Criston is a knight of the Kingsguard sworn to celibacy who broke his vow once with royalty and almost killed himself out of guilt. Somehow they're at the point where he's giving her head in the middle of the day and she's riding him at night in her bed and the build up is just... non existent save one look and line in season 1 episode 9. Like... what's going on here?

For the first scene I was like "ohh cunnilingus is technically not breaking his vow in a way so maybe this is how they get around the whole Kingsguard vow/honor thing" but then she's just full on riding him later and the way the show shows us this is through the perspective of Helaena as she walks in on them with Jahaera as she's coming directly from B+C sawing Jahaerys' head off in his bed. If Alicole was about reclaiming pleasure or connecting in dark times, there's something there. But compare this almost voyeuristic view of Alicole sex to the focus on female sexual pleasure given to Rhaenyra's sex scenes in the first season... it kind of weird of the show to now just have Alicole have sex as some weird "woah what the heck" bit at the end of the B+C sequence, as if the whole end of the episode really needed some extra shock value. It doesn't even really need to be there to explain why Alicent and Criston weren't there to see B+C... It happens far enough away that the two could've been doing anything else and not have known it was happening.

Alicole sex and particularly this second scene really adds nothing narratively. I would have preferred that Alicent witness B+C like in the original or be doing literally anything else, because the point of Alicole sex in the show of course isn't on their pleasure or their relationship or anything it's just some moments we're intruding on.

I'm not sure why they felt the need to add this element. We already know Criston defends Alicent no matter what and we didn't need to add sex for that to hit. We also know they have a weird bond with weird feelings so like the sex doesn't add much. Like good for them but character wise I don't really see how this realistically developed. I also am not sure about the power dynamics given she is his personal guard, but since they didn't devote any thought to this is season 1 when Rhaenyra forced sex on him, I doubt they will stop to consider how he ended up getting into another sexual relationship with a royal and/or his thoughts about the whole thing. Basically the "after the episode" clip explained that they think Cole is the most messed up character in the show who just flaunts his responsibilities and vows left and right... and that's about as far as they're gonna go about it. Basically: look, he's a hypocrite! But we knew this already.

Blood and Cheese

I'm glad that the show at least let Daemon basically instruct B+C to take a son for a son no matter what if they couldn't find Aemond like he and Rhaenyra initially intended... However they did cut before Daemon literally said it so count on TB stans to give him the benefit of the doubt despite it all 🙄

I still think the book B+C is supremely superior without the weird walking in on Alicole voyeuristic thing and with Helena choosing between her two sons instead of the twins, but for some reason they erased Maelor to make TB look better in the long run and not have to deal with the whole "Rhaenyra puts a bounty on a toddler that gets him torn apart by a mob" thing... so I guess they're going with what they've got...

I do appreciate the build to the moment, the anxiety and atmosphere leading to what will happen. Very well done cinematically. Imagine this plus being committed to sticking to the source material... The amazing scene that could have happened. However the realistic sawing off a six year old's head sound as his mother picks up her six year old daughter and walks out of the room was something that really makes you remember the horror element of early seasons Game of Thrones and something I really appreciate that they let us have. Could it have been better? Yes. Is the book version better? Yes. But I am overall ok with what we got (minus the ending because... wtf) and I'm really looking forward to the fallout we'll get next week.

[angel-gidget]

Gidge's Intro to The Challengers of the Unknown

First off, who are the Challengers of the Unknown? They are a team of adventurers. Their comic originates in the late 1950's, and it ran until 1978, ending with issue #87.

Their adventures are supremely stereotypical of the time. They start off as very pulpy sci-fi fantasy in the 60's and skew more mystical/occult through the 70's. They functioned as Jack Kirby's rough draft for the Fantastic Four, but even so, have slightly different dynamics.

Origin: Four experts in their field concluded that their survival of a deadly plane crash was nothing short of miraculous. They noticed that the watch on one man's wrist had stopped, as if frozen in time. The men--Ace Morgan, Mark "Prof" Haley, Red Ryan, and Rocky Davis--concluded that they were living on borrowed time. They decided to use that time adventurously as the Challengers of the Unknown.

One of their earliest adventures caused them to seek the help of computer and robotics expert June Robbins. As June helped them save the day on more than one occasion, she became an honorary challenger. Many modern references to the roster include her by default.

The Team

Ace Morgan is portrayed as a pilot in the 60's and has his wheelhouse extended to astronaut as we veer into the 70's. Ace possesses an even keel that garners instinctive respect, and this is why he is the default leader.

Mark "Prof" Haley is their resident "egghead". Because nerds weren't cool yet, Prof gets occasionally teased about having more brains than brawn, but that's usually ended by him judo flipping whoever was talking smack.

Since 60's common knowledge didn't differentiate between a lot of sciences, Prof kinda knows them all. Since deep sea diving is his main schtick, he'd probably be introduced as a marine biologist today. The only thing that isn't his main wheelhouse is computers/robotics. There, he is very much outclassed by June.

Red Ryan is is a skillful acrobat and mountain climber. He is also an asshole. I mean this with affection or annoyance depending on the day. 90% of interpersonal drama with this team is from Red being sexist or generally shallow and opening his mouth about it. However, this is often used as a device, and the point is to show that Red is wrong. Then June or Rocky or whoever Red was poking at saves the day. He does occasionally use his snark to be actually funny, tho.

While many of Red's words tend to suck, his actions show a lot of loyalty to the team. Perhaps the most endearing thing about him is the love he has for his baby brother, which is major plot point of some arcs.

Rocky Davis is the team's gentle giant. He is an expert boxer and wrestler, and as such, is often teased for a lack of brains or looks. As sensitive as he may be about that, Rocky is no pushover, and will gladly attempt to punch whoever was giving him too much grief (usually Red).

In truth, all four of the men do poke fun at each other for being confined to their niche roles, but all of them actually do posses the ability to move beyond them.

They all pick up skills in science, fighting, and the arcane from working together. Pretty sure they were all born snarky, tho.

So who are my Top 3 Fave characters from their title?

#1. June Robins

June is a gal of many hairdos and many talents all through the 60's. A mistress of computer science, disguise, piloting, chemical experimentation, and alien diplomacy.

Sadly, as cool as she began, the 70's did not do her justice. She was gone from the team for like, half of that decade, and when she returned, they gave her some fandom bicycle drama and a lot of damsel in distress scenarios. But at least they gave her a uniform to show she was really on the team. I'll take that win.

#2. Tino Manary

Tino is introduced in a very fun way. When Red appears to die in the line of duty, a teen music celebrity begins to use all his fame and money to attempt an assassination of the remaining challengers. For revenge. Bc he blames them for Red's death. And why does he care?

Because surprise! He's Red's kid brother! Once he realizes the challs aren't to blame, he starts popping in on occasion to help them. Or just annoy them. Or both.

#3. Corinna Stark

When Prof got shot by an eldritch-summoning cult leader, he appeared to be at death's door. That's when the cultist's daughter, Corinna Stark, showed up. She stuck Prof in one of her dad's cryo-pods to save his life. She agreed that her dad was quite evil and needed to be stopped, provided the challs with new uniforms, and served the team as Prof's temporary replacement.

While she clearly knew more about the occult than the sciences, this proved pretty helpful for the things the challs were up against at the time.

Corrina was introduced in the 70's, during that time June was going mysteriously unmentioned. It's seriously a shame the ladies never met.

I suspect the writers were trying to see if Corinna could be a good replacement for June, but their expertise and origins were different enough that it would have been cool to see what they could bring to the team if they were on it simultaneously.

Am I done talking about this crazy comic? No, but I'm pausing for now.

[korvidian]

Watched 'I Saw the TV Glow' last night and tbh... I was not impressed?

Spoilers below the cut.

I have, of course, seen posts going around talking about the movie and the plot points and character interactions, and I am fully convinced that some people have hallucinated a bunch of things that simply Were Not There.

Throughout the film-- and I was honestly quite keen for this movie! The hype had excited me!-- I kept finding myself disappointed every time it fell flat.

It felt like the movie, in trying to be subtle, refused to give its audience anything. They had one scene with a tiny jumpscare with a monster, some frankly awkward looking dances from the villains' sidekicks, and the villain himself had so little screen time or presence he might as well have not appeared.

This movie seemed far more interested in its own aesthetics than anything of substance, and it was not, in any fashion I can tell, trying to make some kind of social commentary about that.

The face to camera telling of so many of the events, of saying how good The Pink Opaque was, without showing more than a handful of scenes, the complete lack of... any real character interactions? It just felt amateurishly trite.

The whole thing gave me the vibe of someone's Year 11 end of year English writing project that honestly would have made a better epistolary novel than a movie, where a teacher gave it a really good grade because it was vaguely edgy and desperate for approval, and then the director/screenwriter did not like... edit it in any way.

It did not feel like Owen and Maddy had any actual friendship or closeness despite the textual 'tell don't show' relationship they're meant to embody through their on-screen personas. They had Justice Smith catatonic for 90% of the movie, like I could see points where it seemed like he desperately wanted to portray literally anything beyond that one screaming scene at the end, and the director made him pull back until you'd have to use an electron microscope to see any action from him whatsoever.

There was no development of the relationship with the mother-- one of the few people who seemed like she cared about Owen-- or even the father, who was relegated to like four lines and mostly sitting out of frame watching television until he too was killed off in a summary skip with no real sense of... any emotional change from Owen?

There was one fragment of a scene with him in a dress, just for those poor audience members who weren't quite sure what the movie was haphazardly trying to go for. And a brief Phoebe Bridgers cameo and another a cool queer artist whose name I don't remember right now but whose song just dragged on in the scene and felt supremely out of place.

There was no exploration of the sense of repressed gender or expression from Owen beyond the small smile in the dress in the mirror, no bit where Maddy's return and taking him to a queer club opens up some of that potential for happiness or just life that Owen could have if he accepted himself and made any positive changes in his life for himself? Even if they had decided to have him decide it was too frightening/dangerous to explore that part of himself further it would have been something.

Owen somehow managed to get a wife and start a family and we see literally nothing of them, even if it was meant to be a 'ohhh the luna juice just made you think you have a family!! they weren't real!!' give the audience like... anything about them beyond a single line so they might actually feel some sense of horror for those made up relationships that maybe also brought Owen a sense of happiness but feeling removed from who he ~truly is~ or, again, any message at all. We get nothing.

No sense at all that like... the 'safe', 'closeted', 'repressed' life/death Owen chooses is worth it to him vs the dangers in the tv show, the representation of that 'true life' he isn't brave enough or ready enough to face.

The plot felt as starved for air as Justice Smith's death rattle asthma cough in the last part of the movie.

Anyone who said that this was a 'love letter to being obsessed over media' has never been obsessed over media and is, moreover, someone I don't think actually watched this film. The movie betrays this sense that the media was profound to the characters by instead revealing The Pink Opaque was actually horribly trite and terrible and does nothing to say that this was fabricated or a deliberate attempt by Mr Melancholy or Owen's subconscious to say that the thing that was his lifeline/way into a better and more fulfilling and exciting life/possible way to avoid the implied death/egodeath of his inner self.

It really seems to laugh at its audience and the idea that media you were obsessed with as a teen could actually be good, even if the effects end up dated and the acting a bit stiff, but there should still be something there.

I would even have liked it if they had decided to portray the horror of watching two people spiralling into a shared delusion, with Maddy desperately pulling Owen into their Bridge to Terabithia-esque wonderworld of maladaptive daydreaming and excitement and attempts to express and explore themselves they couldn't get in Suburban Whereverthefuck. Like, have the burial attempt to 'go back to the show' be real and don't undercut it and just say 'oh I never saw Maddy again' and have that... just not really come up again at all??

Not enough media portrays the insane hyper detailed world-building codependency and shared mythology of two repressed teens, and the highs and lows that come with that dynamic.

I don't think I came into this movie with expectations that were too high, but I think by coming to this movie with any kind of expectation of... something? was its downfall.

[rise-my-angel]

Hello! I hope you're doing well. I just wanted to say that your takes on the Targaryens are so refreshing to find when this fandom is almost completely made up of people who think they're the supreme, divine saviours of humanity and the greatest thing since sliced bread. It feels nice and validating to see someone who thinks like me for once. <3

Nothing bothers me more then propping them up as divine or special, when their entire story is about how they think they are special in contrast to the devastating effects of who they are on the people.

I don't think it's a coincidence that in Westeros we get so many different pov's to showcase all sides of how the war effects everyone everywhere, no matter how justified you may think one side or the other is. We see its devestating and it reminds us that their wars arent actually worth the cost. But in Essos, we do not see that. We only ever get Dany's pov and her view of her own actions, and we never see those minute details from every walk of life showcasing how no matter how justified she thinks she is, she has damaged more then shes saved. And I think it's a clever trap so that when she comes to Westeros, you finally see her from someone elses eyes and its a wakeup call that you've been tricked by her pov into thinking that shes better then she is. It's fascinating the way hes structured her story.

But people miss that, and subsequently, they miss that about all the Targaryeans. So they see them, as Dany sees herself. More superior then they really are. Which is not at all.

The Targaryeans aren't special. Their Valyrian blood is not what makes them dragonriders, they just have a monopoly on it because by the doom they were the only family who owned them or had any information about dragons. Its not a stretch to say when your family comes from a culture that is surrounded by dragons, you probably are just better equipped to ride one then someone whose never even seen one before. (Unless your Nettles then you are the literal example of why Targaryeans are not special and I love how grrm uses her to contrast that so strongly).

They alone are not holding the Kingdom together, as they caused many civil wars and rebellions, and their dynasty ended in a rebellion, which was followed by decades of peace. Say what you will about Robert, but he wasn't so stupid as to blatantly start a war from his bloodlust all over again. He wasn't a good man, but he took the throne by conquest during rebellion times, and no violence ever happened until after he was dead, and that wasnt caused by his fault, it was started by Cersei via having a bastard with Jaime and not Robert. So the war that followed wasn't his wrongdoing. He held peace and the realm together, so clearly the Targaryeans weren't needed for that specifically.

They don't even look unique. In Essos, tons of places still have mixes of Valyrian blood and thus have their silver hair. House Dayne is known to have purple eyes just like them, but they aren't Valyrian, their ancestry is from The First Men.

The biggest tragedy is House of the Dragon, because Fire and Blood is such a good deconstruction of the myth around House Targaryeans supermecy. Writing it in character as an Archmaester during Robert Baratheons reign is so interesting. It gives us such a unique look into how the world actually remembers them.

And its a book full of atrocities and horrible action after horrible action. War after war after war. People remember the Targaryeans as the initally conquested Westerosi did, as nothing more then uncaring, power hungry colonizers. But people don't look at them that way out of universe, and they should. Theres no reason to discount the negatives about them.

But House of the Dragon didn't adapt that book, so general audiences are getting a very different story that bolsters that supremacist view of the Targaryeans and it really does not paint them in the complex light they should be.

Not every Targaryean was a bad person, but House Targaryean was a house full of bad people. Bad people who raised and married each other into a system of brutal generational incest and abuse, and neglected the very Kingdom they routinely torn apart in order to fight for who gets to sit on the Iron Throne and ignore it more.

I like discussing the flaws of the Targaryeans because I find their toxic, destructive nature to be interesting. Especially in comparison to the such a stable family like the Starks.

They are a cautionary tale as to why the Starks reign lasted 8000 years, and the Targaryeans lasted only 300.

[steampunkforever]

How you handle pacing is in my opinion what will make or break Furiosa for you.

If we're judging the film on whether or not it's a good film, it passes with flying colors. If we're judging the film on whether or not it's a good sequel/prequel, I'll still say it's pretty good. If we're judging the film against Miller's last film, the lauded Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa feels a little disappointing, while still being a perfectly good film.

Fury Road is one of my perfect narratives. I've said this in my filmposts, in my podcasts, in general conversation. It's a supremely focused film that crafts its story in a lean, effective manner. The characters of the film drive in a line, stop, then turn around, and the film uses the minimal plot and dialogue to present its themes as succinctly as possible. It's elegant! Furiosa. on the other hand, tackles a story with a much wider scope, and comparing the pacing of both films would be unfair.

I liked Furiosa. It's a good film. As far as prequels set in established franchises go, it certainly handled origin stories much better than classic examples such as the Star Wars prequels (though its explainer of wasteland politics did feel like a phantom menace callback) or the 2010 A-Team origin did. Personally I feel this film went into development back when the 2010s obsession with the origin story was still strong, and Furiosa manages to overcome the fact that nobody really cares to see how superman got his cape anymore. It's a solid film. Just not as good as Fury Road.

The pacing has a lot to do with this. It meanders through Furiosa's story, and Miller's choice to show us Furiosa from childhood up to the start of Fury Road means there's a lot to wander through. Which is to say, there were several moments where my "I'm not sure where we're going with this" reactions weren't so much tied to how the film was going to end as much as they were linked to when we were going to wrap up. The movie has a much wider scope than Fury Road, and the pacing issues are a direct result of this.

Another result of the massive scope Furiosa attempts is a more minor quibble: the CG. Prefacing this, I'll say that I totally get it. To make a film of this scale, CG assets are a must have because this isn't Ben-Hur. Fury Road's limited scope meant that largely practical effects could be used on battles that would be *impractical* for the much larger production that is Furiosa. Even so, the CG was pretty solid for the most part, just a bit jarring compared to Fury Road.

Usually the followup effort for an excellent piece of cinema like Fury Road ends up bad, or at least mediocre. Furiosa is neither of these, instead presenting a good film with interesting worldbuilding that expounded on some themes in a way that made those of Fury Road more poignant after a rewatch. Still worth watching, especially if you're already into Mad Max.

To that, I feel like Anya Taylor-Joy was a pretty mid Charlize Theron replacement until about two thirds in, at which point she really nailed the voice and I finally bought the performance. This is of course made up for by Chris Hemsworth getting let off the chain and getting properly wacky with it. Very fun to see them let him be Australian again.

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 108-109 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episodes 106-107 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-108: Professor Cobra's Assassin

Professor Cobra announces the "Disclosure Duels," a system of publicizing one's skill and performing duels openly. He also provides all of the students with their own Dis-Belts to gauge their fighting spirit through their passion, focus, and decisiveness in those duels. Cobra then orders O'Brien to duel Judai--and to do so in a way that brings forth all of Judai's latent abilities. Putting his strategy into action, O'Brien takes Shou hostage and duels Judai.

TURN-109: Judai and the Fiery O'Brien

O'Brien aims to bring out all of Judai's latent abilities by using Shou as a hostage. As expected, Judai causes a serious battle to unfold, which he responds to using his Fire deck, activating his Firewall Permanent Trap against Judai's direct attacks to negate his attempts to attack him directly. For his part, Judai Contact-Fuses Neos with Flare Scarab, summoning Flare Neos for a counterattack, but...

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

Sorry, didn't mean to leave these two episodes hanging for just over a month~ sorry Shou

Episodes 108 and 109 are now finalized! Professor Cobra comes in and starts up the Dis-Duels, which will play a big role in this early part of the season, and we get more time with O'Brien as he duels with Judai on Cobra's orders and ends up having a little fun with it towards the end. It's a fun duel, O'Brien makes a fiery entrance with his Blaze Cannon/Blaze Cannon Trident cards, and I love the sequence in 109 as Judai uses Flare Neos with probably my favorite use of the "Fervent Duel" OST track. Also, 109 in general is a fun episode because of all the top-notch artwork going on, with some interesting angles or some really good motion frames from the animation team (Judai ordering Featherman to swoop in against O'Brien [which gets reused once or twice] is so good). Also nice character moments with Shou about reconciling his ideal from Ryou about respecting opponents with the need to have all-out heated duels to survive, a nuance that gets lost in the dub for the most part. Though speaking of the dub, I did like Axel's (O'Brien's) dub voice for the most part, though it has a rough spot or two later on when he's cowering from the Supreme King.

Animation error-wise, we mostly have some quality-of-watching touch-ups, as there weren't any card errors I picked up on; 108 had one minor touch-up near the end, while 109 had just over a handful of mostly split-screen touch-ups. Details below the cut for the interested, as always~

Quick housekeeping: in case you missed it, I reuploaded 105-107 after noticing I didn't catch an update to one of the names under the In-Between Animation credits, along with some minor consistency fixes in the rest of the credits; these were reposted over on NAC and updated in the Masterpost linked above, and 108-109'll join them on NAC in the next day or two.

Anywho, enjoy! With these done, I'll probably go back to some fixes I've been working on for episode 1 that I missed, then I'll get a bit more looked over on Tag Force Special stuff (in case you missed that news~) before working on 110 as a quick two-parter break; stay tuned!

Fixes/Edits! (108)

Near the end of the episode, as O'Brien draws for his turn, there's a coloring error with some shading along the bottom of his left shoulder where the shading is lighter like with the lighter spots higher up; it's fixed for a few frames but then goes back to lighter. Fixed this by recoloring that shading spot in the frames during the quick zoom-out that happens using Photoshop, then masked out and held the shading in the last fixed frame for the rest of the shot.

Fixes/Edits! (109)

After the 108 recap but before the OP, we get this quick scene with Cobra watching on and saying that, even if he loses, O'Brien has to bring out all of Judai's Duel Energy (a scene cut from the dub [I wonder if this error is why]), but there's an odd animation error that happens where the line on the upper left of his mouth (his left) and the jaw shading are pixels away from where they should be--this only happens for the frames where he has this fully open lip-flap and his semi-open lip-flap going. Fixed this in Photoshop by redrawing the mouth line and filling in the jaw shading along the shading that was there.

Later, after O'Brien activates his Firewall and asks Judai if he thought weak attacks would work on him, Judai notes that O'Brien didn't summon any Monsters so it wouldn't be any fun not diving right in; a semi-surprised O'Brien slides in on a split-screen acknowledging this, but there's a quick frame as the split-screen is completed where the border flickers into its final position--fixed this in Sony Vegas by just replacing the earlier frame with the latter. Then, as they split off the screen to show Shou behind them, Judai's side takes a frame longer than O'Brien's to fully get offscreen; fixed in Vegas by using the frame after in that frame's place.

Later, Judai grunts after O'Brien uses Burial from a Different Dimension to return three Fire-Type Monsters to his Cemetery, and O'Brien slides in on a split-screen to say that he's removing one from it to activate Firewall against Flare Neos's attack--but Judai starts moving for it a couple of frames before O'Brien actually starts sliding in, and along with that, the border on their split-screen ends up being off-center. Fixed these in Vegas, first by redoing the split so it's timed with Judai moving, then ending the slide-in with the border centered, moving O'Brien's side into place so that his mouth and hand move properly for the rest of the split-screen. Then, a frame before they start splitting apart as Firewall activates, O'Brien's side moves but Judai's stays still; fixed by holding the split-screen still over that frame.

A bit after, once Judai uses Contact Out to de-fuse Flare Neos and attack to make O'Brien run out of Monsters to remove from play, O'Brien grunts as Judai slides in on a split-screen to remind him about Flare Scarab's power-up effect--but like with Judai in #3 above, O'Brien starts moving for the split-screen a couple frames before Judai starts sliding in. Then, as their split ends, there's a quick frame where they start to split apart to show Flare Scarab behind them but don't actually split; this is likely why their splits then end up sliding out unevenly. with Judai's taking an extra frame to fully slide out. Fixed these all in Vegas by first redoing it so that Judai's slide-in is timed with O'Brien moving; then, I masked in part of Flare Scarab from the next frames over them as they start to split, adding a new border to O'Brien and Judai's splits; and then finally, I redid their split-outs so that they were timed evenly.

After the eyecatch, we see more of Cobra watching the duel, and Judai and O'Brien come up on a split-screen with their current LP counts--they start to split apart a frame before their LP counts disappear to show Cobra, with this quick frame having just white behind them, along with O'Brien's split missing its border. Fixed this in Vegas by just holding the previous frame over it so that the split-out starts in the next frame, once the LP counts are gone.

[continued below because of dumb characters-per-"block" limits]

(6) A bit later, after O'Brien lets Shou go, Cobra looks on in surprise, but there are a few quick frames where the shading along his jaw is incomplete; fixed in Photoshop for the lip-flap frames where it happens, then placed them in the footage in Vegas and moved it into place as needed for the panning shot here.

(7) After O'Brien loads his Volcanic Buckshot into his Blaze Cannon Trident and deals 2000 damage to Judai, he starts to explain Trident's role in that, but Judai's betting that there was more to it; O'Brien slides in on a split-screen to say as much as he explains Buckshot's role, but his split-screen's already halfway into the screen in its first before sliding the rest of the way in, and like with #3 above, the border on the split-screen somehow ends up off-center. Fixed these in Vegas by redoing his slide-in so it slides in more fluidly. Then, because of how off-center the split-screen is, as they split apart, O'Brien's side takes longer to slide out; fixed this, after re-centering the split-screen, by redoing their slide-outs to be timed evenly.

[yellowocaballero]

finally got around to finishing weekenders and read the cat byleth fic, and had a great time! reading from felix's perspective of everyone dealing with catleth was very fun, and finding out that felix made the active choice to not do anything actually made me laugh. also, seeing sylvain and his thoughts about felipe, after how you described felipe when he's older just seems very interesting (and funny). all that's to say, i was curious if you'd care to share something about what future shenanigans the oc kids got up to? they seem fun

One of the nicest possible asks you can send someone. Tell me more about your OCs. JALKDSjflkasjdf.

I had to write Byleth's idyllic future family, these people do in fact live in a society where they're all obligated to reproduce, I made up like 10 characters on the spot, the end. Afterwards I got really stressed out due to various and assorted reasons and started stress writing, as I do, and I ended up stress writing a WAY too long OC story. Various facts:

In a heartwarming act of found family, supportive co-parenting, and hating the way your parents raised you, the next gen kids are raised very differently than how their parents raised them. The BL split their time between their homes and the palace, so all of the kids are raised as one big family. All equals! All of you kids are way more important than chivalry! The princess and prince are just like the rest of you! The king isn't stealing ANYONE'S dad!

So that's nine extremely spoiled cousins whose only persistent social circle is each other.

Sometimes a found family are ex-classmates who run a nation together and a group of cousins who are endlessly trying to claw each other's faces off.

Sara (story covers her age from 10-16 but let's randomly anchor this at 12; Dimileth; crown princess) is overly emotional with a temper and is prone towards acts of ringleading and bullying. Terry (10; Felix/Annette; gifted kid before the syndrome; Sephora 10yo) is the meanest preteen girl ever. Leif (12; Ingrid/Ashe; absolute jock; arch nemesis of Sara) would wear Supreme. Felipe says he's too good to be the meanest person ever, but he's just catty about it. Luca (10; Dimileth; crown prince; looks like M!Morgan from FE:A, if he's named after Lucina Byleth does not realize; breaks half of what he touches), Sigurd (10; Ingrid/Ashe; limp noodle of a nerd), and Lailah (6; Felix/Annette; will predict the time and date of your death) are the victims of this. When they are not worse. Sven (Ingrid/Ashe; daydreams about dragons constantly; inherited all of the nice) and Callum (Felix/Annette; inherited all of the nice) will grow up to be nice only because they weren't in baby thunderdome.

The deuteragonist of the story is Derrick von Aegir (13; Ferdinand/F!OC; a truly unfortunate boy) who was sent to live in the Fhaergus Empire's palace at age 11 as a political hostage. The other protagonist is the princess whose greatest problem in life, age 10, was that Father said she isn't allowed to be mean to the political hostage. Derrick's greatest problem in life, age 11, is not accidentally getting his entire family super executed.

(This is the sort of political hostage thing that was very common in the Medieval era, which was basically "hey conquered territory send your kid to live with us, we'll treat them great and school them and teach them how great we are, and YOU won't break any treaties", it's pretty comfy for the kid. Effective way to stop Duke Ferdinand of Adrestia from rebelling, too. Byleth's idea. Bloodless and effective, only slightly traumatizes one kid)

They're all one big family anyway, so let's just toss Derrick into the pile of cousins. He is absorbed into the cousin conglomerate instantly. He's annoyingly perfect: perfect grades, perfect manners, perfect attitude, perfect work. Overachiever who takes up a role as tiny ambassador quickly and dreams of becoming a political ambassador between the territory of Adrestia and the Faerghus kingdom, now empire. Does Felix's paperwork. Tripes to stop himself from wanting to go home. Dimitri taught him how to shave. Gets a horse every year for his birthday. Is perfect. Stops wanting to go home. Is perfect.

The story is largely about the struggle of trying to be a good person when you don't really know how and aren't very good at it. It's about a massive confusion of identity and trying to parse out where you belong when you're from two worlds and belong in neither. It's about having a parent who is severely mentally ill. It's about deciding what a princess means and what a political hostage means; what a family means and what a friend means. It's also about children who are so so so mean to each other.

Glad that's not INSANELY long. It's just stress writing and it's all very off the cuff, so the story's just a pot of ideas, but here's a short-ish excerpt of it underneath the cut that I think summarizes a lot of this.

A week later, Derrick received a letter from his father. It had probably arrived several days before, but all of Derrick’s incoming and outgoing mail was monitored and censored. Derrick had gotten good at talking around anything that made security mad, but sometimes his father’s letters still held long streaks of black.

Sara had barged into his palace in pursuit of a training partner, but she only found him sitting at his dining room table staring blankly at several pieces of paper. They were laid out carefully next to each other, as if Derrick needed to cross-reference each individual sentence. It seemed as if he had been looking at them for a while.

Derrick’s quarters were in the Steel Palace, which was where they kept their diplomats. When he first came to live with them, Father let him choose which suite he wanted and gave him a budget for decorating the room. The quarters had never seen a two year visitor before, but it had adjusted well. Sara was petitioning to move his room into the main palace so she didn’t have to walk so far to visit him, but Derrick had blathered on about stations and appropriateness and laid out his extensive plan on how to be as useful to the crown of Faerghus as possible. Sara said it would be more useful if she didn’t have to walk so far. 

As usual, Derrick’s plans went off without a hitch. Whenever they had visitors from other parts of Faerghus, or even from outside of Fodlan, Derrick was their one-person welcome wagon. It was his sacred self-appointed duty that nobody asked him to do, and he was really good at it. The Adrestian lords were all over him. So were the knights, but Derrick said that he barely registered them anymore. 

Sara stood in the doorway and coughed pointedly, waiting for Derrick to jump up and treat her respectfully. But he just sat and stared at pieces of paper. He obviously knew she was here, but he wasn’t reacting at all.

Sara crept forward until she could grab the back of the ridged chair and hoist herself upwards on the beams. She peered over Derrick’s shoulder at the pieces of paper, finally recognizing it as a letter. She recognized his father’s handwriting. 

“Um,” Sara said, “are you okay?”

That was as emotionally supportive as she got, and probably as emotionally supportive as she was physically capable of being. Derrick seemed to appreciate the effort, ‘cause he actually responded. His voice was dull, as it sometimes was. 

“My mother just had another baby,” Derrick said. All life and spirit was drained from his voice. He sounded very empty. “A full sibling. Boy.”

What? That was so weird. “You didn’t tell me your mom was pregnant!” 

“I didn’t know.” 

Sara couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose. How could the von Aegirs not even say anything? Why was Derrick so upset? News of an upcoming baby in her family was always such a massive deal. The last time Aunt Ingrid got pregnant nobody shut up about it for weeks. And it was a million times worse when the baby was actually born. Sara had forbidden Mother and Father from having any more children, just in case. She wouldn’t survive the commotion. 

“Congratulations?” Sara said, baffled. “Isn’t this a good thing?”

“I guess.”

“But you’re gonna be a brother!”

“Apparently.” 

“Having a sibling does suck,” Sara said contemplatively, “but maybe you’ll luck out and have a nice sibling. Collum’s the best baby ever. Terry and Lilah and I put him in little dresses. And Luca’s whatever I guess.” Sara paused a second, thinking harder. “Two boys must be tougher, though. Leif and his siblings just punch each other all the time.”

“A year,” Derrick said, and Sara finally quieted. “They waited a year until Mother grew pregnant. Father said he didn’t care about having crested kids. That’s what he said.” Derrick’s voice shook, and Sara started feeling really uncomfortable. “They just wrote me off.” 

“No they didn’t. Your parents wouldn’t do that.” Sara hopped off the chair. She put a hand on his arm, squeezing tightly. “Your parents are so nice. Maybe they just…I don’t know. Everybody has, like, five kids. It’s weirder that he waited so long, right?”

“He stopped waiting after I left.” Derrick picked up one of the pages, smoothing it carefully between his fingers. He always treated his parent’s letters carefully. “Does he need a new heir? Does he think I’m not coming back?” Derrick’s voice grew thick. “He said I was coming back. He said I was coming home for sure…”

Sara couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound ridiculously dumb, so she just hugged him. Derrick dropped the letter on the table and hugged her back, limp and weak and clutching onto the folds of her stiff dress, and although she didn’t like very long hugs she refused to let go until he did. 

There was nothing to do about any of it. Adrestians were idiots and Derrick’s stupid parents were constantly making his life miserable. Sara made a noble sacrifice the next day and asked Derrick to teach her how to ride Aqua. Sara was great at riding horses, but she let Derrick teach her anyway. He always forgot about everything else when there was a horse in front of him, so her plan worked perfectly. 

That night, after the boring yet productive horse adventure, Mother found Sara, Derrick, and her family in the kitchens. They were sequestered in the secret nook behind the cold room, chomping down on purloined fruits and shoving apple cores down each other’s shirts. Mother pulled back the curtain on their fun very dramatically, freezing Leif in the middle of his attempts to pull Sigurd’s shirt over his head and dunk it in apple juice.

Felipe scrambled upwards, abandoning his half-eaten pie on the table. He bowed hastily, and everybody else hurriedly copied him. “Greetings to Her Grace, Lady of Faerghus.” 

As usual, Felipe and Derrick did everything pitch-perfect and everybody else stumbled through it. Sigurd’s shirt was still half-hanging off his shoulder. Terry didn’t even let go of her grapes. 

“I need to borrow Derrick,” Mother said. “Now.”

Derrick bowed again and quietly followed Mother’s direction out of the nook. Everybody awkwardly looked at each other. Even Leif looked worried. 

Felipe ran his hand through his near-white hair, gnawing on his cheek. It was still a little weird to have Felipe in the castle so often. It was like summer, but all the time. He didn’t have as much time to spend with them as he used to, though - Uncle Sylvain was officially training him in chamberlain duties. Luca critically deemed Felipe old. “I hope he’s not in trouble.” 

Terry stuffed grapes in her mouth, cherry red pigtails swinging. Through mangled fruity flesh, she said, “Derrick can’t get in trouble. He’s too good at everything. Messing up is Luca’s job.”

Luca sat back down, grabbing his book and pulling sad cow eyes at Terry. Lilah, who was six and liked doing what Luca did, imitated him dolefully. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

“You suck.”

“If he sucks then why did you fail your literature examination?” Sara snapped. “Look in a mirror sometime!”

Terry gasped in affront, and Lilah made a little ‘oooh’. Luca’s jaw dropped. But Sara had enough. She stood up, shoving a final few apples in her dress pocket before stomping out of the enclave. She was distantly aware that Felipe scrambled upwards to follow her, cursing in Duscuran, but she resolutely decided to ignore him. She didn’t have time to soothe ten year old feelings. She had to find Derrick and make a stirring case to her mother on why he shouldn’t be in trouble. 

She made it to the door of the kitchens before Felipe caught up to her. He slid in front of the door, and Sara was once again confronted by his stupid growth spurt as he towered after her. Sara tried to duck and weave around him, purposefully ignoring the bustling kitchen staff steering wide and clear of them, but Felipe held his ground. 

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but this is important.”

Felipe’s voice still carried a distinct Duscuran accent, and it always made his words sound strange and harsh. Sara heard Uncle Dedue scold him for it several times, but Felipe had dug in his heels on the matter. He could imitate Uncle Dedue’s accent perfectly when he was speaking to important people who they didn’t know and didn’t like - which had the terrible side-effect of making him speak like Father - but around his family he refused to talk like the rest of them. It was one of the many reasons why he was super cool. Unfortunately, he was also a drag.

“Fighting Her Grace won’t help him,” Felipe said sternly. “Have you ever successfully changed her mind on anything? Anything at all?” Sara scowled, but she didn’t say anything. It was effectively a concession of the point. “I know your intentions are good. But charging in might hurt more than it helps. You must begin to stop and think things through first.”

“I stop to think all the time,” Sara complained. “I can do tactics. We can all do tactics. We couldn’t survive Mother if we couldn’t do tactics.”

“Yes, and you lose all ability to ‘do tactics’ the second you get worked up about something.” Felipe frowned down at her. Sara wanted to wilt. Another point she wished she could refute, and was perfectly aware she couldn’t. “Derrick’s living in reality, you know that? Not this castle fantasy land. You can’t mess around.” 

“Fantasy land -”

But Felipe just rolled his eyes. “I grew up in a Duscur orphanage. Trust me, I know what the real world looks like.” 

“Your hideously wealthy and powerful mother owns a Duscur orphanage,” Sara said flatly. This was why Felipe wasn’t always cool. “You saw the real world outside your glass window. Stop borrowing other people’s actual problems.” 

“Age has not dulled your tongue,” Felipe said, equally flat. “Will insulting your entire family fix your problems, Your Highness?” Sara pursed her lips, looking away. “You were defending Luca. Out of character, but sweet. Now Terry’s probably mad at Luca because you reminded him that Luca aced his test and she didn’t. Did you solve anything? Or did you just take out your anger on a ten year old?” 

“Literally all we do is insult each other, it’s family culture.”

“Yes, it’s why we’re all mean and insane.” 

Sara crossed her arms. “I thought that was because we’re all spoiled brats.” 

“It’s a feedback loop. We make each other worse. And yes, I’m a spoiled brat too.” Felipe sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Goddess knows I can’t stop you from doing what you want. But please, Sara. Stop thinking about what you want and start thinking about what Derrick needs. If you’re capable of that.”

“Uncle Sylvain would kick your ass if he heard you talking to me like that.” 

Brightly, Felipe said something to her in Duscuran. Sara squinted at him. In Adrestrian, he said, “There. I’ll say that in front of my father as much as you want. He’s too scared of brown people to learn my other language, so I think I’m in the clear.”

“Uncle Dedue would kick your ass,” Sara amended. 

Felipe blanched. “You won’t tell Uncle.” 

“Watch me.”

“No, you won’t. You won’t.”

“Make me.”

“If you tell Uncle I will actually -”

“You’ll actually what?” Sara sang. “Go ahead, tell me. Tell me what I should tell Uncle Dedue you would actually do.”

“You are such a little -”

Sara ducked left and dove for the door. The kitchen door, made for servants carrying armfuls of plates and meat, swung open when she pressed on it, and she ignored Felipe’s yelp as she broke free into the hallway. 

She sped-walk (‘Princesses don’t -’ Take a guess.) down the hallway, craning her head for a glimpse of Mother. Empty of everything but a shitton of servants. She reached an intersection of hallways, frantically looking left and right in search of the right path. Would tactics help? 

Tactics were unnecessary. Balad was standing in front of a door in the hallway to her left. Sara gracefully speedwalked straight towards him.

Despite her best efforts at dignity, Balad still seemed amused when he saw her. Mother’s personal knight didn’t follow her around most of the time, so she must either be coming from some official business or going towards it. Court had been yesterday, so it couldn’t be that. Sara remembered when court was. So organized and yet so chaotic. 

“Whoah, tiger,” Balad said. “Looking for somebody?”

Balad wasn’t very formal when it was just them, which was nice. Like Felipe, he had a fancy accent at his disposal but tended to prefer his native accent around them. Unlike Felipe, Balad was the real deal. “Is Mother inside?” Sara asked urgently. “Is she with Derrick?”

“The Adrestrian boy? Sure, she needed to meet with him.” Balad shifted on his feet, giant suit of armor rattling. How did he wear that all day? “Is something wrong?” 

Sara did her best not to look shifty. Balad raised an eyebrow. Too many people in this world had known her since she was a baby. Balad especially used to look after her in Mother’s stead while he was a squire. “Depends. Is Derrick in trouble?”

“I think your mother would say that this isn’t your fight, Your Highness.”

That was ominously vague. “But Derrick’s my responsibility,” Sara insisted. Balad’s eyebrow climbed higher. “If he’s in trouble I have to be there. As, like, defensive counsel. In a court of law.” 

“Who made Derrick your responsibility?”

Sara halted. Come to think of it…well, technically nobody. She had really just decided. But that didn’t invalidate her point. She was just taking initiative or whatever. 

Diversion tactic. Sara sniffed. “It’s a princess responsibility. A princess takes responsibility for all her subjects.”

Slowly, Balad drawled,”Uh-huh. And blaming Lilah for breaking that vase was…?”

“That was not a clear-cut situation - agh, never mind! Can I see them or not?” Balad stared at her. “May I see Her Grace and That Adrestian Boy please, Knight Balad.” 

“Let me ask, Your Highness.” 

Good enough!

Balad opened the door and stepped inside, quickly closing it. Sara focused hard on clearing her mind, summoning her logic, and drafting an argument. Yes, it was physically impossible to change Mother’s mind on literally anything. Mother and Father took each other’s counsels, but Father generally just obeyed her while she took his opinion and priorities into account (“Honey, is there a tactic with less casualties?”). When Father was indisposed and Mother assumed rulership, very little changed. And everything, but that was just because Father was nicer. 

But she still had to try. Especially since Sara was pretty certain she knew what this was about. 

The expression on Derrick’s mind was still burned into her mind. Derrick lived his life afraid of punishment, but he was never punished. It was the first time Sara had seen Derrick look punished. Derrick had looked as if he was being punished. 

He had been punished enough already. Sara couldn’t allow him to be punished one more time. King and Queen responsibilities meant that they had to choose the option with the least disruption and bloodshed. It was their responsibility to give Derrick a hard time. But Sara’s responsibility was to figure out some way to imitate a good person, and this was pretty much the only method that interested her. 

The door opened, and Balad gestured her inside. Sara’s heart leapt into her throat, and she forcibly stopped and allowed Felipe’s obnoxious words to stampede through her mind. Plan of attack.  Never begin a fight without knowing where you’re going. Never enter an unsecured building during a battle - oh, forget it. 

The room was just another of their sitting rooms, distinctly less fancy than the rest and doubtlessly used by lesser nobles. Still stupidly fancy, but that was life. Mother was standing in the center of the room, Derrick across from her. Well, he wasn’t crying. He didn’t look distinctly happy, but he didn’t seem desolate. A positive direction, right?

Sara bowed. “Good evening, Your Grace. Are you finished with Derrick? He promised to take me horseback riding, and we should leave while there’s still daylight.” 

Mother nodded. “Sure. We’re mostly done here.” She looked back at Derrick, who was making the Eyebrow of Incredulity at her. Sara wondered if her plan was successful, before deciding that it definitely was. “I might as well say this in front of Sara. Do you know why the king has very few memories of your father from school?” Derrick looked at the ground and silently shook his head. “Because I knew that the king would probably stand on the opposite side of a battlefield from Ferdinand von Aegir, and I didn’t want him to grow attached.”

That sentence would sound insane if Sara wasn’t used to it. “How did you know that?”

“It was a precautionary measure.” 

Weakly, Derrick said, “That sounds a little extreme…”

Mother’s pale eyes locked onto Derrick, and he froze. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Derrick locked his eyes onto the floor. “Yes, Your Grace. It’s an honor to be here and serving the royal family.” 

“I dislike lies.” Derrick swallowed a flinch, and Sara bristled. But Mother’s eyes just softened, and she took a small step closer to Derrick. “I’m sorry, Derrick. I failed to make something clear to you. Considering your new concerns, this is the appropriate time to divulge this. Please look at me.”

Derrick looked up at her, and Sara had to fight the urge to run to him. She didn’t want him to look at Mother like that. Just once, just for once, Sara wanted the world to look at Mother and see what Sara saw. Everybody knew that Mother was level-headed, always the one to calm down Father when he grew agitated, but everybody seemed to interpret her words as detachment instead of kindness. 

“There is almost nothing you can do that would make us harm you or your family.” Mother said the sentence easily, as if she hadn’t just mildly rocked Sara and Derrick’s worlds. “Short of endangering or harming the royal family and Faerghus, your actions cannot result in punishment for your family. The king and I decided years ago to never punish you further than we might punish one of our own family’s children. There is certainly nothing you may do by accident that would get you in trouble.”

Sara and Derrick gaped at Mother. Somewhat insanely, Sara attempted to divine why Mother would sit on information that would reframe Derrick’s entire life.

Derrick was stunned even worse than her. He was shaking his head faintly, in pure denial. “But I’m a political hostage. The whole point of that is…”

“Did you want us to send one of your toes home?” Byleth asked wryly. Derrick shivered. “Sorry. Bad joke. You’re not a parent, Derrick. Parents would do anything to protect the children they love. Your parents wouldn’t put your safety and well-treatment at risk.” Sheesh, did she have to specify it like that? “Your father loves you immensely. You…should have seen his face when he signed the forms to give you up. It was…” Mother frowned, a little troubled. “I felt one of my least favorite emotions. But it was an important emotion for me to feel. I had to remind myself of that.”

Quietly, Derrick said, “But he didn’t really seem that upset…”

“Yes, he was very brave for you.” It was clear that Derrick had never thought of it like that, and he was struck dumb. “All that matters is the threat. The king’s reputation is - among us adults, it’s fearsome.” The corner of Mother’s lips turned down. “Quite fearsome. He’s ashamed of it, but it is useful.”

Sara wouldn’t understand this comment until two years later, when she will see Father crush skulls with one hand. She will rush home and tell Derrick all about it, mime the motion with one hand. And Derrick will look up from his book and say - did you not know?

“What if Father doesn’t pay attention to my letter?” Derrick asked, expression creasing. “With a new heir, I’m not…”

“Your father will know perfectly well who told you what to say in that letter.” What letter? Was that what Mother had pulled him away to speak about? “He’s not stupid enough to ignore it. I wouldn’t be surprised if a letter reaffirming his loyalty to us was already on the way. Even if the duke declared a rebellion tomorrow, Derrick, we wouldn’t harm you.” Mother paused a beat. “We wouldn’t allow you to return to Adrestria, of course. But you’d be treated no differently.” 

They wouldn’t send him home? Somewhat tactlessly, Sara cried, “Can we adopt Derrick?”

“No.” 

“But his father would obviously be unfit if he did that -”

“Yuri would kill us. No.” 

If there was one person in Fodlan who could tell Mother what to do, it was Yuri. He told Mother to do things and she did them. Obviously he also told Father to do things and Father did them, but Mother was the tougher nut to crack. Mother said it was because he was the only person who didn’t respect her.

“I will do everything I can to prevent that from happening, Your Grace.” Derrick said it as if he really meant it - as if it was his responsibility. Maybe it was, but it was a responsibility he fulfilled by waking up every morning to a Faerghus ceiling. “I never want our nobility to fight ever again. That’s my word, as a von Aegir.”

“Vows and promises have never impressed me,” Mother said blandly. Derrick winced. “Nobles bearing nothing but high words are the easiest to kill. I respect hard work, productivity, and growth. You’re a Blue Lion now, Derrick. I expect these things from you.” 

Derrick froze. He practically wasn’t breathing. Sara wanted to put her hand on his arm again, but yet again she was standing far away from them. Why did she never stand closer? “That’s - I thought that was your family.” 

“It’s people I trust. And people I expect great things from. That includes you, Derrick.” She glanced at Sara, who was masterfully repressing a sulk. “It’s not our children. We want them to find their own way. But this is the path I’m asking of you. Can you handle it?”

Derrick straightened, chin out, and for a strange second he looked every inch the high nobility that he was. Why did it feel so rare? His bloodline was impossibly prestigious. He ought to carry himself tall. But Derrick was always trying to make himself seem smaller - eyes down, shoulders hunched. He only unfolded in front of Sara.

Perfect, accomplished, hard-working Derrick. Derrick, who always stood larger than life to Sara. Felipe was right - Derrick lived in an adult’s world, while Sara still played around and messed with her cousins. He was alone in that world.

In that second, the thought was intolerable to Sara. 

“Yes, Your Grace,” Derrick said. “I only ask that you help me work hard.”

“Good. Goodbye.” Mother glanced at Sara, who froze. “Sara.”

She didn’t say anything else.

Sara cleared her throat. “Yes, Mother.”

Mother tilted an eyebrow.

Sara was crushed. That eyebrow was like an anvil on her head. She was used to it from Father, who was absolutely relentless when he wasn’t feeling guilty for being relentless, but Mother was sparse with that eyebrow. It meant a lot more coming from her. 

That eyebrow meant something different to everybody. To Luca, it probably only meant ‘be a good boy, baby, I love you’. To Sara’s cousins, it closely resembled ‘the Queen of Faerghus and Saint of Seiros is watching you So Closely and the Goddess won’t help you if she doesn’t like what she sees’. Sara’s aunts and uncles were visibly terrified of it. Counter-intuitively, they were more terrified of it than any of the kids. Sara still heard them threaten each other with The Look. Only Uncle Felix was unaffected, but Sara quietly suspected that Uncle Felix was Mother’s favorite. She didn’t know which one came first. 

But to Sara, it always meant ‘don’t disappoint me’. It meant ‘be better’. No matter what she did or how she did it, Sara must be better. Endlessly better, and never good enough. 

If she was good enough…could she stand by Derrick? Was it really Mother who she wanted to save him from?

“Yes, Mother,” Sara said. “I will.”

“I know. Goodbye.”

Mother left, as dramatically as she had come, and took Balad with her. She left Sara and Derrick standing alone in a sitting room, locked in their own wandering minds. 

Derrick broke the tension by sagging, releasing a full-body exhale. Sara walked closer to him, so close that she could finally reach out and touch his shoulder. She didn’t, but she could.

“I thought she’d get less scary eventually,” Derrick mumbled. “Everybody else got less scary. How did she get scarier…”

“It’s ‘cause Mother’s the boss,” Sara said. “She’s just tough ‘cause she takes responsibility for everybody. Like you! You’re a Blue Lion now. That means she’ll get scarier, but, like, in a good way.”

“I don’t know if I want Queen Byleth to keep a closer eye on me.” Derrick’s voice sounded a little faint. “I’ve just tried to stay underneath her radar…”

“Too bad.” Sarah firmly patted him on the shoulder. “Exceptional people always catch Mother’s eye. You were just too good at being good at things.” Derrick moaned, hanging his head. “Oh, stop whining, it’s a compliment. I came expecting way worse, you know.” 

Derrick eyed her wearily. “Do I want to know why you followed us?”

Sara coughed. “I was planning on rescuing you, actually. You’re welcome.”

“Saints, Sara,” Derrick groaned. Expected reaction. “What could you have done? I wasn’t even in trouble.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Honestly! As if it mattered that she couldn’t do anything! “I couldn’t leave you hanging in the wind like that. Besides, I did help, didn’t I? I definitely changed the subject. What did Mother even want, anyway?”

“I guess you distracted her.” Left unsaid: a monkey could do that, idiot. “It was about the new sibling. The King and Queen know this means von Aegir has a spare now.”

“Come on, Derrick -”

“It’s true.” Derrick shook off her hand, and Sara let it drop. “My value’s gone down. They want me to remind my father about some stuff. Don’t worry about it. It’s our problem.” 

Our, as in Mother and Father and Duke von Aegir and Duchess von Aegir. Not Sara. 

“I forbid you from talking about yourself like that.” Sara tried to use her best princess voice, but it was a little weaker than usual. “It’s not about your value -”

“It’s all about my value!” Derrick yelled, stopping Sara short. He backed away from her, face flushed, but Sara couldn’t move. She had never heard Derrick raise his voice before. “Are you stupid? You don’t know what you’re talking about! You can’t understand! I work so hard to keep my value up and my stupid parents waste it just because they wanted another baby! If that stupid baby has a crest it’s all over for me! They’re the ones trying to take everything away from me, not the king and queen!”

“Who cares about a stupid crest!” Sara yelled back. “So you won’t be heir anymore, big deal! Mom and Dad don’t care!”

Derrick rounded on her, and Sara jerked backwards. His face was flushed, and his nose was scrunched up. Sara knew what it looked like when Derrick was trying not to cry. “Do you seriously think I want to hear that from the Crest of Flames? Shut up! I worked so hard, I did everything I physically could, and it doesn’t matter! If that baby has a crest then Dad’s advisors will tell him to let me die, it’ll tie up a freaking loose end! They can’t exactly keep a crested baby hostage, can they? It’d be convenient! That would be my value! They’ll stop caring what happens to me and I’ll be worth nothing!”

“Mom and Dad care about you!” Sara screamed, and Derrick finally fell silent. “Mom wants to train you, Mom promised you everything, and I bet Dad wishes you were his kid instead of me!” Derrick opened his mouth to protest, but Sara didn’t let him interrupt. “You’d be the best prince ever! You’d be a thousand times better than Dad’s shitty real kids. Luca’s always breaking things and I’m stupid and mean. We’re spoiled brats, everyone says so, and you’re perfect! Stop telling me we don’t care about you! You don’t know me either!”

Derrick was fully crying now. As always, it was silent. 

Sara fought to calm down. Derrick’s words just upset her so much. She didn’t want him to talk about loose ends and dying. She didn’t want him to say that nobody back home cared about him. That had always been Derrick’s anchor, the faith that saved him - that his parents loved him. If Derrick let go of that, then…then…

“Who cares if some stupid Adrestrians want you dead? What are they going to do about it? Mom just said that you’re perfect and we love you. Mom physically can’t lie, she doesn’t know how.”

“That’s not what she said at all -”

“Who knows my mom better, me or you?” Derrick hiccuped, rubbing at his face. Sara ignored him. She had been right after all - Derrick needed defensive counsel from his one and only lawyer. “So they throw you to the lions. Big deal. The lions think you’re great. Hang out and do Uncle Felix’s job, he hates it. Just stay here and keep being my best friend.” For the first time, Sara faltered. “Is that really so bad?”

Derrick shook his head, and Sara could see his tears dry. He looked way too exhausted for a thirteen year old. Derrick always felt old, but in that moment he felt even older than Felipe. “It’s not so simple, Sara…”

“You don’t want to be my best friend?” Sara asked. Her own words squeezed her heart painfully. “That’s okay, you know. You don’t have to be my best friend. But…you’re still mine, so…”

“Of course I want to be your best friend.” Derrick rubbed at his eyes, digging around so harshly that it had to be painful. “But…Sara, please don’t be stupid. Okay? Being your best friend gives me value. Like, a lot. I didn’t want to be your best - I mean, it just sort of happened, it just wasn’t my intention - and I promise I’m not pretending to be your friend. But I don’t want to pretend that’s not important. The king says we…shouldn’t pretend it’s a nice situation. So I don’t want to lie about that.”

Sara thought about this for a long minute. Derrick looked a little embarrassed - at the fact that their friendship was politically useful, or that they were actually friends, she didn’t know. They’d only said the ‘best friend’ word, like, once. It was so embarrassing. 

Sara thought about tactics. 

Finally, she crossed her arms and said, “So I’m useful to you.”

Derrick blanched. “I swear, I’m not using -”

“Why not? Go ahead. Flex it. Why wouldn’t you use that?” When you thought about it, really thought about it - when you thought about the big picture - this was the only thing that made sense. “Everybody keeps saying I can’t help you because I’m just a stupid princess. Including you.” Derrick winced, but it was whatever. She said mean things when she was upset too. “If I’m a stupid crown princess, I’ll use being a stupid crown princess. The Crest of Flames has to be good for something besides that stupid prophecy. If that’s how I can help you, then let me help you.” 

Derrick only shook his head, face pale. “I can’t do that.”

“Mother says to use every advantage available to you. This is your advantage. Don’t go on and on about how hard you work if you’re going to pass on opportunities.” Sara paused a beat. “And I need to get one up on Felipe. He said I was useless.”

Derrick looked at her for a long, inscrutable moment, before sighing. Sara knew that face. She had totally won. “So this is what Lord Dedue was talking about…”

“Eh?”

“Nothing.” Derrick picked at the sleeve of his rich and humble shirt. Sara would have to get him some nicer clothing. “Fine. I’ll use you. But…” He redoubled his focus on the sleeve again, cheeks flushed. “Does this mean we can’t be best friends anymore? For real?”

“I wouldn’t care about you and your problems if we weren’t best friends, so…uh, we have to. Right?” This was so embarrassing. This was a lot of feelings. How was Sara meant to handle this. “I guess this is mean of me. But…I’m glad your parents are having another baby. I didn’t want you to leave and stop being my best friend. That’s a really mean thing to think, right?”

“Nah,” Derrick said. “It’s kinda nice, actually. To know that somebody wants me here.” 

“It was super boring when you were nice to me, so don’t start doing that.”

“Trust me, Sara. It’s impossible to be nice to you.”

“Liar! Why are so many people nice to me, then?”

Derrick nodded sagely. “They get paid. And crown princess bullshit.” 

This perturbed Sara. “I really gotta make up for the princess thing, huh…like, karmically…”

“Just be nicer.”

“What, and die?!”

[princess-of-the-corner]

Can we get a full rant about the Paris special?

You're probably going to get more out of me once it fully airs but for now just.

The evil characters motivations just kinda suck for comparing them to the originals. Which again: I don't want to do because I hate the 'oh this other person had the same trauma and handled it better' thing, but when it's the same character going through the same trauma it's bullshit.

Shadybug's reason for being evil sucks because it's literally just 'she didn't meet Alya' which is supposed to be part of the Derision Retcon of how awful Chloé was even though it doesn't match with anything we saw in Season 1-3 but I can ignore that because it commits a worse crime: Letting us know that if Marinette didn't meet Alya that exact day, she would've gone full murderous villain before the day was over. Like literally Alya is the only thing different, which means even Canon!Mari is just one bad day from snapping and killing everyone.

Claw Noir makes no goddamn sense because Canon!Adrien was able to healthily handle his mother's 'death' even having Canon!Gabriel as his abusive neglectful bastard of a father. How is it that a version of Adrien that had a genuinely good father end up handling his mother's 'death' so poorly that he's down to kill whoever gets in the way as a coping mechanism?

All of this might be rendered unnecessary anyway with the fact that they're working for whatever 'Supreme' that's actually the Big Bad and might be forcing them into this? I need more info on that before I give a verdict.

I thought Hesperia being 'Good' would be the hardest sell considering Season 4 and 5's insistence that his evil plans have been 15-ish years in the making(despite the finale's insistence that he's only 'evil' because he misses Emilie) especially since clearly said plans are still in place as Alt!Adrien exists and Emilie 'died' meaning they got the Peacock. But other than the above plothole of somehow Good!Gabriel let Adrien end up as Claw Noire, he seems fine.

There's a lot of missed opportunities where they're trying to show alternate universes but only focusing on a single one. Like again: give us an Into the Ladyverse. We appearently see them for a few seconds during a Scooby-Doo Chase Scene™ which is the biggest slap in the face.

Other than the fact that this entire special on a base premise shouldn't be possible due to all other episodes insisting that there is only One True Timeline and that if anything somehow diverges, Bunnyx will come and make sure everything goes exactly as she remembers it.

We have yet another round of mass murdering terrorist supervillains who are validated because 'oh they were sad' so it's okay that they committed horrific crimes that they don't feel any remorse for outside of a 'let me just say, from the bottom of my heart: my bad.' but they're now redeemed with no consequences. And I wouldn't even care /that/ much because like a little hypocritical coming from an MLP fan if it weren't for the fact that 1.) they feel no remorse whatsoever and 2.) we have the narrative constantly beating us over the head about how none of this applies to the one abused teenage girl who's acting out because of trauma despite not going full supervillain on her own terms just being a jerk to her classmates.

[toa-character-tournament]

Trials of Apollo tournament !!!!! [studio audience claps]

[David Attenborough voice] Trials of Apollo is a very diverse series, with a plethora of characters who play both small and large roles, but have made an impact in the hearts of the readers- So we're gonna make them FIGHT to the DEATH to see who reigns supreme as the ultimate toa character. yayyyyyyyyy!!!! ^-^ [slightly more apprehensive studio audience clapping]

Anyways, below is the tournament bracket, which i made on kapwing instead of literally any other program (the number of times it broke down on me is INSANE) if any of u want the plain template bc u also somehow end up conducting a 40 character poll, shoot me an ask on @sierice ✌️love and peace

FAQ

1. Why is so-and-so character not there?

Mostly bc I felt they weren't that major of a character, even if they were toa-only characters. for example, the campers in THO. Paolo, Damian, Chiara, all of em are great characters, but they dont rlly play a super major role. some exceptions i can think to this would be Connor Stoll, who i didnt include bc he's just not thought about as much with regards to toa, but rather more to pjo instead. I didn't include percy bc if i did everyone would just vote for him regardless, which would skew things up quite a bit. another exception is agamethus, who should've definitely been here, except for the fact that i completely forgot to add him 💔 sorry king, you're the winner in my heart

2. Why is there going to be a poll against three different characters instead of just two in the bracket?

Bc im bad at math and didnt take into consideration that 40 characters wouldnt make a perfect even poll </3 also idk how to make a functional bracket

3. Why is this character against this one? It feels too skewed/too random

well. i tried to seed this tournament, bc i didnt want to randomize it and end up w zeus vs georgie or smthg. but i dont know how to seed polls exactly, so...................... yeah (i am SO sorry to jo and emmie 🙏i did not think u two would be pitted against each other in the end)

Regardless, this is not a very serious/formal poll, so we're just here to have some fun! vote for ur favorites, not who u think would win in a fight. idk what im doing here either, so i'll be mostly winging it as we go. LET'S GO!

[thecheshirerat]

a Bridge Season?

Thinking about season 3, folks. And the more I ponder it, the more I am utterly befuddled by the idea that season 2 is a bridge season.

Because if someone says "Yeah, we had a sequel planned for the book- but we need a bridge season to get to that starting place for the series." You anticipate that the setup for the sequel was all in the book, but some crucial bits of that setup were cut for TV. You think, ok, so this bridge season- season 2- will mostly be highlighting things that were in the book which were cut from season 1, combined with things that might have ended up in the prologue of book 2, with some fun extra bits for the sake of a coherent narrative.

There was a lot of "fun extra bits," but for the most part? That's. Not what season 2 was.

Season two was a lot of things- I like to describe it as a love letter, to the fandom, to Terry, to all the people involved in making the show- but it's hardly any of the things I listed above. There's some touching on book-things left out of the show, I can't think of any good examples now, but a lot of it is new!

And those new things made waves, that's absolutely sure! Season 3 will start from a very different place than season 1 ended. Aziraphale's in heaven. Crowley's a mess. Gabriel and Beelzebub are a thing. Muriel's running the bookshop.

But none of those could POSSIBLY have been crucial for season 3 to work.

It would have been pretty wild for 668: The Neighbor of the Beast (the proposed title of the book sequel) to have begun with Aziraphale suddenly in the position of Supreme Archangel. Even if they had a little explanation in the early chapters, it would have been weird- in the first book, there's very little in terms of heavenly politics. It would've been equally weird to have Crowley a mess over their off-page breakup. If that was why season 2 was necessary, Book Omens would've needed a bridge too!

Additionally, from what we know of the planned book, Crowley and Aziraphale were originally planned to work together- I lost the post where this was summarized so long ago, but I vaguely remember mention of them road-tripping across America, which will have to be changed now.

So their whole fight- the consequences of the final fifteen? We can assume that was all Gaiman.

Gabriel was practically a footnote in the book, so it would be wild for his and Beelzebub's absence to be fundamental to season 3- and we know Neil got the idea to canonize ineffable bureaucracy after season 1 was put out.

Maggie and Nina were involved because Neil wanted Maggie and Nina on the set (he's said that too). (I could find sources for all of these things if I went looking, but I'm very tired right now.)

Saraqael was added.

Muriel morphed out of a character Neil said was originally Aziraphale's replacement on Earth, but who he made nice because he was sick of writing about mean angels- so, Muriel could be fulfilling a season 3 role set up for that heaven's-replacement character he mentioned- but they probably weren't at the center of the plot, if Neil and Terry had left the character mostly unplanned.

The flashbacks are either follow-ups to flashbacks introduced in season 1 (1941, for instance), unlikely to be relevant (the Resurrectionists) or very unlikely to contain key plot details (the Job minisode, which was written by John Finnemore without much input from Neil at all).

So what was introduced in Season 2 that makes a transition from book-sequel to show-sequel smoother? Dear Reader, I have no idea. I am not a particularly good theorist, just someone who is pretty sure none of these words [this season] was in the bible [original book].

I just keep coming back to the thought that if the start of season 3 was also the planned start of 668 (and we know it won't be), they would've written a trilogy. Because they would have needed a bridge there, too.

I don't doubt that season 2 was necessary to bridge the gap- and I love it, even if it wasn't necessary, I love it and if Neil wants it back he can pry it from my cold dead hands- I'm sure it was, in some way that we have no way of understanding yet. It must all be in his authorial, ineffable plan, because that's where I am with this, I GUESS. But when he says this was a bridge season to something he and Terry had planned out before season 1 ever aired, I'm clueless.

[emcandon]

fresh midnight Question for you:

are there any TAU worldbuilding elements or character facts or whatnot that you wanted to include in the book, but ended up cutting? or alternatively, have any specific story elements you have a burning desire to talk about?

Hm! Some thoughts on queer stuff! Which is ambiently in the text but not so much defined.

I was interested in writing a world with multiple competing theories of queerness, none of which are "perfect" -- in the sense that none of these societies have managed genuine queer liberation (i.e., everyone has the freedom to be who and love however they want). They're not necessarily awful, though some definitely are, but none of it's ideal.

The dominant queer culture originates in the Immaculate Empire and gives us "hermit" and "widow" -- pretty binary terms for a specific variety of desire, often linked with a kind of gender performance. There is no similar term for bi/pansexuality, at least not in the common parlance, so if you're, say, a cis bisexual woman, you'd still be described as a widow, were you engaging in widow-like conduct. The understanding and room for transness is highly dependent on where you are; some states have done that particular brand of evil thing where they see providing trans care as a way to enforce state power, because it's a way to police the binary and deviations from it.

Outside the empire, we get the legacy of downworld "third gender" -- which is actually a catch-all term for queerness. It also...doesn't have any further distinctions. They lump the entirety together in this one category -- which is itself somewhat binarist, as it distinguishes "cishet" from "not that," even though it's on a different axis. So if it's particularly important to you to be perceived in a more specific way, welp! Good luck!! This might actually be pretty chill in a world where authoritarian powers weren't keen on destroying your existence. Unfortunately!

I also have thoughts abt the ways different character relate to these systems of identity and meaning; like Sunai is pretty comfortable swimming between them and has a more fluid sense of self, while Veyadi cleaves more to "hermit" as a term, even though he has a somewhat complicated relationship with it. Jin has latched onto "third gender" even though they're not as bound up in downworld culture as say, Oyu, who is from a downworld caravan, third gender, and presents in a distinctly hermit-like way. And Imaru is the ur-lesbian! Widow supreme! Next question!

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Surprise!

*pant!* *pant!* *pant!* *pant!*...*pant!*...

*While on the run from Shuichi and his group, Tsumugi finally comes into a fairly large open area with many tables and machines in it. She hurries over to the table and starts throwing things off it, desperately looking for a particular device.

Where is it...! Where is it...!?

*She pushes things aside on the table until she finds one. A pair of glasses on top of a medium sized tub.

...

*She hesitantly reaches out for it.

I didn't want to do this...I swore I'd never do this...But...

What the hell...!

_______________________________________________________

COMING THROUGH!

*CRAASSH!*

*Kaito shoulder tackles the door, and everyone charges in alongside him. Maki, Kokichi, Kirumi and Rantaro all ready their respective weapons.

Alright Tsumugi! The jig is up! We've got you!

...Mmph...Grmmph...

Uh...What are you doing?

Huh? Oh, sorry, I just forgot that I left my burger in here before things ended up going south.

*She takes a large chomp out of the burger and starts talking with her mouth full.

Grd Brgur! Bsht ing Hishima. Jsht fugrd culdn't let it gr tr weste.

Careful...She's acting really overconfident right now...

Which means she's plotting something...Yeah, I get it...

*Tsumugi finishes eating and leans against the wall.

This factory is more important to me than you think, you know...Not only is it my home, but it contains the products of everything I've spent all these years working on...

A lifetime of memories and work...And now you're here, threatening to destroy it.

Hey girl...YOU struck first...

Oh really? When did I come into your home and try to destroy it?

How about the time you and Zetsubou put a big toxic cloud over the country we live in? Or the time that you threatened to destroy the planet we stand on.

THAT...is not your home. You and I and we don't BELONG here...! This is NOT our home! So why should I care what happens to it?

This place is even more of a home than the world we came from was! Quit talking out your ass!

And even if it wasn't, what makes you think that gives you the right to just...DESTROY all of it!?

Tsumugi...

*Rantaro steps forward.

WHY are you doing all of this!? The Killing Game's aren't real in our universe, but they ARE here! What makes you think they want to see another tragedy!?

Do you think I CARE what people think? I'm the leader of the Ultimate Despair! You think I give a second thought about how innocents are suffering!?

Ah, yes, how could I forget...Tsumugi Shirogane's greatest feat ever accomplished.

Copying a fictional character that she will never be as influential or powerful as...

Tch...! ...I don't want to hear that from the Supreme Leader who doesn't even have an organization.

Oh, you mean the character that you TURNED ME INTO?

The only thing that I ever knew growing up as a kid was ABUSE! Danganronpa gave me an outlet to show other people in that...sick...twisted world suffering...!

Only do I know now that they weren't real people, even if they were played by actors who were none the wiser...That kind of game SICKENS me...!

[randomnameless]

I'm beginning to think there might have been discourse/debate between KT and IS regarding the Fodlan games. We'll never know of course but it would be amusing if that's the case considering how it translated to their audience.

lol

Some people already thought about it, and while Nopes was a heavily marketed/produced product by KT, at the end of the day, even for FE16, IS had to pop in and give a sign of approval.

I think the interview for Engage more or less revealed that while the two games weren't developed together, they were thought of as being wildly different experiences - both in gameplay and story, and while I have my own gripes with Engage's story especially in the last chapters, Engage's big character resolution is

Alear coming to terms with what they were born as, but deciding, nonetheless, to use their power to be and act as the divine dragon Lumera was, aka use their power to do something "good" even if they were born as Sombron's kid thus supposed to do "bad" things.

Compare this with "crust BaD" - nowhere in the Fodlan games is it ever mentionned, by one character who has a crust, that crust is only a power and not inherently bad or good, it's what you decided to do, you as someone who has the opportunity to use this power, who ultimately choose to do the right thing, or the wrong thing.

Hell, it's only when Fodlan met another game (fully developed by IS, for better and worse) that his question is raised, and quickly eluded by Supreme Leader warping away from Lissa, because hey, in an IS game, that question would have been raised, and defaulting to "crusts BaD" has never been the house's recipe to make a game - especially since this specific recipe has been overused, first in FE Jugdral (Loptyr blood isn't inherently evil, that was the teaching Blaggi tried to promote that was later ignored and then forgotten), then, sort of in FE6 (no Fa, divine dragons aren't doomed to become souless war dragon producing machins or humanity's enemies!), in FE13 with Robin and their fell blood, and finally, in FE17.

I think, even if FE16 still sells a lot of alts in FEH and DLC and what not, the lack of side materials and goodies is, imo, telling enough about what IS wants to do with it - FE17 got a manga release on the shonen jump + (i think?) even when the sales are inferior to FE16's (granted, if we compare something that was around for 4 years including 2020 to a game released in January, that's not very fair) - Nopes's DLC was called off and bar FEH milking the Fodlan verse to sell units, imo, IS wants to drop it and move forward.

And while it makes me sad because there are things I'm legit interested in (war of heroes guide like the tellius recollection guide plz), given what "Fodlan" ended up when KT was left (mostly?) alone in the form of Nopes (you effing beat up refugees to steal their gold! Like, we're the red units beating the green npcs, or the bandits burning houses??) - I am less and less sure I want to see more Fodlan content, even if I was pleasantly surprised with the Fodlan content - especially regarding Nabateans who are completely ignored by their source game - IS made up for FEH.

Sure we have some issues that are inherent to FEH's nature as a gacha selling game cajoling units who can sell a lot (Hilda's family never had slaves unfed servants! Syrup just had some adventures in Goneril!) but to the FEH team - from IS - Sothis is more pissed at Agarthans for having genocided her children and turned them into pincushions than for Billy's dad's death.

Hell, for what it's worth, Emblem!Dimitri mentions how much he likes the idea of a world/place without discriminations based on origins or races, something he cannot say in the KT Fodlan games, because it stars Ms "You are a Nabatean, you should not rule over Humans!" as the main character of the game - so it's not a lot, but imo, FEH + FE17 gives us clues as to what IS would have done with the Fodlan cast -

Even if I'm not kidding myself, Hresvelg Tea was always supposed to be the main selling point of that verse, so while I don't think we would have had less uwus, maybe we might have had some sort of "sekrit brainwash" to make Ashnard in an onesie still be marketable for FEH.

[tonydaddingham]

LWA: The poster is right that the characters have deviated far from their originals, and not just because so much of their dialogue got swapped around in S1. Gaiman has confused matters because /he/ insists that the characters are fundamentally the same, even though the TV incarnations behave in ways that are implausible for their novel versions. A few years ago, I saw a Tumblr post that said, roughly, that if Novel!Crowley had tried the wall slam he would be made to see the error of his ways very quickly, and...yeah. That being said, S1 is an adaptation in dialogue with the original--a lot of what's interesting occurs in the dynamic engagement /between/ S1 and the novel, as opposed to saying that the novel /explains/ S1 or anything afterwards. I think that the novel's conclusions about "messing about," for example, are on the table for the S3 endgame, but I don't think that they'll be articulated the same way, or perhaps even have the same meaning in their new context.

S3 is a different beast because, among other things, it cannot be whatever Gaiman and Pratchett sketched out. Gaiman does a lot of retconning, to put it politely, and it seems dubious that the moves he makes at the end of S2 could set up the original plan (for starters, Gabriel had to be ported out because he had been injected into S1, and presumably would have been swanning away as Supreme Archangel otherwise ; there was no need to get C & A back on the clock because, technically, they weren't off it at the end of the original novel; TV!Aziraphale's religious trauma/cult abuse allegory is entirely foreign to Novel!Aziraphale's characterization, so whatever his motivations were, they couldn't have been that; etc.). Moreover, Gaiman has so depoliticized the original, beyond very loosey-goosey-hand-wavy type things, that it also isn't clear that we're going to get the kind of "tear down the system!!!" plot that a lot of fans seem to expect. Gaiman himself is very non-tear-down-systemy, and while it's hardly unheard of for authors to experiment in narrative with politics they don't hold, I wouldn't be surprised if the end result was less BURN IT ALL DOWN and more "hey, here's an exit strategy for other angels and demons who want out."

LWA!!!!✨ glad you saw that post, wondered if you might have a word or two to say on it!!!

i completely agree that where aziraphale and crowley's characterisation is concerned, it can't follow - what i presume - would have been their intentioned continuation following the end of the book and going into a sequel. i love how they are presented in the book, but as i tried (very badly) to explain in the tags of that post, i can't fully conflate them and how they are presented on screen. i personally therefore look to distance the two as if, frankly, they are entirely different characters. as you say though, some of the most intriguing choices are in how their traits, motivations, backgrounds, and their interactions/inner thought processes are translated to screen (as well as what has been chosen to be translated to screen; what is missed out/not depicted going from book > show is equally as interesting as what is).

however, i do think there is still potential, with s3, in revisiting the political analogy the book depicted (as did s1 to a certain extent); aziraphale is now in the heart of it, and i don't think it would be too out of field to say we might, respectively, see a lot more of the inner machinations of heaven than we have up to now. if we accept that there continues to be a litany of parallels between GO and the cold war for the characters personally (aziraphale and crowley, as well as multiple entities in the book/s1 (tracy/shadwell, anathema/newt, the them/johnsonites) are posed as adversaries to each other), it stands to reason that there would be a similar track upon which the story itself might very loosely follow, going into s3.

focusing solely on s1/book for a moment, we have the themes of espionage and surveillance made manifest by multiple references; agents meeting in st james' park or the museum (and aziraphale and crowley meeting in public places in general), crowley's comedic-but-insightful penchant for (and attempted embodiment of?) james bond, and aziraphale's list of professions that he's essentially used as covers since eden. the clandestinely-worded phone calls, the backdoor intelligence sharing between michael and ligur, constant means of surveillance that can be accessed at any point given the inclination, and the sitreps fed back to their respective superiors (to varying degrees of interest).

similarly - on a really basic level - we can look to the environment the story finds itself in. humanity - and earth by extension - is being divided up into good and evil, collectively under an overarching threat of punishment regardless. two higher powers with opposing, but equally faulted, ideologies carve up earth as its playground for an ulterior purpose irrespective of the consequences for those around and below them, who get no say in the matter. agents are sent across the borders on friendly liaison missions but with the covert assignment to gather intelligence, spread propaganda, and report back on what the opposition is doing. both are reluctant to make the first move into provoking out-and-out conflict because of the potential retaliation it could bring upon them, and instead employ means of spreading their own influence on those that will sway to one side or the other, and tip the scales that way instead.*

*albeit debatable where heaven's concerned.

but looking to the events of s1/book vs. cold war itself; a big example for me, and im sure im not the only one to have recognised or chuckled sensibly about it, is metatron's line: "we thought a multi-nation, nuclear exchange would be a nice start!". so, frankly, let's accept that armageddon is a direct...ish parallel for the cuban missile crisis. that would, on face value (because, in true GO fashion, everything gets reimagined and adapted for the narrative), make sense: a stand-off between two immensely powerful entities of the same original stock, both possessing equal power and capability, and both threatening to annihilate the other "just to see whose gang is best". obviously, armageddon doesn't resolve in the same exact way, but nonetheless both sides withdraw in the full knowledge that a reckoning is still likely to occur, and both are only kept at bay in a stalemate of what i think both heaven and hell secretly recognise to be, and are afraid will be, mutually assured destruction. a potential trump card lies in the second coming, to be sure, but in any case, as aziraphale and crowley discuss on the bench: this isn't the end of it.

but at which point, how far do we extend the analogy? given that real-world context has shifted between the times of the book and the show, how far can it extend, and how relevant would it be? well, arguably, it still is; recent conflict has proven this, and beyond that, even if the cold war has long ended, there is always conflict, and conflict because of opposing views thinking they are superior to the other. it isn't a complete analogy, but has enough similarity to be relevant. in which case, we could presumably look for an event in which there has been a symbolic sense of liberation and personal freedom, and apply that to be, potentially, the blueprint for the resolution of s3. my first thought would be the berlin wall.

because if we consider that heaven in the most rudimentary sense follows along the same lines as USSR/communist regime, the wall was built by the soviets. it was (and im really stringing this out, and grossly oversimplifying it - forgive me) built to prevent defection from east to west germany, to cut off east germany from the exaggerated allure of capitalism, and as a way to even up the power imbalance. whilst obviously not in any physicality, it's not too inconceivable that heaven would take a similar stance, in terms of policy, when it came to the fall - especially when considering how gabriel's intended punishment for subverting armageddon 2.0 was not to be condemned to fall and go to hell, but instead to be kept within the confines of heaven, hit with memory erasure, and a significant demotion to a role (and by extension choir/rank) that would keep him firmly under heaven's thumb.

furthermore, if we accept that the fall is the first notion of free will, ie. the choice to step away from a regime where your efforts are only in the interest of the state (👀 AWCW and his stars being for the purpose of fulfilling god's plan that will also see their dispassionately executed destruction in 6000 years, or so aziraphale explains 👀), then that's presumably the parallel advantage that hell offers. aziraphale even says, "surely the great thing about being a demon is that you can do whatever you want!"; crawly points out readily that aziraphale sounds jealous, no matter how quickly he tries to disparage that assessment.

however, if we consider that hell by extension of the analogy (getting more and more contrived by the minute) does represent the US/capitalism, how much of free will offered by hell is an illusion? well, arguably, it is an illusion; crowley seems more at liberty to do what he wants "as long as they get the paperwork", but he is readily pulled back to hell at any given moment, and equally under close surveillance throughout both s1 and 2. the grass is very rarely greener, depending on your circumstances, and there's no guarantee of anything that remotely resembles true freedom.

so let's go back to the berlin wall. quick, reductive summary (mainly to help me in trying to explain my thought process); the wall physically represented, and assured, the divide between the two 'sides', and when gorbachev's leadership started to reform how the previously hard-line regime was held in the eastern bloc, east germany started to take great interest in how this may lead to their own liberation too. east german military refused to fire on protestors, and many citizens went into hungary and austria, and back out into west germany once border controls had been relaxed. ultimately, in 1989, the barrier was opened, and piece by piece the berlin wall was brought down. germany later reunified, and the USSR was dissolved.

so, when talking about an "exit strategy for [those] who want out", i think this could have the potential to be extremely relevant - maybe not so literally, and not so much emphasis on the dissolution of heaven being the end goal, but more that removal of the divide between the two, allowing anyone and everyone to make their own choice for themselves - and do with their existence as they will, without fear of retribution - might be the answer. the cessation of being 'messed about'; not only from the viewpoint of how humanity is treated as a playground for these higher beings, but how the angels and demons themselves are messed about with, in turn, for ideologies/beliefs/purposes they possibly don't even truly understand anymore, and were only spoonfed in the first place.

whilst i do think, to some extent, that the focus of GO has shifted somewhat from the idea of liberation on a political level, and is more focused on that of a personal kind, the two for me can still go hand-in-hand. imo, both aziraphale and crowley still currently embody some of the ideals that keep them on opposite ends of the compass; crowley often acts (for a number of very good reasons) very individualist. aziraphale similarly often acts very collectivist. that being said, there are key moments where they cross over - it's not, ahem, as black-and-white as ive just reduced it to - and this only serves to highlight where the balance between the two speaks to true sense of self, morality, and subsequent liberation from having a 'side' at all. it makes sense that in s3 they would continue to exist in the grey, if they prove to be a driving force in how the overall story resolves - not to mention how it would contribute to the resolution of their own romantic subplot.

the crux of the matter is that, in the bigger picture, these two sides are not so fundamentally different; both, at the top of their respective circuses, instil a sense of, "the other side is the worse side, look! they are the opposition, they threaten everything that is right! they deserve to be eradicated!". and when it comes to those underneath them, the performers, it's much the same; that there is no difference whatsoever, and in fact you'll probably find you have more in common with your adversary, your opposite number, than you do with those above you - those that only value power, the security it brings to their own ends, and being the side to hold the most of it.

so having the freedom to choose, as far as i see it, comes from recognising that one isn't better than the other, and that there is no simple good vs evil; both define and give meaning to the other, and are often, depending on how you approach it, the same thing. it's all about perspective - seeing it, understanding it, and keeping it - and to be allowed to choose based on what you think is right... and what could mean a happy and fulfilling existence. however, to give that opportunity any credible foothold, it only works "if you start everyone off equal". maybe that might be the difference that aziraphale makes.

don't know if you observe/celebrate, LWA, but happy holidays to you and yours!!!✨💕