#either that or the witch narrative is finally getting me

[pochapal]

gonna be honest i hadn't even really thought about a master key until now. that's...hm.

[sepublic]

            I find it interesting that even in the epilogue, four years after Camila has had time to be more acquainted with the Boiling Isles under non-threatening circumstances, she’s still creeped out by it. And this is fine! The narrative isn’t condemning her for it. It’s not demanding that she enjoy these things like Luz does; It’s just asking for her to respect its existence, and to support Luz’s interest in it and love her too.

            In For the Future, we see Camila horrified by what she encounters in the Boiling Isles; But she also spends the whole episode pushing through it anyway for Luz’s sake, being there for her as much as she can. Because she knows these are just feelings and nothing more, and she’s choosing to be kind in spite of them.

            By contrast, in this same episode we find out Belos does feel empathy and guilt towards his brother and nephew, he wasn’t purely 100% only interested in what they could do for him; And yet, he’s still just as cruel and violent towards them. He’s still cruel and violent towards witches and demons, sometimes using the ‘tragedy’ of Caleb as a justification. Hell, he even resents the ghosts for making him feel guilty, telling them to “Shut up.”

            Isn’t that fascinating? Disgust is portrayed as a morally neutral thing. It’s not an indictator of morality, it doesn’t mean something is bad… But it doesn’t mean the person who feels it is bad, either, people don’t consider that enough. It’s just a gut reaction. Sometimes people have internalized biases they need to work through, but other times, it’s pretty harmless as long as they’re self-aware and don’t do anything bad over it; This even applies to the process of unlearning the aforementioned biases.

            Likewise, empathy and guilt don’t actually, necessarily make you a good person. The example with Belos shows how some people will actually be crueler because of empathy, because they resent people for being upset, and thus making them feel upset because they naturally empathize. Hence those who get angry at people in pain and need for “ruining their vibe,” because now they feel bad too.

            There’s a juxtaposition in how Camila seems genuinely more scared and creeped out by the isles on a visceral level than Belos, and yet Camila has the common sense to still respect and fight for its existence; Whereas Belos chooses to make a mountain out of a molehill because it’s not just hatred, it’s pride. It all boils down to his ego at the end of the day. In many ways, other characters struggle with dilemmas more difficult than Belos’, yet still do better than he ever has.

            This all plays into my thesis that TOH is arguing your feelings are secondary to your actions, and that the latter is what decides whether you’re a “good” person or not. In the end, someone who’s had a good life and was a dick for selfish reasons, only to choose to be better, is more sympathetic and morally superior than someone who suffered a million unfair grievances, and proceeded to dole out a million unfair grievances, with no sign of stopping; Especially from an IRL perspective, and I think our IRL feelings sometimes influence how we engage with media, and vice-versa.

            That’s why the finale –and the show as a whole– emphasizes choices, over inherent, instinctual feelings. A decent chunk of Camila’s arc could be summarized by the word Squick; In the sense that it’s meant to describe things that one feels personal disgust and discomfort towards, but otherwise has no moral condemnation or problem with; It’s just a Me thing, is the point of Squick. Camila is like that sex-repulsed ace who nevertheless supports kink at Pride.

            That gets me to how my ruminations were prompted by a similar observation; How some people lump sex-repulsed aces in with the oppressive Puritans who hate sex in anything, but that’s not true at all. Obviously there’s the rare Exception, but as a whole, sex-repulsed aces are on the side of other queers who ARE sexual and are demanding to let these things be normalized; It’s not for them, but they have no moral condemnation and will fight for it in solidarity anyway, especially since both are hated by the system regardless. Sound familiar?

[mintnoodles]

Spectre's new chapter was so interesting as an ending for the story the player and her weaved. Rambling and spoilers for Slay the Princess' arching narrative, Spectre's route and her new chapter under the cut. Tiny mention of Witch's unique Ch 3.

It is SO fun seeing how things are from the Princess' POV, both in general and for how you got to this third chapter!

'The Princess and the Dragon' (PatD) is the perfect title. It's so clever to have her come first. She's the protagonist, this time, of either a tragedy or a nice tale of redemption. Rather, if you leave together, you've played a route where she's the one who rizzes you.

To get to this point, you (or TLQ) have to be the Princess' villain. You're seen as cold and opportunistic to her. You come in and kill her with no hesitation. Then, after she dies she's wary but tries to reason with you to come to her POV, only for you to betray her and kill her. You've been antagonistic to her all the times you knew her (but not enough for her to give up on you!) A villainous dragon with potential to turn face.

Some players might not see their roleplay that way (understandably, this is a videogame and people try to pick options that seem right to them). I remember being suspicious of the Spectre the first time, because uh. She's a spooky ghost wanting to takeover your body. In a lot of routes she's highly antagonistic to you too! You might be open to hearing the Princess, but still tend towards mistrusting her words. PatD turns that reflexive distrust around and continues the Princess' attempts to have you see her perspective (just wanting to go home, not being happy with her killer) by literally making you see things from her perspective.

First of all, after the strife and violence of Ch II, this lovely track plays.

With the strings and wind instruments, it sounds peaceful, airy, a little playful, like a new beginning. It sets the stage for when you and the Princess wake up, alone together. It's one of the few times in the game you can just talk with each other, no Narrator to interrupt or filter the world. And it's fun seeing them get along. To TLQ, this is the Princess you've distrusted and killed twice, and now you've realised she's charming, and it feels right to be together.

And then your body traipses down the stairs, slowly coming into view. And the Princess describes it like it's routine: the sound of the blade, and the thump, thump, thump of a horror monster arriving. That's not a Hero, that's her Dragon. Opportunity gives you a freakish grin and dangles the blade. Surprise! You actually get to see yourself, after just little glimpses and shadows and mirrors that go away too quick.

The player/TLQ realises they're terrifying. You're at the behest of an inscrutable monster who decides what he'll do to you. You have to wait and hope for ages while the monster's voices talk back and forth and back and forth to come to a decision to kill you, with a knife twirled in his hands. That's what you've been for Spectre, and she still gave you a chance.

When you return to your body, you can choose to finally drop the knife. If you do, the writing cheekily points out that it's your big symbolic moment. For the story, that's Spectre finally winning you over. You reflected on what you've done and seen her perspective. To me, it really felt like you were playing a narrative 'obstacle' for Spectre to tackle. It's a counterpart to those routes where TLQ works to leave the cabin with the Princess. In a few of those, you offer your hand first. IIRC, here it's Spectre who holds her hand out to you. She's even got enough narrative agency to chuck the knife herself. It's a neat perspective to round things out. You're Spectre's Thorn route.

And I think it's a nice angle to look at relationships. This is one where you listen and take a hard look at yourself and the assumption you're right/the hero. If you don't, you hurt yourself too :]

[codenamethebird]

Okay if we are going to develop the Circe/Odysseus dynamic in Hades 2, they have to go all in. Give me all the drama and murder haha. So Cassiphone is the daughter of Circe and Odysseus, whose name literally means "brother killer". There's a lot of nonsense in her myth, she marries her half-brother Telemachus at one point, but I think they can just ignore that part and keep the murder. Sorry Tele I do this cause I love u!

Random extended thoughts below cut (also trigger warning for some discussions of dubious consent):

Okay I think a lot of Hades fans are hoping that Odysseus is lying about how happily he was with Circe, which I won't pretend I'm not one of them. While I do enjoy a reimagining where Circe and similar characters escape the kind of gross tropes of woman being either the dutiful wife or the vile seductress, I do think Circe being shitty works within the larger themes of the game. How the gods trivialize and are just generally the worst to mortals (and u know, Circe is a god, she's the daughter of a titan).

So while it does pain me a bit for female characters everywhere, for the grander narrative, Odysseus being coersed into having sex with her is interesting. And that producing a child after he left the island is just ripe for drama. While also a bit cartoonish, Circe naming her kid "brother killer" as a sort of curse, dooming poor Cassiphone to her fate is witchy and on theme.

I imagine Cassi showing up in Ithaca after Odysseus dies, so Telemachus is king. And well it doesn't go well as I drew above. I haven't entirely decided what happens after that, but I do know she's wreaked by grief and regret. And while she always had a complicated relationship with her mother, it goes absolutely sour after this, realizing her whole life was to be a weapon.

I go back and forth whether she dies or not, but either way, when Chronos rises, she sides with him against her mom and the gods. And who else sides with Chronos: Penelope and, more importantly, Telemachus. Incredibly awkward family reunions ensue.

But in more serious, I like the idea of Telemachus being incredibly emotionally mature about the whole thing, understanding how Cassi didn't really have any choice in the matter, and trying to reach out and bond with his sister. But Cassi is guilt ridden and constantly avoids him.

I don't think they'd do this, but I think it would be really cool if Cassiphone and Telemachus were the final surface area's mini bosses (like Asterius). And through Meli interacting with them, it allows them to finally get over the awkward murder between them and bond as siblings. And maybe after u fix their relationship, they fight u together as a boss fight, so Meli accidentally made things harder on herself pfft. (And fun angst potential for Mel as she's missing her older brother).

But yeah, other bonus thoughts about my version of Cassiphone:

She's a vegetarian because of the trauma of her mom turning sailors into pigs.

She has pig ears for the same reason, and because it's cute haha.

I didn't really do enough to show this on her design, but I like her having owl feathers, kind of replacing her mom's pelts. I imagine she has a very weird relationship with Athena. So it can both be a sign of respect for her or insult (you don't need to kill an owl to have its feathers, but that's one way of getting a bunch of them).

There's also a lot of interesting ideas to explore with her and Penelope. Penelope being forced to look at an embodiment of her husband's 'betrayal'. But she could also be the one who tells Penelope actually what happened, finally revealing why her husband was so weird about it all and paving the way for reconciliation.

But yes, I've talked about this before, but Hades 2 lacks witch related antagonists for Melinoe. Give me more witches!

[downtroddendeity]

@turnkeyassurance saw your tags and figured I'd take the opportunity to pause my descent into madness to give my more sober opinions on the Ni no Kuni franchise, lol. (Warning: I am a humongous JRPG nerd)

The NNK games are really odd ducks, quality-wise. You can call either one a good game or a bad game and call either one better than the other, and any combination of those opinions can be something I think is entirely justified. Both of them have things they do remarkably well and also serious, profound, deal-breaking flaws, and the really weird thing is that there's almost no overlap between those two lists for the two games. What clicks and doesn't about both of them is going to be deeply individual.

What Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch does, with resounding success, is Vibes. It sets out at every single step with the goal of being a playable Ghibli movie, and it sticks to that principle. It's all about beautiful, cel-shaded whimsy. It's a game for people who want to feel like they're wandering through the meadows in the movie version of Howl's Moving Castle. There are lots of puns, and you can befriend all the random encounter monsters and feed them ice cream.

But that's also its Achilles' heel: because it's dedicated entirely to imitation, it has trouble bringing things to the table that are really its own. It has the visual and narrative aesthetics of Hayao Miyazaki's films, but it doesn't have the raw emotion at the heart of them. And as a game, its mechanics combine the clunkiest features of menu-based combat and action RPGs, and while everything about the Pokemon-esque mechanics seems designed to encourage players to collect and experiment with them, the balancing turns attempting to do that into a miserable grindy nightmare.

The other problem is that it... isn't actually the first Ni no Kuni game. Wrath of the White Witch is, in fact, a remake of the Nintendo DS game Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn, which was never released outside Japan. The reason for this is pretty easy to explain, because DDD had another gimmick besides its aesthetics: it came with a real-life physical copy of the wizard spellbook, and the player had to look things up in it and draw sigils on the DS touchscreen to cast spells. So, we've got a high-effort remake that had to completely cut the central mechanic... and which also expanded the plot so that the original main villain was no longer the primary antagonist. This results in a game with what is very clearly a final dungeon and very clearly a final boss and very clearly a resolution to the story, which suddenly has a completely different plot dropped on it like a fucking anvil that it expects you to be just as invested in even though it hasn't had anything like the same level of buildup.

And ironically, this is almost the exact opposite of the biggest problem with Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, a.k.a. the one with my new blorbo, the President of the United Union of Eagleland. 2 is an effort to try to cement an identity for the series that can be its own, rather than requiring them to depend indefinitely on borrowed Miyazaki nostalgia. It just has the teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy problem that at some point in development it had a budget shortfall so bad that you can finish the game without ever realizing that there is a continent-sized crashed interdimensional spaceship on the world map.

This game has had a machete taken to it. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely respect the work they did to make what they could with what they had, but you can see the signs of massive scope cuts to literally every aspect of the game. The back half of the game has almost exclusively recycled enemy and environment assets; voice acting has been trimmed down to canned voice clips; the catboy protagonist's ears and tail are barely animated; one minigame was so inadequately playtested that a level 16 mission is massively harder than level 50 ones; and while whatever restructuring they had to do to the main plot still left the final version with a more solid and coherent central arc than WWW in my opinion, it also left a lot of truly gaping plot holes, like oh, I don't know, why the President of the United States got turned into a 19-year-old.

Literally, they just. Entirely forgot to explain that. Half the DLC is just the writers scrambling to fix stuff like that and add a bunch of character development that should have been in the base game.

However, despite all this, I personally enjoyed NNK2 more than NNK1 unironically, not just for Rolandposting reasons. Compared to the first one, it plays much more smoothly as a straight action RPG, and while it can't provide the same knock-your-socks-off aesthetic cohesion, to me it seemed a lot more heartfelt- that is, like a game that was made because people had a story they wanted to tell.

But, well, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the non-unironic reasons, because the story they really, genuinely wanted to tell was about a magical catboy growing up and learning to become a leader, and somehow, miraculously, they really thought that was the story I was here for too when they opened the game with the President of the United States being isekaied by Nuke-kun.

Sorry, guys, I have a crippling addiction to dramatic irony and my day job is tech work in local politics, you could not have more laser-targeted this at making me specifically laugh my ass off if you tried.

[marta-diablo]

Any small child catching sight of Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh in his clown gear would vow never to go to the circus again. Fielding’s torso is encased in a green felt globe, his hands protruding helplessly from the bottom. From beneath lurid make-up, he flashes a deeply unsettling grin, as if auditioning for the role of a psychopathic killer in Test Card: The Movie. “I’m just popping out for some coffee,” he deadpans. “Does anybody want anything?”

His Booshmate Julian Barratt, who currently looks like the victim of back-alley gender reassignment surgery, brushes his new blond tresses away from his face and sighs. “What a job, eh?”

When the duo decided to pose as the pair from the 1970s TV test card, it didn’t take long to decide who should play which part. If you want make-up and a manic grin, Fielding’s your man. He arrives at the studio resembling a time-travelling glam-rock star: pointy boots, snug red trousers, tight T-shirt, pendant shaped like a Flying Vee guitar, alarming bone structure. In one episode of their TV series, Barratt tells Fielding, “Look at you - feather cut, the pointy features. Put you in the 1950s, you’d be imprisoned for being a witch. They’d lock you in a trunk!” He’s probably right.

Barratt carries himself like someone trying to elude capture. It’s this wary unease that defined his performance as misanthropic style journalist Dan Ashcroft in Nathan Barley, Chris Morris’s Channel 4 comedy series. Morris wanted Dan to be someone who “wasn’t really comfortable in his skin”. I ask Barratt if Dan is a version of his own personality and he looks mildly wounded. “Not really, no. There were elements of me - it’s sometimes painful to be around people who are annoying - but Dan was a bit of a tit. I didn’t really like him.”

The Mighty Boosh have already completed two successful BBC series and are currently working on a third. Fielding, 33, thinks comedy is about allowing people to feel young again. “When you’re really laughing, you feel like a little kid and nothing matters. Everyone’s trying to feel as free as they were when they were kids.” Barratt, 38, seems to regard comedy’s inner workings as an imponderable mystery. “You still don’t know why you’re funny, do you?” Fielding says. “Not really,” Barratt sighs.

After almost a decade of working together, the pair are obviously close. When the camera’s not pointed in their direction, they huddle on the studio sofa in earnest conference punctuated by giggles. There is much to discuss: “We’ve got so many things we want to do and we need a basket to put them all in,” explains Barrett. “A structural basket.”

Fielding has a different metaphor. “We know when we’ve got enough ideas. If we haven’t and we try to write, it’s a bit weird. It’s like loading a gun and not having enough bullets.”

They first met in 1996, when Fielding went to see Barratt doing stand-up in High Wycombe. There had been less auspicious nights. Barratt recalls, “I ran off stage at my first gig. Halfway through it, I forgot my lines and didn’t know what to do, so I just ran out of the building down towards a lake. I was going to throw myself in, but the compere came out and said, 'No, it’s going well, come back and finish the gig!’ ”

The two share enthusiasms (Captain Beefheart, Monty Python, Mr Benn) and Barratt launched their collaboration by asking Fielding if he wanted to write the new Goodies. “We wanted to be a gang rather than a sketch troupe,” he says. From the start, their combination of absurdist wit, far-fetched narratives and bizarre musical interludes was the stuff of cult success. Audiences either entered their world and found them the funniest thing around, or they didn’t get them at all. “We used to have to convince people we were funny,” Barratt says, “and it didn’t always work.”

It did, however, work well enough to earn them nominations or awards at three consecutive Edinburgh festivals. A radio series followed and they finally made it to the nation’s TV screens in 2004. Earlier this year, they returned to touring. They get offers all the time, but having got this far on their own idiosyncratic terms, they have no desire to work according to anyone else’s.

“If Tim Burton called up and said, 'I’m making a film about two white Americans who go and become Red Indians’, I’m sure we’d jump at the chance,” Fielding says. “But if it’s, 'Do you want to be in this sitcom that’s a bit like Coupling?’ I’d rather shoot myself.”

When did you first find something really funny?

Noel Fielding: My nan used to look after me in the summer holidays and she had a cat with one eye. It used to walk into walls and tables. I used to think it was hilarious. It was a slapstick cat.

Who are your comedy inspirations?

Julian Barrett: I loved the Goodies’ sense of adventure.

NF: The Young Ones was the first thing I really liked. I was so young I didn’t really know what students were. I just thought they were some men who lived in a house.

What’s not funny?

JB: Cancer?

NF: It can be, though, can’t it?

JB: Yeah, sometimes a tumour will make me laugh.

When did you last laugh?

NF: I laugh all the time. I’m slightly simple. I went to a festival in Cambridge last weekend and there were men standing on a wheelchair and getting their friends to push them down a muddy hill and really hurting themselves. One of them had a fur coat, a dress underneath, massive boots and a witch’s hat. It was so stupid that everyone was laughing at them. It was quite freeing, actually.

What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you?

NF: Once I got stuck in a suit of armour. I had to be a knight in Al Murray’s show for two minutes. I had a gig afterwards and there was no one there backstage, so I couldn’t get out of it. I had to run next door and do the gig in a suit of armour. Al thought it was the best thing ever. “You should do that every night! It’s brilliant!” he said.

What’s the secret of comedy?

JB: The secret of comedy is don’t grow up. That’s why some comedians are a nightmare, because they never grow up.

Tell us a joke

NF: You stop hearing proper jokes when you’re a comedian. I’m always slightly disappointed by real jokes. There’s a lot of pressure to understand them and laugh at them. Occasionally we come up with a proper joke by accident and we almost apologise.

· The Mighty Boosh debut live DVD is released on November 13.

x

[munchkinmarauder]

So I'm reading What If Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker were siblings and I find myself disappointed- this book is probably just not for me. Shame I really wanted to like it and I recognise the landmark significance of having a writer of Roma decent finally write Wanda. It's a wonderful thing and I hope it opens more doors for the writer and for Roma and other minority creators to write minority characters. However, reading this I have mixed feelings. I've got some thoughts under the cut (spoilers).

I'll give this book a 4/10 but it's treatment of Pietro and other non American characters has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm a massive Pietro fan and a fan of both twins so I may be biased. I hope others can get more out of this book than me. It definitely has it's good points that I can see winning it some fans.

Let's just say this is a YA book that reads very YA. I can definitely see the appeal for fans, especially of Spiderman. Wanda is the main character though little of her lore gets used and her relationships are destroyed. The author does make a genuine and really nice effort to respect and call focus to Wanda's heritage and the disconnect of being an American adoptee.and there are some nice mentions of Django but it all gets undercut by the author harping on about how wonderful Aunt May is for introducing Wanda to him.

I do encourage people to pick this book up and form their own opinions. If you are a fan of the MCU and Spiderman comics you'll probably walk away happy and have mixed feelings as a comic Wanda fan (Quicksilver fans and fans of the twins relationship just save yourself the trouble and not read this book trust me!). Maybe wait till it's cheaper though as it's a lot of money to spend on something you might not like - I'm planning on returning or donating my copy because I walked away feeling cheated.

The book however is very American and Wanda is emphasised to be American. The American characters are largely good and the foreigners with foreign accents largely bad. Other Romani characters are either cameos or evil. If your a fan of Pietro and the twins relationship just don't pick this up.

Basically as long as Wanda has a brother with a similar name to Pietro she'll be fine, her bond with her twin can just be superimposed onto other characters. It negates the importance of one of the most important sibling relationships in comics and reads like Magneto's letter to the twins in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (except where the reader believes that Orlando meant for Magneto to be unironically right). It feels a little dirty and like it's there to serve Peter Parker and give him a win rather than Wanda. Anything meaningful that could have been said about the twins relationship is instead given to Peter.

Making Pietro a one dimensional evil twin was a very boaring and very overdone take. Writers love to make Pietro evil despite the characters history and it never has been done well (as has the evil twin trope in general) and has always been immediately walked back in the comics for a reason.

And while I definitely don't think the author intended it this way, having Wanda have zero interest (Pietro is treated terribly by his sister, the other characters and the narrative from the second he appears or is mentioned) and reject her "evil foreign" family in favour of her "wonderful white American" family has some unfortunate implications.

Wanda also rarely accomplishes anything for herself. The 616 Wanda learns magic on her own, immigrates to America with her brother, builds her own community and reclaims a racist name thrown at her. She works hard and everything she accomplished was her own. In this book everything she accomplishes is because of Peter, Ben and May - they find her a Romani community, she doesn't seem it out on her own, they take her to strange who is souly responsible for teaching her magic and tells her everything she needs to do. Wanda is super passive in this book.

No hate to the writer though. I do think their talented and they have acknowledged they know people will be unhappy with some of the takes in the book. I respect what they've created even if I don't personally like it.

https://x.com/MunchkinM17/status/1828490359682298342

[bestworstcase]

slowly points at tai. and glynda.

when glinda lays siege to the emerald city, she demands that mombi be delivered into her custody lest she take the city by force. mombi’s first trick is to cast a spell on herself and jellia jamb to switch their appearances, and jellia in the guise of mombi is handed over to glinda. the trick is soon discovered and glinda performs a counterspell, revealing jellia’s true appearance (and mombi’s as well, within the emerald city).

mombi’s second trick is to transform herself into a red rose, hiding in the palace gardens. jinjur invites glinda and her allies into the emerald city to search for mombi, under the condition that if they do not find her by nightfall, they must leave in peace. mombi is, in the end, discovered by accident: the tin woodsman plucks the rose on a whim and carries her out with him.

mombi is a bad sorceress from the northern country of gillikins, whose color is. purple. rwby’s ozian narrative doesn’t track the color-coding exactly (atlas, winkie country, is white) but it’s close enough for glynda being Conspicuously Purple to stand out—good witch of the north, and her name is both a nod to the conflation of these two characters in pop culture and a misdirection away from glinda. witch of the north. mombi.

the key players in vale right now are:

salem (glinda)

cinder (???)

summer (jinjur)

taiyang (jellia)

glynda (witch of the north)

with the twist of course being that this jinjur is working for glinda (and she might be doubling the role of woodsman for this final leg of the story, given that ironwood is dead and summer has an axe and the obvious connection to a certain red rose). and glinda isn’t looking for a witch, she’s looking for a crown. but the particulars are the same; we have a witch advancing on the fortress in pursuit of her goal and another witch standing in her way.

now. obviously

glynda isn’t an illusionist. and it remains to be seen whether this misdirection plays out narratively versus just being a more meta red herring. but. it does seem to me that the narrative choice to emphasize that we don’t know what “things” tai is “looking after” in vale while at the same time providing enough details about what glynda has been doing in vale to look like a completed picture, is priming the audience to jump to a certain conclusion (tai must be guarding the crown) that masks what’s really going on (glynda is the crown’s guardian and tai is up to summer rose related things).

i.e., the jellia <=> mombi swap.

with summer/jinjur being on salem’s side, if this red herring unfolds narratively, the obvious way to do it is for summer to believe that tai knows where the vault is hidden (and that raises the very juicy possibility that she might be, er, stringing him along in hope of cajoling the location out of him, which would be very ozmacore of her). meanwhile glynda is the one who removed it from beacon and buried it under that “ruined temple” after summer disappeared, and glynda wisely disappears herself after salem razes vale.

THEN… sooner or later salem wrings the truth out of tai that he doesn’t fucking know anything and by then glynda has reconvened with ruby rose et al in vacuo: you get glinda’s pursuit of mombi to the desert at the end of oz and the woodsman jinjur finding the red rose roles neatly into one plot point, and straight up not being able to find the vault gives team salem an incentive to try… or well, keep trying new things, because salem is already at a point where she found out the lamp wasn’t out of questions and immediately tried to pry the "password" out of oz/oscar.

like it does… all track quite well except for the rather thorny question of how cinder figures in all this. if summer isn’t doubling up on jinjur + the woodsman, then the intuitive character to step into that role is cinder—and that might be setting up either a cinder vs glynda rematch in vale (if the red rose is a plot beat) or a reckoning between cinder and ruby in vacuo (if the red rose is ruby learning, from glynda, where the vault is hidden). which is also interesting. but cinder’s also an odd fit for the woodsman across the board, whereas summer clicks neatly into the role.

it’s possible that cinder just Doesn’t Have a part in the ozian narrative, period—she’s tied very, very strongly to the maiden-in-tower narrative because that’s what the cinderella narrative is repeating, and for salem the ozian narrative is the tower. so it makes a certain narrative sense for cinder to not be in the tower, because she’s instrumental in getting salem out of it; she holds the key to the door.

(i do really seriously wonder if the choice spirit won’t be an old woman—like mombi, like the maiden’s mother-captor, and also because it would be hysterical for the contrast to jinn and ambrosius. choice as persinette’s fairy + part of mombi in particular is sort of compelling, given her inevitable connection to cinder and the probable importance of choice in liberating ozma from oscar)

but it’s also odd and leaves cinder with a lack of things to do in vale, which is another reason i think she might bounce and then return.

[klonnieshippersclub]

Hi Rikki. If Bonnie doesn't like vampires and Klaus doesn't like witches in canon, how do they make sense as a couple?

Long post warning: I think it's important to note that Bonnie doesn't hate vampires and never has. She hates the bloodshed and violation of humanity that comes with vampires. If anything, Bonnie does hate killers. When she meets Kai and finds out he murdered his family, she immediately has a problem with him.

Bonnie’s entire arc was not about hating vampires. Now why is this change ignored by the fandom? Well, who knows. Bonnie has never outright attacked any vampire simply for being one. Just those who were causing harm to her friends or have hurt her directly. Fans don’t try to acknowledge Bonnie and write her off as a vampire hater for 8 seasons. When Bonnie accepted vampirism from ALL her friends. She places their own emotional-needs and wellbeing before her own but that isn’t enough for fans. Bonnie’s emotions are defined as irritating and judgmental when the entire show is about humanizing vampires.

Bonnie doesn't have the luxury like Caroline and Elena to flirt with murderous vampires. Until the very end of the show in season 7 with Enzo at that time Bonnie she claims Damon is her bestfriend. That’s before Elena and Caroline. There’s issues there as well but I won’t get into that. Yet even with the hypothetical thought of Bamon there’s still this continuous negativity directed on Bonnie’s end. Julie insulted Elena just to prove a point. The Bamon Ban existed and it was real. It may have applied to Bamon but with the writer being so vocal about their dislike for Bonnie it meshed with all Bonnie ships.

Klaus hated what his mother did to him and his siblings. He hated his mother for binding his wolf side. The blame for those actions has been to his parents only. There was a never a moment in canon where Klaus blamed anyone else but his parents for what happened to him and his siblings. Bonnie is a witch just like Esther, but why would Klaus hold her accountable for something she did not do. Bonnie wasn’t even alive when Esther did that! It’s ridiculous take to think Klaus would blame Bonnie for his trauma and would not like her because she’s a witch like his mother. Bonnie is NOT Klaus mother and has never been in a maternal position to Klaus. Notice this claim and outright refusal doesn’t exist when people discuss Stefan and Klaus friendship. Stefan wanted revenge for what Klaus had done and they’re still well liked. Caroline can celebrate Klaus death in season 3 and fuck him in season 5 they’re one of the most popular ships. No questions on either of these but it’s Bonnie that people have such a huge issue getting over when it comes to Klonnie shipping. For a ship that is so small and limited in canon there’s always a fan commenting on how “disgusting” and “illogical” the ship is.

Klaus had allies in witches like Gloria, Greta, Genevieve and Maddox. He’s had sex with both Greta and Genevieve who are witches like his mother. Freya is a witch, Hope is a witch. Klaus did not wake up everyday blaming and hating these other women for the actions of his parents. So I must ask again, why would he turn to Bonnie and hate her simply for being a witch? Doesn’t make sense to me. In 2x17 Isobel and Katherine discuss Klaus and witches. Klaus was abandoned by Ansel he still slept with werewolves like Hayley or Lana.

The fandom places rules and regulations on Bonnie because the writers did. I’ve given enough evidence to prove that Klaus would be willing to date anyone despite his parental trauma, as would Bonnie if she is given the affection and chance too. The problem will forever rely in the writers and the fans who continue to push these narratives. A ship so little like Klonnie shouldn’t have many fans arguing about how disgusting and gross it is. Why is shipping Bonnie with Klaus (or any non-canon character) disgusting but none of the canon white centered relationships get this type of reaction. Finally, if the series kept up with Klaus taste in witches the only woman who matches the woman Klaus was intimate with at that time would be Bonnie.

[lightofraye]

Portrait Of A Woman

Yes, another version of this. Deal. 😆

I'm always changing and growing, revising my life and what I'm blogging about. I joke that I'm a gossip columnist (because I do refer to other celebrities besides Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles), but it's only to share my other interests.

So what are my interests? The purpose behind this blog?

Many things. I title it Ramblings Of A Writer for a reason. I write and boy, do I ramble!

I’ll also be redoing my masterlists to make it easier for folks to find certain posts. I won’t be redoing posts—no need to do that, but perhaps reposting information being redone. Like “Version 2 with new stuff” or better organized information and having those on the masterlists instead.

Let's begin with me:

Who am I?

My online nickname: Raye

Pronouns: She/her

Astrology: (Western) Pisces, (Eastern) Metal Monkey

Country: United States

I am anti (and I make no apologies):

Anti Danneel/Anti Elta

Anti Misha

Anti AAs

Anti Destiel

Anti Hellers

Anti Cockles

Anti Abuse

My ‘custom’ tags:

#Jensen Supportive (I believe I'm the originator)

#Music Choices by lightofraye

#lightofraye on abuse

I also frequently use #Jensen Concern, though I am not the originator (like I thought I was!).

What I’m reading:

Fictional: The Dresden Files, currently Battle Ground and Peace Talks

Non-fiction: The Body Keeps The Score

Where am I at with my writing:

BA Script: Judging by the math… 1/2 of the way through. Loving it! First draft!

Pre-plotting my horror/thriller

Vikings? VIKINGS!

So many more planned. Someone knock out my muse. 😅

What am I watching?

Burn Notice (finally getting the last season!)

Daredevil (again!)

Once Upon A Time

Supernatural (forever and ever, ahem)

The Good Place

A Discovery of Witches

About this blog:

I really, honest to gods, did not start this blog to be an anti. I know my anons would disagree with me and claim I always “hated” Danneel, but that just isn’t the truth. I came to Tumblr to find a new kind of social media as I was feeling soured by Facebook, disliked how Twitter had changed, escaped Livejournal years ago, not a fan of Reddit, and the “newer” social media sites weren’t my thing. Plus I’ve kept seeing hilarious screenshots from Tumblr on Facebook and decided to check it out!

I initially started by following pages about Supernatural, Sam and Dean Winchester, the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. I did not go seeking anti-Danneel posts; they more or less fell into my lap. When I started reading a few posts, something clicked in my mind, explained why I was struggling with how I felt about her. I kept analyzing her behavior for a long while, what she said, and thought maybe something was being seen by fans that wasn’t being seen by me.

The explanations made sense. I felt I could breathe again. That’s when I remembered the least recognized method of abuse: emotional and mental. That fit Danneel to a T. Especially the more I looked into what she’s said and wrote over the years and saw how Jensen behaved around her in videos and photos. Even when they were supposedly trying to push the “happy couple” narrative, it just did not look true. Especially given Jensen’s talent as an actor! If he couldn’t even fake being happy or in love with her….

So I’m an Anti-Danneel. I’m also Anti-Misha for his behavior over the years, towards Jared, towards Jensen, the lies he’s peddled and keeps peddling. (For instance, no, Castiel would not have ‘fucked’ Dean upon pulling him out of Hell. No, CW was not being homophobic.)

I am absolutely very pro-Jared and pro-Jensen. I know, I know…. “But Raye, you’ve written posts criticizing Jensen! How can you be pro-Jensen??”

My answer is a variation of this: “Because I care! I am not blind to the flaws of either men! I am wildly concerned about Jensen, about what seems—to me—as excessive drinking, ‘empty’ eyes, unhappy and stressed smiles.”

For the vast majority of the AAs, it seems I’m not pro-Jensen if I don’t see him as flawless, a god upon the perfect pedestal, the Ken doll That breaks my heart. He is flawed. He is imperfect. I see more than just the pretty mask. I want to see and know the man. He isn’t just a beautiful trophy for us to ogle.

He’s caught in a rock and a hard place and I acknowledge that hard. It’s just only the negativity is seen and not the love and support. 😕

What can I tell you about me?

I could say so much. I’m the third child of a family of four kids, and the only daughter. (So that was fun.) I’m a gamer, read comics (still read a few, such as ElfQuest), got into reading fantasy books (Dragonlance’s War of the Lance was my first!), have a massive interest in psychology, in wanting to understand the human mind. I’m fluent in two languages—English and American Sign Language.

Ah, that last one might surprise some folks. No, I am not deaf—but my parents, two of my three brothers, and everyone on my mother’s side of the family are. I half-joke that my first language is ASL, not speaking with a voice. It’s not a joke though; it’s more or less accurate.

I’m a writer. I’m working on several screenplays, have plans for novels, dabble in poetry. I’m an amateur artist—have sketched with pencil and Photoshop. I haven’t done so in a while, but I love art. I do a lot under the creative umbrella, and most of it is as an amateur—photography, wishing to learn pottery, and so forth.

I’m a mother. I’m divorced (happily so, trust me). I have born children of my body and I have children of my heart. I have suffered loss deeply profound that I wish people would talk more about so we all realize we aren’t as alone as we fear.

I’m an advocate for better, stronger laws against abuse, of the protection and services for survivors. Largely because I’m a survivor, but also because I give a damn about people. I’ve experienced it all, starting from childhood to my (thankfully) now-ex-husband. I am hoping to start a series of reels explaining the red flags of abuse, how to recognize them, how to get out if you are in an abusive situation, and what organizations exist to contact for help (if any do exist). Keep an eye out for those when I start posting them!

A link to the ever-in-progress masterlist.

First masterlist, largely anti Danneel posts. (My thorough anti Danneel post, highly recommend reading it.) Second masterlist, more anti Danneel. Third masterlist, assorted posts. The links will be defunct due to changing my Tumblr name. So just switch out rrahuntersblog to lightofraye and it'll work. I'm reworking those too! Bear with me! My first About Me. My second About Me Redux.

[leam1983]

2024 in Gaming

Helldivers 2: it's become a running joke with the polycule, and approval with Progressive opinions or talking points now gets at least one of the three of us to jokingly pull out their smartphone to "call their Democracy Officer to report a case of treasonous activity"...

Walt isn't any better, but he's unlocked a few rocket-propelled weapons and now feels better sitting behind myself and Sarah while pelting the enemies ahead with weaponized Freedom.

Balatro: Walt and I's new favourite casual game, wherein appearance of it being a cutesy little variant on Poker suites turns into virtual crack. I've woken up in the wee hours to Walt's face bathed in his phone's OLED screen. When I ask him what's wrong, he typically replies something to the tune of "I need four thousand Chips, babe."

Marvel Rivals: it does what Overwatch 2 don't. As in, it's fun. Me, Walt, Sarah and a few of the boys on an all-Rocket Raccon match? You betcha! Also, there's Jeff the Land Shark, and Jeff the Land Shark deserves the world. Nay, the universe.

Astro Bot: didn't finish it, but I loved what Team Asobi cooked up. It's the most genuine, heartfelt, cutesy and engaging piece of corporate PR and Engineering porn to ever exist. Every button pressed during an Astro Bot session twiddles Mark Cerny's fun bits remotely.

Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree: bought it because I approve of the design ethos behind this DLC's existence, never played it because I suuck at FromSoft games. I made sure to watch some related content so I could point and laugh awkwardly if friends of mine greet me with a random cry of "BAYYYYLE!"

Worshippers of Chtulhu: Anno with a Lovecraftian twist. It's very broken, still very much in Early Access, but the promise is definitely there.

Park Beyond: Meh. Got it for cheap, I guess we're still not getting a decent heirloom to Roller Coaster Tycoon, after the Micromanagement nightmare that Planet Coaster turned out to be for me.

1000xResist: basically a Yoko Taro game not written or directed by Yoko Taro, and it's one of the deeper game-based experiences I've had in a long while. Strongly recommended.

The Cabin Factory: Spot the Difference for easily-frightened streamers who haven't played Exit 8 yet. It has an interesting narrative format and is one of the more surprising implementations of Unity Engine I've seen to date. I could've sworn this was a UE5 project! Beyond that, it's nothing special, but it's priced accordingly.

Clickolding: if Cookie Clicker had an uncanny sense of atmosphere and managed to creep you out with nothing except a sparsely-animated antagonist and a rising click counter, you'd have a sense of what this feels like. It does a very effective job at making you want to be as compliant and possible.

Daemonologie: The Salem Witch Trials in game form, or Ace Attorney if Phoenix wore a Quaker hat and had a fixation on nakey women doing odd shit in the forest. Very tense and minimalist, and very, very worthwhile.

Cryptmaster: it's basically a spruced-up oldschool MUD, with 3D black-and-white graphics and four zombified D&D character archetypes you control simultaneously, by either using your Arrow keys to move the entire party at once, or typing in the words that correspond to abilities or attacks. Very, very, very British humour is on offer, along with a script-writer that managed to predict most stupidly filthy prompts you're likely to try at any given point. It's hilarious and kludgey in just the right way, especially if you remember the nineties' MindMaze on Encarta '95.

Liar's Bar: Russian Roulette for Furries with a decent voIP chat integration. It's shallow and stupid fun, and the subject matter makes people behave in increasingly crude ways as the session goes on. If you're like me, you'll swear you played a round or two against a guy who was actually stone-dead-drunk and who actually had nothing to lose...

Silent Hill 2 Remake: finally, Silent Hill's fog doesn't feel like a performance-saving measure and actually creeps me the fuck out. It makes me feel terrible and has me contemplate not playing it, but it does make sense. Kudos to Bloober Team for finally manage to ground this one heck of a weirdo title.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: take Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny, burn all copies, consign the masters to Disney's oubliette, thank Harrison Ford for his decades of diligent service and pass the fedora and bullwhip to Troy Baker, 'cause Machine Games and Bethesda have managed to find themselves yet another prime title to fuck Fascists up using fisticuffs or blunt weaponry. It's a great callback to Machine Games' own contribution to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, seeing as every single level in the game has the granular detail of their version of Prague. Slap some John Williams on, add the authentic audio samples for whip cracks and punches, lifted straight out of the movies. I haven't had as much fun raiding tombs or poking through lovingly-reconstructed real places since Nolan North last lent his voice pipes to Nathan Drake.

Imagine my surprise, when the Sistine Chapel turned out to be about the size of our condo building's parking lot! That's tiny! The more you know, I guess!

Star Wars Outlaws: this is what happens when a studio really, really, really wants to give the IP due diligence, but its decades of re-iterated design docs ruin the experience. Kay Vess isn't a galactic scoundrel; she's basically every Far Cry protagonist ever, except in third-person!

The Forever Winter: all crunch, no fun. An incredibly engaging premise, but the mistaken notion that the average gamer has several three-to-four-blocks to devote to this each and every single day. Worth at least a YouTube ride-along, to see the incredible work the Art Design team's pulled together.

Disney's Epic Mickey - Rebrushed: Warren Spector's poorly-received baby and love letter to classic animation gets its just desserts on PC. It's not super complex with only two basic mechanics based off of two buttons on a controller, but it managed to use an extremely limited toolset to great effect, even throwing in what feels like a younger relative's first potential exposure to the Immersive Sim concept of looking for unmarked routes through a level. The in-between side-scrolling levels are oozing charm, and essentially feel like some part of Spector wanted to play in the same ballpark as American McGee's Alice.

If anything, it cements the idea that non-verbal instances of Mickey Mouse should never be left in the same room as a magical implement or toolset. Ever. Verbal Mickeys can push past their childlike glee and reason accordingly, but the oldschool button-eyed and non-verbal originator is not to be trusted.

STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl: Have fun losing half your health because the ARMA-esque mechanics decide that grazing damage means holy shit, you almost died! Especially, have fun getting knocked flat out on your ass by mutants - over and over and over...

To be played in subtitled Ukranian out of implicit support, and to have fun with the Slavic definition of an acting range. It's like watching the second season of Squid Game, except you get the sense that their scale goes from Nonchalant to Pants-Pissingly Terrified with very little grading in-between.

And now, for Games I didn't really get into until 2024...

Valfaris and Valfaris II: Mecha Therion: side-scrollers that do their damndest to look like they stepped straight out of the pages of Heavy Metal as of the mid-eighties. Gorgeously grotesque pixel art meets with a banging soundtrack made up of certified shredders. The lead headbangs and throws the horns when he finishes a stage!

Brütal Legend: an oldie but a goodie, previously constrained to the PS3 but now quite cozy on my Steam Deck. It's got a semi-cohesive grab-bag of mechanics, sure, but it's got even more heart, along with a pre-stroke Tim Curry voicing the villain with the gooiest of all countenances. Imagine Shere Khan, but Metal as fuck.

Katamari Damacy: Re-Roll: I barely touched the original when it came out. Having managed to grab the PC port for cheap and knowing how well it plays with a Steam Deck, the Prince of All Cosmos' ball-rolling sojourn across the surface of our planet has turned into a nightly staple for me.

Baldur's Gate 3: Yes, I know, I'm late, you've all banged Astarion sixteen times by now, but I've got time for a long-form WRPG right now. I might not have this much free time once January 10th rolls around.

The Night Cage: not a vidya, but a really nerve-wracking tabletop game that's made for quite a few fun Friday nights at La Casa de Gremlin.

On My Backlog, You'll Find...

Metaphor: Re-Fantazio: I know it's beloved by all, but it feels so "so far, so ATLUS" to me, and I still haven't gotten over P4, P3 and P5's excellent PC ports. I also have Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne to go through, so I really don't know if I have it in me to tackle something in that same vein quite so soon.

Arizona Sunshine 1 & 2: I just can't be bothered to set up my Oculus Rift 2's Link Cable. I have the games, I just don't know if and when I'll play them.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster: I'm waiting until my old cheese strats fade into the back of my mind before I tackle this one. Plus, I'm torn about Frank West not being voiced by TJ Rotolo. He doesn't just... feels like he's covered wars, y'know?

Frostpunk 2: bought it to support the devs, am just not jazzed about having to sort of network my way across several simultaneous points of origin until the depressing version of a Dieselpunk sprawl covers the map.

The Yakuza series on Amazon Prime: SEGA's trying to become the Disney of gaming, but something about Kazuma Kiryu's story (or stories) have always felt distinctly and uniquely Japanese to me. As in, it requires a specific mindset and might not be for everyone. I'm waiting for a sign, basically - maybe one to pop my collar and rent a karaoke machine so I can belt out maudlin soliloquies to lost childhood innocence while smoking half a pack of cigs between every third or fourth stanza...

The Sonic Movies: yeah, sure, I'm in my forties, but Jim Carrey's going through a career renaissance by acting out Albert Einstein on crack. Yeah, sure, it's not either of my Robotniks (the Jim Cummings or Long John Baldry versions - for the memes) - but it seems like it might still be a trilogy of adaptations worth pursuing.

Plus, hey, I gotta start catching up on that Stobotnik shit, huh?

[thefirstknife]

I'm very scared for Saint and Osiris. I don't want anything to happen to them but the talk of "finally have our time together" and the "I love you" lines are lighting up my death flag radar and I have never wanted to be getting the wrong vibes on a character death more.

Sometimes this can be true, but I don't think it's true for Destiny. It's just not the theme of the story, especially not for these two. There's really no purpose that either of their deaths would serve besides pointless angst which is not something that fits within the narrative or the theme or the vibe of the story so far.

There's a lot of tragedy happening in Destiny, sure, but it's never pointless tragedy without something to say or without a theme. We would really gain nothing story-wise if these characters died; not after they've been given essentially a conclusion and a place in the setting where they can settle down.

I would not worry about Saint and Osiris being in danger. Obviously anything is possible in the story and anything can be made to fit the story somehow, but I genuinely do not think this is something they would seriously plan for.

Osiris' arc in particular this year has been all about him overcoming grief and working through his loss and trauma, to realising that his past behaviour would've led him down the same path Maya Sundaresh went to. This realisation shocked him to the core and made him understand that he has to let go of his obsessions and not put himself and his loved ones into the same position Maya left Chioma in. So I don't think that he would do something reckless that would put him in danger. He seems to be very firmly set on helping and doing what he can, but not going too far in a way that would hurt him and Saint.

I felt for Eris in a similar way back in Witch when people were afraid that she'd die. And while obviously anything is possible within the story, I never felt like they would ever go down this route for her. Eris' story about overcoming trauma ending with her death would've been such a bad way to frame it and the writers clearly care deeply about her character and her character arc to do that. Generally speaking, professional good writing should not (and does not) include random deaths for shock value and pointless angst. This is definitely much more common in fandom spaces, primarily because you don't really have to deal with consequences in the wider story with a fanfic. You can just write an angst one-shot and move on.

The point is, I don't think there would be any value or anything to gain from killing either one or both of these characters. I saw the radio message as a conclusion, rather than a nefarious hint for future angst. It just makes zero sense to me that they would do that, given the story so far and the whole theme. Osiris and Saint have also been through a tremendous amount of tragedy already so I think their angst quota has been fulfilled. This was a very neat way to frame their story before the end of the main saga, as well as a neat way to frame the story in general: a story about hope.

[dee-the-red-witch]

This originally posted here a few days ago for members, but I wanted to also release here as audio- for one, it has some beautiful quotes and poetry in there, and for another, it's more where I'm really at- disconnected, discombobulated, spun around and trying to figure out which way to go next and what of the million things I need to be moving forward on, but hopeful and feeling better despite all of that. Text of the original post to follow:

Transition Notes Part Five: Final Girl? Monster?

This got started a few months ago as two different posts in my drafts. I'm including these bits here because they're relevant to a chunk of what I'll be talking about. Shame patreon doesn't give me dates from when I start a post, just the date I last looked at the edits, which for both was a few months ago. I'm just gonna label them "Earlier" for the one post, and "quotes" for the other, since the second post was largely me shoving quotes together for a later analysis. Also a "Now" tag for the current additions. Is it a jumbled mess? Yes. But that's also very much where my brain is at this point, so it makes a kind of sense. Plus, it unintentionally flows, so I'm going with it.

Earlier: My hair touches shoulders constantly now. I've never had hair this long in my life, and despite the curl, it is constantly in contact with my shoulders or my upper back depending on how I sit, and it's amazing. I'm also in crisis and have been for a few months. Getting regularly paralyzed by executive dysfunction while being trans (and having some of the concurrent Life Events that happen when you're trans) seems to have that effect. And so help me, though parts of this are going to sound like me complaining about my life, I'm not just jotting stuff down to vent or get sympathy, but hopefully more so other folks can learn from it.  Quotes: The monster is a liminal creature embodying the very boundaries humans have overreached. The identification of something as monstrous denotes its place outside and beyond social norms and values. Such extraordinary warnings or reminders proceed from divine power to humankind when they have transgressed, or are about to transgress, the limits of what humans are supposed or rather allowed to do. -Daniela Carpi, Monsters and Monstrosity

Now: I'm moved. I've been living in my own apartment for over a week now and settling in. It's... different. Better. Safer. I still end up breaking down in tears on a daily basis over feeling alone, or grieving what I left, or realizing and just starting to come to terms with some of the trauma I'd been living with and covering up, or just for making the choices I had to for my own survival. This is a better place. I feel safe here. I'm worried as hell about everything I sacrificed to get here and how I'm going to be able to keep it. Quotes:

"They made a monster of Medusa as well. Hated how loud her trauma was. Couldn’t believe she had the audacity not to take it lying down. They made a war-ground of her body so she made one of theirs." -Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made me Do It

Now: I know I'm going to be called a monster for it by people at various points. I've already seen a few of the people my ex is still friends with come right up to it without actually saying it. People will choose the narrative they want, the people they stick or agree with, and just who to demonize in any given situation. I can't help any of that. All I could do was take actions that could easily get seen as being monstrous, while at the same time, being one of the only paths I could secure to staying alive. You're either the monster or the final girl, and sometimes the one looks like the other. But y'know, when I wrote this months and months ago on tumblr:

I didn't think I was writing it about myself at the time.

Earlier: I knew my odds when I came into this. Too many trans stories of heartbreak from friends as they cut people out of their lives, lost relationships and more. I knew how common it was. I wasn't expecting all of it myself, but it's where I'm at. Final Girl mode. The realization that you're very likely going to have to be walking out of the movie alone at the end right before the credits.  Now: I knew the odds going in. It had been one of the facts that haunted me and kept me from coming out before. A conservatively placed 70% of marriages where one partner comes out as a trans woman after the fact end in divorce. Often very badly, with the woman in question finding herself homeless, alone, and dying on the streets without resources or any kind of network to fall back on. I came out thinking I was safe from that after my oldest kid had had a fairly smooth go of it. Turns out, I was wrong, very wrong, like a lot of people are. I ended up with three very real choices- wait and try to make it work, and see the all too stereotypical story play out. Wait until my surgeries were done with, and likely end up with massive complications and health problems because I'd still be having to push myself like mad to take care of and support more people than just me. Or get out and get out as soon as I possibly could. Obviously, I went for the last option. So, why write this? Because I know at least half of you are cis or unfamiliar with the transfem side of the experience. Because people need to know that this stuff happens, still, even in today's somewhat more accepting climate. Because I needed to exorcise all this before I felt like I could move on to newer things. And the biggest, the number one thing that I want anyone to take from this? Because I wouldn't undo any of it. If I could somehow snap my fingers, re-boy myself and make no-one the wiser, slip the denial blinders back over my own eyes and all... I wouldn't do it in the slightest. This is what I'll be moving forward from, even if I am currently hurt and just scrambling forward, I'm still moving and surviving. And I will make it out through all of this in the end.

[pendleton-manor]

It just occurred to me that Chaos does not really affect the ending in Dishonored 2 the way it does Dishonored 1. Like, the final mission is still largely the same either way. In fact, you can play high chaos the entire time but choose to spare Delilah at the end. Which I find very weird. Like it should completely take away my agency at this point.

While the low chaos ending was flat, the final high chaos mission with the loyalists was so so good. The game was telling you “you’ve made your bed now lie in it.” From Samuel turning on you and alerting everyone with a gunshot to the fact that Pendleton dies with or without your interference to the fact that Martin shoots himself to the fact that Havelock will jump off the ledge with Emily, you have NO agency. These events will occur because of what you have already done, completely disregarding what you choose to do in the moment.

Dishonored 2 has more subtle changes based on high chaos. Aside from Emily and Corvo’s dialogue (which, in my opinion, is a classic example of telling instead of showing. Easy to forgive though) there are little hints sprinkled throughout the game that what you’re doing is negatively impacting the world. The clerk at Addermire who hangs herself and the men playing cards who get into a shootout come to mind. But this doesn’t culminate into anything other than a slideshow ending narrated by the Outsider. The player’s return to the tower is the same no matter what you do. The only difference (I think) is that Delilah is either painting or waiting in the throne room.

Why not have the low chaos ending be a bit different? Instead of the Overseers dying when they rushed the Tower, why not have them stationed outside, holding their own, protecting the few citizens left? Why not have the player save the High Overseer who has been captured, winning over the overseer forces? Then the high chaos ending can stay the same—they rushed the tower and failed and Emily finds them all dead.

The same can go for gang presence. You’re gonna tell me the Hatters and the Bottle Street gangs will just give up territory super easily? I know they’re scattered throughout the final level, but they attack on sight! If you’re low chaos, they ought to recognize you as the empress and decide that the only way to save their own skins is to help you kick witches out of their territory. High chaos, they blame you for all this mess and attack you on sight, same as always.

I don’t know.

I just think that the final high chaos level ought to make me confront my choices and force me to face the consequences. I shouldn’t have any control over what happens narratively.

[scarlet--wiccan]

How did you feel about the ending of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and the reveal of Magneto's letter?

I'm going to start by saying that I still think that Orlando really struggles with endings. His final issues always feel disjointed and sloppy to me, and SW&Q #4 is no exception. My main takeaway from this issue is that everything made sense in theory-- each character's positions and responses felt coherent and I perfectly understood how Orlando was characterizing each relationship-- but not in practice, as the scenario itself was harder to follow and I don't think everyone's actions made sense.

My biggest problem is understanding why Magneto would write this letter in the first place, much less keep it under his floorboards, and why, after all of the growth he went through in Red and Resurrection, he would still say those things to the twins' faces. The Griever's scheme to use the letter is clever, in terms of emotional manipulation, but Orlando does little to disguise the fact that it is a heavy-handed plot contrivance that he's using to mine Magnet Family Drama™️ in a book that otherwise has little reason to concern itself with Magneto. By comparison, the Joseph storyline in Scarlet Witch was more well integrated into the main plot and was driven by a character who was strong enough to stand on his own feet, while simultaneously facilitating conversations about Wanda and Max's relationship. This simply does not measure up to me. It feels tacked on, and the twins' abrupt, stilted reunion with Magneto himself does nothing to assuage that feeling.

Generally speaking, though, this is exactly the type of toxicity I expect from Magneto, particularly post-HoM, and post-Children's Crusade. He is overprotective to a fault towards Wanda, and resentful and dismissive towards Pietro. This has been a pretty consistent setting for their "family" dynamic for at least a decade.

I've written about this several times, but that paternalism is something Wanda has a really hard time setting boundaries around. A lot of her loved ones, including Pietro himself, have been treating her this way for a very long time. It makes perfect sense to me that she would find Magneto's words destabilizing, especially given that she is starting the series in a place of unresolved grief. I also thought it was really smart that Wanda, who, for the first time in her life has the upper hand in almost all of her relationships, is mirroring those paternalistic behaviors towards Pietro. We saw it in Scarlet Witch (2023) #1, and we saw it here in SW&Q. These flaws are crucial to balancing out Wanda's character, now that she is so powerful and evolved, and I think they've been demonstrated very well.

Similarly, I think that the twins' explosive fight in #1 was perfectly in character. To me, this felt like a more well-realized and narratively justified version of the fight from Scarlet Witch (2015) #9. A lot of the same tensions are fears are coming to a boil, but here there is a more reasonable impetus, and again, reversing Wanda and Pietro's dynamic is a great way to dig up any flaws and simmering resentments in their relationship. As fans, we want them to have a healthy, loving relationship, and I think Orlando has shown, up to this point that they do, but when we look back at their history, we can see that they do have problems. I don't think either of them is a bad sibling, but this is an area where they can be challenged and still experience satisfying growth.

And I am satisfied, because ultimately, this challenge does not break them. Although he initially allows his temper and pettiness to get the best of him, Pietro finds the patience and empathy to put their fight to rest. He falters, but ultimately, he demonstrates the same growth and self-awareness that he achieved in Quicksilver: No Surrender. I thought it was a great moment for him, and again, I love that this is a reversal in the twins' usual dynamic-- Pietro is the one doing the bulk of the emotional labor.

Wanda, for her part, hesitates more than I would like, and I really do wish that she'd been quicker to come to Pietro's defense. Most of what they're talking about here is House of M, and for all of his faults, and for as horrible as the consequences may have been, Pietro is one of the only people who consistently acted in Wanda's best interest during that time. If this scene had been given more space to breathe, or if Orlando was just a little better at grounding his dialogue, perhaps Wanda would have been able to speak and acknowledge that fact.

I think that part Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver's goal was to settle Wanda and Pietro's past with Magneto-- the same way Darkhold settled Wanda's past with Chthon and ToM settled the Decimation-- and in doing so, strengthen and refresh their relationship in a way that reflects their current maturity and growth. In a lot of ways, it succeeds, and I do think that there is some real depth and great character work here, but those things are buried under choppy pacing and dialogue. The two competing storylines-- the family drama, and the introduction of the Griever -- feel disjointed, and the expansion of Wanda and Pietro's powers gets lost in the middle. It's a shame, because setting new benchmarks for their powers and setting new benchmarks for their relationship at the same time should feel really cohesive and exciting, but for me, it falls a little flat because almost every element is just slightly underdeveloped- every idea comes just short of being fully explored.

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One headcanon that i just can't agree with is the idea that Darius would/should just stay at home post canon and care only about Hunter and Eber, at best other close friends and whoever he is shipped with, but not about anyone or anything else.

Like, yeah, obviously there are people who are the closest to him, and i definitely think he would need to take a break and revaluate his position as the former Coven Head and take a real vacation for once, but Darius is just so flanderized in the fandom into one direction or another, and i just don't vibe with it. And yes, i understand that sometimes it's simply the result of what people want to focus on in fanworks, but i've also seen it spelled out as headcanons in general, like 'oh, Darius hates all the kids for real and only Hunter is the exception', or 'Darius actually can't stand other people other than his loved ones' (and not in the sense that he is easily annoyed, or it is difficult for him to interact with others, but fully, for real).

First, I am pretty sure Dana herself had said in one interview that Darius wants to care about his loved ones but also to help others in general. And you can see it in the show too - Raine says specifically that he was 'protecting' them even though they were not close at the time of ER, Darius laments how 'we' (the rebels) were too late during the DoU, hinting that he always wanted to save the whole Isles ("but he gave up for Eber" you might say, well, my first meta was about what i think of 'Darius easily chose Eber over the Isles' interpretations - Post). So in one way or another he probably would want to help others post canon as well.

Second, he clearly has several interests and, of course, his passion for abominations that he would likely want to continue to persue. He also seems to be quite happy to conduct Raine's ceremony, so he might also enjoy the role of a public figure in general.

And third and probably the most important thing for me, it just fits the narrative of the show better if Darius opens up to other people who are not the closest to him. Yes, found family is great, but it is not the only thing that matters. There are many instances in the series where it is shown how important community is or how its absense is damaging - and not only to the kids but to adult characters too - and i think it is a very deliberate choice, and one of the good things about toh. (And by that i don't mean - and i don't think the show means either - that every character should become an extrovert and completely change personality, or that every character should like and interact with everyone, it can mean different things).

The biggest example is Eda - she starts the show isolated, and while it's not her fault, in season 1 she is, as Luz had put it, individualistic. But through getting to know Luz, Eda not only develops better relationships within her own found family, but she goes from only agreeing to help Bump in the school because it will help Luz and being distantly playfull at best towards other kids, to trying to reach out to Hunter and to mentor Edric in season 2, and finally to opening her own school; she goes from not wanting to free the conformatorium prisoners to saving a wild witch in ER. Yes, the paternalistic conformity of the EC is shown to be bad, but personal isolation and individualism are also not good. And the same happens with others too. The Bat Queen not only opens up to the palisman adoption program but praises the good qualities of the kids when they tell their wishes. Alador improves his relationship with his children, but he also works on using his inventions for the good of the Isles in the epilogue. It is at least implied that if Camila and Luz had bigger support from the adults around them, and Camila had more friends other than her husband to help her, their life after his death would've been easier. Not as noticable with Raine because of how their arc is written (/negative), but it is at least hinted in the ER that their rebellion wasn't very sucessful because of how small it was. This is more headcanon-y, but i can easily see how Lilith's single-minded focus on finding the cure for her sister caused her to ignore the harm done by the EC. And then, of course there are villains like Belos and Odalia whose focus on the family is twisted.

So, i really don't know why Darius's development should go in a different direction and be focused on isolating rather than opening up to more people - in one way or another, it can take different forms, and doesn't mean that he can't be a private person. It doesn't even mean that he must be a public figure (although i think he might be happy in a position like that), he might just sit and write more text books. But I think getting to mentor someone like Willow (not in abominations but in general sense) or Jerbo would be good for him too.

(And tbh with the way Darius's grief over his mentor was twisted into bitterness, and how he seemed to be very much not over his broken friendship with Alador and possibly Odalia (maybe even Raine) for so long, i can see an interpretation where it would be healing for him to learn to expand his circle and through that to learn how to easier let go of his grievances and adjust to change.)