#especially due to two specific scenes lol

[running-in-the-dark]

had a weird dream lol (nsfw I guess)

so I dreamed. that I dreamed. that I was watching a Night Court x The Librarians crossover episode. and there was a scene where Dan Fielding had sex with Jenkins. just. yeah. it was not censored but I couldn't see because I was too confused why that was suddenly happening (it was logistically impossible and involved dancing and happened in a crowded room lol) (I think someone was hovering)

so then I woke up (remember I dreamed I was dreaming). and wrote a tumblr post about it. I don't think I would be writing this right now if that hadn't been part of it lol.

that was the not so weird part, it got much stranger after that. tried to find footage of that episode, there was a conspiracy about it, found it, X Files stuff (somehow Mulder and Scully were involved in finding the episode lol), Guillermo from WWDITS was there and I thought his name was Graham and he was offended, some guys used Bull from Night Court as a battering ram, there were sex toys lying/rolling around everywhere, Jenkins [redacted] (felt too weird typing it out. it was good though....), stuff about executions, random monsters, some guy was my dad and he was mean. it really felt like my brain was just given a list of bullet points and gave up on making it into something that made sense

soo yeah uh lots to think about 🤔

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

quick question- I was a bit confused in some dialogue during book 1 lol 😭😭 It’s during the later chapters when riddle has collared both ace and deuce after they’ve challenged him for his seat. More specifically, the part where yuu calls riddle out for his behavior (rightfully so) and he responds by insulting them and their parents I believe?

The confusion stems from aceyuu shippers (just wanted to clarify I’m not self shipping lmao) where they say ace ends up punching riddle because he’s explicitly defending yuu’s honor or whatever but i also see other people (non-shippers) who say ace punched riddle because he insulted ace and/or deuce’s parents? Im not quite sure which one it is and went back in the actual game to check but i feel like the wording of riddle’s insults is a bit vague? Idk, maybe im just being a bit of a dum dum and can’t properly comprehend the scene even though it’s quite simple. I feel like it’s also just because i see a lot of people saying different stuff and just wanted to hear your thoughts on it if that’s okay?

I just feel like you really understand both the story and characters in that regard haha

P.S. your posts r genuinely very informative and helpful especially for people like me who kinda have no media literacy (not in a negative way!!) pls keep up the good work you’re rlly great at it <333

Hmmm, I see 🤔

Before I get to responding to this question, I want to preface this with a few disclaimers! Firstly, I do not mean to invalidate or detract from Ace x Yuu shippers or anyone who may interpret their relationship as romantic. You should ship what you like and have fun doing it. My reply aims to be more objective, but that should NOT impede on your enjoyment or whatever it is you choose to ship. Secondly, for those who don’t ship Ace x Yuu, I will be discussing the pairing later on in this post, so please keep this in mind.

Let's first look at how the game and how it depicts the scene. This occurs in 1-22, shortly after Riddle collars Ace and Deuce in their duel for the dorm leader seat. With his victory secured, Riddle begins to gloat about how this is proof that he is "the most correct". At this point, Yuu/the player character is granted two dialogue options:

If you choose "But that's not right!", Riddle replies with, "I am the one who decides what is wrong and right! What sort of pitiful education have you received, that you cannot follow such simple rules?"

If you choose "You can't just use rules to do whatever you please!", then Riddle replies with, "If there were no penalties, no one would follow the rules. I have to wonder what sort of pitiful education left you unable to comprehend so simple a concept."

However, no matter which dialogue option you choose, Riddle continues on to say, "Clearly, you were born to parents with no great magical capability. And as a result... You lack even the basic education necessary to attend a school such as this. It's quite sad."

Deuce becomes upset after hearing this--but before he is able to act, Ace is already on his feet and manages to deck his dorm leader in the face.

Based on the fact that Riddle seems to react to something that Yuu says, the framing here implies that the "you" Riddle is using refers to them specifically. As you can see above, both Ace and Deuce take offense to what Riddle says, but it is Ace that acts preemptively and attacks Riddle for his rudeness. This is what Ace x Yuu shippers will point to as a defining moment in their relationship (though, to be clear, this scene can definitely also be interpreted as platonic!!).

… Buuut it’s not completely clear that Riddle is explicitly directing any and all insults towards Yuu and Yuu alone, even if Yuu was the one to prompt his tirade. Due to the visual novel style format of the game, we have limited assets to base our interpretations off of, so going by the game alone may not be entirely accurate to what is happening in this scene. For example, we don't know how the characters are oriented relative to one another. It's possible that Riddle responds to Yuu's dialogue and then turns away to berate Yuu, Ace, and Deuce for their stupidity, since all three of them are, in his eyes, rule-breakers. We simply cannot tell due to the constraints of a visual novel. Let’s consult the manga adaptation and see how that presents 1-22.

In the Episode of Heartslabyul, the framing of the panels centers Riddle and Adeuce; Yuuken is not involved whatsoever. (On a prior page, all Yuuken remarks on is how fast Riddle is able to cast his spell; Yuuken has no lines similar to game!Yuu’s earlierdialogue options.) Riddle stands imposing over his opponents and rants at Ace and Deuce about their lack of an education. You can see that it really strikes a nerve with Deuce (whom we learned used to be a delinquent prior to NRC). This still results in Yuu punching Riddle.

The manga seems to imply that Riddle is not insulting Yuu, but rather Adeuce. This makes sense to me, given that though all of them are rebels to Heartslabyul’s strict rules, Adeuce are the two who most directly challenge his authority.

You can see in a close-up panel that Deuce is gritting his teeth and trying to hold himself back from going at Riddle. The text in that panel involves the mention of parents who cannot use magic—which just so happens to be true of Deuce’s mother. The same mother that he worked so hard to make proud of, the mother he turned over a new leaf for. But again, it’s Ace that gets the hit in. Why is that?

Let’s check out our final source, the first volume of the light novel. On pages 319 and 320:

Riddle very clearly states “And as for you two.” This clearly refers to the fallen Ace and Deuce. He then unleashes his barrage of insults at them. Again, not at Yuu, but at Ace and Deuce. The text even goes on to remind us that Deuce would be especially rattled by Riddle’s words because of how he had come to NRC for the sake of his mom. In this version, we see our Yuu (Yuuya) being more involved by trying to keep Deuce from lashing out. Like in the game, however, Ace still gets in that punch on his dorm leader.

Okay, so… The game, manga, and light novels are different iterations of the same base story. Based on which you consume, you could walk away with an entirely different understanding of the scene in question. The game, being the most interactive medium with a self-insert main character, a gacha game which makes $$$ from endearing the characters to us, has the set-up which is most conducive for yumeshipping and thus making the player feel beloved and important in 1-22. This is obvious if you also consider that many fanservicey lines from other parts of the game (such as Ace wanting to sleep in Yuu’s room) being left out of the manga. It's also entirely possible that Riddle first reacts to what Yuu says, and THEN shifts his attention to address the group rather than just Yuu. The manga, with a more standoffish and level-headed Yuu, doesn’t speak up like game!Yuu does, so Riddle instead directly insults Ace and Deuce. The light novel, which features a timid and non-confrontational Yuu, is focused on deescalating the situation. And, like the manga, the light novel is NOT interactive and so it doesn’t need to concern itself with making the player feel special. Riddle isn’t mandated to acknowledge Yuu; he can instead be mad at Ace and Deuce all he likes.

If we were to combine information from across the game, manga, and light novel to decipher what is “truly” happening, here’s how I see it!

The light novel contains a scene exclusive to it on pages 176 and 177. As Ace is making himself comfortable at Ramshackle, he formally apologizes to Yuuya for being mean to him in the prologue. Ace explains that his meanness was because he thought that Yuuya had bullied his way to be admitted to NRC under special circumstances. “[…] the rest of us had to work our butts off to get in, and you just sorta walked in.” He proclaims that this was unfair, so it annoyed him.

This makes a lot of sense for Ace’s character. In book 7 of the main story, he expresses that he is insecure about being an ordinary mage and that he hadn’t even developed his UM yet. (Coincidentally, he has a Chat where he praises the Queen of Hearts for having no special magic but still being able to make it big—perhaps because her circumstances remind Ace of himself?) He calls himself lame and pathetic, someone who is always looking for an excuse to take the easy way out. This is in spite of the bravado he puts on and how he often brags about being better or smarter than Deuce (most notably in book 5). If we believe the light novel dialogue, Ace worked hard to get invited to NRC. He has pride in earning this, and he has something to prove while he is there. Recall that his older brother is an alumnus of the school, and that his own father is a magicless human. Ace canonically has a good relationship with both of these family members and often bonds with them through little things like card trick competitions. When Riddle insults Ace's background... he is also insulting Ace's brother and father. He is also insulting all the effort Ace put forth to get into NRC in the first place. Ace would of course lose it--especially when he has been the primary victim of Riddle's rage for most of book 1. He's the first to be collared, the one who had to apologize and attempted to make an apology tart (which got rejected). Bro's fed UP having to bend the knee to a tyrant and sick of watching everyone else do the same. The punch that comes out of it seems to me like the result of all Ace's pent-up frustrations, as well as his own fury at Riddle speaking ill of him and his family.

While Ace is unquestionably willing to ride or die for Yuu in books 4 (he takes a long public transit route from the Queendom to Sage's Island after receiving a SOS text from them) and 6 (he tries to protect his friends from Ferrymen)... I think book 1's a bit too early for him to be SO loyal to Yuu that he'd get this angry on their behalf and sock Riddle. (Book 1 takes place during the first week of school; Ace seems to have only known Yuu for a few days at this point + hasn't really hung out with them besides sleeping over at Ramshackle since he's not allowed back at Heartslabyul.) His punch definitely feels fueled by a bunch of other things rather than being extremely motivated to defend Yuu's honor. I think maybe a case could be made for the game specifically, since that's the only version where Yuu is potentially addressed rather than Ace and Deuce being addressed. However, this does take some extrapolation. You'd have to assume that Ace is actually very attached to Yuu this early on or pair it with the idea that Ace is sensitive about magicless humans in general being discriminated against because of his own father being magicless (ie Ace was insulted by proxy, even if Riddle might have aimed the comments at Yuu). Not sure if the latter argument holds up very well though, considering that Ace himself did discriminate against Yuu in the prologue because they lacked magic. Likewise, he doesn't get mad for Fellow and Gidel in Playful Land when they share about being looked down on for not being magically inclined. But hey, maybe that was just Ace being in denial and acting contrary in order to cope with his own complicated feelings on the topic. He’s been known to behave like this anyway, acting cocky despite having no UM and denying that Yuu would go home (even though we later find out he deeply does not wish for this to happen).

I definitely think that many of the game-exclusive lines and content are there as fanservice for the players, who are encouraged to project or to self-insert as Yuu. Ace in particular is one of the characters who gets a ton of this kind of yumejoshi bait-y stuff. Everyone has it to some extent, but Ace is one of the rare few who has several pretty overt instances in the main story (whereas most other characters have their fanservice content relegated to voice lines and maybe some events). On top of this scene (which could potentially read as "Ace defending Yuu's honor"), we have: multiple instances of Ace offering to share a room/bed with Yuu (once in book 1, again in book 3), he has shared his number with Yuu and invites them to call him if they "miss him", Ace's entire book 7 dream revolving around a reality in which Yuu is able to freely traverse between Twisted Wonderland and their original world (furthermore, he is the ONLY dreamer we have seen in which Yuu is involved in the dream), etc. Ace is also known to frequently tease Yuu, and, on top of having several voice lines inviting them to hang out, is actually shown hanging out with them and caring about them in various vignettes and events. For example, he has movie nights with Yuu (Idia's Labwear vignettes), asks for their opinion on whether or not he looks the part to woo the Ghost Bride, rides roller coasters with them in Playful Land while previously complaining that his ex-girlfriend wouldn’t, and worries for where Yuu might be (Endless Halloween Night). With this abundance of Ace and Yuu content, I can see why people that have the shipping goggles on--and even those who don't--might interpret early scenes as Ace acting out for Yuu's sake, be it romantically or platonically. More objectively speaking and when considering the manga + light novel though, I don't think I personally read 1-22 that way. I enjoy Ace as a character and I support Ace x Yuu shippers, but the evidence and context suggests that he's venting other frustrations to me.

Again though, this is just my interpretation. Feel free to use this information however you’d like and come to your own conclusion.

[melonteee]

Hello Mel!

I love your Sanji rants and vids! I'm not sure if you've covered this anywhere else, but what do you think of Sanji's "if I'm not myself, kill me" moment?

On one hand, Zoro's a man of his word and would absolutely do his best to uphold his promise; but on the other, Sanji is his nakama. Zoro literally sacrificed himself in place of Sanji and Luffy, so I find it hard to believe Zoro would allow one of his nakama to die (or be killed) without a fight.

Basically, do you think that their death pact is Sanji's way of making sure Zoro keeps him accountable? And do you think there's a possibility for Sanji to become Stealth Black in the future?

I've talked about this a lot in different places but yes I 100% think the reason Sanji chose Zoro is because he thinks Zoro is the best person to carry out the promise. Not only do Zoro and Sanji have this understanding between each other - which comes in the form of a 'secret' with what happened on Thriller Bark as they both saw how self sacrificing the other was for the crew (yes, Brook and Robin saw it, but that moment wasn't between them and is not for them to share. This is why Brook/Robin have never told anyone of what happened on Thriller Bark). BUT Sanji also understands how much a promise means to Zoro, he literally SAW Zoro's promise to himself and to Luffy during the Baratie. As we know, that moment impacted Sanji greatly, and Zoro's whole scene at the Baratie was even one of the reasons Sanji decided to join the crew.

When it comes to Thriller Bark, the 'nothing happened' scene cemented Zoro and Sanji as the wings, while also giving us an insight of what Sanji and Zoro think of each other. Sanji believes he embarrassed himself due to Zoro being the one to actually take Kuma's pain, but Brook assured him Sanji's own resolve was equally as admirable as Zoro's. And, if we fill in the blanks, we can definitely see Zoro refuses to let anyone die, hence why he refused to let Sanji take his place in front of Kuma. Either way, Thriller Bark was a huge arc for Zoro and Sanji, because it gave them something specific and insane - a secret they have to keep from LUFFY.

They both know how angry Luffy would be if he found out they tried to die in HIS place, and they also wouldn't want Luffy to feel that guilt. At the same time, SANJI now feels that guilt due to the damage Zoro took from Kuma, and I see this as an unspoken tension between the two of them - especially when we consider how desperate, frustrated and terrified Sanji was when being knocked out by Zoro and finding Zoro standing in a pool of his own blood. So, as controversial as this idea might seem...I think? Sanji has become Zoro's emotional pillar to lean on.

I can't exactly say it works vice versa, because WCI was an example of how Sanji isn't afraid to rely on Luffy - even though he felt guilty to do so until Luffy...quite literally punched his love into him LOL

As the wings, Luffy relies on THEM to boost HIM up, and Zoro takes this very seriously. But when Zoro needs the help, who can he turn to? Well, probably the guy he shares a whole ass secret with that not even their captain can know about! The biggest moment to portray this is in Onigashima, when Zoro was knocked out on the rooftop to protect Luffy (and others), and Sanji literally CARRIED and BANDAGED Zoro on the battlefield afterwards. While Zoro could feel some guilt regarding not being strong enough against Kaido, he is comfortable enough to sleep on Sanji's shoulder and trusts in Sanji keep him safe.

Sanji saw Zoro in Thriller Bark, after all. He not only saw Zoro at death's door, but in a vulnerable state of desperation to keep the captain and crew alive. Promising death together, in front of each other, or for one another...is an incredible act of affinity to me! Zoro had one foot in the grave in front of Sanji before, so Sanji protecting him as he's totally immobilised on a battlefield isn't going to really bother Zoro!

Yet, as we get to the death pact, the matter of death comes up again. Instead of a promise made to an outside source - which Zoro can throw himself in front of - this is a promise made BY a crewmate. Zoro can't just replace Sanji in this situation, he can't knock Sanji out and keep him safe, HE has to kill HIM. I always saw this as Sanji not only being at his most vulnerable with Zoro, but as a cruel payback for what Zoro put Sanji through in Thriller Bark. Not in any malicious way, of course, but as an ironic twist of fate that Zoro simply cannot escape.

Can't replace Sanji, can't save Sanji, can only kill Sanji - and now Zoro has to suffer possibly seeing Sanji with one foot in the grave. Or worse...IN the grave.

All this to say, I do not believe Zoro could kill Sanji because I agree with you, I can't see him ever killing a crewmate. They mean too much to him, all of them, and Sanji is part of the Strawhats. Not to mention, as I said, I believe Sanji is a pillar Zoro can lean on - and he's being asked to quite literally destroy that pillar.

Yet, Sanji has so little self respect and sees Zoro as someone so overly ambitious I think he thinks Zoro can kill him if needed. As much as I believe Sanji can read Zoro, I think he's vastly underestimated just how much...he means to Zoro?? And I don't even mean that in a gay way or ship way, just in a general crewmates way. I think what Sanji has asked Zoro is entirely too cruel, because Zoro will break that promise, and I don't think Sanji even sees it that way. Yet, Sanji apologised for what he's asked of Zoro, meaning he knows it's a big ask for Zoro to kill him - I just don't think he knows how big of an ask it really is.

Sorry I rambled, but yes I think there's a full possibility of Sanji mutating completely because I cannot see Sanji's new, sparkly superpowers that make him the deus ex machina of battle heavy moments existing without some kind of drawback. Even Gear 5 has drawbacks, surely Sanji is snowballing into some horrible situation. How Zoro will handle that...is beyond me! I hope there's crying!

[ace-ogato]

Elder Faerie and White Lily Analysis because I NEED to talk about them...

What I'm about to say can be interpreted romantically or platonically, literally however you see fit 👍 I just want their relationship in general to be talked about more because it's so, so good...

(Putting it under a cut because it's a bit long LOL)

A lot of this hinges on a specific scene from Episode 1 of Beast-Yeast, that being "White Lily Cookie's Memories V" (creative title, wow !). It's the most important flashback between the two of them I'd say, and really exemplifies the dynamic between them.

This scene was the single strongest moment in ep. 1-2 and probably the most well written moment. White Lily was at her strongest here, in terms of characterization and general writing. She truly felt like herself, something that sort of lacked in other parts of the episode. God, I love her in this scene... but onto the actual title of the post !

In relation to Elder Faerie, the symbolism between them throughout their entire relationship is so, so good. The butterfly and the flower; the themes of freedom of choice and deciding your own fate vs. being rooted in one place for a single. clear purpose. The fact that it's a reversal of who you think would be who. White Lily being the flower, something usually stuck in one place for its life, as the one yearning for more in her life. Elder Faerie being the butterfly, a creature that can move freely as it wishes, as the one that's trapped in one spot due to a mission given to him years ago. It's so emblematic of the things they desire the most. Of course a flower would yearn for movement and freedom while a butterfly would yearn for consistency and a home. But their yearning is technically accomplished, White Lily can move where she pleases and Elder Faerie does have a defined role. Yet they both are still missing something despite that, especially for White Lily. Which I think just furthers the metaphor, the flower being the one desiring harder than the butterfly because it has to fight even harder for any goal.

Also the fact the mutualistic relationship between a butterfly and a flower ends up being both of their downfalls. There connection and relationship to one another causes both of their deaths, in a figurative sense for White Lily and in a very real sense for Elder Faerie. Both of their choices were obviously their own, but those were choices they could not have made without knowing the other. WL needed the knowledge from the Faerie Kingdom and from EF in order to make her choice to go to the Banquet, ending as her turning into Dark Enchantress. EF needed WL and her strength in order to seal the Silver Tree and protect the world, ending up with him dying in order for White Lily to take his power and fulfill his role. They both got what they wanted, at the cost of losing everything, because of each other.

They were doomed from the moment they met. The second White Lily saved Silverbell's life and was taken to the Kingdom. The second Elder Faerie met this stranger from a faraway continent. There was never any hope for them. And yet they managed to give each other the solution to their ultimate desires and goals... I'm going to be sick

[pluckyredhead]

please talk to me abt dinah & roy 🥺 i want all your thoughts (especially because i also do not enjoy her being called his mom, like im sorry but. no.)

Lol okay so the bait worked. Someone ask about Clark and Kon next! (That one will probably take me the weekend to write.)

I want to be clear here: Dinah and Roy's relationship is so important to me, and they love each other very deeply. When I say she isn't his mom, I don't mean that to downplay their importance to each other in any way. Dinah is one of the people Roy loves and trusts the most - like, top 5 in the world - and vice versa. It's just an oversimplification to call their dynamic maternal/filial, though that is part of their dynamic.

Anyway I have three primary arguments here. The first is based on...I'm gonna say 2.5 canon moments that DO exist.

Arsenal #1. Dinah shows up at Roy's apartment and they IMMEDIATELY start flirting.

I mean. That is not how mothers and sons interact outside of ancient Greek plays. They're joking about having sex! Come on!

On the very next page, Roy literally tells Dinah she's not his mom:

And sure, a lot of times an attitude of "You're not my real mom!" is used to reinforce the idea that yes, she absolutely is his real mom...but like, she was joking about his dick 30 seconds ago. So no.

There's also this body language, which again is very sexual:

And among the many nicknames she gives him in this issue is "cutie," which doesn't really read as paternal when you're talking to a fellow adult.

Now again, this is an absolutely wonderful issue that really dives deep into how close Roy and Dinah are and how much they love each other. But what it doesn't do is depict them as mother and son.

2. Birds of Prey #68. Dinah finds out that Helena slept with Roy and is (weirdly) upset, so Helena makes a crack about how it wasn't even that good ("Archers - they pull a mighty bow, but they're too quick to let fly, if you know what I...").

I have some problems with this scene - Babs and Dinah welcoming Helena to the team by slutshaming her is not a good look - but Babs's line in the second panel is really telling to me. "He's like a kid brother to her. Maybe almost like a son." Babs is Dinah's closest friend, and even she describes Dinah's relationship with Roy in these ambivalent, not-easily-categorized terms. Ollie is Roy's dad. But Dinah is Roy's...friend-sister-mother-colleague???

2.5. Secret Origins #50. This one is less clear-cut, but it's another of my favorite Dinah and Roy moments. Dinah gets a call in the middle of the night telling her that her mother is dying. Ollie calls Hal, who flies Ollie and Dinah across the country to the hospital, and then says "There's someone else I think should be here" and leaves. He comes back with Roy.

Now, Roy is an adult, and I'm not saying that adult children can't comfort their parents, which is why I listed it as 2.5 and not 3. But this scene has always struck me as very much an interaction between peers and not a son reaching up to a mother - especially since even Hal recognized that Roy would be a comfort to Dinah. (And hey, good job being emotionally intuitive for once in your life, Hal! It will never happen again.)

My second argument is canon moments that DON'T exist. Specifically, Roy and Dinah do not refer to each other as mother and son, and neither does anyone else, except in the two examples above which are denials of that relationship. Roy and Ollie refer to each other as father and son on a regular basis, but even though Roy and Dinah are close, they don't use those words. Because they don't apply.

And my final argument is age gap, or the lack thereof. I'm putting this at the end because I think it's the weakest argument due to comic book character ages being so inconsistent, but I do think it's worth noting that they are often much closer in age than you might assume.

Now, when Roy and Dinah first met in 1971, this was the original pre-Crisis Dinah Drake Lance, who had canonically been active during WWII. Even if we make her about as young as we can possibly get away with and say she was 18 when the war ended in 1945, that makes her 44 at the youngest in 1971, and probably a little older. If we figure Roy was about 17 during Snowbirds Don't Fly (it's hard to pin down his exact age; it's not stated in the comic, and Dick was in college by then but Wally wouldn't graduate high school until the 80s, so his peers aren't a good guide), Dinah would be 27 years older than him - definitely old enough to be his mother.

However, after the retcon that made Dinah her own mother (it's a thing) and she became Dinah Laurel Lance, I think we can safely halve her age. Which makes her more like 5 years older than Roy - not a gap that feels at all maternal.

Post-Crisis, Dinah was explicitly 19 when she became a founding member of the Justice League and first met Ollie, which makes her...maybe 7 years older than an approximately 12 years old brand-new-Speedy!Roy? Again, not a parental age gap.

I doubt anyone working at DC today could tell you at gunpoint how old either of these characters are now, but the point is, for much of continuity, Dinah and Roy are actually the same generation. That is not how parents work!

IN CONCLUSION: While there is occasionally a maternal element to Dinah's relationship with Roy, and while she is certainly the closest thing to a mother he has ever had (mother figures have been so absent in his life it was an actual plot point in an issue of Titans), she is not his mother, and neither of them view her that way. And diminishing their relationship to a simplistic mother-son dynamic in a simplistic nuclear family structure is dismissive of both the fascinating, complex, wonderful relationship they actually do have, and the nuances of the unique relationship dynamics that can exist within found families.

[brella-boi]

Okay guys this is becoming a tradition of me seeing films recently so heres a

Sonic 3 review from a technical standpoint

Look im no film critic or anything, but i AM an animator and theres a lot of. Things. I see whether I want to or not. Its just how my brain is wired because of my profession lol

(This is full of spoilers btw so now's your time to fast scroll away)

Anyway lets begin!

The movie is great. Cool even. I liked it! But theres a lot of direction decision that I am just. Baffled by I guess?

First of all- the models are different. (Httyd ass moment) And the way they sculpted the characters lips absolutely destroys anything theyre trying to emote. It looks like theyre CONSTANTLY pursing their lips. Like they ate a lemon. Do you understand? Sonic also has much more pronounced brows which makes him look more pissed off constantly LOL

[Sonic 1 model vs sonic 3 models, pay attention to the lips]

Eggman and Dr Stone had possibly the best interactions in the entire movie. Their dynamic was fantastic, and I would argue they kinda carried the movie. Unfortunately! The ending left their issues unresolved. And Dr Stone looked entirely unbothered by the possible death of Eggman.

This brings me to some writing choices that I feel may be due to... Either infantalising or time cuts. The storyboarding of this film was just. God how do I even describe this. It feels like a lot of crucial scenes where cherry picked to be deleted between shots. Thats not good at all- and while character continuity WAS there, it really did feel like something crucial was missing in some scenes. This is especially evident in the Chao Garden scenes. Specifically when the general dies (WHY DOES HE DIE LIKE THAT. WE DIDNT EVEN SEE THE RUBBLE GO ANYWHERE OR PIN ANYONE DOWN OR SEE MASS PANIC FOR PEOPLE TO DIE?) The characters COMPLETELY gloss over his death- a death that feels like its out of a show for 8 year olds Im not going to lie to you. He just flops, delivers a line, and thats it.

It feels like the two halves of the movie were written by two different writers.

The first half is weak. The jokes are stale. And the storybeats almost feel off. The actions scenes- while there's nothing particularly offendish about them- don't *hit*. If you're an animator or writer you understand that important beats need to pack a punch. It was severely lacking in packing punches in the first half.

I also wanna speak to the animators. Are you okay? Was this made on tight deadlines? Where is the fun and whimsy? Did you outsource this? Did you give your workers a good environment or were they crunching and hating life? Or did you hire younger animators with no senior feedback because they're cheaper to hire?

Look, the animation is good. Just that. Its good. Its TV show standard, not movie standard. Its lacking a good push to the poses, its using slow keyframing between poses instead of it being snappy, with good silhouettes, with good visual gags. Instead were left with this.. subpar passable animation for every character instead of something energetic and snappy like Sonics personality. I think this is where I take the most issue with because guys come on. You didnt push the models to their limits at ALL. And Sonics speedy running is... Well read my previous points. Where are the fundamentals of animation about exaggeration? Not in Sonics run cycle.

The second half of the movie carried the first half on its back thanks to Eggman. I am SO GLAD to see giant spaceships and mechs and whatnot. Thats great! Loved to see the lovely mech models and once again- interactions between Eggman and Dr Stone. Id go as far as say they should be gay tbh (hello? The scene where theyre tied up?)

I didn't bring up Shadow entirely so far. And honestly Ive no notes about him. All my notes are entirely about just the animation and not hitting the beats well. His characterisation was great- it actually explains his aggression pretty well and then redemption. Genuinely the last arc of the movie was fantastic. And finally we got to hear a rock score to go with it. Maria was fun, the flashbacks were fun, the scientific exploration was fun. All in the second half of the movie of course!

My overall score is 6/10.

To untrained eyes the movie is going to be extremely fun- if a little more childish in some parts than others. I'm glad they took some risky moments, I'm glad the characterisation is well written. I just wish other aspects were tightened down, mainly animation and storyboarding.

6/10 but I never thought Id leave the cinema with the thoughts "I could storyboard some of these scenes in a lot more meaningful way, and Im not even a storyboarder."

I recommend a watch! Its not a bad movie. Its not a rock-it-out-of-the-park movie either though. I feel like maybe all the anticipation and high expectations maybe made it not as gut punching for me as it couldve been. Overall, all I can gleam from it is theres a lot of things to improve on! But nothing that really destroys it or makes it bad. Just a lot of room for improvement.

Thanks for reading!

[zazzander]

random thought, not even sure if you still like Octavian but i was watching a summary of Augustus Caesar’s reign and something interesting is that Augustus never declared himself a king or an emperor (due to not wanting to be stabby stabbed like Julius) instead he strategically made the senate acknowledge his status without making any actions or saying anything that implied that he was giving himself power

So technically if Octavian looked up to Augustus (this is me assuming Octavian would have looked up to Augustus, given he mentions his namesake) no way would he try to declare himself anything higher quoting Reyna “Octavian was elevating himself almost to the level of emperor.”

Which is giving me the impression that the whole declaring himself pontifex Maximus had nothing to do with him declaring himself like an emperor, since it would make sense for Octavian to pull smth like Augustus and not make any big moves.

Sorry for the unhinged/maybe wrong rant!

Have a great day’

I've analysed Octavian all I can without more content (if he comes out with a Roman prequel or something it will definitely reactivate my fixation lol)

It's hard to know what Riordan was going for in this scene beyond "look he's (still) evil".

Octavian definitely looks up to Augustus. He says so in this very scene. But I think the big context is whether or so New Romans care if they have a sole leader or not. On the face of it, they do, since they have two praetors and a senate. But then again, Reyna was able to reign solo for months without any objections (even Octavian didn't point the blatant power imbalance). She was technically co-ruling with Jason but regular Romans would definitely find it icky. If they do care, Octavian would need to work around that.

It's weird that he'd even do the Pontifex thing, considering he stated in the previous book that he'd be in charge if Reyna left anyway. That just seems like a great way to make them mad! Especially because Octavian would be one of the only people at Camp who could be a Pontifex in the first place. All the children of the gods are inherently bastards. And to be a Pontifex your parents have to be married in a specific way (Romans have three types of marriage).

I think this is just a case of Riordan not reading his own books back. Because Reyna also directly contradicts her previous orders in this scene as well.

In the empire, the emperor was also the Pontifex Maximus. So I think that's where Riordan ripped it from. But that makes no sense in the New Rome context since, canonically, there are no other priests! You could say Octavian was always the Pontifex Maximus based on that. Furthermore, when Jason takes the title literally no one accuses him of claiming the powers of an emperor.

If I were to read into the scene, without Reyna's hate tinted glasses, I'd say he was desperately trying to appease/communicate with the gods – which would match what Jason is told in this same book. I think it's also important to remember that Gaea is the one sending this vision. She wants Reyna to hate Octavian and will show her exactly what she needs to see for that to happen. (This fact is often overlooked by the heroes who have them)

[butterflydm]

The Queen of Attolia (plus some WoT comparisons)

Haha, it's been a few months but I got my chance to read the next book in the Queen's Thief series and it was so good! I am going to have two sections in this review -- my overall thoughts and then some specific thoughts that are mostly for @markantonys due to the series being her recommendation and I have a lot of thoughts about the comparisons between the Queen of Attolia x Eugenides and Mat Cauthon x Fortuona, because you can really do a point by point comparison, though I don't think it was intentional -- I think that Megan Whalen Turner and Robert Jordan were both going for the same idea but Turner was, imo, wildly more successful than Jordan at it.

But first, thoughts that don't particularly relate to The Wheel of Time:

We open with a tense cat and mouse chase between The Thief and the Queen's guardmen and that is really the heart of this book when it comes down to it -- a cat and mouse game between two extremely complicated people, and how they have to navigate in the world that they share.

Turner is really good at writing these fun action scenes where you're very much in the PoV of the character.

The (apparent) foundation that is laid here (that later gets overturned because Gen got to me again and he was once again acting on personal information that he kept from me for the majority of the book, lol, love him for it) - is very much beginning as enemies who have respect for each other's skills. At this point in the book, I knew that they would end up married due to spoilers and I know that it's considered a good romance, so I was really looking forward to seeing the journey, especially since I did get spoiled about the huge upcoming traumatic event.

But we start from this strong narrative place where they are aware of each other and have respect for each other but they belong to two separate counties that have some political tensions and they are both important parts of those countries and can't set that aside.

Because of how bold Gen is, Attolia has been backed into a corner by his actions and we actually see this affirmed by Gen's cousin (the Queen of Eddis) and her thoughts on the matter -- she is aware that Gen going into Attolia's country to spy on her is a dangerous thing for him to do.

And then the cutting off of his hand. This is brutal, and it feels brutal, and then we also get these hints of Attolia's reaction afterwards (that we get into more later) but especially her reaction when he begs her not to hurt him anymore and you can really see her feel the impact of what she did. She doesn't allow herself to show her remorse but even this early on, we're getting hints of it as readers.

Then when Gen goes home, we actually see that the Queen of Eddis also maintains a mask in public, just like Attolia does, so we see another hint here that Gen understands that kind of masking. Eddis looks just as cold and impenetrable to Attolia's guards who return Gen to her, as Attolia looks to everyone else.

I really appreciated how long the recovery time was after the loss of Gen's hand and how much time we spent with him to feel him get used to the changes (and how economically Turner is able to pass that time). We get these tiny looks at Attolia as well, and her difficultly sleeping at night, which we expand on later.

Then we get the return of the Magus from Sounis! It was really nice to see him again, dropping in to visit Gen, but he's also here to give us that continuation of the division between personal and political -- as a person who genuinely likes Gen, the Magus was upset about what Attolia did to him, but as the advisor to the king of Sounis, he knew that they would be able to use Eddis's reaction to Attolia's act on the political stage.

But what a way to learn that the two countries are at war!

It takes some time for Gen to really believe that Eddis went to war over him, and we see him processing that over the course of the book as well, and they talk about it more. I do think that Gen does not always realize how deeply other people care about him.

Turner really is so good at giving us these pieces of information that reframe the earlier story -- now we know that during all those snippets of Attolia that we had earlier, she was also dealing with realizing that her actions with Gen led to the war that she's currently embroiled in.

The progression of the war was really well done (again, Turner is very economical with her narrative here), with what details she chooses to focus in on, and we see that Gen, even though he has gained more of an ability to have that cold and impassive mask like Attolia has, still does things like make sure that no one is on the ships that he's destroying, because he doesn't like getting people killed.

Turner also does a really good job showing how destabilizing the war is to all three countries involved, and how the war is hurting everything.

We take a little mythology story break here in the narrative, which was a fun story about love and choice, both of which are very relevant. This story definitely does end up applying pretty heavily to Gen and Attolia in the themes, and I like the style that Turner tells these stories.

I love how perceptive Gen is once he's been apprised of the situation and we get to see the thought process that leads to him blaming the emperor's ambassador more for the loss of his hand than he does Attolia herself, because he sees that ambassador understood that seeing Gen maimed and returned to Eddis would be more like to spark a war than just killing him would, and a war is exactly what he needs in order to try to justify getting his troops onto Attolia's land. All the politics here are pretty complex but I feel like the book does a good job explaining the reasoning.

And this is also the point where it's really confirmed that Attolia knows that the ambassador is underestimating her, and that she also understands a lot of the things that he thinks that he's pulling over on her. But because of the fragile position that she's in, she needs to entertain the ambassador's advice and his attempts to sidle in on her country.

Quote about Gen: "It was like him that if he had to have a thing, to have the fanciest thing of its kind."

I really like all this about the cost of war; the price of war; and why this outside party has been trying to urge war on the three countries.

We also get Eddis admitting to Gen that she thinks that she could have possibly controlled herself and not started a war if he had only been killed, rather than treated in a way that she finds so insulting, and that it made her so angry that she made a choice that had now brought a lot of damage to their own country that she wishes could be avoided. And Gen can see, basically, that the ambassador of Medes is the one who put both Eddis and Attolia in this trap, and he was used as the tool to start this war.

We really move into Attolia's PoV and we get the story of the broken amphora (she thought about it when she saw Gen after she'd had his hand cut off) -- it was, essentially, the moment that marked when her life changed and she couldn't be a young girl anymore.

This really is a heartbreaking story -- how after her brothers died and she was the heir, her father essentially sold her off to be married, and her fiance was actively plotting against her father and how to suck her country dry for his own benefit after they were married. And how she kept herself quiet and small and just listened, but then poisoned him at their wedding feast, also having her captain of the guard kill the next man who tried to force her to marry him. We also see here that she only trusts loyalty that she can buy in gold (because every other kind of loyalty failed her).

Then we finally get the big reunion! This scene is so tense, with both Attolia and Gen wearing these cold masks (we later realize that Gen has pretty much directly modeled his mask on Attolia's) and we get this private negotiation that is only for the two of them. And this moment when it is literally just them, together on a boat, with no one else to interrupt them... just exquisitely done.

It's been implied before, but this is where we get our confirmation that Attolia has been just as haunted by Gen this entire book as he's been haunted by her. They've been separated for most of the book but constantly haunted by each other. I gotta share the quote:

"He was too young to have bones that ached. No matter what he thought of himself, he was hardly more than a boy. A boy without one hand. She reached up to push the wet hair out of her face, wondering when she had sunk so low that she had begun torturing boys. It was a question she had asked herself night after night, lying awake in her bed or sitting in a chair by the window watching the stars slowly move across the sky."

We've been seeing her do those things the entire book, but this is the first moment when we're told what she was thinking about in those moments.

We also get our Big Revelation here that Gen has had feelings for Attolia since before the events of The Thief! How does he hide these things from us so well! Gen! We learn here (and we get even more detail later) that he's been feeling drawn to her for literal years. That part of the reason that he made those trips that she thought were mockery was because he wanted to be close to her and get a look at her and see if she really was the monster that their spies reported that she was, or if she was just a woman who was being forced to make difficult, maybe impossible choices.

And then we get our story reversal where Attolia gets 'rescued' by the ambassador and his people, and we get to see how she behaves in these circumstances where she doesn't believe that she can trust Gen (sure, he said he loves her, but she cut his hand off! And he's a known liar! how can she trust him?) vs this dude that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she absolutely cannot trust.

The moment when she tells her handmaidens not to put on her golden bee earrings, I knew exactly what she'd done, especially when we got Gen's reaction. The writing doesn't have to tell us in the moment what's occurring (that she put on the earrings that he left for her one time and that she said she would only wear if she'd decided to marry him) for us to know, and I love that. This coded sign that only he will understand.

It's the most unique and fascinating marriage proposal I've ever read. Well done. Haha, and I did guess that the gray-haired man that he fought so well with was his father. <3

Love the moment when we see him process that marrying the Queen of Attolia is going to mean... that he'll be the King of Attolia. He just wanted to marry her because he liked her! <3 <3

And everything after that was just so delightful. Working together for the double-cross and then the process of Eddis and Attolia working out the treaty and Eddis trying to convince Gen that they can have the treaty without the marriage, and his rejection of that, and then essentially testing Attolia with that offer as well.

I also really like one of the moments when Attolia realizes that she can trust Gen, which is when Eddis tells her that of course Gen also lies to her. Constantly. And I feel like that reframed a lot of her interactions with Gen for Attolia. Realizing that Gen wasn't being maliciously deceitful towards her; he's just Like That With Everyone. Plus, I can't forget the moment when, after the battle is won, Attolia and Eddis return to where Gen is being held and Attolia believes for a moment that he's been poisoned as a parting shot by the Medes ambassador and we can literally watch as her heart completely shatters and she is completely undone and devastated in her head and even shaken where people can see her. It's beautifully written.

And we get the moment with the gods (who are very real in this series but very carefully choose how they interfere) and it's just as well done as it was in the first book. The windows in the palace shattering as the goddess responds to Gen's sacrifice! And basically laying out to him that his suffering was required to reach this ending and would he trade it back if he could -- if it meant that Attolia would have been forced to make that deal with the Medes ambassador. And Gen would rather have Attolia in his life and wanting to marry him than have his hand back.

Just that whole final section that leads up to the ending of the book, with Attolia really being able to believe Gen when he says that he loves her... it's so good. How the narrative (and Eddis and Gen) are able to tease out Attolia's feelings for Gen, and how we end on that final quiet moment between the two of them. Really powerful ending.

It's a really good book and it's a really good romance. Gen and Attolia are both fantastic characters and even with all the twists and turns and revelations, their relationship felt incredibly captivating and believable. I really believe that Gen wants to break through Attolia's walls and, just as important, I feel like there's a person on the other side of those walls who is worth being loyal to and loving. You understand why Gen wants to be Attolia's husband, even after she ordered his hand cut off, which is very impressive storytelling.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to read the The King of Attolia soonish, and not in, like, four months.

*

And now onto the Wheel of Time/Mat & Tuon comparison section of the review for @markantonys 💖

It really does feel like a point-by-point improvement on Mat & Tuon, though I suspected unintentionally (it looks like this book came out 3 years before CoT).

Starting with the characters: wow, Attolia really is so much the person that I would have wanted Tuon to be. And she feels like the person that Jordan wanted readers to believe that Tuon was. Every place where I was going through my WoT reread and going "footage not found!" about something the narrative tried to claim about Tuon is something where the footage is very much found for Attolia. While Tuon's potentially heartbreaking backstory really is just backstory and ends up have zero impact on her active storyline, Attolia's tragic backstory is the entire spine of what her character is going through and what Gen can help her with.

We get to see and really experience Attolia's context, which is not something that we got with Tuon. Jordan makes an attempt, I guess, with Karade's sob story about Tuon and the doll, but he made the bizarre choice to frame this story in Karade's PoV (Tuon's slave), not from Tuon's PoV. For whatever reason, Jordan always insisted on making Tuon the most insufferably smug person in the world in her own PoVs.

With Attolia, we get those breaks in her mask that I kept desperately wanting us to get with Tuon but we never did. Again, this is mostly only for the reader, not even for Gen -- the reader gets to see behind Attolia's mask. And so Attolia is captivating and fascinating and I understand why she felt like she had to do these horrible things.

With Attolia, we actually get her being removed from her power base and feeling helpless, which Jordan never had the guts to do with Tuon (when Mat kidnaps Tuon, he lets her take her slave along with her, and then some of his allies decide to support Tuon over him despite having zero narrative or character-based reason to do so), which means that when Attolia regains her power, it has a much bigger impact on the narrative, while it felt like Tuon never really lost hers. Attolia and Gen both manage to be scrappy underdogs, in their own way, and that's something that Tuon never was.

Both Attolia and Tuon commit horrific acts, but while we see Attolia's remorse and how it torments her, Tuon always seems to shrug off the horrible shit that she does. It doesn't ever affect her emotionally and she never seems to think past it after it's done. She is a character without remorse or reflection (I think she vaguely thinks that it's a shame one time when she's pondering how she will break Mat's spirit but that's about it). And Attolia has those two qualities in spades. Attolia feels like a real woman to me in a way that Tuon never did. We see the brave face that she puts on, we see her regret and remorse, we see her loneliness, we see her jealousy over the Queen of Eddis, who is able to trust the members of her court in a way that Attolia has never felt she could trust her own. Tuon just feels really shallow in comparison to Attolia.

Even in the first cat and mouse scene with Attolia and Gen in this book, you can see the push and pull and the narrative equality of the characters. Gen has been in and out of four different strongholds of hers, and she feels that he's pretty much taunting her with his abilities. There's a mutual respect for the other person which was one of the big things that was missing for me with Mat and Tuon. In her final PoV in KoD, we learn that she has not had an ounce of respect for him during this entire journey -- it's not until she sees how the Band respects him that she considers whether or not there may be more to him than just being a pretty and dumb sextoy. And the big problem with that is that was the period when the 'romance' was being developed. During the time when she didn't have any respect for him as a person. And that makes it very difficult to find their relationship compelling, even apart from the fact that I found Mat himself profoundly unlikable in CoT & KoD.

Now, Mat being a terrible person (in CoT & KoD) and Tuon being a terrible person (always and forever) are not things that would stop me from shipping them in general. I am capable of finding Awful4Awful pairings compelling (like Louis and Lestat from Interview with the Vampire). They don't have to be good people, but there has to be something in the relationship that grabs onto me at any level, and that's where Mat and Tuon failed.

We can see in Attolia's thoughts that she envies the relationship that Gen has with the Queen of Eddis -- she envies that loyalty and wishes she could have something like that of her own. That sort of envy was also missing from CoT & KoD (I am going to mention, briefly, that some of these elements were present in the Mat & Tuon relationship in AMoL but at that point, it was just too late for me to give a shit about their relationship, because CoT & KoD thoroughly killed any interest that I had in them). Whether because of his own personal kinks or because of the plans that Jordan had for the Outriggers, Jordan made Tuon too much of an island; too much of an wall. The way he wrote her made me feel like nothing Mat could do would ever really matter to her in any way; that she was content to use him up and then throw him out and that's just not my thing. It may have been Jordan's kink but it is not mine.

So I definitely understand @markantonys's point about this feeling like a well-written version of Mat and Tuon! It really does feel like this is the sort of relationship that Jordan wanted to write with Mat and Tuon but didn't have the skill at romance writing to pull off. Something like Mat and Tuon is Hard Mode Romance and Jordan wasn't even always good at Easy Mode Romance.

Two of the key elements that really makes Attolia and Gen work for me is just getting to sit and exist in Attolia's emotional reactions to the wrong that she has done to Gen; and Gen acknowledging and processing the harm that she'd done. And both of those things were desperately needed with Mat and Tuon, both as characters and as a romance.

A major major part of why Mat and Tuon failed for me is because I didn't feel like Mat was actually reacting to her realistically for the vast majority of their page time together; she threatens to invade a city and he laughs it off, she assaults his companions that he freed from slavery and he thinks it's hot?!?, she talks about how she likes to torture women and he ignores it.

If Tuon had cut off Mat's hand, the way that Attolia cut off Gen's, it feels like Jordan would have just had Mat shrug it off and then buy her a puppy as a reward or something as his response. Here, we get Gen begging Attolia "please don't hurt me again" after she cuts off his hand and then we have months of separation and recovery and processing before the narrative takes him anywhere near her again. And Attolia is forced to reckon with what she did, first by being haunted by the memories of him crying from the pain and loss, and then she has to face it directly by seeing his stump, seeing the pain that he's still in (because of her). She has to admit (not just to herself but to him) the damage that she did before they can move forward together. This is something that Tuon never shows herself capable of on any level. Tuon is never allowed to grow as a person the way that Attolia is, or to be vulnerable with the audience or with Mat.

I definitely still really felt the Mat-Gen comparison in this book too. Lots of places, but there's a great moment in the meadow with him, Eddis, and the Magus, where Eddis explains that Gen has deliberately made people believe that he can't fight but he also still gets miffed sometimes if people fall for his carefully constructed facade.

And the moment when Gen tells Eddis that he plans to steal the Queen of Attolia. It really feels, again, like this is the sort of vibe that Jordan wanted us to believe existed between Mat and Tuon: "She may be a fiend from hell to make me feel this way but even if I've got to hate myself for the rest of my life, this is what I want. I dream about her at night." This intense draw and this pull that he feels towards her. Jordan appears to want us to believe that Mat feels this kind of draw towards Tuon at the end of KoD but has not created any kind of foundation in Mat's characterization as to why.

We also got the long separation between Attolia and Gen where they are haunting each other with their absence. Attolia and Gen just get the time that is needed to develop this relationship in a way that's believable. Time in the story, not page time. This book is shorter than CoT & KoD, and probably shorter than if you made a "Mat and Tuon" novella out of their scenes in those books. It's the actual 'in world' time that matters, that gives Attolia and Gen time to think about each other and miss each other in a genuine way.

For another comparison -- Gen 'steals' Attolia to marry her like Mat kidnaps Tuon, but the context is so incredibly different on every level. Mat gets, essentially, tricked into kidnapping Tuon by the 'finn (it never would have happened if he hadn't heard that prophecy) while Gen acts with intention the whole way through. Technically, in both cases, Gen and Mat are 'saving' Attolia and Tuon by kidnapping them, but we feel the weight of it with Gen and Attolia in a way that we don't with Mat and Tuon. And a lot of that is because the bulk of Gen and Attolia's build-up happens before the kidnapping, during the times when they're separated and haunted by each other. So once the kidnapping happens, it's quick-paced and moves the plot forward rather than, you know, just fucking around with a circus for a month.

We also know that Attolia has complicated feelings about Gen already. I talked about this with @markantonys but that really is something that needed to happen with Tuon so much sooner than it does in the books (there are two big Mat & Tuon scenes in AMoL that desperately needed to happen back in CoT, imo -- Tuon trusting that Mat isn't trying to kill her; and Tuon going wild trying to protect Mat in the command tent).

Attolia and Gen also genuinely have things that they can each offer the other person, while with Mat and Tuon, none of the things that Tuon offers are things that Mat actually wants (slaves bowing to him; being dressed up like one of the Blood; being formal at all times - these are things that some of Mat's fans want for him, but not things he wants for himself) and she just feels like this ravenous black hole that constantly takes and takes and takes and gives back nothing of value. When Gen is startled at the realization that marrying the Queen of Attolia makes him the King and he'll have to actually be a king, it's this incredibly sweet moment, because it illustrates so clearly that he wants Attolia for herself and not her country. When Mat reacts against the idea that marrying Tuon makes him royalty, it just kinda makes him look dumb, because we've been given nothing of value in Tuon herself as a person, and no reason for Mat to care about her.

With Tuon, Mat talks about how she's better than other nobles, but nothing she actually does on the page is better than any other Seanchan noble. It's all 'footage not found'. By contrast, every single positive thing that Gen says about Attolia is backed up by the text and we even get shown additional positive qualities that no one needs to talk about because it's right there in the text.

With Tuon, it feels like Mat is attempting to gaslight me (and himself?) into believing that an interesting character exists there despite all the evidence against it, while Attolia simply is a compelling character based on what happens on the page.

That fact that there are so many raw similarities between the two pairings, but my reaction to them are so different really does illustrate the importance of execution, imo. Attolia and Gen's romance manages to travel so much further than Mat and Tuon's, while also being considerably more economical with how many pages it took to get us there.

The point-by-point comparison (aka WoT's failure of execution):

Tuon's interior life is poorly illustrated in comparison to Attolia's; because she starts off as an even worse person than Attolia but so much less character work is done on her than on Attolia, who is haunted this entire book by how she has "sunk so low as to torture boys" (on that note, Turner's choice to make Gen the younger and more openly vulnerable one really works here).

Seeing that Attolia's handmaidens are genuinely affectionate and protective of her at the end of this book is so incredibly touching, because she had no expectation of their loyalty (she believes in the loyalty of gold, and gold alone, for the most part). Tuon, otoh, has slaves that she expects to be subservient and loyal unto death, so her slaves' affection for her (that was trained into them) is something that completely fails to move me. This difference in the expectations of the character also makes a huge difference in how their PoVs come off -- Attolia's walls are due to her internal vulnerability and we get to see that vulnerability in her PoVs; while Tuon comes across as full of herself and incredibly arrogant, taking everyone around her for granted.

We're told that Tuon is smart and perceptive but rarely get any evidence; while Turner shows us Attolia's intelligence and how she sees a lot more than people like the Medes ambassador believe that she does. We get to see Attolia's intelligence in how she tricks the Medes ambassador into believing that she's so much less perceptive and intelligent than she truly is. This is another place where Jordan's unwillingness to ever place Tuon into a genuinely vulnerable position really hurt the character. Turner wasn't afraid to make Attolia the underdog and knew that it wouldn't undermine her as a character, it would strengthen her, because we would get to see who she was in adversity. The set-up of Crossroads of Twilight should have led to us seeing Tuon in adversity but Jordan was allergic to allowing her to be truly vulnerable, and gave her people to hide behind (Selucia & Setalle Anan) the entire time.

Mat as an agent of chaos is wildly downplayed in comparison to Gen as an agent of chaos. The Seanchan end up getting spared the chaos that the end of the Age brought to pretty much every other society, even though Mat seems clearly positioned to bring their society crashing down even as late as Winter's Heart. Gen's actions, otoh, are constantly throwing other people's plans off.

Mat does not behave realistically to the horrible things that Tuon says and does -- with Gen, even though we find out towards the last third of the book that he was already in love with Attolia before the book begins, we still get his raw reactions to her doing things that hurt him. He has nightmares after she orders his hand cut off, his pained begging of her not to hurt him again, and how he develops his own mask of impassiveness that is modeled on her own. Gen also never throws away his moral code in order to try to force himself to be at peace with the relationship -- he grows and changes as a character as a result of his trauma, but he stays himself at the core.

Something else that Jordan could have used more in the books that would have helped develop an understanding of why Mat believes that something exists beyond Tuon's 'cold Empress mask' would have been to make the comparison between Rand's mask and Tuon's mask more clear in the narrative. Because there's too much separation in time between Rand and Mat's interactions with Mat and Tuon's interactions. In this book, seeing that Eddis also needs to put up a queenly mask of not caring about Gen at first (in front of the Attolian guards when they return him to her after his hand has been cut off) helps illustrate why Attolia needs the mask that she uses -- Eddis doesn't trust the Attolians, but Attolia feels like she can trust absolutely no one, and so she always needs the mask and feels like she can never take it off. That's compelling! It could have been compelling in Tuon too, if it had been written better.

On that note: Turner personalizes the damage that Attolia's cold mask and her ruthless defense of herself/her country is doing by having her hurt Gen directly, and that being something that she struggles with over the course of the book. With WoT, Jordan basically did everything he could to hide away the damage that Tuon/the Seanchan were doing from Mat in order to try to justify why he could ~fall in love~ with her (was it intentional? to set their relationship up for a fall later in the Outriggers? we'll never know) without ever actually changing Tuon/the Seanchan for the better, which also meant giving Tuon no reason to have any internal struggles over the choices that she's made.

Gen and Attolia get another thing that Mat and Tuon desperately needed but that Jordan refused to give them: privacy. They negotiate getting married (after Gen has kidnapped Attolia in a much more narratively satisfying kidnapping than Mat and Tuon's!) in privacy, just between the two of them; when we get the conversation about their feelings at the end, again it happens in private. That makes a huge difference. Jordan being unwilling to ever actually yank Tuon away from her full power base and her slaves was a huge hindrance to ever allowing her to be vulnerable. And I do chalk this up to unwillingness and not failures due to plot set-up because there is no good reason to have Selucia tag along on the kidnapping and then it's even more bizarre in CoT & KoD, when the character of Setalle Anan goes from being fond of Mat to all of a sudden acting like he's the worst person in the world and she must protect poor helpless baby girl Tuon from him.

Both Attolia and Tuon get tricked by their respective love interests about who they are as a person because of the facade that they put up, but Attolia still has respect for Gen and his skills, even as she doubts his character, and it is Gen's own actions that show her who he really is and make her believe in him; while with Tuon and Mat, she spends over a month with him and still refuses to look past his surface until she literally has her face rubbed into it by seeing the Band's reactions to him. This difference is a key one in making Attolia's failure to see Gen as a failure due to the protective walls that she has up; while Tuon's failure comes across as her just not being very perceptive or intelligent. And the fact that we don't get the moment when Tuon begins to have even the faintest shred of respect for Mat until the end of Knife of Dreams just meant that I felt even more like all the pages time that Jordan spent on the two of them in CoT & KoD was a complete waste of my time.

We got to have genuine reactions from all of Gen's loved ones about the relationship! This is a huge place where, I guess, Sanderson is the one who failed for a change instead of Jordan because wtf was Perrin's "lol you married now bro? haha" reaction to Mat being married to a slaver? Though Jordan also does this to a certain extent with Thom, who we are supposed to believe is in love with Moiraine, and yet who never calls Mat out on courting a woman who would enslave and torture Moiraine if she had the chance. By contrast, Eddis is genuinely hesitant and worried because of everything they've heard about how cold Attolia is, and because she's the reason that Gen's hand was cut off.

We get to see Attolia and Gen develop a shared language and see behind each other's walls. The moment when she wears the earrings that he left for her, and he knows that it means she's chosen to marry him of her own free will is such a huge and impactful moment, and the only people who are aware of what it means are Attolia and Gen! This is really a failure that happens based on earlier failures of execution: because Mat and Tuon are never allowed to be alone together, it's impossible for them to develop this kind of shared coding and shared language.

12. We also have the 'footage not found' issue, where one of the characters (mostly Mat) tries to tell me something about Tuon but the narrative completely fails to back it up: this is the case with Tuon being intelligent and perceptive (in the narrative shown to us, she never picks up on anything until her nose is forcibly rubbed in it); and this is case with Mat thinking near the end of Knife of Dreams that Tuon belongs in the same 'better than other nobles' bucket as Talmanes when she has never shown herself to be willing to make better choices than other Seanchan nobles: he is still, at this point, worrying that she might enslave him and turn him into her cupbearer; she has not only threatened but actually assaulted his companions; whenever she's placed in a position of power over other people, she takes advantage of it and them. We're told that she's not a child but she also throws a tantrum (and pottery) at Mat at the start of Crossroads of Twilight. This could have worked if Jordan had leaned into the fact that Mat is deliberately lying to himself in order to make his marriage bearable, but that's where things like randomly having Setalle Anan go over to Tuon's side messes with that narrative.

13. When Jordan has Mat think about how Tuon dying would be a deep loss to him, it's just baffling because she has not done a single thing the entire 'courtship' that has shown why in the world Mat would feel that way. All of the attempts at reaching out during the courtship are Mat's, while Tuon just smugly accepts it as her due. Because Attolia doesn't just accept Gen's love as her due, because she actually doesn't believe him and challenges him on it, we get to hear his justification of it and why he feels that way, and then we also get to see her reciprocation. The relationship is a two-way street in The Queen of Attolia.

14. Which ties into the fact that Jordan chose to make Tuon not just a slaver but an enthusiastic slaver who enjoys the slave-breaking process and that is an incredibly dark place to start a character but it could have worked if it had been the beginning of Tuon's character arc and we'd actually watched her change and grow from that position. And she had the narrative set up for it! In her very first chapter, the reader learns that Tuon has the ability to learn to channel! She was created with the narrative juice to have a compelling arc about accepting the truth about herself and her people. And then Jordan gave that arc to Bethamin instead, lol.

15. In both of these stories 'fate' does kinda serve up Gen/Mat to Attolia/Tuon on a silver platter, but the execution of the storylines makes the reveal that fate was acting to push the two of them together so much more effective in The Queen of Attolia. Choice is a much larger consideration in Attolia and Gen's relationship than it is in Mat and Tuon's. There are elements of the higher powers of the world at work in both relationships, but Attolia and Gen have to put in the work themselves and have to face hard emotional truths in order to get us to the satisfying ending. I get the impression that Tuon wouldn't know an emotional truth if it spit in her eye. We actively see both Gen and Attolia consider and reject the idea of solving their main problem (about the war) without needing to get married; we see them choose their marriage and each other.

With Mat and Tuon, this is a lot more muddled. Fate/the Pattern/the 'finn want them to marry each other but we never get any kind of payoff as to why, and this is primarily because of Jordan's other storylines imo. He should not have had Rand already willing to make peace with the Seanchan in his separate storyline. Convincing Rand to be willing should have been Mat's job (because that also would mean that Mat would need to make the arguments to convince the readers). Jordan showing at the end of KoD that Rand is willing to make a deal with the Seanchan, even at the cost of giving in on the matter of slavery, basically completely voided any narrative reason for Mat and Tuon to get married, but without the satisfaction of seeing the two of them grow to a place where they would actively make that choice rather than being motivated by what they believe is necessary (due to prophecy).

There really were the bones of a potentially compelling story with Mat and Tuon, and I really do hope that the show (when we get there) is able to take those bones and turn it into a genuinely compelling story.

[biocrafthero]

I wish I could put my thoughts regarding Kana5 into words rn because I have seen discussions regarding if Mafumom will be forgiven or not and what kind of effect that'd have on the story. However, I think that we're focusing too much on what we as the audience thinks about the characters instead of how the characters themselves feel in this moment. So I'm gonna just try to word everything right lol

There's no getting around the fact that, despite everything, Mafuyu cares about her mom a lot. The relationship the two of them have is extremely complicated and I feel like the demonization of her mom is to the detriment of us as the audience. Btw this is NOT be saying that Mafumom is a good person, please keep this in mind, I just have a lot of thoughts on the subject as 1) someone who likes and enjoys complicated characters and 2) I'm also someone who has a pretty complicated relationship with my own mother and has been navigating a lot of that in the last year.

I do think it's possible for Mafumom to be a better person, especially since that she's pushed her daughter so far that she's ended up pushing her away. We see her reflecting on this during Kana5, actually doubting herself and what she's done. It's very subtextual honestly, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mafumom had tied a huge part of her own identity to her daughter. The way the narrative has handled this kind of element is actually really interesting, specifically the way it uses the idea of a normal family in a very horror kind of way (idk how to explain this my mutuals can do a better job than me when it comes to this). The demonization the fandom does of Mafumom prevents them from actually seeing that, yes, she does care about her daughter a lot even if she's very manipulative and toxic about it. It's a part of Mafumom's character that is undeniable and has a lot of nuance to it.

There's also more nuance I think to the idea of parenthood the narrative is exploring. In every scene in Kana5 with Mafuyu's parents when they're talking about how much they care for their daughter, they're always recalling early childhood—never do they mention or bring up anything past the age range of 10-12 (rough estimate sorry lol). While Mafudad knows more about Mafuyu in the present and the person she's become, there's still that disconnect. Mafudad was basically absent for a long period of time and Mafumom still holds onto the idealized image of her daughter that formed when Mafuyu was still in early childhood.

There is zero guarantee that the confrontation in Mafu6 will go well for... anyone really. There's no sure way for me to say that the two parties here will come to an understanding, but there's also no getting around how they care about each other even if it's not perfect and even harmful. It doesn't matter if Mafuyu and her mom can come to an understanding and reconcile or not, it's more about the consequences that whatever this conflict will have. It's not even like the story hasn't been building up to this either—in Mizu4, while Mizuki does say that it's okay to run away, she acknowledges that it doesn't make the problem just disappear and that you have to face it eventually.

And not to just say it, but honestly the consequences of Mafu6 will likely have to do with Kanade (in the sense of furhering development for her). Kanade has been stuck for a long time now, and as we see in Kana5 it's because she's so hung up on the idea of being able to save Mafuyu (which reflects her overall savior complex). This is just not sustainable, as the event demonstrates. If Mafuyu and her mom reconcile, then what point is there in Kanade trying to save her with a song if Mafuyu has managed to save herself with the help of everyone else?

And also. Well. Hear me out: Kanade and Mafumom are kind of meant to parallel each other. This goes back to Mafu2 and has been a very subtle thing that the story has been holding very close to its chest, but has become even more obvious due to the events of Kana5. Kanade has tied her identity to Mafuyu in such a way that it literally starts to kill her. She falls back into old habits (see: Kana2) in her attempts to try and create a song that captures something that she doesn't even understand (the affection that Mafuyu holds for her mom). Not to mention that these parallels also made themselves known during Kana3, too.

It's the tying of identity to someone else that acts as determination of self-worth that's important here. If Kanade isn't the person who saves Mafuyu... then what was all of this for? If Kanade can't even save one person (see: some dialogue from Main Story, I forget exactly when but I know it's there), then what kind of spiral will she drive herself into now?

Idk that's just my thoughts. There's a lot of nuance people ignore/don't pick up on and wanted to share my ideas

[reaminaart]

Hi there! First of all, I love your artwork, especially your Jeff design. The scar is badass. Secondly, two things:

1. You honestly got me back into the JaneJeff ship again (doomed enemies-lovers-enemies LETS GO)

2. I find it hilarious that people are so violently against the ship (which I suppose I can understand to an extent) when technically, in one of the canon (?) stories, Jeff vs Jane, they slept together. Which produced a CHILD. It’s def a whacky part of the JaneJeff mythos, but honestly? I’m kinda disappointed that nobody tried to pick up on that idea, cause that would have been cool.

Sorry for rambling lol, hope you have a good day!

Hiii

Thank you so much!! I get so giddy and happy when people like the Jeff crumbs I put in the community, I try my best, thank youu ♡

1) It also makes me so happy when I see people get back into JeffJane or at least change their view on it. It's such a cool dynamic if you like drama and spice, so much potential for good fics.

I've even been thinking about making a separate blog just for JeffJane content, I just feel it's so rare. Maybe due to the fact people are scared of the backlash, but I don't think anyone should be, the community thrives on creativity and new takes.

2) Happy to say I haven't had bad experiences with it in the current fandom. It was so much worse back in early 2010s. I think we all grew up lol.

I understand why some people have strong opinions on it due to the fact that only Jane, JasonTM and Kagekao and a few others are canonically lgbt. However, I also think other pastas are not limited to being hetero, and we can twist our own takes while still respecting canon. Just have fun w it yk.

The Jeff vs. Jane story is so wild to me, like it's not really JeffJane media, but it also is. I still don't understand the point of that scene. It doesn't bring much to the story. Idk if the author is secretly a JJ shipper too.

The ending is wild too, like if you count that specific JeffvsJane as canon, it would mean they're the only pasta parents we have, and we got the worst two lmfao. Still, it's one of my guilty pleasure stories simply because it's like the only voiced story where these two are the main character, and I absolutely adore the voices they gave them.

I actually have an au where the kid exists and just doesn't know who his parents are, and probably meets Liu (child psychologist) at some point in his life, not knowing he's literally his uncle💀

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! Sorry if this is a stupid question but I was wondering about representing disabilities/things in general that you don't have.

I always see people say that they want characters to be represented properly, and to show their disabilities and lives in an accurate way, but I also see people talk about how you shouldn't write about the struggles a POC/minority/person with a disability/etc. faces because you don't experience that and you're speaking over them or only using their story for "trauma porn" or whatever.

Maybe it's just because I'm autistic but I'm really not understanding how those two things coexist. How do I show how someone lives, especially with a disability that might be painful, without writing about the things they face?

Obviously it would be super weird if the character's entire personality was just "My life is awful because I'm so different, I can't do the things everyone else can, my life sucks."

But what about normal things that they struggle with? Like "Yeah I only have one arm, it's a pain in the ass to do dishes but it's not the end of the world." or "I have albinism so my depth perception is shit but whatever" or "It's fucking annoying when people stare at/judge me because I look different, but if they don't like it that's their problem, not mine lol."

Is the problem whether or not a characters ENTIRE story revolves around their disability? Using my own as an example:

A story, specifically, about how Funky Bungus, as an autistic person, lives in the world and what struggles he has due to his disability, VS a story where Funky Bungus is trying to stop two kingdoms from going to war and there's a short scene where he feels bad about not being able to make eye contract with people, before going back to the Kingdom War Drama.

I just want to use my stories as a way to educate people about disabilities and make people go "Hey, that character is like me!" or to make people think about their actions, like having a character complain about people staring at their scar/missing arm/etc. so maybe people will read it and go "Wow, I guess it IS rude when I don't mind my own business, from now on I won't stare at people."

Sorry if this got long and incomprehensible 😬

I guess the question is "How do I write about the struggles someone with a disability faces without coming across like I'm writing trauma porn or speaking over people" but I just have the Overexplain Everything So I'm Not Misunderstood Disorder™ lmao

I believe you have it right; the problem with many stories about disabilities written by non disabled authors often lies in when the story relies entirely on the disability.

It’s absolutely fine to write about the struggles a character faces — for an example with one of my disabilities, say a non-disabled author wrote about how a character kinda hates their chronic pain and wishes they didn’t have it. But otherwise there’s other stuff going on in the character’s life, like friends and family and hobbies, not just self-pity, and there’s other things going on in the plot, like maybe a mystery to solve or an Item to find or an adventure to go on or something.

That would be perfectly fine, and I’d love to read it actually, and really writing is kind of a balance of using what we know already and mixing it with things we haven’t experienced but have researched and/or thought about.

That’s how you show an authentic character with disabilities — they have struggles, things they can’t do or can’t do as well as others, but that’s not all there is to them. There’s things they enjoy doing, things they’re good at, people they spend time with and things they do.

Good intentions combined with research and knowledge (and good plots!) will make for good stories that feel authentic.

Hope this helps!

Mod Sparrow

Hey!

I think that there can be good stories that have disability/ableism as its primary focus, but they should be #OwnVoices (as in, made by people who experience said thing). That's largely because it often gets very specific and thus easy to misrepresent even if you have good intentions. Sometimes it can end up like "being disabled is so sad and everything is inaccessible, how tragic" and end up pitying the character - rather than actually sympathizing with them - just because that nuance is missing.

To use the same example as you did, "character complains about people staring at their scar sometimes" would be a completely normal way to include ableism as a part of life that does happen, while "character gets bullied for 300 pages for having a facial difference" would be in the torture porn category (when written by someone who doesn't have that experience).

I think that what Sparrow described is the best if you're not describing your own experiences. Including ableism as a thing that happens from time to time or as a tertiary focus is totally fine. That's how it is in real life - sometimes things do suck, but there's still a whole lot of other things that we do.

I think your desire to educate people is admirable, and it should be very much doable with the solutions you presented. Good luck writing,

mod Sasza

[creatingblackcharacters]

forgive me if the time for talking about this has passed , but i picked up Arcane recently and was just reminded of people posting mel,ambessa, and ekko for the "favorite Black characters" ask game. and tbh, no ill will but i think your followers fell a little short on describing these characters. bc i was told they had little to no screen time, i wasn't expecting literally anything while watching the show! but all three of them are insanely well written, and mel is a HUGE aspect of the story. (IDGAF about jayce. everything he did is only because mel allowed it lol)

ekko and ambessa are side characters, but their inclusion and depth is masterful- like- i have no idea how accurate ambessa's writing is to a Black mother specifically, but i felt *every* one of those scenes with her and mel. she's a great example of "love to hate" where you know she's unambiguously terrible, but her writing is a complete MASTERCLASS! same with ekko! the artistic direction for him is just stunning. arcane works in "twos", it has two sides of one situation and you're meant to weigh both. but ekko represents the third option, the "wait, fuck that! i'm doing my own thing!" option, the nuance. (youtuber Schnee has a good 20 min essay on him.) i think its severely underselling both their presences and characters to say theyre "barely there", especially when theyre set up to have even more influence in the next season (inb4 their characters are butchered and i look stupid)

this (https://www.tumblr.com/wlwmedarda/762678221428899840/sevika) is a really good post on how the fandom undersells these characters. if youre an Arcane fan i would suggest reading this to reevaluate how this fandom space treats Black characters. also maybe watch the show again, because were you even paying attention??

👀👀👀👀👀 okay okay! That's exciting to hear. Maybe people were saying that in comparison to everyone else they weren't receiving the due they felt these characters deserved. Imma let y'all's season 2 drop and if they all come out of it unscathed, we'll discuss me watching it. Bc tbh they're the only ones I want to watch it for 😅 and TV shows have an unfortunate history of shafting the Black characters or their good writing.

[livi-heads-out-bye]

Here are some songs that I think would match Ragatha/Miss Agatha and Jax/Jackson in your AU!!!

Ragatha/Miss Agatha:

- the grudge by Olivia Rodrigo would work with her and her terrible fiancé, especially after what he did to her baby. I think it could also work with her and Jax after she slapped him.

- Diet Mountain Dew by Lana Del Rey would work both Ragatha and Jax. It fits their will-they-won’t-they narrative.

- Bigger Than The Whole Sky by Taylor Swift. This song reminds me a lot of Agatha’s miscarriage and the horrible feelings that came with it. It’s the moment where everything in her world fell apart.

- Lose You To Love Me and Single Soon by Selena Gomez. The first one would work with Ragatha’s regrets over her past relationship with her ex, while the second one highlights a happier ending for her. It’s her new start with Jax, specifically her getting ready for the dance with him!

Jax/Jackson:

- Dancing With Our Hands Tied by Taylor Swift. I feel like this matches the dance scene, before everything fell apart of course.

- teenage dream by Olivia Rodrigo. This song would probably reflect the aftermath of Agatha’s coma and all the pain Jackson went through after finding out. Although this isn’t canon to the story, I feel like this would fit his 18th birthday party without her.

- Love You Down by Ready For The World. This song would resonate a lot with Jackson’s one-sided crush on his brother’s teacher and the dreams he had about her.

- Colors by Halsey would definitely work with Jax’s dreams about his past. It summarizes all the people and all the feelings he ignores to avoid feeling anything.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy these choices :D. Your AU has been one of my favorite TADC AUs I ever read. The amount of emotion, drama, and romance was captured perfectly without feeling OOC. Keep up the great work Livi!

AAAAAA THANK YOU SO SO MUCH 💕

I don't know why I didn't think of adding more Taylor and Olivia songs to my playlist, but I actually had those two Selena songs somewhere in the back of my head while making it!

I'll listen to all the songs when I get home from school in 10+ hours (it's past 1 AM here lol)

I would also like to take this opportunity to explain some of the Korean songs on the playlist:

Prologue by aespa is about feeling immature and not ready for adulthood, to me it fits Agatha perfectly because even though she has been an adult for some time, she still has the heart of a teenager and has trouble dealing with some adult issues

Checkmate by Xdinary Heroes is about feeling confident because of a won game, I relate this song to the moment when Jax's attack on Ragatha during their stage play was successful

The Ugly Duckling by YENA, well I interpreted the song's lyrics much differently than it should be interpreted, I relate it to Agatha's miscarriage due to the lyrics being about trying to move on after a horrible event and there is also a child mentioned so-

War of Hormone by BTS is a very controversial song which that has been accused of considering girls playthings for boys, basically Jax's attitude towards Ragatha before she almost abstracted

Doll by (G)I-DLE, the title says it all, it perfectly describes how Ragatha was treated by Jax and how she's fed up with it

Quarter Life by TOMORROW X TOGETHER is another song about finding adult life kind of hard and trying to go on despite you already screwed up a lot of things, every time I hear this song I think of Jax and how he feels after remembering his former life

Lonely Boy by TOMORROW X TOGETHER is a breakup song that in my opinion fits how Jackson felt after losing Agatha

Happily Ever After by TOMORROW X TOGETHER (yeah, it's my fav boysband lol) is the song I had in mind while writing the last chapter, even though it's upbeat it tells about how cruel life is and that there's actually no happy end, just like in the story :D

And thank you for enjoying my AU! At first I thought it would fail as it has no drawings (I'm really terrible at drawing + I can't do digital art) and focuses more on writing, but the amount of support and love my work has received in these few months makes me incredibly happy 🥺

[sentience-if]

after playing your game, i feel compelled to recommend you five pieces of media (that, ngl, if you say "oh, i love those already!" ill be unsurprised lol) specifically in the "kid's media that is mostly relaxing, with a couple wtf why was that scene kinda haunting, but still overall relaxing media to watch when youre in need of comfort" + one piece of media that is Not For Kids lol

1. the game series Psychonauts. feel free to watch let's plays if you cannot afford to play or just dont want to. it's 3-ish games? there are 2 main ones and then an almost-mini-game-ish that happens in-between the other two. i like Snapcube/Penny's playthroughs a lot (Snapcube is most famous for the memes and hilarity that is The Real-Time Sonic Dub series, but she does let's plays too!), but lots of people have good runs! i would also recommend looking at people's completionist runs especially (which id argue looking for "all cut-scenes + all memory-vaults + all dialog" compilations is a bit necessary for Psychonauts? because it's easy to have an unexplored corner of someone's mindscape actually have a really fascinating piece of lore that Isn't Needed To Progress But Adds To The Specific Character's Story that you accidentally missed. but also not a big deal if you miss them. anyway) if you want an introduction to it that spoils some gameplay of the series, i recommend this video-essay about it: https://youtu.be/7IkMD3JTzjM?si=brmpAdMEqPyYbqWx

"what about my game made you think id like Psychonauts?"

your comedy for one, but also the way you like to navigate people's minds. which i do mean in terms of psychology, but also in the sense of how Io's mind works in binary, how Io sees magic, and the error/connection communication scenes we see. it reminded me of how Psychonauts built its "magic-system" so to speak, to be about how to enter people's minds and how their mental health impacts the level you play through

early parts of Psychonauts, due to it being an early 2000s game, can get kind of "cure mental illness, let's fix you" about its asylum-patients in the first game and does err towards stereotypes about it, but i appreciate that the patients are never the punchline in this very comedic game. it instead approaches their problems with a lot of empathy. and i like how later on, due to Better Information About Mental Health being accessible public knowledge as well as generlly more accepted than in the early 2000s: the game is geared with a lot more nuance about how mental health isnt about "being fixed" or "broken". that being said, i do still think youd find the game-series in its entirety really interesting in an almost opposition of Sentience: because Psychonauts is an extremely visual game, and shows how every people works complexly in an extremely visual way with a lot of varying metaphors. in comparison, Sentience (by vurtue of being a text-only game as well as the literal binary code aspects of the narrative) is an extremely Io's-headspace-centered work whose gameplay isnt visual at all, yet still accomplishes nuance and complexity about all these various characters, and while using a magic-system that is unchanging (bc numbers, math, binary) yet variable (bc Io's works different than everyone else's). so i think youd have fun in a game so different than yours, despite the similar "magic-systems" around one's mental innerworkings, and that you'd tee-hee a lot through the game

2. Moomin, in any way you want to consume it since it is a book-novel series and newspaper-comic and has multiple adaptations, such as but not limited to into television and film. the book novels is the most introspective version, the newspaper-comic is funny and absurd often, the 90s tv show is wholesome and the most palatable, the most recent tv show is a decent blend and update that deserves the praise it gets, and thats not even getting into the multiple films or the more niche tv adaptations or theater productions or or or... anyway, i like the books and 90s show best, myself. you can watch the 90s show for free on youtube, if you want; it's best with ad-blocker tho, Moomin's youtube channel put a ton of ads in there last i tried to watch. and none of this info even gets into how awesome the creator, Tove Janssen, was as a queer woman who fought against facism throughout WWII anyway she could. Henry Kathman has a 3-part series he re-uploaded as one whole video with updates that's entirety is an overview of Jansson's life-story and much of the series and its many forms as he could access here if you want to learn more: https://youtu.be/FRCzmBd5psI?si=M7nIlSPV_Y77vlBn

"what about my game made you think id like Moomin?"

mainly "Moomin In November" (especially the book × Val, but not exclusively) if im being honest. or maybe Snufkin in general × Val? maybe also some Moominpapa × Kat??? i dont fucking know for sure on that one tho

this one is harder for me to describe why i see a thread, ngl. i just can see you decompressing with a blanket and a warm mug while either the 90s show plays or you listen to an audiobook. idk. it's just A Vibe that fits you, y'know??

i think youd find the character of "Little My" funny? (i put quotations bc, yes, that is literally how its spelled. i did not forget a word. she is little and her name is "My", she is Little My lol) i can see you using her as reaction-gifs/a profile picture and whatnot

3. Fraggle Rock. it's a Jim Henson tv show, originally from the 80s but since has been re-picked up, now airing brand new episodes. it's thesis statement for existing is "to end wars" by helping raise kids to be thoughtful and focused on coexistance with others. ngl, Frootbats/Emma can sell the show better than i can, she's been releasing a deep-dive per season about the show, (doing this video-series led her to realize she wants to someday be a puppeteer herself, and she impulsively made her own Henson-inspired puppet and then inserted said puppet into season 2's video, and has since made two more puppets. i love her puppets, so much. you can watch their creation over on tiktok. so theres your context for why there is a puppet in the season 2 video lol) she's almost done with season 3's video. this is season 1: https://youtu.be/Ziaok8744_o?si=xkb1u-_eK1Av-Gut

"what about my game made you think id like Fraggle Rock?"

i think mostly the humor between characters? like the Val and Io to Connie or to Klaus dynamics. Fraggle Rock often has a similar banter, albeit more based on affection than we currently see either Klaus or Connie hold for either Io or Val (which is justified bv of how early in the game everything is, whereas the Fraggles have all known each other all their lives with great fondness. ...that being said:) i especially think youd find Red's one-sided dislike for Uncle Mat hilarious. but all the characters are hilarious. i like to joke i am a "Cotterpin Rising-Sun with a Boober moon" and i, in no small part, say that bc i do think those two characters are sooo funny (they both as well as Sprocket and Cantus are my favorites, which is HARD bc i love everyone so much, but i love those three 2% to 8% more than all the other regular/recurring characters), i love all these guys, everyone makes me snicker and do that little "pfft" breath out of your nose, it's great

also, Frootbats/Emma goes into this better than i could, but the show has a lot of really interesting messages about the creative process. specifically in the way Kiki's Delivery Service movie does that kind of messaging, iykyk. which i always think anyone who polishes their creative skills should try to watch narrative media that tries to help people better understand their own creativity and how to best nurture it

and idk, for some reason im like "you specifically need to know Wembley exists". i do not know why. maybe he relates to a character from Sentience in a way i am only subconsciously aware of. maybe i see you becoming as obssessed with this guy as Frootbats/Emma already is. idk. i just feel like You Need To Truly Know Him for reasons i cannot fully articulate rn

4. Jak & Daxter game-series. it's a game-series ive only watched people stream who dont make VODs, i wish i could recc you people to watch it from, but youre kinda on your own, im so sorry. but its so good. if youre okay with gameplay being spoiled, this video-essay is SOOO good, i love Breadsword so much: https://youtu.be/nf7ol01Xm8Y?si=4o-h8a8LPsqGhu_1

"what about my game made you think id like Jak & Daxter?"

i cant do that without serious spoilers. but, uh, "Jak's descent" overall feels like itd be of interest to you? if you want to know more before you play the game, again, watch Breadsword

the first game is decievingly gentle on you, with a relatively peaceful world. and then the worldbuilding and plot just sucker-punch its audience and characters in the neck. i think youd be into what happens there and how Jak and Daxter face off against this (see: me struggling to come up with a word without spoilers and then partially giving up) kinda-totalitarian world they stumble into

5. Neverafter, from the Dropout app's "Dimension 20" show. it's tabletop roleplay game where you watch this cast of comedians try to do a horror season, focused on fairytales and folklore. speaking from a certified scaredy-cat myself, it is scary but the continuous breaths of fresh-air that is the players reacting to certain horrorific narrations with "wHAT THE FUCK, GUYS" was All I Needed to be able to survive this show without nightmares lol there's unfortunately not a review or video-essay i can send you to, not unless you feel like going on tiktok and looking around MouseAbolition/Kenna's account for analysis. so, uh, here is the first episode of the series in full? the rest is on the Dropout app: https://youtu.be/7GTogwQVmYE?si=e29lXKnhXrbfOEAV

"what about my game made you think id like Neverafter?"

again, we get into spoilers here. uh. so though i cannot say how (bc spoilers), i can say they get into a form of existential horror i think youd REALLY love considering the direction of your game. we get into a lot of all the variations of storytelling, like the countless varied endings of Sleeping Beauty or Little Red Riding Hood, and how Different Versions All Existing In Tandem yet seperate impacts these characters and their relationship to... for lack of a better term, the Big Freak that is the "authorship" or lack thereof or oral tradition of telephone and whatnot of it all...??? it's very good, i think youd be into it if you arent already

and that's all i got, but i thought some reccs on media to enjoy on your downtime (assuming you dont Already Know All Of These) would be fun for you and help you feel a lil refreshed, energized (maybe even inspired further? idfk) for future working on your game. thanks for the fun afternoon, ive really enjoyed your game 💞💓💞

this is so well timed bc i've been running out of youtube rabbit holes to go down thank you soldier. I've at least heard of all of these but the only one I've actually read/watched is Moomins.

I've had a Dropout sub for years and I've still never watched more than like 2 episodes of D20 I should really get on that lol

[femnoah]

omg do you have any au related to aib, like a crossover?? plss im so curious and id like to see how youd incorporate fem noah lol

I'm gonna take a guess and say that you're on about Alice in borderland (pls correct me if I'm wrong). So this is how I see it!

Au

Last night in Hawaii, Geoff throws a party at the resort before they all leave to go back to Canada but not everyone is there.

So at the party: Justin, Owen, Katie, Sadie, Lindsay, Beth and Ezekiel are in the lounge; Geoff, Duncan, DJ, Cody, Sierra, Tyler and Trent are outside; Heather, Alejandro, Leshawna and Harold are at the food table.

Not at the party: Neha, Izzy and Eva are in Neha's room; Chris and Chef are in Chris' room; Courtney and Gwen are arguing in the bathroom and Bridgette is roped into playing mediator; Blaineley is asleep in her own room.

Then there's fireworks and everything goes black.

Each group 'arrives' at different times with Leshawna's group being the last one by a couple of months, Chris and Chef are the very first.

Team E-scope are the third group to arrive. Due to not finding anyone around, they go out to explore and come across their first game, clubs. Neha brings her Noah costume with her in a back pack but doesn't actually wear it.

Both Eva and Izzy specialise in spades, Neha specialises in diamonds.

They do well with the survival aspect due to Neha's experience with games and Izzy's thousands of apocalypse plans.

Meanwhile, after Geoff's group (5th) arrive, the resort they were originally staying at gets taken over and becomes the beach. It gets turned into like a cult and they prey on new players and groups. There's a specific target on those from Total drama due to their fame as it could make people more agreeable. Basically a manipulation tactic.

Team E-scope and the higher ups at the beach are at each others throats because of Neha and Eva being naturally distrustful and antagonistic.

Owen's group arrives (6th) and are immediately traumatised with their first game. Lindsay doesn't make it. Then they get taken in by some members of the beach who were at the game.

The people at the beach give Justin an offer and he agrees. He and one other person from his group can officially join their utopia if the rest are... Disposed of. They can't have too many people from TD, just a couple of spokespeople to minimise an uprising.

So, Justin herds the group to join a hearts challenge that was pre-picked by one of the higher-ups.

But, because of Owen, he has a change of heart (lol) and sacrifices himself. Unfortunately, the only survivors of the group are Katie and Zeke.

Katie is despondent after losing Sadie and Zeke is trying to keep them both alive by hunting. That's when they run into team E-scope and tell them everything.

Izzy is furious and plans to ruin the beach, get rid of all of the corruption and burn it to the ground.

Katie joins the beach using Justin's previous offer and Noah officially 'arrives'. He is scouted for the beach after Katie's recommendation and clearing a high level spades game as his first game.

He is able to work his way up the ranks quickly due to his intelligence and well, everyone knows that Noah from total drama is weak and can't actually fight back so why would he be a traitor? A perfect loyal pet with amazing skills as an assistant.

Neha and Katie fake a relationship for Katie's safety while they're there (it is primarily a guy's world there) and the two sabotage from behind the scenes, feeding information to the other three and plotting to steal the cards before burning the place to the ground.

Some of Geoff's group is there but the two are wary, especially after everything that happened.

Meanwhile, Izzy, Eva and Ezekiel are stealing the surrounding territory and sabotaging the games for beach members that Neha and Katie 'mark'. After all, thanks to TV, it's well known that Zeke is feral, Izzy is crazy and Eva is controlled by her anger. They become cryptids, infamous and unstoppable monsters that sometimes seen with two girls as their handlers.

Then, Leshawna's group arrives just as all the chaos is starting to brew.

[gigglesandfreckles-hp]

commentary/ramblings/director's cut of omtnwf chapters 2-5 below the cut!

HAHA this is NOT supposed to be there. i guess it makes enough sense...but this is from an earlier version of omtnwf that never had them actually get together at hogwarts at all! it was obviously a very different story altogether but i guess i never edited this part to reflect that oops. i'm going to pretend it reads as dumbledore being cheeky with his "you two were once rather good friends" instead of "multiple members of my staff have seen you half-naked around this school"

okay yes thereeee we go albus. much better.

the first of the seventh year secrets unravelling!!! i've gotten quite a few questions about how the internship being revoked plays into their story and the truth is, it doesn't really...not in the larger sense or beyond what we see here. it serves first and foremost as an early example of the half-truths that were happening toward the end of jily 1.0. and also reinforces the reasons lily turned toward the order. it's another layer of discrimination she was facing at the end of school that she never told james about. it feels more momentous in chapter 2 when it's mentioned because it's the only concrete thing we know she kept from him. in the grand scheme, though...there's not much more to the story there. she just simply didn't tell him. one more straw on the proverbial camel's back that led to their ultimate demise.

i have no idea why i made lily irritated here 😆 james's shock is personally reasonable considering she's been a covert member. c'mon lil cut our boy some SLACK

i actually love this bit of reveal that james was planning to propose. it feels sooo long ago because we've now seen the lead-up and both the immediate and long-term effects of said proposal. we've even seen the proposal! but here's where it all started. happy, naive james...about three months away from one of the worst days of his life.

i have actually warred with this bit for so long. i regret teasing their first encounter with voldy here because i have the perfect place for it as a flashback of it's own in a waaaay later chapter, but i didn't think of that until i'd long posted this chapter...which shows too much of the interaction between jily and voldy to revisit the scene later. ah well.

second only to my james potter sunshine motifs are my lily evans elemental motifs. james consistently notices things about lily and compares them to various facets of the elemental world. this is because i see james as being very grounded within nature due to his being an animagus! i like to imagine he has a keen understanding and perception of the natural world around him. the trees, the grass, the earth, the wind, etc. thus...his admiration of lily frequently takes the form of elemental metaphors!

this 1983 sirius intro is probably my favourite character intro of the fic! he's such a grumpy bastard. but immediately...they can't help it!!! james and lily unite to tease him. i love the natural little slotting back into their old trio dynamic (which is special to me) even in the midst of all the Big Feelings happening between all three of them. also this is embarrassing but this scene, especially the "do you promise to be good?" bit was inspired by that scene in national treasure when abigail first ends up in the van with ben and riley (and the declaration of independence lol) and the banter between the three in the "she won't be any trouble. see? she's curious" exchange just screams jilypad to me in a way i can't quite explain. idk i told y'all i was mad okay?!?!

the fact that this isn't even the only time james uses lily's beltloop for Plot. what can i say!!! i'm a girl of very specific taste!

i literally laboured over this scene wondering it was too soon for them to break the touch barrier and then i had to get a hold of myself because this isn't a regency era fic!!!

he makes me LAUGH. he's so cool and composed but i know and you know, WE ALL KNOW, that he's freaking the freak out on the inside. "the milk will sour" SHUT UP!!!!!!