#essay writing is so hard but i’m being so so so brave about it

[coffeeflavored-tears]

i offer you a blanket and a cup of hot tea for your comfort. hope you’re ok <3

<3333 i am currently on a chair piled with so many blankets and i’m still cold somehow so thank you <3

[poppitron360]

Ok so in another post I talked about all the reasons why Valzhang is better than Caleo, and I wanted to do one on Valgrace as well (lmk if this should become a series).

Bear in mind I am only on HoH- I haven’t read all of the Caleo bits yet, but I know she ain’t gonna treat him right.

I was originally SUPER sceptical about Valgrace (“I ship them platonically” “Jason is the Token Straight Friend”) and while I don’t think it was ever cannon I 100% THINK IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

Seriously, my eyes have been opened to Valgrace, to the point where the fanfic I’m writing about them currently clocks in at around 5,934 words.

I am OBSESSED. It is a PROBLEM.

And some of the fanarts/fanfics of them are SO CUTE I COULD DIE- it was hard NOT to ship them after reading some of y’all’s stuff. Keep up the good work.

Anyway buckle up ‘cause I’m ‘bouta write a whole dam essay on this.

1. The whole appeal of Jason Grace’s character is that he sees through your insecurities and lifts you up because he is too pure for this world. So narratively speaking, why is he with the most stable character? Yeah, Piper’s got issues, but compared to the others? She’s doing pretty well for herself. I mean, her parents are ALIVE!! Wouldn’t it just make more sense, narratively speaking, to put Jason with the MOST insecure character??? He can support Leo, help him in his arc, and it would give Jason a time to shine by highlighting his best qualities.

2. Throughout most of the books, Jason is the ONLY ONE who actually consistently sees through Leo’s mask. Everyone else’s POV of Leo is “Haha Leo said something funny and goofy and we’re all trying to be serious here, Leo. Gods, he’s soooo annoying!”, whereas Jason’s POV is like “Jason could see that Leo was desperately trying to keep it together for the good of the group, and he thought that was noble and brave and good and kind and awesome.” Like I said above, he’s able to lift Leo up because he sees him, and knows him. Something Calypso never did. There are several interactions, during TLH particularly, where Jason is just like “Hey, Leo? You are great. You are awesome. You have saved our lives multiple times. Whatever just went wrong, it wasn’t your fault. Stop beating yourself up about everything. You are a valued and respected member of this team. I love and appreciate you.” And Leo still puts up those walls with the jokes and the sarcastic remarks, and Jason is nothing but patient with him. Calypso was never like that.

3. I can’t find the line in the book, but there’s a bit in HoH where Jason’s worrying about the “To Storm or Fire, the World must fall” line in the prophecy, and he says words to the effect of “I like living, but I’d rather I die than Leo, anyway horses-” and seriously?? Rick missed a trick by not making them a couple. There is WAY more potential for angst if there’s that romantic feeling involved, knowing one of them is going to die, and both being willing to sacrifice themselves for one another like this is “Merchant of Venice” or something (I will explain the obscure Shakespeare reference in the comments). Calypso would never give up her LIFE for Leo, and Leo would only give up his because she’s hot.

4. Okay, most of this is copy-pasted from my post about Valzhang, but it still applies, and it applies to them maybe more so. They get so much more time together to establish a meaningful relationship. Their arc carries over all five books, and we get to form connections as a reader to them both, so the payoff is a lot more satisfying. Unlike Calypso, Jason is his own character separately, and not just an add-on to Leo’s arc. Their friendship is a key focus in their chapters, and a key point in their character development, as Jason is the first person Leo ever opens up to about his mom. When Calypso showed up, Leo had already gone through that journey of letting down those walls, so it was a lot less meaningful. They had little to no time to develop a relationship, and we never get a chance to care about Calypso as a person. She’s just kind of a plot point for Leo/Percy’s own development, and never her own character.

5. What separates Leo and Calypso from the other relationships in the series is that they were not written for each other. Frank and Hazel? Written for each other. Jason and Piper? Written for each other. Percy and Annabeth? FUCKING WRITTEN TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER. Cal was brought in during BoTL to cockblock Percabeth, and then Rick realised Leo “needed” a girlfriend, so picked her. But you know what two characters were written to be best friends right from the get-go? Like literally it’s established in the first couple pages of the first book? Jason and Leo. Much like how Valzhang were always meant to be rivals, Jason and Leo were always meant to be best friends.

6. Like I said in the last post, Leo doesn’t NEED a girlfriend. He can heal his trauma with friends and found family, learning to love and accept himself, learning that he doesn’t actually need the attention of a hot girl to be valid. Jason is the best person to help him on that journey, seeing as how his character thrives in uplifting others. The only person who ever loved Leo unconditionally died when he was eight. His blood relatives abandoned him, and he clearly wasn’t treated very well in the foster homes. He constantly feels like he has to work to prove he’s earned his place among the Seven because for him, family has never been a guarantee. Jason cares for Leo even when he’s fucked up, even when he’s a crying mess on the floor, even when he feels most like he doesn’t deserve to be cared for. Leo thinks he needs the attention of a hot girl to give him validation. What he really needs is to find a place among his brethren- and Jason offers him that place.

So, kids, that was it for today’s edition of “Why Literally Any Ship Is Better Than Caleo”. Tune in next time for our fav ✨trauma twinsies✨ Valdangelo!

[seventeendeer]

TF2 analysis - on cultural references, context as characterization, and how to analyze comedy

-taps mic- HELLO, TEAM FORTRESS 2 COMMUNITY !

A while back, I received an ask requesting analysis of one of my favorite video games of all time and special interest of 12+ years, and you know I just had to go and turn that into a several thousand word essay for the reading pleasure of the people.

Because that shit got way too long, I’ve decided to put it into a post of its own. Hopefully a big title and no previous context being necessary will give more people an incentive to read it. I spent a long time on it and I think it’s pretty cool, and I would love some nice attention for my effort. ;w;

The ask I received went a little something like this:

Below the cut, I will be replying to these questions individually. It touches on everything from Cold War propaganda to the media landscape at the game’s launch in 2007 to first-person shooters as a genre - all to gain a better understanding of author intent, expected audience reaction, characterization and themes.

Anon previously requested help writing more accurate fanfiction, and damn it, that is what they are going to get!! and MORE

Introductory disclaimer:

First of all, for clarity's sake: this analysis is going to specifically talk about TF2 as seen through a fandom lens. I'm going to be talking about the game as a piece of media, creator intention, and the fandom's reactions to the game and extended canon - that is, the slice of the TF2 fandom that is interested in the characters, in the world and in doing at least semi-faithful fanworks.

I will not be touching on TF2's wider playerbase or meme culture. I greatly enjoy both, but they are not relevant to the post I made that sparked this anon's questions (I will link this post in the replies, in case anyone is curious).

I also have to disclaim that any references I make to real world history in this post have to be taken with a hard grain of salt. I've done my best to fact-check everything, but I am not infallible! For a better understanding of the historical elements I talk about here, please do your own research, and approach my claims with a healthy amount of scepticism, same as you would any unsourced social media post. (Readers may notice examples I give below primarily feature Soldier, Spy and Scout. This is because I feel I have the most solid grasp on the historical events and media that informs their characters, compared to the other classes. All the classes contain these contexts and meta complexities, but in an effort to not talk out of my ass too much, I have decided to focus on the characters I feel the most confident dissecting.)

>1) What tropes was the game parodying/what cultural contexts would you say are essential to understand, in order to better understand the game?

The characters of TF2 were specifically designed as satiric takes on national stereotypes depicted in American propaganda media during the Cold War. Two easy-to-explain examples to illustrate:

- Soldier embodies the ideal of a "red-blooded American" who is strong, brave, hyper-masculine, hates foreign superpowers, loves the vague ideal of "freedom" and firmly believes America is the greatest nation in the world. He prides himself on having personally murdered nazis in the past, despite actually having accomplished no such thing (comparable to the US taking a disproportionate amount of credit for defeating Nazi Germany in World War 2; at the time, WW2 was a very recent cultural memory that made for good propaganda fodder). He fears, hates and dehumanizes communists (as Soviet Russia was the US's highly-villified opponent during the Cold War). The satiric angle: he is depicted as so brainwashed by propaganda that he has become immune to facts and logic. He is horribly sadistic, brutal, paranoid and xenophobic. The ideal he is based on is portrayed as shockingly and disproportionally violent and illogical to the point of being laughable.

- Spy is based on how the US viewed France during the Cold War: as a weak, cowardly, “unmanly” nation. At the time, France was depicted this way because they were perceived to have surrendered to Nazi Germany early on in World War 2 out of cowardice. Spy is one of the least macho of the mercs, he is ineffective when fighting enemies head on, and his main method of attack is reliant on trickery and “not fighting fair.” The satiric angle: Spy isn't actually much of a coward - he is more intelligent, more tactical and more resourceful than many of the others, and simply doesn’t feel the need to risk his neck when he could be working smarter, not harder. The other characters are portrayed as a bunch of meatheads for picking on him. The negative stereotype he is based on is portrayed as largely unearned and ridiculous. (Though note that Spy is also depicted as an upperclass prick to contrast with Engineer being working class; in that dynamic, Spy is depicted as a pompous asshole, while Engie is depicted in a more favorable light. The characters are multi-faceted and no class is universally “better” or “worse” than the others, but right now I'm specifically focusing on the "Cold War stereotype" aspect.)

Notice how, while these two characters have different nationalities in-universe, they are both based on stereotypes seen through an American lens. Notice the way the American character is based on a comedically deconstructed ideal, while the character from a nation the US did not view favorably at the time is depicted as falsely judged by an unfair and ridiculous metric.

The entire TF2 cast and universe revolves on this axis! It takes old American ideals and prejudices and uses them for comedy, adding exaggeration and caveats to make those ideals look absurd.

It’s a parody of media produced in the US during the Cold War, which contained massive amounts of propaganda. It satirizes the political ideals that were glorified in said propaganda media.

Very important extra cultural context: this satiric depiction of old war propaganda was specifically designed to be instantly recognizable to TF2's central demographic at the time of release in 2007.

Older Valve games like TF2 were very specifically made to appeal to pop culture-savvy, nerdy young adult gamers. This demographic was expected to see the characters and think "oh hey, it's like a funny version of X character type I've seen in movies!"

Because those kinds of movies were still everywhere at the time. The Cold War ended in 1991. TF2 was released only 16 years later. To put this into perspective: the Legally Blonde movie came out 22 years ago, in 2001. Think about how many Legally Blonde memes are still floating around the web today, how fondly remembered this one movie is and how often it’s still referenced in contemporary media. Now consider that media produced during the Cold War was fresher in the cultural memory at the time of TF2′s release than Legally Blonde is for us today.

TF2 was never meant to be seen in a vacuum. It was always meant to be in conversation with old media that it expected everyone playing to be extremely familiar with.

I'll say that again: the cast of TF2 are based on Cold War stereotypes - comedically exaggerated - so they would clearly read as parodies to people in 2007.

Those are 3 different overlapping lenses to consider when approaching the characters.

The characters are more than just funny cartoon men with guns and an unusual amount of differing accents. They are commentary on older media trends.

Now, someone might ask - why did the developers choose this specific aesthetic and tone for their online shooter video game?

The developers have stated multiple reasons, including wanting the characters to be immediately recognizable both physically (they generally look like the stereotypical depictions they're based on) and audibly (the differing accents and regional dialects make it easy to identify which class is yelling in your ear mid-combat during gameplay).

However, I also have another theory:

It's been confirmed TF2's comedic tone was designed to combat a lot of negative aspects of shooters in the genre at the time of its creation. I have seen developers discuss that they were going for a lighthearted atmosphere to discourage player hostility.

I, personally, also think it is extremely likely the developers opted for satirizing old war propaganda partially in order to combat the tendency of other shooters often being war propaganda. Valve has always been a politically left-leaning company, with a history of depicting military-like forces and unchecked capitalism in a negative light (see the Half-Life and Portal series, respectively).

By depicting the cast of TF2 as generally unhinged, illogical and clownish, they were able to communicate to players: "War is dumb, nationalism is dumb, whatever Call of Duty has been telling you is cool is actually illogical and copying it makes you look like like an idiot. That being said, we all sometimes wish we could beat the shit out of other people in the desert with a shovel, so let's get our aggressions out in a safe, non-serious environment with no consequences. Come play pretend you're a murderous sadist blowing up equally unhinged people with us, it's silly, but it's so fun."

I believe everything from the cartoonishly over-the-top, non-permanent deaths to the deserted, remote environments, to the lack of any truly innocent or defenseless characters was all a carefully crafted foundation made to encourage players to make the informed decision to leave their inhibitions and moral hangups at the door. They wanted players to have fun and go nuts engaging in military-like violence, without encouraging pro-military attitudes in their playerbase.

For an example of a game that royally screwed up doing the same thing, just look at Overwatch - it tried to preach a "wholesome" vibe that was completely mismatched with its gameplay. Overwatch tries to justify extreme violence as Okay When Good Guys Do It To Bad Guys, which ... yeah, again, that is straight up modern military propaganda, on purpose or not (and knowing the US military’s tendency to pour money into video games that glorify war, “on purpose” isn’t as much of a stretch as one might think). Paradoxically, TF2 comes out both looking and feeling better to play, because it handles aligning player emotions VS in-game actions much more elegantly. It accounts for common pitfalls in its genre. OW jumps into those pitfalls with both legs and instead ends up looking shallow and nauseatingly twee.

Of course, all of this is personal speculation. Whether or not this was the reading that Valve intended, I do believe it's a big reason why TF2 has remained so profoundly loveable over the years - it uses its writing and art direction to put the player in the perfect mindspace to Fuck Shit Up.

It's a fantastic example of how to carefully and artfully craft something extremely stupid for maximum intended effect. It uses the strengths of comedy as a genre to its absolute fullest.

Unfortunately, because of cultural shifts since the game's release, newer fans do end up missing out on a lot of what makes this game so expertly done. Many newer fans don't come into the game with the base cultural knowledge it expected of its original audience. To gain a better grasp on the characters and enjoy this piece of media as it was intended, I think it will be extremely helpful to familiarize yourself with the material it is referencing.

For an introduction to media produced and influenced by the Cold War, I would recommend the Wikipedia article Culture during the Cold War as a starting point.

(I have skimmed, but not read, the full article; I encourage readers to be especially source-critical when engaging with pages like this that detail themes of history and propaganda - it's a starting point, not a finish line!)

>2) What themes/layers do you feel the fandom has lost sight of, over time? (or never really managed to acknowledge to begin with?)

Some of this is covered in the previous section, but I'll use this question as an opportunity to talk about another thing I feel is overlooked by fans (and, frankly, the writers of the newer comics too), especially when creating fanworks:

The fact that the characters are extremely dependent on their setup and narrative context to be likeable.

Something I think fandom culture struggles with in general is interpreting and handling fictional characters not as real, independent people who exist in a vacuum, but as the sum total of countless moving parts inside a narrative all working together to create the impression of a real person.

In a comedy, characters are especially dependent on presentation to feel like themselves. It is not enough to loyally recreate an arbitrary list of personality traits in order to create accurate fanworks - recreating the sorts of situations they get into, the kinds of people they interact with, and cherry-picking the information they have access to is neccessary for bringing out what makes the characters so charming!

This is especially important when interpreting and handling a cast made up exclusively of characters who are mean people with bad intentions, bad opinions and a complete lack of adequate self-reflection across the board.

Canon makes them all come off amazingly likeable, but this is because the writers were manipulating tone, relationship dynamics, setting, and much more to show off the characters at their most distinct, least detestable and absolute funniest.

Overlooking this aspect of writing comedy characters often leads to a very common pitfall in many, many fandoms out there - following the logic of a character's canon personality to a place they don't like, and getting rid of those personality traits to combat their own discomfort.

Making characters too kind, too understanding, too progressive, etc., is an endless source of micharacterization in fandoms in general, but especially in fandoms of media where the characters are a bunch of dicks in canon.

To be clear, I fully understand where this is coming from. Fans get attached to characters like these because they're funny (and intended to be loved!) - realizing that a character you really like would logically react in an unlikeable way if you put them into certain situations feels bad. No one wants to turn a character they love into something they find they don't love anymore.

But this is where carefully engineering your setup and narrative comes into play.

Example:

A lot of TF2 fans are queer. Queers flock to TF2 because let’s face it, the campy vibes and silly fun masculinity and weird women are like catnip to us.

But a lot of queer fans go into the fandom aspect of the game and find that ... wait, shit, these characters are not exactly pillars of progressiveness. Reconciling some of the extremist political views of the characters with queer narratives, with queer values, seems a daunting task to some. Because what’s a queer fan to do? Portray a character they love in a way that makes them unloveable? Painstakingly depict shitty, uncomfortable characterization in the name of “realism” that ultimately detracts from their own and other people’s enjoyment of the story? That’s not fun. Fandom is supposed to be fun. So, what, do they just portray the characters as miraculously having perfectly amicable social politics by the standards of the larger queer community in 2023?

Some do, of course, for their own comfort, and it’s understandable, but it’s not good storytelling. It’s an excessively shallow way of interacting with media - the fanfiction equivalent of confidently sitting down to write an in-depth, flowery review of a horror movie you watched with your hands over your eyes during all the scary parts. You cannot create fanworks that are even remotely faithful to the spirit of the canon while deliberately ignoring the core themes and author intention of the canon you’re working with. These things are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive. TF2 characters are meant to be wrong about most things politically. Hopefully my reply to the first question in this post adequately illustrates why that’s so important.

But the good news is that bastardizing canon in order to avoid making characters unlikeable also isn’t necessary.

There’s a reason Soldier, in canon mocks his enemies for everything from failing at masculinity to being disabled, yet doesn’t have a single homophobic line:

The people writing his lines figured it would detract from the character. It would hurt real people’s feelings and make the character less fun to play as, so they didn’t include it. No excuses, no explanation; it is simply omitted for the sake of likeability.

(For contrast, notice that the writers did not extend the same kindness to certain other minorities, like fat people - playing as Heavy fucking sucks when you’re fat, because every other class hurls fatphobic abuse at him. This is a fuck-up on the writers’ side; they failed to identify this type of humor as meaningfully detracting from the experience for a significant amount of players, and so ignorantly decided to include it.)

This is what I mean by “setup and narrative context.” I also like to call this “maneuvering”, because it involves selectively portraying a character in contexts and situations where they shine and instill the intended audience reaction, while steering them away from situations where they would logically act in ways that counteract how the audience is intended to feel about them.

Fanworks can absolutely do the same thing! Fanworks can even take the technique further, because they’re not bound by limited time and focus, the way the original work is!

Sticking with the above example of wondering What The Hell To Do when portraying a character who, due to the ideal he’s satirizing, should by all rights be on the wrong side of history in relation to queer rights, let me make a bold statement:

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic. He's a nationalist, a right-winger, a sexist, a xenophobe - but he's not homophobic.

Why? Because he just so happens to never encounter any gay people in canon. They happen to never cross his mind. He's thinking about other shit. If there's a Pride riot in Teufort, he just so happens to be looking the other way.

Soldier TF2 is not homophobic, because he can't think for himself. He's an idea, a fraction of a bigger narrative that he does not exist outside of.

And if he needs to encounter gay people in a fanfiction, don’t just passively follow the logic of his character to that uncomfortable place none of us enjoy going to - use that maneuvering! Make him misinformed, make him misunderstand, give him incomplete information - the character is not only a face with personality traits attached, his soul is also in the context of the story!

Make him homophobic, but he's pretty sure only Europeans can be gay (just look at them!), and it's already so damn sad that they weren't born in beautiful, paradisical AMERICA, so he pities them instead of hating them. Make him think he's successfully being homophobic, but he has misunderstood what a gay person is and thinks it's a particularly venomous type of snake (men who kiss other men are fine, why would he care about that when there are HORRIBLE HOMOSEXUALS slithering around in the desert that he needs to go blow up right now before they bring this glorious nation to ruin). Make him homophobic, but literally "phobic" - he's shaking and crying hiding inside a cupboard, and his newly-outed gay friends have to lure him out with canned meat and a trail of small American flags, treating him like a feral cat that needs a little time and space to get used to people.

That's funny. It's likeable, it's charming. He isn't portrayed as a good person, or woke in a way that clashes with the themes of his character, but with a little maneuvering, he is faithful to what makes him such a legendary character in canon - being a silly caricature that brings us joy.

If Soldier himself needs to be gay? There are ways to make it happen. Same approach. Get creative. Make it silly. Go for thematically appropriate comedic explanations, not cop-outs or realism*.

That is what I think the TF2 fandom is lacking - understanding of how to manipulate context to make a character feel like their own unique, lovable selves.

Characters are not just visuals and personality traits. They are also what happens to them, what they conveniently find out, what they happen to miss.

This is the same for every story, but it is especially important to understand in a comedy. Doubly so in a whimsical, hyper-violent, morbid comedy like TF2.

It's one of the most important layers to be able to recognize, and an even more important one to be willing to try to recreate.

*Unless you feel like doing a deliberate deconstruction, in which case, go ham, sometimes actively engaging with canon means doing some real weird stuff to it to make a certain point on a meta level. This is obviously different from the issues I described above.

>3) "even the newer official comics don't even seem to really "get" the original game" … I've had a nagging sense for years now that the TF2 comics don't really match the game, tonally -- which has admittedly soured my enjoyment of them -- but I've never been able to put two and two together and fully determine why that is. What would you say they've failed to "get" about the work they're based off of?

While I very much love the newer comics on their own merits, I do think they are wildly removed from the game, and lack a lot of depth by comparison.

I believe the greatest failing of the comics, especially the long-form comic, is that the writers do not seem to be aware of either of the subjects I covered above.

They do not handle the satirical aspect well. The newer comic writers don't even really seem to be aware that there is a satirical aspect - they treat the world as just a silly version of mid-1900′s media, with a narrow focus on silver age comics (which were primarily superhero comics, not an easy genre to match with TF2′s more grounded setting - see the comic’s limp attempt at doing a Superman parody with Sniper) + a dash of the Man’s Life magazines (would have been a good match, if not for the fact that it’s primarily used as aesthetics, with no attention given to themes the way the game does with its own media references). They attempt to write parody only, and even the parody aspect is a hollow effort. Crucially, the writers don't seem to have much of an opinion of the old media properties they're parodying, and without opinions to guide a parody, it becomes shallow and lifeless. "Mid-1900′s media was a bit silly, right?" isn't enough of a hot take to justify its existence. It needs an axis on which to spin to feel complete.

Reiterating the point I made in my answer to question 1: the game's satirical aspect circled the point that was "American media made during the Cold War pushed a narrative that was illogical and ridiculously misaligned with reality."

Its absurd humor is grounded in reality and follows a thematic red thread that the comic does not. As a result, the comic (again, primarily later entries) loses a lot of the sting and edge of the game.

Even though the comic attempts to be more serious and "dark" at certain points, the much more silly and easy-going game (and Meet the Team videos, not to mention) comes out looking more mature, interesting and layered, even though many of the layers remain subtextual. The game is fully married to comedy and has no intention of "getting real", but it is loyal to the spirit of satire. It has opinions. It has bite.

In the game and early supplementary material, there is a dread and horror in the subtext that the comics tried to bring to light later on, but the comic writers didn't know what the scary thing behind the curtain was.

The scary thing was - is - the Cold War.

The scary thing is the dread injected into the genre it's satirizing by people who wanted American readers and movie-goers to be afraid. Scaring people into compliance, into finding a sense of safety and comfort in their national identity, was the entire purpose of many, many pieces of media released at the time.

The comic writers didn't notice the subtext and figured they had to make up their own reasons for why the world of TF2 is so utterly fucked.

They didn't understand the cultural context, and they missed the mark entirely.

This also hindered the comic writers' ability to reproduce the game's humor and characterization. Without understanding where exactly the game's humor was coming from or why the characters were so likeable despite being horrible people, they lacked direction. They made the characters at the same time too impassionate, too stupid, too uncaring, and too nice. All together, the characters became less interesting, less likeable.

Example:

- In the game, Spy was not intended to be Scout's father. Spy having a relationship with Scout's mother emphasized Spy's craftiness and intelligence (undermining the enemy team not only through brute force, but through infiltrating their personal lives), and showed off the strengths of his aforementioned "softness" and sentimentality (he's the only mercenary shown to have consistent luck with women). It also emphasized the flaws in Scout's worldview, and his status as the team underdog, and showed a clear contrast to Scout's non-existent love life. Spy came out of the situation funny and likeable because he 1. was portrayed as cool and capable in a way the other mercs aren't, and 2. his softer side is simultaneously humorously endearing, consistent with the rest of his characterization, and highly informed by the satirical aspect of his character in a way that clicks perfectly thematically. Scout comes out of the situation likeable because his ego is balanced out by his bad luck - you can simultaneously see that he's trying too hard and why he's trying too hard. Spy and Scout's dynamic in-game is also fun and interesting, because you have a tough, hyper-violent, wannabe-macho young man who is desperate to gain the respect of both his team and his enemies getting freaking owned by a guy who is nowhere near the impressive-tough-guy ideal Scout strives to embody. The game's satirical points inform the characters and their actions, which gives the comedy depth and nuance, which in turn makes all characters involved fun to watch and easy to get invested in. It is the establishing of and subsequent pointing-and-laughing-at an ideal that produces engaging, character-driven comedy in this situation.

- By contrast, the comics decided that Spy was Scout's father. Spy's motives for getting involved with Scout's mother is no longer about gaining intel on his enemies. In this version of events, his motives are reduced to merely wanting to reconnect with an old flame. This completely undermines the dynamic described above, for multiple reasons: the situation no longer shows Spy as having a particular skillset that sets him apart from the other mercs, he is no longer portrayed as emotionally "softer" than the others (in fact, having left a poor woman to raise and feed 8 kids on her own while he was off enjoying his upperclass life makes him look incredibly cold in a way that is distinctly unfunny; I don’t think the writers thought this part through), Scout's comedic poor luck is no longer on display, and the "macho character is humiliated by the type of guy he respects the least" satirical aspect no longer works. There is an attempt to replace it with a mutual "ugh, I'm related to this guy?" running gag, but it's a very pale substitute for the layered, strongly characterized, thematically appropriate dynamic present in the original game. Spy comes out of it looking like more of a cowardly, cold-hearted fuck-up than a hilariously brilliant tactician with a heart. Scout comes off way too pitiable, because he is not responsible for his own misery here, and the person horribly bullying him and picking apart his self-esteem on the battlefield is his absent father who abandoned him as a child. He's not an objectively badass character who nonetheless fucks himself over in humorous ways trying to chase an ideal that objectively sucks - he's just a regular shitty guy who ended up in bad circumstances because of things outside of his control.

The comic writers didn't understand what Spy and Scout respectively represented in the game, and because of this, they didn't realize they were taking the characters off the rails and making them much less interesting as a result. They didn't realize they were killing off an endless source of comedy that supported the game's satirical angle in a fun, unique, dynamic way.

It resulted in a flat, flavorless subplot. It had some superficial attempts at "heartwarming" moments ...

... but here's my take: if the writers wanted to include more warmth and sincerity in the comics, wouldn't it have been way more heartwarming if Spy started treating Scout as his son even though he wasn't?

Would it not have been way more endearing to see him look out for his girlfriend's child, not because he has any personal ties to him himself, but because he knew if anything happened to Scout, his mother would be devastated?

Why not build from there? Why not make it an active choice? Why not preserve the existing dynamic and themes, and just follow that narrative thread to its logical conclusion?

Spy has an established sentimental side. Scout is desperate for approval. The reluctant surrogate father/son development practically writes itself. It would have been such a good way to explore TF2's themes more explicitly, too!

But again, the comic writers did not seem to realize the game even had themes.

I do like the newer comics. I do think they're really fun, and I did even enjoy the "Spy is Scout's father" subplot in its own way. But this complete inability to identify the game's themes, and thus the source of all its comedy, and thus the red thread defining characterization - it resulted in supplemental material that was lackluster, directionless and unable to scratch the same itch the game does.

They're good comics, but they're hardly TF2 comics.

>4a) … Sheerly out of curiosity, how do you feel Expiration Date holds up, in comparison?

Similar to the way I dislike Spy being revealed to be Scout’s biological father for coming off as a stilted, superficial attempt at being “heartwarming,” I also immensely dislike later supplementary material trying to promote Ms. Pauling to Scout’s recurring love interest for the exact same reason. Expiration Date pushes this subplot way past its breaking point and shows off extremely well why the “jerk characters are secretly a bunch of softies” treatment is so deeply, deeply out of place in TF2.

Back in the early comics, Scout hitting on Miss Pauling was played as a joke at his expense. He was an idiotic, sexist guy incapable of talking to a pretty woman without trying to fuck - she was a highly skilled and deviously manipulative minor character who mostly existed to show off how dangerously competent the Administrator and her people were. Scout acting like an utter dumbass too entrenched in his own limited worldview to notice what was happening right in front of him was important characterization for him, Miss Pauling’s quiet, calculating efficiency was important characterization for her boss, and their clashing personalities set the tone for the dynamic between the entire team of mercenaries and the conspiracy going on right under their noses.

Expiration Date chose to eliminate these layers and invent a completely new conflict for these two specific characters to go play with in a corner, which had nothing to do with their original characterization or the larger plot. Scout is now portrayed as being genuinely in love with Pauling, even noticing small details about her mannerisms and knowing about some of her interests, even though the entire point of their original interactions were that Scout was so busy trying to live his tough-guy-with-a-pretty-girl-on-his-arm fantasy he did not bother to listen to or learn anything about the women unfortunate enough to cross his path, allowing Pauling to carry out her job without causing suspicion.

Instead, Scout’s sexist approach to interacting with women is played for sympathy (”he’s actually a romantic underdog because the lady he likes accurately clocked him as an idiot!”) and inadvertently validated (”once she gave him a chance, she found out he’s actually a pretty okay guy!”).

In the process, Miss Pauling loses far too much of her usual competence, being visibly freaked out over having to perform a job she’s been shown to handle with grace in the past, and being taken aback by what should by all rights be routine weirdness in this world, all so she can have an eye-roll-worthy forced positive reaction to the entire experience at the end of the short, in a weak attempt to justify why she comes to like Scout more despite all the trouble he’s caused for her and wants to spend more time with him in the future.

The romance subplot is only made possible because the characters are heavily edited compared to their past portrayals, is only able to develop in the direction it does by aligning itself with the values of a character who existed to be a laughable, obviously-mistaken caricature, and is only able to distill a happy ending to the whole mess by stripping the other character of personal standards and agency.

Scout and Pauling are frankly two halves of a whole shitshow in Expiration Date, because the writers either didn’t notice or didn’t care about what older works were gunning for - all they saw was that Boy Liked Girl, Girl Did Not Like Boy, and that just wouldn’t stand! After all, everyone likes romance, right?

Scout, as he is portrayed in the game and in the early supplementary material, is one of my absolute favorites of the mercs. I find him incredibly funny, and the way his hyperactive, fun-loving, jokey traits overlap with his intense bloodlust (literally - he’s the class with the most weapons available that cause bleed damage!) and barely-suppressed rage makes him fun and fascinating. The little man has so much unchecked ADHD and cultural trauma he just has to go and kill people about it, which is just so intensely relatable in the “forbidden mood” way TF2 handles so well.

Unfortunately, I get the impression he has in later years fallen victim to the curse of being a skinny young white guy character, making him a target for writers who think every series needs a relatable everyman protagonist for either themselves or the audience to project onto (and who think skinny young white guys are the most relatable people around, for reasons you can probably imagine I’m not personally very fond of).

TF2 absolutely does not need a character like that, and butchering Scout’s established personality in the name of “relatable” and “wholesome” is first of all Some Bullshit, and second of all a lost cause. The character simply has too much baggage as an over-the-top caricature to be comfortably rewired into an author- or audience-surrogate. He’s always going to come out looking like an asshole - whether this aspect of his character turns out likeable or unlikeable is entirely controlled by whether the story itself acknowledges it.

I did find Scout and Spy's dynamic to be quite well done, though, especially if you ignore the "Spy is Scout's father" reveal from the later comics.

The idea that Spy didn't have to go and do all that, but has grown a soft spot for Scout purely because his girlfriend clearly loves her incredibly annoying boy and her happiness is his happiness, is perfectly in-character. Scout has also long been established to desperately crave approval from his teammates, and on paper, the idea of putting him in a situation where he had to let go of some of his macho man dignity, imitate Spy more closely and ultimately win a tiny bit of that approval he's been looking for is interesting and plays well with the game's existing themes.

It's just a shame Scout's motivations ended up being conjured out of thin air, in direct conflict with past characterization, for the purpose of enabling a schmaltzy, tonally dissonant romantic subplot.

tl;dr, I'm conflicted on the subject of Expiration Date. It's funny, it's cute when it's not trying too hard, and seeing the mercs dick around off the clock getting into stupid shenanigans together is something I've always wanted to see in a longer animated format. It’s largely a good time and a fun watch, despite its questionable gender politics and trope-y execution.

However, like the newer comics, it suffers immensely from writers who are simply unable to identify the themes, characterization and comedy style of older material, and thus, in my opinion, falls way, way short of its potential.

>4b) I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on Emesis Blue, should you end up watching it.

I'll be sure to share my opinions if I ever get around to watching it!! I'm super curious about it. As I mentioned in another post, what little I've heard of it seems much more on-point thematically, and even with the characters being so far removed from their official characterization, I really get the impression this is a deliberate, informed choice, in stark contrast to the newer official supplementary material. I’ll be sure to drop some words on it if I ever get around to watching the full thing!

Anyway, that about wraps up my thoughts! If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with it, and please do consider reblogging - I’ve spent an insane amount of time writing and re-writing and fact-checking this, and I would love for it to reach just half of all the people who were curious about my initial posts on the subject. :’)

Follow-up questions are very welcome, though to be clear: I’m not really interested in “debating” the subjects I’ve talked about here. I know I posit a lot of hard opinions in this post and not everyone is going to agree with me and that’s fine - if you feel differently, I invite you to simply ignore me and write your own take on your own blog. No hard feelings, I just don’t enjoy those kinds of discussions. (Corrections on any factual mistakes I’ve made are of course encouraged).

[prince-jjae]

Pancakes for Dinner, a snippet.

roommate/bestfriend!gyu × reader.

(fluff, basically. no warnings.)

trying to kick myself into gear so i can finish this story, and peer pressure works wonders. heres a small scene to give yall a hint of whats coming up!!

You always knew he was attentive, that he would make his future partner feel like the most cherished thing on the planet. But after about a year of him being attentive with you, you had a horrifying realisation. 

Your heart swooping in your chest when he brought you your favourite snacks randomly, surprising you with your favourite coffee before classes, when he would make you pancakes for dinner as a surprise– it was slowly making one thing terrifyingly clear in your head. You didn’t want his attention to be anywhere else. Those thoughts that you had before about him making a future partner happy no longer felt like a pleasant thought, but it had jealousy rolling white-hot in your stomach. You weren't ready for him to dote on someone else the way he doted on you. 

Still, you revelled in the feeling for now. Was it selfish to want to keep this, even if it was temporary? Perhaps, but you couldn’t bring yourself to deny him. Especially when he sat on your bedroom floor, back pressed to the side of your bed as you wrote your latest essay, strumming his guitar to fill the air. He was working on a new song, he had said. There were no lyrics quite yet, but the melody he was creating was so.. soothing. It made your head spin with warmth and comfort, but there was a yearning there that you couldn’t help but pick up on. You turned in your desk chair, facing him with your lips pulled into a curious pout.

“What’s it about?” you had asked him, voice gentle and soft as if you were afraid that speaking any louder would disturb the comfortable vibes that had settled over your room. He glanced up from his guitar, head tilted at you like a puppy. Your heart stuttered in your chest, making you glance away. You couldn't maintain eye contact when he looked at you like this, as if you hung the moon and stars for him.

“I’m… honestly not sure. But it seems like it wants to be a love song of some sort,” he replied, looking equally as perplexed. You sat up a bit straighter in your seat. 

“Wants to be? Does a song know what it wants to become?” You frowned, confused. Beomgyu was always hard to figure out, even moreso when he became so beautifully poetic like this out of seemingly nowhere. He nodded quickly, soft blond curls bouncing at the movement.

“Every piece of art knows what it wants to become. You just have to let it decide.” 

You sat there, stunned into silence. His words hit you in a way you never expected. You thought back to all of your unfinished stories, fictions you had written over the years that never saw the light of day. Only Beomgyu knew about a few of them, not all. After all, how could you tell him that a lot of the stories you wrote were about him? You realised he was right. Whenever you wrote, especially lately, your stories tended to go wherever they wanted. No matter how hard you tried writing various genres, various storylines, various characters.. It always came back to him. It was always him, in the end. You smiled at him, leaning back in your chair as you turned around to complete your essay.

“I think I get it.” 

But you didn’t get the chance to tell him. You weren’t brave enough by then.

[sunflouwerhabit]

in absolute loving memory

this past summer, i went on a road trip with someone i had never met. liz drove to my house & she met my family & my bunnies & ME. then she gave me the keys to her car & we drove 345 miles together to chicago. four days later, we got matching tattoos.

it sounds insane. it IS insane. but, as i lay on my couch and let the weight of the past few days crush every nerve in my body, it also feels like pure magic.

meeting liz and erika in chicago, pasc in pittsburgh and then in boston and countless others at different shows and in different cities, has only ever been magic. the people i love came into my life because at twelve years old i discovered a boy band called one direction and, all at once, their narrations would forever fuel my story’s greatest hits.

i am who i am today because of one direction. i KNOW who i am because of one direction. i love live music because they were my first concert.

i wear my heart on my sleeve because louis taught me that’s only ever a display of bravery. i will never shy away from a sequin because harry taught me that bold is beautiful. niall’s laugh brightens my soul. “if it feels like love, then it must be love,” will forever be my mantra. because of zayn, i know that choosing yourself is the strongest thing you can do.

and liam.

liam.

there will never be words. i just love you. i love you so much. i loved you when i was 12 & when i was 15 & when i was 18 & 20 & 24 & now i’m 25. my chest is empty. i don’t know how to move forward. i don’t know what to do. it doesn’t feel real that someone who means so much to me is just … gone. i keep expecting to wake up from this. i keep expecting you to still be here. i’m so mad that you’re not here. i’m so fucking angry & devastated & i don’t know what to do.

thank you for writing so many of my favorite songs. thank you for that time you did your whole #BEAFANDAY bit and made me laugh so hard i cried. thank you for being the foundation of my favorite band. thank you for being an ebullient force and for teaching me compassion, love, bravery, and patience. thank you. i wish i had 6 more decades to tell you how much i love you. i wish i had told you more. i hope that, wherever you are, you can hear me and that you know. god, i just hope you know. i will spend the rest of my life missing you.

i’m so, so sorry i couldn’t protect you in the same way you protected me during my teenage years and beyond- giving me a shelter to be ME in all my anxious, awkward, adolescent glory. you have always been my safe place. i needed you when i was 12 and when i was 15 and when i was writing essays for advanced writing classes about how much i loved you. i still need you now.

thank you, for everything. i hope you are at peace. i hope you are somewhere where you feel safe, happy, free. everything you deserved to feel when you were here. i promise when i talk about you, i will make sure everyone i love knows that were a force in a studio and that you were funny and brave and sincere and kind. there isn’t a me without you. the world will know that.

one direction always meant light and joy and safety to me. now it also means grief and loss and regret. but that means that in the midst of this heartbreak, i got to love and find a light as bright as you in this life.

until we meet again, my baby. always and forever. in every adventure i go on in the future- whether boston or chicago or wherever else life takes me, with this family we found together- i will think of you and i will never be anything but grateful. i love you more than you will ever know. thank you for the magic you brought into my life.

-lexie x

[hiddendruid]

Willow Month - Day 2: Favorite Relationship

This one is so hard for me. There’s so many wonderful relationships, so I'm gonna talk about multiple. So here are my favorite relationships in Willow (in no particular order):

1. Kit and Jade

I’ve seen my share of sapphic relationships, but not that many in fantasy. And none that immediately drew me in as strongly as these two. Not just their chemistry, but also just how much they bounce off each other as characters, if that makes sense. Like Jade being a courtly knight wanting to protect Kit, but also wanting to make sure Kit gets her training and not wanting to “save” her. And Kit being super selfish and taking her friendship with Jade for granted until she realizes how much she loves her???? Incredible 10/10.

2. Kit and Boorman

I feel like the way these two interact with each other is not only hilarious, but extremely relatable. As someone with an older brother, I FELT the sibling vibes between these two right away. Also the fact that they are both so intrinsically tied to Madmartigan and his legacy, it’s so good! I also love how Boorman passes off the cuirass and its power to Kit, knowing that its her story and her bravery that’s going to save the day. Poetry!!

3. Graydon and Elora

Listen. . .I could write ESSAYS about these two. They are THE relationship. From the moment Graydon told Elora she was extraordinary, I was in for the ride. There’s so many facets of their relationship that I could peel back and examine from their shared growth in doing magic to the ability for both characters to be able to share their trauma and crap with each other. Also SO MUCH ROMANCE I COULD EAT THIS SHIT UP. Like???? Graydon helping Elora with her magical pronunciation then saying “Perfect” while looking at her with his puppy dog eyes? Elora helping Graydon tie his shirt and looking deeply into his eyes?!?!?!?!?!?! 

“WHEN WE REACH THE IMMEMORIAL CITY, I KNOW YOU’LL SAVE AIRK AND YOU TWO WILL RUN OFF TOGETHER BECAUSE YOU LOVE HIM. AND WHILE I DON’T LOVE HIM I DO LOVE YOU. IT’S OKAY I’M NOT ASKING YOU TO LOVE ME BACK. I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW BECAUSE WITHOUT YOU I NEVER WOULD HAVE BECOME THE MAN I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE?!?!?!??!”

Deceased. Dead. Dead Deceased. Not to mention there’s still a whole other side of their relationship we haven’t been able to explore yet because Elora hasn’t fully grappled with her feelings for Graydon yet. (pst, this is one of the reasons we need a Season 2)

4. Kit and Elora

These two made me cry so much while watching this show. I’m a sucker for sister relationships. I love that Elora is such a big sister for Kit - giving her advice and helping her self-actualize - and then Kit is such a snotty little sister pushing Elora over the edge (literally) and getting her to be brave. Also the growth of their relationship over the course of the show is so fantastic. And it feels real. It doesn’t feel like forced drama. I just adore how Kit has to grapple not only with the fact that this kitchen maid is the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but also the fact that her life has been prioritized over hers. Their scene in “Beyond the Shattered Sea” at the waterfall was so powerful. 

5. Willow and Graydon

Honestly, I could make an argument for every relationship between Willow and another member of the party. But there’s something so special about Graydon and Willow’s relationship. The little back and forth between them in episode 3 was so silly “Which one of us is the High Aldwyn? Oh yeah, it’s me.” and “Don’t say groin in mixed company.” Are some highlights for me. But then episode 5 really cemented it for me. The two of them talking about Elora felt very much like a dad talking to his daughter’s boyfriend. But then, by the end, the fact that Willow (truthfully I might add) told Graydon that he’s a good person. And then from then on, we got to see Willow become a sort of mentor and guide for Graydon. Like??? I got so teary-eyed in the finale when Willow told Graydon he was “on his way to becoming a great sorcerer, and an even greater man” then screamed “NO” when Graydon got shunted into the Wyrm realm. Like?!?! It’s so perfect.

6. Graydon and Boorman

OK, last but certainly not least, I adore these two. I feel like Willow really nails non-toxic masculine friendships so well. Boorman initially being the target for Graydon’s dad, but then becoming a sort of older brother figure for Graydon is such a perfect little arc. Also, Boorman does a great job of bringing Graydon out of his shell. He’s so supportive, but also is such a wonderful comedic contrast to Graydon’s ‘straight man.’ Boorman saves Graydon’s flute from the Immemorial City. That’s so fantastic, and such a great little nod to how much Boorman cared about Graydon.

Again, there’s too many to choose, so I settled for 6. There’s so many amazing relationship dynamics in this show and all of them are so fantastic I could go on and on and on. 

[frannyzooey]

Your fics come HIGHLY recommended and I’m currently binging my way through your masterlist. I’m obsessed with your style of writing!

Do you have any advice for someone who’s just starting out writing? I’ve been a fan fiction lover for MANY (let’s say, 20ish?) years and as I’m finishing grad school, I thought it was time to start exploring new hobbies 😂 I can bust out a multi-page essay or thesis no issue, but I’m finding myself already being super critical of the few paragraphs I’ve typed up so far.

Hey! Welcome! ❤ The fact that my work gets recc'ed is so wild to me! I am so happy you're here!

As a fairly new writer myself (going on the beginning of year two, baby!) I would say: read, read, read. I had a really strong reading base when I started: both actual novels and fanfic alike, and it really helped out in terms of an idea of how to structure something, certain concepts that I was into/wanted to explore, and it also helped beef up my vocabulary (which I am still working on, admittedly).

It's hard not to be critical of your writing -- it's a new skill you're practicing, but it's also extremely personal -- and when you've read fic for a long time and then try to write it, it can be overwhelming at first because you're often playing the comparison game.

BUT: everyone starts somewhere. ❤

When I started, I just tried to write fragmented sentences and half formed ideas, just to get them down on paper. Then, I would try to piece them together, and put them in a coherent structure -- which helps show you what you're missing, and if you need to add anything (in terms of basic pacing/plot). Then, I tried to take those sentences one by one and make them better, single sentence at a time. Is that the word I want? Does that sentence sound right? Is that emotion what I am trying to invoke?

After that, I would usually ask someone to read it for me -- which is very, very hard and I 100% wanted to vomit the first time I handed something over because I didn't want to fail or for them to think I was stupid, but that's where finding your people comes in. ❤ Your cheerleaders, your hype squad, the ones you think about when writing and think "I hope they like this" -- ask someone you trust to check it out and HYPE YOU UP, because we all need it when we are starting.

Another thing I did when I was starting was focus on things I did like to read and pick them apart to see why I liked reading them. For me personally, I found that I am really drawn to simplistic writing with very neat sentences, very clear actions, and quite a bit of dialogue -- and after awhile, because I studied it so much and tried to actively revise my writing to mold into something like what I admire, I found it easier to be proud of it because you can 1) see and appreciate the hard work you put in, but also 2) you already like that style, so you're bound to like your own version of it!

It's a really brave thing you are doing, even putting those words down on paper and I am so PROUD of you. If you want a hype woman, I'm your gal! I would love to read and cheerlead you! Just DM me ❤

YOU ARE AMAZING and WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME ❤

[gumi-writes]

i love it when people give me essays about their characters... they are more than characters!!! they are pieces of the soul and the living person and i have life threatening rabies. i really enjoyed hearing what you have to share about her and would always like to hear more!

also, i just really love the concept of being a leper, a face not even a mother loves - lingering on the outskirts of both human and monsterkind since birth. not quite one or the other, and the lack of the security a suffocating binary provides might as well be worse (but what does it matter to tien when love cannot change this story).

is humanity a choice? is it memories, our passion, our experiences? one cannot ponder theseus' paradox if the ship was born of war's wounds. no matter how you look at it, she's like a bystander. even monsters have desires like a thorn in their ribes (ais has desires the enormity of which disgusts him, vere swallow his through his pride, mhin presses down on it like a bruise), and when you live your live rejected and whittled by desire, the tender intimacy even the strongest ache over mean nothing to you. manmade horrors, the thrill! they say god is man but man is not god because He was born of their desire for goodness and greatness (but they are not clean). they are of humans but she is not a human.

also really big fan of characters who are apathetic in the sense they can 'like' you, but you will never have a place for yourself amidst the patchwork of their life. to be guilty over such thing would prove the tragedy's nature so she feels no guilt. they feel no shame. there is no goodness hiding inside the hollow heart. loving in a world that is cruel is to be lion hearted - then, you are brave. then, you are strong. and a heart that never loves, even in shame and disgust, is strong as the sentinel tiger is.

which really ties into the foxglove also meaning insincerity and a hardened heart! it can heal, but it is unfeeling. the foxglove can be used therapeutically to increase heart contractions. again it ties to the heart. maybe the only way she can feel is if another's poison will die on her lips like with every forgotten memory under the graveyard of their tongue and take them with it. but the foxglove will always bloom in spite of hardship. that is the real shame. she will come back again and they must forget again.

something about tien saving the mc from death with her blood. something about binding each other together like a cursed vow.

on another note, i think one of the many reasons i like tien is because i have an oc who works as a soulless hunter for a church in one of the cities outside of eridia. to be whittled away into a blade until you do not even know the privilege of desperation. wow. my jam!

you know at the very least if i'm going to continue writing this much i only hope it all makes sense HAHA

i think so too! i actually recently had a discussion about the kind of things that compel us when it comes to the creation of characters and relationships, and though the answer is obviously very varied, there is something to be said about those that essentially use it as a method of processing or even healing, if it comes down to it. this way makes it impossible to not pluck some of you to put into an oc, but i think it’s more fun that way. but i’m really glad you did! 🥰 i do have a ludicrous amount of thoughts on her, so the opportunity to put some of it down on paper and not floating in my brain like some kind of haunting essay is well, it’s really nice!

a leper is honestly a great way to put it. hard to form any sense of belonging, of kinship, if you know nothing of personhood. it’s somehow both an objectification and an ascension, and without the firsthand of a before experience, how can you imagine a change let alone manifest it? things have always been like this. they will always be like this. what good is an indomitable strength if it only keeps you bound? and how can love hope to change anything other than to make an end worthwhile? she can’t hope for more. she doesn’t even know what that would look like. in a kinder world, love would be the answer. but this isn’t a kind world. and tiên herself would not exist as she is in one.

“one cannot ponder theseus’ paradox if the ship was born of a war’s wounds” goes hard as hell actually. i think so too. it’s not like we can look to see a before where there was a start and a descent—tiên was already in the thick of it the moment she was cognizant, and perhaps the tragedy here is that the opportunity to learn how to be remotely human was never offered and now too late to be of any use. she doesn’t want for nothing but are desires not the core tenet of being alive, one of the things that both man and monster share? (your summary of ais, vere and mhin was delicious btw <3) even an end, about the only thing she could crave feels a futility—so her existence is one of stagnancy, a transient, liminal ache of a thing where, on her own, she can only hope to experience thin slivers of humanity through the tiny bites of connection her blood allows her. and even then, it is barely above a nothing—a curiosity that will fade as soon as the moment passes with it.

guilt or shame are largely human emotions, anyhow. taught in response to something you’ve done wrong, but a living weapon has no such need for such humanity. a tool can only do the thing it was meant to do or it doesn’t, and such binary options leave no room for the internal maze of remorse. any goodness died as the world itself lay dying till the very last death rattle. you want to survive? you need to match the violence you were born in the cradle of. maybe the truth is we’re all a little monstrous here.

and honestly? i kind of liken tiên to a lonely, chained god. it accounts for that stagnancy and strength, and that strange purity despite being embroiled in blood. even her amorality and being seemingly above human things—joys and despairs alike. her heart, though i have not actually thought the specifics of the where, may as well have origins something both timeless and yet, long gone.

but it is a shame. being a certainty where nothing else is. she can’t even hope to realise she loves you, and can only afford you recognition where she has almost next to none. is it enough? is it fair? she can’t even honour anything you have, though she can only vaguely feel an absence that will only be devoured by the rest of her ceaseless existence.

oh, anon. you are speaking my language <3 for all her expertise in the dealing of death, she can deal life where she is invested enough to do so. she can compensate for blood loss, gently plug and sew your wounds, even mend your bones, but are you prepared to have her in you in a way that not even she understands the full extend of? if there is something other than nothing, her blood will help instead of harm. but it is the hand of something older than you both.

ooh! 🥰 as someone that (obviously) loves the psychological and emotional implications of living weapons, that sounds so exciting? you must tell me more if you’re up for it. sounds like they’re married to the job, so to speak, and all the hardening that comes with it! to fight monsters for a living is to become a bit of one yourself, and i have to wonder myself if your oc had a choice when it came to such a living. but maybe they’re not even cognizant of the lack of choice. but i’m just spitballing. i’d love to hear more regardless!

[clickpen]

hi i’m gonna post rambles about a book series nobody knows maybe. i came across it while reading an anthology called fell beasts and fair. idk if anyone will read this and i don’t care but i need to get out something in my brain. i have a degree in fiction writing or something idk

i don’t think anything’s really inspired me to sit down and think about stuff like this in a while but i read a book of queer essays before the anthology (queer reflections on horror) and i guess ive been in “alternate analysis” mode

but anyways when it comes to fae there’s always something to be said about neurodivergancy 

i think, as a nonbinary autistic person, there’s something distinctly fascinating about the city between series and pet. i'd initially gone "omg this must be some it/its nonbinary child" (the anthology short story is narrated by a leprechaun who doesn’t know pet’s gender and constantly thinks of “it” though there’s actually a typo that calls pet “she” in narration once that i noticed because i was laser focused)  bc there was only one use of pronouns and it seemed to be corrected back to it/its. like, i thought pet was an it/its human that happened to be correctly gendered bc the leprechaun didn’t apply a gender to her

and then i still didn't quite get it until a good way into the first book that pet was probably a she/her because athelas called her she mistakenly. as far as i recall, pet never calls herself a girl. 

even tho ive only read one short story and the first book so far (gonna read more once i’m paid for freelance stuff,) i’ve felt like there’s a strong lack of an Image of pet. like yeah she’s narrating but also she carries the story and her weight based on her personality, voice, and narration, it feels a lot like you’re looking into the world through this narrator. she doesn’t really seem to react much to being called it besides mild annoyance at the confusion rhe first time, mostly it's annoying that they keep trying to pretend they don't like her

but like (within the context of the first book n stuff) pet is talked about so little and has existed by her/itself for so long, unnoticed and hidden, that it feels like she/it truly lacks a personhood and has for a Long Time. like it’s already noted that nobody knew she existed. she may well not exist, but of course she does, she’s got such a hyperactive and involved personality and is brave and kind.

and only the people who seem to recognize that about her actually seem to talk to her as a Person. even though she’s ostensibly dehumanized by fae that are detached from the concept of humanity, they also award her more humanity and recognize her individuality and personality more than anyone has in SO long, bc she’s been hiding and not really interacting with people outside of work. 

there’s some trans metaphor i can see in there, that’s all i’m saying, but also something about adhd + autism and masking

i feel like she/it isn’t too bothered by going by pet because she hasn’t really gone by a name besides “you” for so long and just no longer has interest in pretty much anything human of that sort. she also takes quickly (and in a somewhat silly way) to this “role” because she’s not really been given a role in so long. i don’t think pet knows how to be a person or human, and doesn’t CARE to understand a right or wrong way of doing anything, she just is and only begins to exist around the freak squad. (i keep thinking of her as it/they)

i feel like i could write a whole thing about the comparisons between neurodivergant (ESPECIALLY autistic) people and fae, and the idea of autistic people forcing themselves to mask and pretend. and then also how trans people often have to hide who we are and only be ourselves in private, or how sometimes there’s a uniquely isolating experience about being trans and nonbinary and feeling disconnected from other people, even other trans people sometimes, because it’s hard to be Seen when you’re nonbinary

anyways pet is autistic and nonbinary (she/it/they/maybe just doesn’t care) and i’d hazard a guess at bi and/or ace if i wanna keep pushing the disconnect from others angle. 

[forlorngarden]

one of my grave flaws, as you might discover if you get close, is poisonous drive to martyrdom. sometimes it gets too much, and i need something to take me by the shoulders and give me a good fucking shake.

the best cure ive found so far is no good alone, an essay by internet princess. sharing my favourite parts here:

I can’t help but feel crushed by the weight of what I owe to my community, certain I’m going to hurt the people I’ve fooled into loving me.

Like many — dare I say, most — people in their early 20s, I find it hard to shake the feeling that my life is a pinball machine of relationships and opportunities that I’m hurtling through headfirst, knocking over bystanders and crashing into obstacles, unable to stop for long enough to figure out what I’m doing wrong.

The worst thing about this feeling is that it makes you a martyr. You may hate yourself, but you’re also a hero, bravely forgoing love and connection and community to protect the world from the car-bomb of your own instability. You sit in your room and tell yourself lies: that they don’t want to hear from you anyway; that you’ll wait here alone writing Notes app soliloquies until you become good enough to deserve other people; that it is a noble endeavour to punish yourself.

I look back at the person I was at eighteen and I hardly recognize her, which feels like a miracle and a tragedy all at once. Standing between me and my younger self are a thousand different individual experiences of failure and growth and redemption, each a moment of excruciating vulnerability being witnessed by the very people I wish could only see me at my best. It’s driven me to isolate myself, convinced that ritualistic self-punishment and pathetic martyrdom were the only ways I could ever make myself worthy of other people. I realized, though, that I was being a coward.

We all exist to save each other. There is barely anything else worth living for.

[forjongseong]

*knocking* since it’s written there

lol me reading something about studying as soon as i finished my exams🤡🤡. and it’s a studying for stupid IETLS. it’s not a studying it’s more a (stu)dying. hate everything that starts with sty- and ends with -dying.

so why heeseung getting the same score as before seems so funny to me??? and his excuse “i’d have gotten less without you”🙄. hope these tutoring sessions really helped him and he doesn’t have any problems during his study abroad. jake hoon hi🤭

okay okay okay that little interaction between y/n and the waitress!!! please tell me why do the waiters always want to pick up the dirty dishes right after i eat the last bite? they’re hunters with hawk eyes sometimes. what if i want to sit around dirty dishes a little longer mhm??

and student! jay being late reminded me of sec! rookie jay🥹 despite the fact that he came late he definitely called the impression. what an impression!! y/n was lowkey panicking admiring his handsomeness.girl same. we understand her cause look at him!! he doesn't have to do anything and i drool over him. tmi. a majestic black cat. jay’s never beating the black cat allegations fr.

him wanting a higher score than heeseung it’s just a boy moment. yk like boys comparing their dick sizes or number of hookups. boys🙄

AND WDYM WRTING ESSAY THE WAY JAY DOES IS WRONG????😟😟 i do it the same way??? for whole my life??? bro you should’ve written this fic a long time ago so maybe now my essay writing skills were at an all time high hdhdhd.

why was she surprised when he called the students stupid? if they don't listen to tutor who they paid money to who are they if not dumbasses?🤡 jay speaking facts right there.

y/n can’t stay mad at him for being late? simp behavior! him inviting her over to his house? act of a predator i think. nah forget it!! he just too cute with his nervous rumbling. like a virgin 🤭

EVERYONE PLEASE RISE FOR JAY IN RIMLESS GLASSES.🧎‍♂️🧎‍♂️MAN LOOKS WAY TOO GOOD IN THEM. and without them too.

false and not-given questions!!!! bro i hate it with all my heart and soul. always confuse me. jay and me in the same boat. we’re besties😎. just listen i can totally see with my eyes that needed information isn’t written in a question but what if i’m THAT stupid and i just didn’t comprehend it?? this type of questions is like “choose a correct answer: 1) a+a=2a; 2)a+a=a^2; 3)a+a=a”. fuck them.

“If I get the answer right,” he began, “would you show me your boobs?” OKAY I GET IT YOU’RE BOLD BRAVE DARING. “Alright, why not? Nothing to lose here,” NOT OKAY GAHSGSG. she should’ve not fallen for it. i honestly didn’t expect her to say that. i thought she’d react like a responsible tutor with “are you out of your mind? are those questions that hard to answer? i can explain it to you again” and laugh it out. but she’s wild and we love it.

NAUR JAY YOU PUSSY😭😭😭 YOU DARED NOONA TO SHOW YOU BOOBS YET YOU CHICKENED OUT NAUR DON’T BE LIKE THAT. AND NOOO CONSTRUCTION WORKER PLEASE READ THE ROOM. he surely doesn’t have a nunchi (plz get this joke🙏).

“I meant like, I think I could get motivated a lot if there was a reward waiting if I get a question right. Or if I reach a certain score in a mock test, don’t you think?” sure sure let’s see where your little game takes you. sorry it reminded me of dog that waits for the treat after completing the trick🤡

“Well, you’d probably be getting in between something.”…and you brought your hand to your thigh, patting it. STOP THE MADNESS RIGHT THERE. I CANT HANDLE IT.

*clearing my throat* *cough cough* usually 7.5 rounds off to 8 so Jay could receive a blowjob hahah. the makeout🤌🤌🤌 please kissing licking sucking jays birthmark😫😫 that’s all we want. is that too much to ask?

“Seamless,” he commented as he eyed your panties. would be cute if it was polka dots or striped panties🤭.

so jay is that of boyfriend who prioritizes his partners pleasure over his own? huh? and his fingers?? the way they curl??? he plays the guitar doesn’t he?? you have be good with fingers for that no?? once chance jay one chance im begging.

“It’s unfair,” Jay began, “the way you taste as good as you smell.” sir it’s unfair the way you look hot as you sit as you breath as you walk as you exist. you shouldn’t talk about the unfairness in this situation.

“In that case,” you said, pushing his chest slightly so he could move away from you. You tugged down your panties that had stayed on the whole time, and when you took them off your ankles you handed them to Jay. ughhhhhhghgg i just know he was jerking off holding panties with one hand right under his nose. like 🤤🤤

okay where the angst came from???😃😃 “I appreciate what you’ve been doing for me, but I also don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” the audacity. HAGAGAGAGAG BOY YOU FUNNY. made my giggle at night.

“If I get over 7.5—”“I’ll treat you to lunch.” what it's like to get the same thing in return? pleasant right? nice jay. good job. and you tell me he’s the top student in class? bro is stupider than these students who didn’t listen to y/n’s advices in the first part of fic. even though he get 8.5 he still stupid.

“The day of our last meeting when I said I needed to remain focused. I was trying to confess to you.” see!! who confesses like this??? only stupid boys. i get it. jay is just a book smart. what if before y/n noona he only saw human body in med books😱😱 he’s nerd after all.

“When I said if I get more than 7.5, I was going to say I wanted to eat you out.” top5 phrases to ruin the mood.

why he’s teasing her!?!?! why he’s teasing us?!/!/! please just fuck her already with your huge and thick and beautiful (i just know it) dick!!

“Tell me if it’s okay to move,” he whispered ever so gently before kissing your nose. but a point to him waiting till yn adjusts.🥹

Your hand was looking a little lonely, so he took it and intertwined his fingers with yours. fhfghfg “your hand looks heavy. can i hold it for you?”🤓

“So, what are we?” You asked in the most straightforward manner. TOP1 PHRASE TO RUIN THE MOOD.

GIRL I REREAD THE REWARD FOR THE THIRD TIME AND ITS 6 AM I DIDNT GET ANY SLEEP IM OVERWHELMED BYE

I read this review three times already and it's hilarious every time omg not you DRAGGING jay and literally calling him book smart, brave and a pussy in the same sentence, stupid and smart in the same sentence I AM CACKLING

glad you think it's wild because that means I achieved something... this is still by far my favorite one shot i have ever written for jay!

[radioactive-earthshine]

Hello I’m brave enough to offer insight (but not enough to show my face). As you guessed, it’s a combo of having nostalgia for DC animated properties and struggling get into comics.

The pre-ordering comics system confuses me. The comic shop near me only does pre-orders and it’s not for everything? I tried to order a new Flash thing and couldn’t because it wasn’t offered. And I don’t know why! The entire process seems expensive and requires me to be plugged into comics news. And I’m. Not. Which I could solve via 🏴‍☠️but I don’t have enough faith in my ad blocker for 🏴‍☠️. So most of my comics knowledge outside of comic adaptions (tv shows, radio plays, movies) comes from people posting panels on this website.

I don’t create content, but I like to draw and read what other people have to say about a Chara. I will read character essays literally forever. It brings me joy during my lunch break. I want to continue to play in the space. I have a 200+ comics read list, but I haven’t started because I feel Iike someone standing in the cereal aisle, just completely overwhelmed by choice. And also like the cereal is behind glass and I have to ask a grumpy attendant to get a box for me. And about half of the boxes have the gnarliest box art I’ve ever seen in my life.

This isn’t to invalidate how annoyed people can get at fanon spaces. I get it. Esp in comics where a lot of people’s first encounter the material through Ao3, which causes its own set of problems. But you asked for an explanation and this is what I’ve got. Comics are hard to get into, animation and fanon are easy to experience, easier to get for free, and will often point me towards the comic stuff *actually worth reading*. Go in peace.

As a P.S. there’s another problem where me as a child did try to get into comics around 2008, picked up a book with my favorite lady hero in it and uh. Quickly realized these books wrote to a demogaphic that was not me. At 13 it felt like the writers didn’t seem to care about this Chara as much as I did beyond being sexy. Which can maybe be taken with a grain of salt b/c y’know. I was 13.

Not all comics are like this! I know that! But in the back of my mind everytime I pick up a comic I’m expecting the worst. And while that can be fun - sifting through years of history to find gems of art or writing- personally I find it frustrating and would rather wait and have the comic events distilled for me via wiki, tv show, movie, or…fanon. Maybe I’ll use the DC app when I have more money.

Thank you for taking the time to write out such a well-thought out answer and it does offer some great insight as to why someone might be hesitant to start reading comics - and I get it.

There's nuance in all comic experiences and comics!

They're sexist, they're not, they're dated, but amazing progressive, they're hard to get into, actually not they're not fans have put together lovingly curated reading lists etc etc etc.

No two comic fans, or DC fans experiences are the same. What I DO appreciate though is that you take the time to stop and question/research first which is a hell of a lot better than some.

I hope someday soon you get the energy to read some of those comics because really, there is nothing better than reading them yourself to gain knowledge - no matter how much meta you read, no matter how concise the wiki, no matter how thorough your friends are reading them is the best way. Because then the canon is yours, its your world then to do what you will.

[hoidn]

anon frēond asked for Sergio/Raquel and it took too long because i always overthink things sorry.

1. What made you ship it?

the tipping point at which i went from “ah, yes, the narrative is leading me to believe these people will be romantically involved” to “Help, I Am Emotionally Compromised By These People Being In The Same Scene And/Or Talking To Each Other” was when raquel tells sergio about her husband’s abuse in 1x04. raquel is just so vulnerable and real and brave and earnest, and then so utterly surprised by this complete stranger not only believing her but also offering to help her. and obviously the dramatic irony is that we know it’s part of the con, except double dramatic irony because it’s also very much not part of the con. while the professor might have come up with the idea of approaching the inspector as salva to get close to her, sergio is the one who’s beginning to realise just how much he’s underestimated this woman. she’s not just a chess piece to him anymore, not just inspector murillo, but a whole person who’s suffered and continues to suffer under the same system he’s trying to fight.

his face when she puts her hand over his just does something to me. he reminds me of a domesticated animal that’s not feral but also isn’t used to human contact. when someone touches an animal like that, its reaction is exactly like sergio’s: freezing, surprise, confusion. usually the animal will very slowly start to relax when it realises there’s no ill intent in the touch. sergio doesn’t get to that stage because ángel interrupts them, alas. but the way sergio then yanks his hand back as if he’s done something wrong is a very interesting reaction in and of itself. and we know raquel is also feeling some things because when he pulls away, she looks confused and hurt until she notices ángel. (does it seem like i’ve watched the scene many times? because i’ve watched the scene many times.)

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

as i wrote recently: if you'd told me back in november that i'd become deeply emotionally invested in a relationship that starts off with subterfuge and deceit, then progresses into them chaining each other to pipes and holding one another at gunpoint, finally culminating in the promise of happily ever after, i would've rolled my eyes hard enough to sprain them. on paper the premise is so far away from what i value in relationships (equality, trust, a complete lack of stalking), that if i'd known about it i probably would've never watched the show. 

and i’m so glad i did watch it because it’s one of those rare examples of how good writing makes the unexpected compelling. the very relationship dynamics i ordinarily don’t like are exactly what i love about this ship entirely because of the complexity and nuance of their treatment. trust is my #1 favourite thing and the story of sergio and raquel’s relationship is nothing less than a tour de force exploration of trust in all its permutations. they’re two damaged people who are caught unawares by a bond that grabs them and won’t let go. they have this instinctive level of trust in each other right from the start, and even in their worst moments together, even when they don’t believe they can trust each other, they want to, and even when the trust seems broken, on some deep unconscious level it remains intact. i have a lot of feelings about this!

(like, okay, it’s entirely deliberate that their first conversation in 1x02 and their final conversation in 2x08 both include the question “can i trust you?” and are essentially the complete opposite of each other in every single aspect. just those two exchanges in and of themselves represent an entire essay about the characters and the journey of their relationship mediated through the concept of trust, and i’m such a nerd that i could actually write that essay because i live for this stuff.)

my #2 favourite thing is a woman arriving in a guy’s life and tearing it wide open then mending it just by existing. that pretty much describes every f/m ship i’ve ever had and these two are a particularly concentrated and superb example of the genre. also lbr they are Very Pretty together.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

honestly, i don’t feel that i know enough about the popular opinions in LCDP fandom to know what’s unpopular. one thing that i’ve noticed, though, at least in a lot of fic i’ve encountered, is the idea that sergio should have punished alberto in some way in order to avenge raquel. for me that’s a hard no. whether or not sergio has thought the situation through, or just instinctively understands it, the fact that he doesn’t take it upon himself to take any action against alberto post-heist is absolutely the best thing he could do for raquel. an abusive relationship strips you of your self-worth, your autonomy, your confidence in your ability to make good decisions. so as difficult and painful as it is for raquel to have to handle all the alberto-related shit herself, someone else just sweeping in and “fixing” it for her (without her knowledge or consent) would simply be another instance in which she’s deprived of control of her own life. now, if at some point sergio asked her if she wanted him to do something about alberto and she said yes, that would be absolutely fine because she’s in charge of making the decision herself. but taking that opportunity away from her is exactly what alberto did and, no matter how well-intentioned sergio’s actions would be, ultimately it’s the same thing.

[shmothman]

Thank you for responding! I love the essay you wrote about what we've seen about his character thus far and you brought up good points! When you put it like that, his 'recklessness' does come from things that he planned for. While true, having the Brave Asagi fly through a thunderstorm for the sake of shaking of the Explorers is reckless, it also gave Cap a power boost from the lightning, bringing back that image of Ash's Pikachu way back in the first episode getting struck by lightning against the Spearow flock.

And yeah, instead of letting Liko just rush in like that, he held her back and put down a plan; distracting Amethio with a battle while Liko goes ahead to save her Pokemon. It makes me wonder if Amethio would wise up and makes it harder for Friede to taunt him into battles, seeing that he's done it twice now. I'm super intrigued to see the origins for the crew! Like, how did he scrounge up people from various backgrounds and ages, and where the Brave Asagi even came from. Did they build it from scratch? Repurpose an existing blimp for their purposes? It's super technologically advance to me, given that they can have an on deck battling arena plus those force fields(?) covering it. From the character sheet we've seen of him, there was one where he made this pouty face and one that I could see where he's getting reprimanded or maybe feeling sick. Given that there's Mollie on board, I just want to see moments where he's wrangled into the infirmary for one reason or another. With the stunts he's pulled thus far, I want to see one where things doesn't go exactly as plan. He strikes me as someone who maybe has a hard time staying still. I know I'm waiting every week for new bits of information cause I want to write him so much!

Right right right—the thunderstorm bit seemed risky, but I think it really mostly showed that he has confidence in what he does; he didn’t doubt his and pikachu’s ability to navigate through it safely, and he knew the tactical advantage it would give to pikachu in battle. (There’s the question of whether learning that these things would work took a lot of risk on his part in the past, and I do have an inkling that he was more reckless as a kid/teenager than he is now, but who knows what we’ll learn about his past.)

And yes I also hope Amethio is the type of antagonist that doesn’t fall for the same thing twice—now that he knows Friede is prone to Being The Distraction, I hope they’ll have to find new ways to beat them! (Though, if we’re being honest, we’re coming from the series that had ash/team rocket fall for the same things every time, so we’ll see 🤣) And I really want to see what Friede does when plan A doesn’t work 👀👀

I’m so excited to see the origins of the crew, too! I mean obviously Molly has a history with the Nurse Joys (given the pink hair, the Chansey, and the fact that she didn’t want to go into the pokemon center) so my guess for her is that she ran away from being a nurse—and what better way to leave everything behind than to join the crew of an airship. But I would guess that either they were all friends and decided to go into the adventuring business together, or Friede was the one who came up with the idea and met/hired/befriended the rest along the way. Or Captain Pikachu found them all 🤣🤣 it’s anybody’s guess right now!

I wouldn’t say that the airship is super advanced, given what we’ve seen of the rest of the technology in the pokemon world: the forcefield around the battlefield reminds me of the energy barriers in the stadiums in the journeys series—it’s probably pretty standard tech in-universe. And there have been much more futuristic methods of travel, off the top of my head I remember Hunter J’s airship from the Diamond and Pearl series; though I do get the idea that it was at least a little bit cobbled together—or at least improved by Orla and the rest of the crew when they got it. Maybe they inherited it from someone? Maybe they bought it? I can’t wait to find out!

I also agree that he seems like someone who can’t stay still (listen I know I’m always HCing my favs with at least one of my Mental Issues but this one for sure has adhd)—I would bet that he’s always looking for the Next Mystery to Solve, and would probably get restless pretty quickly if there wasn’t anything to do next. But I also think he’s okay when the thing to do next is just… make some money 🤣 because hey, more money means more adventure, right? Though I do think he took this job more for the mystery of it than the money of it 🤣 it really seems like he’d do just about anything for a good mystery 👀👀

[astral-catastrophe]

I posted 9,463 times in 2022

That's 9,282 more posts than 2021!

3,462 posts created (37%)

6,001 posts reblogged (63%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@twink-between-worlds

@endless---possibility

@ sun-of-the-skys

@jay-the-local-acetronaut

@star-ocean-peahen

I tagged 5,671 of my posts in 2022

Only 40% of my posts had no tags

#jays being dumb again - 1,004 posts

#jays asks - 581 posts

#&lt;3 - 238 posts

#jays links - 183 posts

#linked universe - 144 posts

#partner in crime twiddiebella - 95 posts

#beloved sunny - 68 posts

#jays writing again - 58 posts

#anyways - 55 posts

#fate of hylia - 55 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i’ve got some tests. and i’m starting some essays. i’ve got stuff in my online classes that are due. and i’ve got to finalize the headcount

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

lu crack fic where dink kidnaps various members of the chain for information or whatever, but gets very annoyed and returns them immediately

177 notes - Posted May 27, 2022

#4

Every time I use this “<3” all I can think about is Sky speaking in emojis

Mutuals, when I use the heart this is literally the only thing going through my brain lol

215 notes - Posted March 20, 2022

#3

ha I have more incorrect quotes-

Wind: All of your existences are confusing.  The Squad: How so?  Wind: Your presence is annoying, but the thought of anything bad happening to any of you upsets me.  ——

Four: I’m telling you, my team is competent.  Twilight, rushing in: Four! Hyrule tried to make pasta in the coffee pot and now it's broken!

——

Twilight: Did you like the food I made?  Legend: No, not really.  Twilight: But I put my heart and soul into it!  Legend: No wonder it tastes so cold and dead.  ——

Wild: It was difficult, so you’ve just given up. You might fail, so why bother trying?  Warriors : Exactly.  Warriors , to Legend: I told you they’d understand.  ——

Legend: *running towards Hyrule with open arms*  Hyrule: *moves out of the way*  Legend: Hey, why'd you move?!  Hyrule: I thought you were going to attack me.  Legend: I was going to hug you!  Hyrule: Why would you hug me?  Legend: WHY WOULD I ATTACK YOU!?

——

Hyrule: Adulting is hard.  Hyrule: How do I quit?  Time: Time travel.  Wild: Die.

——

Warriors : What does “take out” mean?  Hyrule: Food.  Legend: Dating.  Twilight: Murder.  Wild: It can be all three if you’re brave enough. 

255 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

#2

Are we not gonna talk about how Rulie looks like some Shakespearean actor tho

my boy could easily be acting out Romeo and Juliet or The Tragedy of Julias Caesar

461 notes - Posted February 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

so i’ve read a bunch of zelda fics where the red potion (and all the other potions in general) taste bitter and disgusting. Idk where that came from, but

red potions that taste like that shitty cherry medicine that was emotionally scarring as a child

blue potions that are advertised to taste like blue raspberry or blueberries but it just tastes like the most saturated version of the color blue

and green potions that taste like that apple flavored candy that’s so overwhelming that you find it hard to breathe

anyways, zelda game potions but they taste weird instead of just being gross

560 notes - Posted March 28, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[rivalsforlife]

Phoenix Wright: The Truth Reborn: Oh No We’re Doing This Again

hi.

Nearly two months ago, I wrote an essay summarizing and making very wild conclusions about the second Takarazuka Musical. I did this about two and a half years after watching the first Takarazuka musical. As such I did not have the full context for many things from the musical and was relying mostly on my memory, which blocked many things from this musical for my own safety. However, just this week, I decided to rewatch it, because I enjoy tormenting myself. I said I wouldn’t write anything on it. Here I am writing something on it.

Here’s the youtube thumbnail so that you know what you’re getting yourself into. And here, of course, is the link. This is the HD version which may be slightly more pleasant to watch. Maybe.

It was not quite as cringe in a funny way as the second musical to me, and therefore this essay may be less funny, but I feel like I’m doing a disservice to people by providing a summary of the second musical while completely neglecting the first. Quite possibly doing this is even more of a disservice. I just eagerly await the day that the third musical is translated because *that* will be the day that I finally shuffle off this mortal coil. Either way, I want to write this stuff down so that I never have to watch the musical again out of curiosity.

The following essay will contain major spoilers for both the first and second Phoenix Wright Takarazuka musicals, as I will be using many points from this musical to argue my thesis of the second musical. ... like you were going to watch them anyways. 

This one broke 8k. I’m dead inside.

Introducing The Director

Again another disclaimer that I don’t have anything against the actresses or the theatre troupe. I DO have something against Suzuki Kei, who I recently learned is the writer and director of all three of the Ace Attorney Takarazuka musicals, and is quite possibly my mortal nemesis.

This man is the one who brought this monstrosity into the world.

This man, allegedly, cleared the first four ace attorney games *seven times* before sitting down to write these musicals. He played these goddamn games seven times and did not take in a single word. The man clicked through them mindlessly while watching a badly written legal romance drama in the background and got them completely confused. I genuinely have no idea how this man could have played these games more times than even me and yet managed to get so many characters (MAYA!!!!) completely and utterly wrong. This haunts me every day, truly.

This man played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations, and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney seven times. SEVEN TIMES EACH!! and was told to create a musical based on the series. He played these games seven times each and you know what he said?? You know what he said?? “This sucks, I’m getting rid of all of Phoenix’s backstory, butchering half the characters, and writing Phoenix/Lana fanfiction, but also rewriting all of Lana’s backstory so that she was Phoenix’s childhood friend, and you know what, I’m changing her name for good measure.”

I think this man played the games seven times each and then hated it so much and was so sick of it he tried to write something that destroyed as much of the series as possible while still being vaguely recognizable. And then somehow it became a massive hit because people like me see this and go “what the actual hell” and watch it, or people who haven’t played the games see this and go “wow what a great musical!” and then he wrote TWO MORE, destroying EVEN MORE every time in his wake, until finally, finally, he stopped after making Edgeworth straight and time traveling into the past to face off against a corrupt Gregory. I guess that was the last straw.

I have to issue a disclaimer here that for legal reasons this is a joke. I don’t actually hate this man and would not punch him in the face if I met him because that would be rude, and he is entitled to his wrong interpretation of the games. I don’t know what his thought process was. But allegedly he did play the games seven times according to the wiki. This whole essay here is satire and not slander and I don’t want to offend this guy if he somehow stumbles across my nonsense tumblr post. At the same time: Suzuki Kei blink twice if you need help.

Anyways half the reason that I’m making this essay is because I want to share my fake ao3 page for this musical. The other half will become apparent later.

Sorry if that’s illegible because of tumblr quality it’s not really important. All you really need to know is that it’s a fake ao3 screenshot for the musical. Also in the author’s note I said he played the games four times but it was actually seven I just remembered wrong because I didn’t want to believe it.

at this point you may be like “Grace shut up and get to the actual musical” and okay, fine, let’s start this nonsense. Also note that I may be referencing things from my essay on the second musical very frequently; I’m not going to force you to go read that though because the fact that you’re reading this is enough of a torment already.

The Musical Begins

Unlike the second musical, this one opens with some narration from Phoenix.

Transcript:

Phoenix: I’m reviewing a particular case at the moment. To me, this case... is one I’ll never forget.

Immediately I think this is important because it establishes that this whole musical takes place in a flashback that Phoenix is reflecting on. Why is this important? Because we know, by the time of the second musical which takes place three years later, Leona is dead.

Knowing that Leona is inherently doomed to die of her Sad Woman Disease paints this whole musical in a different light. It’s not Phoenix reflecting on how he got back together with his lover; it’s Phoenix dwelling on their past together, and the opportunities they had, before her life was so cruelly and inexplicably taken away. We don’t know if Phoenix’s reminiscing takes place before or after Leona’s death... but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was after.

Phoenix, still in the present, starts to sing. “A wave appears on the horizon like a mirage, it trembles, then vanishes. Your voice, carried upon the waves, fades upon the shore, erasing the splendor of the past.”

This line actually shows up in the second musical, sung by Lucia about her imprisoned fiance quite possibly. It’s kind of hard to tell what the meaning of these songs even are. They’re too abstract for me I think. But this line appears very frequently in the first musical when Phoenix is thinking about Leona.

Then we enter the flashback time.

Phoenix inexplicably yells at a newspaper saleswoman. This is not relevant to anything whatsoever. Then Larry barges in to the office, looking for Maya. Phoenix describes him as “A real trouble maker, but you just can’t hate the guy”, the latter part of which I think many people would disagree with. 

Well, afterwards, Maya comes in. Phoenix describes her like this while making exaggerated “can you believe this shit” gestures.

Transcript:

Phoenix: She’s as ditzy as they come. Oh, and about the outfit... Apparently she comes from a family of spirit mediums. Try not to make fun of her, okay?

Suzuki Kei personally has it out for Maya and I can never forgive him for it. Maya in these musicals is here for pure comedic relief but it’s not even comedic because I just get so angry. How can you play the trilogy seven times and think this about her?? The girl who figured out DL-6?? The girl who told Phoenix to sacrifice her life in order to find the truth?? The girl who put on a brave smile in order to try and cheer up her younger cousin even after she saw her own mother murdered right in front of her eyes?? That Maya Fey?? Ditzy as they come??????

Ugh. Moving on.

Maya and Larry run off, leaving Phoenix to watch the American Broadcast.

Important things to note here are the Godot mug, the little line up of what I think are the messed up little ace attorney figurines beneath the screen, and the fact that while this broadcast is supposedly from and to America the screen is actually not at all showing America. Like literally almost everywhere in the world except North and South America.

The broadcast says that Leona Clyde, age 24, was arrested for murdering the senator Robert Cole! Leona Clyde -- that’s Phoenix’s ex-girlfriend! He runs off to the detention center.

She is not happy to see him.

Leona: Mr. Wright... I’m not the woman you once knew.

Let’s Play A Matching Game

Sorry for the abundance of screenshots that are going to be throughout this section. Phoenix convinces Leona to let him defend her. Some of the conversation seems... familiar.

Leona: No one would defend someone who admits to killing a senator. I’m waiting for a court-appointed attorney.

Edgeworth: Every defense attorney I’ve talked to has turned me down.

Phoenix: In that case, let me defend you.

Game Phoenix: Let me defend you.

Leona: Don’t be ridiculous!

Edgeworth: Don’t be ridiculous.

Phoenix: I’ll never accept that you’re a murderer. Let me prove your innocence!

Game Phoenix: Huh? Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to prove that Miles Edgeworth is innocent.

Leona: I’ve already confessed my guilt.

Gumshoe: He confessed that he did it! In court!

Leona: It’s foolish to think you can win this case.

Edgeworth: My case is near hopeless, Wright.

Leona: (in response to phoenix offering to defend her) No you won’t! Don’t ever come here again.

Edgeworth: Look, just go away, and leave me alone!

Phoenix: You of all people should know. Once I decide to do something, I see it through to the end.

Edgeworth: Once you start on something, you always see it through, don’t you?

Leona: I never thought that you’d be representing me.

Phoenix: Ah, who could have guessed this day would come?

Edgeworth: Not me.

Phoenix: You believed in me. You saved me. And this time, I swear... I swear I’ll save you!

Game Phoenix: Edgeworth believed in me, and I believe in him. I’m the only one who knows the real Edgeworth. I’m the only one who can help him.

I could’ve done a few more, but tumblr is already threatening to murder my laptop.

So long story short, Phoenix manages to convince his lover to let him be the defense on the case. Then immediately after swearing to save Leona, he starts singing a song, which I’m not screencapping because this is enough:

“As long as there are people in this world, there’s only one path I will follow! As long as there is love in this world, there’s only one path I will believe in!”

Edgeworth sings this in the second musical after saying that he returned to California because of Phoenix. Phoenix sings it now after swearing to defend Leona. You draw your own conclusions.

And then we finally get the opening credits. Eleven minutes in.

Just Pretend This Is Narumitsu Fanfiction

Following the credits, we see a beautiful beach. Couples (exclusively heterosexual, of course,) dance and embrace in the background for some time, before revealing Phoenix and Leona, in the Even Further Past, before the LSATs or whatever the ace attorney universe’s excuse for law school exams are.

Phoenix establishes his absolute hatred of change, an important characterization moment.

Phoenix: The view here never changes, huh?

Phoenix reminisces on when they were kids. Leona’s parents were both lawyers (they’re both lawyers) and sometimes they would be like lawyers with her when she was a kid. This inspired her to also become a lawyer after their tragic death of Sickness. They never specify what the sickness is that caused two people who must be relatively young to die while Leona was in her early twenties at the latest. It may be whatever sickness claimed Leona’s life later. Sad Woman Disease. (Sad Man Disease for her father, I guess?)

Phoenix also talks about why he’s becoming a lawyer.

Phoenix: Watching you chase your dream inspired me to become a lawyer too.

So, it’s not “my childhood friend looked sad in a newspaper” because I guess that makes no sense or is too gay or something. But this is another important piece of Phoenix characterization. His entire life so far has been focused around Leona. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and then Phoenix decided to become a lawyer solely because Leona was becoming a lawyer. Not even to try and get back into contact with her after she moved away or anything; just because he’s so obsessed with her that he wants to have the same career as her, then they can run a Mom & Pop Law Firm or something, years in the future, after years of happy marriage and a few children or like whatever the hell.

Well, there’s a few steps they’ll need to get to that. At this point Phoenix still hasn’t confessed his feelings for Leona. He does so here, on this beach.

Leona tries to protest.

Leona: But I’m pushy, selfish, and only care about my goals... You’d get fed up with me.

Phoenix: That’s what I’ve always admired about you. That’s who I’ve been chasing all these years. That’s the only person... I love.

Sooo, Phoenix, your type is pushy selfish people who only care about their goals...? In the first, older lower-quality video translation it was “only care about my work”, too. Hm. Things to think about.

They sing a little duet together. Then we go back to present-day of what’s technically still a flashback. Whatever. Murder is happening.

Back To The Murder

So some plot things to establish: Leona is the legal counsel of Governor Miller, who is running for president in the AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. After the flashback so that Phoenix has some time to change clothes, they show an interview of him talking about the murder.

Governor Miller: I vow to forge a peaceful country with my own two hands, and to prepare myself for whatever may lie ahead.

Reporters: Through thick and thin, he’s a friend of the people!

The Takarazuka musicals are not very good at hiding their killers.

Phoenix: Oh yeah... It’s almost time for the presidential election, isn’t it?

NEVER FORGET, WRIGHT. THIS IS AMERICA. LAND OF THE FREE! god what even was that line.

Anyways, we meet Gumshoe, who is incompetent once again. Maya runs around the crime scene, picks up the murder weapon, puts her fingerprints all over everything, moves things around, all while Phoenix is like “lol get a load of the world’s stupidest girl” or whatever. But who cares about that.

It’s time to get to the only valid part of this musical.

Edgeworth’s Gay Little Villain Solo

You may have seen this one before.

Edgeworth arrives, but not really. It’s like Phoenix heard Edgeworth was prosecuting and immediately entered a dream-like state, where Edgeworth is heralded by the sound of trumpets in Great Revival. He’s played by a different actress than in the other two musicals, since I think she retired in between the six or so months from this musical to the second. She still plays the role well, though, or as well as can be when you’re written in an ace attorney Takarazuka musical.

Shrouded in scarlet solitude... it’s Edgeworth.

Yes, those are six Edgeworths. Yes, they pick Phoenix up and carry him around and dance with him. Yes, it was probably not meant to be at all homoerotic.

He sings a song that’s called “My rule”. I only figured this out later, but it’s loosely based on a “catchphrase” of his in the Japanese version - in game 1 he says something along the lines of “All I can do is get every defendant declared guilty! So I make that my policy.” In DD in his dramatic anime introduction before the trial, he says “I intend to question the defendant with all I have. For that is a part of my creed.” “So I make that my policy” and “For that is a part of my creed”, to my understanding, are both translated from the same line, which I think is like, “sore ga watashi no ruru”, “That is my rule.” (If I’m wrong, please correct me.) In this song he sings about how he’ll reduce all criminals to ash and such, basically talks about his game 1 prosecuting strategy as “my rule”. 

It’s very fun and probably if you want to only watch one number of this musical, it can be this one. It starts about 26:10 in the video I linked.

Once the musical number is done, Phoenix and Edgeworth stare at each other, and the background fades into the courtroom, so court begins. I feel like I should note that Phoenix has not picked up any evidence or talked to any witnesses in this investigation except for Gumshoe, since Maya just moved some things around and then Phoenix had some weird fever dream about Edgeworth which presumably took up the rest of the day.

The Trial, Day 1

Edgeworth: Consider it a prelude to the poignant Greek tragedy that’s about to unfold.

Maya: The real tragedy’s your pompous attitude!

Those are the only screenshots I took of this trial day. Here’s a summary, though:

The trial starts off with Leona confessing, Phoenix says “no I think she’s innocent”, and since ace attorney doesn’t care about the defendant’s wishes he’s allowed to proceed. For some reason Leona lets him do this without complaint. 

Gumshoe is the first witness, he claims to have caught Leona red-handed at the scene of the crime, standing over the corpse. Phoenix tries to claim that since Gumshoe didn’t see Leona committing the crime, he didn’t actually catch her red-handed, to which Edgeworth responds “What do you think being caught red-handed means?” 

Once Gumshoe is dismissed, Lotta takes the stand. She has a photo of the actual moment of the crime, where Leona is holding a knife in the air in front of the victim. 

The Takarazuka musicals like to do this thing where the image is blurry and zoomed out, but then Phoenix will go “I’VE NOTICED A CONTRADICTION” and it zooms in really far as the resolution increases drastically in order to show you the contradiction that is impossible to spot for yourself, because they don’t want people figuring out the mystery in this musical based off of a video game where you have to solve the mystery yourself. Anyways Phoenix zooms in on this photo and sees that there’s blood on Leona’s hand, presumably before she stabbed the victim. How did it get there?

Edgeworth suggests the victim was stabbed multiple times. Phoenix says the autopsy report contradicts that. Edgeworth, uncharacteristically, does not update it to suit his argument. 

Phoenix concludes that this photo is not showing the moment Leona stabbed the victim, but the moment Leona removed the knife! ... Which somehow casts doubt on her having been the one to stab the victim. Because as everyone knows, anyone wanting to kill someone would never remove a knife, it’s not like they’d bleed out faster that way, or anything.

And this whole contradiction is confusing because presumably if the victim was stabbed and then the knife was removed, they’d know that happened, because then the knife would not be found stuck in the victim’s body, since the victim was only stabbed once. So this shouldn’t be news to the prosecution that someone removed the knife after stabbing. But the investigation was headed by the most incompetent version of Gumshoe ever, so. sure. I guess no one knew.

That at least manages to extend the trial another day.

This Totally Has To Be Illegal

After the trial, Phoenix goes to talk to Governor Miller, aka Mr. Totally The Real Killer. Phoenix asks him why he decided to hire Leona as his legal advisor.

Basically, it’s because her parents were both renowned lawyers. Her father was a Chief Prosecutor, and her mother was a defense attorney. ... a prosecutor and a defense attorney couple... who does that remind us of...

Phoenix points out that just because her parents were good lawyers, it doesn’t mean she’d necessarily be one. Miller says that, sure, but she is actually really talented, and her law school marks were spectacular. Phoenix says “WHY WERE YOU LOOKING AT HER LAW SCHOOL MARKS”, like it’s somehow? suspicious? for a government official hiring legal counsel to look at their law school marks?

Apparently it IS suspicious because Governor Miller freaks out and asks if this is an interrogation. Before Phoenix can press much further, he gets a phone call, and leaves Phoenix alone in a big room.

So naturally Phoenix behaves like a fully grown adult running a law firm.

If all he did was sit in the chair, lift up a desk lamp, and poke his finger on a pen, that’s one thing. But then he leans over, OPENS THE GOVERNOR’S DESK DRAWER, and finds a knife that’s just sitting there casually. It looks like a butter knife. It’s not anything major. Maybe the dude just wanted to butter his toast?

I mean I know Phoenix will dig around in stuff whenever in the games, but he has no reason to suspect Governor Miller at all, much less dig through his drawer probably full of confidential government documents to lift up a knife that he thinks is suspicious. It’s not even covered in blood or anything?

Naturally Governor Miller’s assistant comes in just then, and Phoenix puts the knife. in his breast pocket. 

bud. It may look like a butter knife, but putting knives up against your chest is not a great idea. Much less stealing a knife from a governor? 

Well, in his panic, he accidentally knocks over a bunch of books on the desk. The governor’s assistant helps him pick them up, and they find a photo. Look a little familiar?

The photo has the assistant, the victim Robert Cole, Governor Miller, and the victim’s brother who died in an incident two years ago. He’s the “Neil Marshall” of this musical, and he died in what was essentially the SL-9 incident. Same general premise, except it occurred in the courthouse, and the names are different.

AND FINALLY WE REACH THE END OF ACT 1. They do a musical number here which is a weird sort of mashup of the main opening credits song, Edgeworth’s Villain Solo, and the love duet between Phoenix and Leona. They are all such different songs that it sounds a little weird.

ACT 2, FINALLY

The act begins on a sour note with Maya playing with the knife and showing off her characterization, which is one of the most infuriating Maya characterizations you’ll sometimes see around the fandom by people who don’t like Maya.

Maya: Let me whip up my special spirit channeler hamburgers!

sigh.

But then we’re saved (?) by the arrival of EDGEWORTH, who is presumably just here to chat. He asks Phoenix if he’s defending Leona in hopes of winning her back, then says to keep out of it, since it’s a very important case and he can’t understand the gravity of it.

Then Phoenix says this.

Phoenix: Would you be saying that if you were the one on trial? The defendant is in a dark prison, reaching out for hope... Can you imagine the loneliness and sorrow of being ostracized?

CAN YOU IMAGINE IT, EDGEWORTH? CAN YOU IMAGINE IF YOU WERE ON TRIAL AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD DEFEND YOU AND BELIEVED IN YOUR INNOCENCE??

Edgeworth responds to this by essentially rehashing his speech in Turnabout Sisters about how he needs to find all defendants guilty because he can’t guarantee their innocence and all that. Maya gets upset and leaves so that Phoenix and Edgeworth can talk about their childhood in private.

Phoenix once again complains about how people change since nine years old.

Phoenix then says that he has something Edgeworth doesn’t: the POWER TO BELIEVE! Then Maya comes in and tries to spike Edgeworth’s coffee, so he leaves.

The Class Trial

Phoenix explains a bit about Edgeworth and his backstory to Maya. Namely, the class trial. Phoenix was accused of stealing lunch money, Edgeworth stood up for him, but instead of Larry, Leona stood up for him. I guess Suzuki Kei thought “oh the class trial, if Leona stood up for him, it would be so romantic, because she’s a woman, and he’s a man”, or something like that. 

Edgeworth wanted to become a Great Lawyer Like His Father! But then he turned cold as ice.

Phoenix: His father got too deeply involved in a case... and paid for it with his life. Edgeworth saw him murdered. He was never the same again. I bet he couldn’t forgive the criminal.

Yeah I bet he couldn’t ever forgive the person he thought killed his father all these years, Phoenix. I bet he really hates that person, Phoenix. I bet he has nightmares about that person killing his father or something, Phoenix.

Phoenix: He vanished, then returned without his mercy or compassion. He had become a monster. When he lost his father, he also lost the ability to believe in others.

So like... one of the most chilling things about this musical is that they never actually solve DL-6. This probably roughly takes place 15 years after DL-6, since they were about the same age when the class trial started, and at least Leona is 24 now. The next musical takes place three years from now, and in it, Edgeworth refers to von Karma as his mentor, implying he’s still around and doing things.

So, in addition to everything else going wrong with this musical, DL-6 still happens, but von Karma never frames Edgeworth for it fifteen years later. The statute of limitations runs out, and von Karma forever gets away with his crime. And Edgeworth has no idea.

What changes did they make to DL-6, though, you may ask? I’m desperate to know as well. In the third musical, which I’ve watched because I hate myself but am unable to fully understand because I don’t know much Japanese, there is a scene where Miles flashbacks to DL-6. It’s abstract, but he makes gun-throwing motions at Gregory, followed by a gunshot sound.

Therefore, in this musical’s internal canon, either Miles Edgeworth shot his father, or he believes he did for the rest of his life.

... moving on.

Phoenix: But he still has his humanity. It’s still there, deep down inside!

At least, if nothing else, Phoenix still believes in him. Even this Takarazuka Musical couldn’t touch that.

The Feenie Sweater

Right after this, Larry barges in, and Phoenix leaves him alone with Maya. The musical tries teasing Larry/Maya, but fortunately, Maya’s having none of it.

Maya: You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Props to this musical for not being as bad as it could have been.

After this, the two sit down on the couch, and Maya asks for more gossip on Phoenix and Leona. Larry launches into a story, which turns into a flashback that ends up being narrated by Phoenix halfway through. This one’s about Phoenix and Leona’s relationship.

This is an interesting line in here, “I’ll guide you to the future”, for it loosely referencing the sort of love ballad Phoenix sings with Lucia in the second musical which is about “I’ll take you to that radiant future”, and he later sings to the memory of Leona right around the time of his big spiral into despair.

I’m sorry if you haven’t read my other essay and just said “wait what” to what I just typed.

Leona was getting ready to move to New York to defend the weak “in the big city”. This is rather strange wording because it implies that California does not in fact have a big city. She says some things in her conversation with Phoenix that probably plant some of his later issues.

Leona: This is the first time we’ll be apart since we were kids.

Leona: We promised we’d always be together.

Leona: I’ll be waiting. Waiting for you to come to me.

Haha. Sure would be a shame... if something were to happen... and they wouldn’t be able to be together anymore...

So some dancers wearing black come in and take off their outer jackets, to symbolize the passage of time. They circle around Phoenix and Leona. In this, you can just barely see, Phoenix is wearing a pink sweater beneath his jacket.

“Oh,” I think to myself, “Is that the Feenie sweater? Are they including it here as a reference to the games?”

Then the dancers keep moving.

THAT IS NOT THE FEENIE SWEATER. That is a pink sweater with a sexily drawn woman on it.

This is the other half of the reason why I decided to go through with making this essay. 

This is so incredibly funny to me. Suzuki Kei Who Has Played The Games Seven Times has seen the hand-knit bright pink sweater with a giant red heart on it seven times. The sweater Iris, Phoenix’s girlfriend, lovingly knit for him that he wears all the time even though it is one of the tackiest, cheesiest items of clothing to ever exist. And so, when the costume designers were designing the clothes for College Phoenix Wright, they asked themselves: “Should we include the Feenie sweater?”

and “NO,” someone must have shouted, “NO, we can NOT include the Feenie sweater, it is PINK and it has a HEART on it and it’s TOO GIRLY. Phoenix Wright is a MANLY MAN. He would not EVER wear something PINK with a HEART on it.”

“BUT,” someone else said, “it’s a REFERENCE to the original games, where he DID wear a pink sweater with a heart on it! We MUST include it to pander to the fans!”

“WAIT,” a third person interjected. “I have a BRILLIANT IDEA. We can keep the pink... But to make it VERY CLEAR he is a heterosexual, masculine male... we put a sexy woman on it.”

And Person Three Got A Raise.

Thank god we’re finally halfway done this musical.

We Just Have To Go On With Our Lives Now

There’s plot or something happening. Leona breaks up with Phoenix inexplicably over the phone. Probably because of that freaking sweater. Imagine wearing that. God.

Eventually we go back to Phoenix talking to Leona, and he asks about the Jack Lyon case, which is the rip-off version of the Joe Darke case. Leona is pretty cagey about it, but Phoenix proves that she was there in the gallery that day. Leona refuses to answer, claims again that she killed the victim in her case, and leaves.

This makes Phoenix sad, so he starts singing.

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

If this sounds familiar, it’s the part where I started absolutely losing my mind in the second musical because this line had never shown up before then, I’d forgotten it was in this musical, and Phoenix was screaming it alone in a red room, so I thought he was like desperately resorting to a necromancy ritual in hopes of bringing Leona back to life.

Instead, this line actually has CONTEXT, though it does just end up enforcing my theory. This is Phoenix mourning what he used to have with Leona, wanting to bring the “old her” back, because he’s devastated that people sometimes change. There are several flashbacks of their college days where he’s wearing his Sexy Woman Sweater. He does succeed in winning her back at the end of this musical. Before she dies, of course.

Phoenix in musical 2 still believes that he can bring back what he used to have with Leona... even beyond death. That’s something affirmed by this musical. I’m very grateful to it for somehow managing to enforce my nonsensical theory.

Doctor Ema

After this, Phoenix returns to his office, and meets with someone new.

That’s right! Only now, halfway through the musical, do we actually get to meet the Ema-equivalent to Leona’s Lana-equivalent. Her name is Monica Clyde. She has little rainbow heart stickers on her briefcase, which is the closest thing this musical has to acknowledging that gay people exist.

But what does this little briefcase contain, you may ask? Scientific investigation tools? No.

A full surgical toolset. Because you never know when someone’ll get sick, or when someone will need an entire operation in front of you. I guess.

So yes, Monica Clyde is not a forensic scientist in training, but a doctor! She decided to become a doctor because of her parents, who passed away of The Sickness, and so became a doctor in order to save lives like theirs.

Once more this has much darker and deeper implications than the musical is even aware of, because Monica is so anxious about treating sick people that she carries a full surgical toolset around with her at all times, scared to lose someone like she lost her parents... and then sometime in the next three years, Leona, her big sister, is going to die.

Of what? The strange Sickness that claimed her parents? A car accident? A botched spur-of-the-moment surgery? Whatever it is, Monica was unable to save her, even when she’d been training her entire life for it.

Monica is not mentioned at all throughout the second musical. It’s as if she does not exist.

Because unlike Ema of Rise From The Ashes, Monica is not at the heart of this story. She is, primarily, a plot device here to make Leona not trust Phoenix so that he can angst about their relationship. 

What a mess this world is.

The Trial, Part 2

Rather than try to prove Leona’s innocence, Phoenix wants to link the current case to not-SL-9, the Jack Lyon case. He does this by showing this picture.

Senator Cole, the victim, is in this picture. His younger brother whose name I’ve forgotten, the victim of not-SL-9, is also in this picture. They are brothers. It is apparently novel that they are in the same picture, and somehow makes their cases linked.

As well, Governor Miller is in the picture. I guess you could say like... Governor Miller’s legal counsel is the defendant, so that’s another link? Even though the Governor would presumably know a Senator, so this isn’t an unusual group. Right now Phoenix has absolutely nothing to prove that these two cases are linked other than “hey, these two victims are brothers”, but apparently it works. So they spend a lot of time talking about not-SL-9, since Leona has confessed to the murder on day 1 and there is absolutely nothing indicating that she can’t be immediately declared guilty.

They hid the fact that Monica was a hostage in this not-SL-9, meaning that some of the case records were forged. Here’s Edgeworth’s reaction when this comes out.

Edgeworth: This is an outrage! I’m the most influential prosecutor in America! There’s nothing I don’t know!

In RFTA, when Edgeworth learns he’d been using forged evidence to give a man the death penalty, he is devastated, his entire worldview is shaken, he sees himself as a monster who could end up becoming horribly corrupt if he isn’t stopped.

Musical Edgeworth goes “I DIDN’T KNOW SOMETHING???”

It’s certainly strange characterization, but I guess Edgeworth is further behind in his character arc than in RFTA, so... ugh. Fine. 

Phoenix calls Monica out as a witness to prove she was involved in the case. This causes Leona to panic, and try to dismiss Phoenix as her attorney, like Lana in RFTA, but Edgeworth interjects to call Monica in anyways. He and Phoenix have a little moment.

Edgeworth: You said to believe in others. I suppose I’ll try believing in you. Try to keep up.

Phoenix: Edgeworth!

So Monica comes to the stand to testify. We get to see this picture of Monica being held hostage, and not-Joe-Darke’s incredible eyeliner.

Lots of it is very similar to the actual RFTA, except instead of the victim being stabbed on the knight with the giant knife, he’s instead stabbed with a regular old knife. Leona still refuses to admit to what really happened, until Edgeworth convinces her to believe in Phoenix.

Edgeworth: Your attorney is a runaway train with a one-track mind. Yet he placed all of his faith in you. Believe in him. You owe him that much.

Leona testifies, and says that when she found the victim, he was stabbed with a scalpel.

Here is where things get weird.

Scalpels Can’t Kill People

So basically earlier in this trial, they talk about how Leona knew that the knife that stabbed the victim was double-edged despite being buried in his chest. The judge questions if this means Leona killed him, but Phoenix is quick to say no, she was searched when she entered the courthouse and couldn’t have concealed a knife.

Yet, Monica was able to bring in her surgical toolkit which contains several sharp knives, scalpels, scissors, etc.

This is the first major contradiction.

Leona continues to say that when she found Monica, and the scalpel stabbed in the victim, she also ran into Governor Miller, who if you haven’t been able to tell yet is the Gant-equivalent of this musical. He offered to help her with the cover-up, etc.

The next bit goes a lot like RFTA. Phoenix accuses Governor Miller, who barges in, says Phoenix has the decisive evidence in his pocket. This is the “butter knife” that Phoenix took from his office when he dug around in confidential documents and stole it for no particular reason. It has Monica’s fingerprints on it! ... And Phoenix’s and Maya’s too probably because they were handling it without gloves, but they don’t mention that part.

Leona cries about how she shouldn’t have trusted Phoenix because he was apparently now blaming Monica, Monica looks terrified, she and Leona have some good sister moments but it’s not as good as it could be if the story was actually about Leona and Monica like how RFTA was about Lana and Ema. But Phoenix has the decisive piece of evidence that can turn this around.

It is this:

Phoenix: Scalpels are made for medical incisions, not stabbings. So how did it stab the victim?

...

...

...

... What?

So like. Yes, scalpels are made for medical incisions. Medical incisions often involve cutting through flesh, very easily. As a result, they are sharp. Extremely sharp. As in: their purpose is literally to stab people, very specifically.

Yes, they’re easier to control, so that surgeons don’t regularly stab people how they’re not supposed to be stabbed, but it’s not like, impossible to stab someone in a killing way with a scalpel? Admittedly, I have never tried to kill someone using a scalpel. And I do not have experience using a scalpel for surgeries because I am not a surgeon. But I’m pretty sure, if you take a sharp scalpel, and you stab someone in the chest with it with a reasonable amount of force... they die.

Like, is this a particular kind of scalpel that is not very sharp? Is the problem that the blade doesn’t match up with the initial wound? But even then, we don’t have the original unforged autopsy report or even a picture, so how would Phoenix know what the original wound looked like to say it didn’t match up? And even then why wouldn’t Phoenix say that instead of SCALPELS CAN’T STAB PEOPLE???

This is his decisive contradiction and it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ME!!!

Well Darn I Guess Scalpels Can’t Kill People

This is such a decisive piece of evidence, that scalpels can’t kill people, coming from the man who thought “caught red-handed” does not involve being caught standing over a corpse with blood on your hands, that it causes Governor Miller to confess.

Unlike Gant, who created the murder with Neil Marshall both to ensure that there was decisive evidence to convict Joe Darke, a serial killer who had not left any decisive evidence behind, and gain control over the prosecutor’s office in order to pull similar stunts to get criminals convicted using false evidence, Governor Miller does not have that as his motive. After all, he’s not a police officer. Instead, he ended up accidentally killing not-Joe-Darke, and then set up the incident in order to get Leona on his side. As her parents were both influential lawyers and very respectable, having her and her parents’ reputation on his side could help him become President of America Where This Takes Place.

So, let’s just take a moment to run over some of the things that made the original Rise From The Ashes great, in my opinion. Just for fun.

1 - The heart of the story between the Skye sisters. Lana closing off to protect Ema, Ema wanting to get through to her sister and get back to the way things used to be. Phoenix, in this story, is more of a bystander to this plotline rather than in the heart of it himself.

2 - Edgeworth’s Character Development. Basically RFTA creates an interesting transition between Turnabout Goodbyes and JFA. It causes Edgeworth to re-evaluate everything he knows about being a prosecutor. So quickly on the heels of Turnabout Goodbyes, it crushes the last bit of hope in him. It compares him to Gant, who also hates criminals, and forces him to wonder if his hatred of crime will one day lead to him being a criminal himself. He’s already convicted one person on forged evidence; how many others could there be?

3 - The Ends Justify The Means. ... wait come back, don’t leave. What I found neat about this case was also Gant’s motive. At one point he was presumably an honest person who hated crime and wanted to stop criminals. But over time in the police force, he became corrupted. He wanted to have all criminals convicted. So what do you do when you don’t have the evidence to convict them? Joe Darke was a serial killer who has killed several people and may have killed more if he’d gone free. The only way to stop and convict him was by using forged evidence. Other criminals could hide evidence to get away with their crimes, so people like Gant would make it up to catch them; but then when do you stop? What happens if there’s no evidence because someone is truly innocent? When does the line between “this person is a criminal and I want to stop them” and “I just want to convict everyone I’m dealing with” become blurred? This is also something he shares with Edgeworth and helps to advance his character.

All three of these things are either lessened or outright ignored in this musical. Leona and Monica’s story takes a backseat to Phoenix and Leona’s Love Story, with Monica only showing up halfway through, and mainly as an excuse as to why Leona is withdrawn. Edgeworth doesn’t seem to blame himself for the forged evidence he used, and doesn’t have a crisis questioning his morality over it. And Governor Miller’s motive is purely power. Unlike Gant, who would have become Chief of Police whether he solved SL-9 or not, Miller needed Leona to win the presidency. And instead of asking her to help him with his campaign like a normal person, he just blackmailed her instead.

... How do you play the games seven times and miss this much?

The Case Finally Ends

god. we’re almost there.

The case ends, Leona is declared not guilty but will still face trial for covering up murders and such. Probably less of a sentence than Lana because she was not involved in ongoing police corruption? Either way she’s dead in three years, so she’s got something a bit more concerning coming up.

She’s led away. Phoenix sings a bit about Leona before being interrupted by Edgeworth... who has something important to tell him.

Edgeworth: You awakened within me those once-cherished emotions I had discarded. I see visions of a distant, nostalgic past.

So basically this is the unnecessary feelings of the musical. Something along the lines of “seeing you again and fighting for my former ideals is making me question many things about myself.”

How does Phoenix respond?

Phoenix: Edgeworth... Try talking normally for a chance.

Sure, we were all thinking it, but that’s a little cold, Phoenix.

Edgeworth tries a smooth recovery.

Edgeworth: I don’t do... idle chit-chat.

This doesn’t accomplish much. So he leaves to allow Leona to visit with Phoenix alone. He’s got to go change for something more important coming up.

Leona and Phoenix decide that they’re going to get back together once Leona is done her sentence! They make a promise that is very funny if you know she’ll be dead in three years.

Phoenix: I’ll be waiting. For you.

There are a lot of hugs here, I’m not screencapping them all. There are also several moments where their faces get very close together and like, their nose brushes the other’s cheek or something, but they never actually kiss. Is it because the actresses weren’t comfortable with it (valid), or they thought kissing would be too much for the musical (sure, whatever), or since both characters are played by women the show staff did not want two women kissing on stage (probably the real answer)? I don’t like watching kisses, but I kept bracing myself for one and then it never happened, so.

Phoenix ends the main part of the musical with one last musical number starring my personal favourite piece:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I like to think that at this point, this is present-day Phoenix, after finishing his reminiscing, still desperately wishing he could bring Leona back from death.

But alas, he cannot. And so, after one last daydream of them dancing together on the beaches of California, singing about their love, the musical ends.

Dance Time!

This starts at exactly the two hour mark, if you’re interested in watching what is, once again, one of the only fun parts of this musical.

Seriously, Edgeworth’s actress kills it here, when I first saw this I went “oh, this is why I saw so many people being gay for her on twitter.”

Edgeworth’s song is an encore of “My Rule”, so it’s lots of fun. Afterwards Phoenix gets another fun piece.

Then we get to the love ballad part, which I can probably overanalyze, I feel like I haven’t done enough ridiculous over-analyzing in this essay in comparison to the other.

Uhhh so the fog represents how Phoenix feels lost in this world without Leona. You can see it in the second screenshot separating the two of them, representing the barrier of death between the two of them. Idk it’s midnight I’m getting worn out from having to think about this musical for so long.

But his mourning over Leona’s death becomes even more apparent in the credits, where Phoenix sings that one line again:

Phoenix: I want to bring you back! I believe in you.

I’m not fixing that screenshot, I think it’s oddly fitting, in a way. That’s me right now.

Then at the very end, he sings this song.

Phoenix: I’ll spend... this eternal life... soaring through... the heavens!

Technically, this refers to his name Phoenix, but let’s dig a little deeper. He spends the rest of his life soaring through the heavens... the heavens that Leona went to after her untimely death, perhaps?

Overall, the musical becomes much more interesting when you just see it as a prequel to the second musical. This musical establishes many core concepts of Phoenix’s character: his refusal to believe in the concept of things changing, for one, and also his extreme dependency on Leona who he was never separated from since they were kids and where he based his entire life around her dreams and ideals. All he can think about is her. And in the end, he promises to wait for her in California.

Yet, to paraphrase Miles Edgeworth, all that is waiting for him is her death. Their dream of opening up a Mom & Pop Law Firm will never come true.

Thanks again for bearing with me even though this wasn’t as funny!