#goes exactly where you think it does considering context

[yuri-is-online]

Love and Deepspace Timeline: Xavier

This is all speculation and should not be taken as fact, I have made a previous post about Zayne, but as stated there I do not have the necessary cards to make one for Rafayel and will direct you to this post by u/joonmin on the love and deepspace subreddit. This post is being made before I have managed to complete the Myths date (as soon as I hit level 55 it is over for you hos) and will be updated at some point once I have finished it, but I think I have enough information to explain Xav's overall timeline and hopefully clear up a few things for people missing his cards.

I have included a TL;DR at the end of the post for people who don't want to get lost in the weeds of theorizing.

Some information from that post about Zayne will be re-hashed here to help provide context about the game's setting. SPOILERS FOR ALL IN GAME CONTENT UP TO CHAPTER 8, VARIOUS MOMENTS, AND ANECDOTES, PROCEED WITH CARE.

Current Timeline

The current timeline where the main story of LAD takes place is set in the year 2048 in a place called Linkon City. We are told that the Deepspace Tunnel opened 14 years prior and that is when wanderers started invading earth. There is a lack of understanding about why this has happened, and it has sparked an interest in space exploration in the hopes of finding a solution.

The Hunters Association is sort of like an adventurers guild? It's supervised by the government, and is sort of split between Hunters like MC and researchers attempting to understand what makes the wanderers tick.

This includes researching protocores, currently the only thing the hunter's association knows for sure is that they contain a great deal of energy, and that they can cause disease in humans based off of which category the protocore falls into. This is confirmed the be what is wrong with MC, and appears to be a problem all versions of her share.

The events immediately following the opening of the Deepspace Tunnel are referred to as the Catastrophe due to the amount of destruction caused by the influx of wanderers. This is what birthed the N109 Zone. According to the in game Spacepedia, it is surrounded by various other "no-hunt" zones, which it further clarifies as being places with "a chaotic Protofield and frequent Wanderer appearances," i.e. really dangerous places for people to live let alone go to. Civilians are outright banned and hunters need special permission to enter because of just how dangerous these places are considered to be.

Unlike Zayne and Rafayel, Xavier does not have an alternate self yet. The versions of him in his myths card and all of his anecdotes are all the same person, just at various points in his long life. The technicality of this is addressed in one of the shareable posts: Immortality No Longer A Dream! The article goes into detail about how a new biotech company using protocores to regenerate the heart. You can share this article with each of the three boys, who have different types of reactions, but Xavier's is not one of surprise or skepticism, but of acceptance. The article itself talks about immortality as something everyone will one day be able to accomplish, but Xavier disagrees.

Xavier's first two anecdotes, A Special Vacation and Passing By, both establish how exactly he has been living his life on earth since his arrival. We learn that he has been doing his best to keep a low profile by moving between various jobs and tries to avoid making friends. As mentioned by @exactlycleverpirate in the replies of this post (who has made their own timeline you can check out here) "Xavier says he has been on Earth for 214 years, and that this will be his last. That means he arrived in 1834. We also see in one of his Tender Moments, that he rented a book from the library 30 years ago. So he has definitely been on Earth longer than the Deepspace tunnel has been around." Chapter 8 ends tells us that soon Earth and Philos will be in alignment for the first time in billions of years, which is likely why Xavier says this year will be his last, but I am unclear about what exactly that will cause.

We learn that there are other immortals from the same place as Xavier living in Linkon City, and that some of the see him as a traitor. We can assume that many of these immortals are involved with Onychinus due to Xavier's knowledge of and interest in their organization.

It's not clear how or when Xavier chose to start working as a Deepspace Hunter, but the other jobs he's taken all seem to be related to the military/evol combat. He is also very keen on fighting wanderers, so being a hunter is a good way for him to hide in plain sight. Which is what he has been trying to do.

His Precious Bonfire date suggests he has been a hunter longer than MC and has a reputation of not participating in team events. He has the highest level of access to the Hunters Association database and seems to have a good working relationship with Jenna, who seems content to let him do his own thing. She also attempted to assign MC as his partner, in part seemingly because she wants to protect MC's evol.

There is of course also the concept of Lumiere, a legendary hunter who appears during the catastrophe caused by the Deepspace Tunnel and wreaked any wanderer he came across. He has a light evol, a giant bounty on his head, and looks exactly like Xavier when we see his wanted poster in Chapter 8. While MC might have her doubts, since we the reader know Xavier is immortal, it's not much of a jump to say these two hunters are the same person.

Chapter 8 gives us more detailed look at the exact dynamics these immortals have with each other, but I think it makes sense to talk about Xavier's origins first so we know where he is coming from.

Philos Timeline

As I said on my other post, all of the Myths cards take place on the planet of Philos. In the present timeline, Philos is no longer a planet, just a lonely core floating in deepspace at the other end of the deepspace tunnel. In Xavier's third anecdote, When Shooting Stars Fall, we finally learn what Philos is: it's Earth. An Earth that has been reborn by substituting the planet's old core with an artificial one and with a different name.

Now this anecdote takes place in the year 214, which is explained to us as meaning 214 years has passed since Earth was destroyed and reborn as Philos. How does that make sense if we are currently on a very much alive earth with a very dead Philos on the other end of the Deepspace Tunnel? No clue, but I think that's going to be one of the main focuses of the story. Something had to happen to Earth to make it become Philos, and then something happened to Philos to make it uninhabitable. Given what we know, both are likely related to wanderers.

I also want to briefly mention that in Rafayel's myths card, it is mentioned that the sea is missing so the Lemurians have no home. Based off of MC's description of the weather and how "fragmented landmasses" are being held together, I wonder if the re-birth of Earth as Philos is what caused the seas to dry up? And if so what role did MC have in the creation of Philos if any?

This anecdote is from the pov of MC who is studying at a school she simply refers to as "The Academy." It is unclear if this is the same school as she and Xavier are attending in his Lightseeker cards, but based off the uniform he wears and the sword he carries I think this is likely meant to be a highschool of some sort, and the Astria Knyght Academy is a form of military school equivalent to a college.

Xavier's words about immortality being a privilege come into play here as we learn something about MC: she always seems to have heart problems, specifically she always seems to have Protocore Syndrome, the exact same disease she currently has. In this anecdote she explains it as being a birth defect that has only one cure, a special protocore. One that supposedly can cure any illness.

Protocore disease prevents the patient from living forever, something Xavier finds very hard to accept. He abandons MC for a month without telling her where he is going to try and find this Protocore that she needs to live, but comes back too late. By the time he finds her, the core can't save her and he holds her as she dies. She asks if he thinks they will meet in her next life and he promises to always wait for her.

We know current timeline MC has shards of an Aether core in her heart, and that her heart is currently stable. While the anecdote does not outright say that the cure to Protocore Syndrome is an Aether core, Xavier's knowledge of them and his emotions when MC brings them up to him makes me think it probably is. Currently we do not know how an Aether core can be obtained, other than (assuming that is what he brought MC) Xavier was injured getting one. The MC here says she is unable to live for more that a century, something that has changed in her next re-incarnation but we don't know why.

When MC re-incarnates she is brought under the tutelage of the Grandis Knight, the personal knight and retainer to the King of Philos. Xavier is the Crown Prince of Philos, and is also studying under swordplay under the Grandis Knight. She has no memories of Xaveir, who does not tell her about their shared past despite holding on to the gift she made for him: a star sword tassel. This doesn't seem to bother him as much as you might expect, he mostly just seems happy to have her alive again.

She is stupid jealous of that tassel because Xavier openly admits to being in love with the girl who gave it to him. But he also speaks about her and the MC in the same sentence if that makes any sense? He sees both versions of her as her, and just as he promised he intends to wait for her so they can be together.

Xavier is an interesting character (to me anyway) because he has a pretty clear arc to his attitude towards his relationship with MC as he ages. He starts off as being shy in the third anecdote, then he moves to being openly teasing and affectionate (outright asking to elope and saying things that make it sounds like they might have been betrothed) in his lightseeker cards, to how he is at the end of his myths date and currently with MC: restrained in his interactions with her but unable to completely keep himself away. Why he has become restrained, why he thinks he needs to distance himself from MC is unclear. What is clear is that he has no interest in taking the throne from his father, a man he actively hates and does not seem to see eye to eye with. While their relationship seems to have always been tense, the breaking point is during Xavier's Gladius Ceremony.

The Gladius Ceremony is a sort of coming of age ceremony where the heir proves their ability to ascend the throne by killing a wanderer with nothing but their lightblade. Something happened during that trial that Xavier does not want to talk about and MC mentions he has "changed" since then. Like he left part of himself behind????

As an interesting note this trial takes place in a forest, a sentient forest much like No-Hunt Zone 7 in chapter three.

Xavier says he cannot be the man his father wants. What his father wants is not clear, but I personally think it has something to do with what wanderers are as Xavier seems to have a degree of sympathy towards them if they show a degree of sentience. It also might have something to do with how Philos was made, as both MC and Xavier acknowledge that the planet is dying.

The MC mentions that Xavier leaves her a lot but always comes back within a specified time frame. He goes on expeditions into Deepspace, but never tells MC what he is looking for and we as a reader do not learn. He does, however, mention finding a newborn planet filled with flowers and offers to take MC there if she will give up on being a knight. She is confused, as her entire life's purpose has been to be his knight, and doesn't fully comprehend a world where Xavier isn't going to be king.

But the card story starts with MC being crowned Queen, with Xavier as her Grandis knight, so we know that's what will happen. So neither of them got what they wanted in the end.

The "Lightseeker" title of Xavier's card refers to a unit of knights that are commanded by the Crown Prince and answer only to the royal family. Their duty is to keep Philos safe from Wanderers, much like the modern day Hunter's Association. Both the MC and Xavier are training to become Lightseekers, and have a sort of rivalry for the spot. MC keeps beating Xavier when they spar but he seems to have the stronger Evol so they're quite equally matched. It's stupid cute how everyone but Jeremiah thinks they hate each other, speaking of which:

Jeremiah is a friend of MC's in the same class as her. He's also her wingman who keeps trying to help set her and Xavier up, something Xav doesn't seem fully aware of. He's stupid jealous of their friendship which Jeremiah seems to find really funny (he's the only one who knows how delulu they are for each other and seems to find a lot of enjoyment in teasing them.)

Jeremiah also ends up being a knight under MC's command after they graduate the academy. Xavier however... goes missing after a meeting with his father and does not reappear even after he dies. He is missing for a period of 200 years until MC finds him again in the same forest that his Galdius Ceremony took place in. He saves her from... something. An illusion? A cosmic vortex? Whatever it was Xavier has discovered something that affects the health of people's hearts. And he seems determined to not get close to MC or let MC get close to him because of it.

I think it might just be because she is about to die from her disease, which she doesn't seem aware she has but always does, and Xavier doesn't want to have to watch her die again. But I haven't finished the card yet so I don't know.

He also seems to be under the impression the whole world is going to end now, and not just Philos.

The last thing we need to take from all of this information about Philos is the existence of a group called the Backtrackers. Xavier was with them once, but he isn't anymore. MC was seemingly under their care and, according to his Passing By anecdote, traveled through the Deepspace Tunnel with them but was lost. I'll explain more about what I think about them now that we're ready to return to the present timeline, but just know that the Backtrackers are A) from the Philos timeline and B) likely immortal just like Xavier is.

Back to the Present

In Chapter 8 you are either introduced or re-introduced to Jeremiah, who now owns a flower shop called Philo, likely named after his home planet of Philos. He is a friend of Xavier's and they both share the same current goals, which includes protecting the MC. Jer's job in this chapter is to provide MC with a fake identity to use in the N109 zone, but he does provide us with some information to try and tie up some loose ends with Xavier's timeline.

While the Nonintervention principal he refers to probably does have something to do with MC, it also likely just refers the fact that since both Xavier and Jeremiah are from Philos and therefore the future they are trying not to interfere with the timeline too much. Something that whoever blew up MC's house does not care about anymore, implying that if that was indeed Onychinus then we can assume they likely are also immortals from Philos who want MC and her Aether core for something.

When MC finds Xavier again after his 200 year disappearing act he is leading a squad of Lightseekers from various units. I think these are probably the Backtrackers, and that there was a split in the group after the MC and the Aether core went missing during their journey into the Deepspace Tunnel. We know that at least Xavier has been here longer than the Deepspace Tunnel has been, but there is room for speculation around Jeremiah and the others. As Pirate again pointed out in the comments, whatever disaster during the travel the Backtrackers took into the Deepspace Tunnel likely caused them to arrive at a bunch of different points in time.

While this confirms that Xavier and Jeremiah are not from this timeline it raises a lot of questions about MC. Her memory is constantly spotty, and I had wondered if that had something to do with the Aether core... but now.

With the way Xavier tries to limit his interactions with her and says he's the last person who should be trying to get close to her I wonder if Xavier is worried MC is being erased from time? Or if she belongs to this timeline so while he loves her, while he wants to be the one she chooses, he subconsciously knows he's from a doomed timeline and therefore unable to stay with her. This also raises questions about the other two love interests; we know MC has forgotten things about Rafayel and I theorized she has forgotten something about Zayne. Is this because they also don't belong? Does MC not belong? Or is it something related to the trauma MC experienced from being experimented on?

TL;DR

This was all pretty complicated so I thought I would sum up the basic points because I felt a bit incoherent.

Xavier is the Crown Prince of Philos, a future version of Earth that was created by replacing Earth's core with a fake one.

This fake core allowed the citizens of Philos to live forever unless they had the rare heart condition know as Protocore Syndrome, something the MC always has no matter how many times she is reborn.

The cure to Protocore Syndrome is a rare Protocore that Xavier tries to get for her but gets back with too late. He watches her die and while he was already shown dislike seeing her injured, this seems to turn it into a genuine trauma of his. He is shown to be deeply distraught seeing her gravely injured or sick in multiple moments/dates and is determined to take care of her. In a rare decision by the writers, this does not appear to manifest itself as a desire to not see her engage in combat as he trusts her ability to take care of herself, just maybe not her willingness.

MC is reborn and begins military training with Xavier intending to become his knight, but Xavier refuses to take the throne of Philos for reasons he does not share with MC. He also begins disappearing for long periods of time on journeys into space. On one of these journeys he finds a young planet filled with flowers and attempts to convince MC to elope with him and abandon her dreams of being a knight. He seems uncertain if MC's desire to be with him is just because she has been told she is to be his knight or if it is because she genuinely loves him; Xavier knows which one he wants it to be though.

After talking with his father he disappears for 200 years and founds a group of knights investigating a forest with an unstable Protofeild where killed Wanderers simply don't stay dead. It is my theory that these are the Backtrackers mentioned by past MC, Jeremiah, and Xavier.

Xavier arrives in this current timeline in year 1834. Other immortals from Philos begin to arrive in the current timeline at different points and agree upon something they call the Nonintervention Principal, likely to keep from destroying the spacetime continuum too much. What they are refusing to intervene in is unclear.

The Backtrackers made a journey through the Deepspace Tunnel with future past MC and an Aether core, but something goes wrong and she disappears. Xavier has been waiting to see her again ever since he got here, and intends to wait forever.

There are more immortals than just Xavier and Jeremiah living in Current Timeline Linkon City, some of which are very likely allied with Onychinus and searching for the MC. Why is related to the Aether core in her heart, but might also have something to do with her Evol.

It is my personal belief that many of these citizens of Philos used to be in the Backtrackers, but even if they didn't they see Xavier as a traitor to his people and more importantly to them. Why is unclear, but I imagine it might be because of their goals for the MC and her Aether core. In a broader sense it might be because they intend to do something to current earth to save their home, and Xavier disagrees with that but the two things do not seem mutually exclusive.

Earth and Philos are about to be in very close alignment, and both Xavier and Jeremiah expect something bad to happen around that time.

Final Thoughts

I would be interested in knowing the direct Chinese translation of these particular lines from precious bonfire to see if there is any difference to them... but honestly this is one of the things that sold me on him. She dies and he follows the traces of her light until he finds her again, and he tries to keep her alive but he fails and so he follows her again.

I saw at least one post wondering of Xavier will betray MC and rip the Aether core out of her heart, and I want to clear that up here. I understand why people might think this if they haven't read any of his anecdotes but no, that's not going to happen unless it's the only way to save MC's life. Xavier very much wants to keep MC alive, his efforts to distance himself and withhold information from her are always done to serve that goal.

Rafayel is the one who has a pretty good reason to want to cut out MC's heart, not Xavier. And I do mean good reason I don't really hate him for it and am not trying to imply he's a bad character or a bad romance option for it.

One of Xavier's immortal friends is name Noah. There is always a chance that this is a coincidence, but there's a part of me that wonders if he shares the same name as Dr Noah because they are the same person. The anecdote he appears in involves Xavier getting him a new identity so I don't think they're likely to be related.

I actually really like MC , Xavier, and Jeremiah's friendship and sort of hope it gets some focus in some small way in the future. Jer and Xav had to have bonded over losing MC, not to mention Jeremiah spent 200 years fighting Wanderers with MC under her command. She talks about him as being her best friend!!! I want to see more of him!!! (if he doesn't have a partner and if I can't have Tara x Jenna I should be allowed Tara x Jeremiah)

I'm worried there might be a plot point that involves Xavier dying in the future and then maybe we get to meet a different timeline version of him and end up on the opposite side of the "can't tell this ghost wearing your face how I really feel" spectrum.

Speaking of which I like how Xav seems to respect MC's current life and doesn't expect her to be a carbon copy of her past selves. It's nice (stares at critically acclaimed mmorpg villain Emet Selch)

Anyway that's it. I'll update the post when I finish the Myths card, which I fully expect to make me cry like a baby. If anything confused you my askbox is open, just because I write for twst doesn't mean I am not open to talking about this if I made mistakes or if you feel like any of this was unclear.

[iztea]

Would you ever be willing to draw atsushi, akutagawa, or other characters? They would look so ethereal in your art style imo

Also what are your thoughts on the recent chapter?

i have drawn Aku like. twice a while back which is a shame cause he's one of my faves and i like both him and atsushi and many other charas 😭 my Dazai exclusivity is purely accidental. He has me in a chokehold and brother, I've never been much of a fighter.

I've shared my thoughts on the recent chap on twt (more or less) so i'll paraphrase from there but overall i think it was very hype! i usually complain about the plot because the arc feels like suuuuch a drag atp but I've always considered bsd to be a very character-driven show rather than plot-driven (like AoT to give an example) so I've come to embrace the wackiness of the plot although it does tackle some very interesting elements this time like spacetime (more on that later).

Character-wise, it was very curious to see Fyodors reaction to like., the human spirit and just how genuinely disgusted and repulsed he was by Atsushi's selflessness; it really makes you wonder what exactly happened that shaped him into such a spiteful man (perhaps his liver was diseased aha ok no sorry). And then he dropped that line about Dazai not being fit to be his other half??? Which really raises a lot of questions, first of all being if Dazai was even aware of this soulmate fantasy of his? Did he ever ask ?😭 (he'd still refuse but still). Maybe if he stopped trying to kill him then he'd get the message. And not to make everything about skk ( their relationship is an integral part of the show IT'S NOT MY FAULT nor do i mean this in a shippy way‐at all) but....I'll just paste what i said on twt because im too lazy to rephrase it

and the MY GOAT AKU came to save the day although i dont think it's really him atm the fit goes crazyyyyyyyy harddddddddddddddd we love you harukawa !!! <33

i also . okay since they brought irl physics into this then so will I so hear me out:

-the AmeNoFuku thing exists in the the 4-dimentional spacetime so that means the principles of General Relativity still apply.

-What distorts spacetime? Gravity.

-Who can offensively manipulate gravity and cause great destruction and havoc? That's right! Chuuya in his corrupted form SO, unless the AmeNoFuku-triple-McCombo bitch opperates in the context of Special Relativity (because he did mention his body being in the Minkowski space where gravity is effectively neglected--but come on why would he that's such a cop out) then that means that 2+2 = Chuuya is fully capable of defeating that thing and saving the day if he weren't in France!!! thanks for coming to my TedTalk

[donnapalude]

one aspect i really enjoy about the beginning of the maroons arc is the deliberate subversion of the african savage cannibalistic tribe trope that is prevalent in pirate stories.

when flint and his crew land on the island for the first time, the way their capture is shot seems to be leading exactly to that trope.

we first see some inhabitants of the island watching the crew from afar. they are shown in the middle of a jungle, with painted faces, jewelry apparently made from tooth and bones and few clothing items, armed mainly with blades and spears. there is also a menacing and unsettling feeling around them and it is immediately clear that they are not going to be allies to our protagonists.

and of course there's nothing wrong with all of that per se, it's just that in western media those are common indicators that we are encountering an "uncivilised" population, especially contrasted with the mainly white pirate crew.

to be perfectly clear: i think if you see a scene like this in a piece of media and you believe these people are bad ugly beastly savages you have a problem. but there's a difference between this being your personal opinion and you recognizing this is what the show is trying to say through common western cynematic language.

anyway initial impressions seem to get confirmed when flint et al. get captured and imprisoned and they are told that they are going to be tortured and killed one by one. even if it has already been mentioned in passing that these people are escaped slaves and we may feel sympathetic towards them, the setting is still framing them as enemies here. and not only enemies, but brutal, unreasonable people. it matters little that we have already seen brutal unreasonable people in the show that were not members of an african community and were judged more fairly. the cinematic trope is pervasive enough that we clearly recognize its language and what we are (apparently) being led to believe.

the first subversion of our expectations comes when we see the queen. the scene is shot from her point of view as she enters the clearing where the pirates are gathered.

so apart from seeing that the group is organised under a leader, we subjectivize her a bit. however, in any other show this sign of minimal political structure would not necessarily be enough to make us consider the group "civilised" and therefore "good". the same goes for the existence of buildings, which however are shown to be rudimentary for the western eye.

and all of this context does not change at any point. the subversion does not come from the realisation that the "savages" were more "civilised" than expected. and i really believe in other shows they would have gone that route, by slowly revealing that the group was more compassionate or more "advanced" (whatever that means) etc. than initially seen.

the subversion comes from understanding that the idea of western colonial civilisation as a measuring stick for morality is rotten. when we understand that this group of people has escaped untold horrors to create a peaceful society where they can exist only because hidden from the imperial gaze and that they attack whoever arrives as the sole measure to protect their invisibility, we reframe the moral judgement proposed at the beginning.

they still kill and torture people, we have not changed that, but they have fair reasons. they are not beastly boogeymans made to terrorize white sailors. not only they are not the predators here, but the preys. but in typical bs fashion, the important bit is also that they are not the monsters in white people's stories. they have their own story. this is their story. and the monsters are others. and when the menacing fog is dispersed their choices of clothing, buildings etc are now free to be (as they always should have been) neutrally moral choices related to practical circumstances and preferences, that have nothing to say about the group's intellect, capabilities and inherent aptitude for good (whatever that is).

so it's not that they are not considered "savages" anymore, it's that the concept of savage itself is scrutinised and found wanting. and all of this without the text really saying anything explicit about the process of realignment that we are experiencing. show of all time.

[creature-wizard]

ngl as an abuse survivor the whole “micro trauma” thing makes me roll my eyes back into my head like that’s life babe sometimes we have a negative experience it’s not trauma 💀💀💀 i really feel like so many folks live soft lives that any negative feeling becomes “traumatic” and something to avoid. i don’t think it’s good to conflate times your ego was tested or times that didn’t go exactly your way with genuine trauma. you’re more resilient than that. (obviously this isn’t about day to day trauma living as a bipoc in a racist white society etc but i don’t think you were talking about that either)

Welp, there's a lot to unpack here.

First of all, I'm an abuse survivor with my own share of trauma. I was raised in a form of conservative apocalyptic Christianity where beatings were considered an acceptable form of punishment. Because my parents believed that parental authority was never wrong, and anything a child did or even felt that seemed to challenge that authority (whether intentional or not), I was constantly told that I was wrong for having my own feelings, punished for having my own feelings if I dared to to express them. In addition to this, my family thought I needed to be very aware that the Mark of the Beast was coming and I needed to emotionally prepare myself for beheading once the Antichrist took over and started killing anyone who refused the Mark of the Beast.

In addition to this, I was subject to all of the day-to-day trauma that comes from growing up with ADHD and autism in an ableist society, as well as the trauma that comes from growing up with ADHD and autism in an environment where people think children must be obedient at all times. (My parents believed spanking and slapping was fine, by the way. So, that happened often enough. And when it wasn't spanking or slapping, it was my mother screaming and yelling.)

Now with all of this context established, I'm going to tell you: You don't get to decide who does and doesn't get to have trauma. Trauma doesn't work according to some abstract notion of what should and shouldn't constitute "trauma." People can, in fact, be genuinely traumatized over things that seem totally ridiculous to you.

Also? You don't know what other people are living through. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. You don't know how people are being traumatized by economic circumstances, by bullshit at the workplace, by knowing that Christofascists want to subjugate them or kill them. You don't know how many people are being slowly traumatized by partners who invalidate and mock them in countless tiny ways every day. You don't know how many people are being traumatized by thinking they should be able to meet certain expectations that they don't realize are based in ableist standards or impossible capitalist ideals.

You've also evidently never had a conversation with someone who can't figure out how they're such a mess because they "don't have a reason to be traumatized," but the more you talk to them the more it comes out that they lived a profoundly messed up life, and were profoundly mistreated in a thousand ways that they didn't even recognize as mistreatment at the time. (No, it's not normal for your mother to call you ableist slurs if you can't tend to her every whim in five seconds.)

You also say "obviously this isn’t about day to day trauma living as a bipoc in a racist white society etc but i don’t think you were talking about that either." And you know what? You wanna know what? I absolutely was, because my post was meant to be inclusive of all forms of microtrauma.

Anyway, I hope you can recognize that suffering and trauma aren't a contest, and trying to decide who does and doesn't "deserve" to have trauma based on your own personal abstract ideals and limited comprehension of their lives doesn't help anyone.

[kosmonauttihai]

So I have Thoughts about the shape of Samus's helmet visor.

The appearance of her suits in general varies slightly in each game, even without an obvious big plot reason like in Fusion, but considering the suit is part of her body and responds to her thoughts and emotions, at least some of these slight changes might be diegetic, too, and subtly indicative of things relevant to the game's plot (spoilers for those, btw) and how she feels about it.

Throughout the games, there's overall a progression of the visor going from a simple shape, wide and rectangular around the eyes (with rounded corners in the first game), to more of a triangle with sharp edges and notches. .

Metroid 1 .

Metroid: Zero Mission .

Metroid Dread

There are some interesting out-of-universe implications, too, but focusing on the in-universe ones - while early games Samus isn't exactly naive and insecure, life experience does bring confidence in what you can handle, and I personally like to think that Samus's age in Zero Mission and in Dread is early twenties and mid-fourties, respectively (or whatever's the equivalent of those ages for her, considering she is a Chozo, too, and may not age at the same pace as most humans), and she certainly has reason to become more emotionally closed off and disillusioned as she faces more betrayals and loss of loved ones. .

Metroid Prime .

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

After Prime 1, if we go through the games in story order, the middle of her visor starts to tilt down a bit more and the outer corners up, gaining a subtly fiercer look. You could even think of the extra angles the visor shape gets in the Prime sequels to represent her outlook on her career gaining more complexities; old enemies becoming victims to new, increasingly eldritch ones, and allies trying to use the same hazardous resources the enemies are wreaking havoc with. Phaaze and the Ing being threats to the rest of the universe but also really just doing what's their way of surviving.

The notch at the middle is rectangular, a shape associated with stability, though. Things aren't turned too upside down yet, and it also resembles the visor on the Galactic Federation soldiers' helmets, as Samus is working in cooperation with the Federation at the time and is still on good terms with them.

(I don't think it's been made clear yet where Prime 4 fits on the timeline, and we don't know much about its story yet, but fwiw the visor shape seems to be the same as in the other Prime sequels.) .

Interestingly, the notch in the middle is inverted in the Dark Suit. At this point Samus isn't working for the Federation, but is on a new, personal mission. .

The most narrow her visor gets is in Samus Returns, where it also looks uncannily like Dark Samus's visor, because Samus is kind of the bad guy of Metroid 2's story (at least until the worst guy shows up). Metroids are dangerous, but it's not their fault others want to use them as weapons. Samus isn't ignorant of that even at the beginning, but she convinces herself this must be done, until she gets to the last one and has to confront what is happening - she is once again in the middle of a massacre, where the last survivor is a young child who in their innocence tries to befriend the terrifying alien responsible, only this time she isn't the child. .

The original Metroid 2's visor is more what now seems like the visor's baseline shape, but considering the only point of reference at the time was Metroid 1's design, this change, too, was a distinct step in the darker and edgier direction in that context. .

Super Metroid's visor having that "baseline" shape again resembling Zero Mission's is because the game is older than ZM, SR, and the Prime series, but going in story order and treating the remakes as Metroid 1 and 2, it still kind of makes sense it goes back to that shape. Samus's mission in Super Metroid is to rescue the Metroid larva, an innocent kidnapped by her worst enemy who will undoubtedly use it to hurt other innocents - a pretty straightforward good vs evil setup.

That along the way she kills a bunch of creatures that would perhaps also count as innocents (R.I.P. Crocomire, who gets in the way but doesn't even attack until the player does, and may have had no affiliation with the Space Pirates at all) doesn't catch up to her until the SA-X shows up in her old suit, looking and acting like the killing machine she was, as if to mock how easy it was for her to forget things aren't so simple when she was the one with superior firepower. .

And Other M may be Other M, but the design detail of having Samus's visor show so much of her face and be less opaque a lot of the time does fit her being more emotionally vulnerable, and having more trouble protecting herself from and suppressing how much she shows the effects of old and new trauma. .

The Fusion suit has several features reflecting her being a Metroid now, including her helmet seeming to have fangs on the sides. The notch extending from the top of the visor shape in the middle is sharp, too, as opposed to the rectangle notch in the Prime suit's visor. Along with the outer corners of the visor being tilted up, it also makes it look a little like there's another set of fangs biting into the visor from above, making her helmet like a Metroid larva that's enveloped her head.

Samus joining the species of the dangerous creatures she has fought for years, and has then come to see in a more sympathetic light that's still tainted with guilt of being responsible for their extinction and not being able to save the last of them… isn't exactly voluntary or without some crisis of identity. Maybe the Metroid part of her swallowing up the rest is a a little what the situation feels like to her, and something she fears becoming more than a metaphor. .

The Metroid suit, on the other hand, she dons after embracing that Metroid side of herself, welcoming letting it take over if that's what it takes - and turns out it doesn't, Metroid Samus is still Samus. The sharp notches are now extending down from the bottom of the visor and up from the outer corners. They're no longer biting into the window of who Samus is inside, the visor now has fangs. .

Metroid Dread also has Samus dealing with her Chozo heritage at its focus, and the shape of her visor in her standard suits resembles a bird in flight. .

Dread's visor also reminds me of the Light Suit's. I think it's pretty likely Samus sees parallels between the Luminoth and the Chozo, and wants to help them like she might feel she couldn't help her own people. But without the sharp beak, the shape in flight doesn't look so much like a bird. Perhaps a moth instead? This is a suit she only wears while representing the Luminoth as their champion and gives back at the end of the adventure, but despite everything that happens in Dread, when her suit returns to regular levels of Metroid, the bird visor is still there.

Also it's interesting that the first game where her design hadn't quite gotten to its iconic look yet has the only particularly rounded visor, despite how round, smooth shapes are found prominently elsewhere on her suit, and the shape language of character design usually associating rounder shapes with heroes and sharper ones with villains. Round = friendly, sharp =dangerous etc. I'm sure it has to do with some contrast making things more visually interesting, too, but I can also fit the contrast being between the general silhouette of the armor and the window into the person inside it with the above.

The suit is durable and powerful, sure, but the toughest component is still Samus herself.

[dreameralive]

but on a tangent almost completely unrelated to that last post of mine i do find it very interesting how wildly the characterization of Slenderman changes from person to person. i don't just mean slenderverse vs creepypasta here, i mean... well, everything. but i'll mainly be focusing on slenderverse, here.

this is partially why i wish people explored the slenderverse beyond the popular video series' of it, but i think it really is worth considering each depiction of Slenderman, especially ones that drastically vary from the 'norm' that we may think of when it comes to the character. take the blog JustAnotherFool (which, while now only available via the Internet archive, is something i highly recommend giving a read!), for example. there, Slenderman is portrayed as this horrific, spiderlike creature who wears a fedora and rips people to shreds himself. it's completely the opposite of almost every proposal of Slenderman i've ever seen in the context of the slenderverse - he's not a silent observer, nor a commanding authority. he's a beast. he's angry.

even in popular slenderverse webseries', he changes a lot. for example, in Marble Hornets, he's a, like i said, silent observer. although he brings so, so much devastation to these characters lives, he doesn't seem to have all that much investment in them. it's a matter of hopping from one to the next to the next to the next. it's about spreading. now, compare this to mlandersen0 or everymanhybrid, where Slenderman actively seems to almost delight in tormenting these characters, for presumably, as long as he possibly can. he is an active force in these peoples lives. everything he does to them is so deeply, deeply personal. he goes so far as to maul someone who was abusing Vinnie in the Fairmount timeline. why? well, the text says it itself. "the man doesn't share."

there's also the humanization of Slenderman, like how i mentioned above, where he seems to have some sort of psychological capabilities to him. he is choosing to do this. he is choosing to hurt people. which is deeply, deeply sinister. a horror that wants you to suffer, specifically. a horror that knows what it's doing. a horror that does it all simply because it can. but there's also blogs and series' where he's portrayed as nothing more than a stupid animal, or some sort of infection. where he runs on instincts, a need to feed or to spread, and nothing more. which is also quite disturbing. a horror that does it all simply because it can do nothing else.

this is all, of course, only really scratching the surface. and anyway, i don't really know what point exactly i'm trying to make here. but, i guess this is a good conclusion to end on: please don't be afraid to stray too far from popular depictions with your portrayal of Slenderman! and please look into more slenderverse media that isn't simply MH/EMH/etc! it's good stuff!

[drconstellation]

First-Order Archangels

Part 2: Foils of War

This post follows on from Part 1: Maybe You'll See An Archangel

In Part 1 of this meta we looked at some parallels between Gabriel and Crowley that were being shown to us in S2. This time we are going to focus on the differences, as well as some parallels between their partners, Beelzebub and Aziraphale.

A foil is a character who contrasts with the protagonist, to highlight or differentiate certain qualities between the characters. Crowley and Gabriel do this because they have come from essentially the same place, and share some story elements, but they still end up in different places.

Lets start with their first meeting in S2.

There's a couple of things about this scene worth noting. The first is Crowley's reaction. In my honest opinion, this is seems a a bit of an overreaction, even considering what happened during the body swap scenes. The reaction is more about something that happened to Crowley himself, not to Aziraphale, and my guess is its something to do with Crowley's Fall. But what exactly happened at that point, I can't say.

The second is the white bust. It does look like it is passing some kind of judgment on Gabriel there, and they are perfectly aligned in the shot-blocking, just as they were aligned over Crowley's shoulders before he turned around and saw Gabriel in the GIF above. (Yep. Go back and take a close look - Gabriel sits on Crowley's right shoulder, and the bust sits right on his left.)

I talked about what it represented here in Part 1 of Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S2 Study

This bust is identified in the meta A. Z. Fell & Co. bookshop and its statues by @youryurigoddess as the Head of the Victorious Athlete. The op applies an interpretation in context to Aziraphale but seeing how we get Gabriel posed next to it twice, perhaps we should have a closer look at what it might be trying to tell us about this angel as well. The op says: "The presented athlete is victorious because he’s the epitome of the Platonic Triad of higher Forms: Truth, Beauty, and Excellence, understood in the wider context of the Greek Aretē."

Arete is a nebulous concept, and while it meant one thing in the earlier post it is trying to convey a slightly different message here. Its about combining a number of qualities to live up to your best potential of excellence. Such a person would be displaying the highest levels of strength, courage and wit. Having been confronted with Gabriel unexpectedly, Crowley has just lost his wits and courage - for a moment, at least.

Gabriel, still stripped down and presented to us in a basic, classical style of robing, is dealing with one of the other aspects of arete. "See, told you I looked like a Gabriel," he says, standing on the angelic right-side. Truth is virtue, truth is knowledge, and in arete virtue is knowledge as well.

In vino veritas means "In wine, there is truth." It refers to the fact that people under the influence of alcohol tend to speak without filters.

We've already talked about one meaning for the red horse on the wine bottle Crowley obtains to do some thinking with once he's hit with Nina's comment about people's love lives in S2E5. Yes, everything on that table right there is about love. But if you read all the reblogs on that post-thread, a number of people also mention that red horses are connected to War (as in the third Horseperson of the Apocalypse that didn't happen - their horse, if they had one, is supposed to be red.)

Firstly, the date on the bottle impossibly old for reality (believe me, you will not find a bottle that old in a little cafe like that, not matter where you are) so it is more likely a fictional date to refer us to the year before WWII started, the last peaceful year for most people before widespread war broke out (hmm, a bit of foreshadowing there, maybe?)

Secondly, and more importantly, Crowley pauses to pick up the bottle with the passionate red horse of War* on it to take it with him when he goes to talk to Gabriel.

Oh, I'm not here to make peace, Crowley declares as he enters the room - look at the way he turns the label to face Gabriel as he enters - I'm here to do battle. Isn't that what you wanted, Gabriel?

(If you go back to the scene blocking for the following sequence, you'll notice that Crowley starts on the right-side, the side of Heaven, that wants to re-start and hopefully win the War, but Gabriel, who has changed his mind, is more on Crowley's usual left-side now, wanting peace instead.)

In S1 Gabriel was the one all for starting, or more rather, continuing a war that was never concluded, but now seems to be backing away from that, and Crowley just can't work it out.

The recording of the trial in Heaven gives some explanation as to why, but not the whole reason for Gabriel's back-down on war.

He is removed from the office of Supreme Archangel for the reason of "[refusing] to exercise your celestial authority." I'll come back to this shortly.

On the other hand Crowley will fight on the spot if required but would rather avoid a prolonged war if at all possible. And he doesn't hesitate to lay down his own authority to achieve that. Astonishingly, no one in the bookshop disputes this, and he quickly takes control of the gathered celestial councils.

CROWLEY: Nobody's at war. You idiots sent an idiot to lead a gang of idiots to attack a bookshop. Those idiots there want their Archangel back so they can fire him.

Then:

MICHAEL: [clears throat]If it is to be war… CROWLEY: No, no, no, no, no war. Aziraphale, let's sort this out. Where's the cardboard box?

Crowley gets Gabriel back to his true self, rescues the mortal humans from being turned in pillars of salt, asks Aziraphale to take over from him as he leads Maggie and Nina outside, and kindly remembers to retrieve Mr Brown from wherever he was being held in Hell (he was not killed, Neil commented on a tumblr post he was merely taken to Hell and held in a cell overnight; Crowley just retrieved him from that hell hole.)

(OK, so I had something else here at first but discussion on another post at the time of writing has led me to delete it. The main aim of my argument was to show that Crowley naturally took control of the room to avert war before the Metatron showed up - and no one disputed or objected to it.)

The word "authority" is used multiple times in Ep.6, so there is some emphasis on it being important. Once the demons left, and it was just the angels talking, Michael tried to take over:

MICHAEL: I am authorized to remove the name of anyone who helped Gabriel from the Book of Life. You will never have existed, Aziraphale. In the absence of Gabriel, I am the Supreme Archangel. URIEL: Duty officer.

It wasn't the first time Michael tried to claim the position of Supreme Archangel on their own - with Uriel pushing back - and it brought to mind the famous saying "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." I like to check the exact wording of well-known sayings such as this, because they tend to get misquoted, and I know I myself misremember them, so I was interested to find out the context behind its origin, because I think it offers an insight into one of the cut minisodes for S2 - the one that would have been set in the Vatican. The writer of said quote, Lord Acton, was making a comment on how historians should judge the abuse of power by past rulers, especially popes. Unchecked power tends to lead to abuse of said power. The Metatron arrives to put a check on Michael's grasp on power, but who's keeping a check on the Metatron if God is not talking to anyone at the moment?

Control is something Gabriel feels he has never had, even though he is nominally in charge.

BEELZEBUB: Well, you didn't win. GABRIEL: Tell me about it. Everyone in Heaven is all like, "Well, you're the commander-in-chief, can't you just make the war happen anyway?" Like, I make the rules. BEELZEBUB: [scoffs] That's exactly what my lot said. GABRIEL: Well, it's good to know there's someone who understands. Thank you. It's a pity we'll never speak again.

In S1 when Aziraphale asks Gabriel who summons the Four Horsepeople for the Apocalypse, he doesn't know, and doesn't really seem too phased about it either, as long it happens. And there are a few other times in S1 he just seems to be going with the flow as well.

The trial was probably the first time Gabriel ever got to say "no" to anybody, and ironically he was exercising his celestial authority, even though he was accused of not doing so. Up until then, he'd always been more of a yes-man.

GABRIEL: I told you you could ask. However, I am the only First-Order archangel in the room, or, you know, the Universe, so I'm not gonna answer so much. But you feel free to knock yourself out with all the asking. Anyway, Armageddon the Sequel, that's a nah.

And there is Gabriel also saying no to answering questions!

One thing I've often wondered - can Gabriel's trial offer us a look back at what happened to Crowley before his Fall?

Something, some link between Gabriel and Crowley, is implied when Gabriel states he is the only First-Order Archangel in the room. I'm not just talking about the prince of Heaven comment, but Crowley could have been put through a similar trial before his Fall and shown similar defiance? Who would dare say no to the Metatron?

Crowley has nearly always been ready to say no when necessary, since the very beginning. He said no to killing children, he said no to taking up a Duke of Hell position (so far 😉) and he said no to Armageddon, amongst other things.

The scene down in Hell with the two thrones in S2E1, where Beelzebub offers Crowley "anything [his] nasty little heart desires" has a lot of parallels with the Metatron's offer to Aziraphale and is jam-packed full of other good stuff, but I'm just going to pick out a couple of aspects here, because I promised some Beelzebub-Aziraphale parallels.

One is the implication that Crowley was an equal to Beelzebub when they were both angels when Crowley responds to the threat about the Book of Life.

The two of them sitting together, side by side, reinforces this impression of them being equals of some kind. And just as Beelzebub is an Aziraphale parallel, so Aziraphale is Crowley's equal as well - in the present day. (They're a team, a group of the two of them, an Us.)

But what about when Beelzebub gets up to face Crowley, and leaves the other throne vacant? Hmm.

So we know the second throne was supposed to be for Gabriel, who never arrived. During the course of the series it gets pushed to one side, then disappears altogether, and Beelzebub appears on a cushioned white and gold chair reminiscent of Aziraphale's chair by his desk (see below.)

Ah, on second thoughts, I'm going to leave the rest of what I was going to say here for another meta (sorry!) because it pertains more to speculation about Crowley and Aziraphale in S3. Let's move on...

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

@vidavalor already covered most of this parallel here, but while Aziraphale has Crowley to fall back on, and Crowley is happy to oblige with a few words of - lets not call it a "praise kink," isn't the love language term Words of Affirmation? - now Aziraphale is not reporting to Heaven, Beelzebub hasn't. Well, Demon Josh really isn't the appropriate person to be delivering that, anyway! And part of the problem lies with the next item to be discussed. I'm wondering if Gabriel is going to need to a bit of work in that department.

We need to have a talk about the following exchange between Beelzebub and Shax towards the end of S2E4:

BEELZEBUB: Can you enter the bookshop, without permission? SHAX: Not technically, no. But give me a legion of Hell's finest troops and see what I can do. It's a chance I've been waiting for, Lord Beelzebub. To be clear, you are hereby authorizing me to storm the angel's bookshop, sending wave after wave of demons to besiege it until it falls and capture the Archangel, destroying anything and everything that stands in our way? BEELZEBUB: No. I am not authorizing you to do that. SHAX: Oh. BEELZEBUB: I am commanding you to do it. I want you there, Shax. On the ground. Bravely leading the attack into the bookshop, leading the army of the damned.

I've already mentioned that there is a bit of emphasis on the word "authorize" and "authority" in places in S2, and this is one of them. But here it has a particular context. You need to ask what the difference is between commanding someone and authorizing someone, and it turns out there is a significant difference in meaning. (No, it doesn't mean pulling out a hand-written permit from your back pocket ...)

An authorization is mere official permission for something, but a command is a directive that implies there is a hierarchy in place, and the one giving the command is the one in authority who expects compliance. This was Beelzebub reminding Shax where her place was.

Later, Aziraphale takes command of the bookshop...well, somebody has to. Or, if you don't agree its here, perhaps it will be in S3. He's definitely not at the top of either hierarchy here but this is his domain.

I think I will wrap up this meta with one last example - the two parallels reaching out for their significant others.

There are probably a few more examples that could be discussed, if enough come up in discussion I'll do another post. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this look from a different angel - er, angle.

"Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time." - Sydney J. Harris

*There have a been comments lately on other posts linking Nanny Ashtoresh's name with the ancient goddess Astarte, a goddess of both Love and War, amongst other things.

This meta is part of a series on Gabriel

Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S1 Study

S2 Study Part 1: Ep.1 The Arrival and Ep. 2 The Clue

S2 Study Part 2: Ep.3 I Know Where I'm Going and Ep. 5 The Ball

S2 Study Part 3: Ep.6 Every Day

First-Order Archangels Part 1: Maybe You'll See An Archangel

First-Order Archangels Part 3: Seeing Eye to Eye

[that-ari-blogger]

The Cycle Continues (Protocol)

Protocol is an episode about the underling. The person victimised by abuse, and the point at which they break. Its an episode about loyalty and where that goes right and where it goes wrong.

The episode has a few scenes that are rich with storytelling and analytical potential, and those scenes are some of the best in the series.

It’s also an exploration of characters who haven’t had the spotlight before. Light Hope gets some backstory and character development that explores the concept of the robot in this context, and Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio get their priorities sorted.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

This episode is a box episode. The characters are trapped with each other and have to work out their differences. Adora is trapped with Light Hope. The Horde Mook Trio is stuck with each other.

This is usually the lowest budget of a live action series. The team has one or two locations to work with, and not many actors, so they put them together. But an animated series doesn't need to do this, because the budget for one location is the same as the budget for multiple locations, so it's a choice.

I want to stress that box episodes are some of my favourite episodes of television out there. Boom from the new series of Doctor Who is a box episode in which the eponym can't even move for the most part of the series.

Box episodes are limited, which leads to either amazing stories, or forgettable ones. There is no in between.

Protocol, by artificially making use of this format, gets all of the benefits of the characters being trapped together, with none of the limitations, which means its potential is really quite high.

This is Adora's poker face. This is it. She doesn't have another one. I wonder why people keep telling her she's an awful liar.

You would think that the title of Protocol has multiple meanings here, but it's actually exactly the same for all the characters. They are in a chain of command, and they are making a decision as to what to do. Do they follow the protocol, or do they do their own thing?

Starting with the Horde Mook Trio, the protocol is that one of them needs to go outside and fix the vehicle. The protocol says to prioritize the mission over themselves. The protocol does not care about them.

The Hord Mook Trio are in constant conflict with each other and with the protocol itself. Except, I don’t think that the two are separate, I think one causes the other.

She-Ra is a series about the cycle of abuse. That’s why the seasons are structured in such a repetitive fashion, and why the characters are the way they are. Even the villainous ones.

Catra is the obvious example, as a victim who lashes out in an attempt to feel powerful and therefore safe. But others fit this as well. Lonnie is mean to Kyle, for example, he is the butt of all the jokes and while I wouldn’t consider it abuse, the extent to which Lonnie takes out her anger on Kyle isn't the healthiest or most proportional.

Which leads to the protocol. Because what is a protocol but a set of instructions? An order given, a facet of the will of someone more powerful. In this case, the protocol is the hand of the Horde itself, and Catra who has become the face of it.

But I’ve talked too much about Catra in this post. More on her next season. For now, back the Horde Mook Trio.

I like to call this the Azula metaphor. Hair coming down over a character's face, especially when its asymmetrical, is a sign of diminishing sanity. It's a character action to put it back in place and regain composure. Hair as symbolism, Azula metaphor.

"I don't care. I gave you an order. Pick someone, send them outside, and fix it."

The trio exists in a setting that does not value their lives, and they react to it in different ways. Lonnie feels bottled up aggression that she can’t turn on her superiors, so she pushes it down on someone she perceives to be weaker than herself; Rogelio… well I don’t know much about him, I don’t speak lizard; and Kyle does something else. Kyle decides that if nobody will find his life meaningful, then he will, and he offers that mercy to his companions. It takes this episode for them to see it.

The trio are soldiers, they perceive the world in a might makes right system, and characters who are physically weak don’t mesh with that. But there are other forms of strength.

It takes strength to look at what you have been taught about the value of your own life, and to say “no”.

"Catra doesn't care about us. Adora left us. Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless. Its everyone for themselves."

Loyalty is a fun concept, right? As a storytelling vehicle, there is so much you can do with it. Because it’s a completely amoral thing. Loyalty in this case is twofold and at odds with itself. Loyalty to one another or loyalty to the system.

The loyalty to each other is actively discouraged. They must send one person out to their probable death in order to further the goals of the Horde.

Alternatively, one of them can sacrifice themselves for the others, which is what Kyle does, and it’s the breaking point for Lonnie and Rogelio. Kyle cares about them more than the Horde does, and he nearly gets killed by the protocol.

Kyle hears Lonnie give a speech about how loyalty is meaningless, and selfishness is how to survive, and immediately proves her wrong. He acts selflessly to get them out, but he also makes them immediately try to protect him, against their better judgement.

Light Hope is a similar example of this. Because she’s a robot, she has programming. She has no personality other than that which was given to her. She is pure purpose.

This episode reveals that to be a lie. I’ve commented on Morla Gorrondona’s voice acting in the role before, mostly in how she manages to convey emotion through stoicism. But here we get a different take on the character, one more expressive and happier.

It reframes the previous performance a bit though, making the modern Light Hope seem repressed in comparison. The true version of herself was someone whom Adora could have befriended. Hold on to that thought for a moment.

This version of Light Hope claims to have no personality. That part of her "hasn't loaded yet", but in reality, she displays the richest sense of individuality she has had yet this series. She's fun, she's tricksy, she's oblivious. In other words, the "personality that hasn't loaded" is the personality that is acceptable. Also, this is a rare example of a story leaning into the neurodivergence coding to humanise its robot character. Maybe there's something about repression in that too.

The fact that Light Hope is a robot implies that she was made by someone, that being the First Ones, and we don’t really learn much about them except from what she tells us, and how she acts.

The Protocol made her forget her memories of Mara. Light Hope’s purpose could not exist with her own happiness. Light Hope was brought into this world by people who told her that her own life was not worth anything more than they decreed. In short, Light Hope too is a victim of abuse.

You may say “wait, Light Hope is a robot, she has a purpose. It's not denial of personhood if she never had it.” To this strawman, I answer the following: This episode shows Light Hope displaying autonomy and free thinking when disconnected from her programming. It shows seeking joy and learning new things. It shows Light Hope falling in love.

It shows emotions, reveling in learning a new thing, obvious sadness upon realising she's messed up, wonder at the sight of She-Ra.

It also shows her going against her code. She wants to help, she is kind. She finds the memory and goes looking for it to try and help. She's less perfect on a knowledge basis, but this version of the character makes up for it in effort. This character seems to want to help Adora rather than follow her instructions to the letter.

This episode shows Light Hope as a person, and then shows us her programming taking that away.

As a side note here, I keep describing what Shadow Weaver did to Catra and Adora as programming. She taught them specific responses to stimuli so she could control them. In the context of an autonomous person, that control is villainous. If we consider Light Hope to be an autonomous person as well, you will notice that this is exactly what the first ones did to her.

The scene at the end of Light Hope forgetting is her perpetuating her own misery. The only person who can hold up the protocol now is her, and yet she continues because it is all she has ever known.

You could say that this episode as a whole is a commentary on a system that prioritises stoicism and views emotion and attachment as a weakness and how that leads to abusive relationships. You could say that.

You could also say that this is an example of the self sabotaging nature of evil. By which I mean the villainy here, the abuse and the destruction of the memories to be more efficient and not get attached, not only harms the person perpetuating it, but it also hinders the goal.

Hey look. History repeating itself. Cyclical storytelling. It's almost as if I'm on to something with my analysis.

The happy version of Light Hope is one Adora can get attached to, someone she could befriend and trust. Just like Mara did. The end goal of this all was to earn Adora’s trust and make her into an obedient weapon, so that would have succeeded, right?

Except, that version of Light Hope would have got attached to Adora in return, just like it did with Mara, and judging by the present day. That didn’t end well.

Final Thoughts

Here is my hot take. This episode is one of the best episodes in the series… with the volume off.

This episode has some incredible visual sequences, and the storytelling is done so well through the animation alone. Adora is so well animated, Light Hope’s slight smile conveys her change of character so incredibly well.

But the dialogue is painfully redundant and that actively takes me out of the scene. With one exception, that being the scene with the flowers, almost every line in this episode feels like wasted space. The moment where the Horde Mook Trio try to save Kyle is undercut severely by the fact that they stop to tell you that Catra wants the armour kept safe.

Case and point, Rogelio’s speech is emotional and resonant, and nobody but Kyle and Lonnie can understand it. The emotion isn’t in the words but the reactions.

A lot of this comes from the fact that I don’t find any of the dialogue humour in this episode funny. Light Hope sideways is funny, Light Hope being silly about a bird is funny. You don’t have to point it out.

This episode goes out of its way to explain the plot beats and explain the jokes, and it doesn’t need to in order to get the point across.

If you want to prove my point, put on some music and watch the episode on silent. I recommend the soundtrack from Shadow Of The Collosus, but anything will do. It's amazing just the extent to which the entirety of the plot and humour can be done visually, and that the dialogue is really not necessary for either and, in my opinion, detracts from what was otherwise a genuinely brilliant episode of television.

Next week, I’ll be looking at the episode Princess Scorpia, and addressing a change in my own read of the character. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[cdmodule]

In defense of Clock TPOT (and why he’s not ooc)

I’ve seen a lot of people insist that Clock’s character “got ruined” since TPOT but to me, the way he acts perfectly lines up with traits of his character seen since his introduction. Let me explain. (For future context, this was written right after TPOT 3)

Clock’s always been kind of… aggravating. • One of the earliest cases being how quick he is to condemn Liy, Icy, Teardrop and Bracelety and switch up on them, as early as BFB 1. You could look at the whole scene really, but mainly...

Already in his first introduction he’s butting his head into conflict and goes by whatever seems right to him (rather than for example, finding a middle ground or being otherwise helpful). Also going from arguing with Liy to forming a truce with her after. I’ll get back to these later.

• On another point, In BFB 2 and a few times in BFB30-TPOT we see more of Clock carelessly talking to hosts and demanding answers. While he’s not unique to this, It adds a lot of boldness to his character. (Using just transcripts here to save space)

• Looking back at BFB 10 Clock is the first one to not only ask for characters being recovered but also informs Four on who’s eliminated.

To him, enforcing rules is important even If his fellow contestants are mad at him for it. Remember how I said he sticks his head into situations and does what he thinks is right? • Now… we're at the part where Clock disappears for almost the rest of BFB, until coming back in BFB 15.

Not particularly sad, however frustrated at his team and doesn’t wanna hear it and leaves. He’s still hurt, which I feel like a lot of people forget when bringing up his change in TPOT. • Besides being forgotten by his whole team, throughout BFB Clock doesn’t exactly have friends to begin with. Think of another BFB character, and It’s likely they’ll at least have/had one other person. Clock is just kind of there.

Despite that, he’s VERY helpful for his team, often using his powerful clock-hands to win challenges, which is very important to him. The one time he made his team lose in BFB 6 he quickly gets embarrassed and defends himself. Speaking of defending himself….

BFB 1 - BFB 6 - TPOT 3 (Last one doesn't have CC) It seems to be his default answer to confrontation. And It’s a shock to him every single time. Which shows that Clock doesn’t do this maliciously, but rather that it comes from a lack of understanding social situations. He’s restricted to his own ideas of what’s right or wrong (shown by. playing by his own rules, doing what he wants & sticking his head into situations he isn’t part of) and on top of that has difficulty reading others, being surprised by negative reactions because of it. Basically he lacks social skills. Of course that isn’t a free card to act unpleasant around others, but It’s a skill you gotta work on nonetheless. Clock has rarely shown interest in building friendships, like him hesitating to join a truce with Liy. The only time he’s been curious was in joining Loser’s or Winner’s team.

With this in mind, It starts to make more sense why Clock is pushy and doesn’t get boundaries in TPOT. It’s nothing new! Just more blatant. (And also he wasn’t even around for a third of BFB) • His personality has been and is still developing in TPOT. The aforementioned traits have been pushed since he’s around Winner, adding a bit of obsessiveness too. But consider a few things: 1. His team forgot about him and he got frustrated and left. A change to his character after that wouldn’t be surprising 2. He never made friends and now actually found someone he’s interested in, even if that interest is One Sided (and honestly? It checks out w/ his lack of proper relationships) 3. Sometimes… people just act differently around other people. I mean he is a huge fan after all, See Point 2 again 4. We are in the middle of an “arc” and we don’t know how It’s gonna end yet And about that character development… • Something I noticed is that Clock never came off Genuinely sad and regretful (maybe in BFB 6 depending how you see his reaction to losing) until being rejected by Winner and not even getting to defend himself. This time he REALLY noticed he messed up.

I assume this will be a turning point in how Clock acts and will try to be a bit more self aware of how he acts around others. That’s for future TPOT episodes though! But all in all, I think Clock becoming devoted to Winner to the point where It seems parasocial to some (though I’d argue that “parasocial” isn’t the right way to describe this, but that’s a different convo) is par for the course, considering his boldness and lack of social skills and relationships in BFB.  Thank you for reading <3

[worflesbian]

right okay i dont know exactly how persistent an issue this is bc i almost never go into the tags on this website, but even ive noticed this happening so i feel like that’s justification to make a post about it. the whitewashing of julian bashir as an established Thing not just in the fandom but in official merch has been discussed before, but recently i’ve noticed the inverse happening with martok and b’elanna, a white character and a lighter latina character who people seem to often draw darker than they are in canon. and there’s like. a Lot going on there to unpack.

so this video goes into some detail about the racism baked into the origins and design of the klingons in tos, it’s very informative about the anti-asian stereotypes especially in a 60s context but i feel like it doesnt really cover the way that antiblackness becomes a more significant factor in the next gen era so like. if you didn’t know, the majority of the klingon characters in the next gen-ds9-voyager era are either played by actors with dark skin or Very frequently by white actors in heavy dark makeup. if you look up the actors of grilka, alexander, kehleyr, and sirella for example you’ll see what im talking about like the difference is Stark and these are some of the main recurring klingons across both shows. hopefully i do not need to explain why packing white actors in brown makeup to play members of a species characterised as violent, warlike and animalistic is racist. i say hopefully bc who knows with this website. anyway i’d recommend this video for a wider context on the legacy of blackface in tv!

martok is a rare example of a klingon played by a white actor who, as far as i can tell, does not have his skin significantly darkened. so to see him frequently being drawn with darker skin is uh Slightly Concerning given everything in the previous paragraph! ive even seen art where he’s drawn darker than julian in the same post which... anyway im not trying to blanket condemn reinterpreting the design of alien characters in fanart, but i am asking white fans like myself in particular to think critically as to why, out of all the white characters and aliens on ds9, martok is the one you want to do that with.

because b’elanna is not a white character i think its a slightly different situation, but at the same time she does have lighter skin and i have seen fanart of her drawn much much darker and once again, im not condeming it especially in works ive seen which explore the relationship bewteen her latina and klingon identities, but its something white fans need to handle carefully. in the voyager episode Faces where she gets split into a human and klingon version of her (dont have time to unpack all that) you can see the difference in undertones between human b’elanna and klingon b’elanna (also included a pic of regular b’elanna for reference). the brown makeup is obvious here too and if you can see why it might be racist to attribute a person’s rage and violent impulses to a part of themself that is then personified as darker skinned/more brown, then you might also see some of the wider problems going on here and can understand that this is something that demands a lot of thought and consideration.

i’d like to reiterate that this is a very complex and nuanced issue, especially considering the intersection of fictional race within the setting and the racial biases operating behind the scenes/metatextually, and i’d love to discuss it more (and to cite better sources than youtube videos when i have the time). but for now i’d just like to say yeah just ask yourself what the implications might be to drawing these characters in particular darker than they are in canon, especially if theyre the only characters you do that for, or you’re intentionally contrasting them with other characters (e.g. b/7 fanart) or yk. drawing a white character darker than a character of colour like ive seen people do with julian and martok.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Amnesia!Dabi

Just some random thoughts, mostly, feel free to take or leave

So, like, when I first thought about this, it’s like … Dabi doesn’t necessarily have ongoing memory problems. You’d think he might, but no, his memory retention is okay. He doesn’t have any problems FORMING new memories, he just can’t remember much from before he wakes up in the clinic. Or the things he DOES remember, don’t have context. Like, he loves soba (I Headcannon the whole Todoroki clan does) but he doesn’t remember when he first had it. He has a lot of survival skills, but doesn’t know where he would have picked them up. Little bits and pieces of a puzzle, but no clue where they fit.

Now, certain things trigger feelings or sensations that can help spark memories, but it isn’t consistent. Like, you’d think fire itself would be a trigger, but no, that doesn’t do anything. Dying his hair red, however briefly, does make him mad, but he doesn’t know why. The first time he tries to make soba himself, he gets a very clear memory of a voice telling him not to over cook the noodles, but can’t recall the person the voice is attached to. The best way I can describe it is a dam, a massive block on his memory, and a strong enough trigger can briefly punch a hole through it, but the dam will kind patch itself, so unless Dabi really pokes at it, he isn’t getting anywhere fast.

Part of the reason Dabi would latch onto Toga would, in fact, be that she sets off a bunch of different feelings that kick that dam HARD. She’s vulnerable, like Shouto, she’s often ignored, like Natsuo, and (fudging this a bit) she has just enough physical similarities to Fuyumi that, altogether, it sparks something for Dabi. He doesn’t know WHAT, but she’s triggering all his Brother Instincts. Now, Himiko is her own person, so while those similarities START rattling the barrier, they can’t do more than that, no matter how much Dabi comes to care for her in her own right. But they do make it so, when Dabi gets a good look at Shouto during Katsuki’s escape (When Dabi decides, “actually, not cool with kidnapping, I’m taking the two traumatized blondes and LEAVING”) the dam in his head gets a cannon ball through it that doesn’t patch up.

The memories aren’t exactly coherent, or you know, linear, but Dabi gets at least one good, clear memory of Shouto as a young kid, a toddler, and that is probably the first clear memory he’s ever gotten. So, instead of just taking Himiko and fleeing the country altogether (which may or may not have been a half-baked plan he was maybe-sorta thinking about) Dabi decides to risk it and approach U.A.. To reiterate UA, not the Todoroki residence itself, for two reasons.

first, and probably obvious, Shouto is the only Todoroki he’s really seen in person at this point. He doesn’t know any of the others, Shouto is the one he’s reacting to, and he knows the kid goes to U.A.. Plus, he doesn’t imagine approaching the civilian residence of the number 2 hero would go over well with anyone. Dabi’s pretty sure that’s a good way to instantly end up in prison. The second reason is Himiko herself. I like to imagine that, while it’s probably better than being homeless, Himiko is still not doing to great. Yeah, the League was actually trying to help her (for their value of help) but Himiko was coming off several months of being homeless, predated by TWEVLE FUCKING YEARS OF STARVATION. She’s a hot mess of malnutrition, dietary deficiency, and Dabi knows she needs a hospital sooner rather than later. And, well, U.A. has several students that could be considered “villains”, they have a teacher with a Quirk that’s similar to Himiko’s, so Dabi’s hoping they’ll be a bit more sympathetic to Himiko’s situation, and actually help her out, not immediately lock her up. (He’s correct)

*On a slightly more comedic note*

to expand on Dabi waking up in the clinic, he wakes up to a nurse trying to check his vitals or something. Nurse is spooked, and asks “Dabi” how he is (seriously, calls him Dabi-san, cause that’s what’s on his chart). Dabi, confused, is like, “who are you? Who am I??” and the nurse figures he’s just coming off the anaesthesia, so puts a bit more in his IV to knock him out again. Goes to tell the main doc what happened, and the man figures this is a good sign, clearly Touya’s more robust than they thought! They’ll keep him sedated so he can rest a bit more, be in better shape, then call in AfO.

Only Dabi doesn’t give them the chance. His metabolism is apparently through the roof, so only a hour or two later, he wakes up. Now, this is Dabi’s experience. He briefly woke up in a place he doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t where he is, who these people are, or even who he himself is. When he tried talking to the nurse, they knocked him out. Waking up AGAIN and getting a closer look, this place doesn’t look REMOTELY like a professional hospital. He’s pretty sure it,s a renovated concrete basement. Yeah, Dabi ain’t sticking around. He gets up, takes his IV out, strolls out in his stupid hospital clothes, fully expecting a fight … and NO ONE STOPS HIM. Middle of the fucking night, Dabi just casually walks out the front door. Was there an emergency? Is this place just poorly staffed? Dabi does not know or care, he is OUT, thank you. 

it takes almost a full fifteen hours before anyone realizes he’s gone.

-

Oh yeah absolutely!

The people and the actual experience is gone, but the memory of it is still somewhere in there and can be brought forth.

muscle memory is going to be the biggest trigger at first. This can apply to some reflexes. Even before he realizes that his Quirk hurts him, he’s naturally trying to keep the fire away from his body, only bringing it close when he thinks to. It’s the other things that were mentioned before, flinching when people get angry and expecting them to get physical, or feeling happy when eating what used to be a favorite meal that he’d eat as comfort. His body is used to these things even if his mind no longer is.

I think the Himiko-Fuyumi trigger should be less that she’s physically similar to Fuyumi(because honestly I can fudge it some but....). It should be because she’s a young /girl/ and a touch childish. Sure, it’s been years since he heard the phrase “hey big brother help braid my hair!” but some part of him remembers it and remembers brushing someone’s hair and he remembers exactly how to braid and for just a moment as he’s sitting with Himiko blonde hair flashes to white and red.

also that ‘escape’ is fucking hilarious

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Hello I am here again to ask for your thoughts on A Dune Subject.

So I know we both have had thoughts re: Paul's injuries at the end of Part 2. I still don't know how they'll handle the Messiah time jump but my guess is that they'll still show *some* stuff that took place in the in between rather than just having a 12 year gap like the books...I still think the idea that they'll address his injuries feels too specific to hope for HOWEVER. However. I was glancing through that scene in the books and realized something I'd forgotten about -- in the book, Feyd's knife is drugged, just enough as an attempt to slow his opponent down in a fight (Paul's narration calls it a soporific but what he describes is essentially a muscle relaxant) and it turns out he's also got a poisoned dart hidden under his armour that he's trying to get Paul close enough to in order to stab him with it.

Now I know none of this was in the movie, but do you think it's possible it'll be alluded to somehow in the third film? Bc a part of me feels like even if they don't do it exactly it would make sense to have a nod to it even as a short lived plot point, like possibly it'll turn out Feyd's knife was straight up poisoned and this is Bad News for Paul? Idk I'm curious about your thoughts...even if they don't do it (which I'm not EXPECTING) it's A Concept for certain

I don't think it's likely anything like this will come up in the films, mostly because I don't really think it fits Villeneuve!Feyd's characterization. He seems to relish having a worthy opponent and consider himself "honorable" so I don't know that giving himself a hidden sneaky advantage would be appealing to him. And like, unless the Emperor himself is carrying around a poisoned blade idk exactly how the logistics would work.

It is, however, a GREAT whump fic concept. Or I can even see a canon-divergent AU that more or less uses Thufir Hawat's plotline that got cut in the film, where Paul got poisoned when he was stabbed, but it's a slow-acting poison and someone is withholding the antidote unless he does what they want. And wait wait it has just occurred to me that that someone should be IRULAN who knows that the Emperor's knife is always poisoned and suddenly she goes from a pawn to being in control of the whole situation. Oh that's juicy. Someone who likes writing Irulan scheming and plotting should totally write that.

I don't know if we'll see any of the intervening years between the end of Part Two and Messiah. I think we'll most likely get a prologue voiceover similar to the first two movies orienting us to what's happened in the intervening years. (I would love it if they did some sort of riff on the way the book opens, where we're introduced to the events of the preceding years by some random historian from Ix who we have NO context for. But actually now that I'm thinking about it, I think the most interesting person to give the opening voiceover is Alia.) I do think they will have to skip ahead more than 12 years, because one of the few things we seem to know about the movie is that Anya Taylor-Joy is gonna be in it, and while I think she can play a convincing-enough teenager, I don't think she can pull off 12.

[elainsgirl]

in regard to your 'shadows hide from elain' post,

yes that's what i was wondering as well, the whole vanish aspect, because that means azriel's shadows (metaphorically also his darkness and demons and everything) just go poof in front of elain, which is obviously a good thing in the way that he can fully be just azriel without the bad, she makes him that comfortable.

but as far as that goes the shadows are a part of azriel (as has been said multiple times) and if they feel comfortable enough to reach out and sing and dance with gwyn, doesn't that show that azriel with all his darkness and shadows, is accepted by gwyn and she in turn by his shadows?

besides i also thought that in all of az's descriptions of elain, he just talks about her physical beauty and the lust he feels towards her, which i thought showed just physical, bodily attraction and in elain, the desire to make her own choice instead of the one that had been made for her (lucien) with gwyn, he i think talked more about her as a person along with her hair, eyes etc.

im curious to know what u think of those descriptions! im not trying to negate you or pick a fight, just stating my perception of that chapter <33

Hey anon!

Thank you for sending your ask, I appreciate hearing other peoples interpretations.

Let’s start off with understanding exactly what Azriels shadows are - condensed form of sentient magic.

Let’s also recap: That Gwyn does have some form of magic within her - whether you want to consider her a LS or another potential magical being, it doesn’t matter, she does have magic. In acosf - when Nesta is around Gwyn, she feels a crackling sort of energy around Gwyn which her powers grumbled in answer too, We also know that gwyn’s magic is intertwined with her singing/music in some form. A single shadow - not shadowS, darted out, danced with Gwyn’s exhaled breath as if it heard some silent music before coming back to Azriel. The thing is, does this really give you a sense of playfulness? Or is it clear Azriel’s magic - just like Nesta’s- is reacting to Gwyn? Here is a link of a post I made where I compared this with scenes of other mates where musical imagery is used: Feel free to check it out. Another thing Id like to say is: The shadows don’t sing with gwyn but they hear singing - and simply respond back. Each time, the shadows are responding to something about Gwyn. Just like Nesta’s powers respond to whatever magic Gwyn has - both these scenes are parallels with the same context. If one is romantic so is the other which we know can’t be the case since…well im pretty sure Sjm didn’t set up Nesta x Gwyn to be romantic in acosf, haha.

I would say the shadows are curious about Gwyn and Gwyn was definitely more interestsed in Azriel’s shadows and title then the man himself- but none of this is definitive to be romantic. Nesta was curious about Gwyn in acosf, as readers we are also interested to see what magic Gwyn has to have both Azriel & Nesta react to her - I think the shadows, which are another form of magic, reflect that too. Because there IS something magical about Gwyn.

I disagree with the shadows accepting Gwyn, I think they’re curious about her thats all. It isnt bad thing or a good thing. If Sjm truly wanted it to be romantic we all know she’s more then capable of giving us more then a single shadow reacting with Gwyns breath, for example, she could have had Az notice how sad gwyn looked so his shadowS darted out to play, twirling around her. Weaving in and out of her hair - gwyn laughs and the shadows swayed as if enjoying the sound etc.

Another thing- Elain has not once shown fear or rejection at Azriel’s shadows/advances.

This is the same woman who looked at his scars/armour and called it beautiful, who stepped out of shadows herself to stab the king. Who took Azriel’s hands without hesitation- Just from the books, Id say its made more clearer that Elain has accepted Azriel where as with Gwyn…she’s just seems to be interested in the shadows. Another thing: Az is more then his shadows. Elain fell in love w Az for who he was, it had nothing to do with his shadows. Isn’t that more romantic? As for the second half: Azriel describes Gwyns molten hair, he attempts at conversations which end up being mundane as both Gwyn and Az give half-hearted answers, he lies to Gwyn which she doesn’t detect. With Gwyn, he needed a distraction which was provided. What I find interesting is AFTER the session, not once does he think about Gwyn. It would have been so much more romantic if Az had intended to go to the library to specifically give Gwyn the necklace. Instead he finds himself there, wouldn’t call her a friend. The only potentiallly romantic thing id say happened is when he feels the spark and glow in his chest for the image of gwyns smile yet Nothing after solstice changes between Gwyn and Az. I mentioned this before: Sjm didn’t need to show us how much they care - even in the bonus, Elain & Az can read each other without words, we find out he’s been staring at the powder every single day, he laughs at Elains new earplug gift, we find out how much he’s struggling to stay away from Elain and then how eluciens’ bond is affecting him. Like with Cassians bonus’ the point of Azriels was to confirm to us readers who he is attracted too. Which is Elain. I understand people expected more, but we have 4 books + a bonus of elriel scenes that show us how much they like each other. If it was just lust & superficial - Az and Elain would have done it already.

Let’s remember- elriel’s love confession & how they feel about each other will be written for their book available to everyone. Not in a partially available bonus,

To end off, If Elain doesn’t love Azriel but is chhosing him to make her own choice: Sjm could’ve written Elain being conflicted and still drawn to Lucien to show she isn’t fully into Az - ofc I have more thoughts on this but this has already gotten way to long and im pretty sure ive lost your interest.

Im so sorry this is long but this is just my interpretation ✨

[dotster001]

I was rereading your Elder God series for the umpteenth time, and if you don’t mind, I want to just throw out some of the thoughts and questions I had.

With the context of the second part, I assume the reason Jade said the reader smelled of death is because of Idia and/or the talismans. Idia must come visit often for the reader to have his presence clinging to them.

Why was Idia so insistent that nothing would happen to the reader? Does simply having the favor of the death god prevent them from having any unfortunate accidents?

In the first part, you included this line, “He said he understood, but there was something in his tone that gave you pause.” Why was Idia acting so weird about the reader rejecting his offer the third time? He stated himself that he wouldn’t recommend it during the first time asking.

What was Azul talking about when he said that “They initiated the deal with me. I was prepared to let them go”? I checked back and clearly the reader never directly struck a deal, unless he was talking about the reader’s terrified plea? I would hardly consider someone abducted to be a sacrifice and begging for their life making a deal.

Finally, what would have happened if the reader had stayed inside when Azul came to claim the reader’s soul?

YES YOU ARE ASKING THE QUESTIONS I WANTED PEOPLE TO ASK!!!!!!!

1. Idia, while established that he is the god of death, has taken to living in the human world. And while he didn't plan to befriend any humans, his neighbor Y/N quickly won him over. He visits every single day, but mostly because of your cat that's a lie he's there to see you so yeah, you smell just like the god of death. Luckily humans can't pick up that scent, so you'll probably be okay 😁

2. Idia knows humans die. He gets that. But the more time goes on, the more his chest hurts at the thought of losing you. He doesn't want you to die. And he's well aware of what deals with Azul end up looking like. He loves you far too much for that. In a similar vein, while at first he didn't want you to give him your soul in exchange for permanent protection, the more he is faced with a future where you might not be there, he begins to feel a little selfish. If he can just bind your soul to his, nothing will ever happen to you, and he can go on living the way he's been living.

Also, there's a part of him that's upset. He knows that you don't know that he's the god of death (yet) but when you reject the pact, it feels a little like you're rejecting him. He knows that's not the case, but it still stings his fragile heart a little bit.

3. It shouldn't be a deal. And in most cases, it wouldn't be. Azul would have absorbed your essence as the sacrifice you were meant to be, and all would have been well. (Not exactly well, but you get it 😂) But if Jade, who is only a servant to the God of the Seas, can smell Idia on you, then so can Azul. He knows. He knows how much you must matter to his old nemesis. And he's intrigued. What would the God of the Dead find so wonderful in this human? So he does what he does best. He twists your words. Makes it seem like you made a deal with him. And he doesn't give you the chance to fight back, because that bite makes it permanent.

You know what they say. You need to be careful how you speak to the fae. And, unfortunately, Azul is not fae. He is something much worse.

4. If they had stayed inside, they would have been safe long enough for Idia to figure out what to do next. An extra day would have bought him time to negotiate, or, if he absolutely has to, find a way to end Azul. He'd do it for you. As Ortho brings up in part two, the God of the Dead's domain is always expanding. He's far stronger than he even wants to think about. And far too in love with you to hesitate when it comes to drastic measures.

He has to be careful now, though. Now that you're fully transformed into one of Azul's servants, he can't be sure if killing Azul will kill you as well. Besides, a small part of him wants to believe that he can still talk things out with Azul. That if he can convince Azul of how important you and the human realm are to him, then Azul will listen.

[triangle-strategy-notes]

what do you think happens with Avlora in the non conviction endings?

Words cannot describe how excited I got when I saw this ask!! I think SO MUCH about what Avlora does in all of the different endings hahaha. Thanks for the question! <3

In general, my personal thoughts are that the Liberty/Benedict ending would eventually play out similarly to the Golden/Serenoa ending, Morality/Frederica would involve Avlora getting involved in Svarog's civil war, and Utility/Roland would probably have Avlora considering a rebellion of some type for a while but ultimately putting her sword away to focus on rebuilding the Aesfrosti community.

But if you're interested in more details/reasoning, I wrote up some of that as well! Don't worry about the readmore I wrote a normal amount about it :) it's a normal amount I promise. I only wrote a normal amount. I promise it's just a norma

Liberty/Benedict Ending

With Liberty ending, tbh I feel like story-wise it really feels weird that Avlora doesn't come back, given how it's essentially the Golden/Serenoa route except Aesfrost and Glenbrook are on good terms, which seems like it'd be a point in Avlora's favor.

But as far as looking at her reasons for staying away, here are a few possibilities:

— She didn't feel Cordelia needed her as badly since Glenbrook was now fighting a war on only one front (vs. the three in the Golden/Serenoa route) and she wasn't willing to risk her life by returning to face Glenbrook's judgment.

— She felt betrayed/demoralized by how Cordelia handed over her throne and went along with the whole alliance to Gustadolph. (Some reasoning along the lines of "Why exactly was I risking my life to stage a coup d'etat if Cordelia was just going to hand her power over as soon as things got inconvenient?")

— She didn't trust Serenoa and Benedict after they suddenly usurped Roland and allied with Aesfrost. She also canonically isn't a fan of Benedict's morals to begin with, so there's that.

— Or, (most likely explanation in my mind) she saw that Glenbrook was trying to secure an alliance with Aesfrost and felt that publicly swearing fealty to Cordelia would aggravate tensions between the two.

Depending on what you think her reasons were, there are a lot of different explanations for what she's up to during the time period between the Chapter 17 decision and the end of the game. Theoretically she might just be hiding out somewhere, or if you want to imagine her doing something more interesting it's possible that she'd quietly reach out to Cordelia and/or would try to track down Roland in order to make sure he's safe for Cordelia's sake.

Either way, I do think Avlora would eventually come around and rejoin Glenbrook once the war cools down and the alliance becomes less strategically important.

Benedict's treatment of Cordelia does kinda suck, and I think Avlora's worry for her would outweigh any other doubts she might have. Roland's absence from the castle would probably make the decision easier too, since Avlora a) doesn't have to worry about Roland's grudge against her and b) knows that Cordelia doesn't have Roland to protect her.

Morality/Frederica Ending

I like thinking about this one a lot :) I take a lot of my headcanons from Little Queen of All Things Forsaken on Ao3. I don't want to spoil the fic a ton for anyone who hasn't read it and wants to, but the basic premise centers around the question of "what if Cordelia stayed behind to rule Glenbrook when Roland and everyone else ran off to Centralia?" Which if that's the case, I would definitely assume Avlora would eventually decide to return and serve at Cordelia's side.

I'd imagine Avlora would essentially become the Dawnspear of Cordelia's reign, where she serves as both a political figure and the head of Cordelia's Kingsguard.

(^^ also this conversation would be really funny to me in the context of her literally taking his job)

BUT, if we're assuming Cordelia is recruited and goes along to Centralia with everyone, I think Avlora would wander around for a long while trying to figure out what she should do. Tracking down where Cordelia went is technically an option, but Avlora was never directly informed about Centralia. To add to that, rumors for sure would slowly filter in from Hyzante about the explosion that killed Idore, and it'd be easy to assume others died in the blast as well.

And even if Cordelia did manage to survive the escape, how much time is Avlora willing to spend looking? How far might the Roselle have fled? Since Avlora's not currently serving as Aesfrost's general, she doesn't have a boat, or supplies, or really any resources whatsoever. Is she really willing to throw her life away to search for someone who might very well already be dead?

I think eventually she'd catch wind of Svarog starting a civil war against Gustadolph and would join Svarog in that effort. Given Benedict serving as an advisor to Gustadolph, it seems possible-to-likely she'd lose the fight like she lost against Wolffort, and at that point would either be killed or would run off again and just try to live a normal life somewhere.

Or maybe she'd finally go "welp. guess I've officially got nothing to lose!" and go try and track down Cordelia. Another fic I really love is somewhere, beyond the sea which is Serenoa/Frederica-focused but also has a really cool bit about Avlora coming to Centralia.

Utility/Roland Ending

I think Avlora would be absolutely horrified at what Glenbrook + Hyzante do to Aesfrost. Like her entire nation is just. Gone. She was willing to oust Gustadolph, willing to join Cordelia, willing to take up a sword against people she once knew and worked with, but I don't think she ever expected the consequences to be the literal destruction of Aesfrost in its entirety.

The image of Avlora (or really ANY Aesfrosti) going back to Ironstone and finding the entire city buried beneath an impenetrable layer of blackened slag is haunting.

And given the history of conflict between Hyzante and Aesfrost, watching Hyzante take over all of Norzelia has gotta be. a whole thing for Avlora. However she felt about the Saintly Seven before, she definitely hates them now. I also can't see her ever wanting to associate again with Roland or Serenoa after hearing about their role in what happened.

(Though honestly I think the person she'd be the most furious toward would be Svarog. His duty, like hers, was to protect Aesfrost, and instead he completely destroyed what little they might have had left.)

I feel like she'd spend a good while thinking about revenge against Hyzante in a "as the last semblance of anything like a leader that Aesfrost has, I'm obligated to avenge that which was destroyed" type of way. Possibly even to the point of actually trying to put together a resistance. But with the way Hyzante crushes people's spirits and manipulates resources to encourage 100% obedience, I feel like she would really struggle to gain ground in that respect.

You could also imagine that she runs into Frederica at some point in all this, since both of them would likely be on the outskirts of society and/or wanted criminals. I don't know for sure whether I could see them fully joining forces (mostly just think they'd butt heads over specific goals and methods for fighting back against Hyzante), but they'd for sure have a lot to talk about.

As far as Cordelia goes, I think Avlora wouldn't really want to blame her for everything that happened. Like Avlora would be aware that Cordelia wasn't innocent in it, but on some level I think she would just sort of mentally go "it cannot be Cordelia's fault because if it was her fault then it was also my fault. We were both just following orders. We were both doing what our nations demanded of us." And also I think she likely would consider Cordelia to be the closest thing to a friend she has left, and as a result would have a hard time giving that relationship up.

Their dynamic in the Wolffort Wedding extra story cracks me up and I also think it would be in-character for Cordelia to hunt Avlora down as soon as she hears rumors that Avlora is still alive. If that happens then I wholeheartedly believe Cordelia would take one look at Avlora (wearing the same clothing she had on when she fell into the Norzelia River more than a year ago) (hasn't eaten in a week because she's avoiding the Hyzantian ration handouts and won't accept any from other displaced Aesfrosti) (generally stressed out of her mind and regularly daydreams about throwing her life away on an assassination attempt on Idore) and Cordelia would just go "okay yeah no I'm going to nurse you back to health and you're going to like it."

Roland would probably catch onto this at some point and I do imagine he'd try to attack or otherwise apprehend Avlora (he might feel a little bad about it because Cordelia obviously cares about her, but he's also tied himself inexorably to Hyzante at this point and not apprehending the last bastion of the Aesfrosti army would go against everything he's committed himself to). But assuming Cordelia's a little older and has had time to recover from the war, I think she'd put up a fight to the point that he'd back off and turn a blind eye to Avlora so long as she doesn't try anything too aggressive.

Getting deeper into "this is just me writing fanfiction" territory, I'm a sucker for "veteran gets to lay down their sword" arcs and I think it'd be nice to see Avlora eventually distance herself from plans of revenge and instead focus her energy on supporting the remaining people of Aesfrost as a sort of community leader, possibly with Cordelia's help.

I also really love the idea that Avlora would run an orphanage at some point. Working with orphans would be a good way of satisfying Avlora's desire to protect those who are otherwise alone, and it's also just funny/sweet to imagine General "There is nothing more agonizing than a child glaring at you through tears" Avlora trying to, for example, get a three-year-old to do something they don't want to do. Her personality and values as a character lend to her being a pretty big pushover with kids while simultaneously not having any frame of reference for "how to gently coax a child to do something" and I think it'd be a good and humbling experience for her :)

[juminies]

hi i’m the anon that asked about the calls! thank u so much for uploading them ur the best <3 also i wanted to ask u something else… sorry i know ur on another hyperfixation right now hehe but i love ur takes and i’d love to hear your opinion on smth!! i’m replaying mysmes for the first time in aaages, and i’m paying more attention to the story this time around and what i wanted your opinion was on a call from jumin’s route on day 6… it’s the call where jumin mentions he sees mc in his dream and mc asks him if he’s sure it’s her. jumin says something about his relationship experience and how he can’t even remember the name of people he saw in the past and then goes on to say he doesn’t even know if you can even say he saw them

so i was thinking about what exactly the last part meant. like i just don’t see him willingly trying to connect with women in a personal capacity on any level, let alone romantic because:

1. in one of the the deep story pre-route chats, jaehee mentions that jumin is straight up not interested in women or relationships, he tends to avoid women and that she’s never even seen him going on a date

2. his shitty parent no 1 carolyn, shitty parent no 2 chairman han, his stepmother (srlsly the way she talked to jumin in that one story mode does not sit well with me??? like that “i’ll comfort you real well” sounds very very wrong but it could also be a bad translation? i hope it’s a bad a translation) and all the women throwing themselves at him and just straight up saying inappropriate things to his face

3. the story mode in which he says that rika was the first woman who made him feel comfortable and that all the other women he met before her just used to flatter him

4. and with the way he thinks… considering he’s not interested in relationships… he’d probs view dating as like inefficient or an unproductive use of his time since it won’t lead to anything lmao that ceo mindset yk

so that lead me to think… do u think the situation with sarah had happened before but on a smaller scale? as in shitty parent no 2 forcing jumin to go meet whoever his latest gold digger gf suggested? and jumin not wanting to but going along with it because he wanted to please his father? (honestly i think chairman han shittiness is sometimes overlooked in the fandom? like yes carolyn is worse but chairman han ain’t good he’s just the lesser evil!!)

or do u think he was referring to like the whole thing where he acts all charming and eloquent to get businesswomen to sign contracts? thank u!

hello! thank you for asking, I will always love talking about him forever so don't worry :~)

I've actually always been kind of confused fascinated by that call too, and I would love if he had elaborated more because we're definitely on a similar page here and you make the same points I would have in regard to his blatant lack of interesting in dating and relationships.

I will say I find it interesting how despite him being the one to bring up his dating history the things he says are actually incredibly unclear? a while back I wondered if it was one of those little things that gets sort of lost in translation, but he's really vague in Korean too. he is talking generally about people he has 'met' before, 예전에 만난 사람, which like 'saw' in english can be perceived in the sense of dating depending on the context of the rest of the conversation but can just as frequently be literal and have no further implication. it almost seems like he's trying to talk around the fact he's never been in a relationship, or otherwise keep it vague, which I suppose makes sense considering he follows it with "the past is the past" and is very consistent elsewhere, too, in feeling like only the present matters. to add to that, if you tell him you thought he had never been in a relationship before after this he is still incredible vague in his response and dodges really making a direct comment. he just says he's not bound by the past and reiterates that he wants to focus on the present. for someone who was typically so no-nonsense until it came to MC, dare I say it reads a little bit like he's nervous that you might judge him if he directly confirms that he has/not been in a relationship before but doesn't want you to feel as if he's trying to keep things from you.

anyway, either of your suggestions are plausible imo! it's difficult to gage if he would even consider women he charms to get them to sign contracts as part of the conversation, but since he does specify he's not sure if they even count that adds up. I have also always thought it somewhat likely that Jumin's father has at least attempted to set him up with women before given that he's almost thirty and the sole heir to the company. considering his genuine hurt around the Sarah situation I think it was probably not something that had been touched on in that particular way before, but instead a sort of "my friend has a daughter your age" situation, or an awkward "come meet my friend and his daughter" dinner. I also don't think it's entirely off the table that he went on a date or two (maybe even slept with someone) while he was at university but got nothing out of it, and that could be what he's referring to. given he can't even remember their name(s) I think it must be the case that it happened a fairly long time ago and meant very little to him, whatever the situation may have been.