#i already was big on focusing on the meta plot of my works because as i said. 15+ years. had a lot of time to experiment and get good

[sabraeal]

as a writer how do you stop thinking about like getting kudos/comments? I've just started writing fanfic, and when I start a writing something -- it goes well and then eventually I get to point where I'm like "ahh but what the readers don't like that? or what if I don't get as many kudos or comments" and it makes it difficult to continue because then it becomes stressful -- I guess how do you deal with "wanting to write stuff for yourself" and "wanting validation" thanks!

You're going to hate this answer, because I hated it too, but TIME. When you first start writing and you get kudos and comments and people love what you're doing, it's a huge validation of your effort and talent, and it's natural that you want MORE of it. When I first started putting up fics I already had been writing for 15+ years, knew I was good at it, and still for a good few years found myself really glued to the hit counter, and the kudos, and wondering how I'd be able to get people to comment the same way they did on things like Seven Suitors.

But the thing is that commenting comes and goes in waves, and unless a fandom has a big comment culture, or is large enough that you're guaranteed a good glut of them every time you post...you're going to hit a point where you write exactly what everyone wants and get crickets. And at that point you'll get ANNOYED, because LOOK, I MADE THIS, i made it for YOU GUYS, and now y'all don't have anything to say? It'll get to you. It'll make you doubt that you know what anyone wants at all. It'll happen and it'll suck the whole time.

Lots of advice will say "write for yourself," which is an excellent sentiment. You should always write what YOU want. Put into your fic what you want to see, write the nitpicky poetic metaphors and craft the most screwball twists your heart desires. Pour yourself into the most niche AUs and most tin-hat canon theories. At the end of the day, you want the IDEAS you put down to be for you, because comments and kudos are nice, but if they don't come...you have to be proud of what you put out, even when it feels like an echo chamber.

But also...we don't POST things for ourselves. We post things to share. Fic are a conversation with canon and it is perfectly natural to want to create something that creates conversation among other fans. So you're never going to fully get the need for validation out of your head, you're not. You can hide hit counts and ignore your inbox all you like, but the want to have someone interact with your work, to inspire someone to reach out to you will ALWAYS be there. You just have to create a healthier relationship with it.

Be confident in what you write. Think less about whether people will like it, and more about how you WANT them to react. The reader is the most important character in any novel, but it's the one most authors forget to manage. When you come to a point where you go "oh man, I hope this is good for them!" stop and go, "what do I *want* them to be feeling here?" Focus on where you're putting their attention and whether you WANT it there. There's so much you can do when you visualize your relationship with the reader as PART of the work, and it takes off a lot of the pressure of "is this good? is it disappointing? will this get me validation?" and brings it back into the realm of storytelling. You are taking your reader on a journey, and when you do it well people will think less about "did I like that?" and more about "what comes next?"

[jeeperso]

Hey guess what? I'm returning to it, and I've realized a much better title to reflect the intended lighter tone and how the plot revolves

My Adventures With Robin!

granted, the WB execs will probably want the first title for brand recognition, but MAWR would set it apart from whatever grim serious attempt to recapture the success of BTAS they're already up to while we've gotten our theoretical pitch in the door.

so, for this posting, let's look at the Rogues and how they'd react to The Bat having this relatively brightly colored tagalong:

Killer Croc

Quick refresher for relative newcomers (aren't we all), but Waylon "Croc" Jones didn't start as a literal gator-man, he was a circus strongman with a disfiguring skin condition that he initially played up as part of his act. Granted, he'll probably be a full-on meta for our purposes. Also a lot smarter than he looks, most of the time. And by smart, I mean he'll just throw a big ol' Rock at Batman because if you're gonna get him, just GET HIM instead of throwing together some deathtrap

but with both of them being circus folk, for MAWR, we can run with the two of them knowing each other. Not necessarily friends, but Dick & Waylon are on the same first-name basis that comes from once being in the same found family. This makes him a deeply personal foe for the boy wonder, especially if Croc's working as Tony Zucco's muscle

Riddler

Of two minds on the kid. On the one hand, he's a talker and actually engages with Riddler's games, which just feeds Eddie's ego and need for attention. But on the other hand, those same smarts and especially the sassmouth undermine Riddler's true need to be THE Smartest Man in The Room, especially when (as a secret carny) Robin has encyclopedic knowledge of how Riddler's secretly cheating at his puzzles.

Poison Ivy

the 'cool big sis'. I know that's normally Catwoman's thing in young Robin stories, but per MAWS' example, we can change things up, save Selina for season 2. Ivy's Gotham's other vigilante. she's the one who encourages the boy Wonder to be wild and free when he goes solo, lends an ear when Bats is being... Bats. but for she's also a cautionary tale for both of the dynamic duo, about what Bruce is scared of becoming, and the fate he's doing everything in his power to keep from falling onto dick

Scarecrow

Another no-brainer for a season that'll be focused on how people deal with their respective traumas, as Scarecrow's whole deal is inflicting it on others. but, when the budget runs out for whatever nightmarish visions the animation team can bring, Johnathan Crane should be exposed as the impossibly small, petty, and ultimately pathetic creature he really is.

My Adventures With Batman

If its one thing we know about the western animation industry, its that genuinely original and creative efforts are quickly followed by spinoffs, bandwagon jumpers and out-and-out ripoffs

so, let's take the latest DC Animation darling, My Adventures With Superman

for those unfamiliar, MAWS is a ground-up reboot of the Superman Mythos that's as much a romantic & buddy comedy as it is superheroic drama. It is quite good, and I reccommend you watch it.

Naturally, one of THE anticipated events for future seasons will be when Batman inevitably shows up, which got me thinking on well, the equally inevitable Batman spinoff, which well, see the title of this post.

and here's the thing: Its doable?

How do I know, because we've seen it be done. At least thrice, in fact, but for simplicity's sake, lets stick with the most tumblr gif friendly option: The Lego Batman Movie

that is to say, my hypothetical MAWB would, through its first season, anyway, deal with Bruce Wayne trying to juggle not only being both Batman and Brucie Wayne, Millionaire Playboy, but now newly-adoptive father to his young ward, Dick Grayson.

Batman: The Brave & The Bold gave us a good starting template as well, making Bruce the stoic yet exasperated straight man to the antics of Gotham City's collection of rogues and eccentrics, and the bitter truth that accepting Robin as his sidekick somehow puts Dick in Less Peril

"At least this way I can keep an eye on him, Alfred" "Of course sir, I thought the same thing during your ninja phase." "It wasn't a phase it was training, alfred." "wait" [pause, both Bruce and alfred yelp] "You're a ninja?"

as for Dick, well, he's the deuteragonist, he's taking things in surprising stride, and well, see all those posts around this hellsite about how he's able to somehow get along with the various rogues and drive them to distraction.

as for antagonists, the one with lots of potential is of all people, Killer Croc, as both he and dick were circus folk.

Will I return to this? probably. but in the mean time, I release this post into the wild, and would like to hear your various takes on things, dear followers

[remythologise]

PLEASE share your ted/trent agenda with the world i'm intrigued by how relatively easy that would be to do in canon

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR TED LASSO UP TO CURRENT EPISODE

Alright well I’ve taken to answering recent asks as top ten lists so here’s another: Top Ten Reasons Why Ted/Trent Should Be Canon:

1. This reddit comment sums it up:

It’s simply a compelling rom com(munism) plot! What’s more compelling than a journalist falling in love with the person he’s meant to report on! The ethical dilemmas! The slow realisation! Half of this arc was basically already covered in:

2. The episode 1.03 Trent Crimm The Independent. Which is perhaps the best episode of the show and I simply think perhaps we could use more of that energy. Too much Trent on screen never a bad thing unlike Beard sorry to that man and that episode

3. In the episode 2.07 Headspace Trent Crimm exits the bar with what looks to be a male date with a moustache, indicating he is both a) into men and b) moustachesexual. Actually he DOESN’T exit the bar he gets distracted by Ted and tells his date to wait outside while he saunters over to get some goss. But you get the picture.

4. Trent Crimm has a daughter but no wedding ring and APPEARED to be on a date which means it is simply not out of the realms of possibility that he is a divorced dad. Sorry to be wildly ungeneric but I simply think DivorcedDad4DivorcedDad is a great and fresh premise for a tv romance actually.

5. Ted Lasso SHOULD be at least bisexual. - Firstly because nobody on the show is officially LGBT+ and they need a Big Swing to offset how bad their representation is. (no, Disney’s 56th Gay Character adjacent grindr references by Colin isn’t enough for me and also by the way their racial politics are absolutely fucking awful. But this isn’t an ask about that.) Also because the more people get pissed off with bisexual/gay main characters that weren’t marketable or pre-warned the better. Let’s BREAK that pink and satiny ceiling— - Secondly because in the meta plot of Ted Lasso being about Jason Sudeikis recovering from his breakup with Olivia Wilde it would be funny if the answer to his existential crisis was Sucking A Man’s Dick - Thirdly about once an episode he drops some Woke JokeTM thing about another male character being handsome, AND he has a passionate love for musical theatre. Yeah I know he’s just meant to be sooooo perfect positive masculinity etc. but I personally reject Apple TV+’s cookie cutter and did-no-work Manic Pixie Dream Dad and offer this as a fun alternative.

6. My personal opinion on Ted Lasso season 2 is that daddy issues are overdone, and I don’t care about Apple TV+ going over Therapy 101. (Don’t get me wrong, I really love interior character focused therapy stuff if it’s well written! But in S2, it is not.) You know whose panic attacks I DO care about? Eddie Diaz’s comphet panic attacks on 911. Ted Lasso you could learn a thing or two from that! I’m just saying main character gay crises are fun and fresh and sexy!

7. Every single look Trent Crimm gives Ted Lasso post-1.03 indicates to me he’s DEEPLY smitten despite his smug upper-class self.

8. In the most recent episode 2.11, Trent Crimm sacrifices his journalistic integrity to provide Ted with details. It’s actually embarrassing and all of twitter is on his back over ethical integrity because you NEVER give away a source etc. etc… but HE’S IN LOVE, YOUR HONOUR. In the words of his own (official) twitter:

9. Ted makes Trent’s daughter cupcakes which implies a quite friendly relationship. Ted’s question in the show of ‘can I be a good father’ and ‘do I have a family I belong to’ can and should be partially answered by taking up parental care duties for his male friend’s child much like Buck 911 and Dean Supernatural—

10. There is no love interest for Ted Lasso that is remotely as compelling. Actually Trent happens to be the least problematic option on the table (other than Sassy, I guess!). (don’t @ me over this yes we KNOW a m/f relationship is going to be the endgame of Apple TV+’s flagship show if you ship ted/sharon or ted/rebecca you’re not under any threat!)

[brachiosaurus-on]

Brachio, friend! Hello! How are you?

I know you are reading the High Republic books, and I have to wonder, has any of it given you the impression the Jedi of that time have a significantly different experience from the Jedi of the late Republic? I hear a lot of people implying that lately, but I don't quite buy it, and so I figured I would consult you.

Mon, friend! Hello! I'm well, thanks! How are you? I hope you don’t mind that I turned this answer into a bit of a rambling meta.

So, the short answer is no. Their experiences are a little bit different due to the circumstances outside of the Order being different, but I wouldn’t say that their experiences are significantly different until the Clone Wars start. The philosophy and culture within the Order is the same, and I can easily see the characters trading places or recognizing each other as Jedi. The biggest difference is the fashion.

I think that this perception may come from big differences in how they are presented.

The scope of the story is different. High Republic gives us a broad scope through several points of view; the Prequel Trilogy gives us a narrow scope through only a few points of view. The Prequel Trilogy only includes what’s relevant to either the fall of the Republic or Anakin’s fall (which eventually become intertwined themselves), and has a small cast of characters. High Republic has many concurrent and overlapping plots and subplots with twice as many main characters. The scope and focus of the stories are very, very different. You may have heard that High Republic suffers from having too many characters, which is valid, but the upside is that we get a very full picture of what’s going on around the galaxy.

The audience’s perspective is different. High Republic is told from the perspectives of Jedi who love the Order and enjoy the lifestyle. The Prequel Trilogy is told largely from the point of view of Anakin, who does not find the lifestyle fulfilling.

The structure of the story is different. The prequels are very plot driven and most of the story happens during important events; we see limited exposition, resolution, and downtime between major events. High Republic spends a lot of time in characters’ heads before, between, during, and after important events. There’s a much fuller picture of what these characters are going through and how they’re reacting to it.

The explanations of Jedi philosophy and internal workings of the Order are different. High Republic is very direct about explaining Jedi philosophy and internal workings, taking time to elaborate for the audience. The films primarily use Yoda to explain Jedi philosophy; Yoda does not elaborate and is intentionally indirect to encourage the audience to think for themselves. The films show some internal workings but are rarely explicit.

It’s also worth mentioning that the trilogies show us more ideal Jedi because they’re establishing & introducing the audience to what the Jedi actually are and using narrative foils for Anakin’s story. Because High Republic doesn’t have this burden, they have more freedom to write more relatable characters (slutty Elzar rights) with more common flaws.

Scope

In High Republic, the story is about the Jedi working with the Republic, all of the Republic. We spend time with everyone, and I mean everyone: not just the main characters, but the side characters, and the background characters too; the worldbuilding is very detailed. We see plenty of Jedi with differing skillsets, opinions, experiences, and the story gives the audience breathing room to get to know them. They have many moments that are irrelevant to the plot, but tell us more about the characters themselves. We bounce between several Jedi Masters, who each play a different role in the Order, several knights who each have a different experience, and several padawans who are at different stages in their training. We have a broad view of the Order. We also get into the heads of the Chancellor, the Nihil, different politicians, diplomats, civilians, scientists, business people, reporters, an event coordinator, I could go on; aside from the Nihil, characters outside the Order are working with the Jedi and operating in good faith. We also know that the heroes are in a game that they can win, we know that both the Order and the Republic survive this era.

The Prequel Trilogy gave us the same huge galaxy and world building, but we saw most of it in the background. It’s extremely focused on the plot and Anakin’s character; if it’s not relevant to the fall of the Republic or Anakin’s fall, it’s not included. Even some things that were very relevant to the fall of the Republic were cut in favor of things more relevant to Anakin. Because it’s mostly about him and we don’t get the perspectives of other Jedi very often, we have a narrow view of the Order. We only spend time with Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Mace, and Yoda even though there are plenty of diverse Jedi in the background that we never meet. We see diversity within the Order, we know other Jedi are doing other things in other places, but we don’t interact with them until Order 66, when they become relevant to the story. We rarely meet other characters outside of their interactions with the main characters. The outside perspectives we see are Sith Lords, Padmé, other politicians, the Naboo, the Kaminoans, bounty hunters, crime lords, and a few civilians. Most of the characters outside the Order are working against the Jedi or operating in bad faith. We also know that the heroes are playing an unwinnable game, the Order and the Republic will not survive this story.

Perspective

In High Republic the audience is spending a lot of time with the Order and mostly seeing things from the Order’s point of view; we bounce between several different Jedi who all find the lifestyle fulfilling in different ways and the story is about all of them. The primary viewpoint characters have a broad, positive, perspective of the Order. When we’re reading from Elzar’s point of view we see his satisfaction when he uses the Force, how much he cares about others, how much he gets wrapped up in his own issues; when we’re reading from Stellan’s point of view, we see how much he loves teaching, how much he relaxes when he gets a chance to teach, how much he loves Elzar, how much he cares about the Order, how he wants to help; with Bell, we see how much he loves his master, we see him grieving, we see him reach these milestones where he figures out what it means to be a Jedi and how it frees him from his pain. The main characters actively participate in the Order’s community. Even when the characters are frustrated or upset with the Order or other Jedi, we know that they still love them because we’re in their heads and we get the characters’ full train of thought.

In the Late Republic, the story is told mostly from Anakin’s point of view. We see his frustration with the Order, his longing to be with Padmé, his desire for more power, his love overshadowed by his attachment. We see Anakin’s respect for the Order clouded by his disillusion (spurred on by a Sith Lord) and we don’t see him look outside his own perspective. We see him finding the lifestyle unfulfilling and not committing to it. The primary viewpoint character has a narrow, negative perspective of the Order. Another big thing is that Anakin is a Jedi who didn’t grow up in the Order and doesn’t have that inherent trust in the community, so we the audience don’t have complete trust in the Order. We see more of Anakin’s point of view than we do of Obi-Wan and Yoda who do reflect a positive experience. In the films, we’re in the room with the characters, not in their heads. We have to deduce what they’re thinking and how they’re feeling; we do not have the characters’ full train of thought.

Structure

The High Republic books have much more spread out pacing. There’s more exposition and we’re already familiar with the characters before they’re thrown through the narrative and then we spend more time with them afterwards. We get their reactions to major events and we see them struggle through recovery. The Jedi in High Republic have time to catch their breath, they are not moving from crisis to crisis the way the Order is in the Late Republic, and we are shown the time in between crises.

The prequel trilogy jumps right into the plot. We’re introduced to the characters briefly and we get to know them as they move through the plot. We don’t see much aftermath of major events, and we don’t see the process they go through to recover. They move from crisis to crisis and we do not see the time in between.

Here’s a summary of the different structures: High Republic shows us Reath, Bell, and Stellan all grieve in different ways and come to terms with their grief, but the prequel trilogy shows us neither Obi-Wan nor Anakin coming to terms with their grief over similar losses.

Explanation

The High Republic authors explain the philosophy of the Jedi more explicitly within their stories; they’re very direct. They also elaborate on what they’re saying for the benefit of the audience. I speculate that they do this to clear up some misunderstandings...

In the films, George Lucas prioritized concision and used Yoda to inform the audience; Yoda speaks in riddles to encourage the audience to think about what he’s saying. He speaks indirectly and without elaboration. 

If you don’t have a background knowledge of Buddhism (or at least mindfulness), it’s not terribly difficult to misinterpret the prequel trilogy because there’s so little explanation. It’s also a little difficult to balance that within a film and there’s more room to do it in the novels.

Internal Differences within the Order

The most significant internal difference is the fashion: High Republic Jedi have fancy formal robes in addition to their day to day robes. My personal headcanon for why this is different is that as time went on and the golden age faded, the Jedi became busier, and didn’t have as much time for the fashion anymore (which is tragic, I love the concept art for their fancy robes) and by the time of the prequels we see it only in the Temple Guards, or the Order decided to dress less extravagantly to show greater humility.

We get descriptions of different career paths within the Order. This is probably where it seems most different from the Jedi in the Late Republic, but I don’t see any incompatibility. There’s nothing in the prequel trilogy or TCW to contradict the existence of these career paths, and in fact I’d say there’s evidence to support their existence. I’ll write a separate post about these because it’ll make more sense with examples and this is already quite long.

There are some other things that are different, but based on external factors. There’s one line about how Jedi don’t get killed in the field often, masters aren’t killed leaving a padawan behind, that it’s just not something that happens. I think it’s supposed to tell us about the time period, but then it happens at least 3 times, so I personally take it with a grain of salt. There’s one bit about how lightsaber dueling is primarily exercise because no one else carries a lightsaber and no Jedi would ever fight another (apparently Anakin missed that memo) but this is consistent with the culture shown in the prequel trilogy when they’re blindsided by Dooku’s betrayal.

[tanenigiri]

Review #8: Sasaki and Miyano (Volumes 1, 2, and 3)

Japanese title: 佐々木と宮野 (Sasaki to Miyano)

Story and art: Shou Harusono

English publisher: Yen Press

Number of volumes: 6 in English, 9 in Japanese (ongoing)

Hilariously, my second exposure to BL is the one that’s the most meta about the genre.

(This review contains story spoilers.)

Just like Given, my first exposure to Sasaki and Miyano was the anime. Right after watching the former, I looked online for recommendations of similar shows, and the latter was the title that came up the most. After watching it, though, I found it an odd recommendation outside of the context of “I want another good BL show” - in which case it’s the perfect recommendation - since the fulfillment I got after watching Given was so different from the fulfillment I got after watching Sasaki and Miyano.

Probably the main difference is how this series focuses a lot more on the relationship between the titular characters. As the story goes, Miyano is a BL fanboy who suddenly finds himself in an unexpected friendship with his senpai, Sasaki. The latter takes an interest in the former’s BL manga, which is a huge deal for Miyano as he has never had someone to openly talk to about it. Unbeknownst to Miyano, his enthusiasm about it is what starts Sasaki’s realization that his feelings for his kouhai might be deeper than what he initially thought.

I decided to group these first three volumes into one review not only because Volume 3 serves as a great halfway point of this whole arc - it features Sasaki’s confession - but it represents a pretty prominent shift in the narrative style. Volumes 1 and 2 feel a lot more episodic in nature, really leaning into the “Boys Life” label that the mangaka has given the series, while Volume 3 begins to steer the story into something a lot more linear. It still has the “snapshot of their lives” feel that gives the series its charm, but all of the scenes seem to be tied together by a major thread - how Miyano is processing his feelings while thinking about his response to Sasaki’s confession.

That’s not to say that the first two volumes were simply random - they feature an interesting exploration in how both Sasaki and Miyano are reacting to their slightly confusing relationship, made even more complex by Miyano’s BL addiction and, eventually, Sasaki’s confession. And those first two volumes did have a thread tying everything together, though I felt it was one that the story just brought up frequently rather than revolved around - Sasaki's internal conflict and eventual realization that what he's feeling for his kouhai is a lot more intense than usual. I felt that this was more of a major plot point rather than a central plot arc, though, as unlike what happens to Miyano in future volumes, most of the resolutions for this plot are driven by Sasaki himself. The way he reacts to Miyano's gestures - or, in some cases, Miyano's simple existence - already makes his attraction for him very concrete, and this all largely happens in his own thoughts. It not only makes for a great contrast between the two leads, but it also gives the story the room to explore different facets of the universe it's building.

But Volume 3 beginning with the confession steers the plot to something concrete that it’s working towards - Miyano’s answer. I think it was a great decision to introduce a central plot arc after several episodic chapters, as those earlier scenes being styled that way do a much better job in immersing the reader into the world and familiarizing themselves with all of the dynamics in play. While Sasaki and Miyano’s dynamic is what the manga revolves around, I think what elevates the series and saves it from becoming a simple “will-they-won’t-they(-oh-they-definitely-will)” story is its very solid supporting cast. The “Boys Life” label is already a big indicator that readers should pay attention to the characters beyond the main couple, and these first three volumes introduce us to a lot of great ones that add to the story’s humor and overall laid back vibes.

There are several examples I could talk about in this regard, but the one I wanted to highlight here was Ogasawara, one of Sasaki’s close friends who’s introduced to the story by questioning Sasaki’s sudden affinity for BL manga. This puts Miyano on the spot as he has constantly given Sasaki the impression that fudanshis like him should “live in the shadows” and not let their taste for the genre be known. I thought this was gonna go down the route of the slightly homophobic character that eventually improves as he watches the main couple’s relationship develop, but where the story takes his arc is a lot more interesting (and a lot funnier).

It’s revealed the next time he appears that the reason Ogasawara has a distaste for BL is because of his girlfriend, who he recently found out is a hardcore fujoshi. This leads to a lot of hilarious dialogue where he tries to make sense of his girlfriend’s love for BL in the context of their relationship, but more importantly, it gives a very solid foundation to establish his dynamic with Miyano. This brings us to my favorite chapter of these three volumes, where Ogasawara asks Miyano for advice on how to deal with his (admittedly ridiculous) problem. To Miyano’s own surprise, he ends up giving the unknown senpai pretty solid advice - that her being a BL fangirl has nothing to do with her being Ogasawara’s girlfriend - and it leads to the start of a genuine friendship that, as readers, is easily kept in the back of our minds as something that’s going to be revisited down the line.

And there are a lot of examples of these kinds of friendships being formed around the main couple, with many of them coming to fruition in future volumes. But it’s impressive that with a particularly large cast of characters, Sasaki and Miyano does a fantastic job in making every character someone you want to befriend and actively root for. All of these help in fleshing out these characters and giving the main couple a lot more to work with than just “the boy that pines for the other” and “the boy who’s being hit on,” and to have a fun cast on top of a genuinely cute and wholesome love story is such a treat.

Random thoughts that I couldn’t put elsewhere:

I wanted to mention the major arc in Volume 1 that didn’t make its way into the anime - Miyano’s first cultural festival that almost all of that volume’s extra chapters revolve around. Aside from being a really funny subplot, this is the earliest peek we get of Miyano’s main internal conflicts, though it’s brought up in a light-hearted manner and actually depicts him as being able to deal with it well. It’s an interesting take on his issues, and I think it just adds to how multi-faceted these characters are - instead of being something that Miyano constantly suffers from, it shows that he has found his own ways of making sense of his insecurities, even if he isn’t entirely over them. This arc also features best wingman Kuresawa in the end, and I genuinely believe that the main couple’s situation would be a lot more hopeless without him.

Two extras in these first three volumes revolve around the other main relationship that this universe explores - Hirano and his roommate, Kagiura. Yes, I’m following the spin-off manga, and I have a metric ton of things to say about this dynamic, and I’m honestly thinking of writing a review on it even if I’ve only read the scanlations. But for now, all I’ll say is that it is hilarious that one of the first gags we’re introduced to in the main story is Miyano projecting his BL fantasies onto Hirano and his roommate, only for those fantasies to pale in comparison to what is actually going on between the two.

I also very much have to mention the fujoshi and her friend who find themselves around Sasaki and Miyano quite a number of times, with the former freaking out whenever the main pair do something cute. She is the absolute best character in the series.

Thanks for reading! I have two more reviews lined up for Sasaki and Miyano down the line, one that covers Volumes 4 and 5, and another that covers Volume 6. And like I said above, I do want to write a review on Hirano and Kagiura as well, but it might be something separate from this mini-project as it technically isn’t part of my physical collection (yet). Let’s see!

[asterekmess]

Heyo! So I’ve been in the sterek fandom for quite some time now and I’ve been wondering about how you would describe stiles’ personality?

I’ve never actually sat down and watched a full episode of teen wolf (and honestly I’m not sure if I ever will considering everything I’ve heard about how they treat derek and his history but idk who knows I’m very curious in a lot of the plot lines and character development), and a lot of the stuff I know about the show I’ve scraped from fics, gifs, and meta posts

For me personally, Stiles’ personality and characterization is so fluid and nuanced that sometimes I have trouble pinning him down (tho derek doesn’t have trouble with that *wink wink*) So I would love to hear your thoughts! Sorry for the long ask, this grew legs and an ugly mug shdhdhhdjdcj anyhow have a great day :D

Well, everybody's got different perspectives and opinions on Stiles' personality, honestly. Even when you try to stick to 'canon' things, there's a lot of room for interpretation on the why when he does things, or what it says about him as a person, etc etc etc.

Personally, I see canon Stiles as kind of an asshole. I mean, I love him, and he does some incredible things, and he's clearly got an intense love for those close to him. But I do make him kinder in fics, or I at least make him regret being a dick.

In canon, we're given a Stiles who cracks 'dead baby' jokes (he's talking about human sacrifice, so the conversation was already plenty morbid. This wasn't out of the blue.) Who begs for Scott to let Jackson die (though it's made clear that this wasn't serious, and he later works to save Jackson's hide like ten times over), and who will mercilessly poke and prod at people's insecurities or painful pasts, especially when worked up. Isaac's previous abuse isn't a no-go topic. Derek having 'dated' (read: been assaulted at worst and at best, been lied to) serial killers isn't something he's going to tread lightly around. He doesn't try to soften things to save someone's feelings most of the time.

He's presented as someone who is incredibly impulsive, with his emotions, words, and actions. It's kind of implied this is because of his ADHD, but that doesn't explain how often the impulsively cruel or harsh things he says aren't retracted or apologized for, or just generally regretted. Yes, ADHD people are impulsive, and yes sometimes our mouths get away from us and we can end up saying some Fucked Up shit to people because we literally couldn't control the words coming out. But that doesn't mean we're cruel or evil or mean. We still feel bad for doing those things, and those of us who are decent people, try to fix or repair what we've messed up. I am...not a fan of how often ADHD is used as an excuse to make a character a dickhead because "he has no filter." No filter means we struggle to control our thoughts and what we say, it doesn't make us heartless.

So, when I'm writing him, I fix it. Even if he still Does something fucked up, I have him care that he did it. I have him realize what he did or said wasn't okay and respond to that knowledge in some way. Which to some people, means I'm just ignoring what a fucker he is, but imo it feels like a horrible fuckup on the creator's parts, so I'm just correcting the mistake. He's no less Stiles just bc I taught him to say sorry.

Anyway. I'm trying NOT to ramble here.

To answer your question, as best I can; Stiles is sarcastic. Stiles is passionate to a fault. His emotions are BIG, whatever they are. Good, Bad, or even apathy. Whatever feelings he has are just intense. He is very much a no gods, no kings, no masters, kind of man. There isn't really an 'authority' to him, except maybe his dad sometimes. He puts family, and those he considers family, First. But that doesn't mean he isn't selfless. Because he is. Incredibly so. Uncomfortably so.

He walks into gasoline for his friends. He puts himself in the position of losing the only parent he has left, for his classmates. He cares enough about strangers to insist a drunk girl he's spoken to for five minutes max stay hydrated and give her a bottle of water. He literally handed over his mind on a platter to a fox demon for someone he barely fucking knew, to keep her safe.

Loyal. Humorous. A fighter. Family-oriented. Clever. Passionate. Strong, physically, mentally, and emotionally. And a very good liar, in my opinion.

He doesn't lie very well in the show, not to people's faces. He'll stumble around a "I haven't seen him since the last time I saw him" or "are you asking me to tell you what I would have told you if I were going to tell you it?" but at the same time, he can repress and hide away his feelings and his pain in a way not even Derek manages.

He asked Caitlin questions about her girlfriend, and worked to solve the human sacrifices, literal minutes after finding out he'd just lost his oldest friend. He drove Lydia to the warehouse to save Jackson after having the shit beat out of him by a man who'd been learning to cause pain since he was a CHILD. And he never gives away how incredibly broken he is for more than a couple seconds. and it's a little frightening, because he convinces people in this show who are lie detectors that he's okay, when he's a fucking mess. Even Derek shows his pain.

You're right that he's nuanced, and part of that is because when you see him in meta or in fic, what you're seeing is a dozen versions of him sort of compressed into a flat image. Because he changes throughout the show, and while some of his core personality stays the same, a lot of stuff changes. So one fic might harp on his insensitivity, and callousness toward Isaac or how easily he says "just let them die" when talking about Derek or someone else. And then another will dive into how fucking far he's willing to go, travelling all the way to mexico and facing down a hunter clan a dozen times more powerful than the argents with no one but a banshee at his side, just to get Derek back. Or how he saw Malia hurting and sat with her on a couch and held her hand. One is a much earlier version of Stiles, from the start of the show, the other from his midpoint. Near the end, you're able to say that he was so torn about leaving Derek while he was dying, he had to be Begged to go save Scott. That he manipulated an ENTIRE FBI investigation in order to save and protect Derek. (im focusing on derek bc sterek, but also bc his relationship with Derek is the Biggest Arc he has in the show, and the most solid)

You're going to read about different versions of him, and I totally get how that's confusing.

We all sort of bleed ourselves into him and either bring certain canon characteristics to the forefront, or straight up add our own so he's more relatable to us.

So while I can't really help you pin down any specific Stiles, just know that there's not really a 'true' Stiles that anyone can confirm or deny. It's all just perception, so however you see him, go with it. Strengthen it. Explore it. I'm sure you'll find people who see what you do.

[itsclydebitches]

I have to wonder how season 2 Crosshair is gonna start with anything other than him escaping execution. Dude murdered his whole squad with one known survivor who reports it to the General, who then says 'We were gonna kill him anyway, so just let him die here'. It's not like Crosshair has any sort of bargaining chip to justify the Empire not abandoning or executing him.

It may end up being important that (I think) the surviving squad member doesn't know that Crosshair killed his team, only that they're dead. She was off looking for Omega, came back, saw her dead teammates and the clones fighting droids, and (smartly lol) got the hell out of Dodge. I think her exact words were that Crosshair "lost control of the situation," which tells the Admiral that Crosshair failed, but not that he failed because of his own betrayal. Granted, I think she's also the one who approaches the Admiral earlier, saying she doesn't trust Crosshair's motivations when it comes to his former team, so there's already a precedent set that Crosshair's loyalty may be less than perfect. Still, the actual explanation of what went down doesn't reveal that Crosshair killed his teammates and outright betrayed the Empire, just that he failed to complete the mission.

So based on what stories have done in the past, I can picture a couple of different ways for him to return:

 Using the above, Crosshair straight up hides his shaky loyalties and frames the failure as just that: a garden variety failure. Perhaps he implies, though does not outright state, that his team's death came at the hands of TBB. A "Let the Admiral think what he wants" situation that benefits him.

The above + Crosshair emphasizing that TBB escaped. You know what kind of threat they are, Admiral, and though I failed before, I'm still your best chance at capturing/killing them. You need me. Crosshair believes firmly in his own usefulness — that ego — and he's not above working hard to convince others of that.

 Between now and the time of his return, the Admiral has, for whatever reason, reconsidered the benefit of having at least a few clones in his army and is thus pleased that Crosshair survived, no matter the iffy circumstances of that. Personally, my mind keeps focusing on the weird motivations here. Namely, this push to have a conscripted army when, as far as TBB shows, that's a bad option compared to what they've already got. We as the audience know that the Empire needs to reach the point where they've got stormtroopers with terrible aim (that's the OG Star Wars), but right now, outside of that meta context, the Admiral's choices come across as rather stupid to me. Gregor and TBB point out, "These are our replacements?" highlighting that conscripted soldiers just don't have the skill of clones who were bred for war. I can only assume that the Empire was spying on Crosshair's team the same way they did TBB when they were sent to execute the "insurgents," which means they would have seen that the clone, Crosshair, was the only one originally willing to follow their order of killing civilians. Crosshair had to kill the other guy/talk the rest of the team into following that command. And of course, that's largely due to the chip, circling right back to why the Empire would have removed his when it gives them perfect control over Crosshair, especially after bothering to enhance it in the first place. So say nothing of Crosshair's crazy skills, making him one of, if not the best, shooter in the galaxy. I feel like if they want the Admiral to come across as less foolish, all these points should resurface at some point like, "Yes, having an ally specifically bred for war, with a genetically superior makeup to enhance his ability, who can be put under literal mind control and who while in that state has already proven that he'll follow our commands when conscripted soldiers won't... that's actually a good thing for us evil people to have!"

The Admiral has totally written Crosshair off. Doesn't need him. Doesn't want him. But a new character is introduced who is interested and who, crucially, outranks him. So Crosshair is let back in as someone else's evil pet, setting up conflict within the Empire.

The above, but specifically through the lens of clones now being a rare and useful commodity. We know they grabbed Nala Se, so either she (if she regains some power) or her new scientist boss could insist that they keep Crosshair around as a genetic source/experiment/whatever. Especially since they don't have Omega yet. Could even be that Crosshair becomes a prisoner again, returning to fight for the Empire, but becoming their lab rat instead.

Crosshair deliberately does something to get back into their good graces. Something, something, saving the Admiral from a legit threat, or one of Crosshair's own making. A way to show off how useful he is.

 OR we do get a near execution that results in the same basic thing: Crosshair escapes, shows off his skill, all his would-be executioners are dead, he's the last one standing, and the Admiral is like, "Well then. Welcome back." You know when Rex is on the cruiser and goes "This will do nicely," Tech points out that it's not sterile, Rex pushes back that they can go to Kamino instead, and within a second Tech is going, "This will do nicely!" too? Same idea. It's easy to accept Crosshair as the best/only option if he does something to make himself that option.

Ultimately, I think how this goes down will depend largely on whether they want Crosshair back in the Empire's clutches or not. He's told TBB he intends to stick with the big power, but that doesn't necessarily mean the plot will allow for that. If the story wants Crosshair to continue being a willing Imperial for a time, prior to his assumed redemption, then yeah, I think it would be relatively easy to get him back in the Empire's good graces. It wouldn't necessary be the smoothest transition of all time, but as we've already seen in Season One — I don't totally follow why conscripted soldiers are supposedly better than clones, don't follow why TBB isn't trying to rescue Crosshair, don't understand yet why Crosshair won't clarify things about his chip, etc. — motivations in Star Wars can be... messy at the best of times. So if they just went, "And the Empire let Crosshair come back for ___ reason, don't think about that reason too hard" I'd be fine with that. But, if they want Crosshair to start his redemption now, one of the easiest ways to do that would be to stick him with a third party. Someone else finds him on the planet, perhaps someone neutral-ish like another bounty hunter, and Crosshair is given the chance to technically be opposed to his brothers because that's where they left things, but not actively working with the organization hunting him down. Plot-wise it would be relatively simple to put him in situations where he wants to return to the Empire, but can't just now, for whatever reason — they need to travel there, he hasn't thought up a means of getting back in their good graces yet, he gets caught up in another problem he needs to solve first, starts hunting TBB himself to return with that incentive, etc. — and that time allows him to start reconsidering whether he actually wants to go back, now that he's been forced to survive without them. An in-between space that will allow him to work towards the Light side again... even if I'd personally prefer for that to come about through his brothers fighting for him.

[lesbiansayaishii]

Meta asks: 1, 2, 5, 7?

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

already answered this with my silkcat wip but I always have others <3

we'll talk about my sayacindy wip hmm... the basic premise is Cindy visits Saya twice after the events of silk 2021, I have vibes ofc but no plot further than that😅 progress is going pretty slow rn, I've been more focusing on my silkcat wip because writing both of them at once was messing me up and giving me huge dynamic whiplash (mostly because I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to write sayacindy's dynamic yet). I have a couple parts that I really love tho!! this is a paragraph excerpt from what I have so far and I'm actually proud of how I wrote the descriptions!

The next night when Cindy drops into her penthouse, Saya doesn’t seem surprised. It’s sunset this time around, and the warm, tinted light filters through the floor to ceiling windows and turns everything in the room a shade of coral. It’s a beautiful view, the sunset over the city, but neither of them give it the slightest glance, gazes fixed on the other from the second Cindy had entered the room.

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

So many things so many things where to start… (probably a specific wip, that would be a good idea no?) We’ll go silkcat.

I’m actually looking forward to getting this fic done lol- mostly because it’s a giant pain right now but also because I think you guys will really like it! In terms of writing, I’m looking forward to dropping all their barriers and inhibitions and just having them interact (and be in love <3).

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

oh god. do I want people to know who I project onto? lol. I haven't written her in a hot minute but probably Julia Argent from Carmen Sandiego. she was the first character I really connected with and was obsessed with writing (see: my fifteen fics with her in them).

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

This is a very good question actually, and the short answer is I have no idea. But I will ramble and try to answer for your sake lol.

I think I’m still kinda trying to settle into my distinctive writing style? I just started writing just under two years ago (wow already?) so I still feel like I’m jumping around and trying out new stuff yknow? As of right now I’d say that descriptions are a big part of my writing style though. In my most recent multi (The Wolfe Heiress) one of my mutuals told me that it was very descriptive and I agree to some extent- and have been trying to work on incorporating more into the works I’ve finished/released since the last uploaded chapter of twh.

writer asks

[incorrectlumityquotes]

FULL REVIEWS: “Enchanting Grom Fright”

The hype for this episode was unreal. We got the crew telling us that we weren’t ready on social media. It was a madhouse. To think that the little ship that could would have this big a leap in canon is unreal. Let’s just get to it.

The cold open starts with Luz trying to find more glyphs in her off time. I thinks it really shows her development so far. Now she’s willing to do the work to figure out her kind of magic, as oppose to say episode two where she just wanted to be great because she was “chosen.”

“My glyph skills are blossoming”

But then reality ensues...

Using the portal to let the wifi signal into The Owl House is not the dumbest reason I’ve heard to open an interdimensional portal between worlds but it is one of the most mundane. SOMEHOW, Luz can still receive texts from her mom FROM ANOTHER WORLD. Not that it makes too much of a difference since Luz barely answers them. 

As much fun as it is to focus on the magic and the shipping and the friendship and the curse, Luz still knows that she’s still lying to her mom. The guilt is there, but luckily being a main character keeps her too busy to think about it.

“Luz, time to fill that darling head of yours with...huuh huuh huuh HAKKK, mmm, mmm, mmh, delicious knowledge.”

Never change, Hooty.

It’s that time of year again that Luz doesn’t know about yet, Grom: The Boiling Isles’ weird version of prom. Every fantasy world has one. 

*hiss*

Amity bumps into Luz, and I know this is going to sound weird, but I really like Amity’s “Watch it, nitwit.” Amity’s character has changed and developed from our perspective which is the perspective of Luz and The Owl House fam. But she’s not a completely different character. Amity still has a bit of a temper and gets agitated easily. It makes sense to me and I’m glad I haven’t found anyone be like “Hey if Amity is nicer, why did she get mad when she bumped into someone?” 

Amity is nicer to Luz and co. because she’s gotten to know Luz and co. You don’t treat everyone in your life the same. Amity is one of those people that you need to defrost with first. Belief is backed up by experience and so are people’s personas. (Not that persona. I’m being serious here.) Because of Amity’s experiences, she’s believed that in order to survive she has to put people at arm’s length, then when she gets to know you, she’ll decide if she wants to let you in or not. So I guess that means that based on her interactions with Luz, Amity has decided...

You know what? I’ll save that for my Lumity meta.

The popular theory is that Amity was going to put her note in Luz’s locker, hence why she bumped into them. But actually seeing Luz and being announced as grom queen probably made her lose her nerve.

“Embrace your dreams...”

Amity is announced to be this year’s grom queen. Luz is happy for her before Amity runs in shock and embarrassment. Okay.

Luz discovers the gym’s weapons cache (not a thing I thought I would ever type) and Amity explains grom. Since Luz is from the human world and all that.

Grom is a monster that lives under the school and needs to be defeated every year so it doesn’t invade the town. It’s a classic shape-shifting fear monster. Odd are I have (and so have you) at least seen three or four of these in our lives already. Amity doesn’t want to show the entire school her greatest fear, especially since she already knows what it is. Luz suggest talking to Bump and Amity says she’ll try.

Another scene of Eda and King laughing and mocking Luz. Because I liked it so much the first time.

Eda gets dressed up herself because she’s volunteered to chaperone grom. Luz tells her that Amity is grom queen but wishes that she could take her place. We get...you know and Luz walks off. 

“I think we should kiss to ease the tension.”

Luz randomly meets up with Amity in the woods because I guess Amity had the same idea to take a walk to clear her head. Whatever. Amity tells Luz that Bump wasn’t going to change his mind unless Amity found a replacement. Luz volunteers because...she’s Luz, friend to all.

Except maybe that spider.

Top 10 Anime Betrayals

The Blight Siblings try to help Luz train against grom only for Eda to find out about their little plan. Here’s where we find out why Eda volunteered to chaperone a Hexside event even though she hates that place:

“What’s the fun in watching a kid get eaten by a monster if it’s my kid?”

That’s hilarious. To me. 

Luz and Amity have a moment before Luz’s debut and Amity thanks Luz for everything she’s done. They have more adorable banter before Luz takes the stage. 

“Wish me luck.”

“Luck.”

I’m guessing that’s not an expression in The Boiling Isles.

Luz faces Grom and it seems to be going better than everyone predicted until...you know

“Mija, this would be such a good shot for the trailer.”

Yup, we all predicted this. Luz’s greatest fear is her mom finding out that she’s been lying to her. Luz panics and takes off with Eda and Amity to chase after her.

Eda comes in for the save when Amity bursts in the scene saying “Boy let me tell you what.” She doesn’t really I just like saying that. You know, in my head. I mean, if you heard the way I was saying it out loud you’d probably think it was funny too but you know...text.

Grom gets a hold of Amity and transforms into her greatest fear. And we see why Amity didn’t want to face Grom in front of the whole school. She didn’t want everyone to see that Amity’s fear is very...emotional. Not physical. She’s not afraid of a giant spider or anything. It’s a little closer to the heart.

Amity clutching at her dress like a little kid is both the cutest and the saddest thing. This fear of hers is so bad it makes this fourteen year old feel like she’s four. I’m so sure she was about to cry right there. Or maybe that’s me. Could be both.

Luz picks up the note and discovers that Amity was trying to ask somebody out before she was announced as grom queen. Amity was afraid of being rejected. Luz tries to ease her fears by asking her out to grom. 

Trying seeing it from Luz’s point of view. She has no idea who Amity wants to ask out. Luz doesn’t even consider that it could be her because again, belief is backed by experience. Luz was considered a weirdo with no friends in the human world. She even said earlier in the episode that she got kicked out of her last school dance for dressing like an otter. Luz has no reason to believe that someone would like her romantically. She would like to. It is a fantasy of hers, but her experience tells her that other people don’t see her that way so she doesn’t consider that Amity wanted to ask Luz out.

I’ll save the rest for another blog post, although I did talk about this last year too.

But since Amity did want to ask Luz out and Luz asked her out instead, Amity’s fears are eased. Grom does what every fear monster does when their target overcomes their fears and says “Screw it, I’m just going to kick your ass!”

And then this happens:

As a Star vs the Forces of Evil fan, let me just say this is our Blood Moon Ball moment. The moment that the show tells the audience in John Oliver’s voice, “Yup this is the ship we’re doing so strap in folks.”

Luz and Amity work together to combine magic to take down Grom. It also helps that they eased each others’ fears. Luz can’t think about her mom if she’s focused on helping Amity. 

Luz and Amity defeat Grom in a blaze of glory. Luz being Luz, decides to ask Amity who she wanted to ask out just to see if she would tell you. Amity brushes it off.

“It doesn’t matter. After all, I already got to dance with the girl I like.”

Everyone celebrates but when Luz gets home she’s more tired than anything.

Maybe it was Grom, but Luz decides to give her mom a real answer. It’s been tough but it’s also been fun. There are good and bad days. Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t belong. But she has friends. They care about her, she cares about them, and that’s more than enough reason to stay. 

THEN THIS SHIT HAPPENS!

Yeah, the Meteora moment in Star vs the Forces of Evil. The moment where the show went “Never mind that shit. Here comes a complete change in the status quo.” 

Someone or something is sending Luz’s mom letters. It’s Luz’s handwriting, but it’s clearly not Luz since she can’t spell her name right. Season one already finished and we still have no idea what this is. 

I was all happy a second ago. Now I’m nervous as all hell. It’s a madhouse I tells ya. A madhouse!

FINAL SCORE: 5 - LOVED IT!

Wow. Just wow. This episode had everything. Jokes, plot, romance, character development, cameos, dancing, girls, MOM(?), crashing on your couch because technically I’m homeless.

I shipped Lumity before this, but this was the episode that told me that yes it was going to happen. We’re all in. 

But it’s not perfect.

Yeah, did any of you noticed that I didn’t even mention the B-plot? I’m going to be honest. The reason is...

I hate it.

I hate the B-plot so much that I skip it every time I watch this episode. I still don’t think Gus is that funny or interesting. Hell, Skara’s mini plot with her date and/or boyfriend was funnier.

But everything else about the episode more than outshines the B-plot so I still give it a five.

Next time we finish up the lumity trilogy next time.

Dammit I said next time twice.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

So as I said last night I started making a meta post about the dust embargo sparked by another James hater in the tag but I noticed something and my response kept coming back to this thing I noticed and I realized my discussion was focusing way to much on this detail I noticed that is only sort of mildly connected to the post I’m referencing so I decided to make a post talking about this detail I noticed instead and the interesting implications it could have had. Now I realize people have likely talked about this already given this scene was in volume 4 but I’m late to the fandom so I have no idea if people have talked about this and I’m not about to search through years of posts to confirm this or not.

While working on the meta post I noticed that the container Weiss opens on the smugglers ship had the Schnee Dust Company logo on it.

Now you’re probably wondering why this caught my attention and why I was so interested in this. It caught my attention because the animators had to specifically add this logo onto the container. They could have simply not placed a logo on the container but they decided to place the SDC logo specifically in the container and more curiously it being inside the container rather then prominently on the outside like normally would be done on shipping containers.

I feel this is important because it tells me that given Jacques greed and what lengths he’s willing to go for power I would not be surprised if Jacques was on some level working with smugglers to ensure his dust is getting out of Atlas and sold. We also know James is not popular amongst the Atlas elite right now so their is further speculation to be made depending on if only the Atlesian military controls air traffic or if civilians are also involved that possibly some Atlesians look the other way if they suspect any sort of smuggling happening in order to also line their own pockets.

Now we technically don’t know if this is the case but I can’t stop coming back to the point that the logo was purposefully put in. Why would the containers have the logo if they didn’t come from the SDC and given that Jacques never mentions dust being stolen from his factories it’s not that big of a stretch really to think Jacques is sneaking behind James’s back and having smugglers move dust to get around the embargo. Especially given the total lack of a dust shortage we actually see within Remnant when their should be given how the show implies the SCD is the only dust company in Remnant since we never see nor hear about any other dust companies that are still in business. 

This could have been such an interesting point to explore, James finding out about Jacques smuggling out dust and the real reason Jacques is so angry about Atlas boarders being shut down completely is because now he won’t be able to snuggle out dust anymore. It would really well explain why Remnant wasn’t feeling the effects of the Embargo until the mains got to Atlas and would further show that Jacques is willing to do anything out of greed. It would also help further establish the corruption within the elite the show again claims is their but that we don’t really see. We see them being snobbish and such but corruption is just not something all that present. I just think this could have been a really good plot thread to explore the continue some all to important world building and help establish why dust is still seemingly pretty readily available in Remnant despite the embargo. It would also be interesting to explore this whole thing from James’s perspective. He’s trying to figure out how dust is getting out of Atlas but he and his people keep hitting road blocks from the elite and the rest of the council either couldn’t be bothered to assist with this because they possibly even have something to gain from the smuggling.

Sadly everyone involved in this is dead and given how the show this far hasn’t explored the should be shortage of dust I don’t have a lot of hopes for them actually exploring this moving forward. I think the writers just kind of forgot to show their is a dust shortage and are hoping we will continue to not notice even moving forward.

[millenniumblog]

[ID: A chart describing the core values of each of the nine Enneagram personality types with YuGiOh characters correlated to each of the types.]

YuGiOh Enneagram Analysis, Part #1

Please note that this is the “boring” informational post about Enneagram with the Types listed and explained as well as a few other things. The next post is what has the actual, in-depth character profiles promised!

Introduction & Motivation

Over the past several months, I have been trying to analyze my strengths and weaknesses as a writer and learn more. I have been writing fanfiction since I was a little kid, making my first FF.net account in 2003 when I would have been twelve years old. Even before that, I was a lurker and wrote fics to share with my childhood best friend on paper or floppy discs.

YuGiOh came into my life at some point shortly thereafter. I know this, because I spent my thirteenth birthday in a comic book shop, mostly watching some of my male friends play the trading card game. I had some of the cards, but I was never much of a player, unable to keep up with the seemingly rapid rule changes. Besides that, I was always way more interested in the story and characters than I was in the card game. I remember I even wanted to call “YuGiOh cards” “Duel Monsters” instead to make it seem a little closer to tween-y LARPing.

Eventually, I gave up on collecting cards or trying to ply the game. I felt that while my male friends didn’t mind me being around when they played, they weren’t extremely interested in helping me learn or keep up. I felt I had other strengths, so I started carrying around a notebook even more than I already did. I started my fledgling forays into online fandom. And YuGiOh was a big part of the beginning of that.

I can’t remember posting any YuGiOh fic in particular, and I’m sure that if I had it would make me cringe now. What I do remember is reading some and also spending a lot of time lying on my bed, headphones plugged into a small purple stereo, listening to the first of the two American-released CDs with YuGiOh-inspired music on them. In particular, the last three tracks were pieces of music from the original score composed for the 4Kids dub, which is - for some reason - different from the original Japanese music.

During that time, I would fantasize and conjure my own YuGiOh plots in my head, most of which were focused on the Ancient Egyptian and more spooky, spiritual, and horror themes in the show. I was really fascinated with the reincarnation angle, though my understanding of and opinions on how that works have grown with time.

Years went by, and I didn’t think about YuGiOh much at all. Then, something happened in 2018. I don’t know what got in my head, but it was like all the joy I once found in thinking about the YuGiOh characters came back in a giddy conversation with my childhood best friend. Then, for a little while, it wouldn’t leave me alone.

I started writing for the fandom then, and after several detours, I’m trying to get back in the groove of it.

My approach to the tone of YuGiOh-fanning is that it’s a bit serious, but it’s also with a tongue placed in my cheek because of how incomprehensible or silly the plot can be on a meta level. Sometimes, it almost brings tears to my eyes by being so over-the-top about something that, in the real world, would make no sense at all. But the drama, in the context of the universe, somehow rings true.

I think that’s all owing to how most of the primary characters are just... really freaking great characters.

It has often puzzled me. Like, did Takahashi do all this layering on purpose? Is it really there, or did earnest fanon just make it seem like it? And, as a person, I am always here for a good fan-and-canon symbiosis.

This post is going to be, from here on, an effort to match the YuGiOh characters to the 9 Enneagram Personality Types. I am writing this for my own benefit as I continue to work on my pet YuGiOh fanfiction project, It’s Always Sunny in Domino City, which is a mixture of YGOTAS-vibes-and-concepts taken seriously and a sincere take on fanfiction for the actual canon. It’s dramedy about a sizeable chunk of the main cast a few years post-canon with some canon divergence such as the Memory World arc not yet and possibly never-happening. If that sounds like something you’d like, I would humbly request you check it out!

Either way, this will be an in-depth character analysis cheatsheet for all of the characters above, based on my observations, opinions, and feelings. I invite discussion, but it’s fine if we need to agree to totally disagree!

If you are interested and enjoy what’s below the Read More and in the coming second post, then you are welcome to utilize the character analyses to aid you in your own fanwork!

Enneagram

What is Enneagram, and why am I using it?

Enneagram is a personality categorization system that one might compare to the somewhat better-known MBTI. However, in the words of excellent writing-advice YouTuber, Abbie Emmons:

MBTI shows us how we behave.

Enneagram shows us what we believe.

I will be referencing Abbie’s video Using The ENNEAGRAM To Write CONFLICTED CHARACTERS and her free Enneagram-cheatsheet, available in the description of the linked video. Whether it’s before you continue reading or after, if you’re interested in writing, I would highly recommend you check out her channel!

The Enneagram system has nine basic personality types that overlap and interact in really interesting ways. It is not a hard science, and it’s not a horoscope. Instead, it’s supposed to be “based on conventional wisdom and modern psychology.” All I can say is that with every set of characters I’ve tried it with, it works! Once you get the hang of it, it feels kind of like ~✰~magic~✰~!

Below, I will list Abbie’s simplified definitions of each of the personality types, in order:

Type 1: The Reformer

The Rational, Idealistic Type:

Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic

Basic Fear: Of being corrupt/evil, defective

Basic Desire: To be good, to have integrity, to be balanced

Key Motivations: Want to be right, to strive higher and improve everything, to be consistent with their ideals, to justify themselves, to be beyond criticism so as not to be condemned by anyone.

Type 2: The Helper

The Caring, Interpersonal Type:

Generous, Demonstrative, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

Basic Fear: Of being unwanted, unworthy of being loved

Basic Desire: To feel loved

Key Motivations: Want to be loved, to express their feelings for others, to be needed and appreciated, to get others to respond to them, to vindicate their claims about themselves.

Type 3: The Achiever

The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type:

Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious

Basic Fear: Of being worthless

Basic Desire: To feel valuable and worthwhile

Key Motivations: Want to be affirmed, to distinguish themselves from others, to have attention, to be admired, and to impress others.

Type 4: The Individualist

The Sensitive, Introspective Type:

Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance

Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity)

Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."

Type 5: The Investigator

The Intense, Cerebral Type:

Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

Basic Fear: Being useless, helpless, or incapable

Basic Desire: To be capable and competent

Key Motivations: Want to possess knowledge, to understand the environment, to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.

Type 6: The Loyalist

The Committed, Security-Oriented Type:

Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious

Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance

Basic Desire: To have security and support

Key Motivations: Want to have security, to feel supported by others, to have certitude and reassurance, to test the attitudes of others toward them, to fight against anxiety and insecurity.

Type 7: The Enthusiast

The Busy, Variety-Seeking Type:

Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, and Scattered

Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain

Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content—to have their needs fulfilled

Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.

Type 8: The Challenger

The Powerful, Dominating Type:

Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational

Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others

Basic Desire: To protect themselves (to be in control of their own life and destiny)

Key Motivations: Want to be self-reliant, to prove their strength and resist weakness, to be important in their world, to dominate the environment, and to stay in control of their situation.

Type 9: The Peacemaker

The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type:

Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent

Basic Fear: Of loss and separation

Basic Desire: To have inner stability, "peace of mind"

Key Motivations: Want to create harmony in their environment, to avoid conflicts and tension, to preserve things as they are, to resist whatever would upset or disturb them.

Now that you’ve seen all those, what do you think your favorite character is? In YuGiOh or anything else! It works great for original characters and even yourself and your loved ones.

The actual Character Profiles will be in coming post(s), but continue reading if you want me to explain more about how and why the Enneagram is a great personality typing system. #nonspon, or whatever.

The Enneagram Chart

Now, you could just go to the Enneagram Institute’s page on How the System Works, but below I’ll cut it down to only the parts I’m interested in and explain those in a way that helps me.

Unlike in astrology or MBTI, which are both more restrictive in different ways, the relative position of each type matters a bit on the Enneagram chart, because it can be used to visualize a lot of things about a person!

The Basic Chart

The Types are shown in a clockwise fashion with “1″ in the 1 o’clock position on an analog clock. The interior lines mean things, but I have trouble reading it without further delineation.

Centers of Response

Below are two small charts, displayed side-by-side. (If it’s too small, try right-click, open in new tab!)

The chart on the left shows the three “centers.” The “centers” indicate the first ‘processing language’ a person would use to respond to stimuli.

Type 8, Type 9, and Type 1 respond first based on instinct (primal, gut-feeling). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the id.

Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 respond first based on feelings (social or personal desires, the heart). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the ego.

Type 5, Type 6, and Type 7 respond first based on thoughts (analytical rather than emotional, the head). If you want to go Freudian, this is from the superego.

Remember that, of course, every single type and person engages their instincts, their emotions, and their thoughts at different times and to different degrees, and some of these are learned or changed behaviors. This is about what their innate drive toward that would be.

Likewise, the same “centers” can also be used for the chart on the right. You will notice that all three of these are defined by what is typically considered a negative emotion. This is because this is about a person’s instinctive, not particularly conscious emotional response when they are backed into a corner and deprived of something that is core to the needs of their personality type.

Type 8, Type 9, and Type 1 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with anger/rage.

Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with shame.

Type 5, Type 6, and Type 7 tend to respond to a threat to their psychic well-being with fear.

Stress vs. Growth

We all know that there are times when a person isn’t acting like themselves, for better or for worse. Usually, “You’re not acting like yourself,” means that a person is behaving badly. Of course, it’s way easier to withdraw and bristle and defend rather than growing in the midst of adversity. However, it is certainly possible to experience character growth in response to experiences, good and bad. Unlike a lot of other personality typing schemes, the Enneagram has a way to display and predict what stress and growth do to a person.

The Enneagram never suggests that any Type is an island unto itself. Every person contains multitudes, but a person’s Type is likely to remain relatively stable throughout their lives, once they have had a chance to develop any personality at all. This means that when a person is stressed or growing that they do not become the type they emulate. Rather, they are more highly expressing that aspects of their personality that reflect those drives and desires but in a way that is either fraught, sickly, or unwell (in the case of stress), or aspirational, flying-high, and incorporating the hard-lessons into who a person is going to be going forward (in the case of growth). The latter, especially, isn’t a sustainable mode, while a stressed person can become more entrenched in their bad habits and defensive coping mechanisms.

Stress

Note the white, directional arrows. Each number has an arrow point pointing to it and an arrow leading away from it. The point indicates that this is the stress manifestation for the Type at the origin of that arrow. The origin of each arrow indicates the Type being described.

Confused? Let me finally give you a YuGiOh example.

When I was trying to identify the Types of the characters, defining Marik was difficult, because he has a “Yami,” or Dark Side, which has its own personality and will but which is not its own separate soul or person than Marik himself. Rather, it’s a kind of fantasy/magic-assisted personality splintering where Yami Marik is a full manifestation of the negative traits Marik needed to embody to survive.

So, for reference:

When stressed, Type 1 behaves more like Type 4. 

When stressed, Type 2 behaves more like Type 8.

When stressed, Type 3 behaves more like Type 9.

When stressed, Type 4 behaves more like Type 2.

When stressed, Type 5 behaves more like Type 7.

When stressed, Type 6 behaves more like Type 3.

When stressed, Type 7 behaves more like Type 1.

When stressed, Type 8 behaves more like Type 5.

When stressed, Type 9 behaves more like Type 6.

Alternatively, you can use these sequences to follow the stress lines:

1-4-2-8-5-7-1

9-6-3-9

Growth

Think of the above-explanation in reverse.

The sequence:

1-7-5-8-2-4-1

9-3-6-9

As a Type 1 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 7.

As a Type 2 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 4.

As a Type 3 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 6.

As a Type 4 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 1.

As a Type 5 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 8.

As a Type 6 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 9.

As a Type 7 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 5.

As a Type 8 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 2.

As a Type 9 grows, they incorporate more positive traits of Type 3.

Wings

The final thing to know about the Enneagram chart for my purposes is about wings. The wing of your personality traits accounts for the complementary and contradictory aspects of your personality. They are the inconsistencies that make you human, predicted and jumped in. Typically, a person is not thought to have both possible wings but one or the other. A wing is one of the two adjacent Types to yours, the number before, or the number after, and it is annotated, for example:

Type 1, Wing 2: 1w2

Type 1, Wing 9: 1w9

Link to Part 2 Here!

[estrel]

Catalysts & Changes: a 15x16 Meta

I wanted to talk really quickly about Dean’s change this season, especially regarding 15x16.

My main focus of this meta is to talk about Mary’s impact on Dean being the catalyst for this change we’ve been seeing, but I’m also going to be mentioning some Cas/destiel things to tie into this. So, here we go:

I. Mary as Catalyst & Myth

Mary is Dean’s reason. By that I mean that literally the whole reason Dean hunts--or, rather, continues to hunt, since John honestly forced it on him--was all in the hopes of catching what killed Mary. That was the main purpose of season 1, other than finding John. This is Dean’s motivation, his basis as a character. 

Dean has also mentioned on multiple occasions that Mary was why he was brave, why he kept fighting, and that he often thought about her. 

Dean: I was scared, too. I didn’t feel like talking, just like you. But see, my mom...I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day (1.03 Dead in the Water)

Remember this quote, because I think it’s eerily similar to the one in 15.16 that I’ll talk about later in this post.

This makes sense--she’s his mom, he should be affected in some way about her death. But Dean takes it to the extreme, based his life around it, held on to it for far too long. Sam was different, because he never actually knew Mary, and we know from earlier seasons that their feelings about her are pretty different. 

Meanwhile, almost any time Dean has dreamt of something ideal, Mary was there (think of his djinn dream in 2.20 where Mary never died, and in heaven in 5.16). We can especially see that this is true because of what Amara said in Gimme Shelter:

Dean: What was the point?

Amara: I wanted two things for you, Dean. I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person. That the myth you’d held onto for so long of a better life, a life where she’d lived, was just that: a myth. I wanted you to see that the real, complicated Mary, was better than your childhood dream because she was real. That now is always better than then. That you could finally start to accept your life. (15.15 Gimme Shelter)

Here, Amara was anticipating a turning point. She had wanted Dean to be “released” by having Mary back, but obviously this didn’t happen. Instead, Mary’s death was once again the catalyst for Dean’s change, just like it was the first time when Azazel killed her. We can also see from this that Dean has always been stuck in the past, hence Amara telling him that he should be focusing on now, instead. Another thing to note for future reference is the “real” line. Remember Cas saying “we are” when Dean asks him what is real.

Mary was also not exactly what Sam or Dean--hell, not even the viewers--had been expecting when she returned. She was scared, alone, and had trouble dealing with being back in a new century with her little boys all grown up and even worse-- hunting. But Dean eventually accepted this. He accepted the real version of Mary, but continued to idolize her and bring up the past.

II. Mary’s Death

Now let’s take a look at what’s happened since Mary’s second death:

Denial. Dean hopes Mary isn’t actually dead, even though all signs point to this.

Grief. Dean cries alone at the site of her death.

Blame. Dean blames Jack and Cas for what happened. 

During and after the funeral, Dean avoids talking about it with anyone. However, he is obviously affected by her death. Sam even holds Cas back from going to Dean while burning the pyre. Bobby makes a comment about Dean being a lot like him and not wanting to show his feelings to others.

These all sound like the Dean that’s been built up since season 1. Not dealing with his feelings properly at all, pushing people away, denial. The one thing that makes this time different from other deaths, though, is that--just like the first time Mary died--there's no body to bring back. It's implied in 14.19 that if there had been, Dean would have tried, because he even tells Sam:

Note: This is also an episode where we see Jack being a mirror for Dean by doing exactly that--doing everything in his power to try to bring Mary back by himself. It doesn’t work; Mary’s gone for good. And she’s happy--she’s in heaven! 

In addition to there not being a body, Dean also knows who did it. It's not some unidentifiable yellow-eyed demon that he can spend years tracking down, it's Jack. It's his son, it's someone he can't and won't kill, because he's family, even if he’s guilty. So Dean has no outlet for his rage except to put blame on not only Jack, but Cas (specifically in 15.03 The Rupture, Jack is dead at this point and he pushes Cas away for several episodes). And here is where Dean begins to change.

III. The Shift: Anger, Apologies, and Forgiveness

Because then, in 15.09 The Trap, there is a big, significant shift. Dean forgives Cas:

Dean: You’re my best friend, but I just let you go. ‘Cause it was easier than admitting I was wrong. 

He cries, looks around, and gets on his knees.

Dean: I don’t know why I get so angry. I just know-I just know that it’s just always been there. And when things go bad, it just-it comes out. And I can’t- I can’t stop it. No matter how--how bad I want to, I just can’t stop it. And I forgive you, of course I forgive you. I’m sorry it took me so long to...I’m sorry it took me ‘til now to say it.  (15.09 The Trap)

This is an incredibly important scene because it shows that Dean knows about his anger--the anger that Amara talks about in 15x15, and he wants to stop it. 

Amara: I thought having [Mary] back would release you...put that fire out. Your anger. But I guess we both know I failed at that.

Dean: You’re damn right.  (15.15 Gimme Shelter)

After this, Dean clarifies that he’s not only angry, but furious. This is change, this is change caused directly by Mary’s death--by Amara bringing her back again. Dean might say he is furious, but he has also said before that he wants to stop his anger. And, in many ways, he’s been taking steps towards doing that: 

For example, here in 15.09 when Dean forgives Cas, (gif credit)

and here in 15.14 when he tells Jack he’s trying to forgive him for killing Mary, (gif credit)

and again in 15.16 for not telling Sam and Caitlin about the dead bodies when they were younger (gif credit)

and most recently, at the end of 15.16, when he didn’t tell Sam about Jack dying. (gif credit)

So now we’ve taken the turn towards forgiveness. Dean has been handing out apologies and forgiveness like never before this season, which is a definite change to how it used to be with him. He’s opening up, and he is trying to do better and be better than before. Billie also tells him this at the diner:

(gif credit)

I’m inclined here to believe that Dean is on that road to forgiveness with Jack. I mean, he said it himself in 15.14 that he’s trying, and Cas also vouched for him when Jack asked if forgiveness from Dean was a possibility. So in 15.16, when Dean says they have “no choice” but to let Jack die, it’s not because it doesn’t haunt him. It clearly does, with the entire episode dealing with Dean coping with the deaths of children, even his brother. He doesn’t want Jack to die, but his anger, his fury towards Chuck is taking precedence over that. It’s something he wants to change, but feels like he has no choice in the matter.

To add on to this, Jack has been a clear mirror for Dean this entire season. Dean’s argument with Sam about them having no choice is an indication of this. Just an episode prior in 15.15, Jack told Cas that the choice wasn’t his whether or not Jack died. So the pair ups in 15.17 aren’t all that surprising. With the episode being titled “Unity,” I think that the four of them will reach an agreement by the end of the episode (I keep mentioning agreements in all of my metas, because I think Chuck/Amara and Sam/Eileen’s agreement had important implications, but alas...), and be unified in a new plan to defeat Chuck. 

As for Dean? I don’t think his ending is going to be expected. He is changing--he won’t be making the same decisions he used to make in earlier seasons. 

I also find it fascinating that they made 15.16 a flashback episode to their past as children. Not only did 15.16 show us Dean being annoyed by sex, ignoring a possible love interest (which we were right as an audience to assume it would be written that way, because it has been so many times before), and how he’s dealing with the prospect of Jack’s death (with all of the imagery of dead children), but it really brought to light how much Dean has changed. 

The most obvious way they showed us this was through this scene with Caitlin (who looks eerily like a young Mary...interesting), who says this:

(gif credit)

Dean: Always am.

Caitlin: You have changed. The old you never would have admitted that.

Dean: Well, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

Caitlin: I think so. What do they say about getting older? You tell the truth more because lies...they don’t make anything better. (15.16 Drag Me Away (From You)) 

Now, ignoring the fact that Dean has admitted this (in 1.03), we know that the only time he has admitted to being scared before was in relation to Mary. But I think what the writers were going for here was not only to highlight Dean’s recent character growth by admitting to Caitlin that he’s changed, but also the running theme of lying this season. I’ve said it before that Sam has been the only one telling the truth in s15, and I think it’ll eventually come into play during the final episodes. The truth/lies aspect will become a central plot point--I mean, it already is. But I think it’ll factor into how the show will end as a whole, especially with this episode and previous ones alluding to normalcy and the possibility of it for Sam. 

I’m going to finish this here, because I’ve dragged on too long, but some other (destiel) things to note are:

Dean falling to his knees in the hallway as a parallel to falling on his knees in Purgatory, praying to Cas, apologizing.

Dean cutting off Baba Yaga’s fingers, whereas Cas restored a woman’s fingers in 15x15. The pastor telling Cas that people are god’s hands; they lift each other up with each finger. The implications of Dean cutting people off, and Cas bringing people together.

another amazing meta regarding 15.16 and another about dean changing + 15.16

[arofili]

how’d u get into writing? like, writing fic and being part of the silm community, being Known, that stuff? i’m really new to being a silm cc and i’d love to know ur advice! also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs? bc i have a Lot of hcs and meta ideas but also i’m really anxious abt posting them bc yknow anxiety is like that

these are some great questions, anon! I’m gonna go through them one by one :)

how’d u get into writing?

not to be like, super cliche, but I’ve...kind of always been a writer? as long as I can remember I’ve been telling stories, and when I was too young to read or write I would dictate them to my mom, who would type them up for me and help me choose clipart illustrations to accompany them. when I got old enough I would always be writing; I attempted my first novel at age 9, and while that never really went anywhere I did finish the darn thing and it had some pretty sophisticated plot twists for a 9-year-old!

like, writing fic

around the same time I got into fandom! I was deep into Warrior cats (like. really deep) and I believe I started writing my first fics when I was like? 10 or 11? my memory is kind of fuzzy on the order of things, but I know I got an account on the Warriors forums when I was 9, and that I was already posting my fic there when I made my FFN account. I believe I was 12 when that happened, but who knows. I haven’t the faintest idea of what happened with those forums, but uhhh pretty much all of my Warriors fic is still up on FFN lmao. you could probably find that if you want to but um...maybe don’t?

my first Big Fic was a self-insert of...my entire 5th/6th grade class into the then-current timeline of the Warriors books...well. I honestly think that might still be my most popular fic of all time l m a o though I try not to think about it because Hashtag Cringe. though as much as I look back on that time with a “yikes,” I am very grateful for the Warriors fandom in a way? that place was so accepting and encouraging of OCs, of AUs, of completely disregarding canon, of worldbuilding that is completely alien from canon - it was a fantastic sandbox to begin with, there were so many ways to write stories and practically all of them were accepted and had fellow fans invested in them!

and being part of the silm community, 

soooo I wrote Warriors fic until my freshman year of high school (wow sdjfhkdsjfh), which was when BOTFA came out, and I was absolutely wrecked by the ending and immediately started writing my own fixit fic. I was also super hooked on Kiliel! so that was my intro to the Tolkien fandom; and simultaneously, I joined tumblr, and, well, the rest is history tbh.

I honestly do not remember when I first read the Silm, but I kind of got into the more obscure parts of the Tolkien fandom through fandom osmosis, and I do have a vague memory of doodling the Finwean family tree in geometry class so it might have been later on in freshman year? that was also the same time I was having my Queer Awakening, and Russingon definitely contributed to me unlearning my internalized queerphobia, so probably around then.

anyway - queer awakening, tumblr, Tolkien, transitioning from FFN to AO3 - all of that was happening around the same time. I know I dipped my toes in the Silm fandom then, but I was still primarily a Hobbit fic writer focusing on Kiliel. toward the end of high school I kind of shifted to LOTR and (qp) Gigolas...but somehow the Silm fandom is the most active of the Big Three within the Tolkien fandom, and I was getting dragged further and further in.

it wasn’t until @backtomiddleearthmonth 2019, my freshman year of college, that I really dove into writing Silm fic! I picked some Silm-specific bingo cards and never looked back :D that was really not all that long ago but I am obsessed in a way I don’t really remember being even with TH/LOTR, I obviously cannot see the future but I anticipate hanging out here for a long time. the Silm fandom is great overall and there’s just so much material to work with!! <3

being Known, that stuff?

so I don’t really have a whole lot of context on how “well known” I am in the fandom?? definitely within the past year and a half or so I’ve noticed that I like, get asks like this, and get a significant amount of notes on my posts, and I’ve made a lot of fandom friends especially since I joined some Silm servers on Discord (hmu if you want invites; I’m on the SWG server and 2 general Silm servers and the Russingon server) this past year. and I have 3,000 followers as of this month - and while ever since I hit 1k I don’t particularly pay attention to my follower count I can definitely say that I have more engagement now than I used to! but it took me a long time to build this “audience,” I suppose; I’ve been around the Tolkien fandom since late 2014, so nearly 6 years of this, lol.

really the best way to build a following, in my experience, is to just post a lot of stuff. when I started making edits I got a lot more engagement, because for a long time I would post one every day! (I made them in batches and queued them; I didn’t actually make one every day lol...and now I’m too busy to do that, so I just make edits for events and whenever I feel like it) And I have [checks ao3] 145 works in the Silm fandom as of today - I’m fairly prolific! I’ve come to generally expect 3-10 comments on most of my oneshots, which is a lot more than I used to have back in the day. consistency and quantity are more likely to attract people to your work - and quality, of course.

also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs?

I’ve been writing since I was very young, and I’ve been writing fic for like...11 years? I think? in that time I’ve produced a lot of garbage, but imo most of that was in my Warrior cats phase, so I came into the Tolkien fandom with confidence in myself and my writing. I’m also working on original fiction on the side (I hope to eventually become a published fantasy author, but right now school takes up most of my time that I don’t devote to fandom, which gives me more immediate gratification and also is just Very Fun) and I know I’m a good writer.

basically, I’ve been doing this for like...half my life, and I’m still fairly young, so I’ve had time to build up my skill and confidence and I know I’m only going to get better with time. you will get better with practice. like I said, I’ve written a lot of terrible stuff, and it’s only through sucking for a long time that I’ve gotten to the point I am now. and I am far from perfect; I know I still have lots of room to grow!

for meta and headcanons specifically, I started with writing fic, and then when I didn’t think I could stretch something into an entire fic I would just make a hc post. I have a vivid memory of writing my first meta in a notebook during driver’s ed because it was so goddamn boring and I had Thoughts about Tauriel and Thranduil!

in my experience, meta comes from having Opinions and wanting to share them and most importantly to back them up - you need to have sources! you need to have reasons! you need to have justification! otherwise it’s not meta, it’s a headcanon or an AU. which is fine!! I love hc/AU!!! but they are not the same as meta, and I’m a stickler for being accurate when it comes to meta. if you have sources and shit to back you up, that will help you build the confidence to share your meta.

sharing disinformation and passing it off as meta instead of just coming out and saying this is a headcanon/baseless theory/AU or whatever is such a fandom pet peeve of mine; it’s not bad for something to not be Accurate! you just have to have that disclaimer - and even when you’re writing meta, you’re offering an interpretation of the text, and you need to acknowledge that other interpretations also exist and are valid.

um. I hope this answers your questions? and sorry for basically word-vomiting my entire life story, lol. this post got long; the main reason I’ve written so much fic is because I really just cannot shut up for the life of me. sooo if you can tear of that filter of being shy and just. say shit. you can go so far~!

OH and one more thing - I can’t believe I almost forgot this - but part of being a writer is participating in the community. this is code for LEAVE A DAMN COMMENT IF YOU LIKE A FIC. that’s how I made most of my fandom friends before Discord! I follow @ao3feed-silmarillion and stalk that blog for new Silm fics; I read the ones that interest me and comment on them.

I know this is not really the most common way for folks to find fic but it’s so rewarding to interact with new fic, new writers, new commentors, new stories - you can find gems that don’t rise to the top of the kudos/bookmark lists; you become friends with your fellow writers; you can watch people grow and change; you support smaller content creators. yeah, you might not be getting Just The Best Stuff, but it’s so so so worth it!!

and if you make friends in the comment section of other people’s fic - I guarantee you some of them will go to your AO3 profile and check out your fic, too! and they’ll leave comments! this is a fic community, and that’s what I cherish about fandom most of all, tbh.

anyway - again - sorry for rambling so much, but I hoped this helped! feel free to send in another ask, or to come talk to me off anon if you’d like! and definitely send me your stuff if/when you decide to share it; I would love to support you!!! <3

[originalcontent]

Well. Forgot to make our final pathologic post, because we did it, we finished the game. We just played all the remaining days at once. Not going to go super hard on the plot details bc if you know them then you know them, all I can say is holy shiiiiiiit this was such a good story/mystery/choice/everything.

First order of business: casualties.

All the children except Grace survived. When we had five panaceas, we chose Sticky, Murky, Khan, Notkin, and Capella, and we weren't able to find any more shmowders until it was too late. Taya was lucky and Grace wasn't. I feel kinda bad but also I don't know what more we could have done. God all of the kids and their final conversations when they all think they're going to die, they're so sad and sweet and I love them all so much.

The thing I'm SUPER bummed about is that Stakh, Lara, and Bad Grief all died. Like we did everything we could for all of them, but I'm still sad about it. One regret from this game is that I think we should have spent more time with them. I should have tried to make things right with them. I was so focused on the kids, and I don't regret that, but also I kept putting other things before them as well and I should have tried harder.

The other casualties were Big Vlad, Maria Kaina, Eva Yan, and Anna Angel, who was apparently a character but I think we literally never spoke with her in our playthrough. And Aglaya, although I don't know how we could have saved her either. Everyone else survived. I don't know the typical death toll for this game, but we did better than I was expecting us to, all things considered.

Oh wait, Nara's also dead. That wasn't an incredibly disturbing scene or anything. Like I'm getting ahead of myself a bit but jesus the kinfolk terrify me sometimes. My sister mentioned that it's probably a very different game if we commit super hard to exploring their plotline, and she's probably right. That whole sequence though... the blood, the hearts... it's a lot. I'm not going into detail bc if you've played the game then you already know what's down there, but hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I feel like replaying this game knowing everything would put a LOT of earlier conversations into new context.

Still! That was the only place we death spiraled this time! Death spiral escaped! That's probably due in no small part to the presence of the soldiers. Like yes they're terrible and them burning people alive is terrifying, but also we discovered the strategy that every time we were attacked by someone we could just have them chase us past a soldier who would protect us. We still had to sneak around a lot but overall it meant we had a lot fewer fights.

The polyhedron was gorgeous. We probably wasted a lot of time visiting it, but it was wonderful. I wanted to go back when all the kids were there but they didn't let us. Super into the earth/sky dichotomy of Notkin's and Khan's gangs.

Block was sure something. When I first met him he was meeting with my three [living :(] best friends but none of them would talk to me. Anyway. When he arrives everyone's saying they loved him, then later on we accidentally walk into the most obvious coup ever, and then the next day he's back in charge like nothing happened. And then on the last day there's this massive violent internal conflict? Plus the whole thing with him and Aglaya (weren't they working together in the prologue?) and plus they keep giving us heart attacks saying they're going to level the town and then changing their minds. Thank god for Changeling who was apparently the single persuasive voice in saving everyone? I guess? We've had our ups and downs but honestly she was waaaaaaay more reliable than Daniil at the end.

I told her I'd help her cure a patient in the hospital, but I didn't have any panacea or shmowder so in the end I couldn't, but afterwards I was glad I hadn't helped her. I already felt terrible I didn't have enough living blood for all the children when they were all spontaneously infected, and it would have been so much worse if I had been able to help another but I'd wasted it on a random person earlier.

... Is Aglaya in love with Artemy? Or are they just two agents who recognize said agency in one another? Everyone spent all game hyping her up as some sort of monster but she was my friend and she listened to me. And she died trying to save everyone I guess.

The kids...just. All of them. Notkin and Capella both told us to let them die but to make sure Khan was okay. Murky saying she'd loved Artemy since the first time she saw him. God everything they said and did I love them. I can't imagine playing this game as either of the other characters because I can't imagine going through this town and not carrying deeply about all the kids like this.

So I think...I think I made my choice long before I actually made the choice itself, you know? There was only ever going to be one choice.

Day 11 was the first and only day when I knew exactly what I had to do. I mean I guess it was in the stage directions and everything. Thank you dear Fellow Traveler for feeding us the night before--did you know we'd never visited the dead item shop until the last night? Probably would have made finding food and medicine a lot easier. But anyway, when the day began I didn't quite understand the significance of the stage directions because the Haruspex looking for couriers did not sound like the dramatic climax to the story that I knew this day was supposed to be. Still, I looked for the couriers.

I think I visited the three locations in the order I was supposed to. Seeing Daniil like that with his gun and bloody hands, sitting in a room of corpses...hearing him ramble...oh man I was so conflicted, this whole game I'd thought that even though I teased him, I would always ultimately back his plays because I trusted him and I knew that ultimately he wanted to help people too. Hearing him tell me what he wanted me to do then at the end of everything...he honestly scared me a bit.

The Changeling and I seemed much more on the same page at the end of everything. Being in the middle of a field with armed soldiers closing in from all sides was kind of terrifying though. I didn't stay to witness what she did with them. She’s okay though, she’s alive.

Wild goose chase for the final courier eventually took me to the bar where I met an injured bandit and was able to actually perform a surgery for the first time in the entire fucking game. I really enjoyed that because I'm supposed to be a fucking surgeon.

Meeting my understudy fucking killed me. I cannot BELIEVE that the final courier who was carrying the only file that could save the whole town was canonically murdered by the understudy of the protagonist. How the hell is that a real plot point, do you have any idea how much I adore that, that is more meta than literally anything else that has happened in this whole game. I fucking died. I definitely have been playing this game as Artemy rather than as Actor, and I think that made the whole scene even funnier. His whole thing about taking a new direction with the character, the whole "you're getting paid for this??", the fact that Artemy was so offended by literally every aspect of his existence that we didn't even know what to criticize. At the end I was like "yeah I'm definitely going to kill this guy" but we're nice people and we let him surrender. His inventory consisted of a rusty scalpel, a hazelnut, and a single piece of twyre, which was the most incredible parody of Artemy's inventory that I can imagine and killed me all over again.

The kin folk all met with me and begged me not to let them die. Maybe things could have been different, but again, I knew my choice and deep down I always knew what we were going to choose at the end. When you start the game, day one, there are two things that are immediately striking about the town. One, it's full of living folklore, and two, it's full of children, and those are the two things that make the town special and wonderful. When you look back on it all, there was only ever one way this could all end.

The dead courier (murdered by my own fucking understudy rather than an actual character, still dying) was a dramatic sight. It's lucky I had to sleep then or I probably wouldn't have found him.

After I made my choice, the disease tried to murder me. It infected literally every district I moved through, manifesting in every single passageway. I just chugged my tinctures and moved as well as I could, because fuck you disease, you are nothing to me. Obviously at that point nothing really could stop me. I considered saving in the cathedral, but what would be the point?

Day 12 was so bright and peaceful and nice. I could just walk around for once with no fear of getting lost or hungry or running out of time. I'm still really sad my childhood friends weren't alive to share it with me, but I enjoyed talking to everyone. My favorite little end conversations were Taya and Notkin for sheer adorable factor, Yulia so Artemy could say he wanted her to be the one to tell his story and to make it as undramatic as possible (fuck you Mark), Daniil because it was super cute and I’m glad that after it all things are okay between us and I got to make fun of him for trying to talk in my language, and Andrey and Peter because literally nothing made me feel better about my choice to destroy the polyhedron than listening to them complain about it.

And then the theater, where I talked to everyone who'd died and to Mark Immortell. He told me he'd need to try again with a different protagonist (gee I wonder who he could be referring to, such a shame we'll never know) and that I could go into the back and take off my mask now. I considered it for a bit, but it didn't feel right, so I decided that I was Artemy and I went back outside.

This game was wonderful. It was beautiful. It has such a fundamental understanding of what theater is and what makes something theatrical (lose me with your cinematic games, theater and cinema are completely different things and the former is impossibly beautiful but is also almost impossible to recreate when not in person). It's worldbuilding was immaculate, and for all the stress it caused I'm really happy for it.

I say this every time, but I love Artemy so fucking much. Give me a character who is a monster and a healer and who is full of anger but also so much love, and then just have him adopt 7+ children why don't you. He is so wonderful and good and interesting and I am in love with him.

(Edit: And then like a month later, just now, we went back to our last save and threw the documents in the trash so we could play through the other ending. I think the diurnal ending is definitely the better one, although it was nice to see the polyhedron again and to talk to all the game developers. <3 Also the goodbyes to Daniil and Notkin were super sad in that one, I did what Daniil wanted, he won’t even stay? This is so sad.)

Well that's our pathologic playthrough. We know there's a lot we missed and we may return to the game at some point. (Looked up a plot summary afterwards and there’s just so much else. Must save my childhood friends next time.) Game is very good though. It's been wild. Marbles sometime in the next few days. :)

[fatalism-and-villainy]

What Makes a Work “Fannish” for Me?

So there’s been some well-need pushback against the idea that fandom-inclined people are “ignoring” quality media, or media with more unique premises/plotlines, more explicit canonical queerness, etc. This post, in particular, points out that people, in their fandom activity, tend to gravitate towards more “fandom viable” works, but that their taste could very well stretch beyond that. I agree with the general sentiment, but it got me interested in poking at what, exactly, constitutes “fandom viable.” My own fannish history is perhaps a little idiosyncratic, and my tastes are individual, so I can’t claim to speak for everyone here, but I did isolate certain aspects of a work that make me personally more inclined to write fic about it, read fic about it, extensively headcanon about it, write meta about it*, etc.

*My analysis brain is rarely turned off, but churning out actual quality longform analyses or interpretations, as opposed to condensed observations, take brain power that I don’t want to devote to everything I watch.

Here’s the reasons I could come up:

There has to be a semi-substantial fandom in place already. I won’t be prompted to think extensively and fannishly about something if the infrastructure to do so isn’t in place already! 

By extension, there has to be a lot of Lore in the work or its worldbuilding to pick apart and analyze, or at least a lot of interpretative potential to its characters and relationships. I first got drawn to online fandom for meta, and that still exerts a powerful pull in me in terms of whether or not I want to engage with a fandom (even in fanfiction-related ways). 

There has to be something porous about it, some sort of empty space I can crawl into. I’ve seen people cite the work in question letting them down as a motivation to participate in fandom, because they want to write or read fix-fic. That’s not quite what I’m getting at here, or not necessarily - sometimes the work in question works completely well and feels perfectly realized as its own story, but still leaves lots of potential to expand it beyond the bounds of its structure. The Silmarillion, for instance, is very broad strokes in its narrative, which works for its aims considering it’s meant to be an historical/mythological account (with various in-universe framing devices). But the extent to which important events, character interactions, and eras are glossed over leaves open lots of room for a fan to hone in on a particular element of the story and magnify it. The story as it functions purely on its own level is the appeal for me as a reader; the ambiguity and expanse of space to imagine the relationships in any number of ways is the appeal for me as a fan. 

There has to be a large cast. Gertrude Stein imagined theatre as analogous to a landscape painting in that it focused on group structures and relationships, and that’s the kind of approach I like to take to fanfic, and to building my own headcanon-universe. I often have my favourite characters, of course, but I’m not the kind of person who focuses exclusively on one character or ship. I’m drawn to networks of people whose lives rotate around and brush up against each other, and who offer a variety of permutations in interaction to play around with. A lot of the novels and stories I love don’t lend themselves to this, because they’re essentially a one-man show, with other characters existing to serve that one protagonist’s story. I need to have not necessarily multiple protagonists or POV characters, but multiple characters who are players in the game and whose perspectives, backstories, and interiority are at least hinted at. This is a big appeal of MDZS for me - it’s Wei Wuxian’s story, but there are numerous side characters who are given attention and whose personal relationships are important plot-wise or theme-wise. 

There needs to be a fantasy element - more specifically, it needs to take place in a world not our own. (Whether or not Star Trek or the MCU could count as this is.... questionable). Obviously not everyone feels this way - see Hannibal, Sherlock, and countless other popular fandoms that are set in our world. But for me personally, I like to have some remove, and in fact feel rather uncomfortable at the prospect. The reasons for this are twofold. One is negative - I’ve never felt entirely comfortable with writing stories that take place in our world, especially with no magical or otherworldly aspect. It’s hard to say why this is, as my reading habits certainly don’t tend in that direction - I read and enjoy a lot of realistic fiction, and, while I enjoy SFF, I’m quite picky about it. (This is what we mean by “people fannish tastes don’t necessarily indicate their media tastes as a whole.”) But I find writing those kinds of stories stifling and hard to express my voice in, for some reason. The other reason is positive - I get a lot of active joy in cultural worldbuilding, in playing in fictional settings not my own. This is a big appeal of The Silmarillion, and why I’ve toyed with writing fic for Homestuck. I will say that I also like writing queer characters and relationships, and there’s no way I want to touch real world queer identity and politics. There’s an appeal to exploring issues like those through a funhouse mirror. Art lets us look at our reality a bit slantwise. 

I’m sure there are other factors present for me, especially ones that are more minor or idiosyncratic, but those are the main ones for me. I’m curious to know what the draws for that particular kind of engagement are for other people!

[highladyluck]

Here, have 4.5 pages of rambly Tuon meta. I wrote this to try to get a handle on Tuon’s character, and to develop the theoretical framework for a redemption arc for her. I’m hoping posting this doesn’t cut my motivation to actually write it...

Who is Tuon? Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag, High Lady, Daughter of the Nine Moons; now the Empress of Seanchan (at least on the westlands side), Fortuona Athaem Kore Paendrag. To borrow some phrasing and framing from @websandwhiskers: She’s the pinnacle of Seanchan culture and an extremely functional tool of the state; responsible (both personally and institutionally) for psychologically and physically torturing people and enslaving them; she also has some compelling moral and personal qualities that she and the state have not yet managed to quash, which kind of makes it all worse, ethically speaking. She’s a villain whom the original narrative neither sufficiently condemns nor sufficiently redeems, married to one of the Big Damn Heroes in a match that’s both very odd couple and very complementary.

She respects people who stand up to her, as long as they aren't 'disrespectful' in the process- and the 'disrespect' is very situational, she'll accept things in private or in non-court settings that she can't let slide in court without losing face and therefore power. She cares very much about the legitimacy of authority, because it correlates positively with stability and is ingrained in her self-image, but she has an autocrat’s idea of what is legitimate. She assumes you know your own self-worth in relation to hers and are prepared to both display it and back it up. She has also internalized that other people's challenges of her are opportunities for her to prove her strength and fitness to rule, and she probably low-key seeks to provoke reactions now as validation/training, for herself and others.

She has rigid moral standards within the context she was raised in, and punishes herself first for perceived failure because if she does it first, perhaps she can avoid someone else doing it, with deadlier results. She has never been allowed to be less than perfect by her culture's standards- she can be (and has been) odd, but she cannot be flawed- and possibly expends all of her natural empathy on others instead of herself, because she can't afford that kind of indulgence herself, but she knows she owes it to lesser beings?

And as @websandwhiskers pointed out, she does have a lot of empathy within allowable contexts, and I think she is willing to push the envelope compared to her peers as long as she/the empire isn't directly threatened. That's what the kiss after Mat let the poisonous snake go was about. The snake was poisonous but not attacking, and not likely to attack unless someone escalated the situation, and Mat deescalated it. No harm, no foul. Mat responded to a fraught situation both logically and mercifully, in the way she imagined she would have if she had been in his shoes and known he same facts he did, and she rewarded him.

She’s competent and charismatic; I hesitate to say that she inspires loyalty in underlings because honestly with the damane it’s brainwashing (eurgh). But Selucia and Karede are both really into her, personally, even when there are societal inducements not to play favorites. Mat is loyal to her, though honestly Mat is loyal to like... anyone he’s responsible for, so maybe it’s more relevant to say that Mat genuinely likes her; at least, he likes the person he thinks he can coax out of her, and in terms of the persona she has more typically, I think he responds well to her competency and self-possession. The ability to project those things is probably a big part of what goes into charisma.

She thinks that the people who oppose her just don't have all the facts. She doesn't like to admit she's changed her mind; it looks like weakness; she's fine identifying it in others but not herself. Ideally she would pretend things have always been the way she now knows they are, and if she can't, she goes for the "Yes [fact], but [here's what I've decided is now germane to the argument at hand]." redefinition of the problem. She always thinks she’s right, though she does tend to leave some space between when she’s decided something and when she promulgates the decision, to allow for opposing arguments.

I think the original relationship Tuon has with omens is that she uses them to look for external justification from the universe for decisions she's already made. (I mostly like Sanderson's Tuon POVs, but I also I think Sanderson sometimes used omens as a 'make Tuon do OOC things for the plot' card.) Tuon's running dialogue with omens also shows that she's always observing the world and interpreting her effect on it and its effect on her. She loses her composure with omens when they are more concrete and less subject to her control (via interpretation), as with Lidya's fortune.

It makes sense that she's super controlling. It was how she was raised, and aside from having loyal/brainwashed companions (who are, themselves, a form of distributed control), being controlling is obviously the only thing that makes her feel safe. It's still interesting how it extends into a dialogue with the Pattern itself. Like Mat, she wants to survive and she wants to go her own way, and also like Mat she's caught up in the Pattern a little more tightly than others. I think she and Mat have both subconsciously decided that the only way to deal with what the universe wants you to do, when the universe is that powerful, is to say "Fine, I didn't really want to do that other thing anyway, let's learn how this path works and play to win."

She knows she makes bad decisions when angry, and I think in general she distrusts strong emotions, or at least tries to hold them at arms' length so they don't form part of her judgment. She's very very good at compartmentalizing, but as a result sometimes emotional stuff will come up and blindside her a little because she doesn't prioritize it or see it as a natural part of her decision-making. I think her emotions do influence her, usually subconsciously, but she's obviously a Thinking type. (Mat is also a compartmentalizer, but more somatic/emotionally focused; he's got his feelings directly wired into his body and together they make decisions that his brain then evaluates a second later, with running commentary that he never expresses to anyone else. They are both comedically un-self-aware, although Tuon is even less self-aware than Mat is, since at least on some level Mat knows he's been repeatedly traumatized even if he tries to pretend he isn't, while Tuon still thinks that her childhood was completely fine.)

Within the original narrative, I think her POVs are always a bit mysterious and her actions are always a little surprising. What’s impressive about that is that this is basically *always* true no matter what setting she’s in and what she’s doing. When you’re in her head you see her thought process ticking away, but RJ and Sanderson both have her constantly withholding important contextual details in her POVs, like Lidya’s prophecy (the hints are there and come out in bits and pieces, but she doesn’t reveal everything and slot it into context until 2 books later). Like with reading Mat, you’re aware that she obviously has reasons for what she’s doing and you even see her decision-making process, but because you’re missing the details, she remains opaque even though you’re in her head. (Mat’s decision-making process is more clear to the reader, but somewhat opaque to himself and definitely opaque to those around him.)

Meanwhile the things Tuon does share via narration or via action are always kind of buck-wild for the reader because her entire deal is such a culture shock. She’s obviously surprising Mat & co, but what’s weird is that she also seems to be constantly surprising her fellow Seanchan. Her scenes with her peers are usually punctuated with shocked murmuring in the background. They have trouble anticipating her, both because she keeps her cards close to her chest, and I also think because she’s a slightly different person from the one who lived her entire life in a cloistered murdersphere in Seanchan, and if she wasn’t a different person after leaving home, she’s definitely one after her kidnapping. But I think she is a fundamentally different person after leaving home, because of the structural parallels she has with Mat.

In Mat’s first POV chapter, he wakes up in Tar Valon with partial amnesia and a much stronger sense of self-preservation than he had before. As everybodyhatesrand points out (crediting but not tagging them since I feel like they wouldn’t appreciate being tagged in Tuon apologia), we have never been in pre-dagger!Mat’s head. We have never been in dagger!Mat’s head. Everyone in the books, throughout the books, is like “At least Mat’s still the same!” and yeah, he does do and say more or less the same things before and after the dagger. But we had to take it on faith that his personality is more or less intact pre- and post-dagger because we, the readers, only know post-dagger!Mat’s inner monologues. The Mat we inhabit in book 3? He’s been broken. The continuity between his old life and his new life has been disrupted (and will continue to be disrupted, including with an actual literal timeline reboot!) He immediately starts off to fix himself, others, and then eventually the world, so it’s motivating, but the hits really just keep coming...

Like Mat, Tuon’s first POV only appears after she’s left the traumatic environment that shaped her. We don’t know what travelling across the sea did to her sense of self (and we can’t really know since we don’t have that in-Seanchan-baseline), though we do know she’s changed after travelling with Mat (aside from catching feelings, I think she learned that the Seanchan are not always in possession of all the facts), and we know what becoming Empress did to her (she doubled down on duty and lost a lot of personal flexibility). I think there are major structural parallels between Mat and Tuon’s POVs because they’re both broken people who try their very best to act as if they are not broken. In Tuon’s case I think she just doesn’t know how broken she is. In Mat’s case, he knows, but he’s doing a weird balancing act of integrating lessons learned (healing!) while also, like, frantically trying to ignore or drown out the emotional cost of trauma (not healing!)

By the end of the series I think Tuon knows, but is not letting herself actually think, that being made damane is a) a real possibility for her, specifically, and b) that it is not, in fact, something she would willingly choose for herself even to serve the empire. I think this is different from the more intellectual disgust of the idea of herself channeling; that's abstract, and she imagines there's an actual choice for the person with the spark between channeling and not channeling, or possibly that there's an actual choice between learning to channel vs not learning to channel if you have the spark inborn. (We know that the actual choice if you have the spark is 'learn to channel properly or die'.) Tuon's out there like "If I were a marath'damane I would simply choose not to channel. RIP to marath'damane but I'm different".

She's never been a marath'damane in the sense of someone who started channeling involuntarily, and isn't interested in imagining herself as one, at least not when confronted by someone who is succeeding in making her angry. So even if you made her choose, as a theoretical marath'damane, between dying and learning to channel properly, I think she'd consider 'learning to channel properly' as 'becoming a murderer' and therefore the choice would be between dying and becoming a murderer. There's a clear argument to be made in that idiom that the marath'damane is 'becoming a murderer' in self-defense, which would have a different moral tenor (manslaughter vs murder). But Tuon strikes me as the type to say in an argument (and probably believe) that "The end result is the same & I would die before compromising my principles.”

I think in the confrontation with Egwene she probably internally justified not putting the collar on because there was a Seanchan audience and because the taunt came from an escaped damane, even though the actual reason was fear that it would work. She’s letting the circumstances invalidate the argument so she doesn’t have to think about it. I think if she were to let herself think about the authentic emotional response- and she probably has, I feel like she does a postmortem on all of her public discomposure- she would consciously know that her instinct was that it would work on her, and furthermore she would know that she does not want to be damane, even if the Empire would require her to be.

If she followed out the chain of reasoning, she’d know that if she were a damane, if she were actually leashed, she would be forced to channel. She’d know because she’s taken great pleasure in training and breaking damane, and she knows how to get damane to channel and how to break them. Therefore, if she were damane, she would know that she would need to be broken, and she knows how she would go about breaking herself. She probably thinks that her last act of free will would be to suicide if she possibly could. But I think that what she’s AFRAID OF is that she would actually convince herself that being the very best damane is all she wants out of life. And that's the scary, universe-ending thought she's avoiding the consequences of, because a) it’s about breaking herself (as Cadsuane points out, no one can easily think about breaking themselves) and b) the fact that she would need to be broken and that she doesn’t like the idea is a sign that she’s not the perfect avatar of the Empire that she thinks she should be.

I think becoming damane has been added- in the bare abstract- to her mental list of the price of failure. It's a very fundamental loss of control and identity, where all she has is resignation and brainwashing that- best case scenario- she does to herself. She's scared of it in a way she was not before, now that it's been made personal. Like Mat, she's going to shove that down deep and ignore the bad scary implications as long as she can, up until the point that they actually disable her or otherwise bleed out into her intellectual or physical world in ways that aren't as ignorable.

But while Tuon thinks she would die before compromising her principles, and even more secretly is extremely afraid that she *wouldn't*, I also think that like Mat, if it came down to it she would transform herself radically to survive *as herself*.

She’d realize that she has other principles, more human ones, underlying her socially acceptable and externally imposed principles of enforcing hierarchy and maintaining personal integrity. (Parallels to dagger!Mat being exorcised?) I think her basic motivations are that she should survive, that she should retain as much control/power over her own fate as possible, and that she should make decisions from a place of empathy rather than anger or fear. I think she would also realize that she does in fact value some principles over others. She would redefine the meaning of ‘personal integrity’ to separate it from what the state wants.

If she knew what was really driving her socially acceptable principles, and that there was a difference between what she really, fundamentally wanted & what she had been told to want, with encouragement she could prioritize the organic, primal ones and apply those to the external world. If she is a person, then everyone else is a person, and she should want for them what she wants for herself. I think she might get to the point of realizing there is an alternative path (of what looks like selfishness) but I don't think she's going to let herself be selfish (in this healing, positive way) without external prompting/confirmation, so this is probably where friends, positive role models, and finally omens come in.