#i love love love the narrative arcs and they're my favorite part but as far as the characters i feel like we're almost still at chapter one

[agnimybeloved]

regarding that last post... not that black butler's canon has to be uplifting or have dadbastian or a happy ending to be "good" (i'm actually partial to tragedies especially the cyclical kind and would love for the series to straight up end with despair and the collection on the contract lol) but i do think that toboso's largely fumbled the found-family/interpersonal,/introspective aspects of her story and sacrificed a lot of narrative and thematic meat there for low-brow and off-putting comedy.... which is really exactly all she does with ciel's trauma as well-- shallowly using it for the purposes of trauma porn and/or comedy/inappropriate fanservice.

ciel only seems to have reasonable responses to his trauma when its aesthetically convenient if that makes sense. i honestly could go as far as to say that she depicts his trauma fetishistically-- every instance i can recall of ciel having an extreme traumatic response (i.e. vomiting, flashbacks, psychosis) is represented with (imo but honestly.... i'd be shocked if this wasn't intentional...) sexual undertones. his episode during the green witch arc doesn't have one of these moments within the episode itself as far as i can recall, but certainly i think the preceding/inciting medical emergency that forces him and sebastian to bathe together contributes to the reoccurring sexualization of "sickness" (physical & psychological).

not to mention ciel's subsequent episode is treated as the dramatic peak of his ptsd and something that he "overcomes" through sheer force of will (and the threats of sebastian... neither of which are a proper/reasonable way to handle such an extreme trauma response) and doesn't really battle going forward in the story. of course a lot of stories take this "one dramatic moment and then its fixed" approach to representing mental illness, and it makes narrative sense for toboso to want to more or less settle that thread to gear up for the important blue cult arc, but i think toboso's handling of mental illness in general goes so far beyond suspension of disbelief and tastelessness that i think she should lowkey be brained for it. the way she intermittently writes ciel's traumatic experiences as something horrifying and wrong and to be given sympathy meanwhile relentlessly putting ciel in inappropriate fanservice situations that diminish the severity of csa & pedophilia as well as disrespect the complexities of trauma and turn them into comedy... mind boggling...

overall though i think that black butler shows a real mastery of narrative arcs while falling short in terms of character arcs. most of the time these arcs are shown in retrospect with the addition of new backstory, but it feels as if the characters in present have barely grown at all... not that every story has to be character driven and a static character type makes sense for someone like sebastian, but for all that ciel is a unique and mature thirteen year old due to the circumstances of his life, he is still a thirteen year old, and one that has experienced a significant trauma quite recently at that. not allowing him coming of age-esque character arcs considering all that sort of breaks the believability of his character imo.

but i think that coattails does a lot in staying loyal to ciel's character and experiences while also respecting his trauma and bringing the depth and flexibility of adolescence to his worldview and actions that toboso unfortunately seems disinterested in. i love that aforementioned chapter of coattails and its sentiments especially with how it reexamines ciel's actions at kelvin's manor and the worldview that lead to burning it down with the children inside... not that it was an out of character decision for ciel in the moment, but i think it established a lot more severe facts about his character and worldview than toboso is willing to address in her writing and therefore feels unresolved. coattails' remedy to that awkwardness by coming full circle is so intriguing and fulfilling in contrast... it shows how adolescence and trauma can work together to so completely convince one of hopelessness and yet how just a bit of hope can change that worldview entirely. literally just the honest love of a random dog and the mundane care of a guardian... there is a cure and it is this..... what da helllll....

[veliseraptor]

Top five spiciest untamed opinions!

man, I've been in my own little corner of fandom for long enough that I feel like I struggle a little to parse what is spicy of my opinions and what isn't, but here's a go at it

The Untamed is a show with complex, morally grey characters that's telling a slightly different but not inherently inferior story. Maybe I'm just a bit defensive about this, and I have with time come to appreciate a lot of things about the novel over the way they play out in the show, but The Untamed was the first version of the story that I fell in love with and I think at least some of the criticisms of it overstate the degree to which it morally simplifies the story. I think, whether because of requirements of censorship or other reasons, that the moral messiness of the story is subtler, I don't think it's absent, and while Jin Guangyao in particular falls victim to a pretty intense villain edit the narrative still has plenty of sympathy for him (even if the audience, all too often, does not). I think it's telling a slightly different story (as others have discussed), but I think it's a strong adaptation that still works with the underlying themes of the text.

However, that being said, The lessening of Wei Wuxian's culpability, as in the introduction of the second flautist, weakens his character. I feel like the character of Wei Wuxian as we see him in The Untamed still has the recognizable flaws of the character from the novel - I think the degree to which they're sometimes claimed to be toned down is overstated, which I think I've written some about before. He's still at least a little arrogant, causes problems, has a definite temper, and doesn't always respect other peoples' choices, among other things. But what The Untamed does do is remove some of his culpability, or at least temper it - both for Jin Zixuan's death and the massacre at Nightless City, which are two moments that contribute to a strong tragic arc in the first life, which makes for a more powerful (imo) arc in the second life. Removing, or at least lessening, Wei Wuxian's culpability for Jin Zixuan's death and Jiang Yanli's death makes him more a victim of circumstance than of his own human flaws, and at least for me, a character who is doomed by their own flaws is a far more compelling one than one who just happens to fall victim to outside forces. It makes him, I would argue, more passive and less of an active force, and I think the culpability for those two deaths - and the loss of control that causes it - makes for a more powerful narrative than that of a man who is victimized by someone else's actions.

Jin Guangyao was a good Chief Cultivator. I see people talk about him as though he was corrupt and evil and just plotting all the time, but the Bad Things™ he does mostly happen before his tenure as Chief Cultivator and, even taking those into account, have a limited impact on the world at large (with the exception of Nie Mingjue's death, but even that I would argue has more personal repercussions than broader political ones). As far as his responsibility for the cultivation world at large, we have no evidence prior to his downfall that he is negatively perceived by people, except for the fact of his birth/origins.

this is more MDZS-related than Untamed specific, but: MXTX deserves praise for writing "problematic" and messy queer sex, but it's just not hot. I don't have a whole lot to add on this one, but one of my least favorite parts of some corners of The Untamed fandom are people who are thoroughgoing MXTX antis who are quick to cry about the ~problematic~ aspects of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian's sex life (which, honestly, I think are overstated a lot of the time, as is the weirdness of the sex scenes); however, in my opinion, the sex scenes as they stand just aren't very sexy, and I don't think that's intentional (as it arguably is in SVSSS). The sex scenes may be a shortcoming in the text, perhaps, but not the one certain people think it is.

this is again a stronger argument in the novel but I think it's present in the show as well: Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian are "there but for the grace of god" foils, but not in the sense of Jin Guangyao being "Wei Wuxian if he made bad moral choices" but in the sense of "who Wei Wuxian could've been if his circumstances were different." I've definitely written about this before and how much it drives me nuts the way people treat narrative foils in this story in general as Goofus and Gallant style duos, but this is a specific one. I think Jin Guangyao is an example of a story that runs alongside Wei Wuxian's, but ends in a different place, and I think the story isn't saying that he ends in that place because of something inherently worse about Jin Guangyao, but because of the way his circumstances happen to diverge from Wei Wuxian's in specific key ways. In some ways his ending is even a near beat-for-beat rewrite of Wei Wuxian's death, and Wei Wuxian receives the grace of a second life not because of any inherent merit, but actually because of his bad reputation. I think this goes for Xue Yang, too, actually.

I absolutely know I'm forgetting things and there are probably things back in my bitchy opinions tag that I could dig out, but here's at least a few that came to mind.

[utilitycaster]

🔥 each member of vox machina

Vax: really the sadboy narrative for Liam has always been stupid but it's egregiously bad that it started with Vax, who is like, sad for maybe a fifth of the episodes and largely because Liam O'Brien's actual mother was dying, like, with all due respect what the actual fuck, fandom.

Vex: I am the founding and probably only member of the "Vex is my favorite character and also I am 100% cool with Colville's depiction of her." The generosity she shows even very early on in C1 is still a generosity borne of some degree of security - they have a keep by then - and I also just don't think you have to like a character to write them fairly. Granted it's been a minute since I read early VMO but nothing stood out to me as out of line with my understanding of Vex.

Pike: repeating myself once again but I like Pike a lot and wish we could have seen more, but because we didn't, people who say she's their favorite in C1 do tend to turn me off in that I feel they're looking for a relatively flat and widely praised character to project onto rather than a character who goes through more messy development.

Grog: I think he's often underestimated and I was guilty of doing so myself, to be honest, until I saw Travis play more and until I personally got better at D&D. Also I still maintain that playing INT 6 sensitively and well is infinitely harder than playing INT 16, all things considered, and this is yet another reason why people should play high INT more often.

Scanlan: Also underestimated; I do understand being turned off by the whole extremely horny playboy thing but as I've said before Bard's Lament is a major litmus test for me: if you think Scanlan is completely at fault here, you are wrong, and if you think he's not partially at fault, you are also wrong.

Tary: I genuinely love him and think he's a great character and one of Sam's best, but while his character arc is strong the Taryon Darrington Arc of the VM Campaign, through no fault of his own (and partly bc I personally think D&D Hell, especially pre-Descent Into Avernus publication, is kind of boring), is one of the weakest parts of the campaign because it's kind of a grab bag of loose ends. With that said I would happily watch more Darrington Brigade-one shots.

Percy: Percy is also generally a litmus test in that it's like. Is he a good person? Eventually I believe he becomes one, and even before that I think he's very sympathetic and deeply traumatized and like, 24, so I get it, but also, who the fuck cares. This ties into the Essek and the Ashton opinions and all kinds of other stuff but why are people so invested in fucking absolving their blorbo of all sins? I want someone who's lived enough of a life to have done some heinous shit because that's fun and interesting and it's pretend and also because then they can have a rewarding character arc by either working towards redemption or coming to terms with who they are or spiraling into tragedy.

Keyleth: I like Keyleth a lot but I am, as this post indicates, far more sympathetic to Vex, and so while I do think Keyleth is a fairly good person she is also extremely sheltered and naive and terrified of doing the wrong thing and I would have, like Vex, wanted to scream at her half the time were I just a random NPC wandering about the campaign. On the other hand C3-era Keyleth? fantastic no notes she has grown up in such an interesting way.

Tiberius: I think we, and by we I mean people capable of separating the art from the artist, can recognize that his concept actually fucking slapped and unfortunately he was played by someone who absolutely sucked in a myriad of ways. I would love to see the alternate universe in which the same general concept (prodigy sorcerer from Draconia who is full of themself) had to face not just the destruction of their civilization but the realization that they were taking advantage of the Ravenites and while they did not deserve to be killed by Vorugal, had done nothing to justify aid from those they had subjugated either. Like, the alternate world in which one of the current cast members or like, a close friend of the main cast (Ashly, Erika, Mary Elizabeth) played this is one I'd love to see.

[sapphic-agent]

Let's Talk About the Sports Festival

*Note: this is a long one so strap in*

Oh boy, here we go.

I did touch briefly on this in my first ever post on here and I mentioned it a few other times. But I've got a few thoughts and I think this arc deserves a little exploration as it plays a crucial part in setting up our characters for the rest of the series.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Sports Festival overall. I think it does well for some characters, not so well for others. I'd like to take some time to break down how some characters benefit and how others don't and really evaluate the arc as a whole.

Uraraka

I think Uraraka's a great place to start. Now, in my Bakugou analysis I did say that I was unhappy with the match, mostly because it panders to Bakugou to make him seem better than he was. And I stand by that, the narrative was trying to shove a "positive trait" of his down our throats since all we had seen from him up to this point was all negative. It was Horikoshi's first attempt at subverting expectations, I think.

However, I actually do think this fight was good for Uraraka as a character.

Uraraka isn't the fastest or strongest or smartest in 1A and previous to this that was fine because being those things wasn't her goal. She wanted to be a rescue hero and provide for her parents, she didn't set out to be particularly ambitious like Izuku or Todoroki or her other classmates. However, this proved to be somewhat of a hinderance to her succeeding as we see in the Cavalry battle. She pairs up with Izuku because she needs to rely on him if she wants to stand a chance of winning. And because of that, she feels like she can't fend for herself.

I think pairing her up against Bakugou was a good thing. Not because he treated her with "respect" or as a serious opponent (because he didn't), but because it pushed her to her limits and forced her to think outside of the box. She refuses Izuku's help because she knows she can't use him as a crutch going forward so she devises her own plan. And even though she loses, she still gets to shine and prove herself (we'll get back to this point with a certain character later). It also acts as a hallmark for her character, that she has to really push herself if she wants to be able to stand with (or even against) her stronger classmates.

Now, whether or not this setup pays off later is for another post, but I think Uraraka is one of the only characters this arc really does justice.

Izuku

If I'm being honest, the Sports Festival is far from the worst arc in the series for our beloved main character.

The race was great, of course. Because he can't depend on his quirk like everyone else, Izuku has to put all his critical thinking skills and strategic prowess to the test. The race is actually one of my favorite parts of the show because a kid from the bottom of his class (at the time) rises above everyone else and absolutely no one (including us) saw it coming. He has a major disadvantage and still comes out on top. It really ties in well with All Might's advice to stand in front of everyone and say, "I am here."

Now, the Cavalry Battle is a different story. To be fair, I don't think it really hurts or helps Izuku's character all that much. He has to think on his feet and strategize carefully, but he already did that in the race. His leaderships skills aren't really displayed all that much either (it's present, but Bakugou, Todoroki, and Monoma take much more of the limelight here). They could have taken more time to develop this role for him, but it's nothing really major to complain about.

The tournament is a little different. Obviously, Izuku couldn't win because if he had it wouldn't have been realistic. But his fight with Shinsou shouldn't have happened. The only reason they're matched up is for Izuku to break out of his hold with One For All. It doesn't do anything for his character (I might even say it hinders it because Ojirou specifically told him what to do and he ignored it) and really only serves as Shinsou's introduction, which could have been done with any character.

(Bakugou should have gone up against Shinsou. It would have humbled him; he would have lost to an "extra," one of the very people he talked down to. It would have also taught him that having a strong quirk or a weak quirk isn't what makes a hero and that power isn't everything)

However, the Todoroki fight does do Izuku's character justice. Because Izuku has always put helping others over winning or being the best. It's what makes him a true hero. He still makes Todoroki work for it and gives his all in the fight, but he does it with the genuine intention of helping. And that's what it means to be a hero. If the race was showing off his skill, then the tournament was showing off his heart. Those are the two sides to being a hero after all.

(If only the pro heroes had any semblance of sense to realize that)

So overall I am split on if this arc is good for Izuku or not. It does well with some things, poor with others. However, I do think that if Horikoshi had kept a similar approach with him throughout the story, it would have done him a lot more justice.

(At least more than whatever Dark Deku was supposed to be)

Iida

I don't have much to say on him other than that I think it would have been beneficial to showcase his skills a little more. He's supposed to be the second most intelligent in 1A and he got fourth on the quirk apprehension test. It would have been nice to show him off a little more like they did with Todoroki and Bakugou.

However, I do understand that his performance in the Sports Festival is meant to take a backseat to what's going on in his personal life. And for the most part that is done pretty well. The tension build up his actually really good and it sets him up to shine in the Stain arc.

I also appreciate his approach towards Izuku. He respects him and sees him as a friend, but also knows that Izuku is still an adversary. It's a unique approach to rivalry in anime and also sets up his role in the Stain arc well.

So it's not a terrible arc for Iida, but it could have been better for him too.

Bakugou

I know, I know I don't want to either but let's just get through this okay?

Obviously above I said what I said about how he should have fought Shinsou. And I stand by that. The Sports Festival was the best way he could have been humbled and taught humility. Having Bakugou fight Shinsou and lose could have aided his redemption in the long run.

Now, one thing that bothers me about the Sports Festival is that it seems like the narrative constantly goes out of its way to make him look better. Oh, Bakugou meets his match from a student with a copying quirk who rightfully calls him out and catches him off guard? Let's have him overcome the (truthful) assumptions and beat him and still qualify even though he was completely focused on the wrong things. Oh, the crowd thinks Bakugou is being overly harsh on someone who clearly isn't on his level? Let's have Aizawa vehemently defend him and tell everyone he's showing her respect when he obviously isn't (and even doubles down after the fact). Oh, Todoroki has just embraced a part of his quirk that's more than enough to beat Bakugou? Nah, let's have Todoroki throw even though he just had an epiphany about how his power was his and not his father's.

You see where I'm going with this? No matter what, this arc absolutely bends over backwards to portray Bakugou in a positive light. Where our other characters lose, struggle, and get put through the wringer, Bakugou is handed a win (literally and figuratively) multiple times. It's part of what pushed me from genuinely enjoying the Sports Festival to somewhat disliking it.

Bakugou is never allowed to struggle unless everyone around him is struggling too, most of the time worse than he is. This is a pattern that persists throughout the series. And it started in this arc.

Todoroki

You know how I said that Uraraka was one of the characters that this arc did justice? Well, Todoroki was the other one.

His set up in the Sports Festival is fantastic. Before this arc, we knew he was important. He was strong, aloof, and the only one who could intimidate Bakugou. The way they ease us into his character is very well done from his little mannerisms to revealing his backstory.

I know most of us agree that he should have beat Bakugou. However, him winning or losing the final match never really mattered. What mattered is that he made peace with his quirk and his trauma. And through Izuku he opens himself up which not only leads to him being a loyal friend, but also makes him a better hero in the long run. He is undoubtedly the character that develops the most.

(It's also through Todoroki that we get a bit of world building. Endeavor is the first example of a corrupt hero we see and we're introduced to the concept of quirk marriages)

Unfortunately, like Uraraka, this setup doesn't pay off that well later, but again that's a story for another day.

Yaoyorozu

An unfortunate flipside of Todoroki is that Yaoyorozu's character goes through the opposite.

A pattern with Yaoyorozu is that Horikoshi seems to fluctuate between wanting to treat her as a serious character and going out of his way to screw her over. In the race, she's a victim of Mineta's perversions (there's also the cheerleading bit, but that happened to all the 1A girls so it doesn't pertain to just her; it's still shitty though). She's barely present in the Cavalry Battle, only serving as a support prop for Todoroki's team.

And then the tournament is the final nail in the coffin. Yaoyorozu before this was shown to be calm, collected, and intelligent. She also- by the Quirk Apprehension Test results- has the most control and prowess over her quirk in 1A. So it's odd that she lost to Tokoyami so easily.

Not to say that she necessarily should have won, but for her to not realize what Tokoyami was doing was out of character to say the least when she was shown to be very observant. And if Horikoshi was going to add this insecurity aspect to her character in the Sports Festival, she should have gotten more attention beforehand. At least then it would have made a bit of sense. But to give her this vaguely hinted emotional moment out of nowhere was... weird. She has barely any screen time and no growth or development to lead us into this point. And she barely gets any after this moment. There's almost no payoff or point to this.

(*cough* maybe focus less on Bakugou and give other characters a chance to shine *cough*)

Yaoyorozu might have been the character screwed over the most in this arc.

Shinsou

Wasted potential. Like I said before, having him take down Bakugou would have really hammered in how dangerous his quirk can be. It shows him as an actual threat. Having him get ringed out by Izuku in the first round doesn't do anything for anyone's character. It makes his entire introduction lackluster.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, those are my thoughts on the Sports Festival. Good for some characters, not so much for others. I always like to read fics where it gets rewritten because so much could have changed for the better. What do you guys think? Did I miss anything?

[nihilnovisubsole]

phew! finally a weekend where i can set aside enough time to type up The Promised Endwalker Stream-of-Consciousness Post. i finished the base story... a month ago? but work has been busy, and i think tumblr benefits from me being quiet sometimes. anyway, what a ride. when you've been building up to the end of your arc for a decade, you want to hit it like an earthquake, and that's exactly what they did.

i think people love endwalker because it fires on all cylinders. it returns - in both story and vision - to the eorzea we love, and the dev team gets to show off everything they've learned. the dungeons and boss fights are dynamic and imaginative and colorful and bring the game's epic sense of scope to bear. the story callbacks are juicy. the music is orchestral again. we're back home, and we're saving the galaxy. what's better than this?

i love that we go to garlemald. i don't - i mean, you know, i don't like garlemald. i shouldn't have to qualify that. but it's hugely narratively satisfying to see the face of the enemy we've been fighting since the first few hours of ARR. you don't think about them when you're beating them up in castrum centri or ala mhigo. they're star wars bad guys. then you meet them on their own turf. you observe firsthand how they starve and cannibalize their own people to feed their obsession with state power and military strength. the wintry environment makes it seem all the more barren and desperate. my favorite part by far. i wish we'd spent more time there.

actually, on that note:

there is an argument that endwalker should've been two expacs. i've heard similar about stormblood - ala mhigo should've been the whole thing, and doma should've been either patch content or an expac of its own. the prevailing theory is that, after ARR, the devs are afraid of letting arcs run long. i can't speak to that, but i wouldn't have minded, that's for sure!

i won't pretend not to be biased. i've noted in many xiv posts that it hurries through its political plots to get to the magic stuff. i felt more conscious of it in heavensward and especially in stormblood. i made peace with it in endwalker. with dessert this good, who am i to complain? i can do small character drama on my own time. for now, the game wants royce to be a big damn shonen hero, and that can be fun, too.

speaking of characters, urianger and estinien have grown on me. this is the arc where, for me at least, the scions have congealed. they're all good, but with any large cast and custom player character, you tend to form the meatiest bonds with a few specific ones. i think royce appreciates urianger's cooler, more mature head. they're both so formal. he realizes she's someone he can confide in. i think she sees estinien as a gifted, but hotheaded whelp, which i find very funny. patience, child. stop sulking. do your breathing drills.

i love thancred's MGS sequence and in from the cold too. they're stressful, but i love that the team tried, you know what i mean? the fact that you can fight enemies in a pinch makes those duties way more bearable than some other games that experiment with stealth.

in from the cold as a whole, honestly. If You Know, You Know

all right, i can't avoid referencing spoilers anymore, sorry. there's a sense of classical tragedy to the whole elpis sequence. it's like watching macbeth or hamlet. you know how it's going to end, and you know you're powerless to stop it, but if they'd just made that different choice! but we had to leave eden. the warrior of light had to end up where they are to finish what elpis started. i don't do fate/destiny plots, but this? i'll take it.

i also knew what would happen going into ultima thule and still came away from it moved. it's strong writing. that's all there is to it. sure, the visuals are haunting, but the dialogue has to sell a gauntlet of difficult character moments, and it pulls it off. on the design side, there's some interesting intentional friction that forces you to linger in the zone and sit with its sense of despair. that part where you have to search the empty park for signs of life? oof

with the majority of the MSQ under my belt, i started sniffing around for what else there is to do ingame. i tried ninja. did terribly. i tried sage. did terribly too, but at least that gave me access to the healer role quests, which, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). the nier raids are gorgeous. i even did the controversial werlyt quests, and terncliff is so cute. i kind of wish we could have another story there!

what's next? i dunno! right now i'm burning through the hildibrand quests before i continue on with endwalker's patch story. the field operation stuff seems interesting to do after the MSQ, in a "hey, you saved the world, but we have more missions for you" way. i've also contracted Triple Triad Collector Disease, so that'll keep me busy for a long time.

all right. one last thing. Real Gamer Moments: i was in a mount-farming party recently, and i said that i sort of collected mounts, but only used the ishgardian chocobo. it's a roleplay thing - it's the chocobo royce took when she ran away from ishgard. one of the party members said "haurchefant would be proud of you." AUGH

[pikahlua]

so, I dunno if you typically answer questions like this, as it seems like most of your Asks are related to dissecting the manga, but!

in your opinion, what's the best way to write a post-canon fic without getting wrapped up in keeping it loyal to the still-unfolding story?

for context: i'm writing a (potentially long) post-war-arc fic at the minute, but seeing as how the arc is still ongoing, I'm finding it challenging to not stop and rewrite and every time i learn something new. perhaps this is a stupid problem to have lmao, but you seem so good at untangling the MHA narrative threads, so I guess I'm just curious if you have any tips for folks trying to weave 'em in our own way?

thanks in advance, and thanks for all your hard work in general <3

Aww I love this ask!

So if you think about it, there are plenty of great post-canon fanfics out there that were written without the full context of the series. The lack of information those stories have about the end of MHA does nothing to hurt those fics.

You have several options really. You can commit to adapting your story in future chapters to what may happen in the MHA canon as it goes, but that's a pretty difficult path to take. I started my fanfic based on the assumption we would eventually learn AFO's real name, but now I'm realizing I'm going to have to come up with a solution to the possibility he may have no other name. You could pick a cutoff point in MHA and write a story that doesn't rely on any information that might come later. You could write based on an alternate set of events to fill in the blanks so that your story is canon-adjacent and divergent. In any case, you have to accept the fact that you're writing a story before the source material has ended.

The real question you have to ask yourself is: what does "keeping it loyal" mean to you? I'd advise you to remember that, no matter what, you're not writing something that will be part of the official canon. That gives you a lot of space to move around. If you try to stick too rigidly to the canon when you don't know how MHA ends yet, then ask yourself what your story is even about in the first place. If your story is so up-in-the-air right now that the important beats in it could change at the drop of a hat depending on what happens in the canon, then you don't have a story; you just have an idea. There's nothing wrong with that per se. Plenty of authors write without knowing where their story is going or how it ends yet.

My suspicion though is that's not your problem. I'm guessing that you're just worried about small details or references to events in the canon that may incidentally occur in your story. To the best of your ability I would advise that you don't worry about such things. Just write KNOWING you will do that. It's a feature of fanfic to do so, not a bug. Anyone reading your fanfic will know that.

So now I come back to the question about what does "keeping it loyal" mean? I am writing an AU fanfic. I have to ask myself often what I care about when it comes to "keeping it loyal" because AUs have the potential to diverge so far from the canon material they're practically their own original stories. In this case, "keeping it loyal" to me is about the characters. When I write these characters, are they behaving in the way I would expect them to in the canon? I've chosen major events in my characters' backgrounds to make them behave similarly to how they would in canon because to me, the appeal of an AU is in seeing how my favorite characters would behave in a new environment. By extension, I've also chosen some events to happen in my fanfic that maintain similar themes to the canon. My characters may have to change some from their canon counterparts based on the specific events that happen to them, but there is a core vision of the canon in my heart I always try to come back to.

It's a lot easier to keep that distance between my story and the MHA canon because I'm writing an AU, and that helps me to answer your question because the obvious things my story and the canon have in common are the characters and the story themes. Those two elements would be my answer to you. The line becomes grayer when you're writing a story set in-universe to the canon. My best advice is to not get caught up in those details. It's far more important that you write and get out your ideas. You can always come back and edit things later, EVEN AFTER PUBLISHING. That's the forgiving nature of fanworks. That said, I personally think canon-divergent/alternate canon stories are supremely underrated, so I would embrace the label. It's up to you if you want to do that or just try to adapt to the canon as you go, but IT'S OKAY if your story doesn't completely match up to the canon. It doesn't make your story any less loyal to the source material so long as you maintain that integrity in other ways. No one is reading fanfic because they expect it to be a rehashing of the exact events in MHA anyways. They're expecting something new, something additional, whether it's an embellishment, a soliloquy, or an entirely alternate set of events.

Just write what's good for your story right now, and everything else is incidental.

[comicaurora]

Hey I'm getting into DnD, do you have any podcast or series of a DnD campaign to recommend? I know there is critical role, but wich one of those should i start with? Is there a better beginning than critical role? I am lost here, please help

This is gonna very much depend on your personal preferences and attention span! I recommend sampling a range of DnD podcasts to find your personal tolerances and what parts appeal to you. I'm not the most widely-read person in this space because frankly most DnD podcasts are on too slow a boil for my attention span, but I've got a few you could check out-

Critical Role is the biggest and most well-known one for sure, but pacing wise I personally can't get through it. I love it in concept, but it's slow enough and huge enough that my brain zones out in the downtime and I lose track of important details when things speed up again. I think my first successful exposure to it was a brisk two-hour video that's just a Best Moments Of Grog compilation. That's also why I've been really liking The Legend Of Vox Machina, which keeps all the biggest and best moments but paces them like an actual story instead of a game. It's not representative of the experience of playing a TTRPG, but it is a lot of fun.

I personally enjoy limited-run miniseries a lot more, because they work better for my limited attention span, and on the critical role front that means I recommend EXU Calamity, a Doomed Heroes far-distant prequel to the modern setting of CR. Only four four-hour episodes and it's on a bit of a slow boil for the first three, but because everybody involved knows how the story's going to end, there's an endless drip of dramatic tension along the way. The DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, is going to show up a lot more on this list.

On the subject of short miniseries DM'd by Brennan Lee Mulligan, Escape From The Bloodkeep is my personal favorite and the one I revisit the most. Six two-hour episodes, deeply unhinged and intrinsically comedic as it's a full-series parody of Lord of the Rings. I recommend it for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that Matt Mercer, who is an excellent DM, gets to play, and his playstyle is a great example of how to roll with the punches and the dice, since his extremely menacing nazghul captain is afflicted by a string of hilarious failures and he kind of just owns it, to the point where his character arc becomes accepting his worth as an individual with the power of friendship. It's a great example of not taking yourself or your character too seriously, which is a vital skill for players to learn in order to handle the whims of the dice sometimes (or often) not cooperating with your narrative wishes. If CR isn't working for you but you're interested in what you can pick up from this extremely talented DM, this is a good way to get that!

Dimension 20 (Collegehumor's DnD branch) has several series I really like, most of them DM'd by Brennan Lee Mulligan again. His DMing style really works for me, and he takes an approach to pacing that I quite like, so they're generally a safe bet for me. One I categorically recommend is The Unsleeping City, an urban fantasy DnD game set in New York City. This one is 19 two-hour episodes, so longer than the other miniseries but still much shorter than CR, and it can give you a bit of a sampler for (a) the genrebending you can do with DnD and (b) a longer-form story with a less rigidly determined finale than the previous examples. Brennan's DM style is very cool, and he puts an unusual amount of focus on characters getting solo vignettes, which is sometimes considered a bit gauche in DM circles because it means the other players don't have a whole lot to do during those solo conversations, but it works for him and his players and the effect is very cinematic!

But if you want to see a different DM's style in the same space, A Court Of Fey And Flowers is run by Aabria Iyengar, one of the EXU Calamity players, and she has a very different but also cinematic DMing style! The game is also a hybridization of DnD and a different system for facilitating Jane Austen romances, which is dope. Only the first episode is up on Youtube, but that should probably be enough to let you determine if you want to check out more.

I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the two DnD Actual-Plays I'm in, Rolling With Difficulty and Heart of Elynthi. Rolling with Difficulty is subdivided into three seasons of 8-10 four-hour episodes each, with each season having one overarching plot or threat but mostly being composed of episodic adventures - it's a Planescape series, meaning most episodes take us to a completely new plane of existence to deal with its unique geometry, fun denizens and wacky threats. It's also a lot more edited than some actual-play podcasts, with an effort to avoid the slow parts and the dice-rolling, mental math, "what am I gonna do this round," etc. Heart of Elynthi is an ongoing series that's only about five or six episodes in, with an overarching mystery in the background and a "collect the things to save the world" plotline in the foreground. It also streams new episodes on Twitch on (some) Wednesday afternoons, so if you'd benefit from a live chat to hang out and talk with during games, that might be worth checking out to see if you like it! Elynthi also has had some pretty cool behind-the-curtain stuff about how the players can handle in-character disagreements without them turning into IRL fights, which is something I don't think I've ever seen another DnD actual-play explicitly unpack but is also extremely important for players to consider, so that's fun.

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: The Beast Takes a Bride by Julie Anne Long

4.5/5. Releases 10/22/2024.

The Vibes:

—Beauty and the Beast (most obvi)

—weapon-grade pining

—big stern man meets lowkey bratty woman (his wife)

—covert boning (like... everyone is covertly boning in this book)

Heat Index: 7/10

The Basics:

Alexandra Brightwall should be relieved when her husband, war hero Magnus, bails her out of prison. The problem? They haven't seen each other for five years. Not since the day after their wedding, actually. Stern and cool, Magnus knows their marriage was a huge mistake, so he has a proposal. He's on the verge of being created an earl; he just needs to present a good face until that happens. As long as Alexandra helps him put on the facade of a harmonious relationship, he's happy to give her a life of luxury... far from him. Needless to say, this is a lot easier said than done.

The Review:

Julie Anne Long is always funny; but the best kind of Julie Anne Long also punches you in the gut. This? Does just that. In fact, I think it's my third-favorite JAL, after What I Did for a Duke and After Dark with the Duke. It kind of gave me everything!

The thing I've struggled with when reading a lot of recent historical romances is that everyone is very... nice. Sedate, even. They don't act out, they're fundamentally good people who don't fuck up, and so on. This is not that kind of book. It's not that Magnus or Alexandra are so horrible. They're clearly good people with good hearts and good intentions.

They're just also... delightfully flawed. She's a bit bratty and flighty and tends to act on impulse. He's stern and struggles with forgiveness, and has a tendency to want to win at all costs. Neither of them are by any means monsters (though Magnus is referred to as a "beast" by the gossips, and in one of my favorite microtropes, IT KINDA HURTS BIG GROWLY MAN'S FEELINGS WHEN PEOPLE CALL HIM BEAST). But they have their issues, and they haven't dealt with them, and that's why their marriage combusts before it can really even start.

Also, they're both pretty bad at talking about their feelings, and make judgments about each other that aren't really fair. Here's the thing, though: All of this makes sense, because they were kind of strangers marrying. You get the most glorious pining thoughts from Magnus, and it's clear that he was besotted with Alexandra from the start... But he really didn't get to know her as a person. He didn't let her be a flawed person.

And it's a surprisingly complex thing, the way Long both lets us luxuriate in the swoony romanticism of Magnus's initial feelings for Alexandra (and my God, is it romantic... this is just an achingly romantic novel, in general) while never condemning Alexandra for her resistance. Because Magnus's feelings can be genuine, and he can be right about this inexorable chemistry between him and Alexandra; and he can also push Alexandra too far too soon and go about making their relationship a reality in a bad way. And then act affronted when she doesn't respond well to being pushed.

They're both messy people who nevertheless have, as Magnus, one of those guys with a Good Sense About Things (hence him being good at war) amazing chemistry. The kind of tension that just has to be fulfilled. It's delicious, and it's part of what makes this one of the hottest books I've read by Long. I mean. Holy shit.

It's also just like... so sweet? I felt as if I really got to know both Magnus and Alexandra, despite the narrative being brisk and also, like every book in this series, offering time to supporting characters. Few people can pull this off. Long is one of the best romance writers I can think of in terms of noticing the small details that have a big impact. The little notes about Magnus's past that tell you so much about why he is the way he is. The beats for Alexandra that remind you of a depth he doesn't necessarily want to see in her, five years after she broke his heart.

(And: I LOVE what drove them apart initially. Handled with such humanity! A thing I think a lot of authors wouldn't have done!)

Also—for Jane Austen fans. Imagine Colonel Brandon local pushing the marriage with Marianne, and then having it blow up in his face. With public sex. This is the look!

Of course, I have to note those supporting characters. I always love catching up with the regulars. When will Dot and Mr. Pike figure it out? How loud is Dot going to be when they finally do it? A small subplot in the book is basically a lot of supporting characters being pushed into horniness because of the awkward situations that arise when a honeymooning couple rooms at the Palace. It is glorious. It leads to some super funny yet sexy moments between our two mainstay couples, Delilah and Tristan (Lady Derring Takes a Lover) and Angelique and Lucien (Angel in a Devil's Arms). The way these books keep giving me Lustful Married Couples is. Everything!

The Sex:

Again... this is one of the horniest JAL books I've read! You do genuinely get more sex on the page than a few of the previous installments in this series (four scenes between our main couple, including one particularly exciting moment), plus a lot of hardcore flirting/implied sex between two other couples... and then the "it's funny, but now everyone is talking about loud sex and it's getting hot in the room" loud newlyweds.

I really loved how Alexandra and Magnus had sex, though. The impetuousness of it all. The way he just SNAPPED around her. And honestly? When he's right, he's right. He knew they'd be great in bed together, and, like... yes. I also super appreciated how he used Alexandra's Lust for His Body against her. So great.

Basically: It's funny! It's emotionally devastating at points! It's sexy! This is what we want from Julie Anne Long, and it's a damn good marriage in trouble/second chance book. So excited for everyone else to read this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Hello! Hope you don't mind the random ask 🥺 You said after the newest episode that Mushitarou is one of your favorite BSD characters; could you talk a little about your thoughts on him/why you love him/his arc? He's one of my favorites too, and it makes me so so sad how underrated he is, because imo he's one of the most well-written and tragic characters in the entire series, despite how little screentime (pagetime?) he gets :' ) I wish more people would talk about him. Really hope that changes after the next episode 💚

I honestly almost screamed when I got this ask YES I CAN TALK ABOUT MUSHITARO. I CAN TALK ABOUT HIM ALL DAY.

Ok well first of all he is the poor little meow meow. Pathetic scrunkly man. I'm sorry but you can't deny that it's true. Even in-universe, it's like he's the BSD world's chew toy. He keeps getting kidnapped by different organizations with like. No breathing room in between. Give him a BREAK. Funnily enough, I enjoy and usually like to poke fun at these kinds of characters, but they're not typically my favourites. Mushitaro is, by far, an exception to my usual favourite character types.

Second, I am a lover of bittersweet tragic storylines. Yeah. Honestly, the way the storyline built to the slow reveal - I knew immediately after Poe mentioned the water droplets that they were his tears, and I was starting to suspect what was really going on, but the way it was unraveled was so, so painful and beautifully done. Even knowing it was coming today when I watched the episode, it still hurt.

Thirdly, Mushitaro's circumstances raise some intriguing questions we still don't have answered. He was captured by the Seventh Agency and made to work for them with his ability - he considers them a worse alternative to Dostoevsky and refers to them as tyrants. (We also know of another shadowy organization that takes on ability users with useful skills for nefarious purposes, V. V also somehow managed to not be discovered by either the government or Ranpo in 13 years. I'm not saying there's a connection there but... but... there might be. 👀) Anyways, point is, there's stuff goin' on there. And I wanna know. (Also I like the motivation parallels with Ango very much.)

But most of all, I fully agree with you - he is very well-written. What I love most about his character is actually the way his narrative showcases what I believe to be some of the series' character writing's biggest strengths - to excellent (and heartbreaking) effect.

Characters are often revealed to be quite different than what their initial introductions would suggest. Later revelations serve to recontextualize earlier character cues - these early cues are often misleading but not outright lies.

To be clear, this isn't a hard or particularly unique thing in character writing - in fact, this is... kind of a minimum requirement. Your audience should be able to go back after the fact and notice new things about characters that you only get on re-read. But I find BSD is interesting for this because these initial impressions don't frequently tell you what these characters actually value - the "establishing moments" are often incredibly misleading. Mushitaro is an excellent example of this.

The best part of the perfect murder arc is the way it slowly unravels piece by piece - and as it unravels, more and more, we get to see the real Mushitaro. He starts off with these terrifying facial expressions, bragging and boasting about how he is the "detective killer" and how none stand in his way, cackling like a shallow cartoon villain. There's not much there to suggest a deeper character. Then there's the first flash to Yokomizo's murder, and Mushitaro appears to revel in it and the idea that he can't be caught. Another flashback shows him making these arrogant demands of a literal terrorist, like all his tableware being silver and porcelain and having access to a library of occult books for his study. Ok dude. This all paints the picture of a selfish individual, primarily concerned with expensive things and money and image - all things that perfectly fit Ranpo's initial conjecture as to the kind of person behind the Kindaichi murder. And just like Ranpo later says, it's a little too perfect.

The reveal builds slowly but surely, and Mushitaro's built-up image as a dramatic, remorseless murderer crumbles. Because he didn't kill out of hatred at all. He killed Yokomizo because Yokomizo asked him to do so. Because this, and the legacy of a mystery that transcended fiction into reality, was his only friend's dying wish. It was enough for Mushitaro to delay his escape just to fulfill it - what Ranpo refers to as a kind of willing self-destruction.

What Mushitaro ultimately values then is honouring the wishes of those he cares about and repaying those he owes. He will take the secret of Yokomizo's ultimate mystery to his grave. He used what he likely thought were his last moments alive to grab the transceiver and warn Ranpo about the danger the Agency was in. He only decided to trust Ango after Ango admitted his use of the Seventh Agency was to honour Oda's memory and wishes.

So, going back and re-reading his intro again, it becomes more clear that he was suffering from a kind of cognitive dissonance. "But wasn't he just playing the role he was supposed to?" No. He wasn't. The first flashback to Yokomizo's murder is much more violent and ends with Mushitaro cackling and going into a full villain monologue when there is no one else around but him. There's no one to perform this role for - except Mushitaro himself.

Both the killing and the ensuing grief stemmed from the exact same source - Mushitaro loved his friend deeply. But there is, I believe, no small amount of bitterness too, for the way they argued frequently, and the way his friend asked this of him. It's practically irreconcilable in his mind, and so Mushitaro leans into his role as the evil perpetrator who hated Yokomizo to such a degree that I honestly think he started to believe it - Mushitaro, with two narratives in his mind running parallel to each other that are fundamentally conflicting, tried to make a monster of himself. Insisted on being the monster, at least until Ranpo made it impossible for him to deny the true motive behind his actions - protecting his friend's last wish.

Fittingly for the climactic reveal of a mystery storyline that blurs fiction and reality, Mushitaro's real-life grief was his perfect fictional role's undoing.

Is he boastful? Arrogant? A bit of a coward? Absolutely. But Mushitaro is no monstrous villain - he is a man unable to confront his grief over his friend's death, and who, ultimately, doesn't intend any real harm.

Because other than Yokomizo, revealed as an agreed upon assisted suicide - Mushitaro never murdered anyone.

2. Characters are not cured of their pain and trauma. They continue to struggle with it during their development and it actively impacts the way they view and interact with the world around them.

Mushitaro's story is heavily themed around grief and his consistent denial of it's effects on him. At first, he denies by embodying the role Yokomizo wanted him to play - it seems to the point where he legitimately started to lose it. He's slipping when we first meet him. In a weird way, for as much as Ranpo tore his perfect crime apart... I feel like he also saved him, in a sense. The dissonance he was experiencing likely only would've gotten worse if he had not been forced to speak the truth aloud.

After that point... the denial focuses solely on the idea that Mushitaro doesn't miss Yokomizo at all. That he's doing just fine and Yokomizo should be jealous (he's far from fine; he doesn't even see a point in going outside anymore now that he won't be able to see his friend) and that he hated him (he doesn't. he never did. but he has to. he can't deal with it.).

Another thing I really like about his arc is that Mushitaro's grief also clearly stems from the entire thing being traumatic for him - but neither Yokomizo nor Mushitaro are demonized or victimized for this; rather the situation is just shown as it is. It's nice, that the story allows the reader/viewer to draw their own judgements. Both had their reasons for their actions - Yokomizo was already dying and wanted to go out in a way that was meaningful to him, while Mushitaro chose to fulfill this wish in spite of the cost to him. They both mutually self-destructed, in a way.

The narrative doesn't frame either as the villain. It doesn't fully frame either in victimhood either. It's a tragedy all the same.

Mushitaro continues to see and hear Yokomizo wherever he goes, not because he can't get rid of him... but because he never wanted him to be gone in the first place. Stabbing me would hurt less I think. :/

3. Characters often grow and change before they consciously realize it or have any sort of "epiphany".

This ties in a lot with the ongoing theme of uncertainty, and I above all really like this aspect of the series. BSD has characters grow and change and try to be better, do better by themselves and others... without being sure of the outcome. Sometimes before they're ready to consciously admit a change is necessary. There are few epiphanies. The characters are forced to slog through hardship and only then suddenly realize how far they've come - for better or for worse.

Mushitaro does change, even in the short span of time he is a focus character. I love the first little signs of it too - Mushitaro, who doesn't even like mystery novels, uses a trick Yokomizo told him about to help himself, Atsushi and Kyouka escape. Look at him :')

Afterwards, he starts to wonder if he can see Yokomizo whenever he enters a locked room - as in, if connecting to the memory of his friend through what he loved in life will mean that he keeps that memory alive.

And as annoyed as he is with Poe's attempts to get him to write a mystery... a part of him is happy to be around people that he could start to consider his friends. Enough that the Yokomizo he hallucinates wonders if maybe he doesn't need him there anymore. And finally Mushitaro bursts.

But this is actually good. He's finally past that denial phase, the part that had him talking about hate when really he missed him all along. Thing is, he'd already been developing and changing by this point, in that he needed the growth to come to terms with this truth, and it was not the truth that drove the growth.

In a sense, Mushitaro working through his grief and uncertainty led him to a brighter outcome, one where he has more friends and can start anew. He lost the closest person in his life. But his arc continuously asserts that in spite of the fact that he will always miss his friend, Mushitaro himself is still alive. And he should live that life - both moving forward and keeping the memory of his friend with him.

Odasaku believed that writing a novel was to write people. Poe was so insistent on getting him to write because it's a way of seeing the people we want to see anytime we want.

What a beautiful character arc, that began with fiction as an escape from real-life pain, and concluded with fiction as a means to work through it and with it instead.

Plus he's just such a funky little dude.

I. Love. Mushitaro.

[copperbadge]

i'm reading all the peter wimsey novels because someone recommended gaudy night and that's how i work, and now i'm up to the nine tailors and just finished murder must advertise (my favorite so far), but i found it really hard to get through have his carcase, which was odd since i loved harriet vane so much in strong poison. even the characters seemed to bugger off at the end of have his carcase instead of tying up all the storylines and sayers seemed disengaged after the first act or two. i liked the parts with peter and harriet, even the two chapters that are 99% cipher, but everything else felt weak. did you enjoy this one/why or why not? do you have a favorite of the wimsey novels other than gaudy night?

I may be inducing a fight by saying this but I think Have His Carcase is one of Sayers' weakest novels, and certainly the weakest of those featuring Harriet Vane. I tried to re-read it recently and couldn't get very far into it, and I'm a huge fan of Sayers. I think it's also a necessary book in order to create a complete story for them -- but I don't know that it's necessary to read it in the modern era, and certainly not necessary to re-read it.

(My other picks for least enjoyable: Five Red Herrings and Nine Tailors, both of which are visibly her attempts to write like Agatha Christie, one of her literary heroes -- and they're not bad books, I just don't like Agatha Christie style "clockwork" mysteries, which tend to sacrifice personality to logistics. I suspect this may have impacted Carcase somewhat. We will come back to this.)

Gaudy Night is actually not my favorite overall -- I think it's one of her best, but Murder Must Advertise is my favorite and in fact the first one I read. Which is hilarious because Peter spends a significant amount of time Not Being Peter Wimsey in it, but it's just such a combination of things I love. Advertising (which Sayers worked in and which she also clearly loved writing about), secret identities, crime rings, a hint of romance, office gossip...

Anyway, Carcase. I think the problem is that to get from Strong Poison to Gaudy Night, there has to be a bridge, and it has to be kind of an unpleasant one, and thus you get Have His Carcase. One of the major points of Harriet's arc is that Sayers wanted to contravene the "damsel rescued by the hero" narrative. Not so much because she believed women should save themselves or not, but because she believed that a relationship based on that kind of inequality, where one partner was grateful (or was expected to be grateful eternally) for being saved, was inherently unhealthy and unsustainable, and it was also a super common narrative at the time she was writing. This reaction to the narrative is most visible in her unfinished novel Thrones, Dominations -- which was finished after her death by Jill Paton Walsh, and I'm not a huge fan of the end product, but I've seen the original manuscript held at Wheaton and it's evident that this was a theme before anyone else took over, it wasn't forced into the plot.

In any case, Sayers had to get Harriet and Peter from victim and rescuer to equal footing, and while Gaudy does a lot of lifting in that regard, it doesn't do enough on its own, there had to be a previous groundwork laid. In a sense I'm glad that the grappling they have to do, which is sensible and intelligently written but also really unromantic, was done in Have His Carcase, so that it doesn't intrude more than briefly into Gaudy Night. Carcase is a lot about Harriet setting boundaries and testing whether Peter will cross them, and Peter reacting (sometimes poorly) to someone challenging him in ways he's unaccustomed to being challenged. Carcase is two people finding out the worst parts of each other so they can work out that they love the reality of each other anyways, which is what they're doing in Gaudy. But we have to witness it in Carcase, which is unpleasant. At least for me.

As she matures as an author and gains more power over how she's published, you can see Sayers trying new things -- after Bellona (another fave) she gets very literary with Strong Poison, and then seems to swing between these kind of torturous attempts at Christie's style (Herrings, Tailors) and incredibly sensitive, emotionally delicate books like Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night. Carcase is a weird combination of the two, where she seems to be applying the dispassionate Christie style to a book that wants to be Gaudy Night but can't be.

Anyway, even her less enjoyable books can still be pretty fun, and it's worth it to have books like Murder Must Advertise and Strong Poison, and the thrilling romance of Gaudy Night. But yeah, Carcase is a bit of a slog to get through.

[emeraldotter]

It's really interesting seeing your opinions on TMA on top of the art and I'd actually love if you shared more! I'm like, the exact opposite about S5, no longer needing grounding made the individual episode stories hit less for me and I loved the metanarrative if only for how much more it moved compared to earlier ones. Getting more perspectives on it, having to think on it more, would definitely make it easier on my next relisten.

I'll be placing most of this under a cut, since I have a lot of opinions on S5 and I will be sharing major spoilers for the entire series. TLDR; I like the dreamlike quality of the stories, I like the more controversial subject matters, and I have a personal preference for the prose style(s) in S5. On the flip side, I don't like some of the choices in the overarching plot. Yes, I'm unfortunately That Fan.

I'll start by saying: I like season 5, overall. I think the ending is very impactful and some of the emotional beats really moved me. As someone who started TMA for the short stories (and went in totally blind), I approach each episode with that mindset, at least in part. Someone who prefers the metanarrative will probably have very different opinions.

The stories in S5 felt like stories that the writer had been saving to tell. Not all of them are 10/10s, but they felt more personally affective because their horror elements were more extreme while also referring more explicitly to lived experiences. I didn't need plot connections to them because I felt personal connections to a lot of them. It would take me longer to list the stories I like than the stories I don't. Part of that is purely personal preference, of course; I enjoy surreal visuals and belletristic writing.

Admittedly, I found some stories got a bit too on-the-nose, but I appreciated that the writer dared to depict more controversial topics. The stories felt sincere. I love horror because it’s a great vehicle for exploring painful (and often "inappropriate") subjects. I always felt like TMA shied away from some of the darker themes over the course of the series, so I enjoyed seeing the writer tackle issues that were only really alluded to in the earlier stories. 171 The Gardener, for instance, is way more effective than 090 Bodybuilder, which did not go far enough to be genuinely scary or emotionally impactful (to me.) The same could be said for many of the stories in S5, in my opinion.

I love the dreamlike quality of a lot of them, as well. The prose doesn't need to be tied down by a witness narrative structure anymore, which allows the stories to possess more creative framing. They're surreal and sometimes unnerving, as a result. The way that Jon and Martin drift through the ruined world contributes to that, in my opinion. It feels very Virgil-leading-Dante to me. We have these nebulous, strange environments, then we are plunged into stories that range from absurd settings (166 The Worms) to frighteningly mundane (188 Centre of Attention), which, no matter how weird they may get, hinge on very real human fears and tragedies. The first part of the season feels like a long nightmare to me, for that reason.

Then S5 keeps going and the metanarrative gains prominence and… Well, I just don't like the direction the plot takes. Most of my issues are with the themes and character direction, but I also didn’t like the pacing closer to the finale. I spent the whole Georgie/Melanie cult arc waiting around for the show to end. It didn’t add anything for me.

I acknowledge that my favorite characters in TMA are Elias and Tim, so that definitely affects my perception of S5. (And I was a Web Martin truther so... Yeah.) I also felt very strongly about some of the morally ambiguous questions that built up over the course of TMA. Characters like The Distortion and Elias offer interesting alternatives to what I believe are common moral opinions on violence, self-preservation, autonomy, and identity. These are all important topics to me, personally, and I enjoyed seeing what all of these issues mean for someone like Jon, who has again and again made his choices, but has made them under terrible circumstances without full knowledge of the consequences. Coming from S4's amazing finale, which made Elias's character even more ambiguous, I was curious what other points the story would raise about these themes.

And then S5 happens. The season where The Web comes in with the steel chair, most OP player on the server, and the story starts to feel a bit ridiculous. (And I like The Web!) It left me feeling like...okay. None of this mattered, then. I was very dissatisfied by the moral issues the story emphasized as well as the moral issues it de-emphasized. And the ending was just the cherry on the top of the never-ending Jon suffering cake. No one is sympathetic to him by the end, not even Martin or Georgie, and the narrative feels uncritical of this. It's genuinely hard for me not to feel like the story hates Jon.

(I'm a bit bitter. But I'm also an Elias apologist. My opinions are, as a result, insane.)

That all being said, I actually like the ending. I think all the actors brought their A games to the conclusion. I hate how Jon's decision is depicted, but I like how painful Martin's betrayal is. I like Jon's speech about the history and nature of fear. I like Martin and Jon's final moments. I felt like the actors had fantastic romantic chemistry there. (Not sure what that says about the story or me.) I enjoyed the ambiguity of their fate at the end because, to me, that serves as part of the tragedy. Jon didn't want to become "another mystery" and that's exactly what happened. (Well, I mean. He's dead. Right? He's so dead.)

I understand why people like the S5 narrative. I personally found it somewhat dissatisfying, because I think it could have been something else. But it's not my story and that is okay.

(This response originally had an additional 3,000-word-long whiny fanboy screed about most of my problems with S5, including separate Martin and Elias rants, but I possessed the moral fiber to cut it. You're welcome.)

I'm very normal about fiction.

[md-guel]

Hello and happy guel wednesday!! we're slowly coming up to the end of the first half of the anime, which brings us to another meaty episode for guel's arc! in-depth conversations about family trauma and the actualization of it, what doesn't episode 9 have?

guel comes back into the picture during suletta's evening stroll, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought that this would be guel's opportunity to get back into the cockpit and score a win again. suletta's looking for a pilot and he's a damn good pilot who's just missing a mobile suit!

it's too bad that he turned down suletta's invitation, but the conversation they had after is one of my absolute favorites because of how it just highlights their similarities with each other, and what that means for them both in the long run.

one of the points that have been established about the two of them by this time is how much their parents defined their identity, for better or for worse. so even when by this episode, suletta is already soaring high in her victories while guel has pretty much lost everything he has to lose, when suletta asked him "you love your father, right?" and told him that she understood where he was coming from because she loved her mother, too, any gap between them just got reset to zero.

it's a passing line, but it's enough to show that guel and suletta are actually mirror images of each other, and that they've always been bound to each other ever since the start, which is a really interesting narrative device for me. they're both ace pilots, they're both under the thumbs of their parents, they're both doing what they're told to do in a corrupt system that's too big for their naive upbringing to fully comprehend. and going forward, that becomes a recurring theme between them and their respective character growths.

I always thought this scene was heartbreaking because even though guel had pretty much found a friend in suletta and was ready to move forward with her, his complicated feelings with his relationship with his father holds him back. he and suletta may both be similar, but their standing and the way they're progressing with their own identities is far too different at this point. and guel is lagging far behind from suletta who feels sure about her relationship with prospera. or is he? she's shown to be leaving him behind, but what if it's actually the other way around?

then the next day, the call comes from his father saying he's pulling him out of school and he's going to teach him how to make money. telling him how to live his life as he does, and this is the point where the lifeline guel has been hanging onto finally snaps. now it's clear to him that his dad only wants him as a projection of himself and he stuck it out there in the camp, in the marriage game for the hand of a woman he was never even attracted to, for nothing

I'd already mentioned this before but I really think that part of him winning all those duels was because that was guel fighting to keep his place in his dad's table. miorine was his ticket to a pat on the back. he's a golden child who constantly needs his dad's approval to function, and now even that is gone from him. it's sad, his love for his dad is starting to become some object he doesn't know what to do with, after living all those years bearing its weight, even when it's getting too heavy. but sadly again, it had to happen for guel. this is when things start to get interesting for him, after all

[aq2003]

almost forgot. ten's run episode ranking (nine ranking here)

some stray thoughts and opinions under the cut

my overall ranking for the series so far would be 4 > 1 >= 3 > 2. donna sweep babygirl

"i have brain damage" tier would've been called "the qpr meth has gotten to me" but then i remembered how absolutely glued to the screen i was for sound of drums <3 all of the other episodes there are either donna episodes or episodes where ten goes through horrors specifically bc donna isn't there and sound of drums is the exception lmao

by default i think simm!master is the best main villain in ten's run. he is still very goofy like the cybermen and the daleks (and 98% of the villains in this show really) but simm!master has that toxic doomed yaoi backing him and that means everything in the world. rtd drop your simm!master spotify playlist

it is SO CRAZY how an episode called "planet of the ood" can make me cry. but it did. and i love it for it. i love the ood so much. they are my little guys

stolen earth/journey's end was my least favorite arc in main series 4 - which is just a testament to how much i loved the rest of it lmao. like i still rly liked the finale, and the scene of davros pointing out that ten turned their friends into soldiers and how it was framed almost like they were being put on trial. Was so fucking juicy. but it felt overall like the story was doing that "trying to include everyone" thing and the pacing felt off as a result. like i rly needed the donna mind wipe scene to be longer it was goin so fast i couldn't process it

42 goes so crazy and i love it so much bc to me it is the defining tenmartha episode. you have that showcase of deep inherent trust, of swearing to save each other, of being the person the other needs bc is there anyone else. but you also have ten screaming at her to kill him so that he won't hurt anyone and then at the end, deflecting and refusing to talk w her about it. "burn with me martha" is like that previously-unspoken-now-brought-to-front undercurrent to their whole relationship and ten says it while being possessed by a rageful vindictive sun. waow

i really dislike the temporary companions (astrid and christina in voyage of the damned and planet of the dead respectively). not the characters themselves but the timing and role they have in the story and how they're framed. i do understand that part of ten's character is that he gets attached very easily and can't stand being on his own, but also for astrid this was directly post-martha where ten's realized he's been fucking up her life by acting the way he did. and for christina this was post-donna and pre-time-lord-victorious. forming a friendship that ends w/ tragedy or ten pushing them away i can see, but romantic tension is pushing it HARD. which leads me to my next deranged point

ten is aroace to me i'm so sorry society he clocked the aroace meter the minute the story decided to introduce donna and then in series 4 make them the soulmates of all time while there isnt a HINT of romantic tension between them. and there is something so narratively aspec about ten being created by and for love but sometimes his love isn't enough/isn't the right kind and everyone will leave or find someone else. being an alien can be a metaphor for being aroace if i'm crazy enough about it (and also if their humanity is a constant theme to their arc that is hammered in time and time again)

i forgot i was supposed to talk about the episodes hold on a second

one of the most out of body experiences i had was watching love and monsters, really quite liking it (despite finding the ending weird) because it's a grounded and solid episode w strong characterization and really great jackie and rose moments, only to find out this episode is nearly universally despised by the dr who fanbase. help girl

the human ten arc probably has the most underrated villains in the show. i just really love that concept of monsters that need to eat timelords in order to survive, and ten giving them one chance to be spared of his rage and die peacefully by turning himself into a human for a hot minute. it's just really neat idk.

time lord victorious my babygirl. like oh my god i was wondering for the entire time how the fuck does ten go from "vain/overconfident but at heart always driven by his love for others" to "god complex" and the answer to this question is "you take away everyone he cares about and make him watch more and more people die in front of him until he just fucking snaps". at the end of waters of mars i was almost expecting him to knock 4 times on the tardis door himself and was so glad it didnt happen. etc etc. i'm also really glad that it doesn't last for more than 5 minutes. what he does essentially haunts him for the rest of his (short) life and that's so so important

end of time part 2 doesn't get a ranking. it is simultaneously the best episode and worst episode. it made me cry my eyes out three separate times. like it's not even an episode anymore it's like an experience. specifically one akin to watching a good friend you made over the course of 16 days die in front of you. i felt my soul being sucked out and i wont ever feel anything again (until the 60th anniversary specials fix me). god fucking bless

but pairing up martha and mickey out of nowhere was so so fucking bad and i need to actually murder whoever made that decision

[joju-but-trek]

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episode 20: Ouroboros, Part 2

I'm so glad no one got erased on Solum. Or did they?

With this episode, we close the door on Prodigy season 2. What a ride it's been. I loved this season and all the successful swings it took, and I am still overwhelmingly impressed by how much they crammed into 20 episodes while still making it entirely coherent. Hats off to the whole team for that. 10/10 for the episode, 9/10 for the season

This review has to be in three parts because of the absolute bombshell that happens halfway through the episode and because we need to talk about the season as a whole.

For the first half of the episode, I loved the escape sequence. It felt a bit like they'd handled too much of the plot in the last episode and didn't have much to fill out the finale, which does make sense with the twist halfway through. I feel like if I were going to make this part a little more exciting, I would have had the Loom creatures get onto the ship and cause some chaos, or maybe have Dal and Ma'jel flying outside with cover fire, but what we got was excellent. And it caps off with the montage of the whole show so far, which was pretty emotional.

And with that, the episode and season 2 end, except HAHA SUCKERS YOU THOUGHT WE FORGOT ABOUT CONTINUITY.

I'm still in shock that they actually followed through and did the Mars attack in this episode. I didn't think they'd show it, and I actually had to pause the episode when it happened. Aaron, if you're reading this, first of all thank you so much for this amazing show and for engaging with the community, and second of all, I'm fascinated by why you did this. What was the reasoning? Because there's so much loaded into having it happen and disrupt everything that it feels like it can't just be setup for getting the new ship together, it feels deliberate to have a paradigm-shattering event break everything you know and love right at the last minute. It's handled well but holy shit it's a massive gut punch.

Janeway's mini-retirement only works in the context of keeping the twist, and it does make sense that way, and I'm glad she got a scene to object to Starfleet's reprioritization. I think it would have been better if she'd explicitly argued against abandoning the Romulans - I don't think anyone brings it up at that meeting - but at least she's still putting up a fight. Her strategy of getting the main cast onto a new ship and back to exploring is fine, but I do hope that if/when we get a season 3 they go to Romulus and get involved there.

Aesthetically, I love the new uniforms. The flashback uniform from Picard is one of my favorite designs, and all the senior officers were wearing it at the end. The Prodigy crew gets a variant of it that I'm not as fond of, but it's more in that style and I appreciate it. I also love that Murf is in one now too. They let him get away with dress code violations for way too long.

We also get the conclusion of Dal's arc, which is excellent. One of the problems with setting someone up to be First Officer is that eventually, they're going to take command. And having Dal accept the FO position because he wants to grow before taking command is a great way to balance the humility and patience arcs that he's been developing.

For the season as a whole, we've been gifted some of the best Star Trek has to offer. It's a serialized narrative that still has time for fun individual beats, while also focusing heavily on building out a cast of very real characters and giving them space to grow. It gets weird in the ways Trek is supposed to, but it never forgets about the people the show is supposed to be about, and I love that. Great job, Prodigy. Go Fast. Hopefully we meet again for season 3.

Also, next time around please put Dal in a room with Tom Paris.

[georgieluz]

what's your favorite part about each hbo war show?

the homoseggsuality?

ok lemme be serious for like three whole seconds, my initial answer to this was the characters. i'm someone who can't enjoy media if i don't like how characters are written. i don't mean i can't enjoy something if i don't specifically like the characters as people, but if i don't vibe with how they're written within the world as characters, then i generally struggle to stay invested in their stories. i love characters with actual personality and the one thing these shows give us is characters with personality! and we can point to the characters being based off of real people as being the reason for that, but i don't necessarily think that's the biggest reason. i mean, there are MAJOR things that were different about these characters in most of the shows, so i do think it was about characterisation, not just depiction of the real men, that made the characters who they were in the shows. so, yeah i think overall, my favourite thing in each of the shows would be the range of characterisations and stories being told. i think it's why the hbo war shows appeal to anyone in the fandom, because there's something for everyone? take the pacific, for example, i love to see which thread of narrative fans favour most out of the three. all are valid choices, but it's just very personal which ones we gravitate toward.

so yeah, so far we have gay and characters.

and gay characters

but let me focus properly on each show individually:

for band of brothers, i think it's the storytelling structure. the focus on an individual character in specific episodes to not just tell a story, but to start a dialogue with the viewer about certain themes. and we don't always get to follow those people that we're focused on after their contribution is done, they're snatched away from us, much like people are snatched away from us in life. but for that hour or so, we are consumed by them. we see them, we feel their struggles and their inner conflicts, and pain, and we see and feel their light too. they focus us on something specific and they go deep with it. and even though they may not get the most attention in every other episode, we become completely attached to them. but not just them, but everything they're telling us as well. their stories didn't die. they live on in every post we write about them. yes, even the silly "he's my babygirl" ones. especially them, in fact! i think this is just something that band of brothers did really well. yes, i would like more of a lot of the side characters. i, of course, irrationally want 37 more hours of chuck grant sitting there looking pretty, or alton more and speirs staring each other down for a good hour or so, or more george because he's my GUY and i want 50 hours of just his face, okaY!? but i'm aware that i was never going to get any of that and what i did get was something pretty special in itself. so yeah. i guess, the method of storytelling and use of characters would be my specific favourite for band of brothers. the structure of the show and the format also, bc let's be real, it was the ding ding ding winning formula that started the whole thing and is one of the main reasons limited series are such high standard these days too!

ok, next up, the pacific! anyone who knows me is probably waiting for me to say eddie jones! or hoosier! or ack ack! and you'd be right!! except if i'm being serious (and i know it's been more than three seconds, so by right, i don't have to be serious anymore) then i'd have to say that my favourite thing was sledge's individual character arc and journey. the effect of trauma on one single individual. seeing how it seeps into him and infects him from the inside out. how it changes your very dna (metaphorically, don't come at me PLEASE). these are stories that need to be talked about. i think it's a really important thing they needed to show in depth, and i didn't think they'd be able to do it in an ensemble show, but i think they did it about as well as they could. it was subtle, but not in a way where it was overshadowed or pushed under the rug. it was the main element of his thread of the narrative and actually treated with depth. the show could have easily have used the usual war media excuse of "they didn't care about that then so we're not gonna dive into it too deeply now" or gone the usual predictable and garish route that those that do depict it often follow. so i would say that his arc was my favourite thing about the series. but on a lighter note, my other favourite thing was h-company's friendship. i probably don't talk about them as much as i talk about eddie and ack ack, but i really do love them as characters and a group. i know i whine about leckie being annoying all the time, AND HE IS, but i genuinely enjoy him as a character and his role alongside them. i think the thing i was most disappointed about was not getting to spend that much time with them as a group. i would have loved more episodes of them together. they were such an endearing group of guys and brought an element that i think was needed amongst everything else going on. i'm still not over the show taking hoosier away from me after 5 episodes. that shit was Not cool and i personally don't think i'll ever forgive them. no i won't accept it happening in real life as a valid reason for him leaving. they could have LIED okay?! they could have pretended! IN THIS HOUSE WE SUPPORT CREATIVE LICENSE. WE SUPPORT LYING. WE SUPPORT THE BENDING OF THE TRUTH. ACK ACK IS ALIVE. EDDIE JONES IS ALIVE. HOOSIER DIDN'T GET INJURED. HE WAS FINE. I GOT 5 MORE EPISODES WHERE EVERYONE WAS FINE AND THERE WAS NO WAR AND THEY JUST HUNG OUT ON THE BEACH TOGETHER. LIFE WAS SO GRAND. ok, i told you i was about to get unserious again, so if you're still reading this is on you actually. i did nothing wrong. ever.

also, let me just formally apologise to anyone who just wanted to read about my gen kill opinions and had to scroll all the way down here through that mess. i'll just put my Serious Hat back on, and i'll be right with you, one moment!

okay, i'm here! i'm rocking the Serious Hat once more, so let's talk about my favourite thing about generation kill! this one may be less clear because i've not had as much time to find an eloquent way of expressing my own thoughts about the show as much as the other two, as i watched them earlier, but i do have a lot of things that i love about gen kill, so maybe i'll just throw all of those at you instead. nate fick is obviously one of those things. i'm sorry. i know i said characters already, but i don't think you understand... that man has me in the biggest chokehold ever. i am simply a dog waiting at his feet for instruction. i am the blood running through his veins. i am picking him apart under a microscope. i am thoroughly Obsessed. and it's unhealthy. it's unhealthy and it's all-consuming. i personally need someone to snap me the fuck out of it because what the fuck is this?!?!?! stark sands what have you done????? is this how brad feels? is it? IT IS. it must be. fuck, man. sucks to be us, i guess. ANYWAY. serious hat slipped a bit for a second, but i actually stand by it. nate fick is legit one of my favourite things about the show. so yeah, nate. but i also appreciated that the show was critical about the war, and the military and us government's involvement. it didn't handhold us through that either, it just presented us with what it was saying and left us with "how do your learned experiences and beliefs affect your reaction to this? what does this make you feel and think?". every one of those men was fucked up and flawed, and it's not an easy ride to have your protags without the sugar coating, but that's what makes it the show it is. it can be uncomfortable and you have to be critical with your viewing experience, you don't get to sit back and just enjoy the jokes or the stressed gays staring into each other's eyes. i've discussed that before, so i won't go into it again, but i think it's the one of the most vital things about the show. but it doesn't shy away from letting us in on these men either. you still get attached to some, you still have your favourites. they're the fucked up bad marines, but all the same, you collect them in your palms. it takes good writing, and performance and portrayal, to do that. i think it was very well made as a whole as well. the dialogue was pretty great. the use of very realistic background dialogue, messy and overlapping, was something i really enjoyed about it. having subtitles switched on brought so much more to the show, it's always fun hearing all the guys bickering in the background of shots. and i would die on the hill arguing that they contributed to the narrative bc they did! nothing in film or tv production is ever just There, everything is a construction with a purpose and all of those throw away lines had a little bit of impact on the narrative each episode, but yeah, just the writing in general. the screenplay to be specific. in fact, i'd love to read it, so if anyone knows where it can be found please send it my way, so i can be lazy and not have to search for it. i always love to read the screenplays of shows that have good dialogue and writing and this is very much one of my favourites in that regard!

so to sum it all up (serious hat off, ofc)

the gay. the characters. the gay characters. and nate fick.

and good dialogue and writing and narrative structure!

(ok, i put my serious hat back on for a second there)

ultimately, i just fucking love stories. i can be cynical, in fact, many people who know me might say it's one of my defining personality traits, but fuck, humanity is fickle and fragile and messy and chaotic and i just wanna hear about it all!!! and maybe that's what attracts me to hbo war shows, what i love about all of them the most.

[midnightstargazer]

Why I Like Regulus Black

Regulus Black is one of my favorite Harry Potter characters, and I want to talk about why. I feel like there's a frequent misconception that people only like him for superficial reasons or in ways that are contradictory to canon, so here's my take on what I find interesting about him and why I think he appeals to me as a character.

Just to be clear upfront, this is not:

An argument that Regulus was a totally good person and did nothing wrong.

A criticism of other morally gray characters or their fans. I am not interested in playing the "only my problematic fave is valid" game.

An attempt to speak for Regulus fans in general. This is my opinion only.

All that being said ...

I like morally gray characters.

Regulus is not the first character I've liked who's done things I would absolutely not condone in real life. I don't tend to like straightforward "pure evil" villains (e.g., Voldemort) except in a "love to hate them" sort of way, but I often end up liking anti-heroes and more nuanced villains.

I also tend to have a very positive view of redemption arcs. That doesn't mean I think every villain can or should get one, or that they're all to my liking. But the potential for one is usually going to make a character more appealing to me, not less. I like the idea that people are capable of growth and change. Of becoming better than they were. And I tend to be pretty flexible on what sort of characters I'll consider redeemable. There are limits, but "teenager who joined the wrong side, quickly changed his mind, and then died trying to back out" is very much on the "not too far gone" side of the line for me.

I'm a fan of the Black family in general.

I don't love all of them, but the family dynamics and backstory are really interesting. Regulus is not even the most obscure name on the family tree who I have headcanons for. Not even close. *gestures vaguely to not-yet-posted WIP about these ladies*:

Sirius and Andromeda are other favorites of mine. I love their narratives of breaking away and taking control of their own lives. Regulus's story is a bit different. He stays behind. He tries to be exactly what his family wants. I imagine both he and Narcissa would be strongly affected by having an older sibling disowned, and all the more careful in their own choices as a result. I almost certainly find Regulus (and quite a few others in the family) more interesting as part of these family dynamics than I would without them.

Getting a bit personal for a moment ...

I grew up in an ultra-conservative area of the United States* and bought into some crappy ideas as a teenager. Not in an intentionally hateful or ignorant way, just in a "most people I know agree on this, so I guess it's true" kind of way. When I grew up, moved away, and went to college, I ended up rethinking a lot of things and forming my own opinions. So the idea of realizing you've been wrong, breaking away, and having to figure everything out all over again as a young adult? I find that super relatable. That's probably a part of why I like Andromeda and Sirius so much.

Regulus, in canon, doesn't do that, or only does it on a very limited basis just before his death. But there's the potential to explore that angle in canon divergence stories. It was very cathartic for me, in my first "Regulus lives" fic, to stick him in a situation where he's separated from the negative influences and slowly starting to question stuff he's taken for granted all his life.

*although my family was actually way more chill than a lot of my friends, teachers, neighbors, etc. For instance, they were fine with letting me read Harry Potter.

How I see Regulus

Now we're getting more into headcanon territory. Regulus is only described second-hand; he never actually appears on the page. So, naturally, fans have interpreted him a million different ways. If I'm going to talk about why I like Regulus, I should probably also mention what my take on him actually is.

I see him as being driven by a strong sense of duty. He wasn't forced to join the Death Eaters, but he knew or believed his parents would be proud of him for doing so and that played a part in his decision. When he chose to turn against Voldemort, he kept it a secret from them in an attempt to protect them (that part is strongly implied in canon).

Despite those loyalist tendencies, I also imagine him being stubbornly independent, trying to take things on alone rather than ask for help. The horcrux is a perfect example of this. He didn't tell his family, any friends he might have had, or anybody on the opposite side of the war. He went after it himself, alone, with just a house-elf for help and without letting anyone know what he was doing. There's probably an element of pride in this, but I'd say also a level of distrust, a feeling that there's no one he can rely on and that he doesn't want to show weakness.

I think it's reasonable to assume he shared the Death Eaters' prejudices and committed crimes for them. But I do imagine him as a lesser evil, so to speak, compared to people like the Lestranges. The way Sirius describes him - an "idiot" who was "soft enough to believe" their parents - is not flattering, but very mild compared to what he says about other family members. There's nothing to imply Regulus was a really cruel, bloodthirsty sort of person, and I find it hard to believe Sirius would be so quick to shift the blame for his choices to their parents if he had been. And there are other signs as well. Kreacher said Regulus believed that Voldemort would "bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns," which is awful but stops short of what actually happens when Voldemort takes power in Deathly Hallows. And, of course, there's his relationship with Kreacher.

House-elves are a whole other can of worms I don't want to get into right now, but I do think Regulus probably treated Kreacher better than their society would have expected. I'm not saying he was Hermione-level enlightened. He probably didn't see him as an equal or spend his free time campaigning for elf rights. But when the full story of Regulus's death is revealed, it's made clear that he was fond of Kreacher and upset by what Voldemort did to him. He literally drank a potion that caused him extreme agony rather than ordering Kreacher to do it in his place. That doesn't make him a totally good person, but it does hint at a softer side to him and a sort of nuance that isn't typical of the Death Eaters.

He clearly knew what a horcrux was and strongly objected to finding out about the locket, either on the basis of "that's crossing a line" or "actually, the Dark Lord probably shouldn't live forever." Or both. I've seen people question why a Death Eater would have a problem with horcruxes, and I suspect some of them wouldn't. Bellatrix, for instance, would probably be overjoyed to know she was entrusted with a piece of Voldemort's soul. But the idea of horcruxes being repulsive even to many Dark Wizards is actually foreshadowed a bit in Half-Blood Prince, where the author of Magick Moste Evile warns his readers against them. So I do think Regulus was probably not thrilled to find out he was working for someone who had one.

There can be multiple factors in why he did what he did: anger about Voldemort's treatment of Kreacher AND objection to horcruxes AND possibly doubts and second thoughts that had been building up already, since Sirius knew nothing about the specifics but was sure he died trying to back out.

Now, going after the locket on his own, without telling anybody who might have an interest in stopping Voldemort, was not the smartest decision. And I don't see his death as something that should be glorified. I've seen people claim that his redemption arc is more valid because he gave his life, and I disagree with that take and actually find it to be very troubling. Redemption Equals Death can work if it's a meaningful self-sacrifice, but Regulus's death didn't really accomplish much other than getting him killed, and if he had lived longer he might have been able to do more to atone. Like actually destroying a horcrux, for instance, or providing info to the Order.

But still, the fact that he did anything at all is a big deal. The fact that something - or multiple somethings - seemed wrong to him, and given the choice between "a lifetime of service or death," he decided he still couldn't keep serving Voldemort? That's huge. That says something important about who he was as a person. A weird combination of a damaged but not completely absent moral compass paired with an unexpected sense of integrity and courage.

Final thoughts

Most of what I described in the section above is personal interpretation, and there are other valid takes on what might have been going on. But I tried to keep it to just what I think can be reasonably extrapolated from canon, not random headcanons that I'm happy to admit I pulled out of thin air or adopted from fanon.

I see a lot of interesting contradictions in Regulus, and specifically, a lot of positive traits turned bad. Loyalty and dedication towards a family and a cause that don't deserve it. Capacity for kindness that remains so undeveloped it never actually leads him to question his prejudices. The willingness to admit he was on the wrong side and the courage do something about it, but it ends up being a pointless self-sacrifice.

I see him as someone who isn't inherently evil, who could have been a good person if he'd been brought up differently. Someone who might very well have changed for the better and made a positive impact if he'd survived. And yet whose life ultimately amounted to very little. I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a tragedy.

It also screams "opportunity" to the fanfic writer in me. I love "what if?" storylines. I love fleshing out characters who were not well-developed in canon. Regulus has hints of a personality and storyline that I find really interesting, but isn't a main character or developed enough that I feel like the story has already been told in a satisfying way in canon. That's exactly the sort of character I'm likely to end up reading and writing fic for, etc.