#i think this is another case of people really trying to force real-world ideas into a very unrealistic show

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I've gotta admit, the take that Ed and Stede are "running away" from their problems at the end of s2 absolutely baffles me.

The thesis statement of this show, as we know, is "a lot of the things we are taught about being a man are wrong." Harmful ideas of what it means to be a man are at the core of Ed and Stede's issues with themselves: Stede struggle to feel like as much of a man despite loving softer things, Ed's feeling forced into a hyper-masculine caricature of himself. These are the core problems at the heart of these characters, obviously there's more to it but when you boil it down that's what we're working with. This is why Stede's trying to live up the ideal pirate image in s2e7 is important; he's getting a taste of what he thought he wanted so he can choose to leave it behind for what's really important. Ed, too, is still struggling at the end of the season with figuring out who Ed is, once he can break free from the Blackbeard persona.

What would be solved by sailing away, planning to continue as pirates at the end of s2? How would that be addressing their problems or helping them live more authentically? Ed has wanted to leave piracy since we met him, and yes, Stede enjoys piracy, but the idea that piracy is the true and right end-state for him is a very basic reading of the text I think.

Ed and Stede making the decision to try building a life together in their new shack isn't running away from their problems - it's Stede prioritizing Ed over a life of piracy, because piracy isn't what he wanted in the first place. He wanted to be a part of something, he wanted to marry for love, he wanted to be appreciated for who he is. It's Ed finally realizing in the finale that he can use violence as a tool to protect the people he loves, but he's also allowed to step away from it. Will the inn idea work out? Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares? It's not the inn that's important, really, it's that they're both choosing to commit to each other and taking this step towards living more authentically.

We already know exactly what "running away from their problems" would look like, and it's the plan Ed proposed in s1e9. He wanted to run away to China so their old lives could be "gone, dead, never were." Ed just wanted to forget about his past, and Stede was riddled with guilt - wherever they go, there they are. The difference between that plan at the end of s1 and Ed and Stede's new plan at the end of the s2 is, first of all, they're both all in and they know it, and, secondly, they're both getting a lot better at meeting themselves where they're at.

[cup-o-stars]

Relativity Falls!

Design Concepts (and my unnecessary thoughts):

Excuse the the colors, ig my apps are fighting.

I see Mabel finding success no matter what happens to her, but I really like the thought of her running an insane arts and crafts business in GF. Alternatively, if she fell in the portal, she'd come out acting confident as always, but she probably wouldn't realize how much the constant change and lack of family/stability wore her out until she settled back in. In either case, she's a bit cracked.

Dipper is investigative, but cracks easiest under stress and is not as inherently adventurous as Mabel or Ford- so the portal wouldn't treat him well. If he's not the one in the portal, he'd be into stargazing and real magic to share with people, while also warding tourists away from the dangerous stuff. In general, he'd be an unhappy adult if left to his own devices, lol.

Between Dipper and Mabel, I like Dipper being in the portal more. He's a great protagonist, but as a supporting cast member, he needs to be more insane to match the draw that is 'Mabel taking care of children,' ha. I also love the idea of there being no portal / some other looming threat for these two to struggle with (at least because Hirsche has made it clear that Dipper and Mabel are equally smart, and to me it seems like the portal would reopen way quicker with them), but I didn't plan on posting these and I don't know how my followers feel about me posting lore.

Stanford and Stanley:

Pretty much how they are in canon, but now they're in a setting where they can get over themselves, ha. They aren't quite as mature as Dipper and Mabel were at their age, but after coming to GF, they finally found other people to look out for them. Dipper could be a more emotionally available and level-headed role model (I think having people to take care of is calming for him in turn), and they'd both look up to Mabel as the peak of somebody who knows how to socialize.

Fiddleford:

He's a sweet, southern, farm-raised mechanical engineer just like in canon.

Idk why Fiddleford is in GF (visiting an unnamed grandparent?), but I really like his relationship with Ford in the journal. Following that thought, in this AU, he starts out more of Ford's friend than Stan's, and it's kind of a big deal. Unlike Dipper's arc on learning to be a kid, Stan and Ford clearly struggled a lot with interpersonal relationships / finding security outside of eachother, and that's what I think this AU could be about (it's great they realized they need each other in canon, but the part where they had no one else to turn to is also kinda crazy if you ask me).

Ford gets to meet another smart kid in a weird town, which helps him feel more normal. He has a better idea of what friendship is because of it, but also, since I can't imagine Dipper wanting an apprentice so young/vulnerable/impressionable or Mabel asking only one of the twins to stay- he'd have to come to terms with the fact that he can't live in his dream world forever. (Or maybe the apprenticeship comes from somewhere else, just because the conflict around going back to Glass Shard Beach at all, or sending Stan alone could be pretty good.)

On the flipside, I think Stan's initial jealousy of Ford and Fiddleford's friendship would force him to try finding his own friends / hobbies. I like the idea that he fails at first- and a lot- but Mabel notices his mounting frustration (which he is very keen on hiding), and her consistent and unorthodox support makes him realize he wasn't alone to begin with. He can be more open around her, which makes it easier to open up to others, and then he can make friends without having to pull any tricks. He probably starts with some animals, and then at least gets closer to Fiddleford anyways (I feel like they're both more practical than Ford and value human company more, so they'd bond easier once Stan gets over his personal hurdle).

Anyways- because that was way too much- Mabel's exes are a constant source of antagonists and Dipper is stressed about setting a good example.

(I was more of a Monster Falls fan back in the day, but I can't draw animals, lol)

[alieinthemorning]

Deepest, Darkest, Purest Love [Sylus] 

Content: World Underneath: Sealed in Dust Spoilers, Sylus Story Speculation, Angst, Soft Sylus, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert

Pronouns: None

Reblogs: Let me know that you enjoy my work and want to see more, so don’t forget to like and reblog (and comment in the tags. I love seeing people’s rambles in the tags)!

This work’s concepts, plot and original characters are my own which means I do not allow any sort of creative theft nor do I allow my work to be entered into any sort of A.I. bots. Thank you for respecting my space and boundaries.

Sylus…was an enigma to you. After the Nest, the forced resonating, and being told that he wanted to achieve his goal, he needed you to like him in some capacity. Now, you’ve ended up here in one of his many safe houses, wrapped in his arms on the couch while some movie played. Domestic bliss as its finest, but how did you end up here? You knew that it wasn’t just him playing with your feelings while you hopelessly fell for it. No…you knew that his feelings for you were real. His actions and words, although not always obvious, were always clear in the intentions. 

“You know very well that I adore you. There is no love purer than mine.”

Despite how you acted toward him, or tried to deceive yourself. You knew you loved him. You loved this man something fierce. And honestly? 

It scared you—terrified you.

You understood that you and Sylus shared a past. One of your many pasts, over your many deaths. Unfortunately, you couldn’t remember much (not that you think you ever could). Since EVER had gotten their hands on you and the Aether Core, memories come up spotty and painful. You want to remember, you really do, but it doesn’t seem like you have an actual say in the matter. But from what you can remember…you’ve both died…many, many times. Pitted against each other for some reason or other, then forced to become close—fall in love, just to do it all over again—Oh.

Oh.

“You know very well that I adore you. There is no love purer than mine.”

You were pitted against each other for the Aether core. That’s what wants to devour him—this damned Aether Core. 

“Sweetie?” His thumb brushed against your under eye, catching the wetness there. “Why are you crying?” 

“I’m sorry!” You wail into his chest. “I’m so sorry for hurting you!”

“I’ve told you before that it was my fault for pushing you—” He grunted as you shoved away from him, shaking your head violently. 

“I’m talking about before! Way back when—I still don’t remember it all, but I know that I hurt you, so—” You looked up at him, tears caressing your waterline. “How can you love me so deeply?” 

“I’ve told you this once, and I’ll tell you as many times as you need.” He smiled, and you break. 

“You know very well that I adore you. There is no love purer than mine.”

You know, and you hate yourself for selfishly enveloping yourself in that love. 

A love you do not deserve. 

I was trying to do Soft Sylus, which! for the two lines that he speaks, he is in fact soft, so I'm counting it! But it ended up as angst regardless lol.

Now, let's get into what might be his Myth or one of his many pasts with you. I think that the two of you were pitted against each other for the Aether Core. Whoever the hell had y'all fighting wanted to make one of you stronger, and having one kill the other for the core seemed a lot more fun than just choosing one. But! I don't think it worked, y'all got tired of fighting and choose not to take arms when it was time, which not the best idea because you'd be punished, but hey, it did eventually get the message through to them. However, they took another approach, which was getting the two of you closer, so when they did pit you two against each other again, one of you would have to throw your life down for the other, and in this case…it was Sylus.

At least! That's what I'm thinking lol. Just a little theory!

I'm on Bluesky btw~

Ko-Fi | Masterlist

[cocained]

crime plots part 3: (part one | part two)

tw: drugs, guns, mention of murder, etc.

two people who are drug dealers, but together! they run a successful business and besides being colleagues, they are also highly in love with each another.

a group plot kinda based on baby driver where a bunch of criminals are brought together for robberies, or anything really, and splitting the money in the end. they all know each other because they worked together before or just met somewhere down the line and they all have different talents and connections (friendships, love, exes or rivals). the team usually changes depending on the job, but the boss think this particular team works well so it becomes a consistent. they work different together on cases, things go wrong and sometimes it goes really well. this can go many ways! hook-ups, break-ups, arguments, saving each other’s lives, almost getting caught, etc!

a world infamous hacker is known for their ways that are impossible to crack. their activities could vary from hacking notorious businesses to darker stuff like having their own cyber criminal organization or working with the most dangerous people in the world. either way no one knows who they truly are, until the hacker gets hacked and receives voice/video calls or even a package or a visit to their house! from there on things could go either way: working together, threatening to expose one another, wanting to learn from one another... bonus: after a while they fall in love but it’s long distance so what they do is they hack into each other’s phones and toy with each others lives bc they have no idea what privacy is and omg imagine the angst!

i’m a gangleader and you’re a rookie trying to prove themselves and i have a soft spot for you because you’re cute, so i help you out. i teach you things and bring you along to places just so i can have your back. and people in the gang start talking shit, but i get highly defensive and if anyone else tries to make a move on you i might lose it. plot twist: i get injured and you’re taking care of me.

we’re both part of a different crime family and to settle the decade old war we are forced to marry each other. but we spent our entire life hating each other because people that we cared got killed because of this war and for years i was under protection so i could never do what i wanted because of you. now muse a is a little bit scared of muse b bc they’re just normal and muse b is a lot more involved in the industry, killed people and god knows what. muse a also had to break up with their previous partner because of the arranged marriage. and let’s be real, this was never meant to last and at some point they’re starting to cheat on each other and that’s when the possessiveness begins and arguments turn into them slowly starting to care about each other.

i’m a stripper/prostitute working for you and honestly i don’t love doing this, but i need the money and it’s the only way to get close to you and i’m honestly breaking my own heart having to see you with other entertainers bc let’s be real, you barely know i exist

i work in the emergency room and you keep coming in with bullet/stab wounds and crazy stories about how you got them and i don’t believe you so i confront you one on one and tell you what i think is really going on here, you’re a criminal aren’t you?

someone close to me got killed and in order to find answers i dive into their world, only to find out they live a double life full of crime. no one knows i’m going undercover as an innocent rookie and i try to get close to the people involved to get answers. of course, i meet a love interest that either i get along with from the start and helps me with adjusting into this new life or it’s like an enemies to lovers sorta thing. only to realize after a while that it’s too late to go back to normal and now i’m the one that’s living the double life and as though that’s not enough, the answers i’ve been looking for are not what i expected them to be...

muse a is a detective in a murder investigation, they always give it their all, but this time they’re told to do so by all means necessary. a murder of someone ‘important’ or maybe an expected serial killer! muse b is an inmate charged with murder and they’re highly intelligent, very cooperative and their murder is just very similar to the one that just occurred. hence the reason muse b is asked to become the criminal consultant for a reduced sentence, helping muse a with their investigation because who can think like a criminal better than a criminal? optional: muse b is sending help from the outside world to help with the investigation there too (and protect the detective!)

i’m rich as shit and when they say you don’t become this rich by being an good person — they’re right. a lot of it is drug money (or something else?) and it’s a secret i’m planning on bringing to my grave until one day my house keeper/pool boy/gardener/??? overhears one of my phone calls and instead of them taking the hush money to keep this between us, they want to go on a date.

[agender-witchery]

Canto IV was really good

Project Moon does a cool thing that I really like with their stories, which in theory isn't really anything special, but I see so few stories do this that it really does single Project Moon out in my mind.

Each Project Moon game is in a dialogue with itself, having a discussion about politics and philosophy and society in general. They universally present the status quo as Not Great which is... evident for anyone living in the real world, but importantly to me, they do not present any proper answers to this.

This isn't to say that Project Moon stories are fence sitting nonsense that call for the importance of meeting in the middle, that's your own decision on whether you think that's worthwhile. And Project Moon DOES express opinions in the world they have created, so they're not cowards in that sense either. It's pretty clear, at least to me, that they believe things in our world do have to change, that the vision of capitalism that exists in the City is horrendous, and that we in the real world are on a clear trajectory toward the world of the City if action is not taken.

However, the way they frame the two opposing sides of each argument they present is important. And key to that framing is that in every game you play antisocial, morally dubious murderers. This is a constant. The people you're fighting aren't the good guys, but hey, neither are you.

In Ruina, when it comes down to the final confrontation with the Reverberation Ensemble, you are presented with two opposing ideals. Carmen and the Ensemble would love nothing more than to see the world torn down in its entirety, built back up in their own imagining of an ideal society. The Librarians, on the other hand, are there to fight against that notion, that the world they have as it is can be changed.

And while I definitely fall on the side of "maybe there's hope to be had in this dying, hellish apocalypse" I do GET where the Ensemble is coming from. I GET what Carmen's trying to do. It's a naive and childish attempt at creating a better world from the ashes of the old, an idea whose inevitable result is tyranny, but to someone who's already experiencing tyranny, tyranny but this time you're on top seems appealing. And I also understand that, for the Librarians, even if the ultimate goal here is to create a better society without that sort of tyranny, well you're kind of murdering people to achieve that.

And I think all this plays into why I enjoyed Canto IV so much. First off, the main conflict in Canto IV isn't between Limbus Company and another group, it's the conflict between K Corp and the Technology Liberation Alliance, which can be further distilled down to the conflict between Dongrang and Dongbaek.

In the case of K Corp, they're a bunch of utilitarians, people who say that even torture is acceptable if it leads to lives saved. And they quite literally do this, torturing the Tearful Thing in literally every possible way, just to produce the tears needed for regeneration ampules, forcing it to cry for the sake of others. Dongbaek doesn't even fully refute that this might be useful, but she does assert that if you're going to go to these lengths, there better be a foreseeable end to it, you better be curing EVERYONE.

And then we have the TLA, a bunch of anprims who aren't exactly wrong in the assertion that the way technology is used within the City causes immeasurable harm, but do come to the wrong conclusion that ALL tech needs to be incinerated. And, for them to come against K Corp specifically is significant, because sure, K Corp literally tortures people to produce their ampules, but the results are tangible. Lives are, in fact, saved, even if we discount the K Corp Security that will cut their own limbs off just to get healed.

And where Canto IV manages to stop saying "both sides bad" is in bringing Limbus Company back into the equation. A third party, who doesn't adhere to the ideals of either side.

Does Limbus Company have perfect answers to resolve this conflict? No, you're still a bunch of murderers. But they do present a third perspective, that instead of looking only at total harm done and coming to the conclusion that torture is acceptable, and instead of looking at all the injustices caused and coming to the conclusion that the entire world needs to be reset, through exploring the fathoms of Yi Sang's EGO, we can come to consider the possibility of caring for the individual. That yes, this world is fucked up and living in it can itself be considered a crime against humanity, but that doesn't mean you can't help someone in a way that doesn't hurt someone else. Yi Sang went from being horribly depressed with nothing in this world, someone who desperately wanted to die and couldn't even be afforded that mercy, to someone who finally smiled. The world is still fucked up, and we don't really have a solution to that, but we at least made it a little bit brighter for one person, and in the future, we can keep doing that.

And also? Canto IV introduced Alfonso so really it's just the best chapter.

[ashley-foster-13]

I normaly don't like to read angst but the voices are speaking to me so, I have this idea for a while "what if W.C.K.D kidnapped reader and did some experiments on her. And when the tmr boys founded her she was a crank. Basically what would their reaction be if they saw the reader as a crank. I used she/her pronouns for to wrtite this request but the reader can be gender neutral. I am sorry if my writing is wacky its late at night and I don't know what am I doing

You are a crank

"Y/n, NO!” someone shouts, but a WICKED soldier is already dragging you away. You kick and scream and bite and hit but can’t free yourself from the firm grasp.

Janson found the Right Arm, and all of it was Teresa’s fault.

“I hate you, you hear me? You’re killing them!” you yell, still kicking. “Rot in hell!”

You can’t see a thing, wither from anger, or tears, or the hair wind keeps blowing in your face. Then there is a spark of pain, someone punches you in the stomach. You collapse on your knees.

“Help,” you whimper, but your voice is too weak, and people around you are too loud.

With hope fading in your heart, you let loose and allow the darkness to consume you.

You aren’t sure how long you have been awake. You aren’t sure you are awake.

It feels like you’re drowning in memories and feelings, some real and some not.

Pain.

Grief.

Surprise.

Hope.

Love.

Pain.

People are talking, but you brain can’t differentiate any words. It all sounds like a song or a moan, and with every passing second grows louder.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

You try to scream, but no sound comes out. You can’t feel your body. Then it all goes black again.

“Y/n!”

You sleep.

And then you wake, and you wish you didn’t. Ever.

In the mirror just by the bed, you saw a person in the reflection. Not human.

Black eyes, dark circles around them. Hollow cheeks, bony limbs. It looked like you haven’t been eaten in a few months. Maybe you haven’t.

It was so surreal, for a moment you thought it was just another nightmare, another vision.

But then you hear the voices of your friends, and realize that’s not the case.

You feel something cold on your face, and only when you look in the mirror again you see black tears running from your eyes.

“Y/n! She’s awake,” Minho says. He takes you by shoulders carefully and tries to make you face him, but you don’t let him.

“Y/n, you alright? You bloody scared us all,” you heard Newt limp closer. A familiar sound of his uneven steps forced the memories rushing to your mind, warm memories of the Glade.

Your sobs are the only sound in the silent room.

“Y/n..?” It’s Thomas, sounding like he already knows the ugly truth. So, ugly as you are now, you turn to their simultaneous gasps.

“Bloody hell,” Newt mutters, staring at you in disbelieve, his body gone stiff.

He was the first Glader you ever saw, the one who helped you adjust in that cruel world.

“I’m sorry,” you cry, because now you’re gonna have to leave them, and all their efforts to rescue you were for nothing.

Minho bows his head and closes his eyes, trying to block out the tears, but a few escape.

You got really close because you were his running partner back in the Glade. Now he will ave to run alone.

“Hey, listen to me, alright?” in two long strides Thomas crosses the room and grabs your shoulders. He doesn’t speak until you look him in the eyes. “We’ve got the cure. We cured Brenda, remember? We can still save you.” At these words, Minho ran out, probably searching for Mary. “Just don’t give up, alright?”

“He’s right, we’ll save you,” Newt is out of his stupor by now, but his voice is slightly shaking.

“What if it doesn’t work?” you whisper. You can already feel the Flare getting to your mind, twisting it to form the most violent ideas and crazy thoguhts.

“There!” Minho pants, back with the doctor.

“Thomas, I need your blood,” Mary calls.

At that moment, everything hurts again, and you think you pass out.

Until you hear gunshots.

“A crank!”

“Kill it!”

“Step back!”

And you do, stumbling over your own feet and falling to the floor.

When you look up, you see Newt crouching on the floor not far from you, clutching his bad leg and uttering curses under his breath. Then you look at your hand that is holding a dagger soaked in scarlet, and you understand.

You could have killed him.

You almost killed your friend.

Hating yourself more than the Flare, more then Teresa or WICKED, you bring the knife to your throat.

“Y/n, no!” Thomas shouts, grasping your wrists and holding them behind your back. “It’s okay.” he soothes, but you know it’s a lie.

“No, no, no. It’s not okay. It’s not okay. It’s not…” You whimper, trying your best to stay human.

“It’s okay, Y/n, just hold on, yeah?” Newt calls.

He doesn’t sound like it’s okay.

Then Mary is in front of you with a syringe, and all that’s left for you to do is pray.

[itsslivernotsilver]

hi guys does anyone wanna hear about the dichotomy that mist and maddie form in reference to that god damn tomato from the og short stories. ok great here i go

pantheon definitely expands a LOT on the differences between the two sisters but ken liu’s bit about the tomato has always stood out to me and i’m kinda sad they didn’t keep it in the show but whatEVER!!!!!! anyways it’s such a perfect symbol for the glaring differences between mist and maddie and i’ve been thinking about this for almost a year now so i gotta get it out there

like. it’s so simple. it’s just a tomato.

🍅<—tomato. round and red 👍 (also i love that little interaction so much holy shit)

anyways it’s so simple in it’s design but the connections that each sister has with such basic object like this are so drastically different it’s crazy

maddie approaches it from a deeply emotional and human perspective. to her, a tomato means the taste of one, her grandma, her family’s garden, her family’s dog, and just like. general childhood memories. in the show, she represents the side of humanity that wants to stay physically in the real world. she’s obviously friendly with UIs and CIs given that like. yk. and she expresses curiosity in mist and her whole deal!!!!!

but she clearly has her biases and those are shown through her wants for her son and how upset she gets when he advocates for uploading (even though mist practically raised him too but whatever i’m not gonna get into that rn). anyways my point is that she’s approaching this tomato conversation with her experiences regarding physicality, nostalgia, and other “human” feelings

but mist doesn’t have any of those!!!!!! she doesn’t have any human experience at all. she approaches a tomato from an extremely technical and factual perspective. she brings up the species categorization, court cases, genome info, etc. she even decides to mention that, logically speaking, she knows more about tomatoes than maddie does (which is like??? girl????? a little unnecessary but true)

in the show there’s the conversation about nostalgia and her line about having the code for nostalgia but not being able to execute it because of a lack of memories fucks me up sooo bad

she loves maddie and everyone around her because she’s kinda just an actual embodiment of love but she can’t help but feel alone in a world where everyone moves so slow and nobody really gets that she can’t understand a lot of “human” emotions. it’s why she’s so ecstatic to introduce caspian to the cloud and why she’s so passionate about the drive with all the CIs who are just like her. but in this moment she tries her best to connect with maddie but ultimately can’t because of the sheer lack of similar experiences

they just can’t understand each other fully and they never will. they’re forced to agree to disagree over something as simple as a tomato and god that tension keeps me up at night

another thing that i thought was super interesting was how the maddie’s interest in mist was flipped in the show if that makes sense???? like in the stories, it’s clearly maddie who wants to learn more about mist. she tries her best to bridge the gap and it’s her idea to give mist a body. but in the show, it’s mist that seems “more obsessed” (heavy on the quotes) with maddie. she’s reaching out more and she asked for a body herself and maddie lashes out when mist does something while trying to help (don’t even get me started on caspian and his whole deal this season i’ll fucking kill someone)

ALSO i feel like this post is getting too long now but i wanna at least mention the quote at the beginning of the chapter cause holy shit man

anyways that’s it for now i think. i might make another post about the quote and the other stories and some other details i really liked for the nonexistent people who’ve seen this show 👍

[paragonrobits]

as expected i see posts referring to the MCU as 'the american imperialism movies' and its annoying but not as much as iit would be if they were painting the entire of superhero comics (a really big genre) as exclusively being a propaganda machine for american imperialism, which is a ridiculous idea even before you consider that its not an american exclusive genre but honestly the whole thought is

its a really reductive 'i dont like this genre' thing that's become a common joke; Marvel is listed routtinely in DNI lists, people go on and on about it being The Worst Thing Ever and its annoying but its also pretty indicative of a specific type of person who doesn't relaly seem interested in engaging with fiction at all outside of fitting things into their own particular framework. in this case, viewing everything purely as a lens of political theory

this isn't to say superhero stories don't do political theory; the original marvel Civil War comic was at least in part a criticism of the political activity of the day, it was just horribly executed (to the point that the MCU completely excising most of it made it a significantly better story). Al Ewing's work regularly lends itself into it, Claremont's X-Men run was FILLED with it (to the point that Magneto, as a character, CANNOT really be used as a metaphor of retaliation against bigotry as much as people try to reduce him to that, but a character with a very specifiic set of politics that cannot be removed from him and keeping his character intact), and some of the best stories work great because of it

however, the other side of that is that while superhero comics CAN be political, this doesn't meant they automatically are meant to be propaganda or support for one side or another. They might be meant to be so, but its not a default. So you might find it strange, but a movie about a character called CAPTAIN AMERICA is not necessarily imperialism apologia; not if the story does not actually lean into making imperialism seem like a moral obligation or the best thing for the world. Having a character wearing the american flag is, curiously, not exactly the same thing as just endorsing the country.

One example of this is something I tend to think of, with a very irritated sigh, 'liberal Varric discourse'. This is from the Dragon Age setting, a series that is more or less by design somewhat dark fantasy with lots of in-universe conflicts of agendas and political conflict; the biggest peril of the first game is antagonistic Loghain Mactir, who betrays your faction at the beginning because he considers it aligned to a country which oppressed his own, in a war he fought to force them out. Its obviously political, but that doesn't mean it really maps to real life political debate. This is where the term comes in; a lot of Bioware characters tend to be relatively reserved about their goals, and Varric (if not pushed to be anti-Mage in a Dragon Age 2 playthrough) supports the mage rebellion in theory but disapproves of the outright civil war and loss of life ignited by his friend Anders literally blowing up a religious building. The necessity of such or Anders pushed to the brink aside, this brings us to the point.

People joke, or honestly mean it, by calling Varric a centrist or a liberal. Here's the issue; he is a dwarf, as in the fantasy species of humanoids with big beards who live underground mining stuff, and he exists in a fantasy setting where the biggest issues can't really be mapped to real life political conflicts. Calling him a liberal or centrist makes no sense because those political viewpoints do not exist in the setting.

Essentially, by being serious about calling him a centrist (and not making some kind of joke, which at least is slightly more respectable to me even if I don't find it funny), you're honestly refusing to engage with the actual political framework in the setting. This in turn leads to a common thing in fandom where things are reiniterpreted to something more comfortable, or fit into a framework fitting the person's own views. This can lend itself to people playing 'which character is the Real Leftist', usually by trying to claim a villain is a leftist revolutionary unjustly vilified by the narrative even if none of those concepts really exist in the setting.

But its also important to note that stories like Dragon Age and the MCU, whatever their faults are (and others have documented them in more detail than I'm about to at the moment), are not really intended to BE political tracts touching upon modern issues. Comics can, for sure; Immortal Hulk reimagined the early concept of teenagers talking to each other about the Hulk's actions as a political movement fixating on Hulk as an icon to destroy the corrupt world through political action (and in Hulk's case, terrorizing his enemies into compliance), and Superman Smashes The Klan is a work inspired by an early radio where Superman, through that mediium, exposed the activites and secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, badly devastating their reputation from which they've never really recovered, at least to the extent they once had.

But its common to get into a point where all stories are simplified to a person's particular political binary, and this isn't really useful for engaging with fiction, because that's the same kind of mindset that gets people warping a story to instead be all about their preferred relationship between characters, and ignoring the actual tone. (See how many fans of Avatar the Last Airbender keep making their fanon into a grimdark fantasy setting rather than the spiritual Buddhist series it actually is; by refusing to engaging with the shows themes in favor of what they like, it winds up having no real relationship with the series and winds up outright poisoning common attitudes about the characters based purely on that fanon.)

Basically this is sort of like watching Lord of the Rings and constantly complaining "why don't they just get guns and shoot their enemies?!" Because guns don't exist in this setting, and if you keep insisting on them gettings guns and accusing the writers of making bad decisions, you're going to miss the intended experience and you're not really approaching it right, at least if, again, you're specifically going into it assuming guns exist and characters will use them even if nothing indicates either is the case.

So its pretty much the same thing in assuming settings divorced from real life and historical developmentts will have exactly the same political history as our own, or that you can honestly summarize ALL political possibilites as 'left wing/right wing' (which, when you get down to it, is oversimplification and on par with 'NONCOFORMISH IS, ITSELF, A FORM OF CONFORMITY') and i think that if you actually try to force things into those kind of familiar viewpoints, you're going to miss out on insights or experiences.

Oh riight my actual point; those stories are specifically adventures with emphasis on thrills and character moments and heroic attitude, or dark fantasy with in-universe political conflicts, so by trying to map real life political viewpoints to them on a 1-to-1 basis, you're going to run into SERIOUS issues pretty fast.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

Hi! Thanks for your last response. I have another question but more so for the writer in you. In an AU where after both marriages to Daemon and Laenor Rhaenyra has had no children at all but not of her own free will (so no kids with Harwin), how would that affect the characterisation of Viserys, Rhaenyra, Alicent, Aegon?

I have my ideas of course but I'm curious what you think 😀

Okay I had to think about this one a bit but I actually think that in this scenario the Dance probably wouldn't have happened.

If Rhaenyra has no children at all, Aegon is her heir by default. In this situation, it's not really worth risking a war to put Aegon on the throne earlier, especially because Rhaenyra now has an actual vested interest in keeping her brothers alive. The thing is, although sometimes we hear that Rhaenyra had to have children to secure the succession, the succession was secure through her brothers and their children, strictly speaking. Having your very own bloodline on the throne is not strictly necessary (just look at Elizabeth I), it's a want, not something needed for the good of the realm. So in this situation its in Otto and Alicent's best interests just to wait her out. Worst case scenario, Rhaenyra outlives Aegon (and if he's still hard drinking in this world, this isn't unlikely) and Aegon's child succeeds him which means....

If all else remains the same, the thing to do would be to pursue Baela as a bride for Aegon (how convenient for me!). In this scenario Daemon isn't getting any closer to the throne than that unless he attempts to usurp Rhaenyra with the Velaryons, and for all that he sucks I just can't see him doing that. A Baela/Aegon match would be a smart move in any scenario, but in this one it's ideal because the only real threats to the succession now come from the Velaryon line and Daemon's chaotic self, and if you neutralize the Velaryons you neutralize Daemon too because any resistance Daemon could possibly mount would always depend upon Velaryon backing. Otherwise he's just one guy with a dragon. That said, if Rhaenyra dies at a normal-ish age, Daemon is likely going to be long gone by then, so he's really kind of a non-issue in a world where he only has the two daughters by Laena.

Alicent is probably a lot more chill because her sons are not really in any danger. Instead of being obstacles for Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra instead needs them in order to prove that the succession is handled. Rhaenyra might actually have some motivation to bond with Aegon at the very least, seeing as he is her heir. And honestly, it's pretty likely that Aegon is a bit more well adjusted in a world where he doesn't have a sword of damocles hanging over his head the whole time, and in which his mother can just be a regular old slightly neurotic repressed lesbian (and hell, in this scenario maybe she and Rhaenyra could actually have a discreet affair. hmm...). Viserys probably still ignores his non-Rhaenyra children but maybe that fucks them up a bit less because it doesn't feel like he's actually trying to get them killed, it just makes him more of a regular asshole father (if the regular asshole was a king).

In a lot of ways, this would kind of be a win-win scenario, so it's interesting that so many people jump on the "Rhaenyra had to have kids to secure the line of succession, what was she supposed to do, force Laenor??" thing. Clearly Rhaenyra didn't have to have kids, she wanted to, which is absolutely her choice and her right, but it also makes her a lot like her father.

[akookminsupporter]

JIMIN'S (REAL) FACE

Jimin, your son of a bitch. You did it and what a way to go.

For a couple of weeks now in my mind, there have been several opinions forming about Jimin and the direction of his career and why I believe he will achieve many things as a Solo artist. When Set Me Free pt.2 was released those ideas evolved, but the core of them remained the same. Jimin was destined for great things as a Solo artist.

A week ago when I decided to make a post where I would write all those thoughts I didn't think it would be like this one. I thought it would be a post where I would say a thousand things sometimes without saying anything at the end, but after listening to FACE, and after reading the lyrics, I decided to do this differently.

Art is a curious subject. Complicated in how simple it can be. Maybe that's why I've never been good at understanding much about it, but one thing I do like about art is that everyone can give different interpretations to a piece of art, sometimes the interpretation will even be different from the artist who created it.

In the last couple of days, I have read some interpretations of FACE and what it means. Many agree on some opinions and others do not. Today I want to give mine.

Jimin has already explained in several interviews what his album is about. His feelings during the pandemic and after the world opened up again. Based on that I came to personal conclusions from his journey in FACE. Maybe what I say is different from what you think, maybe what I say is different from what Jimin says, but as I said, that's the beauty of art and FACE is art.

I think Jimin said it in one of his interviews, FACE is chronologically ordered. Each song describes a moment of his struggle, of his feelings, of his being, so I will try to explain how I understood the story that Jimin told with his album.

SET ME FREE PT 2.

The first song we heard from the album was Set Me Free Pt.2. A song that I personally believe describes the culmination of Jimin's journey. Jimin told us beforehand that he IS free. That he no longer cares what others think of him. Jimin told us up front that the dark world we would find in FACE is no longer his present but his past. He wanted to assure us from the beginning that he was fine.

In the interview with Rolling Stone, Jimin said it. He has already overcome everything that FACE describes.

"I don't know how people are going to react to the music, but I actually was able to completely resolve and move on from all those feelings of being lost. I'm perfectly okay now."

So yes, Jimin is finally free but I'll talk more about that when I get to that point in the story or when I get to Track 5.

FACE-OFF.

Jimin said that the album represents his feelings during the pandemic and this song perfectly describes how he felt, but it also describes so much more. I made a post yesterday giving my opinion of what I think Face-Off means and I still stand by that opinion, but today I add another layer to it. That song also signifies the battle Jimin had with himself.

The pandemic, 2020 in particular was a time when we had too much time on our hands. Too much time with our thoughts and too much time connected with other people.

I do believe that it was during this time that Jimin really knew the intentions of some people close to him and the realisation of that hurt. You see, I think Jimin is one of those people who doesn't let everyone into his inner circle and when he does it is special. Jimin is a person who likes to give, acts of service are one of his love languages. And when you betray a person like Jimin, it hurts.

But now I also think the song is about himself. The battle against his inner self. The battle against his true self.

All that time we were confined to our homes, it forced many of us to think. To evaluate and re-evaluate who we are, who we were and who we want to be. I think that was the case with Jimin.  I think Jimin during that time finally had to face himself. His demons and his true self.

There has always been this "discussion" in the fandom about whether or not Jimin is LGTBI+, for some it's obvious, for others it's not. The problem with this debate is that many read the word LGTBI+ in relation to a man and immediately think of the word Gay, forgetting that a man can also be bisexual. Bisexual erasure is unfortunately very normal in the fandom and in society in general.

Jimin once talked about how he pretended for a long time to be something he wasn't. He pretended to be this strong man. He pretended to be this strong, masculine man that society and the industry expected him to be. That time he also said that he wasn't like that anymore, that he finally was who he was, but I don't think the fight ever stopped. At least not for a long time.

When you confront yourself you go through various states of emotions. Denial, anger, desolation, understanding and finally acceptance. I believe Face-off is at least the first two of these.

Remember the video I shared where someone explained the choreography of Like Crazy? I think Face-Off is the beginning of that, but rawer, angrier, more... lost.

If you notice, all the songs on the album don't have a conclusion or solution, except for the second to last track.

I think in Face-off the inner Jimin finally says everything he feels, finally vents his frustrations and complains to the outer Jimin that he gave him everything but still let him down. And the outer Jimin lets him, lets him get it all out, is finally willing to listen.

INTERLUDE: DIVE

Dive is literally a pause in the story. It's where Jimin took a step back and decided to think. He decided to maybe think about everything that happened in Face-off. It's interesting but not surprising that Jimin here used two of the places where he's perhaps happiest, the stage, talking to his fans and running. Remember all the times he's said he discovered that running was good for him?

LIKE CRAZY (MAIN TRACK)

And we get to the crux of the story.

I think Like Crazy is a conversation with himself. The whole album is a conversation with himself, that's why the use of autotune in some parts of the songs, by distorting the voice doesn't sound like Jimin because it's not, not the outer Jimin at least.

I think to really understand Like Crazy you have to see the video and the choreography as well. It's all connected, it's not a coincidence, Jimin doesn't work like that. It's important to understand that.

Like Crazy is Jimin's acceptance in a way that something has to change and it's at the same time a self-questioning of whether it's worth doing.

Same cliched story, just like on TV/It's getting more familiar/Did I come this far to find the me that you knew? /Yeah I know You know/I know

But despite that I think Jimin still struggles in a way, not to deny his inner self but to keep hiding it until he gets to the end of the song and realises he can't do it anymore.

This will break me/This is gonna break me/No don't you wake me/I wanna stay in this dream, don't save me/Don't you try to save me need a way we/I need a way we can dream on

In the end, all that's left is... understanding and acceptance and all the fears that come with that.

Alone again.../What's the point?

ALONE

The simplest way I could describe this song is catharsis. Alone is a catharsis of feelings. Of doubts. Of questions. Of self-recrimination. It's what comes after accepting the truth. It is the real confrontation with your actions. This song is Jimin saying out loud his fears. It is the acceptance out loud that he was living a lie. That's why I think the word lie was repeated several times because he kept trying to lie to himself, to say that everything was fine but no, it was a lie. He was lying to himself. Alone is a pretty deep song. She does not seek solutions and offers no consolation, on the contrary, she is perhaps the darkest state Jimin reached before finally being free.

SET ME FREE PT.2

Freedom. In Set Me Free Pt.2 Jimin finally gets rid of everything, mainly his fears. Here Jimin finally understood that he has the power and that's why it doesn't matter what anyone says. Jimin finally understood that he can be unstoppably him. As he wants. But Set Me Free Pt.2 is also a juxtaposition of the whole story. In Set Me Free Pt.2 Jimin presents himself as society and the industry thinks he should be, look. Masculine, strong, tough. The music of the song also sells that idea, but the lyrics do not.

I think the lyrics, the choreography and the set design of the MV plus Jimin's outfit are a major fuck you to those standards. It's like Jimin is defying everyone. Challenging everyone's opinions about him. About who he really is.

Set Me Free Pt.2 is Jimin basically saying I can play the game too but in my own way. In this song, Jimin understood that he controls the narrative.

Personally, I think Jimin's real freedom is that he understood that other people's opinions of him don't matter. Jimin's real freedom came when he finally decided to take the power away from his fears and his detractors. I think that's why Jimin demands to be set free because they no longer have anything they can use to keep him locked up.

At the end of the MV we see a Jimin dressed in white. With a soft and determined expression. Soft Jimin we could say. In the end, we saw the other part of Jimin. In the end, he basically said: I can be both.

In the end, Jimin understood that he can be whoever he wants to be and that people can interpret him however they want, he doesn't care anymore.

LETTER (Hidden Track)

This song has the fandom debating. Is it for the fans? For the other members? For Jungkook? What if the song is for all of them?

Letter the sunset after the storm. The lyrics of the song are the reflections you write on paper of everything you experienced after so much darkness. Letter is a warm embrace. A sincere thank you. Letter is literally a promise that now he will take care of you.

But the question that surrounds this song the most is, why Jungkook? And the answer I think is simple. Because it has always been him.

Jimin and Jungkook have a particular relationship. Different. Intimate. I don't know what label it has, but it's special. Jungkook is the person Jimin is always looking for. He's the one he laughs with, the one he has inside jokes with. The one he cries with, the one he gets drunk with, the one he practices with, the one he's happy with. Jimin has always been there for Jungkook and Jungkook has always been there for Jimin so what better person to share that promise with than him? what better person to share his new journey with than Jungkook?

FACE is an amazing album, Jimin not only showed who he is as an artist but also who he is as a person.

Jimin confirmed with this album that he really gets what he wants. That quiet work well done gives great rewards. I will never be able to express how proud and grateful I am to Jimin.

This post ended up being longer than I thought it would be. I don't know if I managed to say everything I wanted to say in it. I don't know if what I said is well said.

If you made it this far, you may have disagreed with me and that's fine, as I said at the beginning, that's the beauty of art. One piece can have multiple interpretations.

[de11amorte]

I have “inner demons” quest thoughts, spoilers under cut;

so the inside of lucanis’s head where it’s a literal piece of the ossuary that’s left behind in him. Hes scarred from the experience of forced possession. Hence why Spite thought they were still imprisoned and wanted desperately for freedom.

And Lucanis is now imprisoning Spite and himself as a method to keep his inner demon in check.

He has these three prison guards that are manifestations of his inner turmoil. Opinions formed from his presumed perspective of those around him.

This is Lucanis still being the narrator of their dialogue—because certain phrases that are said come from a place of self-loathing or criticism.

He assumes his grandmother would be disappointed in having an afflicted grandchild who would let himself be taken by surprise and ultimately fail his original contract. Despite the fact it was all a plan conceived by Illario. Lucanis always followed in her footsteps. He was her shadow. Her “favorite” when it might not oft seem like the case.

As for Harding, she’s personally expressed her distrust toward demons numerous times—even Lucanis shares the sentiment because of his personal belief regarding demons as incarnations of everything evil in the world. So he knows he always has a target in his back, and accepts that an arrow will be put through him.

And the fact that when you point out that everyone has mental scars from trauma and abuse, “Harding” rebuffs. It’s not the mind of a person, but of a monster.

His third mask is his interpretation of Neve’s opinion on how untrustworthy it is associating with an abomination. But you learn that these are naught more than masks that even Lucanis will lose himself to. All the hiding, the deceit—he’s self-entangled in a web of his own making. He thinks this will protect people from himself should his inner demon let loose.

the fourth and final mask, his perception of Illario, is more critical of Lucanis. This is how he views his cousin. They’re family, and it seems Lucanis, to some extent, respects Illario’s opinion. Conceiving these ideas of what he would say when Illario discovers that Lucanis harbors a demonic spirit.

Lucanis again tries to dissuade the player from helping him by basically saying “shouldn’t you have better things to do?”. Minimizing his situation by hinting that he is plenty capable of handling a demon on his own. So long as he continues acting as Spite’s primary guard, even when it’s mentally self-inflicted.

It’s a grating, exhaustive task to keep your inner demons at bay, especially on your own. This is a telltale example of how real people combat their own personal demons in their own ways. Sometimes, people try to suppress and ignore them—escape into another plane of reality to shut these traumatic thoughts out. But that doesn’t always work.

Spite still exists, he is always there watching and waiting for the right opportunity to surface. Be it through provoking Lucanis (after defeating Zara & Illario appears), or when he is asleep and therefore prone to possession.

But even with this, it does not deter the player, and Illario persists, stating that Lucanis will kill those around him. That is another worry Lucanis harbors. What if he becomes a liability? What if he manages to let Spite control him, and drives a poisoned blade into his comrade?

In the end, when you’ve passed through all four guards, he’s standing there. Surprised to see you, that anyone would be willing to wade through the muck of his complex, negative thoughts. That somebody is patient enough to experience the turmoil he’s currently experiencing, and has yet to fully process.

Keep in mind that Lucanis uses his 9-5 to keep himself focused off of personal issues, even off of Spite pestering him. He reserves his brooding when he is inactive at the moment. That’s really the only time Lucanis has to try and fully process his surroundings. outside of that, man’s hardly had any time to register his own emotions and find a sense of normalcy within himself. Not while he’s actively keeping a demon at bay out of his own misconceptions about them. Not especially when the world is endangered by two gods.

All in all, Lucanis is a broken man who had set himself and those within his personal circle high standards. And now he finds any reason to harp on himself because of his forced possession, even when it’s not of his own volition.

[thefastestelementalmasteralive]

procrastinating school work so let me talk about my starwars (Anakin) aus

There's that lion!Vader Au, if I named it I don't remember the name but basically, either Anakin doesn't tell Padme where he's going or she doesn't go to Mustafar. might actually have R2D2 with Padme as her bodyguard or Anakin just didn't want r2 to know what he did to the separatist leaders. anakin doesn't come back from Mustafar because when he leaves the planet, the force decides 'okay, enough atrocities for the next... two decades.' and transforms him into a lion and sends him to a green planet. Sidious finds him a year later and decides to just build a gladiator ring and throw him in there to execute the people he wants dead on television.

19 years later Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Padme, Cody, and Rex all get captured and are sentenced to be executed as a group with some other non-important people. Anakin eats the non-important people and vaguely recognizes some but tries to kill Luke and Leia because he doesn't recognize them.

SITS au - sith in the senate au - me trying to explore my favorite arc (mortis) and what would have happened if Anakin left with the son (and the daughter) and the father let Ahsoka and Obi-wan go thirty minutes later but Anakin is nowhere in sight when they go back to the real world. this is also the au where the Tusken massacre is really addressed in this au, in others it didn't happen, obviously in lion!vader it did since it only changes in rots. i don't know if it's really a character study that I'm doing for this au but I'm actually writing an essay on Anakin for my writing class and I'm so using elements from this for that and from that for this.

(please- someone stop me from making Barriss run away from the Jedi and Anakin adopting Barriss after she ends up on Tatooine and Anakin gets over his initial feeling of 'YOU D:<')

14!au. i have no other name for it as of right now.

anakin gets found by Palpatine and Shmi dies (i think) but surely its not you Pal Friendpatine's fault :0

Anyway, Palpatine finds Anakin at like... 5 and adopts him and brings him on his path to becoming chancellor and then the clone wars start at the Naboo blockade, Palpatine started cloning **early**. no, I have no idea how old Jango Fett is, why do you ask? anakin befriends some of the clones and takes an interest in politics because he thinks he can convince then senate to stop creating clones and just recruit normal civilians to the army.

this au is inspired by Hazbin Hotel song 'you didn't know' and some brave group of clones tries to plead their case to the senate, ankin watches in on it, nala se mentions the chips in the kaminoan rebuttal of clone rights and Anakin FREAKS. palpatine tries to calm him saying 'they are to control them, they're dangerous otherwise' and basically dooms himself. also, Anakin specifically has wings. see, I subscribe to the thinking of 'Anakin can shapeshift due to his unstable DNA' Edit: I Found it! @thewildballyntynesgrow or mballyntyne on Ao3 with their series 'A Wild Thing to Tame'. Anakin leaves taking a majority of the coruscant guard with him and goes back to Tatooine and starts freeing a whole bunch of planets over the years. the meeting in the senate takes place when he is fourteen, the empire starts when he is seventeen. Anakin adopts Boba and Galen Marek. anakin and the freed outer rim either hide rebel bases or use their revolutions as distractions for the empire.

Retconned rebel Anakin Au. aka, Barriss is the same age as Anakin and befriends him and Ferus eventually befriends him, and Anakin is closer to those two and some others than Obi-wan and Ahsoka (who is Obi-wan's padawan) Barriss never bombs the temple, the empire rises but the original empire dies like a year into the reign and another emperor rises.... Emperor Obi-wan Kenobi and his daughter Ahsoka how are both overly attached to rebel leader Anakin Skywalker and are both trying to adopt him and turn him to their side... by kidnapping Anakin's family. (rexanidala). anakin adopts so many kids, most of them are force-sensitive and want to fight so he lets them reluctantly but those not young enough to choose or fight are sent to live with Rex, Padme, Luke, Leia, and their grandparents; Dooku and Plo.

Ventress and Anakin Swap au, sort of. anakin got nabbed from his mom by Dooku. Dooku never found Ventress, Obi-wan does instead. Obi does not train Ventress but they are friends forever after. ventress tries forcefully redeeming the seventeen-eighteen year old Sith lord and it only sort of works. he defects but really only after he finds out about the slavery in creating battle droids. Anakin isn't really a separatist general, he just has a specialized group of droids that he rebuilds after fights with Jedi. he never fights clones with droids.

after defecting Anakin plans with Ventress and decides to free the outer rim then take the former slaves that will join him and start up a third party to the war. inspired by 'blood oath' by the art of pleasing princes.

okay so for this next au, named Anakin Umakkar, The rain storm. sources are ADragonsFriend and @fialleril or fialleril on a03, and @clawedandcute or ClawedandCute (Adi_Fire) on a03. and songs this au is inspired by for this au is (and in order) Puppeteer, Done For, Hell is Forever, There are Other Ways, What Did I Miss? and Respectless.

Umakkar was a name I first read about in a book called 'Elder sisters' by ADragonsFriend. I first heard about Ekkreth in Fialleril's books. the concept of Anakin staying on Tatooine was inspired by ClawedandCute's book and au 'The Accidental Sith'

Anyway, Qui-gon and the queen's ship never stops on Tatooine, but the clone wars do not start early. a solid two months into the Clone Wars, it is revealed that Jabba the Hutt has been dead for a year, and Tatooine has freed itself from the huts. Senator Padme Amidala and Jedi Obi-wan Kenobi (and Padawan Ahsoka Tano) are sent to Tatooine to try to get Tatooine to align with the republic. now please listen to Puppeteer and Done For (no, Anakin does not turn any clones into pigs, just like any non-clone serving in the army ). once Obi-wan draws his lightsaber on Anakin, Anakin just swipes it away, unhurt, and has him and other... three (Cody, Padme, and Ahsoka)locked up until he decided to hear them out. (cue hell is forever, the last lines being, "the freed outer rim has found both the separatists and the republic to be the enemy" ya know due to their armies) then when it looks like Anakin is gonna do something to them to send a message to the republic, Obi-wan pleads with him and mentions the Sith Dooku mentioned and any evil smile on Anakin's face slips away into annoyance "Sidious, huh?" and in 'There are other ways' fashion tells obi-wan about Mortis and other wells in the force that might be better for the Jedi to focus at. when asked why he had that reaction to the 'Sidious' character, he implies that Sidious has reached out to him to join either side of the war, like once per side.

he sends Obi-Wan and the Clones that want to return on their way and a year later decides that enough is enough and heads to Coruscant under the pretense of negotiating. palpatine sets up a committee to welcome Tatooine to the republic only for 'respectless' to happen and Anakin starts arguing with Orn Free Taa, then Palpatine himself and once Palpatine leaves, turns to the Jedi in the room and says "yeah, you might want to look into that..." and leaves.

Detached Mortis god au: inspired by the ocean saga

switching up the timeline here, Rako Hardeen happens, the Wrong Jedi arc happens, *Then* mortis happens. Anakin is alone on Mortis, he decides to stay, Padme is pregnant, the empire rises, Padme survives and joins the rebellion, Ahsoka becomes Fulcrum. Obi-wan joins the rebellion to help train Luke and Leia. Luke, Leia, Han, Ezra and some others start on a mission, but it starts off rough. Ezra decides to pray to a Force Diety he or Ahsoka met once and the diety appears and decides to grant them safe passage to the actual start of the mission as long as they keep Ahsoka, who they meet up with later on the mission, safe. if they accept and fail, another god is going to have a really big problem with them. they accept and all goes well until the last day of the mission, everything falls apart and Ahsoka is separated from the group and captured. the gang decides they need to go back to base to think and plan. on their way back their ship is seemingly attacked but they cant tell by what, they crash land at base and get out of the ship, not the falcon, only to meet two dragon-like-creatures, and a portal opens and a very pissed Anakin steps out. he kidnaps a bunch of rebels and puts them in the world between worlds and tells them they only get their people back when Ahsoka is safe. Obi-Wan and Padme only make it to the hangar this goes down once Anakin has stepped back through the portal.

[catonator]

Funny heading to a blogpost on videogames that’s some sort of reference

Look, I already used the ctrl+alt+delete quote in a blogpost title. It’s February 2024, and it’s already a very wild year for gaming. We’ve had more layoffs than with the entirety of 2023, games shown off at events seem to be stagnating, interest in the art is waning. Youtube is filled with “modern gaming sucks” doomer blackpill videos. It’s a miserable time.

Is gaming just over?

Well, no. Of course not. The Sonic franchise has lingered for decades despite consistent failure. Games are more resilient than that.

Humanity’s relation to computing is still pretty fresh, and I’d say that despite the size and scale of a lot of it, we’re still going through major growing pains. Concepts like video games, the internet and special effects are still pretty new, despite being around for twice or thrice as long as most of the people reading this have been alive. Internal combustion engine -powered cars were invented in 1808, made mass produced in the 1910s, and even then it took until the 1950s for them to be common enough for the US government to bother designing cities around them. In the present day, many have come to resent the car-centric design mentality, even though the driving (no pun intended) factor behind them was mainly the same as with technology today: scientific and technological progression is unquestionably good, and therefore new and successful ideas should be pushed and relied upon as hard as possible. What could possibly go wrong?!

Video games are far from the only medium which is seeing similar problems. Movies have suffered greatly from a capeshit infestation, in which the abuse of VFX artists is valued over, you know, basics of good filmmaking, and the general public is clearly sick of it. On the internet, we’ve decided that megastructures like Twitter are better than forms of communication we’re good at, and it’s gone horribly wrong. We’re still learning the “do”s, “don’t”s and “who the fuck thought this was a good idea”s of tech.

Games as an artform are as alive as they ever were, but the sheer scale of the operations has grown to a point where nobody can really understand it. The numbers behind playerbases and the money traffic have so many zeroes that you can’t even fathom the number. Even if I used some metaphorical figure, like 20 000 cars. Shockingly, despite how console sales haven’t really increased in numbers (the top selling console of all time is still the PS2), most of the top-grossing games of all time are relatively recent. This implies that the behaviour of consumers has shifted from purchasing a variety of different kinds of games into purchasing fewer games of fewer different kinds. And I don’t think it’s a case of customers deciding to shift over naturally.

In the past decade or so, the gaming industry has decided sensible experiences are a way of the past, and the future is making games for debt and making back the money with horse armour and other garbage the general public doesn’t really want.

But we’ve seen this shit before. In the 90s, 3D was “the future”, and 2D pixel art or hand-drawn art in general seemed to go the way of the dodo for polygons and ““realism””. About a decade later, 2D art would see a resurgence and in some cases overtake the big lads in lasting impact. In the end, people crave personal stories, varying ideas, and interesting ways to tell them. Not much has changed since ancient Greeks, besides that the medium of storytelling has largely shifted from some guy standing on a stage, trying to explain another world, to electronic devices actually showing us the other worlds.

I think as we play out the Icarus stories in real time, we’ll also learn when boundaries are pushed too far, and the scale of the bullshit simply collapses in on itself. When that happens, the public is forced to step back and reevaluate the ways we thought were the future, and what really is better for all of us.

When a storm flattens a forest of dead, decrepit trees, the sun and rain can now reach the ground and cultivate a new generation of different plant life. Once hidden beneath the dead corpses, now able to grow and bloom in a way the old generation never could. You should just keep doing what you think is right. Now’s the time more than ever to be the backbone of a better industry, for many applications of tech, from games to communication. And it’s better, if the backbone comes from the grassroots, and isn’t defined by the megacorporations. Because those cunts will never learn from their failures.

[shutupineedtothink]

I finally landed on a Siuan theory/analysis re: 2x07! And it works prettyyyy good if I do say so myself. At the least it’s plausible. Probably. No book spoilers because I haven’t read the books, this is a show only theory. Read on at your own risk!

Background: So, at first I was on board the “Moiraine and Siuan planned this whole thing daes dae’mar blah blah blah” train. Mostly in my emotional turmoil after watching the episode initially. But, I was forced to dismiss that pretty quickly in light of some of Siuan’s lines, namely “That boy must not leave this city.” And “You lied to me.” She has to believe both of those things are truths to say them, so her somehow being secretly on Moiraine’s side still and them having conjured up some plan together doesn’t match up with either of those lines. Sadly. So that’s pretty much out. If this ends up actually being the case, I look forward to how they explain themselves out of it.

Second theory is of course that it’s playing exactly as we’re seeing it, which ultimately does work and when I can take the emotional dagger to my heart out of it, is objectively really excellent storytelling and character work. These are two women, trying to do the right thing, trying to save the world, and their love is sacrificed at the altar of duty. Duty over love is a theme that’s absolutely pounded into us with many characters, so it makes sense. (As Lan points out to Rand also in this episode, “you were born to protect this whole world, not just the people you love.” That’s kinda where Siuan and Moiraine are at too.) Plus I love the idea that Siuan comes face to face with the very real if unfathomable possibility that Moiraine has been turned to the dark based on her actions and general cageyness for the last six months, and that’s really what motivates every choice Siuan makes, up to and including invoking the oath rod. Really great stuff, brilliant subtext, two thumbs up.

However. There is a third option. *rubs hands together gleefully*

I heard some people saying Siuan could be under Compulsion, which definitely piqued my interest, because we’ve had those breadcrumbs dropped earlier in the season already and it would be nice foreshadowing for this. But most of the conversation I’ve seen seems to be around Liandrin being the one to do it. Probably because we’ve alluded to that already this season, so we know she is capable and has done it before. A tool in her dark friend toolkit, if you will.

But Liandrin being behind it never sat quite right with me either. Compelling Sheriam to change some logbook is one thing, but controlling the Amyrlin seat, for hours if not days to make this happen, is quite another. Idk what kind of strength Compulsion requires, but I bet it’s not nothing. And as powerful as Liandrin is, I don’t think she’s stronger than Siuan Sanche, or would be able to pull one over on her fast enough to make this happen. Plus, Liandrin is off doing other shit in this episode. If she was really implicated I feel like she’d be at least lurking around the other Aes Sedai. Maybe I’m wrong… but I don’t think I am lol.

So, who does have the power to do this? Who else has the means, motive, and opportunity to make this happen? There’s really only one other person.

The other scene stealer of 2x07, ya girl Lanfear.

There’s several bits of dialogue in this episode that back this theory up, both Compulsion in general and Lanfear being behind it, so let’s run from the top.

First, some general evidence that Compulsion might be happening.

Rand and Siuan meet, Rand gives his cute little introduction, Lan has prepared you I see, what else has he told you about me? Then Rand gives this line:

“That you’re not exactly what you seem.”

Interesting choice of words, writers— I mean Rand. He could have said a lot of things there, even directly repeating some of what Lan told him about Siuan, but no. And if you’re already thinking Compulsion, that’s a pretty strong nudge from the writers to PAY ATTENTION to Siuan Sanche, because maybe what she’s doing is not what it seems, even the person she IS in that moment is not what it seems. (Even if the surface level read totally makes sense and still works thematically!) This also wouldn’t be the first time that the writers seem to use the characters to say something/poke fun that’s more directed at us than the actual plot. So I definitely wouldn’t put it past ‘em.

Second, and this is kind of a throw away, but when Moiraine and Lan come in later, Lan says “this isn’t what we agreed to.” This is pretty easy to explain away, but I think it’s still notable that Lan and Siuan had some kind of conversation earlier, perhaps on their way to Cairhien, about what they were going to do in regards to Moiraine and/or Rand. And at that point Siuan at least implied that she was going to help Moiraine and Rand, not cage him. Again, pretty easy to sidestep with aes sedai truth-lies/evasions, but it’s also possible at that point she actually had no intention to cage Rand. Because she wasn’t under Compulsion yet.

Alright, still going in chronological order here, so now we’re getting into some Lanfear-did-it specifics. And I do love-hate this one.

Moiraine and Siuan are arguing over what to do about Rand, then this:

Siuan: “Can you imagine, Moiraine, if one of the forsaken got their hands on him?”

Can YOU imagine, how absolutely giddy it would make Lanfear to make her say this, to Moiraine’s FACE, knowing full well she’s got her hands all over Rand and then some? Come on, son.

Ok jokes aside, here’s the kicker.

Rand and Moiraine in the cell in the sun palace, Rand meets Lanfear in the dream world, Rand goes up to her and says “I’m in a cell, the Amyrlin’s holding me.”

And Lanfear says, so smug, “I know.”

Um, girl? You know?? HOW do you know exactly? I definitely dismissed this on the first couple watches as oh, Lanfear just knows things, but like, no. The Forsaken aren’t omniscient. Now, could she be teleporting herself here and there and spying on everything that’s going on and that’s why she knows? Sure. But that’s boring and I’m on a roll here so let’s keep going.

She knows, not just that Rand is in a cell but specifically that it’s the Amyrlin that’s holding him there, because she herself Compelled (Compulsed?) Siuan to do so.

Ok so motive. Why would Lanfear do this, why spend the effort?

1. It's definitely fun for her. 2. She sets up this scenario where she gets to “save” Rand from the big bad aes sedai, he has no choice but to ask her for help, she LITERALLY shows up in her white knight in shining armor outfit, and she ultimately hopes this helps convince him she actually cares about him and wins him over to her side. (As she tries to tell him in the finale, I’m the only one who cares about YOU, not just what you can do. Mhm sure girl.) And 3. She gets to actively pit the rest of the aes sedai against Moiraine, who she absolutely hates.

And in doing all of this SHE MIGHT NOT EVEN HAVE KNOWN about Moiraine and Siuan! That's just icing on the fucking cake! It works either way, because if she did know by forcing Siuan to tell her about their mission and she somehow gets Siuan to admit she loves Moiraine (however that interrogation goes, idk the specifics of compulsion but the show writers are playing fast and loose with the rules anyway), well now it’s game on baby because Lanfear will absolutely be using that info to wreck both of them. If she didn’t know, and her whole motivation is the first three reasons above, then she definitely finds out at the end of 2x07, because she was definitely lurking around the corner listening to that whole exchange between them and it made her fucking night.

And finally, there’s Lanfear’s last line of the episode (I think): “Lucky for you, a broken Amyrlin is more useful to me than a dead one.” Double meaning alert! Siuan is literally lying broken on the ground in that moment, but maybe she was already “broken” well before that, being under Lanfear’s control. (And there’s your Egwene/damane parallel too, damn.) And therefore Lanfear knows exactly how she’ll be “useful” to her.

This whole strategy by Lanfear could also be forecasted from a couple episodes back, when she asks Ishamael why he didn’t just kill Moiraine at the Eye. He basically tells her the same thing, that Moiraine (I believe he uses the words “aes sedai” specifically) is more useful to him alive than dead. So mayyyybe that gave her this idea to manipulate an aes sedai for her purposes, except while Ishamael is playing the long game, she goes full tilt and mind controls the fucking amyrlin seat.

On Siuan’s side of things, every bit of dialogue she has/action she takes makes sense under the assumption that Lanfear is influencing her, because she would “believe” everything she’s doing. Now I don’t know exactly how Compulsion works (in case you couldn’t tell), if it’s like someone else actually making you believe/do things you wouldn’t normally do, or if it’s more of a you’re trapped in your own head and not in control of your body sort of situation, but it works either way. And boy let me tell you, if this theory is correct, that makes Sophie Okenedo’s performance even more impressive than it already is, because it really works either way: Siuan is genuinely doing what she believes is right for the fate of the world and has her stone cold face on to do it (until the very end) OR her “real” expressions/feelings are mostly being masked/faked by the Compulsion and what she’s being forced to do by Lanfear. It tracks! Either way! Insane!!

The other big reason I think this theory works is because of what we find out in the finale — we learn from her conversations with Bayle Domon and Ishamael that Lanfear has been pulling the strings to make this whole season happen all along. (Cue It Was Lanfear All Along music lol). She sold the bits of cuendillar (although I don’t really get why… just for the money?), she seduced Rand, she played Ishamael, all of it. So why not this too? Why not control the Amyrlin seat, if she has the capability and means to do so, especially if she means to take Ishamael off the board and sort of become the de facto leader/strongest of the forsaken. Not really their leader, I know, but it’s a good power play for her is what I’m saying.

Finally, I think this could put us in a REALLY fun place for season 3, with stuff happening at the tower. We could have scenes with Lanfear, Siuan, and Liandrin. We could have Siuan acting increasingly more malevolent or just off somehow, and while most sisters are going with it, Alanna or Leane maybe starts to get suspicious (more Leane please!). We could have Moiraine send the wonder girls back to the tower, ostensibly to continue their training but also because she needs informants to know what Siuan is planning now (which kills her obvs), and because I would love to see them Scooby doo their way through some shit, the three of them figure out what’s going on and somehow (with Alanna’s help?) free Siuan from the Compulsion. Idk but it could be so much fun you guys.

Or, I could be totally wrong. Maybe this is totally not how Compulsion works. I don’t mind either way. This was a super fun thought experiment. But man, if this theory is in any way correct, this will be some of the most twisty TV/dialogue writing I’ve seen in a minute. And, you know, I’m trying to make fishwives happen here! Cmon!

Shout out to the Post Show Recaps podcast deep dive of 2x07 for questioning how Lanfear knew that Siuan had Rand captured and finally clicking this all into place for me. If you’ve got any other pulls from the episode or the season in general that back this theory up, please share in the comments!

[jurgan]

Slay the Princess and Process Theology

“You’re on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess. You’re here to slay her. If you don’t, it’ll be the end of the world.”

“Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” -Matthew 9:13

I recently listened to a sermon about “process theology,” a subject of which I know little. The shortest summary I can give is that it holds God is not absolutely constant but changes in response to actions of humans and the wider world. This idea has quite a bit of biblical support- both Moses and Abraham successfully argue God into changing his mind, and Jesus at one point appears racist, calling a foreign woman a “dog” before being argued out of it. The preacher kept apologizing for the subject being dry and esoteric, but I was on the edge of my seat. He stated that people often see the God they expect to see, and that got me thinking about Slay the Princess. StP is a game I have played through several times over the past few months. I don’t want to get overly specific in case anyone reading wants to give it a shot, and its meaning is vague enough that each player will see it their own way. It’s a pretty easy game to play; there’s no real challenge, it’s more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book where the story unfolds and frequently stops to give you a list of options for how it should proceed.* What is interesting is that the Princess acts in response to your actions even if she couldn’t know what they were. For instance, if you approach her with a knife in hand, she is suspicious and cold, whereas if you approach unarmed she is hopeful and warm. This is not because she sees what you are doing, but because your own expectations color how you see her.

Through multiple replays, it becomes clear that the Princess is not one thing, but that she shifts between different appearances based on your own choices. There is a give and take between Player and Princess where each affects the other and is affected in turn. The third actor is the mysterious Narrator who instructs you to slay the princess with the claim that doing so will “save the world.” While he can occasionally force you to act, for the most part he is limited to trying to talk you into seeing things his way, and the Princess conversely tries to talk you out of killing her. The power of “persuasion” is, to my understanding, a major part of Process Theology. Each time you play the game, the Princess will seem different. It becomes clear that she is not a mere person, but something greater that you can only see one aspect of at a time.

“We are oceans reduced to shallow creeks.”

Am I saying the Princess is God? Maybe? There are a lot of valid interpretations, but this one might track. You’d have to play the game to decide for yourself, but what it comes down to is that her existence is only meaningful in relation to the player. These contrasts fill our lives. In Genesis, God separates the water from the land, yet the two are never truly separate. The world is full of these contrasts that aren’t really in conflict. Matter and energy. Particles and waves. The holy and the broken. The philosopher Heraclitus (thought to be an inspiration for the Gospel of John) was taken by the idea of “unity of opposites.” The player and the Princess are constantly at odds, yet their conflict defines each other.

“There is no constant! There is no center! Everything that is exists only in relation to everything that isn’t!”

And the world around you both also changes depending on how your relationship develops. Sometimes she is powerful and godlike and the cabin becomes a temple, sometimes she is vicious and feral and it becomes a cave. Sometimes you close yourself off to her, sometimes you become so close as to be inseparable.

“Does it matter where one thing begins and another ends?”

There is in fact a sort of theology in the game, a conflict between the Shifting Mound and the Long Quiet. The former is dynamic and impermanent, the latter static and immortal. You have the option of choosing between the two at the end, and neither can be reduced to good or evil. The Quiet is the traditional Platonic view of God as “immortal, unchanging,” while the Mound is the relational God of Process Theology. But the Mound allows for change and growth, while the Quiet promises a sort of eternal dullness. And if God values relationships and growth, the same must be true of us.

*https://www.slaytheprincess.com/ for a trailer and information about how to play. It’s available on Steam now.

[kitkatopinions]

Speaking of characters like Whitley, do you ever wonder why they add so many new characters into the story only to quickly forget about them/kill them off?

I think some of this is a little bit just the nature of shows like RWBY that build in plot and locations. The kids need teachers and classmates at Beacon, not all of them can be orphans and/or only children, there's kids from other schools coming over for the Vytal Tournament, Salem needs to be able to match forces, and each location needs people too, plus on top of that there is a need for threats and drama outside of just supernatural end-of-the-world stuff which gets you characters like Jacques, Cardin, Cordovin, and theoretically Fennec and Corsac and Ilia, etcetera (though those three were part of the wildly bad White Fang arc, so...) The problem comes with giving focus with not a lot of real follow through, leading the story to be far too packed with way too many characters that we as an audience are supposed to care about when it's not going to matter later on.

The main eight and Qrow all have a lot they need done for me to consider this any sort of good, but the show never gives them proper focus, instead just piling on more that needs dealt with (case in point, V9 not actually dealing with anything and instead making Ruby try to commit suicide which will obviously also need lots of focus to get properly worked out.) And on top of that, they seem afraid of giving any proper down time, and they overload the cast by making side characters but then giving them enough focus that they by all rights should also matter from here on in but not enough focus to do more than take attention from the mains (case in point, making Maria and Pietro important enough that they should matter to the mains and/or others but then giving them very little to do and then abandoning them out in the tundra with none of the mains acknowledging their existence. The problem really isn't the number of characters in this show, but rather how the writers handle them. They're very good at packing RWBY full of ideas and concepts and then not giving any of them the proper follow through, and the characters are just another part of that. They brought Neon and Flynt back in V7-8 just to have them fight in the fall of Atlas and who knows if they're even going to be names on a memorial let alone have their deaths matter or impact the mains at all.

And as for killing off some of the characters they introduce, I also wouldn't have a real problem with that if it was better done. Shows like RWBY need a little death, to keep the stakes up, and said deaths should include characters the audience likes and knows or else the stakes aren't high anyway. But RWBY's V7-9 deaths feel more like cheap shock value deaths where they try to introduce (or reintroduce in Penny's case) characters and make them likable and important just to kill them without any real care towards consequences or reactions or whether or not the character was established enough to justify the response in other characters and basically just not having the deaths matter anyway. Clover was speedran into a rushed "friendship" with Qrow just so he could have a giant reaction to Clover's badly orchestrated death, and meanwhile Ironwood's death just happened without it mattering to anyone. Penny and Ruby's reunion and subsequent friendship in V7 was lackluster at best, so it feels even more like she was killed for shock value and for Jaune's stupid arc and then the writers felt no need to even acknowledge the fact that Jaune killed her. Etc. Etc.

This ask kind of just turned into me ranting about this, lol, but yeah, I do wonder why they put so many characters into the story in more significant roles only to ditch them or kill them. I think a big part of it is just because they have to introduce characters but don't know how to just leave them in more bit part roles and always have to try to make them more involved. I also think they keep introducing new characters that they want to make matter because... They really don't seem to have a lot that they want the mains to do but they need to keep things interesting. For instance, Weiss wasn't given much focus in Atlas despite the fact that she should've been heavily in focus during that season, but then they introduced tons of new characters and conflicts to fill the run time.

But also, the RWBY writers have a big 'bigger is better' 'quantity over quality' problem. Just like they introduce big story beats only to forget to treat them with the proper weight or make them have any natural consequences, they introduce lots of characters that they want to be relevant only to get in over their heads. I've said it before and I'll say it again, RWBY's number one selling point is that it's brimming over with so much potential and good ideas, but its biggest problem is that the writers always fumble on execution and don't give any of it the proper treatment or care, and the overly bloated cast is definitely part of that.